Ah, me

Some dudebro posting under a social justice moniker on twitter just told me that douchebag is not a gendered slur.  Do you know what it feels like, protecting Stephen Harper from gendered slurs?  I feel…. fucking weirded out, 0 humans!

Of course douchebag is a gendered slur.  Men don’t douche.  (Women shouldn’t either, but that is a bottle of cultural worms I’m not prepared to uncork at the moment cause then we get into the whole stinky hoo-ha thing… just, no.)

Anyway, Stephen Harper is a REAL man.  Where REAL stands for Reliably Evangelistic Authoritarian Leader.

So after he (obliviously he) tells me that douchebag is not a gendered slur, I answered thusly,

Are you implying (along with coconuts migrating) that men douche?  Cause, damn, dog, that’s some scary shit.

I think it’s time to turn off the social justice firehose for today.

Manuel Noriega – Ol’ Pineapple Face himself  – is suing a gaming company for unauthorized use of his image.

In the words of John Caspell:

bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha aaaa!

Natal Tarot

The Natal chart is Nine Cards formed up in a tree of life:

Father (or father’s family) – 5 Pentacles

Mother (or mother’s family) – Queen of Pentacles

Family (of birth or adoption) – 8 Swords

Health – Ace of Swords

Longevity – Knight of Pentacles

Occupation – 7 Pentacles

Contribution – 6 Pentacles

Need –  The Magician

Life Motif – Ace of Wands

 

This is the life flow of a practical, not particularly talkative or  spiritual individual who may be depended on to work hard, show up, be kind and jump in where others hesitate.  He will rise above family disputes when not called upon to broker them.  His longevity will be determined by his habits, but he will tend all his life to be old-fashioned, and to enjoy the work of those who have a lot to teach him.  I see someone aloof and kind, intelligent and unimpressed by book learning, glitz and laziness.

 

 

 

Sang froid, hot butt

The sang froid is her – she rocks the uneven bars.

The hot butt is me after Paul’s delayed family Indian dinner at Best Quality Sweets on Main St.  I am suffering today, although I didn’t yesterday.  Yes, it’s Too Much Information.  I told Jeff he should be happy there were no leftovers for him or he’d be suffering too.  I noticed neither of the kids put their hands up for the check, but since neither of them read my blog, they won’t feel the rebuke.  For 60 bucks including tip we ate like ogres.  This is a lacto vegetarian restaurant.  The mango lassi was suPERB, the chai tea kinda whatever with weird spice sludge at the end.  I ate so much I had no room for Indian sweets for dessert, which is FULL.

I am about ready to quit being a Unitarian, having reached my load line on denominational bullshit. I won’t of course, it’s just all part of my engagement with the faith.  Nothing’s perfect, including me, and if people want to nice me to death, I can always back away before that last soft word turns into a killing blow.  Also, I am one moody individual, so I just need the mood to die back and I’ll be fine.  A foolish consistency is what’s asked of us when we believe that organized religion is necessary or even possible.

I am NOT a nice person.  I’m nice to my my mother, but so what?  Even the guy who kept two women as sex slaves was nice to his mother.  It’s not a good test…. What I want more than anything else is to keep all my bad behaviours and still be categorized as nice, and that’s when the crazy train really starts to pick up speed.  Woo woo!

Speaking of train whistles, I ran across this article which made me very happy.   My room is at a sonic collection point for train noise (it hits the neighbour’s house, bounces against the garage and then slams into my window) so even though the whistles are 2.5 kilometres away sometimes I feel like I am right on Columbia St.  If NW Council can make it stop I’ll do handsprings.  Mentally of course, I couldn’t even do that when I was little.

There’s a new species of waterbear, from Antarctica.  How sweet is that?

My symphysis pubis spasmed in sympathy.  Ow ow ow ow ow.

 

 

 

They are all ratfuckers. Every one.

My email to Ableton.

I am really disappointed in the Ableton 9 demo. The only reason I downloaded it was for a specific feature. You say it’s a fully functional version, and it isn’t. Melody to Midi is turned off.

Please quit lying about the demo version in your ads. TELL PEOPLE what is turned off, and if you have a reason, why. If you’re just having a little giggle at the customer’s discomfort, you might want to mention that too.

