Satisfying day.

I have really and officially put Weekend’s Over to bed; now I’m trying to make Evening News sound like the way I sing it.  I was very pleased to see how much work I’d already done on that tune; now all I have to do is fix bars 56 through 70, which have both tune and timing issues, add the lyrics, and I can move that one over to the DONE pile.  I Must Admit it Troubles Me is SEVERELY pissing me off, I cannot figure out what time signature it’s in.  I am suspecting it’s in eight.  Two did not seem to work.  Neither four.  Not being able to read music, and having a severe mental block about learning, is a drip drag, mah friends.  Worked more on the atheist liturgy.

Paul came by yesterday with the Eskimo hunters (two pieces of felt art my mOm made 17 billion years ago which I got framed about 10 years ago and stayed at Planet Bachelor until I had walls for them) and also the sewing machine and sewing kit, and took away boxes for packing (he and Keith are moving in a couple of weeks to the apartment downstairs from them) and also a bunch of book donations for Value Village. Thank you Paul!

I went to my bedroom, inspected my underwear drawer for sacrificial offerings, and then went downstairs and measured Jeff’s coffee table.  Then I came back upstairs and cracked open the sewing kit, which can haz LOTS of Velcro.  I love sewing with Velcro.  I took out 5 feet of black nylon strap webbing (for a packsack project I never even started) sewed four inches of Velcro on either end, and then cut up a pair of navy tights and sewed seven pockets and made a remote caddy for Jeff.  It holds ALL the remotes for the downstairs system – all 6 of them – plus I made an extra pocket for the end so he could either put the wireless xbox controller in there or something else.  I phoned him, all excited, because once I’d done the measurements and visualized it, it took less than 20 minutes to do it, and I didn’t have to spend any money on the project because everything was already in the sewing kit.  Except why IS it that every time I borrow the sewing machine I have to wind a bobbin?  I’m not complaining, I kinda like doing that too.  Jeff laughed and told me to sew Holy Moly’s eyes back on if I was feeling so inspired.  So I did that too.

Holy Moly is a part of our childhood.  mOm made this pointy nosed mole cushiony thing with a multicoloured body and big brown and yellow eyes.  He must be 45 years old if he’s a day.  Anyway, Jeff ended up with him and he lives in the AV room, along with baby Cthulhu (from Lexi), Pirate Ducky (from Archie McPhee in Seattle), and Nautiloid (from mOm).  Various other stuffed animals mOm made are peering down from assorted vantage points in the house, including a blue baby heffalump and a knitted baby tiger.

The Ladybones and Katie’s two salon heads are arranged above the hutch in the living room.  If you don’t like severed heads… don’t look up! There’s a little shrine to John in the living room; the embroidered dragon has his earrings sitting in front of it.

The locksmith showed up and we are going to get new strikeplates for the doors, get a new door handle for the back door and of course this is not being paid for by the landlord, but while the deadbolts are okay the doors are trash from having been repeatedly kicked in (oh joy) so they need the reinforcement.  Then we’ll get the alarm system activated, but we figured there was no point activating the alarm when the doors were such a disaster.

What else happened yesterday…. Mike asked what I was doing that evening, and I said, “Feeding you!” and so I fed him and then called Keith to get over.  While I was prepping for and cleaning up after dinner Mike played guitar.  So nice – and he’s learning new tunes!  and then we re-watched Trueblood 3 and 4, neither of which Mike had seen.  Episode three is SO much fun.

I am thinking of doing something I haven’t done for years…. go to a movie by myself.  Harry Potter’s at the Dolphin at 1 pm.  If I get enough work done this morning I will go.

Cthulhu is coming

Earthquakes, giant squid. Where will it all END?

Blasted through the entire first and only season of Lucy the Daughter of the Devil. The IMDB link is not particularly useful, so I’m not posting it.  ScaryClown has been trying to get me and Jeff to watch it for, like, a year, and now I have to say it’s so funny and so disgusting… and I really like the style of animation.

I made cinnamon buns yesterday.  Keith really enjoyed the sensation of walking into the house.  He promptly ate a few.  Jeff said they were the best ever, but he ALWAYS says that, it’s a joke really.  That said, they were damned good.  I was supposed to mow the lawn but ducked out of it.  I will do it today.

