September 2006

I spent a good portion of the day with an ass-stomping migraine that made me want to cry. The good thing is that I got laid before Coffee left for work, so technically I already had one accomplishment under my proverbial belt and it was okay for me to lie on the bed with a pillow over my face. It’s all about how you frame things, people.

There are 32 days until we move which, in and of itself, is pretty exciting. This weekend Coffee and I may head up to Kitchener in order to wander around a bit and attempt to ease my growing fear of getting lost two blocks from my own home. It is important to me that I know how to find the nearest McDonalds (for my diet Coke fix) and the library (for my other addiction) and a park where I can release the beagle and never see her again. (She has been an asshole for much of the late afternoon; I am not fond of her right now.)

The only problem with that scenario is that Melle works at the Humane Society and will, without question, recognize the wonky-eyed beagle the moment she arrives. I suspect she won’t believe me when I say that we never HAD a beagle, either. Dammit.

After this coming weekend my priority will be to start packing up everything we can possibly live without for a month – the goal is to finish before 8am on the 24th when the movers show up. I suspect 7:45am on the 24th will find me curled up in a ball sobbing with a bunch of empty, non-packed-up boxes surrounding me. I’d like to say that I work well under pressure but that would be a big stinky lie. I work well under professional pressure, not personal.

In other news, a few months ago (I think), I slipped while walking the dogs through a muddy area in a rainstorm. I wrenched my shoulder/arm and did something weird to my ankle. Now, every time I get up from sitting, my ankle hurts like a mutherfucker as soon as I put weight on it. In order to stop the pain, I must keep that foot flat on the floor and bend my knee deeply. I’ll hear a loud “thunk”, usually, and then everything is fine. I feel the need to mention this here because I find it disturbing and I like to share weird things with you.

Now, go read the Bitterest Little Pixie‘s blog. I don’t know her, but reading her blog has been a very nice way to procrastinate relax today.

This morning, before Coffee left for work, I opened up all the windows and let the cool air in. Fourteen degrees! It felt heavenly and fresh and it smelled crisp and sweet. We are not yet into the “autumn” smells – the rotting and decaying leaves on the lawns or the constant mildewy scent caused by endless days of rain.

Now I am freezing to death (even with the windows closed) and I’m huddled up on the sofa with a big thick hoodie on. I am considering the addition of socks to complete this ensemble. Thick socks.

At least the house smells good. And it’s a nice change to be cold instead of sweaty and miserable.

I decided earlier today that I wasn’t leaving the house other than walking the dogs. I have not showered (it’s too cold to consider getting naked, let alone naked and WET) and my hair is in a messy ponytail and y’know, I just don’t give a shit. There is laundry in the dryer, there are two dogs rolling around the floor at my feet, and I don’t have anything pressing to deal with today anyway.

To flip to another subject altogether:

.

Yesterday I finished reading “Blue Rage, Black Redemption” (by Stanley Tookie Williams) which has – no joke – been on my library request list for over a year. I’m insanely curious about who else took it out and read it.

Tookie was considered the “King of the Crips” – the founder – and he was executed in the United States fairly recently (December 15, 2005). I was angry about the execution before reading the book; I am livid about the whole thing now. It was an interesting read both from a personal perspective and from a sociological perspective. Eye-opening, you might say. I realize that what I’ve read was written by Tookie himself, which makes it somewhat biased and one-sided, but the media and the internet provides all the opposing perspectives. I believe he is innocent of the crimes he was executed for; he admits freely he did other horrible thing in the past.

I’ve always wondered about gangs – not so much how they form, since that’s kind of obvious – but how and why they thrive. How they spread and how they gain power in the communities they enter. It’s one thing to gather up a few of your friends, declare that you’ll always have each other’s backs, and give yourselves a cool-sounding name. It’s another thing, altogether, to pull that together into something that’s literally internationally-recognized. Black, white, asian, young, old.

The Crips are, arguably, one of the most well-known gangs in the world. Tookie made that happen. And in the end he regretted it.

He regretted what he felt he had done to black society as a result of founding the Crips – the killings of black men by black men, the imprisonment of so many black youth and adults, the lives wasted. As he grew older and looked back, he realized that he had done nothing to elevate black men (in particular) beyond thug-life. He made killing and posturing cool. He created an aura of power, but not in the way he imagined it.

But here’s the thing: he was executed for something he didn’t do.

