Islands, silos or maybe solitary grasscutters… July 4, 2008

Lack of consistency is either my finest trait or my tragic flaw. Other than going to work everyday, there is little that I do consistently. And even going to work happens with belaboured routine. I can barely make it into work for 9:30 these days… It’s probably a good thing my job whisks me away every three months. I’m getting itchy feet again. I bad mouth the travel, but the truth is that I can’t live without it. Sometimes I think that what I need is a greater degree of routine to even out my insanity and the oscillation of my moods; however, as soon as I plunk my life into a timetable, with yoga from 6-8, morning routine from 8-8:45, work from 9-5, extra-curriculars from 7-9, and reading from 9-11, I get bored, my routine gets all messed up cause I start to feel antsy. Automatically I go searching for adventure and excitement or start dreaming about the next trip and what I will learn and see and do and who I will meet and what trouble I’ll get myself into and what tropical disease I’ll survive. Pathological? Maybe. But, love me or leave me, that’s the way I am.

It’s weird, really. My folks are, all in all, pretty normal, balanced people. It’s not like I spent my entire childhood roaming the world as a diplobrat. It’s not that I lived a repressed childhood, never having experienced excitement, travel and wonder. So this need for constant exotic excitement is a real mystery for me. And, yes, it does need to be exotic, as in of a uniquely new or experimental nature. Regular ol’ Ottawa adventure just doesn’t cut it.

I used to think I was a “stop and smell the roses” kinda gal. And maybe I was as a teenager. But now I’ve evolved into a “go and document the absurd” kinda gal. Yeah, there is no continuity to what I do. No, there is nothing that ties the different pieces of my life together.  My life is a farm of silos.

I have to go to Bluesfest now.  I’ll write again soon.

By the Power of Greyscull! February 23, 2008

Three quarters and five dimes all in a row. The oldest among them is 19 years old. I suppose that I had a wish that one would be older than me… When that coin was made in 1989, life was a whole other dish. I was 11, just about to hit puberty and still looked like a kid but wishing I was older. I think it was that year that I became aware of my sexuality. It was that year that I had my first kiss and thought it was the grossest thing that one person could do to another… Little did I know…

It was also that year that I become aware of and acutely interested in politics. I ran for Grade 6 Class Prime Minister and won only because I bribed the students with cookies for my victory party and told them that I would only share them if I won. So I acceded to the post with something like 90% of the votes. I modeled my campaign after that of Ed Brodbent’s. I was a die hard NDP in those years and followed the Canadian Federal Elections very closely. I remember feeling enraged by Mulroney’s Free Trade policies. I didn’t even know what any of that meant. I wrote a letter to Brian Mulroney and told him of my victory and that I was ruling my class in honour of his New Democrat counterpart. He wrote back saying “Congratulations, would that you had chosen the right party.”

It was also that year that the Berlin Wall fell. I was of course outraged at what the wall represented and had wished so desperately that I had been there to dismantle it. Incidentally, it was also that year that I learned of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”. For years I thought that the two were one and the same…

I remember that year probably better than any from my youth. It was the year that I became highly competitive about my academics. It was that year that I noticed that some boys had grown armpit hair and was horrified when I realized that I too had done the same! It was that year that two boys had a huge fight over their love for me outside my grade six portable, yelling “I love her” ” No! I love her more!” It was that year that I played a tree in my school’s production of The Wizard of Oz.

I was on the gymnastics team because I was obsessed with She-Ra Princess of Power and wanted to emulate her acrobatic abilities. I never quite learned how to do back flips. It’s one of my greatest failures in life. I went to two NKOTB concerts and was sure that one day I would marry Joe McIntyre. I spent the summer in Italy and fell in love with my first real Italian.

I was 11 and sure that one day I’d either be Canada’s first Female Prime Minister or some magical princess who saved the world from evil. The former was achieved by someone else, the latter seems rather unlikely now that I have back problems as a result of having prematurely grown giant breasts in 1990 at 12 years of age.

I had everything going for me in 1989. But, as soon as that clock struck midnight spitting me into the next decade, my body morphed and, worse than turning into a pumpkin, I turned into a woman, physically that is.

It wasn’t until I turned thirty that my brain caught up.

Something’s rotten and I’m cravin’ it February 20, 2008

I am completely averse to rules and regulations, especially when they are stupid and most especially when people with no authority use them as false swords of power. I’m not totally anti-establishment. I believe in institutions to a certain degree; however, the more I try and navigate them, the more I realize that they exist for those who long for guidance and structure and less for those who flout it.

