Category: My bad

various, the 21st post of that name

Leo and Linda successfully and with only a slight delay safely ensconced in Victoria with les unités parentales.

Alex thanked me SO SWEETLY for letting him dodge school yesterday. “Thank you for letting me stay with you yesterday” was how he put it and honestly how can you resist such a child, I can deny him nothing. Still think it was a stroke of genius on my part to take him to his mom’s work. He ran his hand over the marble samples ($5 a pop) and marvelled at the arrays of colour. IN PERSON they are well nigh overwhelming in their scale and beauty. Verde Fantastico and Maui were my faves. abso gorgeous.

In Indigenous news, I want to slap and verbally abuse the racist dunderheads who are telling Buffy Sainte-Marie that she isn’t Cree. Hands off Indigenous family structures!! SHE’S CREE BECAUSE THE PIAPOT CREE SAY SHE’S CREE, GET FUCKED RACISTS. Buffy represents every person who was able to rise above being stolen from their family and return to roots and none of that would have happened OR BEEN NECESSARY if Canada wasn’t a seething pit of racism today and in the 40s when she was born.

Updated Paul’s care spreadsheet. As will come as no surprise his next in person with his doctor is not scheduled until November 16, a date that should mean something to some of you. I didn’t even comment. THE FUCKING DOCTORS OFFICE NUMBER APPEARS WRONG IN ALL OF THE ON LINE STUFF EXCEPT THEIR OWN WEBSITE AND YOU HAVE TO DIPSYDOODLE EVEN TO FIND IT. Just tell us you don’t want to talk to us, jfc. So annoyed !!! however I made my point and moved on when I FINALLY got someone live. calice.

Got really good numbers for a post on bsky today, and a fair number of reposts, for a quote meme I actually made this morning, but which I’m not going to repost here since I don’t want to cross the beams between the two on line personas.

HOKAY I POSTED I got wordle in 3 today. Alex is at school. There was ice on the car. Jeff’s back from the dentist. Alles gut.

New song – Vancouver mods

Vancouver mods I hate ‘em with a passion
they’re one and all irration
al
Vancouver mods, they do bad things to ferrets
their brains are mushy carrots
I hate them, I hate them
I hope their dearest loved ones all catch hollow heels and die
I hope they get diseases where their torsos meet their thighs!
Spontanyusly combust and thus completely carboNIZE
May all the just and mighty gods
decorticate Vancouver mods
and in conclusion fuck Vancouver mods

vancouver mods

The TwoX mods, those jerks are even worse

The AITA mods please don’t get me started

=====================================

Mike warned me about them but I just cannot believe the rationale for removing my post. My response is childish and quite enjoyable at least to me, and nobody is getting hurt.

Leo and Linda very kindly took us to the Foreshore. Jeff’s got a bug of some description. He crashed hard yesterday afternoon and retired to his room.

my favourite swears

When startled, I say, “Shit Fuck Cocksucker!” more or less all as one word. I hardly ever otherwise use the word ‘cocksucker’ in conversation unless we’re talking about ‘Deadwood’, which, if you’ve seen the show, you will agree is a special case.

“Goddammit all to hell.”

“Goddammit.”

“You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

“Please God make it stop.” This is always me being sarcastic, as the concept of a personal God, while useful, is not one I subscribe to. It’s said as all one word.

“Jesus Christ did a shark bite your fucking turn signal off.” Came up with this in traffic one day, it just came out my mouth.

“Shut the fuck up you fishfaced bawbag.” May substitute ‘fuckfaced’, ‘hairy’, ‘diseased’, ‘halfchewed’, ‘unmitigated’ and variants on ‘slimy’, ‘dirty’, ‘muck-encrusted’, ‘ugly’ and words which otherwise indicate total lack of charm. These kinds of exclamations are reserved for villains on tv shows. I have a tough time imagining saying it to someone in real life, for real.

“Christ wept.”

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” but I only say this when something unexpected and pleasant happens, and add whatever the unexpected and pleasant thing is.

“Christ on a crutch.”

“Fuck that guy right into the sun.”

“JESUS SAVES his roaches ’cause he’s thrifty.”

 

When I think someone is being an ignorant asshole, I may refer to them as a ‘witless mofo’.

If I think somebody is bringing a little too much toxic masculinity and too thin a skin to the everlovin’ discourse, I may just call him a ‘pindicked scold’. I am well aware this is a gendered slur. I try to be careful of the rooms and spaces I use it in.

