i am not making voices, they are all mine

My boots strike the cobblestones, the chains swaying against my heels. I am walking fast because I hate the feeling of hard heel on stone, I can feel it inside my head, the vibrations make me woozy. I really have to stop wearing these boots. I try to switch to a tip-toe but that looks a bit ridiculous as I weave in an out of the baby strollers littering the pathways.

I look up and my eyes catch the telegraph insulators perched high, glistening in the sun and it reminds me that I have a box of them to put away a work. I always pay careful attention to the blue ones. They seem more delicate than the rest. I repeat the word telegraph in my head, and it makes me think of the last conversation I had with my mother. Well, you could send him a telegram. Who sends telegrams anymore, mom? Well, when your father and I got married…I hear my dad yell in the background; She can just call him too or there is this thing called the Internet.

I smile to myself as I recall my mom laughing. I cross the stones and make my way onto the dock. There is a softness in the wood that makes my feet relax a bit. I think back to the telegram, how the words were transmitted, how anyone receiving and reading a telegram would have felt. Did they read it in their voice, or the party who sent it. I wonder that when I’m reading correspondence. Sometimes I have to really think of the persons voice, if its been a while. I should write this down when I get home, maybe pose a question. Probably half the people reading what I write have never heard my voice, I wonder what voice they hear. No, that’s a silly I won’t pen that.

The dock cradles my feet as I cross above water. Below they are moving some type of seafood into large containers. I cannot see because of the sunspots. Voices are muffled against the bagpipes playing in the background. My pace quickens and the thoughts keep coming, I can feel my chest tighten. I clench my keys in my pocket. Words are swarming inside and there is just so much commotion outside. With each click of my heel there is a new thought. I think back to the telegram and how you only had a set amount of characters to relay something. I wish there was some type of mechanism that could slow down thought.

I reach the grass. My steps are suddenly met with silence. No vibrations, just the swish of the grass under my feet.

Sweet relief.

fill in the blanks

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve done a 7 random picture post. Lazy, I know. I have, however, been finding pictures more along the lines of a caption this or like the one below…

Perhaps we can write the next paragraph.

whizbang

for all you typography junkies out there…

designer scrabble

before you swoon like i did though, know that this is just a concept. hey, we still have vintage scrabble boards for our type needs.

bound to happen eventually

on open days i tend to stick with tasks i can pick up and leave if i get interrupted. this usually means catching up on data entry for the collection.

at noon stephen fry comes on, with the harry potter.

i just noticed that not once, not twice, but three times i’ve typed in the word “gryffindor” into the  database, unconsciously, when tying to type in this donor’s name who starts with a “g”.

i think this is cause to make and official gryffindor grievance.

any words that keep repeatedly popping up in your vocabulary recently?

i still feel – kind of temporary about myself

your writing feels very staccato. there’s this ominous quality to it, especially with this piece, almost sinister.

i’d heard that before. the staccato part, at least.

the ominous and slightly sinister part slips out, sometimes unexpectedly when i find myself recalling family memories. i think i hold grudges. need to let things go. i wish my memory wasn’t so vivid, i think i’d sleep more. double-sword, isn’t?

if i slept more, i wouldn’t have time to get up in the middle of the night and scribble thoughts into my bedside notebook. i woke up this morning with “i still feel – kind of temporary about myself” staring back at me in pencil, then again with blue pen. i had just gone to see death of a salesman on the weekend. that arthur miller, food for thought.

do you ever get that feeling? t-e-m-p-o-r-a-r-y.

i do. a lot. but not in the extreme way it’s used in this play. i see it more as a positive, but perhaps this is because i see temporary more as restless. and i see restless more a built up of creative energy, and i see…oh, stop me if  you think you’ve heard this before…

a line or phrase, you’ve read/watched/overheard that struck a cord in you recently?

dithyrambic

Happy New Year! Shall we ring in the new year with some talk about words? I think so.

According to Time these words are being charged with overuse and should be retired for 2011.

Viral

Epic

Fail

Wow Factor

A-ha Moment

I’m just sayin’

Facebook/Google as verbs

What’s was the first phrase/word you said when you woke up this morning?

What words are you going to try and use more this year?

he made me a tape of joy division

Sometimes words get stuck in my head. I’ll replay them like a song on repeat for a few days or have to use them frequently in my dialogue to get them out of my system. Often times they aren’t even fun words. Lately I’ve been hearing inevitability over and over. I’m not sure why.

Inevitable: Incapable of being avoided or evaded.

Surprise: To come upon or discover suddenly and unexpectedly.

What are three inevitable things that will happen to you this week?

What are three things that have surprised you in the past little while?

she had dust on her hands from the sky

Why do they put back pain medication on the bottom shelf at the drug store?

Truly boggles my mind.

Seeing as I overextended myself yesterday, I plan to do nothing but rest today and hopefully heal my back before I have to go into work tomorrow. The plan – catch up on some reading, and perhaps rent a movie later on. I do need to fetch some nutrients from the market too. I always hurt myself or get a cold when there is no food in the house. Have any good film suggestions?

Also, what word are you going to save? Save the Words

Every year, words that are no longer used are dropped from the Oxford English Dictionary. You can save them (drum-roll) by using them!

I’m choosing xenization

noun: fact of traveling as a stranger p.s. I love this!

touch with your eyes

I was at the market today, waiting in line behind a woman and her child. The child had decided in order to make the wait go faster the best plan was to touch everything around her, and even climb into the cupboard underneath the register, which, I will admit I did find amusing. In an effort to get her child to stop, the mother kept saying, “Touch with you eyes, honey. Touch with your eyes.”

My amusement suddenly shifted to that of perplexed pondering. I’d never heard this expression before. Was it genius or completely silly? In light of what was enfolding in front of me, clearly not the former but still, it had a  nice ring.

As a phrase there is something mysteriously evocative about it.

I kind of like that.

Favourite phrase as of late?

been working on my backwards walk

Spent most of the day wandering with around Commercial Drive with a friend.

Sushi, used book and clothing stores, chai and street art snaps.

Even though the sun emerged today, I felt it was time to break out the boots and pair the sundress with tights. The leaves are turning after all. While sifting though the racks in the second-hand shops I couldn’t help but be to attracted to the lace. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been working with the fabric so much this summer in my exhibition work, but I’m seeing it in a different light. As I  pulled various choices out for my friend to see, things I know I used to have in my closet as a teen (hello 1995), she laughs and says ‘That’s so you’. This phrase always amuses me. Especially when it’s followed by the words soft and delicate.

It’s funny the words friends choose to describe you sometimes. Ones perhaps you overlooked in yourself.

At home now,  listening to Frightened Rabbit and waiting for Mansbridge: One on One to come on. Wishing tomorrow wasn’t my Monday and procrastinating from doing some writing for work. Doesn’t seem like long ago I was asking for reference letters and now I’m writing them for others (no, not for the one who put metal in the microwave).

Wordsmith skills commence.

Most accurate (or inaccurate) phrase or word someone has used to describe you?