Category: Festival

a feast and amusements

Dinner was set for 6:30, but our table was waiting when we got there early. “Early!” Mike said mildly, as if such things never occur on his watch. We walked through the restaurant and stepped down onto the patio, where we were transported to a world of attentive and kindly service, and got to watch a wedding out on the lawn. Some violinist, undoubtedly one who had not thought of such a living in music school, sawed away most competently on the exact traditional and classical airs which a) have no ducking copyright and b) are least likely to induce violence in the listeners/gathering. Well done, violinist.

We were bothered by no importunate birds or unpleasant insects as we chowed down on the fresh halibut and lamb tenderloin and west coast risotto (Haida Gwaii halibut, steelhead salmon, capers and lemon which was of surpassing nom, believe me). Dessert would have been folly – Mike and I rolled out of there with bug eyed slowness, such was our state of repletion. We got the charcuterie tray, too, which was so fucking good I’m having flashbacks. It’s also the exact wrong thing for me to eat with my blood pressure. I suggested it but only because I know Mike likes that kind of shit too and there’s not a damned thing wrong with his blood pressure. ( I had zero alcohol )

Mike took pics of my updo – it was held together with 20 bobby pins, 3 hair elastics and enough product to turn the prow of a ship ice-breaker capable. It also held together like grim death in the convertible (Mike’s driving the Mustang again, after many adventures in muscle strain and industrial accident getting the critter operational, all in Trent’s Man Cave, which is much like Tom’s Man Cave and other Man Caves of story and legend in that it has damned near anything you’d need to fix anything.)

Anyway, Mike was in Denver and like me he has trouble finding clothes that fit locally which is FUCKING LUDICROUS because he is an averagely proportioned man of Chinese descent WHO LIVES IN VANCOUVER but because merchandizing buyers are racist, there’s never enough size 28 anything (he’s a perfect size 28) so you can imagine how he felt when he found a designer suit in his size for 99 bucks US.

The suit is gunmetal grey and shiny; put together with a black dress shirt and Daytons elevator cowboy boots with silver chains he looked like a fucking whale at a casino. He looked so sharp I was splodey with pride.

I stepped out of the house and Mike said “You look smashing.” (I intend to share this comment with Teresa, the gal who put my hair up while we had a lovely convo.) I sure felt like it. We were also going for the monochrome look, me in solid burgundy and him in shiny dark grey. Nobody else at the restaurant dressed up. I just wish I could have gotten one of Elyse’s tiaras/necklaces as well, but Eshakti did me up fine with this outfit.

Wrong colour of course and also I got it on sale in the closeout colour. Let’s just say you won’t find an outfit that stylish, comfy and cheap at Penningtons. I’m never going to a classical fat lady store again, the chains can bite me.

So Hart House dins while dressed up for Mike’s birthday went exceedingly well. I am going to remember this meal as the height of company, location, food and basic happiness, because I don’t think I stopped smiling for the entire meal.

And in a less formal way we’ll be doing it on Saturday at the Thai restaurant in New West with the rest of Mike’s friends and Jeff and I are hosting the afterpartay. LET THE GRAND CLEANING BEGIN mebbe with the cat puke in the living room.

IT’s a beautiful, beautiful day. Cloudless and bright.

thangs my mOm taught me

Things my mOm taught me: virtually everything about performative femininity is a complex and expensive waste of time

we’re atheists like who cares, not like O’Hairs

you won’t know who you are until you’re in your 30s at least and there’s no shame in going long

a fine spring day + a convertible + a shady country road + your sweetie = happiness

You can’t have everything and you’re a sucker to try.

You can be in complete disagreement with your family about just about everything as long as you don’t revert to name calling and violence

Plant native plants if you want native butterflies

Don’t put poison on the yard of your own house

Family history is important because it explains things that otherwise make zero sense

If you want better sf, pay for it

Never stop learning

You’re an ancestor.

