TIME BOMBS

I went to home (?) and threw out 14 garbage bags of artifacts from my many "previous lives". It was emotional. I still kept too much. Basically everything I kept could cause me problems. But true to form, I hung on to my time bombs. But I did live all the years I lived. And I think it is important to have some record of it. Most people from those eras have drifted away. The only person I can rely on to be my memory for these formative times is myself.

BACK TO BEACH

It's Sunday morning. I've just (tried to) run home. It was very cold. I had a heavy pack. So the running was hard work. Plus my hair froze. As usual. It's all quite romantic really. In some sense that I'm just trsuting is there rather than identifying completely.

My dream last night was:

I was walking to an Island. This is a small island just off the landmass surrounding the ocean. The ocean beside which I lived beside for 20 years. Every day I would walkdown the beach after the tide went out and climb upthe sandstone sides of the island. I'd perch there and observe the beaches and surronding low mountainsof the area. The big saddness of this island is that it, like everything else I suppose, is eroding away. It once featured huge arches jutting off the sides like half rainbows or the arms of an octypus. But just as the tide currents carve these arches, the currents eventually pull them down. So this is sad, as I said. My beach was known, or rather un-known I suppose forbeing deserted of people. KM after KM of noone. But me. In this dream the place had become overrun with people. Loads and loads of them. Lots of blue clothing contrasting the red sand beaches. I wouldnever walk on the beach when there were other people. As it was by refuge from the world. And I didn't want it tainted in that way. (I suppose this could also beseen as agoraphobic. Either way- I give myself permission.)

So there were all these people. But I did do my walk. When I came to the island I showed visible signs ofcontempt for the people around. Shaking my head etc. a black man tho was there accused me of being aracist. This theme went on for some time. Later, it turned out that in fact deep inside the the islandthere was a minister living. He had a great wooden office with lots of old books and even a window with asalty breeze coming in. I remember thinking how muchI wanted this office. I ended up debating ith him fora long time about why he was there and racism.

Recently I heard an island is not an island unless ithas 3 trees. But Patti's island will always be anisland to me.I think I'm going back there next weekend. I have visions of going to the local Walmart that has recently crusaded itself into the local area. Getting some large rubberstorage totes. And cleaning out whatever clothing, memories, New Kids dolls I have left behind there.

HOLE IN BOTTOM OF THE BAG

Last Night I dreamed my big boss insisted I cut holes in the bottom of my Roots pack back. holes in the bottom especially. And the pockets. Then I had to sew plastic Hartman's grocery bags over the holes. I remember thinking "When I bought this pack back it was so new and trustworrthy. I would never have imagined I'd cut holes in it for anyone."

MONSTERS

I was in some sort of space age prision. Not a big one. Just a little room. Like a submarine. Outside was perilios. I was with two other people. One was a short, petite girl I knew. I can't say who it was now. In order to get out of this prision (monsters were our captors) we had to look at a glowing map of the world. You pressed countries and they lit up. We knew we had to focus on europe so we got this shape shifting map to just show Europe. Then there was an escape through some haunted forests ( like the Smurfs) to rescue someone. In a car. On the way back a monster jumped on the car and broke through the window. The petite girl killed the monster. But lost her arms in the defense.

CHICKEN LITTE - THE SKY IS FALLING

You know my life was a rough patch str8 through for about 25 years. In the recent past I've had a few bright spots and have been able to pull out of the troubled eras enough to clean up my place and even finish those records. But as a result of the 1/4 century plus of hardship, ironically I go to therapy every 2 weeks just to try to cope with the fear that i could be forced back into my old life by calamity.

So it's bitter sweet. Life has been better but I've had a "Chicken Little The Sky Is Falling" thought process chizeled into my psychie. As a response, rather than waiting for society to remove it's ills, I'm trying to look at ways at diverifying my life. Diversifying so that no one person or loss could send me completely back to my old life of being an internet addicted, shut in who's held in that state of being by being shunned by most Matime/ Ottawa social scenes I ebbed my way through. Getting out there with my music is one of these diversification methods.

