i asked ashton kutcher on twitter what the best sushi restaurant in toronto was. and he answered (and was right).

(i don't even follow ashton kutcher)

dog dreams:

i was at the grocery store with my dog jake, and my mom. i'd be holding jake in my arms, and then i'd get distracted by talking to someone or looking at something and jake would be gone. i'd be looking for him all around the store, but when i found him he'd just be snuffling at a bag of dog food or something, and i'd say "come over here!" and he would hop back up in my arms.

i remember different things i was looking at, scented candles and things made of bamboo.

next, the grocery store had turned into a hardware store. mom and i went into a room for buying wood. there were really long pieces of wood, but we needed a big square of wood because mom wanted to make a new table. jake was draped over my neck like a boa or a lamb or something. i felt happy and content.

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first, there were a bunch of us and we were on our way back to work. throughout sydney, there were these little wooded areas with small rivers running through them. kind of secluded even though they were right in town.

we kept stopping at each one for a quick swim, it was so nice and the water felt soft, if that makes any sense. like not shockingly cold or anything, just comfortable and nice. there was green grass and leaves all around and dappled sunlight.

then a teenage girl was harassing me and my sister. just calling nicole over and over, wanting her to go and do something fun with her, meet her places. i kept telling nicole to ignore her, but nicole kept answering the phone. then i got a phone call with a weird number like 1-1-456-9898 and i thought it was the girl calling from skype or something and i screamed into the phone "LEAVE ME ALONE YOU ARE A BITCH".

my dad called me back a few minutes later, and told me the call was from a girl at his work who was calling to offer me a job. i felt bad for yelling at her.

i was at home and the dog walkers came back with the dogs. as they came in i realized that they brought back the wrong dogs - these ones were huge mutty dogs and they were smelly and dirty.
i told them they weren't my dogs, that they had made a mistake, but the dog walkers said it wasn't their fault. they started acting very shifty, and edged out of the door and started walking away quickly.

i realized that someone had stolen my dogs! i was incredibly upset, i didn't know what to do. my body tensed up and i wanted to cry and cry. i felt helpless. someone started telling a story about a church that used to do all sorts of terrible things in the 1800s - they would steal dogs and also torture people in a chamber below the ground. i had a vision of a concrete churchyard with a triangular shaped hole in the ground with someone chained in a dungeon below the hole.

i was mad that someone would even bring up this story as it had nothing to do with my dogs and i still didn't know what to do. i realized i should call the cops.

i dreamed i was talking to him. i think we were walking.
he told me that they had broken up. it was because we had kissed. and he told her. i don't know when the kiss was, i thought we hadn't seen each other in a while.
he was sad that they broke up. he told me that he had to work through his feelings.
but i knew that eventually we would be together. that's what this meant.
a surge of giddiness welled up inside me. peace and impatience somehow coincided.
he showed me on a map the place he wanted to go. i think it was in south america. venezuela. some wooden huts along a muddy road. but kind of like a resort. i decided to look it up and make it happen. i'd take him on the trip.
he came to visit. i wanted to tell him about the trip, i showed him the place on the map and the different places we could stay. he wasn't super interested in the trip, though, i think he just wanted to make sure we were ok. he was wearing a navy hoodie.
we were walking along the water. he hugged me close, held me for a long moment. i could feel his breath on my neck. it was so close and so comfortable. i was so happy i felt like crying. it was the promise of what was to come. it was the way it was supposed to be.

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i was in a room with a bunch of people. they were a large french family. i was away from home, dependent on this family to take me in and feed me. at first everything was good. i was introduced to a dark-haired woman. she said "oh, we've met already" with a fake smile. i could see some meanness behind her eyes. but she was being polite enough for the moment. as time went on some of the family members became annoyed with me. everything i said seemed to piss someone off. a few people, most noticeably an old guy, seemed to still be nice. he was the patriarch of the family. he caught my eye as if to tell me not to worry. but i was worried.
eventually, the dark-haired woman just came out and told me to leave. she said "you even forgot who i was after we had been introduced". i looked at the old guy, certain that he'd tell me to ignore her, but he motioned that there was nothing he could do and that i did in fact have to leave. i was trying to get my shoes on, but i wasn't going fast enough. some of them were getting nasty, jeering at me, cursing at me, yelling at me to leave. tears started streaming down my face, i tried to stick up for myself, but i couldn't make any coherent sentences to defend myself.
when i woke up i actually did have tears streaming down my face.

