centre of the universe - the dreaming

Were I to take a lover
truly, take a lover
Were it my place to have a lover
I mean
another lover

Were I to have two lovers
really, two different lovers
Were it my place to have two lovers
Again,
I'd choose you

Why me?
Why would you choose *me*?
You could have anyone; everyone in the world
as your lover.

No, not everyone. Not anyone.
Neil Gaiman, you see, is taken.
No, I'd choose you.

Why?

Well, because, you see ...
I say, it's like this.
I could fall forever
in your eyes. I could, I say
lose myself in your laugh.
It's trite, I know.

My eyes?
You'd take me as your other lover
because I bat my eyelashes?

Um, I say. Well, you have
a very nice bum also.

Labels: Odd day, poems, the goggles they do nothing

Hey.

There's this fellow. I love him; always have. He's having it out with the Shite, and I'd like to ask you to send good mojo along. He needs this. And I need him to be okay.

So, if you don't mind; if you've some spare shards at the bottom of your Pandora's box; if you've spells or prayers or...or what have you, would you mind terribly sending it his way?

It means a lot.

10-Q

Labels: magic

Okay, so you're having a sale. You want to get rid of your crap. But really, lady? A sale of epic proportions?

So you're planning to have (or sell) some heroes at your lengthy, narrative sale? A couple of cultural icons just strolling through? Maybe Elvis is going to be there? Possibly Lance Armstrong or Sitting Bull? Just hanging out, considering the mismatched teacups.

Or maybe you're thinking of getting yourself some fancy, fully orchestrated score to accompany your sale; maybe it's all about the human drama. Maybe people from other businesses are going to come over and tell all about their crossing to Canada, and those wavy remembery lines will take over and...no? That isn't it?

Ohhhh. You mean the kind of 'epic proportions' that involve your sale *actually* being held in some other reality, at a market where they also sell memories and loincloths for orcs. So, what you're saying is that all of your salespeople will be speaking fluent Elven and singing that song about the breeze through the leaves.

Could it be that you're considering how important that everyone *at* your sale knows they are *part* of the sale, like Brecht's dialectical theatre. Maybe that's what you mean.

Words, ma'am, ought not be tossed away like spent sunflower seed shells on the beach. It is important to know what you are saying, and what the words you use actually means. If what you *mean* is "We're having a sale in which everything in the store is on discount", then you ought to say that. Or, better yet, **TRUST THE WRITERS** you've hired to write ads for you. None of them would be caught dead describing a big summer blowout sale as "epic".

Sure, maybe a lot of people think that "epic" means simply "really big". Maybe you think that your sale will be, as they say in the dictionary, "of unusually great size or extent". And if that's the case, I expect your "sale" to encompass two city blocks, shut down traffic, and I expect your merchandise to be marked at least 70% off retail price. But I suspect that's not the case. I suspect what you mean is "we're having a big summer sale".

Okay, it's something all the kids are saying these days, and I must admit, I laugh out loud when a teenager or twenty-something says "Oh man. That exam was EPIC, man." And perhaps, if all you're trying to do with language is get your point across, I suppose you're successful. But do you really expect me to believe that that was as exciting as you could be? As creative? That the only way you know how to describe your biggest, unique summer sale is by ostensibly misusing a word?

That's just sad, you know. It's sad, because words are here for us to play with...and okay, I'll give you this - if you *actually* have Achilleus at your sale, I will retract my snottiness. If there are goblins and halflings and orcs (oh my!) at your sale, I will apologise. If your sale is actually a play in which everyone knows it is a play, good on you. But if all that happens is I walk into your shop and see a couple of "25% off! Today only!" stickers on a couch or rack of clothes, sister, really. Epic it ain't.

Labels: piss in your eye

I love you.

You're pretty amazing.

Thanks for being.

yours,
cenobyte

The Captain just found out that his best friend and best friend's brother (who is about the same age) are moving away from our town next week. They're moving in to the city, but The Captain is devastated. These three have been inseparable the past few months, and The Captain already knows how difficult it is to maintain a 'long distance relationship' when you go to different schools.

It's kind of breaking my heart, actually.

