Category: Writing

Normative af – New poem

Smart enough to be scared
But not of the right things
That is the choke point on
My sensorium
so everything‘s on blast
Until something in par
……………………………………..Ti
…………………………………………Cu lar
Wrenches my attention from
Its customary perch

Chasms got causes
Causes got chasms
Chisel at the word in your brain
…………………………………………………….Fling yourself
At that perfect marble word
And create some content god damn you
Bitter git on it

On this hand I have love, love, love, but not the love of romance, the bordering-on-unpleasant revelation that love with lies isn’t love, it’s just a convenient set of tropes that allows you to behave one way and profit from it whether or not you believe. It’s like religion but you don’t get sucked up to heaven or spat out into a new instantiation, stuck with having to learn and suffer and die again again
Again
Nope, you just hoe this row, this row. Normative as fuck, don’t look at the undersides of things.
Mock the people who know better because their teeth are crooked and their English is no good.
I can’t go back and re-hear those things, the things I heard with my racist ears. I didn’t know I was a replicator of death machines; born to give birth to workers and soldiers, and another breeding body. I didn’t know. I still don’t know.
The language I abhor grips me and dashes me at the world until the inside of my head is bleeding, although it’s probably the grease in my blood that makes it so.

Omnibus of suck Part the nth

Pierre Poilievre is the leader of the conservatives in Canada. Proud supporter and handshaker of Nazis, when asked what he’d do about COVID-19 he said he’d lower taxes. He’s sucked on the teat of the taxpayer since he was 24 years old and worshipped Stephen Harper.

I hope he experiences all the electoral success he deserves.

Article from Ed Yong about ‘brain fog’. Interestingly it mentions the Montreal test. Please read this – and remember that all three of my immediate family have had COVID already. I don’t have any proof I got it in March 2020 but I’ve had to deal with what felt like brain fog, and cognitive crashing, for years now. My apparent intelligence does not match my functional intelligence. And the fall of my writing output is no surprise. I do what I can on a daily basis, but even the small array of techniques I had for managing my output doesn’t seem to work any more.

I am starting to read for pleasure again but I have to not do it for more than about 15 minutes at a time. I am also rereading books, not reading them for the first time.

I am starting to understand why the internet suits my cognitive deficits right now. I feel like the mom, Hazel Bergeron, in Harrison Bergeron, that story by Kurt Vonnegut.

The amount I sleep has abruptly gone up by 1.5 – 2 hours a day, and I’m doing my best not to nap any more during the day. So really I’m sleeping the same amount but doing it all at night.

Jeff and I looked at each other around 6 pm last night and realized that the worst of the ground smoke had lifted, and it was such a relief. We didn’t even run the a/c yesterday so the house is kind of sticky this morning. It didn’t help that there was a recycling centre on fire in Vancouver for most of the weekend. On the way back from Bowen we crested one of the many hills coming into the city from Horseshoe Bay and at one point we could smell burning plastic all the way down to our navels, it was just a horrible sensation. AS IN we should be driving away, not toward.

Buster trained HARD but briefly this morning. He did the headbutt on my left leg thing repeatedly to indicate that he was HERE TO TRAIN. He doesn’t normally do pawclaps ‘backwards’ ie with his back to me, but he did it twice this morning, then did some run and chase, and then VWIP out the door (Jeff left the back door open for the cool morning air.)

3979 words. I think I’ll have some to send mOm in the next couple of days.

Brief visit

Fridge is still busted at Katie’s place – landlord swears he’ll buy and have delivered a new one (old one taken away I expect) since Paul and Keith refuse to move a fridge and it’s the landlord’s job to replace it. Paul is mildly pissed since he spent half a day lining up a good used fridge.

Keith dropped by to return a container which was now full of YUMMY YUMMY lentil stew. Absolutely superlative. That man can cook now.

Enjoying this season of Archer.

3895 words I wanted to see how many bombshells I could deal with in 800 words and Brad has managed to talk Omar into two impossible things before their tea is cold.

The pink dawn faced off the yellow moon and sent it away.

We’re getting smoke from fires in town today – Bowen will be worse if the maps are anything to go by.

