The Notched Wing

The one time I was administered Demerol by IV,
The Doctor stayed by my side, just looking at me.

And when it hit, the last thing I remember
is saying to his big brown eyes, ever so sweetly,

“You ever see the wind bend a field of wheat
as it moves across a field? This feels like that
to me. You are the wind, I am the wheat.
You are the wind, I am the wheat…”

That’s the only pretty part of that event.
It’s the only part I’ll repeat.

But some people make me feel that way.
To this very day.

On Friday, I realized that I am in my last days at my current job.

Once it was good for me, a means to keep my producing chops and paperwork skills sharp, a source of money to make this film happen (accountants, graphic designers and lawyers all cost money). In the past year at this company I’ve done my most accomplished work in an office environment. Some of it creative, too. I was asked on the spot to describe my background in the admin world on an Executive conference call in September, and I didn’t think – I responded like a good actor, leaped in and reeled it off. And, in the speaking, I became aware of everything I have done and can do.

Then I was hit with more responsibility. Continue Reading →

I’m leaving a dinner party with dear friends and I hear a short sentence about me uttered just as I close the door. This comes from a recent arrival and relative stranger – their neighbor – someone with whom, for their sake, I really don’t want to have words.

It is a slight against my intelligence. Over a comment about the game, Crib. Spoken by a guy who had met me only 20 minutes earlier.

Buddy, I think, stepping down the last stair, if I wanted to wipe your ass with the crib board I could, but that game bores me interminably. Continue Reading →

The last weekend of summer in Toronto, and the trees are beginning to turn in the balmy air.
Not too hot, not too cool. Becalmed.
The whir of bikes in the quiet street.

A remix of Nina Simone’s “See-line Woman” playing in the background, and wild Ontario blueberries in a jam jar with cream. They taste like the colour blue, somehow – warm on the tongue, lasting in their flavour.

A fine remedy against the bike thieves who have stolen our means of transportation in the last two days Continue Reading →

We have an exhibitionist neighbor.

On New Year’s Day, we are on our computers (‘Drew in the picture window, me on the couch) doing stuff, talkin’, playing show’n tell… and when I went over to his computer to see his artwork, I see the neighbor in her window across the alley. Boobs on display.

Continue Reading →