year end round up – all the best up to the number of 50 which is so freaking arbitary

  1.  Jeff
  2.  Recovering a normal digestive schedule after getting rid of my ulcer last year
  3.  Wrote a lot of songs (melodies, airs and instrumentals) this past year
  4.  Published Upsun
  5.  Alex
  6.  Mike
  7.  Peggy
  8.  mOm and pOp
  9.  Keith continues to challenge himself and the results are wonderful
  10.  Katie is a safety officer and if someone had told me that when she was 15 I’d have fucking choked to death laughing, or possibly crying, or walking into a door from just the utter strangeness of such a happening
  11.  Reconnecting on twitter with my second oldest friend, Liz GOD WE ARE LAUGHING NOOOOOW
  12.  The Black, Latinx, trans, disabled, Indigenous and combinations thereof activists and academics on twitter who hold me to my oath to improve my understanding of gender and race every damned day
  13.  @GreatDismal is great on twitter (William Gibson of Neuromancer fame) because he supports his wife and children in their endeavours, reposts the coolest damned stuff, and is fucking hilarious in that standard low key way of his.
  14. @DecolonialBlack – his tweets are one third pure fire, one third reasoned argument and one third hilarity through a very fine lens and all of it educational as hell
  15. @cricketcrocker I won’t say she’s my fave Indigenous person on twitter cause I still think
  16. @apihtawikosisan is that person mostly because of how she talks about her kids and also her clarity with language is like drinking elfin wine
  17.  @ConnerHabib is my fave male sex worker / cultural commentater on twitter
  18.  @whoresofyore is so wonderful in so many ways she gives me life ALSO she does everything she can to repost pictures of non-white sex workers and also men wearing allied uniforms in wwII which is like freaking awesome. Some of her reposts are racy as hell, and it’s very nice to see some black and white booty for a change in a full colour race toward hell
  19.  @SFdirewolf is getting me on board with disability rights – she is FYYA (FIRE)
  20.  LOVE @ZoeSTodd although sometimes I find her challenging
  21.  @StephanieCarvin is about as politically correct as a hand grenade in a barrel of refugees but she sure has a lot of well researched opinions about Canadian security and so as long as I’m writing about asymmetrical warfare in Vancouver I kinda hafta pay attention – and she is grimly feminist and no chump, so I accept her as she is
  22.  @Olivia_Graciela AKA Auntie Carpet Weed is freaking awesome. If you’re on twitter follow her and get dragged into the light Indigenous women are holding up over their challenges
  23.  @xodanix3 another amazing person worth following. She has a mean streak I quite like.
  24.  @BorschtSiouxp is likewise full of bright beauty and hot takes and awesome
  25.   @IvaCheung takes on user guides, grammar, social justice and life in general and I love her with whatever my gristly heart can beat out
  26.  @Inked_Archivist who not coincidentally is my biggest fan (Upsun series) and posts fantastic SJ stuff from Europa and the Netherlands I wouldn’t otherwise see.
  27.  @GeorgMir is my dose of Austrian game making fandom – a beautiful soul who wants the best for the world and ain’t takin’ no shit in the process
  28.  @APebbleInTheSky is my favourite anarchist
  29.  @rechelon is not my favourite anarchist but I need him because he’s the only anarchist I know of who is remotely consistent in his personal and political life
  30.  @cjane87 is an amazing writer and opinion leader and her comments on sports events especially football have given me more laughs than I can count
  31.  @bogiperson is an amazing writer and anthologist and I’m a better person for reading their posts and links
  32.  @SpicyTunaRo not exactly as spicy as advertised but has given me plenty to chew on regarding Indigenous rights and history
  33.  @MikeStuchbery_ is so wonderful I’m just going to tell anyone who is on twitter to follow him. He’s not always right but he’s edumacational as all get out.
  34.  Alex not drowning on my watch at Edmonds Community Centre
  35.  Paul driving back from Seattle in the rain to housefilk at Cindy’s in January and Paul in general and I hope his ears are burning over what we said about him today, all nice except his driving of course
  36.  @LuxAlptraum, not perfect always perfect for me
  37.  @gerdurhalldora is the magical Icelandic woman who showed me around a very small part of Reykjavik and I’m SO HAPPY I MET HER
  38.  The Iceland trip, all of it.  The landscape, the people, even the food although I’ll eat fermented shark in hell and not before…
  39.  This message on facebook was about me.  IFUCKINGROCK screw the haters

    This morning, I had the longest facebook messenger convo of my life and it was, with little exaggeration and without getting into personal details, a life saver.
    Technology really can overcome distance and give you meaningful connections with people far away.
    Reach out to your friends, and you will get and give support in ways you can’t imagine.
    We all need each other.
    I am grateful and thankful for the love and support of my girlfriends.

