thisCassandra

Progress

Ten interesting things that have come together or happened in the last six or so months:

1.    I was sick with amazing respiratory problems starting on Jan 1. After 4 months a friend insisted that I go to naturopath, Dr. L. Dr. L. did some testing and discovered that I had a weakened liver and lymphatic system (I already suspected these two things) and gave me a list of foods to avoid (beef, pork, potatoes, peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, all dairy, caffeinated beverages), which I did. I already feel a lot better than I did;

2.   The re-roofing: I tried to deal with the re-roofing project all last summer and fall, but it turned out to be more than I could do. BCA, the ultra hip architecture firm that I found one sunny Sunday while walking along East Hastings Street, and I had some meetings and BC came to see thisCastle, and I checked references (all glowing), and we have come to a verbal agreement - BCA is going to orchestrate the re-roofing, including a greening component, and I'm going to pay BCA to do it. This I know I can do. BC, the architect, and I meet tomorrow afternoon;

3.    The mural: in February, people from the city's Graffiti Management Program (GMP) approached me to offer to place a mural on my blank wall that faces onto East Hastings Street. Basically they offered to do pretty much everything, including applying for the permits, giving me the permit, supplying all materials and equipment, paying the artist, and all I had to do was supply the wall and contribute a bit of money (whatever I felt comfortable putting in). I agreed, and I designed the mural that I want, and my GMP contacts love it, and have since offered to pay the whole artist fee. The preliminary design is with the probabl artist, and he is to produce a mock up for use in the permitting process. Estimated time line is between 26 July and 8 August;

4.    New gates and security bars: I am taking an element of the mural design and extending it outwards over the garage doors in the form of mini murals and the main floor windows in the form of security bars over painted surface. Currently looking for artists/suppliers;

5.    Yesterday evening I cleaned off one of my desks, so I would be able to make The Flying V butcher paper dress (see photo) - an actual art project, completed today, that is not for any course or anything - it just is. I have to say that butcher paper is not a forgiving fabric, nor is it particularly easy to work with;

6.    My friend Glenn A and I plan to trade work for work - he'll paint the interior of thisCastle, and I'll make mat/folia for some of his art collection;

7.    In May, I bought some tres groovy green boots from Fluevog. They inspired me to get a pair of boots made, and to learn how to make footwear. In August, I head to Utah for 2+ weeks, where I'll attend a two week boot-making workshop with Randy Merrell (of the footwear company fame). I'm very excited about this;

8.    In October, I head to Montreal where I see the petit building that my Great Friend Rob H bought. Then we head to Toronto together where I plan to attend the Bata Shoe Museum. Then we take the train back across the country together in separate roomettes. I'm very excited about this trip too;

9.    I won a game called "Apples to Apples" while attending the Jazz Festival free concerts in Gastown;

10.    I developed a crush on DM, a tranny I met at the Halloween Oddball where DM and I were working a security shift together. In May I attended "Gender Euphoria" with Bobbi, my ex, and Jenn, Bobbi's  current partner. DM was there, of course, and we talked a bit. Then I did open mike, telling "The Tale of Two Chickens" (about the chicken that becomes a rooster and lives euphorically ever after). I asked DM out, and got a "Yes". I was very pleased with that, but that said, I left a voice message, but haven't hear back. I wasn't crushed by this lack of response, and I know I shouldn't, but I still have a bit of a crush.

All the News That's Fit to Print

New things:

I think I've found what I want to do when I grow up: In August I'm attending a two week bootmaking course put on by the fellow who founded the Merrell boot & shoe company. I have registered, sent my deposit, bought my ticket, and it's only May.

The lab is in Vernal, Utah, which is located in the northeast part of the state, near Flaming Gorge (what a great name). I'm flying into Las Vegas, renting a car and driving through Utah up to Vernal, and back again. I'm excited - I've seen pictures of Utah and parts of it are incredibly beautiful.

I'm also excited about learning to make footwear; I've always wanted to do it, but didn't have the resources. Now I have them, so I'm going for it. I met with the fellow who makes and repairs shoes at Rino's Shoes for the Stars, and he is pleased that someone is wanting to learn his craft, and has offered to give me some guidance.

Making custom footwear is part of my retirement plan. More about this later.

In October, I'm flying to Montreal to hang out with my great friend Rob H, who has moved to his new place in a sketchy-but-up-and-coming part of Montreal. We'll then head to Toronto, where I want to go to the Bata Shoe Museum, and board a train for Vancouver. He has never taken the train across Canada, and I have done it once. We've booked adjacent roomettes, and we intend to do not much more than read and chat and eat things. I am really looking forward to those three days with nothing much to do. What with my vacation in August really not being vacation time, and all.

I've been ill with asthma since January, and I'm a bit concerned about the long term implications. Am I ever going to be able to not get sick when I'm around people who have been smoking or who use scented products? Am I going to have to exist in a bubble? I hope not.

About five weeks ago, in an effort to regain control of my breathing, I visited a naturopath. He determined that my liver and lymphatic system were weak and needed cleansing. He gave me a list of foods that are toxic to me - beef, pork, dairy products, nightshade (potatoes, tomatoes, peppers (even the spices pepper, paprika and cayenne), eggplant (not that I eat this one)), and fruit - all of which I have removed from my diet, and I am some, but not completely, better. That is the asthma is sometimes under control and sometimes not, depending on circumstances.

Even though the asthma is not yet controlled, the five weeks of changed diet has had some benefit, that is I have quite a lot more energy than I did and I am marginally less cuddly than I was.

Old things revisited:

I have not been writing much lately, but I have been busy - mostly trying to clean and organize thisCastle (a continuous and continual project). I've been here five years now, and you'd think I would have fixed it up more, but no, I have not. I still haven't painted most of the interior walls, still haven't done the roof. How lame is that?

Not so lame - I'm working on both of them.

Paint-wise, I've arranged a barter with my friend Glen, he'll paint my interior walls and I'll mat and frame for some of his art. We're both excited over this.

Roof-wise, I've had a few meetings with an architect who is interested in working with me to manage the project of the replacement and greening of my roof. He has seen the roof, knows what I want, knows my budget, and he'll be sending a list of possibilities and quotes in a few days. This is huge. I tried to manage this project in the fall, but it was too much for me, I wasn't able to make a decision then, but now, with the support of a professional, I think I can do it.

Modern Living Continuum

This saved January 28, 2009:

I saw the Modern Life Girl this sunny afternoon, and she is not looking good. She has a scab on her nose, and some scrapes and bruises on  the rest of her face. As is her tendency, she asked for money, so that has not changed. As is my tendency, I did not give her money, but did offer to give her the apple tart that I'd just bought. That much also hasn't changed.

I've been trying to finish writing a story about her, and in the story that character's name is June. Today I introduced myself and asked her name and she said, "It's Yuin (rhymes with June), spelt Y-U-I-N."

Not bad. I was able to almost get her name out of the air. This is not the only time something like this has happened. While still in high school I went to a concert where I met a dancing queer boy named Ted. I developed an instantaneous crush (that also hasn't changed), but didn't ask his last name. From the air I got Narjal as his last name, and was certain that that was it. Well, it turned out that we had mutual friends, and one of them told me his last name was Marshall. Not exactly Narjal, but not far off.

  

Nothing to You

Is It Nothing to You?

It is November 11th, 10 a.m. I am arriving at Victory Square for my annual visit to the cenotaph. I come here every year to be part of the remembering. I come to feel things that I don’t normally feel.

I don’t have a poppy yet. Apparently I don’t go to the places where the poppies grow, the liquor stores, the shopping malls, the super markets, and time goes by so quickly that my intention to track down a poppy fell by the wayside. I go to the first group of cadets I see who have boxes of poppies. I trade some filthy lucre for the purity of a poppy and I pin it over my heart.

