Wednesday, November 9, 2016

I Don't Know

I don't know what to write today. I'm collecting smart and faintly comforting things my friends have said instead.







I haven't lost faith in humanity. I haven't even lost faith in America. America is full of generous, big-hearted, loving people that I'm proud to call my friends. We all know that humanity is variously capable of the most shocking cruelty, the basest stupidity and the most transcendent acts of beauty and kindness. We all know that change is possible, change is even happening - it's just very, very, tediously, mind-achingly, infuriatingly slow. There has been change in my lifetime. My brave friends and my loving, open-minded children have effected a lot of it.

Come at us, Trump. We're not backing down.

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Day 8

I've got nothing, really. I spent the day sorting and pitching and wtf-ing in the basement storage areas again. I found books that my kids have outgrown, toys that I never managed to give them when they were age-appropriate, more gift bags than one person could ever use, and these:


That's right. Rocks. In a bag. Bags of rocks. What am I supposed to do, tell the kids they can keep whichever rocks have names? That's what we used to do with the stuffed animals (they all had names. Every single one.)

On the plus side, I can now open and close the storage closet door again. On the minus side, my dining room table is covered with crap to donate, give away or sell (which might give me another Facebook Groups blog post, so maybe it's a plus after all).

Also, here is a picture of Lucy objecting to me reading instead of paying attention to her:


She's extremely clingy right now and periodically driving me crazy, but I love her.

Alright, back to stressing over election results. 


Monday, November 7, 2016

Stupid Things I've Bought Lately

I usually like to think that advertising doesn't have that big an effect on me. I like a clever, funny commercial (those ones are in the overwhelming minority), but as often as not I don't actually notice what it's for. I generally base my decisions on what brand to buy based on what seems like good value or what's better quality once we've tried it.

We also have an unwritten rule in our house that when a new chip flavour comes out, we buy a bag and try it. This went horribly wrong once or twice, because if there's a pack of gum or an open bag of chips on the counter, my husband shovels some into his mouth without really looking - I once told him that he could buy his own mints instead of always asking me for one of mine, but then we agreed that if he did that he would down them all at once and die in an agonizing surfeit of mintiness. So when he came across the open bag of Lay's curry chips (they were not good - the curry flavour was very unsubtle) it was very unpleasant. I said "didn't you look at the label first?" After he stopped choking and crying, he said "no, of course not! You know me - hey, free cocaine!"

But every now and then, one slips past my mental firewall. I don't even try to pretend otherwise.


I mean, wtf even is this? At first I thought, "oh, it's Pepsi's answer to Coke Zero. No, wait, it's still Coke". It's not Coke. It's not Diet Coke. It's not Coke Zero. It's a magical NEW Coke thing. It's green! That means it's healthy! Wait, no it's not. It's sweetened with natural sources! Wait, sugar is natural.

There is literally no good reason for this product to exist.

And yes, I bought six tiny cans. It tastes like slightly sweeter Coke Zero, which I don't even like. I figure Collette and I will mix it with rum while decorating her house at an absurdly early date for the Christmas party.

I am suitably chastened.

Sunday, November 6, 2016

Sad Thing

I felt like crap today, but it was beautiful outside and I wanted to get out, so I walked over to Shoppers for a few things and then took Lucy around the park. I walked slowly and looked around at the burning blue sky - the leaves left on the trees, mostly copper and yellow but some still red - were eye-wateringly brilliant in the sun. Lucy was having a wonderful time crashing into leaves and following smells.

As we got halfway around the park, I became aware of what I thought was a conversation between two teen-aged girls that was loud and sounded a little angry. I kept walking, and the conversation started to follow me, and when I looked back it was actually only one girl. I thought she might be talking on her phone, but I couldn't be sure, and I kept thinking I heard the word DOG repeated and it was all a little weird. It was bright mid-day, but I was slightly nervous walking along the trees and sped up a little bit to get back onto the street by the houses.

As I was almost there, Lucy stopped to sniff something, and I felt like I was being stupid, so I didn't tug her along. Just as we turned the corner onto the street, the girl passed us. She was definitely talking to herself because there was music playing on her phone. She stopped and turned to face us and said, in a perfectly normal tone, "can I please see your dog?" So of course I said sure, and she bent down and petted Lucy and asked what breed she was, then started walking again, a little unsteadily.

