tis summer

and i've got the whole facebook thing to post photos on and i think my wee fanbase is slipping anyway so I seem to be taking a wee blogging break.
I may blog though, during my 3-day long weekend trip next weekend to San Francisco. That might be fun.
Check back regularly though if you like, I may get back in the blogging mood.
thanks, wee fan base.

In order for me

not to be the most mentally unhealthy person in the room, apparently all I have to do is host a book club with strangers.
Ha.
Not really.
Well sort of. Ha
Tonight was the 2nd of the monthly meetings. Three women came last time, this time one of the women was there and the rest were new - 2 men and 2 women. The book we chose, Metro Girl by Janet Evanovich was a quick read and thus not much to talk about. Not a literary work by any means. We had chosen it in fact for a woman who was there the first time - I believe she had a minor brain injury - and she took some books and then promptly dropped out of the group.
We finished the Metro Girl conversation pretty quickly. Then the middle-aged Korean man (now, now, I'm only saying he's Korean because he is) started talking about that book that Oprah loves, "The Secret". I haven't read it but I knew the premise - visualize what you want and you will get it. Positive thinking really. The middle-aged woman had an opinion or two and she had just enough of an edge to her that I knew she could get ticked off easily. Not so much that, but I know she didn't suffer fools gladly. Oy. When I was hemming and hawing about what question we should start with for the Metro Girl talk, she said, "well, how about did people like the book?" and she said it in that edgy tone. Of course, I'm hyper aware of wanting this to go well. I gulped.
The woman who came before loves Evanovich and I was nervous because people kept talking about how lame it was, how shallow, how lame. Which it was - but that fits well into the light mystery genre. I was worried she was offended. Oy.
There was a 34-year-old looked like and talked like a Jewish guy there (later he told me lots of people think he is Jewish. Funny, he totally seems it), he's actually a Christian, and then there was a middle-aged Polish woman there. She knocked me off my most mentally unhealthy in the room thing.
Oy.
We were meandering talking about the Secret and the Korean man's opinion seemed to be that even homeless people can do it, you know, think positively about their situation.
Oy.
And then Polish woman asks us about ambition and edgy woman is like, that is too big a topic, narrow it down and Polish woman didn't want to.
I went to pee, do you ever notice when you are nervous you have to pee more?
Oy.
Suddenly, Polish woman is almost crying and talking on and on and on about how Canada is asking her to kill her ambitions to be a librarian and she has to be a security guard and oy the people treat her badly.
"Canada wants you to kill your ambition."
Now edgy woman had mentioned in passing that she worked for a call centre.
Darn if Polish woman doesn't keep saying things like, "and they want me to work in a call centre and I don't want to do that. They are killing my ambition."
Oy. I kept thinking, please god, please stop saying that because edgy woman might blow.
"oops, just going to the bathroom again," i said.
Then she said she'd been homeless and I do feel for her because I know how hard it is for highly-qualified immigrants to get work here.
But she went on and on and edgy woman at one point signals to me to basically shut her up.
But my mouth is stuck in the "o" position.
Turns out Korean guy runs one of the rooming hotels - SRO's - in the Downtown Eastside. Oy.
So we get back to what book we are going to read and then everyone skidaddles the heck out. Edgy woman I think is not coming back.
Well, good, because I also like to be the edgiest person in the room.
The Christian guy stayed for awhile because he also runs a film group that I want to attend and he is looking for a host for it and darn, I can do that.
We talk about Christianity for awhile and he's a fundy but an intellectual and nice guy.
"You are very all or nothing," I tell him.
"I'm very that," he says.
I tell him that for the first time I'm learning to be less all or nothing in terms of everything, including god.
"I like the 12-step model of god," I tell him.
"Yeah, not me, lots of problems with it."
"Yeah, I know, it's that all or nothing thing."
"Yeah."
Nice fellow.

cryptic by necessity here, but the feelings are real

Again, that damn suing thing. Not sure about the rules on that. better safe than, you get the idea.
First, Sarah Jane Morris' music is so damn inspiring.

Okay then.

