Alcohol abuse

Well, that’s what I call it.

Jeez, it’s almost like you can’t expect the feds to actually investigate. I have no idea where we’d be without Citizen Journalists.

OH MY DUCKING SOD. Free DNA test with application  Please note this link will disappear in 60 days. But essentially it’s just another brick in the EMPLOYERS ARE DUCKED IN THE BREAD wall.

 

Monday raining

SO HAPPY about the legitimate steady, not warm, not windy rain, but Mike is growling way back in his throat because he drives a convertible and the lower seam on the back window is verkockt. He drove me home anyway because he’s funny like that and we are walking distance apart, haw haw.

Yesterday I stepped out onto the balcony at the Aerie and Mt. Baker (Nooksak Kweq’ Smánit white mountain) was looming on the horizon, bigger (against odds) than I remembered it. It was such a blessing to see it after all the smoke.

Supper consisted of sous vide beef tenderloin, garlic shrimps and blackened peppers, rather more beer than I should, mango ice cream for dessert, evening show Suicide Squad #2; breakfast was coffee, smoked salmon with capers, buttered toasted bun and scrambled eggs with garlic and scallions, lychee fizzy to drink. Got toasted on shatter, ayoille. My back feels better than it has in ages and I pounded on those sad hip attachment points that cause Mike so many an ache, had a dizzy spell, sat down, drank some fluids, got up and finished (his shins always need work as well). I admired his new gaming set up (he three d printed much of the attachment grips in a lurid dark cherry red) and hand-wrote a letter to Tom (I didn’t bring any devices so I was looking for non electrified means of entertainment) and cleaned out my purse and wiped his stovetop and dusted a couple of his swords hand washed all the fussy glassware and updated my to do list, which thanks to my mental mobility issues, as in, I ain’t got none, looks virtually identical to the one I made the last week of July…. at least I have friends, Katie’s pregnancy is okay, and I have a safe and comfy place to live with a most congenial housemate.

wotta meal

four perfect things:

seared ahi tuna

homemade wasabi sauce

pan seared yellow peppers

thai rice with a macédoine of vegetables

Plated beautifully and served red hot.

Plus nearbeer and some OG Kush

WHAT A MEAL

THEN I slept in until 8:30. Mike bought a weighted blanket. I’ve had coffee and I think eggs are happening and life in the eyrie is once again glorious.

everyone was here yesterday

Prior to all this Paul and I had a lovely walk at Fraser Foreshore. We saw two adults and one juvenile bald eagle play fighting in the trees and making a hell of a racket at the same time, it was quite funny. Parking lots were bung full, we had to park miles from the lot.

I decided there was no reason for Paul to clean up after his own party so after a brief consult with Jeff we threw Paul’s Father’s Day celebration here.

Paul came over first, then Katie and Alex came over next, then kMike, then the kids (those three) left, then Mike came, then Paul left, then Keith showed up and Paul came back and then Keith and Paul left and then Mike left. Nobody was driving drunk at all, like, no one.

Seafood salad consisted of, here, have a green salad (iceberg lettuce, salad mix of seeds and cranberries, heritage tomatoes sliced, purple onion in relatively large chunks, grated carrot, broccolini) and put over top of it your choice of Argentinian prawns, Digby Scallops, or Alaskan Sockeye Salmon. This was 123 dollars of seafood, mostly salmon cause I got two fillets. I know, insane. There’s just enough leftovers for salmon pate tomorrow morning with mascarpone cheese, and we got lemon juice and capers. Anyway, I cooked the shellfish on the stovetop and baked the salmon for 20 minutes at 400. On part of the salmon I put a ‘ground pecans cut half and half with maple syrup’ crust. kMike hosed that shit down like a good thing, and declared it quite fine. (I had a bit.)

Alex had to go home to eat, that’s why he left.

Mike serenaded me on the back deck in the golden hour.

quite inebriated me

International Beer Day! Buy me a Beer.

On youtube, it’s here. I’m ever so much better a singer as of December 2020, when I posted this, but that’s okay. I’ve sung this at a lot of places, including as part of the entertainment at a company festive gathering at the Vancouver Aquarium.

International Beer Day is August 6 but you really want a beer now. Beer weather almost here. Beer.

