Author: Allegra

Born when atmospheric carbon was 316 PPM. Settled on MST country since 1997. Parent, grandparent.

Jump in and go where life takes you

Like today.  Breakfast out, followed by a hearty doing of nothing, and then Katie and Chipper called in rapid succession and then Paul called and said let’s go for a walk and I said I’d already arranged to go see Katie so I had to call back Katie to get the ok to have BOTH grandparents descend at once and she said yeah whatever, by which I mean to say she kind of sounded stuffing deficient.

Jesus, the point loading of Buster’s feet is like a war crime.  Okay, still gasping a little from the surprise.

Where was I.  Oh yeah.  So we stop at Katie’s and hang for a while and my god Alex is, like, so happy to see both of us – he will NOT stop smiling.  HE HAS A SMILE THAT SAYS “I HAVE SIX TEETH.  BEHOLD MY TEETH.  I HAVE A TREMENDOUS QUANTITY OF DENTITION.”   Seriously.  Nobody has been that happy to see me since I settled a debt. And it’s not fair, because he’s been a right bear to Katie all morning and the second we show up he lights up like a Christmas tree and stays that way. It is possible he was in his crabbiness objecting to his mother wearing makeup for her driver photo (a discrete amount, and a discreet amount.)

We pick up the CAR SEAT OF HOLY VIRGIN HOW MUCH DO IT WEIGH and remove the three canoe paddles and the bike rack from the back seat and then Paul doing the stuff, stuff, stuff of the CAR SEAT of HVHMDIW into the back seat, because it’s super hard to get the seatbelt past all of its hangup points and then we stuff Alex into it.  Katie aims at getting her L today but with Alex like dat who knows. One cannot plan.  One can only jump in and go where life, or in this case, your father’s car, can take you.

We go to Paul’s for lunch which is leftovers and fresh corn and bread and chasing cats across filthy floors – Katie doesn’t believe in overprotecting a child from household dirt and he was shiny with grime in some spots by the time he had given full faith and credit to his mother’s parenting style. She mopped him before we left.

I collect Mike’s birthday present and stuff it in the trunk. The gift is a long term loan of a mandolin whose provenance is much clearer than its ownership, being Edith, the little Aria mandolin which first came into our family when Keith decided to take lessons. It came to live with me and then it went back to Paul’s but he never played it so I suggested another berth and Paul enthusiastically agreed.

Katie decides rather than going straight home to her place we are definitely going to the Drivers’ licence place and she’s gonna do the test and Alex, sensing his cue, passes out like a good little lad, and Katie goes in for the test and the rest of us wait in the car and so Paul and I catch up on not much since we saw each other so recently, and Katie texts that everybody trotted off to lunch (they take lunch late because people come in on their lunch breaks) and so she waits a fair while to take her test.

Alex wakes up after a nice nap and starts to roar in a very soft, puzzled, low key kind of way, thrashing about looking for mum. I wander around the back of the parking lot with him, humming “Lift Every Voice and Sing” and he fusses and kicks and growls and does this high pitched whine, brief but indelible in the tinnitus-inducing sense of the word, and then I CAN’T BELIEVE IT he relaxes in my arms, starts to yawn and is commencing to grumble his way back to sleep (so long as I keep holding him) when his mother dances into view and he commences with that extremely vigorous kicking like holy shit I’ma break a rib.  HE IS HAPPY.  We stop at Home Hardware for a bucket (Paul is feeling fine, thanks for asking) so he can collect graywater when he showers and then we drop off Katie and go for a walk in the Quay.

On the way back I can’t stand how lonely I am without my friend Beer handy, so Paul got cider and I got an India Session Ale from Red Racer and then I tell Paul that I’ve been practicing Dave Carter’s When I Go and have actually worked it out on the mandolin and we play that for a while and sing our way through it once and then Jeff and I watched Sunset Boulevard for the first time each and so to bed.

 

What a day.  Weather has been stunning. Zero writing, but I don’t care. Tomorrow is going to be amazing.

350 words yesterday

I’m taking a break today, it was like pulling teeth yesterday, or at least, like my experience with getting teeth pulled, which is prob’ly a more accurate description.

