centre of the universe - the dreaming

The night is warm, but the wind is cool. I stand in the centre of a field of summerfallow. Above me, the stars glint and shimmer. Below me, the earth is solid and warm. The soil in the fallow rows is loose and soft as my sandals sink down into it. The soil covers the tops of my feet.

Across the field, far out into the darkness, I hear a coyote yip. It is answered by another, further off away from the river. They sing back and forth, and their song is solitary, even though there are two...solitary and mournful. Their song is a song to the changing face of the moon; they wonder why their grandmother's face is covered by a veil, but she cannot answer them tonight for she is watching the sea.

Sometimes, this comforts me, this darkness, these stars, this moon, the coyotes, the earth, and the wind. Tonight, I reach for my grandmother's wisdom. I reach out my fingers, and try to touch her strength. My fingers play lightly through the heavy air, but her strength is not there. I say to my mother, who hears everything now, "Please. Please, I need you now."

My voice rolls over and over across the field.

This is where you have left me, my heart full of dust, my ribs dry stalks of wheat. I don't know why I remain standing, why I do not topple to the warm soil, my fingers becoming the earth for next year's crop. But I do not. Something keeps me standing.

I hear your voice, as if through molasses. Your words are sharp, abrupt. You judge me. I falter. You judge me. I wither. You judge me. I fall.

Grandmother moon glances down.

Where do I go from here?

Labels: Bad Mojo, dirt in your eye, Lowering standards, ring made from a spoon

You know, I just don't know what to say.

I'm trying my best to think of something witty, and the best I can come up with is a joke about poop. Granted, jokes about poop are pretty funny, but I wouldn't say they're 'witty'.

In fact, I'm feeling kind of weird. It's a strange, apprehensive feeling that something Bad is going to happen.

I don't like it.

Labels: Bad Mojo

Okay, already.

I get it.

You *really really*, 'rilly-rilly', RILLY like that whole 'winter wonderland' thing.

Can I just get you a snowglobe and we'll call it even?

Labels: snow

You know, I'm heartened by the news that somewhere in the world, you can't be fired if you're drunk. It's a sign the world is moving in the right direction. And, I wish I'd had, many more resources when I was young that would teach me about things like boogers, smegma, and the seven diseases grown-ups get.

So this is the thing.

I am continually surprised to find out that I am a rather terrible communicator. I always thought I was, you know, kinda good at that. It's been a fairly large part of what I consider to be my 'calling'...or at the very least, one of the things about me I feel good about. Also, this is, apparently, International Oh Hey Is That A Shiny Thing Day.

Oh hey! Is that a shiny thing?!!

I thought about posting something on the Federal budget, but the thought police caught up with me and insisted I should instead eat a pile of salted peanuts. And so I did.

What's your favourite colour?

o hai

ur in luk! gs wht i rmmbrd?
wnted to mntion hpy rbbt hl dy!!

like, ya!!!

ZOMG!

u no wut?

i h8 ths.

Labels: Rabbit Hole Day

1. 
   

Labels: 365 Days of Grace, GIST

1. Roux
2. Rae
3. Red
4. Rilla
5. Richard
   

Labels: 365 Days of Grace, GIST

When the World Trade Centre was being destroyed by insurgents bent on the destruction of the West, (now) former President George W. Bush was at a grade school learning how to read inspecting his future troops observing how teachers are severely underpaid doing a publicity event and making himself available to the youth of the nation, which ultimately is pretty cool. Part of the job of the leader of any country is to let the people know that essentially, they are your boss. Check that. Part of the job of the leader of any democratically governed country is letting the people know that they are your boss.

He was watching the teacher teach, and he was watching the students, who were more than pleased that the President of the United States, the greatest country on earth, was at *their* school, listening to *them* read. And maybe he was thinking "this is pretty cool." Maybe he was thinking "I have to go pee." Maybe he was thinking "I can't imagine doing this all day, every day. Man. My job is EASY." Maybe he was thinking, "oh, THAT's how you spell 'kite'". I don't know.

