Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
Giving myself the creeps.
Since I bought my house last spring I have been putting off the writing of a will – something that only really becomes essential once you own substantial things and/or have dependants. I recently also took out life insurance through my union as I have one person in my life who I wanted to make sure would be taken care of in the event of something untimely. Problem is, if you die and don’t have it all clear who people have to contact and where the beneficiaries can be found – the insurance just goes unclaimed. If I was not single it would be somewhat easier – but being that I’m on my own pretty much all my particular information is just stored in my head – which helps no one if I’m not around the explain it.
So I know I have to do the official paperwork soon and get it all notarized. But since I’m leaving the country, I felt like I should at least leave some notes behind about where to find paperwork, and where to contact people etc.
Let me tell you – that is one heavy task. Asset distribution is the simple part, but when I got down to trying to figure out who needs to be contacted, I got really very sad. Not sad about my own death, but sad because as I chose names, I thought about those people getting a phone call, about Darren’s lawyer having to come and tell him in his cell, about my parents having to make arrangements. Sad because I can remember everytime I have picked up the phone to hear of death in explicit detail – what I was doing and thinking prior to the call, how I put the phone down and where I went afterwards, how everything can be spun in an instant of new reality. A disappearance, a rush, a shock, a hollow opening up underneath, a squeeze of the heart, a slow belief. Not something I would wish on anyone I care about – that’s for sure.
(And not a day goes by when I do not still think of Bob – even 18 months later – and I remember putting down the phone and going out to the step of my house in Roberts Creek and staring at the yard silent until I believed what I had just heard and hung up on, rushing loss running through my hands. Rocking reality back and forth in myself – torn and screaming Not fair! Not fair!)
So yeah, I wouldn’t reccomend it unless you have to for some reason. I’m dreading sitting down to do an actual will, so hopefully this signed piece of paper will make do in the meantime.
Getting organized.
Picked up my passport today (after having it re-printed because the photo in the first version was so dark as to be unreadable), ordered my travel insurance, and have started trying to figure out the housesit. Two weeks or two months, it seems the same amount of preparation is needed…. and I always get antsy as hell – not because I’m nervous – but because I just want to get going and stop thinking about passport control and border crossings and bag searches and customs agents….. which really is enough to stop one from traveling all together (though I’m already thinking about where to go in the fall – so it’s obviously not that much of a hindrance).
I’ve also got to get my nomination forms together in the next few days for the union position I am running for – just so I don’t miss any deadlines while I’m away. I have been wavering a bit on running again, just because I want to focus a bit more on running for the national bargaining team this fall, but have decided that these are not mutually exclusive activities and since I’ll probably lose this election anyhow it doesn’t matter too much. There is a little nastiness going on with a couple individuals on my local executive this week that I am trying to deal with by displaying as much grace as I can possibly stomach (having integrity isn’t the problem – but being nice to people being jerks is). At least the two people who are doing the sniping at my back are the same two people who always complain about me – which I can only chalk up to the fact I have been somewhat successful in the past few years, and they see that as a direct threat to their own interests. Like most things in life, there is not much I can do about it.
Funny though, even though I’ve been having all this good activity and good things coming – I’ve been rather sad lately. I can’t quite figure out why – though I think it has something to do with love… I find myself very angry about it at times…. which may be why I’m diverting as much as possible into being busy. I just feel impossible in love – I’m not good at it and I’d rather I didn’t have such a great capacity for ending up in it…. *sigh*… oh woe – what is the matter with me? And no, nothing has happened to Greg – everything is fine – I’m just a bit on edge about things and jumping the gun on predicting failure. (yes it’s stupid).
See – diversion is good – navel gazing about relationship is bad. So now I’m off to drink beers with union women.
Scrambled like tofu.
I can’t believe I have neglected this blog for over a week! I’m blaming it on the hectic pace of the last few days and the fact I’ve been exhausted during my downtime. I’m back at work today and tired from the weekend – and I leave for Colombia in 10 days – so I’m hoping to get a little chill time before then.
