Red Cedar

Photo from Parade of the Lost Souls last Saturday night (it looks much better in millions of colours than in the browser).

Had a bout of insomnia last night which got me out of bed earlier than normal this morning, so I’m making an update before meeting a fellow bargaining team member for breakfast. For those of you who don’t know, I’m in Ottawa at the moment as part of the national negotiating team for my union – something that has become a bit of a monthly affair as we trudge back and forth between home and the capital to sit across from an employer who pretty much refuses to negotiate. And yes, us unionists like to exaggerate these things – but *really* – they will not give us an answer to any of our proposals. Not one. And we’ve been at this for several months. Although I hate to engage in the predictions game, I’m pretty sure we’re going to be at this for at least a year before we have something – despite the fact that another bargaining table just settled in record time (difference being employer structures which I don’t want to bore you with).

Tomorrow I get to make my debut at the table with a full-fledged presentation on why our employer should provide a subsidized transit pass to members who take public transit to work. Beyond that, I don’t want to say too much, but I’m hoping I can share my notes on the subject at some point in the future.

For some reason, I am a bit homesick this trip which is unusual for me. It’s not as though Ottawa is at all foreign, but I really didn’t feel like coming out this time around and I’m here for a long time (10 days in total) which taxes my perspective on the whole thing a bit more. And it didn’t help to get here and then discover that one of my credit cards was maxed out due to a theft of my card-number which was then used at an office supply store in Brooklyn to ring up $2400 in charges a few days ago. Stuff like that just makes me want to curl up in my *own* bed as opposed to some overly-starched hotel monstrosity. Good thing is, I’ll get a lot into this trip vis a vis union and work and I have no plans to come back until the new year at this point. (Just in time for the really cold weather!)

I did have a moment yesterday (as I was reading an email from the student who’s been working for me and who has decided to return to school which necessitates hiring someone else when I get home) of wondering whether I’ve taken on too much this year. It’s not the time commitment so much as feeling the need to be in two or three places simultaneously – and because of things going on in my local office, I’m feeling like it would be better for me to be there right now. I also know that feeling is momentary and really, any one of the three parties I’m currently responsible to would get along just fine without me if I were to fugue* tomorrow.

Despite these (very) small misgivings (which are mostly just due to my tendency to be angsty anyway), I’m actually doing quite well at the moment and am very pleased with my presentation for tomorrow’s session. Three different people (trade union negotiators whose opinions I value) gave it a thumbs up yesterday with some suggestions and that really does give me a bit of confidence about the whole thing.

Hm. It really is looking about time for breakfast, so I’m signing off. Thanks for you folks who still talk to me when I’m away. It makes me feel less so.

* Fugue: Another long-loved word, not used in reference to music, but to the dissociative disorder that causes people to disappear into a new life. “A period during which a person suffers from loss of memory, often begins a new life, and, upon recovery, remembers nothing of the amnesic phase.”

I am here. Made it to Ottawa, but without the time to write until tomorrow most likely. Here’s a picture from Saturday’s Parade of Lost Souls fire show instead.

Not that I think this is a particularly fantastic shot of myself (I am not photogenic and I don’t care what anyone says)… but I got a haircut this morning for the first time in over a year and I thought I’d show it off.

I have a slim notebook which I carry in my purse most places I go – not a journal (a different affair altogether) – but a traditional *note* book. That is, I take notes about things in it as I go about my business. Notes about paintings that come into my view, the words that come out of the mouths of my friends, snatches of character and poem that come to me at odd times.

A new habit, this notebook, having realized last year that not blessed with a good memory, I was losing so many potential images and stories by not writing them down when they were in front of me. I now have a year’s worth of shopping lists and random quips to page through in my idle moments – yet one more record of my thinking on top of the blog, the journal and the photo collection (how much does one person need to document their life anyhow?) Questions about ego aside, a new notebook will be started soon as this one grows worn and full.