When the World Trade Towers were destroyed, his aides were at a loss. They didn't know what to do. Nothing like this had ever happened on mainland US soil...and certainly not in an age when communication is instantaneous. They knew they had to tell the President. These 'aides' are men and women trained in combat, security, and all kinds of other military stuff. They're not really trained in tact, I suppose. I can imagine that when they approached GWB (Great Western Breweries?) they said something like, "Mister President, a second airplane has just hit the World Trade Centre; we're at war."

People have criticised GWB for staying in that classroom and continuing on with the children in the grade three classroom. Bill Maher, I believe, was apoplectic because it takes less than seven minutes for a ballistic missile to be discharged and release its payload (or whatever the phrase is for 'burninate the countryside'), and GWB spent fully seven minutes in that kids' classroom....which is terrible, because...he had...nobody else on staff...who could make a decision...about...what to do...if a CRUISE MISSILE WAS LAUNCHED AT THE STATES!??

Really, Bill Maher?

The fact of the matter is that until it happened, nobody suspected that two *passenger* planes would be used as bombs. Well, maybe a few people would have suspected it, but nobody was listening to them. It was something no-one wanted to believe. That's kind of the nature of 'terrorism' - to cause terror...by using forms of insurgency that are so out of the expected that they *cause terror*.

I don't really know why this is on my mind right now. All I can say is that I always felt sorry for GWB that day. He'd never had to face anything like that in his lifetime. The only other direct foreign attack on "US Soil" would have been Pearl Harbour, four or five years before he was born. And it wasn't like the Oklahoma City bombing, because that was done by US citizens...not to say it wasn't terrorism, or that it wasn't completely unexpected, but that the former President of the US had never had the experience of dealing with a foreign attack on US soil.

I felt sorry for him because he didn't know what to do. I have no doubt that his stomach was in knots; that he was sweating. I have no doubt that he didn't know what to do. I don't think I would have either. Stand up and tell the teacher and the students, "I'm sorry, but I have to leave. There is an emergency"? Why didn't his aides announce "I'm sorry, but the President is needed on urgent matters." They knew (and had informed GWB, reportedly) that another plane had slammed into the WTC at 8:45 that morning. At that point, everyone was still assuming it was an accident. So what was he supposed to do?

Anyway, I'm not fond of the man's politics, and I'm not fond of the way he went about doing things, but I've always felt sorry for him on that day.


*At the end of their comedy/variety show, George Burns would say to his wife Grace: "Say 'goodnight', Gracie." And she would smile and look at the camera with her big, gorgeous eyes, "Goodnight, Gracie." I always thought he treated her badly. She wasn't an idiot, but you'd never know it from the way he treated her. Of course, that was television, and television in a time when women were much more subjugated/oppressed than they are today.

Labels: American Politics, George W Bush, World Trade Centre

In 1993, my family got together and attempted an Intervention with my mother. Her sister and brother were there, my father and my mother's two best friends. I was 21, and it was my job to oragnise the thing. I had to call my uncle and admit to him that my mother was an alcoholic, and I had to sit there while he told me it was my father's fault. I had to call my aunt and admit to her that my mother was an alcoholic, and she didn't say anything. I called my mother's best friends, and told them my mother was an alcoholic, and they said, "thank God you're doing this". I don't remember who contacted the Interventionist. I think it was one of Mum's friends.

She sat on the step and hardened her heart against all of the raw and beautiful stories we told her about how important she was in our lives. She stared at us unflinchingly, her face a stony grimace. She glared at each of us in turn and said nothing. She made not a sound. The Interventionist said, at some point, "you may choose to hate me," and my mother said, "oh, I do." He said "but these people love you and they want you to get help." My mother said, "I'm not talking to you anymore."

From the moment she walked in the door, she controlled what went on in that room. And that was how she wanted it. Afterwards, for a while, she tried not to drink, but she really had no support; I was living in a different city, my father had mostly given up trying, and her friends had lives of their own. Her brother and sister lived a minimum of six hours away, and thought the Intervention was the end, rather than the beginning.

I remember sitting in that room, in that living room. It was a grey day. At least, I remember it being grey. I'm sure the sun could have been shining brilliantly on the leafless trees of early June. I think I was on the same couch as my father and my uncle, the two men I admired most. And what you have to remember is that in my family, we show two emotions: happiness/laughter and anger. Never tears. Never, never ever tears.