I like ‘dickweed’, ‘shitheel’, ‘schmuck’, ‘cockwomble’, ‘bellend’, ‘dogdick’ (from the Russian vernacular). I’ve tried to get rid of ‘bitch’, but I still say ‘dirty great cow’ in reference to women I hold in disfavour a great deal more than I should which is candidly not at all. I may refer to a lazy incompetent as a ‘slack-ass(ed) ho’, too, so I drag sex workers into my misogyny when I swear sometimes.

feeling pregnant

I don’t know if it will be a story, a song, a rant, a poem or a drawing but it’s not gas even if it must vent sooooon.

I have something creative in me that has to come out … is what I mean to say. This is a something creative that is not making a batch of cinnamon buns, which I did yestreen.

Today I bleached most of the coffee cups. I think a while back I ran the dishwasher with no soap and while everything was sterile when we were done there was tea baked on. Gave ’em all a thorough rinse and put ’em in the dish rack.

All the errands I’d run if I was made out of energy:

take that fretless bass ukulele back to Peggy. It was borrowed from her and a gent I don’t know loaned it to her and I CAN’T STAND THE SMELL it’s like it lived in a moldy basement for a hunnert years. BUT IT SOUNDS SO COOL (LARRY DAVID UNCERTAINTY GIF)

walk for 45 minutes at least

do a shop

bathe; maybe get really radical and brush my teeth

write a thousand words

rehearse/noodle/compose

pay bills

try to obtain my credit score

call at least a couple of my friends

play around on Bluesky, the replacement for twitter, some more (I like it so far)

What I’ll probably do:

Whine continuously and pause for my video call with my doc to get my scrips renewed. I do not want a holter monitor. I do not want a colonoscopy. We shall see. If she complains I’ll say, can you go back to the part of my file that says I have ADD? get corrected, sheesh.

Already got my first Notice of Assessment back, holeeee that was fast. Thank you Jeff as always my home guard!!! My taxes are again up to date, phew.

Suzanne comes today but this will likely be her last Thursday with us because her jobs are changing up and we need to find another four hour block – weekend most likely.

Watched a Russian soldier surrender to a drone on video this morning. The alternative was eating a grenade launched from a nearby chopper, so I’m glad he’ll eventually go home to his family.

Buster was a good boy at the vet and gets his teeth cleaned next week.

Glenda Jackson, 87, passed at home in Blackheath today. Rest well my left wing goddess.

 

 

running

That would be my nose that’s running. Every scotch broom bush in the lower mainland is blooming and the pollen is piling up in minuscule yellow banks everywhere. I sneeze, I run, I blow, I sneeze.

Saw Mike yesterday. He took me to a U2 concert (checks notes, oops he already took me to a U2 concert) a U3 concert, plus the wonderful teachings afterwards. (There was a workshop, and I learned more about strumming in fifteen minutes than in my previous lifetime so that was fun.)

It would have been lovely except that Mike is now convinced that he was subjected to racial profiling while he attended (for being egregiously Chinese with long hair, apparently) and is asking me to think about whether or not this is true.

Since I’ve never been racially profiled that I know of, and do not feel the almost hourly social sting of racism, I would like to plead the following.

I am autistic. I was put in a room of gabbling white people, 4% of whom where wearing masks (NIOSH N95’s WERE GIVEN OUT) in which the noise level was as you can imagine from a very very very live room full of people trying to order cider and admire ukulele setups. Asking me to notice a racial aggression when I am just fucking sitting there trying to autistic mask when I want to flee to the bathroom and stay there until all the people stop gabbling is a legit request but awkward white ha ha, no.

If someone of colour believes they’ve been subjected to that it’s my job as a friend to fucking believe them and centre their experience, not mine. If he says it happened it did. Whether I was off in my own little world at the time…. I mean, I WAS off in my own little world.

Work for Mike right now is absolutely horrific in ways that need not concern this blog except for that. He and I did not enjoy the trek out to the concert venue and back – the traffic was gross given it was a holiday Monday – but we did enjoy the beautiful setting at Labarge Lake.

He got his ticket checked twice after getting ignored by the ticket taker. I watched it happen, and my interpretation was not as negative as his.

