Settler words&music in S'ólh Téméxw, (leanpub.com/upsun) living where privilege meets precarity in MST country. she/her/they———– Novels: Midnite Moving Co., Upsun; Sweep Off Those Waves coming soon, Hair Sinister after that. —Restore All Indigenous Lands!
Literally, the above is a phonetic translation of the title of this blog post.
Many loads of laundry; conversations with me mum, bingeing four episodes of Our Flag Means Death, an expensive delivery meal, working on songs and practicing, and getting Buster to purr when I told him daddy’s coming home today.
Peggy’s invited me and Cindy for lunch on Saturday. I wasted no time replying in the affirmative.
s’all good. No writing though, after the last long blort I’m in plotting and planning mode.
As a responsible adult I called Katie yesterday morning to let her know that Jeff and I were heading up the sea-to-sky highway to check out a provincial campground and park north of Squamish, to be back in the afternoon; I’d call her when we were home. In other words we drove all the way from Kikayt (New Westminster) southeast of K’emk’emeláy (‘place of maple trees’, aka Vancouver) all the way to Skwxwú7mesh Temíxw (Squamish Territory). The number seven or the special question mark is a glottal stop.
I had one job.
Only one job.
That was to tell Jeff when to turn off for Alice Lake. Could I? Did I? No. I didn’t see the sign until we were on it. Jeff turned around. There was a sign saying turnoff in one kilometre and we didn’t see the turn off. Going back north again from Squamish we saw TWO SIGNS for Alice Lake and finally managed the turn off. The campground itself is lovely, heavily treed and with two little beaches. Anyway, I marked the damned turnoff on the map with the kilometres and paid for Jeff’s gas (I hardly ever pay for gas, so I was due anyway).
It was a gorgeous trip, however brief, and if someone ever transcribed our joint running commentary from the dash cam we’d probably have to flee the province.
Jeff got us McDonald’s afterwards – I got my fries with no salt and they’re surprisingly good.
And I wrote a thousand words yesterday, 17865 is the count.
It was a good day.
It was time for me to take my meds anyway, what a good brother. Then I look on r/vancouver and twitter and you’d be amazed by how many people took pictures of it!
This says: it is a duty to help refugees.
The CNT says of its membership, (from wikipedia): “We make no distinction at the time of admission, we require only that you are a worker, student or unemployed. The only people who cannot join are those belonging to repressive organisations (police, military, security guards), employers or other exploiters”.
The CNT is one of the longest surviving anarchist confederations in the world, and still has a place in the politics of Spain and the upholding of the rights of the worker, as well as serving as a reminder that people are drawn to those of moral and ethical consistency.
For bringing Leo, and then Linda into my life. (And setting me up to be pro Suomi for all my life!!!) Leo and pOp were one-two in terms of marks in their Ryerson class, back at the dawn of time. So to honour that I noticed that Jackie H posted this on facebook (yes, after all my posturing, I went back) and POP MUST SEE IT as part of my thank you.
Jeff and I went for a walk yesterday morning so I didn’t go walking with Paul, but he came over and I cut his hair just like the old days and fed him an early lunch and tea, and then he watched Nürburgring with Jeff for a while.
16788 words.
Blood pressure has been EXCELLENT every time I’ve taken it of late. I am very relieved. Young master Alex loves taking his blood pressure. Which is normal.
Cooked up the last of the young spuds yesterday morning. I do like them roasted with rosemary and a little salt. Trying to find something that Jeff can comfortably eat since his stomach is being crass.
Hullo to my ten daily readers! the numbers have gone down again, but that’s good news – I can quit trying to cater to that brief weird influx of people who actually prefer me on twitter.
I’ve been to the beach at the foot of Pkols many times and I never saw what Leo and Linda did.
Photo credit L Makela, Jealousy credit Allegra Sloman
16722 words
that’s the plan
& I spoke with Mike today. The cup is full, the house is much cleaner. I love the world right now and need to sleep.
New Kaos: b.38/g10/bpm20/C_/gyp (music for a video game, a slow heartbeat sound quite ominous) … can you tell Alex was playing with it today and got me all inspired. Absolutely shredded Gelis and Niccolo today, I got sounds a guitar doesn’t readily make. And I wrote a hundred words today, and washed the rugs, and made Alex lunch, and watched Elementary with Jeff. This is what a successful day looks like.
Weather quite variable today but mostly not windy, and warm.
COVID is still kicking the world’s ass. Monkeypox is established in at least twenty countries with a thousand known cases and an obscured iceberg of infections not currently recorded or understood; plus the presentation is different than the textbooks which is really not helping.
I grieve with Ukraine, what an unholy mess.
16516 words.
I’ve got to get the kitchen rugs in the wash before she comes so she can do the kitchen floor.
mOm and pOp at the Butterfly Gardens, photo credit Leo Makela.
Jeff’s friend Rob dropped by briefly with beer and his inexhaustible supply of hilarious anecdotes.
Tim Horton’s has been scolded by the Privacy Commissioner MAN I’VE NEVER BEEN SO GLAD NOT TO HAVE A CELL PHONE
Leo and Linda have safely arrived back in Victoria. Or so I assume, no wild phone calls.
Duggy Sluggy got back in in Ontario. The media and Russian money really are doing a number on Canadian politics. I predict that disabled people will be killing themselves en masse on his doorstep before this is all over.
16166 words
JUST FOUND OUT ALEX IS GOING TO BE HERE SATURDAY because he’s having a sleepover with grammy Suzanne and we rearranged cleaning dates this week so he’ll be with her. SO CHUFFED. I am so glad she’s part of my family. She didn’t have to ask but she did because she’s CIVILIZED which I told her.
The Addams Family in Japan by Matsuyama Miyabi scanged from tumblr user dduane
Productive day in terms of writing and forwarding new work to my beta reader AKA mOm.
I’ve got nothing to say except that I’m well slept and happy, so I guess that makes me boring. LOL
Man, their coffee is so good. But I restrained myself and only had one cup. We went for a walk after in the park but the wildlife mostly hid itself away. The roses were blooming, and the cottonwood fluff was ankle deep.
Photos, credit Leo Makela
They walked 6ks through New West, running errands, and look how they treated themselves:
They offered to take us out but I wanted to save the money. Lovely day yesterday, just hanging out and talking. This morning we’re all headed out to a breakfast restaurant close to Fraser Foreshore. I’ll have just enough time to do my brain exercises and dress before we go.
They got fed Barely Chicken soup. (with corn).
It’s called The Trust Issue, and it’s a nested set of received opinions about how to trust the ourselves, the world and how we move through it and eventually out of it. I am thinking of it in terms of being on three scales; personal, familial (via family history, which is basically me saying HEY MA I THINK I FOUND ANOTHER USE FOR THE GAZILLIONS OF PIXELS YOU’VE SLAUGHTERED), and linguistic, but not in any academic sense, just in the sense that I have to use English to actually, like, do anything. English as often noted has many limitations in terms of felicity of precision *and* metaphor, at least for me, so I must perforce be appalled at operating within its tiresomely inevident confines. I know I am stuck here, in English, for I have neither the life expectancy nor the will to become able to write with ease and style in another language. The very idea makes a mockery of trust in any degree, but so be it. I shall scale Mt. Impossible because I dare not leave my room! The idea of actually making it fit into any politics, including the increasingly deadbeat anarchism I claim to claim (know what I mean) is loathsome to me so I am avoiding the political or public sphere, and I don’t think I could do it in less than 20000 words and suspect it’ll be closer to 70K.