While I am conducting my transaction, the first wave of participants marches past: the first marching band, the cadets in their navy blue with their white sailor caps, and the Mounties in their scarlet with their odd camel hats. My throat closes a bit and my eyes well up. This always happens to me on Remembrance Day, and for no reason. I come from a long line of disinterested Asian Canadians who verge on being apathetic. Other than one great uncle who died before I was born, none of my forebears took part in any of the famous western wars. My people have never been, and I’m not really, patriotic; to me being Canadian means I don’t have to think about it very often.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that I was born in a place where I don’t have to express my gratitude and prove my patriotism all the time. I don’t really have the energy to do this much more than once or twice a year. For this I feel grateful.

This year I notice that the cadets are predominantly pre-pubescent and of Chinese racial origin, it has to be at least 95%. They look like me (younger, of course), but I feel outside of whatever it is that they are. I have always felt outside of that. Not that I would ever have passed the physical, but I probably would have benefited from the discipline that a cadet would have to develop. I lose myself in the idea of those opportunities lost, and I feel a bit sad to have not become an altruist, that I would never have been capable of self sacrifice, that I am incapable of being part of a team.

That said, I have never wanted to be inside of anything military or martial, not even martial arts, and I have lived my life wanting to avoid war. I have not always been successful, because I am judgmental and outspoken; my pathological bluntness often gets me into trouble. For me conflict is an interpersonal phenomenon, almost a hobby.

Really, I think about nothing much. On Remembrance Day, at Victory Square, near the Cenotaph I feel things I don’t normally feel. Right now I feel small.

I stand in the rain, under the tree near the corner of Hamilton and Pender, waiting for the pomp and splendour. I stand as far from people as I can, and I watch them. I hear people, and I judge them. I see people dressed inappropriately for the weather, and I judge them. I smell peoples’ perfume, and I judge them. I judge the purity of peoples’ reverence. I judge myself and I judge them. I stand myself as far away from others as I can without standing out too much. I stand in judgement.

The first year I came here two women stood behind me chatting, continuing even through the two minutes of silence. When I told my friend’s mother, the widow of a WWII Air Force vet, about them, she was less judgmental than I had been. “At least they were there,” she’d said.

At least they showed up, but they were not present and they got no stars for attendance from me.

I’m getting restless, so I walk down the hill to Hastings where I stand away from the crowd, between Hamilton and Homer. I hear ranting, a woman shouting “Don’t you follow me. I have a right to be here, I have a right to protest.” She comes out of the crowd and wanders a bit. She is walking a bit hunched over and she is followed by a man in dress uniform, clearly of some authority. She is clearly in an altered state.

There is a bit of indecision, and then she heads in my direction. I am, as is my tendency, standing in the middle of an empty space equidistant from everyone else. Right now my empty space is about twenty feet across, but this woman heads right for me. I am a magnet for people who are out of it, I think because I look directly at, and maybe into them, and even though they may not see me, they sense a stable presence. Like here, there was a bit of stumbling, then when she got into the range, she headed directly towards me without any hesitation. She is looking at me, but her eyes don’t look like they’re focusing right. She is waving a thin stick or something, so I pick up my stuff and move out of her way. Out of her reach.

The man in the dress uniform tells her to “Go away,” and I think about the irony. Even though he may have defended this area as a part of his concept of civilization, she lives down here, so it, as a reality, is hers and she is defending her rights to it now. I can see that the man does not understand this. He feels anger that she has disrupted his day, his party, his proceedings. How dare she not show enough respect?

The police try to make her lie on the ground, then let her kneel. They hassle her a bit, then let her go. “Stay away,’ they say to her. She walks away continuing her rant as she goes. One of the cops gets on his bike and follows her.

I listen to his ride, and note that, even though it’s a Harley, it doesn’t sound like the modified ride of a biker. I was in a biker-run key shop one day, and it happened that a modified Harley drove past while I was there. The biker/owner had some friends with him, and every one of them, when that modified Harley drove past, pricked up their ears, and their bodies followed the sound a little. After it was gone they relaxed and one of them said, “I didn’t recognize that bike.” And the others concurred.

Then I figure that bikers modify the mufflers so that their Harleys make that characteristic rumbling sound so that they can recognize each other from a distance and their rides don’t sound like the rides of the cops. It is part of being in the team.

I’m getting cold so I walk around a bit. I walk up to the corner of Cambie and Pender and try to continue east towards home, but I turn back and walk down to Hastings and Richards to watch the parade.

The parade begins with the Right Honorable Gordon Campbell and a group of unidentified men strolling quickly to the Saluting Base that has been constructed at the bus stop in front of SFU Harbour Centre. He is followed by another group which includes His Honour the Honourable Steven Point, Lieutenant General of B.C. and his wife. Two men walk with them holding umbrellas over their heads. Steven Point’s wife wears a beautiful short coat with a Haida design on the back. Dorothy Grant, I think. It reminds me of a Robert Davidson painting that was in the Raven Travelling show at the Art Gallery – the one from the collection of Diana Krall and Elvis Costello.

The first group to march past is the actual WWII vets. They are old. There used to be enough of them that they marched in groups all like uniforms together. Now they are one or two of each uniform all marching together into one small-ish group. This makes me very sad. As they walk past, I stand a little taller than usual and I cry. I salute them.

Then a Pipe and Drum group. I love pipe and drum: when I was four years old I was sitting by the side of the road. Alone, as usual. I heard the sound of bagpipes and when I looked I saw a pipe band all alone marching down the street. They marched past me, each of them meeting my eye as they went past. I have, since then, had a weakness for pipe bands, not to mention shortbread cookies and boys of Scottish descent.

Then all the others, marching bands, current serving members, cadets, Mounties. Most of us clap in recognition of each group that passes. The final group is comprised of the Veterans Against Nuclear Weapons and the sole Veteran For Peace. They get more applause than anyone except for the first group of old vets. I agree with these; when I see military people advocating against nuclear weapons and for peace, I feel hope.

I feel clarity, I feel peace. I have been able to slow my ADHD brain a bit and keep myself from being judgmental for an hour or two, and for that I am grateful.

Lest We Forget.

Many Happy Returns

Here's the third assignment for school. The assignment was to interview a family member. Just so you know, there was no interview; it's supposed to be a fiction class...

My mother and I are in her bedroom sitting on her bed. It hasn’t been easy organizing this visit.

 

My mother hasn’t wanted to do it, but I can be persuasive when I need to be, so we sit together on her bed with a pile of family photos between us. I sort through it.

 

There is a photo of the wedding of my grandfather and my grandmother, my mother’s parents. He wears a dark suit. One of the pant legs is rucked up a little, and shows that he is wearing white socks. She wears a turquoise silk traditional jacket and a black with turquoise silk brocade skirt. The jacket and skirt are beautiful. The couple is beautiful.

 

I ask my mother about what she knows of their wedding. She tells me this:

 

“They married in 1928, when he was twenty three and she was eighteen. It was an arranged marriage. The bride price included: two roast pigs; 24 barbecued ducks; 48 roast chickens; 200 pounds of rice; 20 pounds of fortune cookies; 10 yards of silk; 2 dozen oranges; 20 dozen hard-boiled eggs; and other stuff that I can’t remember.”

 

“Gramma told me that the cookies went stale and the oranges went moldy before they could be eaten.”

 

Gramma [my mother’s mother] was born in Cumberland, and Grampa [my mother’s father] and his father emigrated from China when Grampa was 15. What with the restrictions and fees for Chinese immigration, I don’t know how they managed to get into Canada in 1920, but my mother explains it away as their having been of the merchant class.