The lyrics:

Buy me a beer

Buy me a beer, make it a cold one
buy me a beer, or maybe two or three
I may get to like your face
Once the goggles are in place
buy me a beer, or maybe two or three

Tell me a joke make it a funny one
Tell me a joke or maybe two or three
My heart’s been torn in half
I could really use a laugh
Tell me a joke or maybe two or three

Tell me a lie, and not just any lie
Tell me a lie, you made up just for me
There’s a lot of truth around
Layin’ scuffed up on the ground
Tell me a lie, a purty one for me

Instrumental break IN the BEST versions

Ask me to dance if I’m still sober
Give me a chance to prove I can unwind
I ain’t always hatin’ men, I just mess up now and then
Ask me to dance, I’ll dance him offa my mind

I’m leaving the bar, no please don’t join me
Cause he’ll be waiting in his car
Outside my place
And he’ll have been drinking too
what you think he’s gonna do when he sees you
That’s right, honey, bust you in the face!

Final chorus….

 

And for the most part I’ve ceased drinking, as it’s horrible for every other aspect of my health but my mood, and it only improves my mood for the briefest time… thus this song represents a youth enjoyed but left behind without regret. It makes me sound like an antique, but I can’t call myself that, or my parents might get offended. (December 2020.)

sorry about the radio silence

Basically I started drinking beer when I got there, stopped around 7 pm, started having kidney grit again around 2 am, peed into a cup at one point because I couldn’t make it from the trailer to the house, and man, continence is A WHOLE THING of beauty and you really appreciate it when you don’t have it. I woke Jeff up around 6:30 the next morning and we talked it through, whether we wanted to leave in case I got worse, ended up getting the 9 o’clock ferry, more or less, and was greeted by an exceedingly noisy Buster.

But kidney grit aside….

We had an awesome time, can’t say how much, it was balm for my soul. And Jeff is of much the same mind. Brought a PILE of guest gifts mostly to indicate how grateful I am to have access to a miniature Baumfest. Anyway why take flowers? I brought vegetation of a different kind. Also a plaque showing Percy Saltzman saying Tonight’s forecast: low standards, alcohol and poor decisions. I thought Al was about to lose his mind when he saw that. I also brought them four capshields with hardware.

Drank beer ate fishburgers and other food, listened to the waterfall – they have a WATERFALL you can hear FROM THEIR YARD listened to their incredible playlist on spotify and around ten I got to sleep in their extremely comfy trailer in the side yard. I FELL IN LOVE with that trailer, it’s incredible me-sized.

IT WAS FUNNE!

 

This little exchange on the internet may NOT GO AS PLANNED for grandpa but he’ll be dead when his grandson eulogizes him as ‘the man who really accepted my sexuality’ LOLOLOLOL

 

 

a nested series of sad realizations

I saw Tammy at her Airbnb yesterday. It’s very nice; hilariously, out of all the buildings in downtown Vancouver she could have ended up with (her booking was changed twice before she settled) she ended up in the same building as Patricia used to live in, in a mirror image of that same apartment.

Her life is very trying right now; as a provider of psychological counselling to half a dozen front line health care workers she’s hearing and processing stuff that’s hard, cruel hard, and the fact that it isn’t happening directly to her doesn’t take the pressure off trying to do her best for them.

Thanks to Justin McElroy for the tip about Chambar, the food was fantastic. also to keep my self honest I had two 5% beers

DUCK AND LAMB, DUCK AND LAMB GOD IT WAS YUMMY DUCK AND LAMB the tajine was mmmmwaaaaaah and the duck was PERFECTLY COOKED also asparagus and olives and pistachios and nomnomnom

but in some respects the visit was a bunch of painful realizations that I’m simply not the same person I used to be. And that I’m a coward.

I’ll see her again on Thursday, she’s going home on Sunday, Paul is apparently seeing her today.

 

simply glorious day

Paul, Jeff and I walked in Robert Burnaby Park; I collected trash (wrappers and butts mostly) and fogged up my shield.

picked up sushi for lunch and then Keith made vodka Caesars for the boys & we had a socially distant meal on the back deck. Keith seemed in quite good spirits and owned as how he’d like to go back to school when all this is over.

later in the day Mike came over and gave me food and I gave him a shield and we hung around and talked on the back deck – he walked over, and it was just so pleasant to hang around and listen to the menfolks quietly talk

Jeff and Buster on the back deck yesterday
Mike and Buster on the back deck yesterday

IRL

I follow so many people on twitter – approximately 500 – that it’s always wild when I know one in really-for-truly real life.

