Red Cedar

If I only told half the stories that have unfolded in the last five days in any detail then this would be a 3000 word post. But I’ve got a lot of work to do, so I’m sticking with a bullet-point update.

• My trip to Ottawa was stressful. I had insomnia the whole time. I had one really rotten meeting and three decent ones, but the one bad meeting soured me on the whole trip. To make myself feel better I bought myself a new pair of jeans and a new pair of shoes before coming home.. oh, and a new book for the plane ride too. By the time I got home Friday night I was exhausted and pretty sure I wanted to quit my job.
• The party on Saturday at my place was oodles of fun, despite the fact I woke up in a bad mood and was called by my mother just as it started to find out that my aunt died (more on that in the next bullet). Alison posted some photos on her Flickr account. There was an amazing amount of food, two barbeques going and even a cake from Fratellis! I love my Flying Folk brethren, I really do.
• On Saturday my Aunt Yvonne died, my mother’s sister, though it wasn’t unexpected and quite frankly it touches me little except that for my mother it’s a mortality reminder. Speaking ill of the dead is wrong, so I’m going to leave my history with her alone. Suffice to say she was a British Israelite and a Holocaust denier. We didn’t get along much.
• I also found out Saturday that I’ve been approved to visit Darren at Sheridan, so I’m planning to go visit him on the October long weekend. The visitor’s guidelines even say that we’re allowed to have two hugs during the visit… which would be the first time we’ve touched since July of 2005. Just writing that makes me tear-up. It seems so monumental. I’m sure even more so to him.
• On Sunday I finally got to catch up with my mom by phone. We’ve been a little concerned about my dad in the last few months as he’s been showing some signs of early dementia – extreme anxiety, forgetfulness, an inability to grasp certain things going on around him. So my mother went with him to the doctor last week to find out exactly what was going on. Turns out that taking multiple Halcion every night for 25 years is not a good idea. No joke. My dad has taken Halcion to battle insomnia since I was a little kid. Over time they have lost effectiveness, and a few months ago his doctor suggested he get off them and put him on an anti-depressant instead. The anti-depressant didn’t work for my dad and had the side effect of making him super-anxious, which meant he couldn’t sleep, so he was still taking the Halcion as well. The whole set up majorly fucked up his ability to cope, and it wasn’t until my mother found exactly what was going on that they could make a plan of action about it. I am happy to say that my father is currently kicking his pill habit, and doesn’t have early dementia – just a really irresponsible medical system.
• Yesterday I found out that I need approximately $2000 worth of dental work (of which I have to pay half on my plan), I started another French class, and a friend of mine offered me the very precious gift of travel companionship to Portland in October. Eventually I will write more about this offer, but only once I’ve got a little more perspective. Even though I’m sure I would be fine going on my own, having a co-pilot will sure make it easier on me. Plus, I am secretly afraid of entering a US federal pen, it will be good to have someone along to make sure I don’t chicken out.
• Today I came to work to find an email from my Ottawa project manager telling me that my presentation was a success and the high-up boss wants to present my aquatic species database idea to the highest-up boss. Apparently they are all very proud of me but it makes me a little bit sick-nervous to think they expect me to come up with good ideas like this all the time now.
• Oh. And I got my camera back from repair yesterday. Turned out it was the lens I hurt when I dropped it, not the camera body. Fixed on warranty thankfully and several weeks earlier than predicted.

Yeah. So that’s the “short” version of what’s going on in my life (and my head) this morning. No wonder I feel a bit tired I guess. It’s kindof a lot to absorb at once.

Autumn not quite frost, some hot days still promised before the dark snaps shut bringing rain to cleanse the dust of summer. Almost, and then not quite another year. At least the flags are not flying half-masted on this trip. This city, a reminder of nationhood in a way Vancouver is not. Military, civilian, citizen to and fro as though the country depends on these orderly streets and politenesses. Flat landscape and river channeled into a picturesque canal – nothing left unbound – no foreboding rock to close off distance. This location chosen precisely for its lawful possibilities, no place for civic unrest to hide, a city onto which an emergency plan is easy to impose.

It is not that I hate it here, for it is an easy city to find oneself alone and wandering. Safe in its well-lit costume of civility while only scant hours away lie the crucial heartbeats, the edgier towns of Montreal and Toronto.

People here are not afraid of their streets, making eye contact with the surety they will not be asked for change or accidentally shot. A jovial judgement in each eye knowing so many here are temporary on any given day. The town where one comes to do business before returning to the messier world of home. There is so much well paid work here and housing, it is easy to see exactly what government money can buy. So different from the US counterpart of DC which contains still a large and ragged population of those without.

