Greenstorm's Journal

These have been a number of the most unsexy-feeling days of my life, but there's a great thread at greatpoets for 'erotic poetry, preferably funny' so I'm going to stockpile:

2 A.M.


When I came with you that first time

on the floor of your office, the dirty carpet

under my back, the heel of one foot

propped on your shoulder, I went ahead

and screamed, full-throated, as loud

and as long as my body demanded,

because somewhere, in the back of my mind,

packed in the smallest neurons still capable

of thought, I remembered

we were in a warehouse district

and that no sentient being resided for miles.

Afterwards, when I would unclench

my hands and open my eyes, I looked up.

You were on your knees, your arms

stranded at your sides, so still -- 

the light from the crooknecked lamp

sculpting each lift and delicate twist,

the lax muscles, the smallest veins

on the backs of your hands. I saw
the ridge of each rib, the blue hollow

pulsing at your throat, all the colors

in your long blunt cut hair which hung

over your face like a raffia curtain

in some south sea island hut.

And as each bright synapse unfurled

and followed its path, I recalled

a story I'd read that explained why women

cry out when they come -- that it's

the call of the conqueror, a siren howl

of possession. So I looked again

and it felt true, your whole body

seemed defeated, owned, having taken on

the aspect of a slave in shackles, the wrists

loosely bound with invisible rope. 

And when you finally spoke you didn't

lift your head but simply moaned the word god

on an exhalation of breath -- I knew then
I must be merciful, benevolent,

impossibly kind.

Dorianne Laux



Went wandering through my past after my hopelessly incomplete writing before. Found these. The quotes are there to remind me which post is which, but I've tried to choose important and beautiful passages. I feel closer to myself than I usually am. I feel thankful to have had so many loving experiences in my life.

( Read more... )

The Politics of Food: A Bite Size Course

Eating is a political act. Find out how the food on your plate can affect a farmer half a world away. Through field trips, guest speakers, classroom presentations and discussions, students will explore the entire food system from table top to ground and back again. Covers local food issues and movements and the more complex global ones like genetically modified foods and seed monopolies. Examines the charity model and solutions oriented programs like fair trade to see if they really are fair. Students will leave with a basic understanding of the politics of food and 10 things they can do to strengthen the food system in their neighbourhood.

Warning: chocolate and coffee will be consumed!
The Politics of Food (HLTH 1376)4 wks Sa Jan 9, 16, 23, 30 9:00-13:00(16 hours) $399
Instructor: Spring Gillard (bio at compostdiary.com)

To register, call 604-443-8672. Quote: CRN # 10478 On-line registration should also be available by the end of November.
Under Health/Specialty – part-time courses:
www.vcc.ca/programs-courses/college courses.cfm?area=CS_HEALTH&prog=HEALTHPD&crs=HLTH&numb=1376

Vancouver Community College
Broadway Campus
1155 East Broadway
Switchboard: 604.871.7000

....Useful calendar thing for events in Van-> permaculture/queer/alternative themed (?)

Clicky and clicky again.

( Read more... )

Been working on em steady since I got home from work. Now shower and dinner.

Here we go, down and in. There's no one in the room with me. I have all the time in the world. There's music playing -- Devendra Banhart's Cripple Crow. After such a long period without instantly accessible music I find it affects me more than usual.

( Here's his "Now That I Know")

Instead of hitting the basic points -- and those basic points are accurate -- I need to ramble a little. Jan commented on the last one. He said I sounded happy. I am happy. There are ripples, oddities, and textures that don't quite get covered by that word though.

(Santa Maria de Fiera)

There are so many details in my life that I never have time to write about. There are some I am afraid to write about-- perhaps not many. There are some that are just strange.

(Heard Somebody Say)

My housewarming is tomorrow. Here you see me procrastinating on cleaning up the house-- dishes, rat cages, maybe making the bed. There's not that much to do. I do need to take out the garbage. I need to start cooking, too. Angus came up with a vegan scalloped potato recipe I'd like to try, I need to do a good rice pudding, maybe I should do corn dog muffins and somethin... bah. Not feeling inspired. If I'm not careful I'll end up making white-flour biscuits and honey and chocolate-chip muffins and calling it a day. *grin* Luckily Angus will be there bright and early. I do like cooking with that boy.

(Long-Haired Child)

Speaking of boys, I've been having adventures in interpersonal lately. I've been specifically spending a bunch of time with people I don't know well (which either results in boredom or in another person I know well or want to know well and don't have the time to spend on 'em, oh well, the best laid plans...).

It's been enjoyable. People are enjoyable generally, you know? But it's been weird. I'm sorta-kinda on a quest for another fuck-buddy, a surprisingly hard hunt for me right now. Between being relatively picky, the standard STD issue, people's singleness or availability, and wanting to start it outside my social circle I have a bunch of anecdotes from the front but no one new to sleep with.

