Horn'ed Moon and Venus

Horn'ed god and the Huntress...It's sparking something in my head. Partners. Wheeling thru the night. The forest, of course. The hunt. Should be chasing each other. She's no sighing maiden considering a bold guy's advances — she's a huntress — she wants him, too. Equals, then. Tension? A game — between equals — neither admitting interest in the hunt. Enuf to'ing and fro'ing — him chasing her and her chasing him. Then the arrival at mutual understanding. Y'know, maybe some 3rd party POV...some average somebody, a peasant, awed or not, witness to this game.

I didn't figure this pic of the crescent moon and Venus in very close conjunction last night would come out at all. Grabbed thru a window — and time only to disable the camera's flash — before the pair danced down behind that winterbare chestnut on the corner. And before they vanished into the wash of the streetlights. Wanted to record something of that wondrous dance in the night.

I used to have time for the night sky. Used to make time, yeah. Still look up. Some of these freezing cold clear nights, as I ride bike home after work. Late enuf that the stars are out. Tip my eyes up from my patch of headlight on black road. Orion...up there early in the southeast. Wailing jets in their blazing landing lights swooping overhead toward the north runway.

Remembering. Over a decade ago, now. Standing younger me in the dark center of a city park. Seeing thru binocs inherited from my Dad. Comet Hale-Bopp glorious with two tails high in the winter night!

Ohhh, had I then even this basic digital camera. Just imagine the poor quality pix I might post!

Frowny'ish

So that's it, too. Done in the kitchen, and just seated with my breakfast, ready to jot something — anything — before I've gotta go t'work. He's up, that noisy one next door, with some place to go, by the sound of him.

It's become problematic, surprisingly. Figured I'd have to change writing habits. Because they've slapped on that web blocker at work, I've weaned myself off using that machine, try not to stay late at work, aim daily for getting home early as possible. Aim myself toward starting in the evenings the writing I've become accustomed to...meditating upon thru'out the day. Attempting anything new logically would present me some frustration. Expected, sure. Simply didn't count on being so waylaid by the noise in this chicken coop stack of apartments.

Can't even concentrate now — 7:14 — that...morning news chirping thru the walls. At other times, others blast one-note music, bounce weight sets on the stairs, spool-up jet engines. Yesss, I'm exaggerating...humour...must...dose...HUMOUR.

It's gotta be just the learning curve. The re-learning curve, then.

Not much time now. Want this down and done — SOMETHING done. One small victory. Before that...that work. Four letter word. And word, too.

Thinking even of taking off in my truck with my laptop. Laptop battery usefulness another probable worry, then. It'd be just plain useless sitting somewhere conducive, somewhere not distracting, and yet unable to focus, as the useful battery time ticks away. So then I'll have to start filling my head with info about portable charging kits...inverters...accessories...solar cells, ooohhh! Maybe a teevee...a twenty'foot plasma...and satellite dish...for drawing in Mars!

My Small...no

Was just compelled into tolerating a 2010 Olympics advert on teevee. An everyman mob of spectators rising to their mob feet, faces twisted in mob euphoria, and everything wrong about those wild mob eyes. A pack of actors reacting...nay, emoting...to a make-believe spectacle in an elitist's two-weeks' fantasy. Fitting.

I was only another of the small voices on the losing side of a civic plebiscite. But against this holiday for the privileged happening in 2010 Vancouver. I could not be in favour, knowing as I've heard it said, for years, Olympics after Olympics, the proven track-record of cost overruns, civic corruption and scandalous disruptions, of future generations expected to smile and shoulder the debt. Quick googling, and in no paricular order, as I recalled former host cities, returned a sickeningly lengthening list. Montreal. Calgary. Nagano. Lillehammer. Atlanta. Sydney. Salt Lake City. Athens. Beijing. Adding Vancouver...fast-tracking and smiles...and the World should only ever see our smiles, urge the party faithful. Local media long onside. Greedy landlords already evicting tenants who stand between them and gleefully emptying visitors' pockets...as happened here during Expo 86. Capping this farce, so far, one billion of somebody's dollars suddenly urgently needed from somewhere to complete that Athlete's village. Let's just say there was a gross cost underestimate for that stack of boxes. And still awaiting the numbers for security — for keeping everybody safe, when the world comes to Vancouver... .

