Life in progress

Monthly Archives: March 2013


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March Break Blues

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It’s snowing. And I’m thinking to myself, why the hell is it snowing when it’s almost the middle of March? And then I remember, oh yeah, I live in Canada.

I’m also right smack dab in the middle of March break. Kids are home and the youngest one is looking for something to do, as usual. I know what I want to do, but sitting around while I write, for some reason doesn’t seem all that fun to him. He wants my attention. Constantly. OR he wants my laptop, which is not very conducive to getting any writing done either.

So I pawned him off.

No, I didn’t sell him, though sometimes I’d like to. I gave him to a friend. Somehow I think he may be returned however.


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March 11

Japan - Kyoto park2When I visited Japan in 2005 I was struck by the beauty of the land with its mountains and valleys, towns nestled in between as though they had grown up from the ground and the way the Japanese make their culture known, from the most magnificent temples to the tiniest of window boxes.

But what most deeply affected me was the people themselves. Their capacity to give of themselves to a complete stranger without asking anything in return was astounding. I found that all I had to do was stop on a sidewalk and look at a map and someone would invariably come up to me and ask me if I needed help to find where I was going. I had people walk far out of their way to escort me to places I wanted to go. In fact, in Kyoto I did my best to get lost, just in order to have a reason to talk to people. But it wasn’t just the fact that they were helpful, it was the eagerness and the grace with which they offered.

I promised myself when I got on the plane to come back to Canada that if ever I had the opportunity to help a Japanese person I would go as far out of my way as so many of them did for me. Unfortunately that opportunity came in the form of disaster. Two years ago today I grieved when I learned so many of these wonderful, generous people were lost, and all I could do at the time was send money. I hope that I will be able to go back, next time to help with the restoration of a beautiful land laid to waste.

It’s odd, I suppose, that a born and bred Canadian should think of a country almost half way around the world as home. But that, I do. I love Japan and its people.

Itsuka Nihon ni kaerimasu.


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… One Brother

White quiet halls, scuffs covering walls, nurses pad by in soft shoes. Whisper, obedient brother. Crumpled sheets on vacated gurney, heart leaps then falls as toilet flushes. Bow down, father’s son.

Brother, standing in the doorway of father’s hospital room, steps aside when an orderly arrives pushing a wheelchair.

“You takin’ him home?” the orderly asks.

“That’s what I’m here for,” brother answers.

The orderly leaves without comment. Father exits the washroom and torments brother with yellow eyes.

“Are you ready to leave father?” brother squirms, offering the chair.

Father turns, sits and waits for brother to gather his belongings. Brother wheels him to the car.

The two drive through rapidly emptying streets into the setting sun. Brother squints and glances at father’s hands in his lap. Old and sallow, liver failure tinctures his skin.

“Stop at the liquor store,” father commands, his first utterance of the journey.

“Yes, sir,” brother concedes, relieved to turn away from the blazing, bloody beam of the sunset.

(to be continued)


To go to the beginning of this series click here

Next installment click here

Disclaimer: This story (and series) is semi-fictional, and is in no way connected to persons alive nor dead. Apart from certain facts, it is a product of the author’s imagination.


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Blogging is better than food

Of this, I am now certain. Please bear with me.

In an email to my mate earlier today I wrote the following:

So I’m procrastinating right now. I should be delivering papers but instead I’m reading. What, you ask? Blogs. Anything that’s short enough that I don’t feel as though I’m actually getting into something. Because that would be serious procrastinating rather than the ‘I can stop doing this at any given moment because it’s short’ procrastinating. Hey, that sounds like a blog entry, doesn’t it? I may just copy and paste later.

And now that I have another million and one other things to do, what am I doing instead? You get the idea.

While I was walking around the block delivering my papers (yes, I did finally do them) I thought more about blogging and the effect it has had on me since I started a little over a month ago. It’s addictive! It keeps me up at night and better yet, gives me something to think about when I’m delivering papers! Hey, it’s sapping my energy! And for energy, I need… food! But do I? Not as much as you might think. I’m just a teensy bit overweight.