Labels: breaks my heart, kids

The large room is extravagantly decorated in carved mahogany and oak trim. Lights hang from the high, pressed tin ceiling, casting diffuse light on the enormous oak table that fills the room. Oak armchairs are pushed in around the table. SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, MERCHANDISE EXECUTIVE, and MARKETING DIRECTOR occupy three chairs at the far end of the table. JUNIOR ASSISTANT TO MARKETING DIRECTOR'S UNDERSECRETARY stands near the refreshments table at the other end of the room. Bright sunlight is visible through a tiny slit in the heavy green velvet curtains. Mounted deer and moose heads, along with mounted fish, birds, and a beaver cast small shadows on the wall.

Labels: advertisements, fugly, scene, screenplay

Went for lunch with my new BFF, Wunderkind. The trick with this one is that you have to turn him upside down and jiggle him. THAT'S when he'll giggle. We had a lovely sunny picnic with thunder and lightning. Wunderkind's father came with us. He makes INCREDIBLE ice tea, and is a good guy to hang out with. Hopefully, this summer, we'll be able to do more of that.

Midges are bad this year. Their bites make me bruise.

It's hot. I need a pool. And a six-foot fence.

And I received a call from my fifth-grade teacher today. I still remember her well; she had coffee teeth and grey-toned skin. I thought she was beautiful. She was the one who had to go downstairs to tell Joey not to pee on the walls. "PEE," she enunciated when she got back up to the class, a recalicitrant Joey slouching along in front of her, "goes in the TOILET or the URINAL. Not on the walls." Joey grinned a little. Then she said, "Also, you really need to stop touching your pe...your THINGY in class."

Back then, it was taboo to say 'penis' or 'vagina'. We didn't even have them, in fact. We all had thingies, and they were as unique as fingerprints. We all knew that in general, girls' thingies were different from boys' thingies, because boys have outies and girls have innies. From there, though, things got a little vague. Boys often showed us their thingies, little pink buds like tulip blossoms poking out of their trousers. They asked us to show them our thingies, but the process wasn't clear. We'd have to take off our trousers, or just lower our knickers if we were wearing skirts, and that seemed like an awful lot of work just to catch a glimpse of a shadowy cleft.

It was, as cenobyte has been known to say on occasion, different for girls. While the boys talked about girls' thingies an awful lot, most of the time when a boy's thingy would make an appearance, all the girls would run squealing to the other side of the playground, hollering 'gross!' and 'iew!' and 'Mrs. SOANDSO! Cory's showing us his thingy!"

But I stared. I stared and stared and wondered how on earth the boys could RUN with all that malarky between their legs. I wondered about baths, and wouldn't they get confused with all that extra skin there. Then I thought, 'what if he gets it caught in his zip?' Not being one to be content wondering things, I shocked the hell out of one poor lad when he whipped out his thingy and threatened to chase the girls around the playground with it.

"Say," I began, after all the girls were away and squealing, and before Missus Soandso had a chance to haul the poor lad off by the ear to the principal's office, "d'you ever get all that stuck in your zip?"

"WHAT!?" he gasped, suddenly self-conscious.

"Well, I was just wondering, if you're, you know, in a hurry, or just not paying attention, d'you ever get that caught in your zip?"

"Uh. i dunno. Maybe? I guess?"

"Bet that hurts, huh?"

"Yeah. It hurts. Of course it hurts." He began backing away.

"Seems like a bit of a bother," I offered.

"WHAT?"

"Well, it just seems like a bit of a bother, having all kinds of flappy bits down between the legs, getting caught in zips all the time."

"Uh," he said, glancing around, hoping some of his buddies were there for moral support, or help, or something. Missus Soandso was careening toward us across the field.

"Anyway, your thingy doesn't scare me. Did you know it's called a penis?"

I got called down to the office that day. Turns out you're not allowed to say 'penis' on the schoolyard in grade five.


w00t!
I'm a gorram Five-Star General!

Labels: kids, the way of the future

Hi, Monica de Montiableque!

I'm so glad you finally emailed me!
At first, I wasn't sure what P 3 n1SSSS 3N 7@rGm3 nt meant, but I figured it out. It's all about pleasing h3r, after all, isn't it? Did you go to a special school to learn how to make words out of numbers? 'Cause that's really cool. When I was in grade five, someone grabbed my calculator and entered: 28008 and then told me to look at it upside down. You know what was funny? I thought he meant 'do a headstand and look at these numbers'! Ha! That's funny. Because that's not what he meant. He meant 'turn this calculator around so that the number pad is facing away from you and see what it says'.