I’m scrambled at the moment – work kicking my ass and wondering what the hell I’m doing trying to be in three places all the time. I’m tired, bone-tired, from airtime and ferries and crappy food and having to be permanently on-guard as I navigate airports and traffic. I need more than a good night’s sleep at this point – but unfortunately the break from everything isn’t going to be a possibility until later this summer.
I know this sounds like complaining but really, it’s not – I’m not unhappy, and generally speaking I would rather be engaged with the world than sitting around at home being “bored”. On the other hand, I’m not sure I can sustain the daily commuting if I am also traveling one or two weeks of the month – and I’m feeling a strong desire to “collapse” my life back into a single municipality of at least work and home if not work/home and family. I’m definitely not in any decision-making place – but on the way to Ottawa this week, I ran into an old boss of mine who suggested there might be a position for me in Victoria doing communications for a different federal installation. It’s all very up in the air – but she seemed positive about my interest and said there might be something coming up soon.
A year ago, moving back to Victoria was only vaguely on my radar – but because I have been spending a lot more time there in the past year – I have started to feel that after twelve years I could go back. There are lots of reasons why – but the fact my parents are aging, I have lots of old friends, and it would be much easier to have a child on my own there (if that’s what I decide to do) – are all part of the big-picture. One of my major difficulties in considering Victoria as a place to move in the past couple of years is really related to the lack of work-opportunities for federal government communications professionals. If a possibility to work federally out of Victoria does arise – then I will really have to consider that quite seriously – despite the fact I love my little house on the sunshine coast. We’ll see what happens though – there is not even a job posting yet – but I am readying myself for more turmoil just in case.
My weekend in Victoria was actually very relaxing (I spent two days doing little more than writing and eating), watched the hockey game, stayed at Greg’s and saw my family on Sunday. I get to go home tonight which is exciting after being away for a week, and am looking forward to a little daily routine until I leave next Thursday.
Another project.
Spent part of this weekend working on a new quilt for my friend Aaron – something I bought the fabric for months ago. I have about half the top pieced – and am hoping to have the rest done before I go to Colombia so I can just focus on quilting it when I come back. It looks easy – but making all those squares fit right requires some patience and some practice! I can honestly say my sewing is getting better, as is my cutting accuracy – but it’s still slow-going and I have to rip stitches out frequently!
Flying Machines.
Back in 1997 I started the website Gustave Whitehead’s Flying Machine which is a collection of all the random bits I could find out there about my Great-Great Uncle who ostensibly flew an airplane over two years before the Wright brothers did. Darkly romantic, inspiring and enigmatic – this Uncle of mine has forever occupied my imagination – both with his story and his beautiful winged inventions.
It came to me recently that the old site should come down – the design and writing standards being way out of date, the links broken, and the photos all of poor quality owing to the technology available to me when I made this project nine years ago. My friend who has hosted it all these years complained when I asked him to tank it – he said, “it still gets thousands of hits a month – are you sure?” And then of course, I took another look and realized that while there are lots of sites out there with info about Gustave, there is nothing as comprehensive as mine – and it is linked to from dozens of other sites.
So I revamped the site and moved it to it’s own domain. Not quite finished yet (the photo gallery has some problems I need to work out, and I’m setting up a web store as well) – I wanted to share it with y’all in advance of it’s official launch which should be in about a week or so…. Gustave Whitehead’s Flying Machines… cause I’m always eager to share my latest projects here. (And if you hurry – you can see the old site at http://www.deepsky.com/~firstflight before the url is redirected to the new site – it’s so old and bad it’s worth a peek for old times sake. Remember gradiated buttons – oh yeah – the old internet, how I miss it!)
I will be selling stuff off the site pretty soon – setting up an Amazon shop with books on early aviation and a CafePress site with mugs and magnets and other bits with pictures of the Number 21 plane on them – we’ll see if there’s any appetite – but I know I already get the hits…. so I thought it would be fun to try a web-market for this stuff. I’m happy in any case to get the old site down and the new one up – something I’ve been meaning to get to for years and years now.
Red Cedar 