I often think about the overall narcissistic nature of this blog. I mean, it's really just a big blank page for me to write about... well me. Po says that all art is self-aggrandizing. I'm quite sure this isn't art. As of late I've been pondering why I do this. Yes, I get joy from the occasional bit of non-fiction (and yes, I will complete the Streetlights story soon), but the majority of this blog is just me rambling about the inane things I do. I've been feeling the need to justify the very existence of the blog, and to root out the reason, sordid that it may be, that I continue to post to it daily. The following are the paltry excuses that I offer up as to why I do what I do.
1) it helps me make sense of my day. It's a summary, a recap of the fucking incredible things that happen to me from moment to moment. It's a chance for me to roll certain happenings, ideas around in my muddled little mind and, if they were shitty happenings, it's my opportunity to try and deal with it with a bit of humour instead of killing myself. And if, like me, you subscribe to the idea that life is somewhat of a giant educational exercise, it's a chance for me to wade through the rubbish and try to extract the little nuggets of meaning that might otherwise be lost. And yes, I shall recap my day later on.
2) it's a yardstick that I use to measure the progress (or lack thereof) that I am making in my life. I frequently refer to my old blog (if anyone wants access to it, please let me know and I will send you an invite) to see what exactly it was that I was doing a year ago on this particular day. So today I wrote an angry letter regarding the proposed Pitt River power project and sent it to three newspapers and the premier, and then I met up with my AWESOME friends for dinner (which I had to cook myself). Today (well, March 1st) of last year I met Typewriter for the first time. It was my first "date" after breaking up with Michael towards the end of 2006. Let's all pause to consider if I've evolved since then...
3) the possibility exists that I have no one to talk to. I mean, I have friends, and I have family and I have Michael, but essentially I come home to an empty apartment every night. Maybe this is some form of (horrifically) one-sided communication. Remember: I don't have cable. And I really hate the current James Joyce book I'm reading. Moo-cows. Fuck. Off.
Okay. So I think I've sold it sufficiently. I will continue to blog for the time being. Yes, I realize it's totally self-centered, but hopefully I've pointed out a couple of half-assed excuses as to why I should continue to perpetuate this hopeless mess.
Alright. My day. Worked. Went for lunch with some coworkers, one of whom randomly mentioned that he had been considered for a menage a trois with a couple of his female friends. I almost choked on my gomae. Not that he's not worth considering for a menage a trois, if you're a menage kind of person (which I'm not... at least not at this particular moment). But it was just quite random. I kind of lost my focus for the rest of the afternoon. Stupid, sexy Flanders (ten points to anyone that got that reference). Then I wrote my angry letter to the premier. Okay, maybe not the best use of company time, but everyone was kind of milking it this afternoon. Accused my boss of theft, squirmed a lot in my chair, discussed harnessing the exuberant energy of small children with Mr. Menage, then left. Witnessed this guy running for the seabus and he dropped his car keys and this woman who was running a few steps behind him sort of slowed briefly and attempted to scoop them up on the fly, but they fell apart and she sort of laughed and apologized and I thought: what a really nice lady. I don't know if I would have been that kind if I was running to catch the seabus. Although at that time of day they depart every 15 minutes, so I guess it's not a huge loss, but I'm not stopping for nothing if I have to wait 30 minutes for the next boat. I think that's why they opened up the Transcontinental in the terminal: got 30 minutes to kill? Have a drink.
Had a shower, turned around and went back across for N's 8th birthday! Happy birthday, N! Learned that sukiyaki is Japanese for: cook your own food, roundeyes. Ate a lot. Went to a dessert place and polished off my dessert like I was starving to death and then starting jitterbugging because of all the sugar. Blurted out random tidbits about my sex life and my relationship. When the bus didn't arrive fourteen seconds after I got to the bus stop I determined that I could likely run home in about an hour and a half. On the bus home there was a guy that was either severely handicapped or so high that he was in a world unto himself (replete with his own language, and I'm not making this up). He was aggressive to a couple of people and I got weirded out and headed to the back of the bus and, as he rambled on and made odd, choking sounds, I decided that if he was totally stoned out of his gourd, it was amazing that he had the wherewithal to be able to figure out what bus to get on. And if he was handicapped, then I hoped that he was well looked after and that someone was waiting for him or expecting him and he wasn't alone in the world. Then a cute guy was checking me out and I pointedly ignored him like I do with all cute boys. Then he started talking and I assumed he was talking to the woman sitting near him. It would appear that I had assumed wrong and that he was, in fact, talking to himself. Then he walked backwards to the bus doors, bumping a couple of people out of the way and when the bus came to a stop he walked backwards off the bus. I'm not lying, I swear. Then I noticed this young-ish guy sitting on the bus (it was hard to discern his age) and the left side of his face was horribly burned. And I thought, no matter how crappy my day is, I don't have to face it with a disfigured face and I felt sorry for him. I mean, that's probably not what he would prefer, and if I had been sitting next to him I would have certainly looked him in the eyes, smiled and said "hi", but it's just a little unfair that he has some freak accident and will have to go through the rest of his life looking markedly different than the rest of us, when other people are born looking like Heidi Klum and get paid for it. It's a little cruel, no?
Then? Totally bizarre. Last night when I was coming home around 10pm on the bus there was this guy that was totally knackered and he sort of blundered his way off the bus. I remember him because when he walked past me on the bus he looked totally out of it. Maybe it wasn't simply alcohol, but drugs as well. Anyways, this same guy was on the bus again tonight. I just thought it was really weird.
I love Central Lonsdale, but I do have to say that the bus rides back to Kerrisdale were never quite so colorful. I must admit to being a little weirded out from time to time, but I also have a theory that most people aren't as bad as they look, and that by being afraid you make yourself a victim. Also? I can run faster and farther than, like, 90% of the population. And when I'm half cut (which I usually am if I'm taking the bus home at 11 at night) I'm amazingly flexible. That really has nothing to do with anything, but I thought I would point it out. So, say, if a bad guy was able to catch me, I would just bend into a pretzel, and while he regaled my yogic prowess I would kick him in the nuts. I've got it all sussed.
Okay. So going back to excuse #1 for having this blog: have I made sense of my day? No. I'm kind of drunk, utterly stuffed full of more food than one would think possible and I'm totally fagged. Yes, fagged. I forgot to tell you: I'm reintroducing this back into the mainstream vernacular. I'm not simply tired, and the term exhausted sounds too precious, like I'm about to faint or something. I totally fagged. I cannot process anything. I haven't slept a good night's sleep for a great long time. Excuse #2: all my self indulgent rambling aside, I do think I'm in a better place than I was a year ago. I spent the evening with my fantastic friends, had some great conversation and I think the inklings of a wine club are percolating in their minds. My place, Friday at 7ish, my pretties? Excuse #3. Well, clearly I have no one to talk to because it's quarter after twelve and I'm sitting alone in my apartment again. Michael has to get up early tomorrow for month end, and is then running a 15k trail run at 1pm. I saw him for about 90 minutes this week when we effed around with the whole HDTV antenna thing. Then we kind of made out but were too tired to get into it. And a menage a trois was right out of the picture.
Okay. I'm totally going to bed now. Ironic that my attempts to explain away my narcissism ultimately ended up with me producing the most narcissistic blog ever, but whatever. I've told you once and I'll tell you again: get your own blog.
Fagged, I tell you. Absolutely fagged.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Letter to Gordon Campbell
February 29th, 2008
Dear Gordon Campbell,
Last night I attended a public meeting on the Upper Pitt River Project proposed by Run of River Power Inc. Margaret Mead’s quote “A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has” rang true as I witnessed the enthusiasm, dedication, and passion of the people there – a fervor that could not be contained in the meeting room provided for the forum. In fact, the meeting was adjourned when the fire department and the police arrived, citing overcapacity concerns.
I came away from this meeting buoyed that it will reconvene in a more suitable venue in the future, and by the perseverance of the attendees. I was, however, disheartened to learn that our attempts, our speeches, our rallying was essentially futile given Bill 30, which removes the rights of local governments to use their zoning powers to protect the interests of their constituents. Bill 30 also does away with the public review process: Run of the River’s meeting last night was little more than lip service.
As a Canadian citizen I have always prided myself on our country’s democratic process. I was astounded to learn how Bill 30 was slipped past public scrutiny by our government to help pave the way for private industry to dam public streams, and to make inroads into protected forests as they are attempting to do on the Upper Pitt River (Ledcor was successful in this endeavor at Ashlu Creek, even though the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District rejected their proposal twice).
Privatization has been linked to the downfall of Rome. Closer to home we have seen the privatization of the US medical system. We Canadians selected Tommy Douglas as the greatest Canadian for creating our public healthcare system. We would not wish to privatize our healthcare system, so why are we seeking to privatize BC Hydro?
I have emailed Run of River Power to ask what the public can do to stop this project. I have yet to receive a reply. I would like you, the Premier of our province to advise me and the general public what we can do to stop the privatization of our public streams, and the introduction of industry into our parks. I refuse to believe that I live in a country where the voice representing the majority of the public could be ignored in favor of a private corporation.
Duder
North Vancouver, BC
cc – Run of River Power
The Georgia Straight
The Vancouver Sun
North Shore News
Dear Gordon Campbell,
Last night I attended a public meeting on the Upper Pitt River Project proposed by Run of River Power Inc. Margaret Mead’s quote “A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has” rang true as I witnessed the enthusiasm, dedication, and passion of the people there – a fervor that could not be contained in the meeting room provided for the forum. In fact, the meeting was adjourned when the fire department and the police arrived, citing overcapacity concerns.
I came away from this meeting buoyed that it will reconvene in a more suitable venue in the future, and by the perseverance of the attendees. I was, however, disheartened to learn that our attempts, our speeches, our rallying was essentially futile given Bill 30, which removes the rights of local governments to use their zoning powers to protect the interests of their constituents. Bill 30 also does away with the public review process: Run of the River’s meeting last night was little more than lip service.
As a Canadian citizen I have always prided myself on our country’s democratic process. I was astounded to learn how Bill 30 was slipped past public scrutiny by our government to help pave the way for private industry to dam public streams, and to make inroads into protected forests as they are attempting to do on the Upper Pitt River (Ledcor was successful in this endeavor at Ashlu Creek, even though the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District rejected their proposal twice).
Privatization has been linked to the downfall of Rome. Closer to home we have seen the privatization of the US medical system. We Canadians selected Tommy Douglas as the greatest Canadian for creating our public healthcare system. We would not wish to privatize our healthcare system, so why are we seeking to privatize BC Hydro?
I have emailed Run of River Power to ask what the public can do to stop this project. I have yet to receive a reply. I would like you, the Premier of our province to advise me and the general public what we can do to stop the privatization of our public streams, and the introduction of industry into our parks. I refuse to believe that I live in a country where the voice representing the majority of the public could be ignored in favor of a private corporation.
Duder
North Vancouver, BC
cc – Run of River Power
The Georgia Straight
The Vancouver Sun
North Shore News
Thursday, February 28, 2008
I was secretly hoping to smoke some pot
Alright. Got another "street cred" badge and hopped a chartered bus after work to go protest the proposed power project for the Pitt Valley. It's a long story and I'm tired, so I'll just ramble out some interesting tidbits. The meetings that were held to establish this park back in the day were held in Vancouver and Coquitlam. The meetings that Run of the River (the corporation that wants to put a power plant in) have held have been in Squamish, Pitt Meadows and Mission. Yeah, really central locations. They gave us sandwiches on the bus. The meeting was held in a room that was totally insufficient to fit all the people (I think it was pegged at about 400) and the fire department was called. The police came. Apparently people were told they would be arrested if they didn't clear out and get to within the capacity guidelines. I couldn't see shit. People like to yell a lot. The media was there. The meeting was adjourned early and it is (supposed) to be reconvened in the future, in a more suitable venue. The whole thing seemed pointless because Bill C30 basically takes away the public's democratic rights to speak and vote: our public input is meaningless. I think we should be focusing on repealing Bill C30. Failing that, I'm all for blowing shit up when they try and set up camp in the Pitt Valley. I didn't get arrested. No one was smoking pot. I met a cute boy. He invited me to a public discussion on legalizing prostitution. I guess that's how come-ons work in the NPO, environmentally savvy, groovy, grass roots world. I bet our first date would involve organic tea and picking up litter at a nearby park. I kid. Mostly. Caught the seabus by two minutes (hey, it was a major feat: I would've had to wait half an hour for the next one!).
I think I wanted immediate gratification from this meeting. I wanted it to be black and white. I wanted it to be clear cut and I wanted there to be a visible process that the public could work through to legitimately stop the privatization of hydro and the introduction of industry into our public lands. My organic tea drinking, litter picking future lover said he used to be preachy and full of piss and vinegar when he was younger as well (I bet he's 28 right now), so he could likely sense my disillusionment with the whole thing. I suppose the point of it is that you have to go back and go back and go back some more and keep on meeting them with opposition, because when you start to flail and lag, that's when they win. I will go back. The sandwiches were pretty good.
I guess I'll bring my own goddamn pot.
I think I wanted immediate gratification from this meeting. I wanted it to be black and white. I wanted it to be clear cut and I wanted there to be a visible process that the public could work through to legitimately stop the privatization of hydro and the introduction of industry into our public lands. My organic tea drinking, litter picking future lover said he used to be preachy and full of piss and vinegar when he was younger as well (I bet he's 28 right now), so he could likely sense my disillusionment with the whole thing. I suppose the point of it is that you have to go back and go back and go back some more and keep on meeting them with opposition, because when you start to flail and lag, that's when they win. I will go back. The sandwiches were pretty good.
I guess I'll bring my own goddamn pot.
Street Lights Part 3 (fiction)
She artfully arranged herself and her various bags in the elevator and glanced up as a well dressed, perfectly coiffed woman stepped onto the elevator, wafting a sweet swath of perfume in with her. The woman gave her an insincere smile that she felt was slightly tinged with pity. She resolved to buy a pair of high heels and to don eye makeup from time to time.
She stared at the woman’s erect back, scrutinizing her perfect auburn hair which was shot through with russet and had a soft, natural wave to it, trying to discover split ends. There appeared to be none. Intuitively she knew that this woman wore expensive lingerie under her classic, stylish clothes, even if she wasn’t meeting up with her lover. She struggled to remember if she had managed to pull on a halfway decent pair of panties this morning, or if she would appear before Thomas, resplendent in the underwear that almost reached her belly button that she had bought at Costco because they were three for nine bucks.
With a muted ding, the elevator doors slid open and the woman in front of her glided serenely out, turning left. As she too was turning left she made a show of rearranging her bags (actually, the strap of her overnight bag was digging rather painfully into her shoulder) to allow the woman to get to her intended destination without her following, like some gawky, second rate sidekick. Straightening up, she turned left too, went around the corner and saw the woman standing in front of Thomas’s door. Evidently she has just knocked, as the door opened and an arm – Thomas’s arm – reached from inside the apartment to clasp itself around the woman’s slender waist and pull her in. The woman gave a coy, throaty laugh.
