dear internet

i've been thinking about you lately, wondering if i had a second to chat, where would i even begin? late last night i was thinking of confessing to having gotten totally fucking shit-faced on saturday night in trois-rivieres, first at the 5-a-7 that followed our meeting, then in my roonm here where laura and i hosted the mother of all hospitality suites: constantly stocked bar, packed room, three warnings from hotel management, and in the morning, one fully clothed corpse in the spread eagle position amidst the kind of disaster zone that would make a rock band proud. as for me, i surely made an ass out of myself in front of ndp colleagues and i'm pretty sure i said things that were really really stupid, inappropriate, suggestive, slurred, what have you. at least whatever shit people may now have on me, i sure as shit retained some stuff on them. let the negotiations for our dignity begin.

i also thought i might provide a status report on the sharks we'd been anticipating in the lead-up to the council meeting. in fact, they turned out to be less offensive than the general displeasure that emanated from the membership for most of the meeting. it led to heated discussions, as well as feelings of deep demoralization among certain people i care about. blame the cacophony of misperceptions and rumours out there that have led some folks to suspect a clique of pure evil inside the leadership. not that this clique - whom i deeply respect and back wholeheartedly - does not wish to be challenged. thankfully, integrity is intact where all this fuckery is concerned. it's particularly painful, though, when those challenges are laced with the kind of disdain that can only come from the misinformed. how disheartening it was to witness such a profound lack of political sophistication amongst the very membership on whom we are counting to build this thing into something viable.

so i could have talked about all that, as well as about the highs and lows of this freelance game, none of which i have a handle on. i might also have mentioned that the ongoing feeling of discombobulation where work and ndp is concerned has certainly not been helped by the fact that in one week, there have been six visits to my home. do you know what it takes to make a house 'presentable' for prospective buyers? much more than i have to give, i assure you.

instead, though, i'd like to discuss the firing of my new friend audra as babble moderator by the rabble "management committee". it all began with an email she received two fridays ago, one that stunned the stockings off her cuz of no apparent warning whatsoever. well stop the world, the locals began to riot. a shitstorm has erupted in the forums. it's turned into a virtual strike. threads are pretty much single-themed. people are pissed and are lashing out against rabble management. they've even set up an alternate babble that has garnered 139 users and almost 600 articles in barely one day. speaking of "management", the committee itself came out today with a response, one that appears to only have added fuel to the raging fire. even i couldn't resist posting a comment to that thread [just Ctrl-F for "pam" - it speaks for itself].

audra today blogged about how she feels. i dig it. glad she cited mr. magoo's suggested list of what her demands should be if she gets reinstated. thank you, mr. magoo, for preventing my head from popping off its neck while i was poring over the threads at babble about these shenanigans. i especially delighted in the tenacity with which you repeatedly treat the issue of unfinished paperwork - i seriously peed in my pants. thank you for being so fucking unable to get over that.

not unlike most of my real-life codependent relationships, rabble has crawled under my skin many times over the years and yet i kept going back. now our affair has come to this. i am so profoundly disappointed they've handled things this way. i guess i should be the LEAST surprised given how many times i've had a boot plunged into my ass by so-called progressive employers. but still, ya know?