When I logged onto Facebook this evening, it gave me a list of people I may know. Mostly it was people who had four friends in common with me.
It gave me quite a jolt.
There were people on the list that I have been avoiding on Facebook for ages. So I'm wondering, are they getting the same message? And if so, are they avoiding me? Or are they just busy? Or have they not noticed the thread yet?
Interesting times ahead.
There was also someone I thought was a friend. So I must have been blocked.
Oops.
Mental note not to do that again.
There were people on the list that I'm pretty sure are avoiding me.
That's the beauty of Facebook.
Or it was.
You could avoid people without seeming to.
AND NOW YOU CAN'T.
So it's The Buttery in 1989 all over again.
Episode 27 of Queenie lives her life over and over again in ever decreasing circles.
Never mind.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Monday, April 07, 2008
Queenie is definitely middle-aged
Queenie always felt that a sign of youth was shouting at the evil nincompoops on the radio that constitute the news broadcasts. Moaning Ireland particularly irked her, for two reasons. Firstly that you had to listen to it to know what was going on for work (boring), and secondly because it was the same players spouting the same lines day in day out. Plus the tearing into them style of interviewing (which was apparently invented by her ex, but she only had his word for it, but he was usually right about stuff like that).
Leaving Ireland was a relief in a way. No more IBEC. No more Vintners Association. No more Tom Parlon. No more Willie O'Dea. No more Michael Ring (I'm hearing a lack of women here, I'm sure there were annoying women too).
Here in Canada, the CBC current affairs stuff is pretty good. Particularly around teatime. And during the day they have great arts programming. And a great Internet-related show. And a show called Dark Arts, which is about healthcare, which is fantastic, hosted by a doctor who gives House a run for his money.
But in the morning.....
In the morning it is local. Lots of weird people from Musquodobit talking about pig roasts and the occasional 'news' item about a wind turbine that's going to spoil the view from Anne Murray's summer cottage.
There's a boy interviewer (who thinks he's Irish) and a girl host, who introduces the items but NEVER does an interview. I think she butters the toast while they're going on.
I often wonder how Aine Lawlor would cope if she'd washed up here.
Anyways, this morning, I hit the wrong button when the alarm went off and got onto the Dalhousie SU radio by mistake.
Flashpoints was on. Flashpoints is their current affairs program.
It focuses almost exclusively on the war in Iraq (and global warming). It talks about framing a lot. It explains the different sects in Iraq which is good because it means I don't have to plough through the actual newspaper articles in order to keep up with who is on the side of the workers and who is not.
This morning they were talking about the credit crunch and the continued bail out of the investment industry.
Socialism for the rich apparently (?!)
The guy with the beard (don't ask me how I know, I just did) kept repeating that phrase randomly in a triumphant tone.
This was while the woman was explaining that most of the investors were mom and pop pension funds (?!)
Then they urged everyone not to drink Starbucks coffee anymore because they don't pay their managers overtime.
And they do something weird with their tips that I was too sleepy to follow.
Time passed, spent talking about al-Sadr, that renowned hero of the Iraqi working class, when the host crowed that there were calls coming in about the Starbucks item.
Great, said mom and pop investment funds girl.
Two of the calls were pointing out that Starbucks was the only coffee chain in Canada to give part-time workers their health benefits and the third said that the tips were fine. Thank you very much.
Mom and pop investment fund girl (who may or may not be mom and pop funding her to go to Dal girl too) said that really the point was that everyone should get free health care.
Ehm, we do, don't we?
You are middle-aged when you find yourself shouting at the anarchists on the radio.
Also, when it is the day after you went to Rona and bought a toilet and a hand basin and considered that fun, it must be true.
Ah well, it was a good long run....
Leaving Ireland was a relief in a way. No more IBEC. No more Vintners Association. No more Tom Parlon. No more Willie O'Dea. No more Michael Ring (I'm hearing a lack of women here, I'm sure there were annoying women too).
Here in Canada, the CBC current affairs stuff is pretty good. Particularly around teatime. And during the day they have great arts programming. And a great Internet-related show. And a show called Dark Arts, which is about healthcare, which is fantastic, hosted by a doctor who gives House a run for his money.
But in the morning.....
In the morning it is local. Lots of weird people from Musquodobit talking about pig roasts and the occasional 'news' item about a wind turbine that's going to spoil the view from Anne Murray's summer cottage.
There's a boy interviewer (who thinks he's Irish) and a girl host, who introduces the items but NEVER does an interview. I think she butters the toast while they're going on.
I often wonder how Aine Lawlor would cope if she'd washed up here.
Anyways, this morning, I hit the wrong button when the alarm went off and got onto the Dalhousie SU radio by mistake.
Flashpoints was on. Flashpoints is their current affairs program.
It focuses almost exclusively on the war in Iraq (and global warming). It talks about framing a lot. It explains the different sects in Iraq which is good because it means I don't have to plough through the actual newspaper articles in order to keep up with who is on the side of the workers and who is not.
This morning they were talking about the credit crunch and the continued bail out of the investment industry.
Socialism for the rich apparently (?!)
The guy with the beard (don't ask me how I know, I just did) kept repeating that phrase randomly in a triumphant tone.
This was while the woman was explaining that most of the investors were mom and pop pension funds (?!)
Then they urged everyone not to drink Starbucks coffee anymore because they don't pay their managers overtime.
And they do something weird with their tips that I was too sleepy to follow.
Time passed, spent talking about al-Sadr, that renowned hero of the Iraqi working class, when the host crowed that there were calls coming in about the Starbucks item.
Great, said mom and pop investment funds girl.
Two of the calls were pointing out that Starbucks was the only coffee chain in Canada to give part-time workers their health benefits and the third said that the tips were fine. Thank you very much.
Mom and pop investment fund girl (who may or may not be mom and pop funding her to go to Dal girl too) said that really the point was that everyone should get free health care.
Ehm, we do, don't we?
You are middle-aged when you find yourself shouting at the anarchists on the radio.
Also, when it is the day after you went to Rona and bought a toilet and a hand basin and considered that fun, it must be true.
Ah well, it was a good long run....
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Okay I am sick of this now
Sick of it.
It snowed from 8.30am yesterday morning until 11pm and then it started again at 5am.
Himself had to go to work at midnight and he didn't get back until 11.10am, at which point I just handed over the frying pan with his breakfast in it because I had to go out.
Now it is 1.17pm and I am back, making my breakfast quietly because he is asleep.
And this is Himself's weekend off.
We have been doing this since November.
We have to do this; we have to try to get some sleep even though one of us is always getting up, or going to bed, or getting dressed, or getting a phone call from work, or trying to have a life with the sound muted; we have to drive up and down the province for work, for the kids, in snow and rain and sleet and hail and blowing snow and wind and more frigging sleet; we have to deal with wives and their lawyers and our lawyers and landlords and neighbours who don't work so they run around the apartment making noise all night, and supervisors who don't see why they should ask the person who's turn it is to plough snow to do it, and people who want to know when they're getting their Internet, and boilers and shitty equipment and twenty four hour shifts in the middle of bumfuck Nova Scotia, and we have to do the shopping and the laundry and the bill paying and the entertaining and all the things that people have to do all the time...
And we have to do it all with a friggin' foot of snow on the ground every three days.
I am FUCKING SICK OF THIS.
So now I will eat my breakfast and go out and shovel snow off the steps, and the yard, and the car and the path to the laundry and then I will do the shopping and the laundry and the housework with the sound muted and hopefully, at some point Himself will wake up.
Of course, I'll be tired then.
Bah!
No wonder I made no sense last night.
It snowed from 8.30am yesterday morning until 11pm and then it started again at 5am.
Himself had to go to work at midnight and he didn't get back until 11.10am, at which point I just handed over the frying pan with his breakfast in it because I had to go out.
Now it is 1.17pm and I am back, making my breakfast quietly because he is asleep.
And this is Himself's weekend off.
We have been doing this since November.
We have to do this; we have to try to get some sleep even though one of us is always getting up, or going to bed, or getting dressed, or getting a phone call from work, or trying to have a life with the sound muted; we have to drive up and down the province for work, for the kids, in snow and rain and sleet and hail and blowing snow and wind and more frigging sleet; we have to deal with wives and their lawyers and our lawyers and landlords and neighbours who don't work so they run around the apartment making noise all night, and supervisors who don't see why they should ask the person who's turn it is to plough snow to do it, and people who want to know when they're getting their Internet, and boilers and shitty equipment and twenty four hour shifts in the middle of bumfuck Nova Scotia, and we have to do the shopping and the laundry and the bill paying and the entertaining and all the things that people have to do all the time...
And we have to do it all with a friggin' foot of snow on the ground every three days.
I am FUCKING SICK OF THIS.
So now I will eat my breakfast and go out and shovel snow off the steps, and the yard, and the car and the path to the laundry and then I will do the shopping and the laundry and the housework with the sound muted and hopefully, at some point Himself will wake up.
Of course, I'll be tired then.
Bah!
No wonder I made no sense last night.
This is why I left Ireland
Well, there were a few other reasons, but this was the main one....
Jesus... will somebody tell everybody that it's over. And they should all just watch Jericho.
And imagine being old.
Gilmore to urge Labour to make itself relevant to voters again
STEPHEN COLLINS, Political Editor
THE LABOUR Party leader, Eamon Gilmore, is expected to call on his party today to change itself if it really wants the Irish people to entrust it with the task of changing the country in the 21st century.
Mr Gilmore is due to address a new Labour Party commission, established by a motion of the party conference last November.
The commission is charged with examining and reporting on all aspects of the party's organisation, campaigning and political activity and to make recommendations on the role which Labour should take in the modern Ireland.
The commission, chaired by Greg Sparks, who served as programme manager for Dick Spring when he was tánaiste between 1993 and 1997 will hold its first meeting in Dublin today.
There are more than 20 members on the commission, representing various areas of the Labour Party, including the parliamentary party, councillors, constituency organisations, Labour Youth and the trade unions.
The commission will hold a series of meetings with party members around the country in the coming months. It is due to report to the national executive committee in advance of the next party conference which is due to take place in late November.
Mr Gilmore will address the opening meeting of the commission today and it is expected to make a major address on the direction he wishes to see the party taking in the years ahead.
He is expected to encourage the party to present the Irish people with a clear and understandable statement of what it stands for in modern Ireland, not just in relation to the immediate concerns of today, but to Ireland as it will be between now and 2020, and indeed beyond.
Mr Gilmore has emphasised in the past that Labour's values of equality, solidarity, community, and democracy need to be expressed in the language of modern Ireland to make them relevant in the lives of ordinary people.
He is expected to stress that there is a need for the party to expand the meaning of the term "Labour" to go beyond the old image of a downtrodden proletariat and Labour as an interest group representing a particular form of paid manual employment.
Mr Gilmore will suggest that the term Labour today applies to those who work for themselves, as well as those who work for employers and was not confined to paid work, but applied to those who work at caring for the elderly, for children and for those with disabilities.
He is also expected to emphasise that while Labour is the party of public services that means it should be the party of the public who use them, as well as the public servants who produce them.
Similarly, while Labour was the party that emphasised rights it should also emphasise responsibilities.
While Labour had steadily up-dated many of its policy positions it had not projected that modernisation. While Ireland had grown and changed it had not been able to project that development to the public.
The Labour leader will say that having left behind the closed, authoritarian society of the past, and provided for a far greater measure of personal freedom, hard questions now needed to be asked about the society that we had created, and about the responsibility we all have for the kind of society we will bequeath to our children.
He will also refer to the hard choice that will have to be made as the halcyon days of the Celtic Tiger recede and tightening public finances forced a more exacting scrutiny of taxation and expenditure decisions
Jesus... will somebody tell everybody that it's over. And they should all just watch Jericho.
And imagine being old.
Gilmore to urge Labour to make itself relevant to voters again
STEPHEN COLLINS, Political Editor
THE LABOUR Party leader, Eamon Gilmore, is expected to call on his party today to change itself if it really wants the Irish people to entrust it with the task of changing the country in the 21st century.
Mr Gilmore is due to address a new Labour Party commission, established by a motion of the party conference last November.
The commission is charged with examining and reporting on all aspects of the party's organisation, campaigning and political activity and to make recommendations on the role which Labour should take in the modern Ireland.
The commission, chaired by Greg Sparks, who served as programme manager for Dick Spring when he was tánaiste between 1993 and 1997 will hold its first meeting in Dublin today.
There are more than 20 members on the commission, representing various areas of the Labour Party, including the parliamentary party, councillors, constituency organisations, Labour Youth and the trade unions.
The commission will hold a series of meetings with party members around the country in the coming months. It is due to report to the national executive committee in advance of the next party conference which is due to take place in late November.
Mr Gilmore will address the opening meeting of the commission today and it is expected to make a major address on the direction he wishes to see the party taking in the years ahead.
He is expected to encourage the party to present the Irish people with a clear and understandable statement of what it stands for in modern Ireland, not just in relation to the immediate concerns of today, but to Ireland as it will be between now and 2020, and indeed beyond.
Mr Gilmore has emphasised in the past that Labour's values of equality, solidarity, community, and democracy need to be expressed in the language of modern Ireland to make them relevant in the lives of ordinary people.
He is expected to stress that there is a need for the party to expand the meaning of the term "Labour" to go beyond the old image of a downtrodden proletariat and Labour as an interest group representing a particular form of paid manual employment.
Mr Gilmore will suggest that the term Labour today applies to those who work for themselves, as well as those who work for employers and was not confined to paid work, but applied to those who work at caring for the elderly, for children and for those with disabilities.
He is also expected to emphasise that while Labour is the party of public services that means it should be the party of the public who use them, as well as the public servants who produce them.
Similarly, while Labour was the party that emphasised rights it should also emphasise responsibilities.
While Labour had steadily up-dated many of its policy positions it had not projected that modernisation. While Ireland had grown and changed it had not been able to project that development to the public.
The Labour leader will say that having left behind the closed, authoritarian society of the past, and provided for a far greater measure of personal freedom, hard questions now needed to be asked about the society that we had created, and about the responsibility we all have for the kind of society we will bequeath to our children.
He will also refer to the hard choice that will have to be made as the halcyon days of the Celtic Tiger recede and tightening public finances forced a more exacting scrutiny of taxation and expenditure decisions
The novel is back on by the way
By which I mean that when I have time off I choose to spend it staring into the delicious middle distance, working through a particularly knotty part of the plot.
It's how I cope with a winter that arrived too early, bang on time, like he was awkward and early to a party, and then found alcohol and decided to stay until the last allotted moment, and then wouldn't get into the private ambulance, and eventually not even the one provided by the courts...
.... and then some...
That kind of a winter.
But I know from the Queen Mother and by grapevine from the Queen Dad that it was a hard winter in Ireland too.
It's how I cope with a winter that arrived too early, bang on time, like he was awkward and early to a party, and then found alcohol and decided to stay until the last allotted moment, and then wouldn't get into the private ambulance, and eventually not even the one provided by the courts...
.... and then some...
That kind of a winter.
But I know from the Queen Mother and by grapevine from the Queen Dad that it was a hard winter in Ireland too.
I think
I may have fucked up the last post.
What I meant to say is that I love people who can blog in the snow.
But I'm in a state of relief really.
I will tell you all about it some day.
When something happens that's worth writing to you about.
There are some nights when Kentucky blue grass is all that will do.
And we have Beethoven's bi-centennial coming up next week.
When I imagine you listening to Beethoven, I always imagine that you have your glasses down at the end of your nose.
What I meant to say is that I love people who can blog in the snow.
But I'm in a state of relief really.
I will tell you all about it some day.
When something happens that's worth writing to you about.
There are some nights when Kentucky blue grass is all that will do.
And we have Beethoven's bi-centennial coming up next week.
When I imagine you listening to Beethoven, I always imagine that you have your glasses down at the end of your nose.
Facebook envy
Is anyone else suffering from it?
I surely am.
I find Facebook a great chore, but at the same time, some days, the reason I get up in the morning.
Where is Ken?
Is Joos near a silverback?
And what is that one that's always tanned and on a beach somewhere exotic doing, and why is she still following you around online being your friend....
And oh look, there's your husband's ex-wife's sister's husband's neice's friend.....
On your cousin's closest friend list....
Anyways...
I don't have brothers who have girlfriends/ spouses/ mates who like sisters...
And I still haven't figured out how to make friends on the Internet.
That aren't scary after a while.
Or else I move country....
Anyways, I don't have cheap flights anymore. Or rather, I removed myself so far from my life that I have to choose between instant gratification and home, which may or may not be a sign of growing up ...
But for me to read a blog post about a woman that I love who is in a place that I know all about, but where I never have been ...
... Having the time of her life, and then it snows...
... which is shit, I accept ...
... but hollow laughter....
Hollow laughter is pretty good actually.
Power off for Earth Hour boys and girls.
Let's all do something really useful.
I surely am.
I find Facebook a great chore, but at the same time, some days, the reason I get up in the morning.