House filk

attendees: Cindy, Peggy, Paul, Tom, Mike

Songs: Alexios (the Murder Hobo), Frobisher Bay, Lousy Co-pilot (original and SG Atlantis version), That God-forsaken Hellhole I call Home, Dandelions Dreaming, Blues for Dumuzi, The last page, Two Worlds, Those Magic Changes, two songs from the Skyrim soundtrack, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, a filk song we found by accident in my Canadian women’s folk songs book called Susan COD, It takes a lot to laugh it takes a train to cry, Gentle Arms of Eden, Lady of Komarr, Some Other Planet, and there were more but you get the general idea.

monch food sing choons

It was absolutely loverly

At conflikt 12

Travel was excellent, border was a lark; on Friday we stopped in Greenwood and ate ‘za from Razzi’s – expensive but VERY FINE PIZZA with tremendously high quality ingredaments.

Checked in without difficulty, comfy room with a balcony, not too noisy (faces SEA so there is aircraft noise.)

Last night filked with Cindy (Lady of Komarr) and sang Murder Hobo:Odyssey so that was fun. (Paul was paying attention to people’s reactions and he said people laughed their asses off… you know how it is when you’re too busy singing and playing to pay much attention.)

Steak din with Lemming and Paul tonight, we had a good time until my credit card barfed. Since Paul’s did too I’m not too upset because it sounds like a system issue – we use the same bank – but as is often the case my emotional balloon was punctured and I don’t feel great about singing and playing and I now owe Lem 137 bucks, although he was a total sweetheart about it.

We talked about John a fair amount. It is good to have good memories about him.

Today it was announced officially, I will be the Toastmaster for Conflikt 13!!

This means staying at the hotel Friday through Sunday at mininum, doing a concert, being at the Guest Lunch and doing the instafilk, judging a song contest, contributing to the Interfilk Auction (of which I have previously been a beneficiary), songbook and lunch CD, host open filk for at least a couple of hours, doing a panel or workshop, emcee for performer concerts.

I’M THRILLED, I’M HONOURED, I’M GONNA WORK HARD AND DO MY BEST

and I intend to book off the following week to collapse into con crud and exhaustion, because I’m going to be 61 and I’m not completely altered in the head.

 

They have an electrified toastmaster badge NOM I love it so.

 

I have a year to plan outfits!.

 

today’s non-events

Got into a beatdown with a bunch of one of the most self-righteous pot activists (like there’s another fucking kind) on twitter today.

Come ON I smoke, but I don’t smoke and blow smoke in the faces of the allergic and the elderly, and they’re announcing it’s their RIGHT, because this is VANCOUVER, home of TOLERANCE. Yeah I’ll believe that when Canada gives back the unceded lands, you unregenerate failure of logic. I’m like a homophobe for harshing their mellow. Srsly. Got accused of equivalency to homophobia for objecting to people dousing the entire west end in pot smoke for their stupid fucking 420 festival (which leaves heaps of trash mounded everywhere and they’re all cryface because they didn’t get a fucking permit.) F*ck me!

I realized that when you put asterisks in f*cking swearwords you’re putting a leedle asshole right in the meedle of the word and since when you’re swearing there’s usually an asshole involved, it’s mesmerizingly poifect.

I love Buster, he’s an amazing cat. And he loves me too, I know it. I don’t think Miss Margot cares if I live or die, but Buster does.

My latest piece of fanfic smut has more than five hundred likes (it’s cute and hot, so there)

I’ve written a BDSM scene in the same ‘verse but I’m not happy with it yet. I had to put in about 200 words about how the scene is ‘necessary but non-consensual’ which kinda blows (or not!) since scenes need consent if they’re to resonate with me writing, at all. So it’s like “We’ve talked about this – I hate it when you want me (and need me) to top you but I’m s’posed to read your mind – and topping when you’re angry at your partner is a bad bad bad idea” followed by “Do what ya gotta, man, just hit me really hard.” Oh, and there are minor children in the house while this sh*t’s going down, just to make it even more like real life, and our heroes must deal with the domestic consequences of Daddies fighting. I LOVE A CHALLENGE. After all, continuing to have interesting sex after kids *is* a continuing challenge in real life. People want carefree smut? they can look elsewhere; to me smut always has a cost. Who bears it depends on who’s being responsible, or not.