Or maybe it’s the egg that comes before the chicken and my problem is that because I resist guidance, I can’t deal with structure. Whatever the case, right now, Nietzsche (or what I remember of him from political philosophy) is highly appealing to me. Don’t you ever get that urge to indulge in misanthropic literature to make yourself feel better about your own emotional disengagement from humanity and the constructs it has created?

As I go in search of my own pile of rotting flesh in hopes of finding contentment, let me leave you with a quote from the master himself:

“Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion? “

Eeyore the Overthinkor January 25, 2007

Ok. So the other day I was out with a friend and he was telling me about this story he wanted to write making fun of people at the gym. I was, of course, all for this idea since I feel very strongly that the gym is a cesspool of inorganic sentiments and materials that drowns the natural spirit of health and beauty and replaces it with inflexible physiques and desperate contrivance. I digress.

I told this friend that I would be very pleased to post his story under the guest author category on this blog. Yesterday I sent him a friendly reminder that I was awaiting his story. This is the email reply I received this morning:

“I admit, I’ve been hesitant to write it. Part laziness, part rethink. I don’t know how much you know about French history, but at the end of the 19^th century, novelist Emile Zola wrote an article titled, J’accuse! It was in response to the arrest and conviction of Captain Alfred Dreyfus—a Jewish army officer—for some offense. Anyway, the article was a turning point in the ‘Dreyfus Affair’ and ultimately secured Dreyfus’ release. It’s significant because of the anti-Semitism at the time and miscarriages of justice in general. All that said…maybe I should call my article, Je m’accuse. This last week I have accidentally managed to talk to some of the gym members and you know, they’re not all bad. It has all given me reason for pause about how I judge other people based on perception. Should make one hell of a blog. Keep pushing me.”

Holy Mother of Sufferance! My readership is really not that wide. I’m sure that not one of your gym buddies will be reading this blog and even if they did, don’t you think that they, as iron-pumping drones, wouldn’t see the self-deprecating humour in a comedic story about gym bunnies? Not to mention that poking fun at inflated muscles and vanity bears a rather scant similarity to anti-Semitism. I’m not totally sure about that, but I don’t think anyone will be sending Katyusha rockets your way.

Go ahead, pin your tail back on. It’ll be ok. I promise.

The Commonsense Devolution January 11, 2007

Apparently, judging from Larry O’Brien’s interview on Ottawa morning yesterday, City Hall has become as labyrinthine as Byzantium itself. According to Larry, he spent “the first five weeks on the job trying to find where the bathrooms were” in his new work place. Gosh, Larry. City Hall must be a really scary place. If it took you five weeks to find the bathrooms, I can’t even image the hardships your bladder went through for a whole month of holding it in till you got home every night?! That’s some business-like efficiency! I can’t wait to see how this city prospers now that you’re running it like a business!

comforts of home December 10, 2006

I just want to say, for the record, that I really like toilet bowls and toilet paper, dry bathroom floors with tiles, running water, water you can drink from the taps, kitchens that have fridges and stoves and that are enclosed within the walls of home. I like sharing, but I really like to eat out of my own plate with utensils. I like not fried food and food that is not drenched in fried oil. I like couches. I like beds. I like garbage cans and garbage dumps for that matter. I like chickens before and after they are dead, but not really while they are in the process of dying. I like cozy rooms with carpets. I like light, electric and natural. I like dinners that don’t take 4 hours to prepare because you have to fan a fire that won’t quite do its job. I like shower nozzles that release water at the temperature you want it. I really like compartmentalized food. I love Africa, but I am definitely a creature of comfort at my core…and ever so thankful that I have grown up with all these luxuries.

Turning of the crank November 24, 2006

Ok. Ok. I know. I suck.

I was just reprimanded by a friend who says this is the only blog she checks… Who knew!? I didn’t realize that people were actually waiting for a post so I’m going to try and post something relatively interesting soon.

I’m leaving for Senegal tomorrow and will then be in Mali on Dec. 5th, so something adventurous is bound to happen.

For the time being, let me just comment on a few thoughts I’ve had of late:

1) Cynicism is highly revered in this society as a personality trait that increases one’s intellectual appeal. A crotchety cynic is more discerning than someone who is able to enjoy some aspects of most things. The curmudgeon is often more highly respected (maybe only ostensibly) because she gives off this odour of superiority as she looks down her pointy nose at the rest of us. Pshaw! I say! Down with the rotten apples! I’ve secretly begun working on a sunny disposition campaign in my office. I have begun implementing a sensitization campaign on the merits of giggles, smiles and silly accents as strategic methods of getting what you want instead of hard-nosed negotiations, mind games and power trips. So far, I have gotten one pay raise, a two-week stint in a director’s office with a door and a potential relocation to the country of my dreams. So take that Crotchety McCrotchenstein!

