Candy & Condoms

It seems like I’m riding a wave today that is just as much fun going up as it is going down. Not only did I finish my term paper (worth a solid 40%), but I even wrote two poems in class. You’ll have to wait to see them tomorrow, though. Everyone likes a surprise.

I’m on campus today and they’re handing out candy and condoms for World AIDS Day. That’s so awesome.

But like I said, today’s a wave. Right when I scooped up a Hershey’s Kiss and a Lifestyle’s Red Box Surprise (coined that moi-self), I walked back into class and my prof started lecturing again. Today’s lecture was the same old spoon-fed protocol for research methods, only I actually started paying attention and realized she was saying so many innuendos!

We were finishing up stats and where there are things called “main effects” and “interactions,” which I should inform you are either qualified or unqualified. But I’ll save you the lecture:

Prof M: “So now we’re done with 2-way interaction, we are going to move onto 3-way interaction.” I couldn’t believe my ears. Prof M continued, “Now most people prefer 2-way interaction but I find it useful to teach you about 3-way interaction.”

“3-way interaction is more rare, but it has some advantages…” she said.

This has to be the most engaged I’ve ever been. Someone was cracking up behind me and I sit pretty damn close to the lecture floor.

“3-way interaction, though rare, is just one level. There’s also 4-way interaction, 5-way interaction, even 6-way interaction. I know it’s hard to believe but they can really be a lot of fun.”

And here I sit wondering what I have missed all semester long.

just because

and just like that the door opens
in my heart like a book
never closed it swings on its spine

you can read me like
a diary
or a postcard
secret stowed away
in a shoebox
smelly and old
but somehow the words
have a way of stealing
your eyes like a ladybug
flying                                    o
acro  s  s       the   m e a d    w

and everytime you open
the box or the book
is because your eyes light
bright like candles in dim night
and soft and glowing
your smile naturally lit is
mine.

Thanksgiving is best celebrated always

I can usually find three things every day that I’m thankful for. Not thankful like “I just caught the bus” or “Thank God she didn’t sit next to me” (although those are legitimate things to be thankful for), but the kind of things that really make me appreciate myself. I live in Vancouver, and as I’m sure you know, it is very rainy in the autumn. Many people complain about the rain, but that is the price we pay for having wonderful, tall trees and green pastures. (The same people also complain about the sun in the summer.) Rain means I get to wear my boots and carry an umbrella. It means I get wet. If you’re the average person then you might not understand (I know everybody says the average person doesn’t exist, but I’m sensible enough to know I shouldn’t believe what everybody says), but it really is a lot of fun to dodge car splashes from massive puddles on the way to the bus stop. It reminds me that I’m alive and I get use these things called my “legs” and “my senses.”

Life gets busy fast, and time slips by on a schedule of its own, so it’s important to remember the things that you live for.

Today, I’m thankful for three things that never go out of fashion: tea, chocolate, and books.

streams of mountain and mud (for love i do)

oh just to glance once into your eyes
and find my own completion

(and here my mind tries to get the better of
me and asks me if I am sure,
and all I can reply is does What Is
Was and Will require a reason
in defence?)

gladly would i press my lips to yours,
for a moment become eternity
for Man alone is not God (Woman and Man are)
let go from your kiss and shatter into
a million, trillion pieces,
drip from the streams of mountain and mud
to every corner rain can find

I accept all consequences.

I just can’t stay out of the bathroom

So I don’t know what’s up with my bathroom experience (is it that I go to the bathroom often because I drink a lot of water? Who knows) but today I was in a stall conveniently checking my voicemail when two bathroom buddies came in. Now I know they were bathroom buddies because the bathroom was quiet and empty and these two bursted out into conversation as if they were saving it for this particular time in the day. It was hard to determine if this was premeditated – and I had to distinguish that they were talking to each other and not me – but their conversation apeared to flow naturally. One decided that his first choice in bathroom stalls was too dirty and the other found a compromise, reciting poetry on the stall wall in reply to his friend. Being an experienced veteran of the Simon Fraser University washrooms myself, I instantly recognized the famed poem: “Here I sit broken hearted, tried to shit only farted..”

Why am I privy to this toilet talk? I do not know. Perhaps, this is  a new form of social media like Facebook, only adapted to the transitory porcelain cauldrons of college campus. No, this student must withhold judgement until further empirical study can be conducted – but let me remind you that Facebook, too, was first conceived in the halls (and therefore stalls) of college. One can only speculate what evolution this phenomenon will take in the near future.