She stood transfixed, quite sure that the woman had entered an apartment that was not Thomas’, and yet she knew it was. She retreated back towards the elevators and let the grocery bags and her overnight bag slide out of her clutches, to be deposited in a noisy jumble on the carpeted floor.
In a bit of a daze she took out her cell phone and called Thomas. She heard his cell phone ringing from the confines of his apartment and the dull murmur of a conversation before he answered.
“Hey,” he greeted her. “What’s up?”
Had she not seen this strange woman enter his apartment she would have thought he sounded like he did everything other day, but now she could detect a slight stress, a bit of a quaver in his voice. A thought flitted through her mind: how many times had he answered her call in a similar circumstance and she had not detected something untoward in his voice? He had never given her a reason not to trust him, and so she had implicitly trusted him.
“Oh, nothing,” she said airily, surprising herself. “I got off work a little bit early so I’m heading over to your place now, is that okay?”
There was a brief silence and she fantasized she could see beads of sweat forming on his brow. But maybe they weren’t. Maybe he had been doing this so long that a lengthy history of near-misses had accumulated. Perhaps he had it down to a fine science. “Yeah,” he said. “Sure. Are you just leaving now or… how far away are you?”
“I should be there in about ten minutes,” she said firmly.
“Okay, great – I’ll see you then,” he replied, not sounding at all happy, but trying desperately to.
She snapped her phone shut, leaned against the lavishly wallpapered wall, and trained her eyes on his apartment door.
She stared at the woman’s erect back, scrutinizing her perfect auburn hair which was shot through with russet and had a soft, natural wave to it, trying to discover split ends. There appeared to be none. Intuitively she knew that this woman wore expensive lingerie under her classic, stylish clothes, even if she wasn’t meeting up with her lover. She struggled to remember if she had managed to pull on a halfway decent pair of panties this morning, or if she would appear before Thomas, resplendent in the underwear that almost reached her belly button that she had bought at Costco because they were three for nine bucks.
With a muted ding, the elevator doors slid open and the woman in front of her glided serenely out, turning left. As she too was turning left she made a show of rearranging her bags (actually, the strap of her overnight bag was digging rather painfully into her shoulder) to allow the woman to get to her intended destination without her following, like some gawky, second rate sidekick. Straightening up, she turned left too, went around the corner and saw the woman standing in front of Thomas’s door. Evidently she has just knocked, as the door opened and an arm – Thomas’s arm – reached from inside the apartment to clasp itself around the woman’s slender waist and pull her in. The woman gave a coy, throaty laugh.
She stood transfixed, quite sure that the woman had entered an apartment that was not Thomas’, and yet she knew it was. She retreated back towards the elevators and let the grocery bags and her overnight bag slide out of her clutches, to be deposited in a noisy jumble on the carpeted floor.
In a bit of a daze she took out her cell phone and called Thomas. She heard his cell phone ringing from the confines of his apartment and the dull murmur of a conversation before he answered.
“Hey,” he greeted her. “What’s up?”
Had she not seen this strange woman enter his apartment she would have thought he sounded like he did everything other day, but now she could detect a slight stress, a bit of a quaver in his voice. A thought flitted through her mind: how many times had he answered her call in a similar circumstance and she had not detected something untoward in his voice? He had never given her a reason not to trust him, and so she had implicitly trusted him.
“Oh, nothing,” she said airily, surprising herself. “I got off work a little bit early so I’m heading over to your place now, is that okay?”
There was a brief silence and she fantasized she could see beads of sweat forming on his brow. But maybe they weren’t. Maybe he had been doing this so long that a lengthy history of near-misses had accumulated. Perhaps he had it down to a fine science. “Yeah,” he said. “Sure. Are you just leaving now or… how far away are you?”
“I should be there in about ten minutes,” she said firmly.
“Okay, great – I’ll see you then,” he replied, not sounding at all happy, but trying desperately to.
She snapped her phone shut, leaned against the lavishly wallpapered wall, and trained her eyes on his apartment door.
Bitching
This whole bracelet switching/non-complaining scenario isn't faring so well. I've been trying it for about a week, and am failing miserably. One of my coworkers said that he would like me less if I was always positive. He said, "Come on, we have the most fun when we're ripping people apart". He's kind of right. Venting is complaining, and venting can make you feel better. Now I'm questioning the validity of the bracelet. Will I still be who I am if I never say bad things? Or would I just be a more bland version of myself? What happens if I really hate a book in my book club: do I have to remain mute? And I guess I'll have to refer to the gentleman that rear-ended me as something other than "that stupid asshole" and "douchebag". I would have to call him vehicularly challenged.
Yeah.... should I give up and give in the dark, criticizing, cutting and sarcastic side? I mean, it's a really big part of who I am. I started hugging people recently - isn't that good enough?
Yeah.... should I give up and give in the dark, criticizing, cutting and sarcastic side? I mean, it's a really big part of who I am. I started hugging people recently - isn't that good enough?
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Streetlights Part 2 (fiction)
Hm. Here is part two of my story. I'm not too happy with it, but I like to finish what I start (bags of chips, bottles of wine, boxes of chocolate), so here is the second installment.
And while the elevator had, of late, been opening up as though solely for her when she arrived home, so did it continually let her boyfriend off at the sixth or the eighth floor of her building, instead of on the seventh floor where she lived.
Today, Friday, she was awakened earlier than normal: her alarm clock was emitting a strange electronic burping sound – the kind of sound that her car radio would make shortly before her cell phone began to ring. She knew it was pointless to try and seek out the additional fifteen minutes of sleep and roused herself out of bed and ended up catching an earlier bus than what she was accustomed to, to work.
Not wanting to actually spend the additional fifteen minutes at work, she decided to treat herself to a cappuccino. As soon as she decided this, she got the go ahead to use the crosswalk, so she darted across quickly. She was briefly debating whether or not to treat herself even further with a biscotti when she spotted her boyfriend Thomas a block ahead of her. He also worked downtown as a trader and, since he started much earlier than her, she figured he was likely out for a late (for him) morning coffee. She called out to him, but he couldn’t hear her over the din of the traffic and he crossed at a set of traffic lights and she lost sight of him.
She was in the process of pulling out her cell to call him to ask if he had ten minutes for a quick coffee when a filthy, ragged man smelling of stale alcohol, sweat and piss sidled up next to her, asking for a handout. His brilliant blue eyes caught her off guard and she forced herself to focus on them, and not his lank, unkempt hair or the several raw looking sores that pitted his face. He was missing teeth and the ones remaining were nut brown. She started to insist that she didn’t have any spare change and then decided that she would forgo the biscotti and gave him a dollar. As she placed the coin in his hand she was startled by a strong electric shock that made an audible crackling sound.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, rapidly withdrawing her hand. When she looked back at the homeless man his gaze was oddly unwavering and she thought that either he hadn’t felt the shock through the layers of grime on his hands, or he did and his motor skills were such that it hadn’t even registered.
“Have yourself a good day,” he enunciated perfectly with a strong, articulate voice. He didn’t smile.
Slightly unnerved, she nodded and decided to forgo the coffee entirely and instead head back to the office.
She arrived, coffeeless, to be ushered into a boardroom by the receptionist, where she looked quizzically at some of her coworkers.
“What’s going on?” she asked of Kelly. Kelly worked in the HR department and always reminded her of what little orphan Annie would have looked like when she grew up: a kind, open face with a smattering of freckles, and fantastic, coiled and springy orange hair.
“No idea,” Kelly shrugged, and smiled amiably.
When the CEO came in a few minutes later they learned that they were the first group of people to be given their walking papers as the transportation and distribution company they worked for had been bought by a multi-national company that would be taking care of the HR, accounting and marketing functions from their head office.
Stunned, they were all allowed out of the “meeting” and given ten minutes to collect their personal effects into the cardboard boxes thoughtfully placed on their respective desks before being summarily stripped of their access passes and keys.
Some of her coworkers wanted to go for a coffee to decompress, discuss what had happened, commiserate, and start figuring out what their next step was. She looked at the gaggle of them, with their boxes balanced on their hips, housing sad plants and photos of loved ones in happy times and begged off, not feeling up to company of any sort, and instead caught a bus home. Though she hadn’t wanted to be with her coworkers, she didn’t feel like being utterly alone, so she went to a nearby café and ordered her much delayed coffee and biscotti and idly flipped through the previous day’s Globe and Mail. Her mind was in turmoil: she had never been laid off before. She had been at her current job for over four years, her resume was antique and her interview schedule were, at the best of times, sadly lacking and now they were rusty as well.
“Fuck,” she muttered to herself. She tried to look at the positive side of things: her car was paid off, she had cheap rent and her parents had drilled the concept of saving one’s pennies into her at an early age. Pondering, she realized that she could afford to go for a year without employment, but watching her bank account drain and dwindle wasn’t something her personality could handle and still enable her to sleep nights. It was not in her nature to be idle, and she promised herself she would simply take the weekend to rest and enjoy herself, and then hit the pavement first thing Monday morning to find a job.
After finishing her coffee she wandered her neighborhood for a while, not wanting to go back to her apartment. She sat on a park bench, basking in the unseasonably warm sun and called her mother to fill her in on the details. Her mother told her that she was always welcome to move back home, as she knew her mother would. She didn’t want to move home, being in her early thirties and wanting to be able to at least affect some level of stability and independence, but to make her mom feel appreciated (and to keep that door open in case she should need it) she said that if she hadn’t found a job in a couple of months she would consider moving back into her old room. Her old, sky blue room that still displayed the van Gogh Café Terrace at Night poster. The last time she had been home she had been amazed that the battery in her Tickle Me Elmo doll still worked. She chatted with her mother for close to an hour and when she finally did go back to her place it was to pack an overnight bag: Thomas would be home by 3pm and she intended to meet him at his apartment. She normally met him after the Friday night rush hour mania and they would go out to dinner or a movie and she would spend Friday night, and sometimes Saturday night, at his place. Though she liked her apartment, it was a bachelor suite, and while roomy enough for her it became rather cramped quarters when the two of them were together.
With still some time to kill, she stopped off at the supermarket on the way over and shopped for their dinner: she didn’t really feel like going out. She just wanted to talk to Thomas, to be comforted by him, to stand near him as he cooked for her in his stainless steel and granite countertopped kitchen, drinking wine and feeling happy to simply be in his orbit.
She and Thomas had been together for a couple of years: they had been introduced by a mutual friend and had hit it off immediately. He was smart, successful, attentive, athletic, had a wicked sense of humor and was very easy on the eyes. Some of her friends had started nosing in on their relationship, wondering when he might propose but, as much as she would certainly say yes if he asked her to spend the rest of her life with him; she wasn’t in a huge hurry. As corny as it was, she was simply happy to see him and be with him as often as she did.
At the supermarket she picked out a couple of nice steaks, asparagus, baby potatoes, chocolate macaroons and then went to the liquor store to pick out a bottle of Spanish Grenache. She was starting to feel better already.
When she arrived at Thomas’s sleek, modern apartment building she managed to score a great parking space outside, which was a rarity for her. She grabbed the bags of groceries from the back seat of her car and thanked the woman that held the front door open for her as she left. She realized she should check in at the buzzer to make sure Thomas was there, but decided against it – if Thomas wasn’t in she would call him on his cell and entertain herself at a nearby coffee shop until he showed up.
She was too busy shifting the grocery bags, her purse and her overnight bag around to notice that the elevator door had slid open for her, and there was no one in it. Glancing up she stepped into the elevator waiting for it to whisk her to the fourteenth floor.
And while the elevator had, of late, been opening up as though solely for her when she arrived home, so did it continually let her boyfriend off at the sixth or the eighth floor of her building, instead of on the seventh floor where she lived.
Today, Friday, she was awakened earlier than normal: her alarm clock was emitting a strange electronic burping sound – the kind of sound that her car radio would make shortly before her cell phone began to ring. She knew it was pointless to try and seek out the additional fifteen minutes of sleep and roused herself out of bed and ended up catching an earlier bus than what she was accustomed to, to work.
Not wanting to actually spend the additional fifteen minutes at work, she decided to treat herself to a cappuccino. As soon as she decided this, she got the go ahead to use the crosswalk, so she darted across quickly. She was briefly debating whether or not to treat herself even further with a biscotti when she spotted her boyfriend Thomas a block ahead of her. He also worked downtown as a trader and, since he started much earlier than her, she figured he was likely out for a late (for him) morning coffee. She called out to him, but he couldn’t hear her over the din of the traffic and he crossed at a set of traffic lights and she lost sight of him.
She was in the process of pulling out her cell to call him to ask if he had ten minutes for a quick coffee when a filthy, ragged man smelling of stale alcohol, sweat and piss sidled up next to her, asking for a handout. His brilliant blue eyes caught her off guard and she forced herself to focus on them, and not his lank, unkempt hair or the several raw looking sores that pitted his face. He was missing teeth and the ones remaining were nut brown. She started to insist that she didn’t have any spare change and then decided that she would forgo the biscotti and gave him a dollar. As she placed the coin in his hand she was startled by a strong electric shock that made an audible crackling sound.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, rapidly withdrawing her hand. When she looked back at the homeless man his gaze was oddly unwavering and she thought that either he hadn’t felt the shock through the layers of grime on his hands, or he did and his motor skills were such that it hadn’t even registered.
“Have yourself a good day,” he enunciated perfectly with a strong, articulate voice. He didn’t smile.
Slightly unnerved, she nodded and decided to forgo the coffee entirely and instead head back to the office.
She arrived, coffeeless, to be ushered into a boardroom by the receptionist, where she looked quizzically at some of her coworkers.
“What’s going on?” she asked of Kelly. Kelly worked in the HR department and always reminded her of what little orphan Annie would have looked like when she grew up: a kind, open face with a smattering of freckles, and fantastic, coiled and springy orange hair.
“No idea,” Kelly shrugged, and smiled amiably.
When the CEO came in a few minutes later they learned that they were the first group of people to be given their walking papers as the transportation and distribution company they worked for had been bought by a multi-national company that would be taking care of the HR, accounting and marketing functions from their head office.
Stunned, they were all allowed out of the “meeting” and given ten minutes to collect their personal effects into the cardboard boxes thoughtfully placed on their respective desks before being summarily stripped of their access passes and keys.
Some of her coworkers wanted to go for a coffee to decompress, discuss what had happened, commiserate, and start figuring out what their next step was. She looked at the gaggle of them, with their boxes balanced on their hips, housing sad plants and photos of loved ones in happy times and begged off, not feeling up to company of any sort, and instead caught a bus home. Though she hadn’t wanted to be with her coworkers, she didn’t feel like being utterly alone, so she went to a nearby café and ordered her much delayed coffee and biscotti and idly flipped through the previous day’s Globe and Mail. Her mind was in turmoil: she had never been laid off before. She had been at her current job for over four years, her resume was antique and her interview schedule were, at the best of times, sadly lacking and now they were rusty as well.