We all said what we'd planned to my mother, as she sat solidly at the other end of the room. She would not let us come to her, nor would she come to be with us. She was, sadly and irrevocably, apart. My uncle said his piece, and fought back the tears. My father read his letter, shed some tears, and told her the ways in which her behaviour had affected him. I had to hear how hurt and worried all of these people were, and then the Interventionist asked me to read my letter.

"Mum," I began, and the room was suddenly silent. "I could tell you all the ways in which your drinking has affected me." I couldn't look up from the page. I'd written the letter on a sheet of pink graph paper. "I could tell you about all the times your drinking has let me down. I could tell you many things, but I won't. This isn't the letter I wrote at first. I only have a few things to say. You prize your family above all other things. From as long as I can remember, you told me stories of your own childhood, of your youth. You told me about your family and you wear their name as a badge, proudly. Mum, I cannot wear your name as a badge, proudly. We are not a family. I do not have those stories to tell my children someday. Your drinking has taken from me my mother, and your drinking has taken from me my father. I am an island, alone. You taught me to be strong, to be honest, to be a leader, even when you could not be. I love you, although I do not know how to be your daughter. Please, Mum, can we finally be a family?"

I was not able to read this letter without tears. But she listened without them. She tried to stop drinking. She refused any help.

She missed so much, but worse yet, the rest of the world missed so much of her. I still ask myself how she could choose the life she did, and I know I will never know. I understand many of the reasons she was powerless before her addiction, and I will always hate each and every one of them.

Always I will remember how she sat there, glaring at each and every one of us as we told her how much we loved her. As terrible as that day was, I would give anything to live it over again now.

Labels: Intervention, Mum

Okay, I've missed something.

Today on the talk radio station, there was some ...uh... talk of "what would you say if Atheists bought advertising on billboards?"

I can only assume this has something to do with the now fairly-old news story about Atheists purchasing advertising space on city buses in the UK. Of course, Christians (and, I would suppose, Jews and Muslims and Hindus and any other religious group that believes in the existence of imaginary super-beings) got up in arms about the thing. Christians are always the most vociferous about this sort of thing in Western countries. And, unfortunately, if a Muslim says anything about anything in this environment, s/he is immediately branded as a terrorist or a hate-mongerer or worse. So let's just deal with the Christians.

As could be expected, the Roman Catholic church is pretty peevish about the idea that adverts on public transit might make people question their own Faith and belief systems; their own value systems, perhaps...maybe even so far as the bases for their understanding of morality. The Roman Catholic church and other Christian organisations have, of course, banded together to try to get these adverts removed. The point I want to make now is that the Commandment is "Thou shalt have no other Gods before Me", and not "Thou shalt not not have any God at all". Semantics are important.

IT's becoming an issue in Canada, I guess, because there are Central Canadians who are Very Concerned now that the campaign has come to Toronto. Folks in Ottawa are trying to have the adverts banned before they even get there. I should say off the bat that "Freedom OF Religion" is a Constitutionally-protected right. Freedom FROM Religion is not. That's an extremely important teeny little pronoun preposition. And it's a pronoun that needs to be included in our Constitution. Canadians should have the constitutionally-protected right to worship in whatever way they see fit, provided their worship does more good than harm. Canadians should also have the constitutionally-protected right to choose not to worship anything at all. Currently, we do not have that right.

Now, I also want to say something else.

Where are the Roman Catholic and other denominational protestors when there are adverts on buses that show women in various (degrading and/or offensive) stages of undress, promoting fornication and covetousness of neighbours' asses all over the place? Where are the Christians asking that all images of Jesus (and Mary, and anybody else with a fricken' halo-head) be removed from all billboards, bus ads, leaflets, greeting cards, dashboard buddies, lawn ornaments, keychains, shirts, bumper stickers, underpants, crucifixes, lunch boxes, running shoes, etc., etc., etc.,? Where are all the Christians refusing to go shopping on the Sabbath? Refusing to work and refusing to eat at restaurants? Any takers on that one? And let's just see how many Christians are willing to stand up and say "no, please don't show any advertising at all, not on my television, not on my buses, not in my newspaper, and certainly not on my radio, because advertising promotes covetousness. It makes you want those things you do not have. And if we only take as much as we need; if we only take *enough*, then there is more than enough for everyone in the world three times over." Where are those Christians?

