Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
worth on the planet?
it’s been one of those plug-in the headphones and work like crazy days. there is something about reformatting 100-page reports for the internet that depresses the hell out of me… my temperment is not so suited to tedious monkey-work, and after a day of it i start to wonder about my worth on the planet. i really am thinking that the minute a union communications position comes up i should get the hell out of here…. i mean, if i am going to stay in communications work i’d like to get back into regular strategic communications and out of technology project management. as long as i stay at fisheries i’ve been pigeon-holed as a geek and that’s probably the role i will stay in…..
there’s a lot of pressure here at work right now to assume a larger supervisory role for communications-technology work across the region – but with only a single person working for me now i’m afraid of overloading both her and i without getting the functional resources we need. it wouldn’t be so bad if everyone used the same systems – but unfortunately we have the most chaotic server and systems set up i have ever even heard of – which means having to navigate multiple environments to complete essentially the same tasks. i’m supposed to be working on an integration project when we move to the new internet server but since this is the busy time of year for us – i’m not getting to what i have to do on that yet.
i have a union meeting tonight and am meeting jess later for drinks – this should all make me feel more sane — for the meantime i think i might steal a little time at the end of the day to work on my book….. useful yes?
is this the twilight zone or what?
to answer the question of the day: yes, i am now a homeowner. i handed over my deposit last night and the next few days are to be spent dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. i will be moving at the end of april and then will plan a sleep-over housewarming for all you city folks to come and see.
now i have to start packing.
no, i don't want a free newspaper
the last three weeks have seen a free newspaper blitz during the commuting hours of the downtown core – promotions for the regular papers (the province, the sun) are all well and good, but what has spurred the whole rush is the introduction of two new free news dailies aimed at the “younger” market (that would be gen-x and under) – the metro and 24 hours. supposedly i would fit into this market, given that 32 is apparently considered within the target range for these rags – but if so, i would like to know why i’m being spoken to like a 12-year old?
both the metro and 24 hours contain news stories pared down into an infotainment format, with all journalistic pretenses removed (including the very basic standard of spelling and grammar). it’s not like the average canadian newspaper holds these standards very high in the first place…. but come one – page two of the first edition of 24 hours boasts an article (with photos of supermodels) titled “sexy: more than skin deep” while page six amounts to nothing more than an advertisement for condos in the downtown core. almost every news story is simply pulled off the reuters newswire (tip to editor – learn how to spell reuters) and there is almost no local substance beyond the advertisements.
it seems these new freebies are a product of corporate worries that younger readers aren’t buying newspapers. while it may be true the purchasing of newspapers is on the decline, i believe the introduction of these dailies misses the mark entirely and fails to recognize that those of the computer-saavy generation tend to get our information primarily online. the reality is, if i want reuters news stories, i will just go to the website or to another news aggregate such as google and select from the topics i am interested in rather participate in the cutting of old-growth forests to get material more expediently tranferred via digital media. it’s a shame to see more environmental destruction (and more clutter on our urban streets) with no actual purpose beyond making the rich men more money.
so no, i don’t want a free newspaper – i want good journalism free of advertising even if it means paying a nominal sum – but i guess i don’t fit into the sterotypical target market, so who would listen to me?
(an interesting side-note is that glen clark, former ndp-premier of bc is the president of the pattison-owned 24-hours which may explain why ndp-apologist bill tieleman has got a column in the new daily… after all, he was clark’s campaign advisor for many years. now clark and tieleman cozying up with staunch socred-turned-liberal jim pattison? ick.)
exhaustion
according to the woman who reads tarot for my mother this is a good time for me to buy a house and making a good investment – it’s in the cards she says. i suspect this positive reading had some influence on my parent’s decision to guarantee the mortgage i signed the papers on yesterday. this afternoon i removed the subjects from the conditions of sale and moved my deposit from the savings account into the chequing so i can hand that over tonight.
in the past ten days i found a house & moved forward with that, told the story of my divorce at least eight times to various creditors and bank people, drove to chilliwack to see my lover, went to victoria to see old friends and party, met a new person with whom i spent two days, started a new employee at work, visited my parents, and gone many nights without sleep. today i am coming down with a cold and i think i know why – total exhaustion on every front. good exhaustion – yes – very good – but becoming ill nonetheless…..
if i catch up on my sleep, i’m sure i will get better in no time – at least i need that to be the case as work needs me this week.
remarkable
it is midnight and i am blogging, a little slow on the uptake this evening, kinda shaky from lack of sleep….. but still in victoria, leaving tomorrow.
on thursday after the inspection, i drove to chilliwack to visit a friend, and on my way received a phone call from the bank informing me cmhc has approved my application for mortgage insurance and i’m clear to go. that means i am pretty much in the home stretch – needing to finalize details this week and give notice on my house for may 1st. i still have lots of paperwork to sign starting tomorrow morning at the bank where i will be signing myself into a purgatory of debt — realizing too late the only change is instead of paying rent to a landlord, interest is really just a form of rent to the bank (but really, i’m too excited about owning my first home to really be at all cynical).
in any case, i left for victoria on friday morning on three hours of sleep (plagued with a fit of insomnia) realizing (again) while on the tswassen-swartz bay ferry that dozens of screaming children are the reason i try not to travel holiday weekends… crowded and late are two more reasons i generally try to time my travels better.
fortunately the party at anna & kyla’s on friday night made up for all of that by shaking me out of my drowsed stupor and reminding me that there are still cool people out there i haven’t met yet – amazing, but true! turned out to be a bit of a mix of music and ecstasy, wine and chatter – with a roaring fire in the fireplace and a lot of friend-making going on by the wee hours of the morning. while i stayed relatively sober (consuming a few glasses of wine), i amused myself by hanging out with the happy people chilling around the fire. needless to say, i got no sleep all night, and only managed to catch a couple of hours in the morning beside another fitful sleeper with whom i spent the rest of the weekend curled up with.
which just is a way of saying i met someone very cool on the weekend, and the best part about it was the reminder that the possibility of connecting with new people always exists even when i feel i have already used all my romance chances at the age of 32… and there are no more to be dealt from the deck. i don’t know yet what this new connection is, but i feel liberated by my lack of need for definition, my lack of desire to pick it apart or explore it too much just yet. what i know is it will unfold in some fashion, in the way it is supposed to, and my strongest feeling about that is curiosity.
the last two months has been a re-opening of my own creative heart, self-respect and joy – so much so that every interaction feels like a first, feels like the best and most ecstatic… making the process so much more enjoyable than any need to predict the future no matter what it is i am doing. i feel the need to catch this feeling here in words only so i can draw upon it again in the future when this phase has worn off somewhat.
after much postponing, i made it to my parent’s house early this afternoon where i have been pleasantly surprised by our visit which has been better than many of our phone conversations as of late. it seems the ship here has righted to some degree and while the underlying tension still exists (it always has and i’m sure always will), it is unlikely to devolve badly on this visit.
so hooray for my friends who invited me this weekend and to the lovely person i met, and to my folks for helping me by acting as guarantors, and for the woman at the bank for being so helpful. i feel remarkably blessed at the moment despite the fact i have had a grand total of 9 hours sleep in the past 72 hour period. i am going to crash now i have un-neglected my blog 🙂
Red Cedar 