Damien Rice is singing about time. And, as per usual, I am wasting it. These aren't the procrastination diaries for nothing.
Unsurprisingly, after a seemingly unending series of unhappy days, as soon as I made the decision to leave the universe cranked up to warp speed. Now I am running on quicksand: writing articles, editing and re-writing other articles, pulling loose ends together, planning out the last month in minute detail.
The funny thing is, I still have no concrete plans. As of June 11, I have no itinerary, no job, no plane tickets.
Stuff is in the works, interviews are pending, and my bank balance is (for now) healthy. I am practicing deep zen breathing, because we all know how well I handle uncertainty.
What I have found interesting, as I search for future opportunities, is how much my perspectives have shifted. Jobs that a year and a half ago would have been first on my list, are relegated to the maybe list by virtue of what would have attracted me to them in the first place. Case in point: Uganda. A fantastic journalism job, opportunity to travel and work on human rights issues. The possibility to actually do good things in the world and change stuff.
And the thought of accepting (if in fact it is offered to me, which, to be accurate, hasn't happened yet) turns my stomach. Another instance of Claire running away from the chaos that is home. Immersing myself into a whole other type of chaos because I don't want to deal with the familiar stuff. Selfish. But also... angry with myself for caving, for giving up something that I would be good at and that I've always wanted.
It's not a fine balance. There is no balance.
jeudi, mai 10, 2007
lundi, avril 30, 2007
it's really only 100 words...
... but I've been staring at the computer screen all day, alternately trolling my bookmarked websites for updates or idly stalking people on facebook.
100 words. No big deal. In fact, I am pretty sure I will surpass that in the next three minutes of typing here, explaining to myself and the hinternets why I am incapable of finishing off what we all know is a task I am more than capable of.
I think that's the point. That I can do it. That I know I can do it. In fact, it is so abundantly clear to me that writing this damn paragraph is something THAT I CAN DO WELL, that I feel as though just calling up the potential employer and explaining what lovely paragraphs I write would be a better use of my time.
And also, if I don't write it, I can't screw it up.
That's the other side of my bi-polar literary paralysis: the numbing fear that somehow I won't be good enough, that my 100 words will suck so insanely much that I will hear the editors' guffaws all the way from Toronto. Because they are like that in Toronto: they guffaw.
I also know that I write best when I am so stressed that I secrete terror and exhaustion from my pores. Fear is my greatest motivator, and over the years I have learned that I will procrastinate until I am so wound up with anxiety that I am about to puke, and then I will sit down and write killer stuff. It's 8 pm now. The 100 words are due at 3pm tomorrow. I figure I've got another 2 hours before I really light on fire.
Maybe they'll see my hair burning from TO.
[293]
100 words. No big deal. In fact, I am pretty sure I will surpass that in the next three minutes of typing here, explaining to myself and the hinternets why I am incapable of finishing off what we all know is a task I am more than capable of.
I think that's the point. That I can do it. That I know I can do it. In fact, it is so abundantly clear to me that writing this damn paragraph is something THAT I CAN DO WELL, that I feel as though just calling up the potential employer and explaining what lovely paragraphs I write would be a better use of my time.
And also, if I don't write it, I can't screw it up.
That's the other side of my bi-polar literary paralysis: the numbing fear that somehow I won't be good enough, that my 100 words will suck so insanely much that I will hear the editors' guffaws all the way from Toronto. Because they are like that in Toronto: they guffaw.
I also know that I write best when I am so stressed that I secrete terror and exhaustion from my pores. Fear is my greatest motivator, and over the years I have learned that I will procrastinate until I am so wound up with anxiety that I am about to puke, and then I will sit down and write killer stuff. It's 8 pm now. The 100 words are due at 3pm tomorrow. I figure I've got another 2 hours before I really light on fire.
Maybe they'll see my hair burning from TO.
[293]
jeudi, avril 19, 2007
the coolest thing today:
is this
Also cool is calling up the designer and asking him "So, how did you come up with this idea...."
I've decided to haul myself out of Dodge. The unhappiness and insanity of the last few months don't seem to be abating and the job isn't worth it. I'll be somewhere else in June.
Not exactly sure where yet, but not in a house with 12 other people.
Also cool is calling up the designer and asking him "So, how did you come up with this idea...."
I've decided to haul myself out of Dodge. The unhappiness and insanity of the last few months don't seem to be abating and the job isn't worth it. I'll be somewhere else in June.
Not exactly sure where yet, but not in a house with 12 other people.
mardi, mars 27, 2007
living vicariously
It's official. I have no life. This isn't a terminal condition, and I'm planning my escape, but for the moment I really do not have a personal/private/social/cultural life.
The other day, I read an article which explained how, if one is ever kidnapped and held in isolation, one can retain one's sanity by thinking about doing a favourite hobby (for example building model boats)down to the most infinitesimally small details (imagining the tiny little nails and knots on the boat).
Not really into boats, I've been trying this technique with knitting. I've long ago given up hope of actually knitting- 3 inches on one sock in 3 months is embarrassing- but imaginary knitting just hops along during staff meetings.
Just last week I finished this and this and I'm almost done the sleeves for this.
Maybe next I'll teach myself to crochet...
The other day, I read an article which explained how, if one is ever kidnapped and held in isolation, one can retain one's sanity by thinking about doing a favourite hobby (for example building model boats)down to the most infinitesimally small details (imagining the tiny little nails and knots on the boat).
Not really into boats, I've been trying this technique with knitting. I've long ago given up hope of actually knitting- 3 inches on one sock in 3 months is embarrassing- but imaginary knitting just hops along during staff meetings.
Just last week I finished this and this and I'm almost done the sleeves for this.
Maybe next I'll teach myself to crochet...
lundi, mars 19, 2007
today I learned...
...that certain departments of international organizations do not understand the principles of basic punctuation. Show me a language in which a space between a word and the semicolon following it like this: "claire is slowly going out of her mind ; a process rapidly advanced by inane emails and questions." It is WRONG! So do not waste my time asking me to fix mistakes in a translation that YOU MADE that don't exist.
...how annoyingly self-centered anorexic teenagers really are. I mean, even at my most neurotic and foodless I didn't steal 12 apples and 6 pears and a bunch of bananas from a communal kitchen and expect nobody to notice. I NOTICED. I NOTICED WHEN I WENT TO THE KITCHEN TO GRAB A SNACK AND ALL THE FRUIT THAT WE BOUGHT AT THE MARKET THIS MORNING WAS GONE. Since I've only seen you eat fruit in the three days that you have been here, I am pretty sure it was you. Honestly. If fruit is all you are going to eat, go buy your own damn pears.
...to be careful when I send emails and to make sure not to accidentally include the address of an ex-girlfriend when I send an email to my dad. Because I'm pretty sure he'll feel stupid when I email him to point out that since we haven't spoken in a year, hearing from him via an email explaining to his father how to use skype and how his job sucks, is an odd way to get in touch.
...that I am a hellish procrastinator. I have one final article to write for the magazine. 250 words. I'm facing down the wrath of my editor in a big way. Yet somehow I can write angry, incoherent blog posts. Time management: a concept clearly lost on me.
...how annoyingly self-centered anorexic teenagers really are. I mean, even at my most neurotic and foodless I didn't steal 12 apples and 6 pears and a bunch of bananas from a communal kitchen and expect nobody to notice. I NOTICED. I NOTICED WHEN I WENT TO THE KITCHEN TO GRAB A SNACK AND ALL THE FRUIT THAT WE BOUGHT AT THE MARKET THIS MORNING WAS GONE. Since I've only seen you eat fruit in the three days that you have been here, I am pretty sure it was you. Honestly. If fruit is all you are going to eat, go buy your own damn pears.
...to be careful when I send emails and to make sure not to accidentally include the address of an ex-girlfriend when I send an email to my dad. Because I'm pretty sure he'll feel stupid when I email him to point out that since we haven't spoken in a year, hearing from him via an email explaining to his father how to use skype and how his job sucks, is an odd way to get in touch.
...that I am a hellish procrastinator. I have one final article to write for the magazine. 250 words. I'm facing down the wrath of my editor in a big way. Yet somehow I can write angry, incoherent blog posts. Time management: a concept clearly lost on me.
dimanche, mars 04, 2007
mardi, février 27, 2007
talking to the top of the world...
Mostly I really like what I do for work. Researching, writing and editing for a publication that is vaguely scientific forces me to expand my mind and learn about stuff that I'd otherwise be totally oblivious of. Like myoglobin and how it helps Weddell seals dive for up to an hour without breathing.
But. The last couple of months have felt less like rainbows and cotton candy and my little ponies, and more like a perpetual pine cone probe of my nether regions (sans Vaseline).
It's kind of my own fault, since I am bad at politely saying: "No, I can't help you with that project that you are totally capable of doing yourself, because I have other commitments-such as my own job description, my sanity, and self worth."
And the fun doesn't stop for another five weeks.
Anyways. This morning there was a small moment of zen.
Listening over a crackling satellite phone line as a warm New Zealand accented voice described what he could see out the window of his office. At 85,32N, 125,56E the sea ice stretches out in every direction. It's pretty flat, except for the pressure ridges that form where currents and wind grind ice slabs together, plate tectonics in miniature. Right now, nearing the end of the Arctic winter, the sky gets light between 4 am and noon, bathing the luminous landscape in weak twilight. Aside for the noise of wind and creaks of ice, it is quiet.
But. The last couple of months have felt less like rainbows and cotton candy and my little ponies, and more like a perpetual pine cone probe of my nether regions (sans Vaseline).
It's kind of my own fault, since I am bad at politely saying: "No, I can't help you with that project that you are totally capable of doing yourself, because I have other commitments-such as my own job description, my sanity, and self worth."
And the fun doesn't stop for another five weeks.
Anyways. This morning there was a small moment of zen.
Listening over a crackling satellite phone line as a warm New Zealand accented voice described what he could see out the window of his office. At 85,32N, 125,56E the sea ice stretches out in every direction. It's pretty flat, except for the pressure ridges that form where currents and wind grind ice slabs together, plate tectonics in miniature. Right now, nearing the end of the Arctic winter, the sky gets light between 4 am and noon, bathing the luminous landscape in weak twilight. Aside for the noise of wind and creaks of ice, it is quiet.
dimanche, février 25, 2007
I disappeared...
... because what with work, and life and the universe, it's been a tough couple of months.
I am really, really tired.
I am really, really tired.
lundi, janvier 22, 2007
The best hour of the week
Yesterday four of us went tramping off into the Hertforshire countryside. Public footpaths and bridleways and rolling green hills bleeding into silver as the sun set. Puddles. Mud.
Because Sundays are for Pubs, we ended up at my favourite in the village: leaded windows, warm, buttery light, exposed beams and local ale on tap.
We entered hesitantly because our wellies were muddy and English Wellie Etiquette is ephemeral and we didn't want to screw it up and be forever known as "those fooking foreigners who tramped mud all over our carpets". The village is too small to take such risks.
The Irish barmaid told us to take off our wellies and put them on newspapers on the hearth of the fireplace. "Ahh sure, and it's a good thing to see wellies by the fire. It's the right place for them."
Sitting by a fire, drinking ale, in a pub, in one's stocking feet is the best use of a Sunday afternoon I have found yet.
Because Sundays are for Pubs, we ended up at my favourite in the village: leaded windows, warm, buttery light, exposed beams and local ale on tap.
We entered hesitantly because our wellies were muddy and English Wellie Etiquette is ephemeral and we didn't want to screw it up and be forever known as "those fooking foreigners who tramped mud all over our carpets". The village is too small to take such risks.
The Irish barmaid told us to take off our wellies and put them on newspapers on the hearth of the fireplace. "Ahh sure, and it's a good thing to see wellies by the fire. It's the right place for them."
Sitting by a fire, drinking ale, in a pub, in one's stocking feet is the best use of a Sunday afternoon I have found yet.
dimanche, janvier 07, 2007
May grace and peace be with you...
... may your hearts be filled with joy.
No matter that God and I are on a hiatus. I still like benedictions. There are a lot of them swirling around at the end of December and I usually give them short shrift. They seem to be ironic, smug, cliches. All that peace and love and sanctity blaring out from speakers in frenzied shopping malls or in snowy, packed, parking lots.
I can't take their cloying happiness. Especially not this year. Escape came in too much sleep, mind numbing television (Q:how much csi can a person watch before her brains run out her ears? A: a lot), too much wine and the resultant rough mornings.
But it is January now. Everything is grey. And I can breathe more easily. So a benediction.
Personally, joy is too much to strive for. That'll take a while. But in the last three weeks there were moments of peace and more of grace. It's always grace, isn't it? And because I am not the sharpest needle in the haystack, it surprises me every time.
Laughing with le frere on the ferry deck. Wet cedar logs on a west coast beach that stained the tide pools crimson. Choosing my grandmother's diamonds, catching my earlobes sparkling in a shop window. Reeling in a fish. Walking Vancouver's downtown grid with splendid music in my ears-oh ipod, how did I ever live without you? Unexpected kindness. Being held in strong arms and resting my head on your sternum and ceasing-for five minutes-to be self sufficient.
No matter that God and I are on a hiatus. I still like benedictions. There are a lot of them swirling around at the end of December and I usually give them short shrift. They seem to be ironic, smug, cliches. All that peace and love and sanctity blaring out from speakers in frenzied shopping malls or in snowy, packed, parking lots.
I can't take their cloying happiness. Especially not this year. Escape came in too much sleep, mind numbing television (Q:how much csi can a person watch before her brains run out her ears? A: a lot), too much wine and the resultant rough mornings.
But it is January now. Everything is grey. And I can breathe more easily. So a benediction.
Personally, joy is too much to strive for. That'll take a while. But in the last three weeks there were moments of peace and more of grace. It's always grace, isn't it? And because I am not the sharpest needle in the haystack, it surprises me every time.
Laughing with le frere on the ferry deck. Wet cedar logs on a west coast beach that stained the tide pools crimson. Choosing my grandmother's diamonds, catching my earlobes sparkling in a shop window. Reeling in a fish. Walking Vancouver's downtown grid with splendid music in my ears-oh ipod, how did I ever live without you? Unexpected kindness. Being held in strong arms and resting my head on your sternum and ceasing-for five minutes-to be self sufficient.
mercredi, décembre 20, 2006
Canadiana
The snow started Wednesday afternoon. A frere et soeur christmas shopping trip was aborted and instead we drove around in the frere's hatchback, pointing and laughing at all the people who were stuck/had driven into the ditch. Snowtires do not make one invincible, but they kick up the schadenfreude a level...
Good clean fun.
Then we came home and shoveled the driveway.
There is little that evokes home/canada/family for me as much as shoveling the driveway at night in the snow. Our street is quiet and has no street lights, so its usually the shoveler and the moon. Shovel scraping against the frozen ground and the bottom of my lungs tingling when I inadvertently inhale the wisps of my airborne shovel-full. Meditative work. Only, because it was me and le frere, we raced a little-the intricacies of sibling rivalry prohibit us from saying how much we'd missed each other so we compensate by trying to outdo the other in driveway shoveling prowess.
When it's cleared, we head inside. Flushed and with suddenly runny noses. The house is warmer, brighter, more cozy than when we started. And there are rewards...
Good clean fun.
Then we came home and shoveled the driveway.
There is little that evokes home/canada/family for me as much as shoveling the driveway at night in the snow. Our street is quiet and has no street lights, so its usually the shoveler and the moon. Shovel scraping against the frozen ground and the bottom of my lungs tingling when I inadvertently inhale the wisps of my airborne shovel-full. Meditative work. Only, because it was me and le frere, we raced a little-the intricacies of sibling rivalry prohibit us from saying how much we'd missed each other so we compensate by trying to outdo the other in driveway shoveling prowess.
When it's cleared, we head inside. Flushed and with suddenly runny noses. The house is warmer, brighter, more cozy than when we started. And there are rewards...
lundi, décembre 11, 2006
the lead up
to home?
Thursday: Scott Polar Institute. Cafe in Cambridge in the rain. Acquiring more books-Christmas presents. Is it ok to read aforementioned christmas presents before one wraps them and hands them over? The Fox and Duck. Pints. Foot massage. Tea laced with calvados.
Friday-Escape from potentially ackward housemate situation via London. Camden. Fruitless search for cheap noodles. Posh British people at a fancy dress party. All of them named Ollie and Ellie and Georgie and Betts and Camilla. Fox stoles. Vodka and The Proletariate. The longest cab ride EVER.
Saturday-Hangover. Hungover posh brits making breakfast. Coffee in the best coffee house in central Londres. The largest independent book shop. Postsecret exhibiton. Sun in Trafalgar Square. Aimless wandering in Soho. Eating pizza outside at a cafe in December. Spending far too much money on a dress. Scottish women enabling said purchase. Roping a defenseless Swede into coming back to the farm. Wine.
Sunday-Sleeping in. Walking in the rain. Making lasagne for ravenous housemates. K's Choice for the first time in years. Finally sorting out work prioraties for January. Packing. Wine. That 70's Show. 3 Julians at one dinner table.
Monday-Putting the Swede back on the train to London. Weaving in the loose ends or just ignoring them. Cambridge for dinner. El Amin sausages and sweet potatos. Transatlantic calls and planning: haircut and dinner party on Friday, the Messiah on Saturday...
Tuesday-(tbc) Train to London. Tube to Heathrow. Mince Pies. Will my knitting needles make it on the plane? Calgary...(stay tuned...)