You should be *pleased* that there are challenges to the way you worship and what you choose to believe. Because when people make *informed* choices, they tend to make life-long choices. Brainwashing Inundating children with your own particular brand of crazy only lasts as long as your children continue to use you as their primary and only source of information (and believe you me, the thought of my children being old enough to not ask me first kind of scares the shit out of me). If you teach them *why* you believe what you do, and let them make their own choices, you might be disappointed in the end, but you also might be pleasantly surprised. Regardless, if someone changes their opinion on their Faith based on an advert they see on a bus, chances are *really* good they weren't all that serious about it in the first place.

So lay off. Go and promote your (or our, for that matter) religious beliefs somewhere else. You have every right to kneel wherever you want (except in government buildings, unless you have special access privileges), whenever you want, and offer your supplications to whatever deity(/ies) you wish. That is your right. And while it is not yet a constitutionally-enshrined right for you or for your neighbour to choose not to bend a knee, you should, if you expect them to respect your Faith and your belief system, at least accept that they believe something different.

Your atheism isn't going to change my knowledge that God exists, and your disbelief (and, in some cases, open mockery) of my religious belief isn't going to change the way(s) in which I worship. Likewise, my belief in an invisible super-power isn't going to change your knowledge that there is no God. I'm okay with that. Spend all the money you want on bus ads. If my kids come to me and say "Mum, I saw on a bus today that God doesn't exist; WTF?", I will tell them, "Some people believe different things. I *know* God exists, and I know it is the truth. You have to find your own way to the truth. I'll help you if you'd like, and I'll try to help you without influencing your decision. But it has to be your decision."

Labels: atheism, bus ads, religion

Have decided to forego many pronouns. Also, articles. Not sure why am so enamoured with idea. Perhaps choppy sentences appeal. Perhaps to more than only cenobyte. Feel like Mr. Miyagi.

Was told shouted into microphone during hockey tournament yesterday.

Do not feel bad.

Perhaps am evil. Perhaps simply do not care if shouting annoyed.

Either way, currently sound like zen master.

or maybe kung fu.

Labels: Rorschach

My friend Schmutzie started this thing called "Grace in Small Things". It pleases me. Therefore, I shall also participate in some small way. I encourage you also to do the same.

The basic premise is this:
For 365 days, post a list of five things for which you are grateful; five things that have brought grace to your life.

Grace in Small Things #1 of 365:
1) The slippers from my mother-in-law
2) make-believe
3) coloured ink
4) steam
5) kisses from babies

Labels: 365 Days of Grace

Have discovered why Rorschach talks using few articles.

Because eating bowl of macaroni carbonera with one hand and typing with other is difficult.

Does not explain why Rorschach talks that way, just realised. Only why typed words so choppy.

Is not going well.

Will cogitate further.

Labels: Rorschach, typing and eating, Watchmen

Something Pretty Damned Cool is happening on 27th January.

It's Rabbit Hole Day. What's Rabbit Hole Day? you ask. Do you remember when you read Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland? Do you remember what happens in that book?

You don't?

Hrm. <-- sound of consternation.

Well, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass are two of my favourite books of all time. I just *happen* to have read them recently, but in case you're not up on your Carroll, you can read the book in its entirety on the headache-inducing blinky light machine "thanks" to Project Gutenberg. You may care to note I am not a fan of books-on-web. Kind of ruins the experience of reading a good book, I say.

Anyhow, at the very beginning of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Alice is drowsy and somewhat petulant, lying in the sun with her sister, when a white rabbit with pink eyes appears. This is not so incredible as when the rabbit pulls a watch out of its waist-coat pocket and bounds off. Alice follows the rabbit as it ducks into a rabbit-hole in the hedgs. Further in the rabbit-hole, she falls into a deep, dark well, and everything goes a little topsy-turvy. She meets a cast of incredible characters, has some wonderful adventures (hence the title of the book, one might surmise), and generally makes my life better for having had them and having had someone like Mister Lewis Carroll write about them. That was very clever of Alice, don't you think?

So, when I was browsing BoingBoing this morning, I saw the article about Rabbit Hole Day, and I thought: "That's bloody fabulous!"