 

One of the many filkers I haven’t met yet came up with this gem.

 

UNCANNY VALLEY
(tto “Red River Valley”, words: B. Childs-Helton)

Though from Stepford they say you are goin’
I won’t miss your sweet face or your smile,
’cause they’ll wind up on some other robot
to remind me of you for a while.

Don’t lament flesh-and-blood boon companions
as you hastily bid them adieu,
just remember the Uncanny Valley
and the robot that looks just like you.

Is it man or machine, what’s the difference —
just relax, you’ve got nothing to fear
when your new plastic pal writes a pop tune
and goes Turing with Kraftwerk this year.

The elite’s obsolete as the workers.
Don’t be sad or depressed or Deep Blue.
Just remember the Uncanny Valley
and the robot that looks just like you.

Yes, I just kissed a girl named Maria.
No big deal — she’s a robot, you see —
but I’m not really sure if she’s kissing
one more robot that looks just like me.

Let us press on to full automation
till there’s no human bein’ left to screw
or remember the Uncanny Valley
and the robot that looks just like you.

 

 

Are you Mary?

Instant mini housefilk at Cindy’s place; me and Paul and Cindy and Miss K for appreciative audience. SUCH A GOOD TIME. Also we gave blood then we ate Indian food and went to the Bloedel Conservatory and I got into a discussion with a parrot and then nearly passed out from being down a pint and Paul sat with me for the 20 minutes it took for me to recover… all this happened before the housefilk. Feeling fine now but tired obvs, it was quite a day. Funny story… go to give blood at the Oak St Clinic, gal at reception asks “are you Mary?” which I hear as Are You Married, and I say no we’re divorced. So now on top of everything else I need to get my hearing checked.

 

400 words

Thank you Jeff for coming to get me. It was a tough ride back with the congestion.

Got caught up on all the shows except Ray Donovan.

Paul took me for a walk around 8; when we got back from the Quay (I avoided buying beer, yay me) Margot recognized the sound of Paul’s car and came out to greet him, which he took as a compliment.

I have a strong feeling I should not write today, but look after some other stuff.  This is going to be an emotionally difficult weekend upcoming.  I have a memorial service and a party to go to on the 25th and a sauna party to go to on the 26th.

Coffee, here I come.

Saw my editor

She is so very awesome.  Plus cats.

The fOlks and I took a really nice long ride around Saanich.  They fed me at Sassy’s.  Honestly, I am so frikkin spoiled.

I am going to make coffee and do laundry.  I underestimated my pants requirement.

No writing, but just getting the manuscript handed over has made me feel much better.

Pleasant day

Spent a good chunk of the day labouring on Sweep off the Waves and only managed 574 words.  Did a lot of editing – essentially re-read the entire manuscript as it stands right and every time I ran into something stupid (anything that slowed my reading to a crawl as I tried to work out what was happening) I’d fix it.  I wrote more wordywordwords than I removed, but it was disheartening to go into negative numbers for a while.

Messaged my editor about dropping off the rest of the manuscript for the first book early this morning, and it yet being hours ungodly have not had a response. If I can’t raise her I’ll find a post office and mail it to her while I’m here. (People are, after all, entitled to leave town on vacation and I didn’t call her first…)

After thrashing about on how I am supposed to write another 25-30K (minimum) it occurred to me that I could do another ‘media compendium’ chapter, I just need the narrative catch point…. a transcript for a special presentation on TV with the lovely Farah Jalali, or a blenderized Stand on Zanzibar style ‘this is how the aliens merge into pop culture’ core dump, or a ‘curated’ section in which a multimedia artist tries to assemble a collage, and the problems she encounters in so doing.  If I decided to do all three, I will NOT have a problem making that wordcount, but it will not be as much fun for mOm to read, so sorry mOm.

Raspberries and cream two mornings running for breakfast. Life is GOOOOD.