So then why is blogging better than food? (I had to get around to it sooner or later.)  Before I discovered this wonderful way to avoid the things I should be doing, I would graze. Procrastination meant weight gain.

Therefore I triumph in the logical conclusion that blogging is indeed better than food.

At the very least, that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.


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My Poetic Paper Route

It’s cold and damp outside. The snow is melting in all the wrong places turning the earth that was churned up beside the sidewalks by the sidewalk plows into mud. Said mud is running in dirty puddles down every conceivably available square inch of concrete, and where the sun doesn’t touch the mud is an icy sheet. Every day before noon I walk these muddy sidewalks delivering the local newspaper. I don’t do it for the money, I do it for the exercise – at least that’s what I keep telling myself. Most of the time I think I just do it because I’m masochistic, especially on days like today.

However, as I was trudging up the hill on my street today, an inch deep in dark black mud, I realised I am living my dream. I write in the hopes of one day distributing my words to hundreds of thousands of people. What am I doing now? Admittedly, I only deliver 16 daily papers (and 124 flyers on Thursdays).

One day, when I’m a bestselling author perhaps I’ll be able to look back to my life now and say, ‘There I was, doing what I’ve always wanted to do. I spread the written word’.

Poetic, isn’t it?


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Fifteen Attending Brother

Oppressive darkness shrouds the vast black hallway while spotlights scream energy out on stage where there is air. Wait, raging son. Shrill electric pandemonium resounds from mile-high boxes, drowning out sickly shrieking adoration. Unclench, trembling brother.

Brother waits, impatient for his younger sibling to leave the stage.  Fists at his sides he scrutinizes the singer as he wails and thrashes for his audience. Brother’s fury lies in the frustration that the little shit would never mutter a sound while taking his beatings.

Brother ducks into the cover of the darkness as the song ends and the band begins to leave the stage.

“Sir!” calls a staff member, addressing man as he finally arrives in the wings. “This guy says he’s your brother…”

Man squints into the shadows. When brother steps forward he waves off his employee and approaches.

Brother cranes his neck to sneer at man’s effeminate make-up, his long hair, his slim body in tight clothing. He wonders how so many women can desire such a sissy.

“It’s father,” brother hisses. “He’s in the hospital.”

“Why should I care?” man asks, turning to leave.

Brother grasps his sleeve. “Mother wants you there.”

“Fine, I’m almost done,” man says. He walks back onstage to thunderous applause.

Brother seethes, biding the time until his next opportunity to shine in father’s eyes.


To go to the beginning of this series click here

Next installment click here

Disclaimer: This story (and series) is semi-fictional, and is in no way connected to persons alive nor dead. Apart from certain facts, it is a product of the author’s imagination.


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Scintillating Dialogue – writing assignment

“So,” Alice asked, looking down at her shoe as she prodded it into the sun-warmed sand, “what do you do for a living?” She kept her hands in her back pockets, knowing that if she took them out she would want to touch him. Anywhere.

Daniel lowered his sunglasses and gazed at her over the top with deep blue eyes. “I build houses. How about you?” he asked. “No wait.” As his eyebrows went up so did his finger, the bicep of the same arm bulging in response to the movement. “You must be… a model,” Daniel smiled.

“Funny you should say that,” Alice blushed, swiveling her shoulders. “I thought I saw you in a firefighter’s calender the other day. But no, I’m just a lowly shop girl.”

“In that case lowly shop girl, let me carry you over my shoulder to the bar for a drink.” He flashed a dazzling grin and her hands came out of her pockets as he bent down to take her in a fireman’s carry.

“Hold on there, Tarzan,” she laughed. “What do you say we walk to the bar?”

“Only if you’ll at least take my arm.”