I lived in a small town in Alberta for three and a half years in my mid to late 20s. I was a reporter at a daily newspaper there. An interesting and challenging experience to be sure. A co-worker named Steve broke my heart and then he dated a friend of mine. Uh well. Twenty-something angst. Into that difficult time when I cried and threw pots filled with water against the wall (sorry, landlady on Southview Drive S.E.), came a friend. I met her at the church I was going to at the time, in a time when I went to church. She was married and had a baby boy. The first time we hung out we went to a park for lunch and had among other things, carrot sticks. This was 14 years ago - I have a weird memory for things. Freaky really, in some ways. For my remaining two years there we hung out all of the time - me and her and me and her and her kid and her husband. I bonded a whole lot with her wee boy - who would be 14 now. It was a very cool time. We really got each other, her and I. And I got her husband in a way that others apparently didn't have patience for. He had a big heart, he did.

I moved back to Vancouver and we kept in touch. She had become one of the best friends I'd ever, ever had.

She divorced her husband a few years later - there'd been difficulties for a long time - I loved them both but saw how his destructive tendencies could eventually end their marriage. And there it was. From that point on, she pulled back. I knew what she was doing - trying to wipe out things from before.

We spoke once in a very long while.

About a year back, on a boring Sunday, I googled a few people. There she was, she'd started, with a friend, a company in the Alberta town. There was an e-mail address for her and I e-mailed her.

And this began a bad pattern for me. I would e-mail her once in a while and she would ignore it.

E-mail.

Ignore.

You get the idea.

Yes, says my censoring voice, the fan base is going to say give it up already.

Hmmm.

Well think that at any rate.

Anyway, I'm still learning.

It's so easy for me to go black and white here - with me on the black end - but I'm working on the grey.

Still working on it.

Because hotmail screws things up weirdly, recently, an e-mail I'd sent to a former landlord also sent to her.

I sent her an e-mail saying, sorry, please ignore, sorry and keep ignoring me.

Cheeky, yes.

But what do I do when I am hurt.

Sarcasm pours on out.

And so I get it into my head.

To e-mail a couple of more times.

More sarcasm

Less kindness.

And a few more bad ideas.

Not what I meant to say.

Which was I miss

a friendship

that started over carrot sticks

in the park.

And i would love to know

how your kids are doing.

And how you are.

We are way older now of course

than we were

when we hung out all those years ago

and we said

weren't we the best friends we'd found in a long time

and we could be ourselves all over the place

that's what I wanted to say

Instead I probably went too far

and pushed you to respond

to me

and you told me

I was

controlling

manipulative

demeaning

And could I now leave you alone

this shook me up

because she now sees me as some kind of a stalker

oy

vay

and what is one thing I notice about her e-mail

that stands out most for me

when she said - you go ahead and lose respect for me, whatever it takes

she spelled it loose

now

I'm learning a bit

cause i wanted to point that out to her

but held myself back

So there you go

still hot

And I'm still feeling lazy about blogging. Nonetheless, I don't want to turn the fanbase away forever. Scary thought, too scary to contemplate.

I'm hoping my kayaking photos from last week upload this time.

It's been hot, hot, hot around these parts. Up to something like 37C the other day. I've been outdoor swimming lots and lots and lots. Enjoyable that. My hair, however, does not thank me.

Facebook I must admit is easier and quicker than this blogging thing. Uh well.

Oh my gosh I'm back full on with the ridiculous insomnia. Aaargh.

Thoughts are scattered.

And congratulations to Debbie and Marty, who popped out their sixth child, Joel, on July 9. You can see pictures at www.martybanana.com. You don't know them but you know me. Funny, the last time I saw Debbie was when I went to Australia in 1991 and she'd only been dating Marty for six weeks. They were in the lovely dovey stage and I was annoyed and Marty and I nearly came to blows. Now, the woman's popped six kids and Marty and I are great on-line friends. Go figure. I did make a suggestion to Marty though on behalf of the planet and his poor wife: snip, snip. But that's just me.

Marty and Debbie, I'm telling you, I must visit. But you do live so damn far. I'd have to fly to Sydney, then to Adelaide and then fly again and then a car ride and oh my gosh i'm dizzy just thinking about it. Please have Debbie write when she has a spare moment, which I realize won't be for 10 years. I'm patient that way.