Rides in cars

mOm and pOp picked me up in the Camaro yesterday, so by the time I got to Dan’s I looked like the Wrath o Godâ„¢. The trip to the ferry was horrible, and I’d like to kick the ass of the 620 bus driver into an interdimensional sling.  Drove right past me AT THE CORRECT STOP and two appalled American tourists who insisted on sticking to me until we got on the ferry, and then I asked them to get bus tickets before the wicket closed, and they came back to where I was sitting and mOm saw them briefly when they debarked.

I had a lovely nights’ sleep. I’m definitely tossing my mattress when I get home and getting something like the bed in the guest room here, it is like Morpheus’ fainting couch or something.

I should go make myself some tea – it’s noon and I’ve had nothing to drink so far today, which is just ridiculous, but I loathe Victoria water so I have to flavour it with something.

Yay internet in the guest room.

Blackberry jelly from Tom to pOp, hummingbird finger puppet from me to mOm.  (Level up noise.)

There’s a letter from Lois to mOm thanking her for putting up Kaitlyn’s plaque.  That made me cry.  Everything these days makes me cry, but that doesn’t bother me.  Not being able to feel would bother me a lot worse. If you read the hashtag on twitter #ifIdieinpolicecustody you’ll do some more crying.

 

One thing leads to another

I googled ‘writing in bed’ and got this. (This because Jeff is, if not appalled, then somewhat perturbed that I do most of my writing in bed.) From there I googled “Death of George Orwell” and from there I got the wikipedia article (bien sûr) about Eric Blair.  From there I got this.  And the first paragraph of the third chapter nearly made me croak with laughter.  Vermicular progression!!! I shall be quoting that in my novel if I don’t watch out.

The opening poem is a corker, too.  Every fucking elected Republican in the States and elected (debatable) Conservative in Canada should read it.

Mental illness

I did have a rough couple of days.  Feeding Ayesha was the only reason I got dressed and left the house a couple of times. But my friends as usual helped me feel better.  I was reading Jenny Diski’s latest review about insanity and being committed, and reading about the continuing horror and debility of the mental unwellness of an acquaintance on fb, and I just had to stop and thank a few people.

Sandy for telling me to go back to taking vitamin d, which was the smartest of many smart things she’s told me in the last year; Paul for taking me for a WONDERFUL walk in Queen’s Park (we haven’t walked there in 15 years, I’d guess) where we saw a gazebo, and pigs in the petting zoo, and kids having fun but NOT SHRIEKING, and gingko trees, and roses, and a completely deserted outdoor exercise space for adults; Jeff for indulging me when I said, “Gee whiz after watching the last ten minutes of True Detective (wherein there was an incredible gun battle) I want to rewatch 44 Minutes: The North Hollywood Shootout!” and he said sure, so we did, and I have to say it’s held up very, very well; Sue for always being a positive and loving force in my life; Tammy for listening; mOm and pOp of course for so much practical and uncomplicated support now and earlier; both kids for various kinds of help; John, who seems to pop up everywhere in my mind these days and I don’t know why this picture of a dog reminds me of him; Margot for being so relaxed about not being normal; Bounce for being one of my happiest memories.

 

After the wonderful walk yesterday (all those beautiful tall trees!) Paul took me to the Taqueria Playa Tropical, which is such a good restaurant it doesn’t serve desert (of course not, and as I re-read this I note they don’t serve dessert EITHER.)  I ordered a beer and Paul had a Margarita, can you credit it? And the server swapped the drinks because GENDER ROLES, which occasioned harmless mirth.  I had the Tosta Carnita, and for seven bucks I got the tastiest sandwich I have ever, ever eaten. GOD IT WAS GOOD I AM STILL IN THAT HAPPY PLACE. Paul had the enchiladas and the way they were plated I wanted to take a picture, but I am damned glad I didn’t because that shit’s rude.  And I left my phone in the car.

Happy to have friends.  All I meant to say.  Because they are the people standing between me and the bughouse.

400 words yesterday.  Babies tumbling down stairs and being weird.

I am working on more songs and more writing, but all the songs have not had lyrics of late.  I am practicing!

Roxane Gay rules and this post is TMI

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED…..