This is Benjamin Luk: a hard working and thrifty bon vivant who has several income streams but is also a wedding photographer, when the social climate permits.

He posted this.

Image

I’ve met him twice IRL, and he’s utterly charming.

delightful

after a somewhat jostled trip downtown (travelling during rush hour being a real commitment for me these days) I joined Tammy for a lovely meal at Homer and then a wonderful walking tour of “Forbidden Vancouver” which Tammy also underwrote. I took the stool so I could sit down whenever; Tammy used it as well.

Nothing like standing at the epicentre of a race riot to help you get a grip on things.

After we hung out and I looked at pics of her vacays to places like New Orleans at Christmas (lovely light displays at night) and Fiji – my god, the guest house was set in a spectacular garden – and Sydney.

Then I went home, took a taxi from Edmonds.

And, apart from Jeff accompanying me on food to D Roti Shak, which supplied all of our meals yesterday, and a couple of shows I SLEPT ALL DAY YESTERDAY.

Katie’s here! Brekky time

 

Later – life sucks but I have friends and furthermore leftovers

awake, of course

Mike feasted me at Yianni’s last night, and the lamb shoulder was quite splendid. I even drank alcohol last night, and for my trouble I have a faint pain behind my right eye. Back to sobriety!  I love the stuff, but it doesn’t love me.

Since I’d already had five solid hours of sleep, I’ve kipped for a  couple of hours and now I’m awake in the dark and quiet, but I shan’t repine despite my wakefulness; I have the LAST CHAPTER of the current book, which is going to be a monster, in prospect; the book will be somewhat shorter than I intended, but I may plump it up during editing, since I invariably put more in to be clear than I take out avoiding repetition or extraneous stuff.

Jeff has produced (I do not know how many hours he put into it, but it was work) a wonderful cover for MMCo, which you can all see when it goes live on Leanpub. My only contribution was the basic design idea (which Jeff immediately improved, by adding an unmarked white truck), a creative commons picture of a man against a starfield, the font and a suggestion re the basic shape.

Back to work….

the delayment of the inevitablelike

I AM NO QUIT I AM EXTEND SON

I’ll be working until the end of January. The woman I was hired to temporarily replace for medical reasons and to be a casual is now not working for the company, reason unknown. My reasons for not wanting to be there are still in place but I’m getting paid and I don’t have to work weekend days so I don’t care.  Steady middies for me!

It’s amusing that I’m awake now.  The world is white and quiet with snow, and if I was working tonight my shift would be about to start…. I just woke up.

I could use the money, although I’d forgotten the extent to which commuting in the wintertime is such a fricking drag in this burg.

Getting to and from work the last week has chewed through a bus station mop. But… it only took an hour to get home yesterday.

My characters are sad and so am I.  It’s the pathetic fallacy folks.

Also one of them is quitting drinking and I’m walking alongside him for portions of that, which I loathe.

Although I did think of THE MOST DISGUSTING SIXER RELATED GAG I mean I burst out laughing when poor Jeff was trying to watch the Dallas/Tampa game, which was ugly and beautiful and what the hell’s going on with the zebras, and mah God Dak Prescott, but I just had this vision of Sweetie, who is like 3 kilos, being the security guard for the whorehouse, and controlling a patron with the vilest impersonation of Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry one could possibly imagine, and I couldn’t stop laughing because the joke grows organically out of the situation and at this point we could all use a laugh,

because Trump sailed through the Electoral College, and the Republic, tottering after decades of hacking at the Constitution and weak from never dealing with racism and the Civil War, is in full kleptocratic collapse.

What to watch for over 4 years in the US:

Moar racism

Moar war

Higher infant and maternal death rates – this has actually been going on in slow motion over the decade I’ve been keeping track, it’s sickening…

More prison rioting (underreported) as the food in prisons gets worse and worse under Trump’s prison owning buddies

Higher violent death rates, across the board, all kinds – vehicles (road rage), guns, knives, stranglings.

More alcoholism and alcohol related death

More needle drug abuse and higher rates of AIDS HIV infection. More people dying of ODs, pills and otherwise.