You need to know that during the last few days of the life of Stanley Tookie Williams an investigative team uncovered proof of substantial misconduct on the part of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, involving false testimony against Mr. Williams. The investigators found evidence that members of the Sheriff’s Department used a paid police informant in Mr. Williams’ case. They brought to this informant’s jail cell a copy of the police report of the murder investigation for which Mr. Williams was subsequently convicted.
SaveTookie.org

He regretted what he did with his life and how his kids were raised. As he sat on Death Row for endless years, he began to use his insight to form anti-gang organizations. He wrote and he wrote and he wrote – books, essays, papers. I knew that he was remorseful before reading the book, and I knew about his Nobel nominations as a result of his work against gangs. But until I read the book – his own words – I don’t think I realized how powerful his mind really was. I assumed he had to have been charismatic, of course, but he was so much more.

It’s kind of weird, I guess, to be a middle-class chick in Southern Ontario reading about the Crips – some might say it’s totally irrelevant to my life. The likelihood of me joining them, or the Cripettes, is pretty minimal for many many reasons. But there are parallels. There are cautions to be noted.

I feel like it’s time to do something DANGEROUS! Something FATE-TEMPTING! Something completely unexpected and wild and crazy!

I have not yet come up with that dangerous, fate-tempting, unexpected, wild and crazy thing.

Suggestions?

* please note that I am reluctant to get myself arrested. *

Cancer (June 21-July 21) I’m pretty sure I once saw a movie where a character got turned on by some random word like “marzipan.” And while almond candy shaped like asparagus may not be your idea of ecstasy, some simple, atypically erotic object will be this week. Allow your bizarre fetish to flourish, and perhaps you’ll be able to interest someone else in sharing your elongated confectionary treat.

Nerve

CANCER (June 21-July 22): For years, I lived 13 miles from the top of Mt.Tamalpais, the highest peak in the San Francisco Bay Area. Every day I gazed at it from afar through my window or while riding my bike in the hills, marveling as it glided through its ever-shifting relationship with the sky. It was a remote yet familiar beacon, an awe-inspiring touchstone against which I could measure my own undulating rhythms. Now I’ve moved to a new home at the foot of Mt. Tam. I feel as if I’ve become part of it–am embedded in its protective and majestic aura. It’s no longer an objective gauge, but rather an intimate tone and texture in my subjective experience of myself. I predict that you will soon undergo a comparable shift, Cancerian: from being *there* to being *here;* from outside to inside; from strength absorbed at a distance to power felt up close.

Freewill Astrology

My 10 Names Meme (swiped from momcast!)

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: ( pet and current street name) Daisy Vulcan

2. YOUR MOVIE STAR NAME: (grandfather/grandmother on your moms side, your favorite candy) Daisy Sugarbaby

3. YOUR “FLY Guy/Girl” NAME: (first initial of last name, first three letters of your middle name) U. Chr

4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal) Blue Dog

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born) Christene Hamilton

6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name, first 2 letters of mom’s maiden name and first 3 letters of the town you grew up in.) Umadateork

7. SUPERHERO NAME: (“The”, your favorite color, favorite drink) The Blue Jack

8. NASCAR NAME: (the first name of both your grandfathers) Hugo Walter

9. FUTURISTIC NAME: ( the name of your favorite perfume/cologne and the name of your favorite shoes) Demeter RocketDog

10. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother/father’s middle name ) Joyce Charles

In case you need a reminder sometimes (as I do): Things Are Good.

For well-over a year now, Coffee and I have used VoIP service from Primus in place of a regular phone line. I have a hate-on for Bell Canada that just won’t die, so it made sense for us to switch when the opportunity arose, but overall we’ve been extremely happy with the much smaller monthly bills, the services available, the online control for the phone and all the other things that make Primus’ VoIP a great service.

Since we’re moving to Kitchener, and since the time is quickly arriving for me to start planning for the setup/install of new services (like hydro and water and gas) I thought it might be a good idea to get in touch with Primus about switching our number to a 519 area code instead of our current 905. That, of course, brought up a few questions. The bank has our 905 phone number, as do all the other companies in this area, and if we switch right away to a 519 all those local businesses will have to call long distance to reach us. Or they’ll assume we’ve already moved. On the other hand, giving a Kitchener company our 905 number means THEY have to call long distance.

The Primus web site noted that it was possible to have two phone numbers – in different area codes – on one account. Whoohoo!

At 10pm last night I emailed the customer service department and gave a rough overview of what I was hoping to do. I immediately received an auto-reply that my message would be responded to in the order it was delivered. (My hopes kind of sank on reading it, to be honest.) It isn’t an urgent issue, however, so I figured I’d see just how long it took.

