Life and love... you know, the small topics

Life is different for everyone. We're all dealt different hands. We all deal with the same things differently.

Love is when you explain to someone how you seem to falter and fail when trying to deal with certain things and they tell you that they had you pegged long, long ago and that perhaps it is that very difference that sets you apart.

And they also think the fact that your hair sticks up at the back because it's so short is kind of cute.

34 kilometres = nap time

Working the kinks out of this whole marathon thing. Was kind of worried because last time I trained the furthest we ever went was 32.5k, but today we did 34k and we have a 37 kilometre run coming up in a couple of weeks (only 5k short of a marathon).
Cliff bars are where it's at: eat one before all long runs. They taste good and they make you go fast.
Gels every forty-five to fifty minutes. You don't want the third one, and they're kind of gross, but when you've been running for two and half hours and you starting to feel a bit peaked, that final gel will give you superpowers so that you pull away from your group, beat that kid that's been tailing you for the last three weeks, and result in your group leader giving you a handshake because he noticed how you bonked at the end of the last two long runs.
Then? Nap.
Awesome day today. Given the weird weather we've been having I was just so enthralled as we ran from Coal Harbour, around Science World and over to Alma and back. Cherry blossoms, warm sun, dragon boaters, people in shorts, flowers everywhere. Such an amazingly beautiful city.
So? Feeling good. Feeling pretty, pretty, pretty good.

I think a lot of babies are going to be born nine months from today

It’s quarter after eight and I’m blogging on battery power, by candlelight. At first I didn’t notice anything when the hour began and, as usual, I was bummed to see that some people still had their lights on. I started playing Sudoku (because what the hell else do you do on a Saturday night), and after a while I noticed how quiet it was. There aren’t a lot of cars on the road. And it is pretty dim out there: more residences are dark than not (likely because they’re out partying at some overpriced club downtown, and they arrived there via SUV and as we speak they’re wearing fur and talking about how the cabin they’re building is made from old growth trees that they had selectively logged, but just allow me my happy thoughts, okay?).
And I’m sitting here, in the glowing candlelight, listening to some good music (I just couldn’t bear to turn my speakers off and to compensate I’ve turned off my HEAT even though it has been snowing all damn day), drinking some wine that I shouldn’t be drinking because I have to run 34 kilometres tomorrow and I’m thinking: this is nice. It’s a nice, mellow respite and I’m enjoying it. I bet a lot of people are getting it on right now, because what the hell else is there to do?
There’s Sudoku. There’s always Sudoku…

Stinging Nettles - Part I (fiction)

Daniel Bower was one of those guys who was quite good looking, but didn’t really know it. He might have known it if he had carried himself with more self confidence, therefore making himself more visible and attractive to the opposite sex, but for the most part he was unnoticed and was referred to as a “nice guy” or “quiet”.
Daniel was a nice guy. He worked for the Parks Department of Vancouver and in his spare time he was a run leader at a local running clinic (the culmination of training a bunch of newbies for a half marathon and their ecstatic faces afterwards was more than worth having to get up at 7am every Sunday, worth more than the free running shoes and discount on technical gear). Every second Saturday he volunteered as a chauffeur for a retirement home, taking its patrons out of their somewhat shabby and sad environs, even if it was just to the mall or to the park or out for coffee. He was never impatient when they repeated themselves, when they moved slowly or when they asked over and over where exactly it was that they were going. Daniel believed in dignity and respect and he valued humanity and tried harder than most to see the good in people, because he believed that people were, inherently, good.
Daniel was an only child and his mother lived in an apartment in Chilliwack. She tried to live frugally as her ex-husband – David’s father – had racked up incredible gambling debts that cost them the family house before she finally divorced him. Her savings were minimal and she was trying to get by without having to take an advance on her CPP payments (which were offered to her, but with a penalty for early withdrawal). David tried to make it out to see her at least once a week, always bringing some groceries with him to help her out.
Daniel’s father was entirely out of the picture. After the divorce he had not made any attempt to make amends, to repay what he had cost them, or to even drop them a line on birthdays or at Christmas. Daniel didn’t lament the loss of his father because he and his father had not been particularly close, especially during Daniel’s teenage years when he was more fully exposed to the damage that his father was inflicting on his family. What did irritate Daniel (and what he tried vainly to repress and to overcome and to never, ever repeat) was his father’s treatment of his mother. His mother was a kind, generous and forgiving person and she forgave his father out of love, out of the desire to keep the family unit together, out of the belief that when his father had said he would stop, that he would stop. But he didn’t. And he wasted Daniel’s time and his mother’s youth and Daniel had a hard time grappling with that one.
“I fell into a patch of stinging nettles once,” Janine said, yanking one from the earth with gloved hands.
Janine was relatively new to the crew. She had joined a few months ago, in March and Daniel fell in love with her rather rapidly. He had first been struck by her wholesome appearance: long blonde hair that was always pulled back in a haphazard ponytail or bun, with a smattering of pale freckles dotting her nose and cheeks. She looked like she had just stepped out of an Izod or Calvin Klein ad. Contrary to Daniel, however, she knew the allure she held for men, though she never exploited it. At the most she might roll her eyes when recanting some failed attempt by one of their coworkers to date her. Daniel would smile wanly as he wondered, if Brad Johansson with his chiseled, Swedish features and piercing blue eyes couldn’t get a date with Janine, how he ever would.
Daniel loved the way she wore her clothes: her grubby jeans that were too big for her, her soiled and stained t-shirts emblazoned with CBC, Transformers or Green Peace logos. Her slender hands, her pale skin, her wicked smile and her equally wicked sense of humor. She didn’t wear perfume, but she often smelled of grapefruit which he attributed to either her shampoo or her soap. He tried not to think about her in the shower, naked and wet and instead preferred to think of how perhaps, at some point, they might have one of their conversations in a nice coffee shop or restaurant, instead of discussing the ramifications of having two strong Democratic candidates in the upcoming election which might result in a possible split vote which could conceivable see yet another Republican take office in November in the dewy chill of the early morning.
He lived for the days when she would show up for work beaming, having downloaded some new music that she was eager to share with him. He relished being in such close proximity with her as she lent him an earbud before turning on her newest finding and scrutinizing his face as he listened to it. He would listen to the music, give the appropriate smile, all while studying the way one of her eyebrows arched more than the other, the way she crinkled her nose in expectation of his response, her dimples when she smiled, breathing in her clean fragrance and fighting the urge to say something totally stupid.
“Yeah?” he said. “How did that happen?”
“Well… maybe fell isn’t the right word. My brother and I were fighting and he pushed me into them. Anyways, I was wearing shorts and the leg that got it the worst swelled up so much I could hardly get my shorts off about ten minutes later,” she said.
Daniel really didn’t want to think about Janine pulling her shorts off under any circumstances, swollen or not. Nor did he wish to think of how he might gently rub salve on the affected areas and be overcome with joy by her appreciative sighs.
“So when was this?” he asked, clearing his throat. “Like, last week?”
Janine laughed. “Yeah. Last week. When I was ten.”
“You and your brother seemed to get into it quite a bit: he pushes you into some stinging nettles, you pushed him into a pool. How do you guys get along? I’m not sure I’d want to be invited to one of your family dinners,” he replied.
“We did fight quite a bit,” Janine admitted. “We get along much better now. We do must of our bullying via text messages. Less itchy that way,” she concluded.
Daniel looked over at her and she gave him a sardonic smile, replete with arched eyebrow and he felt he loved her a little more right then. He returned to the dandelions he was extracting from the shrubbery that was planted around the community centre they were stationed at.
“Big plans for the weekend?” he asked, hoping she would say no, she was bored out of her mind and did he want to go see the new Wes Anderson movie with her.
“Big? No. I’m going over to my boyfriend’s parents’ place for dinner tomorrow night, which is always a bore. And I’m having brunch with some girlfriends on Sunday morning. You?”
Daniel felt the blood drain out of his face and his heart falter a little bit. “Boyfriend?” he choked out before he could stop himself. He certainly didn’t think that he would able to capture her heart, but he hadn’t been aware that her heart had already been captured.
“Yeah. Boyfriend. What: you think a girl like me could possibly be single?” she smirked at him, clearly joking. But she was right. How in the world would a girl like this be single? She was smart, funny, beautiful. She was perfect. He had seen her repair a weed whacker, pick up dog shit, take a photo of a visiting Japanese couple, argue the necessity of taxation and tolls as a way of curbing individual car use and had once seen a butterfly land on the top of her head. Of course she had a boyfriend.

Er, yeah

I'm an idiot and a disappointment to all. I failed the proverbial test and am now paying for it. Dearly. With my sanity.
What do I want to be when I grow up? I would very much like to be someone with a spine.
But. Instead of kicking the shit out of myself for the next goddamn week (which I am wont - and so love - to do) I am going to say this: I am weaker than most. Today I am going to try vainly to "let go" and to forgive myself for my transgressions... against myself.
If I ever needed a friend, it was today.