 

After the marriage, my grandparents settled in Nanaimo. There is a postcard of the young family before Dougie, the youngest, was born. My mother is a toddler. She and her two older siblings look ill-nourished and not too alert. There is a recognizable shiftiness in the five year old eyes of my Uncle Art – he continues to be shifty. The mouths of my Auntie Margaret and my mother, Elizabeth, gape. The baby, Gilbert, looks as you would expect him to look, like a baby.

 

I ask what she remembers of living in Nanaimo.

 

“We had a half acre with a chicken farm. Grampa [her father] had dogs, Dobermans; they were one man dogs. They loved him, and he could put his feet on them. They bit everyone, except him.”

 

My mother is still afraid of dogs. I have a hazy memory of cranky dogs that lived under the back steps of my grandparents’ house at

456 Keefer Street

. We never went into the back yard unless Grampa was there. Call me a coward, but I am still wary of large snapping dogs.

 

There is a photo of my mother as a young child. When I show her this photo, she says, “This was taken in our first house after we moved from Nanaimo to Chinatown. It was at the corner of Gore and Union. I was three years old.”

This house was there until recently. I knocked on the door about three years ago, and the fellow who was living there showed me the living room. There was still an oil burning stove. I imagined my grandmother cooking on it, and my mother and her siblings playing in front of it.

 

There is a photo of my mother as a toothless school girl, which prompts her to remember this: “We used to take the trolley car to school every day. I always dozed off. I was up so late studying every night, but I still never got it. I was always so stupid.”

Hearing her say this makes me very sad. My mother is naturally left handed and was forced to use her right hand. She is now ambidextrous, though dyslexic. She has never had good reading skills, and she reads nothing more complex than TV Guide or romance novels. This also makes me sad.

There is a photo of my mother as a young woman. She is leaning against an old dodge, just north of Strathcona field. Behind her the big green house and the small yellow house on Heatley at Pender, can be seen. They are neither green nor yellow in the photo. My mother is very young, maybe eighteen. I ask her if she hung out with a big gang of Chinese kids back then.

“My brothers all had a lot of friends. I hung out with them and their friends. I didn’t have many friends.”

 

More sadness, my mother didn’t know how to make friends, she still doesn’t know how to make friends, and she still doesn’t have any friends.

 

There is a photo of my father and my mother and my half brother, Steven, walking together at the PNE. My mother says, “This is the first picture of you, I was five months pregnant.”

 

I am there too, just visible as a bump getting ready for a life.

 

There is a photo of my mother as a young woman with me as a baby. I ask her what she recalls of this time, what it is like to have a baby:

 

“I don’t remember. They knocked me out, I woke up and there you were, my beautiful daughter.”

 

We stop and I hold her for a while because she needs to be hugged. She hugs me back hard; I am her life-line, her beautiful daughter.

 

There is a photo of my grandmother’s 80th birthday. She has a tight afro perm. My mother also has an afro perm, but not so tight. She and my grandmother are dressed a lot alike, in polyester blend tops and polyester pants; my mother looks like a younger version of my grandmother.

When she sees this photo, my mother touches her mother’s face and says, “Gramma didn’t like me.”

 

This is strange because when my grandmother died, my Auntie Margaret said to me, “I know I was not my mother’s favourite daughter.”

This makes me sad too, that my grandmother had two daughters, and this emotional desert is what she left to them.

 

There is a photo of my mother and her four siblings. She has just been released from the hospital where she has spent the last nine and a half weeks. She had an emergency bowel resection, and spent 12 days in ICU, and then, in the Step Down Unit, she had multiple organ failure. She nearly died, truly, we expected her to die, but she did not. She isn’t well now, but she

is better than she was. In the photo she looks bloated and frail. I ask what she remembers:

 

My mother is getting tired. She looks at the photo and says nothing, which means “Nothing.”

 

There is a photo of my mother at her 75th birthday. She is sitting at the Pink Pearl Restaurant surrounded by me and my three friends, Marlene, Amy and Pat. She is there with us, with her brother Gilbert and his girlfriend, with her cousin, Lonnie, and her two kids, with my half-brother, Steven. We have just had a huge meal.

 

I ask what she remembers of this photo, and she says “Dragons.”

 

It’s true, the women in and around my family are dragons, and there were dragons: the restaurant was split in half and there was a big banquet on one side of the retractable wall, and regular dining on the other side. We had occasional glimpses of a young person or two dressed in some shiny silk or satin outfit.

 

About halfway through our meal, the wait staff opened the wall right in front of our table and we were able to read the sign: 4th Anniversary Banquet for Wushu Society. Several young people in shiny outfits, men and women, gathered in a line and took turns dragon-dancing. In all there were five sets of dragons – red, gold, silver, black, and white - leaping and frolicking, heads and tails wagging. Then all five danced simultaneously, worrying at the lettuce offerings.

My mother has not had an easy life, not like the easy life she gave to me, her much beloved daughter. But what an auspicious 75th birthday: five dancing dragons, one for each 15 years. It was a birthday greeting from the universe, and in the card was written, “Many happy returns”.

My Name is Cassandra

Greetings Earthlings!

thisCassandra is taking an on-line writing class and is pretty busy with it and with the new job. The first assignment was to write an introduction, a creation story, something that would let the others know who we were. I started with the Lucky in Names post, inserted a newly created creation story, and then ended with the Il Cameroni myth (names changed - shortened), and I'm ever so pleased with the result.

In the crit, the instructor's comment was

"thisCassandra, this is brilliant!

How on earth did you get to be such a genius?

I marvel at your crafting of this story. I loved it, chuckled, and am now exhausted from reading it (in a good way!).

Wow!

You have just set the bar for assignments for ever and ever.

A marvelous story from a great teller."

I hope you enjoy it!

Hip Replacement

My two-year-old (ancient) Thinkpad has never worked reliably. Since spring the keyboard had only worked intermittently (particularly the space-bar, of no great consequence, I know), and it started to switch over to wireless connections that I have set up for the hotels where I have stayed (I have never been able to find and delete these connections), and it randomly shifts one tab to the left or right when I am typing e-mails in Firefox. The machine has always randomly switched: to a mysterious keyboard where if I hit the comma key (with or without the shift key) I get a less-than-sign (I have never been able to figure out how to get the regular keyboard back, so I just give it a time out). Honestly, I have never liked my two-year-old Thinkpad much and, more than that, I distrust it. It has never worked reliably and has never exceeded expectation.

The two-year-old Thinkpad has spent the last four or so months just limping along, so it's time for it to go to the hospital for major surgery - effectively a quadruple bypass and a hip replacement. I don't want to live without a computer while it's gone, so this is a good time to buy another machine. I don't want to use Vista - I resent having to upgrade my already bloated software with even more bloated software, and then finding huge problems with the function of the new versions, or finding that file extensions have changed so files are not compatible with earlier versions - so I've decided to cross over and I have ordered a MacBook.

My new MacBook is part of a back to school promotion at the Bookstore of the university where I work: I get a mid-range machine for a greatly reduced price, and with it I get a free iPod touch and a free Canon colour printer/scanner/copier (rather I pay for them and the companies refund my purchase price - I already have the same printer, but I can sell it or give it away). Who, in the market for a new computer, could say no to such a deal?.

I haven't had regular access to a Mac since moving away from the Friendly Studio more than eight years ago. My ex was and remains a Mac user. I, on the other hand, have had to use PCs for work since December 93 (and still do), so switching back to Mac is a big deal for me. 

The start date of my first official job at my university was October 15, 1990, which was, coincidentally the date that the Mac Classic was released. I didn't start using Mac immediately, but after a few months I started using a Classic that didn't have an internal hard drive. I had a 40 MB external hard drive that I had to turn on before I booted up the machine or the machine wouldn't notice it and I'd have to start all over again. I wonder if the MacBook will have an internal hard drive.