Thursday: Scott Polar Institute. Cafe in Cambridge in the rain. Acquiring more books-Christmas presents. Is it ok to read aforementioned christmas presents before one wraps them and hands them over? The Fox and Duck. Pints. Foot massage. Tea laced with calvados.
Friday-Escape from potentially ackward housemate situation via London. Camden. Fruitless search for cheap noodles. Posh British people at a fancy dress party. All of them named Ollie and Ellie and Georgie and Betts and Camilla. Fox stoles. Vodka and The Proletariate. The longest cab ride EVER.
Saturday-Hangover. Hungover posh brits making breakfast. Coffee in the best coffee house in central Londres. The largest independent book shop. Postsecret exhibiton. Sun in Trafalgar Square. Aimless wandering in Soho. Eating pizza outside at a cafe in December. Spending far too much money on a dress. Scottish women enabling said purchase. Roping a defenseless Swede into coming back to the farm. Wine.
Sunday-Sleeping in. Walking in the rain. Making lasagne for ravenous housemates. K's Choice for the first time in years. Finally sorting out work prioraties for January. Packing. Wine. That 70's Show. 3 Julians at one dinner table.
Monday-Putting the Swede back on the train to London. Weaving in the loose ends or just ignoring them. Cambridge for dinner. El Amin sausages and sweet potatos. Transatlantic calls and planning: haircut and dinner party on Friday, the Messiah on Saturday...
Tuesday-(tbc) Train to London. Tube to Heathrow. Mince Pies. Will my knitting needles make it on the plane? Calgary...(stay tuned...)
mardi, décembre 05, 2006
Learned today: Lemming Availability
"A snowy owl's preferred meal is lemmings—many lemmings. An adult may eat more than 1,600 lemmings a year, or three to five every day. Lemming availability may determine the extent of southern migration."
lundi, décembre 04, 2006
In which she rambles...
[this will probably not be well structured, thematic, or readable in any way. I was going to distract you, dear reader, with pictures. But the pics are not uploading for shit, and they'd be a cop-out anyways. Pictures may absolve my lack of blog content, but won't do a thing about my laziness concerning writing...]
November has slid by in a string of ever shorter gray days. My copy deadline for the magazine was Dec 1st, and most of the month was spent typing steadily toward the magical 1200 word mark. 1200 words is not that much, really, but 12oo well chosen words strung together in kicky, funny, hip sentences on topics that I have no prior interest in or understanding of, quickly turns into a strange nightmare of google searches and abuse of the MSWord thesaurus function.
But. It's all done, and I think that I did ok. It'll be posted online around Feb 1, and y'all can check it out then.
Highlights of November include ... The gala 25th anniversary party for my ngo. Chatting to the brother of one of the founders, only to figure out later that it was Yusuf Islam... formerly known as Cat Stevens. Yes. I managed to serve Cat Stevens food and wine, and chat to him about theatre and publishing in a completely normal manner-BECAUSE I HAD NO IDEA WHO HE WAS... I think it is best not to wonder how much of a blithering idiot I would have been had I clued in earlier.
Germany. Sent on my first ever 'real journalism' job, to cover a conference of young environmentalists. A whole hotel room to myself. A whole bathroom to myself. An invisible person who made my bed every day. Heavenly. The conference was good too. I met a bunch of very inspiring young people, and a bunch of journalists who taught me a lot about reporting. The conference was sponsored by a multi-national pharmaceutical company, so I got a first hand glimpse of how big, profit driven companies are tackling environmental degradation, and I've been mulling over what I think about that approach. As usual, I am sitting on the fence, but I want to think more about it over December and hopefully come to some kind of position I can defend.
Wales. 10 hours on the train=one pair of wrist warmers and finishing some leg warmers. Hiking up a 'mountain' in Snowdonia. Walking on a beach. Drinking beer and eating steak and kidney pie in a pub on the beach. James Bond. Cooking. Talking. Comfortable silence. Driving: complication-free mobility. A bit of a rest. No rain. Sun, even.
Yesterday. Nina and I discovered the best pub in the world. The Beehive. We were adopted. 3 hours. 5 pints. Sent on our way with blueberries 'To keep your strength up.' Apparently I am a dead ringer for Renee Zellweger, even though I hem my trousers with duct tape.
Back to the motherland in a week. Not exactly sure how I'll navigate the 'holiday season'. For the moment I'm wondering what to cook for dinner.
November has slid by in a string of ever shorter gray days. My copy deadline for the magazine was Dec 1st, and most of the month was spent typing steadily toward the magical 1200 word mark. 1200 words is not that much, really, but 12oo well chosen words strung together in kicky, funny, hip sentences on topics that I have no prior interest in or understanding of, quickly turns into a strange nightmare of google searches and abuse of the MSWord thesaurus function.
But. It's all done, and I think that I did ok. It'll be posted online around Feb 1, and y'all can check it out then.
Highlights of November include ... The gala 25th anniversary party for my ngo. Chatting to the brother of one of the founders, only to figure out later that it was Yusuf Islam... formerly known as Cat Stevens. Yes. I managed to serve Cat Stevens food and wine, and chat to him about theatre and publishing in a completely normal manner-BECAUSE I HAD NO IDEA WHO HE WAS... I think it is best not to wonder how much of a blithering idiot I would have been had I clued in earlier.
Germany. Sent on my first ever 'real journalism' job, to cover a conference of young environmentalists. A whole hotel room to myself. A whole bathroom to myself. An invisible person who made my bed every day. Heavenly. The conference was good too. I met a bunch of very inspiring young people, and a bunch of journalists who taught me a lot about reporting. The conference was sponsored by a multi-national pharmaceutical company, so I got a first hand glimpse of how big, profit driven companies are tackling environmental degradation, and I've been mulling over what I think about that approach. As usual, I am sitting on the fence, but I want to think more about it over December and hopefully come to some kind of position I can defend.
Wales. 10 hours on the train=one pair of wrist warmers and finishing some leg warmers. Hiking up a 'mountain' in Snowdonia. Walking on a beach. Drinking beer and eating steak and kidney pie in a pub on the beach. James Bond. Cooking. Talking. Comfortable silence. Driving: complication-free mobility. A bit of a rest. No rain. Sun, even.
Yesterday. Nina and I discovered the best pub in the world. The Beehive. We were adopted. 3 hours. 5 pints. Sent on our way with blueberries 'To keep your strength up.' Apparently I am a dead ringer for Renee Zellweger, even though I hem my trousers with duct tape.
Back to the motherland in a week. Not exactly sure how I'll navigate the 'holiday season'. For the moment I'm wondering what to cook for dinner.
vendredi, novembre 17, 2006
how am I?
I was in London yesterday, talking to a friend who I last saw when I was in London in June before everything fell apart. We've been in touch throughout the summer and autumn-emails, phone calls- but when someone ask you face-to-face, how you are doing and really means it... well, that doesn't exist over phone lines or the ether.
She was waiting, her question hanging in the air between us, twirling like a wind chime. And I didn't know what to say. Shrugging and saying "I have no idea," summed it up pretty well, and she's a good enough friend to understand both the weight and and ephemeralness.
The truth is that I don't really want to discuss, on a deep level, how I am doing. People who have grieved understand the fear that, if I lift the rug to see what's fermenting underneath, I will be swept away-back five months to being a zombie with no memory.
Come to think of it, I am still a zombie with no memory. Only I've kind of mastered the art of 'pulling it together' and so, like the classic little-type-A that I am, I seem to be doing fine. F.I.N.E.
A wise woman, whose words I read regularly had this to say yesterday:
As an adult I often feel like I have put my feelings away quickly, that I haven't got a right to love or hate or grieve or celebrate for as long as I feel each of those things. That my emotions are somehow not polite to have, particularly when they relate to other people, or when, upon occasion, they show as sloppy as a slip hem trailing or a run in my stocking. My adult life is littered with emotional fallout from trying to make important things small and falsely insignificant, from trying to be a grown up who gets on with it, over it, lets it go because that's what maturity does.
I don't think it is. And I want to know where and how I lost the freedom to feel whatever I feel as long and as exactly as I feel it. Why do I, why do so many of us, think that there is no point to uncomfortable emotion if the root cause is beyond our influencing?
She was waiting, her question hanging in the air between us, twirling like a wind chime. And I didn't know what to say. Shrugging and saying "I have no idea," summed it up pretty well, and she's a good enough friend to understand both the weight and and ephemeralness.
The truth is that I don't really want to discuss, on a deep level, how I am doing. People who have grieved understand the fear that, if I lift the rug to see what's fermenting underneath, I will be swept away-back five months to being a zombie with no memory.
Come to think of it, I am still a zombie with no memory. Only I've kind of mastered the art of 'pulling it together' and so, like the classic little-type-A that I am, I seem to be doing fine. F.I.N.E.
A wise woman, whose words I read regularly had this to say yesterday:
As an adult I often feel like I have put my feelings away quickly, that I haven't got a right to love or hate or grieve or celebrate for as long as I feel each of those things. That my emotions are somehow not polite to have, particularly when they relate to other people, or when, upon occasion, they show as sloppy as a slip hem trailing or a run in my stocking. My adult life is littered with emotional fallout from trying to make important things small and falsely insignificant, from trying to be a grown up who gets on with it, over it, lets it go because that's what maturity does.
I don't think it is. And I want to know where and how I lost the freedom to feel whatever I feel as long and as exactly as I feel it. Why do I, why do so many of us, think that there is no point to uncomfortable emotion if the root cause is beyond our influencing?
mercredi, novembre 01, 2006
Dirty Laundry...
...should be washed at home. (sorry mum, this might make you cry) But despite our herculean protestant efforts, the family dirty laundry is about to be washed very publicly.
An eviction is never pleasant. And when the evictor and evictee are family, no matter how estranged, a peculiar kind of horror descends upon the proceedings.
Today, after three months of warnings, negotiations and court proceedings, the bailiffs and locksmith arrive.
The awfulness of the eviction is bearable only because the alternative is worse. There is a kind of freedom in slicing the threads that attach us to each other. Though, in this case, the threads are more like fraying twine, and the slicing closer to sawing with a butter knife. And I don't know what colour this freedom is. The velvety close-to-black green of a hillside of pine trees? Gut wrenching scarlet?
I am grieving for two little boys with blonde crew-cuts and seersucker shorts, digging in the Departure Bay sand. The one who dug the frere and me Gabriola sandcastles at low tide- who is gone. And the one who is tall and gaunt and who is getting cut off today. Set adrift for perhaps the first time in his life.
An eviction is never pleasant. And when the evictor and evictee are family, no matter how estranged, a peculiar kind of horror descends upon the proceedings.
Today, after three months of warnings, negotiations and court proceedings, the bailiffs and locksmith arrive.
The awfulness of the eviction is bearable only because the alternative is worse. There is a kind of freedom in slicing the threads that attach us to each other. Though, in this case, the threads are more like fraying twine, and the slicing closer to sawing with a butter knife. And I don't know what colour this freedom is. The velvety close-to-black green of a hillside of pine trees? Gut wrenching scarlet?
I am grieving for two little boys with blonde crew-cuts and seersucker shorts, digging in the Departure Bay sand. The one who dug the frere and me Gabriola sandcastles at low tide- who is gone. And the one who is tall and gaunt and who is getting cut off today. Set adrift for perhaps the first time in his life.
samedi, octobre 28, 2006
How to annoy me
Invite people over for pizza and beer and when we hand over money for the pizza delivery, ask for more money to cover the bottle of wine that was drunk. Especially since we brought beer. And you offered us the wine. Bitch.
mardi, octobre 24, 2006
vendredi, octobre 20, 2006
Flying
Tallis' motets for four voices are swirling through my ears and filling up my empty spaces. The music, rich and full, curls around itself. The voices take the lead and tonic in turns, as though they are flock of birds whirling and turning through the sky.
The memory of this evening's run is still coursing through my muscles and, though a totally different kind of salvation to Tallis, without it I could not sit here on an alien island and be able to relax into familiarity of music.
I've been running since I got here, sometimes alone, sometimes with others. Most of the time it is a battle. To put one foot in front of the other and continue to do so for 45 minutes at speed. I come back sweaty and irritated and still stressed out.
Tonight Julien and I set out in the darkness that is a seven o'clock October evening. We hadn't run together before and at first settling into a rhythm was tricky. At some point around the 20 minute mark everything clicked into place and we began to fly. One of us would drive the pace for a while and then, without thinking, we'd switch-feet slapping the pavement and breathing raggedly. Closer to the house we sped up in increments. An unspeaking agreement to push ourselves as far as we could.
We ran along the back lane by the creek, strides lengthening with every step. We were shadows racing the wind, oblivious to the other save the sound of our footfalls.
At some point in the middle of burning hamstrings and lungs and blurred vision, I felt the fogginess lift. Sharp focus and clarity gouged my grown-soft self.
The feeling lasted until I stopped running, doubled over, gasping. Now, three hours later, with Tallis rather than a drubbing pulse in my inner ear, I can just grasp the fluttering edge of what I was running toward.
Angus dei, qui tolis pecata mundi. Misere nobis. Dona nobis pacem. Sanctus, sanctus. Benedictus.
The memory of this evening's run is still coursing through my muscles and, though a totally different kind of salvation to Tallis, without it I could not sit here on an alien island and be able to relax into familiarity of music.
I've been running since I got here, sometimes alone, sometimes with others. Most of the time it is a battle. To put one foot in front of the other and continue to do so for 45 minutes at speed. I come back sweaty and irritated and still stressed out.
Tonight Julien and I set out in the darkness that is a seven o'clock October evening. We hadn't run together before and at first settling into a rhythm was tricky. At some point around the 20 minute mark everything clicked into place and we began to fly. One of us would drive the pace for a while and then, without thinking, we'd switch-feet slapping the pavement and breathing raggedly. Closer to the house we sped up in increments. An unspeaking agreement to push ourselves as far as we could.
We ran along the back lane by the creek, strides lengthening with every step. We were shadows racing the wind, oblivious to the other save the sound of our footfalls.
At some point in the middle of burning hamstrings and lungs and blurred vision, I felt the fogginess lift. Sharp focus and clarity gouged my grown-soft self.
The feeling lasted until I stopped running, doubled over, gasping. Now, three hours later, with Tallis rather than a drubbing pulse in my inner ear, I can just grasp the fluttering edge of what I was running toward.
Angus dei, qui tolis pecata mundi. Misere nobis. Dona nobis pacem. Sanctus, sanctus. Benedictus.
dimanche, octobre 08, 2006
mercredi, octobre 04, 2006
the two best sentences
that are making me laugh and cry at the same time:
"I want you sitting next to me in class so that we can stare at the boy eye candy before one of us reminds the other that they're all probably six years younger than us, making us dirty old ladies, already, at 24. "
"Anyway if I sincerely believed in things like empathic warm thoughts fleeting over the mountains, prairies, lakes and atlantic ocean, I'd tell you I was sending some such thoughts to comfort you, or prayers I suppose is what those are, but you'll have to be satisfied just knowing that I am thinking about you for what that's worth and wishing I could act somehow as some sort of anodyne to please you or turn the corners of your mouth upward or make you feel good about who you are and how you've existed in my life."
Yet again, I am inarticulate trying to explain how a series of black letters on a white screen wring my heart. Thanks.
Fragile lately. The coping floats like the thin skin that forms on the surface when someone boils a kettle of hot chocolate and doesn't stir it. The world is too much with me, it buffets me along and, because I am too tired to resist, I am propelled forward.
"I want you sitting next to me in class so that we can stare at the boy eye candy before one of us reminds the other that they're all probably six years younger than us, making us dirty old ladies, already, at 24. "
"Anyway if I sincerely believed in things like empathic warm thoughts fleeting over the mountains, prairies, lakes and atlantic ocean, I'd tell you I was sending some such thoughts to comfort you, or prayers I suppose is what those are, but you'll have to be satisfied just knowing that I am thinking about you for what that's worth and wishing I could act somehow as some sort of anodyne to please you or turn the corners of your mouth upward or make you feel good about who you are and how you've existed in my life."
Yet again, I am inarticulate trying to explain how a series of black letters on a white screen wring my heart. Thanks.
Fragile lately. The coping floats like the thin skin that forms on the surface when someone boils a kettle of hot chocolate and doesn't stir it. The world is too much with me, it buffets me along and, because I am too tired to resist, I am propelled forward.
samedi, septembre 30, 2006
Interesting things seen on a walk in the English Countryside this morning:
A rabbit hopping through a hedge.
Two pheasants.
A fox running across a field, chased by a murder of crows.
Teeny tiny transparent mushrooms. They had a long thin stalk and circular flat tops that were accordion-pleated.
Many slugs.
Some snails.
A hare, which loped toward us and then hid in a grass knoll until we were close enough for it to figure out what we were. Then it bounded off across the pasture and up over the hill.
Six llamas. Not roaming.
An old abandoned church and its overgrown graveyard.
Two thatched cottages. One called Grange Cottage, and the other called Pig's Nose. Pig's Nose has topiary rabbits hopping out of the top of its hedges.
A farmer feeding his cows.
Three gates that needed to be climbed over. Well, actually, two gates but we hopped one twice.
A scare-crow made of a mannequin dressed in a ball gown and a denim shirt.
One hardy daisy.
Quite a bit of mud.
Two pheasants.
A fox running across a field, chased by a murder of crows.
Teeny tiny transparent mushrooms. They had a long thin stalk and circular flat tops that were accordion-pleated.