“Fuck,” she muttered to herself. She tried to look at the positive side of things: her car was paid off, she had cheap rent and her parents had drilled the concept of saving one’s pennies into her at an early age. Pondering, she realized that she could afford to go for a year without employment, but watching her bank account drain and dwindle wasn’t something her personality could handle and still enable her to sleep nights. It was not in her nature to be idle, and she promised herself she would simply take the weekend to rest and enjoy herself, and then hit the pavement first thing Monday morning to find a job.
After finishing her coffee she wandered her neighborhood for a while, not wanting to go back to her apartment. She sat on a park bench, basking in the unseasonably warm sun and called her mother to fill her in on the details. Her mother told her that she was always welcome to move back home, as she knew her mother would. She didn’t want to move home, being in her early thirties and wanting to be able to at least affect some level of stability and independence, but to make her mom feel appreciated (and to keep that door open in case she should need it) she said that if she hadn’t found a job in a couple of months she would consider moving back into her old room. Her old, sky blue room that still displayed the van Gogh Café Terrace at Night poster. The last time she had been home she had been amazed that the battery in her Tickle Me Elmo doll still worked. She chatted with her mother for close to an hour and when she finally did go back to her place it was to pack an overnight bag: Thomas would be home by 3pm and she intended to meet him at his apartment. She normally met him after the Friday night rush hour mania and they would go out to dinner or a movie and she would spend Friday night, and sometimes Saturday night, at his place. Though she liked her apartment, it was a bachelor suite, and while roomy enough for her it became rather cramped quarters when the two of them were together.
With still some time to kill, she stopped off at the supermarket on the way over and shopped for their dinner: she didn’t really feel like going out. She just wanted to talk to Thomas, to be comforted by him, to stand near him as he cooked for her in his stainless steel and granite countertopped kitchen, drinking wine and feeling happy to simply be in his orbit.
She and Thomas had been together for a couple of years: they had been introduced by a mutual friend and had hit it off immediately. He was smart, successful, attentive, athletic, had a wicked sense of humor and was very easy on the eyes. Some of her friends had started nosing in on their relationship, wondering when he might propose but, as much as she would certainly say yes if he asked her to spend the rest of her life with him; she wasn’t in a huge hurry. As corny as it was, she was simply happy to see him and be with him as often as she did.
At the supermarket she picked out a couple of nice steaks, asparagus, baby potatoes, chocolate macaroons and then went to the liquor store to pick out a bottle of Spanish Grenache. She was starting to feel better already.
When she arrived at Thomas’s sleek, modern apartment building she managed to score a great parking space outside, which was a rarity for her. She grabbed the bags of groceries from the back seat of her car and thanked the woman that held the front door open for her as she left. She realized she should check in at the buzzer to make sure Thomas was there, but decided against it – if Thomas wasn’t in she would call him on his cell and entertain herself at a nearby coffee shop until he showed up.
She was too busy shifting the grocery bags, her purse and her overnight bag around to notice that the elevator door had slid open for her, and there was no one in it. Glancing up she stepped into the elevator waiting for it to whisk her to the fourteenth floor.
An actor's drug addiction... without an actor's money
Muscle relaxants are where it's at. Slept soundly last night and may have wet the bed. My neck and back feel much better today, so I may stop ousting people from the handicapped area on the bus and seabus while claiming, "crippling and devastating neck pain" and grimacing horrifically.
Speaking of pains in the neck, Michael's coming over tonight! Ah, how I kid. He has some contraption that will supposedly enable me to get free HDTV from the towers on Seymour (my balcony faces the towers directly). I hope this little experiment involves lots of electrician's tape, tinfoil and bent coat hangers. I wonder how long it will take before the strata starts knocking on my door asking what the hell is on my balcony. Oh, oh, I'm going to answer the door with an upside down colander on my head and advise them that I'm trying to stop the aliens from reading my mind. Oh, oh, maybe I'll use the colander to strain noodles first, and then put it on my head without cleaning it thoroughly.
Speaking of pains in the neck, Michael's coming over tonight! Ah, how I kid. He has some contraption that will supposedly enable me to get free HDTV from the towers on Seymour (my balcony faces the towers directly). I hope this little experiment involves lots of electrician's tape, tinfoil and bent coat hangers. I wonder how long it will take before the strata starts knocking on my door asking what the hell is on my balcony. Oh, oh, I'm going to answer the door with an upside down colander on my head and advise them that I'm trying to stop the aliens from reading my mind. Oh, oh, maybe I'll use the colander to strain noodles first, and then put it on my head without cleaning it thoroughly.
Monday, February 25, 2008
I'm also grateful...
... that I wasn't hit by one of these.
This is an email from my brother that I just got. It kind of brightened my otherwise ridiculous day:
I found some stats on the truck you should buy. It's a ford F650. It weights 9000lbs, has 2, 50 gallon gas tanks stock (you can add on 2, 107 gal tanks for another $6000) and costs about $115,000 US. Add $10,000 if you want a 4x4. Oh and don't forget, it also comes in a 6 door SUV!
This is an email from my brother that I just got. It kind of brightened my otherwise ridiculous day:
I found some stats on the truck you should buy. It's a ford F650. It weights 9000lbs, has 2, 50 gallon gas tanks stock (you can add on 2, 107 gal tanks for another $6000) and costs about $115,000 US. Add $10,000 if you want a 4x4. Oh and don't forget, it also comes in a 6 door SUV!
And it was a Yaris, to boot
I want a mulligan. I mean, really? This is my day off? Cancelled my allotted 6:45 appointment with ICBC because, um, I had already spent an inordinate amount of time speaking to ICBC as it was and because my neck, back and head hurt a lot and I thought taking the prescribed muscle relaxants and just trying to unwind a little would be the way to go.
Just like the car accident I witnessed when I was out for a jog back in the Kerrisdale days: I keep replaying it over and over in my mind. The impact was stunning. Made all the more surprising because I didn't see or hear it coming: the guy hadn't even braked. At least if I'd heard squealing brakes I would have looked in the rearview mirror and seen was what coming. But no. Just sitting there, minding my own business and all of a sudden I've been knocked senseless. It blows my mind that someone would leave the scene as well. He asked me if I was alright and I said no and he left anyways (after offering to give me money: what the hell was that about?).
I should count my blessings: if I hadn't had my seatbelt on I would've cracked my head on the dash. My car seems to be fine (though I guess I still need to get in to ICBC), I haven't broken anything, and I have a kickass prescription.
I wish I had some more exciting news, but it's snot to be. I think I've mentioned this before (possibly it was on the old blog), but can people stop driving into my car?
Alright. And this concludes my long weekend.
Just like the car accident I witnessed when I was out for a jog back in the Kerrisdale days: I keep replaying it over and over in my mind. The impact was stunning. Made all the more surprising because I didn't see or hear it coming: the guy hadn't even braked. At least if I'd heard squealing brakes I would have looked in the rearview mirror and seen was what coming. But no. Just sitting there, minding my own business and all of a sudden I've been knocked senseless. It blows my mind that someone would leave the scene as well. He asked me if I was alright and I said no and he left anyways (after offering to give me money: what the hell was that about?).
I should count my blessings: if I hadn't had my seatbelt on I would've cracked my head on the dash. My car seems to be fine (though I guess I still need to get in to ICBC), I haven't broken anything, and I have a kickass prescription.
I wish I had some more exciting news, but it's snot to be. I think I've mentioned this before (possibly it was on the old blog), but can people stop driving into my car?
Alright. And this concludes my long weekend.
I have whiplash!
Isn't that great? Yeah, so far my day off has consisted of being rear ended, spending a lot of time with firemen (thank you, oh merciful lord), paramedics and a police officer, chatting with ICBC, going to the doctor's and... I get to go in to ICBC later tonight. These are the best kinds of days off, no?
In other news: I got a prescription for some pain killers. I may save a couple for after the marathon, providing the asshole that hit me hasn't done some serious and long lasting damage which will take me out of the running (get it? running? oh, I'm so funny even with this screaming headache). Oh, and the first guy on the scene -a fireman, and why are they always first on the scene anyways? I wasn't on fire - was hot. He was the only one that didn't make me feel like a loser for crying. Yes, I was crying. I don't like getting in car accidents. Who knew?
So, right. Happy fucking Monday.
In other news: I got a prescription for some pain killers. I may save a couple for after the marathon, providing the asshole that hit me hasn't done some serious and long lasting damage which will take me out of the running (get it? running? oh, I'm so funny even with this screaming headache). Oh, and the first guy on the scene -a fireman, and why are they always first on the scene anyways? I wasn't on fire - was hot. He was the only one that didn't make me feel like a loser for crying. Yes, I was crying. I don't like getting in car accidents. Who knew?
So, right. Happy fucking Monday.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Easy day, my ass
I was up at 6:40 this morning because I'm an idiot. Oh, and before the buzzer went off? I was actually dreaming about running and about people in my running clinic. Ridiculous. I was pretty excited because we only had to run 22 or 23k this morning. What I didn't know was that nothing comes easy and that we were going to run up far enough to get into the snow again. So yes, the run was short, but it was by no means easy.
And yet it was fun. Getting to know the guys in my group (I was the token girl today) and they're all really friendly and positive. We ran past a speed trap, the kind that has a billboard which tells you how fast you're going. We cheered as it said 11 kilometres an hour, and cheered again when we got it up to 12, and one more cheer as we hit 13 kilometres an hour. I'm sure that, at 9.30 this morning, the residents of that neighbourhood were wondering what all the cheering was about.
Then coffee afterwards at a really nice JJ Bean (the joint had a fireplace!) with a couple of other runners. I love running. I love my running clinic. I love hanging out after the run and shooting the shit on another stellar day on the north shore after running a bit more than a half marathon knowing that some people are just getting up (I'm not knocking it: I slept until 11 yesterday). It just feels good, the sun beating on my face, the pounding of runners on the pavement, the encouragement of my group mates, and the quiet giddiness that comes during a beautiful run when everyone is feeling good and strong, and the high fives when the run is over.
I definitely find that there is a correlation between my mental health and the amount of exercise I get a week. I only got three work outs in this week and I've been spending way too much time in my head, dwelling on negative things. Running. Running is happy making.
And soon I get to head off to dinner with my folks in South Surrey with Michael. My bro is coming too, so it'll be a real shindig, with much yelling and animated discussion. I will probably start nodding off at about 7pm...
And yet it was fun. Getting to know the guys in my group (I was the token girl today) and they're all really friendly and positive. We ran past a speed trap, the kind that has a billboard which tells you how fast you're going. We cheered as it said 11 kilometres an hour, and cheered again when we got it up to 12, and one more cheer as we hit 13 kilometres an hour. I'm sure that, at 9.30 this morning, the residents of that neighbourhood were wondering what all the cheering was about.
Then coffee afterwards at a really nice JJ Bean (the joint had a fireplace!) with a couple of other runners. I love running. I love my running clinic. I love hanging out after the run and shooting the shit on another stellar day on the north shore after running a bit more than a half marathon knowing that some people are just getting up (I'm not knocking it: I slept until 11 yesterday). It just feels good, the sun beating on my face, the pounding of runners on the pavement, the encouragement of my group mates, and the quiet giddiness that comes during a beautiful run when everyone is feeling good and strong, and the high fives when the run is over.
I definitely find that there is a correlation between my mental health and the amount of exercise I get a week. I only got three work outs in this week and I've been spending way too much time in my head, dwelling on negative things. Running. Running is happy making.
And soon I get to head off to dinner with my folks in South Surrey with Michael. My bro is coming too, so it'll be a real shindig, with much yelling and animated discussion. I will probably start nodding off at about 7pm...
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Streetlights Part 1 (fiction)
Once, when she was running along 37th avenue by the park as dusk was falling, all the streetlights flicked on, one after another with a resonating click as she drew near them. She mused that it was fate’s way of telling her to keep on running. It happened a few more times afterwards and, while a little novel, it was really nothing ethereal and was more based on the coincidence of timing her runs with the descent of darkness upon the city.
Just like in the morning, as she trudged along the sidewalk alternatively looking at pink and orange tinged clouds as the sky brightened, or cowering under her umbrella and lamenting that her hair would be starting to curl by the time she arrived at work that morning, the lights along 45th avenue would all click off as they heralded the morning light, dreary though it may be. This too could easily be chalked up timing, to her rather rigid and structured schedule. Surely if she was some sort of wanton artist, some free floating and uninhibited soul she would not experience this so regularly because, say she might be coming home from some wild party rife with stimulating intellectuals at 4am and rising somewhere around noon to meet a client, a publisher, a comrade for coffee in some funky coffee shop in East Van.
Sometimes, oddities would occur. She would be walking down a random street in the dark and the streetlight nearest to her would turn off. The rest would remain blazing, sentinels guarding against an onslaught of murky darkness, but the one in the closest proximity would cease to shed any sort of illumination for her. Given her ongoing history with streetlights, which had heretofore been very positive, she found this sullen refusal to shine somewhat eerie, but mostly irritating.
Once, when she was having a particularly shitty day at work and was scant seconds from throwing her computer out the window, kicking her boss in the nuts and, once he had doubled over in pain and shock, grabbing his pale purple silk tie that went so smashingly with his dove grey suit, which further accentuated his broad shoulders and his overall fit physique, and stapling it to his fucking desk, the power had gone out in the building. She had chosen that moment to go for a lengthy walk, hoping to outdistance the circumference of this mysterious power outage and enjoy a coffee, instead of committing assault on her boss.
And lately, the elevator doors in her lobby had developed the strange habit of opening for her as she came in through the front door. At first she wondered if the strata had some sort of sensors installed, but then decided against it because only one of the elevators ever opened for her, and it did this intermittently. She even spent some time contemplating if, perhaps, the gentleman that she bumped into from time to time on the elevator, who would either compliment her on the run from which she was just heading out to or returning from, or casually mention what suite he was in, was sending the elevator down as he watched her walk up the street to the building. This could maybe explain its arrival and its cavernous, welcoming yawn as she came into the lobby. She ruled it out though, because she had seen him a couple of days ago with a woman that looked like some kind of East Bloc supermodel and he certainly hadn’t mentioned what suite he was in then, as he slung his arm around his beautiful companion who had laughed with one hand clasped over her mouth at something that he had said while bemusedly eyeing her up and down, which made her feel as though she was being judged and therefore immediately regretted her choice of plaid pants (too big), clumpy shoes and ill-fitting sweater. The ensemble had seemed attractive in her mind as she mulled it over in the shower that morning, but its effect had been more pathetic than edgy, and her English muffins had taken too long to crisp so she hadn’t been able to remedy the situation before heading to work.
Other interesting electrical happenings on the negative spectrum were also occurring, but she chalked them up to bad luck. A streetlight can only do so much: it can turn on, and it can turn off. But her car battery could easily be dead, and it was on a night that she was supposed to meet her boyfriend for dinner. She had a bus pass, so it was quite easy to text him and advise that she was running late (it had been while walking to the bus stop that one of the streetlights had turned off in her presence and it was that that had given her pause, not the actual dead battery itself). Her cell phone was actually quite new: her last phone had been working rather sporadically and her boyfriend often remarked that he went directly to voicemail and she didn’t seem to be receiving some of his text messages.
