to the right to the right

  1. I must start today’s Symphony of Yeesh with the observation that Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property has been raided (right down to the safe) by the FBI. Hear now in the ear of your mind an opening blast of strangely discordant horns, resolving into a mixed chorus of voices swelling in triumph, followed by a faint rippling echo of ‘Yakety Sax’.
  2. Someone’s serial killing Muslim men in ABQ. Apparently he attended the funeral of one of the men he killed, followed an attendee home and killed him there. This along makes me think that it’s an unhinged member of the community. LATER: CALLED IT.
  3. Putin seems to think shelling one of the biggest nuclear power plants in Europe is a great thing to do with modern weapons.
  4. had a medium length phone conversation with Keith yesterday. He wants a conference call with mOm at some point and I said sure.
  5. Absolutely loving Neil Gaiman’s the Sandman. It’s not an exact take on a thirty year old comic but things have changed since then
  6. This paragraph deleted as too enraging / clickbaity
  7. I love speculaas cookies. They are bad for me.
  8. 1581 words on Part II
  9. blew wordle this morning
  10. Taraji P Henson’s ancestral kin was the first man at the North Pole! her family must have the most amazing stories
  11. Must go one last time to the Swiss Chalet before it closes.

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

dear ones

Long … long talk with Paul yesterday about his life changes, and then home made sugar free iced tea, tuna salad and a small serving of chocolate ice cream for lunch.

Buster has been in a weird mood of late. He’s been asking for stuff at odd times of day, at times when there are other people in the house, which he very rarely does. Training or ‘sitting pretty’ for brushing usually takes place under specific circumstances or times of day. I think he’s got one hell of a furball parked up in there somewheres.

Watched 13 Lives – the dramatization of the rescue of the Thai soccer team from the cave. Viggo Mortenson is AMAZING. Colin Farrell quietly disappears into his role. Viggo embodies a highly intelligent, very autistic and brilliant technical diver; the script is fantastic. The Thai people and government aren’t represented as ‘needing rescuing’ they are ‘asking for assistance on something they don’t have the expertise for’ and the way people come together for the outcome is better than any fiction. Congrats Ron Howard on another great movie and RIP Saman Kunan and Beirut Pakbara the Thai Navy Seal divers who perished at the time of the rescue or afterward from an infection acquired during the rescue.

retraction without redaction

Johnny Depp is a violent misogynistic creep and his sole purpose in suing Amber Heard for defamation was to bankrupt her, which he has done.

Now various items which did not come to light during the suit have demonstrated that Depp has A LONG HISTORY of spousal battery, shit talking and bad vibes. His Hollywood buddies who stood next to him during the suit have started to ‘quit following him on Twitter’ which probably means they aren’t taking his calls any more, or they go through an intermediary.

I have mentioned him half a dozen times on this blog since it started nearly 20 years ago, praising his appearance or commenting on his performances. I’m not going to take those references out; I’m just stating that as of the time the Amber Heard defamation suit came to court, I fucking loathe Johnny Depp and wish him a long life of total obscurity, relative penury, and wrinkles.

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.

Private post

I just posted something privately to my blog complaining about a life situation that isn’t mine to talk about publicly but that is wrecking me. mOm knows, Jeff knows, I’m not alone but I have many yuccccky feelings.

I owe various people phone calls and wish they’d call me for a change but it’s easily fixed.

I can’t find an online obituary for a friend of mine who died back in 2004/5. So that was depressing.

Today I learned that acrylic nails aren’t just for show. I just learned that a small but vocal subset of acrylic nail wearers USE THEM to help control their OCD, self-picking and trichotillomania symptoms. (They literally can’t pick at their scalps, eyelashes, eyebrows, etc. if they’re wearing them.)  I hate them because I think they’re hideously ugly but now Billie Eilish wearing 7 cm nails all the time makes SO MUCH MORE SENSE and I’m going to stop commenting on this aspect of other women’s appearance. Thank you Reddit.

This is a photograph of UK soldiers from WWII interrupted during rehearsals for a drag show to SHOOT AT NAZIS.

WWII soldiers interrupt rehearsal of drag show to shoot Nazis

 

boot to the head! (wah, wah)

  1. today’s blog post title is a call back to a famous Frantics album from 1987
  2. Because today I administered a social media boot to the head to the GAWDAM Canadian Blood Services. You may or may not be aware that the GAWDAM Canadian Blood Services ended the mandate for mask wearing while you donate.
  3. yup you heard me
  4. give blood and catch covid
  5. what a draw, what a pull, what a crowd pleaser!
  6. anyway I told them until they restored the mask mandate they can do without my blood.
  7. because they said burnaby needs 300 donors now and I’m like IF YOU COME TO MY HOUSE THAT WILL WORK FINE TOO. DEY VANT MY BLUT DEY CAN COME GET IT
  8. still stalled on story – all stories.
  9. baseball sized hail fell in southern AB August 1, I watched video of people pulled over and screaming inside their cars, it was scary af
  10. my schadenfreude over Alex Jones’ troubles at his defamation trial is great. Finding out yesterday that his ‘defence’ lawyer sent TWO YEARS OF TEXTS on accident TO THE PLAINTIFFS’ LAWYERS made Jeff and I smile quite rudely
  11. Russia keeps almost hitting Ukrainian grain shipments. Putin Khuylo! (usually translated as Putin is a Dickhead!!)
  12. heat map of the US and southern Canada on July 31 2022 shows solid red and you wonder why I’m all apocalyptic  darkest is highest temperature - us heat map 31 july 22
  13. Jeff and I remain very very happy that there’s a functioning air conditioner in this house.
  14. I have too much laundry both dirty and to put away.
  15. words cannot describe how happy I am that my mOm reads my blog posts to her sister almost every day …. and so sometimes I put stuff in that I think will make Mary laugh

