keeping the peace

jesus what a week it's been. i emerged from my temporary paralysis to find that lance bass is gay (gasp!) and dating reichen the amazing racer, galiano island is on fire, condi has bounced from the middle east to rome and back again on some sort of pro-israel press junket, and kd lang said stephen harper supports intolerance [she is headlining tomorrow's opening ceremonies of the out games with - helllooooo - miss martha wash herself! um, no, i will not be attending because i did not make the cut].

my timetable, however out of whack, has included unpacking, counseling, sweating, fretting, and re-scheduling job-related things that are perpetually undone. have yet to prepare the job quote that will officialize my new writing contract with cpf. let's hope the gig is still available come monday when i finally submit the shtuff.

i can't say it's entirely gripped my world, but i am definately dumbfounded by the crisis in lebanon. to the lay person who holds no phd in middle eastern history or politics, there is senseless attacking from one side to the other, back and forth, with civilians paying the biggest price. i am stunned by my leader, who lately seems neither prime nor ministerial. he's trying to play middle-of-the-road but is so blatantly uncentered. i think pressure from both sides indicates that people don't like what he's up to (or not up to, rather). no surprise he'd ally with the white house in terms of unspecified support for israel. but this week when he actually questioned the un for being there instead of focusing on the fact that one of our un workers was bombed, well that just sent me over the edge. i want so badly for him to stand up and do the right thing. on the other hand, i'd like him to continue fumbling around on this one. we are supposedly less than a year from an election, and i wonder if his (mis)handling of this could do any damage to his approval ratings.

meanwhile, i've been cast as a peacekeepr in my own right in a family drama that has erupted over the announcement of my brother to our old-school old-land folks that he is moving his Much Younger girlfriend from winnipeg to regina and into his brand new lavish home. his plan does not appear to have been well thought out, nor introduced properly. i'm none too thrilled about him shacking up with a 21 year old stick who we're fairly certain brings nothing to the table, but at the end of the day, it's his choice. and i wholeheartedly support everyone's right to fuck up his/her own life. let freedom ring.

call or text your vote now

seems every time i turn on the television, there's a 1-800 number under someone's face. just when i thought the waves couldn't be more saturated with this pap, i spotted a horrifying new 'reality' show on tlc that has contestants give a speech on a theme each week, trying to impress - get this - Judges, and an audience in a competition called the messenger. it's supposed to be about finding the next great 'motivator', but i think it's a front for the falwell network human resource department.

tonight, i'm innocently surfing channels when i stumble upon canada's very own george s hosting yet another singing contest on abc. everybody's doing it, apparently. and every wannabe singer has a camera to implore, apparently. the vocalists on george's show get to attend the so-called Academy during the week. and those rockers trying to impress tommy lee et all get to work with a professional band in a mansion. meanwhile, those orators are toured through homeless shelters and cemetaries for 'inspiration' for their next speech. and i've been paralyzed in my new house for three days straight. a little perspective please.

ten days in the new digs and surrounded by boxes that dwindle too slowly. there's still a washing machine in the middle of my kitchen, my box spring still won't fit up the stairs, and my fridge still ain't stocked. everytime i turn around, there are more things to do, more errands to run, and more reasons to spend more money. thank god i've managed to set up a reasonable office space so that i can occasionally sit at my laptop and pretend to be trying to work. it's all going swimmingly.

thank god for the hippie wedding that offered respite on saturday. congrats again angela and dan! thanks for letting me stay late into the night - the fire pit and hootenanny were awfully compelling distractions from my shyte. but it only postponed the paralysis that gripped me for a couple of days thereafter. i hit a wall, as it were. and now i'm forcing myself up. there's no time to cry over milk that hasn't even been bought, for chrissakes.

the hiring committee will table our recommendations tomorrow night to exec regarding the hiring of our director general. and i'm thinking, if we can't come to concensus, i shall argue stridently for us to set up toll free numbers or a website and ask the public to vote on our last two candidates. might generate a more sophisticated debate than the one i fear we won't have tomorrow.

re-wrap

shoved all sweaty with all my worldly possessions into this new cocoon. the day of relocation was a version of hell i shan't recount in any great detail. suffice it to say that certain movers were in a certain kind of rush, creating a frantic atmosphere that caused me, among other mishaps, to nearly leave behind the contents of my 'goodie' drawer [imagine the new homeowners inspecting an otherwise vacant armoir and coming across those unmentionables?]. except for the occasional (deserved) cigarette and rootbeer break in the back of a stifling truck, the movers hauled ass. having already purged and pre-downsized, i was mortified to observe the sheer volume of crap that is, apparently, my life. they say not to let your things define you, but i dare say i am carefully manipulated organized clutter -- like ikea on the outside and big bud's inside. and now that i've re-located all that nonsense to a new address, i'm reminded of how despite decreased square footage, it's still just another version of solitude. but somehow i know it's the right thing to do, and the right time, and so it's for the best. whatever that is.

