Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
heart raptures 2
i just sat in on a horrible discipline hearing where a multi-week suspension was handed out. we of course, will be filing a grievance. in any case, i was reminded earlier today about my previous heart raptures list and how i had started building another list of 25 to get to my total of 100 heart raptures….. which i am posting here – to remind me of what things don’t make me feel quite so crummy as i do right now.
51) gypsy brass and russian-punk-cabaret
52) forest paths, worn from use, soft under the feet with needles and scent
53) fresh lavender in my pockets
54) art surprises in public spaces
55) the sun yat sen gardens in the downtown eastside
tired and grumpy and old
i am quite tired and a little grumpy today owing to a few drinks and a bad bout of insomnia last night after the election-night party at the wise. i drink so rarely these days, i forget how wrecked my body feels the next day after even one or two beers sometimes. it’s really unfortunate, but i think i’m getting to the point where i really don’t want to ingest alcohol very often at all. all this clean-country living has turned me into some total stranger but wow am i glad my body is finally learning to recognize toxic substances.
anyhow – i think the election results were decent, and having a funded ndp-opposition should make some marginal difference if we keep them accountable to bringing up the issues in the legislature that matter.
i’m feeling old today, and cynical, and sick of my job, and worn out from being a union rep (have another disciplinary hearing with a member today) – and if it wasn’t for the hearing this afternoon i would just go home early and take the rest of the day for mental health. a good night’s sleep tonight should cure me for tomorrow.
tips for slackers, and life in general
the main technique aiding work slackitude, is that when your boss comes around and asks you to deliver on something urgent, you do it efficiently and without error every time. this gives the illusion that such efficiency and competence exists all the time when clearly – having to perform like that 40+ hours a week, 52 weeks in the year – would be well impossible. lately i have been delivering product non-stop – presentations, written pieces, websites, and advisory notes – somehow managing to spend the vast majority of my day conceptualizing and designing (and typing… oh the wrists!) for the man…. (and yes, there is no denying – i do work for *the* man)
but that of course, offsets the slack times, and the times i am away from my desk on union business…..
my dad came into vancouver with me today and has gone back over to vancouver island, having helped me sort out some of the fundamental things about my new house (duh – where is the main water valve?). very useful to have someone show you things. he also bought me a weedeater. i hate these things because i’m not a big believer in weeds (it’s all in how you define a plant really) except for ivy which is invasive and kills trees. i have ivy behind my house and unfortunately it has a tendency to not only kill trees, but also grow into the siding and rip it apart. apparently this is why i “need” a weed eater (i would have been happy with a machete).
do i argue about these things? no, because there is no point and i live 6 hours and 2 ferry rides away (and besides which, am grateful for the other help, so why taint that by arguing about whether i need to own a weedeater or not?).
overall, this visit with my father was productive and not too argumentative – though i realized yesterday i had a golf-ball sized knot forming at the base of my neck, an old malady that plagued me during my formative years and all but disappeared when i moved out of the house at 17 (and reappeared during the last year of my marriage, but again went away upon my separation). fortunately the headaches didn’t start this time around (i would have needed a few more days before they would) – such is the learned response of one raised in a constant state of tension and mistrust… just a hint of control behaviours and my carefully reconstructed mental state starts to crumble.
even if the mind allows events to dull with time, it seems the body never forgets. or at least, it’s a lot of work to reset the triggers so it doesn’t drive itself into hyper-spasm.
despite recognizing this, there is no down in any of it. i feel quite good this election day and am looking forward to drinking beers in the pub tonight and watching the results slide in once the polls close. am having dinner with jess beforehand, and planning on staying at rob & thi’s. there is no doubt about it, hanging out in a pub talking sauce and politics is one of my favourite east van pastimes… even after all these years. i think i appreciate it even more now i don’t get to do it so often, having a more novel aspect these days.