The point of Rabbit Hole Day, by way of a long and convoluted explanation, is to write your blog, your articles, your letters at work, everything you write, in a style completely different from the one in which you usually write. What terrible fun! So. 27th January. Let's do it. Let's fall in love (with Rabbit Hole Day). You and me!

Labels: Alice, Books, Lewis Carroll, Rabbit Hole Day

The title comes from Batgirl.

This is amazing. How can there be so many beautiful people on one street in one city? I mean, soul-beautiful.

I can't tell you how much this makes me smile. Thank you to Heather for forwarding it my way:


Fifty People, One Question: Brooklyn from Crush & Lovely on Vimeo.

I invented a new drink!

It tastes like mouthwash.

In answer to your question, no, it is *not* mouthwash, and no, there is no mouthwash *in* it. I'm not sure how successful this drink will be. I mean, among people who aren't crackers.

Labels: crackers, drinks, mouthwash

The Berenstain Bears live in a tree house. They have branches growing in their hallways and bedrooms. When Max (who was being a nuisance of one kind or another) had a forest grow all around in his room, I was terribly jealous. Piglet and Pooh bear had it made. Me, I never had a treehouse.

That's not *entirely* true. A couple of the neighbourhood boys nailed some planks of plywood into a couple of trees in the alley. It was terribly unsafe, but incredibly cool, and we loved it. Then the neighbours complained to someone and the father of one of the boys (the father who was a carpenter) took it down. So the boys spent the rest of the summer shooting squirrels out of the trees with slingshots.

You don't know how desperately I wanted to write "so the boys spent the rest of the summer shooting squirresl with slingshots out of the trees". **Sigh**

Squirrels with slingshots are dangerous critters, you know. Terrible accurate with the aiming.

Anyway, I've always wanted to live in a treehouse. Then, quite some time ago, I saw what this guy did, and I've upped my desire to live in a tree a thousandfold. In a tree or on a boat. Possibly even in a boat that's in a tree. In a tree that's on a boat would be more problematic...although living in one of those spheres, suspended from the masts...now that *would* be cool.

Labels: living in a tree

They're remaking The Pink Panther. And by "they", I mean "people who make more money than I do whether or not they're more qualified/better educated than I".

In the lead role of Inspector Clouseau, they have cast Steve Martin. The original Inspector was played by Peter Sellers, who had impeccable comic timing and the best straight face I've ever seen. Although I desperately love Steve Martin's goofiness, I don't like him cast in this role. I would have preferred to see Steve Carell cast as Inspector Clouseau. I don't know what Carell is like with accents (which was one of Sellers' greatest gifts; he could do nearly any accent incredibly badly), but what gets me is that Clouseau wasn't goofy. He wasn't over-the-top. That's what made him so damned funny. As a character, Clouseau took himself incredibly seriously. Sellers played him completely straight. I'm just not sure Steve Martin is going to be able to do that.

I mention it because the Pink Panther movies were a staple of our household vacations from the time Betamax was invented.

Labels: movies, opinions

Yesterday, I told you about Albert, who is a magician.

Today, I will tell you about why I don't get invited to parties more than once. I mean, I *do*, but it's often with great reticence.

So I was at Sexy Woman and Babe's house for a shindig. They just bought a new house for their family, which now includes a very cute baby. So Sexy Woman and Babe were hosting one of those parties where they have many different guests from many different groups, and sometimes these things don't go well, with one group of friends sitting in the kitchen and the other group of friends sitting in the garage, and ne'er the twain shall meet. But SW and B are very good at having friends, and we were all in the living room getting along just fine.

Then Sexy Woman, who is a teacher, relates the fact that the 'new thing' for kids at her school to do is to drink hand sanitizer. So folks are talking about how terrible that is. And then, Yours Truly, who has no real filter between thought and speech, says "it's not so bad if you make Jell-O™ shooters out of it". And there's one of those nervous laughs that runs through the room, and people do the party equivalent of backing slowly away with alarmed looks on their faces. So what does cenobyte do? Does cenobyte attempt to backtrack and explain herself?

No. She does not. She begins to giggle uncontrollably. Then her friend says "when you come over to my house, I'll keep your Jell-O™ separate from the stuff I feed my kids."

And then cenobyte says "But then they won't have Aloe breath."

