Knitting Ferocious Spiders

When places come to be used up, and there are empty spaces between the houses; and lights cold escape to the vacancies, flying between gravities left behind, I like looking out from balconies, high up.

And is on the road? Me. That's who.

It was when I handed out the money to pay; I realized that the cabby was wearing latex gloves. As in medical, germ-phobic, or serial killer kind of latex gloves. That the kind of paranoia, or affectation, can mean any number of things; but, really, any of the options available still made it a perfect cap to the night. As it was the first seasonal day of snow in Toronto, the club was, predictably, slow. Inching. Crawling. Friday nights are often very good for me. I get to drink, play, chat, dance, and make lots and lots of money. This Friday was a terrible thing. There was bustle, but no bustling, if you get my meaning. Canadians suffer on the first snowfall. They suffer the memory of all the snow they've had to endure, all their many years, up until that point. To see a snowflake is not to see a snowflake, but more to see every snowflake that has ever heaped your sidewalk, buried your driveway, or barricaded your road. That first snowflake is the symbol for all frozen condensation,...

And what trades we make. The club itself is rather small. An isle of what you might expect: coloured lights, mirrored walls, black black black; a stage with two shining poles smudged with the glow from the gels. I do not get paid to dance on the stage. I pay to dance on the stage. The commission paid to the house ranges, depending on the day, and the theoretical popularity of the day; which I'm beginning to realize is an attempt to force order onto the unknowable, the barest form of chaos. I rent my place in the space. Ultimately, I'm self employed. The money I make is made by taking gents upstairs to the "VIP Area", where the Private Dances ensue. What is involved in a private dance is the subject of much debate, wrangling, whining and pouting. At times, genuine temper-tantrums. At others, a swindle or a shaft. They really do run the gambit. What I have come to understand is that there is no handbook for what goes on in those little cubicles. (They're referred t...

I'm in love. If I could, I would marry him .

This should be arriving tomorrow. Which means that I will finally be able to post from my very own machine, access the internet, and generally restore my life to the digital age. These past few months I have been making do with the internet connection across the street in the convenience store, or by stealing time on the roommate's computer. I'm so excited I can hardly sleep. I'm such a geek; but soon, I'll be a Mac geek. Do you ever worry that the choices you make in life just pull you further and further into a stereotype?

It's no wonder I'm not writing a novel right now. I'm more or less living one.

"So... Spider is a very private person." "I like my personal space." "You know, if you let someone in, you might be pleasantly surprised." "By what? The chainsaw or the modified tooth drill?" What followed was particularly good; I am constantly taken aback by people's ability to let the most cliched and over-used phrases spew uncensored from their mouths, while still expecting to be taken seriously. "What are you so afraid of?" he asks me. "I don't know... maybe it's just that I've been hurt so badly by people in the past. Sometimes they get too close; they can take advantage of the trust you give them." Watch the patient concern display over his features. "Or maybe I don't just volunteer personal information to someone who pays me to take my clothes off." The other winning exchange this past week was this: "Come here for a minute, I want to talk to you before you start." I sit, clothed,...

I have to say that my efforts to reproduce Jack Skellington in pumpkin form were a success. He was in his happy face, and lit up at the back of the bar so that he could preside over Halloween; all the ghouls leering from the shadows at the vulnerable young'uns.... Now he's overseeing all the activity in my kitchen. His toothy smile and wide eyes warm my heart. I wish I could have him bronzed, before he turns to pulp. When I was seventeen, my friend Amanda said to me, "It is quite possible that you are evil, Spider; but if you are, it's more of a cheerful, Disney kind of evil." That still brings a tear to my eye. Especially while I'm incarcerating drippy virgins, capturing puppies to turn them into outer-ware, or preparing to eat Santa Claus.