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i went to a restaurant. my cousin's wife, karen, was the server. it was such a nice surprise to see her there. i paid for my meal and went into the outer foyer type area.
all of a sudden, karen was there again. she said "oh hey, i noticed you didn't leave me a tip". i said i didn't think i had to leave her a tip because she was my cousin. and also i felt it would be weird to give my cousin money like that. i thought she'd find it weird too. also since i was broke i figured she'd be kind enough not to expect a tip from me. i know i wouldn't if i was in her shoes.
but she said that i should leave her an extra tip because we were related, and that i was being extremely rude. she was making a huge scene in front of my friends. i thought it would be even weirder to just take money out of my pocket to give her, almost lthe same feeling i'd get if she came to my house and demanded i give her 10 bucks. i felt more awkward than i ever did before.

while i was asleep
i went to sleep
and in my second dream
something funny happened
and woke me up laughing
it was so funny i kicked the walls, roaring
but it was only dream-waking.

harry and i went to australia to see the living end. i was very surprised that he agreed to come with me.

there was a whole journey we had to take once we got there, we flew into one place and were going to get the train to wherever the concert was, then go somewhere else to fly back.

we got to the train station and harry was waiting in the car down one end and i was going to go get the train tickets. the train showed up before i could figure out the train schedule (i had no idea where we were or where we were going). i had a moment when i thought harry was going to get on the train without me, but luckily he didn't.

then i thought we forgot the tickets. i was ready to call my mom and get her to somehow ship them to australia, but then i remembered i had placed them inside a book. i also had a guitar with me and a couple of large tins of cookies.

so off we went. i google earth'd the venue, and even though it was in a small city i'd never heard of, it looked like a huge venue.

when we arrived in the city we made our way to the house of the people we were staying with. they were a large family. they were delighted that we were musicians, and they all loved our accents. they kept asking us how to say certain phrases and laughing at the canadian version.

craig and i decided to drive to PEI to get some sushi. we missed the ferry so we had to go around to the bridge.

when we got there, we realized there was no sushi in pei so we went up on a roof with my parents to look at the greenhouses. we all spent some time arranging flowers into pretty shapes, and my sister and i ended the day by eating some chicken nuggets and french fries.

ben kweller and ben folds were playing in the wpm gym. it was awesome. BK started playing and he announced that my band with harry was going to close the show. what a great surprise!

and then he welcomed his guest drummer to the stage... it was harry! every time i tried to take a picture of bk harry would make a funny face in the background. it was hilarious.

then ben folds started setting up, and i went and bought t-shirts at the merch table. gillian was working merch but i wasn't allowed to hang out behind the merch table because there were huge security guards.

my dad asked me who one of the posters on halifax locals was (fred44 actually). i was so surprised that he was reading locals.

also, it took me a minute to realize this didn't actually happen.

i met a girl named "Laserer".

apparently she got that nickname because she was constantly having laser treatments to remove a tattoo on the back of her hand. she had so many laser treatments that part of her hand around the tattoo had become transparent. but there were still traces of the tattoo left, you could see it from both sides of her hand because of the transparency. i think the original tattoo had something to do with a door. all that was left were a few geometric shapes in dots.

the kid was playing the guitar on the sidewalk near holy redeemer. he was a cross between b.h. bobby and a kid who comes in my store, joey's brother. he was playing my song, all of my friends, but he was doing it awesome. i never knew he was that good at music.

he was wearing a hat, it looked very small, but then halfway through the song, amid the crowd of people circling around him, i saw the hat start to fall off his head. but it kept falling and falling, it was like a giant cat in the hat hat, made of some thin flimsy material, and it kept uncoiling. he was trying to brush it away with one hand and keep playing, but he had to stop to take the hat off.

i was upset that he was interrupted. i started clapping on this weird syncopated beat, so that he wouldn't get discouraged and stop. he re-started the song, anyway, but i ended up having to stop clapping because the beat was too weird and i kept losing my place.

i was in a school-type building. there were lots of elevators. i went to pee in the washroom but there were girls all crowding around looking at themselves in the mirrors and blocking my way to the stall. i waited for a minute but it seemed like they'd never move so i rudely asked them to get out of the way. i had a sandwich in my hands, by the way. at that moment i realized that was a weird thing to bring into the washroom with you. but i didn't care, those girls were so rude, i didn't care what they thought of me.

then i walked into the school bakery. i guess it was the culinary students who made the goodies. they looked amazing. almost all chocolate. i asked the girl which would be the freshest, warmest, most chocolaty ones. she picked out a pastry with chocolate fudge in the middle (she cut me the best piece) and my roommates picked some brownies with tons of white icing on them, and i think there was a third thing.