I did that, and do you know what it said? "BOOBS", that's what! Then he typed in 28008.618 and said "What does that say?" and I said "twenty-eight thousand and eight point six-one-eight!" And he said, "No, you idiot, it says "BIG BOOBS". That was the height of trying the social taboos in grade five.

Maybe next time, you should send out a bunch of emails with "28008.618" in the subject field and then tell all your readers to look at it upside down. Maybe you'll be able to sell more '3N7@r9m3nT cr34m' then! But make sure you tell them that 'look at it upside down' doesn't mean to stand on their heads or to hang upside down from the shower rod or closet rod - that could be dangerous! You'll have to tell them that it means to turn their computer upside down.

That's an old Internet trick; did you know that? Back in the 80s and 90s when bad newswriters were calling it the "Information Superhighway", there was this thing where if your cursor wasn't blinking, you were supposed to turn your computer upside down until it started again - but here's the joke! You just have to change the display settings to make the cursor never blink! HA! Isn't that funny?

Anyway Monica, tell me more about this penis enlargement thing! It's pretty incredible, because you promised me nine inches, and...here's a secret Monica...I don't even HAVE a penis! Is this like a detachible penis deal? Maybe something I could use one weekends, like those yuppies who have houses they live in only on weekends because during the week they live in condos in the city? That's kind of like a detachible penis, except it's a whole house. A really expensive house. If I had a detachible penis that I could sell on the open market for half a million dollars, I'd do it in a second.

I also want more information about this "stay hard (for her!) all night long!" claim that you make in your email. Don't you think that's a little sex-centric? How do you know I haven't 'gone gay' in the last few weeks since I got your last email? What if I had a nine-inch detachible penis, but I only wanted it to stay hard all night for him? How come all of your advertisement emails just assume your audience is heterosexual? Monica, this is the 21st century. Girls who are boys who like boys to be girls who do boys like they're girls who do girls like they're boys. Always should be someone you really love, I guess.


Which brings me to something I've been thinking of for a while. It doesn't really have much to do with your email, Monica, but I've been thinking about it: The last couple of weeks, I've been very, very pleased to see couples holding hands in the park, and when they walk through the mall. Specifically, I'm very pleased to see gay couples doing so. That makes me very happy.

Anyway, I've probably taken up far too much of your time. You must be very busy, trying to figure out what numbers and symbols you can use for letters in all your emails! You're very good at 733k sp33k. I know it's supposed to be '733t'. I think 733k is funnier, though. Better yet, 73ak. Heh.

Okay, gotta let you go.

One more thing, though - d'you think you could send some of those enh@ncement emails to my EmPee? I'm kind of sick of him acting like he's trying to make up for ...certain shortcomings.

Thanks!
cenobyte

Labels: letters

One of the smells I associate most strongly with summer is the smell of smoke. But it doesn't work unless the smoke is drifting in on the morning wind. It has to be a grass/wood smoke, thicker in the morning...in the summers in Prince Albert, every morning on the radio, there was a Forest Fire report, and there was a 'smoke index'. Some days, you were advised to stay indoors because the smoke was so thick.

You'd be wiping ashes off your windowsills every morning, washing the ashes off the car every morning.

At night, the smoke in the air made the sun look like a huge crimson yolk, suspended mystically in an umber-coloured sky.

Sometimes the flames licked a little too close to the city, and people were evacuated in to the local high school, or sports stadium, or girl guide hall. The fellow I was in love with one summer had a family home on 24 hour watch every summer. One year, I went out there to help them back-burn and dig burn ditches. His mum spent most of one day watering the yard, the sheds, and the house, to protect it from the sparks.

I hear these 'forest fire reports' down here, and they make me smile. Generally, double the number of forest fires they report. Pretend at night you can hear the crackle of distant flames, or that your eyes sting every day. Pretend that all your clothes smell like campfire, after five minutes out of the dryer.

These are summer things.

*summer*!