Art for Alex

the map is decades old
some maps are old and valuable
this one isn’t

it’s a paperback atlas
that centres the US
(—for which a unique Indigenous designation
(—does not exist.
(—The United States of America does not exist
(—in law; it was founded on theft and genocide.
with a map of each state.
(—The states come closer to having
(—Indigenous names – every last one pronounced wrong –
(— and the borders often respect rivers.

this page I tore out has Montréal
(—Kanien’kehá:ka Territory
(—Ga-niyen-ge-HAA-ga
(—People of the Flint Territory
in the bottom left corner

I pulled out a piece of plastic I’ve used for forty years

(I was going to say owned but
I’m getting skittish of the word owned)

and using that stencil I, in varying colours,

(bright blue, teal, bright orange, bright green
and lots of greyblack ballpoint pen. It’s hideous.
It’s supposed to be hideous. It’s a wretch’s howl
at cruel fate, not just my death but his. I could
have prevented his death. I could have never
given day to his mother.)

inscribed:

28/7/22
DEAR ALEX:
WHEN YOU ARE
GROWN, THIS MAP
WILL BE OUT-OF-DATE.

I drew an arrow to Dorval
which is just a speck on this map
and printed

This is where your mother used to live

I asked his mother if it was ‘too much’
and she said
He’ll appreciate it when he’s older.

I made this to acknowledge
that his world will burn and drown
and know such anger, and such kindness
wonder and terror
that I won’t know.

lovely laid back day

Supper was delivery from White Spot; the milkshakes were so recently made that despite the heat and the travails of delivery they were simply fantastic, a lovely end to a tasty meal.

We mostly took it easy for Jeff’s b-day and watched tv in the cool of the aircon. Jeff went for a walk in the morning, as he did this morning

Wordle in 3, quite by accident.

1156 words. I AM STRUGGLING so I’m just going to fallow for a while.

Watching a twitter fight in a marginalized group when you can understand how everyone feels but wish they’d behave better is kind of my look these days. I want to get involved, but I’m not trans.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how my interest in trans lives and rights might be an indication that I’m trans myself, but I’m just not. When trans women talk about the dysphoria they sometimes still feel and almost always did feel when they were young I feel like I’m listening to a piece of music I don’t understand. I’ve always felt right in my body. I’ve envied men their ease in walking through the world, but that isn’t dysphoria. So I consider myself an ally; I want to understand trans experiences as part of the human panoply but I don’t want to own them or police them or rank order them or gatekeep them by commenting on them; none of that is mine and I’m good with it.

But it’s sad watching a trans man and a trans woman that I follow slag each other on twitter; I am so fond of them in a parasocial way for being human in front of me, and for always having something worth saying.

We are all part of the system, we all contribute, and we all negate our humanity in trying to stay alive under capitalism. In the particular case I mention, a trans person who is a writer tried to fundraise getting a book published, offended somebody (I think I would have been disgusted, not vengeful, had I learned of it in the same way), and got doxxed. In the course of being doxxed the world learned they were both trans and working for Lougheed Martin in such a fashion that one could draw a straight line between their employment and children being murdered from drone strikes — so let’s just be glad we’re not at the concussion point of that dispute while remembering that the overwhelming majority of trans people on this earth don’t get jobs with decent medical coverage while assisting the US with its imperial ambitions.

Have something less contentious:::

Image

cp from facebook

Yesterday mini house filk at Peggy’s – we went page by page through an Echo’s Children songbook interspersed with songs memorializing John, who continues to be greatly missed, although his guitar is still getting a regular workout, thank you Paul. More filking next month! Peggy as always fed us and we were continually refreshed with spearmint tea from her garden.

Her recent purchase of a heat pump = great comfort in the stupendous heat (and it still wasn’t as bad as last year’s heat dome although it was plenty rude).

When Peggy was playing standup bass for a tune it was automatically 100% better. It’s a lovely instrument with a booming voice!

veering away from Echo’s Children (as usual I wept continuously through ‘Outward Bound’, that song is my fricking kryptonite lol), I played Warren Zevon’s ‘Shit’s Fucked up”, and “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” and Brooke’s “It’s Just so Nice When Someone Knows Your Name”.

Paul played “History is Made by Stupid People”, and the Hallelujah song (aka the Fighter Pilot’s song). As always we nagged the tar out of him for not practicing enough. HE’S RETIRED like me he has no excuse. He also backed me up on cross harp for ‘Spinal Clinic’.

Cindy played “Unexpected” which is a most wonderful song based on the first Vorkosigan books, held down the lead for most of the Echo’s Children songs (plus guitar) and was as always as delightful a voice to lean my alto harmonies against as I ever I encountered.