I'm sleepy. Will finish this later.
Just like in the morning, as she trudged along the sidewalk alternatively looking at pink and orange tinged clouds as the sky brightened, or cowering under her umbrella and lamenting that her hair would be starting to curl by the time she arrived at work that morning, the lights along 45th avenue would all click off as they heralded the morning light, dreary though it may be. This too could easily be chalked up timing, to her rather rigid and structured schedule. Surely if she was some sort of wanton artist, some free floating and uninhibited soul she would not experience this so regularly because, say she might be coming home from some wild party rife with stimulating intellectuals at 4am and rising somewhere around noon to meet a client, a publisher, a comrade for coffee in some funky coffee shop in East Van.
Sometimes, oddities would occur. She would be walking down a random street in the dark and the streetlight nearest to her would turn off. The rest would remain blazing, sentinels guarding against an onslaught of murky darkness, but the one in the closest proximity would cease to shed any sort of illumination for her. Given her ongoing history with streetlights, which had heretofore been very positive, she found this sullen refusal to shine somewhat eerie, but mostly irritating.
Once, when she was having a particularly shitty day at work and was scant seconds from throwing her computer out the window, kicking her boss in the nuts and, once he had doubled over in pain and shock, grabbing his pale purple silk tie that went so smashingly with his dove grey suit, which further accentuated his broad shoulders and his overall fit physique, and stapling it to his fucking desk, the power had gone out in the building. She had chosen that moment to go for a lengthy walk, hoping to outdistance the circumference of this mysterious power outage and enjoy a coffee, instead of committing assault on her boss.
And lately, the elevator doors in her lobby had developed the strange habit of opening for her as she came in through the front door. At first she wondered if the strata had some sort of sensors installed, but then decided against it because only one of the elevators ever opened for her, and it did this intermittently. She even spent some time contemplating if, perhaps, the gentleman that she bumped into from time to time on the elevator, who would either compliment her on the run from which she was just heading out to or returning from, or casually mention what suite he was in, was sending the elevator down as he watched her walk up the street to the building. This could maybe explain its arrival and its cavernous, welcoming yawn as she came into the lobby. She ruled it out though, because she had seen him a couple of days ago with a woman that looked like some kind of East Bloc supermodel and he certainly hadn’t mentioned what suite he was in then, as he slung his arm around his beautiful companion who had laughed with one hand clasped over her mouth at something that he had said while bemusedly eyeing her up and down, which made her feel as though she was being judged and therefore immediately regretted her choice of plaid pants (too big), clumpy shoes and ill-fitting sweater. The ensemble had seemed attractive in her mind as she mulled it over in the shower that morning, but its effect had been more pathetic than edgy, and her English muffins had taken too long to crisp so she hadn’t been able to remedy the situation before heading to work.
Other interesting electrical happenings on the negative spectrum were also occurring, but she chalked them up to bad luck. A streetlight can only do so much: it can turn on, and it can turn off. But her car battery could easily be dead, and it was on a night that she was supposed to meet her boyfriend for dinner. She had a bus pass, so it was quite easy to text him and advise that she was running late (it had been while walking to the bus stop that one of the streetlights had turned off in her presence and it was that that had given her pause, not the actual dead battery itself). Her cell phone was actually quite new: her last phone had been working rather sporadically and her boyfriend often remarked that he went directly to voicemail and she didn’t seem to be receiving some of his text messages.
I'm sleepy. Will finish this later.
The here and now (that was then)
I was stricken with fear, as I sat behind a loud, loquacious young lady yammering away about getting hammered while ratcheting up my iPod shuffle in the vain hopes of drowning her out, that I am that inane. I don't want to be inane. Are my ramblings hollow and vacuous? Yeah. I'm a hollow and vacuous person.
Whew. Glad that actualization is out of the way.
There was a father taking pictures of his son on the seabus on the way over. I found it strangely endearing. A lot of people (most people?) are full of shit, and it was refreshing to see a father so intently enjoying an afternoon out with his son and recording the whole thing for posterity. Though I did feel a twinge of irritation when, after snapping a picture of his son using a cell phone, his son grabbed the phone from him to see how cute he looked. I thought, how narcissistic. And then I thought, I have a whole blog dedicated to myself, my thoughts, my actions and I don't think it gets much more narcissistic than that.
Met up for lunch with Big D and we had some pretty serious conversations. Like, really serious. There are things that I had always been sure of throughout my adult life, which I have started to call into question. And, like picking at some thread on a sweater, the whole damn thing is starting to unravel.
I'm not sure about monogamy. I'm not sure that people are meant to be together for a lifetime (though I think the concept is a nice, idealistic, romantic one). I think that if you are enjoying spending time with someone, you should do that until it's no longer enjoyable. I know you tune into my blog for my amazing and witty insights.
The other thing I'm not one hundred percent sure about right now is reality. So, that's a bit of a mind fuck. Two people (or twenty, or twenty thousand) might go through the same experience but they will all feel differently about it, remember it differently, describe it differently. Which is correct? Your version is correct to you, so thereby you have your own reality. We all walk around in our own little realities. I mean, the exact same experience can happen to me two days in a row, but I won't necessarily feel the same way about it each time given where my headspace is that day. So then our own little realities have to do with where we are, how we feel, what we're reacting to, as well as what we want our current reality to be. It gives me a bit of a headache.
I'm stagnating.
Whew. Glad that actualization is out of the way.
There was a father taking pictures of his son on the seabus on the way over. I found it strangely endearing. A lot of people (most people?) are full of shit, and it was refreshing to see a father so intently enjoying an afternoon out with his son and recording the whole thing for posterity. Though I did feel a twinge of irritation when, after snapping a picture of his son using a cell phone, his son grabbed the phone from him to see how cute he looked. I thought, how narcissistic. And then I thought, I have a whole blog dedicated to myself, my thoughts, my actions and I don't think it gets much more narcissistic than that.
Met up for lunch with Big D and we had some pretty serious conversations. Like, really serious. There are things that I had always been sure of throughout my adult life, which I have started to call into question. And, like picking at some thread on a sweater, the whole damn thing is starting to unravel.
I'm not sure about monogamy. I'm not sure that people are meant to be together for a lifetime (though I think the concept is a nice, idealistic, romantic one). I think that if you are enjoying spending time with someone, you should do that until it's no longer enjoyable. I know you tune into my blog for my amazing and witty insights.
The other thing I'm not one hundred percent sure about right now is reality. So, that's a bit of a mind fuck. Two people (or twenty, or twenty thousand) might go through the same experience but they will all feel differently about it, remember it differently, describe it differently. Which is correct? Your version is correct to you, so thereby you have your own reality. We all walk around in our own little realities. I mean, the exact same experience can happen to me two days in a row, but I won't necessarily feel the same way about it each time given where my headspace is that day. So then our own little realities have to do with where we are, how we feel, what we're reacting to, as well as what we want our current reality to be. It gives me a bit of a headache.
I'm stagnating.
Dumb
I want to delete my last blog but I won't. I will leave it for posterity and to remind myself how absolutely fucking ridiculous I can be.
Had a great dinner with J from my running clinic last night. I decided to walk to the restaurant and as I was heading down St. Georges (a lot of the streets are named after saints around here, which is a bit odd) I came across a couple of women that had apparently bumped into one another while running errands and were having a fierce, whispered and conspiratorial conversation. It jarred the cogs in my head and they slowly started to grind and wing out associated thoughts and concepts. Then I got sidetracked thinking about a concept for another short story involving my relationships with light poles. They seem to turn on and off around me a lot. It makes me feel special.
Got to the restaurant (early, as always). I had had a brief conversation with J when a bunch of us went out for drinks a few weeks ago and I had gotten the impression that she wanted someone to chat to. And chat we did. We talked about some pretty personal things, things that were so personal that Michael said to me (I called, kind of drunk, on the way home and told him I had eaten a steak and he said, "Yes, I know. You've told me like seven times") "don't you think that's a bit weird?". And I thought about it, and no, I don't think that's a bit weird.
What's weird is people that talk and talk and talk and have nothing to say. I am possibly one of these people, and if you think I am then by all rights tell me to shut up. But I think that that's what those furtive and illicit whisperers were collaborating about on St. Georges. They were out and away from their husbands and they had something to say to each other. They were comparing normalcies or commiserating about abnormalities. They were unloading. They were empathetic and seeking advice. They were reassuring.
So I think maybe that's what the conversation that I had with J was about. We all have these lives which are all so different and sometimes you just want to check in with someone and have them tell you that you're okay, that other people have done, thought, felt the same things as you. I don't want to hear about the great deal on pants that you got at the GAP, nor do I care what kind of car you have or what you do for a living (unless you love what you do for a living, it brings you joy or you own it). I do want to talk of the things that were bad that happened, of uncertainties, of amazing accomplishments and surreal experiences. I can only have my experiences and I've not had yours, so tell me about them.
When I got home last night my mind was still conversing, though it had no one to converse with. I went to bed and I suppose my mind wanted to keep on going to it created fictional circumstances and gave me equally fictitious answers. I dreamed that I emailed Typewriter and his response was perfect. That a colleague of mine wanted to have an affair with me and I was both surprised and not surprised. I dreamed that I confessed to someone my great regret of not visiting my grandfather in the hospital before he died. There was more, but it's all fading from my mind now, washed away by my second cup of coffee and buried under too much french toast.
I hate when I do the micro thing. I hate when I think so small. Oh fuck it. I haven't even put on my bracelet and I'm already complaining. I just hate when I disappoint myself and stay on that useless, ridiculous, linear train of thought that's not even worth any of my energy. It's that train of thought that perpetuates useless, frivolous conversations; the kind which, when it begins, you can already anticipate the verbal back and forths arriving at some inane, predetermined conclusion that essentially concludes nothing, as is really more of a cessation of talking until the next redundant conversation begins anew.
God. This is what happens when I don't get enough exercise and have too much sleep and use too much sugary syrup.
Good morning, sunshines.
Had a great dinner with J from my running clinic last night. I decided to walk to the restaurant and as I was heading down St. Georges (a lot of the streets are named after saints around here, which is a bit odd) I came across a couple of women that had apparently bumped into one another while running errands and were having a fierce, whispered and conspiratorial conversation. It jarred the cogs in my head and they slowly started to grind and wing out associated thoughts and concepts. Then I got sidetracked thinking about a concept for another short story involving my relationships with light poles. They seem to turn on and off around me a lot. It makes me feel special.
Got to the restaurant (early, as always). I had had a brief conversation with J when a bunch of us went out for drinks a few weeks ago and I had gotten the impression that she wanted someone to chat to. And chat we did. We talked about some pretty personal things, things that were so personal that Michael said to me (I called, kind of drunk, on the way home and told him I had eaten a steak and he said, "Yes, I know. You've told me like seven times") "don't you think that's a bit weird?". And I thought about it, and no, I don't think that's a bit weird.
What's weird is people that talk and talk and talk and have nothing to say. I am possibly one of these people, and if you think I am then by all rights tell me to shut up. But I think that that's what those furtive and illicit whisperers were collaborating about on St. Georges. They were out and away from their husbands and they had something to say to each other. They were comparing normalcies or commiserating about abnormalities. They were unloading. They were empathetic and seeking advice. They were reassuring.
So I think maybe that's what the conversation that I had with J was about. We all have these lives which are all so different and sometimes you just want to check in with someone and have them tell you that you're okay, that other people have done, thought, felt the same things as you. I don't want to hear about the great deal on pants that you got at the GAP, nor do I care what kind of car you have or what you do for a living (unless you love what you do for a living, it brings you joy or you own it). I do want to talk of the things that were bad that happened, of uncertainties, of amazing accomplishments and surreal experiences. I can only have my experiences and I've not had yours, so tell me about them.
When I got home last night my mind was still conversing, though it had no one to converse with. I went to bed and I suppose my mind wanted to keep on going to it created fictional circumstances and gave me equally fictitious answers. I dreamed that I emailed Typewriter and his response was perfect. That a colleague of mine wanted to have an affair with me and I was both surprised and not surprised. I dreamed that I confessed to someone my great regret of not visiting my grandfather in the hospital before he died. There was more, but it's all fading from my mind now, washed away by my second cup of coffee and buried under too much french toast.
I hate when I do the micro thing. I hate when I think so small. Oh fuck it. I haven't even put on my bracelet and I'm already complaining. I just hate when I disappoint myself and stay on that useless, ridiculous, linear train of thought that's not even worth any of my energy. It's that train of thought that perpetuates useless, frivolous conversations; the kind which, when it begins, you can already anticipate the verbal back and forths arriving at some inane, predetermined conclusion that essentially concludes nothing, as is really more of a cessation of talking until the next redundant conversation begins anew.
God. This is what happens when I don't get enough exercise and have too much sleep and use too much sugary syrup.
Good morning, sunshines.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Hey look! Duder's whining again!
Okay. I just spent an hour writing a blog that, upon review, made me want to kick my own ass.
I've been wrestling with this concept for a few years now, and I'm simply going around in circles. Marriage: societal norm? archaic? out-dated? necessary? idealistic? overly-romantic?
Please to help. I would love, love for people to give me some feedback (email is listed on my blog profile). Responses will be regarded as confidential.
What time is it?
It's angry letter writing time! Here is a copy of the letter I will be sending to the government regarding the proposed Pitt River project. I have listed details of where to mail, email or fax your own letter if you wish to write one. Please note that the government considers each letter that it receives as though five hundred people have spoken.
February 22, 2008
To Whom It May Concern:
Re: Boundary Change Pinecone Burke
I am writing regarding the Upper Pitt hydro proposal from Northwest Cascade Power. I am vehemently opposed to this project. I am incredibly angered that my government has passed a bill (Bill C30) which would hinder the public’s ability to give feedback to the government regarding proposed changes and intrusions onto their (public) property, and instead direct public feedback to the private companies that have plunked down $5,000 to $10,000 for a license allowing them to dam rivers that are integral to the ecosystems they support, and the environment overall. I am embarrassed that my government has even deigned to consider changing the boundaries of a designated Class A park to accommodate a power line and the ensuing clear cutting that would result from it.
I have always prided myself in thinking that Canada was a democratic country, and that British Columbia was truly a “super, natural” province, but this debacle has opened my eyes. By insulating yourself from public feedback (or, more disgustingly, relying on private corporations with a vested interest in this project to advise the government of the public’s general consensus) you are losing touch with the people who own this land, and with your voters.
It’s 2008. We need to start thinking outside the box and to understand that treating the environment abysmally, and allowing industry into our public parks isn’t the answer: short term or long term. This proposal sets a very dangerous precedent, I am totally opposed to it, and it should be stopped.