It was 20 years ago today
when Buzz Aldrin punched him in the face
And I really really want to say
that he had to be put in his place
So let us all assert for you
Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon and said it was a BEAUTIFUL VIEEEEEEEW

intersectionality is a cognitive aid, a tool, glasses so you can see what is happening

it’s not meant to be gamified by white guys who think that because they live at the corner of Lonesome and Hardup they get an option to score points without flak from the racialised commentariat

No filk, just earflapping

Lovely visit with Peggy. She even drove me home. Never pulled my guitar out of the case! (Did noodle on Otto.) I am glad I went; I showered and otherwise got myself in shape for a public event and then we drank lashings of tea, (I got the water on to boil and figured out where everything was in her kitchen to make tea while she was gone) considered our children and our recent losses and retrenchments. Is she still going to be living in that big house five years from now? Ten? I told her to stay put but I can see that a summer of overseeing a bunch of in-some-cases completely unexpected and ferociously expensive house repairs has shifted her opinion on being old and owning a house.

2609 words plus sketched out a confrontation scene while at Peggy’s waiting for her to come back from walking her son’s s/o’s dog Callie who is a very nervous rescue with a rangy frame and a patrician nose but who decided to like me.

Still no word about whether Janice is still in town or how she’s going home. Very hard to have discussions with your ex which desperately need having when he’s got his bodyguard with him. If he’s driving her home that puts the discussion off again for the best part of a week. Peggy’s face as I mentioned this was a study.

The ‘real filk’ is next weekend but in the meantime I have had a proper earflapping with one of my most beloved and respected friends. And I left the house.

Mike is coming over tonight! Hope to hear his tale of work, just brushed up against the subject on the phone the other day.

HALLOWEEN IS COMING

austrian art nouveau bat chandelier

Someone else’s poem, but relevant to both my life and my mood.

221b by Vincent Starrett

221b
Here dwell together still two men of note
Who never lived and so can never die:
How very near they seem, yet how remote
That age before the world went all awry.
But still the game’s afoot for those with ears
Attuned to catch the distant view-halloo:
England is England yet, for all our fears—
Only those things the heart believes are true.

A yellow fog swirls past the window-pane
As night descends upon this fabled street:
A lonely hansom splashes through the rain,
The ghostly gas lamps fail at twenty feet.
Here, though the world explode, these two survive,
And it is always eighteen ninety-five

 

 

 

have some doggerel!

East Burnaby, East Burnaby
At least it’s not New West
We tried to keep the homeless out
We really tried our best

Alas the housing crisis came
Our Derek lost his bearings
So now we’re building shelters
And not acting so uncaring

To watch the cops throw up their hands
As you cross 10th Avenue
Reminds one of the benefits
Of police force overview

Like all good Burnabarians
I love our Mounties dearly
How could they ever use us ill
Or treat us cavalierly

But should you need assistance
From the New West PD
You’ll see a difference written plain
From our RCMP

East Burnaby, East Burnaby
Samosas on the breeze
Within two steps it’s dim sum
Pork adobo follows these

East Burnaby, East Burnaby
So great it almost hurts
And housing’s tight so now we fight
For legalizing yurts

A multi ethnic youth gang came
And shovelled all my snow
I’m lucky to be living here
I hope I never go

metformin, coffee and a short walk

The foregoing combination was poopulous.

CONTENT WARNING POOP

Fortunately I had my grandson Alex with me (full of Tim Horton’s finest) and he said that there were no brown stains, so I made it home without public embarrassment, just that drawn face and awkward gait that accompanies an er accidental blowout. I’m only sharing this so my mOm can smile sadly and nod. Getting old BLOWS I tell ya. I knew better, and got coffee anyway. On the plus side, I managed to avoid pooping myself until AFTER I picked up the amlodipine at the drugstore. So I managed to run an errand AND poop myself this morning, go me…..

TIME TO DO LAUNDRY well it was anyway but NOW IT’S REALLY TIME TO DO LAUNDRY

Did I ever tell you about the time I pooped my pants on the transit in Montreal? This would have been when I was in my thirties…. it’s a sad and smelly tale with a happy ending.

2238 words

 

JUST TO MAKE MYSELF FEEL BETTER, here are all the comments (all of them) for my “Accidental Mr. Right” destiel story. Look at all the strangers I made happy!

I really really liked it

This was…. everything :}

Another lovely story. Thank you for sharing.

This was absolutely fantastic. Xx

You made me cry

Amazing!!! This was fabulous and I plan on reading it again so that I can take it all in. I loved the internal monologue from both boys and I was ready to cry both when Cas went back to Georgia and when he came back to Dean. THAT SIGN AT THE AIRPORT!! Great job, thanks for sharing.