I've eaten too much candy

You can get Campinos made with yogurt versus cream now. That should be the impetus you need to eat 15 of them.

Let the divorces commence!

Being this cyncial is tiring.

http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/blogs/paging.dr.gupta/2008/03/take-home-paternity-test.html

Armageddon is coming

Really. What's with this weather? Yesterday I had the pleasure of taking the seabus home in a lightning storm. I was pretty sure lighting was going to strike one of the tankers, causing a horrific explosion which would annihilate our comparatively little vessel. And then it started to hail. And then it got sunny. I looked outside, said, "screw that shit" and did yoga. Today I looked outside and said, "screw that shit" and hit the gym for an hour. Had a small audience for a while which was... um, weird. This is called a tricep dip. I'm going to turn up my iPod and pretend that none of you exist...
And right now? There is this roiling, obsidian black cloud that is about to envelope the building across from me. Seriously. I see horsemen getting closer.
The point of this blog has nothing to do with the end of the world or how I'm not going to be able to get my shirt over my head tomorrow, but rather it's about wine. Allow me to kindly recommend a very excellent Chilean wine that I just discovered. It's Cono Sur's Viognier and it's cheap and I'm going to be drinking it all summer. I personally think it kicks ass over Yalumba's Viognier, which is like $7 more.

Gimme

I want this:
but I only have this much money:
So if you could buy it for me, that would be terrific. It would make me a better blogger. For the three people that read this (that likely think afterwards, "Why did I just read that? Any number of things would have been infinitely more enjoyable than that. Like circumcision, chicken pox, or dicey sushi").
In other news, it appears that four of you are now happy, so the happy people are in the lead. You don't have to be so goddamn ecstatic about it.
In other, other news, I have to run 21 miles this Sunday. Miles mean nothing to me. You could say to me, "Duder, it's a four mile walk from the seabus to your place" and I would say, "Oh, okay". I used to know what a mile was, when I was like six, before the whole introduction of the metric system which threw me for a loop. I haven't been the same since. I've stopped playing with My Little Ponies, and I no longer like cut up wieners in my Kraft Dinner and have lost all interest in my brother's M.A.S.K. toys. Fucking metric system. Anyways, 21 miles is 34 kilometres, which is 8 kilometres short of a marathon. Which is really, really terrible. The run would be more bearable if I had a Dell XPS 1530. I'm just saying.
Sooooo.... I've really not got much here. I got a haircut today. For some reason she charged me $10 less than last time, so I guess I have a huge bald spot somewhere that I haven't discovered yet. Just kidding. I love my hair and she did an awesome job. I've always wanted to look like a twelve year old boy, and now I do!
You know what twelve year old boys like? Dell XPS 1530s.

To the driver of the blue Pathfinder

Good morning, you fucking idiot. I am continually amazed on a daily basis by people’s stupidity, ignorance and overall lack of sensibility, but you really take the cake. Parking in front of Blenz while you waited for your husband and effectively blocking the bus from reaching the bus stop (clearly marked) fifty feet in front of you. Well done.
I realize that your husband is brain damaged, deaf or that possibly he – like me – is disgusted by you, which is why he didn’t jump to attention and sprint out of the coffee shop and leap in to the vehicle when you beeped your horn. Twice. It did, however, warm my cockles to see you both put on such a unified front when the bus did arrive, could not get to the intended stop, and so beeped once politely at you. If possible, your husband moved even more slowly in his tireless effort to climb into the vehicle at that point. I admire the way his latte, or whatever fat-laden drink he was shoving into his ignorant cakehole took precedence over the fact that by parking your environment-flouting yuppymobile where you did you were forcing the bus to block traffic that was trying to cross Lonsdale. And how upon further, exasperated beeping from the bus driver he managed some flippant “calm down” hand gesture in his general direction before climbing into the vehicle at which point you rolled down your window to flit a condescending wave at him.
Really. On behalf of all the transit riders on the bus and all the people waiting for the bus you win the award for being the most assholistic couple I have encountered in recent memory. That fact that you took such pride in holding up people taking public transportation and causing a dangerous driving situation while you got your coffee is amazing.
I don’t know. It shouldn’t surprise me. And I know in my heart of hearts that I should feel sorry for you because you have no self esteem, which is why you drive an unnecessarily large and impractical vehicle that you’ve likely never taken off road unless you consider your twice yearly trips to Whistler “off roading”. And the vehicle is probably leased, like everything in your life so that you can offer the world a façade of wealth and nonchalance and give the appearance of luxury, when in all actuality you’re drowning in debt and probably have credit card bill balances approaching five digits and are too stupid (or have been denied) to get a line of credit and continue to pay it off, bit by bit at a whopping 18%. You drink too much because of the tremendous amount of stress that you’re under financially (you bought into the real estate market when it was high, got a variable mortgage and are now choking on the 1% increase since you were incapable of conceiving that the interest rates might actually ever go up). You hate your job, but you can’t change it because you’re a talker, not a doer, and while people around you (and beneath you) have been bettering themselves you actively resist change and your career skills have stagnated. You and your husband no longer have sex because he’s typically half cut by the time he fumbles his way into the bedroom and then, despite your best efforts (which are actually quite tepid and more out of sense of obligation than lust or love) he can’t get it up.
I realize all of this and understand it is the reason why, at 8am on a Wednesday morning you got such perverse pleasure out of attempting to ruin everyone’s morning.
So I hope your husband enjoyed his latte, and keep on with those Pathfinder payments!

Playing is for pleasure

So three people are happy and three people think that happiness is relative. Interesting, isn't it? It's a tie. You all depress me. Kidding.
I want to change my blog name to "Playing Is For Pleasure" because I forgot what a goddamn great line that is from Aqua Teen Hunger Force. And yet I am torn. Free beer and crabs? That's pretty goddamn brilliant and I have good memories of coming across that sign in a window in Gastown with Big D. Good time, good times.
Okay, maybe that should be the next poll.
This blog is as useless as tits on a bull.
Oh. That's a good blog name too...

A perfect day for not working

I don't have anything important to say. This is a regular occurrence for me. I think that, when I go in to work tomorrow, I will just walk around saying, "whaa whaa, whaa whaa whaa", just like the teacher in the Charlie Brown cartoons. I don't think anyone will notice.
Today a Whirlpool guy came to look at my fridge which exhibits what I like to call a "death rattle" before it shuts off. I call him 'a Whirlpool guy' because I never got his name. He was very kind and friendly and punctual and helpful and addressed me by my name, and I never even thought to ask his. Sometimes my lack of social graces stupefies me. It doesn't stupefy me immediately, because if it did then I would know that this man's name was Carl Goldblum or maybe Joel Steinbeck or something. No, the stupefaction factor comes later and leads me to wonder how I function on a day to day basis.
I re-did my taxes and no longer owe almost $900, which is pleasing. I owe $1.53. The forty-seven cent differential between $1.53 and two dollars (versus $1.53 and $1.06) is important, because the CRA will let your bill slide if it's under two dollars. As a quid pro quo, they do not have to pay you if they owe you less than two dollars. I may take this $900 economic (as opposed to financial, or cash based) windfall and put it towards a new laptop.
As you can see, this blog has been the epitome of unimportance. I could go on. I could tell you about the book that I tried to buy that wasn't there. Or about how I fixed my wireless network. It's all the same - oh! there's the death rattle again.
But just because I don't have anything important to say doesn't mean that I have nothing important to recommend. I would like to recommend J.D. Salinger's "A Perfect Day for Bananafish". http://www.freeweb.hu/tchl/salinger/perfectday.html

Who is unhappy?

Someone, via my poll, indicated that they are unhappy. Why are you unhappy? I can think of a myriad of reasons (you have lice, you wasted two hours watching "Breaking and Entering", your dog is ill, you have a sore back, you bought a domestic vehicle, you are the guy I saw getting arrested at Lonsdale Quay tonight), but it torments me that you've indicated that you're unhappy. Incredibly, I'm not unhappy. I'm sure this blog would suggest otherwise, but as it turns out I'm only slightly crazed - and that differs a lot from being unhappy.
Unhappy blog reader: I can't make you happy. I don't think. Can I? I doubt it. But I can drink a lot of beer with you at the King's Head and, subsequently, miss the last departing seabus and spend the night sleeping in the seabus terminal because I'm too cheap to take a taxi across the bridge. I would do that for you. Providing you drink. And live here.
If you're unhappy and don't drink, or are unhappy and live elsewhere, or are unhappy and don't drink and live elsewhere, I can send you a funny YouTube link. It's the next best thing.
Who needs Lithium?