Soon after release date, the Classic II replaced the Classic. It had an internal hard drive (40 MB) and was able to record sound shots. I found a mic and recorded myself saying "Hey, you!" (my signature greeting back then) and used it as the standard warning sound. The Classic II said "Hey, you!" to me every time I did something that it didn't like, which was often. Maybe the MacBook will be able to record sound too.

Both the Classic and the Classic II were monochrome machines, and they were great for word-processing and spreadsheets, simple office stuff, at a slow and steady pace. I am crossing my fingers that the MacBook will have lots of colours and will be able to do all kinds of stuff more quickly and more reliably than the two-year-old Thinkpad.

I liked the two Classics - I trusted them to work as they were expected to, and maybe they even surpassed my expectations. I hope that the MacBook will please me as much as the Classics did.

Two Weeks Farther On

My new job is demanding, but all the stuff I learned while working at my previous job has served me well and I've survived the first two weeks. We are going through some expansion - moving to a building that's three times as big as our current place and is even closer to my house than our current location (8 minute walk rather than 10 - how great is that), and I am the person responsible for the renos and the move. I have other responsibilities as well, to keep the place up and running, but the move is my priority.

The new building is in Chinatown and was built 20 years ago. It was designed to fit in with the surrounding structures - it looks vaguely Asian, the facing is red brick, it has three floors and it used to be a bank (so we have a fire proof vault to store our weekly backups). It looks a bit like a bigger and fancier version of my house.

My old job was located in the basement of a hospital. We had no windows, no fresh air, no natural light. Right now my desk is located right beside a ground floor window that looks over Main Street. In the new place, my desk is to be located on the second floor next to a huge open stairwell/skylight/lightwell that is approximately the size of the largest room in my house. Cynthia, my boss, wants to grow food in the stairwell, and to have a garden up on the roof (eventually). This jibes well with my plans to green all horizontal surfaces that are under my purview...

I am thrilled.

Neo News

I survived leaving my old job where I have been since 1996. The last day, Thursday, was quite emotional. The whole last few weeks, between giving my notice and leaving, have been emotional, many tears every time my leaving came up in conversation. Tears and sadness mixed with glee.

During the fall and spring terms I like to take one day off every week - the day depends on the schedule of available courses where I go to school. I normally take one course, which is plenty if you also have a full time job and maintain a small building, but this fall term two courses were offered that I really wanted to take: Print Media 205 - Alternative Processes, a 6 unit all day studio course, and English 200 - Creative Writing, a 3 unit on-line course with a writer whose work I enjoy. I had decided to take both courses, had even registered for them, then I was told I was not permitted to take a day off every week to go to school. I was feeling a bit disgruntled, and got a bit grumpy.

UBC, my employer, contracts with a company to provide the employees with assistance, legal, financial, emotional, so I decided to call the company and make an appointment to visit one of these employer provided therapists. When I called I told the receptionist that I was pretty assertive and requested a therapist who was strong enough to hold me accountable for my situation. I told her that I was pretty tough and I didn't want any namby pamby "it's okay to feel angry" therapists who speak in the sing song voice as though speaking to a recalcitrant pre-schooler on a time-out, so she recommended Nathan. "He has a reputation of being assertive" she said, and booked my first appointment, Friday night at 7:45 p.m.

There is something confident and assertive about a counsellor who works on Friday evenings, a counsellor who doesn't need a social life to affirm him/herself. Cool.

When I explained my grumpiness and its roots in my disgruntlement, Nathan asked me how much sleep I got. When I outlined my sleep schedule (bed by 1 am, alarm at 6 am, out of bed by 6:45 am, out the door by 7:15 am) he suggested that I was sleep deprived and might benefit from rearranging my sleep schedule. He then suggested I try going to bed earlier.

Over the next four weeks I was able to move my bed time to 11:30 pm, which helped a little, but not quite enough. So Nathan and I went through how I could further help myself. I came up with this: a work schedule that would allow me to sleep until 8 am. Some job where I would earn enough money to survive, but would allow me to have a cycle more in tune with my natural rhythm.

A week or so later I was reading the UBC job postings and I found one for a front counter person in an outreach operation a ten minute walk away from my house. The hours were 9 - 5, and when I did some research I discovered that this facility brings UBC people - faculty, staff, students - into the inner city to volunteer in the communities. They offer educational opportunities to the people of my neighbourhood, computer classes, ESL classes, computer access, and creatived writing workshops. It sounded perfect so, even though I am not a great reception person, I applied.

A week later when I got a voice mail asking me to come for an interview, I looked back at the job postings and found that a job more suited to my skill set (same facility) had been posted the week before the receptionist position.

Around this time I was starting to feel a bit deceitful - I like to know what's going on with people around me - so I told my managers that my commute (2+ hours per day on the bus) was wearing on me and affecting my health, and that I was looking for another job closer to home. They told me I'd be missed, and agreed to act as references for me, and to give me time off for interviews.

I called the woman back, and we talked a bit. I told her that I thought that the other position was more suitable for me, and told her that if she had other candidates to interview that it might be betterjust to go ahead and interview them. She agreed and said that she would give my resume to the person who was hiring for the other position.

Cynthia, the woman who was hiring for the other position got in touch right away: within an hour I got a voicemail and an e-mail with the job description attached. She wanted to meet with me, so I called back, we talked and arranged an interview for Tuesday the 8th of July.

The interview went well, my in basket went okay, and I didn't hear anything for a few days. Then on Thursday morning Cynthia called one of my managers. An hour later she offered me the job, and I said I needed to think about it for the weekend. She agreed, so I thought about it and on Monday morning the 14th of July I called her and accepted the offer. We agreed on a start date of the 28th of July.

Two weeks notice is not very much when you've been at a job as long as I had been at mine. I could probably have continued working at my old job until retirement, but this job came my way, and I took it. 

I got a plum job that I didn't apply for, a job where I feel like I am doing something to help people in my community who have nothing to get something. I like the people that I work with, I like the patrons, I like the hours, 9 to 5, because I can sleep until 8 a.m., shower and still get to work with time to spare. This is good, so good, in fact all good.

Preparing for Flight

I'm leaving my job of 14 years, and it's surprisingly emotional. The friend group took me for lunch yesterday, and I was okay until they gave me the card, then it became difficult to keep myself from crying. Today the management is taking me and everyone who wants to come along for lunch.

I'll probably cry again.

The new job is a plum, a UBC position in an outreach facility located a ten minute walk away from thisCastle. This facility is run like a non-profit social agency in that it helps out in my community. So I'll be able to feel that I'm helping, not just processing paper.

Plum perfect.

 

MetaMorphosis - Now that's a Convertible

My mother and I were invited to Sunday dinner at the home of Art, one of her Richmond brothers, so that she and I could hang out with my three Richmond cousines, all of whom happen to be in town, two from Manhattan and one from Edmonton. These are seriously beautiful women, and accomplishedl: Kelley, daughter of Doug; Michele, daughter of Art (favourite of my grandmother); and Tammy, daughter of Art. Between them they have five children, and three interesting lives, and I have always felt like the ugly duckling-Bart Simpson cousin in comparison to them. Oh well, that is neither here nor there. 

I belong to a Car Co-op and I book cars as necessary. I have favourite cars, and on Sunday I used the white convertible Smart Car which is one of my absolute favourites - I love this car. What's not to love about a small car that's cute, easy on gas and fun to drive? Nothing.

The white convertible Smart Car lives in stall 67 - in underground parking beneath a downtown condo complex called Electric Avenue - which is reserved for it 24 hours per day. Last night, when I took the little white Smart Car home to stall 67, there was a honking huge brand new black BMW X6 SUV parked there, nose to the wall, in our reserved space, so after a bit of confusion, I parked in stall 70 and phoned the Car Coop to confirm the stall number and to find out if I could park the car in another space.