Where is Ken?
Is Joos near a silverback?
And what is that one that's always tanned and on a beach somewhere exotic doing, and why is she still following you around online being your friend....
And oh look, there's your husband's ex-wife's sister's husband's neice's friend.....
On your cousin's closest friend list....
Anyways...
I don't have brothers who have girlfriends/ spouses/ mates who like sisters...
And I still haven't figured out how to make friends on the Internet.
That aren't scary after a while.
Or else I move country....
Anyways, I don't have cheap flights anymore. Or rather, I removed myself so far from my life that I have to choose between instant gratification and home, which may or may not be a sign of growing up ...
But for me to read a blog post about a woman that I love who is in a place that I know all about, but where I never have been ...
... Having the time of her life, and then it snows...
... which is shit, I accept ...
... but hollow laughter....
Hollow laughter is pretty good actually.
Power off for Earth Hour boys and girls.
Let's all do something really useful.
The snow is still on the ground, but it must be Michelmas term by now
I actually took pictures of the snow tonight.
To show you that I am not messing.
And this is the worst year in seven.
That's what really scares me.
It's only a seven year cycle.
Oh well, as one gets older, one has to live dangerously.
However that may manifest itself.
Happy Easter to everyone who knows what Michelmas means.
Sunshine.
To show you that I am not messing.
And this is the worst year in seven.
That's what really scares me.
It's only a seven year cycle.
Oh well, as one gets older, one has to live dangerously.
However that may manifest itself.
Happy Easter to everyone who knows what Michelmas means.
Sunshine.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Misery
I have spent ALL DAY trying to get through to the Leonard Cohen ticket line.
All I get is the engaged tone.
All I get is the engaged tone.
Friday, March 14, 2008
St. Patrick's Day
They are discussing Paddy's Day and all things Irish on CBC at the moment.
So they are interviewing Irish pub managers of course.
The interviewer just asked a guy 'what's the difference between SPD in Ireland and in Canada?'
'Oh, SPD is a holy day of obligation in Ireland. You usen't not be able to get a drink on SPD.'
I would have pointed out that it doesn't snow in Ireland on SPD, whereas in Canada it usually signals that big March storm that marks the end of the winter. We are looking at 35 cm this weekend, hooray not.
I wonder how many listeners know what a holy day of obligation means?
Really though, I am scratching my head at the enthusiasm with which Canadians approach SPD.
I mean, we don't celebrate Ukranian Day, despite the large Ukranian population in Alberta.
And Ukranians like to drink just as much as the next Irish man.
And Ukranians would probably know what a Holy Day of Obligation is.
'Tis strange.
But not to be sniffed at.
So they are interviewing Irish pub managers of course.
The interviewer just asked a guy 'what's the difference between SPD in Ireland and in Canada?'
'Oh, SPD is a holy day of obligation in Ireland. You usen't not be able to get a drink on SPD.'
I would have pointed out that it doesn't snow in Ireland on SPD, whereas in Canada it usually signals that big March storm that marks the end of the winter. We are looking at 35 cm this weekend, hooray not.
I wonder how many listeners know what a holy day of obligation means?
Really though, I am scratching my head at the enthusiasm with which Canadians approach SPD.
I mean, we don't celebrate Ukranian Day, despite the large Ukranian population in Alberta.
And Ukranians like to drink just as much as the next Irish man.
And Ukranians would probably know what a Holy Day of Obligation is.
'Tis strange.
But not to be sniffed at.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
At one with the universe. Finally.
So it snowed again last night. Well over six inches of meringue-like (I have tried to spell this word six times and nothing looks right) fluffy egg-white snow.
The trees were sooooo beautiful. Just covered in white, blueish-tinged in the new moon light.
And when I left work tonight it was almost gone.
I was too hot in my snow boots. So I wore my stilletoes home and didn't fall on my ass once.
Maybe if I am one with the weather it will become one with me and stop snowing.
We didn't get the kids for March break.
SWWBMF called a few weeks back and said she needed a break.
Could we take the kids?
Sure.
I booked the time off.
Come time to get the kids, SWWBMF had changed her mind.
Lucky I have an understanding work environment.
I should start charging for my stories about why I am constantly changing my leave arrangements.
Anyways, we didn't bother to complain.
Maybe if we become one with the universe of SWWBMF the universe of SWWBMF would stop spinning.
I am going to bet myself the pair of shoes I won recently and a nice new top that it will stop snowing first.
Going to the island for the Paddy's Day party.
Better get my party piece ready.
The trees were sooooo beautiful. Just covered in white, blueish-tinged in the new moon light.
And when I left work tonight it was almost gone.
I was too hot in my snow boots. So I wore my stilletoes home and didn't fall on my ass once.
Maybe if I am one with the weather it will become one with me and stop snowing.
We didn't get the kids for March break.
SWWBMF called a few weeks back and said she needed a break.
Could we take the kids?
Sure.
I booked the time off.
Come time to get the kids, SWWBMF had changed her mind.
Lucky I have an understanding work environment.
I should start charging for my stories about why I am constantly changing my leave arrangements.
Anyways, we didn't bother to complain.
Maybe if we become one with the universe of SWWBMF the universe of SWWBMF would stop spinning.
I am going to bet myself the pair of shoes I won recently and a nice new top that it will stop snowing first.
Going to the island for the Paddy's Day party.
Better get my party piece ready.
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Not about chirpy things so much as horny screaming ones
While we're on the subject of birds, The Old Man of the Sea, or Himself as he's usually referred to, tells me that he knows when spring's-a-comin' because the sea gulls sound different.
Apparently their calls change and sound all horny in the springtime.
Queenie, raised in an inland place where seagulls in the sky were so rare that the sight of them meant BIG WEATHER TROUBLE in the Irish Sea, thinks they sound the same all year round, but Himself knows a horny gull when he hears one.
The cry changed about a week ago, if you're at all interested in the sexual practices of Larus ridibundus, so spring's-a-comin'.
Even though the weatherman was quoted in the paper this week as saying he wouldn't put his snow shovel away until May, if he were him.
The level of nuance in the universe that Himself can read always amazes me.
Of course, my ability to remember to pay the bills on time every month amazes him.
It's all about what you're good at.
However, increasingly I feel I have gotten the shitty end of the talent stick.
I want to be able to sit on the couch and feel a small gust come in the sitting room window, just for a moment, and predict what time it's going to snow.
I want to be able to figure out what everyone on the island will be doing at the weekend, by the direction of the wind on Thursday.
I want to know what direction I am driving in the city. At all times.
Oh wait, that's right, I can now.
I have a new car.
Well a new to me car.
It has a compass in it.
I R vurry pleased with my new car.
Sorry, our new car.
A little brother for Albert.
Well, a honkin' big red 4WD brother.
Don't tell any of my green friends.
I called him The Beast.
I adore driving him. I don't care what the snotty bitch in the Prius mouthed at me the other day.
It's MY ROAD.
I'm so buying this bumper sticker.
Himself wants to put a lift kit in it. And he keeps checking out strange chrome objects online.
I think not. I don't know what a lift kit is, but it sounds too white trash even for me.
Apparently their calls change and sound all horny in the springtime.
Queenie, raised in an inland place where seagulls in the sky were so rare that the sight of them meant BIG WEATHER TROUBLE in the Irish Sea, thinks they sound the same all year round, but Himself knows a horny gull when he hears one.
The cry changed about a week ago, if you're at all interested in the sexual practices of Larus ridibundus, so spring's-a-comin'.
Even though the weatherman was quoted in the paper this week as saying he wouldn't put his snow shovel away until May, if he were him.
The level of nuance in the universe that Himself can read always amazes me.
Of course, my ability to remember to pay the bills on time every month amazes him.
It's all about what you're good at.
However, increasingly I feel I have gotten the shitty end of the talent stick.
I want to be able to sit on the couch and feel a small gust come in the sitting room window, just for a moment, and predict what time it's going to snow.
I want to be able to figure out what everyone on the island will be doing at the weekend, by the direction of the wind on Thursday.
I want to know what direction I am driving in the city. At all times.
Oh wait, that's right, I can now.
I have a new car.
Well a new to me car.
It has a compass in it.
I R vurry pleased with my new car.
Sorry, our new car.
A little brother for Albert.
Well, a honkin' big red 4WD brother.
Don't tell any of my green friends.
I called him The Beast.
I adore driving him. I don't care what the snotty bitch in the Prius mouthed at me the other day.
It's MY ROAD.
I'm so buying this bumper sticker.
Himself wants to put a lift kit in it. And he keeps checking out strange chrome objects online.
I think not. I don't know what a lift kit is, but it sounds too white trash even for me.
Chirpy things
While I was waiting for the coffee to drip into the coffee pot, I texted our mutual friend and told him about the door.
You went all Queenie on the door, did you, he replied. Go watch Eastern Promise, it'll make you feel better you know.
It's nice to know I'm an adjective to some people.
It's nice to know some people remember the little things about me.
That's the problem with the winter here. It's very isolating. Everyone just bunkers up for a couple of months and doesn't really go out.
So by week fourteen you just want to kill someone.
Then you wake up one morning and go outside and there it is....
Chirp, chirp, chirp.
OhMYGoD the birds are back! THE BIRDS ARE BACK!! HIMSELF, HIMSELF, WAKE UP DUDE, THE BIRDS ARE BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cue delighted crazy dance around the apartment as Himself confirms that yes, he too can hear the chirping so it is not in Queenie's head.
Then, later that day, it snows about half a foot.
So not only are you now having another fit because it is SNOWING AGAIN, but now you are freaking out about the poor ickle wickle chirpy birds freezing to death.
Himself assures me they won't but he can't provide any detailed information on exactly why that is.
So every morning starts with a straining out the window, just to make sure it's still there.
chirp, chirp, chirp.
You went all Queenie on the door, did you, he replied. Go watch Eastern Promise, it'll make you feel better you know.
It's nice to know I'm an adjective to some people.
It's nice to know some people remember the little things about me.
That's the problem with the winter here. It's very isolating. Everyone just bunkers up for a couple of months and doesn't really go out.
So by week fourteen you just want to kill someone.
Then you wake up one morning and go outside and there it is....
Chirp, chirp, chirp.
OhMYGoD the birds are back! THE BIRDS ARE BACK!! HIMSELF, HIMSELF, WAKE UP DUDE, THE BIRDS ARE BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cue delighted crazy dance around the apartment as Himself confirms that yes, he too can hear the chirping so it is not in Queenie's head.
Then, later that day, it snows about half a foot.
So not only are you now having another fit because it is SNOWING AGAIN, but now you are freaking out about the poor ickle wickle chirpy birds freezing to death.
Himself assures me they won't but he can't provide any detailed information on exactly why that is.
So every morning starts with a straining out the window, just to make sure it's still there.
chirp, chirp, chirp.
Any chance of another blogpost?
I just have to put on another pot of coffee first.
I don't know whether to be annoyed or pleased when I get these requests. I mean, it's a full life, lying around watching the weather channel and moaning about how crap and meaningless the winter months are. I don't have time to be typing chirpy reports on how my thirties are going. Having said that, the fact that anyone actually reads this stuff is mildly reassuring: I may be slowly losing my mind, but I can apparently still describe it in reasonably interesting ways.
Someone mailed me the other day to say they had read my whole blog.
In one day.
They have that type of job, apparently.
In the interest of seeing what that would look like, I flicked back a bit.
The shame.....
Self-Indulgent wittering R US
Nevermind.
It's my self-indulgent wittering.
Anyways, I will put the coffee on now. And think about something chirpy to write about.
I don't know whether to be annoyed or pleased when I get these requests. I mean, it's a full life, lying around watching the weather channel and moaning about how crap and meaningless the winter months are. I don't have time to be typing chirpy reports on how my thirties are going. Having said that, the fact that anyone actually reads this stuff is mildly reassuring: I may be slowly losing my mind, but I can apparently still describe it in reasonably interesting ways.
Someone mailed me the other day to say they had read my whole blog.
In one day.
They have that type of job, apparently.
In the interest of seeing what that would look like, I flicked back a bit.
The shame.....
Self-Indulgent wittering R US
Nevermind.
It's my self-indulgent wittering.
Anyways, I will put the coffee on now. And think about something chirpy to write about.
Women's Day how are ya
First of all, let me wish all the women in my life a very happy International Women's Day, particularly those of you who don't get to have a Mother's Day or a Valentine's Day (which is hugely over-rated anyways, IWD is much better I think).
I told Himself the other day that Saturday would be IWD and due to the fact that I have banned Valentine's Day flowers, I would like some flowers on Saturday (which he will have forgotten by now, having the memory of a guppie fish these days), and he said 'International Women's Day, eh? When's International Men's Day?'
I replied that the other 365 days of this year are IMD and he was not to be such a smartass on Saturday if he knew what was best for him.
He didn't think that was fair.
He should try having a womb.
Anyways, he's not even here to bring me breakfast in bed this morning because he was up at six am and gone off to do a First Aid course before I could come to enough to say 'FLOWERS!!!'
Then he has to go and fix a boiler or something. Because he has to drive it to Pictou County next week to boil stuff at a powerplant or something equally hellish-sounding.
But he's still going to be back in time to take me out tonight.
Yeah.
I won't be passing out from holding my breath today for sure.
He will try his damnedest to take me out tonight though, because he was at the receiving end of my annual 'when is the effing winter going to end' fit this week. So obviously, I need to be brought out to a place where there are other people and waiters and musicians and all the trappings of civilised existence before I gnaw my restraints off and go for him again.
It's been a bad winter.
WhaddoImean, been.
It's still winter for twelve more days.
I met a friend on the street the other day. He said 'how are you doing?' I did the Nova Scotia winter blues shuffle, 'hmmm, you know', pained smile, looking at the ground.
Me too, he said. He said he asked a mutual friend (who is the most Irish Canadian Irish person I have ever met) the other day, if he was in that mood.
Our mutual friend said: 'where I want to kill someone, just to watch them die? Yep.'
That sort of sums it up for me.
My friend said 'everyone's in such a bad mood, we should just put everyone in a room, get them all roaring drunk and just have a big fight, get it all out of our system'.
I suddenly realised that's why we have Paddy's Day in March. Unfortunately, I have to go to work on SPD this year.
You gotta take your opportunities where you can find them.
Last night I came home to find I had locked myself out and as Himself was up to his eyes in boilering stuff for the foreseeable, I squeezed out through my neighbours exit hatch, climbed down the fire escape and ripped our fire door off its hinges with my bare hands to get in.
Boy did that feel good.
After the feeling came back into my fingers.
I told Himself the other day that Saturday would be IWD and due to the fact that I have banned Valentine's Day flowers, I would like some flowers on Saturday (which he will have forgotten by now, having the memory of a guppie fish these days), and he said 'International Women's Day, eh? When's International Men's Day?'
I replied that the other 365 days of this year are IMD and he was not to be such a smartass on Saturday if he knew what was best for him.
He didn't think that was fair.
He should try having a womb.
Anyways, he's not even here to bring me breakfast in bed this morning because he was up at six am and gone off to do a First Aid course before I could come to enough to say 'FLOWERS!!!'
Then he has to go and fix a boiler or something. Because he has to drive it to Pictou County next week to boil stuff at a powerplant or something equally hellish-sounding.
But he's still going to be back in time to take me out tonight.
Yeah.
I won't be passing out from holding my breath today for sure.
He will try his damnedest to take me out tonight though, because he was at the receiving end of my annual 'when is the effing winter going to end' fit this week. So obviously, I need to be brought out to a place where there are other people and waiters and musicians and all the trappings of civilised existence before I gnaw my restraints off and go for him again.
It's been a bad winter.
WhaddoImean, been.
It's still winter for twelve more days.
I met a friend on the street the other day. He said 'how are you doing?' I did the Nova Scotia winter blues shuffle, 'hmmm, you know', pained smile, looking at the ground.
Me too, he said. He said he asked a mutual friend (who is the most Irish Canadian Irish person I have ever met) the other day, if he was in that mood.
Our mutual friend said: 'where I want to kill someone, just to watch them die? Yep.'
That sort of sums it up for me.
My friend said 'everyone's in such a bad mood, we should just put everyone in a room, get them all roaring drunk and just have a big fight, get it all out of our system'.
I suddenly realised that's why we have Paddy's Day in March. Unfortunately, I have to go to work on SPD this year.
You gotta take your opportunities where you can find them.
Last night I came home to find I had locked myself out and as Himself was up to his eyes in boilering stuff for the foreseeable, I squeezed out through my neighbours exit hatch, climbed down the fire escape and ripped our fire door off its hinges with my bare hands to get in.
Boy did that feel good.
After the feeling came back into my fingers.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Nepotism - when do I get my turn?
Dear Baz:
You're my brother and you write for the Guardian.
I see they are giving out free paid blogging trips to the Far East to people who are related to people who write for the Guardian.
That's me, dude!
I am a little confused though, do I have to have written for Skins to qualify for the trip?