This is an important issue for me and I will ensure that I encourage many people to attend the public hearings, to write letters and to hold their government accountable in the stewardship of our public parks and rivers.
Sincerely,
Duder
Comments from the public are being solicited until April 2 (midnight) on the proposed park boundary change. Please, stand up for our parks and say no to the proposed change in this park boundary. Stopping the transmission line could present a serious impediment to the entire project. Please submit your comments to PineconeBurke@gov.bc.ca or mail them to Boundary Change Pinecone Burke, c/o BC Parks, PO Box 9398, Stn. Prov. Govt., Victoria, BC, V8W 9M9 or fax to 1-250-387-5757.
February 22, 2008
To Whom It May Concern:
Re: Boundary Change Pinecone Burke
I am writing regarding the Upper Pitt hydro proposal from Northwest Cascade Power. I am vehemently opposed to this project. I am incredibly angered that my government has passed a bill (Bill C30) which would hinder the public’s ability to give feedback to the government regarding proposed changes and intrusions onto their (public) property, and instead direct public feedback to the private companies that have plunked down $5,000 to $10,000 for a license allowing them to dam rivers that are integral to the ecosystems they support, and the environment overall. I am embarrassed that my government has even deigned to consider changing the boundaries of a designated Class A park to accommodate a power line and the ensuing clear cutting that would result from it.
I have always prided myself in thinking that Canada was a democratic country, and that British Columbia was truly a “super, natural” province, but this debacle has opened my eyes. By insulating yourself from public feedback (or, more disgustingly, relying on private corporations with a vested interest in this project to advise the government of the public’s general consensus) you are losing touch with the people who own this land, and with your voters.
It’s 2008. We need to start thinking outside the box and to understand that treating the environment abysmally, and allowing industry into our public parks isn’t the answer: short term or long term. This proposal sets a very dangerous precedent, I am totally opposed to it, and it should be stopped.
This is an important issue for me and I will ensure that I encourage many people to attend the public hearings, to write letters and to hold their government accountable in the stewardship of our public parks and rivers.
Sincerely,
Duder
Comments from the public are being solicited until April 2 (midnight) on the proposed park boundary change. Please, stand up for our parks and say no to the proposed change in this park boundary. Stopping the transmission line could present a serious impediment to the entire project. Please submit your comments to PineconeBurke@gov.bc.ca or mail them to Boundary Change Pinecone Burke, c/o BC Parks, PO Box 9398, Stn. Prov. Govt., Victoria, BC, V8W 9M9 or fax to 1-250-387-5757.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
My fifteen seconds of (running) fame
Explain this: last week when I was pretty well rested I was struggling to complete an 8 minute mile. Tonight I ran a 7.07 mile (okay, so I couldn't reproduce it the following three times, but whatever) and I was tired and mildly hungover. I don't understand it, so I'm going to give props to my iron pills. When in doubt, take drugs. But my fifteen seconds of fame came when I ran with the fast group and I led the pack for a little while, after outpacing Michael. Then he made some comment about there being people in front of us and, because I couldn't see them per se, I replied (in short, rapid, wheezy gasps), "I'm going to pretend that there isn't". Yeah, there were some people out there running 6.30 miles. Perverts.
Bumped into the woman that I'm having dinner with tomorrow night. I'm really looking forward to it. What a great, social week it was for me! Dinner with Michael on Monday, an invigorating book club meeting on Wednesday, dinner with a fellow runner tomorrow night, Big D on Saturday night, my parents' on Sunday. I actually don't have a night off until next Wednesday. The best part is that I keep writing all this stuff down in my day planner in order to keep it all straight, and then I forget to actually refer to my day planner. Stupid!
In other news, I'm trying to stop complaining and being negative so I bought these bracelets which you're supposed to wear on one wrist and every time you complain, whine, gossip you have to switch the bracelet to another wrist. The goal is to go 21 days without switching the bracelet because scientifically it takes 21 days to make or break a habit. I've tried it for three days now and I'm still switching back and forth. Given that today is a total write off anyways, I'm just going to hammer the final nail in the coffin and get some stuff of my chest:
- when you're on an escalator, you don't have to stop: you can actually keep moving as if they were honest to god stairs
- if you're out driving and you see a bunch of runners, slow the fuck down (yeah, asshole in the BMW, that was me giving you the "take it down a notch" gesture tonight)
- don't stand in the doorways of the bus: the doors are used when people disembark, and you're in the goddamned way
- quit smoking
Huh. I guess that's about all I've got. Wow, I've got it pretty good. To counter that, I will come up with four positive things:
- I was very impressed when my (male) coworker helped me unload the dishwasher at work this morning. It's the second time he has done this with me
- I love the people I run with (or run slightly behind). Their positive outlook on life and their fantastic sense of humour makes me want to be a better person
- I love the people in my book club. I felt very fortunate to be able to spend an evening with such interesting and diverse people last night
- I really appreciate the way the bus driver says "thank you" in the morning when I show him my bus pass. He doesn't need to say anything, but he always smiles at me and I say "good morning", show him the pass and he thanks me and gets me to the seabus on time
Alright. I think my karma's all in line now.
Tomorrow I will start anew to not complain, whine, criticize or gossip. Theoretically there shouldn't be much to complain about: it's Friday; I'm having a massage at 5pm; I'm going out for dinner at 7pm; I'm sleeping until NOON on Saturday; and I'm not working Monday.
Oh, and if anyone wants to take this non-complaining challenge, please let me know. I've seven bracelets left and one of them has your name on it. The downside is that you will no longer be able to say, "That Duder, what a royal pain in the ass!" without having to start anew.
Bumped into the woman that I'm having dinner with tomorrow night. I'm really looking forward to it. What a great, social week it was for me! Dinner with Michael on Monday, an invigorating book club meeting on Wednesday, dinner with a fellow runner tomorrow night, Big D on Saturday night, my parents' on Sunday. I actually don't have a night off until next Wednesday. The best part is that I keep writing all this stuff down in my day planner in order to keep it all straight, and then I forget to actually refer to my day planner. Stupid!
In other news, I'm trying to stop complaining and being negative so I bought these bracelets which you're supposed to wear on one wrist and every time you complain, whine, gossip you have to switch the bracelet to another wrist. The goal is to go 21 days without switching the bracelet because scientifically it takes 21 days to make or break a habit. I've tried it for three days now and I'm still switching back and forth. Given that today is a total write off anyways, I'm just going to hammer the final nail in the coffin and get some stuff of my chest:
- when you're on an escalator, you don't have to stop: you can actually keep moving as if they were honest to god stairs
- if you're out driving and you see a bunch of runners, slow the fuck down (yeah, asshole in the BMW, that was me giving you the "take it down a notch" gesture tonight)
- don't stand in the doorways of the bus: the doors are used when people disembark, and you're in the goddamned way
- quit smoking
Huh. I guess that's about all I've got. Wow, I've got it pretty good. To counter that, I will come up with four positive things:
- I was very impressed when my (male) coworker helped me unload the dishwasher at work this morning. It's the second time he has done this with me
- I love the people I run with (or run slightly behind). Their positive outlook on life and their fantastic sense of humour makes me want to be a better person
- I love the people in my book club. I felt very fortunate to be able to spend an evening with such interesting and diverse people last night
- I really appreciate the way the bus driver says "thank you" in the morning when I show him my bus pass. He doesn't need to say anything, but he always smiles at me and I say "good morning", show him the pass and he thanks me and gets me to the seabus on time
Alright. I think my karma's all in line now.
Tomorrow I will start anew to not complain, whine, criticize or gossip. Theoretically there shouldn't be much to complain about: it's Friday; I'm having a massage at 5pm; I'm going out for dinner at 7pm; I'm sleeping until NOON on Saturday; and I'm not working Monday.
Oh, and if anyone wants to take this non-complaining challenge, please let me know. I've seven bracelets left and one of them has your name on it. The downside is that you will no longer be able to say, "That Duder, what a royal pain in the ass!" without having to start anew.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Things at which I am inept/adept
Right. I do not even want to talk about the issue I am currently having with uncorking wine bottles. From here on in? Yeah, I'm just going to smash them on my counter and drink straight from the jagged bottle. I don't even know. I managed to get red wine on my face and somehow forced the cork into the bottle while using (what I have been told is) an expensive wine uncorker. Decorker. Opener.
There are things that I can do well. I'm a pretty decent kayaker. I can run quite fast. I can.... um... look, there are other things, I just can't think of them right now. Oh wait - debating with CTV executives, vacuuming pools, getting sunstroke, dissing management on speakerphone, supervising the installation of shelving - I'm also good at those things, which totally come up on a day to day basis. Opening a bottle of wine? Yeah. Like Skyhammer says, there's got to be a way we can make money from this. If I see footage of this shite on YouTube, I swear to god heads will roll.
But moving on (after wiping Jackson Triggs from my face), the third book club meeting at my place was, in my humble opinion, a success. The book. The book. Well, books are literature and literature is art and we all see different things when we look at a painting or a building or a sculpture, and we all take different things away from books we read. I enjoy reading new books and being introduced to different genres, and I also think that debating books helps one to understand them further.
It goes without saying that the highlight of the night was Po's debut of her new book (Po: send me a link and I'll post it here). I am so tremendously excited that it's been published and that I know someone that has published two books, in addtion to being an extremely talented artist. Accounting is fun too.
At one point during the evening I felt that it was Friday. I was having so much fun that I wanted it to continue until midnight, but alas we could not. The company was fantastic, the conversation was brilliant (I really enjoyed rolling up my sleeves to debate monogamy with Skyhammer and C) and I think everyone had a good time at that this book club will continue to be a success. Fun. I had fun. Except for my current situation with corks. Jesus. I like the way people look at me as though I am a retarded child. I get that look a lot.
So the photo I've got up here was supposed to showcase the empty wine bottles on the bar
behind me, but I failed to do that and ended up with more of a glamour shot of my hair, which is okay because my hair is sweet.
What else, what else. People didn't eat enough of the dessert so now I'm stuck with it. I had fun. Did I mention I had fun? I gave hugs to five people. Me! Hugging! I'm happy. Happy that Po published a book. Happy that the cohabitation betwixt N and Skyhammer seems to be going well. Happy to get to meet another member of the bookclub, and to get to know another member a little better. It's so invigorating to be around such diverse and dynamic people. What a turn on!
Huh. Probably gonna be a little hungover for tomorrow's clinic. And full of caramel cupcakes. It's all good. I mean, check out my hair. I think another wine tasting is in order. Yes? Yes. I'll bring something with a screwcap.
There are things that I can do well. I'm a pretty decent kayaker. I can run quite fast. I can.... um... look, there are other things, I just can't think of them right now. Oh wait - debating with CTV executives, vacuuming pools, getting sunstroke, dissing management on speakerphone, supervising the installation of shelving - I'm also good at those things, which totally come up on a day to day basis. Opening a bottle of wine? Yeah. Like Skyhammer says, there's got to be a way we can make money from this. If I see footage of this shite on YouTube, I swear to god heads will roll.
But moving on (after wiping Jackson Triggs from my face), the third book club meeting at my place was, in my humble opinion, a success. The book. The book. Well, books are literature and literature is art and we all see different things when we look at a painting or a building or a sculpture, and we all take different things away from books we read. I enjoy reading new books and being introduced to different genres, and I also think that debating books helps one to understand them further.
It goes without saying that the highlight of the night was Po's debut of her new book (Po: send me a link and I'll post it here). I am so tremendously excited that it's been published and that I know someone that has published two books, in addtion to being an extremely talented artist. Accounting is fun too.
At one point during the evening I felt that it was Friday. I was having so much fun that I wanted it to continue until midnight, but alas we could not. The company was fantastic, the conversation was brilliant (I really enjoyed rolling up my sleeves to debate monogamy with Skyhammer and C) and I think everyone had a good time at that this book club will continue to be a success. Fun. I had fun. Except for my current situation with corks. Jesus. I like the way people look at me as though I am a retarded child. I get that look a lot.
So the photo I've got up here was supposed to showcase the empty wine bottles on the bar
behind me, but I failed to do that and ended up with more of a glamour shot of my hair, which is okay because my hair is sweet.What else, what else. People didn't eat enough of the dessert so now I'm stuck with it. I had fun. Did I mention I had fun? I gave hugs to five people. Me! Hugging! I'm happy. Happy that Po published a book. Happy that the cohabitation betwixt N and Skyhammer seems to be going well. Happy to get to meet another member of the bookclub, and to get to know another member a little better. It's so invigorating to be around such diverse and dynamic people. What a turn on!
Huh. Probably gonna be a little hungover for tomorrow's clinic. And full of caramel cupcakes. It's all good. I mean, check out my hair. I think another wine tasting is in order. Yes? Yes. I'll bring something with a screwcap.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
It's the way the sunlight hits the water (fiction)
She's lying on her back, alone, in bed, idly fondling one breast. Why? Why not. It's there. Consider it some kind of half-assed self breast exam. She's not expecting to find anything, and is quite shocked when she does. It's not as though her breasts are large or that they cannot be deftly maneuvered and plied by her probing fingers. The pea-sized lump is surprisingly easy to find and she wonders when it was introduced into her body and she strains to remember the last time she performed some sort of impromtu, casual search for things that didn't belong.
She feels it incessantly. She takes her groping hand away, and then seeks it out again, chancing that it was a figment of her imagination and she won't be able to recreate it. It's still there. It's quite small: the size of a pea or even smaller, but it's hard and she's confident that she has never encountered it before.
She shoves all the negative thoughts from her mind. She is too young. She eats well, is fit and healthy and there is no history of breast cancer in her family. Some fucking niggling voice tells her that this is the price that she has to pay. This is the price for living a blessed life and for not being appreciative enough. She won't entertain any further thoughts. She will not deal with this tonight: it is currently beyond what she is capable of. It's like being slapped across the face by one's lover at a restaurant and she is choosing to walk out as though nothing has happened.
A week goes by, and in that week the lump is there - readily accessible. She feels it furtively when she goes to the washroom at work. She seeks to defy its existence when lying awake in her bed. It's not going away, she panicks. This is bigger than she is accustomed to. Up until now everything was manageable, fixable. Smashing her face into the dashboard of her parents' car at four years old: they stitched it up. Badly spraining her arm playing basketball when one of her classmates shoved her roughly to the floor for some supposed slight that she had no recollecion of: it mended. The pictures of her ovaries splotched with endometriosis (why had they taken pictures? she had felt reduced to some obscene medical textbook photo op - surely she was composed of something more beautific than that vein-shot, pinkened mess): it was cauterized. She asks her mother about it, hoping her mother has weathered her way through her own, similar experience, but no.
She didn't want to tell anyone, in all reality. She was quite confident that if she ignored it it would go away, shrivel up and be reabsorbed back into her body to reappear at a more appropriate time, say in her late fifties. This was somehow her mother's fault. She was a byproduct of her parent's coupling, so surely her mother should shoulder some of the blame as to why her body might possibly be failing her.