Zika running wild in South Florida and the gulf coast and women being forced to carry the fetus to term with no health insurance for a lifetime of need thanks to Republican state legislatures

Hundreds more deaths each year from white people carrying guns, being scared of black people and shooting grandmothers and toddlers but mostly teenage boys who are existing while black

Muslims being burned alive in their mosques. Hasn’t happened yet but it’s going to happen and more than once.

Tripling of deaths in custody. (The statisticians just learned that the number of people who’ve died in custody in the US in the last five years is ACTUALLY DOUBLE what they thought because there’s no reporting mechanism and now the cop unions are trying to prevent any oversight of this statistic at all…)

Diaspora people – Jewish, black and Muslim – who have family and opportunities in Canada, moving here, although they’ll probably need a couple of years of Trump to realize it’s time to get out of town.

Tourism tanks across the US and Trumpites CELEBRATE America for Americans.

Confederates bringing automatic weapons to Pride Days and killing grandmothers and toddlers along with some queers.

Open war on First Nations Land; mass incarcerations and arrests, and Trump’s buddies making money on it.

More legal weed.

Secession talk from more than California.

The Left NEVER calling him President Trump. Just Trump. Or Cheetolini.

Patton Oswalt falling in love again and remarrying.  Because honestly, that man deserves happiness.

Sad family note. Young cousin got a bad (not what he specifically and carefully asked for) haircut… but we have a hairdresser in the family and our relations did not have to have that experience.  I wish it were otherwise but how often does adult convenience drive the nightmares of small children. I speak from sad and memorable experience here, thinking about Katie and the earring back. I still cry when I think about that, tho’ Katie has long since forgiven me.

A friend asked me what my Christmas Day plans were and I said “Reheating takeout and watching Die Hard with my brother” and now we’re eating at Hal and Cassidy’s, go team!

At some point Jeff and I have to leave the house for supplies, but the urban slushy streets are too disgusting….

 

 

Entire quote from facebook this morning.

Indigo Nai, who lives and works in New York, wrote this

 

Yo.

I am abandoning the world of men.

I am abandoning the world of men because masculinity is a sinking ship, and it is loaded with leaking, toxic drums, and it is sinking while we watch, and it is my belief that the men that do not escape it will drown.

Now, I’mma tell you a little story. It’s a long one, so feel free to flake if you start to fade, but here it is:

On my last day in the Bay area, a small gang of us agreed to meet at a local bar to hang out, take in the late summer sun, and drink a healthy amount of bourbon. It’s a warm summer day, and the patio of the bar is crowded; friends and acquaintances of both genders join our little group every once in a while, stay for a bit, and then wander off, but just before things kicked off, our little group is four women, myself, and another male friend. Over on my side of the table we’ve just started a conversation about rape culture and how to help redefine the ways men view themselves within it, because me and my friends really enjoy light conversation. The dialog in our part of the little circle is going great, but at one point I look over and notice that my best friend has been cornered by the other guy in the group, and it’s clear that she’s having *exactly* the kind of conversation that you don’t want to be stuck in; that one conversation where a guy is mansplaining to a woman about the ‘slippery slope’ that prosecuting everyone accused of rape inevitably leads to, in the kingdom of toxic masculinity, at least. My friend is trying her best to be both polite and to be heard, but she can’t get a word in edgewise, so I decide to leverage my own privilege; the next time he interrupts her, I interrupt him, and say, “Hey brother, you know what’s sexy? Letting a woman finish a sentence”. I then turn away, good deed done, to rejoin my own conversation. Unfortunately, this causes me to miss the warning signs as the guy begins to grimly stew on the indignity of having his privilege publicly checked, because masculinity so fragile.

A moment later, he calls out: “Hey, I think Shannon is done talking, so I’d like to share my thoughts, if that’s all right with you, INDIGO”. Now, I admit, I’m obnoxious to the bone, so I toss a quick and merry “That’s fine!” over my shoulder. This, inexplicably breaks him; that simple comment sends him right over the edge of man-child sulking into the abyss of beast-mode rage, and before you can say “can’t hold your liquor” he unfolds from his seat, all 6’3″ and 240 pounds of him, and bellows “Do you want to have a fucking go then, man?”