Labels: summer

Dear Diary,

Today, I missed The Captain. He was at a sleepover and then went fishing with his friends at the lake. Today was also the day I got to be a Really And Truly Librarian. I don't know if I've mentioned this before or not, but when I was a much younger cenobyte, I used to play Library. I made records cards, pasted envelopes into books, and kept a log of the books (by title and author - at six, I'd not heard of the Dewey Decimal system). I leant books to neighbourhood children and offered a personal pick-up service. Picture books were leant for a week at a time, chapter books for two weeks. I also leant out board games and other toys. I believe mine was the first library in our city that had comics for borrowing.

So I was excited to get to volunteer at our local library when our Regular Librarian (I am the Irregular Librarian) had a daughter in labour to attend to. I even got to stamp books with the return date!

The Captain has now been on sleepover for precisely 24 hours. I am positive he's having a blast. I must admit to being a little melancholy at how fast the boys are growing up.

In other news. after watching the Discovery Channel's "Destroyed in [relatively few] Seconds", I think perhaps helicopter rides will be much fewer and further between.

Hope the skies stay as blue and brilliant as they have bene these last few days. My birthday usually brings clement weather.

Labels: kids, letters, The Captain

Thank you for all the birthday wishes and greetings. it was a wonderful, perfect day.

In gratitude, I bring you Wonderful Weather, in spite of my Sore Tooth. Damn you, wisdom teeth. Damn you to hell.

Here is the view (slightly less blurry IRL) I am enjoying this aft.

Combine this with The Nipper hooting and hollering and making the World's Best Automatic Weapon noises, and going on about the Padewin...Padouin...Star Wars folks, and This is My Day.

Eleventy Billion Years Ago, when the earth was still young and the rivers ran pure across the land, the people wished to live in peace, and harmony. But they were scared of everything, and realised that they had Much To Do before they could be happy. In fact, along with hunting, and gathering, and tilling the soil, they had all this other stuff that needed to be done, like fishing, and running the settlements, and coming up with creation myths.

The people began to plan things, and plot against one another, because they didn't have time for fun, what with the making spears and tanning hides and hitting each other in the head with rocks.

But then unto those people was born a beautiful, vibrant baby girl. Also, a strange Raggedy Ann doll that introduced fear and paranoia into the world. The amazing baby girl did her best to punch Raggedy Ann in the face at every opportunity. In the creepiest of creepy things, no matter how often or how hard she was punched, Raggedy Ann never stopped smiling. It was as if Raggedy Ann knew something she wasn't sharing with the rest of us. Creepy little thing.

Anyway, while the world is still overrun with Raggedy Ann dolls and face-eating clowns, the incredible, wickedly intelligent baby girl grew up to be the Most Important Person Ever. Named cenobyte, she would eventually be the intermediary between the centre of the universe and...well...everyone and everything in the universe.

And this is the day we all celebrate the arrival of the cenobyte.

Labels: Happy Birthday

Stop me if you've heard this one:

It's fair, I suppose, for you to be cross with me. It's fair because it's not fair that the best family in the world is mine. I'm sorry; it's not something I planned. In fact, I'm not entirely sure how it happened. It's pretty easy to understand how the kids got to be so awesome. I mean, seriously. I cock.

But this is the thing, and I'm'a warn you here that there's some pretty mooshy stuff coming up...the thing is His Nibs.


So the deadly handsome guy in that photo is His Nibs. He's pretty amazing. In fact, he's *completely* amazing. Rumour has it that cenobyte is in love with him. Don't tell his wife.

Labels: His Nibs

What does it say about me that I prefer this version (via Neil Gaiman's Journal):

I'm in love with that kid's voice.

To the "original":

Labels: music

The following was delivered to the Office of HMQ cenobyte, in right of Saskatchewan:

We are having this treaty because The Nipper and The Captain want peace between each other. We will try to trade every day. We will trade cudlies [sic] and toys. If anybody hurts each other (meaning The Nipper and The Captain) the Treaty is over! If eather [sic] The Nipper or The Captain don't like the deal we trade something else. Signed, The Nipper, The Captain.
Items traded this day: one cuddly dog for spinning walking with dinosaurs light

Thus endeth International Torment Your Brother Day.

Labels: kids, treaties, true story

Okay, so here's the deal.

I only mention it because a couple of folks have mentioned this to me...about me...whatever. It's been said lately that one of the myriad reasons I should rule the universe is because I make people laugh. I think that's okay. I think that's a good reason to rule the universe.