Let’s review my experience.

Download. Can’t get the authorization. “Oh use Chrome” “I was using Chrome” “Okay use Firefox”. Manage to download it. Feature I want isn’t present. CURSES. Then I get a push email saying I can have the software for 30 percent off. Which means, candidly, that you know the software is overpriced, right out of the gate. And the UI is a nightmare, although I imagine if I had nothing better to do I could get used to it.

So here’s a suggestion. Why don’t you unlock the feature on my version of the software for 48 hours so I can test it, and THEN I buy it? at a 30 percent discount? If it works as advertised?

Also, I have watched videos on the internet in which the video commences with somebody saying “I just downloaded the Ableton 9 demo” and they show off this feature, that one feature which is what I want. I assume this is all some error, but it was one of the reasons I put 2 gigs of your ‘software’ on my computer in the first place, so you might want to ask the gent to stop saying that it’s a demo version in his video, unless of course Ableton put him up to it.

I suspect that unlocking Melody to Midi for 48 hours so I can test it is not part of your repertoire of customer responses, and I’m not hoping it will happen, because nasty crybaby customers who are all butthurt because, hey, you lied, are so easy to ignore when you’re not mocking them. I do know that I won’t purchase the product without being able to test the one thing about it I wanted, and that my anger and disappointment on learning that I can’t use it the way I wanted to is only lightly hinted at in this email.

 

TL:DR Fuck you fuck you all, may you step out of your office and be clarned by a turtle, may the local police make an example of you, may scary clowns cut off your beards with pinking shears, may the worst doctors treat you and your children, may you catch something horrific and lingering, may sentient anal warts grace your pudendum, may chimps bite off your face and naughty bits, may every finale be marred by spoilers, may you never again find a parking space, may children drop rocks on you from an overpass, may your whole life be audits not plaudits, may you be on a first name basis with every bailiff in town, may the local council make a mistake and demolish your house and then tell you that you didn’t read the posting, may you be drunk like a glass of water, may you swallow plutonium, may asteroids hit you and nobody notice that you’re dead.

For a couple of people

I struggle with wanting you all the time, so please don’t mistake my silence for indifference. It’s just I have to hold myself back because I feel too much. Too often. Too wildly out of my control.
–Tina Tran, “My words don’t say much at all”

Katie quoted John Hiatt on facebook this morning, that’s never a good sign.  I hope she’s okay.

Today I am going to look at the clock and wonder why I’m awake.  Then I’ll check the moon phases and understand that the moon is doing it….

I’m probably going to Ontario 1st week of July or thereabouts.  Depends on my teeth situation. And employment situation, but it’s going to take months for the right job to pop up, so patience is good.

No responses from any job applications yet, but that’s really no surprise.

Haven’t had the chance to go ramble and look at salamanders up at SFU as planned earlier this week.

I’ve started taking vitamin D again.

Pork chops for breakfast!

Not feeling well

My innards are being quite rude to me, but that probably has something to do with all the arrowroot biscuits I ate over the last two days.  I’m also super tired.  I walked to the dentist, where I THOUGHT I was going to get my teeth cleaned and didn’t because their appointment booking software sucks. Instead I got shot full of xrays and told to come back in July.  Gee, thanks.

I bought food (I finally remembered to bring the wooden shopping bag handles) and walked, rather slowly, back and now I just feel really really tired. On the way a woman went by me YELLING AT THE TOP OF HER LUNGS HOW JESUS ALL SHE WANTED WAS A GODDAM DRINK AND A GODDAM BITE TO EAT.  Well now if you’re in the middle of a psychotic episode (signs definitely pointing that way…) you might have a little trouble getting seated at the café.

And I have to mow the lawn, although I am going to wait until it is just barely light enough out and do it then.  I should probably do some weed whacking too but I’ll see what happens to my energy level.  I am having some other symptoms too which I am too kind to worry you all with, but it’s all consistent with early onset dementia, so that’s very jolly making.  Losing my ability to think and talk!  It’s what I was put on earth for.

I tried to nap and a friend phoned just as I was falling asleep.  Friend, shaky fisty!