I’m going to leave it at that. My ability to ignore things is very high.

xxx

 

a Vancouver moment

Mike got us dinner (Jeff got a chicken donair, I got a lamb donair – Halifax style, never had the sweet sauce before.) Then just before we went to the uke jam he got me a gelato and we ate them watching the street scene at Robson and Hamilton of a warm evening; it included a complete  buggering of traffic by what proved to be a false fire alarm, so I got to watch how fire trucks back up when they’re blocking traffic. Three fire trucks were called, plus a supervisor. <—-a Vancouver moment

Mike was NOT the only person of colour at the ukulele jam last night. <—a Vancouver moment

And he did something he’s never done before.

An open mike. I know, right? He’s been the soundtrack for fifty campfires and other people’s vacations and music nights for decades now, at least for me, but he’d never gotten up and played in a public venue.

He played a uke version of Toto’s ‘Africa’. (Jeff’s heard it.)

I played too, “And then he done her wrong.” So this involves me BLOWING three verses. THROUGH A KAZOO while playing uke as ominously as I can.  At the end of each verse I whip the kazoo out of my mouth and sing, “And then he done her wrong.” The last verse I do double time, so that the musicologists in the audience can realize that the last verse is to be played on the way back from la cimetière, N’Awleens style.  You can check with Mike if you think I’m fibbing, but I got half of a standing ovation at the end of it. I watched people springing out of their seats with my mouth hanging open and bowed back to them.

I wore Tom’s hat, that was mine, and I gave it to him, and Peggy gave it back after he died; that probably did it. Not my protean fucking talent nawssir.

I had a guy tell me that I was an ‘inspired’ kazoo player. This just means that Jeff, who sadly did not know about my kazoo leanings until after he moved in with me, has been gazing dubiously at his bathroom wall (the music room / spare room is on the other side) for more than a decade as I attempt to blow my brains out on the kazoo in ever wilder attempts to control what the damned thing does (I’m especially fond of imitating electric guitar lines.) As far as I can tell I stayed on key. Please spare a thought to Jeff, who has suffered.

All lyrics and chords for the jams were on the screen and THEY HAD A BAND percussion and bass!! to accompany them. A broad range of music from the last century, including Beatles (the song suite from Sgt Pepper) to Dua Lipa (‘Levitating’) was covered. Most professional. I got overwhelmed about 45 minutes in and I could either sing or play, not both, and they were using chords that no Christian would intend, so that’s what I did, put the uke down, and I didn’t try anything on any song I wasn’t familiar with. Even songs with three easy chords were tricksy because of the strumming patterns. It was a brain challenge for me for SURE.

So that all happened. I am so proud of Mike getting up there and blowing everybody away! His anxiety is such that he can conjure up being booed off stage (there was no stage, it was a function room in an absolutely right downtown high school, across from the Fringe NY headquarters LOL the VPL) and I noticed that he shook almost all the way through but he was superlative. (Told him afterwards that he stood with bent knees as if he was expecting to get assaulted, which OF COURSE NO ONE DID) https://vanukes.ca/ is the site name, but be warned they are broke and it might stop happening. <— this too goddamnit is a Vancouver moment

wordle in 2 this morning

Bit of writing yesterday.

 

 

Nothing but electronic horn stabs

Don’t waste your ears on this, I’m just posting it so I can find it later. It is entitled, Brought Before My Oppressors, and it’s BAD VIBES and TOO MUCH VOLUME BLASTS CAN’T YOU EQUALIZE THIS JFC and the bitter grinding sameness of fascism. So, like, I frikkin’ warndja. And of course (pfffft, blowing through lips) PROCESSING? I dan do processing, man. It’s an outrage, but there you have it.

I really don’t want to post the Kaossilator settings for this one since it’s just evil in a bag like Satan’s cat horking up a woolly one and one should have a conscience, but I know for a fucking fact that if I don’t record it, it will be as gone as the (deep breath and avoidance of anecdon’t let’s just say the day before yesterday is a gift that keeps on holy shit what now?ing at me).

BPM 20 – ze lowest setting, which is one of the reasons the sound is so vertiginously choppy.

L02

G08 (Gate arpeggiator set for the first half of the first beat in every four beat bar.)

Minor Third scale

Low C

HONESTLY I WARNED YOU two minutes of audio torture but of course if you use it to drive cockroaches from your home, and use snippets of it in funny animal videos you’re editing, that’s on you.

 

left for the 5 pm

didn’t get home until 10:30 pm. BC Ferries was completely and utterly borked.

The Celebration of Life for Jim Palmer was perfect in terms of weather, company, food, location, and meaning, and it ended with us toasting him and singing “Always look on the bright side of life”. I baked almost 200 biscotti and nobody et them so I took them to Barry and Jackie and my fOlks.