Imagine my surprise when I woke up this morning to find a polite, well-worded, professional AND friendly email waiting in my inbox from a woman named Nancy who works in the customer service department. She asked a few questions about what I needed, asked if I wanted various options, and when I replied with my own message I got another back from her just as efficiently.

This is what I call Excellent Customer Service. I am feeling the Primus love. I am feeling it enough that I need to share it, which is better advertising for the company than any flyer they could mail out. It makes me want to send them as much business as possible and to continue being their customer.

Yay Primus!

I absolutely despise Mondays. Mondays can lick my left nut, as far as I’m concerned, with that “wake up to an alarm” crap and the “Coffee goes to work” shit. I’m always exhausted on Monday, always kind of crabby, and seriously, can’t we just skip over the damned day altogether? GAH. Today I am making a few phone calls and then I’m curling up with a big-ass stack of library books. BECAUSE I CAN.

Speaking of books, I have declared September to be “Biography Reading Month” even though I finished up a few non-bio novels, too. Much like I enjoy reading blogs that are totally contrary to my own lifestyle – it’s mind expanding as far as I’m concerned – I have recently discovered the joy of a big ol’ book involving someone else’s life. Call it an autobiography or a memoir and it’ll fit my list. Lemme’ tell you about a few, ok?

Earlier this month I read, “I Am Not Myself These Days” (by Josh Kilmer-Purcell) which is about a gay guy who spends his days working in advertising and his nights working as a drag queen. He also dates an S&M-specializing prostitute who’s addicted to various pharmacological solutions to life’s problems. This is only slightly different from my own life, of course, but it’s still a worthwhile read for those of you who are not smoking crack in your kitchen, wearing fake breasts that contain goldish, all while eyeing a portly business man grunting at you from his hog-tied position on the tile floor. Uh huh.

I also read “Early Bird” (by Rodney Rothman) who decided to quit his job and move into a retirement community in Florida long before he was eligible for retirement himself. I thought it could have been drawn out a bit more, but it was an interesting premise and the ‘characters’ he meets up with are worth the price of admission. I just felt there was too much attention paid to his own life and not enough to those around him – given the theme of the book. Having said that? I’d totally love to retire and kick some shuffleboarding ass.

Then there was “Body Piercing Saved My Life” (by Andrew Beaujon) which is less memoir and more crazy poetic waxing about the Christian Rock phenomena. Did you know that pretty much every band on earth was once a Christian rock band? I did not. Now I do and I cannot stop over-analyzing all the lyrics to see if they’re secretly about GOD instead of a hot chick or illegal drug use. Plenty of discussion about the perils of being identified as a religious band and how that impacts on mainstream success (think P.O.D., Switchfoot and/or Violent Femmes) and whether being more of a mainstream band does disservice to the Christian fans who helped the group attain popularity. I’m not even remotely religious, but it was interesting to see how a heavy-metal band (or a folk band) fits into the bigger Christian picture.

My life, after reading just a few of these books, seems dull and blunted and seriously lacking in LSD and related conspiracies. On the other hand, it’s quite nice to close a book, sigh deeply, and think, “Oh, thank GOD I don’t live with a depressed old woman who has illegal pets in her apartment and refuses to go outside!”

Books are good. Mondays are not.

I am itching to re-introduce myself to my knitting. My yarn stash. The very large collection of assorted needles. It’s all in storage right now, awaiting our move (37 days and counting!), with the exception of my small tote bag containing some needles and half-finished projects. Knitting in the summer – the heat – is a horrible thing for me to even ponder. All that yarn sticking to sweaty fingers and wrapped around my wrists and.. *shudder*

See? Another reason for me to like autumn!

I peeked at Kelly’s WIP Friday post and immediately started thinking about all the various projects I’m going to be able to work on once we move. Other than arranging furniture, I mean. I’ve got knitting, of course, but I also have a bunch of smaller things that I’m itching to explore. One of those things is Kelly’s birthday present which was hastily packed up when we started showing the house!! (It’s a messy project..)

I’ll be able to save up some of my magazines, again, for podge-ing. Oh! OH! OH!!

I confess that my enthusiasm totally outweighs my skill in craft-related projects. I am forever frustrated by dripping glue or wobbly-legged inventions. But in recent years I’ve come to realize that it’s more fun to make things and try things if I just let go of my expectations. If I can look at a finished object and say, “Okay, it’s crooked and wobbly and has glue bubbles on it but oh, I love that colour!” then I know I’m doing just fine. More than fine, really.