I stopped a couple driveways up for Lucy to meet two other dogs that were with a man in front of a house. As I got up to leave, suddenly the girl was back. I asked if she was okay, and she said she was kind of lost. I asked where she was trying to go, and she said to her boyfriend, well not her boyfriend but he meant a lot to her - and it soon became apparent that she was either on something or mentally ill, and then she got it in her head that her boyfriend was in the man's garage, or with a man with a stroller.

I asked if I could call someone for her, but then realized I didn't have my phone. I asked her to come home with me so I could drive her home, but she didn't want to. She kept insisting that she wasn't on drugs, and I said that was fine, she just seemed confused and I wanted to help. I didn't know what to do, short of dragging her up the street to my house, which seemed inadvisable.

I brought Lucy home, grabbed my phone and went back to look for her but she was gone. The curious thing is that Lucy, who always wants to see people but then is often skittish when they try to pet her, went right to her, as if she knew she wasn't dangerous, just lost and hurt.

Now it's dark out, and I'm in my warm house, grateful that the worst health problem my own daughter has right now is a sore throat. And I wish I'd done more.

Saturday, November 5, 2016

Therefore I Am. Or Might Be. It's Hard to Say.

Reading Paul Kalanithi's memoir got me thinking - ha ha, brain surgery, thinking, i kill me - a lot again, as you do every now and then and then have to stop because it makes your head hurt, about the whole question of what makes a person, and the whole intractable problem of metaphysics - trying to come at the issues of being in the world from outside the world, where you can never be -  and the mind and the soul and how trying to use the brain to think about the brain is very, very difficult, especially when your brain is forty-something and has raised two kids and weathered a lot of tequila shots.

Have you seen those medical shows where someone comes into the hospital with something sharp stuck in their brain, and when it gets removed they're ostensibly fine, but their personality has changed, like they're nice when they used to be cranky, or cranky when they used to be nice? Is that not really, really freaky? Something could happen to one tiny part of your brain and suddenly you'd be practically the same person except now you'd like olives, or think hunting sounds fun, or believe that Michael Bolton is a sound musical choice? I find this terrifying.

You know the research that shows that the memory you have of an event is actually a memory of the last memory you had of the event? And if one detail changes once, then it's in the next memory, and then more details can get changed, until you think you're remembering your aunt's wedding when you've actually completely rebuilt a memory of watching your father build a dog house? Or something?

I read this really cool book called Betraying Spinoza. I say this only because I remember I read the book and Spinoza has something to do with philosophy, not because I remember anything about the book enough to converse intelligently about, Jesus what do you want, it was six fucking years ago. Actually I do remember that while I was reading it I realized how far back the whole anti-Semitism thing went, how stupid it seemed even then, and how depressing it was to realize how deep and ineradicable the roots seemed - much like when I read I Don't: A Contrarian History of Marriage and realized the same thing about women. Let's just get off this subject before I go out and dick-punch the first white male I see, which is more than likely to be my husband and that really wouldn't be cool - he's a good egg, he can't help it if his collective race and gender has its collective head up its collective butt.

Isn't it just really weird to think that who you are, your thoughts, your opinions, your political leanings, what you think about religious faith, your favourite colours, your favourite foods, whether you can speak other languages well - it all comes down to a bunch of neurons and electrochemical signals zipping around in the squishy gray matter in your head? It becomes more understandable why religious people came up with the soul - some glowy thing in the general vicinity of your heart and breast is a more palatable representation of selfhood than mushy colourless stuff between your ears.

I always have an indefensible knee-jerk reaction against philosophy - that it's silly to spend all of one's time in rarefied discussion of intangible issues like whether what we perceive is really real, or whether free will exists; spinning endless ostensibly logical frameworks for things that, in the end, can never really be proven or known for sure. If you step into traffic, does it really matter whether you'll never know for sure if the car that hit you is only a Platonic shadow? You're still going to have a grill mark on your ass. It makes sense, though, of course it does, that people want to understand the nature of reality. It's just that the study of philosophy seems often to result in one taking oneself quite terribly seriously, and that's just not my thing.