This was GORGEOUS

Your stories contain some of the absolute best banter I have ever read, ever. Coupled with the sweetness and cuddling and softness, the wit and cleverness works so, so well. One million kudos to you, lovely.

This was so good! I loved it.

Do you know how adorable this is?!?!?!?!? Do you?!?!?!? Because I loved every tooth-rotting fluffy moment of it, from the gorgeous start to the fantastic finish. This is the perfect combo of angst, thickheaded characters, fluff, and pure unadulterated love. I almost wish I could go back in time just to appreciate this from the very beginning.

Holy mother fucking shit. That was so BEAUTIFUL! Everything about it! Beautifully paced, beautifully written, beautifully characterised! I can’t get over it. So many moments made me gasp and made my heart flood with emotion! ‘The love of my life’ what a perfect realisation for the two of them! And it was truly written as a love story. I could see them truly being in love and not just ‘here’s two hot guys. Now they’re fucking!’ I can’t get over this. I’m going to reread it so much!

aaaaaaaa this was wonderful!!! I love the characterization!!!!

Very nice!

Those adorable dummies! Their banter is just perfect, especially at the diner at the beginning, comparing views on politics and sports and religion. I’d kill to write so well!

I loved this

This was very sweet. ??

whoever keeps trying to break into my blog

Jeff warned me. Lots of people are visiting, good luck with breaking things; Jeff is a prudent and cautious individual and this site is protected as well as one can thriftily make it.

Russian soldier says fuck it. When this link breaks, his name is Pavel Filatyev. He has both deserted and fled Russia.

2173 words

Katie messaged me yesterday afternoon asking if it would be inconvenient to get Alex to come over tonight for a sleepover and I’m like

Crying From Happiness GIFs | Tenor

She never tries to take advantage, what a kid.

Today, prescription refill by way of a walk before it gets too warm, then over to see the kids briefly to review the ‘family spreadsheet’ and talk about our feelings because hoo boy it’s been tough this week.

The beets Zanne bought for me in Cache Creek have been PROCESSED and are now resting comfortably in the fridge. Reminder to self: That first trip to the bathroom will scare you, BE PREPARED. I still owed her a bit of money from the trip but let me tell you, my outlay ended up being a couple of CBD gummies, a 3.5 g bag of weed and 120 dollars, and for that much fun (and such COMFORTABLE NIGHTS OF SLEEP) I would have paid MUCH MORE. And I got to drive into the sunset when the mountains faded into haze and it was like being suspended in a picture postcard for hours.

Zanne told me about tabby kittens ready to go, but no ‘new’ news on the kittens. And the poor queen (owned by an unhoused woman who lives in an underpass) is pregnant AGAIN. Woman doesn’t want to give them up but I’m going to show up with a bag of kitten kibble and a hundred dollars in small bills and ask nicely. If the fates are propitious I shall name her Sookie.

Trying to learn to get by without milk in a jug… I may be switching over to powdered and condensed. Right now there’s been no fresh milk in the house for a week.

Buster has returned from catting and got his brekkie.

There was an additional episode of Sandman that I was not aware of and it had, like, ROMANCE in it which was very attenuated but also very welcome. Tom Sturridge STARVED HIMSELF for the role, and in that first episode it’s obvious, he no longer looks like a healthy human being and you can see his face plump up over the course of the show as he puts maybe five pounds back on.

folks wandering up to Neil Gaiman and saying ‘I am absolutely not racist why did you cast Black and Desi actors in Sandman’ and him responding, ‘YOU – PERSONALLY – I DID IT TO PISS YOU OFF! – DIE MAD U SALTY BITCH’ is the shprinkles in my coffee this am.

No ac today, it’s not supposed to get warmer than 19. I’ll turn it on if I need to.