So my very favourite Bad Feminist Roxane Gay, who has to deal with so much more intersectionality than I do, has participated in a puff piece in stylist.co.uk talking about her hygiene routine.  I told her I would follow her example.

At this point I can hear Jeff saying something, and then when I ask him to repeat it, he says, ‘Oh, nothing, nothing.’

I probably should shower more frequently than I do, being about three times a week, but as I get older I get dryer, and I feel like I’m turning into a desiccated old piece of sod.  I use Belle de Provence Honeysuckle soap because it smells very good, lasts a long time and is the one piece of luxury in my hygiene routine. Hardly anyone carries it and since it’s 6 bucks a pop I tend to buy in bulk when I find it.  I use Head and Shoulders brand shampoo/conditioner and buy it in the large pump size as it’s cheaper.  I use no other soap products.  I wash my hands every time I handle the cat, before I prep food and after I come in from being out in public as well as after I groom myself or go to the toilet.  I didn’t give a shit about washing my hands before I ran a restaurant.  Now I really, really do care about it, and it’s the simplest, fastest and easiest way to prevent illness, so why the hell not.

I hate all deodorants but I stink if I don’t use them.  When I’m feeling radical I wash, dry thoroughly and apply baby powder to my pits, but that’s good for about 12 hours before Jeff’s eyebrows do something improbable (the fan in the basement blows my effluent in his direction when we’re watching tv, so … yeah.)  Otherwise I use whatever kind of bo juice isn’t loathsome, and I’m like a lightning rod for deodorant being discontinued, so I try to be cool, but right now it’s a pretty loathsome vanilla smelly thing.  Gak.   Still better than the alternative.

I use two different kinds of eyedrops, thanks to the amazingly practical and super unjudgey Lady Miss Banjola, one for day, one for night, and I am not consistent in their use but by gar it’s a good thing to have them, because when you need them you’re like ACK MY EYES MY EYES I CAN’T GET MY EYES oh thank goodness I can see!  Also, thanks to her I found out that dryness amidships can be ameliorated by the twice weekly anointing of der ladygel, and she made brand recommendations, and I can get them reasonably cheap on line.  With that one small recommendation she made my life go from a meepy, withered parody of what Beeker sounds like after he’s been mugged, to me being able to contemplate having a boyfriend.  I don’t actually want a boyfriend, and the men in my life who squire me around do not wish to fill this or candidly any other vacancy wheresoever situated, but at least the prospect shifted from being painfully impossible to being ludicrously improbable, and only the Rumi’s Beloved could parse that shift in meaningful terms, but I view it as an improvement.

I pluck my eyebrows every day.  I watched the best eyebrow guy on the planet do a tutorial on youtube, and I thought “Hey, my OCD and some grooming tips wa-ho!” but I tell you my brow game is fierce, and it helps with the performative feminity, although I have not recently been mistaken for a man (it only happened the once, and I think the person was altered.)

This upping of the eyebrow game was subsequent to Keith picking out to extremely flattering and stylish frames for me.  I was looking really hard for a job and I wanted to be ready to interview at a moment’s notice, and now, provided I have a clean dress, I really am.   I pluck my chin hairs, and my (sigh, fuck my life) chest hairs.  I do not shave my legs or pits and anybody who wants me to can shave his or her legs and pits all they want but this lovely, amazing, FEATURE of adult life called BODILY AUTONOMY does not stop being awesome just because you are creeped out by my hairy legs, and the next time somebody calls me on it I’ll just say that sexism is uglier than hairy legs and any sensible person knows that.  Body hair sure makes men who have basic issues with mansplaining and feminism go away right quick, and smell ya later, ya squirrelfondling preverts.

Also, I got really really bad frostbite on my lower legs when I was in public school, so bad that the skin on my lower legs (the shaving zone) is burst-into-tears sensitive, so yeah, no, fuck your leg shaving.  It HURTS.  I bleed, and then all the little hairs growing back in catch in my bedding, so fuck you and go AWAY if you think I should shave my legs for any reason whatsoever.  As for my armpits.  When more than 50 percent of north American men shave their armpits, I’ll sign up for one of those monthly boxes of shaving gear, but until that day (bwa ha ha, coming soon!) yeah, just no.

