november 1997 (1197.htm) december
1997
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credits sept
oct
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26th
unfortnately, yestersday turned out to be one of those days. leaving me with symptoms and some revelations, i must now face today.
nibbling on my cheeks, floral cap cocked to one side, today seems to be one of those neither here nor there days. ruinded my coffee with too much cream, it's getting cold. after yesterday's burst of energy, i sink back once again into apathy mode. yuck but yuck.
bruised cocyx again leaving me leaning to one side, those odd uterine spasms finally gone, and now at the bottom of the cup i wait to wake up.
i'm waiting.
today is wednesday and because i am living in this forgeign country, i do not have to work tomorrow or the next day. the drive up the coast will be a pretty one.
ah, just downright miserable today. wish me luck.
til monday.
tuesday, 2 of 3.
i wake, make the java, and slowly saunter over to this machine.
i'm trying to maintain a peaceful state, moving slowly for my nature, not
letting anything but the caffeine awake me. and because it's hot, i'm forced
to do this slowly. it allows me to turn the lights on on at a time, in
the proper order. reboot, so to speak.
still thinking, thinking, of everyone, everything. and now since i dreamt about him, i will write to G.
monday later on
i always wanted to move somewhere else so that i could be whoever i wanted to be.
by the time i did, i already was.
as a child, i spent many hours in my room writing, recording. every little movement, every new thought. in books scattered, files and folders tucked into drawers. the bottom drawers housed nothing, but papers. as i was doing this, i dreamed the day when the world would be my oyster. i dreamed the place where everyone would see what i was writing. everyone who only knew the me i wanted to be.
dreams do come true.
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NOW i understand what they were saying.
this is a place where time exists.
Monday, 24th
Sore elbow.
seems to be symptom week grindings and crunchings all over the place. now both of us threatening will illnesses and feeling unable to fight what we must for the next little while. how can this be a struggle given what others face, i never understand.
munching on carrots and watching the time something extremely foreign to me. thinkking about laying all over large rectangular things over the week end, namely tennis courts and persian rugs. while on the court thinking of my miniscule desire to compete-so much more interested in the pure beauty, the physical perfection, than any desire to win a game. patience lacking? perhaps. why to win, though? what achievement does this accomlish, something i cannot understand. there is no abstract goodness in winning for me, yet in achieving perfection, yes. the proper technique, the perfect smash hit yes. the goal only to achieve itself.
and what more to say now. thinking of people who thought i was some kind of hippee, thinking about how honest i can be here, and thinking about the equipment at my feet. about the people who don't wonder much, and how much energy is required for me to finish the day. just think about it differently. put everyhting in perspective and all of a sudden, nothing seems so insurmountable. one thing at a time. now i am doing this. later i will be doing something else, and i have no control over the outcome or the impressions that will be made except to do my best under the cirsumstances. obviously all of this means compromise.
i never used to compromise, it all used to be perfect, and i had the required amount of energy needed to make it so. now, i do not and there is no justification for using every ounce of energy. we learn how much of our energy should be used. some learn this early on and some never learn it at all. most never even think about it.
sometimes i wish i never had.
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Friday, 21 /
| 5:37 now. the thursday night dinner - if i may, was an unparalleled success, if i use my enjoyment as meter stick. someone open, honest, intelligent, quite amazingly human. one of the most pleasant shocks i have had in a long time. meals wafting of paprika-oozing with lovely 'soft' grease, and tiny homemade noodles, nokedli they are called. | |
| Friday evening. pets. what other things are little a part of my life. variety is the spice of life, don't you know. how can a mind travel so quickly between the past and the future, it's tiring living in here sometimes. using tactics which now work just about 100% of the time, i can cheer myself up at will. always a struggle, between the part of my personality which cause me grief and the parts which cause me joy. 'don't let it get to yourself' she says. 'you tell him' she says. 'you know what you know' 'you admit what you don't' 'your qualitites outweigh your faults' 'stand tall, because that's the only way to be treated tall' 'you're worth what you decide you're worth' and the list, tragic as it might seem, goes on and on and on. |
cooincidences abound.
thinking right now of small apartments on friday nights. people come, people, go. empty beer bottles line the floor and music that you once heard in an Irish movie play- just a little bit too loud. in those small apartments, friendships are created, broken perhaps, and the general level of life is high.
but alas this is not a small apartment. there are no old flowers sitting on my desk, there are no people streaming in and out. there is me, just me, and i could be sitting in any office, in any city, in any world. frantically typing into this plastic heap which i spend so much of my time looking at, and thinking about. what a bizarre tool. it is dark outside, and many people are sitting in cars. a warm breeze passes through this city, bringing travelers, visitors, dreamers.
i guess one of those people is me.