Many slugs.
Some snails.
A hare, which loped toward us and then hid in a grass knoll until we were close enough for it to figure out what we were. Then it bounded off across the pasture and up over the hill.
Six llamas. Not roaming.
An old abandoned church and its overgrown graveyard.
Two thatched cottages. One called Grange Cottage, and the other called Pig's Nose. Pig's Nose has topiary rabbits hopping out of the top of its hedges.
A farmer feeding his cows.
Three gates that needed to be climbed over. Well, actually, two gates but we hopped one twice.
A scare-crow made of a mannequin dressed in a ball gown and a denim shirt.
One hardy daisy.
Quite a bit of mud.
lundi, septembre 25, 2006
steaming piles
The blog writing muse has been absent lately. Perhaps because I spend most of my days reading stuff and writing stuff, I am written out.
My job description at the moment is one word: writer. I send emails on a semi-regular basis to a fair amount of people, so even though I am crap at keeping in touch, I have a high gross level of correspondence. I over use the postal service sending letters and postcards. I keep a pen-and-paper journal that I write in almost every day. Periodically, I blog.
I don't consider myself a writer. If pressed, I grudgingly acknowledge that I am "a person who writes", in much the same way I used to say when I worked in restaurants that I wasn't a cook, I was a salad architect.
I am not exactly sure why I duck away from the mantle of writer.
For one thing, I don't think I am particularly brilliant at wrestling the english language into sentences and prose. I am a verbal person; mentally I am at my best when in the middle of a conversation with smart, quick, interesting people. I love the energy of good conversation at a dinner party. The idea of sitting alone in front of a cataract-inducing computer screen gives me cramps.
Including myself in the pantheon of writers seems to do them a bit of a disservice- diluting the genius, so to speak.
Also, my mother is the writer of the family. Delayed teenage rebellion dictates that I must run away from family occupations even if, secretly, I covet them.
However, since I am locked into being a writer for a year at least, I had better amputate the irritatingly self-absorbed angst and just get on with it. Practice. Writing. Bite the bullet and churn out the shitty first drafts. Torment the blog readers (do you really exist?) with aforementioned shitty first drafts and half baked ideas.
Since this particular forum has no special theme, randomness is endemic.
I am encouraged though. An email that recently landed in my inbox concluded thusly:
"I always get email-envy when I read your lines as they are so well crafted, unlike my steaming pile of email poo."
Email poo. Random self-absorption could get a lot worse.
My job description at the moment is one word: writer. I send emails on a semi-regular basis to a fair amount of people, so even though I am crap at keeping in touch, I have a high gross level of correspondence. I over use the postal service sending letters and postcards. I keep a pen-and-paper journal that I write in almost every day. Periodically, I blog.
I don't consider myself a writer. If pressed, I grudgingly acknowledge that I am "a person who writes", in much the same way I used to say when I worked in restaurants that I wasn't a cook, I was a salad architect.
I am not exactly sure why I duck away from the mantle of writer.
For one thing, I don't think I am particularly brilliant at wrestling the english language into sentences and prose. I am a verbal person; mentally I am at my best when in the middle of a conversation with smart, quick, interesting people. I love the energy of good conversation at a dinner party. The idea of sitting alone in front of a cataract-inducing computer screen gives me cramps.
Including myself in the pantheon of writers seems to do them a bit of a disservice- diluting the genius, so to speak.
Also, my mother is the writer of the family. Delayed teenage rebellion dictates that I must run away from family occupations even if, secretly, I covet them.
However, since I am locked into being a writer for a year at least, I had better amputate the irritatingly self-absorbed angst and just get on with it. Practice. Writing. Bite the bullet and churn out the shitty first drafts. Torment the blog readers (do you really exist?) with aforementioned shitty first drafts and half baked ideas.
Since this particular forum has no special theme, randomness is endemic.
I am encouraged though. An email that recently landed in my inbox concluded thusly:
"I always get email-envy when I read your lines as they are so well crafted, unlike my steaming pile of email poo."
Email poo. Random self-absorption could get a lot worse.
mercredi, septembre 20, 2006
mercredi, septembre 13, 2006
Not Boring
Last night, after a day of dealing with incompetence, Cooper, the graphic designer and one of the housemates, and I sat in his room and drank beer and talked and talked.
Evidence that the universe has a sick and twisted and tender sense of humour: Coop's father died this summer too. A consequence of a motorcycle accident.
The two of us are like the survivors of a bomb blast. The ones who stagger from the wreckage apparently unharmed and head off down the street. The ones with wide empty eyes and shaking hands.
Most of the time we function passably. Some days we crash. Other days, like yesterday, it is a slow descent into awfulness: the way a leaf skates across the breezes before gently landing on the pavement.
We are our own therapy group. We drink and talk and smoke and talk. We compare weird relative experiences at the funerals or the most insensitive things people have said to us. We ask each other if we are crazy, or try to decide if we are crazy in the same sorts of ways. Because if we are the same kind of crazy, then maybe it is normal and will pass. We decide we are assholes for being far away from our families. We decide that we would be insane if we were at home. We laugh like maniacs.
For an hour or two we gently salve our wounds and we relax.
The best part of yesterday was when we were talking about how fucking emotionally erratic we are. Apparently, one of the ways that grieving manifests itself is by shortening my temper. Also I have zero patience. (Stop laughing. I had patience before, I just chose to override it.)
"Well," said Coop, "You know, the thing about this is... It's never boring."
Evidence that the universe has a sick and twisted and tender sense of humour: Coop's father died this summer too. A consequence of a motorcycle accident.
The two of us are like the survivors of a bomb blast. The ones who stagger from the wreckage apparently unharmed and head off down the street. The ones with wide empty eyes and shaking hands.
Most of the time we function passably. Some days we crash. Other days, like yesterday, it is a slow descent into awfulness: the way a leaf skates across the breezes before gently landing on the pavement.
We are our own therapy group. We drink and talk and smoke and talk. We compare weird relative experiences at the funerals or the most insensitive things people have said to us. We ask each other if we are crazy, or try to decide if we are crazy in the same sorts of ways. Because if we are the same kind of crazy, then maybe it is normal and will pass. We decide we are assholes for being far away from our families. We decide that we would be insane if we were at home. We laugh like maniacs.
For an hour or two we gently salve our wounds and we relax.
The best part of yesterday was when we were talking about how fucking emotionally erratic we are. Apparently, one of the ways that grieving manifests itself is by shortening my temper. Also I have zero patience. (Stop laughing. I had patience before, I just chose to override it.)
"Well," said Coop, "You know, the thing about this is... It's never boring."
jeudi, septembre 07, 2006
mardi, septembre 05, 2006
blighty
So yes. I am in England again. Buntingford, to be specific.
So far the weather has been damp and gray.
The beer has been good.
Lots of tea has been consumed.
On the list: Fish and Chips. Punting on the Cam. Gin and Tonics or Pimms and Lemonade.
Trying to avoid: Mushy peas. Salad cream. Rude children.
I am here working for a magazine, but I don't meet my editor until Thursday, so work-wise it's been mellow. Rest-of-life-wise it's been a whirl of travelling meeting people, unpacking, pretending to be sane.
I miss Canada like hell. Still not sure if this was my best plan.
"homesick, 'cause I no longer know where home is."
So far the weather has been damp and gray.
The beer has been good.
Lots of tea has been consumed.
On the list: Fish and Chips. Punting on the Cam. Gin and Tonics or Pimms and Lemonade.
Trying to avoid: Mushy peas. Salad cream. Rude children.
I am here working for a magazine, but I don't meet my editor until Thursday, so work-wise it's been mellow. Rest-of-life-wise it's been a whirl of travelling meeting people, unpacking, pretending to be sane.
I miss Canada like hell. Still not sure if this was my best plan.
"homesick, 'cause I no longer know where home is."
mardi, août 22, 2006
Mr Norton
My dad's first motorcycle was a 1969 Norton Commando He bought it when he was 23 and before he knew how to actually ride a motorcycle. He rode it up and down the ally behind British Motorcycles in Vancouver for about a month before he knew enough to ride it home.
When my mum met my father, the Norton was his only means of transportation.
The Norton was my dad's entry point to the world of (now) vintage British motorcycles. His next purchase was a 1952 Vincent Black Shadow which drew him into the community of Vincent owners in the lower mainland. A motley crew of men-Danny the tool and die maker, Tim the maritime lawyer, John and Dale the mechanics. And my dad: Gerry the hospital administrator. They met periodically to drink beer and monkeywrench. 35 years later, they still do. The best house was Jack's. Jack had named his eldest son Vincent and kept his bike on a piece of greasy carpet in the living room of his house.
My father's affinity for motorcycles gently shaped our lives.
My mum got her bike license and her own little Honda twinstar. When we moved away from the coast, my dad reluctantly sold the Norton, but kept the Vincent, mum's Honda and his own Moto Guzzi. I was about 14 before I knew that there was another way to start a motorcycle than kickstarting it. We took family holidays on the bike. I remember being wedged into the sidecar and the fierce rush of wind past my ears. We traveled to rallies: Calgary, California, New Zealand, England.
This spring my dad bought another Norton. A 1973 Commando. It is pristine, the only concession to the march of time is its electric start. I spoke to my dad the weekend after he brought the bike home, he was giddy and excited like a ten year old boy. He had ridden it around the block a few times and was planning to insure it when he came back from the California trip in June.
The bike is in the workshop in our basement. It's a room that I can hardly bear to go into.
Last week I was downtown with my friend Rhys. It was a bad day, one of the days when I want to eat sleeping pills like candy and have trouble finding the energy to brush my teeth. We came out of the cafe, and prepared to sit at one of the sidewalk tables. Rhys glanced past my shoulder, and the words, "Hey, that's a Norton" flew out of his mouth.
I turned around disbelievingly. That Rhys could correctly identify a Norton-I failed to remember that Norton is written on the tank and that Rhys is literate-and that there was actually a Norton a few feet behind me seemed far too much of a stretch in reality.
But there it was. A 1974 Commando. A year younger than the one in our basement. Like a moth to flame, I was standing beside the bike before I realized what I was doing. A lanky guy, a few years older than me, with red hair in need of a trim and the beginnings of a beard looked at me quizzically. I hadn't noticed him. This was his motorcycle.
Awkwardly, I asked about the specs of the bike and then blurted out, "My dad has one." Flushing scarlet, I realized that I had made a tactical error: he would ask who my dad was, I would have to explain that actually he died a month ago, and if possible the conversation would get more hellishly awkward. I apologized for bothering him and sprinted the 8 meters to the cafe table.
As we drank our coffee, the Norton guy put on his jacket and helmet. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him roll the bike off its center stand and balance it for a second, gauging the weight of the machine. Grasping the handlebars, he deftly flicked out the kick starter and jumped to kick it over. Nothing. He tried again. Some faint coughs from the Norton.
I cannot count how many times I have watched the same scene with a different cast and sets. I felt my heart being squeezed in a vice grip. I would lose it if I kept watching. I would lose it if I looked away.
It started on the ninth attempt. I counted.
The Norton guy opened the throttle and gently pushed his feet away from the pavement. He pulled out into traffic, looked over his shoulder at me and gave a small wave.
I closed my eyes and felt my self explode into a thousand tiny fragments.
When my mum met my father, the Norton was his only means of transportation.
The Norton was my dad's entry point to the world of (now) vintage British motorcycles. His next purchase was a 1952 Vincent Black Shadow which drew him into the community of Vincent owners in the lower mainland. A motley crew of men-Danny the tool and die maker, Tim the maritime lawyer, John and Dale the mechanics. And my dad: Gerry the hospital administrator. They met periodically to drink beer and monkeywrench. 35 years later, they still do. The best house was Jack's. Jack had named his eldest son Vincent and kept his bike on a piece of greasy carpet in the living room of his house.
My father's affinity for motorcycles gently shaped our lives.
My mum got her bike license and her own little Honda twinstar. When we moved away from the coast, my dad reluctantly sold the Norton, but kept the Vincent, mum's Honda and his own Moto Guzzi. I was about 14 before I knew that there was another way to start a motorcycle than kickstarting it. We took family holidays on the bike. I remember being wedged into the sidecar and the fierce rush of wind past my ears. We traveled to rallies: Calgary, California, New Zealand, England.
This spring my dad bought another Norton. A 1973 Commando. It is pristine, the only concession to the march of time is its electric start. I spoke to my dad the weekend after he brought the bike home, he was giddy and excited like a ten year old boy. He had ridden it around the block a few times and was planning to insure it when he came back from the California trip in June.
The bike is in the workshop in our basement. It's a room that I can hardly bear to go into.
Last week I was downtown with my friend Rhys. It was a bad day, one of the days when I want to eat sleeping pills like candy and have trouble finding the energy to brush my teeth. We came out of the cafe, and prepared to sit at one of the sidewalk tables. Rhys glanced past my shoulder, and the words, "Hey, that's a Norton" flew out of his mouth.
I turned around disbelievingly. That Rhys could correctly identify a Norton-I failed to remember that Norton is written on the tank and that Rhys is literate-and that there was actually a Norton a few feet behind me seemed far too much of a stretch in reality.
But there it was. A 1974 Commando. A year younger than the one in our basement. Like a moth to flame, I was standing beside the bike before I realized what I was doing. A lanky guy, a few years older than me, with red hair in need of a trim and the beginnings of a beard looked at me quizzically. I hadn't noticed him. This was his motorcycle.
Awkwardly, I asked about the specs of the bike and then blurted out, "My dad has one." Flushing scarlet, I realized that I had made a tactical error: he would ask who my dad was, I would have to explain that actually he died a month ago, and if possible the conversation would get more hellishly awkward. I apologized for bothering him and sprinted the 8 meters to the cafe table.
As we drank our coffee, the Norton guy put on his jacket and helmet. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him roll the bike off its center stand and balance it for a second, gauging the weight of the machine. Grasping the handlebars, he deftly flicked out the kick starter and jumped to kick it over. Nothing. He tried again. Some faint coughs from the Norton.
I cannot count how many times I have watched the same scene with a different cast and sets. I felt my heart being squeezed in a vice grip. I would lose it if I kept watching. I would lose it if I looked away.
It started on the ninth attempt. I counted.
The Norton guy opened the throttle and gently pushed his feet away from the pavement. He pulled out into traffic, looked over his shoulder at me and gave a small wave.
I closed my eyes and felt my self explode into a thousand tiny fragments.
vendredi, août 18, 2006
fame becomes me
So my brother is by far the cooler of the two of us. He's the guy with the hook-ups, the one who knows 2/3 of the interesting people in this city (while I know just 2) and the one who has the style.
Most of the time when we hang out, when we are both at the ancestral home in chach-ville, I am just along for the ride. I sit in the background, watching the entertainment, and occasionally catching Tim's eye when something funny needs shared appreciation.
A few weeks ago he came up with free tickets and backstage passes to the upcoming Hot Hot Heat concert. Something about a girl he works with being the girlfriend of the brother of the lead singer of the opening band.
I have barely heard of Hot Hot Heat, and never of the opening band but it seemed like a good way to spend a Tuesday night.
The audience at the show was mostly tanned girls between the ages of 15 and 20 in tiny tanktops and "indie boys" in tapered jeans, white teeshirts and too much hair product. There was no bar.
After the show (which was quite good, though the music was not so much to my taste) we toodled backstage with Alexandra, girlfriend of brother of guy... and met the bands. And the girls.
There were a number of girls just hanging around. We weren't sure if they came with the bands or were plucked from the audience, but the number of tiny tank-tops fluttering around the band members makes me suspect the latter.
A plan was formulated. We would head to a bar downtown and wait for the bands to finish packing up their stuff.
By the time the bands arrived at the bar, it was past last call (because in this city, last call on a Tuesday in the summer comes at 11:45) and the only place to get alcohol was at the strip bars.
Heading off to the strippers with my younger brother, his friends, and some marginally famous rock bands didn't weird me out as much as you may think it would. The early closing of bars in this town means that the bro and I have found ourselves with friends at the rippers rather more times than I like to admit.
The bar is fairly typical. Beer and dancing naked ladies. The lead singer of HHH is blatantly making out with a girl who I previously saw flirting with the bassist of the opening band, and later the drummer of HHH. The principle of upward mobility is rarely so easily observed.
Everyone was pretty loaded.
Suddenly, the song changes from random 50Cent to the most famous song by The Killers. The one that goes "...somebody told you... looks like my girlfriend... last summer..." Anyways.
The HHH singer surfaces at the opening chords of the song.
"Hey, this is the Killers," he comments to nobody in particular. "We toured with them last year."
Whipping out his mobile phone, HHH singer proceeds to text message the lead singer of the Killers.
"HEY MAN, I AM AT A BAR IN KELOWNA AND A NAKED GIRL IS DANCING TO YOUR SONG."
You know you've made it when...
Most of the time when we hang out, when we are both at the ancestral home in chach-ville, I am just along for the ride. I sit in the background, watching the entertainment, and occasionally catching Tim's eye when something funny needs shared appreciation.
A few weeks ago he came up with free tickets and backstage passes to the upcoming Hot Hot Heat concert. Something about a girl he works with being the girlfriend of the brother of the lead singer of the opening band.
I have barely heard of Hot Hot Heat, and never of the opening band but it seemed like a good way to spend a Tuesday night.
The audience at the show was mostly tanned girls between the ages of 15 and 20 in tiny tanktops and "indie boys" in tapered jeans, white teeshirts and too much hair product. There was no bar.