I gave them the info about the big black car, and they told me that they would call the towing company, but I'd have to wait around and show the car to the tow truck driver and sign off after he finished hooking up. So I waited.

I didn't feel good about this, I'd never had any one towed before and I didn't really want to do it at all. I went up to Earl's restaurant (stall 67 is surrounded by free parking for Earl's) and told the front door staff that the car was being towed and they told me they had no public announcement system, but thanked me for making an effort to let them know. I considered changing my booking so that I'd keep the car and return it in the morning when the BMW was sure to be gone, but I didn't. I just waited for the tow truck.

When the tow truck arrived the driver told me that he'd never towed a BMW X6 before, so he was really stoked, really looking forward to it, really excited. While he was working on it, two guys walked past and said "Are you really having it towed?" I shrugged and said, "I have to. They're parked in our space." Then they cheered me on for being assertive with my parking and having it towed. The tow truck driver beamed and thanked me as I signed the paper. Then he drove away, taking the big black BMW X6 SUV with him. I backed into stall 67, put the key away, and walked out of there, almost an hour after I first drove in, feeling okay.

Having thought about it, I now feel even better: these people are going to approach stall 67 and notice that the butt end of their big black BMW X6 SUV isn't visible. They will panic more and more, and then when they get to stall 67, they're going to find a tiny white convertible Smart Car parked nose out where they left their car. They'll freak out. It'll seem to them like their car lost 60% of its value, changed colour, shrunk, turned into a ragtop and turned itself around.

Ha ha. I loved it. I love sticking it to the BMW SUV drivers, and I would pay big money to hear them and to see the looks on their faces as they approach stall 67. I would pay even bigger money to hear and see them just after they arrive. I love this. What's not to love about confounding people (who have quite likely been drinking) by apparently converting their absurdly ostentatious and wasteful vehicles into cute little sensible cars? Nothing.

If It Has To Be This Way, Why Not That Way?

I've seen the True Cameron twice in the last week or so, once at the Hawkes Street sale (in McLean Park) where I was at the Neighbourhood Small Grants program information table disbursing infomation, and again at the Jazz Fest where he works and I saw him standing on a white plastic lawn chair. Neither of these sightings was unexpected, but, that said, nor were they intentional.

Both sightings were a byproduct of my efforts to claim parts of my neighbourhood that I have avoided because of proximity to his place (McLean Park) and to reclaim parts of my life that I have neglected since his and my involvement (the Jazz Fest)  My Neighbourhood Small Grants Program work requires that I inhabit more of the neighbourhood than I have historically, especially the pivotal area around McLean Park. Roberta, the program facilitator, and I work pretty closely together, meeting at her house. She lives right across from McLean Park, across the park from the True Cameron.

True to our history since breaking up, the True Cameron and I did not speak vis a vis. Seeing him is not easy for me, I reckon that speaking with him would be even less easy. As it is, in my sadder, lonelier, needier moments I yearn to be with him, I yearn for the excitement and the comfort of my senses revelling in him: the smells, the sights, the sounds, the tastes, the textures of him.

How tragic that someone who is the greatest of the great loves turned out to be so toxic, even to himself. How tragic that I could not make lemon-ade out of the lemons of him. How tragic that I could not ever have trusted him. He and I are apart because it has to be this way. If it could be another way, it would be another way.   

Ooh - melodrama! Oh, yeah!

Speaking of being another way, my roof needs to be replaced. Sooner rather than later, though I have spent much of this spring trying to figure out what is what in the world of roofing - doing research, talking with roofing professionals, showing thisCastle, getting quotes for the job. I have pretty much decided to do a transition to green, getting the new roof membrane installed to the standards for a green roof, then greening as I am able. I suspect that the amount I currently have budgetted for the job, is about the amount that the roof alone will cost. So transition first, transformation later.

I have been having nasty, nasty allergies the last week or so, and today in desperation tried irrigating my sinuses with warm saline solution. I don't have a Neti Pot, but I do have one of those cups designed for separating the meat juice from the fat - essentially glass beakers with a handle on one side and a long spout placed low on the other side. I mixed up a weak solution of warm water and sea salt, and, following the instructions I found on YouTube, gently poured the saline solution into one nostril and let it fill the sinuses and flow out of the other nostril. I'm pleased to say, "so far, so good." It wasn't bad, and maybe it'll work. It definitely feels a little less heavy and plugged up. 

Somewhere is a line to bring together these three threads, The True Cameron, the roof and the sinuses, something about green and leaks and washing gunk away, but I can't find it.

Pender Street, Mid-winter

I know how rivetting I find my own art to be, but I don't really trust my own objectivity, and always want to get other peoples' opinions. So I took yesterday's art (now named Pender Street, Mid-winter) to work with me and showed it to seven people . Everyone seemed to think it was beautiful and two people wanted to buy it or some version of it. Approximately one third of viewers seriously interested in purchase. Not bad.

With these reactions in mind, I took it to The Fall, the tattoo, art, etc., shop of Paul, my much tattooed friend, to get some feedback from him, a dealer of art and other esoterica, a paid professional. He was working on the left bicep of his friend Rob when I arrived - I've met Rob a few times, most recently in CostCo where he introduced me to his wife Chris - so I chatted with them for a bit, then I said I wanted to get their feedback on the art. Paul has told me before that he wants to sell my work in his shop, but I have never done any work that was editionable. This work is editionable, I said as I took the packet out of my bag. Paul stopped what he was doing and moved his chair closer to where I was, and Rob leaned in. I had their complete attention.

I unwrapped the parcel, and held it up. They whooped in pleasure. They loved it, raved about it, commented on everything about it. Paul even called Josh, his business partner over to check it out, and the discussion went from there: if I make more of them and am willing to sell them, Paul wants to hang them in his shop and sell them on consignment. I've never tried to sell my art before but I think it's time for me to try.

I think I'm ready - well, I'm certainly thrilled at the positive responses I've been getting. I think they're the crush of the day.

It's time.

tC On Dr Mary D MD

This is a Photo-chopped version of the gift I made for Dr Mary D, my soon-to-be-retired GP. You wouldn't know by looking at this version that it's actually a shadowbox (hence the photo-chopping), and you wouldn't know by looking at me that I have as many health problems as I do. My appearance of good health is a testament to the excellent health care that I have received from Dr Mary D. She has been a great influence, helping me to learn how to take care of myself and helping me to take care of my mother.

Before Dr Mary D, my mother's GP was Dr AC, a golfing buddy of my uncle Art. I was of the opinion that Dr AC was a mediocre doctor at best because of my experience with him. I was taking allergy shots and needed my shot and was in the area near his office so went there. After he gave me the shot he asked if there was anything else, and I happened to have started taking the new low-dose pill a few months earlier, and was almost completely constipated and had gained a lot of weight (20 lbs). What he said? "You should go at least once a day, whenever you have cramps...All the Hollywood starlets are on the pill and they don't gain weight, they just don't eat anything but salad...If you don't want to gain weight, eat nothing but salad."

What kind of doctor would say such a thing to anybody, let along a twenty-something young woman who might or might not be suffering from anorexia? Not a good one, I thought, and resolved to never see him again. I stopped taking the pill, and within thirty hours I had excreted (both types) about fifty times and lost about twelve lbs, likely all that water and stuff. Needless to say, I never tried to take the pill again, and I never went to see him again.

