May you find what you seek
In some cultures, that’s considered a curse. Anyway, to the point; I am looking up stuff on Afghanistan and Persia (now Iran) because I am following information about Rumi. Accidentally I land on the wikipedia page of the anti-Rumi, which contains a bunch of 14th Century dirty jokes. They are at the bottom of the page, you’ve been warned, etc. One of the jokes is so disgusting it could cheerfully be used by people who hate Muslims as propaganda.
We are watching Ken Burn’s Jazz, and it is uniformly excellent. I wish I could have watched it with John, too.
Off to the library today. I have a couple of other errands to run.
My request to have assistance in developing anti-racism curriculum is in the newsletter for church.
I can only wonder what my uncle, who got a PhD in Fluorine Chemistry, would make of this website mocking PhD subjects.
Loki lowkey Christmas
Showed the shop on Christmas day AND Boxing day. It will be a Syncretic Agnostic Festive Miracle if I sell the place, but I’m okay with what happens. Everything changes. Failure hasn’t killed me yet.
As part of our Syncretic Agnostic Festive Season, we acquired Chinese Food, watched documentaries and SGA, and bought zero presents, sent zero cards. I did go to a Christmas Eve service which was about the advent and deliverance of joy, love, peace and hope, framed by the story of the Christ child and Mary. (Joseph always gets left out… I’m gonna make a sermon for him some day).
One of the best things about filk is that if you change the lyrics to be less sexist nobody will comment. I say this looking at Uplift, a wonderful song written in 1999, but it contains Mankind. I will sing it as Humans. All will be well.
I’ve already blasted through the second hand book Tammy gave me for Christmas. It’s called The Forty Rules of Love, and I cried BUCKETS while I was reading it, but it is about the love between Rumi and Shams of Tabriz, and it is a very wonderful and sad story. In the end, Rumi is a poet, but everyone around him paid a high price for it.
Poetry doesn’t come from nowhere; for me it is language reaching through my emotions to a page; to the release and abandonment of expressing a feeling in the most charged and delicate way possible. Poetry is like the sprite that forms above a massive thunderstorm. So brief, so beautiful, and invisible unless you are looking RIGHT AT IT when it happens. She who has not seen will say it doesn’t exist. She who has seen will pummel words and rhythms, grasp at floating down, weave spider silk and daydreams, stare at bones, bond with discards, trace the impression of a car tire in tar, build launching pads of paper and foil. Her dissatisfaction is the human eternal, embroidered with a great ‘Ah!”
Lumosity, mando practice, paperwork. That is at least part of my day.
Full lyrics for Kick your Door Down (Burn Notice filk)
( Burn Notice Filk)
That Michael Westen is a pain in the ass
Thinks he’s a hero and his friends are no better
Oliver Peoples with the shatterproof glass
Fi’s drowning so he’s gotta go and get her
Average day, situation normal
Enemies smile and loved ones frown
Don’t need to be very formal
They’re gonna come back and kick your door down
Sam comes hard with the rolling guns and ammo
Michael doesn’t think his tactics are sound
Time’s up! Package goes blammo!
They’re gonna come back and kick your door down
Misdirection suited in Armani
Someone in the alley just chambered a round
Time’s up! It’s not our money
Gonna come back and kick the door down
Amateurs tend to get excited
When Fi makes a splash in a slinky gown
More than one kind of fuse gets ignited
and they’re gonna come back and kick the door down
Set list
Everything went fine at rehearsal in the morning… but when I went to Tom and Peggy’s for tea, treats and a run through of my set list after supper yesterday, this is what I found out.
I do have performance anxiety, and I performed considerably worse in front of people taking pictures of me that I do in in my rehearsal space.
My voice RISES THREE SEMI TONES between 7 am and 7 pm. Songs I can sing with no difficulty in the morning I cannot sing at night. This is VERY PROBLEMATIC, especially since Otto capos up about as well as I twerk.
I may have to rethink having the lyric and lead sheets on stage. In my urge to appear ‘professional’ I may lose the ability to get through a song without stumbling. Or, I could, like, practice more every day.
