Princesses Hear a Pea

            On Sunday I had to do laundry and so around midday I stuffed all my dirty linen, clothing and especially the salty assed jeans, the sweatpants and the four pairs of socks that I’ve been wearing over the last few weeks of riding my bike through the snow.

            The three triple loaders were being used and I didn’t want to split my clothes up into three machines. I saw that one of the big washers had eight minutes left when the old Japanese who manages the Laundromat noticed and came up to inform me that there are two triple loaders at the back. He said no one likes to use them because they are too far and so that’s why he’s kept them 75 cents cheaper. I joked that it’s not too far for me because I can just ride my bike down there. Really, the extra big washers couldn’t be much further than fifteen meters from the front of the store, so now that I know they are cheaper I’ll use them.

            I was finished in the early afternoon and had a slightly late lunch of one piece of toast with two slices of marble cheese. Then I took a late siesta.

            I’ve been listening to the Kate Bush discography and it’s almost a mathematical progression towards more and more boring songs with each album that she does. “50 Words for Snow” sounds like she lost a bet and had to put out the most snooze-inducing album ever. The title song is really just a guy reciting fifty words for snow while she sings choruses like, “Come on man you got 32 to go!” I think part of the problem is that she produces her own records, while her best ones had producers that knew what they were doing. To be fair though, she produced “Hounds of Love” which had some good songs.

            I revised my poem “Princesses Hear a Pea”:

A young couple gave me a funny look

while I unlocked my Parkdale home

They were turning their tumblers two numbers up

beside the Izakaya Sho

They stared and then whispered to each other

I was pretty sure I wasn’t naked

through all of my layers of winter armour

so why were the gentry agitated?

Next morning I was singing and playing

when a guy about my daughter’s age

came underneath my window and waved for me

to lean out on my window ledge

When he said that he’s my next-door neighbour

I recognized him as the salty slice

from the night before when I opened my door

of the snooty couple with the evil eyes

He complained my voice is too thunderous

at 6:00 and that it shakes them awake

I’d been worried I wasn't loud enough

and glad to hear that I penetrate

My morning practice is nearing twenty

and he’s the first one to grumble

No one in my building can even hear me

while he’s past two walls and a stairwell

They leave the nest in a middle class burb

move to an urban neighbourhood

and they take a place on an ambulance route

on a street where poor people shout

in joy and in agony all night long

and then they try to stop their neighbour’s song

Whenever I move to a neighbourhood

I don't try to gentrify my neighbours’ behaviour

The lifespan of my morning serenades

have made them a part of this community’s culture

Don’t clear-cut the culture of these confines

though you’re very welcome to add to the mound

You can lay your culture on top of mine

help build a mountain of culture

in my part of town

            I spent quite a bit of time struggling with another of my poems called “Parkdale, Where the World Converges”. I’ve got to work on easier poems and get back to finishing my Romantic Literature reading so I can start my essay.

            I had my last egg with toast and a beer while watching the latest episode of Star Trek Discovery.

            Spoiler alert!

            While following the warp signature of Spock’s ship the Discovery is pulled into the stasis field of a gigantic sphere that causes all of the languages of the universal translator to go haywire. At the same time Saru has taken sick. At first he says it is a cold but he finally reveals to Burnham that he is dying because of a biological specificity of his species that readies them to become food for the predator species of his planet. Saru and Burham figure out that the sphere is not a threat to discovery. It has been trying to access the universal translators to communicate because it is about to die and wants to pass on its 100,000 years of knowledge on to Discovery’s computer system. Burnham and Saru convince Pike to lower the shields so the creature can transfer its knowledge. The knowledge includes the coordinates of Spock’s vessel.

            Saru goes to his room to die and Burnham comes to be with him in his final moments. He asks her to sever his ganglia and end his life but suddenly they fall off by themselves and Saru is not only no longer sick, but he also no longer feels the natural fear that is instinctive to his species.

            During the translation crisis Tig Notaro’s character of Jett Reno comes to help in engineering and immediately clashes with Stamets. She sounds quite clumsy when she’s speaking technical language but she’s very good when she’s exchanging barbs with Stamets. The sphere causes the cell in which the fungus that took the form of Tilly’s deceased friend May comes unlocked and the creature takes hold of Tilly and won’t let her go. They finally decide to try to communicate with May by drilling a hole in Tilly’s head and inserting some kind of device that serves that purpose. May explains that she has come to stop Discovery from destroying the Mycelial network that is her home. Stamets promises to shut down the network but May still won’t let Tilly go. May grows all around Tilly and then releases psychotropic spores into the room that make Stamets and Reno too high to think straight until it’s too late. It has somehow transported Tilly into the mycelial network.

            Before bed I shifted my couch futon vertically so that I wouldn’t have to do it in the morning. The purpose is to see if it will muffle the sound of my singing that the people in the building next-door claim is travelling through two walls and waking them up. Supposedly a mattress only muffles the high-end frequencies but maybe that’s what’s getting through. It’s not like I’m playing bass. I strained my back a bit moving the futon. I hope this couple move out soon. I bet they’re waiting for a condo anyway and they just want to be assholes until it’s ready.