It all makes me think that maybe I should try reading some Kant and Aristotle (again), and at the same time makes me want to hide under the bed with cashews and zombie stories.

Friday, November 4, 2016

It's Friday - Have Some Funny Stuff

I was reminded of this while talking to Hannah (Hi Hannah!) about... something. I read it again and it made me laugh out loud again, so if you haven't seen it, you're welcome. ("We are just honking each other whilst saying "honk" for, like, ten minutes. I want a video of this played at our wedding.")

It's doubly funny because she used the word "whilst". Also, this reminding thing reminded me of another thing, which is that at my cousin's wedding the best man was introducing the groomsmen and for one he said "now Mike, here.... he's a pimp." And my other cousin sighed, "it's a good thing Grandma and Grandpa are dead."

This came across my Facebook again today and it always makes me giggle out loud too. "Fuck, fuck, the dog sees me."

Oh, and then there's this, which is insanely cool, and the kind of thing that I always think would make a great Christmas present for someone, and then I try to think who, and it's not quite right for anyone on my regular list, so I either don't buy one or I end up buying it for someone I normally wouldn't buy a Christmas present for at all, so actually, get away from me stupid cool thing, you're just going to make me spend more money and probably create a slightly awkward social situation.

And with this lame attempt at a post, I am now going to go smother my stupid dog who keeps barking at all the things that freak her out, like air and light. One week down! Not really, because it started on Tuesday, and it's Friday, not Sunday, but whatever! We can DO THIS. Or maybe not, but we'll give it a shot.


Wednesday, November 2, 2016

First Steps

Yesterday afternoon I was mucking out the basement storage closet, a profoundly dreary and dispiriting task, when I realized it was an achingly beautiful fall day outside and I should go for a walk with Lucy and get back to the shit-shoveling when it was dark out.

When I first started walking Lucy, I would get annoyed with her for needing to stop and pee or poop or sniff stuff, thereby interrupting my brisk, even walking pace. Then I started to use those moments to look around and notice things - the colour of the sky, clouds or stars, trees and flowers, things I don't really notice in detail when charging ahead trying to get my heart rate up and my steps in. It was nice.

Today I was noticing that my shins were hurting if I tried to keep up my usual pace. Maybe I need new shoes. Maybe I'm tired and my gait is off. Whatever, it was vexing, and I actually found myself thinking "oh no! I won't be able to walk!" Because when I'm too lazy or depressed to make it to the gym, I use walking Lucy as my main form of exercise.

Then I examined that thought and found it abominably stupid. I won't be able to walk? Oh wait, yes I can walk. I maybe can't walk for Canada in the Olympics. I can't break any land-speed records. Can I walk down the street, around the block, to the park and back, looking around, moving my body, breathing in air that isn't actually only meant for people who wear spandex and can run a four-minute mile? Well yes, I can. When Chief Inspector Armand Gamache walks his German shepherd Henri down the snowy streets of Three Pines, does he take his pulse regularly and think about whether this walk is making his butt look better? I think not.

I came across Depression-Busting Exercise Tips for People Too Depressed to Exercise a while ago on Facebook (at least I think I did - I know I came across something that really rang true with me, but I stupidly didn't save it and when I went looking for it just now I found this, which I think is what I meant, but honestly I'm not entirely sure) and thought it was brilliant, but obviously I haven't really taken it to heart. I think I need to stick it on the drawer where I keep my sports bras. Or on the front door. Or possibly on my forehead.

"Knowing what will help you isn't close to half the battle. It's a tenth of the battle at best."

"If you’re just doing it because you think that you should, though, or if it becomes just another way to punish yourself, that doesn’t work." 

"The perfect exercise is anything that you will actually consider doing. The perfect body is a breathing one."

"Listen to your body."

Reading it over now, I'm sure it's the thing I was thinking of, and I really want to give the writer a hug. Also, now I have Jane Siberry's The Walking and Constantly running through my head.

Every now and then things become clear.


Season in the Sun

 I am a little sad for various reasons right now, but I do want to gratefully acknowledge that we had a fantastic summer. Angus didn't c...