She promises to go see a doctor. By the time she makes the phone call to arrange an appointment she is in some sort of full blown anxiety attack; the kind that outwardly appears as though everything is perfect, but that one word, one touch can utterly shatter. The receptionist asks if it is a routine checkup and she says, "No. I think I've found a lump in my breast". The receptionist tells her it will be about a week. Indignantly she wants to insist, but I've found a lump in my breast, but instead she says nothing, because she chooses to believe that the receptionist's nonchalance means that this is all some sort of non-event.
The stats are good. Odds are she has a benign lump. She's taken statistics. Christ, she got an A+ in statistics, but even if the odds were 1% she still wouldn't sleep until it was confirmed. And she doesn't sleep. So many different tangents. This is karma's way of saying that she hasn't been a good enough person. She could care less about anything. What is the point in seeking joy knowing what might be looming on the horizon. She is paralyzed by the thought that she might have to endure a mammogram, a biopsy and the additional period of waiting on tenterhooks until that debacle is sorted out, let alone the possibility that she might have something much more sinister in store for her. She resolves that if this is nothing, that she will love life and never complain about anything again. She is so goddamned angry that that is happening now when everything is going so well. But isn't that when it always goes awry? The run in the stockings? Getting your period the day you're supposed to meet your lover? A dead battery with a job interview in twenty minutes?
And what if? Just what if? She'll maybe lose her hair. Maybe she'll be too ill to work (but she'll work for a while and it will go through the grapevine and people will ask her with unbearable and vaguely insincere kindness how she's doing, while secretly trying to distance themselves from her, from death). Oh Christ. She remembers her grandmother dying in the hospital like it was yesterday. Cheeks puffy from the steroids as she sat propped in the sterile and starched hospital bed with some ridiculous stuffed animal that had been given to her by her niece and her grandmother offering her some orange juice, or apple juice or whatever the hell it was (the kind that comes in the transluscent cup sized containers with the metal foil on top as though to add further insult to the fact that its recipient's stay is quite temporary). And she hovered in the doorway, seeking solace in her parents' company. It's quite clear to her in retrospect that her nanny most likely just wanted to embrace her grandchildren one last time because, yeah, it was pretty much the last time she saw them but the puffy face and the flourescent lighting and the inordinate, garish cheeriness of that stuffed animal was too much.
Who do you burden with this?
She promises to be good, promises to be good. And everything is so good. And her father calls because her mother has told him, but she can't choke it out and she feels like less of a daughter for not sharing with him when they end their conversation. And babies are born and people get engaged and lovers come and go and she makes new friends and reconnects with old ones and this is just in the span of a week.
And she waits for the appointment and she feels really very alone, but it's most likely nothing even though she's already decided what she'll do if it isn't nothing (she'll blow the majority of her savings touring the fucking world, and then she'll come home and catch up on all the sleep and eating and reading that she's been missing and then she'll take too many pills).
And the appointment comes and, irony of ironies, as she is sitting in the office waiting for her doctor she can't seem to find the lump and, red-faced, she explains this to her doctor who listens and then examines her and tells her that yes, there is a lump, but it's a fibroadenoma which is benign and somewhat commonplace and its size can fluctuate with one's menstrual cycle which, when she thinks back on it, makes sense given where she is on her cycle and she feels a little ridiculous, but her doctor tells her no, nothing is ever ridiculous.
And she takes the bus home and can't concentrate. And it's the way the sunlight hits the water as she's coming home that makes her thankful that she's wearing sunglasses because she's starting to cry. It has something to do with the way the construction worker sitting across from her is nodding off with a slight smile on his face, and the way that two people meet her anxious and tremulous gaze that she casts frantically about which leads her to a rather surreal and unexpected feeling of connectedness as she quells the tears.
This is her first glimpse of what is to come. Of things that she cannot best. Things that will arrive announced and demand your attention even though you have done all that you can to dissuade them.
Later in the evening, when remembering her grandmother she starts to cry. Great, wracking sobs that she knew were welling and cresting within her since she had left the doctor's office. She can't get rid of the image of her grandmother, her wordly, travelled nanny, propped up in some coarse, starched white bed, wanting to feel her grandkids hands clasped in hers one last time.
She feels it incessantly. She takes her groping hand away, and then seeks it out again, chancing that it was a figment of her imagination and she won't be able to recreate it. It's still there. It's quite small: the size of a pea or even smaller, but it's hard and she's confident that she has never encountered it before.
She shoves all the negative thoughts from her mind. She is too young. She eats well, is fit and healthy and there is no history of breast cancer in her family. Some fucking niggling voice tells her that this is the price that she has to pay. This is the price for living a blessed life and for not being appreciative enough. She won't entertain any further thoughts. She will not deal with this tonight: it is currently beyond what she is capable of. It's like being slapped across the face by one's lover at a restaurant and she is choosing to walk out as though nothing has happened.
A week goes by, and in that week the lump is there - readily accessible. She feels it furtively when she goes to the washroom at work. She seeks to defy its existence when lying awake in her bed. It's not going away, she panicks. This is bigger than she is accustomed to. Up until now everything was manageable, fixable. Smashing her face into the dashboard of her parents' car at four years old: they stitched it up. Badly spraining her arm playing basketball when one of her classmates shoved her roughly to the floor for some supposed slight that she had no recollecion of: it mended. The pictures of her ovaries splotched with endometriosis (why had they taken pictures? she had felt reduced to some obscene medical textbook photo op - surely she was composed of something more beautific than that vein-shot, pinkened mess): it was cauterized. She asks her mother about it, hoping her mother has weathered her way through her own, similar experience, but no.
She didn't want to tell anyone, in all reality. She was quite confident that if she ignored it it would go away, shrivel up and be reabsorbed back into her body to reappear at a more appropriate time, say in her late fifties. This was somehow her mother's fault. She was a byproduct of her parent's coupling, so surely her mother should shoulder some of the blame as to why her body might possibly be failing her.
She promises to go see a doctor. By the time she makes the phone call to arrange an appointment she is in some sort of full blown anxiety attack; the kind that outwardly appears as though everything is perfect, but that one word, one touch can utterly shatter. The receptionist asks if it is a routine checkup and she says, "No. I think I've found a lump in my breast". The receptionist tells her it will be about a week. Indignantly she wants to insist, but I've found a lump in my breast, but instead she says nothing, because she chooses to believe that the receptionist's nonchalance means that this is all some sort of non-event.
The stats are good. Odds are she has a benign lump. She's taken statistics. Christ, she got an A+ in statistics, but even if the odds were 1% she still wouldn't sleep until it was confirmed. And she doesn't sleep. So many different tangents. This is karma's way of saying that she hasn't been a good enough person. She could care less about anything. What is the point in seeking joy knowing what might be looming on the horizon. She is paralyzed by the thought that she might have to endure a mammogram, a biopsy and the additional period of waiting on tenterhooks until that debacle is sorted out, let alone the possibility that she might have something much more sinister in store for her. She resolves that if this is nothing, that she will love life and never complain about anything again. She is so goddamned angry that that is happening now when everything is going so well. But isn't that when it always goes awry? The run in the stockings? Getting your period the day you're supposed to meet your lover? A dead battery with a job interview in twenty minutes?
And what if? Just what if? She'll maybe lose her hair. Maybe she'll be too ill to work (but she'll work for a while and it will go through the grapevine and people will ask her with unbearable and vaguely insincere kindness how she's doing, while secretly trying to distance themselves from her, from death). Oh Christ. She remembers her grandmother dying in the hospital like it was yesterday. Cheeks puffy from the steroids as she sat propped in the sterile and starched hospital bed with some ridiculous stuffed animal that had been given to her by her niece and her grandmother offering her some orange juice, or apple juice or whatever the hell it was (the kind that comes in the transluscent cup sized containers with the metal foil on top as though to add further insult to the fact that its recipient's stay is quite temporary). And she hovered in the doorway, seeking solace in her parents' company. It's quite clear to her in retrospect that her nanny most likely just wanted to embrace her grandchildren one last time because, yeah, it was pretty much the last time she saw them but the puffy face and the flourescent lighting and the inordinate, garish cheeriness of that stuffed animal was too much.
Who do you burden with this?
She promises to be good, promises to be good. And everything is so good. And her father calls because her mother has told him, but she can't choke it out and she feels like less of a daughter for not sharing with him when they end their conversation. And babies are born and people get engaged and lovers come and go and she makes new friends and reconnects with old ones and this is just in the span of a week.
And she waits for the appointment and she feels really very alone, but it's most likely nothing even though she's already decided what she'll do if it isn't nothing (she'll blow the majority of her savings touring the fucking world, and then she'll come home and catch up on all the sleep and eating and reading that she's been missing and then she'll take too many pills).
And the appointment comes and, irony of ironies, as she is sitting in the office waiting for her doctor she can't seem to find the lump and, red-faced, she explains this to her doctor who listens and then examines her and tells her that yes, there is a lump, but it's a fibroadenoma which is benign and somewhat commonplace and its size can fluctuate with one's menstrual cycle which, when she thinks back on it, makes sense given where she is on her cycle and she feels a little ridiculous, but her doctor tells her no, nothing is ever ridiculous.
And she takes the bus home and can't concentrate. And it's the way the sunlight hits the water as she's coming home that makes her thankful that she's wearing sunglasses because she's starting to cry. It has something to do with the way the construction worker sitting across from her is nodding off with a slight smile on his face, and the way that two people meet her anxious and tremulous gaze that she casts frantically about which leads her to a rather surreal and unexpected feeling of connectedness as she quells the tears.
This is her first glimpse of what is to come. Of things that she cannot best. Things that will arrive announced and demand your attention even though you have done all that you can to dissuade them.
Later in the evening, when remembering her grandmother she starts to cry. Great, wracking sobs that she knew were welling and cresting within her since she had left the doctor's office. She can't get rid of the image of her grandmother, her wordly, travelled nanny, propped up in some coarse, starched white bed, wanting to feel her grandkids hands clasped in hers one last time.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Making friends at 31
People say things when they've had a couple of drinks. I, in fact, have been known to say things that would be considered downright surprising in the cold, calculating light of day ("marry me", "come get me... no, I don't know where I am", "I will see you at 6am and show you how many tricep dips I can do", "I'm going to run a marathon"... you get the picture). So a couple of weeks ago when I was hanging out with the cool kids of the running clinic at the pub with Michael and I struck up a conversation with a really nice girl there and we exchanged numbers and she said she'd call and we'd go for drinks I didn't think too much of it. But tonight she called (I had my phone off because I was entertaining) and she did indeed want to grab a beer or a coffee or... even go for a run with me. And she extended the invite, if we were interested, to make it a couples event as her boyfriend runs at the clinic as well. Wow! In the last five years I think I've made two friends: L, who I met on the job; and N, who I knew of, but until the last couple of years didn't know well. Making friends at 31 is hard. Everyone has their own clique. People have settled into their routines. They're not accepting new applications. I'm guilty of this as well: I'm a busy girl and I have a fantastic set of friends and I sometimes lament that I don't get to see them as often as I'd like. I set the bar quite high as far as friendships go, so that's why I'm pretty excited to have met someone that seems so interesting, that lives a three minute drive from me, that I seem to have a lot in common with. And Michael runs with her boyfriend: that's who was asking for details on our relationship status on Sunday. Weird, eh? At any rate, all in all pretty exciting. It would be super terrific to have a friend on this side of the water. It would be really super double monkey luck happiness if Michael could find a kindred spirit as well... someone to whom he could confide such things as: "my girlfriend proposes marriage via text when she's drunk, and I'm not sure how to deal with that" and "can you go over there and work on her apartment, cause I'm sick of it", not to mention "she buys frozen lasagnas from Extra Foods and considers that 'cooking'".
In other news, the frozen lasagna went over well and Michael needs to install some weatherstripping to my door to block out some of the hallway noise. Ha ha. See how I kid?
"I love my life!" - random North Shore runner
In other news, the frozen lasagna went over well and Michael needs to install some weatherstripping to my door to block out some of the hallway noise. Ha ha. See how I kid?
"I love my life!" - random North Shore runner
Giddy
Today I received a group email from one of the leaders of our running clinic congratulating us on a job well done on Sunday. She mentioned that, as her group was descending from the mountains, basking in the sunshine and looking at the beautiful views someone yelled, “I love my life!”. Damn straight. I had that same feeling yesterday as well as I ran with my own group, our breaths misting the air, the sun warming our steaming bodies, listening to the rhythmic scuff of a half dozen pair of runners hit the pavement, the distinctive sound of a raven’s hoarse cry reverberating overhead.
Here’s my giddy announcement. Michael is coming over for dinner tonight, and I’m all a-twitter. I think it’s rather fantastic that, though we dated for over 6 years and lived together for 5 (and, furthermore, that I see him at least 4 times a week currently), I am so excited by the prospect of having dinner with him. C asked me how things were going last night and I was pleased to announce that they were going well. I also think it’s funny that Michael and I have been “outed” within our running community. He does not like talking about his personal life, but apparently when he was running with another guy on Sunday he was asked what the deal with me was, so he had to cough it up. Normally when someone asks him, he looks at me and says, “I don’t know, what is our status?” or something equally inane, but I was too busy making snow angels and trying to convince myself that we weren’t being tracked by cougars about half a kilometer behind him, so he couldn’t deflect the conversation onto me.
Lastly, several of you have probably received an email from me regarding the proposed power project in the Upper Pitt River area. I do encourage you to attend the public hearings so that we can prevent the government’s invasion into parkland: your parkland. http://www.wildernesscommittee.org/campaigns/publiclands/rpps/action
Here’s my giddy announcement. Michael is coming over for dinner tonight, and I’m all a-twitter. I think it’s rather fantastic that, though we dated for over 6 years and lived together for 5 (and, furthermore, that I see him at least 4 times a week currently), I am so excited by the prospect of having dinner with him. C asked me how things were going last night and I was pleased to announce that they were going well. I also think it’s funny that Michael and I have been “outed” within our running community. He does not like talking about his personal life, but apparently when he was running with another guy on Sunday he was asked what the deal with me was, so he had to cough it up. Normally when someone asks him, he looks at me and says, “I don’t know, what is our status?” or something equally inane, but I was too busy making snow angels and trying to convince myself that we weren’t being tracked by cougars about half a kilometer behind him, so he couldn’t deflect the conversation onto me.
Lastly, several of you have probably received an email from me regarding the proposed power project in the Upper Pitt River area. I do encourage you to attend the public hearings so that we can prevent the government’s invasion into parkland: your parkland. http://www.wildernesscommittee.org/campaigns/publiclands/rpps/action
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Me, getting off it
Right. What a whiny blog. Everyone wants their cake and to eat it too. Do I have a fantastic life? Yes. Is it unreasonable for me to ask for more? Yes. Do I have more than most? Yes. Am I being a petulant shit for waxing poetic about those illicit, outer fringes of life? Yes.
I'm sleepy.
Night.
I'm sleepy.
Night.
And then?