 

We are going to have unchurch on Sunday and I can hardly wait.  It will be very different than what I am used to.  I decided to bail on Sasamat camp; without campfires, wacky tabacky and beer, plus at least the possibility of illicit sex and a musical jam, it all seems rather pointless; I don’t imagine most people really frame church camps in those terms, though. They always have a no talent night but it’s all so dreadfully earnest, and the older I get the clearer I am in my own mind about what I really think is fun as opposed to what the prescribed forms of fun are.

Lexi, bless her, fed me a super easy but tasty meal (cannellini beans and grape tomatoes with herbs and garlic baked under half a dozen or so fresh chicken thighs) and got me to the point where I can consistently do a single crochet.  It was lovely to see her, Darwin, and Rob.  Darwin is a mischievous lad but he really is good at keeping himself entertained, especially when all he got for his birthday was Lego.  You know, the really complicated ones meant for kids two years older than him and up.

 

People are still asking me how the cafe is going.  I wonder how many times I will have to patiently tell them that I’d rather talk about something else, like how fucking stupid they are.

 

In Victoria

But first, a picture of a bear.  Sick moves, brah.

It’s a little overcast here in Victoria this morning but we know that it’s quite temporary.  Soon the sun will be out and it will be quite pleasant.

There is much going on beneath the surface.  We shall see what comes up from the depths in the next few weeks. A great discontent is in me.

The view from the sunroom in Victoria is even more magnificent than normal.  White wisteria is 10 metres up a Douglas fir overhanging the yard; the new paving stones and plant shelving is very handsome.  The deck has been completely redone and as a consequence no longer feels rickety, which is always a good thing.

The Anas hummingbirds have been putting on quite a show for us, zooming around and making quite unnatural noises.  Right now there’s a nuthatch hanging upside down at the suet feeder.

Katie and I are heading back tomorrow and I’m just so grateful, so very grateful, that I have two intelligent and kindly parents to go and visit.  So many people have none, or the ones they have are neither intelligent nor kindly.

I am looking forward to seeing Lexi tomorrow for a crochet lesson. I found my contact with the meetup folks who tat, etc., to be most unsatisfactory (and expensive, in a number of different ways).

Rounding up

Marylke’s taking me to Spamalot tonight!  Woot!

The slow leaking death of the commentariat. Metafilter founder has some comments.

I won’t believe it until the cat is sleeping on the results.  Washerless clean clothes.

Wanna know the current position of the ISS?

According to the Ubisoft What’s Your Hacker Name meme going ’round the internet, my pOp’s hacker name is M4ster Zero, and mind is Sh4dow Root.

Jeff loaned me the car yestterday, and I feel much better today!

The tiramisu I bought from Balkan House Restaurant yesterday was freezer burned, then thawed and left at a nasty temperature, and then re-refrigerated.  It took about 45 minutes for the taste to get out of my mouth but I guess it had so many preservatives in it that it couldn’t sustain microbial life.  Jeff, don’t eat it.  I should go throw it out.

I ran into a pest control specialist yesterday who told me to abandon all previously purchased music programs and get this instead.  I don’t feel like spending a thousand dollars on something that won’t likely run on either of the computers I currently own, but it sure would be nice to be able to sing into a computer and have notation spit out the other end.

A crazy ass seagull banged its bill repeatedly into the front door at work.  Scariest sound I’ve heard in a while.  In more pleasant news there are many geese families right out front of work right now but you can’t get too close because the parents will assault you.

Interviews for my replacement have commenced; the good candidates all want too much money.  I don’t imagine they’ll get somebody like me any time soon for the price.  And that’s the last I’ll complain on the subject, and I’m not naming names.

 

Here I am at the end of another week

It is NOT as if time was crawling when I was unemployed, but now it’s going so fast I’m feeling like every second is a blur of paper.

I am making stupid mistakes and good catches at work.  I hope it averages out to continued employment.  You just don’t get a team like this every day… everybody is so civilized and hardworking (compared to me).  I could whine about the variability of it, but that’s what food is like.  Prices go up and down in the cycle of the seasons and nothing stays the same.

One of my fave coworkers is off in her homeland visiting rellies. I miss her because she is one of the most intelligent and yet sunny tempered individuals I have recently met. (I keep wanting to introduce her to my son, which would be grossly inappropriate in so many ways). I miss her because the most administrative portion of her job fell to me in her absence and it’s fussy and important.  So, nervous.