(and i have to say, i can only be gleeful at the disappointment stephen harper must be feeling right about now – with stronach crossing the floor and all… does it matter? well, yeah, i’d rather not have an election this summer if you hadn’t noticed.)
good busy
highlight of the morning: a skinny-black bear, fresh from hibernation, hanging out in my neighbour’s yard – i slowed my car up to have a good look on my way out the drive.
lowlight of the morning: adriane carr and the green party campaigning on the ferry – yuck! we may be a captive audience but that doesn’t give you the right to torture us.
as for the weekend, i spent it working nonstop on my house with my dad who came over armed with ladder, leaf-blower and carpet-cleaner. he’s still there today finishing up while i’m working in the city. he managed to get the carpets cleaned, the trim painted and the moss cleaned off the roof along with the gunk out of the eaves. he also cleaned up a pile of uncut log rounds littering the grass on the side of my place…. which it turned out there was a lot of. i regrouted my bathtub, and cleaned up the deck, potted a bunch of plants, and i got almost all the books unpacked, and the furniture in the book-room (yes, i have a room just for books) arranged. we also took all my cardboard to the recycling station.
i still have to figure out exactly what i am going to do with all my boxes marked “office” since i don’t really intend to have an office space in my house, and i have a few other boxes that need to be unpacked besides those. i’m almost at the stage where i can take pictures of my place to post here, just needs a few more finishing touches and i’ll be mostly there.
after so much home-time since moving at the beginning of the month, this week i will only be on the sunshine coast tonight and wednesday, as the rest of it will be spent either in the city, or on vancouver island. tomorrow night i am staying in to go to election night at the WISE (i advance-polled on saturday so i wouldn’t have to juggle voting and commuting), and thursday i will be speaking at a community assembly on police violence in east vancouver, then friday it’s to victoria after work until monday night (when i return to the city and have band practice before going home). busy week! but good busy, yes.
i have a bunch of union work i should be getting to but for some reason i just can’t motivate myself this morning – huh – maybe i’ll actually get to the paid work instead…..
vote with rocks! (errr – at the ballot box?)
well, it seems i may have been wrong in my prediction there would not be an election this summer – the fallacy of course being my optimistic view that no politician would be so disrespectful of the voting public as to call an election for mid-summer. ha! was i ever wrong. but we shall have to wait unto the 19th to see whether parliament is dissolved or not, and then it is likely the canadian public will be dragged (kicking and screaming) into another election campaign. it’s all very unreasonable, and likely to produce another minority government that produces another minority government that produces another minority government – and so on. this is how little the public trusts either dominant political party: we are terrified of having either get a majority even if that makes the system unworkable, and so condemned to an infinite loop of failed budget bills and intercine bickering.
i’m pretty sure my outrage due to the federal situation has not been exhausted yet and won’t be until sometime this summer. the lack of democracy! the cost! the idiocy! the failed political reforms! it’s all too much to bear.
fortunately the provincial situation will be resolved much sooner, and with a clear majority for one of the two contending parties (notwithstanding some marginal possibility for a minority government if the greens rally at the nth hour). in my riding i am betting on the ndp candidate nicholas simons against adrianne carr – simons apparently polled at the top of each station on the sunshine coast when he ran for the ndp federally last summer, and the liberals don’t appear to be going so strong on the sunshine coast this time around – so i think there’s a good chance the seat will revert back to the ndp. it’s hard to say though, and definitely one of the more interesting races going at the moment.
my current plan is to spend election night at the WISE watching the results come in with other friends and allies (as per tradition) – but if my father is still on the coast then i won’t be doing that (he’s arriving today). i have to somehow co-ordinate voting and commuting, which may mean advance polling tomorrow or taking the legally mandated four-hours off work to vote so i can go to the polls tuesday morning. i am actually looking forward to election night this time around, curious more than anything.
funny – how that training is ingrained – i don’t believe in the bourgeois democracy in which we live, i often rail about the lack of true representation and local power at the provincial and federal levels – and yet i keep voting, election after election. no matter how fed up i am. no matter how little faith or trust i have in the system. only one time have i failed to vote in a provincial election (when the ndp did so many awful things i decided to vote for no one) and i have never failed to vote in a federal election. i’m not sure why that is, why i keep going out as if it matters, why i keep paying attention to the antics of the elites who surely don’t share any interests of mine (as they have proven over and over again).
during the american presidental election, my friend laughing meme posted a link to a new yorker article on how people choose their leaders which i found fascinating at the time. i have re-located the link to post here, because even though it refers to the us political system, i’m pretty sure that this type of thinking dominates most canadian elections too. i find it pretty frightening that such a high percentage of people seem to choose their leaders based on highly irrational ideas rather than a cohesive vision for what they want society to be. just something to think about in the endless election treadmill we seem to be stuck on at the moment
elections bc yesterday said that blogs endorsing a political candidate were to be considered “election advertising” and thus must be registered with elections bc. am i breaking the law now to say i am voting ndp without registering with elections bc? only time will tell.
in the meantime i say: a vote with a slingshot is worth two ballots in the box. time to start collecting rocks.
Red Cedar 