It is both comforting and banal, where the history of a country carved from wild is contained in museums rather than contested. It was taken so much longer ago then where I’m from, a river valley paved and overbuilt with gothic architecture. The country sprawls outwards from here, thankfully some of it barely touched by the petty pens of decision-makers. But still, it is this which which wishes to imprint on every rock and tree. Turn lakes into tailing ponds and rushing rivers into energy controlled by a hand on a switch.

There are many ways, of course, to take a place to mind. Many impressions contained within this one. And still I have to hold back a laugh when my friends here tell me about the dangerous parts of downtown. The worst enemy here is not more than boredom or bad food.

Ottawa on Dwellable

What is the sound of hotels? Ambient loneliness pumps through heating vents and air conditioning units. Drips down the inside of window panes steamed against the cold on the nights too frozen to venture out. To travel for work only makes these whispered rooms only seem more existentially empty, for there is no point besides sleeping in another town you have not chosen to be.

There are people who come to these rooms armed. With cans of Lysol to ward off the misdeeds of those who came before them. With their own bedding, so they can strip off the covers in an effort to avoid the DNA of another. With ear plugs and eye-blinds to replicate the darkness of their own rural home. All strategies for coping with the anonymity. The sense that you could slip away here and not be noticed missing until after your check out date. That unless the maid came across your blood-spattered body wedged under the bed, no one would know until the killer was long gone.

I have an anxiety about sleeping in rooms with two beds side to side, so much that I make a special request against it when booking. If ever I am to have a night terror, awaking to the glowing digital numbers drowning me in red insomnia, it is in a place with two beds. Reminding me of my singleness, my aloneness – in a room that sleeps four there is only me. And the only me doesn’t want to be reminded of those who were there before. Or those who might mysteriously appear in the next-door bed between midnight and three. A strange hump under the covers, or the unexpected flush of the toilet, light shining out from under the closed bathroom door.

I am not one prone to nightmares nor do I possess a fear of the dark. But the rattle of the air unit, the sound of those above and beside brushing their teeth, the muffled drone of multiple channels being watched at once, the strange clicks and scratches in the hallways at night. Each a small thing to skitter against my brain. A world set apart from the cities in which these hotels sit.

Yeesh. Work. Wow.

I’ll be glad when this week ends and my presentation in Ottawa has been delivered to all the right people. Then I can start on the next bit which my project manager says is up to me. Whatever part of the project I want to work on next. I’m so far impressing him, but I’m not sure about the higher-ups I meet with later this week. Part of my nervousness stems from that I don’t produce volumes of paper to justify everything – I just put forward proposals that make sense to me and if people go – wow, yes! Then it means I’ve hit on something useful.

Mostly that’s what happens. Making a hundred flow charts to show audience-subject relationships seems like a waste of time, and my brain has a natural tendency to index and categorize without writing it all down. That is, information architecture comes naturally when I’m given the freedom to design from scratch – like other creative processes. But there is another consultant on this project whose style is to produce reams of paper.. so I’m afraid of looking like a slacker (what do you mean you do most of your work in your head?)

But! On the plus side, there is a prototype to demonstrate for my aquatic species application which I’m excited about. I can’t remember the last time I worked on something for money that I was actually this tickled with and I can hardly wait to show y’all when we get it built a bit more.

And otherwise – it’s all been organizing for play 🙂 Next weekend is the Flying Folk Army party at my house – so if you didn’t get an email invite and want to come let me know and I’ll give you the info. Potluck, music, perhaps even a BBQ – and drinking. It’ll be great.

And then Anna’s babyshower the weekend following in Victoria (which I am assisting with from afar) – for which I finally sent out the e-invite for last night.

Once this week clears up I promise I’ll post about things other than work again!

Finally, I managed to go to Palestinian Cuisine which is just around the corner from my house at a time when it’s been open and wow, I’m happily impressed. Jasmyn, Kevin and I just ate a ton of food there including cabbage rolls, stuffed grape leaves, baba ganoush, lots of salad and a lentil/rice pilaf which were all super tasty and not too expensive (vegetarian entrees are $9.50). It’s vegan friendly (if that’s your thing) and owned by super-nice people. I’m just posting here because I want to encourage support for one of the few non-yuppified places in the Drive area. Located at Victoria and Grant, it’s worth a check out though I don’t know their hours. (They also do good coffee as they used to be a cafe only). I think I have a new favourite Saturday lunch spot.