Business Names

Below I will list names for businesses that I have thought of, as far as I know none of these names are currently in use, although I haven't really researched at all to be perfectly honest. Also these names may be very similar to others that are already around. I should also mention that I will probably keep adding to this list and the quality of names or probability of the businesses will vary.

Bitches in Britches (Lingerie store) 

Sweat Shop (Gym)

Know Your Place (Trophy engravers)

Catcher in the Rye (Bakery at a Baseball Stadium)

Suck & Blow (Seller of Vacuums, Leaf Blowers and similar products)

Super Stitchin' (Sewing Supplies)

Dream # 5 (circa 2009)

   I am stuck inside a burning down house and inside are a few of my friends. I found Ryan, he had inhaled a lot of smoke and now lays on the ground, just able enough to speak but not able enough to get up and move around for himself. As I approached him I noticed that just above his forehead, a large patch of hair had been shaved and looked quite bare and awkward. When I noticed this he said to me that Keely and Micaela had "taken it from him", I replied "So it looks like we'll just have to shave your whole head now!". "I know how to do it" I said, but Ryan still didn't want me to. I called to Linley who had actually only just appeared and I asked her if she would shave Ryan's head. She seemed sort of reluctant or dispirited about the whole ordeal, how I knew her to be at times. For one reason or another we just left and I carried her off into the next room which had already been abandoned, smoke and falling embers filled the room.

As I entered the room of smoke she was no longer in my arms and I was alone. I sat down at the computer where in the search bar it read:

NO--PORN--OR--VIOLENCE--HAS--EVER--BEEN--SEARCHED--FOR--HERE

I laughed at that statement whether or not it was actually true. A certainty of death had filled the air with ideas of "why not". I proceeded to look up pictures of naked people, some of them I even knew personally, and violent pictures and such. Linley enters the room at this point, swiftly and suddenly and sits on the chair with me and asks "what are you looking at?". Somehow the screen changes to results of a search less explicit, but in the search bar it still reads "PORN", I try to cover it with my hand.

Now I am outside and I am saving people from the towering blaze, the house/ building is several stories high and I must go nearer to the top than before in the elevator against wishes. As I arrive on the seventh or twenty-second floor the doors slide open and I am greeted with the thickest of smoke. Instantly I close my eyes, coughing, I feel the pain of being there so thick and harsh. Heat, billowing smoke in my lungs, I never leave that floor again. My friends waiting outside, I die inside, in here, in my dream.

Wrong Person

For many years now I have been receiving misaddressed emails. The people writing probably miss a digit or mistake one letter for another, and in doing so I have the unique fortune of sneaking a tiny peak into other peoples lives. I wonder if this is a common occurrence; do I have just the most generic email address? I suppose that could be it. If so then there might be others out there with their own folders for wrong emails that were sent to their generic email addresses just like me right? It can be the most liberating thing to happen to your email account; from deleting chain letters, unsubscribing to mailing lists, contending with the odd (or frequent) spam mail, so on and so forth; receiving mail that is not meant for you is a welcome change.

For the sole reason that I find it interesting and at times funny, but far from any sort of annoyance; I have decided to create a zine titled simply:

"WRONG PERSON"

 It will include some emails which I have received over the past couple of years, including any personal details disclosed in these peoples misguided correspondence.

If you are interested in owning a copy, please write to me at:

arogers88@gmail.com

Dream # 4

   Laying on a quilt, initially only large enough for a single person, soon it began to expand; square by square, inch by inch. Eventually this quilt grew to be the size of the living room it was floating in. All four corners of the quilt reached the four corners of the room. I lay in one square, the hundreds of other squares of quilt designated for one person each, though not anyone in particular. It seemed like the most beautiful math equation possible, or perhaps the only beautiful one. Only one other person appeared on the quilt, she lay right next to me in the neighboring square. The lack of distance fueled the eruption of playful talking. Side by side, the closeness wouldn't allow for anything other than romance to ensue. Our talking soon turned to affectionate playing, and then to kissing, a lustful progression. Never could we get close enough; trying to make two bodies one.  We laid together and no-one or anything else appeared on this floating mass of quilted red-and-white cotton fibers and designs; not a thing mattered. Suddenly sensing the presence of other individuals nearing; the one near to me, the person I was attempting to mesh myself into like two mashed potatoes, evaporated into the atmosphere. The shroud of fog that our romance was; a pool of humidity in a sea of cold air, ascended back into the clouds as daylight pried my weary eyes back open.

Let the Colors Run Together

In two-thousand-ten I decided to finally try and keep a journal; one book dedicated to everything: drawing, keeping notes, addresses and planning. When traveling in Canada I lost this book which had a mountain of stuff for me to follow up. I had lists of: books, films, music, people, addresses, places etc... All was lost. It was heartbreaking, so I decided to start it all again when I got back home. I bought a little planner and in the months that had already past I decided to dedicate that to my addresses.