Maybe you could just lie and tell them that I have.
I have read a lot of travel books though.
Anyways, I'd quite like a three month trip to Skull Island or Craggy Island or Cicely, Alaska, or the Yukon maybe, anywhere really where there's no chance of meeting hordes of aviator-wearing, skinny jeaned yoof.
Thanks, Baz, I owe you one.
Your sister Queenie
xx
P.S. I will still respect the Guardian if I get this gig.
P.P.S. Did they fire that idiot travel editor yet? Or was it his boss made him do it?
P.P.P.S. If they didn't, maybe you could remind him - first rule of the hole is, put the shovel down.
P.P.P.S. Don't tell the Queen Parents, they're dead set against nepotism.
You're my brother and you write for the Guardian.
I see they are giving out free paid blogging trips to the Far East to people who are related to people who write for the Guardian.
That's me, dude!
I am a little confused though, do I have to have written for Skins to qualify for the trip?
Maybe you could just lie and tell them that I have.
I have read a lot of travel books though.
Anyways, I'd quite like a three month trip to Skull Island or Craggy Island or Cicely, Alaska, or the Yukon maybe, anywhere really where there's no chance of meeting hordes of aviator-wearing, skinny jeaned yoof.
Thanks, Baz, I owe you one.
Your sister Queenie
xx
P.S. I will still respect the Guardian if I get this gig.
P.P.S. Did they fire that idiot travel editor yet? Or was it his boss made him do it?
P.P.P.S. If they didn't, maybe you could remind him - first rule of the hole is, put the shovel down.
P.P.P.S. Don't tell the Queen Parents, they're dead set against nepotism.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Just slow the hell down, guys
Queenie drove 750 kilometres yesterday. It was a long drive, interspaced with meetings, but a long drive in solitude. A long drive in solitude generally results in a long think.
Yesterday was a long drive in varying winter driving conditions - terrifying black ice conditions in complete darkness along the airport highway, a long, slow dawn up towards Truro, the brightening sky streaming rose pink shadows onto the snow covered landscape, more black ice, then wind and blowing snow on the hills near Pictou, passing an accident near Exit 21, a woman sitting weeping in her car as the police try to pull her out of a snowbank.
I do this driving because I live here now and I have to learn. I don't take any risks and today I am not driving to Amherst because the forecast is bad and Himself said no.
I think that Himself is a little protective of me driving and I probably would have made it, but the deal is that if Himself says no I don't go.
Normally I don't pay much attention to other people's views on stuff or let other people dictate my actions, but in this case if I ignore his request and travel, he would spend all day worrying about me and waiting for text messages to say that I have reached pre-agreed milestones safely.
I suppose part of loving someone involves compromise so they don't spend their day worrying about you for no reason apart from the fact that you are a stubborn git who takes work too seriously.
Commitment to work = good; injury or death because of it = egotistical stupidity.
Also, it is an intelligent choice to listen to the advice of a local who drives for a living and who is spending the winter clearing snow so that people can drive safely, so who knows what he is talking about.
Also it is the anniversary of the day I could have died on the same road while a passenger in another vehicle. With a much more experienced driver.
The portents were all telling me the same thing.
But yesterday was different as the forecast was progressively better rather than worse.
Finally, around nine am, brilliant sunshine emerged to etch the landscape onto my eye all through Guysborough County. The sunshine made it easier to go off-highway onto snow-covered roads into Sherbrooke, warmed up the road during a slippery drive along the riverbank to my last meeting, and finally, I turned for home, driving three hours into a deep orange sunset along the Eastern Shore. So bright I couldn't see the winding road.
A lotta scary moments. A lotta impatient drivers overtaking me when they shouldn't have.
A lotta thinking.
Life is so precious. Why are people in such a hurry? Why do people insist on taking such risks? Do they not stop to think about the cost of a mistake in these circumstances?
What about my life? Do they have the right to make that decision if it affects me?
I don't think so.
I don't think they have the right to make the choice for themselves, because everyone has someone who is worrying about them on the road somewhere.
I want to pay special tribute to the nice driver from Seaboard's who overtook me at 160kph near the airport in complete darkness, with black ice, zero visibility and blowing snow from the lake.
Thanks dude.
Your backwash sprayed my mirror with icy slush that my wipers couldn't get rid of.
I had to pull over on the AIRPORT HIGHWAY where nobody dares to pull off because the lanes are so confusing.
I had to spend three minutes finding the stupid hazard lights in the stupid dark in the stupid hire car, praying nobody would thump into me.
I had to get out of the car in minus 12 temperatures ON THE HIGHWAY IN THE DARK and clean my windshield off with my lunchbag because the cleaner brush couldn't get the crud off my car, it was so encrusted with the oily dirt from your badly kept wheels.
I had to sit back into the car with the heater on ROAR for five minutes so I could actually feel my foot enough to put it back on the accelerator.
I had to talk myself into pulling back out onto the road. "Queenie, you can't spend the rest of your life on the highway, so you may as well go somewhere there is coffee at least."
Who the hell do you think you are?
And thanks to the Eisener driver who did the same thing about twenty miles later.
Thanks to the companies that cut back on drivers so that these guys face impossible deadlines and consequently do this to other people.
And thanks to the people who have 'surveillance cameras' on that highway that everyone knows are empty so that they don't have to pay cops to put up speed traps.
I hate the airport highway.
Ironically, it is the Veterans Highway. A big sign at either end solemnly says: Lest we forget.
It should be renamed, Lest we be five minutes late.
As I mentioned, I spent time thinking about the choices people make.
Pretty dark thinking all round all day, but that was because I spent most of the day thinking about the way loss is forced on some people.
Life is always precious but sometimes you lose people you just shouldn't lose yet. I spent a lotta time yesterday thinking about one such person, a neighbour who passed away a few weeks ago. I have not been thinking about her death much, because I still can't believe she is gone. I cannot believe that her family have to go through this loss and go through it without her.
She was such a force of life. She literally was a sunbeam. Her smile was the epicentre of that sunbeam. Every picture I have of her in my head, pictures stretching back thirty four years, to when I was a toddler and she was about seven, are of her smiling.
Even yesterday, with all day to think about it, coming to terms with the fact that she is gone on such a beautiful beautiful beautiful day was almost impossible.
Maybe she was somewhere in the cosmos, helping the dawn turn the snow rose pink with her smile ...
Maybe ...
Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there. I did not die.
Yesterday was a long drive in varying winter driving conditions - terrifying black ice conditions in complete darkness along the airport highway, a long, slow dawn up towards Truro, the brightening sky streaming rose pink shadows onto the snow covered landscape, more black ice, then wind and blowing snow on the hills near Pictou, passing an accident near Exit 21, a woman sitting weeping in her car as the police try to pull her out of a snowbank.
I do this driving because I live here now and I have to learn. I don't take any risks and today I am not driving to Amherst because the forecast is bad and Himself said no.
I think that Himself is a little protective of me driving and I probably would have made it, but the deal is that if Himself says no I don't go.
Normally I don't pay much attention to other people's views on stuff or let other people dictate my actions, but in this case if I ignore his request and travel, he would spend all day worrying about me and waiting for text messages to say that I have reached pre-agreed milestones safely.
I suppose part of loving someone involves compromise so they don't spend their day worrying about you for no reason apart from the fact that you are a stubborn git who takes work too seriously.
Commitment to work = good; injury or death because of it = egotistical stupidity.
Also, it is an intelligent choice to listen to the advice of a local who drives for a living and who is spending the winter clearing snow so that people can drive safely, so who knows what he is talking about.
Also it is the anniversary of the day I could have died on the same road while a passenger in another vehicle. With a much more experienced driver.
The portents were all telling me the same thing.
But yesterday was different as the forecast was progressively better rather than worse.
Finally, around nine am, brilliant sunshine emerged to etch the landscape onto my eye all through Guysborough County. The sunshine made it easier to go off-highway onto snow-covered roads into Sherbrooke, warmed up the road during a slippery drive along the riverbank to my last meeting, and finally, I turned for home, driving three hours into a deep orange sunset along the Eastern Shore. So bright I couldn't see the winding road.
A lotta scary moments. A lotta impatient drivers overtaking me when they shouldn't have.
A lotta thinking.
Life is so precious. Why are people in such a hurry? Why do people insist on taking such risks? Do they not stop to think about the cost of a mistake in these circumstances?
What about my life? Do they have the right to make that decision if it affects me?
I don't think so.
I don't think they have the right to make the choice for themselves, because everyone has someone who is worrying about them on the road somewhere.
I want to pay special tribute to the nice driver from Seaboard's who overtook me at 160kph near the airport in complete darkness, with black ice, zero visibility and blowing snow from the lake.
Thanks dude.
Your backwash sprayed my mirror with icy slush that my wipers couldn't get rid of.
I had to pull over on the AIRPORT HIGHWAY where nobody dares to pull off because the lanes are so confusing.
I had to spend three minutes finding the stupid hazard lights in the stupid dark in the stupid hire car, praying nobody would thump into me.
I had to get out of the car in minus 12 temperatures ON THE HIGHWAY IN THE DARK and clean my windshield off with my lunchbag because the cleaner brush couldn't get the crud off my car, it was so encrusted with the oily dirt from your badly kept wheels.
I had to sit back into the car with the heater on ROAR for five minutes so I could actually feel my foot enough to put it back on the accelerator.
I had to talk myself into pulling back out onto the road. "Queenie, you can't spend the rest of your life on the highway, so you may as well go somewhere there is coffee at least."
Who the hell do you think you are?
And thanks to the Eisener driver who did the same thing about twenty miles later.
Thanks to the companies that cut back on drivers so that these guys face impossible deadlines and consequently do this to other people.
And thanks to the people who have 'surveillance cameras' on that highway that everyone knows are empty so that they don't have to pay cops to put up speed traps.
I hate the airport highway.
Ironically, it is the Veterans Highway. A big sign at either end solemnly says: Lest we forget.
It should be renamed, Lest we be five minutes late.
As I mentioned, I spent time thinking about the choices people make.
Pretty dark thinking all round all day, but that was because I spent most of the day thinking about the way loss is forced on some people.
Life is always precious but sometimes you lose people you just shouldn't lose yet. I spent a lotta time yesterday thinking about one such person, a neighbour who passed away a few weeks ago. I have not been thinking about her death much, because I still can't believe she is gone. I cannot believe that her family have to go through this loss and go through it without her.
She was such a force of life. She literally was a sunbeam. Her smile was the epicentre of that sunbeam. Every picture I have of her in my head, pictures stretching back thirty four years, to when I was a toddler and she was about seven, are of her smiling.
Even yesterday, with all day to think about it, coming to terms with the fact that she is gone on such a beautiful beautiful beautiful day was almost impossible.
Maybe she was somewhere in the cosmos, helping the dawn turn the snow rose pink with her smile ...
Maybe ...
Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there. I did not die.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Snow talk
There's no business, like snow business, like no business I know.....
We are in the snow business in our house these days.
It's kinda counter-intuitive but.
Normally when it snows it's all, hooray, snow, let's stay inside and watch tv and eat crap.
But now, I get to do that and Himself has to go out and plough the stuff away.
For which he gets paid. Which is good.
But which tends to happen at midnight and on weekends.
Not so good.
But I am becoming expert in all things snow-like.
Flurrie: A snow flurry is a snow fall of impossible to predict magnitude. For example, last night flurries result in almost a foot of the stuff being dumped on us. Previously, flurries used to mean a couple of cms.
Blowin' snow: Blowing snow means Himself will call you on your cell and order you back to Halifax when you're supposed to be going to Cape Breton. Thankfully too, because as I was driving down the hill to the carpark next to the office, I put my foot gently on the brake to stop the car.
AND IT DIDN'T.
hahahahahhaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
Not nice.
Snow drift: The stuff the weather puts in the middle of the highway to stop you from travelling over to the wrong side when you are in a snow-induced spin.
Snow day: day off when it is snowing. Queenie has had one since she moved to Canada. One is not enough for all the snow she has had to put up with.
We are in the snow business in our house these days.
It's kinda counter-intuitive but.
Normally when it snows it's all, hooray, snow, let's stay inside and watch tv and eat crap.
But now, I get to do that and Himself has to go out and plough the stuff away.
For which he gets paid. Which is good.
But which tends to happen at midnight and on weekends.
Not so good.
But I am becoming expert in all things snow-like.
Flurrie: A snow flurry is a snow fall of impossible to predict magnitude. For example, last night flurries result in almost a foot of the stuff being dumped on us. Previously, flurries used to mean a couple of cms.
Blowin' snow: Blowing snow means Himself will call you on your cell and order you back to Halifax when you're supposed to be going to Cape Breton. Thankfully too, because as I was driving down the hill to the carpark next to the office, I put my foot gently on the brake to stop the car.
AND IT DIDN'T.
hahahahahhaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
Not nice.
Snow drift: The stuff the weather puts in the middle of the highway to stop you from travelling over to the wrong side when you are in a snow-induced spin.
Snow day: day off when it is snowing. Queenie has had one since she moved to Canada. One is not enough for all the snow she has had to put up with.
Grammys, ECMAs, and other stuff
So Amy won the Grammys.
So what. We had the East Coast Music Awards on the same night in the Maritimes.
Much more important.
Joel Plaskett Emergency won all the prizes for a mediocre album about an ashtray.
Poor Wintersleep didn't win anything, despite the fact that the music journalist in town loves them.
Boo fucking hoo.
Reminds me so much of Ireland in the eighties when U2 won all the prizes.
Except of course, I liked U2.
I like neither of these acts.
God I wish I was somewhere where you could go to a gig in a heated venue that started before eleven.
More importantly, The Daily News is closing down today.
That is bad.
How can you have a first rate city with one newspaper?
Apparently, the Greater Halifax Partnership have taken to referring to Halifax as 'the new Dublin'.
Now there's a scary thought.
That would put me living beside the Red Cow Inn, where people get shot.
Oh, that's right, I live near Spryfield, where, er, people get shot.
But only sometimes.
Not as often as when I lived in Dublin.
Halifax is not the new Dublin.
Halifax is the old Dublin.
That's why I like Halifax.
Like the old Dublin, Halifax is a former colonial capital that has gone to seed due to the pull factor of Ontario and Alberta. Unlike Dublin, it is not the entry point to the lucrative EMEA markets and it doesn't have a dodgy tax break system that facilitates MNCs to set up shop here.
Its best hope is to become the Florida of the north.
We should send a flotilla of boats to Cuba and load up anyone interesting (shouldn't be too difficult, everyone here knows the way to Cuba), and then set the town on fire with a salsa beat.
Plus we'd have all those trained Cuban healthcare professionals to fill the jobs we will need filled.
(Apologies to Cubans by the way, I am not being insensitive to your culture, I am merely taking the piss out of the GHP)
Hey, we'd have fun at next year's ECMAs.
Incoming February bleughs alert.
May the existential crisis and unconnected ramblings time of the year begin.
So what. We had the East Coast Music Awards on the same night in the Maritimes.
Much more important.
Joel Plaskett Emergency won all the prizes for a mediocre album about an ashtray.
Poor Wintersleep didn't win anything, despite the fact that the music journalist in town loves them.
Boo fucking hoo.
Reminds me so much of Ireland in the eighties when U2 won all the prizes.
Except of course, I liked U2.
I like neither of these acts.
God I wish I was somewhere where you could go to a gig in a heated venue that started before eleven.
More importantly, The Daily News is closing down today.
That is bad.
How can you have a first rate city with one newspaper?
Apparently, the Greater Halifax Partnership have taken to referring to Halifax as 'the new Dublin'.
Now there's a scary thought.
That would put me living beside the Red Cow Inn, where people get shot.
Oh, that's right, I live near Spryfield, where, er, people get shot.
But only sometimes.
Not as often as when I lived in Dublin.
Halifax is not the new Dublin.
Halifax is the old Dublin.
That's why I like Halifax.
Like the old Dublin, Halifax is a former colonial capital that has gone to seed due to the pull factor of Ontario and Alberta. Unlike Dublin, it is not the entry point to the lucrative EMEA markets and it doesn't have a dodgy tax break system that facilitates MNCs to set up shop here.
Its best hope is to become the Florida of the north.
We should send a flotilla of boats to Cuba and load up anyone interesting (shouldn't be too difficult, everyone here knows the way to Cuba), and then set the town on fire with a salsa beat.
Plus we'd have all those trained Cuban healthcare professionals to fill the jobs we will need filled.
(Apologies to Cubans by the way, I am not being insensitive to your culture, I am merely taking the piss out of the GHP)
Hey, we'd have fun at next year's ECMAs.
Incoming February bleughs alert.
May the existential crisis and unconnected ramblings time of the year begin.
Snowbound so there's no excuse
I have been putting off writing in this blog for a while now. But a combination of the never-ending snow and a half-day with nothing to do, apart from shovel snow, means that really I should write on my blog today.
Sigh.
What to write about...