The locksmith comes today, and that’s good, because the locks in this house are shite, what with the doors having been kicked in a couple of times.

Jeff wandered around the house testing all the outlets. Almost every outlet in the house was wired in backwards; some were sideways, even, and a couple were upside down.  My role was to yell whether it was on or off (the lights in the tester) while Jeff turned breakers on and off to prevent untimely electrocution (although timely electrocution, in my view, is more the province of lightning than AC provided by BC Hydro.  I mean, after all, people have been cured of a wide variety of ailments subsequent to a lightning strike.  But I digress, as usual.)

The most recent True Blood was fabulous (Alan  Ball wrote this one) and much funnier than normal.  Vampire Bill gets a couple of good lines.

I found a letter that somebody hates me wrote to me three years ago and I THREW IT OUT.  After defacing it, of course.  I have actually been throwing my writing out, too, which is good, because a lot of it is baggage, crap and nonsense.  The good stuff I do keep.

Found the lyrics to Bob Dylan’s New Year’s Day and wrote it down; found the SF story I wrote (with Michael Bishop’s markups all over it, o joy) & now I have to a) enter it because of course I don’t seem to have the original soft copy and b) get it whipped into good enough shape that I can start sending it out.

Atheist liturgy is coming along nicely.  Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote some very nice stuff about atheism and I scarfed some for a reading.  Didn’t know AE Housman was an atheist either; there’s some good stuff in there.

sitting on the back deck blogging and thinkin’ ’bout the King of Pop

Gizmo is sitting on the carpet we’ve had airing on the back deck for a week, Miss Margot is chasing fluff around the deck and being a crazy cat, first batch of waffles is on, and Katie’s coming over later to help motivate me to unpack.  Sometime between now and her arrival I must pick off another song. Time’s a-wasting!  At my age a year goes by like nothing!

On a completely different subject I have been thinking about the cultural reverber-erberations around Michael Jackson’s unfortunate death.  He was fifty and I’m fifty and don’t think I haven’t thought about what he did in his life and with it and what I’ve done with mine.  I am the tape measure for everything I perceive.  I must make a big effort to see things otherwise.

If I was taking 10 Xanax every night, my brother would stage an intervention.  It would take him a long time to work up to it, because he’s a pretty laid back guy and doesn’t stick his nose in other people’s biz without thinking about it in a considered way, but he’d pick up the phone, call the kids and Paul, and get me to a doctor.

The saddest thing about Jackson’s death is the extent to which it reveals how none of his friends thought enough of his one, single, precious life to make more than arm-wavy gestures about his drug use. One of his sisters tried, apparently, and one can only wonder at why she didn’t pick up the phone and call the cops.  He needed to be arrested for the godawful stew of illegally prescribed/obtained drugs he had in his house, and so did every person illegally prescribing and obtaining them on his behalf.

The best case scenario was a Robert Downey Jr. style self-reinvention as somebody who beat addiction and childhood trauma to head to the top of his game.  It would have involved his handlers and psychic moneychangers getting their meretricious mitts away from him and into something resembling honest employment. The worst case scenario was dying like Elvis, which, according to published reports by Lisa Presley, he fully expected to happen.  Kinda like Christ knowing he was going to get it; except in this case a willing offering on the pyre of celebrity.

And, of course, once again I think about this song I wrote, because with each passing day it gets more true.  When I wrote “Zombies stalk the headlines” I wasn’t thinking about MJ’s groundbreaking Thriller video, but if I had a buck for everytime I wrote a sentence in imagination to have it come true in reality (or what passes for my reality, as always your mileage may vary), I could stay drunk on the proceeds for a day.

The drugs Michael Jackson ingested and sought cause oblivion. They completely detach your consciousness from the rest of you.  Whether or not you seek oblivion, it will find you, and I would prefer to get more bang for my life.  If it’s true he raised three hundred million dollars for charity, that is a great thing.  The rest of the story is unbearably sordid, sad, full of missed opportunities, and just plain contemptible in spots.  And the horror, the horror!  Like the Anna Nicole Smith saga which triggered my writing Slimfast and Methadone, this sucker’s going to live on for a long time.  I suspect the lawsuits alone will not be resolved for 10 to 15 years.

Finally! A job I can do!

Reddeer sends me the following link:  Get a Job in Wookey Hole!

I can cackle! Anybody knows I can cackle.