A bunch of stuff happened, and now it's Sunday night. I will impart further details as to what the majority of the "stuff" was, but at a later date, because it's ongoing.
Woke up in a pool of my own sweat (which I find so much more pallatible to waking up in, say, a pool of my own urine) with what felt like knives in my throat on Friday morning. This is the price one pays for cheerily chirping, "I can't believe I haven't caught your cold!" on Thursday. Was in bed til close to noon on Friday.
Saturday my mom and brother came to visit me for a late lunch. Was feeling pretty good, but tired and my ears are irritatingly plugged so I've been screaming "What?" at people all weekend. Tried to go to bed early Saturday night, but got into this big Soduko debacle... whatever.
Didn't feel like running Sunday morning, but the mileage is starting to get high and fuck me if I'm going to run 27 kilometres on my own. Dragged my ass down there. We ran up to the Seymour Demonstration Park which was ripe with snow. Which I fell in. I think there was a moment there, where I was blinded by the sun being reflected from the snow into my eyes, while I ran down some ridiculously narrow trail carved into the snow whilst feverntly concentrating on not falling, that I thought, "what the shit am I doing?". Then I fell into a snowbank, got my hands covered in PowerGel (which I adeptly cleansed with snow), almost bit it on on some ice on the road getting out of the park and just had to look around me at my fellow runners, at the sun, at the comraderie, at the brilliant morning and I felt good. Got back to the store in good time, skimped on the planks and happy feet and napped for three hours. Hey, you run 27 kilometres and tell me how exuberant YOU feel.
Woke up, had a really light-hearted conversation about religion with Big D. Yeah. A topic that is definitely easy to wrap up in half an hour. A conversation that is so easy to answer. I dunno. It's one of those ones that can go into the wee hours of the morning. Long story short: I'm happy if you've found religion: but don't push it on me. And if your religion exludes people (gays, women, whatever), then you really need to take a second look at it. There's enough exclusion and hatred and warring in the world as it is; of all things, religion shouldn't serve to foster this.
Then C came and I finally got to have a ride in his huge truck. There was a handle to help you lever yourself into the passenger seat. I almost fell out of the truck trying to close the door. Awesome. We went to Tantra, but the heavy eye makeup and breasts were not as predominately displayed as I had hoped. I felt that I had disappointed. There was a table of middle aged Asian women drinking beer. One of the weirder things I've ever seen. We talked of many things.
Overall, I was left with the feeling that everyone is getting on with it. JupiterGirl is engaged. S just gave birth to her second child. C will likely get engaged this year - maybe in the next couple of weeks. My brother moved in with his girlfriend. And it's good. It's all fantastic. But there's a certain amount of compromise involved in all of it. The compromise aspect is something that I've been trying to overcome for a while now. I don't know what it is about my personality, but I seem to gamble a lot. I want to try different things. I want people to support me through my different gambols and to allow me to return when I'm done searching. I'm not entirely sure what I'm searching for. I'm asking for too much, I suppose. Likely the point is that we're not ever 100% about anything, and when you achieve 80% on some particular thing, you should stick with it. That's likely apt advice. But it's that 20% that I wonder about. It's that 20% that makes me want to quit my job and drive across Canada, backpack through Europe, quit my job to try and write a novel, take on a lover, compete in the Ironman. I get it. I get that I'm an idiot to think that everyone isn't having these exact same thoughts.
Ah. So what? So what. Part of me is still restless and looking for adventure. I'm sure a lot of people can make the same claim. Yeah. We'll see. It's all a compromise.
What did you give up to get to where you are right now, and was it worth it?
Woke up in a pool of my own sweat (which I find so much more pallatible to waking up in, say, a pool of my own urine) with what felt like knives in my throat on Friday morning. This is the price one pays for cheerily chirping, "I can't believe I haven't caught your cold!" on Thursday. Was in bed til close to noon on Friday.
Saturday my mom and brother came to visit me for a late lunch. Was feeling pretty good, but tired and my ears are irritatingly plugged so I've been screaming "What?" at people all weekend. Tried to go to bed early Saturday night, but got into this big Soduko debacle... whatever.
Didn't feel like running Sunday morning, but the mileage is starting to get high and fuck me if I'm going to run 27 kilometres on my own. Dragged my ass down there. We ran up to the Seymour Demonstration Park which was ripe with snow. Which I fell in. I think there was a moment there, where I was blinded by the sun being reflected from the snow into my eyes, while I ran down some ridiculously narrow trail carved into the snow whilst feverntly concentrating on not falling, that I thought, "what the shit am I doing?". Then I fell into a snowbank, got my hands covered in PowerGel (which I adeptly cleansed with snow), almost bit it on on some ice on the road getting out of the park and just had to look around me at my fellow runners, at the sun, at the comraderie, at the brilliant morning and I felt good. Got back to the store in good time, skimped on the planks and happy feet and napped for three hours. Hey, you run 27 kilometres and tell me how exuberant YOU feel.
Woke up, had a really light-hearted conversation about religion with Big D. Yeah. A topic that is definitely easy to wrap up in half an hour. A conversation that is so easy to answer. I dunno. It's one of those ones that can go into the wee hours of the morning. Long story short: I'm happy if you've found religion: but don't push it on me. And if your religion exludes people (gays, women, whatever), then you really need to take a second look at it. There's enough exclusion and hatred and warring in the world as it is; of all things, religion shouldn't serve to foster this.
Then C came and I finally got to have a ride in his huge truck. There was a handle to help you lever yourself into the passenger seat. I almost fell out of the truck trying to close the door. Awesome. We went to Tantra, but the heavy eye makeup and breasts were not as predominately displayed as I had hoped. I felt that I had disappointed. There was a table of middle aged Asian women drinking beer. One of the weirder things I've ever seen. We talked of many things.
Overall, I was left with the feeling that everyone is getting on with it. JupiterGirl is engaged. S just gave birth to her second child. C will likely get engaged this year - maybe in the next couple of weeks. My brother moved in with his girlfriend. And it's good. It's all fantastic. But there's a certain amount of compromise involved in all of it. The compromise aspect is something that I've been trying to overcome for a while now. I don't know what it is about my personality, but I seem to gamble a lot. I want to try different things. I want people to support me through my different gambols and to allow me to return when I'm done searching. I'm not entirely sure what I'm searching for. I'm asking for too much, I suppose. Likely the point is that we're not ever 100% about anything, and when you achieve 80% on some particular thing, you should stick with it. That's likely apt advice. But it's that 20% that I wonder about. It's that 20% that makes me want to quit my job and drive across Canada, backpack through Europe, quit my job to try and write a novel, take on a lover, compete in the Ironman. I get it. I get that I'm an idiot to think that everyone isn't having these exact same thoughts.
Ah. So what? So what. Part of me is still restless and looking for adventure. I'm sure a lot of people can make the same claim. Yeah. We'll see. It's all a compromise.
What did you give up to get to where you are right now, and was it worth it?
Thursday, February 14, 2008
I'm pulling a Britney Spears
One of these weekends I am going to take a day to myself. Any weekend now. I'm just going to eat, sleep and clean. Screw cleaning. I'm going to eat, sleep and watch movies all day. I don't know where the day goes. It's 9:45 and I'm finally winding down. How does that happen? Let me tell you.
Had a shitty sleep last night (even though I was really happy that Michael had dropped by) because I had two glasses of pop that have caffeine. I do this often, and continue to be surprised by it. Cupcake -ow! Cupcake - ow!
Was tired at work and was accused of being an ageist. A coworker sent me a link of midget UFC fighting.
Randomly decided to get all my hair cutoff while on the seabus home. Well, not literally. I mean, I made the decision to have my hair cut while bobbing about in the ocean, but the actual cutting took place a bit later.
Newly shorn (and I mean shorn: there was a young boy getting his hair cut and my hair is now shorter than his) I looked at my watch and realized I could still make my 6:30 running clinic. Michael barely even did a double take. He has been through this before and has given up trying to encourage me to grow my hair. I like short hair. I don't care what men like. I don't care what's feminine and attractive. If I was concerned about that I would shave my legs more often, where skirts and high heels and... whatever else it is that girls do.
Okay. So then after the clinic we hung around because there's a big sale going on and I got a pair of $250 shoes for $119. They're effing sweet. Michael was jealous. It was like it was meant to be. I saw them, tried them on and was like, "This is heaven" and it was the only pair and they fit perfectly and other female runners were looking at me with a twinge of envy because I got a screaming deal. Oh, if I was a girl? I wouldn't be doing planks and pushups on the sidewalks at 7:30 at night, either.
Then Michael came over and I said, "I'm making dinner, want some?" so he stayed for dinner which was really nice and unexpected. Then phone calls to return, paperwork to wade through (why do I have paperwork? I'm not a girl, and I'm certainly not a corporation: where does all this shit come from?).
I dunno. I guess this is life. I wish it would slow down for just a moment. I wish people would stop going through my garbage and posting naked pics of me on the internet. Kidding. Unless people are doing that.
Right. Running my hands through my hair a lot and remembering that I now have none.
I'm sleeping until 11am on Saturday. If Michael attempts to get up before that I will knock him unconscious with my oscillating fan.
Had a shitty sleep last night (even though I was really happy that Michael had dropped by) because I had two glasses of pop that have caffeine. I do this often, and continue to be surprised by it. Cupcake -ow! Cupcake - ow!
Was tired at work and was accused of being an ageist. A coworker sent me a link of midget UFC fighting.
Randomly decided to get all my hair cutoff while on the seabus home. Well, not literally. I mean, I made the decision to have my hair cut while bobbing about in the ocean, but the actual cutting took place a bit later.
Newly shorn (and I mean shorn: there was a young boy getting his hair cut and my hair is now shorter than his) I looked at my watch and realized I could still make my 6:30 running clinic. Michael barely even did a double take. He has been through this before and has given up trying to encourage me to grow my hair. I like short hair. I don't care what men like. I don't care what's feminine and attractive. If I was concerned about that I would shave my legs more often, where skirts and high heels and... whatever else it is that girls do.
Okay. So then after the clinic we hung around because there's a big sale going on and I got a pair of $250 shoes for $119. They're effing sweet. Michael was jealous. It was like it was meant to be. I saw them, tried them on and was like, "This is heaven" and it was the only pair and they fit perfectly and other female runners were looking at me with a twinge of envy because I got a screaming deal. Oh, if I was a girl? I wouldn't be doing planks and pushups on the sidewalks at 7:30 at night, either.
Then Michael came over and I said, "I'm making dinner, want some?" so he stayed for dinner which was really nice and unexpected. Then phone calls to return, paperwork to wade through (why do I have paperwork? I'm not a girl, and I'm certainly not a corporation: where does all this shit come from?).
I dunno. I guess this is life. I wish it would slow down for just a moment. I wish people would stop going through my garbage and posting naked pics of me on the internet. Kidding. Unless people are doing that.
Right. Running my hands through my hair a lot and remembering that I now have none.
I'm sleeping until 11am on Saturday. If Michael attempts to get up before that I will knock him unconscious with my oscillating fan.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Eating my words... and chocolates, too!
So I'm watching "Factory Girl" and drinking some herbal tea after my 15k run tonight and the phone rings at 9:30. It's Michael and he's on his way up. He's being rather cryptic and he wants to drop by, but he doesn't seem upset so I wonder what's up. I answer the door, resplendent in much stretchy cotton, with no makeup and horrible hair. He has brought me my Valentine's Day gift of chocolate (in an actual heart-shaped box), as well as Sharkies and Power Gel (runner's food). He said he had been getting anxious with the logistics surround VDay since we would be at the clinic at 6:30 and what, was he going to bring the chocolates to the store? It was so funny. It was so totally unexpected. I know he doesn't buy into the Valentine's Day thing, but he knows that I get a bit dejected when I'm not lavished with attention (and yes: I know that's petulant and wrong). I always remember the scene from "Lost in Translation" when Bill Murray looks across the table at Scarlett Johanson and says, "Was their no one there to lavish you with attention?". That's me.
It worked out well because I had my present ready to go as well. I framed that picture that I did using Paint of the downtown skyline from North Van (it's posted somewhere on this blog). He really liked it and wanted a decent copy, so I put that together and then bought him some iron pills (a running thing, again). He was also happy and surprised. So we were all happy and surprised.
I guess it's all rather funny and ironic given my last blog, so perhaps I should amend my argument to say that Valentine's Day can also be for couples that don't really need it. I mean, this past weekend he installed shelving in my laundry "closet", replaced my doorknob, returned my car with a full tank of gas even though he drove it like 12 kilometres, and took me for coffee. I don't need chocolates or flowers to know that he loves me.
I'm still going to eat them though.
And I may be less hard on Valentine's Day next year.
But not likely.
Maybe I'll find another day to pick on. Like, what's up with Groundhog Day, anyways?
It worked out well because I had my present ready to go as well. I framed that picture that I did using Paint of the downtown skyline from North Van (it's posted somewhere on this blog). He really liked it and wanted a decent copy, so I put that together and then bought him some iron pills (a running thing, again). He was also happy and surprised. So we were all happy and surprised.
I guess it's all rather funny and ironic given my last blog, so perhaps I should amend my argument to say that Valentine's Day can also be for couples that don't really need it. I mean, this past weekend he installed shelving in my laundry "closet", replaced my doorknob, returned my car with a full tank of gas even though he drove it like 12 kilometres, and took me for coffee. I don't need chocolates or flowers to know that he loves me.
I'm still going to eat them though.
And I may be less hard on Valentine's Day next year.
But not likely.
Maybe I'll find another day to pick on. Like, what's up with Groundhog Day, anyways?
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
My perpetual hate on for Valentine's Day: high five!
Every year I go through this. I think VDay is my most hated day, with New Year's bringing up the rear. Hey, I'll be honest: I'm jealous when I see some squealing girl touting a bouquet of red roses as she climbs on the bus. I feel a bilious resentment rise up as I walk home, alone, staring into the windows of various, darkened restaurants and watching loving couples smarmily (if George Bush can make up words, so can I) gaze into each other's eyes. But do I really, really want that? No. Why? Let's dissect it.
The women that have presents delivered to them at work like the attention that their coworkers lavish them with. They like the fact that they are loved and they have the material goods to show it. Those flowers, those chocolates are the significantly cheaper version of an engagement ring which says: I belong to someone that wants to spend money on me and has thought of me on this particular day. In reality, this day is made for all the couples that are inept in every other aspect of their relationship. It's made for the guys that say, after you get together for dinner on a Wednesday, that they'll call you to make plans for Saturday night and then don't. And then forget that they said that they had in fact promised to call. It's for the guys that forget your birthday and exist in your life as you achieve momentous things, but are too self-absorbed (or ignorant) to praise you and celebrate those particular days. This day is a day for simpletons. You can't not know that this day is coming: it's so commercialized it's fucking ridiculous. Valentine's Day is for people that can't figure out the day to day, that have no originality and that think it genius to get reservations at some trendy restaurant where you'll be packed in like sardines and will have relatively little to say to one another because this day is a day like EVERY OTHER. What are you celebrating? You're celebrating love? You need a particular day to do this?