Oy. Today the students and I went for lunch at a Greek restaurant on Davie. Not Stepho's, they are too damn rude there. After I went to the famous Little Sisters' Bookstore - the gay bookstore in Vancouver. What can I say, I like reading the Advocate, the gay mag, and checking out the gay male section. No more needs to be said there. I ran into a co-worker, an out gay man. Now I'm thinking, "he probably thinks I'm gay and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that."

So, of course, I think about this all afternoon and call another co-worker for advice.

"Maybe you could make comments about hot men next time you see him," suggested she.

"No, no, he'll think I'm deep in the closet. I could buy a "straight not narrow" shirt or a shirt that says, "Just because I went to Little Sisters doesn't mean I'm gay." Not that there's anything wrong with that.

So you see the conundrum and how there is no way out of it really. Rumours will fly and the next thing you know I'll be set up with a butch woman named Arlo with big tattoos and short short hair, who wears men's shorts and burps a lot.

Oh, the political incorrectness of it all.

Been thinking a lot about anger lately too. I have some, always have. No need to go into the whys - I know some of the whys and lots I simply don't know and some is genetic. Anger has such powerful energy that it has to come out somehow. For me, it's in sarcasm and a dark sense of humour. Unfortunately, it's when it comes out in other ways that I get into some trouble. A general and underlying irritation at almost all times. Quick explosions I'm embarrassed about later.

"You are angry at your anger," great wee woman in her 60s shrink said, "and that doesn't help."

I was on a rage tear at the time, first time she'd seen that.

"You are handling my anger quite well," I told her, with the four per cent of my brain that was still able to think properly.

"It's valid to be angry," said she, "it's how you deal with it that you can work on."

Oh, when I eventually heard that it was quite profound. I've always been angry at my anger, ashamed of it, deeply deeply and desperately ashamed of it. I've trotted out words like "pathetic" and "awful" to describe it to myself.

"Yeah, that's not helping you," said she.

Oh.

Good point.

She suggested I go swimming after our appointment to get some of it out. I did that but was generally irritated by all of the other people and the heat. Oh.

"When you accept your anger and not be raging at it, it will lose its power."

Oh.

I have heard that before but never heard that before.

I'm always hesitant to put such personal things on my blog. But I've never been shy about saying I have a shrink and a great one at that, partly because it is a big part of my life and partly because I think the stigma that still surrounds it for some people needs to go away. I mean seriously, once every week or two I get to go see someone and talk only about me and not feel guilty about that. And she is helping me figure things out too.

And most people who've known me for more than 2 days or have driven with me, know I have anger issues. That one is harder for me. So, you know, no teasing about that one just yet. That's a deep one.

Toaster Mel is here after driving here in record time from downtown. Wowza. later

too hot

to blog for awhile.
see you on Facebook

sun fun or if you prefer, fun in the sun

A really nice Friday off. Once every four weeks, I get TOEIC Friday off. The students take the TOEIC test and the teachers get the day off. Nice.
These pictures are from kayaking late this morning/afternoon with pal Ceone. Because she took the learn to flip back over if you flip over course there, she and her guest get 10 per cent off. Nice. So for two hours it is about $32, tax in. Nice.
I love this kayaking. Very, very relaxing. And darned if Ceone didn't show me how much cooler and nicer it is when you take the skirt off. Well, not off but released from the front. Much, much better.
I dig Ceone. Dig her. She's a counsellor and at present works in a group home with "unmanageable" kids and teens, lots with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. She's applying to be the family counsellor for the families of kids with FAS. Neato and she is only 26. But she's one of those people who transcends her age.
We then had lunch at Honey's Donuts - I had a corned beef sandwich. Very nice.
Ceone dropped me off and then I went out to Kitsilano pool. Wowza, I haven't swum there in awhile - it's 137 metres each way - about 5 and a half times the length of New Brighton Pool. It is a real commitment going across. So my arms are sore now from kayaking and swimming. It's a cold pool but a salt water pool, so it's great. I brought along my lounge chair and lounged in the sun for awhile.
I think I'm a bit heat stroked now, I can tell because I was too zoned out to even want to get ticked off at other drivers. Very nice.
A good kind of tired. An exercised, was out in the sun all day kind of tired.
Okay, the pictures aren't uploading for some reason so I'll add them later.

