Author: Allegra

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

Progress

515 words on Sweep Off Those Waves and 1.7 hours cpap yesterday and last night.  I love how my alien female is turning into A FEMINIST NIGHTMARE.  Cause she’s experimenting on her own children in utero.  This should end well.  I think I’ll celebrate with cinnamon buns.

It was a really great service; I love the flower communion and took rhododendron and azalea blooms. Thank you Sue for conducting me there and back.

I’m going to a circle dinner on April 18 – it’s a way of getting to know people from the church that you don’t normally talk to.

SO MANY KIDS.  We had hardly any children at church for a while, and now there are lots.  It takes some getting used to.

 

Ça fond dur, cette poème-la

Ah, but it’s like cat’s piss

this regret, weighing worse in the air

in some rooms than others

.

you are missed with a ferocity

that yet may crumple me

and then, no fucking meme of bitten lip passed over

move from memory to a place

where I can at least look at you

in my mind, where else

and recognize that I must thank you

.

rarely do I remember how

.

this is no sea of troubles

.

I ride life in a barque

partly of your design

these seas I lately conjure are

a hypothetical

My beloved heartsblood ideas

are ripe for satire and me

well I’m ready to be rendered

into literary cracklin’ baby

.

I have been watching the culture war

and I have sent my

smelliest rubber boots a wandering

here and there upon it

Rustled my jimmies and parsed

my arse to the stenosing bones

while dealing with blues &

unemployment, learning to breathe

with a cpap machine and fuck it

I did it anyway.  That was the point.

The work often takes longer than we’d like.

 

 

 

 

 

C’était une poème

I sing the infrastructure blues

cause I just can’t get there from here

moving around the world’s damage

while I carry my own

gotta route around the damage

because I gotta see her

she’s just past that road closure

dying in the hospital

and now I must think of all the times

I coulda fixed it

so she would be dying at home

and not on the other end of that

broken highway

Justice for Cindy Gladue

I am very sore today because merely standing triggers my pelvis pain to the point where I drag both my feet.  Also, Paul very efficiently tricked me into mowing the back lawn, so I was really, really sore by the time I was done. 2.0 hours on the cpap – keep forgetting to put the mask back on.

I wrote this in my notebook over a rather lavishly irrigated lunch yesterday.  I went to the rally, which was triggered by this.  As is my custom, I did a square search count of the crowd. It was never fewer than a hundred people and swelled to 150 around 11 am.  Knowing that we were gathered in 20 cities across Canada (including Saint John’s NFLD, where it was ass freezing cold and blowing snow) made me very proud.  And sore, as I mentioned.  I am going to pick up another one of those mini-chairs from Lee Valley, I simply cannot stand for an hour and a half without problems.

So I was angry when I wrote this.  I am still angry, but it’s the quiet, smoldering kind.

Edited for errors in usage and kindness Feb. 20 2021, the day I learned Bradley Barton is going to jail.

April 2, 2015 unceded Coastal Salish land. MST LAND

Canada is the kind of country where a sex trade worker deserves to die for being a sex trade worker.  If she’s Indigenous, and ‘somehow’ ends up with an 11 inch stab wound which is paraded through the courtroom in a specimen jar in a grotesque parody of a ceremonial object, she had it coming.  Somehow the fact that a misogynistic piece of sh*t named Bradley Barton murdered her in a drunken stupor gets dropped from the equation, and he left the trial a free man.

I’ve been angry at the Canada ‘justice’ system before. Lots.  But I don’t normally get off my ass to protest.

Cindy Gladue did not deserve to die.

She didn’t get justice.

Her children and her family and loved ones did not get justice.

I am enraged that Cindy Gladue and her 1200 and counting indigenous sisters are being treated by the justice ‘shitstem’ as entirely disposable human refuse.  The UN has asked Canada to investigate.  Harper says it isn’t even on his radar.

F*CK THIS RACIST SEXIST ENTIRELY HORSESH*T SYSTEM.

It’s gotta come down.

Let it come down.

With unity of purpose and steel in our veins, let us BRING IT DOWN.