I used to use Garnier number 60 hair dye and I still have some tucked away, but it really really bothers Jeff and I’m not a fan of doing it, I am a fan of having it done. Fortunately the colour is almost exactly the same as the two remaining stripes of colour I have in the mounting nest of grey that is my hair so even when I let it grow out it looks reasonably okay.  If I get another interview, which will be hard, as I am officially as of this moment no longer looking for work since hey we’re in a recession, and nobody would want to hire me even if I wanted to trade the best part of me for 24K net a year, which I don’t, and which makes me an elitist asshole. Ok.

I make my own perfume, which is called Cyprus, and has a secret blend of floral oil ingredients, and which smells fantastic on me (to the point where other women have demanded I sell them some, which I did) but everybody from my mOm to my brO thinks it smells like I’m hanging truck stop air freshener from my pits AND about 40% of my friends have chemical sensitivities and find it overpowering even when I’m using it gingerly so it’s only for special occasions.

My last pedicure made me limp for THREE FUCKING MONTHS and I am never paying for one again as Hecate may bear witness; now I cut off the parts of the toenail that stick out and abrade down the rest with a number of different kinds of pedicure gear.  I occasionally soak my feet and use footrub on myself or get somebody else like Katie to help out.  I am very very on top of my toenails because I can go from Happy Feet to ballerina outtakes (thankfully not shown here) in less than a week.  My hair, feet and nails grow at a tremendous rate, which is great because I get rid of heavy metals that way, but I must cut, hack, saw and file away with vigour.

I used to be an assclown about dental hygiene but I brush and floss every single day now (occasional lapses, but not many) since I can’t afford to lose the use of any more teeth when toothpaste and floss is so cheap.  I buy firm or super firm brushes and brush whatever way feels right and I pay for getting my teeth cleaned professionally once a year.  I am seriously considering investing in dental picks.

I have incredibly clean ear canals.  I hate the feeling of anything in there except air, but I no longer scrape them out with anything hard because it removes the hair that grows in the canal and I’m so clumsy I might deafen myself.

I wash my face with soap once a week.  Any more and I dry out like something that went with Scott to the Pole.

Once every three months I apply a clay facial mask.  I like how my skin feels afterward.

Once in a very long while I get a massage or a spa half day, but I can get the same results from rolling around on Wreck Beach and probably get exposed to the same amount of coliform in the process.

 

And there you have it.  Nobody asked for it, but that is my hygiene routine.

One feels better after a drive

There are certain activities that almost always make me feel better, and I suppose it’s part of my conditioning, since from the time I was quite small convertibles were part of life.  So a long drive, in the luscious dusk of Vancouver in July, was just the ticket; also, more pragmatically, I was supposed to check that the dash lights were working.  I also enjoy being able to help people, and knowing that I was going to reduce Keith’s ride into town by about an hour and a half helped.

Keith was full of feels and family news. He didn’t have his jacket so I reluctantly rolled up the window, and we enjoyed a simply wonderful ride home in the MR2; and Jeff’s car collected two compliments while I was out.  I ripped BC Ferries off for four dollars as I flatly refused to pay for parking.  (Not getting the job at the parking lot machine company has made me even more grumpy about paying for parking.  I checked for drones; there being none, I just sat there in the lot.)

One of my aliens (Michel, since mOm will want to know) just said, “I wish your mouth was shorter and your fuse was longer.”   Another character just accused another of practicing lemonade stand feminism.  He he.

I have coffee, I have arrowroot biscuits, and a book and a half to finish.  Better get back to it.

Happy Pluto Flyby and Bastille Day

763 words on a new chapter.

Watched Girlfight, an excellent, excellent film.  Very glad Jeff pulled it out of the pile for me.

In about half an hour I’m going to go pick up Keith from the ferry.  Maybe we’ll stop off somewhere on the way home if he’s not too bagged.

Tim Horton’s is threatening to make poutine.  I will stick to the Spud Shack or Anny’s, merci bien tout le monde.