Yeah.

Well.

*I* thought it was funny.

Labels: aloe breath, socially inappropriate

Let me tell you about Albert.

Albert is a magician. You might not believe in magic. You might desperately wish you *could* believe in magic, but maybe your mind is solidly mired in things you can only see, touch, smell, hear, and/or taste. Maybe you're the kind of folk who doesn't want to believe in magic because you think it's silly (if that's the case, I do feel badly for you). But magic *does* exist, all around us. It is everywhere and in everything, although not everyone can sense it.

But Albert, he has harnessed that magic. In each of his eight fingertips, he holds secrets. And in his thumbs, great power. When I talk to Albert, he asks me how I'm doing. You wouldn't know to look at him that he is a magician. He looks like he might be an investment banker, or possibly a sales associate for a radio station. He is tallish, with grey at his temples and salting his beard. He's fit, although a little cushiony around the middle...but only a very little. His eyes are kind and his voice is deep and soft. He says, "How are you today?"

And I tell him, "I am well. Except for some tings and aches, but that's to be expected, I suppose."

"No one should expect pain," he says. "I can fix that, you know. I can make it perfect."

The first time he told me this, I lifted an eyebrow in a kind of challenge. "Really." I said. It wasn't a question.

"Absolutely," he answered. "It's what I do."

I didn't believe him. But it's true. Albert has the sage touch of a healer. Thank you, Albert. I always believed in magic, and it's folks like you who strengthen my resolve.

Labels: Albert, magic

You guys okay in there? Nobody bleeding, whining, or being picked on? Usually when I leave you guys alone for a few minutes, someone ends up callumphing down the stairs, all in a huff because someone stuck someone else's marble somewhere and now *nobody* wants it.

But if y'all are getting along, I'll just leave you to it.

It's so *nice* when you play well together.

Labels: pip pip

With all the talk of neck sharks and flying tanks, I'm rather glossing over something that's been playing on my mind for about seven years. I've touched on it briefly here, now and then...but in lieu of strange health thingummies, it's playing on my mind again.

In addition to the neck sharks and insomnia, I'm also experiencing a whole slough of symptoms that are generally associated either with being put on or withdrawal from antidepressants. Rapid and odd weight gain (15 pounds in about a week, without any *real* change in eating/activity habits), headaches (nearly constant headaches), fatigue (attributed to insomnia, really), general crampiness, and other kinds of oddness, including mood-related ones, and even digestive symptoms.

There are myriad conditions that carry these symptoms, or similar ones. One that I cannot overlook is perimenopause.

My grandmother was in her early forties when she went through menopause. My mother as well...possibly as late as her mid-forties. Now, both of them had other things going on (lung cancer that probably 'took hold' in their mid thirties; heavy tobacco use; heavy alcohol use; relatively little physical activity (not that I'm *that* much different in this area); sometimes questionable nutrition), but the fact remains, they 'ripened' somewhat early.

What bothers me about even thinking about this is that there is all kinds of support, excitement, information, education, and hooplah about young women *beginning* their menses. About the first transition in a woman's life; from pre-fertility to fertility. It's (supposedly) an exciting and transformative period in a young woman's life. But the most they ever told me about the next transitional period was "and then, sometime in your fifties or sixties, your menses cease."

Seven chapters in various 'your body and you' books for the first transformation, and one sentence for the second. That's just marvy. Because here's what I *want*. I want the next transformation in my reproductive life to be exciting. I want it to be another beginning. I want to celebrate the beginning of the next phase of my life. But I can't. I don't.

I look at what is going to be happening to me in the next ten years as something sad. It is an ending. In some ways, it is a termination of my youth. I look at it as a kind of lessening; without the ability to conceive, I will be somehow less of a woman.

And so I think of these things going on with my health with a certain trepidation. It is a change I can neither stop nor postpone. It is something I cannot escape or deny. I don't care about the physical symptoms associated with hormonal imbalances (most of which can be addressed with subtle changes in diet, as evidenced by 'menopause symptoms' being an utterly unknown concept among women in some places); chances are good I'll soldier through that. What I loathe thinking about, what I don't want to acknowledge, is that someday (probably in the next ten years), I will cease to have the ability, even if I don't wish to exercise the ability, to have more children.