There were 150 of us in front of the Courthouse yesterday. Indigenous and white and mixed and ‘other’.  We were men and women and non-binary and children. We wept and drummed and sang and screamed our disappointment and anger that Indigenous lives are forced to be so far from justice, or even its prospect or possibility.

Justice for Cindy Gladue.

Companions

Lady Miss Banjola’s kitty Toby has crossed the rainbow bridge, and I really feel for her and the Beanpie.  They live with us every day, with their moods, and their fur and their appetites, and their surprises, and then the only surprise is how fast they exit, and how our grief pangs us.  I only met him a couple of times.  He was a fine companion, and he will be missed.

In about an hour I’m going to do something I rarely do.  I’m going to get off my duff and go protest something.  More after I get back.

1.8 hours last night.  I cleaned the hose (I almost wish somebody had recorded my death struggle with the damned thing, it was probably amusing to watch) and although my face didn’t hurt, I forgot to put it back on when I took it off in the middle of the night.  I’m usually good for one sleep cycle and then RRRRIP.  Must remember to apply eye goop.  I couldn’t get my eyes open for about ten minutes this morning.

 

No mask for me

The mask pushed into my gums where the dentist assaulted me yesterday, but I should be okay for tonight, and I did get a lovely sleep with all that acetominophen chasing through my sensorium.

Agents of Shield is so boring, confusing, and emotionally trying that I just don’t want to watch it any more.  I keep hoping that there will be cool CGI but no dice.  Comic book plotting is hard on the nerves.

Justified, on the other hand, serves up plot twists and turns that you don’t see coming and couldn’t actually foresee and yet feel more true to life and more emotionally accurate than all the bushwah in Agents of Shield put together.

So, not great to watch the two shows back to back.

There’s only one episode of Justified left and if it’s anything like the last one it will be a wringer.

Bills all paid.

A massively unpleasant hour and a half

I have a temporary crown and get the real one in a fortnight. He froze me up solider than Mr. Freeze in liquid nitrogen, and then I was gagging for about half the time because the freezing was going down the side of my throat and a bit into my tongue and I quit being able to swallow with comfort.  Then of course they put a succession of chemical goos in little plates and they tell you to bite down and you know because this ain’t your first tooth-wrangling partay that you actually have to do what they say or the ****sucker will never fit properly in your mouth and even then there will be mighty hammerings and pryings and sawings and filings getting everything just so. But for the five minutes and other minutes that the gooey trays are in your mouth, there’s this impression that you’re sampling ‘the verrrry best a toxic waste dump can offer in the way of chemically goo!’ And I bit myself when frozen, one of my least favourite feelings because you have no way of knowing how bad it is until the freezing wears off.

Now my mouth hurts and the afflicted/treated tooth hurts so FRICKING BAD I am going to get up and get painkillers, and I don’t usually.

And all of this complaining must be set against the balance: that I needed to have the work done, and my family helped me, and I’m really, despite all this colourful whinging, most seriously and abjectly grateful.  Thank you.

Oh, and I biked to (in the middle spent time sunning myself at Paul’s, and also, sweeping, as the floors at Planet Bachelor Rev 1.3 needed them, and there was an apple and some San Pellegrino in there too) and from, so please, plaudits for getting off my ass.  It too is God’s handiwork, and only needs the chance to shine.

So happy Paul has retired.  I certainly think he is happy too.

Approximations

I thought I’d just untighten all of the cpap straps evenly and see if that helped, and it turned out to be perfect – sort of like a hole in one, since I figured I’d be fussing with it for half an hour.  As soon as I settled the mask on, I realized I had indeed overtightened everything to a farethewell.  So, 3.4 hours last night.

Paul and I went for a walk and I had a turrible craving for barbq ribs so I bought some (and treats, which was evil of me).  Paul is really enjoying being retired so far and headed out to Delta Air Park after we got together.

The ribs were amazing.  I boiled them and slathered them with sauce and baked them with tiny new red potatoes, and the potatoes were so well done that the innards were almost liquefied, and so sweet – best taters I’ve done up in an age.  The leftovers will serve for another two meals, so that was four tasty meals for $14.

Off to the dentist today.