I see Macca and Heather are back in court for their divorce.
I am betting myself a new pair of shoes that Macca and Heather will be divorced before Himself and She Who Would be Married Forever.
Even though Himself and SWWBMF have been at it since 2004 and they've only been at it since 2006.
It constantly brings this famous case to mind:
Jarndyce and Jarndyce drones on.
This scarecrow of a suit has, in course of time, become so complicated that no man alive knows what it means. The parties to it understand it least, but it has been observed that no two Chancery lawyers can talk about it for five minutes without coming to a total disagreement as to all the premises.
Innumerable children have been born into the cause; innumerable old people have died out of it. Scores of persons have deliriously found themselves made parties in Jarndyce and Jarndyce without knowing how or why; whole families have inherited legendary hatreds with the suit.
The little plaintiff or defendant who was promised a new rocking-horse (or dirt bike, as we say in today's world) when Jarndyce and Jarndyce should be settled has grown up, possessed himself of a real horse (or Harley), and trotted away into the other world.
Fair wards of court have faded into mothers and grandmothers; a long procession of Chancellors has come in and gone out; the legion of bills in the suit have been transformed into mere bills of mortality; there are not three Jarndyces left upon the earth perhaps since old Tom Jarndyce in despair blew his brains out at a coffee-house in Chancery Lane; but Jarndyce and Jarndyce still drags its dreary length before the court, perennially hopeless.
Nevermind, as the delightful Kanye says, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger.
And of course disposing of the copious output from the lawyers is great for adding texture to the compost bin.
It's the little people who have to live in Bleak House I worry about.
Sigh.
What to write about...
I see Macca and Heather are back in court for their divorce.
I am betting myself a new pair of shoes that Macca and Heather will be divorced before Himself and She Who Would be Married Forever.
Even though Himself and SWWBMF have been at it since 2004 and they've only been at it since 2006.
It constantly brings this famous case to mind:
Jarndyce and Jarndyce drones on.
This scarecrow of a suit has, in course of time, become so complicated that no man alive knows what it means. The parties to it understand it least, but it has been observed that no two Chancery lawyers can talk about it for five minutes without coming to a total disagreement as to all the premises.
Innumerable children have been born into the cause; innumerable old people have died out of it. Scores of persons have deliriously found themselves made parties in Jarndyce and Jarndyce without knowing how or why; whole families have inherited legendary hatreds with the suit.
The little plaintiff or defendant who was promised a new rocking-horse (or dirt bike, as we say in today's world) when Jarndyce and Jarndyce should be settled has grown up, possessed himself of a real horse (or Harley), and trotted away into the other world.
Fair wards of court have faded into mothers and grandmothers; a long procession of Chancellors has come in and gone out; the legion of bills in the suit have been transformed into mere bills of mortality; there are not three Jarndyces left upon the earth perhaps since old Tom Jarndyce in despair blew his brains out at a coffee-house in Chancery Lane; but Jarndyce and Jarndyce still drags its dreary length before the court, perennially hopeless.
Nevermind, as the delightful Kanye says, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger.
And of course disposing of the copious output from the lawyers is great for adding texture to the compost bin.
It's the little people who have to live in Bleak House I worry about.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
The Joker will rule
Did I say The Joker?
I must have meant Batman.
Went to see I am Legend last night.
Yawn.
Dog lovers should avoid this film.
However, we did see a trailer for Batman: The Dark Knight.
This movie will be all about the Joker.
Brilliant characterisation, brilliant accent - so brilliant, we didn't even notice who was playing Batman.
Such a pity Mr. Ledger won't be around to hear the praise.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
The things your friends find for you to do...
Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
Queenie has finally sorted out the parameters of the 2007 mix for Inmyday.
Not that she was under any pressure, GOD NO, cds popping into the mail box every evening from people who have jobs AND children is not PRESSURE.
Nosireebob.
It just took a while to organise the potential tracks on the iTunes.
Finally, she did a smart list that was tracks added after 01/01/2007 and tracks added before 01/01/2008.
That only took a month to figure out.
Then she had to get the names of the tracks, having done something stupid to the iTunes so that it wouldn't 'get track names' for her. Everytime she tried it sent her a stupid message saying unable to connect to iTunes.
WTF?
I thought the whole point of iTunes and iPods etc was to force you to buy music.
With your shiny new Canaydyan credit card.
Nope.
The point is to make Queenie get in tune with her technology.
At least it's only every three years.
So, three hours, a disk defragmentation, the wholesale clear out of her hard disk and a download of the latest version of iTunes update later, we are ready to begin....
... I was just downloading Version 7.6 of iTunes when the door opened and the Himself who was supposed to be working till midnight walked in.
Shit.
No dinner (why bother with dinner when it's Tuesday, you've had a stressful day wowing the masses, there's an open bottle of wine, and no Himself).
Thankfully Himself is the kind of Himself who sees the lack of dinner on the table as an opportunity to cook dinner for the woman he loves.
He even washed a wine glass for me.
What did I do in a past life to deserve this man?
I must have brokered the peace treaty between the Chinese and the Parthians in the eleventh centurey, or something equally major.
Anyways, just as we were eating dinner, the phone rang and it was the weather saying, it's snowing again, come back to work, so off Himself went again until midnight so I will try to get this done.
Inmyday Music 2007 - Queenie's cd.
Well, I have 5.26 GB to choose from, but there are some issues.
Some of it I stole from Mr. Monkey's laptop when he was over during the summer.
I don't know if that counts.
Also, I spent a lot of this year trying to rebalance the emphasis on the iTunes from plinkity plink shite that Queenie listens to in favour of a little cock rock for Himself.
When we're having our Friday night chats we always end up having an argument about whether or not cock rock is a valid music genre.
Yes it is.
Cock rock is rock played by a band with a guitarist who plays with his guitar resting on his enormous cock, sung by a singer who sings while squeezing his equally enormous cock.
Yes it is.
So we will have some CR on the cd.
It's good for the soul, really it is.
But we'll start off mellow.
1. Cowboy Junkies, a lovely mellow cover of The Way I feel, from the Gordon Lightfoot tribute album, Beautiful.
In celebration of the fact that I am now supposed to be okay about GL.
Buy the album.
It rocks.
2. Yaser Habeeb, Elana.
From a $1 album I got at a yard sale, called Sahara Lounge. Vurry smooood.....
And cos I love yard sales.
3. Elliot Smith, Angel in the Snow.
'Cause I'm going out with one.
Ahhhhhhh...
Also, this is my most played song this year, with a whopping 27 plays according to the software that monitors your darkest moods and silliest parties.
The reason I play it so much is because I just think the guitar riff is the sweetest little complicated but simple little riff I've ever heard.
4. Burial, Archangel
This is my favourite album of 2007.
I found it on eMusic one day when I was really desperate to spend my 30 buys, it being the end of the month. As I mentioned in an earlier post, every song on this album reminds me of a band I used to listen to in the eighties. I wanted to put the whole album on the playlist, but I didn't for reasons of DE RULES (which took up about 37 emails - I love inmyday because we can have 76 emails about music and 3 about war on the same day. Or vice versa. Depending)
I put Archangel on because a) it is about angels, b) it is 5 star rated, and c) it is my most played 5 star on the album (see I did pay some attention to DE RULES).
5. Jimmi Hendrix, All Along the Watchtower
This was my first purchase in the attempt to balance the music collection. It didn't go down particularly well. It's not cock rocky enough, apparently.
I think it's pretty good.
And he wore very tight trousers.
Isn't it very similar to Archangel in a weird slowed down speeded up kinda way?!
6. Led Zeppelin, Whole Lotta Love
HOORAH!!!!!!!!!! COOOOOOOOOOOCK RAAAAAAAAAAAWK!
You need coolin'! de dum DUM de DUM de DUM de DUM DE DUM!
What an opening line!
On Friday nights, the cock rock argument usually stems from the 'if I were to walk down an aisle at some point in time, what would be the song' argument.
In a very frightening way, this CANNOT be dislodged from the top five.
Angels have a stubborn side to them.
I need someone to send me a cd of 'potential walk down the aisle songs if they were ever to be needed ever' real soon.
Otherwise the Queen Dad could be in a world of pain some day.
7. Radiohead, Weird Fishes, Arpeggio
This is the one I want.
It's Radiohead.
I can't do it to anything else.
This was a question on Canada's smartest people quiz Sunday night. Which band sold their album for what you can afford last year?
WTF? It's in the shops now.
That wasn't part of the deal, lads.
Anyways, let's stop for a moment and listen to the SONG OF 2007.
By the way, Zoom are flying to Nova Scotia from Belfast from the end of June to the end of September this year. Please form an orderly queue if you wish to recommend a particular week, bearing in mind that August and September are the best months. Also bearing in mind that Electric Picnic is on during Labour weekend so I need to know soon if people want to do both.
8. Patrick Watson, Drifters
I only discovered this guy this year. Actually this was the year of Watson, Cat Power, Elliot Smith and Erik Wollos. Four artists I had never heard of but am very glad that I have now, as they formed the spine of my listening.
Plus Tom Waits, as Mike, the neighbour who chose to abandon us, as did Kate and the kids and the dogs, gave me the complete works this summer.
Talk about giving a girl a doorway back to 1989....
9. Erik Wollo, Totem
I like this song, because it reminds me of our key joint learning pathway last year, which was a journey into the Aboriginal American experience. 2007 will be a key year in the Canadian history of dealing with 'the Aboriginal question' I think.
Many things happened.
Caledonia. The riots in the summer. The tension between the old guard, the recognised leaders, and the younger leaders coming up, who are sick of the same old same old.
Jim Prentice. Minister of Indian Affairs. A man who seemed to get it, but because he was competent (and ambitious I assume), he got moved to Industry. With disastrous results.
Payments for the industrial schools. Long conversations on the radio about how large cheques would result in drunkenness on reservations. And now everytime there is an accident, that's the reason.
The abandonment of the historic Kelowna Accord signed by the previous governments, along with everything else that was signed by them.
In the absence of being able to do anything, we watched a lot of movies on the issue and read some books.
I even read Germs, Guns and Steel.
I still don't get it.
10. Mavis Staples, Down in Missippi
For Barack. The day after MLK day.
God love him.
This was a great find. Staples was one of the singers that associated with MLK. Ry Cooder has rerecorded her hits, you can hear him in the background.
This is why I like Canada.
They might not get their own inequities.
But by God, they get the inequities in YankeeLand.
Ohyessirreebobtheydo.
11. Cat Power, Keep on Running
Because you have to, don't you.
Now we head into the difficult last couple of songs part of the cd.
There are about seven in the playlist, so I will have to cull...
Give me about twenty minutes to figure out what to delete and what to keep in and what order to put them in, etc.
Time passes.....
12. Okkervil River, Love to a Monster
Okkervil River beat Spoon, which is probably not right.
But it's past my bedtime.
And it's only Tuesday.
13. John Lee Hooker, Let's go out tonight
This is the first cd that Himself chose, bought and added to the online collection.
So let's stay in and listen to it.
Now, all I have to do is go buy enough cds to burn, envelopes, stamps, etc.
This weekend. I will.
Anyone else who wants one let me know.
I will burn twenty copies.
Note to self: I have already set up 2008's smart list.
I ain't going through all this again.
Night.
xx
Queenie has finally sorted out the parameters of the 2007 mix for Inmyday.
Not that she was under any pressure, GOD NO, cds popping into the mail box every evening from people who have jobs AND children is not PRESSURE.
Nosireebob.
It just took a while to organise the potential tracks on the iTunes.
Finally, she did a smart list that was tracks added after 01/01/2007 and tracks added before 01/01/2008.
That only took a month to figure out.
Then she had to get the names of the tracks, having done something stupid to the iTunes so that it wouldn't 'get track names' for her. Everytime she tried it sent her a stupid message saying unable to connect to iTunes.
WTF?
I thought the whole point of iTunes and iPods etc was to force you to buy music.
With your shiny new Canaydyan credit card.
Nope.
The point is to make Queenie get in tune with her technology.
At least it's only every three years.
So, three hours, a disk defragmentation, the wholesale clear out of her hard disk and a download of the latest version of iTunes update later, we are ready to begin....
... I was just downloading Version 7.6 of iTunes when the door opened and the Himself who was supposed to be working till midnight walked in.
Shit.
No dinner (why bother with dinner when it's Tuesday, you've had a stressful day wowing the masses, there's an open bottle of wine, and no Himself).
Thankfully Himself is the kind of Himself who sees the lack of dinner on the table as an opportunity to cook dinner for the woman he loves.
He even washed a wine glass for me.
What did I do in a past life to deserve this man?
I must have brokered the peace treaty between the Chinese and the Parthians in the eleventh centurey, or something equally major.
Anyways, just as we were eating dinner, the phone rang and it was the weather saying, it's snowing again, come back to work, so off Himself went again until midnight so I will try to get this done.
Inmyday Music 2007 - Queenie's cd.
Well, I have 5.26 GB to choose from, but there are some issues.
Some of it I stole from Mr. Monkey's laptop when he was over during the summer.
I don't know if that counts.
Also, I spent a lot of this year trying to rebalance the emphasis on the iTunes from plinkity plink shite that Queenie listens to in favour of a little cock rock for Himself.
When we're having our Friday night chats we always end up having an argument about whether or not cock rock is a valid music genre.
Yes it is.
Cock rock is rock played by a band with a guitarist who plays with his guitar resting on his enormous cock, sung by a singer who sings while squeezing his equally enormous cock.
Yes it is.
So we will have some CR on the cd.
It's good for the soul, really it is.
But we'll start off mellow.
1. Cowboy Junkies, a lovely mellow cover of The Way I feel, from the Gordon Lightfoot tribute album, Beautiful.
In celebration of the fact that I am now supposed to be okay about GL.
Buy the album.
It rocks.
2. Yaser Habeeb, Elana.
From a $1 album I got at a yard sale, called Sahara Lounge. Vurry smooood.....
And cos I love yard sales.
3. Elliot Smith, Angel in the Snow.
'Cause I'm going out with one.
Ahhhhhhh...
Also, this is my most played song this year, with a whopping 27 plays according to the software that monitors your darkest moods and silliest parties.
The reason I play it so much is because I just think the guitar riff is the sweetest little complicated but simple little riff I've ever heard.
4. Burial, Archangel
This is my favourite album of 2007.
I found it on eMusic one day when I was really desperate to spend my 30 buys, it being the end of the month. As I mentioned in an earlier post, every song on this album reminds me of a band I used to listen to in the eighties. I wanted to put the whole album on the playlist, but I didn't for reasons of DE RULES (which took up about 37 emails - I love inmyday because we can have 76 emails about music and 3 about war on the same day. Or vice versa. Depending)
I put Archangel on because a) it is about angels, b) it is 5 star rated, and c) it is my most played 5 star on the album (see I did pay some attention to DE RULES).
5. Jimmi Hendrix, All Along the Watchtower
This was my first purchase in the attempt to balance the music collection. It didn't go down particularly well. It's not cock rocky enough, apparently.
I think it's pretty good.
And he wore very tight trousers.
Isn't it very similar to Archangel in a weird slowed down speeded up kinda way?!
6. Led Zeppelin, Whole Lotta Love
HOORAH!!!!!!!!!! COOOOOOOOOOOCK RAAAAAAAAAAAWK!
You need coolin'! de dum DUM de DUM de DUM de DUM DE DUM!
What an opening line!
On Friday nights, the cock rock argument usually stems from the 'if I were to walk down an aisle at some point in time, what would be the song' argument.
In a very frightening way, this CANNOT be dislodged from the top five.
Angels have a stubborn side to them.
I need someone to send me a cd of 'potential walk down the aisle songs if they were ever to be needed ever' real soon.
Otherwise the Queen Dad could be in a world of pain some day.
7. Radiohead, Weird Fishes, Arpeggio
This is the one I want.
It's Radiohead.
I can't do it to anything else.
This was a question on Canada's smartest people quiz Sunday night. Which band sold their album for what you can afford last year?
WTF? It's in the shops now.
That wasn't part of the deal, lads.
Anyways, let's stop for a moment and listen to the SONG OF 2007.
By the way, Zoom are flying to Nova Scotia from Belfast from the end of June to the end of September this year. Please form an orderly queue if you wish to recommend a particular week, bearing in mind that August and September are the best months. Also bearing in mind that Electric Picnic is on during Labour weekend so I need to know soon if people want to do both.
8. Patrick Watson, Drifters
I only discovered this guy this year. Actually this was the year of Watson, Cat Power, Elliot Smith and Erik Wollos. Four artists I had never heard of but am very glad that I have now, as they formed the spine of my listening.
Plus Tom Waits, as Mike, the neighbour who chose to abandon us, as did Kate and the kids and the dogs, gave me the complete works this summer.
Talk about giving a girl a doorway back to 1989....
9. Erik Wollo, Totem
I like this song, because it reminds me of our key joint learning pathway last year, which was a journey into the Aboriginal American experience. 2007 will be a key year in the Canadian history of dealing with 'the Aboriginal question' I think.