Because there is truth to this: that what you put out into the world comes back to you, and usually it comes back to you magnified threefold. And I'd much prefer to enjoy things (and enjoy not enjoying things, if that makes sense) than have the universe be cross or impatient or grumpity with me. Or sad.

So my friend Jackie said this: "I love hanging out with cenobyte because it doesn't matter where we go, or what we do, everyone cenobyte talks to, she makes them laugh." [Ed. Note: not by poking them in the eyes. I have discovered, through trial and error, that poking folks in the eyes does not make them laugh. It makes them very, very irritated. Also, it took me three tries to type 'trial'. I kept typing 'trail and error', which is a different concept entirely.]

My co-worker Double D said, of our recent trip to Ottawa, that he enjoyed traveling with me because wherever we went, I made people happy.

And I'm okay with that. I'm *really* okay with that.

Babies laughing makes the world better:


German weather hosts can't stop:

Labels: cheese, ring made from a spoon, the goggles they do nothing

Here's a suggestion for all you folks thinking about doing some advertising. It's certainly not something that's restricted to radio adverts, but this is where I last encountered it.

I went to a thingummy one time with my friend Smarty Pants, who, as the name might suggest, is Pretty Smart. Anyway, this thingummy was a presentation-a-magooey from this fellow called Roy Williams. He's the Wizard of words Ads. So The Wizard was talking about things that work in advertising and marketing, and things that Do Not. He talked about neurology; he talked about psycholinguistics. He talked a lot of stuff. And most of it was stuff that you already know, but probably just haven't thought about.

I work in promotion and marketing, to a certain extent. I've done ads for print and radio and television. I'm a freaking STAR, people. A STAR. In fact, I'm so bloody famous, I need to hire a Sherpa to haul around my various accoutrements, and a bodyguard to make sure none of the bolsheviks accost me.

I digress.

Here is something that Never Works in advertising. Never. The Wizard mentioned it, and I didn't really think much of it, because I couldn't imagine anyone actually doing it. But you know what? You're doing it. And it's Bad. It's Really Bad.

This is it, are you ready? Here it is:
I don't care if God Himself works for you, or if Jesus and Muhammed are your sales team. It doesn't matter if Cyndi Lauper is your receptionist, or if my boyfriend Johnny Depp works in accounting. Mahatma Ghandi could be your stock boy, but you know what? (Take note here, because this is the important thing) I DO NOT PURCHASE PEOPLE AT YOUR STORE.

I shop at your store because of your *merchandise*. I shop there because I need/want your crap. Good service is a bonus, but it's not the reason I choose your shop over that other guy's shop.

Granted, if I walk in the door of your shop, and someone hits me in the face with a pool cue, there's a good chance I won't shop there again.

But I don't really care if the girl working the til would rather be shagging her lover *anywhere else but here*. I don't particularly care if the waiter is a jerk. I mean, if he slapped his wang down on the table and said "here's your sausuage!"...okay, if he did that, I'd leave a HUGE tip...but generally, I don't give a waiter's wang about service. If it's terrible service in a restaurant, I don't tip. If I have to wait twenty minutes at the til, I generally ask someone (politely) if they're available to help me.

Now, if I was in the market for purchasing "reliable, friendly people", I might shop at your place of business. But really, I am not. In the market. For purchasing people. We don't ...actually...do that...anymore...in Canada.

In fact, when I hear an advert about how the best thing about a company is its employees or its people, I make a mental note NEVER TO SHOP THERE. Know why? Because if you can't think of something awesome to say about your products, why the hell would I want to buy them?

"Never mind the air seeder, let me introduce you to Pam!"

Listen. Advertising isn't inexpensive. Don't make it cheap. You pay people who know what they're doing (you clearly do not) to promote and market your stuff. I guarantee you dollars to doughnuts if a Creative Writer were to toss something like "Shop at Bob's Big Organs because they have Great People" past a market focus group, the market focus group would all twist up their eyebrows in Consternation and say: "well, so what? I have great people at home, too, but they can't sell me a Wurlitzer."

So. Again. I do not purchase people. I purchase commodities. Sometimes service is a commodity, and that should be part of your *everyday business*. If you have to advertise that your staff are the nicest, most capable people in the industry, I immediately think there's something wrong with your products.

Labels: piss in your eye