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.

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.

Misery

I have spent ALL DAY trying to get through to the Leonard Cohen ticket line.

All I get is the engaged tone.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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?

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.