Many things happened.
Caledonia. The riots in the summer. The tension between the old guard, the recognised leaders, and the younger leaders coming up, who are sick of the same old same old.
Jim Prentice. Minister of Indian Affairs. A man who seemed to get it, but because he was competent (and ambitious I assume), he got moved to Industry. With disastrous results.
Payments for the industrial schools. Long conversations on the radio about how large cheques would result in drunkenness on reservations. And now everytime there is an accident, that's the reason.
The abandonment of the historic Kelowna Accord signed by the previous governments, along with everything else that was signed by them.
In the absence of being able to do anything, we watched a lot of movies on the issue and read some books.
I even read Germs, Guns and Steel.
I still don't get it.
10. Mavis Staples, Down in Missippi
For Barack. The day after MLK day.
God love him.
This was a great find. Staples was one of the singers that associated with MLK. Ry Cooder has rerecorded her hits, you can hear him in the background.
This is why I like Canada.
They might not get their own inequities.
But by God, they get the inequities in YankeeLand.
Ohyessirreebobtheydo.
11. Cat Power, Keep on Running
Because you have to, don't you.
Now we head into the difficult last couple of songs part of the cd.
There are about seven in the playlist, so I will have to cull...
Give me about twenty minutes to figure out what to delete and what to keep in and what order to put them in, etc.
Time passes.....
12. Okkervil River, Love to a Monster
Okkervil River beat Spoon, which is probably not right.
But it's past my bedtime.
And it's only Tuesday.
13. John Lee Hooker, Let's go out tonight
This is the first cd that Himself chose, bought and added to the online collection.
So let's stay in and listen to it.
Now, all I have to do is go buy enough cds to burn, envelopes, stamps, etc.
This weekend. I will.
Anyone else who wants one let me know.
I will burn twenty copies.
Note to self: I have already set up 2008's smart list.
I ain't going through all this again.
Night.
xx
Friday, January 18, 2008
Let the crapness begin (and may I learn to embrace it)
So, it's Friday afternoon and there is a rainstorm outside in which Himself is travelling in Albert to the Island for the weekend. Queenie is home alone apart from the wretched bacterium that is ravaging her bronchial tubes, making her sweat and cough and wheeze and pant in a shallow manner reminiscent of a hot dog (as in sweltering animal, not weiner) due to the pain in her chest when she breathes.
No doubt it is the teenage mutant cousin of the bacterium that tried to fell her over Christmas and failed.
It is not going to fail this weekend.
I am felled.
Alone I sit, in layers of Himself's comfiest fleece jumpers and socks (at least they didn't abandon me), the last bag of Tayto's in the house lying empty on the desk beside the laptop, the weekend disappearing in a haze of ice-white rain and greenish-yellow phlegm.
Think positive, Queenie, think positive.
Positive Thought No. 1
Himself forgot to bring back the dvds so I can watch Eastern Promises again and watch the Viggo running naked round a Turkish bath knifing Russian mobsters scene as many times as I like without any jealous sulking going on in the kitchen.
Himself accidentally on purpose realised he needed my full attention for the duration of the scene the first time I watched the movie.
I should never have told him the only competition in the world for my affections he needs to ever worry about is VM.
The fact that he appears to take the threat somewhat seriously is of course the best form of defence he could muster.
Bless him. He knows me so well.
Positive Thought No. 2
I have a Creme Egg I forgot to eat yesterday.
I was in my local Needs Convenience Store the other day buying Creme Eggs and I remarked to the guy behind the counter that he must hate Creme Egg season because they are so difficult to swipe with the price reader, being all wrapped in crinkly paper.
He looked at me in a kind of vaguely joyous way when I said it because I think he thought that he was the problem.
The store stank of weed, d'ya see.
Positive Thought No. 3
I have already done the doctor thing and gotten the kick ass antibiotics so I am to be better by Sunday and I don't have to figure out how to get to the doctors in the freezing rain.
Not that I didn't appreciate the antibiotics I got at Christmas.
Positive Thought No. 4
I remembered to go to the ATM, so if I ever feel the inclination to eat food that is not crisps or chocolate, I can just call the Chinese. Or the gourmet pizza place.
Positive Thought No. 5
Sick people can't do housework. It's best if they just lie around and read books and write in their blog.
No doubt it is the teenage mutant cousin of the bacterium that tried to fell her over Christmas and failed.
It is not going to fail this weekend.
I am felled.
Alone I sit, in layers of Himself's comfiest fleece jumpers and socks (at least they didn't abandon me), the last bag of Tayto's in the house lying empty on the desk beside the laptop, the weekend disappearing in a haze of ice-white rain and greenish-yellow phlegm.
Think positive, Queenie, think positive.
Positive Thought No. 1
Himself forgot to bring back the dvds so I can watch Eastern Promises again and watch the Viggo running naked round a Turkish bath knifing Russian mobsters scene as many times as I like without any jealous sulking going on in the kitchen.
Himself accidentally on purpose realised he needed my full attention for the duration of the scene the first time I watched the movie.
I should never have told him the only competition in the world for my affections he needs to ever worry about is VM.
The fact that he appears to take the threat somewhat seriously is of course the best form of defence he could muster.
Bless him. He knows me so well.
Positive Thought No. 2
I have a Creme Egg I forgot to eat yesterday.
I was in my local Needs Convenience Store the other day buying Creme Eggs and I remarked to the guy behind the counter that he must hate Creme Egg season because they are so difficult to swipe with the price reader, being all wrapped in crinkly paper.
He looked at me in a kind of vaguely joyous way when I said it because I think he thought that he was the problem.
The store stank of weed, d'ya see.
Positive Thought No. 3
I have already done the doctor thing and gotten the kick ass antibiotics so I am to be better by Sunday and I don't have to figure out how to get to the doctors in the freezing rain.
Not that I didn't appreciate the antibiotics I got at Christmas.
Positive Thought No. 4
I remembered to go to the ATM, so if I ever feel the inclination to eat food that is not crisps or chocolate, I can just call the Chinese. Or the gourmet pizza place.
Positive Thought No. 5
Sick people can't do housework. It's best if they just lie around and read books and write in their blog.
Monday, January 14, 2008
How many people do you meet in the course of a lifetime?
I often see people in the street who remind me of people I had forgotten I knew.
Today, I was standing at the bus stop when a Germanic-looking woman with long blonde hair, a crocheted cloche and a big back pack walked past. I immediately thought of a German woman I knew in Trinity who looked and dressed the same.
I couldn't remember her name. And when I tried to trace the memory back through other people, I couldn't remember their names either.
Then I shrugged it off - currently I am meeting so many new people, due to a new job, that I am obviously deleting old records.
But then I got to thinking... how many people does the average person meet in his or her lifetime?
Yahoo questions didn't know.
Google didn't know.
Wiki didn't know.
Say you took an average of one person a day (or is that too few? some days I meet twenty people and some days none, so I'd say one or two).
Say two people a day. Because of my lifestyle and profession.
By meet I mean introduced to. Had at least three sentences of dialogue with.
Multiply that by the days in your life when you're conscious of meeting people, so in my case that would be 34 years X 365 days + 8 Leap Year days = 4,529,650 days X 2 people.
That's 9,059,300 so far.
Maybe just one.
Even if it's just one - that's 4.5 million people.
That's the population of Ireland.
No wonder I had to move to Canada!
I really should stop worrying what people think of me.
They're far too busy trying to remember everyone's name!
Today, I was standing at the bus stop when a Germanic-looking woman with long blonde hair, a crocheted cloche and a big back pack walked past. I immediately thought of a German woman I knew in Trinity who looked and dressed the same.
I couldn't remember her name. And when I tried to trace the memory back through other people, I couldn't remember their names either.
Then I shrugged it off - currently I am meeting so many new people, due to a new job, that I am obviously deleting old records.
But then I got to thinking... how many people does the average person meet in his or her lifetime?
Yahoo questions didn't know.
Google didn't know.
Wiki didn't know.
Say you took an average of one person a day (or is that too few? some days I meet twenty people and some days none, so I'd say one or two).
Say two people a day. Because of my lifestyle and profession.
By meet I mean introduced to. Had at least three sentences of dialogue with.
Multiply that by the days in your life when you're conscious of meeting people, so in my case that would be 34 years X 365 days + 8 Leap Year days = 4,529,650 days X 2 people.
That's 9,059,300 so far.
Maybe just one.
Even if it's just one - that's 4.5 million people.
That's the population of Ireland.
No wonder I had to move to Canada!
I really should stop worrying what people think of me.
They're far too busy trying to remember everyone's name!
When to say stop
Those of you who know Queenie know that I can put up with a lot of crap from people.
Particularly if they are of the type who have to live on welfare for a while, or even forever, for whatever reason. They get enough crap from the system, they shouldn't get any from me.
But there are two things that can happen that tap into a righteously vicious side of me that I really don't like.
One is if I catch them stealing from me.
The other is if they try to get me to waste energy for their convenience.
So the Neighbour and the Lover are with child.
I am happy for them, really I am.
I'm glad all the shrieking we have to listen to paid off.
So I got a long note telling me to put the heat on Full all day and all night from now on because of the pregnancy and the sore back and the other child who comes to visit. By some freakish twist of fate, her heating is controlled from our apartment's zone.
Because good neighbours help each other out.
And if I was too hot I could open a window, which would be nice.
NICE?!
Christ I am so mad...
We are so hot now that we have three windows open - in Canada in January - and still the place is like an oven all the time.
And all that oil is just blowing out the window into the atmosphere.
Gaaaaah!
I thought being pregnant made your internal core warmer?
Particularly if they are of the type who have to live on welfare for a while, or even forever, for whatever reason. They get enough crap from the system, they shouldn't get any from me.
But there are two things that can happen that tap into a righteously vicious side of me that I really don't like.
One is if I catch them stealing from me.
The other is if they try to get me to waste energy for their convenience.
So the Neighbour and the Lover are with child.
I am happy for them, really I am.
I'm glad all the shrieking we have to listen to paid off.
So I got a long note telling me to put the heat on Full all day and all night from now on because of the pregnancy and the sore back and the other child who comes to visit. By some freakish twist of fate, her heating is controlled from our apartment's zone.
Because good neighbours help each other out.
And if I was too hot I could open a window, which would be nice.
NICE?!
Christ I am so mad...
We are so hot now that we have three windows open - in Canada in January - and still the place is like an oven all the time.
And all that oil is just blowing out the window into the atmosphere.
Gaaaaah!
I thought being pregnant made your internal core warmer?
Monday, January 07, 2008
Say Hello Wave Goodbye
Well, there was a trip undertaken at the speed of light if ever there was one.
Months and weeks spent thinking about going home and now I'm back already.
I had to clear a whole shelf on the bookcase for all the books that Santy brought me this year. And somehow I have managed to bring home two copies of Colin Thubron's In the Shadow of the Silk Road, so apologies to whoever I accidentally stole a copy from.
You may have it back upon receipt of proof that you actually own it and care about it.
Nearly everything made it back to Nova Scotia in one piece except for a lovely sculpture that Eileen and Stevo gave me that has one little chip in it. It will be lovingly fixed as soon as I get my hands on some superglue.
Of course I forgot Andrew and Myles' birthdays as usual.
Happy Birthday guys.
Off to cook supper now and shall resume blogging later.
Months and weeks spent thinking about going home and now I'm back already.
I had to clear a whole shelf on the bookcase for all the books that Santy brought me this year. And somehow I have managed to bring home two copies of Colin Thubron's In the Shadow of the Silk Road, so apologies to whoever I accidentally stole a copy from.
You may have it back upon receipt of proof that you actually own it and care about it.
Nearly everything made it back to Nova Scotia in one piece except for a lovely sculpture that Eileen and Stevo gave me that has one little chip in it. It will be lovingly fixed as soon as I get my hands on some superglue.
Of course I forgot Andrew and Myles' birthdays as usual.
Happy Birthday guys.
Off to cook supper now and shall resume blogging later.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
It's started again.
The random need to sob.
FFS.
Well only three point five days to holidays and nothing done.
Nothing.
Of course, Scotiabank didn't help.
Scotiabank.
The bank that likes to say 'fuck off you presumptuous little immigrant, coming here stealing our jobs and men, and then on top of that, expecting twenty first century banking procedures.'
FFS.
Well only three point five days to holidays and nothing done.
Nothing.
Of course, Scotiabank didn't help.
Scotiabank.
The bank that likes to say 'fuck off you presumptuous little immigrant, coming here stealing our jobs and men, and then on top of that, expecting twenty first century banking procedures.'
Saturday, December 08, 2007
The new green Grinch
I was reading an article in The Globe and Mail the other day about the new green grinch, who is a nasty type of new person stalking the planet, stealing Christmas from everyone else by moaning about consumerism and packaging and waste, etc.
Ahaaaa, Queenie thought, so that's what I am!!
I knew there'd be a label for it somewhere.
My grinchiness is deeper than my greenness however. My greenness is just a mask for a far deeper flaw.
I am just a grinch at heart.
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
The Queen Dad texted me this week.
'Don't buy me a Christmas present. I am not buying any this year. Dad'
Okey dokey.
Firstly, I am flying home to be with you for Christmas, oh grinchmeister, so that's your flippin' present.
I'm sure he'd come up with some smart ass reply to that if he actually read my blog.
Secondly, if he had thought his daughter's grinchiness through correctly, he would have known that I have already bought the Queen Dad his Christmas present, so that I could read it before I had to wrap it.
Which is what I always do.
And furthermore, he would have guessed that I got it in Doull's.
Which is even grinchier.
It being the second hand book store par excellence in Halifax.
But actually, I bought it there because I'll never find it again.
It being a hard to find copy of the first novel by one of our favourites. And Doull's being a place that's hard to find books in. Despite it being a bookstore.
But that's okay.
I'll just keep it.
Or give it to someone else.
Who doesn't even like this writer.
This is my point.
I hate buying Christmas presents.
Unless I wake up one morning and realise that I have thought of the perfect present and then I have to go out and hunt it down.
Then I love Christmas shopping.
But that day when you have to head out into the cold with a list of people and NO FRIGGIN' IDEA what to buy any of them.....
I hate that.
So I have been staring at my list for what seems like forever. Trying to think of the right present.
And I had only managed to buy two. Two spectacularly correct presents for the people for whom they were purchased.
I was really proud of both of them.
And one of them doesn't want it now.
I hate Christmas shopping.
One of the columnists in The Coast was talking about how difficult it was for her this year, because she's having 'a year of not buying anything new', so she has to make all her gifts.
It got me thinking.
I was thinking of trying a year of not buying anything new.
I discussed it with Himself last night.
'Dude, I think we should do a year of not buying anything new, what do you think?'
Himself was turning over potatoes from the new bag of PEI roosters, trying to find the best two bakers for supper, so he wasn't really concentrating.
'Well, what do you mean?'
'Well, we don't buy anything new for a year. Apart from food. And liquor. So if we need something we have to find it second-hand. And then we help save the planet.'
'But that's what we do normally, isn't it?'
I considered this. Having had the finances relatively stable for a while, I had noticed that my purchasing of never used items had crept up a little. Particularly with regard to clothes.
And shoes.
When I got my new job I treated myself to two pairs of the cutest damned shoes in the world. As a reward for all my hard work.
Well, we buy new clothes.
I don't.
Yes you do.
Only when you make me, and I have enough now to do me for three years.
I voiced the opinion then that maybe I should stop buying new clothes.
But women have to buy new clothes. So they'll look nice.
Don't you just love this guy!
And he's right. We engage in very little consumption.
So maybe I'm as green grinch as it gets.
But I still have to do the Christmas shopping.
Better go get ready.
Ahaaaa, Queenie thought, so that's what I am!!
I knew there'd be a label for it somewhere.
My grinchiness is deeper than my greenness however. My greenness is just a mask for a far deeper flaw.
I am just a grinch at heart.
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
The Queen Dad texted me this week.
'Don't buy me a Christmas present. I am not buying any this year. Dad'
Okey dokey.
Firstly, I am flying home to be with you for Christmas, oh grinchmeister, so that's your flippin' present.
I'm sure he'd come up with some smart ass reply to that if he actually read my blog.
Secondly, if he had thought his daughter's grinchiness through correctly, he would have known that I have already bought the Queen Dad his Christmas present, so that I could read it before I had to wrap it.
Which is what I always do.
And furthermore, he would have guessed that I got it in Doull's.
Which is even grinchier.
It being the second hand book store par excellence in Halifax.
But actually, I bought it there because I'll never find it again.
It being a hard to find copy of the first novel by one of our favourites. And Doull's being a place that's hard to find books in. Despite it being a bookstore.
But that's okay.
I'll just keep it.
Or give it to someone else.
Who doesn't even like this writer.
This is my point.
I hate buying Christmas presents.
Unless I wake up one morning and realise that I have thought of the perfect present and then I have to go out and hunt it down.