After the show (which was quite good, though the music was not so much to my taste) we toodled backstage with Alexandra, girlfriend of brother of guy... and met the bands. And the girls.
There were a number of girls just hanging around. We weren't sure if they came with the bands or were plucked from the audience, but the number of tiny tank-tops fluttering around the band members makes me suspect the latter.
A plan was formulated. We would head to a bar downtown and wait for the bands to finish packing up their stuff.
By the time the bands arrived at the bar, it was past last call (because in this city, last call on a Tuesday in the summer comes at 11:45) and the only place to get alcohol was at the strip bars.
Heading off to the strippers with my younger brother, his friends, and some marginally famous rock bands didn't weird me out as much as you may think it would. The early closing of bars in this town means that the bro and I have found ourselves with friends at the rippers rather more times than I like to admit.
The bar is fairly typical. Beer and dancing naked ladies. The lead singer of HHH is blatantly making out with a girl who I previously saw flirting with the bassist of the opening band, and later the drummer of HHH. The principle of upward mobility is rarely so easily observed.
Everyone was pretty loaded.
Suddenly, the song changes from random 50Cent to the most famous song by The Killers. The one that goes "...somebody told you... looks like my girlfriend... last summer..." Anyways.
The HHH singer surfaces at the opening chords of the song.
"Hey, this is the Killers," he comments to nobody in particular. "We toured with them last year."
Whipping out his mobile phone, HHH singer proceeds to text message the lead singer of the Killers.
"HEY MAN, I AM AT A BAR IN KELOWNA AND A NAKED GIRL IS DANCING TO YOUR SONG."
You know you've made it when...
samedi, août 12, 2006
Random Saturday
I was on Vancouver Island at my grandfather's house for a week and a half, planning, executing and recovering from an onslaught of relatives and the funeral itself. That the internet chez grand pere closely resembles two coffee cans and a piece of twine made anything more than checking emails a seventeen hour enterprise only to be undertaken whilst fortified with copious amounts of gin.
Nan died after a prolonged illness at the age of 82. She had been living in a nursing home for four years prior to her death. Still, it was strange to see the uncles standing around in the kitchen, leaning on the edges of countertops. Had Nan been there, they'd have been shooed out into the already packed living room to make room for the plates and plates of food coming out of the oven, going into the oven...
I'm home now. Well, back at my parents' house. (I cannot yet refer to it as my mum's house...so much of it is my dad's.) There so much to do: little jobs like keeping up with dishes and laundry, and big jobs like thinning the trees around the house, selling the 55 Ford sitting in the driveway, and deciding how to proceed with probating the will. On top of the actual energy required to accomplish these tasks, the real kicker is the energy required to think about them and decide how to proceed.
I keep almost saying, "We should wait until Dad gets back..." So far I have managed to check my motormouth before it rolls off my tongue.
To add to the general state of confusion and chaos, I am leaving for England in three weeks. In the week following my dad's death, I was offered a position as researcher and writer with a magazine published by the UNEP. It is exactly the job I have longed for. And it is in Cambridge. Which is Very far away from my mum and brother. Sometimes things balance out in strange ways. Lately, everything does.
On the one hand, it is a really phenomenal opportunity that will open far more doors, career-wise, than I can even imagine. A job like this does not exist in the city I grew up in and where my mum currently lives. If I stayed here, I would be waitressing or tutoring, living at home, and mostly marking time until we were all "ok enough" for me to take off again. I have two friends here, and it would be all too easy to become (more of) an anti-social depressed recluse.
On the other hand, I haven't worked in an academic environment for at least a year. My research skills are terrible at best, and I have serious doubts about my abilities as a writer. I don't want to leave my mum and brother. I don't want to stretch myself and have adventures. I don't know if I can pull off being a functioning member of society, let alone holding down a job.
I think I am selfish for running away. I think I will regress into a neo-conservative evangelical with permed hair who wears oversized teeshirts printed with cats and who works the checkout at Saveonfoods if I stay.
Finally, in happier news... I finished the legwarmers. The pattern seems to be designed for people with pipe-cleaner legs, and I have, in my grand father's words, "shapely pins." Some aggressive blocking may help matters. They are black and green, and as soon as my camera gets fixed I may torment all of you with photos.
One of the benefits of going to the Island, was an excuse to take an afternoon to wallow in the Yarn Porn Store. A small fiber shop so stuffed with amazing yarn that hard core knitters have been known to pass out from sheer ecstasy. I can't remember exactly how it all went down, but I have a hazy recollection of diving head first into a pile of Noro, of my normally very pragmatic mother shoving six skiens of fuschia Manos Del Uruguay down my shirt, and something about hand-dyed sock yarn. Also, and this part is crystal clear, I remember the staff lady's lilting voice telling me that all knitting yarn was 20% off.
The rest, as I am sure you have guessed, was history.
Nan died after a prolonged illness at the age of 82. She had been living in a nursing home for four years prior to her death. Still, it was strange to see the uncles standing around in the kitchen, leaning on the edges of countertops. Had Nan been there, they'd have been shooed out into the already packed living room to make room for the plates and plates of food coming out of the oven, going into the oven...
I'm home now. Well, back at my parents' house. (I cannot yet refer to it as my mum's house...so much of it is my dad's.) There so much to do: little jobs like keeping up with dishes and laundry, and big jobs like thinning the trees around the house, selling the 55 Ford sitting in the driveway, and deciding how to proceed with probating the will. On top of the actual energy required to accomplish these tasks, the real kicker is the energy required to think about them and decide how to proceed.
I keep almost saying, "We should wait until Dad gets back..." So far I have managed to check my motormouth before it rolls off my tongue.
To add to the general state of confusion and chaos, I am leaving for England in three weeks. In the week following my dad's death, I was offered a position as researcher and writer with a magazine published by the UNEP. It is exactly the job I have longed for. And it is in Cambridge. Which is Very far away from my mum and brother. Sometimes things balance out in strange ways. Lately, everything does.
On the one hand, it is a really phenomenal opportunity that will open far more doors, career-wise, than I can even imagine. A job like this does not exist in the city I grew up in and where my mum currently lives. If I stayed here, I would be waitressing or tutoring, living at home, and mostly marking time until we were all "ok enough" for me to take off again. I have two friends here, and it would be all too easy to become (more of) an anti-social depressed recluse.
On the other hand, I haven't worked in an academic environment for at least a year. My research skills are terrible at best, and I have serious doubts about my abilities as a writer. I don't want to leave my mum and brother. I don't want to stretch myself and have adventures. I don't know if I can pull off being a functioning member of society, let alone holding down a job.
I think I am selfish for running away. I think I will regress into a neo-conservative evangelical with permed hair who wears oversized teeshirts printed with cats and who works the checkout at Saveonfoods if I stay.
Finally, in happier news... I finished the legwarmers. The pattern seems to be designed for people with pipe-cleaner legs, and I have, in my grand father's words, "shapely pins." Some aggressive blocking may help matters. They are black and green, and as soon as my camera gets fixed I may torment all of you with photos.
One of the benefits of going to the Island, was an excuse to take an afternoon to wallow in the Yarn Porn Store. A small fiber shop so stuffed with amazing yarn that hard core knitters have been known to pass out from sheer ecstasy. I can't remember exactly how it all went down, but I have a hazy recollection of diving head first into a pile of Noro, of my normally very pragmatic mother shoving six skiens of fuschia Manos Del Uruguay down my shirt, and something about hand-dyed sock yarn. Also, and this part is crystal clear, I remember the staff lady's lilting voice telling me that all knitting yarn was 20% off.
The rest, as I am sure you have guessed, was history.
vendredi, juillet 28, 2006
Into the Maelstrom
[my grandmother died this morning.]
In an email a friend mentioned striving to become an "emotional jedi", and, though my Star Wars theory is weak at best, I assume he was alluding to one's ability to slide through the wreckage of daily life without losing a sense of purpose and the all important zen.
I am not sliding right now. Sliding implies the pull of gravity and the potential for loss of control. I glide. Like an astronaut looking out the shuttle window and gently drifting head first into the sink. I think there never was any control, therefore the loss of it is a non-event.
I glide through my days the way I used to effortlessly consume
choose your own adventure stories: read for a while, come to the page where I had to choose to one of two or three options, choose one arbitrarily, continue, come to the end of the story, read another. My day to day choices seem unimportant; I will feel exactly the same if I go out for beer with a friend as if I lay on the couch and watched reality television programs. Zero emotional range.
Emotional Jedi. Teflon girl. Ice princess.
Everything is gray, and not in the nuanced, between-black-and-white sort of way. Gray in the whispery-November-stalks-of-shasta-daisies way.
But shasta daisies are perennials. And below the gray something simmers. Nothing else explains my fascination with Grey's Anatomy, the hospital drama that I've been watching on DVD. I am pretty sure that my mum and brother think I am deranged: having spent the better part of a month in the ICU of various hospitals, and having watched my father die in one, we were part of that drama, albeit with worse lighting. I think I watch to make sure that parts of me still hurt. To make sure that I haven't lost myself completely. To remind myself that it wasn't all a dream. Twisting the knives so I can bleed again.
I wonder: how long will this numbness last?
How bad will it be when I start to feel again?
In an email a friend mentioned striving to become an "emotional jedi", and, though my Star Wars theory is weak at best, I assume he was alluding to one's ability to slide through the wreckage of daily life without losing a sense of purpose and the all important zen.
I am not sliding right now. Sliding implies the pull of gravity and the potential for loss of control. I glide. Like an astronaut looking out the shuttle window and gently drifting head first into the sink. I think there never was any control, therefore the loss of it is a non-event.
I glide through my days the way I used to effortlessly consume
choose your own adventure stories: read for a while, come to the page where I had to choose to one of two or three options, choose one arbitrarily, continue, come to the end of the story, read another. My day to day choices seem unimportant; I will feel exactly the same if I go out for beer with a friend as if I lay on the couch and watched reality television programs. Zero emotional range.
Emotional Jedi. Teflon girl. Ice princess.
Everything is gray, and not in the nuanced, between-black-and-white sort of way. Gray in the whispery-November-stalks-of-shasta-daisies way.
But shasta daisies are perennials. And below the gray something simmers. Nothing else explains my fascination with Grey's Anatomy, the hospital drama that I've been watching on DVD. I am pretty sure that my mum and brother think I am deranged: having spent the better part of a month in the ICU of various hospitals, and having watched my father die in one, we were part of that drama, albeit with worse lighting. I think I watch to make sure that parts of me still hurt. To make sure that I haven't lost myself completely. To remind myself that it wasn't all a dream. Twisting the knives so I can bleed again.
I wonder: how long will this numbness last?
How bad will it be when I start to feel again?
jeudi, juillet 20, 2006
concentration
I flew back home a month ago today. Looking back, it seems like years since I left the south of France, and the blink of a hummingbird's eye since life was "normal". The absence of my father continually surprises me, blindsides me while I set the table for four.
Thinking is the worst. Not constructive list-of-things-to-do-today thinking, but the idle musing that happens while one is doing something else. I stay awake watching banal television until I am so exhausted that I fall asleep immediately. The before sleeping time terrifies me.
To fill my mind I have started knitting again. Because knitting falls into the category of things I can do and think about other things at the same time, I have chosen a complicated fair isle pattern knitted in the round. Should keep my mind occupied for a few hours a day at least.
Thinking is the worst. Not constructive list-of-things-to-do-today thinking, but the idle musing that happens while one is doing something else. I stay awake watching banal television until I am so exhausted that I fall asleep immediately. The before sleeping time terrifies me.
To fill my mind I have started knitting again. Because knitting falls into the category of things I can do and think about other things at the same time, I have chosen a complicated fair isle pattern knitted in the round. Should keep my mind occupied for a few hours a day at least.
mardi, juillet 18, 2006
jeudi, juillet 13, 2006
dimanche, juillet 02, 2006
and to dust you will return
Again, it is early and the house is quiet.
My dad died on Monday, six days ago.
It has been a tiring and busy week-the service and wake are today- and I have been on "Type A Personality Autopilot" for most of the time. That looks like me at my most efficient but with the air of zombie and no short term memory.
There is so much I could write about that has been funny or uplifting, but right now I can't.
It's going to be a long day today.
My dad died on Monday, six days ago.
It has been a tiring and busy week-the service and wake are today- and I have been on "Type A Personality Autopilot" for most of the time. That looks like me at my most efficient but with the air of zombie and no short term memory.
There is so much I could write about that has been funny or uplifting, but right now I can't.
It's going to be a long day today.
samedi, juin 24, 2006
48 hours
It is 5 am and I am wide awake (thank you 9 hour time difference jet lag). The sun is peeking over the mountains across the lake, and in a few minutes the whole valley will be awash in golden light.
Joan Didion wrote, after the sudden death of her husband, "Life changes in the instant," and for my family, our lives have changed in a series of instants: The instant of the accident, of the heart attack, of the decision to move my dad back to the hospital in our city, of hearing the neurologist carefully form the words "severe brain damage...discouraging progress," of hearing the surgeon rationalize amputating my dad's right leg, of nodding in agreement.
The 56 hours that I have been home have been the most horrific and agonizing of my life. I have been told that I am 'doing well' and 'holding it together,' but nobody has told me the criteria for achieving these two status'. We are all doing the best we can under extremely terrible circumstances. Most of the time when I am talking to doctors, nurses, concerned friends of the family, my voice is steady and I can even be humorous-albeit rather blackly humorous. And then I turn around and I just feel hollow, as though the contents of my body cavity were sucked out, or I rock back and forth like an autistic child as though by rocking I can control my desire to sob until my ribs split apart. I never imagined that I could feel this terrible and still keep breathing.
Joan Didion wrote, after the sudden death of her husband, "Life changes in the instant," and for my family, our lives have changed in a series of instants: The instant of the accident, of the heart attack, of the decision to move my dad back to the hospital in our city, of hearing the neurologist carefully form the words "severe brain damage...discouraging progress," of hearing the surgeon rationalize amputating my dad's right leg, of nodding in agreement.
The 56 hours that I have been home have been the most horrific and agonizing of my life. I have been told that I am 'doing well' and 'holding it together,' but nobody has told me the criteria for achieving these two status'. We are all doing the best we can under extremely terrible circumstances. Most of the time when I am talking to doctors, nurses, concerned friends of the family, my voice is steady and I can even be humorous-albeit rather blackly humorous. And then I turn around and I just feel hollow, as though the contents of my body cavity were sucked out, or I rock back and forth like an autistic child as though by rocking I can control my desire to sob until my ribs split apart. I never imagined that I could feel this terrible and still keep breathing.
vendredi, juin 23, 2006
change
Two weeks ago, my dad was broadsided by a jeep as he was motorcycling in Northern California. His injuries are extremely severe ranging from compound leg fractures to heart attack and anoxia (lack of oxygen to the brain).
My mum, brother and I are walking around like zombies and trying to remember to breathe.
Please pray for us.
There are no words for this existance.
My mum, brother and I are walking around like zombies and trying to remember to breathe.
Please pray for us.
There are no words for this existance.
mercredi, mai 31, 2006
South Georgia
The edge of a glacier. We stayed here all morning wating for it to calve. It didn't, but the hours in the stillness were the better for it.
King Penguin and chick at Right Whale Bay.
floating
I'm in Liverpool right now.
Truth be told, it seems to be a nice place. Highlights include: a sumptuous pub, the maritime museum's smuggling exhibit, yet another Tate gallery, interestingly unintelligible accents.
I am here because my first love lives here now. And in the six years since we were 17 and the orchestra played in the bushes as we walked around, we've become friends. It was one of those round about processes, and I am glad we have arrived where we have. He's great.
Before here was London. Three days of shite weather but glorious catching up with one of the Montreal girlies.
Because both of my friends have entered the real world and have jobs which require regular attendance, I have had a lot of time alone in the last week.
Still re-adjusting to crowded landscapes and many, many people, I've been walking around a lot. Staring at the little bits of ordinary lives that spill out from four walls of home and into the streets. Snippits of conversations. Clothing choices. Destinations.
As though the world around me is an ephemeral mirage, I observe my surroundings with placid detachment. Minimal engagement. I'm not sure where the cognitive, passionate, opinionated, me is, but it's certainly not here.
Truth be told, it seems to be a nice place. Highlights include: a sumptuous pub, the maritime museum's smuggling exhibit, yet another Tate gallery, interestingly unintelligible accents.
I am here because my first love lives here now. And in the six years since we were 17 and the orchestra played in the bushes as we walked around, we've become friends. It was one of those round about processes, and I am glad we have arrived where we have. He's great.
Before here was London. Three days of shite weather but glorious catching up with one of the Montreal girlies.
Because both of my friends have entered the real world and have jobs which require regular attendance, I have had a lot of time alone in the last week.
Still re-adjusting to crowded landscapes and many, many people, I've been walking around a lot. Staring at the little bits of ordinary lives that spill out from four walls of home and into the streets. Snippits of conversations. Clothing choices. Destinations.
As though the world around me is an ephemeral mirage, I observe my surroundings with placid detachment. Minimal engagement. I'm not sure where the cognitive, passionate, opinionated, me is, but it's certainly not here.
mercredi, mai 24, 2006
More January.
Zavodovski Island: the northern most island in the South Sandwich chain. It belches sulphurous gasses and steams. And has about 800,000 pairs of chinstrap penguins living on it.
They also hang out on icebergs.