No word yet regarding the last interview…. but I’m patient.

 

Reflection and droopery

As is often the case, a happy moment is followed by reflection and droopery.

I think I invented a new area of economic inquiry yesterday.  It combines stealth feminism, libertarianism and a new way of viewing productivity data.  I’m going to cruise around the web and see if anybody is actually, like, already doing it.  I’m betting not.

Somehow, in adjusting my cpap mask for tightness I fixed it so it doesn’t actually feel comfortable and it pinches my nose like crazy.  So .4 hours last night.  I am so bleary this morning (and I slept nine hours) that I made coffee for the first time in weeks.

Buster just jumped from the tv stand to the top of the tv, balanced precariously on that while my brO and I dropped the air pressure in the room by a couple of kilopascals, and then leaped up to the shelf above the tv where lurketh the handmade Cthulhu stuffies. For a second we thought he was going to jump onto the secondary screen, in which case I’d still be cleaning up glass and debris. Must figure out how to anchor that!

 

 

Some power in the morning

What an amazing church service.  I ain’t been feeling it lately, but that was a fabulous service delivered with love and care – individual testimonials as to the spiritual benefit of all manner of art, from fabric art to dance to hip hop music to singing to poetry.  Just, so, good. Joan Morris full props for a sound and worshipful service; lots to feed the spirit!

Got some nice long ear flapping in with some cocongregants afterwards, and then Sue kindly brought me home.

I am seriously thinking of adding “A Unitarian Viewer’s Guide to Deadwood” to my pile of writing projects.  DAMN  but it was a good show, probably one of the best ever. That plus “A UU guide to Akta Manniskor”, which is a show so full of Unitarian values that it is really quite remarkable.  And maybe Franci and I should do a Unitarian’s Guide to The Good Wife, since it’s such a pro-social show.

 

No hours logged

Keith has done his download.  Paul and I broke up years ago, but that doesn’t really set a timetable for when Keith processes it, so that is what it was about.  My final comment to him was, “I understand it takes a while to process things, and you might wish to consider talking about it sooner than later.” So, all good.

No hours logged last night.  I honestly think I forgot to put it on, which is weird, because I loaded in more distilled water. So I feel a little sludgy this morning.

I think I will make waffles.

Saw Louis Malle’s Crackers with Keith and Jeff yesterday – it is a most wonderfully strange movie.  Many aspects of the script you couldn’t get made today.  Wallace Shawn as Turtle is amazing.  Donald Sutherland as the would-be supervillain is hilarious.  The scene where he’s expertly blowdrying his hair had my eyes popping. The film is not very highly rated and I enjoyed it anyway, mostly because I had no idea what was going to happen next. Also, a young and sizzling Christine Baranski wears a startling array of lovely lingerie, and that by itself is worth seeing.

Good feeling

I have to say, Patricia really found a great bunch of people to work with, and I’m glad I had a chance to interview there.  I would say that I am at least being considered for the position, but I suspect they’ll hire somebody they have to train less, being quite practical people.  I actually enjoyed the interview process which is … you know, unusual.  I don’t know when they are likely to call back but I am not concerned.  If I get the job, I’ll be happy and if I don’t get the job I’ll be not quite as flush, but still happy.

1.8 hours last night and it would have been longer but I had to get up and boot Margot out of my room, and I couldn’t fall back asleep until I took the mask off.  Sheesh. Still, much better rested this morning, har har.

X Company continues to be really entertaining and full of moral quandaries regarding spying and working behind enemy lines.  I am very much enjoying Evelyne Brochu’s performance and was interested to hear she’s in Orphan Black.  Jeff didn’t enjoy it so we quit watching but I’m thinking I might like another crack at it.

There is a new Belgian Style brewery with taphouse up Production Way and Paul and I are going to inspect it for worthiness at some point soon.