As a result of keeping this notebook, I have found myself more than ever recording words to look up later, or to define more precisely for myself. Why the notebook engenders this I’m not entirely sure, except that words are no long passing questions but instead fixed for investigation and incorporation into my vocabulary. Only problem is, some of them are a bit obscure which scares me off using ’em. Might as well stick them here anyways, along with the why of my current fascinations:

Lucipetal: Truly, this is my favourite word of the past year (loo-see-pital). So much so that I “gave” it to a friend for his birthday. Ever since I found it, I am continually thinking about this word and how to use it. While it is easy to use (attracted to light), I almost never employ it in realtime because I am aware that using uncommon vocabulary can be alienating.

Prolixity: When I first met Michael, he gave this word to me which made me instantly like him (it may even be the reason we became friends since we are both guilty of it). It means long-winded or given to an excess of words (a synonym would be verbosity). See what I mean? I am often prolix. And in public too!

Coruscate: I think I just like words that have to do with light. Coruscate means to emit sparkling, flashing, light – but this word sounds so far from what it means, I had to look it up when I first encountered it. It’s lovely though, that there is a word for the emission of sparkly and glittery light.

Triumvirate: I discovered this while using the thesaurus to improve a sentence on this blog. Simply a much more pompous way of saying trio. An alignment of three proudly stated.

Shibboleth: From Hebrew, this word has many nuances – all of which imply a catchphrase, or a mode that identifies one group from another. Think of a special knock with which the door opens, a passphrase which gets you from one place to another in the dead of night, a way to recognize a fellow traveller on the same political road…. A connector, a slithery secret, a bond of rope and light. (The biblical reference and background may be found here.)

Murrain: Given the times we live in, I am often attracted to words synonymous with collapse. A new one for my arsenal. Plague, pestilence, disease.

Theophany: This one is brand new to me (not coming from a religious background, I am hampered by religious references) – the appearance of God to an individual. A concept I don’t entirely reject, but mostly I just love the way this word rolls out. Stressed right, it is entirely poem.

And a couple more – not new words, but which I have discovered new love for recently just the same:

Fortuitous: Because it sounds so much like what it is, and such a happy lucky word! She is simply fortuitous – abundant with accidental luck! Serendipity but less flaky sounding.

Penultimate: And this one because it sounds like what it is not. I have often used this word incorrectly – to mean, greater than ultimate… and I did that for years until someone corrected me and I looked it up. Ooops. It means actually second to ultimate – as in, the penultimate chapter in the book. And I’ve noticed that I am not the only one who uses this incorrectly. I don’t do it anymore, and I love this word even more because of it’s weirdness.

Enough word geekery? I think so. Perhaps next time I will regale you with the odd quotes I’ve collected in the same notebook. We’ll have to see about that.

This has been one of those weeks where I’ve had a lot of inputs and not much leave to output or process anything. Not only did I have a run of meetings that kept me tied up last weekend, I’m leaving town again on Monday for ten days which somehow necessitates seeing everyone I know this week. Dinners, drinks, poetry readings. All wildly social. And to think, this summer I couldn’t scare up a friend to save my life. Cycles, I suppose. October is always such a frenetic month with April being its spring correlate.

This busyness frustrates me a bit because although I am awash in ideas, I am at the same time exhausted of my ability to execute them. Particularly where it comes to writing. I am sure the upstairs neurons are maxed, for they seem to be colliding at a much slower pace than normal. Rather than snapping around, they are mushing and melding together lazily. Think oatmeal rather than bouncing balls and you get the idea of what it feels like when my mind checks out.

What I really need is a day to sleep in and do nothing except pitter patter around the house – which fortuitously, comes tomorrow. It’s not exactly a weekend of doing nothing, but it is a one of sticking very close to home, something I am craving even as I pack my bags to leave. (Especially as I pack my bags to leave).

In other minor life news, my winning poem is now posted at the Pandora’s Collective website. Additionally, this photograph will be coming out in print next month in Souls Journal which I should receive some copies of (I just confirmed the publishing timeline last week – they say first week of December). So despite my inability to work right at the moment, I have at least these small accomplishments to remind me that I can pick it up again.

I’m not complaining though. I am actually feeling very very good about things in general even though I’m a bit sleepy – as though the various pieces of my life are fitting into the right places; as though parts of me are finally coming together even as my life stretches itself out ever farther.

A nap is all I need and more words will come.