(the horror of digital cameras is that I now have 700 pictures of penguins on icebergs...)
lundi, mai 15, 2006
the 5 month hiatus
is over, and I am back where the internet doesn't cost 13pence/minute (that's 30 cents) and isn't attached to a phone line.
haven't really decided what to do with this blog. There is too much to say about the South, and so many pictures.
And Europe is calling, and I will be there soon.
More adventures.
haven't really decided what to do with this blog. There is too much to say about the South, and so many pictures.
And Europe is calling, and I will be there soon.
More adventures.
dimanche, janvier 01, 2006
So here's the deal...
For the seven of you that actually read this...
On Thursday, 4 days from now, I am leaving Canada and heading to the Falkland Islands. Those would be the ones just east of the bottom of Argentina. They are pretty far away from everything I am familiar with, although I have it on reliable authority that they import a hell of a lot of good beer, and the prospect of actually being there in a week is scary and exciting and enormous.
I will be working on a small yacht called The Golden Fleece which will be heading to the South Sandwich Islands (just get the damn atlas out already)for a five week trip chartered by National Geographic. After that-provided I haven't died of seasickness-a trip to the island of South Georgia (I wasn't kidding about the atlas) for another five weeks.
The plans following ten weeks of sailing are a bit up in the air, they depend on sailing work and weather and my sanity, but I am planning to be in the UK and France by early May.
I haven't taken leave of my senses, nor am I going into this blindly. I am as aware of the risks and challenges as I can possibly be, short of actually experiencing them- and I will be doing that soon enough. I am well aware that this is not perhaps the most career forwarding plan I could have taken, and that it is dangerous. But I am only 23, the grad school and work plans have been shelved, not dropped. And I survived a year in the Middle East where people kept blowing stuff up- elephant seals, while a nuisance sometimes, have not yet shown a predilection for suicide bombings.
I know that my choice of location/occupation for the next few months is not mainstream, but instead of asking me if I am out of my mind, how about smiling and saying, "That's amazing, what an adventure".
Being that I am neurotic enough for everyone I know, let's not focus on the negative, just wish me luck.
And if you want a damn post card, you better send me your address.
On Thursday, 4 days from now, I am leaving Canada and heading to the Falkland Islands. Those would be the ones just east of the bottom of Argentina. They are pretty far away from everything I am familiar with, although I have it on reliable authority that they import a hell of a lot of good beer, and the prospect of actually being there in a week is scary and exciting and enormous.
I will be working on a small yacht called The Golden Fleece which will be heading to the South Sandwich Islands (just get the damn atlas out already)for a five week trip chartered by National Geographic. After that-provided I haven't died of seasickness-a trip to the island of South Georgia (I wasn't kidding about the atlas) for another five weeks.
The plans following ten weeks of sailing are a bit up in the air, they depend on sailing work and weather and my sanity, but I am planning to be in the UK and France by early May.
I haven't taken leave of my senses, nor am I going into this blindly. I am as aware of the risks and challenges as I can possibly be, short of actually experiencing them- and I will be doing that soon enough. I am well aware that this is not perhaps the most career forwarding plan I could have taken, and that it is dangerous. But I am only 23, the grad school and work plans have been shelved, not dropped. And I survived a year in the Middle East where people kept blowing stuff up- elephant seals, while a nuisance sometimes, have not yet shown a predilection for suicide bombings.
I know that my choice of location/occupation for the next few months is not mainstream, but instead of asking me if I am out of my mind, how about smiling and saying, "That's amazing, what an adventure".
Being that I am neurotic enough for everyone I know, let's not focus on the negative, just wish me luck.
And if you want a damn post card, you better send me your address.
dimanche, décembre 25, 2005
today please...
have a wonderful day. Whatever you choose to celebrate.
Even if you've got nothing-celebrate vicariously, through me, because I finished the moehair monstrosity. And it doesn't look half bad.
As usual I have nothing profound to relate, I just hope that whoever reads this is surrounded by people who love them, lots of food and wine, and music.
Even if you've got nothing-celebrate vicariously, through me, because I finished the moehair monstrosity. And it doesn't look half bad.
As usual I have nothing profound to relate, I just hope that whoever reads this is surrounded by people who love them, lots of food and wine, and music.
mercredi, décembre 21, 2005
ethics
la famille was out to dinner on Sunday.
A friend of mine, and the daughter of the family who were feeding us, is working on her PhD. She's doing something related to business ethics.
She taught her first university course this past semester and was regaling us with anecdotes of university scholarship.
The best one concerned plagiarism.
She had a student lift his entire term paper from the internet. Which is not actually that funny.
Except that the course was on ethics!
A friend of mine, and the daughter of the family who were feeding us, is working on her PhD. She's doing something related to business ethics.
She taught her first university course this past semester and was regaling us with anecdotes of university scholarship.
The best one concerned plagiarism.
She had a student lift his entire term paper from the internet. Which is not actually that funny.
Except that the course was on ethics!
mercredi, décembre 14, 2005
poetry-life-poetry
(with great thanks à János...such a necessary reminder right now.)
"...Ah poems amount to so little when you write them too early in life. You ought to wait and gather sense and sweetness for a whole lifetime, and a long one if possible, and then, at the very end, you might perhaps be able to write ten good lines. For poems are not, as people think, simply emotions (one has emotions early enough)- they are experiences. For the sake of a single poem, you must see many cities, many people and Things, you must understand animals, must feel how birds fly, and know the gestures which small flowers make when they open in the morning. You must be able to think back to streets in unknown neighborhoods, to unexpected encounters, and to partings you had long seen coming: to days of childhood whose mystery is still unexplained, to parents whom you had to hurt when they brought in a joy and you didn’t pick it up (it was a joy meant for someone else-); to childhood illnesses that began so strangely with so many profound and difficult transformations, to days in quiet, restrained rooms and to mornings by the sea, to the sea itself, to seas, to nights of travel that’s rushed along high overhead and went flying with all the stars,- and it is still not enough to be able to think of all that. You must have memories of many nights of love, each one different from all the others, memories of woman screaming in labour, and of light, pale, sleeping girls who have just given birth and are closing again. But you must also have been beside the dying, must have sat beside the dead in the room with the open window and the scattered noises. And it is not yet enough to have memories. You must be able to forget them when they are many, and you must have the immense patience to wait until they return. For the memories themselves are not important. Only when they have changed into our very blood, into glance and gesture, and are nameless, no longer to be distinguished from ourselves- only then can it happen that in some very rare hour the first word of a poem arises in their midst and goes forth from them."
"...Ah poems amount to so little when you write them too early in life. You ought to wait and gather sense and sweetness for a whole lifetime, and a long one if possible, and then, at the very end, you might perhaps be able to write ten good lines. For poems are not, as people think, simply emotions (one has emotions early enough)- they are experiences. For the sake of a single poem, you must see many cities, many people and Things, you must understand animals, must feel how birds fly, and know the gestures which small flowers make when they open in the morning. You must be able to think back to streets in unknown neighborhoods, to unexpected encounters, and to partings you had long seen coming: to days of childhood whose mystery is still unexplained, to parents whom you had to hurt when they brought in a joy and you didn’t pick it up (it was a joy meant for someone else-); to childhood illnesses that began so strangely with so many profound and difficult transformations, to days in quiet, restrained rooms and to mornings by the sea, to the sea itself, to seas, to nights of travel that’s rushed along high overhead and went flying with all the stars,- and it is still not enough to be able to think of all that. You must have memories of many nights of love, each one different from all the others, memories of woman screaming in labour, and of light, pale, sleeping girls who have just given birth and are closing again. But you must also have been beside the dying, must have sat beside the dead in the room with the open window and the scattered noises. And it is not yet enough to have memories. You must be able to forget them when they are many, and you must have the immense patience to wait until they return. For the memories themselves are not important. Only when they have changed into our very blood, into glance and gesture, and are nameless, no longer to be distinguished from ourselves- only then can it happen that in some very rare hour the first word of a poem arises in their midst and goes forth from them."
lundi, décembre 12, 2005
brief joys
-painting clay penguins
-Tracy Chapman singing "Never Yours"
-flying down a rolling hill, half blinded by late afternoon sun, the wind in my face and the snow sizzling under my skis
-sleep. Long, uninterrupted, sleep.
-watching the sun inch over the mountains across the lake, the golden wash of light spreading over the valley...
-Tracy Chapman singing "Never Yours"
-flying down a rolling hill, half blinded by late afternoon sun, the wind in my face and the snow sizzling under my skis
-sleep. Long, uninterrupted, sleep.
-watching the sun inch over the mountains across the lake, the golden wash of light spreading over the valley...
vendredi, décembre 09, 2005
my newly cut hair looks like...
...the love child of Chewbacca and Jennifer Aniston circa 1993.
Trust me, people, when I tell you that this was not the look that I was going for.
Fortunately, as the owner of the tutoring business that I work for pointed out, I don't get out much. (She made this comment after I spent 5 minutes expounding on the greatness of a cbc radio documentary I heard last night about the history and political culture of Alberta. Given the fact that I was both enthusiastic and mentioning Alberta and Politics in the same sentence I am surprised that she didn't immediately conclude that I was drunk.)
Thus, few people will ever see the hideosity.
In other news:
-yes, Jeremy, I probably did misspell Chewbacca... I don't care.
-I am dealing with my mental meltdown in the best of WASPy ways: total denial. No, I am not terrified of the distance. Yes, I love the fact that I have no plans after the next 6 months.
-Christmas knitting is continuing apace. By which I mean that I don't have a hope in hell of finishing what I planned to finish...Someone will doubtless find me mummified in red moehair yarn sometime around New Years.
Trust me, people, when I tell you that this was not the look that I was going for.
Fortunately, as the owner of the tutoring business that I work for pointed out, I don't get out much. (She made this comment after I spent 5 minutes expounding on the greatness of a cbc radio documentary I heard last night about the history and political culture of Alberta. Given the fact that I was both enthusiastic and mentioning Alberta and Politics in the same sentence I am surprised that she didn't immediately conclude that I was drunk.)
Thus, few people will ever see the hideosity.
In other news:
-yes, Jeremy, I probably did misspell Chewbacca... I don't care.
-I am dealing with my mental meltdown in the best of WASPy ways: total denial. No, I am not terrified of the distance. Yes, I love the fact that I have no plans after the next 6 months.
-Christmas knitting is continuing apace. By which I mean that I don't have a hope in hell of finishing what I planned to finish...Someone will doubtless find me mummified in red moehair yarn sometime around New Years.
lundi, décembre 05, 2005
crash and burn
In classic fashion, I have managed in the past two days to nosedive off the bandwagon of my staid little life. It's nothing serious, and I will pull myself together directly, but it's always alarming when I realize how self destructive I can actually be.
This all sounds very melodramatic and overwrought. Which is fine, because it is how I feel right now. I'll probably recant the whole thing tomorrow!
I don't handle change very well. Even if I am not happy in my current incarnation, and it's certainly been the autumn of my discontent, change in the equilibrium scares me. I knew the whirlwind would start in late November when my parents arrived back from their holidays, that it would intensify when my dear brother returns from kangaroo land, and that Christmas week itself would be stuffed full of relatives, friends, food, and noise. I was hoping that the chaos would distract me from niggling doubts about my choice to leave everything familiar and move to a place where there is one flight out per week, and long distance phone rates are astronomical; or the rising ball of hysteria that rises in my throat every time I think about applying for a master's program.
This too shall pass, and I guess once I am on the plane I will have the choice to settle down or spontaneously combust.
This all sounds very melodramatic and overwrought. Which is fine, because it is how I feel right now. I'll probably recant the whole thing tomorrow!
I don't handle change very well. Even if I am not happy in my current incarnation, and it's certainly been the autumn of my discontent, change in the equilibrium scares me. I knew the whirlwind would start in late November when my parents arrived back from their holidays, that it would intensify when my dear brother returns from kangaroo land, and that Christmas week itself would be stuffed full of relatives, friends, food, and noise. I was hoping that the chaos would distract me from niggling doubts about my choice to leave everything familiar and move to a place where there is one flight out per week, and long distance phone rates are astronomical; or the rising ball of hysteria that rises in my throat every time I think about applying for a master's program.
This too shall pass, and I guess once I am on the plane I will have the choice to settle down or spontaneously combust.
samedi, novembre 26, 2005
In which our heroine learns some valuable lessons
1)that now that the parentals are home, any desire to use the automobile must be submitted in writing not later than 48 hours before the desired time of departure. All applications must be completed in triplicate and filed well in advance of the aforementioned 48 hour consultation period. Success is never guaranteed and furthermore, acceptance of application may be terminated at any time prior to the automobile actually pulling out of the driveway. Termination of this kind will often be accompanied with an explanation such as "We need to do some errands, you are welcome to come if you like," or "I'd forgotten that you had mentioned that, [desire to use auto]can't you do it later?"
2)The feelings accompanying knitting lace are akin to being stretched on a medieval rack for the duration of the project.
3)Attempting to knit one's first lace pattern using moehair yarn is frankly, insane. Whoever is stupid enough to think this is a good idea deserves to be tortured (on a rack maybe?)...
4) There was a fourth, but I am about to run out and try to snag the car in my 15 second window of opportunity....
2)The feelings accompanying knitting lace are akin to being stretched on a medieval rack for the duration of the project.
3)Attempting to knit one's first lace pattern using moehair yarn is frankly, insane. Whoever is stupid enough to think this is a good idea deserves to be tortured (on a rack maybe?)...
4) There was a fourth, but I am about to run out and try to snag the car in my 15 second window of opportunity....
samedi, novembre 19, 2005
jeudi, novembre 17, 2005
Surcharge
I consider myself a nice little social democrat who sees the purpose of taxation (to fund public infrastructure and programs not covered by the invisible hand) and does not really get bent out of shape about paying 1/3 of my wages into the coffers of (a possibly corrupt) government.
That being said. There is a limit.
I was at the local Canada Post outlet this afternoon, shipping parcels of love and affection to some dear friends, and the clerk asked if I wanted to keep my receipt. Out of habit I said yes.
I glanced at it in the car (to figure out how I just spent $16.43 on postage for 3 small parcels,) and noticed that under the total for the parcel that was sent to Montreal, a small typewritten line informed me that a fuel surcharge of $0.65 had been applied.
There are a plethora of reasons that this small line of type caused me to go from mellow to apoplectic rage in less than 2 seconds. Here are a few of them:
1. The surcharge only applied to the parcel sent within Canada. The stuff sent to Brazil and the UK, destinations much further away and thus probably using slightly more fuel, had no such vile surcharge applied.
2. The above point makes me wonder if fuel used within Canada is somehow more expensive to use than if the same fuel was used in another country. As though it magically gains value when it crosses the 49th parallel. That or Ralph Klein is papering his walls with twenty dollar bills at the expense of the rest of the country. Come to think of it, the prior two hypotheses may not be mutually exclusive...
3. I can deal with fuel surcharges when I AM ACTUALLY CONSUMING THE FUEL BEING USED. The ferries add surcharges, so do airlines. This makes sense to me because I am actually on the vessel using the fuel. I am not on the Canada Post plane/bus/truck that is taking my parcel to the other side of the country, thus I am not actually using that fuel. The company is. A company that is totally subsidized by the government and thus which already has my money going into it... The evil bastards at CP are therefore making me pay for their fuel twice: once in my taxes and once when I use their service.
4. On top of the indignity of #1-3, the thing that really made me shoot fiery rage out my nostrils was that the clerk informed me that standard shipping to send my parcel from BC to Montreal would take 7-10 days. At this rate of speed, I am convinced that Canada Post has abandoned fuel powered vehicles all together and has reverted to horse and carts. Or sleighs for winter. Which begs the question as to the necessity of a fuel surcharge in the first place... Wouldn't it be more efficient to ask for donations of hay and apples for the horses?
7-10 days. Seriously. I could walk there faster.
That being said. There is a limit.
I was at the local Canada Post outlet this afternoon, shipping parcels of love and affection to some dear friends, and the clerk asked if I wanted to keep my receipt. Out of habit I said yes.
I glanced at it in the car (to figure out how I just spent $16.43 on postage for 3 small parcels,) and noticed that under the total for the parcel that was sent to Montreal, a small typewritten line informed me that a fuel surcharge of $0.65 had been applied.
There are a plethora of reasons that this small line of type caused me to go from mellow to apoplectic rage in less than 2 seconds. Here are a few of them:
1. The surcharge only applied to the parcel sent within Canada. The stuff sent to Brazil and the UK, destinations much further away and thus probably using slightly more fuel, had no such vile surcharge applied.
2. The above point makes me wonder if fuel used within Canada is somehow more expensive to use than if the same fuel was used in another country. As though it magically gains value when it crosses the 49th parallel. That or Ralph Klein is papering his walls with twenty dollar bills at the expense of the rest of the country. Come to think of it, the prior two hypotheses may not be mutually exclusive...
3. I can deal with fuel surcharges when I AM ACTUALLY CONSUMING THE FUEL BEING USED. The ferries add surcharges, so do airlines. This makes sense to me because I am actually on the vessel using the fuel. I am not on the Canada Post plane/bus/truck that is taking my parcel to the other side of the country, thus I am not actually using that fuel. The company is. A company that is totally subsidized by the government and thus which already has my money going into it... The evil bastards at CP are therefore making me pay for their fuel twice: once in my taxes and once when I use their service.