Not that anybody wants to know, but I’m really not into any of those behaviours in real life. Nagging at volume is sort of where I max out, ask any of my exes.

Continuing to have the poly life discussion with someone. It’s painful. Really painful. I feel like I have my nose up again a particularly interesting window. I can smell bread baking. But no. G*ddamned heteronormative uncommunicative bushwah (on their end, not mine.) But at the same time there’s NO F*CKING POINT to becoming an elder if you don’t understand that real life takes time, opportunities for growth don’t wait, and if you don’t consider who’s going to be impacted by your decisions, your years, your grey hairs and and your learning means squat. I am still 22 in some corner of my persona, for my enthusiasms still have all the joy of my youth; I just can’t write everyone affected by my behaviour out of the script any more. I do from time to time, but not all the time.

Fortunately, since I’m pushing 60 with a broom, I can contemplate my greed like the gorram caged bear that it is. Still here, but not running the show.

Katie is still having a rough time and she and Alex are both sick again.

I am not having a rough time. I feel pretty good, all things considered. I have another two weeks of full time work. If that changes, I’ll deal with it. I actually have a plan to deal with it that I think will make almost everyone happy, at least temporarily.

Rogue One is a fucking fantastic movie. Getting eaten by Disney was the best thing that ever happened to the franchise.

Now to check if my money transfer has come through.

Ringing in the New Year via snow shovel

Dug out  the front stairs, walkway and sidewalk, the back stairs, side walkway, garage walkway, and the snow blocking passage to the laneway.

New Years Writing Resolutions:

 

Publish 5 books (4 out of 5 are written) block out five more, e-publish my book of homilies, write two more of fiction and two of non-fiction. Finally assemble all my filk songs as of the end of 2016 into a big pdf file. Dig more deeply into Scrivener and see what else it can do to help my work flow. Learn more about e-publishing. Print at least a small run of physical books (probably locally) so I can put them in my mOm’s hands. Put everything for free on my website so people who are broke can read it. Develop a mailing list for book marketing purposes. Learn to spam LinkedIn since it’s all they’ve ever done for me. Figure out if it’s worth it to put any version of the ‘trilogy plus bookends’ on Amazon, given all the hassles I hear about. Start a Patreon account. Move 1500 units. Start submitting to publishers once I have some sales. And remember that 1000 words a day is 4 books a year!

I am completely and utterly sober. I have five minutes to pour myself a toast of something before I greet the new year with some Moar Wrdz.

No MMCo today

Jeff and I hosted Paul’s birthday last night. I got tired and went to bed at nine (folks came by at two, which is fine, because the Alex was one of them.) Also that might have something to do with the fact I was up at 2 am YESterday too.

Watching Paul with Alex. Alex pretends to feed him chili, Paul pretends to eat it, the two of them laugh like drains. This went on for about ten minutes.  I got one decent pic, which mOm already has.  He’s laughing so hard his face is almost blurry.

Alex refers to himself as Ack. This is charming. He is now speaking in perfectly intelligible sentences of two or three or four or even five words. Then the next thing he says is gibberish, right about the time you were thinking of boasting.

Nita, Keith, Alex, Katie, Peggy and Tom, Mike and Cassidy and Rob Warner all came by.   Plus Cassidy gave preserves to Paul which he will enjoy mightily.  Her southern rellies put magic in that woman’s kitchen….NOM.

Alex on his belly watching Jeff fix the deck with a screwdriver, and calling him Unca Jeff quite clearly. Playing with the hose and running all over the yard. Playing with the posture ball.

He was so busy he never even got to play on the pinballs!

Extra special hugs to cousin Lindsay for singing happy birthday to her uncle! That was very cheering.