THE BODY BASICS

My dream last night was of trying to convince a series of bank tellers to let me use my bank card. The story began when I tried to use my bank card. I was told i could not. I had to fill out a form. So I left with the form. I filled it out. Brought it back. it was the wrong form. Several of these exchanges occured. Each trip back to the bank got longer and longer. At one point I went in with all the forms and papers intent on laying them out for this guy at the bank. To explain the lunacy of it. But, just like real life, my papers where in a mess, despiter me having gone through much effort to organize them. then I took out my bank card and it had fallen apart. Woke Up.

Woke up to this:Today, for me I'm going through a lot of jealousy over young chicks in Ottawa's music scene who have "gotten their shit together" and are pulling ahead of me despite being a) younger and b) not as talented. All because they don't face the social barriers I do to connectng w. other musicans and finding audiences. Nor do they have the emotional barriers that come from a lifetime of facing these social barriers.

So cry me a river. What am I going to do about it? I paced around here imagining telling a bunch of them off. Then imagined myself holding my mythical Grammy award high. After that non productivity, I guess I'm on to some more composition and guitar practicing.
That and remembering to not judge myself by the same standards of success and timelines as demonstrated by main stream ez streeter girls. Avoid that trap. I'm a succes to still be in this game.

I mean reality check: these chicks were born whole. They didn't spend 27 years of their life sorting out the basics.

ATTACK OF THE MASS PRODUCED TAMPON USERS

I can't stand television. The Boob tube. The Idiot box. Mind Rot. The Can. Whatever we call it, it's a big waste of time. I'm really proud of my brother who recently threw his tv in the dumpster. He's happier, can think more clearly and has even started being creative. He's continuing on with his creative writing! The worst part of tv is the commercials. Whenever the ads are on I insist that they be put on "mute". (I even have "remote" to do this muting. The remote still startles me when I see it on the coffee table as it is just one of those things that I'll always think of as "something other people own.") it's not that I don't mind some commercials or all commercials some of the time. I literally can not tolerate them.

There's a lot of terrible ads on tv. But these two are the most offensive ones I've seen in the last few months:

Runner Up:
The McDonalds commercial that is advertising turkey sandwiches. There's a farmer with his birds. (This is supposed to entice me?) And there's a smiling baby in a carriage. The baby gets poked in the tummy. Or is this just the Pilsberry Dough Boy who gets poked in the tummy.) I feel sad for this baby. he's being exploited. he didn't choose to be there. His parents did. He didn't have a say. And all too often it is the parents who take home the money. To all the bar assed baby showing diaper commercials I say: Stop th exploitation of babies!

The Worst Ad on TV:
The Tampex Tampon commercial. There's a bunch of giggling bimbos. The kind that inspire hard ons in19 year old guys living in their parents homes and wearing dirty white tube socks. And thereby these girls get instant credibility with all bimbos everywhere. They are on a desert island. So these spell out Tampex on the beach and a plane drops them off loads and loads of tampons! Forget the water, food and survival equipment. As long as they've got tampons to shove up their twats these bimbos are saved. And that's not the most ridiculous part of the add. Anyone who's ever visited Halifax Nova Scotia, where they flush millions of liters of raw sewage into the harbour every day, and walked along Point Pleasant Park has seen the hundreds of tampons that cover the beaches and rocks. We humans are not fit to inherit this earth. Bunch of pigs.

The alternative to tampons is to go to your local womyn's store and get a "keeper". It's a rubber cup about the size and shape of your thumb. it's better for your body, cheaper and reusable.

With all of the SUV driving to Cost Co, the cities that won't pay for decent recycling programs - like Ottawa, Ontario - the capital city of Canada, and yes the tampons being flushed in the Atlantic ocean by the residents of Halifax I have to wonder. What are we thinking?

The earth is an outpost. A sanctuary in an otherwise barren universe. Earth is the only planet in the galaxy that has an atmosphere that can sustain life. If we wreck it beyond repair (this is already happening, just ask the polar bears who can't find a decent ice berg to stand on anymore) then we can't take mother Earth back to the "Used Planet Lot" after we've traded in the SUV at the "Used Car Lot".

The alternative to SUV's is car pooling, biking, public transit, hybrid cars and dare I suggest walking. The alternative to the mass produced wastefully produced, distributed and consumed paradime is buying at least some organic products at local shops and even visiting a farm once and a while.

(It's taken me 5 weeks to make the time to write this down. How long will it take the world to take some of what I've said to heart?)