4. On top of the indignity of #1-3, the thing that really made me shoot fiery rage out my nostrils was that the clerk informed me that standard shipping to send my parcel from BC to Montreal would take 7-10 days. At this rate of speed, I am convinced that Canada Post has abandoned fuel powered vehicles all together and has reverted to horse and carts. Or sleighs for winter. Which begs the question as to the necessity of a fuel surcharge in the first place... Wouldn't it be more efficient to ask for donations of hay and apples for the horses?
7-10 days. Seriously. I could walk there faster.
mercredi, novembre 16, 2005
The countdown is on...
... on so many levels.
one week until the parentals arrive back from their respective adventures. The 23 year old part of me is quite excited to have them back: no more grocery bills, sometimes my laundry will be done for me, people to talk to in the house other than the cat and the voices in my head. The 3 year old inside of me is screaming "What did you bring me? What did you bring me? Presentspresentspresents!!!"
Hopefully we can get her under control sometime in the next seven days.
Also one week until the great MEC pilgrimage whereupon I will equip myself for the approaching travels while trying not to terrify the sales staff with my addiction to goretex, polypro long underwear, and any type of footwear. Pray for them, for they know not what is about to descend upon them.
Four weeks until the petit frere arrives from his year of insanity. I am so, so excited to see him, but I am also kind of freaking out about a Christmas present for him. If it is going to be knitted I'd better sort it out and start the sucker now.
(knitting update: the cabled scarf is finished and on its way to the recipient. The alligator mittens are blocked, but I need to figure out how to make french knots for the teeth... And I got a fair amount of a touque (for me) finished this morning as I waited for the snow tires to be attached to the car.)
And Seven weeks until I depart for the bottom of the world. The Falklander is en route to South Georgia to count birdies, and I am counting the days until I can terrorize the population of las Malvinas.
Is it any surprise that I am not getting much done? I just sit on the chesterfield (hahaha, such a canadian term) and count days on my fingers.
one week until the parentals arrive back from their respective adventures. The 23 year old part of me is quite excited to have them back: no more grocery bills, sometimes my laundry will be done for me, people to talk to in the house other than the cat and the voices in my head. The 3 year old inside of me is screaming "What did you bring me? What did you bring me? Presentspresentspresents!!!"
Hopefully we can get her under control sometime in the next seven days.
Also one week until the great MEC pilgrimage whereupon I will equip myself for the approaching travels while trying not to terrify the sales staff with my addiction to goretex, polypro long underwear, and any type of footwear. Pray for them, for they know not what is about to descend upon them.
Four weeks until the petit frere arrives from his year of insanity. I am so, so excited to see him, but I am also kind of freaking out about a Christmas present for him. If it is going to be knitted I'd better sort it out and start the sucker now.
(knitting update: the cabled scarf is finished and on its way to the recipient. The alligator mittens are blocked, but I need to figure out how to make french knots for the teeth... And I got a fair amount of a touque (for me) finished this morning as I waited for the snow tires to be attached to the car.)
And Seven weeks until I depart for the bottom of the world. The Falklander is en route to South Georgia to count birdies, and I am counting the days until I can terrorize the population of las Malvinas.
Is it any surprise that I am not getting much done? I just sit on the chesterfield (hahaha, such a canadian term) and count days on my fingers.
vendredi, novembre 11, 2005
How to make me laugh...
...out loud, so hard that I almost shot juice out my nose.
Send me a postcard that instructs one how to "survive adrift on a life raft."
"You are more likely to die of exposure or hypothermia than of anything else."
hahahhahaha!
Send me a postcard that instructs one how to "survive adrift on a life raft."
"You are more likely to die of exposure or hypothermia than of anything else."
hahahhahaha!
jeudi, novembre 10, 2005
obsessed
A small indication that I may in fact knit too much:
Recently, the restaurant has been pretty slow. So slow in fact, that we did not have any tables before noon today. As much as I love standing around and making minimum wage for breathing, I tend to want a little something more out of life. The mitten I am knitting fits perfectly into the front pocket of my work apron. I can knit during the slow periods and quickly stash it when guests make an appearance.
I finished the mitten this afternoon. I am a genius.
Recently, the restaurant has been pretty slow. So slow in fact, that we did not have any tables before noon today. As much as I love standing around and making minimum wage for breathing, I tend to want a little something more out of life. The mitten I am knitting fits perfectly into the front pocket of my work apron. I can knit during the slow periods and quickly stash it when guests make an appearance.
I finished the mitten this afternoon. I am a genius.
vendredi, novembre 04, 2005
Do not choose a coward's explanation...
...that hides behind the cause and the effect.
You sent me Leonard Cohen and made me weep in the middle of the morning.
And now, sitting here 36 hours later, still drained and feeling like my skin has been rubbed raw, I am trying to think it all through. There is so much I want to say to you but at the same time I wonder about the point of it all. So I will write it down here... in a semi public forum... in half formed thoughts and cryptic phrases. Cowardly, yes. But you do it too- just in verse, and thus think of these sentences as my stanzas.
"Damn you for being so content and reserved in your satisfaction elsewhere, and damn you for not fawning over me for the rest of your entire life..."
I won't fawn over you for the rest of my life-I think too highly of you to do that. And debating my levels of contentment and reservation could go on for ever. And it's all mental masturbation anyway: a pleasure occurring only after prolonged periods of narcissitic introspection.
I wonder about the value of digging through the debris of two years worth of memories to get at a dozen moments of pure joy. On the one hand, my moments of joy are held apart by months, years even. Allowing the mess of everyday sift overtop of them leaves me with a mind of memorytape unwinding in my skull like an analogue tape that a two year old got a hold of. I should keep my joy near at hand, to be taken twice daily as an antidote for mundanity and mediocrity.
On the other hand, I will go to great lengths to avoid pain. And all the rememberings of our good times eventually slide into how we lost our respective grips and how childish we were, and how-though I am not lonely for the whole relationship-I would like to sink into one of our endless Sunday afternoons like a warm bath.
That picture of a girl looking over her shoulder in a parking lot somewhere in Conneticut, I don't even recognize her. She looks like someone I could be friends with, but there's no pulling of heartstings when I see my two-years-ago self glancing over her shoulder daring the two-years-ago you to catch her in the act.
I don't even have a stable mental image of you. You reinvent-adapt to circumstances. No loitering for you. Movement. Progress.
You pointed out that we weren't friends, and you are right. We weren't. I think part of the reason I can't disengage myself from you is that I have no label for what we were. I can't find the right branding iron to cauterize that ten months of existence. Lovers? it says too little and too much at the same time.
It's why I am wary of a friendship with you now. She who builds her house on quicksand should not be surprised when she is sucked back in.
If we could go back and play the film again, would we edit? Would we ask the actors to be kinder to each other and a little less like vipers? Would we change to more flattering lighting? Alter the beginning and ending to create a full plot arc? Would we fastforward to the crisp winter mornings, running for the bus or up the Main, holding hands and pelting along like the world would end if we stopped... our breath coming in jagged gasps...
I can't help you with the solitude and loneliness. If it means anything, know that I have been there too: Surrounded by people, unfamiliar sounds shooting out of every throat, judged on appearance, personality ignored. It is hard and you will survive. Something inside of me aches in recognition when you described the alienation.
Damn you too.
You sent me Leonard Cohen and made me weep in the middle of the morning.
And now, sitting here 36 hours later, still drained and feeling like my skin has been rubbed raw, I am trying to think it all through. There is so much I want to say to you but at the same time I wonder about the point of it all. So I will write it down here... in a semi public forum... in half formed thoughts and cryptic phrases. Cowardly, yes. But you do it too- just in verse, and thus think of these sentences as my stanzas.
"Damn you for being so content and reserved in your satisfaction elsewhere, and damn you for not fawning over me for the rest of your entire life..."
I won't fawn over you for the rest of my life-I think too highly of you to do that. And debating my levels of contentment and reservation could go on for ever. And it's all mental masturbation anyway: a pleasure occurring only after prolonged periods of narcissitic introspection.
I wonder about the value of digging through the debris of two years worth of memories to get at a dozen moments of pure joy. On the one hand, my moments of joy are held apart by months, years even. Allowing the mess of everyday sift overtop of them leaves me with a mind of memorytape unwinding in my skull like an analogue tape that a two year old got a hold of. I should keep my joy near at hand, to be taken twice daily as an antidote for mundanity and mediocrity.
On the other hand, I will go to great lengths to avoid pain. And all the rememberings of our good times eventually slide into how we lost our respective grips and how childish we were, and how-though I am not lonely for the whole relationship-I would like to sink into one of our endless Sunday afternoons like a warm bath.
That picture of a girl looking over her shoulder in a parking lot somewhere in Conneticut, I don't even recognize her. She looks like someone I could be friends with, but there's no pulling of heartstings when I see my two-years-ago self glancing over her shoulder daring the two-years-ago you to catch her in the act.
I don't even have a stable mental image of you. You reinvent-adapt to circumstances. No loitering for you. Movement. Progress.
You pointed out that we weren't friends, and you are right. We weren't. I think part of the reason I can't disengage myself from you is that I have no label for what we were. I can't find the right branding iron to cauterize that ten months of existence. Lovers? it says too little and too much at the same time.
It's why I am wary of a friendship with you now. She who builds her house on quicksand should not be surprised when she is sucked back in.
If we could go back and play the film again, would we edit? Would we ask the actors to be kinder to each other and a little less like vipers? Would we change to more flattering lighting? Alter the beginning and ending to create a full plot arc? Would we fastforward to the crisp winter mornings, running for the bus or up the Main, holding hands and pelting along like the world would end if we stopped... our breath coming in jagged gasps...
I can't help you with the solitude and loneliness. If it means anything, know that I have been there too: Surrounded by people, unfamiliar sounds shooting out of every throat, judged on appearance, personality ignored. It is hard and you will survive. Something inside of me aches in recognition when you described the alienation.
Damn you too.
mardi, novembre 01, 2005
Sanitization
When I was little enough to be stuffed into a cat/princess/witch/gypsie costume and paraded around our street, clutching a pillowcase that gradually filled with the largest amount of chocolate my little eyes had ever seen in once place, sixty to seventy children would tramp up to our front door. "Trick or treat!" they'd yell in squeaky little voices, and we would capitulate by dumping peanuts and caramilk bars into their pillowcases. I don't think any of us ever thought of a trick to play if anyone refused candy. Our brains were so loaded up with a pre-emptive sugar high that we could think of nothing other than "candycandycandycandy..."
This year, the first I have spent at my childhood home in six years, we had 12 trick or treaters. 12. I was so disappointed. Also, I had about 36 liters of candy just sitting in the front hall like a predatory wild beast.
As I sat there, with my friend R, waiting for the non-existent hoards of costumed beasties, we got to wondering about the decline. Was it just a function of my neighborhood aging, of the kids growing up and moving on to Halloween parties where they dressed up like naughty nurses and drank orange punch out of bowl?
Possibly, but certainly not the whole story.
The real culprit, we decided, was the Evil Subdivision. The Subdivision exists as a sprawling ring of stucco houses on treeless lots that encircles the older part of the neighborhood in which I live. The older area has architecturally different houses that were built over a period of 20 years. The yards are large and individual and full of gardens and pine trees. There are no sidewalks, but the roads are wide with large shoulders. There are no streetlights, but all of the houses have porch lights.
The Evil Subdivision went up almost overnight. All the houses look the same, the only trees are ornamental because the developers bulldozed the whole area at the outset of construction. Ornamental lawns are good. Chaotic perennial borders are not. These places have a front walk slicing through the sidewalk every 3 meters. There are streetlights.
While I do understand the attraction of closely spaced, well lit houses to both wary parents and candy hungry kiddies, I think it is fundamentally wrong to attempt to sanitize Halloween.
It is supposed to be a dark and scary night.
You are supposed to hear unexplained howls in the darkness.
Subdivisions suck out the mystery of life. Be wary.
This year, the first I have spent at my childhood home in six years, we had 12 trick or treaters. 12. I was so disappointed. Also, I had about 36 liters of candy just sitting in the front hall like a predatory wild beast.
As I sat there, with my friend R, waiting for the non-existent hoards of costumed beasties, we got to wondering about the decline. Was it just a function of my neighborhood aging, of the kids growing up and moving on to Halloween parties where they dressed up like naughty nurses and drank orange punch out of bowl?
Possibly, but certainly not the whole story.
The real culprit, we decided, was the Evil Subdivision. The Subdivision exists as a sprawling ring of stucco houses on treeless lots that encircles the older part of the neighborhood in which I live. The older area has architecturally different houses that were built over a period of 20 years. The yards are large and individual and full of gardens and pine trees. There are no sidewalks, but the roads are wide with large shoulders. There are no streetlights, but all of the houses have porch lights.
The Evil Subdivision went up almost overnight. All the houses look the same, the only trees are ornamental because the developers bulldozed the whole area at the outset of construction. Ornamental lawns are good. Chaotic perennial borders are not. These places have a front walk slicing through the sidewalk every 3 meters. There are streetlights.
While I do understand the attraction of closely spaced, well lit houses to both wary parents and candy hungry kiddies, I think it is fundamentally wrong to attempt to sanitize Halloween.
It is supposed to be a dark and scary night.
You are supposed to hear unexplained howls in the darkness.
Subdivisions suck out the mystery of life. Be wary.
jeudi, octobre 20, 2005
Unrealistic Expectation:
To think that someone, anyone in a position of authority at the restaurant would have realized that if the menu changes, new menus must be printed.
This realization (if it indeed occurred) would be expected to arise sometime before 45 minutes before the restaurant opened for the day.
A small footnote to this unreality would be that the chef (who is the grand architect of the menu changement) would take some responsibility for the colossal fuck up (at some point in chef-school they must cover the infintessimal detail that overhauling the menu requires more than just changing the food one orders in for inventory. It also requires one to write down a list and descriptions of the new dishes for the manager to type up as a menu).
THE FRONT END STAFF CANNOT PRINT THE DAMN MENUS IF THE CHEF HAS NOT GIVEN A LIST OF THE NEW MENU ITEMS TO THE FRONT END. WHY IS THIS SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND?!?!!
This realization (if it indeed occurred) would be expected to arise sometime before 45 minutes before the restaurant opened for the day.
A small footnote to this unreality would be that the chef (who is the grand architect of the menu changement) would take some responsibility for the colossal fuck up (at some point in chef-school they must cover the infintessimal detail that overhauling the menu requires more than just changing the food one orders in for inventory. It also requires one to write down a list and descriptions of the new dishes for the manager to type up as a menu).
THE FRONT END STAFF CANNOT PRINT THE DAMN MENUS IF THE CHEF HAS NOT GIVEN A LIST OF THE NEW MENU ITEMS TO THE FRONT END. WHY IS THIS SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND?!?!!
dimanche, octobre 16, 2005
One day I will learn...
... not to try to knit the fairly complicated cable scarf-that will be a birthday present in less than a month-while watching a film with subtitles.
This kind of hubris can only lead to problems.
This kind of hubris can only lead to problems.
samedi, octobre 15, 2005
Pinterland
Harold Pinter has won the Nobel Prize for literature.
I am so pleased.
IB HL Theatre Arts Individual Project: Directing The Birthday Party.
I have never learned so much about myself and human nature from one rather short piece of literature.
Read his work. Watch his plays. They will transform you.
I am so pleased.
IB HL Theatre Arts Individual Project: Directing The Birthday Party.
I have never learned so much about myself and human nature from one rather short piece of literature.
Read his work. Watch his plays. They will transform you.
vendredi, octobre 14, 2005
We all knew it would lead to this eventually...
I bought shoes on ebay.
Little white and red striped adidas sneakers with blue soles. Quite retro and cool from the .5x.5 inch picture of them on the ebay webpage. And they were in size seven which (I think) is my shoesize.
One click of the "buy now" button and it was history.
This was in August. The falklander had just left and I was feeling a little vulnerable and fragile. I waited for noon every day just so I could walk to the post box and check for my shoes.
They didn't arrive.
I started emailing the seller obsessively, and went so far as to get her contact info from the source and call her in Minneapolis. Nothing. No response. In desperation I reported "an item not received" to ebay and waited for something to happen.
A few days later I got an email from the seller. She had been quite ill and in hospital for much of late August and September and apologized for the delay in sending the shoes, but that they were now on their way.
My first thought was not, "Oh no... I hope she is going to be ok.."
My first thought was "Wow, if she had died I would never have gotten the shoes...that would be horrible."
[we will discuss how I am a horrible, shallow and generally vile human being at a later date.]
The shoes were in the mailbox when I got home from the Family-without-family Thanksgiving extravaganza this past weekend.
Apparently my feet are not size seven-at least according to Adidas. They are more like a six. My orthodics were not created for nothing though, and neither were really heavy wool socks...It's almost winter, about time I started wearing extremely warm socks anyways. If all else fails, I can hand the shoes over to the frere. It wouldn't break my heart.
Whilst in the midst of a small hissy fit over the lack of my ebay shoes, I may have acquired these. Thus far, as there is no concrete shoe-on-foot confirmation that this purchase actually occurred, it is but a vicious rumor.
The first step to conquering an addiction is admitting you have a problem.
Little white and red striped adidas sneakers with blue soles. Quite retro and cool from the .5x.5 inch picture of them on the ebay webpage. And they were in size seven which (I think) is my shoesize.
One click of the "buy now" button and it was history.
This was in August. The falklander had just left and I was feeling a little vulnerable and fragile. I waited for noon every day just so I could walk to the post box and check for my shoes.
