It has suddenly occurred to me that I Don’t Want to Go To France.  I want to stay in bed for two weeks.  However, life will likely hand me that kind of vacation in the form of a dire illness at somepointinmylife so maybe I should just do a tarot reading for the trip to France and see if I can apply some mellow to my pre-travel jitters.

Gee whizzickers spirit of the Tarot, leave the rebukiness at home wujja?

Anyway the tarot reading said, and I paraphrase “Don’t be such a ****** wuss; it will be a great trip, there will be great spiritual benefit and you will return in triumph.  Are you nuts?  Do you think you don’t deserve a trip like this?”  With (harrumphing) a side of references to self-delusion and feeling lonely.

I tell people I got the world’s most no nonsense tarot deck and they don’t believe me.  I still can’t believe my last reading for Tanya; she asked for a blind reading (no question, and no cues for the reader) and at the end of it, I said, “I will stake my reputation this reading isn’t about you at all – this is about your brother”, because she’s been really concerned with his fate, of late.

Anyway, I’m slowly going through the checklist.  I feel better though; I know it’s ludicrous and after all what would I have done if it had all been death and destruction (which was Tanya’s reading…).  How can I possibly reconcile reason and the tarot.  I guess I’ll have to sit down and work through the rationale at some point.  I’ve tried in the past but I think I need to take another stab at it; please expect references to string theory and archetypes.

In an hour Jeff and I are off to Petcetera… kittehs HONGRY om nom nom and muts be fooded!  Here’s Gizmo grabbing the mike to sing Bella Chow.

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David Byrne and Brian Eno

Ha ha, hipsters!  Die of the jellusy!  On the 20th of February Jeff and I are going to take in the above noted at the QE Theatre!  I mean, if the world doesn’t end first.

Hm, must book tix for B-52s now, before civilization collapses any further and you can’t buy tickets for 80’s bands any more.  At any rate that should be a great show.

Keith was supposed to show up last night and he didn’t show and he didn’t phone.  I have a really solid notion that he went to the Purpose High School Reunion, possibly even with his sister (can such things BE?) in which case he might have been, like, socializing with classmates.  He’s been pushing himself hard on that front lately, to my joy and astonishment.  So, one hopes for a full report but one does not hope too hard.

Coffee…. I love coffee.  I’m having some organic fair trade medium blend right now and thinking about how coffee will shift in our culture yet again.  It being so addictive I don’t imagine it will go away.

I got home around 6:30 last night after sweet talking LTGW into giving me a ride (I had glass dishes from the departmental potluck (spaghetti and sauce) and did not want to lug them home on the bus, and it was POURING rain).  We stopped off for tea and coffee at the Starbucks at Hastings and Kensington and discussed a bewildering variety of things with many violent changes of subject, which anybody who knows me will consider quite standard….  Any conversation that has somebody envying my corpus callosum can’t be all bad.

Hella wind right now.

The house is shaking on its foundations and the branches are all sighing and whistling.

Watched Margot at the Wedding.  Lots of lying and yelling.  Jack Black saved that movie from B+ TV movie mediocrity.  The kid who played Claude was so cute I wanted to pocket him.  Nicole Kidman’s accent wandered the screen like a drunk man’s fancy. Everybody else was reasonable and in good order.

Singing into the can for $5

Last thing before I went to bed last night I had a song in my head, and instead of doing what I normally do which is not record it, I did.  I listened to it again this morning and all I want to do is harmonize to it.  I can hear it done jazz combo style, snare, upright bass, tenor sax and piano.  Smooth!

Off to the Penny and Hastings Steam & Sauna last night with the Luddite, who is much the same as always, only more so.  Then home in time to watch some Robot Chicken with Jeff.  The Steam joint alas had no music, which I’ve come to expect, but it was a lovely chance to warm my bones all the way through and also take the single goofiest picture of me ever.  I ended up looking like that guy on Babylon 5 – but don’t expect me to post my pic from last night, it’s that very bad.  Apply in person or via email and I’ll forward a copy, but be prepared – the expression on my face is…. a little over the top.

Kids were here

It was so lovely to have both of them here. We watched S2E1 of Deadwood (A Lie Agreed Upon) during which we giggled and cracked jokes and invented drinking games involving the swearing.  I bought us all Swiss Chalet. Katie did her homework.  For those of you out quietly worrying in TelevisionLand, Brandin (mentioned earlier) is a nice boy with not a great deal of education and a lot of crazy relatives, but he doesn’t smoke tobacco and he likes Katie fine.  And happy birthday, Katie, here’s a toast to you continuing to plug along when you really don’t feel like it.

Reason’s Greetings

This, apparently, is the new atheist slogan for the dark time of the year.  I like it!

Tonight, Mando lessons; tomorrow, dinner with the Luddite and hopefully a trip to the steam room.  I could sure use to soak my bones in something warm.

I am really trying hard NOT to think of France. I’m a rotten traveller, I hate airplanes, I nearly died in a plane crash once and I keep thinking of the two or three minutes of sheer terror as the plane falls from the sky.  I’m not skared of being killed, I’m scared of being scared.  Also, I don’t want to pack because it just reminds me I have crappy clothes and I’m going someplace where I’m literally twice the size of the average woman so even if I want to shop it’ll be like going to f*cking Richmond to pick something up at a mall (pitying stares as I look for something larger than a size 8).  My back is hurting so scandalously these days that I’m thinking of saying screw it and getting a prescription for painkillers.  There’s all kinds of stuff I can’t take on a plane so I am going to have to break down and buy regular deodorant (which I loathe) instead of using my homemade stuff, which smells nice on me and doesn’t leave a nasty residue.  There’s a whole long litany of other stuff which I would sincerely like to vent about, and would be well advised not to as probably, tomorrow, I’ll be fine. If I’m not fine, then I would at least have found something different to whine about.

Katie DAMNED WELL better go to school today.

I feel like that giraffe in Robot Chicken.  Enough in-jokes, it’s time to start the day.