Month: August 2007

three dreams and a sadness

Having a fever gives you spooky dreams – in my case I had three marvellous, technicolor dreams, loaded with symbolism and humour.

1. I am standing on a stage in a tight white light, singing a U2 song a capella in three part harmony with Jim E and Brian C. All of a sudden Jim E and I quit singing and starting looking around wildly. Without our having seen or noticed, Brian C has grabbed a stage rope and slid up into the rafters. After a minute we hear him killing himself laughing and as swiftly as he disappeared he reappears on stage and we resume our song.

2. I am with a bunch of friends (which includes Mike M and there may have been others but I don’t remember) visiting a Cosplay Superstore in Northern Ontario. (Note, there was a Cosplay/Anime convention here on the weekend and it got downright visual around these parts). I say to the incredibly fruity, over the top, fetish laden and IMMENSE German guy who runs the place why Northern Ontario and he doesn’t answer me, but he says you can find us on the internet at www.pauuuuuuuuunch.com and don’t forget the umlauts over the u’s. I leave the rooms full of costumes (which are JAMMED with people) after looking longingly at the hippo costume (there’s a mother and baby hippo ensemble which is beyond words cyuuute) and find a room with really tall windows and very beautiful drapes, which have floral patterns. There’s a steady breeze blowing in and I play with the drapes for a while, flapping them around. Eventually Mike M loops back and picks me up – he has an immense bag of purchases and looks quite pleased.

3. I am cleaning up a bunch of potsherds and dirt, trying to recover what is useful, and I find a magic seedling. I take it to a friend who has since moved to the States (LJ) to ask her for her advice about repotting it, which she helps me with.

All in all a splendid way to pass a night.

Jim E’s dog Lucy has gone to Doggie Heaven. Life is full of transitions and the sad ones are part of it. I light a candle for him.

Violence and Video Games

People keep trying to sue to stop violent video games, and the courts in the US keep bitch slapping them.  Scanged from Slashdot.org.

 

Judge Richard A. Posner: ‘Violence has always been and remains a central interest of humankind and a recurrent, even obsessive theme of culture both high and low … It engages the interest of children from an early age, as anyone familiar with the classic fairy tales collected by Grimm, Andersen, and Perrault are aware. To shield children right up to the age of 18 from exposure to violent descriptions and images would not only be quixotic, but deforming; it would leave them unequipped to cope with the world as we know it.'”

No dice.

I went home like a lady in a walker, so sore in the back (and suffering from another ailment that my father will thank me not to elucidate) that I could scarcely lift my feet.  LTGW showed up later for a beer and to fill me in on the days of his lives (good, bad, and yowch!) and then very kindly offered to take me to a walkin clinic which was full and another clinic, which was closed (and then dropped me off at home which was more than decent of him).  Since the notion of spending six to eight hours at RCH waiting to be seen for a non life threatening ailment was more than I could stand, I’ll be down the hill at 8 tomorrow morning when the clinic opens.  Meantime I’m pushing cranberry juice and feeling very sorry for myself and covering myself in blankies, because I’m so cold I’ve got the shakes.

But it’ll be fixed soon, and in the meantime I have the warm and fuzzy feeling of having been looked after by a friend.

Lost mail

It appears I haven’t been receiving mail at two of my different addresses.  My apologies for not responding to any mail which I didn’t actually get to read.

Ran into cousin Laurel in the Granville Station the other day.  When she told me she’d emailed me I went, “Hunh?” because I certainly had no recollection of receiving anything from her, and it would be a red letter day if I did.  I’ve also sent mail out in the last week that never got to the recipient, so it’s good not to assume malfeasance in these cases….

I’m heading to Jericho tonight and Victoria on the weekend, and hopefully somewhere in there I get to see daughter Katie.  So I have a nice week in prospect.

Work continues to rapidly improve.  I wish I could say the same about my back.  Other parts of me are grumbling too, but the back is loudest; I’m doing my exercises, including (since I couldn’t sleep anyway) getting up and doing them at 4 in the morning.

I had one of my favourite coworkers say to me yesterday, “What the hell am I good at?” so I wrote him a paean of praise (disguised in the dreadful, eviscerated language of “the resume”) which outlined exactly what he does that is SO bloody amazing; I am looking forward to his comments, especially the last line, which was, Holy crap! after rereading that even I was impressed, and I’ve seen you plastered.

Ah, workmates.

Today is the all staff meeting.  I found out from the CEO that somehow my email outlining my questions for the townhall had disapparated, so I re-sent it (lot of that going around), only this time I took thought to include one of Scary Clown’s questions.  We shall see if anything comes of it.

Despite everything that’s going on (some of my rellies are having a hard time with one thing and another, and I’m up to four painkillers a day, again, after not being that bad for a year) I’m actually happy.  And I’m working on a tune, which I think is going to be an instrumental, and I’m using chords which I don’t know the names for.  I love the mandolin, but it’s still very much a foreign language.  Oh, and I sliced myself in the kitchen on the weekend, so I bled all over the fretboard as I was practicing for Jericho tonight.  It doesn’t really hurt, but it was a surprise to see the blood.  I immediately started riffing on “Ya gotta suffer if you want to sing the blues.”  But really, I haven’t, and I don’t.

During one of my internet Drunkard’s Walks

I found a devotional singer called Sada Sat Kaur.  I have been listening to her version of Adi Shakti and really enjoying it.  There’s something about the way she sings, and in particular the last harmony on the track, which is very energizing and uplifting.  Also, she uses dobros with tablas, and you don’t get to hear that every day.

Impressionist and post Impressionist art

So Katie K and I went to the Vancouver Art Gallery (odd to go there when there’s no zombies, protesting or dope smoking) and saw the current exhibit which I highly recommend. I almost started crying in front of a Van Gogh – it was SO EMOTIONAL and the difference between the painting and any reproductions is very startling.  I spent a LONG time in front of Tissot’s Specimen of a Portrait and ended up buying a print of it in the gift shop.  The lace on the dress is unreal.  Picasso’s “Life” is worth seeing in life.  There were some Rodin sculptures that just had me shaking my head.  After all this time, his Balzac is still an amazing bloody feat.
Then to Granville for sashimi and Asahi beer and Katie K had plum wine.  Then we poked our heads in to a couple of clothing stores, including Bedo, but there’s no goddamned way I’m spending 40 bucks on something so poorly made!!!  It was a cute top but the seams were a disaster.  I bought a couple of nose thingies for daughter Katie from a street vendor.
Lots of ear flapping.  Katie K is going off to see her mum sometime next week… who is rapidly recovering from a stroke, out in the wilds of Maine.

I did my back exercises this morning but I hurt worse now than I did then. That probably has more to do with standing and gawking at pictures than the exercises.