They didn't arrive.
I started emailing the seller obsessively, and went so far as to get her contact info from the source and call her in Minneapolis. Nothing. No response. In desperation I reported "an item not received" to ebay and waited for something to happen.
A few days later I got an email from the seller. She had been quite ill and in hospital for much of late August and September and apologized for the delay in sending the shoes, but that they were now on their way.
My first thought was not, "Oh no... I hope she is going to be ok.."
My first thought was "Wow, if she had died I would never have gotten the shoes...that would be horrible."
[we will discuss how I am a horrible, shallow and generally vile human being at a later date.]
The shoes were in the mailbox when I got home from the Family-without-family Thanksgiving extravaganza this past weekend.
Apparently my feet are not size seven-at least according to Adidas. They are more like a six. My orthodics were not created for nothing though, and neither were really heavy wool socks...It's almost winter, about time I started wearing extremely warm socks anyways. If all else fails, I can hand the shoes over to the frere. It wouldn't break my heart.
Whilst in the midst of a small hissy fit over the lack of my ebay shoes, I may have acquired these. Thus far, as there is no concrete shoe-on-foot confirmation that this purchase actually occurred, it is but a vicious rumor.
The first step to conquering an addiction is admitting you have a problem.
samedi, octobre 08, 2005
What they don't teach you in Chef school...
is how to count, apparently.
Which is why I really shouldn't be surprised when, in the middle of running the 3rd course of a 5 course dinner to the restaurant owner, his financial partners, and 12 food and wine writers, I come into the back to pick up my last two plates of salmon and find them non-existent. Odd, because when I left the kitchen a mere 30 seconds before there were two little salmon filets in the last pan, waiting to be plated.
I look at the executive chef and the sous, searching their faces for an explanation. Maybe they plated the last two very quickly and sent them out with another server and I didn't notice.
Or... maybe they didn't count their plates and decided that they were done plating without checking with me. And maybe they didn't want to waste any fish. And maybe the salmon in between their teeth, slowly being masticated and digested when it should be on a plate in my hands and heading out to the last two people without dinners at the FREAKIN VIP TABLE!!!!!!!
It is for moments like these that the phrase "actually, just insert the most foul epithet you can think of here... If I try to think something up I'll just get apoplectic again..." was invented.
More than anything it is the pure stupidity that drives me round the bend.
Which is why I really shouldn't be surprised when, in the middle of running the 3rd course of a 5 course dinner to the restaurant owner, his financial partners, and 12 food and wine writers, I come into the back to pick up my last two plates of salmon and find them non-existent. Odd, because when I left the kitchen a mere 30 seconds before there were two little salmon filets in the last pan, waiting to be plated.
I look at the executive chef and the sous, searching their faces for an explanation. Maybe they plated the last two very quickly and sent them out with another server and I didn't notice.
Or... maybe they didn't count their plates and decided that they were done plating without checking with me. And maybe they didn't want to waste any fish. And maybe the salmon in between their teeth, slowly being masticated and digested when it should be on a plate in my hands and heading out to the last two people without dinners at the FREAKIN VIP TABLE!!!!!!!
It is for moments like these that the phrase "actually, just insert the most foul epithet you can think of here... If I try to think something up I'll just get apoplectic again..." was invented.
More than anything it is the pure stupidity that drives me round the bend.
jeudi, octobre 06, 2005
Under Pressure
(this post should be read with the sweet strains of Queen pulsing in the background)
Never let it be said that I do not take deadlines seriously. I do. I place them high up on golden pedestals, and promptly ignore them until 48 hours before they arrive.
My entire university career was based on this method of time management, and it is good to realize that I have not abandoned it simply because I have a degree now.
The first major instance of deadline-avoidance-stress-and-minor-meltdown occurred earlier this summer when I realized, 4 days before a wedding that I had known about for 6 months, that I had nothing to wear. Obviously the only solution was to sew myself a dress using sari fabric that used to be my curtains (hello Scarlett!) and also modify the entire bodice of the pattern. I got the dress finished on the ferry ride to Vancouver Island 4 hours before the holy ceremony of matrimony began, and the final touches (cutting the tulle crinoline to the correct length) were performed by the most wonderful of all wonderful Falklanders whilst I stood, wearing the grape coloured concoction, on a chair in the middle of my grandfather's kitchen, a mere 5 minutes before we had to leave for the church. The dress actually looked quite hot, despite the picture of curtains and tulle that is most likely running rampant in your sick little heads.
More recently, I offered to sew up some curtains for my friend and her roommate so that the stalker, when he is let out of jail, can no longer stare into their kitchen all evening. My friend is smarter than I thought. She gave me all the materials and then invited me to an "orphan" Thanksgiving Dinner, this upcoming Friday evening. There is no way I can attend the dinner if the curtains are not finished. There is no way that I will finish the curtains in the next 48 hours given the fact that I worked a double today, and have another tomorrow and I work Friday morning. Did I forget to mention that I offered to bake pumpkin pies as well?
Something has to give. I have a feeling it will be that annoying biological necessity: sleep.
PS: The curtains are a fairly simple premise...4 black rectangles with a smaller rectangle of red printed material appliqued on top. There should be about a 2 inch black border around the outside of the applique if the black fabric is straight. It's not. In fact, it is so NOT FREAKIN' STRAIGHT that I keep gnashing my teeth and muttering curses under my breath about its lack of straightness and I am worried that someone will overhear me and plunk me in a diversity awareness workshop.
She's gonna be getting some pretty warped curtains. Right angle corners are for chumps.
Never let it be said that I do not take deadlines seriously. I do. I place them high up on golden pedestals, and promptly ignore them until 48 hours before they arrive.
My entire university career was based on this method of time management, and it is good to realize that I have not abandoned it simply because I have a degree now.
The first major instance of deadline-avoidance-stress-and-minor-meltdown occurred earlier this summer when I realized, 4 days before a wedding that I had known about for 6 months, that I had nothing to wear. Obviously the only solution was to sew myself a dress using sari fabric that used to be my curtains (hello Scarlett!) and also modify the entire bodice of the pattern. I got the dress finished on the ferry ride to Vancouver Island 4 hours before the holy ceremony of matrimony began, and the final touches (cutting the tulle crinoline to the correct length) were performed by the most wonderful of all wonderful Falklanders whilst I stood, wearing the grape coloured concoction, on a chair in the middle of my grandfather's kitchen, a mere 5 minutes before we had to leave for the church. The dress actually looked quite hot, despite the picture of curtains and tulle that is most likely running rampant in your sick little heads.
More recently, I offered to sew up some curtains for my friend and her roommate so that the stalker, when he is let out of jail, can no longer stare into their kitchen all evening. My friend is smarter than I thought. She gave me all the materials and then invited me to an "orphan" Thanksgiving Dinner, this upcoming Friday evening. There is no way I can attend the dinner if the curtains are not finished. There is no way that I will finish the curtains in the next 48 hours given the fact that I worked a double today, and have another tomorrow and I work Friday morning. Did I forget to mention that I offered to bake pumpkin pies as well?
Something has to give. I have a feeling it will be that annoying biological necessity: sleep.
PS: The curtains are a fairly simple premise...4 black rectangles with a smaller rectangle of red printed material appliqued on top. There should be about a 2 inch black border around the outside of the applique if the black fabric is straight. It's not. In fact, it is so NOT FREAKIN' STRAIGHT that I keep gnashing my teeth and muttering curses under my breath about its lack of straightness and I am worried that someone will overhear me and plunk me in a diversity awareness workshop.
She's gonna be getting some pretty warped curtains. Right angle corners are for chumps.
mercredi, octobre 05, 2005
Watched
Mostly Martha
My Life Without Me
The Shipping News
Yes, I have too much time on my hands. But, these are excellent films that you all should watch. Right now. Go. To the video store.
My Life Without Me
The Shipping News
Yes, I have too much time on my hands. But, these are excellent films that you all should watch. Right now. Go. To the video store.
vendredi, septembre 30, 2005
lundi, septembre 26, 2005
Inheritance
Some families have jewels. Others have artwork, sets of porcelain dinnerware, property, cars, motorcycles, that form the bulk of the family assets. Actually, all of the aforementioned things are held onto by my particular family with two clenched fists,-for the record, we hoard...we don't distribute- but one asset stands above all the rest.
The Geraniums.
Actually, they are Pellargoniums: true geraniums are strictly annuals, but our family geraniums have been around since well before my time. I think my grandmother had insano geraniums and gave cuttings to my mother at some point (or this could be the story of the christmas cactuses...but it all works out to the same thing: I kill the plants and I am as good as dead,) and since that point the geraniums have thrived in the Has/Wil Ent. household.
They are beautiful plants, mature beings that completely fill 5 gallon planters with only a little bacopa to round out the edges.
About 5 minutes before my darling mother embarked upon her grand adventure she said something about bringing in the sensitive plants inside before the first frost. I think I may have written down which plants were deemed "sensitive", but clearly the most important were the geraniums.
If I kill them, the entire 23 years of my life is a mere blip on the radar of humanity. I will have committed geranium genocide.
So last night it was supposed to have dipped to 1C. That is 1 degree above freezing. And this is according to the dodgy CBC. (Can one with Liberal sypmathies ever really trust them again?) In true mature: I-can-take-care-of-a-whole-house style, instead of hauling the plants inside I invited a bunch of girls over to drink and hottub.
This evening the plants don't look dead. But I'm not taking any chances. No Protestant universe that I know will allow me to drink away two nights without consequences when the plants could be suffering.
They are all inside now. All ten planters that had geraniums in them. And the fuschia, for good measure. I am pretty sure that not all the geraniums are intimately acquainted with my inheritance, I'm not taking any chances though. They were suprisingly light to haul inside. Their lightness has nothing to do with my total abandonment of plant watering in the last 3 weeks. No, of course not.
The Geraniums.
Actually, they are Pellargoniums: true geraniums are strictly annuals, but our family geraniums have been around since well before my time. I think my grandmother had insano geraniums and gave cuttings to my mother at some point (or this could be the story of the christmas cactuses...but it all works out to the same thing: I kill the plants and I am as good as dead,) and since that point the geraniums have thrived in the Has/Wil Ent. household.
They are beautiful plants, mature beings that completely fill 5 gallon planters with only a little bacopa to round out the edges.
About 5 minutes before my darling mother embarked upon her grand adventure she said something about bringing in the sensitive plants inside before the first frost. I think I may have written down which plants were deemed "sensitive", but clearly the most important were the geraniums.
If I kill them, the entire 23 years of my life is a mere blip on the radar of humanity. I will have committed geranium genocide.
So last night it was supposed to have dipped to 1C. That is 1 degree above freezing. And this is according to the dodgy CBC. (Can one with Liberal sypmathies ever really trust them again?) In true mature: I-can-take-care-of-a-whole-house style, instead of hauling the plants inside I invited a bunch of girls over to drink and hottub.
This evening the plants don't look dead. But I'm not taking any chances. No Protestant universe that I know will allow me to drink away two nights without consequences when the plants could be suffering.
They are all inside now. All ten planters that had geraniums in them. And the fuschia, for good measure. I am pretty sure that not all the geraniums are intimately acquainted with my inheritance, I'm not taking any chances though. They were suprisingly light to haul inside. Their lightness has nothing to do with my total abandonment of plant watering in the last 3 weeks. No, of course not.
jeudi, septembre 22, 2005
Have you given it your best shot?
Yes, I have.
And now I am quitting. And it feels great.
A word of explanation. I rarely quit anything. I hang on until the bitter end, gritting my teeth and grimacing, destroying my health and mental well being, because I started this and I will finish it. Quitting is for the weak willed, and that certainly doesn't aply to me.
But today, or last night really, while watching TV, the realization came to me in a flash: Nobody is forcing me to keep going. I am not happy with this situation. I can quit. Everyone involved will be happier. My mental well being (such as it is) will be restored. There is no shame in this decision.
The yarn for the leg warmers I am, er.. was knitting was only 3 dollars a ball (which should have been my first clue that it is total and utter rubbish.) Secondly it is acrylic and "fun yarn". A more misleading label has never been created. I cast on the suckers 4 times before surrendering to the hideosity of the yarn and its complete inability to do the most basic of knitting patterns: 2x2 ribbing. So I quit. Or, if you like, I fired the yarn.
This afternoon's excursion is to the yarn store in Duncan. Twice the size of the store at home. It's like a porn shop for knitters.
Stay tuned for my newest love affair: braided cables. Be still my beating heart.
And now I am quitting. And it feels great.
A word of explanation. I rarely quit anything. I hang on until the bitter end, gritting my teeth and grimacing, destroying my health and mental well being, because I started this and I will finish it. Quitting is for the weak willed, and that certainly doesn't aply to me.
But today, or last night really, while watching TV, the realization came to me in a flash: Nobody is forcing me to keep going. I am not happy with this situation. I can quit. Everyone involved will be happier. My mental well being (such as it is) will be restored. There is no shame in this decision.
The yarn for the leg warmers I am, er.. was knitting was only 3 dollars a ball (which should have been my first clue that it is total and utter rubbish.) Secondly it is acrylic and "fun yarn". A more misleading label has never been created. I cast on the suckers 4 times before surrendering to the hideosity of the yarn and its complete inability to do the most basic of knitting patterns: 2x2 ribbing. So I quit. Or, if you like, I fired the yarn.
This afternoon's excursion is to the yarn store in Duncan. Twice the size of the store at home. It's like a porn shop for knitters.
Stay tuned for my newest love affair: braided cables. Be still my beating heart.
mardi, septembre 20, 2005
To the man caught stalking my friends:
Dear Sick Fuck:
I realize that you are quite possibly suffering from a mental illness and need serious treatment, and that the system failed you and that you belong in a home somewhere on serious medication. If this is the case, forgive me for the rampant thrashing of your character that I am about to embark upon. Of course it's not your problem... it's the system.
That being said:
I fail to see how anyone EVER can convince themselves that spying on two women is acceptable behavior. In fact, I am rendered utterly speechless at your audacity of standing on their porch and staring into the kitchen window for TWO HOURS. Of course you weren't doing anything, I know, just watching. Not planning to break into the house later when they were sleeping and fondle them like you did in Town X and Town Y, near here, last month.
I think you are totally and utterly the dregs of society. It is people like you that makes me question my adherence to liberal principles and my adherence to the The Charter. Even in the depths of my imagination I cannot comprehend a way to replicate the subtle violation you perpetrated upon them. Thus, I am relegated to the relatively unsophisticated option of physical torture. If I had my way, I would hurt you physically, maybe with razor blades dipped in Habanero sauce, since there is no way to replicate the amount of terror and insecurity and fear that you have instilled in two of my friends.
You sicken me.
Claire
I realize that you are quite possibly suffering from a mental illness and need serious treatment, and that the system failed you and that you belong in a home somewhere on serious medication. If this is the case, forgive me for the rampant thrashing of your character that I am about to embark upon. Of course it's not your problem... it's the system.
That being said:
I fail to see how anyone EVER can convince themselves that spying on two women is acceptable behavior. In fact, I am rendered utterly speechless at your audacity of standing on their porch and staring into the kitchen window for TWO HOURS. Of course you weren't doing anything, I know, just watching. Not planning to break into the house later when they were sleeping and fondle them like you did in Town X and Town Y, near here, last month.
I think you are totally and utterly the dregs of society. It is people like you that makes me question my adherence to liberal principles and my adherence to the The Charter. Even in the depths of my imagination I cannot comprehend a way to replicate the subtle violation you perpetrated upon them. Thus, I am relegated to the relatively unsophisticated option of physical torture. If I had my way, I would hurt you physically, maybe with razor blades dipped in Habanero sauce, since there is no way to replicate the amount of terror and insecurity and fear that you have instilled in two of my friends.
You sicken me.
Claire
jeudi, septembre 15, 2005
soundtrack 1
The scene: Grey day, the type that should be whiled away in front of the fire, eating soup and reading Wuthering Heights.*
The reality: Grey day barely noticed amid a flurry of house cleaning. Our protaganist wonders why she is cleaning before the party she inadvertently offered to host.
The sountrack: Requiem Op. 48 by Gabriel Faure. Suitably fiery and melancholic: mirroring exactly our protaganist's feelings about aforementioned house cleaning. The Oxford Camareta does a nice version, but really, almost anything will do as long as the soprano isn't warbley. Warbley sopranos should be strangled and/or made to sing alto. Quietly.
*for the record, I've never read WH. But seriously, it has the word "wuthering" in the title... how can it not be good to read on a rainy day?
The reality: Grey day barely noticed amid a flurry of house cleaning. Our protaganist wonders why she is cleaning before the party she inadvertently offered to host.
The sountrack: Requiem Op. 48 by Gabriel Faure. Suitably fiery and melancholic: mirroring exactly our protaganist's feelings about aforementioned house cleaning. The Oxford Camareta does a nice version, but really, almost anything will do as long as the soprano isn't warbley. Warbley sopranos should be strangled and/or made to sing alto. Quietly.
*for the record, I've never read WH. But seriously, it has the word "wuthering" in the title... how can it not be good to read on a rainy day?
mardi, septembre 13, 2005
Paris
this is for my darling neasa, at this very moment moving to Paris to have some spectacular adventures accompanied by red wine, amazing cheese and stylish people. It is also stolen shamelessly from the other newly minted Parisian.