Yesterday I made up the downstairs bed, made banana bread, added a new verse to “Give me Five, Give me Ten”, made an appointment to get Miss Margot’s stitches out today (I chickened out of doing it myself), found a FREE LAWNMOWER (now that was a good day’s work) which now I have to borrow a car to collect.  I also filled up more bookshelves, bought some more of the Santa Cruz lemonade – Gosh I love that stuff, and so does everybody else who comes into this house and drinks it all; made Thai Basil Beef for supper, had an idea for a science fiction short story, had a FANTASTIC idea for the McGuffin in the zombie movie, thought very sadly about a friendship – if I can call it that – I have, which I am going to have to jettison (all in the “Allegra, stop hurting yourself on things that you know hurt you” vein), talked briefly to Mike, visited with Paul, managed to call my son without making stupid noises about how it’s his 23rd birthday today and how does he feel about that, discovered his potential job (he’s on tryout this week) is working out, so far as he can tell, practiced guitar for a while, played with the cats – all of them, they appeared to be in a good mood and much more kindly disposed to me these days, and shot, edited and uploaded a youtube video; and I slept in a different room than my laptop, and thus slept way better and longer.

Today I am going to FORCE myself to finish Grieg so I can work on Give me Five, Give me Ten, which seems to want to be worked on a bit more.  And take Margot to the vet.   She’s not gonna like it.

Dominion Day Roundup

Stop gay marriage or straight women will have no husbands!!!! Eeek.

Folks, even if that is all true, how can the accompanying drop in the birthrate be bad for the planet? I love how bigotry gets dressed in ‘utilitarian’ arguments.  That said, any time I detect bigotry in others, I allow myself a quiet moment to reflect on my own.  Sigh.  It is hard to be a grownup.  PS, Mr. Berman (as reprinted by Mr. Klinghoffer), sex toy technology has come a long way since the Roman Empire.  Your concern for my satisfaction and prospect of landing a sperm donor is touching, but completely unnecessary.  After all, the POINT of marriage (the cart, after all, needing to come behind the horse) is BABIES.  And those I can get – did get – without recourse to marriage at ALL.

Oh look, Dan Savage linked to the above noted link and Klinghoffer says that Dan Savage can’t be a good father because he uses bad language!

One of these days I’ll have to find that bit of writing “How to Teach Your Children to Swear.”  What we didn’t teach the kids, back when, was that swearing is a class issue.  The very most self-controlled and self-willed people do not curse, because it shows either lack of breeding or lack of self-control. And self-control, narrowly defined, is a necessary precursor to maintaining control over others.  That’s what it’s all there for.  Swearing as far as I’m concerned is part of the palette of human communication; blunt, uncompromising, emotional, limbic, genuine.  Disgusting, disturbing, vile, creepy and disrespectful, too.  Swearing is a signpost toward the things we find most frightening and, let’s face it, human. As blasphemy, it is anti-hierarchical and owns of no master; as language charged with sexuality and excretions, it voices what we strive to keep silent in daily life; as racial and ethnic slur it speaks to how easily we fall back into our emotional enclaves to lash out at a world of strange/different/smelly&rude.

Best things about Canada.  Apart from Hockey, mea culpa, I’m in.

Look at that… Miss Margot has decided to like raspberry jam.  This is a cat from MARS.

I can now see large swathes of my bedroom floor, but more cleaning and laundry delights await me.  Later I hope to go to the Burnaby Village Museum – it’s free today, and in homage to John, who never paid for a damned thing he could get for free, and to celebrate being Canadian, I thought a step back into the days of my foremothers might not go amiss.

Cinnamon buns are medicinal.

Having said that, I’d better get a batch of bread dough on…. Jeff is highly suggestible about any hinted-at treats.  And I have to sign off so he can update wordpress.  Have a great Canada Day, everyone!

I have finally listened to John and Brooke’s album.  It’s really, really good.  It’s also, coincidentally, among the top sellers on CDbaby right now!  Katie and I listened in the CanCar yesterday.