Yesss, only against it, only a party pooper, me. But now I've come to hate it. Hating it enough that I'd wish myself anywhere but here, now inside one year. All right, I'd hope not hatefilled, but scowling in reflex whenever these media persons, decked out in those proprietary rings and faces aglow in anticipation, cheeringly count-down the impending civic disaster they acquired broadcast rights to. Scowling, too, because these paragons of journalistic integrity, and neutrality, have been the same ones telling us when things went badly.

Know I wasn't the only party pooper to vote my little no in the plebiscite.

Here, these were those official, City of Vancouver plebiscite results: 46% of Vancouver's electorate turned out, an unprecedented voter turn-out. 64% of 134,791 ballots in favour of Vancouver hosting that expensive winter's fortnight in February 2010. 36% against.

And now for the funnier side of this. After the Athletes' Village scandal broke this past January, and certain heads actually rolled, CBC Online ran a poll most of a week, feeling about for public sentiment, pro or No, and of 2178 folks polled (when I saved these numbers, January 19, about noon), fully 64% made their mark by I always thought hosting the games was a bad idea.

Curiouser and curiouser...hmmm. Polite naysayers, like me, packing CBC's stats our way? Possibly. Home and property owners, hearts fibrillating over their tax assessments, forgetting how they voted? Perhaps. I'm curious how we 134,791 registered voters who did vote might vote today, knowing, or suspecting it then, what we still can only suspect.

Have Today Off

Have today off. Used to have music playing, always. Used to feel music conducive to my writing. Music held me in whatever that mood was. Useful trick of brain wiring that I've denied myself. Been calling it distraction. Prob'ly a symptom of sick robot-worker mind, ever on the go get'em, 'coz that's the mindset required in that fantasy world.

As I've said, tho, have me a day off. Stepped from the day'jobber's fantasy world. Returned to my own...yesss. Adjusted the bits of my writing cell. Quill scribbling...er, keys clicking, that is. Conjuring words. Trying to. And trying the change of not waiting for the lulls of quiet that might not ever come in this stack of cells, this asylum.

Asylum. So fitting the word. Its meanings, emotional weight. Madhouse. Sanctuary. Seeking that sheltering somewhere, my fave. Hopeful, as ever, me.

Unimportant, the why for my evident grey mood. Private, that. It was black, really. Blood pulsing in the ears. Rage simmering. That should've sent me running. My usual response, rather than stay, rage in response, scare away the muse, the windblown gal in drafty shift the frilly-shirted poets envision hovering at shoulder. Usually I run so I might calm down elsewhere, return eventually to this. But reasoned that in running away I remove myself from doing this very work I need to be at. Stayed, instead. Simmered, even. Jotted down this brown jewel, too. Because all is writing exercise, in the end.

The music, right. The why I'd started this, in my sunnier new morning mood. Leslie Fiest's Honey Honey had just purled over me. Haunting is the word, yes, I remember. Felt perfect for putting me back in that writing place. Haunting. The same as her My Moon My Man.
I was only plotting to add my obvious snark about this, this real music of hers, quite the departure from the nursery rhymes her contract drew from her. The same as from so many other musicians. The ditties that sell cars.

My snark, then, that would only have filled a blog.

Today, then. Things to do. This. Sister email. MyHunt. Pay Shaw. Muichimotsu. GodSeed Vector. Playground. Protag peruse. Map the town in that stalled story, at least some! — name streets —names can be inspiring. Game, some, or a lot, escape. Lunch. Be flexible about the order. Switch on that radio.

Touching Reality

Okay. I've no delusions here. This here blog. No famous writer's blog, this, naah. Anyone who reads this either will be a friend, or have stumbled over this. Essentially, my more-public notepad, this. Writing exercise. Fine. Touching reality, I am.