Happy people eating chili. I made vegan chili and I’m glad, I tell you.

Much very good beer including Dageraad.

Heart full of gratitude, mind full of I HAZ NOT ENOUGH SLEEP.

Thus the pause today on the writing.  Back tomorrow, have no fear.

dramatis coworkerae

Bart – the former CEO shaved his head and scared me with it (not what I remember), talked interestingly about poker (he plays top league)
Antonio, the former CFO (also shaved his head and made him look younger how the hell does that work)
Al-Karim, the former CTO ….YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO LOOK THAT GOOD.
Mike
Me
Amanda Looking good!
Katie – didn’t talk to her
Klaus – No change. That smirk never dies.
Venu – So lovely to see him! He was always a sensible and hardworking individual.
Christine Three kids under ten and taking her masters GOOD GOD WOMAN
Dave D – such a happy guy. I’m following his parenting joys and hiccups on fb.
Haakon – lovely talk with him
Silvana – gave me job hunting pointers
Bert – He’s a brutally private person so let’s just say I was *really* happy to see him and I think he’s a goddamned trooper.

AND APPARENTLY A GABRIOLA CAMPING TRIP IS ON THE BOARDS FOR 2017. Or mebbe Tofino? Mike and I spoke to the Dalai Jarmo last Friday. HHHHHmmmmm they are running a B&B.

I guess it tells you something about what kind of place it was to work that literally fifteen years after we last all worked together we wanted to see each other again. At least two of the above noted people look younger and healthier than they did when I last worked with them, which just seems bizarre.

I had a really good time, and some lovely conversations with some great people.

I hope the surgery goes well today. Odds are it will all go slick.

CARNAGE

Buster brought in 4 RATS yesterday, laying them all out in a row downstairs.  He’s killing them all so Jeff doesn’t have to deal with rats which have died in locales where they are like to rot or little bits’o rat everywhere, just secure tail and trash.

THE HEATER IS NOT BROKE.  It merely has an absurdly sensitive orientation sensor and Buster probably knocked it off its flatness while jumping down from my desk.  Everything a-ok there.

Took a walk down to get cream yesterday morning.  It was a crisp crisp morning so I wore the mitts my mOm knitted for Katie that I somehow ended up with and the cute animé hat Keith got me a couple of years back.

Later I went to the interview.  It’s always interesting seeing myself and all my imperfections as a potential employee reflected through someone else.  The poor little gal who interviewed me.  I hope my pity for her didn’t show.  She’s probably just barely making a living at what she’s doing, but she was wearing a thousand dollars’ worth of clothing and a freaking expensive watch and had the coldest, limpest handshake I’ve shared in probably years. I thought that when she shook my hand it was probably the first time her hand had felt warm since the last interview.  Stupidly big office, in one of the industrial/office complexes on Still Creek. The entire courtyard had so much bird shit in it I felt ill walking through it and you all know me as being somebody who can deal with disgusting with fewer collywobbles than most socialized women. Drove away thinking what an incredible waste of time it was, but I’m still going to send her my references.

Then got beer and various foodicles, why not, it was on my way home.

Then we caught up on the Librarians and Robot Chicken, etc.

I have no idea what will happen to my writing energy if I get a job.  We’ll see. I know I can work and write, but it needs a ‘specially calm kind of job to allow me to think about stuff and write.

Jeff is awesome.  He has been helping me with technology (backups), when he’s not trying to pull info out of third parties and disposing of rats.

Word count over 7000 as of today.

Tomorrow the bday party for Katie. I already got her her present, and I’m not talking about it in a public forum, but most of my friends already know and so my expression of precarious and secretive amusement is thus explained.

Guru Purnima

Today is a day to celebrate spiritual and academic teachers:

Jeff, because he’s both.

My fOlks of course.

Doug Bain and John Hamilton, two of my high school teachers who are most responsible for shaping how I think and why I bother to.

Sue Sparlin.