Then I love Christmas shopping.
But that day when you have to head out into the cold with a list of people and NO FRIGGIN' IDEA what to buy any of them.....
I hate that.
So I have been staring at my list for what seems like forever. Trying to think of the right present.
And I had only managed to buy two. Two spectacularly correct presents for the people for whom they were purchased.
I was really proud of both of them.
And one of them doesn't want it now.
I hate Christmas shopping.
One of the columnists in The Coast was talking about how difficult it was for her this year, because she's having 'a year of not buying anything new', so she has to make all her gifts.
It got me thinking.
I was thinking of trying a year of not buying anything new.
I discussed it with Himself last night.
'Dude, I think we should do a year of not buying anything new, what do you think?'
Himself was turning over potatoes from the new bag of PEI roosters, trying to find the best two bakers for supper, so he wasn't really concentrating.
'Well, what do you mean?'
'Well, we don't buy anything new for a year. Apart from food. And liquor. So if we need something we have to find it second-hand. And then we help save the planet.'
'But that's what we do normally, isn't it?'
I considered this. Having had the finances relatively stable for a while, I had noticed that my purchasing of never used items had crept up a little. Particularly with regard to clothes.
And shoes.
When I got my new job I treated myself to two pairs of the cutest damned shoes in the world. As a reward for all my hard work.
Well, we buy new clothes.
I don't.
Yes you do.
Only when you make me, and I have enough now to do me for three years.
I voiced the opinion then that maybe I should stop buying new clothes.
But women have to buy new clothes. So they'll look nice.
Don't you just love this guy!
And he's right. We engage in very little consumption.
So maybe I'm as green grinch as it gets.
But I still have to do the Christmas shopping.
Better go get ready.
The wrong end of the schtick
So some poor pretty Irish girl who wanted to be a celebrity so much she became one of those famous for being famous people took too much cocaine and died.
Along with the other two people who took too much cocaine at a twenty first party in Waterford a few weeks back, and died this week.
And apparently some actor called Tom Murphy earlier this year (I hope it's not the Tom Murphy I know), who died of an overdose.
Not to mention all the non-famous for dying of cocaine overdosing people who will die this year.
Shouldn't we be talking about who sold them the frickin' cocaine, instead of wondering what it all means for the dying embers of the tiger?
Mr. Newspaperman?
Along with the other two people who took too much cocaine at a twenty first party in Waterford a few weeks back, and died this week.
And apparently some actor called Tom Murphy earlier this year (I hope it's not the Tom Murphy I know), who died of an overdose.
Not to mention all the non-famous for dying of cocaine overdosing people who will die this year.
Shouldn't we be talking about who sold them the frickin' cocaine, instead of wondering what it all means for the dying embers of the tiger?
Mr. Newspaperman?
Saturday, December 01, 2007
The end of the beginning
From Saturday
That's what today feels like.
Last night I went downstairs for supper with my neighbour. Himself stayed home as he thought it was going to snow and he would have to run a snow plough in the middle of the night. So he wanted to get some sleep.
Sleep has been in short supply in this house for a bit.
Queenie is a little concerned that when she gets to Ireland all she and Himself will want to do is sleep for two weeks.
Anyways, Queenie got home about one and was in a lovely deep sleep when the Snow Plough Cell from Hell rang loudly and Himself fell out of bed to answer it.
Wrong number.
Ah well.
Himself got up at four anyways and went to do his Snicking (something to do with ice and salt and carparks).
Isn't it FANTASTIC that November is over and it's December today.
December's exciting news is that Queenie has to work out her notice in the Tree House for two weeks, then start her new job, then go to Ireland for two weeks.
Today, Thursday
Well, it stopped snowing eventually on Monday and Himself got home eventually around midnight, and then had to go back in to work four hours later, but not before I told him that I had watched The National and it said it would be the worst winter in fourteen years or something equally horrible, so I guess this will be the winter of not enough sleep.
This month marks the end of the beginning of the Canada adventure.
Roll on the middle bit.
May it be taut and muscular and life-enhancing!
That's what today feels like.
Last night I went downstairs for supper with my neighbour. Himself stayed home as he thought it was going to snow and he would have to run a snow plough in the middle of the night. So he wanted to get some sleep.
Sleep has been in short supply in this house for a bit.
Queenie is a little concerned that when she gets to Ireland all she and Himself will want to do is sleep for two weeks.
Anyways, Queenie got home about one and was in a lovely deep sleep when the Snow Plough Cell from Hell rang loudly and Himself fell out of bed to answer it.
Wrong number.
Ah well.
Himself got up at four anyways and went to do his Snicking (something to do with ice and salt and carparks).
Isn't it FANTASTIC that November is over and it's December today.
December's exciting news is that Queenie has to work out her notice in the Tree House for two weeks, then start her new job, then go to Ireland for two weeks.
Today, Thursday
Well, it stopped snowing eventually on Monday and Himself got home eventually around midnight, and then had to go back in to work four hours later, but not before I told him that I had watched The National and it said it would be the worst winter in fourteen years or something equally horrible, so I guess this will be the winter of not enough sleep.
At least I just get woken up and can go back to sleep. He's the one who has to get up and go out in the freezing cold at four am.
I am definitely getting the better half of the deal.
Speaking of terrible news on the radio, CBC are talking about a longitudinal study this morning, undertaken in the States. Apparently if you get laid off when you're in your forties your life expectation is reduced by a number of years.
Due to the stress of financial and emotional meltdown.
Well, there's a big surprise.
I wonder, if you have the same kind of meltdown due to the breakdown of your marriage with consequent poverty and emotional stress, whether the same results will ensue.
Another study on the radio news this morning says that if you have a big ass it doesn't matter so long as you are fit. It's is only a big belly that is a problem.
Apparently.
I spend my time wondering who sponsors these studies.
The belly-reducing stretch-o-rope people this morning, no doubt.
Anyways, Queenie is not worried about her life expectancy, or her health, or anything at the moment.This month marks the end of the beginning of the Canada adventure.
Roll on the middle bit.
May it be taut and muscular and life-enhancing!
Andrew's an Auld Dog
Andrew's a stranger in a not-very-strange land. He's been living in London for just over two years now, and recently took the quite-rare decision to stop letting things slide and set up a time by which he'll start talks about talks about growing up.I've learned later than I should have that form is not content - just because what someone is saying to you now has the same informational payload as what they might have said before, it doesn't mean they're just repeating themselves.
I've learned that an interest in what's going on and a willingness to lend a hand will get you pretty far into any scene, but those things plus really memorable hair will get you further. I haven't learned what happens when I go back to the usual, or how much I'm worried that, Samson like, the hair is the star.
I've learned that you don't need to have a perfect match with a girl before making a move - a lesson that the rest of the human race learned not long after the one about how if you leave these gourds out in the sun, they taste FANTASTIC. Then again, I've also learned that an honest heart and simple desire will get you so far, but not compared with that plus three pints of cider in you.
I've learned that you have no idea what's happening until it's passed: my best friend the first year I was here, I met by going out to a gig. The reason that I went out to the gig was that I'd posted something asking my then-circle of friends if anyone was going to a pub of a Friday evening, and received no response. So I went out anyway, and met a new friend, and was still so convinced that the weekend was a washout that I threw a very undignified strop at my friends on the Monday.
I've learned that most people act as if they have no idea that the world existed before they were born, or will continue after they die. For example, the convulsions amongst record companies about the modern state of record sales, contrasted with the fact that my grandfather who passed away this year can remember a time before there was ever a prospect of people making money from someone selling recordings of their music. But people assume that because the flow of history was in a particular shape when they arrived, they have a divine right to pin it to there by any means necessary. The clearest projection of this view into the future is the refusal of anyone to believe that we have an effect on the environment. It was like that when we found it! Just let it walk it off for a few minutes, everything'll be grand. The specific attitude of certain fundamentalist Christians not unadjacent to the White House on this is particularly galling.
I learned early on that there was love in the world. My parents taught me that, and so many other things that I didn't notice while I was shoving books in front of my face as fast as possible. It's kept me better than anything I was learning at the time.
I have learned that there are people who like my writing, who can form an attachment to it unconnected to actually knowing me. I still find this a little hard to believe, and expect them to just wander away at some point.
I've come to believe that compatible senses of humour are the largest part of a connection between people. Even one that's unidirectional -I can't think of any artists that I feel a connection but find unfunny.
I've learned that I'm tougher than I thought, and unless I'm mistaken, tougher than almost everyone else thought as well.
I've learned that I should have talked to Queenie more when we were in the same city.
Auld Dog is an intermittent column on this blog, where people offer their pearls of wisdom for the rest of us to ponder. If you would like to be an Auld Dog, send 600 - 700 words of wisdom, along with a bio and photo (or I'll write/ pick them) to auld.dog@gmail.com and I'll post it here.
Monday, November 26, 2007
A blast from the past: and they say the Left used to be hardline!
This is an excerpt from a document I am reading from 1999, from a leading business organisation in the city of Halifax.
"An important consideration, in any case, is the meaning of 'a job'. To a considerable extent political discourse over the past 50 years has classifed jobs as a commodity. Jobs are 'saved' or 'lost', with the underlying belief that the retention of each existing job is a significant social benefit.
It could not be farther from the truth. Jobs are not an output. With land and capital they are one of the three basic inputs to every production process. It is the objective of every manager interested in effective production - whether they are in the public or the private sector - to reduce all of these inputs. To do otherwise is to waste resources.
The use of too many people to produce a product or service displaces resources that could be applied to beneficial purposes. It usually also increases the use of the other inputs such as land and resources. This has environmental consequences."
I do love it when the chamber of commerce worries about the environment.
"An important consideration, in any case, is the meaning of 'a job'. To a considerable extent political discourse over the past 50 years has classifed jobs as a commodity. Jobs are 'saved' or 'lost', with the underlying belief that the retention of each existing job is a significant social benefit.
It could not be farther from the truth. Jobs are not an output. With land and capital they are one of the three basic inputs to every production process. It is the objective of every manager interested in effective production - whether they are in the public or the private sector - to reduce all of these inputs. To do otherwise is to waste resources.
The use of too many people to produce a product or service displaces resources that could be applied to beneficial purposes. It usually also increases the use of the other inputs such as land and resources. This has environmental consequences."
I do love it when the chamber of commerce worries about the environment.
Friday, November 23, 2007
Red carpet: six
6. Ireland is at the end of the cycle, and Nova Scotia is at the beginnning of the cycle.
So there is something amazing that we could create together if we just sat down for an hour and talked about it.
I have to find a way to say this without saying the name of a place that they can't drive to.
So there is something amazing that we could create together if we just sat down for an hour and talked about it.
I have to find a way to say this without saying the name of a place that they can't drive to.
Music
The Burial album Untrue is very good.
Fuck, I hope I'm right about this.
I love the journeys it takes me on.
They're very eighties I find.
The echo in it reminds me of stuff I used to listen to.
Etched Headplate is so Prince for example.
Fuck, I hope I'm right about this.
I love the journeys it takes me on.
They're very eighties I find.
The echo in it reminds me of stuff I used to listen to.
Etched Headplate is so Prince for example.
Roll out the red carpet: five
Well, why should I do all the thinking?
What do you think?
Therein lies the question.
The workin' man here doesn't want us because he's just at the point where there's such a need for increased productivity that maybe, just maybe, the bossman might consider giving him a proper raise....
.... and there's the payment on the satellite radio in the truck...
... and the truck payment of course...
... and the Golf...
... and the four wheeler...
... and the new kitchen...
... and the fishing camp...
... that means the Home Depot card...
... and the Canadian Tire...
... and the PC card...
Why is there not an NDP card or a Liberal card?
Anyways, I think us immigrants are going to find ourselves in the midst of the battle for the hearts and minds of the workers.
I am happy to sit it out. It might prove interesting enough to be congratulated for surviving it.
I sure as hell aren't going to invite my friends over any more though.
And I'm not voting for more health spending.
What do you think?
Therein lies the question.
The workin' man here doesn't want us because he's just at the point where there's such a need for increased productivity that maybe, just maybe, the bossman might consider giving him a proper raise....
.... and there's the payment on the satellite radio in the truck...
... and the truck payment of course...
... and the Golf...
... and the four wheeler...
... and the new kitchen...
... and the fishing camp...
... that means the Home Depot card...
... and the Canadian Tire...
... and the PC card...
Why is there not an NDP card or a Liberal card?
Anyways, I think us immigrants are going to find ourselves in the midst of the battle for the hearts and minds of the workers.
I am happy to sit it out. It might prove interesting enough to be congratulated for surviving it.
I sure as hell aren't going to invite my friends over any more though.
And I'm not voting for more health spending.
Back to the red carpet.
4. Maybe you should treat your own workers well.
Then they'd tell other people to come here.
That's how it works by the way.
Then they'd tell other people to come here.
That's how it works by the way.
Red carpets: off-carpet
Well, I tidied a bit. And opened a bottle of wine. And I shall eat eventually I imagine.
And I am listening to music.
On my own.
I am reading a Paul Theroux paperback at the moment. I keep finding these 1980s classics that I never read when I was young.
This one is his trip around the British Isles. By foot and train. It was before Thatcher got rid of the trains.
Everyone was in a state of panic. The Falkland War was on.
Jonathan Raban wrote one at the same time. From the sea. And they met for lunch in Brighton.
And it all looked really calm from the sea.
And Theroux keeps wondering why everyone stands looking out to sea.
And he's so paranoid you know he's wondering if they're waiting for Raban.
It's a brilliant juxtaposition.
And I am listening to music.
On my own.
I am reading a Paul Theroux paperback at the moment. I keep finding these 1980s classics that I never read when I was young.
This one is his trip around the British Isles. By foot and train. It was before Thatcher got rid of the trains.
Everyone was in a state of panic. The Falkland War was on.
Jonathan Raban wrote one at the same time. From the sea. And they met for lunch in Brighton.
And it all looked really calm from the sea.
And Theroux keeps wondering why everyone stands looking out to sea.
And he's so paranoid you know he's wondering if they're waiting for Raban.
It's a brilliant juxtaposition.
Rolling out the Red Carpet
This shall be my theme this weekend.
Yes, I have decided to have a theme.
Maybe that would force me to blog through guilt.
The pr company that my recent boss recently absconded to with all the knowledge of the Justice portfolio and gas regulation and other things (damned knowledge workers and their portable brains) is asking people how Nova Scotian businesses should roll out the red carpet for immigrants.
I thought I should come up with a few ideas.
I shall be mulling it over the weekend.
Here's a couple of starters.
1. Pay us properly.
2. No? In lieu of that, gissa chance at getting the jammy jobs. Why should they all go to well-connected locals with funny college rings on their fingers?
3. No? In lieu of that, don't promote Nova Scotia for its quality of life and then work us to death.
Queenie goes off to tidy up, eat, open a bottle of wine for to continue mulling.
Yes, I have decided to have a theme.
Maybe that would force me to blog through guilt.
The pr company that my recent boss recently absconded to with all the knowledge of the Justice portfolio and gas regulation and other things (damned knowledge workers and their portable brains) is asking people how Nova Scotian businesses should roll out the red carpet for immigrants.
I thought I should come up with a few ideas.
I shall be mulling it over the weekend.
Here's a couple of starters.
1. Pay us properly.
2. No? In lieu of that, gissa chance at getting the jammy jobs. Why should they all go to well-connected locals with funny college rings on their fingers?
3. No? In lieu of that, don't promote Nova Scotia for its quality of life and then work us to death.
Queenie goes off to tidy up, eat, open a bottle of wine for to continue mulling.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
It's safe to go back on the road now.
I sent an email around work on Thursday morning, saying I was going home with some work I have to get done by Monday, and mentioning that I was doing my driving test at 3.30pm, so not to call me then.
"And we should all probably stay off the road then too", was the smartass reply from one of my colleagues.
Haha.
Well, it's safe to go back on the road now because I passed my test.
It was actually pretty easy. Or it would have been if I had been able to breathe normally during the test. As it was, I took every opportunity at a traffic light to try to release my death grip on the steering wheel and breathe out from the pit of my stomach, so that I would breathe in again and not pass out from lack of oxygen.
While I was waiting in the test centre, a young girl came in to do her test. She was wearing a pair of denim shorts, fishnet thigh high stockings and a pair of white runners.
Attagirl.
I remember when I wore stuff like that.
Not in a Canadian November of course. Nor for my driving test.
But in the absence of large jangly earrings (for to ensure the tester knows you are looking at the mirrors) it was a show stopper.
The tester didn't know what to look at.
She passed her test of course.
I waited and waited and eventually a smallish man bundled in an enormous anorak, with a buzz cut and the kind of messed up face that would get him a role as the nasty drill sergeant in an edgy war movie came out and said 'Queenie?'.
Damn.
Turns out appearances are deceptive.
He had a South Shore accent, which is a mellifluous hillbilly type affair with just a hint of German in it and which I love. So that helped a little.
