Am I nuts?

Early results are looking pretty positive in the lunacy poll. People I respect most say 'definitely dotty'.

But it's a done deal. The Date is now the Roommate. My house is roughly the size of a winnebago and now it houses a weight room. And more CDs with the word 'death' in the title than you can shake a fist at.

Over granola, we chew over the lingering debates:

Can things that are popular be good?

What it will be like when we start dating other people?

I'll tell you this, though. He makes a mean squash, brown rice and pepper casserole.

And so far, I'm happy.

ma'af

That means sorry. Sorry I've had nothing to say. I could blame the lack of internet access, but it would be more accurate to say this:

Mass graves have a way of robbing one of glib remarks, the kind I've made a habit of posting here.

Don't get me wrong, I haven't been wandering the fields of the dead day and night since I left or anything. It's just that my usual throw-away tone just doesn't seem like it would do this thing justice.

For those of you who've just tuned in, I've been in Aceh checking out the rebuilding efforts. Suffice it to say that there is much work to be done. Years and years worth. And some good work is being done. Imagine rebuilding a sandcastle grain by grain - if you had enough hands and enough time and the right tools it could be done, but every time you stepped back and looked at your progress it would just break your heart.

See? See how this earnest tone I've adopted here just seems wrong? The new Lisa is all sincere. It'll just take a little while for the smartass to come back, maybe.

Anyway, speaking of painfully earnest, I wanted to say that I am in fact humbled by the resilience I see among people here. They walk by those mass graves every day on their way to work, life and what passes for routine now. They play with their children, they volunteer, they put flowers on the graves.

We drink coffee and fly home.

I'll be home on the 23rd, around 7:00 pm.

Papayity in Mennonesia

The jet lag has worn off, but the culture shock persists -

I'm with Mennonites every day - hymns, devotions, you name it.

The official version of this response can be seen at www.bitlink.ca/mccs.

Gotta go. To church.

barometer

I've created a system to help people at work understand how to approach me. A quick glance at my desktop will give significant clues to my state of mind.





dehydrated or hormonally unstable - keep reasonable distance













biological clock ticking -
keep reasonable distance or risk impregnating me

why do I look pensive? Because, holy shit, I just realized I'm leaving for Indonesia in, like, 4 days. Like, tuesday. Like, hello; PizzalikePete's. I have as much shit to do as there are... islands in the Indonesian archipelago. I have to learn how to use a canon XL-1. I have to make my home ready for the house sitter (oh, good christ, the Date - I suppose I'll have to throw away the severed heads of all my victims and hide all my Anne Murray albums and get rid of the videos of me and the basset hounds and stash my Conservative Party membership card). I have to take the Lord into my heart in one powerful, sizzling shot (my spirit will sit bolt upright like Uma Thurman after the adrenaline in PUlp Fiction) because I'll be travelling with Christians and they can sense an imposter like a bad casserole. Please pray for me and the XL-1 as we traipse around Southeast Asia in headscarves and sarongs. OK, I admit it. The only reason I used that photo is because I just discovered the 'add photo' feature and that was the only photo I could find on my Dad's computer. As you know, my computer is currently sitting on a milk crate in a crack house where people in threadbare sweat pants take turns masturbating to the collected works of Lisa.