So, if I can be touch with reality, and my worth in a world of billions, why can't they be, those six o'clock news personalities? Even those who actually write their own copy. And not just read, often badly, the stuff scrolling over the teleprompter. Can't they see we might not have time to hang on their every precious word?

Tonight, the weathergal who sits me down, staring at her, because she's a pretty on-air personality, she started hinting of a bad change for tomorrow's weather. Sussed it out for myself from the freezing outside, and the halo round the moon, the obvious — snow. They bantered it to and fro, like a badminton birdie, those on-air personalities. Oh, it is a change, yes...Oh, again...Bad, but not too bad, yes. On and on. Filling all of a minute, because that's what they were supposed to do, fill a minute because it was too early for weather. Too early to actually tell us anything useful.

True, no more than the expected banter. Clues enough, there. Got the weather forecast, then, even if she never once said the dreaded word.

My growling set in as I saw again the thing News has become. Purveyor of only so much information as will fit, and fitting the broadcaster's leaning, if not bias. An entertainment, really. And as uplifting as blood sport, generally. Hovering about catastrophe, like vultures. Feeding us numbingly repetitive bits about crime, the failings of grand Justice, the Bad News about the baddest among humankind, or the least fortunate. Daring then to ask if bad news is bad for us! Countered by pretty weathergal and two-minute video blog about the good some folks do, or a cuddly pet moment, before Sports and closing banter.

Self-congratulatory awards in telejournalism abound. Apparently that talking head an object of public trust in those unbiased polls. In Vancouver, the media as much a 2010 Olympics cheerleader. Official so-and-so and a weather report for the mountain venue preceding the host city. Filler, all. The vacuous banter before robot cameras, and us, expected to sit there and wait, numb and dumb as robots, was my enough.

Changed the channel. To the Weather Channel. After that short and informative visit, confirming my dreadings, and readying me inside one minute for tomorrow's commute, I tuned the teevee to TCM. Night of the Iguana. Atonement and hope. Ava Gardner. Richard Burton. Debbie Kerr, pretty as an eye-catching librarian.

SUV Got Photon Torpedo, Me Powerful!...And Got Cup-Holder!

"We have photon torpedo, we’re powerful!"

Believe that’s how it goes. When Geordi on Star Trek The Next Generation, held prisoner and coerced into upgrading his captors’ weapons systems, seems to hand them photon torpedo technology.

Reminded of that show and scene every time a car with a cargo pod on top warps past. One of those photon torpedo-shaped cargo pods that looks designed to slip through the air. Strangely, tho, I see one more often atop an SUV. Not a lot of interior space inside your average hurtling SUV, so it seems, after the comfy seating and cup-holders.

Strange, because years ago when my Dad drove us kiddies, and our cross-country skis and stuff, for a day up some wintry postcard mountain, we all fit...snugly, sure...in Dad’s Dodge Omni hatchback. Including skis and poles. Lunch and thermos’ stashed away under that ‘backboard’, which passed for hatchback out-of-sight stowage.

I’d guess some of these SUV folk prefer not sharing the upholstery, perhaps a nice sweater too, with slush-dripping skis on the drive home. Prob’ly concerned some, too, about impaling family members on their outdoor recreation equipment. Tho, that never worried us in that compact car of Dad's. Tied together and stashed low enuf, them wiped-clean skis.

Cup-holders reminds me. Wanted to jot it down, somewhere. Fitting, here, because it’s another funny thing. Funny to me, which is what counts, seeing as this is my blog.

Last Saturday, grocery shopping. Found myself in temporary possession of a spankin’ new shopping cart. Steered straight. All four wheels on the ground.

But. A cup-holder. Intruding into the not overly spacious top tray of the cart. Sturdy brown plastic, this beverage stowing convenience. It had this air about it of Special Order from the showroom, this shopping cart, finished in the same brown plastic trim. Eyeballing the convenience, inconveniencing me, intruding into the space where I’ll have to wedge in two jugs of homogenized milk, and eggs, I could appreciate some engineering went into designing this…thing. Buttressed plastic. Stiff and strong. And no doubt most useful to the shopper able to navigate Saturday shopping, perhaps with a toddler or two strapped in the family shopping cart, and checking off the list, and without spilling that coffee.