Not a good day

So we've got to be going through life with a certain amount of apathy right? I would liken it to a force field. The impenetrable force field of emotion (non-emotion?) that you cannot pierce because then I'll be forced to do something. To care. To exhibit concern. To get all excited.
Anyways, I think I do a pretty good job of keeping my force field in pristine condition so that it deflects almost everything thrown at it, but today I think my force field was compromised. I inspected it closely in the mirror and it looked weakened, diminished and indefensible. Not good. It would take only a couple of minor blows to eradicate it entirely.
I sat next to a drunk on the seabus on the way home. He made a point of sitting next to me, reeking of beer (the beer which he was still drinking out of a McDonald's cup) and I ratcheted up the volume on my iPod and refused to tilt or turn my head even slightly in his direction for fear that he would consider this some form of encouragement. At first I was angry that he had put me in this position. That I was made to feel uncomfortable. That I had to be subjected to his drunken groaning and scratching and his leering at the Sudoku puzzle I was pretending to work on when in fact I was trying not to be sick from the nauseating stench of cheap beer wafting from him. And then I was disgusted with myself for thinking any of these things: one would think that one's circumstances would have to be pretty goddamn bad to be that drunk at 4:45pm on a Monday on the seabus and that the worst that he was probably capable of was drunken, friendly (but unwanted) conversation.
Then I saw some police scream at someone to lie down on the concrete at Lonsdale Quay and they were aiming something at him. I'm not sure if it was a gun or a taser and people kept on walking by like it was a non-event (their force fields must have been working really well). And this cop runs past me and I'm thinking, "Is that a gun? There are people milling about everywhere," and the guy lowers himself onto the ground still, oddly, smoking a cigarette so that he kind of has to turn his head to avoid mashing the smoke into the ground and they handcuff him and one of the cops gently takes the cigarette from between the guy's lips before they start going through his pockets.
Then more weirdness as I walked up Lonsdale (I had wanted to clear my head, but that just really wasn't working out too good for me) and I started thinking, "What the hell is going on today?". There were just too many oddities and too much strangeness and that's when I realized that, really, nothing untoward was happening. My force field was at a critical low and these things, these thoughts were seeping in and getting to me and I swear it was all I could do not to break into a run to get home, all while refusing to make eye contact and trying to think only happy thoughts.
Anyways. I guess that's a pretty stupid analogy, but it's the best that I can come up with at this particular point in time.
Some days I can't bear to leave the house, you know?
Am I alone in this?
And where do I get a force field repair kit?

Incessant

Micro, minutiae, details, details, details.

The best laid plans

Never did get to that second cup of coffee.

Fortelling the future

In my immediate future I'll likely grab another coffee. I can predict that.
Sometimes I look at pictures of myself and I wonder if, when I was sixteen, someone had shown me a picture of what I would look like at 31 I would have been happy or surprised by it. And would my sixteen year old self be happy having seen a glimpse of life at 31? I can't say I ever planned that far out so it's not like I had some long term goals that I've failed to reach. Some people have five year plans. I barely have five day plans.
I do generally think that on a day to day basis I have a pretty idea of what's going to happen. But if someone had told me on Saturday morning what I would be venturing into on Saturday night I would have been more than a little doubtful.
Nonetheless, it's Sunday afternoon and here I am. Where the fuck that is, I'm still working on.

Last night I dreamed that I was at Lasqueti with my dad. I was pulling my kayak alongside his and it was filling with water faster than I could bail it out. Additionally, I had managed to lose my paddle (after my mother had predicted that I might do just that) and so I was trying to paddle my kayak with my goddamn hands. It was really frustrating and more than a little scary. And while this was all going on it was a stellar day: beautiful blue sky, calm green sea, nature abounding and no one seemed to really pay mind to my exasperation.

Wow. I just realized that I'm not drinking a second cup of coffee: I've switched to a nice Vanilla Rooibos. Any dibs on where I'll be tonight?

I'm going with the flow

See? See how I bob effortlessly down the river of acquiescence?

Anyone got odds on whether my Lindt bunny (courtesy of Michael) will make it through the night? I've been staring at it since 8pm. He looks fast but I'm cunning, and his bell - while cute - is a dead give away.

This year's love

I love this song. And I'm a sap. You'll be happy (and reassured) to know that I was sufficiently horrified at the lack of apostrophes in the word "years", which I subsequently corrected. Where's my whiffle bat?

This Year's Love

This year's love had better last
Heaven knows it's high time
And I've been waiting on my own too long
And when you hold me like you do
It feels so right
I start to forget
How my heart gets torn
When that hurt gets thrown
Feeling like you can't go on
Turning circles when time again
It cuts like a knife
If you love me got to know for sure
Cause it takes something more this time
Than sweet sweet lies
Before I open up my arms and fall
Losing all control
Every dream inside my soul
And when you kiss me
On that midnight street
Sweep me off my feet
Singing ain't this life so sweet
This year's love had better last
This year's love had better last
So who's to worry
If our hearts get torn
When that hurt gets thrown
Don't you know this life goes on
And won't you kiss me
On that midnight street
Sweep me off my feet
Singing ain't this life so sweet
This year's love had better last
This year's love had better last
This year's love had better last
This year's love had better last

- David Gray

So... you don't like Obama or Clinton?

Well, all the stars must have been in perfect alignment and whatever gods and deities that exist must have been pulling overtime to make sure today went off without a hitch. Which it did. Thinking about it, I really ought to have bought a lottery ticket or some damn thing.
My father came down from the gulf island on which he lives to join us for a family dinner at my mom's house. It doesn't sound like much of a big deal, except that it was my mother's family that was coming and my dad isn't their biggest fan (for reasons that are decipherable solely by him). Moreover my grandmother and her husband were coming, and my father hasn't seen her for years and had yet to meet her husband.
So I show up and my nana and Ed were already there and in the living room chatting with my dad. I furtively whispered to my mother, as I grabbed a glass of white wine - size large - "How's it going in there?" to which she looked at me curiously and said, "It seems to be going fine." Fine? Did my dad swipe some of my muscle relaxants? See, as per my previous blog: I am my father's daughter. And, if you can believe it, I am somewhat of a toned down version. Yeah, I'm not even kidding. To boot, my parents are very liberal and quite anti-establishment and Ed is... let's call him old-school and rather conservative. My mother is quiet and doesn't prefer to rock the boat, though she will push back when necessary. My father is a little more raucous in his approach to dealing with differences in politics and theories. So it was with no small amount of amazement that Ed (and, oddly, my nana) mentioned their dislike of both Obama and Clinton and my father remained entirely silent. I started to choke on my chocolate tort and had really odd heart palpitations as Ed started waxing Republican. Not a word from my dad. He made funny jokes and told amusing stories all evening and did nothing untoward. It was crazy.
Then my nana had a bit too much wine and put on this large sunhat and started prancing around and laughing a lot and then they took off. No incidents. No arguments. Nothing. Needless to say, it was not at all what I had expected and it was awesome. I didn't argue politics either. Okay, I did start to argue and my aunt was like, "The Canucks are playing tonight! How about those Canucks!" really loudly and I got the hint.
Anyways, it was cool. My dad is mellowing. I can mellow too. I did mellow. I had a mellow drive into South Surrey and didn't finger a single person. On the way home I sang "G! L! O! R! I! Glooooria!" with van Morrison and took great pleasure in the simple act of driving my car and being alone with my music and my thoughts for an hour.
I've been told that I hold onto to things too tightly. I agree: I'm a little intense. Today I just went with the flow and it was surprisingly easy and enjoyable. The whiffle bat of righteousness appears to be gathering a nice layer of dust...

I am my father's daughter

I just finished reading the recent Vanity Fair article about the resident British Columbian who purports to be JFK's illegitimate son. What an idiot. The DNA test that was done to compare his DNA to that of a hair purported to belong to JFK indicated that he is not JFK's son, though the hair against which they performed the test could, conceivably, have belonged to someone other than JFK.
The thing that bothers me about this guy - named Jack, no less - is that he seems to think that this validation (of being the son of JFK) will somehow cement his allusions (delusions?) of greatness. Guess what, buddy: you're either great or your not. Finding out - in your forties -that your father was the president of the United States or the prince of England isn't going to catapult you into anything other than the media spotlight. Which is clearly what he wants.
If it turned out that my biological father is actually David Suzuki I'd think that was pretty neat, but it's not going to make me an overnight environmentalist and it's not going to change me in any fundamental way, though it would definitely lead to a "what the fuck?" conversation with my mother. One minute of observing Suzuki and my father and you're going to quickly see that I am my father's daughter (though I bet a lot of people wouldn't be surprised if Dennis Leary turned out to be my dad).
Jack's father has passed away and I'm kind of glad, because what a slap in the face and an utter embarrassment it would be for him to have to witness his son's desperate quest for attention. Vanity Fair did a good job of shining a healthy level of scepticism on the whole story and explaining a journalist's quest for the "big story", but I'm not sure that this story was entirely newsworthy, except from a "thrill of the chase" perspective.
Ah well. Looking forward to the article on Carly Simon and the lovely and ethereal Joni Mitchell. I love Joni Mitchell.