2) Larry O’Brien can’t spell. He also didn’t know where City Hall was. But in the weeks leading up to the elections I went to his website and the introductory message said, “Your invited to a party to support Larry” or something along those lines. This was in bold, hyperlink, 14 point font. So I left a comment saying that I would never vote for a guy with bad grammar. The next day, my message was gone, but the caption had been corrected! So there! Now that’s democracy at work.

3) Oliver Stone has made me a better person.

Those are all the thoughts I’ve had over the past 4 weeks.

Cyclists Beware! July 27, 2006

This is a public service announcement for all cyclists in this city of Ottawa.

If you think you are immune to legal reprimands, think again. Cycling is no longer a recreational activity of a stress-free and benign nature. Cyclists are no longer but victims of the cruel roadways, but also punishable purpetrators of traffic infractions.

Yes, my dear energy-efficient friends, we too can be pulled over for counter-current cycling by power-hungry coppers who just couldn’t lift themselves passed traffic-cop status. We, the innocent, energetic, peaceful, environmentally friendly lot of folk who fancy ourselves leaders in health and trailblazers of new socially acceptable paths, may also be subject to the vial e-ticket spat out by the driver-side printer of an unmarked cruiser that is over-conditioned and inhabited by an officer who is just too lazy to stake out dangerous criminals and legitimate traffic infractors. And so, we too, have entered the circle of law as the cleanhanded, crimeless prey of a system so hungry for power yet so blind to the real ills of this decaying world.

Look out, my friends, look out. Ring those bells proudly! Cower not under the mallot of injustice, but soldier on knowing that if we had the balls, we could outbike the police cruiser anyday!

Stupid me… It hadn’t occurred to me to do that…

Foul June 29, 2006

I see the young spirits of my generation quashed by the pursuit of the unattainable expectation of satisfaction, whose education has brought them jobs and salaries and benefits and status,

whose successes have far outnumbered their failures, who, with justified confidence and tempered foresight, have luxuriously chosen family or solitude, academia or employment, travel or inertia, but who have chosen, nonetheless,

who have rejected imposition of collective will and who have created custom lives,

who have fought and lost and fought and changed and fought and won the system,

who have what they need, avoid what they hate, soak in what they love, but know not what they want,

for whom everyday could be that fateful date with happiness, but for whom everyday represents another rejected parole from their dysthymic purgatory.

Civil War May 17, 2006

So, my inane brain seems to have convinced my disinclined body to attempt the running of a full marathon in less than two weeks.

In other non-related news, a civil war has ensued between the northern ruling party and the rebels of the nether-regions of the Republic of Tirunien. For the past month and a half, three rebel factions from the south have been resisting president Valerian’s dictatorship, which over the same period has become increasingly imperious and unyielding to the exhaustion of the working masses.

A spokesman for the most aggressive of the rebel forces, Genudestrum, said yesterday that the sub-human work conditions and the unrelenting physical schedule imposed on his people was bordering on slavery. “We have always believed in a unified nation in which the global trend of North/South duality need not manifest; however, our beloved Tirunien has capitulated under Valerian’s depravity and so we, the workers, the labourers, the very skeleton of this nation must rise up and dissolve the madness! I call on my brothers and sisters from Gamba and Anclow to join forces and show those despotic northerners just what we’re made of–flesh and bone and hard, hard muscle!”

UN reports indicate that thousands of workers in the Cartilagian plants have been decimated while at work due to the atrocious labour conditions imposed by the despotic Valerian.

“Why don’t the workers simply strike?” retorted the Genudestrum spokesman. “Impossible! Valerian has threatened deserters with the lives of their families. It’s as though we were all part of one big mass that he is controlling with strings. People are terrified and in constant pain and yet, they will take him all the way to his finish line because they know he is crazy.”

What is this finish line and when will it appear? Analysts believe that May 28^th will mark the end of this madness. Valerian has this history of Machiavellian-style extremism that sends him down illogical paths for the attainment of nonsensical goals. But once he gets there he chills out for a bit until the next harebrained idea catches hold.

So, the rebel forces, unable to mobilize the masses, are crippled. The nation is hobbling. Genudestrum, Gamba and Anclow are bearing the brunt of Valerian’s intransigence as they fight in futility through Tirunien’s lactic rain season.

The UN has decided to wait (surprise surprise) and see if the analysts’ predictions will come true before taking any action.