I can haz dishwashr

Yes, indeed.  Jeff and I got in the car at 1 minute after 4, and in rush hour traffic we a) made it to our destination, a cash only appliance place just north of the Justice Institute on McBride b) parked c) examined three dishwashers d) made our choice e) split up while he made delivery arrangements and I deked south to the Shell station to get cash f) regrouped to pay for it g) burst out laughing simultaneously when the guy, who had already taken the delivery money but had no urge to deliver it, said, “What kind car you got?”so I said, “A sports car”  so he insisted on looking at the vehicle with a view to its suitability to have the dishwasher loaded onto it, triggering even more gales of laughter (you should have seen this guy’s face, it’s like buddy, where the bejabbers do you put a dishwasher in an MR2?) and h) drove home in 38 minutes.

Yes, I am concerned about Margot.  But I can still be enchanted by the world and crack jokes, c’est mon métier.

here comes the future

yech.

Miss Margot gets fixed on Friday.  It is possible this will affect my ability to go to Pondfilk, we’ll see.  Also, I have been invited to go to Hot Springs soon, and that may be interesting in terms of timing as well. I can’t put it off any longer, she could go into heat at any time.

The vet says Miss Margot will not grow substantially bigger than she is now.  This explains a lot.  Considering that she was born Dec 9, she’s tiny… she weighs in at 2.35 kilos.  So in addition to cute, smart and phlegmatic, she was bred to be pocket sized, thus her mother’s birthing difficulties and the breeder’s insistence she be spayed.

She advised us with regular bulletins on the way to the vet, one of which was actually Meow (she said meow, how odd) ’bout how very disturbed and unhappy she was about her mode of locomotion. After we got home I left the carrier out with the jailer’s peephole open and she jumped into it for fifteen minutes.  Gizmo watched with a look of disbelief and distaste.  Both the boys are learning to deal with her, as ignoring her is simply impossible.  Gizmo curled up on me the other day, only the third time that has ever happened.  Other cats make a big production of getting into your lap; Gizmo flows into your body heat like a furry puddle and evaporates with the same skill.

Jeff is steadily advancing his chief project “The Audio visual dungeon made of awesome” and the living room is now fit to sit in.

Mike was ready willing and able

To help me move the last o crap out of the old place last night… and I crashed like a very bad paper airplane.  Soundlessly, swiftly, and with nobody killed.  So nothing got moved. It rained briefly which did not assist.

Pizza first, when we got home.  We hung out briefly with Keith, Jeff and Brian C.

Woke at 4, fired off an email to the old landpeers, unpacked ten boxes and now I contemplate the ruins of my good intentions and the prospect of unpacking about a hundred more boxes, shifting furniture, etc. etc.

Miss Margot proves her worth yet again

I have never been more impressed with a kitten than I am with this little critter.  With an aplomb that was miraculous to view, she adjusted to the move (although not to the car ride during which she gave Jeff the hairy eyeball and screeched continuously, so much for being quiet) and then she kicked it up a notch. 

Gizmo was very very freaked out.  We had a ‘quiet room’ for them in the new house, but Gizmo just crawled into his cat carrier and shoved himself against the back wall.  Margot stepped into the front of the cat carrier and cuddled with him because he smelled scared (she’s been sniffing him a lot).  Now Gizmo and Margot are roaming the house together, and snoozed under the downstairs coffee table together last night.  Jeff says, “Shared trauma’ll do that to ya.” 

I hope that later on today we’ll be able to let them out for the first time. 

Dentist appt this afternoon.  Fillings.  Grody.  Then back to the old house.  Grody.  Then more unpacking.  Grody.  Do… not….want…..

The world continues to be what it is

Carrie made dinner last night.  Jeff and I “Om nom nom”. We’re hoping to head to Jericho Beach tonight, but we shall see.  It is usually SO much fun.  So I want to go….

Things are settling back into the new old normal.  Packing continues apace but I haven’t done any yet!  (Carrie sets a brutally high standard for energy level, and always has).  Paul came over last night bearing beer and strawberry cream pie and the four of us watched Ascent in the Criterion collection.  The camera work and acting are nothing short of spectacular, but it’s a Russian movie so they all die in the end.  (Now Jeff is going to thump me one, but none of you are ever going to watch it so I’m okay with that… Jeff’s attitude towards spoilers is a fierce and uncompromising one.)  The truck is rented for Sunday. I am happier, but when certain thoughts or songs cross my mind (like Jack Frost, frinstance) I start crying again. Only now it doesn’t hurt so much.