  40.  the picture of the grandson of the above noted friend HAPPY SIGH
  41.  really feeling like I’m coming around from this depressed period. writing at least 300 words a day
  42.  Starting to meditate – still not consistent at it but I am enjoying how hard it is
  43.  published 114000 words of fanfic on a03 JUST THIS YEAR if you think I haven’t been writing I basically never stop
  44.  Rawd’s package came for mOm and what a bonanza of family history
  45.  mOm fell down and got a hip 18 months faster than she was booked to, got the surgeon she wanted and got a private room — this is like hitting a hole in one from the moon even if you live in a major metropolitan area in Canada
  46.  season three of The Expanse
  47.  My mOm, just now, reading A PURE FIRE LETTER FROM FAMILY HISTORY ABOUT THE HORRORS OF FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIANITY YUP YUP YUP
  48.  Margot dying was horrible but how kind we tried to be about it was not and what happened with Deimos was a fucking tragedy but it was not made worse by the people around me and that’s not nothing
  49.  Mike, who needs two mentions
  50.  Jeff, ditto

Christmas

I was supposed to go out for dinner tonight but cried off.

Today I watched the Queen’s Speech YES SHE WENT TO THE TRIBALISM PLACE which for someone queen of mostly colonized countries that’s just fucking rich Lillibet. Also, the Queen was introduced by THE SCREECHIEST BOY CHOIR IN THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND honestly they were passing out helium.

We watched Die Hard and We’re No Angels, our standard Christmas fare, and ate leftovers and hot dogs.

Christmas morning 2018

I was up at 3am today
cause I can’t sleep for beans
we know the Timmy Ho’s is closed
so brO says coffee? hopefully
and I know what he means
We don’t have coffee every day
cause it should be a treat
he takes the turkey carcass out
and it’s cold outside
there’s a starry sky

and all I wish for you is what I wish for every one
something good to keep you busy
someplace warm when the day is done
We have told ourselves a story
When we tell it, it comes true
about a happy family
and in it there is me and you
We will tell the kids a story
when we tell it it comes true
though we don’t meet you who follow
we’ll be thinking about you

supper consisted of

roast turkey (the most succulent white meat I think I ever cooked) NO GRAVY GODDAMNIT the third best stuffing evar parsnips brussels sprouts taters and squash spinach salad with purple onion, mushrooms and bacon bits, apple pie, and other people provided cider and wine

Katie was having too much fun with her workmates to come. I WAS LIKE THAT WHEN I WUZ FORTY i have pics from this very deck.

Just watched The Merry Gentleman and very much enjoyed it.

Up at 2 down at 5

The weather has been crazy, but thanks to my beauteous Peggy I got rides to Lunch Bunch (Laura’s apartment IS A CHRISTMAS WONDERLAND minus the NON STOP MUSIC) and it was STUFFED WITH FOOD including the almond scones I brought which people did et and some people ha ha I saw you Michael had seconds.

Interesting conversations as always but we had to leave for osteofit class and who was there but SUE Sue was there and that was good.

Then we came home and I was supposed to go food shopping with Paul for tomorrow but the weather IS INSANE so we all stayed in and watched a movie called Still Life instead. I’ma get up early on a turkey hunt tomorrow and if my turkey hunt goes badly I’ll get a roast beest instead.

I’m laying off the dicking around on my laptop, my right forearm is super sore and it’s from jamming my arm up while computering.

brekky and words

Today I’m not going to worry about writing but about other things. Current count 7200.

Watched Venom last night and enjoyed about 3/4 of it. I find it interesting how much like sixers the Venom species is, in terms of how they can change their density and appearance, and also how very unlike. I’m liking how I structured them.

happy happy

I had a super busy day yesterday and am recuperating at the Aerie. The sunrise was so spectactular – a brilliant pink sunshower — like being visually submerged in a backdrop which was painted by Salvador Dali while high on acid and experimenting with previously unheard of pigments I really wish I hadn’t had to get so superlative … whatever anyway it’s all gone now, every last bit of it, into grey.

C’est la vie.

There was much of Alex, like a jack in the box boy, running running running, running with energy and freedom; learning to take turns in the face of his anxiety about lack of control; roaming through the exhibit and then finding favourites and rapid cycling through them. I was having too much fun with the exhibits and my eyes don’t move like they once did, picking kids out of shopping malls and cockroaches out of kitchens.

Let’s just say I can’t be alone with Alex in an environment like that.

Rewatched Annie Hall with a bunch of friends and realized why it’s a really fucked up but instructive movie but I’ll let go on that further and later. ALSO ate really good Chinese food. ALSO saunaed with friends; also ate popcorn; also had a successful side shop; also ate in the playroom of the Main and Terminal McDonalds which is a FUCKING WILD wild wild place. I never once felt at risk though, it was just like I don’t know, like the Cantina scene in Star Wars with many more children and far fewer intoxicants.

Many fat kisses to Katie and Alex for a lovely morning and the loudest fucking lunch I’ve survived in decades.