Hi Glenn it was great talking to you and sharing space. scrivener r u l e s

Hi Leo

Hi Linda

Hi mOm

Hi pOp

Hi Dave

Content warning – assault, dementia, me being over sensitive.

Continue reading left for the 5 pm

did NOT make wordle this morning

That was sad. I mean I was actually upset for a moment. Two top fives in Lumosity, 1189 words on the fanfic. Coffee has been consumed, the day has begun.

Confirmed that we’ll be at Barry and Jackie’s overnight after Jim’s memorial. It conflicts with a Bahá’í festival but that’s just our luck – everything always happens on the same day.

SCORE! the weed joint had Trainwreck. I named a fanfic after the strain before I’d even gotten to try it but the weed sommeliers were not lying – absolute gem of a strain – calm blissful body buzz and zero anxiety.

Today I’m going to try to do health oriented things, get some letters in the mail, call a couple of friends, do some more sorting for the yard sale – matters of that nature. I can be upset or I can try to make progress and they don’t usually go together.

Charge your devices! Natural and infrastructure disasters are always only a tick of the clock away!

DeSantis threatening to build ‘another theme park’ to compete with Disney is extremely funny since as far as I know the only two documents he has any interest in are the Bible and the Constitution and neither of them have any fuckin’ IP. What’s he gonna do, ask Veggie Tales to put up the money?

Today’s Trotsky Tuesday guest is Alexander Berkman, who for a long while was Emma Goldman’s sweetie.

Murphy

In other news, Murphy the male bald eagle who wanted to be a DAD SO MUCH that he incubated a rock, has been given a (sadly) orphaned eaglet and he is a) feeding him and b) bonding with him, and it’s actually one of the few things giving me hope right now. How oft we struggle to be what we truly are.

In other news, an extremely endangered hellbender that was raised in a reintroduction facility has fathered a new generation (he was tagged before he was released into the wild). The scientists involved in the project are gleeful and so am I, for them, to have evidence that hellbenders raised by humans can be successfully reintroduced.

In other news I am going to try really hard to have a good day. Off to church with Keith this morning; perhaps today’s the day I’ll be able to restrain myself from verbally assaulting someone who’s harmless.

In other news Renaissance Books is for sale – it’s been a fixture in my neighbourhood since I moved here and I don’t imagine it will survive – they may have trouble selling it. I couldn’t find anything I wanted when I was in there last (it’s right next door to the Bohemian) so I bought two very pretty cards and I’m going to send them to my mOm and my ontie, with a letter inside.

In other news This Is What It’s Like to look for an apartment. LOOK AT THOSE FUCKING PRICES.

In the grand theatre of perception who’s playing god

Don’t act like it’s God’s job to hate; to this atheist that all looks wrong. It’s not God’s job to hate! It’s God’s essence to be BIG. Bigger than our categories, our lusts and spites and thefts. Big enough to get us comfortable with how some things were, are, and will be, big. God always cozies up to physics and mathematics! They’re some of the few other essences rolling about the universe that are big enough to be decent company.

pleasant times

Lovely indoor walk with Paul yesterday at Lougheed. He seems very beaten down and oppressed by his illness but cheered up for the walk. It always cheers folks up to eat, so we got some lo mai gai, which was particularly fine in comparison with previous outings, and there was a lone har gaw in there because they were out of enough lo mai gai to fulfil my order, and the hot and sour soup was as good as I ever remember it being there. We went to Cobb’s but I didn’t buy treats, just spongy crusty white bread which is my kryptonite for stuff I’m s’posed to lay off for my liver.

Continue reading pleasant times

bad friend

As much as I might think I have the mental and physical energy to hop on a plane and go to Toronto to assist Dave with cat care, I don’t. Yesterday was full of panic attacks and self-excoriation for being a bad friend. I should not have volunteered. And now I get to phone someone who’s sick, lonely and literally isolated and tell him that. Thank all the anarchist saints Catherine volunteered.

It’s not about me, but I can’t help. Just the idea of going to an airport fills me with LITERALLY existential dread. I mean, I probably just got over a silent case of COVID (I lost my most of my sense of smell and as things stand now I have to hold things up to my nose to tell what they smell like) which the Canadian government has just admitted was all part of a mass-disabling event, and now I want to get it again? Just thinking about taking my medications, or having to transit everywhere, and then having to come home; I’m on the ground wailing.

I wish I had any good news to share.