A great birthday party

Tracy's birthday party was really fun. The group they'd hired - and we all pitched in - was called Pearl Jig and they were really great. Children, adults, cats - we all danced and jigged. Wowza. Excellent work there Fiona.
I'm going to let the pictures speak for themselves.
a picture = a thousand words type of a thing.

Tracy's excellent party, part II

Party people.

retro

My pal Tracy, cool gal she, was in need of a stove and oven. Long story short, the house she's been renting only had a convection oven. Tracy loves to cook and bake. So, looking through Craigslist, she found this beauty for FREE. And the people turned out to only live a couple of blocks from her. So, with a dolly and a muscular friend, they got it over to her house. It's quite cool - from the 50s I believe and actually worth quite a lot of money. It has a warming oven and then an oven oven and all kinds of neat dials.

Nice.

Tracy has a few retro things in her place - including a big wooden crate that she got at a garage sale that was used as luggage for some people coming over from London probably in the late 1800s. Neato. Yesterday was Tracy's birthday so a happy belated. There's a party at her house later today, with a great live band. Should be fun.

Good pal Tracy has been through the emotional grinder this year, so I hope she can relax and let loose today. She deserves it.

My stomach's rather upset this morning - might be those 857 chips I ate at Tracy's last night. She had them all laid out for the party and said help yourself. Oy, wee fan base, you know my love of the chip.

Aaargh. My rent is going up the allowable four per cent and that is simply way too much for an apartment - particularly an apartment on a hugely noisy corner, with past mice and in an annoying hood. Mind you, anywhere else would be equally expensive. must apply to co-ops. must get off of my butt.

Even though I thought I was sleeping okay I still feel tired and unrested most days. Must not be sleeping very deeply. Weird.

Today is sunny again - yee haw. no rain expected till tonight which is good.

I recommend the movie, Turtles Can Fly. From 2005, I got it out of the library. Set on the Iraq-Turkish border right before the U.S. invasion (2003, the most recent), it follows a group of kids who collect land mines for money. Beautifully shot and tragic. It gives a different perspective on the war and shows a side of it never heard about.

Speaking of the Middle East, I have two Saudi Arabian students this session. One is an 18-year-old fellow who is very very funny. He cracks me up daily. One of our topics this month is marriage and he is quite open about sharing his perspective on it. His father, who doesn't believe in having more than one wife at one time, has thus been divorced 12 times. My student has been arranged to marry his cousin, something that shocked my Asian students. Not me, this is fairly common practice in certain parts of the Middle East. He remembers playing with her as a child but hasn't seen much of her body since she was 13, when she had to start to cover up. "Do you think I am handsome enough for her?" he jokes with me. "I am the best student, I'll show you." Oh yes, his fluency and grammar are quite good except he is lazy and skips too many classes.

On the topic of adultery, he tells the class that a woman can be stoned to death for committing it but only if three witnesses can be found, which is difficult. I see.

"And what about gay men?" I can't resist asking, "do they get stoned?"

Oh no, he says, we don't kill them. Sometimes though they take them to a tall building and throw them off. I see.

The other Saudi student is a bit older and is actually studying Hebrew. He is the most open Saudi I've met and is pretty much the polar opposite of the first one. Phew, because one of the topics in the afternoon class this session is gay marriage. Phew. A nice and gentle man, he has a good knowledge of the world.

Interesting.

We've had one Saudi woman in our school and she was a single woman in her late 30s, a doctor. She chose to be covered and had to be accompanied by her brother. It's hard not to find that offensive because of course it is always the women who must be covered in order to prevent any lusting from the men. I want to understand this very different culture, it is too easy to simply dismiss it as wildly patriarchal and misogynist. And still . . .

The afternoon student tells me that everytime he goes through the States, which he now avoids, he is held and questioned at the airport for at least 12 hours. This is all since Sept. 11 of course. The U.S., he says, now has 75,000 Saudis studying in it.

Later, wee fan base.