I light a candle for Jeff and JeriLynn C for their successful move (they got hardly any notice, and stressed about it as would I, and as I DID the last time it happened to us) and for Tom and Peggy and their new grandbaby Josie (whom I greatly look forward to meeting) and for Brooke who AS USUAL provides good advice, her second lot in as many months and what a difference taking that advice has made to my comfort, Cthulhu bless the pharmacists.  I light a candle for one of my friends who is having an exceedingly difficult time with her current spouse regarding custody arrangements.  With permission, he took his children out of the country on vacation.  Without permission, he kept them an additional week and said ‘we already agreed on that’ when HOLY DIPSHIT there’s nothing in the emails to suggest he was going to give her a heart attack by pulling this stuff.  What he doesn’t know about his current legal situation is vast in expanse, and of course she’ll be elected queen bitch of the universe before this is all over, but I have been watching the situation unfold for many years now and she has lived up to her promise not to prevent access to this crazy ass guy just because he’s crazy.  I light a candle for Tammy, who got a glowing recommendation letter (yay…. but the job market does not magically get better, so I light a further candle for her job luck).  I light a candle for Chipper, just because I can, and because a couple of times in the last month she’s made me laugh so hard on the phone I’ve nearly sprang a rib.  I light a candle for Jeff, who is awesome, and loaned me his car yesterday which improved my mood for the interview, and another for Buster, who has a butt problem of some kind, but hey, those carpets go through the wash, and thank you mOm for making them.  I light a candle for Katie, who is negotiating going back to work in May, and for Keith, who still hasn’t talked to me about whatever dreadful advice / scolding he threatened to drop on me.  I’m no longer appalled.  The longer he waits the funnier this is going to be, and even if the joke’s on me I intend to enjoy it.  Okay here’s one for Paul, who gets me off my duff and into the sun, and much the same for Mike, who wrote a lovely recommendation letter for me, the dear lad, and here’s a big candle for all the elders at church, who are my role models (as are the fOlks) for getting old, and for the minister, not that she particularly needs it, and for everybody who’s ever served me food and drink, and for the Fraser River, and for the memories of Grandad, Grampa, Grandma, Granny, Sue, Elizabeth, Dave, John, Derry, Michael and Bounce.

I think today I’ll sort papers and clean out the fridge and if it stays nice maybe go for a bike ride and pick up kitty malt – Margot really needs it and the current tube is just about done.

 

What a thing it is to have friends

A friend called me at 9:30 last night.  I had to take my cpap mask off, and completely wake up to get the call.  My heart rate leapt into the Empyrean, as it always does when the phone rings and it’s pitch dark.  Has one of the fOlks suddenly taken ill?  Is one of my children trying to get a lawyer subsequent to an incident of some kind?   As I settled into dealing with the fact that I was now awake, my friend said, “Oh I’ll just let you get back to sleep then.”   And she hung up.

This is a person who is familiar with my current sleep wake cycle.

Just so we’re clear, her error was not in calling me.  My friends know they can call me, because I’ve said so, repeatedly.  Her error was completely waking me up, rejecting my offer to communicate and denying my agency to do so because ‘I was already asleep’, and then hanging up on me.  This filled me with a bilious fury and disgust during which I reviewed whether I even want this person as a friend at all, despite everything we’ve been through.  As the night crawled on, I consoled myself with the thought that with any luck I’ll be given the opportunity to wake her up on the eve of an important event and completely screw her sleep cycle, but be too polite and thoughtful to actually, you know, do it.

I have an interview today and I didn’t get back to sleep until after one, and I was so messed up I couldn’t put the mask back on, so I’m underoxygenated and underslept.  Jeff advised a nap, I’ll see if I can.

What a thing it is to have friends.  I wish they would find other ways to test our friendship  than messing with the few blissful hours each day during which I have no pain, and no worries, but when I think of how many people have no friends at all, I know I’m being quite unreasonable.  Not everybody lives in a household where sleep is sacred, and I can’t expect the world to conform to my needs.

Finally done with the address to the troops, now comes the stitchery to put the second part together and a push to get 4-6000 words for the goodbyes and the beautiful crowning achievement that the whole book has worked towards, which will completely turn to dreck in the first two paragraphs of the sequel.

I got reddit gold a couple of weeks ago for a comment.  Maybe two people who read this will care.  It was about childlessness by choice.

I found the extension for my Mac charger.  Life is somewhat more convenient.  See what cleaning your room can do?