I am going to work on crochet and forgiveness this weekend; along with some stuff I should have attended to ages ago.  Although I am tired all the time, certain kinds of energy I didn’t have last fall have come back into my life.

I am having better communication with people I am intimate with, and that makes me calmer.  I don’t feel like everybody should be able to read my mind any more.  I know I can be a sore trial as a friend sometimes, when I’m not expansive and entertaining.

Jeff loaned me the vehicle yesterday.  I got home much faster than usual and it made a big difference to my mood all day.  I am very grateful, especially since it did inconvenience him.

Keith is apparently hiking off to Edmonton in mid May.  I will miss him, but he’s at the point in his life when he’s going to take off and adventure, and that’s good.

I learned from Katie that the baby will take her last name.  That was a calming bit of news.  I had lunch with her on Sunday as I was checking out.  It was a blessing to see her.  She’s still not showing; yet the ultrasound shows what looks to be a very robust looking kiddo.

Rob W phoned last night and we talked writing.  I don’t know what makes me an expert, except that I do more of it.  Volume is not necessarily a good aspect of production – think farts and you’ll know what I mean.  And yet it is by writing crap that we open the channels to the good stuff.

Well, off to find clothes and bus tickets and get out the door.  Boss lady is back today and much activity is in store.

Cuppa Joe serves the best hot chocolate in the city.  Srsly.

backing away

I don’t have enough energy for the anti racism curriculum now that I’m working full time so I’ve emailed everybody and told them I don’t have the energy. It’ll be okay.

Not going to church this morning.  I feel rather disengaged.

Finally made biscotti again after a long hiatus.

I’m tired all the time.

“We live in an anocentric culture…everything runs in circles around assholes.”

I am not tone deaf I went to tonedeaftest.com.

apace

I am grateful to be employed.

There are a LOT of dead rats down where I work.

Those two statements have little to do with each other, really.

I am full of happiness at how sunny the day was, how I am alive.

I grieve for the end of life of the mother of a friend.  I hope to see her soon, before she goes into hospice.

I send a kiss and a smile to a man I know, and the international call me sign to another.

Spring deliberates so briefly and then it comes on, flouncing in on a raindrop, hazy with pollen. There is a time when trees unpack themselves and fling themselves at the sun, deliberate as all get out, but by damn, they get there, and sequoias be your guide.

So it won an award

Disney’s Frozen is visually stunning and the book and libretto sucks. Sorry, but there it is.  A lot of talent has been thrown at a big budget, but honestly, you might want to think about watching it with the sound off.

The weather is well above freezing but damp and icky.

No writing yesterday.  I was hung up on various thinks and feels.

Now I’m going into that nasty weather for a walk.  I can’t keep sitting here and not writing; nothing gets the juices flowing like a long drive with no destination or a nice long walk.  Maybe I’ll pick up some lunch.

 

 

Sunny day

The sun on the snow yesterday – and the warmth, as it was quite warm – was a blessing after three straight days of snow.  I’m not used to shovelling  that much!

Jeff’s car is slowly going past that bourne from which no vehicle returns.  It’s certainly not safe for me to drive any more, so I have retreated from that endeavour.

Five hundred words yesterday.

The interview was interesting.  At the end of it I felt useless, stupid, dowdy, old and prehistoric.  But my test scores were great!  I wanted to slap some sense into the young thing I was talking to, but that doesn’t work even in the movies.  Then I locked myself in a stairwell.  So no, not exactly a good day.

Honest to Christ, I’m almost inclined to put my lumosity scores on my resume just to prove that I’m cognitively brighter than just about anybody.  The only real issue is speed – I’m not as fast as young people.  But in every other way, I blow doors off people younger than me. I won’t, it’s just another kind of bragging.

Found in the Toronto subway, safe for work. It’s a poster about alcoholism which somebody has marked up to mock Ford.

Today I will write, drink tea, eat leftovers, and ONCE MORE revise my goddamned resume to see if she’s right about it.  She made sure I knew that her time is much more important than mine, and that my resume is too much of a challenge for her.  And she is like all the rest, so she must be right, and I must need to stop feeling sorry for myself and just fix it.