My mother's problems with him were bigger: she had, from about 1977, had quite bad digestion problems, and almost everything she ate gave her diarrhoea. He never thought to give her tests or investigate the causes, and in 1997, when she had the emergency bowel resection (accompanied by the multiple organ failure), we found out why she'd had the digestive problems: in 1969 or so she'd had radiation therapy for a cancer of the uterus, and the radiation had burned a ot of the tissue in her abdomen. Her intestines had perforated then sealed themselves up then perforated again, several times, each time leaking a bit of digestive fluid into her abdominal cavity, but not enough to give her full-fledged peritonitis. In 1997 the poisons had built up enough to give her full-fledged peritonitis, and she almost died. She spent 9 and a half weeks (no, Mickey Rourke wasn't there) in the hospital, and when they discharged her, they thought they were sending her home to die.

Quite frankly, I also expected her to die - she was so frail and tiny, and noody seemed to care for her (not even I her only child) - so I did the only thing I could figure would help her, and got her to start going to Dr Mary D, my wonderful doctor, rather than continuing with Dr AC.

I had found Dr Mary D in 1993, quite by accident soon after I had had the appendectomy. At that time I didn't have a GP, I had been attending walk-in clinics for all my health needs, but this walk-in medical care wasn't really helping me. I had a nasty yeast infection from the post-op antibiotics, so I was desperately seeking a doctor in my neighbourhood who was taking new patients to prescribe the ointment. I found Dr Mary D in the yellow pages and made an appointment for that afternoon. 

Dr Mary D was away, and the locum was Dr Allison P, a pleasant young woman (who turned out to be a graduate from the department I work in). She checked me out and gave me the prescription for the ointment, and I thought that was that. Six weeks later there was a phone call from Dr Mary D, she was looking over my file and she thought that I should make a follow-up appointment so she and I could meet one another, and she could help me with my messy health. I was impressed that she was so pro-active, following up on my appointment with Dr Allison P when I might have let it slide, so I made an appointment, we met, and our relationship blossomed from there. 

When I found Dr Mary D, my diabetes had been diagnosed two years earlier. I had a good endocrinologist, Dr Don S, to whose care I had been refered by one of the GPs at the Student Health Clinic at UBC. Everytime I saw Dr. Don S he asked me if I had found a GP yet, and when I told him I had found Dr Mary D, he looked pleased and said, "If my mother or wife were looking for a GP, I'd send them to her. She took on the boys at the College (of Physicians and Surgeons) and won."  Pretty impressive for a GP to be so highly recommended by a highly regarded specialist.

Once I asked Dr Mary D about her background and she told me that she was a nurse before she became a doctor. It shows in the way she deals with her patients. Dr Mary D has always been kind and helpful when helping me to deal with my problems, physical and emotional, small and large. I have responded well to her patience.

My mother responds well to Dr Mary D too, listening to her voice of authority when my voice of authority doesn't work. I have been able to get messages to my mother when she is obstinately not listening by getting Dr. Mary D to talk with her. For that small thing I am grateful.

So I started making what I thought would be a lovely good-bye card, but the card ended up being a full fledged work of art, matted and framed. I did it all myself, it took many hours to make all the parts and to put them together (not to mention the several times I took it apart and put it together again because it wasn't perfect). I like it a lot, and it's probably the crush of the day, but I'm still a bit hesitant to give a piece of my gritty downtown eastside art (as yet untitled) to someone who has Anne Geddes posters in the exam rooms. I understand that Dr Mary D's practice was dominated by expectant mothers and mothers of young children, so the milky art of Anne Geddes, and the like, is easy and obvious. That said, I am hopeful that the apparent love of Dr Mary D for Anne Geddes' milky work is a work-related affliction, and that in her life she likes her art a little stronger.

I'm going to miss Dr Mary D. I hope she likes the art.

Deposit Troubles Here

I am in the bank waiting in line to deposit the rent monies, two cheques and some cash. A woman behind me is a bit fidgetty; she seems a bit shifty, but she doesn't seem to be completely under the influence of "conditions" as some people in the neighbourhood are. 

I get to the teller and hand her the cash and cheques. Because the cheque from Kyle, the new roomer, is drawn on another branch of the same bank, the teller has to compare the signatures. She goes to the signature file to cheque the signature on the cheque against the file signature...

While she is gone, I watch the woman who was behind me in line and who is at the next teller. She is having some trouble: when she'd arrived at the wicket, she'd been careful to look around and see who was watching, then she'd pulled a balled up wad of paper from her pocket and she'd carefully smoothed it with her hands. It looked like US currency, but pale. She'd handed it to the teller and told him she wanted to deposit it to her account.

The telller had taken the bill from her and smoothed it more, and he'd examined it, and he'd turned it over, and he'd examined the other side, then he'd smoothed it some more. Then he'd said, "I'm sorry, but I can't deposit this for you."

When she'd said, "Why not? It's worth a million dollars", he'd said, "I don't know what currency it is."

She'd taken it back from him, smoothed it some more, squinted at it, then pointed at a place and said, "U.S. It says "U.S." right here."

He'd taken it back from her, and pointed and said "It has a website name here. The United States doesn't make currency in denominations higher than a thousand."

There was a bit more attempted persuasion on her part, but her teller was firm, he was not going to accept this money from her.

My teller comes back to tell me that the signatures don't match. I try a little persuasion on her, but fail: she is new and she is adamant - she isn't going to risk the trouble she might get into for depositing the cheque, even though the current balance on the account is far more than the amount of the cheque. Drat, while it is true that I'll have to make another trip to the back, I just have to get Kyle to sign the cheque with the old signature or change his signature on file or to give me cash. It is annoying, but not unfixable. I am disappointed, but not nearly as disappointed as the woman with the million dollar bill.

More Raffle Gab

I am really good at selling raffle tickets, but have never had the best of luck at winning raffles. Well, not entirely true. In my college days I won $100 as a door prize for attending a student council meeting, and twelve years ago my now-ex-but-then-partner won a weekend stay in a bed and breakfast on Saltspring Island called the "Blue Ewe". These were good prizes.

We have a temp at work, Eleni. I like Eleni: she gets my sense of humour, so I think she's smarter than the other temps we've had. All the temps have been pretty smart, but this one shines. Well, she laughs at my stories of little or no consequence, and that makes her special in my books.

Friday Eleni told me that the group that she's involved with was having a raffle to raise funds for some good cause or other, and asked if I wanted to buy a ticket. I told her that I didn't have much luck with raffles and told her about the ECU raffle wins (see Raffle Gab or Prizing the "CH" Food Group), the prizes that I could not or would not use, which she appreciated. That said, I bought two tickets.

The chicken chip and dip plate, the most recent ECU raffle prize, has been sitting on the shelf in my office since December, so I showed it to her. She laughed and said that the group had some big prizes, but they were all just gathering random small prizes and asked me to donate it, which I did. Then she laughed and said, "The draw is this evening, maybe you'll win it back."

This morning she told me that I hadn't drawn the chicken chip and dip plate back (whew - but wouldn't that have been a great continuation), but I had won a bottle of white wine which she would bring tomorrow. Now, I don't want to look a proverbial gift horse in the proverbial mouth, but I don't have alcohol digesting flora and fauna, I was never able to get myself past the throwing-up-when-drinking stage, so gave up. I don't even bother to try any more.

One Creature Great and Small

I like to take pictures of the dead creatures I see on my journey. In the city it's mostly vermin, mostly small.

I found this pigeon impaled on a spike on a fence on the other side of the chain link and metal mesh fence behind the barbed wire loops.

This image may become a painting or a print, some personal statement about faith, hope and charity.

I'm thinking about taking nine units this fall. 9 units -  that's 60% of a full course load. that's considered to be full time. Could I do this and do justice to my home and my job and my school? Probably isn't such a good idea.

I'm certain that I'll be taking one 6 unit course, Print Making - alternative methods, a full day studio course. I'm excited.

I bought a small inkjet printer/copier/scanner last week - for $45 plus shipping & insurance. Technology is amazing.

I've agreed to participate in the Neighbourhood Small Grants Committee again, another personal statement about faith, hope and charity.