I can't really explain it very well. Let's just say that I don't look forward to the third stage of my life. I didn't mind maiden; I've always been favoured of mother; and while crone looks good on other women, and while I really desperately *want* to embrace it, right now, I face it with sadness and some amount of disdain.

Labels: Maiden Mother Crone, menstrual cycle, perimenopause

cenobyte had a Very Long board meeting last night. She managed to catch the last half of the third period of the Canada-Switzerland hockey game on the way home from work; that's how long the meeting went. During the meeting, cenobyte was stricken with fever and chills. She did her very best to pretend "this is not *happening* to me" with fever and chills. Because, you know, she hasn't time to Get Sick right now.

cenobyte hasn't been able to get to sleep before 3am for the past week or more. Often, even when she goes to bed at 10pm (or 8pm), she cannot sleep, and she gets up and wanders around and reads and has warm milk and hot baths and chamomile tea and even rum, and none of it helps. Some days, she's not able to get to sleep before FIVE am. What gives?

So, combine the two, and cenobyte isn't feeling well.

However, cenobyte has figured out exactly what the problem is with her sore neck.



Neck sharks.

Labels: neck sharks

You would not *believe* how much my neck hurts. Seriously. Ow.

It's a gorgeous day, I thought to myself. Sunny, and new-fallen snow lying, as the song says, "deep and crisp and even". I thought, maybe I'll go skating today. Maybe even go for a walk through the valley. Maybe I'll get out my skiis and ski out into the fields and just listen to winter all around me. Days like this, I thought to myself, I love winter.

I stared out the window, transfixed at the early morning fog. I was mesmerised by the stillness of everything, by the way the snow lay like the proverbial blanket over everything in our yard, the way it cushioned the steep peaks of our neighbours' homes (and of ours as well, I presumed, though I hadn't yet gone to look at the back yard). Then I saw it. I want you to look closely at that photograph and tell me what you see. Look very closely. There it is. There you have it.

In case you didn't see it very clearly, I shall post a close-up for you:
That's right. You're reading that correctly. It's thirty-seven degrees below zero.

O WINTER, THOU FOUL MISTRESS! THINE FROZEN HEART HATH AGAIN FOULED OUR MOST CHERISHED PLANS! WOE! WOE AND FIE, VILE ARCTIC TART! WHY MUST YOU TEMPT US SO?

Labels: Forty below, vile temptress, when there's weather

I don't know if you've met my friend Melba. As in toast. If you have, you'll know why this is funny.

She came to pick me up and we were going to...a spa, I think. Possibly some kind of hot springs resort. The spa was nestled in the mountains, and the snow had been falling, heavy and wet, for two days. The wind, blowing across the highway, froze the wet surface to glare ice, and Melba was driving way too fast. I kept asking her to slow down, but she'd say "it's okay; I drive this road every day!"

I kept saying "I understand that, and it'd really make me feel a lot more comfortable if you'd just kinda" [flinch] [flinch] "slow the eff down."

I saw the spa off to our right, in a valley that nestled between two peaks of the same mountain. "Oh!" She cried, giggling. "I missed the turn!"

I feared she'd haul the car to starboard, there on the narrow mountain highway, with a 200m drop off one side and a sheer cliff face on the other, with oncoming traffic just as insistent as she was that there was no better time or place to be going fast. I said, "uh..."

But contrary to what I *thought* she was going to do, she kept on the straightaway. "This is going to be pretty fun," she said, glancing through the driving snow to some point in the distance I couldn't make out.

"Yeah, if we ever get there. Alive."

She laughed. "You're so *silly*!"

"Yeah."

Then, ahead of us, the highway split in two lanes. In the middle, a cavernous opening. A sign above it claimed it was a 'breakaway lane'. The cavern was full of black, icy water.

If you've driven the Coquihalla or the Crowsnest Pass, you'll know that the 'breakaway lanes' are usually uphill lanes next to the road on a downhill slope that end in deep gravel. The purpose for these lanes are to provide an emergency exit if a vehicle (usually a logging truck) get going too fast or if the brakes fail...the theory is that you drive into the breakaway lanes and your vehicle, if it doesn't slow down by going uphill, it will slow down quite drastically when you hit either the pit of deep gravel at the end or the ramp of deep gravel at the end.