(Queen Bee)

On the other hand, the one I've got is a fantastic lover, a generous person, and a loyal friend. Don't think I'm complaining. I've just been both hit by the variety bug and trying to keep my emotional-- let's not say distance, because I'm not an emotionally distant person, but perhaps emotional sense of proportion?

(I Feel Just Like A Child)

I keep on meeting more gardeners and all 'round cool people. My cup overfloweth? I've recently met a girl (who doesn't eat gluten, haha) who likes to garden barefoot-- she's starting a community garden near me. She kayaks. It's good. Also a boy who uses my same hair dye and has the prettiest blue eyes you ever saw, the effect is electric. Also a whip-smart feral-looking tangoing existential-angstbucket who will eat any leaf I pick out of the alleyway and feed to him-- and he'll thank me for the experience.

(Some People Ride The Wave)

My garden-- oh, oh, oh!

Mostly I'm putting off going home because I've been away for so long already. I left yesterday morning for work, fell asleep here at Angus' after a long walk with Karim and some lovely community dinner stuff at his house (we made the most amazing purple mashed potatoes), and rushed off to work the nest day. This is the longest I've been away from home and I'm scared to go home and see my droopy tomatoes crying for water (yes, staying away longer never helps) and the rat cages which need cleaning when 'm so tired (my labourer at work turned her ankle so I've been going long hours and double-speed all week, and supervising some). It really is easy to get into this avoidance rut when I'm tired. I seem to spend a lot of my time either biting off more than I can chew or recovering from so doing. No news there.

(Inaniel)

It's funny, writing this is making me lonely. I guess when I don't think about saying the stuff, I miss saying it to people less. I'm a bit rusty at using this voice, the same way when I go a day at home without talking to anyone it feels strange to speak at work the next day. Here I feel rusty at dredging up the day. My memory for events, my waiting-to-tell-you, has been turned off. I think that it makes me a more functional person, as a whole. You know that study where they found that depressed people were more realistic at self-assessment? They're probably better at remembering things, too. The world is brutal both ways, so much sharp-edged enormous beauty and joy that it will consume you and leave nothing behind, and also so much awful that no one can stand to think about it all at once.

(Hey Mama Wolf)

Bob's housewarming is going on tonight, soon. I'd like to go. I'd like to have a long meandering conversation with someone. I'd like to stick my tongue down someone's throat and roll around writhing with them. My house is calling me, but it's calling, "work, Greenie, work" so I don't know how attractive that is. On the other hand I'm still in my filthy two-day-old work clothes, or I will be when I put them on, because that's all I have with me. I need to kiss my rats' bellies. I need to water things.

(How's About Tellin A Story)

...but this music is going right through me right now and I'm stuck here grasping at words, trying to approach the way I feel lately. You know, I'm being fixed? Slowly, but I'm being fixed. I'm becoming whole. I trust people cautiously and after they're proven, but definitely I do trust people and I also do not trust others.

(Chinese Children)

Definitely I can do things that make me happy, and I can often figure out for myself when I'm in a holding pattern and when I'm right on track, and I can decide which of those I want to be on. I do rest from time to time, you know?

(Korean Dogwood)

I don't know what revelation I'm hovering here waiting for. Perhaps none. Perhaps it is time to go. Here's a last song and I'll get moving, back to my responsibilities and the other trappings that make up my life, that make up the outer layer of my skin now. When we were walking Karim asked me what major life changes I'd made lately and I said: I'm single for the first time in twelve years, I'm living pretty close to on my own (with a slightly ghost-y roommate who I don't know all that well and certainly am not dating and have never slept with and who's pretty hands-off), I'm working fulltime 8-4, I'm computer-free at home, that's all new. I do change things up pretty constantly. I wonder what will come next?

(Little Boys)

I made a movie about the end of the world
it was 12 seconds long and it didn't have a plot
it just happens
and that's why it's in black and white
the characters don't talk or move around
they just stare up at the sky, frozen
and the light, the light is numb, the light is off
the light is just a thumb nail sketch of god
god...
somewhere, someone is crying
the camera sweeps over a desolate street
holding a mother and her child
the kid is calm and she is shaking
the camera passes into the sun
come at last to be undone
panicking, she tries to run
the kid is calm
and then the credits roll
and every name is my name

(There are three or four "mystical states" I achieve regularly. One of them has started only recently, and it's where everything seems to be outlined in light, and light pours through it, and it comes right in through my skin, hits my brain directly... who was it that was talking about the research into the part of the brain that separates "me" from "everything else"? This isn't a full on world-on-my-skin experience, just beauty-through-it. Bah, dunno what I'm talking about. Felt it the other day during dinner with Mom. Anyhow.)