 

HOT DRM, BOOHOO

Rupert (the MP3 player, purchased in May 07) came with a promotion from boohoomusic.ca (corporate names have been changed) - 30 free songs if I joined up, free to keep regardless, and I joined. My 30 free songs consisted of pop stuff. It was easy.

I also purchased and downloaded a bunch of songs direct from artists' sites, Creative Commons stuff (no DRM), and uploaded a bunch of albums (5 or so) from my personal CD collection to Jackson Institute (the computer).

I was travelling (LA, San Diego, train home), ten days away from home. About halfway into the train ride home, most of the music wouldn't play. The message was that Boohoo wouldn't let me play the music unless I did the Jackson Institute - Rupert sync weekly. In effect Boohoo had taken some weird ownership of all the music, which I found quite annoying, so I quit Boohoo as soon as I arrived home.

Led by one of the hipper flatmates, I found eh-music, a site that sells obscure-ish music with no DRM, which I joined. I took out a monthly subscription, and I have been happily downloading obscure-ish, unprotected music from them ever since. I have also been happily uploading music from my personal CD collection, and had 20 or so CDs in the library. 

My eh-music refresh date is the 24th of each month. For my April download I was a bit late, waiting until about the 10th of May. After I downloaded my new songs to Jackson Institute, I hooked up Rupert II (the third of the MP3 players - it's a long story) which sent the message that it had 1.9 GB remaining, and then the sync started. Something glitched and when the image came back the message read that Rupert II had 4.6 GB remaining; somewhere along the way 2.7 GB of files, all music, had gone missing.

I checked on Rupert II, and the music that was not from eh-music, that is the Boohoo songs and the uploads from the personal CD collection (20 or so CDs), were gone. I checked Jackson Institute, and they were gone from there too. Somehow, everything that had DRM had disappeared without leaving any traces. It was as though they had never been there.

My first I thought was that I might have deleted the tracks, but when I thought it through I remembered that my memory, though growing weaker, has (historically) been very strong; I can remember conversations verbatim, I can remember what people wore and the circumstances surrounding situations, I can remember birthdates and phone numbers, I can remember a lot of stuff in fine detail. My memory is a bit like a two year old hard drive, normally reliable, but a bit flaky. That said, it's not nearly flaky enough that I could delete 2.7 GB of files, all music, and not recall having done so.

Coincidentally, the hard drive (on the two year old computer) has been misbehaving a bit lately, crashing for no reason (clicking on the inbox in gmail), but it is no Hal 9000 (I have been careful not to download any recordings of "Bicycle Built for Two) and it is not yet misbehaved enough that it could/would selectively delete 2.7 GB of files, all music. So what could have happened to that 2.7 GB of files, all music? 

I suspect boohoomusic.ca came after me on the one year anniversary date and deleted all the music files that had any DRM on them. I can't prove this, but what else might it be?

Sunny Sunday

Things I did today:

went to the garden supplies shop and bought ladybugs and insecticidal soap for the aphids on the poor irises;

mowed my lawn, well to be more precise, I weed-whipped the bit of grass that runs between the street and the sidewalk in front of thisCastle;

put up a tool rack in the garage;

organized and cleaned the garage a bit;

put all the tools and equipment and supplies that I used away again.

I am learning that part of doing a job well is tidying up again afterwards. As I learn this thisCastle gets better and better. I am usually able to find things that I need now.

I don't like weed-whipping. 

I am tired. I think I'll order pizza for dinner.

Not Just Smart, Yummy Too

The car co-op has two Smart Cars, one a yellow hardtop, and the other a white convertible. I drove the convertible today.

The first thing I noticed was how much easier it is to put a convertible top down than it used to be; you used to have to stop the car and you (and your friends) had to wrestle with the top, but now you just push a button and it all happens serenely - not much different from opening an electric window - you don't even have to stop the car. I was impressed.

What a joy it is to be able to drive all the fun new cars, especially a cute little convertible in sunny weather. I enjoyed it so much that I'm considering taking it on a road trip, on the highways and byways, in the sun, to the desert, to the beach. Oh yes, I must do this thing. 

Today I decided I wanted to go to the beach for sunset, so got in the car and drove to Pat's place (my apartment before I moved to thisCastle), and called Pat from the parking lot. She was drawing a bath, but driving in the convertible and my company and the beach at sunset was a pretty good draw, so she postponed the bath, and we drove with the top down to Spanish Banks where we watched the sunset, the gorgeous sunset. When we arrived, the sun was still in the sky, but falling, so the light was long and golden. Glorious.

When we looked to the east we saw that there was a piece of rainbow high in the sky, in amongst the red clouds.

Driving the Smart convertible to Spanish Banks to watch the sunset and the rainbow with good company is the crush of the day.

Crazy, Crazy, Krazy!

I went to see a show called "Krazy!" at the Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) this afternoon. The full title is "Krazy! The Delirious World of Anime + Comics + Video Games + Art". Krazy! What a fabulous show. 

I got to play Pac-Man on an actual video table machine from long ago, and I played a bit of Super Mario World. I died pretty quickly on both, but what fun to be back there. Now if only I could find a Frogger machine, I'd play it all the time and be in froggy heaven.

It was also fun seeing some of the anime that I haven't seen or haven't seen in a long time. Great anime, is a wonderful thing: I go to school with many young Asian people; more than a few of them draw manga style and want to do anime. It is to be hoped that before they start doing serious work they learn to express themselves and their worlds in an interesting way. Youth is a wondrous thing, but the combination of dewy-eyed naivete and the big-eyed cutesy style of manga is not that interesting.  I want these young artists to partake of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but I will not be their serpent. As a fellow art student, that is not my role.

Speaking of big-eyed cutesy art, I've been thinking about doing a Downtown Eastside version of Hello Kitty! called Hi(gh) Ho Kitty! Hi(gh) Ho Kitty! could work the streets around here, she and her friends could have a Kitty Stroll on Princess Avenue (as opposed to the actual Kiddy Stroll on Pandora Street). 

Anyway, re. Krazy!, my favourite artist of the show was an illustrator named Christopher Ware who draws extraordinarily detailed panels with stories from the life of a 27-year-old amputee who lives in a large city with 3-floor walk up buildings with bay windows.

I also loved the old stuff, George Herriman, Winsor McKay, et al. 

I plan to go back and see it again. Three cheers for student memberships!

Young at Heart, Long in Tooth

This afternoon Amy, Marlene and I went to see "Young At Heart", a heartening film about "Young at Heart," a Massachusetts based choir whose members have an average age of over 80. They sing songs like "I Wanna Be Sedated" and "Golden Years" and "Should I Stay or Should I Go?".

The members of Young At Heart are long in tooth, but they rock.

