give something away, and write about it...

[AstroFemme]

i'm taking a creative writing class at UBC right now, the main focus is on getting in touch with your true feelings and letting them intensify your work. an exercise a couple weeks ago was to give something meaningful away, and write about it. coincidentally, BigBrothers had just called me a few days earlier and asked if i had any clothes to donate, and so i went thru everything, and decided it was time to give up the partykid clothes that i haven't worn in two years, yet seem to try on in hopes of reviving them as a *cutting edge* outfit whenever i'm pms'ing. out of it all, i kept my paul frank monkey hoody, and a laramy shirt that i got after i'd stopped partying that said "ravers suck." a couple things i gave away to a 16year old friend of mine who went to his first rave last weekend. anywhoo, you get the point. this story is definitely missing a huge chunk near the end, but i thought i'd share what i had so far...

I wanna sit here, and listen to my breakbeats that now date me and the ‘happy place’ I go to when life gets demanding, and I want to tell you about the sun coming up over the mountains, out at the Popkum Road reserve. And I want to do it well. I want to play the happy hardcore version of the Exorcist themesong, for you with my diction, and make you hear it in your racing heartbeat. I want you to be able to feel the sleep dep rush flow up your legs and give you that 9th wind as you hear the beat drop and the speedcore smurfette diva in the background sings “i.i.ii.i.i.i.ii.i.i.i can see the sun ri~i~i~se.” I want to hear my fingers spring from one key to the other with tummy turning enthusiasm that was tapped into when I looked at the stack of glossy printed memories in my flyer box. I want to tell you that last nite, when I talked to a girl from my old crew, we reminisced, and lived in the past for a full 48 minutes over msn. I want to tell you that I was overcome with nostalgia and reluctant to hand-him-down my phat pants yesterday, and have it make you feel that you, too, got a little older when I describe how it cut my heart up, but I can’t. what I can tell you, is that I’ve been sitting here, listening to Anabolic Frolic for 30 minutes, and come up with jack shit. The truth is I’m halfway through “the Bomb” and haven’t gotten out of my chair to 2-step once, and I’m starting think it’s not cuz I’m tired. Reality is, the Detroit Garage Rock CDs on my shelf now vastly outnumber the CDs in my Speed Garage collection. My jeans are tight, my hair is flat, I’m not wearing any safety-cone orange, and I am the posterchild complacency on that issue. It’s a little embarrassing that I can’t tell Joey whether he should be staying away from anything called “Purple Aliens” or “Blue Music Notes” and that if Raj ever brings back “Yellow Roses” I’m buying more for the road. It’s depressing but hopeful that I bumped into ____, an old teksketchflail friend, at a protest for lowering tuition fees just recently, and he didn’t recognize me. I guess reiterating our last week’s psych lectures to each other at warp speed so that we didn’t feel guilty about missing class on Monday, didn’t mean as much to him as it did to me. it’s ok, those weren’t exactly my proudest moments, but I sure as hell like to talk about them.
Have you ever seen a rave? Like seen one on tv even? You know how much they love to accurately depict that shit on Law & Order and every other show that’s spun off of it. All the kids with their glow sticks, the guys with visors and spiked up bleached hair, chewing glow-in-the-dark tongue rings, dancing like supermario japanime. The girls with their hair in two little buns, happy faces painted on their cheeks, the lasers, the sirens, the whistles around their necks. The way they happen in hip new york clubs, or broken and entered airplane hangars. The straight faced first aid attendants standing dutifully to the side, waiting for one of us to pass out, and rush us to the hospital where our parents would be waiting to see if we’d learned out lesson. Those raves don’t actually happen, except for in True Crime TV Dramas and Our Lady Peace music videos. I’ve never been to a “rave.” I’ve been to parties. And as cliché as this may sound, I deem myself enough of an authority that I can conclude, the scene is dead, and no one cares. Even me.
That’s why I thought donating my fuzzy pink earmuffs, and 38” around the ankle jeans to the Salvation Army would be prime material. I thought this would invoke catharsis. However, it turned into another bittersweetly opportune moment to use my new catch phrase…"schmeh." Priority shift is an understatement to say the least.