Now, this is unexpected, since he’s an old friend, and we’re surrounded by a handful of other old friends, and we’re in the middle of a bar that’s run by Family, and we’re there for an unfortunate friend’s fundraiser, so it seems a little strange that he and I have suddenly started doing the man-dance right in the middle of of a crowded patio on a Sunday afternoon. But he’s Scottish, and I’m Irish, and the story of a wee Irish guy scrapping with a great Scottish hulk is a tale as old as love itself, and besides, I’m always one for a story, so I call back “Sure, brother” and stand up.

Before I can even get my arms up, I have a giant meatpile of angry, drunken Scotsman throwing his fists in my face. I hear/feel My tendons squeak a bit as his weight came down on my knee, so I know my knee was wrenched, and at some point I saw stars so I knew he got a good kiss in, but mostly I just kept grappling with him and tried not to worry too much about the damage already done in order to try and minimize the damage that was yet to happen.

Some colder, more removed part of me was also laughing its ass off because I suddenly found myself climbing Mt. Slappy McHaggis when, less than ten seconds before, I had been drinking bourbon and chatting with some very old friends about the nuances of feminism, rape culture, and male privilege.

Trust me, the irony didn’t escape me, even at the time.

It was also, in some sense, tragic: this was someone I had been friends with for fifteen years, someone whom I had always considered Family. This was a man I had always thought would have my back in a fight, not someone who would suddenly be trying to bury their fists in my face.

It was also, in some sense, inexplicable: this was a guy with a six inch height and a fifty pound weight advantage over me, who I know for a fact thinks of himself as honorable and chivalrous.

And finally, in every sense it was hideously dangerous: physical fights are terrifically dodgy ideas to begin with. I mean, I have anger issues, and I’m a big fan of consensual violence between men, but fighting is chock full of the potential for really shitty consequences; come in at a bad angle, you can crack the zygomatic bone and blind someone; land wrong after a takedown, you can tear tendons and lame them; knock them off balance, and you can crack their head on a curb and there you are, in prison for the next two decades of your life, and the guy who was looking at you funny that one night in a bar is shitting into a bag.

I mean, who knew, but physically beating someone into submission is really hard, and pretty risky when it all comes down to it.

And over what?

The perception that you’ve been disrespected when a friend suggests that you stop interrupting another friend while they speak?

The perception that you’ve been disrespected when someone calls you out for rude behavior?

On the masculine side of things, it makes me very sad for men as they grow older; go through divorces; lose their businesses; have their children taken away. As men, we’re never taught to build communities, or examine our feelings, or build genuinely intimate connections with other men. We’re taught that we can share two emotions: lust and anger. And we’re taught to use those two brutal, clumsy tools to solve every challenge that we experience in our worlds. This is the price we pay for our privilege.

But on the feminine side, my experience makes me much sadder. See, I’ve been thinking about that fight ever since it happened. It’s been a long time since I was in a real fight, and a long time since I was in a fight with a real fighter. And that means it’s been a long time since I had to really think about what it must be like to have to be constantly wary of the rage of men. I did well for a wee Irish guy, for the few seconds that our scuffle went on, I held my own; but those few seconds were enough to earn me a black eye an d weeks worth of limping. And if we hadn’t been in a public place, surrounded by friends, I would have been fucked. Right proper fucked. Rabbit in a hound’s mouth fucked. Fucked like every abused wife in a trailer or McMansion is fucked. Which, ironically, is what the conversation we were having to begin with was all about: when that fight popped off, we were discussing the reality that about half of the world’s population has to process that the at any given moment, some member of the other half of it could go savagely violent on you with no warning, rhyme, or reason. And this reality is something every woman I know has to deal with every day. The irony is remarkable: simply discussing the topic of male rage and expecting equality from all participants was enough to provoke this guy to violence. What I experienced in that brief window of time was being punched right out of my privilege for a minute. In that moment, I was reminded, very briefly, what being assaulted by someone much bigger and much more aggressive than you are is like; what it’s like to go toe-to-toe with someone to big for you to resist, let alone overcome. And it reminded me why I care, why I fight, and why feminism is always worth fighting for, with our words, our tongues, our fists, or a goddamn barstool, needs must.

So, yeah. I’m abandoning the world of men. I’m abandoning the idea of egos so fragile they can’t bear criticism. I’m abandoning the idea of size as strength, might as right, and women as an audience. And most of all, I reject the idea of using your power as a tool to enforce your will, rather than using it as a tool to protect your Family.

Always punch up. Never punch down.

We’re going to win this.