24

5pm: go to Macdonald's Prescriptions to pickup 6 bottles of Professional Care skin lotion for my mother; fetch car; drive; get stuck in the traffic trying to cross Cambie at 12th;

6pm: arrive at mother's house; sit down; organize her meds for the next four weeks; give her the lotion; sign the paper work for the new mortgage/secured line of credit;

7pm: take mother for dinner at the Congee Noodle house; take mother home;

8pm: drive home; arrive home; unlock deadbolt; open door; deadbolt won't lock again; take lock apart and try to fix it; nothing works;

9pm: call locksmith who asks "Do you need to get it done tonight?"; I ask the price difference, and he tells me it costs 185 to get it done this evening, 135 to get it done tomorrow; I wonder why I ask because the price difference is trivial - considering the necessity of a functioning lock and that there is no time to get it done tomorrow; so I wait for the locksmith;

10pm: locksmith comes and installs a new deadbolt, gives me the two keys that came with the lock, but doesn't have a key-cutting machine in his truck so can't make any more;

11pm: talk to the flatmates about the new lock and the two keys - one of them offers to get a key made for the other in the early morning;

12am: go to bed;

1am: sleep, perhaps dream;

2am: sleep, perhaps dream;

3am: sleep, perhaps dream;

4am: sleep, perhaps dream;

5am: sleep, perhaps dream;

6am: wake; shower; eat;

7am: leave the house, try to go to the locksmith to get keys made, but it doesn't open until  8am; settle for getting five keys made at the yuppie Home Depot - where the clerks are so heavily scented that to escape the perfume induced migraine and asthma I stand by the wheelbarrows with their rubber tires and risk the rubber-smell induced migraine;

8am: pick up two cinnamon buns at Solly's around the corner from the Home Depot; return car;

9am: get the shuttle bus to CFRI; run into Angel the untrainable support staff; meet with Genny and Bruce;

10am: doctor appointment - my meeting with Genny and Bruce goes a bit over time, so I'm a bit late; when I see the doctor, I cry because she is retiring soon and she has been part of the team for 15 years;

11am: go to meet Weronika to give the cheque for the returned security deposit;

12pm: run into Ru at the coffee shop in the lobby of the hospital; Amy comes to take me to lunch at the Cafe D-Lite. Chicken Laksa noodle soup - yummy;

1pm: lunch and gossip with Amy about the recent trip to Singapore; she shows me photos and gives me a packet of prepared Laksa mix;

2pm: Amy drops me at Joanne's place for tea with Joanne (and cinnamon buns);

3pm: watch Dr. Phil with Joanne (my first time), then head home;

4pm: arrive home and test the keys - of the five, one opens the lock, three scrape their way in to the lock, but they open it, and one doesn't open the lock at all; I look at the keys and note that, although they're similar, no two are alike;

5pm: Kyle, the new flatmate, comes bearing money and no luggage - his plan is to move in in a week or so; Kyle is a 26 year old Buddhist (Tibetan - red hat),  who appears to be much older than he is; I wonder what he'll be like when he's twice his age.

Unlike Jack Bauer I'm not out to save the free world, so I am able to take time to eat and sleep, not to mention dealing with personal hygiene (not just when I'm covered with my own or someone else's blood) and home maintenance issues.

What She Said

On my way through Chinatown (heading home) yesterday I walked past a street woman sitting on a stoop. She looked at me and asked "Do you have a light?", and I shook my head.

Then she asked "Are you a lesbian?", and I shook my head again.

Then she said, "Well you look like a lesbian."

Guess What!

I was walking down the corridor at work today, and was approached by Helen, the cheerful, developmentally challenged sterile processing department hospital employee with the loud voice. She said to me, "Hello, Cassandra, guess what I did this weekend!" She was very excited, and backed me against the wall and grabbed my upper arms for emphasis.

When someone is this excited, I assume some jet-set weekend in some CA city known by its initials, LA or SF or SD or SB, or a visit to a fantastic new restaurant, or a horseback riding adventure, or the Terry Fox Run,or a good game of bowling

"I defrosted my freezer!" she said as she worried at my upper arms for additional emphasis.

An Auspicious Celebration

Today is my mother's 75th birthday - a month or so ago I asked what she wanted to do for her birthday, and she said she wanted to be taken out for dinner, and so I started planning. I asked who she wanted to invite, and she wanted me and my brother with her, and my friends, and her brother (and his girlfriend) and their cousin (and her two kids).

We went to her favourite Chinese restaurant, the Pink Pearl (always tasty),  which can seat 600 people. Sometimes when we go there, the portable wall - which splits the restaurant in half - is up, and there's some sort of special event on one side and regular dining on the other side. This evening was one of those evenings, and we just saw an occasional young person dressed in some shiny silk or satin outfit. Shiny.

About halfway through our meal, the wait staff opened the wall right in front of our table and we were able to read the sign "4th Anniversary Banquet for Wushu Society", and several young people - men and women - gathered in a line, and put on their lion outfits to dance.

There were five sets of lions leaping and dancing, tails wagging, in turn. Then all five danced simultaneously, worrying at the lettuce offerings.

What an auspicious birthday gift: five leaping lions.

This Much is True

I  don't want to hear other peoples' cell phone conversations;

I don't want to smell other peoples' perfume;

I don't want to see other peoples' underwear.

In short, I don't want their exhibitionistic pseudo-intimacies forced on me.

Reciprocating Saw

I am pleased: I needed to cut down a sheet of pegboard, so used the reciprocating saw for the first time today. Yikes, thisgirl learns how to use power tools.

The Ideal Flatmate Law

I'm seeking a new flatmate, not desperately, but earnestly.

I'm finding it difficult to get people interested in living in a great place in a not-so-great neighbourhood.

I wonder if there might be an ideal flatmate law, perhaps PV = nHT, where P = price, V = volume of space, n = neighbourhood, H = universal cohab contant, T = duration of cohabitation.

A Post Modern Three-Legged Race

Two women moving a computer from where they have it stored after moving it from desk A (where it has most recently been used), back across the hall to desk B (where it normally lives): they (the women) didn't want to disconnect the cables and let the parts run free should they (the women) be unable to get them (the parts) reconnected properly (those USB connections are so complicated) so they frog-walked across the hall together, one carrying the CPU and the other carrying the monitor (LCD fortunately) and the keyboard. Fortunately the mouse was cordless so they were able to carry it across on the next trip.

It was weird to see. It could be an event at picnics.

I have disdain for some people.

Crasian Woman II

Just after midnight the other night I heard some low whispering outside my door. There's often whispering outside my door, so I didn't pay much attention. Then the banging on the door started up - louder than any banging should have been. The door is metal and I have a bunch of magnets and stuff on it; a few magnets fell off the door and things on the shelves around the door were tinkling and falling. Then the doorbell started to ring and ring and ring, crazily ringing, stopping as I turned on the light to head upstairs.

Where thisCastle is located, in the Downtown Eastside, you might not want to open the door late at night when someone bangs on it or rings the doorbell repeatedly. As well, the windows on the main floor are frosted and you can't see outside through them, so when I want to check out what's going on out there, I go upstairs and open one of the windows, lean out a bit and look down. The other night when I got upstairs Stuart was doing exactly that; he was saying "Go to the other door." and when I asked him who it was, he said "The police." So I headed back downstairs to talk to them.

In the almost four years since I moved here I have never before spoken to the police except for the time I called about a nasty fight that was going on in the lane - a man threatening and beating on a woman. When the police arrived the fight was over, and the two were gone, so the police rang my doorbell and asked what I had heard and seen, and I told them. I don't often call the police, but when I hear or see violence, especially man on woman, I call.

Anyway, last night I went back downstairs and opened the door to a young policeman, not one of the pretty blonde policeboys, but a slim bald one and his partner who wanted to know who was in the house; they were looking for a missing South Asian young man named Nadir, and they'd had a tip that he was in thisCastle, behind the door that never gets used. I told them there was no one fitting that description in the house and they took my word for it and went away.

That said,  when talking with them I was so flustered that I couldn't recall the names of the people who live here.

Today I did my final project for my print-making class: a stencil called Crasian Woman II. Crasian Woman II has her roots in the original Crasian Woman, who was a graffiti tag based on the international women's washroom symbol. Crasian Woman was originally known as Crazy Asian Woman, which became Crasian Woman, and she was designed just before I moved to thisCastle. She is the official logo of thisCastle, and when the flag is made, she'll be on it.

Crasian Woman II is a development of Crasian Woman, a conflation of the walk signal man and the washroom woman. Her head and hands are spirals because they are always crazy busy. Her head is an @ symbol because she is a modern wifi woman. Her feet are heavy boots because she is always well grounded.

Crasian Woman II is yellow, sprayed in marker paint down the lane behind thisCastle, her non-traditional territory. She is yellow lines down the middle.