lots on my mind

  1. much of it isn’t my story, so I sit by the side of the road
  2. Housefilk has been moved up to today. I wish I could stop feeling this bleak – Jeff got me CHEESE SCONES and COFFEE and both are excellent.
  3. weather remains fine
  4. The Russians keep providing the Ukrainians with proof of war crimes and the fact nobody on the Russian side seems to care indicates that they don’t actually believe any international justice apparatus will still be standing when they’re done.
  5. At this point I think we’ve got about 6 months left of ‘normal’ so it’s time to batten down. Start keeping more cash on hand, among other things.
  6. Anne Heche died of her injuries. Addiction is a terrible thing. I hope her kids have people they can trust with them and aren’t exposed to too much vileness. IN DECEMBER 2022 IT WAS REVEALED SHE DIDN’T HAVE ANY DRUGS OR ALCOHOL IN HER SYSTEM.  Lesson… don’t speculate on CoD until the coroner rules.
  7. preparations for camping trip have commenced – I need to find Jim E’s old camping list. Suzanne has already told me to expect to do as much driving as I can stand because ‘she wants to look at the view’ and I am HERE for that.
  8. off to Victoria soon for a flying visit more deets later
  9. I am hoping for a breakthrough on totally boned so I guess I’ve got a date with some 3×5 cards current count is 1663

  10. allegra sloman 13/8/2022 ‘Doing it badly’

Suzanne has been here

  1. The Enshinening has occurred, the kitchen rugs are clean again.
  2. Finished the Sandman. After one horrible episode in the middle it got WAY better again and I loved the last two eps for this season.
  3. YAY we get to watch more Shetland, because there is more.
  4. Having lots of insomnia.
  5. Steve Bannon says that ‘the Deep State may try to assassinate President Trump’
  6. LOL
  7. The documents the FBI was looking for at Mar-a-Lago had to do with American nuclear secrets.
  8. The internet is ablaze with the notion that it was Melania who turned him in.
  9. Sadly, the picture of Melania standing over Ivana’s grave is photoshopped. I almost fell for it.
  10. 1594 words. Suzanne got her copy of the first 6 chapters of ‘Totally Boned’. She’s four chapters in and loving it so far.
  11. Spoke to Mike yesterday. His 36 year old boss dropped dead while on vacation and his only remaining report’s niece just died in a brutal car crash that orphaned her 10 year old son, so abruptly Mike’s answering the phones again which he swore he would not do. Christ knows when he’ll catch a break.
  12. Enjoy the following anecdote.
  13. man shoots himself in head
  14. “Health is the finest thing for mortals the second finest is to bear noble children, third to win riches without fraud, and fourth to be young among one’s friends.” Not 100 percent sure but I think that’s Plutarch.
  15. I feel sad and have no reason to.

Does the dog die

  1. that is the name of a website. People are sensitive about animal loss. I told a bunch of people on reddit that the dog DOESN’T die in the new Predator series movie, “Prey” and my inbox this morning is full of thanks and praise for saying so.
  2. Time to brush my teeth and have a shower.
  3. Burnaby is going to have a festival of glowing pumpkins, 6000 of the hand carved suckers. Once we hit August it’s all Halloween all the time around here.
  4. Somebody must have put one of my stories on a list; one particular fanfic is getting all the attention these days. It’s an okay story, it’s got pacing issues.
  5. Still no joy on Part II of current story. Some extension of a fanfic.
  6. We’ve now blown through 1000 cases of MPX in Canada. It was 957 on the 5th August, what do you think?
  7. Can’t raise Mike, his phone doesn’t seem to be working.
  8. Lovely walk with Jeff in the morning, it wasn’t TOO hot. Actually walked up the hill with some speed instead of puffing and blowing and pausing the entire way.
  9. Hexavalent chromium spill into the Huron River, which would impact the drinking water of millions of people, is getting zero airplay / pixels / print space in the media. Hexavalent chromium, necessary (they say) for many industrial processes, is the single most toxic form of chromium. Staring at my Toronto friends hey you might want to move before it’s in the drinking water of Toronto in Lake Ontario.
  10. Made Jeff peppermint tea and smoked salmon green salad wrap for brekkie.
  11. The Russians have mined the Ukrainian nuclear plant they took over a couple of months back. It is apparently their intention to destroy it.
  12. I have Reddit Cute Animal disease, every time I see a video of a cute critter on Reddit I want to run out and buy it. Today’s heart-eyes – hognosed snake.
  13. Did not practice yesterday, but at least all the instruments are in the same room again.
  14. “Reddit Double Shot” – THERAPY and BREAKUPS all ’round. (AITA posts only)
  15. I got the wordle in three tries this morning. However I used a solve site on line to help me once I got to word two.
  16. That doesn’t always work, depends on how common the consonants are.
  17. I am thinking of the time I did the Grouse Grind. It took me 2.5 hours and a single human being lapped me three times; he was wearing nothing but pale metallic blue booty shorts and athletic shoes and carrying a water bottle.
  18. Doug Ford is still an asshole who took four billion dollars from the Feds to fight the pandemic and as far as anyone can tell is obscuring where it’s being spent as fast as his bean counters can hide it.
  19. I have had a poem written for me?!!! Colour me blushy.
  20. And now I shall cease with my morning raving, knowing that my fOlks don’t have internet right now so there’s no point getting this posted before six.
  21. reconnecting with an ex on social media (facebook, I believe I mentioned that I left instagram and climbed back up on facebook) is always fraught with hazard (he was my first bf from around the time the planet cooled) but so far all we’re doing is sighing heavily over what a fucking idiot Roger Waters (OF PINK FLOYD) (he’s FUCKING CAPING FOR THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA SAYING TAIWAN BE OWNED BY THEM WHICH IS A BIG SURPRISE TO THE PEOPLE WHO FUCKING LIVE THERE) is, and posting youtube memories of songs gone by. Weird to see him all old and bearded though.
  22. and as a visual codaImage