then as soon as i bought them and i was really excited, she said "ok now go over there and wait for the auction to begin". i was confused and she explained that for charity, they had auctions of their baked goods, every thing went up for bid, and if someone wanted the things you bought, and bid on them, you had to give it to them. i couldn't believe that even though i'd already paid for it, i might not be able to keep it. i was very angry. someone should at least have told me about this stupid auction. people kept acting like i was silly, it was for charity after all.

the girl even asked me which brownie i liked the best, she would protect it for me, and not put it in the auction. i guess she felt bad that i didn't know about the auction. i picked a brownie out that had tons of icing on it, it looked delicious. and she put it in the breast pocket of her lab coat - gross! now all the icing would be squished and linty! i sarcastically said thanks.

so the auction started and the first thing to go up was a sphere of pure chocolate that a young boy had bought. he was saying "please don't bid on this, i saved up for a week to be able to afford this!" but someone did bid on it and he had to give it up. he petulantly threw it on the ground instead of handing it to the bidder. it had bits of grass on it.

we were getting a cab somewhere far. halfway through the long drive, i leaned my head on your shoulder and we fell asleep. then we decided not to go to the far place after all, but the cabbie said we'd have to pay him the 80 dollars anyway. so we figured we'd stay in the cab for our allotted time. we got him to pull into the parking lot of the sydney shopping center, piled high with snowdrifts, and snuggled in the back of the cab as the muffly quiet snow fell all around.

i was singing a song, it was awesome (i can't remember it now) but it was OUR song, and you said you never used to like it, but now that you had your old job back, you liked it very much.

it was very warm and cozy.

i gave birth to a baby girl.
she was amazing. i already had two young boys, but i didn't care for them much. this, this was perfect. she was so small and beautiful. it didn't hurt at all and only took like 5 minutes. i delivered her myself. i was worried i left the cord too long. no words could describe how much peace and happiness i felt when i looked at her and held her. she was so small, and pink, and she never made a sound.

i couldn't decide what to name her. the whole time i was thinking. the best i could come up with was "helen" or "alice". but even then, i wasn't quite satisfied. no name could be as pretty as she was.

the father was my ex, dan. i called him up to let him know, even though i didn't want him to be in the child's life. he had his own life going on. i went up to show him the baby, and clayton took two pictures of my crinkly foot and one of me with the baby and posted them on locals. i looked really happy in the one with the baby.

then i was playing a show with mike o and j-vo in the cb highlands. after we were done i told them i'd given birth earlier that day, and i couldn't wait to get home to see my baby. they were pretty impressed. i think mike announced it over the P.A.

then i had to decide which way to go home. there were two routes, one on a regular highway, the other went through these crazy spiky mountains that were packed super tight. it was a windy trail with wooden ladders. i started walking that way while on the phone with my dad, i told him the ladder i was on ha some snow on it and he told me to come home the other way. i agreed.

i was trying to sing the song "goodbye rubberhead, so long boob" by stompin tom, but i couldn't remember the words in the middle. my mom couldn't remember either.

i was grocery shopping. i fit all the pop in my bookbag, two different sizes of bottles. it was a tight squeeze. it was a miracle of physics, actually. it was only when i got near the checkout that i realized i'd have to take them out to scan them and then try to put them back in. i knew i'd never be able to do it.

the checkout was weird. these long blue conveyor belts, so long that you couldn't tell if there was a cashier at the other end, were spinning very fast. you put your food on the lower belt and it zipped away. so i put my food, some apples, bananas and green peppers, on the belt.

the food started coming back to me, all sliced up. at first i was mad, but then i realized the king was standing next to me, and he wanted the veggies for a sandwich.

i bought a plane ticket to bermuda on a whim.

when i got there, i mostly stayed in a room with some people who were cooking potatoes and stew. they kept trying to feed me huge plates. in the next room over there was a piano. i could see the beach from the room but it was dark out.

i looked at a map and tried to decide where i would go on my next trip.

i looked out my window to see a group of people standing in the yard across the street, looking up with awed expressions on their faces. when i looked to see what they were looking at, i'm sure my face took on that same expression.

there was a large black man in the sky. he was swooping from side to side, like a giant leaf, defying gravity, and slowly descending to the ground in graceful arcs. every once in a while he'd throw in a flourish and go up a bit higher before starting to descend.

he neared the ground, and the arcs got shorter. he came impossibly close to the ground without touching, but finally, with an impact-absorbing somersault, he landed on his feet to the wild applause of everyone around him. i found myself applauding too, in my house across the street, even though no one could hear me.

the people were talking to him. i knew what they had to be saying. and sure enough after a few minutes, he crouched down, and leaped up into the air. the leap itself was incredible, i've never seen anyone jump so high. he began to contort and stretch his body, pumping the air with it, until he was up above the power lines. it wasn't magic or anything, he just knew how to exploit the air pressure, like a giant bird. he didn't go as high this time as he did the previous time, but it was still amazing. this time instead of staying in roughly the same place, he travelled through the air, ending up on my side of the road. when he landed i clapped again, and no one heard me.

i felt like i should go over and see him, i walked to the store, but i was too embarrassed to talk to him so i just sat on the step. he seemed busy, there were other people bugging and bugging him for autographs, i don't think he liked it. then they all started walking down the street in a big procession, the man included, and i watched them leave.