His gaze pierced her like a bullet, traveling from her eyes straight down to her lower belly. She swallowed and opened her mouth to consent but realizing nothing would come out, made do with a nod.


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Ch-ch-ch-changes

It’s funny the way sometimes changes in my life come all at once. It’s like the moon, or some other force out there in the universe has shifted and made everything seem different, even though it all looks the same. Although I am just a speck in the grand scheme of things, I am affected.

I strongly believe in the concept that everything is connected. Everyone is connected simply because they exist. It’s a bit of a frightening thought that I might be causing someone harm at any given moment. But then, if I live my life right, surely the majority of the time I must be spreading happiness, or at the very least causing someone to think more deeply about how not to make the same mistakes I did.

Anyway, back to the changes. In the past twenty-four hours my son has gone from hospitalized to sitting in at the computer at home, watching The Price is Right on Youtube and screaming as though he just won a car. A good friend of mine lost his job. True, neither of these changes are about me per se, but both affect me. However the biggest change of all: I found regret. Not just the regret I feel when I discover I should have bought that bag of milk yesterday because today it’s not on sale anymore, but life-changing regret.  The kind that I can’t go back and change. Not with all the forces in the universe.

In the grand scheme of things I’m a speck. A shifter of the universe.


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Fourteen Stirring Mother

Home breathes, love pours comfort into cups of fine gleaming china. Catch the scent, dear woman. Steam rises in clouds of humidity, obscuring the impenetrable essence of life. Smell the coffee, tiresome bitch.

Mother smiles, watching her men at the kitchen table. Father and son laugh and drink to the joys of life and the trials of marriage. The aroma of bread baking in the oven turns her attention to the clock. Father senses her concentration.

“Where is the little shit now?” asks father.

“He should be here soon,” replies mother.

Man opens the front door as though on cue. The cat yowls as man trips over it.

Brother stands, knocking over his chair. He charges out of the kitchen, mother in his wake.

“I’mm sorry, mmother,” slurs man.

“He’s fucked up on drugs!” brother jeers.

Mother extends a hand to help man rise to his feet. Brother leers and kicks man’s unsteady legs from beneath him. Man slips back to the floor.

Father staggers from the kitchen to assist and mother stands back. Hands at her face she incredulously attends the thrashing of her youngest child. She jumps as the bell in the kitchen signals the readiness of the bread.

Emancipated, mother concerns herself with the rising of the bread and her concern over the immeasurable appetite of the three men near the front door.


To go to the beginning of this series click here

To Fifteen click here

Disclaimer: This story (and series) is semi-fictional, and is in no way connected to persons alive nor dead. Apart from certain facts, it is a product of the author’s imagination.


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Thirteen Idolized Man

The lights, the lights, like mother’s love burn through retina and numb the brain. Drink them in, precious boy. Screams of adoration oppress and uplift, confusing like family’s comforting reassurance. Float, young man.

Man drops his key card on the table inside the door of his hotel suite, his music echoes in his ears. He turns to his chosen one and bends to press his mouth against hers. His desire radiates heat through his body. His chosen leaps up, legs around his waist, her sweet scent reaches his taste buds. Man carries her to the bed. She knows what he wants. She has been his before.

“The sword is beside the bed,” man says.

Man lays back and his chosen slides from his lap to retrieve the katana he occasionally uses, like a benediction, to shave his face. She hands it to him and with a smile and a shink! he unsheathes the weapon.  He drops the scabbard to the floor and rests the sword on the bed above his head while she undresses him.

“Do you love me as I love you?” man asks.

“More,” his chosen whispers.

She crawls up his body to take the weapon.

Man closes his eyes. The lights and the roar of the crowd pierce his memory as he hungrily anticipates the inspiration of a fresh scar.


To go to the beginning of this series click here

To Fourteen click here

Disclaimer: This story (and series) is semi-fictional, and is in no way connected to persons alive nor dead. Apart from certain facts, it is a product of the author’s imagination.