Teeth and nail-biting

I had to get the bite adjusted on a lower molar (it still hurts to bite down but not as much) and I’ve got two cavities to re-excavate prior to losing my dental plan.  And I may be in for another crown, but that’s pretty normal, and there is always the possibility that there’s an infection the xrays didn’t show; I don’t care, I just want it fixed.

Landpeer Tony beat at the house with a sledgehammer for an hour and a half Thursday night.  Jeff thought of remonstrating with him and decided it was pointless.  They still haven’t brought me back the keys they took the day they ripped the deck off the house.

I phoned Kim when I got out of the dentist’s last night and the house will be ready Monday.  Jeff will call her and inspect it for move in readiness as he doesn’t work Mondays and then we’ll hire a truck, likely for the first weekend in June, as it’s likely to be too nuts between now and then anyway, not packed, John service, and the generalized insanity of having dozens of friends and family I haven’t seen in years or many moons turn up and need coddling.  I am now to the point where I don’t feel like I’m going to fall off the edge of the world.  I feel a more grim determination that I’m going to do the best I can by my year off, and really really make an effort to finish things.  John kicked my ass many times to be more physically and musically active; strange that he had to die before I felt like listening to him.

A big bag of his clothes arrived; thank you mOm.  I got the frog silk shirt back, thank you for your indulgence Juliana, and I mention his white tiger shirt and his superhero cape.  I will be interested to hear what Lady Miss Banjola would like done with that.  I want the Beacon music shirt but the rest should go to his friends and family.  Also, I am going quite insane thinking of who should get the willie warmer he owned – and occasionally wore, rather horrifyingly – and I kinda think his old housemate Colin should get it but I’ll leave that little conundrum to the family as well.  I can’t imagine Keith wanting or wearing it, or Jesse for that matter, and those were his only two nephews.

Most important thing on my list between now and the 28th is writing John’s eulogy.  There will actually be two, one for public and one for private consumption, but the public one comes first.

Took Jeff to the Keg as a gross act of self and brotherly indulgence.  Today I need to pack, pack and pack again, as well as launder and throw out trash.

I’m having a rilly hard time concentrating at work.  No surprise there.

Still alive

Yet more people have found out about my planned departure and it’s as if it’s the ‘end of an error’ is making people really freeked out.  I don’t want to freak people out. I just want my life back.  Yes, I know it looks like I have a life from my blog, I’m forever doing exciting or at least utterly bizarre things, meeting strange life forms and having thinky-thotz, but I’d like a more interesting life still, and I want to be able to say I did something besides work.  Like create. Continue reading Still alive

showjumping bunnies and bad nooz

With some irritation and dread, I must announce that Jeff and I will be finding new headquarters for Geek House in 60 days, that being the notice we were given by the landpeers.  It’s been a great run, but now we must move….  We are trying to figure out what the hell we’re going to do next, but there’s no point looking hard for a place when nothing will be visible for another month, and although Jeff and I are still tracking a house purchase as a possible future outcome, house prices in Vancouver are still outrageously high for what you get.

And by contrast, bunnies.

and now, an anteater in a purple sweater

because the internet says so.

Worked until just before 8 last night.  Nothing is ever simple.  But I can see my desk.  This is important, because it means my desk has been clean two work days running.

I will be blunt.  Very very blunt.  We have hired a woman who is a dead ringer for Morena Baccarin and seems to have just that bubbly kind of personality that makes engineers turn into vast blobs of goo (she’s married – which is good). She also mentioned that she’s very organized, and I believe her.  She’s going to cover Tanya’s maternity leave.  If ever there was a woman who was my polar opposite (except she does have a sense of humour, thank goodness) this new gal would be her.

I, being evil, want Tanya’s desk and that means I have to clean mine off.  See, it all makes sense. Anyway, Newgal starts on Monday so I am, after more than a thirty years of desk surfaces that look like hippos have recently left off fornicating upon them (Catherine’s original phrase was more trenchant but less family friendly, and besides, hippos can’t fornicate because they don’t have souls) I am going to try to train myself to keep it clean.  Jeff, passing in front of my room and surveying Grandad’s desk, gets a hall pass on however many snorts of amusement he wishes to emit, because there are midget high crapstacks on it.  If tidy begins at home, I gots me a problem.

Miss Margot slept on my bed last night and purred.

Big Bang Theory last night was great.