Beating the dead horse of happiness

Quite evidently I am still on the subject and have been able to boil it down further. Here are my final thoughts on this:
I am thankful for all that I have, and very grateful. I am also aware of how tenuous and precious everything is and I harbour a lot of fear that these things can be taken from me. I sometimes feel like I am tempting fate by being exuberantly happy, so I don't do it a lot, which is stupid. If you're not going to be exuberantly happy today, when the hell are you going to do it? It segues in nicely to my alter-ego's entry: http://breakthehabitsofliving.blogspot.com/2008/03/yowsa.html
So I will try for more exuberance. Just not today. I'm really goddamn tired today.

More happiness, yet!

I actually explained happiness in this blog on October 24th, 2007: (http://freebeertomorrow.blogspot.com/2007/10/pursuit-of-happiness.html). I stand by that description.
From now I on I need to consult my blog before replying to important questions. It will allow me to think less and regurgitate more.
There are no original ideas.

And?

I also romanticize the bejesus out of everything. Oh my god, you have never met a more romantic person than me. I don't know why I do this. And I get giddy with excitement before seeing people, but I never let on. I joke. I insult. I argue. You could be sitting across the table from me, fending off fruit flies and never know that I think that you're the most incredible person and that I'm unbelievably delighted to simply be in your presence. You would never be able to deduce that from me.
I took that Myers Briggs test and it said I'm a horrific bitch and that I shall be alone for the majority of my life. No, wait. I think it said something about a green duck.

Happiness?

I don't seem happy. I do not strike people as being happy. This is because I don't often vocalize my happiness. I don't do this for a myriad of reasons: people would think me odd if, after 31 years, I started to wax poetic about all the wonderful things I encounter in a day; it's easier to complain; if it is roundly noticed that you are particularly happy about something, a bad event will occur to bring you back to reality. Also, when I'm excited and argumentative? I'm happy. Also? Happiness is relative. I'm laden with guilt over everything that has been awarded to me (versus being achieved by me) when I am reminded daily of the suffering in my immediate proximity and overall. Here is a perfect example illustrating many of these points:
A couple of years ago when Michael and I were still living together we went to Toronto on a vacation. I had a fantastic time (I was really happy and have the 'newsletter' to prove it - remind me to give you a copy) and it was one of the best vacations I've ever had. One day Michael went off and did something and I went shopping at this huge mall there - Eaton Centre I think it's called. I'm not overly materialistic, but I was on vacation and I had noticed that they dress a little more fashionably in Toronto than they do here, so I thought I would pick up some stuff. I went shopping and probably dropped $500-$600 (I still wear everything that I bought that day, just so you know). Anyways, as I was walking back to our hotel with my bags of stuff that I really loved but didn't really need (if you know what I mean by need) I came across a homeless guy and he said, "Can you spare some change?". And me, with my bags of shirts and pants and my new purse and jewellery said, "No." I don't know if I will ever forget that.
I sometimes lie awake in near agony about the things that I have (more specifically the relationships) and I worry about how they will be taken from me. I cannot even put to words the things that I fear might happen to the people that I love. I realize it's hard to draw the parallel between that statement and my level of happiness, but somehow they're inextricably linked.
So. Happiness. Am I happy? I have no idea. I have been pondering that question for the last hour. I have a lot. There are also a lot of things that make me unhappy. The good things outweigh the bad things, therefore I must be happy.
I do have a lot of fun and I do laugh a lot, but I guess I must do it mostly when no one is looking. Though I do believe there is some photographic evidence of me being happy with a green duck somewhere on this blog.
The green duck is a crutch. I must learn to exhibit signs of happiness without the aid of the green duck.
I love you all. You make me IMMEASURABLY happy!

I'm scared

Half a glass of wine later I will admit to thoroughly checking my bathroom. Glenn Close was in phenomenal shape for that movie: very buff and sinewy. I'm quite sure that she's bigger than me and may possibly be in my closet.
Thankfully I have the whiffle bat of righteousness on my side.

Tuesday night at the movies

I just finished watching "Fatal Attraction" and man, do I feel like some rabbit right about now. Why have tofu when you can have bunny? Happy Easter!
The movie segues nicely with my current support (yeah, that's not a typo) of Eliot Spitzer. I used to be pretty black and white on the monogamy thing, but now it's just varying shades of grey.
I'm also pretty sure that Glenn Close is waiting for me in my bath tub. Shit.

Ready the whiffle bat!

I love the CBC. I wear my CBC shirt with pride. Sometimes I wear it with pants. I did, however, have to reach for the whiffle bat when I read tomorrow's weather forecast for Toronto. Are you ready for it? They're calling for ice pellets. Are you shitting me? Is this some kind of new and politically correct term for "frozen rain"? Was the term "hail" confusing people? Ice pellets?
I bet it will rain here in Vancouver tomorrow. But I'm not overly thrilled with the term "rain", so let's say that tomorrow calls for "moisture droplets".

Self-flagellation

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I'm wearing a green sweater. Why the fuck am I wearing a green sweater? I'm not Irish! My father is from Bath, England. Why do we celebrate this damn day? I should hit myself with the whiffle bat of righteousness.
I would totally be up for a Guinness or three after work, though.
After which I would likely advise you to "kiss me, I'm Irish".
In other news, I'm in love with everyone today.
Especially and specifically you. You are a gorgeous, sexy beast.

The whiffle bat of righteousness

Had a great visit with Big D yesterday; talked of all things illuminating and diet related. He made reference to my prior blog about the guy on the bus that wouldn’t give up his seat and had come to the conclusion that yes, that was pricky, but that it’s up to other people to take the initiative to ask that the seat be freed up so that they can sit. Big D says he sometimes gets irritated with things like this, but ultimately does not want to be “the hall monitor of life”.
Well, if he’s going to pass up that particular job, then I’d like to apply. I think I would be a good hall monitor. Instead of ruling with an iron fist I would rule with the whiffle bat of righteousness. See, a regular baseball bat could conceivably kill people and in most instances I don’t want to smite people entirely, but I do want to mete out some level of justice. The whiffle bat is a great vehicle because it is shaped like a bat, you can swing it quickly giving the illusion of a mighty blow about to land on one’s person, but ultimately it doesn’t hurt and would be more perplexing and irritating than anything else.
Here are the people that I would have dispensed justice to today: the numb nuts that start piling for the seabus doors before the thing has even docked. They come from other, more remote areas of the seabus and, because they didn’t get a good seat because they arrived a little late after being delayed at Starbucks or whatever, they feel it acceptable to migrate to the front of the seabus and form a queue such that people that are sitting in the seats (versus, say, acting like reactionary spastic retards) have difficulty standing up when the seabus does dock. Whack! goes the whiffle bat of righteousness.
Stay tuned. I'm sure I'll have a lot more justice to dole out as the day unfurls.

The one downside of marathon training

Besides dead toenails, muscle spasms, limping a lot, being covered in a fine grime of salt and innumerable blisters of course, I must say that one of the downers of running over 30k in a day relates to sex. And how it just really becomes an insurmountable obstacle.
Today for example, our conversation was sort of like this:
Michael: "So what do you want to do now?" Sly wink.
Duder: "Movie?"
Michael: "Yes! That sounds good!"
Duder: "Then maybe some action?"
Michael: "Yeah... yeah, we could do that."
Duder: "I'm really tired."
Michael: "Oh my god, I'm so tired."
Duder: "I'm not sure if I could... maybe later?"
Michael: "Maybe I could just fondle you on the couch while we're watching the movie?"
Duder: "Okay. Let's do that."
Michael: "My hamstrings really hurt."
Duder: "I'm having issues with my inner thigh muscles."
Michael: "The last time? I started having leg spasms."
Duder: "I would probably fall asleep."
Michael: "Maybe we could schedule something for later on in the week."
Duder: "Totally."
And then, when he was in the washroom, I snuck a package of smoked mussels into his jacket pocket. Nothing says "I love you and find you incredibly sexy but can't be intimate with you because I'm afraid of bizarre muscle contractions which could normally be remedied by eating a banana or two but the ones I bought yesterday are still green so it's just not a risk that I'm willing to take at this point" like smoked seafood.

It's that time again!