He checked my lights and brakes and indicators and horn and then he sat in with his big anorak squashing me into the side of the car, opened the window and said 'now we'll go straight out.'
I was parked nose to nose with a Lexus at a ninety degree angle to the two possible exit roads so I knew straight out was not literally what he meant.
Nova Scotians are nothing if not vague about directions. You go down to Cape Breton from Halifax. I go up to Cape Breton. I have had two hour rows with Cape Bretoners over this. You go up to Windsor. I go over. You go along the shore. I go up or down. You always go down the Valley. I go to the Valley and then down. Or up. Depending on where I'm starting from.
So I just asked, even though I wasn't supposed to talk to him. He waved vaguely in the direction of the road with the enormous puddle in it. The one with the blind spot and the sharp turn left and the ridiculous right of way system.
Great. I was sure it would have been the other one. I had even parked the car so I could easily reverse out to the other side.
I gingerly put the car in reverse and started backing out to the left, which I can't do properly, thinking, well, if I get past this bit without him writing on the sheet he had hidden by his enormous anorak I'm sorted.
Halfway through the nightmare of getting out of the carpark, turning left onto the feeder road, trying to figure out whether I could drive on the left to get past the puddle, gunning her through and up the hill, he swept his hand under the anorak and scribbled something.
Damn.
It was 3.45pm so it was rush hour in Halifax.
We did a lot of queuing for lights and I had to do the left hand turn onto Connaught from Chebucto which is a Kamikaze turn during a gap in the traffic at the best of times, then some more driving around Halifax's key arterial roads, changing lanes between the hurtling SUVs and then he directed me into a residential area and got me to park along the kerb.
Empty kerb mind. No cars to park between like in Ireland. Except there were so many leaves on the side of the road you couldn't actually see the grass kerb.
Not that that bothered a girl who learned how to parallel park with her father and assorted farmers/ vets/ assistants/ office staff and neighbours standing around with their arms folded and big grins on their faces every time.
After I parked he said good.
I nearly died of shock. It wasn't that good. Just straight and flush to the kerb, like it's supposed to be.
The Queen Father would have been proud.
"Now, we'll start again", he said, "this is your hill start."
It was almost flat. Dundrum Hill it wasn't. I had a brief memory flash of my first test, trying to hill start the Charade on Dundrum Hill with an enormous instructor and a broken clutch (which I didn't realise at the time) before I put failure OUT of MY MIND and drove through a four way stop without even realising it was there.
Double damn.
Then we tootled back onto the main road and back to the carpark, where I reversed parked the car assways into the slot twice, leaving no room on the passenger side either side because I can't get used to turning my head right to reverse. I had a third try in reserve, but I had had enough at that point, so I just gave up and turned off the engine.
"You might want to throw your eye over your shoulder occasionally, check your blind spots, just using the mirrors isn't enough", he said in his kind voice.
"And you didn't use your indicator on that first turn off."
"But that's alright now, there you go now, take this inside and give it to them."
I stared at him beseechingly.
"You've passed."
"Oh, thank you thank you thank you."
He smiled and opened the door the four inches I had left on his side and squeezed himself and his enormous anorak out and hobbled off.
I texted Himself.
Then I texted the Queen Mother.
Then I called the office and said it was safe to go back on the road.
Then I went to the liquor store and bought something to restore my nerves.
Boy am I glad that is over.
I ain't emigrating anywhere else ever again.
"And we should all probably stay off the road then too", was the smartass reply from one of my colleagues.
Haha.
Well, it's safe to go back on the road now because I passed my test.
It was actually pretty easy. Or it would have been if I had been able to breathe normally during the test. As it was, I took every opportunity at a traffic light to try to release my death grip on the steering wheel and breathe out from the pit of my stomach, so that I would breathe in again and not pass out from lack of oxygen.
While I was waiting in the test centre, a young girl came in to do her test. She was wearing a pair of denim shorts, fishnet thigh high stockings and a pair of white runners.
Attagirl.
I remember when I wore stuff like that.
Not in a Canadian November of course. Nor for my driving test.
But in the absence of large jangly earrings (for to ensure the tester knows you are looking at the mirrors) it was a show stopper.
The tester didn't know what to look at.
She passed her test of course.
I waited and waited and eventually a smallish man bundled in an enormous anorak, with a buzz cut and the kind of messed up face that would get him a role as the nasty drill sergeant in an edgy war movie came out and said 'Queenie?'.
Damn.
Turns out appearances are deceptive.
He had a South Shore accent, which is a mellifluous hillbilly type affair with just a hint of German in it and which I love. So that helped a little.
He checked my lights and brakes and indicators and horn and then he sat in with his big anorak squashing me into the side of the car, opened the window and said 'now we'll go straight out.'
I was parked nose to nose with a Lexus at a ninety degree angle to the two possible exit roads so I knew straight out was not literally what he meant.
Nova Scotians are nothing if not vague about directions. You go down to Cape Breton from Halifax. I go up to Cape Breton. I have had two hour rows with Cape Bretoners over this. You go up to Windsor. I go over. You go along the shore. I go up or down. You always go down the Valley. I go to the Valley and then down. Or up. Depending on where I'm starting from.
So I just asked, even though I wasn't supposed to talk to him. He waved vaguely in the direction of the road with the enormous puddle in it. The one with the blind spot and the sharp turn left and the ridiculous right of way system.
Great. I was sure it would have been the other one. I had even parked the car so I could easily reverse out to the other side.
I gingerly put the car in reverse and started backing out to the left, which I can't do properly, thinking, well, if I get past this bit without him writing on the sheet he had hidden by his enormous anorak I'm sorted.
Halfway through the nightmare of getting out of the carpark, turning left onto the feeder road, trying to figure out whether I could drive on the left to get past the puddle, gunning her through and up the hill, he swept his hand under the anorak and scribbled something.
Damn.
It was 3.45pm so it was rush hour in Halifax.
We did a lot of queuing for lights and I had to do the left hand turn onto Connaught from Chebucto which is a Kamikaze turn during a gap in the traffic at the best of times, then some more driving around Halifax's key arterial roads, changing lanes between the hurtling SUVs and then he directed me into a residential area and got me to park along the kerb.
Empty kerb mind. No cars to park between like in Ireland. Except there were so many leaves on the side of the road you couldn't actually see the grass kerb.
Not that that bothered a girl who learned how to parallel park with her father and assorted farmers/ vets/ assistants/ office staff and neighbours standing around with their arms folded and big grins on their faces every time.
After I parked he said good.
I nearly died of shock. It wasn't that good. Just straight and flush to the kerb, like it's supposed to be.
The Queen Father would have been proud.
"Now, we'll start again", he said, "this is your hill start."
It was almost flat. Dundrum Hill it wasn't. I had a brief memory flash of my first test, trying to hill start the Charade on Dundrum Hill with an enormous instructor and a broken clutch (which I didn't realise at the time) before I put failure OUT of MY MIND and drove through a four way stop without even realising it was there.
Double damn.
Then we tootled back onto the main road and back to the carpark, where I reversed parked the car assways into the slot twice, leaving no room on the passenger side either side because I can't get used to turning my head right to reverse. I had a third try in reserve, but I had had enough at that point, so I just gave up and turned off the engine.
"You might want to throw your eye over your shoulder occasionally, check your blind spots, just using the mirrors isn't enough", he said in his kind voice.
"And you didn't use your indicator on that first turn off."
"But that's alright now, there you go now, take this inside and give it to them."
I stared at him beseechingly.
"You've passed."
"Oh, thank you thank you thank you."
He smiled and opened the door the four inches I had left on his side and squeezed himself and his enormous anorak out and hobbled off.
I texted Himself.
Then I texted the Queen Mother.
Then I called the office and said it was safe to go back on the road.
Then I went to the liquor store and bought something to restore my nerves.
Boy am I glad that is over.
I ain't emigrating anywhere else ever again.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Another milestone...
In another milestone in Queenie's 'my early adult years were so great I did them twice, albeit with less fun the second time' current phase, today I am doing my driving test.
Those of you who know me know how stressful this is.
When I found out that I would have to do my driver's test again in order to function in Canada I nearly went home to Ireland.
Then I successfully avoided driving for two years.
Then I thought I'd pull the old 'driving on the provisional' stunt for another while. No luck. The provisional only lasts for thirty days if you're a come from away with a licence from another country.
So at three thirty today I will head down to Mumford and face the greatest of my fears. Again.
My hands are shaking so much I can hardly type.
Himself says I'm a good driver and not to worry. Also, I have the 3.30 slot, so buddy will want to go home and view me as a definite pass.
'You won't even get out of the carpark', he said to me last night as I was curled in a foetal ball of fear on the dining room floor.
If I was buddy, I'd throw the book of hard things in the test at me. Just to see how they teach people how to drive in Ireland.
Because I'd know what everyone else seems to have forgotten.
Queenie learned to drive on the wrong side of the road all those years ago.
You try to reverse parallel park a flippin' Ford Taurus estate backwards.
The Queen Father taught me to reverse before he taught me to drive. Therefore my reversing reflexes are innate and unreversable. Therefore, I always turn my head to the LEFT when I reverse.
WHICH IS THE WRONG WAY OF COURSE.
I woke up at four am this morning and lay awake turning my head to the right to try to imprint it on my brain.
It just feels wrong.
Ah well....
Hopefully, in a few hours I will have a Nova Scotia driver's licence and I will finally finally finally be done with this immigration business.
It's been a long, winding road, with me driving on the wrong side the whole way.
Those of you who know me know how stressful this is.
When I found out that I would have to do my driver's test again in order to function in Canada I nearly went home to Ireland.
Then I successfully avoided driving for two years.
Then I thought I'd pull the old 'driving on the provisional' stunt for another while. No luck. The provisional only lasts for thirty days if you're a come from away with a licence from another country.
So at three thirty today I will head down to Mumford and face the greatest of my fears. Again.
My hands are shaking so much I can hardly type.
Himself says I'm a good driver and not to worry. Also, I have the 3.30 slot, so buddy will want to go home and view me as a definite pass.
'You won't even get out of the carpark', he said to me last night as I was curled in a foetal ball of fear on the dining room floor.
If I was buddy, I'd throw the book of hard things in the test at me. Just to see how they teach people how to drive in Ireland.
Because I'd know what everyone else seems to have forgotten.
Queenie learned to drive on the wrong side of the road all those years ago.
You try to reverse parallel park a flippin' Ford Taurus estate backwards.
The Queen Father taught me to reverse before he taught me to drive. Therefore my reversing reflexes are innate and unreversable. Therefore, I always turn my head to the LEFT when I reverse.
WHICH IS THE WRONG WAY OF COURSE.
I woke up at four am this morning and lay awake turning my head to the right to try to imprint it on my brain.
It just feels wrong.
Ah well....
Hopefully, in a few hours I will have a Nova Scotia driver's licence and I will finally finally finally be done with this immigration business.
It's been a long, winding road, with me driving on the wrong side the whole way.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Ian was right and Queenie was wrong
Not for the first time.
M.I.A. is a most excellent album.
It just takes a while to get used to it.
M.I.A. is a most excellent album.
It just takes a while to get used to it.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
The problem with a public diary...
... is that there are things you want to write about and you can't write about them, because so and so might read it and they can't know the thing yet.
If you get my drift.
So most of the stuff I want to write about at the moment I can't.
Which is why I'm not blogging.
Which is a pain in the ass.
So I told Himself I had to blog tonight or die, and He said, well don't write about the thing I was going to do but I didn't because **** might read it and he'd be annoyed.
Well, great then, I won't write about anything so.
OKaY, everyone has to stop reading my blog now before I implode under the strain of not sorting out how I feel about majorly important stuff in my life that I can't blog about because someone might read it and get annoyed.
I could just write in code....
Time passes while Queenie tries to come up with a code.
Well, Himself and I decided to do something really cool. And that was great for about ten seconds. And then the thing that always comes up and bites us in the ass when we try to make a forward move in that area of our lives came up and bit us in the ass again.
So we're on hold with the excited enthusiasm at the moment.
Also, the reaction from some people was all about them. When in fact it's all about me and Himself.
So they're not coming to the thing I can't talk about.
Are ye wit' me?
It's supposed to snow on Sunday.
Am I allowed to talk about snow, dear?
Yes, dear.
Snow is boring.
I got exciting new snow boots though. Goldy-brown zip ups with a fetching fur mid-shin tassle and two fake fur bobbles.
I'm very glad I'm in my thirties and get to wear them with jeans and a warm coat and not with a micro mini and a tee-shirt which is how all the young gamine things wear them now.
Himself is listening to CNN and I just yelled out 'I can't listen to that SHIT anymore and I realise that he's asleep.
FFS - I have been listening to racist bullshit for half an hour for no reason.
If you get my drift.
So most of the stuff I want to write about at the moment I can't.
Which is why I'm not blogging.
Which is a pain in the ass.
So I told Himself I had to blog tonight or die, and He said, well don't write about the thing I was going to do but I didn't because **** might read it and he'd be annoyed.
Well, great then, I won't write about anything so.
OKaY, everyone has to stop reading my blog now before I implode under the strain of not sorting out how I feel about majorly important stuff in my life that I can't blog about because someone might read it and get annoyed.
I could just write in code....
Time passes while Queenie tries to come up with a code.
Well, Himself and I decided to do something really cool. And that was great for about ten seconds. And then the thing that always comes up and bites us in the ass when we try to make a forward move in that area of our lives came up and bit us in the ass again.
So we're on hold with the excited enthusiasm at the moment.
Also, the reaction from some people was all about them. When in fact it's all about me and Himself.
So they're not coming to the thing I can't talk about.
Are ye wit' me?
It's supposed to snow on Sunday.
Am I allowed to talk about snow, dear?
Yes, dear.
Snow is boring.
I got exciting new snow boots though. Goldy-brown zip ups with a fetching fur mid-shin tassle and two fake fur bobbles.
I'm very glad I'm in my thirties and get to wear them with jeans and a warm coat and not with a micro mini and a tee-shirt which is how all the young gamine things wear them now.
Himself is listening to CNN and I just yelled out 'I can't listen to that SHIT anymore and I realise that he's asleep.
FFS - I have been listening to racist bullshit for half an hour for no reason.
I'm no better nor worse than the others
...who profess to be bloggers and who don't update their blogs.
Although some of them aren't because they are in Italy writing novels, or dealing with plumbing emergencies, or in hospital, or vanished off the face of the earth pretty much (AMMONITE - where on earth are you?) etc.
None of them are not blogging because they are too boring to blog about anything.#
They are all not blogging because they are on Facebook.
Facebook is dreadful - it sucks away your writing urge in a desperate trawl of the dictionaries of the world to find a 55 score seven letter word beginning with Y and ending in a triple word score.
A CURSE ON IT.
Although some of them aren't because they are in Italy writing novels, or dealing with plumbing emergencies, or in hospital, or vanished off the face of the earth pretty much (AMMONITE - where on earth are you?) etc.
None of them are not blogging because they are too boring to blog about anything.#
They are all not blogging because they are on Facebook.
Facebook is dreadful - it sucks away your writing urge in a desperate trawl of the dictionaries of the world to find a 55 score seven letter word beginning with Y and ending in a triple word score.
A CURSE ON IT.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Hobson's Choice
So today is Throne Speech day. For all you paddies, Throne Speech day is the day the Canadian parliament goes back into session (no, they haven't gone back to work yet - and they wonder why Canada is not competitive), the Governor General (a lovely Haitian lady called Michael Jean) reads out a speech written by the government (ie Stephen Harper) about all the work it's going to do for the next year.
Then everyone tries to jostle into a position whereby they can cause an election without actually getting blemt for it (as over 70% of Canadians don't want an election).
But Queenie, if there's an election, then the government won't get to do any of the work in the speech.
I know, boys and girls, I know.
Problem is, politics in Canada is staffed with people who have degrees in political science, as opposed to people who have degrees in economics, or sociology, education policy, or public administration. Consequently, they like to have elections.
Hobson's Choice Day: another year of Stephen Harper talking about carbon sequestration rather than wind power, or another effing election.
Grrrrrrgh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Then everyone tries to jostle into a position whereby they can cause an election without actually getting blemt for it (as over 70% of Canadians don't want an election).
But Queenie, if there's an election, then the government won't get to do any of the work in the speech.
I know, boys and girls, I know.
Problem is, politics in Canada is staffed with people who have degrees in political science, as opposed to people who have degrees in economics, or sociology, education policy, or public administration. Consequently, they like to have elections.
Hobson's Choice Day: another year of Stephen Harper talking about carbon sequestration rather than wind power, or another effing election.
Grrrrrrgh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Saturday, October 13, 2007
A poem for Jim
This is a poem posted in honour of the memory of one of my favourite people, who has gone Home after a long illness, to be with his wife and friend.