Robot Chicken and Alex Jones

  1. after years of saying we would, Jeff and I are finally rewatching Robot Chicken to make a goodies reel. Jeff, we need to include the danceoff, I changed my mind.
  2. Picture if you will a man who lies for a living. After 9/11, he fused the internet as we mostly now know it to lies about how 9/11 was a ‘false flag’ operation. Many people mostly on the right decided that there was no way 9/11 could have happened UNLESS high government officials and the standard issue global cabal had CAUSED it to happen; this man made money selling dietary supplements (which are also bunkum) to the people who took comfort in this worldview. Many millions of dollars of income later, he said that the shooting deaths of a bunch of children in a school shooting (Sandy Hook) was a false flag operation. That those kids didn’t die. Now, those kids did die, and even though the man who lies for a living knew they didn’t die, and said they didn’t die because people who are against the right to carry guns wanted to change the laws, his attitude toward the truth was not all that great, so the parents sued him for defamation.
  3. he lost. Total amounts owing along the lines of $50 million. Two more lawsuits in a similar vein are coming. His total net worth is in the vicinity of $150 Mil.
  4. perhaps he lost but he’s still very popular, as per “What does the Internet Think” website. 
  5. and in case you think this is bullshit, I give you Lee Pace’s results from the same website, BECAUSE NO ONE IS INDIFFERENT TO LEE PACE (ALSO I DO NOT APPEAR ON THIS WEBSITE LOL I CHECKED):
  6. while he was losing his lawyer’s employee accidentally (OR DID SHE LOL) sent two years’ worth of text and email messages from his phone to the plaintiffs’ lawyers. The lawyers promptly asked the January 6 committee if they wanted the messages, which was truly inconvenient for the man who lies for a living.
  7. and his ex wife Kelly probably will be getting them too. She is – quite rightly – in a custody battle, and now his utter unfitness to have access to his children will soon be a matter of public record. She calls him “truly mentally ill” and a danger to society but what the hell else can you expect from an ex wife hunh?
  8. to recap, Alex Jones is a foam-flecked liar, and now he will be paying for it. It won’t stop him, and he’ll fundraise on it, but at least someone slowed him down for two seconds and between his wife, his involvement with the January 6 traitors and the Sandy Hook parents his wealth will get a shellacking.
  9. Watched ‘Prey’ which is a new film in the Predator franchise GODDAMN I LOVED IT. It’s set in Comanche territory in 1719. The French are the bad guys, just like life’s supposed to be (this is a family joke, not reality.)
  10. That dog was not trained. They had to use that dog because it’s very close to what an Indigenous dog would have looked like at the time, so holy shit the director had to put up with a lot from that dog.
  11. A version completely in Comanche is available.
  12. Watched the new Minions movie. It had a few good laughs and was about standard for the franchise.
  13. I’m feeling quite a bit better, but the weather’s gone hot again so the next couple of days will probably be uncomfortable.
  14. There’s a cat rescue outfit in Vancouver which would rather EUTHANIZE a cat that adopt it out to a transgender person. Infuriating, like it’s a REASON.
  15. 1207 words on new section, still going very slow also worked on fanfic ‘landslide’
  16. Watched the Frontline about the people living in Kharkiv for the first three months after the Russian invasion. Very scary, moving and the people there seem admirable in their resolve. The impact of the war on the elderly and disabled is just gross.
  17. For settler saturday consider a donation to Indigenous language revitalization.