Time to take pictures showing how disgusting my feet are! They make me want to throw up a little. During our twenty MILE run today I managed to get three blisters, wipe my nose repeatedly on my gloves, cover myself in gel (the eating kind) and finally bonk as we returned over the Lionsgate Bridge.
We left from Park Royal mall, ran over the Lionsgate, down along the beach, through English Bay, over the Burrard Street Bridge and then to Jericho beach. I saw my old running clinic leader and waved, but I don't think he recognized me. I look a lot like a prepubescent boy in my running gear and hat. Then we turned around and ran all the way back. Running up the hill to Prospect Point in Stanley Park I decided that I would rather run the Scotiabank half marathon than run that goddamn hill after already running 25 kilometres any day. It was that bad. I did it, got onto the Lionsgate and promptly informed my running mate that I was going to walk for five due to the overwhelming feeling of nausea and the tingling sensation in my extremities. Suh-weet. Managed to recover and pulled into Park Royal less than a minute after my group, so I was pretty happy about that.
Had coffee with Michael (his group went faster and further because he's just that goddamn good) and my inner thighs started to seize up. I hadn't had that particular experience before and a lot of patrons probably wondered why I was grabbing at my crotch with a look of agony on my face. Running is super.
Overheard a couple of guys in my group say that I had a flat bum (at least that's what I thought they said) when I passed them. Maybe they said, "She runs dumb" or "my left arm is numb". I don't think I have a flat bum. I think my bum is nice. I made Michael spend a lot of time confirming this very fact.
We showered together (it's environmental!) and sort of held each other in a total non-sexual way because we were too tired to stand up. I told him he could take my car home (he lives a ten minute walk away). We're going to go out for dinner tonight and get smashed after one beer.
I love running. I love my running group and the coffees afterwards and the people that I meet when I run and the view over the Lionsgate is amazing: it was my first time running over the bridge. Running through Jericho is as gorgeous as it was when I trained with the Running Room at 4th and Alma last year.
I'm so lucky to be able to take part in this every Sunday. The high five I get from A when I finish the run, the "well done, kiddies" that I get from S, the stellar courses? It makes the blisters a small price to pay.
But pretty gross, eh?

Morning, sunshines!

Last night I dreamed that I was walking past a couple of CBC reporters that were, well, reporting and they were live and I thought, "Now is the time!". So I jumped in front of them (while someone started screaming for security) and I started ranting about the privatization of BC's rivers and I was being forcibly removed but still raving and trying to get my point across, and it made the evening news. Like I would ever do something like that...
I also dreamed that I kept getting on the wrong bus and ending up in different places in Vancouver. Once with Big D and once with Michael. I'm not sure where I was trying to get to though.
And when I woke up this morning I was happy. That never happens. Like, waking up happy or even being happy in general. So, you know, that was kind of surprising.
Happy Sabbath, kiddies.

Wineing about taxes

I think I'd like to get nicely buzzed tonight. Enjoy a few glasses of... something. Listen to music. Have good conversation. Contemplate a lot.
But instead I'll likely end up doing my taxes. Maybe I'll do them while I'm drunk. I'll just put random numbers in random boxes and attach notes (like financial statement notes).
"Revenue Canada: as you can see, you clearly owe me $20,726.64. Please remit to me on or before April 30th or you will be subject to fines and penalties.
This figure was arrived at by exempting a certain portion of my salary from taxation in proportion to what I feel are non-necessary expenditures. I didn't want Canada to go into Iraq, so I'm not going to pay that bit that relates to the military. I think that you owe me money for all the licenses that were granted to private corporations who will be damming public streams. I don't have kids, so I want some money back for educational costs and costs of playgrounds - but you can give that money to the CBC and to the arts, cause that interests me. I refuse to pay for anything related to Adrienne Clarkson. Also, all expenditures incurred sending any members of parliament to visit with Bush or members of the White House should be struck off my bill.
Um. Y eah. So a bank draft would be great.
You rock,
Duder."

Streetlights Part 6 (fiction)

When she regained consciousness it was with a jolt: the last conscious memory she had was that of the airbags deploying in her face. She realized she couldn't see and her hands flew to her face, fluttering over the contours there and she noticed something was covering her eyes. It took a while to process that she had gauze pads over her eyes and the steady beeping of some machine nearby helped her to determine she was in the hospital. Panic welled up in her like an enraged beast. She heard the beeping increase and then sleep overtook her once more.
A couple of days later she was at home. Her glasses had indeed shattered, but because she had closed her eyes seconds before the airbag blasted against her face she needed only fifteen stitches to close the ragged gashes around her eyes (that had sliced her eyelids but had miraculously left the corneas unscathed). Her car was a write-off. Apparently the jaws of life had been necessary to extract her from her car. She had severe whiplash, a dislocated shoulder, two broken ribs, and a broken arm. One of the nurses told her that she had heard that the firemen approaching the scene thought that it would be a body removal: they hadn't anticipated anyone being alive.
She had been hit by a stockbroker that had closed a huge deal the night before and had gone out partying. Dinner and champagne downtown had turned into drinks at a strip club which had led to more drinks and a lot of blow at an after hours club. After passing out for a couple of hours, waking up and having another couple of beers to take the edge off, and some more coke to help him focus, he had climbed into his BMW and headed for home. He had been doing close to eighty kilometers and hour, while checking his Blackberry, when he had run driven into her car. Unfortunately he hadn't put on his seatbelt and upon impact had been partially ejected through the front windshield of his car. His head was a misshapen and bloodied mess when the paramedics arrived on the scene but, amazingly, he was still alive. After coughing up copious amounts of blood because of the jagged edges of his ribs that had pierced both lungs and moaning a lot, he expired.
Kate's parents had taken her back to their place to keep an eye on her for a couple of days. Allegedly Thomas had visited her while she was in the hospital, but she had no recollection of it. She wondered what he possibly could have said to her, and she hoped her response had been articulate and dismissive.
She sat at the kitchen table at her parents house, her hair unwashed, the pain of breathing stabbing through her torso and considered the hand that she had so recently been dealt: losing her job; losing her boyfriend; being in a horrific car crash and facing months of rehabilitation. Her mother had to dress her this morning as the pain in her neck and from her broken ribs and arm was too much to even allow her to pull a shirt over her head.
She gave a sharp laugh and stopped as the pain stabbed through her. Her mother, with her auburn hair streaked with grey looked at her daughter with concern. "What's so funny?" she asked.
Kate stroked her hands up and down the steaming mug of tea in front of her. "I don't know," she answered. "I just did a mental inventory check of everything that's gone wrong: my job; Thomas; this accident, and I compared it to where I was a couple of weeks ago.
Right now? Right at this exact moment? I'm just so incredibly grateful that I was wearing my seatbelt, that the airbags went off, that I'm not dead. Today I'm happy that I'm not dead. I just never realized how much of the day to day I took for granted. You're only ever a couple of days away from a complete reversal of fortune."
Her mother started to respond, but was interrupted by the insolent chime of the doorbell. The quizzical expression on her face led Kate to believe that this was an unexpected solicitation.
After a couple of moments her mother called to her and Kate shuffled slowly towards the front door.
In the foyer stood a man that looked vaguely familiar. He was dressed in a pair of khaki pants and a golf shirt. He was gaunt and looked vaguely ill at ease. He looked like he had had a difficult life, but that he had endured.
"Do I know you?" Kate asked.
"Well, sort of," the man answered, retreating into himself. "We met a few days ago: you gave me some spare change downtown Vancouver."
"You... you were... you gave me an electric shock," was all she could muster. She tried to reconcile the dim recollection of the man to whom she had unceremoniously given her spare change to. She remembered how he had focused his gaze on her, as though exerting his pride and his dignity, silently apologizing that he should have to ask for money, but wanting her to know that he was deserved of it.
He cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably. "I bought a coffee and a donut with the money that you gave me, and I won a car. It's worth almost $30,000 and I wanted to give you your half," he told her and thrust an envelope in her direction.
Automatically she took it. "What?" she said.
"Well," he answered. "You helped me out. I wouldn't have been able to buy the coffee if you hadn't given me-"
"But how did you track me down?" she asked.
"Your security pass," he replied. "It's got your company logo on it, so I was able to do some research. I, uh, I heard you lost your job and I'm sorry."
Kate started to cry. The utter absurdity of it was too much. The homeless man with the ethics of a saint tracking her down to give her $15,000 because she had given him her spare change. The timing of it: her jobless and carless.
He looked very uncomfortable, but Kate threw her good arm around him nonetheless, her broken one pressing painfully against his chest and stomach. His shirt was new and starchy and it scratched against her cheek. She was surprised by his thinness and he smelled like cheap aftershave. "Thank you," she told him, feeling some of the rigidity subside in his body as he awkwardly patted her on the back.
She withdrew from him and handed her cheque back. He looked at her curiously.
"I don't need this. Please," she insisted, thrusting it at him. He tentatively took it. "You're the best person I know and you need this more than I do." She was glad that he didn't insist, but then she hadn't really expected him to.
"So... okay," he said and inched towards the door, his eyes furtively scanning her face and then darting away.
"Wait," she said, halting his progress. "I'm Kate. I guess you know that. I never got your name."
"Jake," he told her. "Like Jacob."
"Jake," she said. "Thank you for tracking me down, Jake. I'm glad I met you. Thank you." She realised she was being very effusive and that he couldn't be aware of the juxtaposition of feelings that were vying for dominance in her heart at that exact moment.
"Alright," he said, now walking down the path that led to her parents' front door. "Get better soon. You look pretty beat up."
"Yeah, I'll do that," she said with a laugh, wiping some of the dampness from her cheeks.