I would like everybody to know that I have been working on being happy for you neas, since you blythely fired off an email which ended 'and Monday I move to Paris,' as if it was the most normal thing in the world to be doing. And, 4 days of battling paralyzing jealousy later, I have succeeded. I am happy for you that you are in Paris. However, more than that, I am happy you will be in Paris in the spring when I will come and sleep on your floor until you kick me out or just stop noticing that I am there, until I become so infused with Paris that I blend right in to the cafe curtains.
I love you so much my dear, and I am awaiting the stories...
"Is this simply the unique perversity of the human heart that it wants (and wants and wants) what it doesn't have--Italian food in Paris, American Jazz in Saint-Germain--and, only when it is about to lose it, returns to the things that drew it to the desire in the first place? Or was there a kind of peace in it too? We would now never be Parisians or integrate; we might not even stay in town more than another eight weeks. Loss, like distance, gives permission for romance. In a better-ordered Vienna, Romeo and Juliet would have grown up to be just another couple at dinner." --Adam Gopnik, Paris to the Moon
I would like everybody to know that I have been working on being happy for you neas, since you blythely fired off an email which ended 'and Monday I move to Paris,' as if it was the most normal thing in the world to be doing. And, 4 days of battling paralyzing jealousy later, I have succeeded. I am happy for you that you are in Paris. However, more than that, I am happy you will be in Paris in the spring when I will come and sleep on your floor until you kick me out or just stop noticing that I am there, until I become so infused with Paris that I blend right in to the cafe curtains.
I love you so much my dear, and I am awaiting the stories...
"Is this simply the unique perversity of the human heart that it wants (and wants and wants) what it doesn't have--Italian food in Paris, American Jazz in Saint-Germain--and, only when it is about to lose it, returns to the things that drew it to the desire in the first place? Or was there a kind of peace in it too? We would now never be Parisians or integrate; we might not even stay in town more than another eight weeks. Loss, like distance, gives permission for romance. In a better-ordered Vienna, Romeo and Juliet would have grown up to be just another couple at dinner." --Adam Gopnik, Paris to the Moon
mercredi, septembre 07, 2005
at this rate, menopause will be a breeze...
So I have heard that women in menopause start to kind of lose their minds. Not in an old, aging synapses kind of way; more along the lines of sporadically misfiring cylinders on 20 year old motorcycle. Nothing too serious, but disconcerting nonetheless.
At my current rate of mind loss, there won't be anything left by my 24th birthday, let alone for menopause to destroy.
It's the little things:
I was completely oblivious to the upcoming birthday of Charlotte, until she emailed to tell me her plans. (New York City... please excuse me while I die of jealousy and go drown myself in the mill pond). And I know exactly when her birthday is.
Forgetting to eject the damncat from the interior premises before going to bed for three days in a row. The damncat wakes me up at 4 am to be let out if I don't do it before I sleep, and thus one has to wonder how many times I will stumble, cursing, up the stairs to the front door in the middle of the night before I clue in.
Leaving the iron on while I am at work all day.
Usually such instances of stupidity would be evenly spaced over a month and the repercussions would only affect me. Circumstances have changed drastically from the norm-if the phrase "normal circumstances" can even be applied to my life with a straight face-and I am now in charge, and the boss of, a whole house, large yard, two cars and many many kilometers of carpet that needs to be vacuumed regularly. The parentals have gallivanted off to Europe (mummy) and to circumnavigate the Mediterranean on a motorcycle (daddy). I have been left at home to feed the damncat and to water the plants. The responsibility might just kill me.
And then there'd be nobody to let the cat out.
At my current rate of mind loss, there won't be anything left by my 24th birthday, let alone for menopause to destroy.
It's the little things:
I was completely oblivious to the upcoming birthday of Charlotte, until she emailed to tell me her plans. (New York City... please excuse me while I die of jealousy and go drown myself in the mill pond). And I know exactly when her birthday is.
Forgetting to eject the damncat from the interior premises before going to bed for three days in a row. The damncat wakes me up at 4 am to be let out if I don't do it before I sleep, and thus one has to wonder how many times I will stumble, cursing, up the stairs to the front door in the middle of the night before I clue in.
Leaving the iron on while I am at work all day.
Usually such instances of stupidity would be evenly spaced over a month and the repercussions would only affect me. Circumstances have changed drastically from the norm-if the phrase "normal circumstances" can even be applied to my life with a straight face-and I am now in charge, and the boss of, a whole house, large yard, two cars and many many kilometers of carpet that needs to be vacuumed regularly. The parentals have gallivanted off to Europe (mummy) and to circumnavigate the Mediterranean on a motorcycle (daddy). I have been left at home to feed the damncat and to water the plants. The responsibility might just kill me.
And then there'd be nobody to let the cat out.
mardi, septembre 06, 2005
all I need...
In my life, is a carpet cleaning blog.
no more anonymous comments people. leave a paper trail. That way the government can find you.
no more anonymous comments people. leave a paper trail. That way the government can find you.
Mungry
Mungry: adjective. A contraction of the phrase "money hungry". Most often used to describe people in the service industry who get pissy when they have a slow night and try to cadge more tables from the manager or the hostess; and who are all fine on busy nights. Rarely performs back duties (ie: polishing glassware), often tries to get other servers/bartenders/co-workers to leave early in hopes of taking over their section. Pejorative.
vendredi, septembre 02, 2005
bon voyage
So today is departure day pour papa... off to London, Belgium, Italy, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Greece, Italy, France, London. All on Motorcycles. With the godfather who used to be a spy.
I am so jealous I could puke.
Travel safely daddy. I love you.
I am so jealous I could puke.
Travel safely daddy. I love you.
mercredi, août 31, 2005
original sin
A few nights ago my best friend in my home town, who we will call R, and I went off for an evening on the town. Since we both had to work the next morning, our wild night out consisted of watching March of the Penguins and heading off to a swanky restaurant for dessert.
R and I have known each other since grade eight when he had a bowl cut and no friends and I wore plaid flannel shirts and wanted desperately to be popular. (In retrospect it was no wonder I had no friends- plaid flannel shirts?!?)
R is witty, intelligent, self deprecating and a great observer of the absurd. Which serves him well as he is the only one of my highschool friends who has stayed in our hometown and never once ventured abroad to a larger city. He is the guy I call when my love life is in the toilet, when my house is about to burn down and when I need to laugh so hard I spew juice through my nose. He knows me better than I know myself most of the time, and he is one of those fundamentalist Christians who believes that Jesus is coming back next Monday at 4 pm, just in time to roast the sinners and the gays and to exalt the pious before a dinner of wings and watching the football game. I, on the other hand, am the kind of liberal Anglican who, if the big JC arrived on my doorstep, would offer him a beer and continue watching The Daily Show-extrapolating during the commercial breaks on the joys of pre-marital sex, the value of contraception, the importance of a woman's right to choose, why I think the phrase hidden agenda has been grossly overused by the Conservative Party, and the relative value of The Walrus vs the Atlantic Monthly.
Needless to say, R and I are the kind of friends who will be friends forever, even into the afterlife: our respective ideas of hell is where the other will end up, so I am pretty sure, if God has a sense of humour, we'll see each other there.
The highlight of the evening was dessert at the aforementioned swanky restaurant. A friend of mine tends bar there, and took great pleasure in plying us with various spectacular alcoholic creations. Dessert was (and I will put this in layman's terms for those not fortunate enough to work in the service industry) ginger creme brule, with apricot spring roll and roasted brandied apricot slices. AND... chocolate mashed potatoes with home made raspberry sorbet and coulis.
In case you missed that, I said chocolate mashed potatoes, people.
They were divine. One of those life changing experiences that happens in a split second, leaving you wondering how you could have lived your life up until now not knowing about chocolate mashed potatoes.
On the drive home R and I were unusually silent. For my part, I was savouring juxtaposition of the magnificence of the bleak and vast Antarctic landscape against the magnificence of the recently consumed potatoes.
I have no idea what R was thinking about. I like to think he was mulling over how to rationalize consuming something so obviously sinful. But he's evangelical, not catholic, so I am still at a loss...
R and I have known each other since grade eight when he had a bowl cut and no friends and I wore plaid flannel shirts and wanted desperately to be popular. (In retrospect it was no wonder I had no friends- plaid flannel shirts?!?)
R is witty, intelligent, self deprecating and a great observer of the absurd. Which serves him well as he is the only one of my highschool friends who has stayed in our hometown and never once ventured abroad to a larger city. He is the guy I call when my love life is in the toilet, when my house is about to burn down and when I need to laugh so hard I spew juice through my nose. He knows me better than I know myself most of the time, and he is one of those fundamentalist Christians who believes that Jesus is coming back next Monday at 4 pm, just in time to roast the sinners and the gays and to exalt the pious before a dinner of wings and watching the football game. I, on the other hand, am the kind of liberal Anglican who, if the big JC arrived on my doorstep, would offer him a beer and continue watching The Daily Show-extrapolating during the commercial breaks on the joys of pre-marital sex, the value of contraception, the importance of a woman's right to choose, why I think the phrase hidden agenda has been grossly overused by the Conservative Party, and the relative value of The Walrus vs the Atlantic Monthly.
Needless to say, R and I are the kind of friends who will be friends forever, even into the afterlife: our respective ideas of hell is where the other will end up, so I am pretty sure, if God has a sense of humour, we'll see each other there.
The highlight of the evening was dessert at the aforementioned swanky restaurant. A friend of mine tends bar there, and took great pleasure in plying us with various spectacular alcoholic creations. Dessert was (and I will put this in layman's terms for those not fortunate enough to work in the service industry) ginger creme brule, with apricot spring roll and roasted brandied apricot slices. AND... chocolate mashed potatoes with home made raspberry sorbet and coulis.
In case you missed that, I said chocolate mashed potatoes, people.
They were divine. One of those life changing experiences that happens in a split second, leaving you wondering how you could have lived your life up until now not knowing about chocolate mashed potatoes.
On the drive home R and I were unusually silent. For my part, I was savouring juxtaposition of the magnificence of the bleak and vast Antarctic landscape against the magnificence of the recently consumed potatoes.
I have no idea what R was thinking about. I like to think he was mulling over how to rationalize consuming something so obviously sinful. But he's evangelical, not catholic, so I am still at a loss...
dimanche, août 28, 2005
15 minutes
If you were told you had 15 minutes to leave your house, what would you take with you?
my one bag consisted of:
1pr boxer shorts (bought in cardiff while at bording school)
1 marines teeshirt
lots of comfy underwear... totally forgot to pack bras...
1 pocket watch, courtesy of petit frere
1 pr red Fluvogs boots
1 pr grandmother's shoes from 1940 that fit and look divine
1 pr gold sequined flats. becase I had to.
2 prs of red shoes: the grocery shoes from first year uni, and the Boston shoes that are magical.
(how many shoes now...don't ask...)
1 pr jeans and 1pr lululemon pants
3 scarves from the middle east: one from Halab, Cairo and Damascus...
3 tees: one from paris, one courtesy of le frere from mtl. one a fave...
one scarf woven by mum.
my letters from the past 4 years, my camera, and some valuable jewelry.
It all fit into one duffle bag.
The photo albums, computer hardrive, and legal papers did well in laundry baskets.
Forest fires... the new way to downsize....
my one bag consisted of:
1pr boxer shorts (bought in cardiff while at bording school)
1 marines teeshirt
lots of comfy underwear... totally forgot to pack bras...
1 pocket watch, courtesy of petit frere
1 pr red Fluvogs boots
1 pr grandmother's shoes from 1940 that fit and look divine
1 pr gold sequined flats. becase I had to.
2 prs of red shoes: the grocery shoes from first year uni, and the Boston shoes that are magical.
(how many shoes now...don't ask...)
1 pr jeans and 1pr lululemon pants
3 scarves from the middle east: one from Halab, Cairo and Damascus...
3 tees: one from paris, one courtesy of le frere from mtl. one a fave...
one scarf woven by mum.
my letters from the past 4 years, my camera, and some valuable jewelry.
It all fit into one duffle bag.
The photo albums, computer hardrive, and legal papers did well in laundry baskets.
Forest fires... the new way to downsize....
jeudi, août 25, 2005
famous....
hahaha...
I have blog comment spam. Which is funny, as I think there may be about a sum total of seven people, plus my mother, who read this thing.
I have blog comment spam. Which is funny, as I think there may be about a sum total of seven people, plus my mother, who read this thing.
dimanche, août 21, 2005
For better or for worse...
So I was at a wedding last weekend. Avec l'homme. And since a lot of our mutual acquaintances are getting married or planning to get married, weddings have been on the brain of late.
The weekend wedding was quite lovely, except for some parts where I was whispering to the Falklander that I was going to have to go throw up in the bushes for a few minutes, and that if the priest at my wedding called me a princess I would shove my bouquet down his throat and drown him in the font.
However, the bride was beautiful, the groom was handsome, and the wedding party all charmingly attired and flowered. The wedding took place in a garden, the reception in a dining room with vaulted ceilings and huge windows. There were two ponds to walk around for exercise or to escape the small talk, and the weather was gorgeous. The whole thing was exactly as though it had been planned in two colour coded 3 inch binders for the past year. Which it had.
This particular wedding was full of celebration, which all weddings should have in abundance, but short on reality. It was the perfect fairy tale wedding.
I think the thing that really bothered me was that the wedding seemed not to reflect the reality that my dear friends were diving into. Marriage is hard, HARD work. The divorce rates show that, statistically, (the most heinous kind of proof), 50% of marriages in North America don't last. Children, finances, stress of living with another person and modifying ones own life to accommodate theirs takes its toll eventually. Perhaps the generation I belong to has less gumption and stick-to-it-ness than that of my grandparents or even my parents. Or maybe society has changed to recognize that a lot of the long lived marriages of the past were not the Hallmark card platitudes that we were led to believe. Either way, marriage in this particular day and age, seems-to the cynical-a bit of a waste of time.
But, cynical and black hearted though I am, I don't think this marriage was a waste of time. I think it was wonderful and necessary and one small public statement of the kind of love that we are short on in our troubled times. I just wish a few more things had been said:
A recognition that my friends are extremely brave. That marriage is difficult and challenging and terrifying, even for such young bright people. That hard times will occur. That they are both strong individuals and that marriage should not subvert their individuality, but strengthen both of them as people.
I hope that one day I will be as brave as they are, not stop running full tilt toward the precipice of the unknown and the unknowable.
The weekend wedding was quite lovely, except for some parts where I was whispering to the Falklander that I was going to have to go throw up in the bushes for a few minutes, and that if the priest at my wedding called me a princess I would shove my bouquet down his throat and drown him in the font.
However, the bride was beautiful, the groom was handsome, and the wedding party all charmingly attired and flowered. The wedding took place in a garden, the reception in a dining room with vaulted ceilings and huge windows. There were two ponds to walk around for exercise or to escape the small talk, and the weather was gorgeous. The whole thing was exactly as though it had been planned in two colour coded 3 inch binders for the past year. Which it had.
This particular wedding was full of celebration, which all weddings should have in abundance, but short on reality. It was the perfect fairy tale wedding.
I think the thing that really bothered me was that the wedding seemed not to reflect the reality that my dear friends were diving into. Marriage is hard, HARD work. The divorce rates show that, statistically, (the most heinous kind of proof), 50% of marriages in North America don't last. Children, finances, stress of living with another person and modifying ones own life to accommodate theirs takes its toll eventually. Perhaps the generation I belong to has less gumption and stick-to-it-ness than that of my grandparents or even my parents. Or maybe society has changed to recognize that a lot of the long lived marriages of the past were not the Hallmark card platitudes that we were led to believe. Either way, marriage in this particular day and age, seems-to the cynical-a bit of a waste of time.
But, cynical and black hearted though I am, I don't think this marriage was a waste of time. I think it was wonderful and necessary and one small public statement of the kind of love that we are short on in our troubled times. I just wish a few more things had been said:
A recognition that my friends are extremely brave. That marriage is difficult and challenging and terrifying, even for such young bright people. That hard times will occur. That they are both strong individuals and that marriage should not subvert their individuality, but strengthen both of them as people.
I hope that one day I will be as brave as they are, not stop running full tilt toward the precipice of the unknown and the unknowable.
dimanche, août 14, 2005
Quote of the month
"the best thing about getting old is that I don't care anymore. I just put on my shoes and walk out the door like a doukhobor."
mercredi, août 10, 2005
They'd rather shoot rats at the dump
To date, shoveling a bunch of pine needles and branches into a trailer and then taking it to the local dump to unload has not been at the top of my list of summer fun activities.
But when unloading said trailer takes one minute and forty eight seconds, even I am suckered into a repeat performance.
The dump, man. It's where it's at.
(insider trading tip... buy stocks in dairy queen. the way the falklander and I are putting away ice cream will guarantee you multiplying dividends for years to come.)
But when unloading said trailer takes one minute and forty eight seconds, even I am suckered into a repeat performance.
The dump, man. It's where it's at.
(insider trading tip... buy stocks in dairy queen. the way the falklander and I are putting away ice cream will guarantee you multiplying dividends for years to come.)
vendredi, août 05, 2005
wine goggles
female customer: "you know, you really are a very beautiful girl. No, I mean it, you have such a lovely face."
momentarily flustered server: "ahhh.... thank you, um, that's very sweet..."
female customer: "oh don't pay attention to anything I say. I'm drunk, I don't know what I'm talking about."
momentarily flustered server: "ahhh.... thank you, um, that's very sweet..."
female customer: "oh don't pay attention to anything I say. I'm drunk, I don't know what I'm talking about."
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