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a kid came into my store. he looked upset. he told me to call 911, tears welling in his eyes. no questions asked, i dial the number and hand the phone to him. i can hear the operator's voice coming out of the receiver as he takes it in his hands. the kid holds the phone out away from him and won't tell the operator what is wrong. i said "tell her what's wrong!" and he shakes his head. i took the phone and explained the situation to the operator "this kid looks upset, he said to call 911, but now just won't say anything". the operator explains the kid probably didn't have a real problem (she was probably right), and they were going to charge the store 50 bucks for the fake 911 call.

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i was at a function of some sort, in a large city. there was lots of confusion with getting lost, getting separated from others in this big mall thing. i tried to take my mom for sushi, but the restaurant was almost closed, and the guy gave us something totally different from my order. i was very disappointed.

so then i had to go in the big auditorium and hear the speech. i was acting the way any teenager would act in this situation, bored. i found a seat on some stairs next to a cute boy i had seen earlier in the week. we had to sit really close together because there were so many people jostling to sit down. he started talking to me, he told me he had just turned 17. i decided he was way too young. but he was trying to hold my hand. we talked a bit more, then one of the supervisors came over to shush us. it was the actress who plays cally on grey's anatomy. i mouthed the words "oh my god! i love your show!" to her, and she nodded and smiled and moved on.

we were in the many storied building, kind of like holy redeemer gym, to see a rapper from the 80s. a smattering of crowd, but then everyone had to move out of the way. the horse race was coming through. it was the slowest moving horse race in the universe. they looked like they were running full speed, but in slow motion or something.

i went upstairs to look out the window, in a small corner office room. there went the horse race, around the block and then back into the building and up the stairs and through the little room i was in.

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i was playing a show with tom fun. i ordered some sushi at a restaurant before we played. i got a huge meal made up in a styrofoam container. two dragon rolls and a bunch of other stuff. i was so excited to eat it.

we got on the stage, which was the highest stage in the world. like 19 feet high. in this huge room. there was no one in the crowd. literally. darren was standing in this giant empty room. he made us play a few songs anyway, i suppose to fulfill the contract.

so i swung off the edge of the stage, hanging down, and then let go and dropped to the floor. it didn't even hurt my feet. as i walked toward the place where my sushi was supposed to be, i had a sinking feeling in my stomach. i forgot it at the restaurant! like 100 bucks worth of sushi i was looking so forward to eating! the others were saying not to make a big deal of it, just go get more. that's what i was going to do anyway, but i wasn't happy about having to spend that money again. obviously i was pissed.

i was in the bathtub.
just having a normal bath.
suddenly i blink, and things are in a slightly different position. i know exactly what has happened. someone has been in here. i was made unconscious somehow, and woken up again.
but they weren't careful enough. i know that shower head was a few inches to the right.
i am in full panic and fear and discomfort. someone was in here. why?
and if they have the ability to knock me out without my even noticing, how come they were so unskilled as to not leave things in the same position? maybe they wanted me to know they'd been in here. that i was always vulnerable.
i started searching frantically along the walls. and right there, by my head, in an obvious place, was what i was looking for. a bug.
it looked like a watch battery and was stuck to the wall with a little rubbery glue.
i picked it up in the palm of my hand.

i knew that this wasn't the only one. there was no effort made to conceal it, so it was clearly put there to distract from the real bug. i had to decide whether to pretend i thought this was the only bug and i'd found it. i felt that since i couldn't find the real one, there was no sense in pretending i was falling for their plan. it seemed too simple anyway, almost insulting. they'd know i knew. there was something else going on.

so i screamed for help. no one paid any attention to me. i had to run down and show them. i cut the bug into tiny pieces with a pair of scissors as i explained there was definitely another one around here somewhere.

i had no idea what else to do.

my house
occasionally disappeared and reappeared somewhere else
and looked different every time
i only knew
it was mine
by the front door
which stayed the same

but now
so completely comfortable.
why did i lie down in the dewy grass?
because it was worth it.
i saw you
through the mist
squinting a bit
with the sun on my eyelashes
and your arms wrapped round me
giddy, joyful, glowing, comfort, content