sometimes i wish i was an alt-indie chick like tegan or sara or a diva like mary j, living the life of an artist, unsettled and free of convention. then i realize that is actually my life now, minus the songwriting talent, roadies, and sheer balls. i suppose it's easy when one is so utterly overwhelmed with Reality to fantasize about the ease of other choices.

i'm clamoring all over incompatible email programs to try and open the photos of that mini high school reunion i recently didn't attend. it's not the receding hairlines and pregnancy fat i'm interested in. it's as if i somehow need to get a glimpse of some kind of road not taken, what could have been. to verify what? that i screwed up? maybe i need a sign that my classmates found their way to a place better than mine. or that they even still exist. long frozen in time, they've been. so a fake smile captured in a regina pool hall would be proof of what, exactly?

24

re-enacted that awful montreal escalator incident last night - fell down my own damn stairs while attempting to descend with an armload of empty boxes. am hobbling around today with (additionally) bruised leg/foot and bruised spirit. only my bedroom and work desk left to deal with. oh, and um, the bajillion Little Things scattered everywhere that somehow didn't make their way into a box or didn't fit into one or didn't make sense or that exist to incense me.

feeling frayed and sorry for myself during this last stretch. moving truly does S-U-C-K.

if the shoe breaks

barefoot in downtown montreal for awhile on saturday, i was. limping. swear to god i don't know how it happened. we were on our way to the amazingly brilliant chris botti concert at place des arts, a show i enjoyed shoeless. one minute i'm traipsing down the escalator into the metro, the next i've fallen hard and am riding the rest of the way on my fat ass. the concert was absolutely breathtaking and i left a pair of broken sandals under my balcony seat.

despite various injuries to foot and dignity, a beautiful saturday - basking in the evening air of downtown montreal, drunk on jazz and crushed icy booze, dangling feet in the fountain.

lazy sunday morning led us to a raucous afternoon watching the world cup final on a jumbo-tron in jean drapeau park. it was nuts. luckily, we managed to stake a piece of grass near a small number of italy fans amidst hundreds of supporters of les bleus. infamous red card incident aside, what an amazing game. what a surprise sunburn i got. what a delicious trip for ice cream afterwards. what a lovely weekend.

the kitchen is packed and that was a phenomenal accomplishment for today. half my office is done. well, actually, pretty much half of everything is done. so screwed am i for having misplanned everything, i came home tonight after this campaign communications meeting instead of heading to see rickie lee. tomorrow (today?) will be a 12 hour blitz. with any luck, things will be well enough boxed for me to steal away to see nelly and etta. surely i'm not kidding myself.

speaking of music, or something aspiring to it, what the fuck is steffi d still doing there? jesus.

the surreal life: rigaud

one week left to moving day and i am nowhere near ready, packing-wise. the admin related to selling/buying/moving house is far greater than i anticipated - pretty much a full time affair. i am having a very hard time fitting in paid work stuff, let alone doing any prep for the move. procrastination is not to blame (anymore). there's just too bloody much to do. and i'm doing none of it well, so basically we're fucked.

i damn near snapped when my car broke down last night en route home from seeing the melua/sinclaire concert in montreal. it may be where jack layton grew up and the first municipality in canada to ban cosmetic use of pesticides. but hudson is noplace for your car to die (though i'm super glad it happened under the dayglo lights of a petro can station and not at the side of the highway in the dead of night). the car died at around 11. what ensued after that can only be described as a fucking gong show. let me just say you have not lived until you've spent a night at the hotel capri in rigaud. think valentine's decorations and a charming brown man excessively delighted by this hindi-speaking strandee. s'all i'm sayin'.

many thanks to claude - a vaudevillian castmate in the surreal events. he did a "terrific" job of keeping things light: breaking into a little soft shoe on the asphalt, chatting up the barely comprehensible tow truck driver (even joining him in a rendition of the french version of the theme song to gilligan's island), shaking me a stranded-in-the-parking-lot nightcap, distracting me this morning by reading from the 1993 issue of good housekeeping found in our hotel room. i can't make this up.

tick tock

waiting for the results of the mexican election is like waiting for hgtv to pick a winner of the handyman superstar challenge, which seemed to go on forever. bye bye mr. fox - we hardly knew ye, but omigod you were better than calderon could ever be. let us all clasp hands and chant to the universe for obrador to squeak a win. he's just gotta win.

best a gal can do is head out to look for a new set of kitchen appliances - stainless steel, if possible. so i'm going. better than sweating in here, trying to pretend to care about contract work when my move is 10 days away. the ticking of time has a way of bringing into focus the habits of procrastination. so many possessions to purge or pack. if this is about moving forward, then some things will get left behind.