Anyway, it’s all food for thought, so I am ruminating.
Looking for work – this got barfed up on my screen.
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Church today was great
A good service, enlivened by Rev Deb’s inclusion of both Thomas King and George Carlin. Plus, Beatles, and Dark of Winter, my favourite hymn as sung by the choir. Paul, bless him, is back from his gig in Seattle and gave me a lift to and likewise fro. I sent him forth with chicken breast for sandwiches, my homemade pickled beets (which he adores) and a frozen soup by way of thanks (also he gave me one of his very chiropractic hugs, which by damn I needed!)
Wrote about 750 words on Midnite Moving today.
Practiced HARD this morning. It’s getting close!
Found Keith’s 300$ sunglasses in the couch downstairs. Phoned him immediately and was he glad!
No walkies today. Still a bit nasty underfoot out there. Not like Toronto, though, it’s a freaking mess there.
A*****e McF*****t stood me up for the meet at the shop. Sorry, I’m not in the mood to be charitable. Jeff knows the whole tale and concurs.
Totally took down some asshat on twitter going on about vaccination. The article he linked to said that vaccinations have something to do with infant mortality in the US. ( well they do, just not negatively). The high infant mortality rate in the US has more to do with institutionalized racism and unevenly distributed prenatal care than vaccination, and anybody who says different doesn’t know a FUCKING THING about epidemiology, obstetrics, and forty years of data drawing a line between race and good — or poor — health outcomes. Given that the twitter account is ostensibly an anti racism media site, I unloaded very hard. I do not want persons of colour to put their kids at risk believing this bullshit because ‘da man’ makes bad vaccines. HEAVY HEAVY SIGH.
As a palate cleanser….Cute temporary tattoos!
Off to show the shop and fetch some library books
Today I rehearsed for an hour, including patter, did a chunk of my physio exercises, gave myself a facial and a nice long shower, and now to do other Useful Things.
Stay safe in the snow! There have been two fatal accidents along Canada Way in the last two weeks, although excessive speed mixed with heaping handfuls of stupid probably had more to do with it than weather.
Eddie is home and feeling much better
He even tried to winkle a treat out of me this morning.
Brushed snow off the deck, front steps and walkway.
I feel intensely blah, still, and 7 cm of soggy snow doesn’t assist the feeling.
Santa arrived at the end of the street in a Burnaby Fire Department rig, sirens blaring. What an asshole.
My afternoon
Walked 2.3 k, opened a credit union account, watched a lot of Longmire, and was much cheered by Eddie’s obvious improvement when Jeff brought him home.
I sure hope I get more sleep tonight.
My day so far
waking at 2 am and doing my Lumosity training for the day.
stooging around on the internet for a couple of hours, making myself a brie sandwich and some tea, going back to bed, passing out again
realizing I have to motor into the shop and show it to Bill and André. I did. I also cleaned a bunch of stuff while I was there
on the way out seeing two crows eating a dead rat in the lane way
repelled by this visual (I yelled “Back to work, boys!” on the way by) I solaced myself with 6 dollar jammies at Value Village, which isn’t going to be there much longer anyway because of this
on the way back from VV I got cat litter, catnip in a Christmas bag (that was free) and more kitty treats for Margot, who liked both gifts a lot (she is mildly concerned about Eddie, who’s having his second overnight at the pet hospital – an infection probably and he’s dehydrated).
quit facebook, again, this time I hope permanently
was followed on twitter by a FN author, and when I went to look up his site Chrome told me it was laced with malware
Explain to me why….
Keystone XL needs to run a pipeline through my city when we’ll be able to make fuel from algae?
This is funny even though the circumstances are not? (Kingston fire picture).
Sabotaging birth control isn’t already a crime in the US? It’s certainly a whopping great tort, even if there’s no criminal law on the books….
Anybody is surprised fewer kids are driving? Between making a conscious decision not to contribute to pollution and the crappy economy, it all makes sense to me. Both of my kids were well into their 20’s before they even started learning how, whereas I was 17 and wild to have my license.