ICBC

Deep breath. Alright. ICBC denied my claim, as it meets the criteria for a "Low Velocity Impact" (when this LVI program was created it was reviewed by the Ombudsman of Canada due to its unfairness). I did not swear or raise my voice. I asked open ended questions such as:

"My understanding of insurance is that its purpose is to put one back in the financial position that they were in prior to accident. How has my insurance done that?"

"I was at a complete stop and was hit from behind. It was entirely the other motorist's fault: why am I out of pocket for anything?"

I pointed out my exemplary driving record, the fact that I wasn't claiming for thousands: I just wanted my out of pocket expenses covered. I brought up ICBC's recent record profits and she said that ICBC tried to minimize its payouts. She then told me that the $57 that I will be out of pocket for all subsequent massage therapy trips are called "user fees" and that "user fees" are billed at the discretion of the RMT. I said, "Are you telling me that there are massage therapists out there that charge $23 an hour?". She said yes. I said, "Wow, that's really good to know. Could you please give me a list of them?". Sadly, she could not. I said that, in my humble opinion, one was either receiving a questionable massage for $23, or the RMT that was giving it was already extremely wealthy and was able to work for a pittance. I told her that I was very unhappy with the level of care that I had received from ICBC in their role as my insurance provider in this particular instance, and she said this would be "noted". That's good. I'm glad they're going to "note" it. The noting... it's a helpful, healing process that more people should subscribe to. The noting is good, because you're not committing to anything. You're noting it. It's been noted. Sometimes you can duly note something, which is not the same as dually noting - no one is noting it twice. But with "duly", well, let's admit it, it's just a helluva lot more impressive. I should call back to see if she noted it, or if it was duly noted.
I think they give $23 massages in the downtown East Side.
At least they have happy endings.
Or so it's been noted.

Namaste

Thought about it. More than I should have. Decided it's a test. I've been tested a lot lately.
If I don't get any financial compensation from ICBC, I won't pursue it. I'll be out of pocket for a few massage therapy sessions, but I'm not in a wheel chair, brain damaged or dead.
I think I will turn down the job. I left my last job because I don't subscribe to the corporate ideology of what is important. I wanted a work/life balance. I now have it, and it's made me a better person.
As for the rest? We all have our proverbial crosses to bear and some are heavier than others. I am (slowly) learning that every day is a blessing and every trying instance is an instance where we can learn and do better next time. People should come away from you being better for having met you. I've consistently fallen short in that regard. That said, I have been continually and utterly amazed by all the people with whom I have become close to in the past couple of years.
I am grateful for your tireless support and your wisdom.
Namaste.

One less thing to do (and I'm doling out a compliment)

So I don't have to wash my car. I just got it back from the shop (they delivered it to me after I feigned innocence as to where Phibbs Exchange is) and it's washed and detailed. Sweet. People have become intimate with my bumper twice in the last year and it's afforded me two free car washes. Most definitely a silver lining. Allow me to recommend Mountain Highway Collision on Dominion Street in North Vancouver: great, fast service.

With baited breath

Today is the day the decision from above comes down. Will ICBC deny my claim? Will they offer me $10,000? Will they give me a quarter and tell me to call someone that gives a shit?
I hope they don't do that. When was the last time you saw a phone booth? Are they still taking quarters even?
Speaking of overdue calls: why haven't you called? We can talk of the days of old, about the time we did that thing and then laughed about it. Good times. Good times.

Oh. Hey. Is it raining?

If I had gotten up at 7am on Sunday like a good girl, I wouldn't have felt so ridiculously inclined to, oh, say, run 20 kilometres after work today. I really started to ponder just what in the hell I was doing when the car hit the gigantic puddle of water on Lynn Valley Road and almost drowned me whilst running. Michael just laughed. Yes, Michael ran 20k with me tonight... after running 21k yesterday. If I don't clean up my act PDQ there's no way I'm going to requalify for Boston. Did I mention that he reached over and pinched my fat when we were driving in to see my nana on Saturday? Cause that happened. I was like, "Did you just reach over and grab my fat?" and he had this perplexed look on his face like his hand had moved of its own volition or something. This would be the same day that I ordered a hamburger with bacon and cheese while he had a stirfry... and then he ran the aforementioned 21k while I slept in.
In other news, got a really nice job offer today. Like take what I'm currently making and add another 20 to 25k onto it. This very nice, very attractive job offer is from one of my old bosses that I still talk to and see intermittently. She liked working with me and I liked working with her.
But where's the rub, you ask. Because I wouldn't be blogging about it if there wasn't a rub. The job is in Richmond. I will NOT commute to Richmond. This means I would have to sublet my apartment to Michael (which I have no problem with) and move closer to the job. So, Ladner perhaps. Um, I'm not sure if I want to move to Ladner. I just got here. I only discovered Edgemont this past weekend. I'm getting to know the girls at Extra Foods. People at my running clinic are wondering where I am when I choose to sleep in instead of run. Michael is a ten minute walk away.
It would be a huge lifestyle change. I would have to re-establish myself once again. It is a managerial job, so I will have employees to manage and I'll have to wear a suit from time to time and do the whole corporate thing.
I did the whole corporate thing. I did it for four years and it made me a nasty person. I hired, fired, reviewed, was sent on courses and sent for training and had my own office and did things like "liaise" and "streamline" and then went home and kicked the proverbial dog and was miserable. I'm not saying that's indicative of all management jobs, but it was indicative of this particular management job. But it's not with the same company and it is with someone that I greatly enjoyed working with in the past. Twenty to twenty five thousand extra dollars.
Ya dig? I don't know.
Am I copping out and being a spoiled baby if I choose to stay where I am, living the lifestyle that has been afforded me due to my parents' generous donation?
Will reintroducing myself to the corporate environment undo all the self improvement that I've struggled to achieve in the last three years?
What's happening in Ladner?
When would I see my friends?
Where would I run?
Change is scary. I didn't realize how firmly ensconced in this particular environment I am. Sitting here, chilling to KCSM, knowing what's expected of me tomorrow, the rest of the week and the week after that. We're doing hills tomorrow. Then coffee at Starbucks, per usual. I actually can fit a nap in between work and running. Is that worth twenty grand?

Perhaps...

...you need to be listening to Dave Matthews' "Some Devil". Maybe you need to have had a couple of glasses of Mt. Boucherie Gamay Noir. I don't know what it is. It's a mixture of the happiness that he exhibited when I suggested an impromptu tour of the outskirts of North Vancouver given a blowout that occurred during the Supra days when we were flying along some road in Pemberton and I was sunburned and tired and impatient. And then we didn't find what we were looking for on our current ambling expedition, but we did find this pub he had been meaning to show me but had "lost" later on. And then it's this $50 bet at Gardenworks as to what the wall on my balcony is made of. For some reason I'm almost willing to bet the farm that it's concrete. We're trying to figure out what kind of plants to get. Then, just kicking around Edgemont I decide I need to go into the wine shop there and there are several varietals of Soaring Eagle which I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before: it's the winery that was once owned by Michael's sister's boyfriend of many years. Michael and I and his mom and sister went there for a tasting when we were up for the Okanagan Marathon. Anyways, I had this Pinot Meunier and it was fantastic and I bought a bottle and I drank it a couple of months ago and it was delectable, but I felt bad because I wanted to keep the reds that I had paid a handsome fee for on reserve for a special occasion and since then there has been a conspicuous absence in my six pack wine rack, but then there's the bottle right in front of me and oh my god, I've been given a chance to replace what I once had and drunk and enjoyed, but maybe didn't fully appreciate and savor enough. And then Bill Good walks into the wine shop and I'm not even making this up and we had been strolling around Edgemont and trying to figure out what was missing and, oh, I don't know, maybe it was missing the Thomas Hobbes and the Fanny Keifers and the Jim Byrnes that I kept running into in Kerrisdale, but Bill Good will do. And possibly it was me saying, well, did you want to come for dinner and a movie? And I encourage him to go and pick out a movie while I try and assemble dinner (which was freaking awesome, by the way) and while he's over at the Rogers he bumps into an old friend that he had lived with at one point in his life and it turns out that his friend has only been on the North Shore for a few months.
I can't pinpoint it. It's the ability to laugh at my Boston jokes, it's the way I secretly do this ridiculous, mental happy dance when he refers to me as his 'girlfriend', the way he's always cold in my apartment and it's not cold, the way he loves my nana and understands the importance of family. But bigger. The way I always glance down his street when the bus goes past it and I know that's he's up, but hasn't left for work yet. How I feel grateful to have all that I do, but that I would feel a lot better to be able to share it all with him. That I care what color his sister is painting his mother's living room. How he knows when I'm picking my cuticles and checks my hands for evidence of it. Bigger still. It's so big that it's overwhelming. I feel like words don't even adequately express it, and they don't.
And now? Now I have some sort of second reprieve (I'm not even going to question why) and it's like holding a robin's egg in the palm of your hand: it's so precious and so fragile and I'm just really not wanting to be heavy handed.
I don't know, man. Sometimes I feel like winging open my sliding glass door and screaming, "Are you getting this?".
Who gets this? Who gets this much?

