got ticket?

scenes from today's gong show crack-of-dawn departure...

me, flustered: this is crazy. it's just too early to be expected to be this organized.
cabbie: want me to wait while you check more things?
me: naw. i'm too tired to go back into the house. and my eyes are gummy.
cabbie: bigger question - you got ticket?
me: yeah.
cabbie: ah, well then everything's gonna be alright.

30 minutes later in the airport, a booming announcement: "all passengers destined for vancouver on air canada flight x should now be on board..." i'm speed-shuffling as fast as a crusty humidified non-morning person can muster, hauling fat ass to the far-flung reaches of the ottawa airport. as i emerge from a tunnel remnicent of the shining, i spot my gate on the interior horizon. the area is virtually deserted, save two cute uniformed men who spot my sorry silhouette and start cheering me on. within earshot, i yell, "where's a fucking golf cart when you need one?!" to which one responds, "it's not in the budget, honey!" they notify the in-flight crew to hold open the door, ushering me with outstreched flailing arms. when one hollers out "got your ticket?", i wave my boarding pass in the air, a frantic assertion of my identity, my cred - "yeah!". then he says, "ah ha! then everything's gonna be alright."

thanks, purveyors of blind optimism, for suggesting that this late-arrival does, in fact, possess a ticket to 'alright'. here's hoping.

not all honesty is admirable

running into columns like this can sure get an internet explorer up in arms. such bullshit ramblings prove that just about any dough-head can get published. jolly good for aspirerers like me:

My lovely, wriggly, smiley baby is mixed race... One reason for my fear is my own mixed reactions to my daughter. Don't get me wrong, I love her... But when I turn to the mirror in my bedroom to admire us together, I am shocked. She seems so alien. With her long, dark eyelashes and shiny, dark brown hair, she doesn't look anything like me.

I know that concentrating on how my daughter looks is shallow. She is a person in her own right, not an accessory to me. But still, I can't shake off the feeling of unease. I didn't realise how much her looking different would matter and, on a rational level, I know it shouldn't. But it does... I worry that, as my daughter doesn't look like me, people will assume she is adopted...

As for myself, there is an inescapable status issue to address. White women who have non-white children are stigmatised as 'Tracy Towerblocks' living on benefits, most of which they spend on lager and fags. Even if I don't fit this profile, my daughter's difference definitely points out the fact that my children come from two different fathers. If I wanted to pass us off as a nice, neat nuclear family, she would blow my cover at once.

full mockery here.

dear mother of doomed/tragic mixed race baby:

not all honesty is admirable. your insensitive fumblings, a public working-out of your dumbass racism are incensing, not touching. "frightened of others' reactions to her"? - you don't think much of us, do you? frightened of your OWN reaction to her, really. she won't feel any safer or validated if you were to administer an all-curry diet, even in the middle of a delhi slum. bollocks! and to put yourself on par with ancestors of colour is insulting. people will "assume she is adopted"? oh no! the horror! as for showbiz trends - what separates you from angelina or madonna, ms. turner, is that ideas of 'neat' or 'nuclear' seem unimportant to them. all the better for the pigmented kids who'd otherwise 'blow' their 'cover'. cheekiness won't make your racism more palatable - it all spells dire consequences for your daughter. mixed-racers can only do battle against the cruel, cruel world when perceptions at home are of unequivocal, racism-free acceptance and belonging... with or without pakoras.

blogging, revisited

i’ve always been sort of annoyed by bloggers who blog about their blog. strikes me as virtual navel-gazing, as in, this is me talking about the format through which i talk about me and my stuff. so much me. and yet, i blog about my blog, too. i suppose an infrequent state-of-the-union post never killed anybody, but it totally depends on the content and purpose of said narcissistic post.

disclaimer done, i gots to set the record straight (mostly for myself, frankly) about what the hell is going on here.

what i want most in the whole wide world is to never have to work again so i can write. and maybe sing and travel, too, but it’d be mostly writing. right now. i may have finally come to terms with the fact that my problem is not THAT i want to write, or WHAT, or maybe even WHEN. it’s bloody WHERE.

as some kind of prompt – because christ knows I just don’t have enough self-imposed pressure of any kind – i mustered it up and decided to go for a big prize. so yessy, hear me roar: i want to blog for a year.

to be a contender, one has to offer up a blog for consideration. so this pamusement page it is, despite the recent ambivalence on my part which has left it neglected. which means i’m going to be wandering back here with a bit more regularity again. which means i’m going to have to get ok again with this format. s’gonna be good. but so i can let loose on subject matter that i sorta never thought belonged here, i think i’ll use this timely kick in the ass to explore other channels. maybe another blog. or quill and parchment. express ye!

so if you're still somewhere in my corner, it’d be great if you could vote for me. incessantly. like a crazy person. and maybe get people who owe you favours to do so also? awesome. the front-runner already has over ten thousand votes and i have something like, um, 3. but hope is good, i hear. and couldn't we all use a little more of that nowadays?