shit/sugar

Hi honey, I'm home.

I have taken off the helmet of negativity and shaken out my mousy locks. Whew! It was smelly in there. There was no peripheral vision, and what forward vision I had was bug-splattered.

I'm not saying I'll never have a shitty attitude again. On the contrary, I'm sure it will smack me upside the head many times in the future. Poor me.

"So what turned it around for you, you self-indulgent cow?" you may be asking. Hard to say. The only event that really stands out is the 4:30 a.m. explosive pet diarrhea. It may have jarred something in the old cabesa. I awoke to a smell so feculent, so foul, so soul-smashingly evil that it stopped me from procrastinating. That's evil.

I guess Reveen got into something. And then sprayed it all over my guatemalan poncho.

All I know is, after laundering everything not stapled to the house and returning to sleep, I awoke the next morning feeling strangely invigorated. There was a little angel on my shoulder, cackling. "You gotta take the shit with the sugar, honey."

and another thing

I believe there really are types of people. Beyond boys and girls, or boxers and briefs. One of the categories is:

The slacks-wearing, authority-wielding guy. He may or may not be in an actual position of authority - his personal power is bigger than title. His mom made him wash his hands frequently as a child. As a consequence, he's immediately uncomfortable around people who don't have this hand-washing thing. He has rigid routines. Overdose viagra rigid. His hair doesn't move. It hasn't since 1987. He wants very much to be cool, but his desire to scrub the filth from his hands is greater.

no news is good goddamn news

Seven more days on the cursed hamster wheel. You'd think it would be cool to work here. But you'd be wrong. Dead wrong. I know now that the old adage is completely true.

There's only one thing for it. A little voyage to word dojo. A world where there is honour. And beer. Where the words that issue forth from my brain result in rich rewards. Word dojo - it is a soothing balm after a day burning under the merciless fiery eye of the corporation.

sweet relief

It had been bothering me for so long. It wasn't anything big. I just felt... you know. Wrong. How can I explain? It was just out of reach. And I knew what I had to do. I just kept putting it off. I just didn't want anyone to know.

Then I went and bought some dental floss.

time in a bottle

3 weeks = 21 days = 30, 240 minutes =
me not taking Sam for granted anymore.

Too bad I dumped him off at the airport about as gently as a baggage handler this morning. If I could put time in a bottle, this morning would be eau de merde. But I'm pretty sure the first whiff of pacific wind in his indignant nostrils will put all to rights.

home-grown pentacles

Sally says:

The past was the death card - big, humbling change.
The present is the 9 of swords - feeling my life controlled by some faceless entity, like the cbc.
The future? The future is me, the queen of pentacles, happy in my secret garden, mellowing after an extended freak-out.
I'll take it!
Thankyou, Sally.

OK then. I'm going for coffee. While I drink my coffee, I will make a handy chart illustrating how totally survivable the next 3 weeks will be. That's 15 days on the hamster wheel. Maybe I'll make an advent calendar, ferrying me toward freedom on a delicious barge of chocolate. At the end will be a little link to Aretha Franklin singing, just for me:

freedom, Freedom, freedom, FREEDOM!

You know, it just happens - it does. You wait it out. You indulge in melodramatic thoughts and maybe a few melodramatic words (but don't overdo it). You adjust the soundtrack of your mind to a suitably melancholy playlist.

But the small part of your brain that remains reliable knows: it's of no more consequence than the weather.

No matter how goddamn beige your life may be, you'll still get the blues.

Trevor: "It is now after midnight and officially my birthday. 33 years. I'd love a do-over on about 10 of them."

Which 10? What would you do differently?

Everything I needed to know I learned in retail clothing sales


And then I stumbled on it. The torn notebook page, blue lines bled into the determined but childish script:

Sales Philosophy.
1) Acknowledge. Smile and make eye contact and say hello; then look busy.

I think this could really work for me, as well as for the bored young Bootlegger employee who penned it.

She goes on:

"You look fantastic."
"You will really enjoy this garment-boot-dress etc."
"It reflects your personality very well."
Watch their response and then proceed with the closing technique that applies best.

Crafty devils.

news

The good news is: I've figured out, with the very able assistance of uncle Art the friendly camera man, that news is not my bag. When I wake up, my first thoughts are not "So where exactly are we with this malicious prosecution case today?" and "Oooh, boy, is that communications flack with the police service ever gonna have a brouhaha on his hands today!" My thoughts are more along the lines of "berries... shadowy remnants of dream...smell of grass...my head is much like a small water mammal."

The not-so-good news is I have a month left on the lousy desk at cbc. The place I have been sent to learn the business of news, to peer into the gloom from whence stories come. (And I see now that it comes pretty much from the whim of minds not much more orderly than my own.)

The crippling news is: So what the hell am I supposed to do?