So this was not what one would expect to see, were one to see a breakaway lane. They are, for reasons you can well imagine, *never* in the centre of a divided highway. They are also never caves filled with water. Owing to the fact that when a fast thing hits wet stuff, the fast thing tends to a) lose traction immediately; and b) break apart (the surface tension of haitch-two-oh being what it is). Melba appeared to be heading directly for the 'breakaway lane', which to me looked an awful lot like an open mine entrance full of rancid stagnant putrescence.

"What the hell?" I hollered.

"Just watch!" She screamed back.

We hit the opening going far too fast, and I saw it sloped quickly downward. A Bad Sign. The car plunged into the water, and didn't break apart, which surprised me. It did begin to sink, which also surprised me. I undid my seat belt and clambered back over the seat and began rolling down the window.

"What are you doing?" Melba asked me, water filling the footwells of the car.

"Uh," I said, making sure I had enough of the window rolled down to get out when the water filled the rest of the cabin. I didn't even want to think about how cold that water was. In fact, I didn't need to think about it; it was already reaching past Melba's thighs and lapping at my toes. It wicked any body heat away faster than I would have imagined anyway, my boots and socks providing no protection at all. It was what I would imagine the Arctic Ocean would feel like, an icy squall breaking all around and lumps of ice floating by. As soon as it touched me, I immediately felt only a flash of searing pain, then numbness.

As the brackish, oily water rose up over my legs, I glanced down at Melba, who was still strapped in to her driver's seat. Unbelievably, she sat calmly in her seat. The water level was beginning to recede. The car was moving backward, up a ramp, pulled by a chain drive under the wheels. As the vehicle was returned to the highway, the water sluiced out, presumably the same way it had come in. Melba was giggling.

"That was pretty cool, hey?"

It was not cool. I didn't like it at all. Not even a little. In fact, I disliked it so much, I retrieved my sopping purse and overnight bag from the back seat, and walked across the highway and down the approach toward the spa. Once there, I phoned for someone to pick me up at the spa, in three hours, after I'd had time to 'take the waters'.

Most of all, I didn't like what that black water said to me. It wanted to pull me deep inside it; to hold me under and pull my breath from me, and fill my lungs with its own glacial ichor. It wanted me with it in its arctic depths, and its very touch had left me with a growing darkness, reaching upwards to envelop me.

Labels: dreams

I am very pleased that the young Slovaks have won a game in the medal round. They haven't won a medal since 1999, when they took home the bronze in Winnipeg, I think it was. Apparently the team was so new and so unprepared, they arrived in Winnipeg without proper equipment or even places to stay.

This whole cheering for the 'underdog' thing will probably be the end of me.

Incidentally, when we, as my friend's husband would say, "have weather" in Canada, the national weather agency often releases "weather warnings" for the areas of the country that will be affected. You know, maritime storm warnings, tornado watches, etc., etc., etc.. The yellow areas mean Something Bad Might Happen. The red areas mean Something Bad Is Happening. This is what it's like in Canada in the winter:

Talk about your 'red threat'.

Labels: IIHF, Slovak victory, when there's weather

On Mythbusters they did this segment where the boys were taken up to Alaska to test a bunch of myths, one of which was one about cabin fever - you know cabin fever...when you're cooped up indoors and there are very few distractions and you don't get any fresh air because the fresh air you get freezes the breath before it even gets into your lungs...

...you know, I started writing that about four hours ago, and now I forget what my point was and where I was going with that. Even thought it's bloody cold outside with the wind, I'm thinking of going skating. Thinking of it. In my mind, I am gliding powerfully across the ice, the sound of my blades sharp in the cold air. In reality, I am sitting on the couch with a cup of hot tea at my side, watching the Yanks get slaughtered by the Slovak team. This is one of the best hockey games I've seen in a long time. The Slovak goalie is pretty amazing.

There are strange things afoot, although I cannot guess what they might be.

Happy middle of the winter, randomly-chosen beginning of a new calendar year.

Yes, I realise this bournal has been kinda whiny and bitchy the past little while. It'll get better; I promise.

Say, if you happen to be a hypnotist, I've got a deal for you.

It was awesome having our good friends stay over last night. I dig sleepovers!