Funny, because of the seeming need for a cup of coffee while busily shopping. As if the shopper as relaxed as when hurtling about the roads, another coffee in hand.

The Desktop Paper Cutter

One of those desktop paper cutters: a cutting board with grid, and that long-armed knife hinged at the corner. We used this engine of cutting in school, remember?

Well, picture this on a desktop at work. Beside it, a laserjet, postage machine; that kinda arrangement. Someone, after using this, not ever clicks that long cutting blade fully and safely down. I approach it as a booby-trap. Always find the blade edge raised, just up enough that it drops and clicks when I push the handle down, perhaps just an eighth of an inch, just the depth of one fingertip.

Maybe the germ of an office psycho story. The mild smiler, ever put upon. All the work dumped on him, or her. I like writing gal characters. Bespectacled. I like a gal in specs. Bullied, and too meek to ever say "Uhh’n’no, I should really be visiting dear Auntie Meg. She hasn’t long. I’ll do your unnecessary thing…yes, tonight…I’ll come back after Auntie Meg, when there’s only the staring security guy rattling doors."

Maybe dear Auntie Meg, curmudgeon’y, in her hospice bed, yet to the end keeping those snarky orderlies in line, inspires Bespectacled Gal to take a little revenge where she might. Say, an ounce of flesh at a time.

Schooldays revisited. Only nicer clothes. Tho…that’s been done.

Picking Up the Bits

Odd, or maybe not, one day on, the day after My Sky Fell In, and I was...okay about it. Okay enough. Scrambling some through another weekend busy in other, un'work-related obligations, catching up, and diversions...okay, Sunday night over'playing Hitman Blood Money (gleefully getting it right)...and in revisiting the bits of my sky somewhat scattered over the floor, I’m no longer feeling as shattered.

Felt...urghhh!...shaking out my shoulders this moment, trying to mimic my gloomy mood last Thursday, when the reality struck in the shape of my employer’s web filter that I might not have access...at work...to my fave website, that properly I shouldn’t be visiting during the workday they pay me for.

And there's the meat n' potatoes of that reality, explaining my sanguine mindset. Their machine. Their network. I'm there, and paid, to do their job.

I shouldn't rant about how I'm there from eight 'til late, basically grab breaks, for coffee, or tea, at my desk, and lunch, however long lunch might be before I'm compelled away by the work. It's the nature of the job, and the small office. And no matter that my visits to Protag were like short coffee breaks. Nor that I've made efficient play from multi-tasking, convinced these brains of ours actually are pre-wired for it... .

I am ranting. Oh, well. A bit of scribbling exercise, lets call it. The short of my adaptation, then.

Work constantly pulls me from job to job, anyway. Only could ever pop in, glimpse the goings on at Protagonize, then have to go. Attempting to post, while at work, always has been problematic — frazzling's the word — Supposedly lunchtime, supposedly I'd have the time, so I'd post, then be pulled away by something at work needing immediate doing, before I can do a proper read-through and edit. Shifting lunchtime around — earlier, later — doesn't work. Because the work comes...whenever. That was why I started staying late, then later, then into the eve, savouring the useful quiet after the place emptied out. One bad habit upon another: and all that turning a place of employment into my writing study...where I'd never have the time for doing it right.

That little web filter of theirs has set me in the right direction, then. Protagonize still works at work. Perhaps always will. Perhaps they're only concerned over the big social networking sites, the ones ever in the news, FaceBook and YouTube. Or, perhaps they're logging user activity, and it's only a matter of when they might flip another switch. For now, then, during my inbetween moments at work, I'll just continue my good habit of little offline jottings, on recycled scraps of paper, or Word docs. Keep my mental meanderings close. So I can take them home easily. And, however long Protag's still accessible, go visit it, even more briefly than before, only noting the interesting maybe's for later, at home. Go visit Protag during lunch: they can't begrudge me that.