Jim Loftus
Husband to dearly missed Eileen, father to beloved Nabla and Roisin, father-in-law to Allan (and Shane), grandfather to Dara and the babies, godfather to many, including my brother Baz (of which I was always insanely jealous)...
History teacher to me and hundreds more, including the wonderful students in Nigeria he never forgot and often told us dreadful Irish students about (little birds with their mouths open, they wanted to learn so much)...
Good friend to the Queen Parents and dozens more...
Intellectual, wit, anarchist in his own way, owner of the greatest book collection I saw before I went to Trinity College library, crossword fanatic...
Trivial Pursuit cheat (not that he ever needed to)...
Mentor to me always, mostly with a grin at my naivety/ stupidity/ whatever, always with a kind word, a witty comeback and sound advice...
The subterfuge we both descended to in order to get in a round for each other, subterfuge I never won...
Wearer of red socks, pipe-smoker, dog-lover (Juko, Scamp, Flop, Fiddler)...
Clareman, no, Kilfenora man...
A man with stars in his eyes, the soul of a poet and the pointedness of a swordsman.
Goodbye Sir James. Sir.
My life is emptier for your absence.
My soul is better for your influence on it.
I'm sorry I crashed your car when I was three.
It wasn't Nabla's fault.
Honest.
It was mine.
Say hello to Eileen and Mr. O'Neill for me.
Tell Eileen I miss her dreadfully still.
Tell Mr. O'Neill I still can't call him Jimmy. And I still can't sing Pythagoras.
I'm sorry I didn't know the last time I saw you was the last time. But we had a nice chat in the kitchen that night didn't we.
A poem for the end of the century
By Czeslaw Milosz
When everything was fine
And the notion of sin had vanished
And the earth was ready
In universal peace
To consume and rejoice
Without creeds and utopias,
I, for unknown reasons,
Surrounded by the books
Of prophets and theologians,
Of philosophers, poets,
Searched for an answer,
Scowling, grimacing,
Waking up at night, muttering at dawn.
What oppressed me so much
Was a bit shameful.
Talking of it aloud
Would show neither tact nor prudence.
It might even seem an outrage
Against the health of mankind.
Alas, my memory
Does not want to leave me
And in it, live beings
Each with its own pain,
Each with its own dying,
Its own trepidation.
Why then innocence
On paradisal beaches,
An impeccable sky
Over the church of hygiene?
Is it because that
Was long ago?
To a saintly man
--So goes an Arab tale--
God said somewhat maliciously:
"Had I revealed to people
How great a sinner you are,
They could not praise you."
"And I," answered the pious one,
"Had I unveiled to them
How merciful you are,
They would not care for you."
To whom should I turn
With that affair so dark
Of pain and also guilt
In the structure of the world,
If either here below
Or over there on high
No power can abolish
The cause and the effect?
Don't think, don't remember
The death on the cross,
Though everyday He dies,
The only one, all-loving,
Who without any need
Consented and allowed
To exist all that is,
Including nails of torture.
Totally enigmatic.
Impossibly intricate.
Better to stop speech here.
This language is not for people.
Blessed be jubilation.
Vintages and harvests.
Even if not everyone
Is granted serenity
Jim Loftus
Husband to dearly missed Eileen, father to beloved Nabla and Roisin, father-in-law to Allan (and Shane), grandfather to Dara and the babies, godfather to many, including my brother Baz (of which I was always insanely jealous)...
History teacher to me and hundreds more, including the wonderful students in Nigeria he never forgot and often told us dreadful Irish students about (little birds with their mouths open, they wanted to learn so much)...
Good friend to the Queen Parents and dozens more...
Intellectual, wit, anarchist in his own way, owner of the greatest book collection I saw before I went to Trinity College library, crossword fanatic...
Trivial Pursuit cheat (not that he ever needed to)...
Mentor to me always, mostly with a grin at my naivety/ stupidity/ whatever, always with a kind word, a witty comeback and sound advice...
The subterfuge we both descended to in order to get in a round for each other, subterfuge I never won...
Wearer of red socks, pipe-smoker, dog-lover (Juko, Scamp, Flop, Fiddler)...
Clareman, no, Kilfenora man...
A man with stars in his eyes, the soul of a poet and the pointedness of a swordsman.
Goodbye Sir James. Sir.
My life is emptier for your absence.
My soul is better for your influence on it.
I'm sorry I crashed your car when I was three.
It wasn't Nabla's fault.
Honest.
It was mine.
Say hello to Eileen and Mr. O'Neill for me.
Tell Eileen I miss her dreadfully still.
Tell Mr. O'Neill I still can't call him Jimmy. And I still can't sing Pythagoras.
I'm sorry I didn't know the last time I saw you was the last time. But we had a nice chat in the kitchen that night didn't we.
A poem for the end of the century
By Czeslaw Milosz
When everything was fine
And the notion of sin had vanished
And the earth was ready
In universal peace
To consume and rejoice
Without creeds and utopias,
I, for unknown reasons,
Surrounded by the books
Of prophets and theologians,
Of philosophers, poets,
Searched for an answer,
Scowling, grimacing,
Waking up at night, muttering at dawn.
What oppressed me so much
Was a bit shameful.
Talking of it aloud
Would show neither tact nor prudence.
It might even seem an outrage
Against the health of mankind.
Alas, my memory
Does not want to leave me
And in it, live beings
Each with its own pain,
Each with its own dying,
Its own trepidation.
Why then innocence
On paradisal beaches,
An impeccable sky
Over the church of hygiene?
Is it because that
Was long ago?
To a saintly man
--So goes an Arab tale--
God said somewhat maliciously:
"Had I revealed to people
How great a sinner you are,
They could not praise you."
"And I," answered the pious one,
"Had I unveiled to them
How merciful you are,
They would not care for you."
To whom should I turn
With that affair so dark
Of pain and also guilt
In the structure of the world,
If either here below
Or over there on high
No power can abolish
The cause and the effect?
Don't think, don't remember
The death on the cross,
Though everyday He dies,
The only one, all-loving,
Who without any need
Consented and allowed
To exist all that is,
Including nails of torture.
Totally enigmatic.
Impossibly intricate.
Better to stop speech here.
This language is not for people.
Blessed be jubilation.
Vintages and harvests.
Even if not everyone
Is granted serenity
Friday, October 12, 2007
It's nice to be reminded sometimes...
Himself is sick.
There we were, home at last on Friday, lazing around in the afterglow of a good week's work done (on Himself's part anyways), thinking about how we were going to spend the rest of the evening (after I had finished reading my Nordic detective novel - God knows, you can't get a word out of me when I'm tucked up reading one of them. And the library filled one of their 'don't know what to read?' wheelie units full of them and entitled it Snowy Death for my delection this week, saving me from even having to ferret them out), when suddenly Himself is throwing up into the toilet (I do love a man who throws up into the toilet. I went out with one who insisted on throwing up into the sink all the time and was then too sick to clean it up) and is lying in bed all hot and feverish and s-i-c-k....
I wiped him down with a damp cloth all Florence Nightingale-like, and resisted the urge to give him a whatchamacall it with it (I am not too up on the male dressing room lingo but you know what I mean).
No?
Well, I know what I mean and it's not as bad as it sounds.
Oh no, since I started typing he's arisen from the feverish near dead and is up and at the tomato soup!
Let's hope it works.
There's nothing worse than throwing up tomato soup.
After reading this out to Himself, he concurs.
It'll kill him or cure him.
Well, he can't be that sick if he's laying into soup and bread.
He was probably just making room for it, after his enormous Chinese takeaway dinner that Andy the big boss bought for them all for being such great workers.
Now we're onto the 'maybe it's the sludge that is killing me slowly' conversation.
Maybe.
I must check whether the company has paid up it's workers' compensation payments.
I am JOKING!
We are both just bone tired I think.
Today's exciting news is that it rained.
Proper rain. Sheets of it hurling itself against my office window. The clouds low over the harbour and the oil tankers and the Post-Panamax cargo ships looming out of them with a suddenness that is entertaining when you are desparately looking out of the window because the pile of work on your desk is so soul-destroying you would rather look at the rain.
With a 90kmph wind that skitters the water uphill so it looks like a river has jumped out of the harbour and is disobeying the forces of gravity on the slopes of the hill upon which downtown is piled.
I love when it rains like that. People stop and say: 'does it rain like that in Ireland, eh?' And I say: 'oh yes.'
'Most days.'
Their faces are a picture.
The other exciting news is that we bought a GPS unit. From a bloke in the AirForce base. For $75.
We ain't never getting lost in the woods again, nosirreebob.
Not that we ever did. But now, we can get out of the car, plot it on the GPS, break through the tree cover and go where we please.
We can get lost deliberately.
Hooray.
I think.
Which reminds me of another ex of mine who used to get lost on the mountains deliberately for the fun of it.
But who despised people with GPS units.
It is so nice to have a boyfriend who understands that I hate to
a) get lost in the woods for no effing reason, and
b) clean up other people's hurl.
Now if I could just get him to stay away from my nice tomato and basil soup that I had planned for later!
There we were, home at last on Friday, lazing around in the afterglow of a good week's work done (on Himself's part anyways), thinking about how we were going to spend the rest of the evening (after I had finished reading my Nordic detective novel - God knows, you can't get a word out of me when I'm tucked up reading one of them. And the library filled one of their 'don't know what to read?' wheelie units full of them and entitled it Snowy Death for my delection this week, saving me from even having to ferret them out), when suddenly Himself is throwing up into the toilet (I do love a man who throws up into the toilet. I went out with one who insisted on throwing up into the sink all the time and was then too sick to clean it up) and is lying in bed all hot and feverish and s-i-c-k....
I wiped him down with a damp cloth all Florence Nightingale-like, and resisted the urge to give him a whatchamacall it with it (I am not too up on the male dressing room lingo but you know what I mean).
No?
Well, I know what I mean and it's not as bad as it sounds.
Oh no, since I started typing he's arisen from the feverish near dead and is up and at the tomato soup!
Let's hope it works.
There's nothing worse than throwing up tomato soup.
After reading this out to Himself, he concurs.
It'll kill him or cure him.
Well, he can't be that sick if he's laying into soup and bread.
He was probably just making room for it, after his enormous Chinese takeaway dinner that Andy the big boss bought for them all for being such great workers.
Now we're onto the 'maybe it's the sludge that is killing me slowly' conversation.
Maybe.
I must check whether the company has paid up it's workers' compensation payments.
I am JOKING!
We are both just bone tired I think.
Today's exciting news is that it rained.
Proper rain. Sheets of it hurling itself against my office window. The clouds low over the harbour and the oil tankers and the Post-Panamax cargo ships looming out of them with a suddenness that is entertaining when you are desparately looking out of the window because the pile of work on your desk is so soul-destroying you would rather look at the rain.
With a 90kmph wind that skitters the water uphill so it looks like a river has jumped out of the harbour and is disobeying the forces of gravity on the slopes of the hill upon which downtown is piled.
I love when it rains like that. People stop and say: 'does it rain like that in Ireland, eh?' And I say: 'oh yes.'
'Most days.'
Their faces are a picture.
The other exciting news is that we bought a GPS unit. From a bloke in the AirForce base. For $75.
We ain't never getting lost in the woods again, nosirreebob.
Not that we ever did. But now, we can get out of the car, plot it on the GPS, break through the tree cover and go where we please.
We can get lost deliberately.
Hooray.
I think.
Which reminds me of another ex of mine who used to get lost on the mountains deliberately for the fun of it.
But who despised people with GPS units.
It is so nice to have a boyfriend who understands that I hate to
a) get lost in the woods for no effing reason, and
b) clean up other people's hurl.
Now if I could just get him to stay away from my nice tomato and basil soup that I had planned for later!
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Bored with my blog
Yes, I am officially bored with my blog. Don't want to talk about politics or the environment; don't want to tell you all any more stories about domestic bliss, or wilderness camping, or work, or discuss my innermost feelings or anything.
Maybe it's the fact that someone advised me recently to do something positive with my spare time as my blog was really depressing and was probably depressing me.
I was a bit annoyed about that.
I didn't think it was depressing. I just thought it was normal.
Anyways, going to bed to read my uplifting book about the Armenian massacre of 1915 and think about
a) what we could do legislatively to eradicate poverty (they don't ask for much in work do they)
b) think about a whole new rant stream that is positive and uplifting and worth blogging about
c) maybe go to sleep at some point.
Had a nice trip in the grand tangier wilderness on Thanksgiving weekend.
Can't be arsed putting up the photos yet. Will do sometime.
Good night.
Maybe it's the fact that someone advised me recently to do something positive with my spare time as my blog was really depressing and was probably depressing me.
I was a bit annoyed about that.
I didn't think it was depressing. I just thought it was normal.
Anyways, going to bed to read my uplifting book about the Armenian massacre of 1915 and think about
a) what we could do legislatively to eradicate poverty (they don't ask for much in work do they)
b) think about a whole new rant stream that is positive and uplifting and worth blogging about
c) maybe go to sleep at some point.
Had a nice trip in the grand tangier wilderness on Thanksgiving weekend.
Can't be arsed putting up the photos yet. Will do sometime.
Good night.
Friday, October 05, 2007
Frittering a day away on Facebook
Scrabulous..... English graduate crack.
That's all I have to say on the subject.
CBC have done a week's worth of Futurism on their morning radio show, with William Gibson on yesterday talking about animated tattoos. You go Bill. Everyone else was talking about computer chips in their brain, but that's so Necromancer...
Nobody was talking about the environment of course. (well, Gibson mentioned it in passing).
Typical geeks.
When I am the divine Lady of all Creation, I shall force geeks to do organic gardening and off-grid living challenges in their spare time. Which I will force their bosses to give them as part of the new carbon neutralising taxation plan.
They (the geeks), being the people who are good at solving problems (as opposed to the environentalists who are mostly good at pointing them out) will of course become enthused with their new regime (as they do about most things) and work together in loose collectives based around the globe to solve all the problems related therein using technology.
Et voila... the future will be shiny, with a fun, easy to operate user interface and most importantly, carbon neutral.
Then the stocks in their companies will spiral into heady heights of success and then they will all buy the new gliding boats that they have invented to travel the world.
Everybody wins.
Why has nobody done this already?
Ohmygosh it's so nice to have a day to myself at last.
What will I think about today. I am determined to only think happy thoughts until next Tuesday.
That's all I have to say on the subject.
CBC have done a week's worth of Futurism on their morning radio show, with William Gibson on yesterday talking about animated tattoos. You go Bill. Everyone else was talking about computer chips in their brain, but that's so Necromancer...
Nobody was talking about the environment of course. (well, Gibson mentioned it in passing).
Typical geeks.
When I am the divine Lady of all Creation, I shall force geeks to do organic gardening and off-grid living challenges in their spare time. Which I will force their bosses to give them as part of the new carbon neutralising taxation plan.
They (the geeks), being the people who are good at solving problems (as opposed to the environentalists who are mostly good at pointing them out) will of course become enthused with their new regime (as they do about most things) and work together in loose collectives based around the globe to solve all the problems related therein using technology.
Et voila... the future will be shiny, with a fun, easy to operate user interface and most importantly, carbon neutral.
Then the stocks in their companies will spiral into heady heights of success and then they will all buy the new gliding boats that they have invented to travel the world.
Everybody wins.
Why has nobody done this already?
Ohmygosh it's so nice to have a day to myself at last.
What will I think about today. I am determined to only think happy thoughts until next Tuesday.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
It's been a while I know
But I've been not in the mood for writing.
First I went to Digby for a three day think in for work which obviously I can't write about because it is work and therefore confidential. Then I came back to Halifax for a night before going back down to Digby on the way to the island for the weekend. Which was a non-event of a weekend as I volunteered to babysit while Himself went out. Then I had to go back to work. Then today I went back down to Digby with Himself to watch him sign his divorce papers.
Which is some sort of closure on the whole thing and which we should be happy about (if happy is an appropriate word for the end of a marriage), except that I am reeling from some bad news from home. And I have a pounding headache and a fever. Which means that either I won't be going canoeing and camping this weekend, or I will be with the remnants of a fever and a heavy heart.
When is this year going to improve?
It's nearly effing over. Maybe that's when.
Anyways.... stay safe everyone... there's too much pain around at the moment for my liking.
First I went to Digby for a three day think in for work which obviously I can't write about because it is work and therefore confidential. Then I came back to Halifax for a night before going back down to Digby on the way to the island for the weekend. Which was a non-event of a weekend as I volunteered to babysit while Himself went out. Then I had to go back to work. Then today I went back down to Digby with Himself to watch him sign his divorce papers.
Which is some sort of closure on the whole thing and which we should be happy about (if happy is an appropriate word for the end of a marriage), except that I am reeling from some bad news from home. And I have a pounding headache and a fever. Which means that either I won't be going canoeing and camping this weekend, or I will be with the remnants of a fever and a heavy heart.
When is this year going to improve?
It's nearly effing over. Maybe that's when.
Anyways.... stay safe everyone... there's too much pain around at the moment for my liking.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)