Anybody wants to argue about what colour Santa is (when he’s an imaginary figure largely promoted by the Coca-Cola company) Link goes to retro Afro American Christmas cards, some of which are the ‘essence’ of charming.
When I no longer have a car, I can finally get a decal which adequately represents my tribble of a cat?
Science news keeps saying that a new species has been ‘discovered’ when the indigenous population knew they were there the whole time? This is really annoying; saying it’s received a Latin name is different than “New Discovery.”
I didn’t know that Diana Cooper once referred to Winston Churchill as looking like the good little pig who built his house of bricks?
This is even a thing? (Fundraiser to make a headset that reads dog thoughts which sounds like BS as yet).
Losing three traffic wardens causes chaos in Aberystwyth? It reads like an Onion article.
More judges don’t use their hearts as well as their brains in sentencing?
I didn’t start watching Call the Midwife until yesterday?
Good advice at any time
News 1130’s Twitter feed is telling us to avoid Point Roberts, because people are buying Multimax lotto tickets and picking up Christmas parcels. What they neglect to tell you is that it’s really good advice at any time.
Privilege has its memberships!
White.
Middle class.
University educated.
IQ over 120 – as at last time I was tested…. my BPI on Lumosity is over 1250 and I am in the top percentiles (for all the categories for my age and sex).
Reproductively successful ciswoman.
No birth defects.
All senses currently intact.
Mobile enough to walk every day.
Able to obtain and use a driver’s license.
City dweller all my life with access to cultural amenities and public transit.
Access to health care at low cost including midwifery, physio and eyecare.
Member of an extremely supportive religious community.
Raised by both parents.
Both parents university educated.
Not abused during upbringing (not sexually or physically, no alcoholism, drug abuse or mental illness in family of origin).
Up until fairly recently, consistently employed and employable. Large number of skills mostly in an office setting, but it amazes me sometimes when I look back over my life and see what I’ve learned to do.
Never institutionalized for drug or alcohol abuse or mental illness.
Never jailed, arrested or detained for questioning.
Never randomly stopped by police except in a car for a drunk driving check, and even then I talked my way out of the one time I had been drinking and driving. (I know, right?)
Never had an unpleasant personal encounter with the police.
Raised atheist/agnostic.
Raised as an appreciator of reason, science, science fiction and imagination.
Raised in a house full of books, music, and intellectual appreciation.
Always had a tv in the house and access to a library card.
Able at one point to afford to purchase a house.
Have a bank account.
Have a secure place to sleep at night.
Access to abundant food, clean water and fresh air, in my house or in walking distance.
Access to land to grow food on if I wish.
Not currently addicted to drugs or alcohol and apart from over the counter stuff there’s nothing in the house. (OK, I think there’s an airplane bottle of rum somewhere in the house….)
Although I am not neurotypical, my brain challenges are not sufficient to prevent me from enjoying employment, relationships, creative endeavours.
Passport! Just remembered that. It’s a privilege I share with more than 50 percent of Canadians but globally it’s a huge privilege to have a Canadian passport.
Access to all vaccinations (I even got Hep C vaccinations when it turned out I could get them for free).
Access to refrigeration and subzero storage.
Access to appliances such as washing machines and cook stoves.
Access to internet 24.7 except when Shaw loses its mind.
Able to speak, read, and write English at a very high level. It’s a privilege I’d trade for nothing, too.
Access to world class continuing education on a bewildering range of subjects.
Living in a big house with an excellent roommate, who is honest and sane and helps keep me safe and healthy.
What’s YER privilege?
I love it when my characters come up with good lines
George, sputtering about his cousin Theo, “The plural of fun is not drama!”
Jeff and I have started watching Longmire. It’s loaded with some of our fave actors; Robert Taylor is totally new to us and turns out to be an Aussie; Katee Sackhoff, Bailey Chase, Gerald McRaney, Peter Weller, Lou Diamond Phillips. Well written, exquisitely shot and kinda violent, just the way I like my shows.