7am is really 6am

I didn't do 6am. I got out of bed very late. So late that I was able to deduce that Michael would have already run the allotted 21 kilometres, done his lunges and planks and was now wrapping up coffee with our fellow runners at Starbucks. My ovaries hurt.
We visited my nana and her husband out at UBC yesterday. There wasn't just one accident on the way in, but two! One before the Lionsgate and one after. Supercool. Took us over an hour to get there, but it was worth it because my nana had hardanger lefsa which is the ultimate treat and I am normally only privy to it at Christmas. I should learn how to make it. I need to balance out some of the other things that have been passed down to me: my ability to become very excitable in a very short period of time and then resort to yelling, because if you're ever losing an argument it's likely because you're not talking loud enough; bookkeeping skills; a guilt ridden complex; and the ability to rationalize the need for beer in a stirfry.
Gordon Campbell lives in the suite below my grandmother. When no one was looking I jumped up and down on the floor a lot, but nothing came of it.
I still have to fix the effing drawers in my kitchen. Michael called this morning and wanted to get the ball rolling but I said no. He spent Friday night and almost all of Saturday with me and he's had no time to himself. He seemed a bit relieved and admitted he was really tired. Then I was kind of sad because I'd still like to see him, but not if it involves hanging out at a hardware store and idly loitering around him while he works in my kitchen. I try to be helpful. Once he let me saw some things, but mostly I just block his light. So I said, "Well, maybe if you're really bored later on today we could go for a coffee or something" and then his voice brightened up and he said, "Yeah, I would really love that".
Let's recap: didn't get up at 7am (which is really 6am), didn't run 21 kilometres (and it was supposed to be at race pace today, so it was kind of an important run), have no plans to fix my drawers but do have plans for coffee.
This is going to be a good Sunday!

I had wine with breakfast today

Somewhat hungover today. As I flipped through last night's photos I mixed some of the white wine with a little club soda and orange juice. Michael remained asleep.
As promised here is the picture of me and the green duck. Give me a few glasses of wine and a cheap toy (likely made in China and teeming with lead) and look at me go.
Such a fun time last night! Secretly recording Po (we're so sneaky), sampling wine, chatting about religion, fish and vegetarianism, and how women should rule the world (okay, so that last bit was me). And Michael came! And he brought wine! I was so happy. And he even drank the wine. It was a crazy night.
Here are some snippets of the great conversations you missed:

"So are we going to be rating this on a scale between negative six and pi?"

"Po was just enjoying your balcony."
"Why?"

"Men should be kept in cages."

"You just said Jubjub."
"Oh. I meant Glubglub."

"The nurse said it looked like a baby rabbit."

"This wine smells like fish."

"But how do you know they prefer the puddle?"

"Is that six and a half ribbits?"

Okay. I should get out of my pajamas. Gonna go visit my nana with Michael. He must be quite sick of me by now. Thanks for coming, everyone! It was nice to learn that one bottle of wine per person is definitely (more than)sufficient. And thanks to Skyhammer for playing photographer for a portion of the evening and being able to confirm and document the wiley and elusive Michael.

Turning the other cheek

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this, but our latest book club selection is “The Year of Living Biblically” by A. J. Jacobs. As I am at minimum agnostic, and one some days downright atheist, it has been interesting how this book has tweaked my interest in the bible, and how it has influenced me subtly as I go about my day to day activities (which focus heavily on pride, lust and coveting).
Case in point: on the bus today I noticed a guy sitting smack in the middle of a seat designed for two. It was rush hour, and anyone that takes this bus on a regular basis knows that it rapidly becomes standing room only. And, because I am a bit of an oddity and remember certain people that I’ve only seen once because I create elaborate back stories for them to pass the time instead of struggling through Sudoku puzzle #23, I did recognize this guy.
I had seen him a few weeks earlier. He’s probably in his early fifties and I took note of his out to date suit and his old school briefcase which he kept rummaging through nervously – or so it appeared to me. He kept checking and re-checking some paperwork and I decided that he was a long term employee of some firm that had recently gone through a bout of downsizing, and now here he was, having to go out and interview for jobs that he had done twenty years ago and pander to bosses young enough to be his son or daughter. I felt bad for him: ageism is rampant in the hiring process. Seriously: tack twenty years onto your age and tell me if you think you could apply for – and get – the job you have now, your education remaining what it currently is. Yeah, little scary. So I watched this guy and I silently wished him good luck in his job hunting or at the interview that (in my mind) he was no doubt heading to.
And now here was the same guy taking up two seats! At this point people were coming onto the bus and because as Canadians we are all ridiculously polite, no one has the balls to say, “Excuse me”, though they did shoot a couple of furtive pleas in his direction. At this point he shifts over, so now he’s only taking up 5/8ths of the seat. But after about a minute he spreads one of those (goddamn) daily newspapers over the newly vacated space beside him. I’m sitting there just utterly enraptured by his behavior. He knows people are standing, because they’re standing within arm’s reach of him. I know he knows.
So then I thought what would Jesus do? Should I lean over and say something biting and sarcastic (which I often do)? I contemplated it, and ultimately wimped out (another thing I often do). Should I mention something to him in passing once we were off the bus? No, that would be beside the point. I suppose the point was to turn the other cheek like you do when the guy next to you opts to do that snorting thing instead of blowing his nose like a regular person, and does it every 45 seconds and seems to think this is a socially acceptable method of dealing with phlegm.
I then looked at it from a broader vantage point: was I supposed to be learning something from this? I decided that I was thankful that the (hot) guy beside me hadn’t hindered me from sitting next to him. I thought maybe this is just a reminder that not everyone is kind and considerate, and it takes jerks like this to help you appreciate the little kindnesses that you receive from others as you stumble through your day. The thing that was the stumbling block for me though, was that a person like this could be so blatantly rude and ignorant. In rush hour traffic on public transit you really have to work and keeping people from sitting in the vacant seat next to you.
But then really? I shouldn’t be surprised. I was on the #16 once and a woman with son (who was probably 8 or so) were sitting in the area reserved for the elderly and the handicapped and when asked to move for a legitimately old person, she refused. I am not kidding. This woman actually got into an argument with three or four other people that were just totally appalled by her behavior.
Another time a woman got on the bus even though the driver said it was full and he couldn’t have her situated where she was. She refused to get off. She delayed our bus for so long that it really would have behooved her to get off, because at that point the next one would be along in about five minutes. People, regular people, on the bus were screaming at her to get off. The bus driver actually got up out of his seat and was one step away from physically throwing her off.
I don’t know. Michael sometimes says to me, “Why does this surprise you?”. I’m not sure. I suppose it’s vanity in thinking that everyone is as considerate as me, but that very statement is vain in and of itself, because while I may be considerate in the phlegm and public transportation departments, I’m sure there are things that I do that drive other people nuts.
The moral of this story is: cozy up to the person next to you on the bus, and bring a Kleenex.
Amen.

I'll stop blogging now

I'm starting to hate my blog. It's quite bogged down in the minutiae. Who gives a shit about the minutiae? Although van der Rohe did say that "God was in the details". Okay, so he was talking about architecture, and possibly the Barcelona chair, and not about some whingeing idiot lamenting about how her drawers rasp against each other.
I need to take a month off and go sit in a bare room and think about what I've done.
Do you forgive me?

The little things

Okay. I got over the (minuscule) chips in my granite counter top. And the dings in my laminate flooring. But this new issue cannot be overcome by simply ignoring it. Unfortunately this newest thing needs to be fixed. It's a long story, I can't explain it well, but it involves my drawers (not my knickers). The two drawers - junk and cutlery - are scraping the the drawer below it. It's because the drawer system was meant to affixed to a wooden top, but because I have a granite counter top the middle section of the drawer couldn't be screwed to the underside of the counter top, so it's sagging.
Long story short, I drag Michael over after our run and I lay on the kitchen floor thrashing and sobbing and begging for help. We discussed viable options: I suggested setting fire to the apartment and collecting the insurance proceeds; he suggested a scenario involving contact cement. I'm not sure what contact cement is, but I bet it would be funny to apply to the toilet seat at work.
This is my half of the conversation before he left: "So you can fix this, right?". "So we can fix this on Sunday?". "Can you help me fix this?". "Can you help me fix this?". "You'll help me fix this, right?". I have home repair ADD. I can't overlook this, because every time I open the drawers they scratch the bottom drawer to ratshit.
Anyways, my blog isn't about that. At one point Michael made a comment that I didn't appreciate him. I assumed he was joking because I think I make it clear that I appreciate him, but then after he left I panicked: perhaps I don't do enough to show that I appreciate. I sent him an e-card once, did he want more? I often try and pay him with sex, but that's really more about my needs (which are oh so vast). Then I thought, what would I do if he wasn't around? It would probably cost me a mint to have some guy come in, overcharge me, and do a half ass job. I could probably do it, but it would take me six times as long and I would ultimately botch it. I rely on Michael a lot. I guess I should do more to show him that I appreciate him besides blogging about it on a blog that he never reads. I bought him a brownie after our run today. That's a step beyond an e-card, right? I should do something really extra-special for him, but what?
I got nothin'. I should search for another e-card...