Wow. This sounds really bitter. I don't think I'm bitter. As it stands, right at this exact moment I'm very, very happy. I just get frustrated by the concept of this particular day. Do you need to be told, reminded and cajoled to lavish someone with love? And who is congratulating themselves on a job well done by having flowers or edible panties delivered to their loved one at work? And yes, I shouldn't be mad at the idea of ineffectual daters capitalizing on this day, but rather should direct my overall anxiety and puzzlement to the corporations that benefit from -and have created a monster out of - this particular day. It's just this: your flowers will be wilting on February 15th. Your expensive dinner has, at this point, made it's way through your digestive tract and is now... well, you get the picture.
Valentine's Day can be the easiest course of action. It's like paying for dinner, but not really paying attention when someone tells you that they had their personal best 10k that morning. It's like telling someone that they're amazing, but then not listening to what they have to say.
This Valentine's Day I will do what I always do. I will succumb to those feelings of inadequacy that I feel whenever coworkers get flowers, whenever someone other than me gets engaged, when people cram their tongues down one anothers' throats in my presence. For that one day I'll feel sorry for myself for whatever inane and banal reason. I'll secretly resent that no one is taking me for dinner. Then I'll get over it. I'll go to my running clinic and get a high five from Michael after I finish doing planks on the sidewalk outside the store.
It's all about the high fives.
The women that have presents delivered to them at work like the attention that their coworkers lavish them with. They like the fact that they are loved and they have the material goods to show it. Those flowers, those chocolates are the significantly cheaper version of an engagement ring which says: I belong to someone that wants to spend money on me and has thought of me on this particular day. In reality, this day is made for all the couples that are inept in every other aspect of their relationship. It's made for the guys that say, after you get together for dinner on a Wednesday, that they'll call you to make plans for Saturday night and then don't. And then forget that they said that they had in fact promised to call. It's for the guys that forget your birthday and exist in your life as you achieve momentous things, but are too self-absorbed (or ignorant) to praise you and celebrate those particular days. This day is a day for simpletons. You can't not know that this day is coming: it's so commercialized it's fucking ridiculous. Valentine's Day is for people that can't figure out the day to day, that have no originality and that think it genius to get reservations at some trendy restaurant where you'll be packed in like sardines and will have relatively little to say to one another because this day is a day like EVERY OTHER. What are you celebrating? You're celebrating love? You need a particular day to do this?
Wow. This sounds really bitter. I don't think I'm bitter. As it stands, right at this exact moment I'm very, very happy. I just get frustrated by the concept of this particular day. Do you need to be told, reminded and cajoled to lavish someone with love? And who is congratulating themselves on a job well done by having flowers or edible panties delivered to their loved one at work? And yes, I shouldn't be mad at the idea of ineffectual daters capitalizing on this day, but rather should direct my overall anxiety and puzzlement to the corporations that benefit from -and have created a monster out of - this particular day. It's just this: your flowers will be wilting on February 15th. Your expensive dinner has, at this point, made it's way through your digestive tract and is now... well, you get the picture.
Valentine's Day can be the easiest course of action. It's like paying for dinner, but not really paying attention when someone tells you that they had their personal best 10k that morning. It's like telling someone that they're amazing, but then not listening to what they have to say.
This Valentine's Day I will do what I always do. I will succumb to those feelings of inadequacy that I feel whenever coworkers get flowers, whenever someone other than me gets engaged, when people cram their tongues down one anothers' throats in my presence. For that one day I'll feel sorry for myself for whatever inane and banal reason. I'll secretly resent that no one is taking me for dinner. Then I'll get over it. I'll go to my running clinic and get a high five from Michael after I finish doing planks on the sidewalk outside the store.
It's all about the high fives.
Monday, February 11, 2008
What do you mean we can't drink wine?
Allow me to recap my weekend. Had a fantastic time out with some members of our running group. I really enjoyed their company and their stories and they were all very friendly, intelligent, interesting and articulate people. And all of them (but one) run faster than me. Michael and I were cajoled into admitting that we are an "item". It's weird. When people ask how long we've been together am I supposed to say seven years or six weeks? Michael had three beers and I believe he was nursing a mild hangover when we got up on Saturday morning. I napped on the ferry.JupiterGirl, A and M picked me up in Nanaimo. They tried to justify the long drive from Victoria to Nanaimo with a stop off at Echo Valley Wineries in Duncan on the way back. We arrived at the allotted time (as it is the off season you have to make an appointment for a tasting) and... no one was there. We rang the proffered bell many times, and then started wandering aimlessly about. A came up with a brilliant idea to go to a cider making place and it worked perfectly because they also had a bistro and since we were all starving we had a bite to eat. Talked about JupiterGirl and M's upcoming wedding. Holy shit! I can't believe they've only
been together a year, but it's true: they met around the same time that Typewriter and I started our abortive and endlessly redundant relationship. JupiterGirl and M are in sync and it's like they've been together forever. I am so happy for them and I think they will have a fantastic life together. Then we tasted some cider, bought some cider, wandered around and headed for home.I was a bit shagged out from Friday night, but didn't want to be a party pooper so I put on a good show to make it appear that I was up for a night on the town. Then JupiterGirl suggested picking up some movies, getting some take away and staying in. I almost wept with joy.
We rented a couple of movies. I really recommend "Snowcake": it was excellent. A and I picked out "The Interview" with Steve Buscemi and whatever the blond chick's name was that was dating Jude Law. Who the fuck cares. The movie was so bad that I couldn't believe that it hadn't been made that way on purpose. And then I thought that I was missing something, and that, perhaps, something magnificent would happen in the movie to help me to understand why I wasn't supposed to shoot the television. I told M and JupiterGirl that I wouldn't be offended if they wanted to turn it off. It was so bad. They didn't respond but to look at me with a mixture of anger and pity. This movie was so wretched that I recommend that you watch it, and then please send me an email and let me know what you thought. No, wait: don't. I'm quite sure that everyone has something better to do during any particular 86 minute spate than is wont to be wasted on such an egocentric, trite piece of self-aggrandizing shit.Went to bed. Woke up and had a terrific breakfast at the Blue Fox whereby I consumed about 2,000 in forty-five minutes, whilst being fully aware that at that time all the people in my running clinic were about 10-12k into their 21k run. I don't know why
these people are faster and fitter than I, I really don't.Caught the noon ferry. Cruised into Kerrisdale where Michael was picking me up and we went for dinner with another couple that we hadn't been out with socially in years.
Had the day off work today. Feeling a little under the weather so I didn't make up the long run like I had planned, but I did buy 144 Extra Strength Ibuprofen. Was supposed to meet Big D for dinner tonight, but had to ask for a rain cheque.
Now it is past my bedtime, so I shall go. It was a brilliant weekend. I have such amazing friends. I have such a great time with them and I'm sometimes left wondering what it is that these fantastic and fascinating people see in me (besides my ability to eat a lot and my overall confusion as to how to operate a self-inflating air mattress).
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Heh heh
Been a little busy. Since 5pm on Friday I have accomplished the following (these are not in any particular order): taken the BC Ferries twice; eaten Thai; ran 10 kilometres; got stood up at a winery; had the best oatmeal EVER; learned the intricacies of how to inflate an inflatable mattress; visited Sydney; exposed the extent of my love life to my running group; watched the worst fucking movie in the world; made a friend; watched a really great movie; drank cider; bought cider; saw a gonkey; won a game of Probe; returned to my Kerrisdalean stomping grounds; achieved... you know, that thing that's been eluding me since 2006; repeatedly and unexplainably managed to get mud on my pants, over and over again; ate bacon; almost got into fisticuffs with this ridiculous punk fuck on the 98 B Line; ate delicious homemade pie.
I dunno. There's a story there. And I'm sure I'm missing some things that occured that were of significance. I hugged four people IN ONE DAY. That's pretty huge, no?
Bagged. I. Am. Bagged.
More coherent blog with pictures to come later.
Thanks to JupiterGirl and her Saltspring Island companion for showing me and A such a fantastic time. I had so much fun. I endeavor to do it more often!
I dunno. There's a story there. And I'm sure I'm missing some things that occured that were of significance. I hugged four people IN ONE DAY. That's pretty huge, no?
Bagged. I. Am. Bagged.
More coherent blog with pictures to come later.
Thanks to JupiterGirl and her Saltspring Island companion for showing me and A such a fantastic time. I had so much fun. I endeavor to do it more often!
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Ass pain and iron pills
Hey. So, uh, I'm trying to figure out how I ran a 3:39 marathon in October. Yeah. Tonight we had to do four one mile repeats at race pace (meaning the pace that you would run a marathon at). I ran my marathon at an 8 minute per mile pace. I ran my four intervals at an average of 7:45, which is only fifteen seconds faster. I was consistent and, if anything, I picked it up for the last two miles. The problem is this: there is no freaking way that I could run an addition TWENTY TWO MILES at that pace. So how did I do it? Quite clearly I took a shortcut during the OIM. I can't figure it. We get back to the store and start doing some lunges and planks and I pretty much collapsed on the pavement and started crying. Everyone was up and heading into the store and I was still grinding through my twenty push ups. I guess it's time to start taking iron pills again. Michael was running seven minute miles. Jerk. My ass is sore.
I could end it all. I could put a stop to this madness. I only need to eat less food, and then I don't have to run as far. But I can't. I love timbits, bagels, cereal, pasta, cheese, wine, chips, hamburgers, steak, salad, lattes, scrambled eggs, nuts... if it isn't bolted down or still moving: I will eat it. Correction: if it isn't bolted down or moving faster than an eight minute per mile pace I will eat it.
In other news, some of the cool kids from our running group are getting together for beers tomorrow night - and I'm invited! I'm not as fast or as fit as them, but they must like my cherubic smile and the way I collapse and sob after the long runs on Sundays. Michael is going to go which is awesome, because he's not traditionally social, but these are the people that he runs with so I'm really glad that he's fallen in with an outgoing crowd: he's a great guy, who wouldn't like him? But the weirdest bit? He thinks we should take the bus. Normally he is the designated driver. During the six year period that we dated I saw him drink three beers once (it was awesome: we were taking public transit and he had to sit down because he was a bit looped). This could be an entertaining night. I just hope he isn't too hung over to drive me to the ferry on Saturday morning.
Lastly, I decided to try a Zinfandel (no really: get your own blog) and, though it might not be the most fantastic wine I've had, it's interesting. It tastes a bit like dirt and licorice, but the overwhelming taste is surprisingly personal to me. If this makes much sense: it tastes the way the grass on Lasqueti Island smells in the summer. In the summer the sun beats down on it and it becomes parched (further exacerbated by the fact that the soil quality isn't the best and it's a very dry island) and there is a wonderfully distinct, sweet, earthy scent that mingles with the smells of the pine needles disintegrating in shaded glens, and of the ocean at low tide, and of warmed, smooth Arbutus trees and dust. So this wine tastes like the time that I was sunbathing on my dad's floating dock (which he had pulled up onto the shore) with it's pale, bleached and splintery wood, the tangy scent of ocean and parched grass wafting over me as the otter (that my dog would later discover and torment ceaslessly) rooted around in the den that he/she had made under the structure. Falling in and out of sleep. Wanting to read, listen to music, but being lulled by the rhythmic rush of the waves against the shore, the distant hammering of someone constructing something carrying across the bay, the cry of the gull, the hoarse croak of the raven. Swatting away interested hornets and clacking grasshoppers. Wanting to roast smokies for dinner. Being reassured that the Peppy San was once more moored in our harbour. All things as it should be. The summer going as planned. Phosphorous in the water at night. The seal (I named him Ripley) bellyflopping to scare salmon. The gritty feel of salt between my hands and my kayak paddle. All those crazy little frogs on Main Road when I was biking that day. The racoon that I caught digging for gooey ducks in one of our bays that hardly acknowledged me before lumbering away, nonplussed by my presence.
Wow. Haven't had such an experience with a wine before. I feel that I should go visit my dad up on "the rock". This summer, undoubtedly. I'm not sure how many summers I'll have left up there.
I could end it all. I could put a stop to this madness. I only need to eat less food, and then I don't have to run as far. But I can't. I love timbits, bagels, cereal, pasta, cheese, wine, chips, hamburgers, steak, salad, lattes, scrambled eggs, nuts... if it isn't bolted down or still moving: I will eat it. Correction: if it isn't bolted down or moving faster than an eight minute per mile pace I will eat it.
In other news, some of the cool kids from our running group are getting together for beers tomorrow night - and I'm invited! I'm not as fast or as fit as them, but they must like my cherubic smile and the way I collapse and sob after the long runs on Sundays. Michael is going to go which is awesome, because he's not traditionally social, but these are the people that he runs with so I'm really glad that he's fallen in with an outgoing crowd: he's a great guy, who wouldn't like him? But the weirdest bit? He thinks we should take the bus. Normally he is the designated driver. During the six year period that we dated I saw him drink three beers once (it was awesome: we were taking public transit and he had to sit down because he was a bit looped). This could be an entertaining night. I just hope he isn't too hung over to drive me to the ferry on Saturday morning.
Lastly, I decided to try a Zinfandel (no really: get your own blog) and, though it might not be the most fantastic wine I've had, it's interesting. It tastes a bit like dirt and licorice, but the overwhelming taste is surprisingly personal to me. If this makes much sense: it tastes the way the grass on Lasqueti Island smells in the summer. In the summer the sun beats down on it and it becomes parched (further exacerbated by the fact that the soil quality isn't the best and it's a very dry island) and there is a wonderfully distinct, sweet, earthy scent that mingles with the smells of the pine needles disintegrating in shaded glens, and of the ocean at low tide, and of warmed, smooth Arbutus trees and dust. So this wine tastes like the time that I was sunbathing on my dad's floating dock (which he had pulled up onto the shore) with it's pale, bleached and splintery wood, the tangy scent of ocean and parched grass wafting over me as the otter (that my dog would later discover and torment ceaslessly) rooted around in the den that he/she had made under the structure. Falling in and out of sleep. Wanting to read, listen to music, but being lulled by the rhythmic rush of the waves against the shore, the distant hammering of someone constructing something carrying across the bay, the cry of the gull, the hoarse croak of the raven. Swatting away interested hornets and clacking grasshoppers. Wanting to roast smokies for dinner. Being reassured that the Peppy San was once more moored in our harbour. All things as it should be. The summer going as planned. Phosphorous in the water at night. The seal (I named him Ripley) bellyflopping to scare salmon. The gritty feel of salt between my hands and my kayak paddle. All those crazy little frogs on Main Road when I was biking that day. The racoon that I caught digging for gooey ducks in one of our bays that hardly acknowledged me before lumbering away, nonplussed by my presence.
Wow. Haven't had such an experience with a wine before. I feel that I should go visit my dad up on "the rock". This summer, undoubtedly. I'm not sure how many summers I'll have left up there.
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