Patricia!  So pithy, so witty, so wise.  If you ever decide to write a book of life advice, I will be ripping pages out of the typewriter as they come and killing myself laughin’, I’m sure.

Mike and Jarmo.

Dorothy Dunnett.

I won’t say all the Unitarian ministers I’ve ever had dealings with, but most of them.

And the Grey Hymnal, a haven from the stupidity of the world.

All the black, trans*, differently othered and First Nations activists who have kicked my ass and pointed my thoughts in a different direction.  Without their clear voices, without their clear vision, I’m just another temporarily-abled settler colonial gender essentialist living the good life on unceded land.

 

Happy birthday Jeff.

The true final count was

Final word count for the day was over 1500 words.  (This included editing, since I was ripping adverbs and adjectives out with vigour.)  I still have not commenced the new chapters. Also worked on the chapter entitled Exit Interview.

Today a memorial service for a church member and a birthday party for one of my closest friends.  I find that often happens to me, two big events in one day; I imagine I’ll be ready to get my drink on by a quarter to five.

We blasted through the rest of the Bojack Horseman season.  I really enjoyed it, especially the stuff going on in the background and the non-stop shellacking of all manner of Hollywoo ‘types’.

One of these days I’ll talk about the process, but in the meantime I’ll just say I love Scrivener.

The latest theatre shooting in the States was at a feminist movie and the people who were shot and killed were all women.  There IS NO WAR ON WOMEN MOVE ALONG PLEASE.  Right wing radio gave him a platform for his hate.  And thank you for killing yourself you fucking scumskin, your parents and ex-wife probably got their first night of sleep in ages, despite their grief and horror.

Blerg

I am reading Patton Oswalt’s Silver Screen Fiend and IT’S OUTSTANDING.  Borrow it or buy it and read it.  Won’t say more, don’t have to.

And I have Caitlin Moran and the Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines to look forward to after this.

I can feel the well of my writing soul going dry, and there’s nothing to do but fill the cup at someone else’s spring.

Or have some more Great Blue Heron coffee. Yeah.

I have a couple of potential songs in the queue and since I’m ahead of schedule I’ll pause.  I practiced a good long time yesterday, it was very pleasant.

Paul and Keith are off to the Island this weekend.  Yay for family visits!

Today is Keith’s nth birthday, and glad I am I gave birth to him n years ago, about three hours from now.  I am more glad that we live in the same town/time zone, because he continues to be a good soul who takes no shit from me, and that is a good thing.

Back to Mr. Oswalt, who in his book is lodged firmly in the midnineties catching up on classic cinema.

Hot like blazes

After the walk yesterday Paul and I repaired to our separate dwellings, and then he and Keith took me to New West Quay.  The plan was to sit it out at the Paddlewheeler, but no go, so we sat at the Yellowtail Kitchen and had front row seats for the very nice (but not as nice as Rosemary AB, the new gold standard for these things) fireworks display for Canada Day.

Then I came home, fell on my ass trying to get into the new hammock and Keith and Paul and I regarded Venus and Jupiter and the Moon through borrowed field glasses.

I’ve never seen the moon so bright.  It was wonderful.  It hung behind the fireworks – an amazing sight.

I think I’m going to take a break from writing today. I’m stuck in a couple of places, and the characters aren’t talking to me.

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

Hmmm

Slept away from home last night; Mike was really late getting out of work for our celebratory “You had an interview!” dinner and we picked up some beer and went back to his place.  About 9 I pumpkined out on the couch… and slept straight through until 6 am this morning, which I haven’t done in yonks. (I only had two beers, for those attempting censoriousness).

Mike fed me coffee with vanilla ice cream, and carrot cake marmalade courtesy of Cassidy, and toast.  We drank coffee on the balcony and watched the morning sun wash over the landscape, which was chilly but most pleasant.

I light a candle for a friend whose mother has just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  I feel for her.  The 5 year survival rate is crappy.  Heavy heart.