A healthy dose of hedonism

My boss forwarded me an email today that I think, at one point or another, we have all seen. It's (supposedly) an email from a woman dying from cancer who lists off things that she would have done differently given the chance (ie. she wouldn't have demanded the windows of her car be rolled up on a hot summer day to avoid the wind tousling her coiffed and sprayed hair; she would have spent more time listening to her grandfather's rambling stories).
It got me to pondering (yeah, yeah, is there anything that doesn't?) and to me the letter advocated more hedonism, and less fretting about stupid stuff. Perhaps, just perhaps, I have been known to be a little more concerned with some of the smaller details in life than one might deem necessary. Or healthy. It may be a sign of... oh, I don't know, insanity? that I have trouble getting to sleep when I remember I really need to check my tire pressure and wash my car. This woman's email said to me: enjoy life more. Have more fun. Relax a little. I think I do, though. I have long, superhot soaks in the tub while drinking wine and listening to jazz. I sometimes turn my phone off before 10pm! I try not to beat myself up about the $80 pair of jeans that I just bought. I sleep in as often as possible.
But why stop there? I mean, this woman said that we should enjoy every possible moment. Who knows when the deck of cards might come crashing down? And in that vein I started thinking: I've had a hankering for McDonald's for a few months now - why don't I go eat there tonight? I could even eat there weekly? Over dessert the other night I actually clapped my hands with glee (I do this when I'm extremely happy and my friends seem unnerved by it) as I exclaimed, "I never have dessert!". They said, "Why?". Why indeed? I could have dessert every night. I also have been wanting to have a chocolate bar. Why am I going to my running clinic tonight? I would much rather rent a movie and have a couple of glasses of wine. Why am I training for a marathon anyways? Getting up at 7am on Sundays is ridiculous! You know what's better than getting up that bloody early on Sundays to run 25 or 32 kilometres? Yeah. Pretty much anything. Sudoku is getting on my nerves: I should just read People magazine or better yet - get cable! Recyling takes a bit of time and I'm not having kids, so why should I care what kind of environment imprint I'm leaving behind.
Basically, I just want to eat, drink, sleep and play with my friends a lot. That would be ideal. That would be the epitome of a great life. Having arrived at this logical conclusion I was then confronted with another cliche: everything in moderation.
If I eat too much, I'm gonna get fat. I'm happy being skinny. If I stop running I will get cranky, and no one wants to be around me when I'm cranky. If I have dessert all the time I'll never get to be so excited by it that I will resort to clapping my hands. If I stop trying to challenge myself mentally, I will let myself down and my relationships with others will suffer (my friends and I don't much discuss Britney or Paris or toy dogs, and somehow manage to have stimulating conversations anyways). As far as recycling goes? I threw an empty toilet paper roll in my waste basket once. The next day I dug it out and recycled it: you'd think I'm a Catholic I'm wrought with such guilt.
So I came to the logical conclusion that I knew that I would arrive at anyways (but proceeded to go through the argument because it's a solid minute and a half to two minute walk from the seabus to bus that takes me up the street and I didn't have anyone to talk to about the headline that I saw in yesterday's Metro which read, "Come on, men: Give us a break!" or something equally ridiculous, which just sent me off on tangent due to the very patronizing nature of the title - written by a woman, unbelievably - while I mentally thought of rape, abuse, the emancipation of women, female genital mutilation and prostitution, before sneaking another glance to see that this article had something to do with George Clooney getting married and this whole article and the whole concept of the Metro [or daily papers at all to begin with, the flagrant environmental wastes that they are] all but had me clutching my chest by the time I stepped off the bus): live life to the fullest... in moderation.
I've got to get changed for my clinic. Why do I do it? Because I had a big lunch with spicy salmon rolls, gomae and rice and before that I ate both pieces of the peanut butter granola bar. I lived my lunch to its fullest. Now for the moderation bit.

A day and a half

Yep. I made it with out griping, criticizing or complaining for a day and half. Then I spoke to the tech help desk with the Ministry of Health in order to get a password to enable the new digital certificate.
A day and a half.
And we begin anew...

Keith Road is my bitch

That's right. Take it. That hill is such a grind. Also, is it perverse of me to take such pleasure in making SUVs and luxury vehicles come to a halt as they attempt the age old "California Stop" at any number of red lights and stop signs along my route? It's possible that I gander that much more slowly on a sliding scale directly relating to their vehicle's fuel (in)efficiency.
As for the story? Clearly I will finish it when I finish it. Not unlike my taxes. Damnit. Taxes are a grind, too.

Streetlights Part 5 (fiction)

Kate got drunk and removed all remnants of her life with Thomas while in this inebriated state. She was angry about the situation now, but she knew that within a very short timeframe she would start to miss him and lament the loss. She would gloss over what he had done to her and she would allow herself to believe that she had led him to this inevitable position, that she had forced his hand, that there was something missing in the relationship which she had failed to provide. Though three and a half glasses to the wind, her mental faculties had not quite packed it in and the resounding and rallying cry was: she didn't need this shit.
A couple of garbage bags of stuff went into the bin. Some of the items that she thought others might want she placed beside the garbage bin: CDs, jewellry, clothing. It would all be gone by the time she awoke in the morning and, besides, she would have a nice hangover to keep her busy.
When she clambered out of bed at close to twelve the next day she shuddered as she passed a mirror. Her eyes were horribly swollen due to the crying, the late night and the bottle of wine. She noted the smoke detector lying on the floor and dimly recalled the shrill shriek it admitted when she had burnt her steak. The charred pan was deposited in the sink. Too ashamed and unmotivated to venture out in public, she spent the day napping, cleaning and reading. She spoke to no one: no friends, no family members. It was shock enough that she had lost her job on Friday, and she was unable to bear the additional stigma of being the jilted ex-girlfriend.
On Sunday she updated her resume and applied for countless jobs. She returned a couple of phone calls, but did not allude to her unceremonious dumping on Friday. She had decided that she would give it a couple of weeks and then tell people that they had split for whatever vague reason: they weren't on the same page; they were drifting apart; he was a fucking idiot... whatever. Recovered from Saturday's hangover, she managed to get drunk again: this time mostly while in the tub reading one of the many books she had collected over the years but had never had the time to sit down and enjoy.
She had initially fancied the idea of getting up at the regular time on Monday, going to a nearby coffee shop and languidly lounging while sipping a cappuccino and watching harried people scurry in and out to buy their jolting shots of caffeine and unhealthy breakfasts on their way into jobs that they felt were mentally draining and devoid of all joy (this is how she liked to picture these people, at any rate). Hangover number two prevented this, though she did take solace in the fact that she could still make it to the coffee shop for the lunch rush and take some joy - though markedly less, mind you - from knowing that the clientele had to eventually go back to desk duty while she could put her feet up on any number of available chairs.
Trying to buoy herself with this concept she launched out of the apartment, bringing a book and her cell phone with her. The coffee shop was surprisingly busy and she had to resign herself to a table near the washroom, which she utterly abhorred. Her original forecast that the coffee shop patrons would clear out in a timely fashion was sorely off base: these people didn't seem to be going anywhere. And putting her feet up was also out of the equation, as the chair across from her had been requisitioned by an attractive young man in a sharp suit that joined two other equally attractive people that exuded clean cut professionalism and a penchant for BMWs. She scowled to herself as she was made to feel under dressed and odd for being alone. The noisy din prohibited her from being able to concentrate on the book. When she found a long, black hair in her turkey wrap she pushed away from the table and walked out.
Returning home she noticed that she had a missed call and had a voicemail waiting on her cell; clearly she had been unable to hear it ringing while she was (supposed to be) gloating at leading a life of leisure while in the cafe. She checked the message and it was someone interested in setting up an interview with her. She called them back and was able to schedule a meeting for 11am the next day.
Feeling a little more guided, a little more charged, she rummaged through her relatively casual wardrobe to find some finery more suited to the interview process. She re-checked the ad on the internet and was happy to see that it looked like a very promising, well-paying position within an established, creative and slightly edgy firm. She didn't want to admit it to herself, but the job seemed quite a lot better than her previous one. She printed off a copy of her resume, emailed all her references to advise them that they may be receiving a phone call, and then left her apartment again to go for a walk and clear her mind.
On Tuesday she got up early enough to give herself ample time to get prepared and to get downtown and find parking. Feeling confident she climbed into her car and popped in a Jayhawks CD. The light had just turned green and she was crossing Broadway in the curb lane when she was t-boned at an amazing speed. She was able to retain consciousness long enough to register the airbag deploying and to be concerned that she had donned her glasses before embarking on her trip downtown: she had read somewhere that airbags had an unpleasant way of shattering eyeglasses and embedding the shards into your face.