Each address had a drawing, here are a few of those with the addresses hidden by cassette labels (got to respect a persons privacy).

Julien Charbonneu

 Nicholas French

 Caitlin Durlak

 Ellen Holmes-Preston

 Conwae Burrell

 Laura Hill

 Rohan Bridge

 Pamela Rosel

 Heather Ogilvie

 Nathan Martin

 Lewis O'Leary, Liza Grace, Cameron Adcock, Marek Rygielski

 Holly Cartwright

 Muriel Van Der Haert

 Marnie Vaughn

 Stacey Wilson

Brittany Rogers

 These drawings aren't designed to represent the individuals who's addresses they accompany, they are just merely drawings. There was a storm recently and any ink that was not permanent or non-water based ran together with the rain water. 

Dream # 3

   It begins sitting in a line at Centrelink, as I have done many times before. Though somehow I end up in a situation where they are giving away what seems to be a lot more than usual. Being grouped together with those much less fortunate and slower to react than I, we are put into a small narrow room and sat down in little chairs, side-by-side. We are then spoken to by a person who shares the same charisma with that of an army drill sergeant, pacing back and forth, speaking loud and clear, and looking square. He tells us our options, one of which is to receive twenty and thirty grand incrementally each year that would go towards buying a house, there was no mention of a cut-off date, it sounded like an eternal amount of money. Another option he stated was that one of us could move into a house and Centrelink would give you fifty-thousand dollars which would then be put towards said house. There were a few more options mentioned, I couldn't remember them all, but I know that Mr. Drill Sergeant stated that one of us would go home with nothing. It felt similar to telling a soldier "Now some of you won't be coming back home alive".

I answered a question faster than anyone else, I don't remember what that question was, but what I do recall is that because of this I was allowed to take my pick out of all the options that were put forth to us, this suddenly felt like a game-show. My mind blocked up and I quickly spoke the only option I remembered "Fifty thousand dollars and a house!". A lucky feeling was flowing through my veins, I was the one who seemed to get the best deal. A still, yet remorseful morbid sadness filled the air, I remembered that some sad sucker got nothing when they very well might have deserved it more than me. Close-mouthed, I felt lucky that I could finally put my mother and I in a steady home where we wouldn't have to worry about money ever again.

Celebration started with me breaking the news of my luck to everyone. How I ended up with a house and fifty grand to go towards it. No-one else seemed to care or act as excited as I did, mostly they just thought of community housing. Suddenly I became so nervous with my decisions, I dreamed of houses made of chipboard, with no insulation and no electricity. I dreamed of houses with no windows or roofs, I started to wonder about the stability of the building we were about to relocate our lives to. What if a pizza box proved to be more structurally sound than the house I just condemned ourselves to? I realized, I never asked for a clear definition of what it would mean to take the route that I did, I was stuck in game show mode, so quick to react.

I have to remember, never to wander into the Centrelink Home Loan Center in my waking life.

Fuck Christmas

I really do hate this time of year, I have always felt removed from it. It's not that I ever wished for inclusion, it always just seemed so fucking stupid. Perhaps a Jewish upbringing can be an obvious reference point as to why I don't appreciate Christmas. Honestly though, it is a rather lowly tradition, why should anyone celebrate being dictated when and how to show your appreciation for family? Being forced to buy someone presents to show your affection for them. We all know what happens when you get the wrong damn present! Why even stress at all? 

I believe if you really loved someone, you would decide against such occasions like Christmas, you'd tell them that no matter what they think about the holiday that you truly do love them, but you do not feel that you need to express it in such a materialistic way. I am not saying you shouldn't ever buy the ones you care for presents, I am just saying you should never feel pressed to do so. Have you ever received random gifts? Don't they feel even better to receive, not knowing that they were coming? Christmas is a true testament to utter thoughtlessness and lack of a freethinking mind.

One simple example of such thoughtlessness is what is synonymous with this holiday. The blind wishing of "MERRY CHRISTMAS!". What an assumption! What if I don't celebrate it, and what if, even if I wanted to... I had no one to celebrate it with?

I once was asked what I was doing for Christmas, when I told that person I didn't celebrate it, they were shocked. I told them of my Jewish upbringing and that Christmas was never really a thing, it's kind of a crossing of religions. Not that I ever practice or really consider myself a Jew, it just never came about. The only answer I received was, "But... Everyone celebrates Christmas!!!"

No... Not everyone celebrates Christmas, I surely don't and there are plenty of other people and cultures in this world who do not celebrate it either. Pure ignorance. I wonder how much waste and clutter would be absent from this world if occasions such as this one, which I have been defecating over, did not exist. There are surely more things I could say in disdain about this lame observance, but I'd like to think I am finished with the frustration for now.