19 /
observations of a recently-appointed software instructor, who almost never makes generalizations about men...
men don't like asking questions.
men will ask questions about their HOME computers, after class.
As I would write on paper, Happy Birthday!!! DLB turns 33 today.
So I'm sitting here, a bit wound, a bit tired. A bunch of creative words spewed out in an email forward on the time zone continuum, words like
" Full of the Christmas ribbons of life, decorating my neck as I walked. Letting some slide onto polished floors as I danced over them, holding tighter still onto others. Now I am no longer a Princess. "
" A poor student with a rich history, a best friend, an uncertain future, and a wealth of opportunities. "
" It is a situation which needs little analysis, demands little effort, yet provides such enormous hoards of pleasure and support, for both of us. A true gift. '
5:47 pm now as i sit and wait.
i'm sitting in a room with a sloped roof, 8 computers, and an avid skiier.
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18/
hey! it's cold here. The thermostat reading only 17 degrees celcius (make that 63 degrees farenheit), and that's indoors!
classical music, if you were brought up listening to it- becomes something that creates an atmosphere void of time. perhaps more important than the sense of peace i derive from it, is that singular feeling it evokes in me. close your eyes. you could be maybe not anywhere, although there are many places you could be, but think of the anytime, such a larger anytime than music which confines you to the past two years.
but i do love the music of jewel.
the heaters on, the java cooling, and the webs begin to clear.
i've quite gotten used to sharing this time with you-welcome to it.
reminding
myself more often to straighten my back, - it, and the rest of me are feeling
svelte i do not have an explanation for this. last evening with actual
energy too, i stopped taking the herbal stuff and bought salt at 6am with
iodine in it. moved boxes around in anticipation of guests on Thursday
night. goals, it's all about goals. i sit up straight because i have a
goal. i write here because i have a goal. i put forth my best cheery smile,
my most caring attitude, and my brand new blazer, because i have goals.
there are goals everywhere, force yourself to see them and performing the
tasks will become pleasant, even enjoyable.
the little goals were not needed, there was a time. the breath of each new day, enough, awaiting the time in the long distant future and what it might bring-gifts such as the one i live right now, gifts which when finally realized, are not the rollar coaster ride that dreaming about them for 30 years was. so we replace them with little goals, and probably the kinds of achievements which could be accomplished anywhere, the kind that others-some, learned early, early, on.
the mercury to the right has not budged but just being here warms my very soul.
am i looking at the bigger picture? hold on, i've got to stand back to see it all.
there's a lot to see and yet there's none.
we gotta be crazy, we canna deny it
but more crazier still-if we didnta try it.
+november 15th i guess
i will set myself to the activity that is writing here, keeping my mind and hands occupied as best i know how. leaves others out for a while but produces something i can share with them. not necessarily the particullar combination of words, juxtaposition of sentances, but some true thoughts now. as my long fingernails creep over the fading keyboard ink like the bugs in the movie...
strolling
through the cheezy bookstore-a peaceful acivity ... changing mindsets from
isle to isle, planning a meal in one and a society in another, at a certain
point i thought perhaps i might stumble upon my book. what would the cover
look like? who would pick it up?
the city is wet today, still a bizarre thing for me. wondering what the sand is like when it is wet, not that i have never seen wet sand. thinking alot still my mind wanders from this side of the continent to that side, and every now and then, to the other side of the pond. that would be London, thinking about SG and future possibilities still keeping me dreaming.
it's good to dream. it's good to be able to launch off somewhere unlikely, unknown, and seemingly impossible. i try not to dream about what i cannot have...
aw, you know what else i'm dreaming of.
i like inside my mind today.
i just realized that it's not all recorded, anymore. it used to all get recorded on paper, paper books piling up in a chest. it's changed form, somehow naturally, to a non-paper format which does not record everything. it still keeps me company, though. and it's always there when i need it.
there's nothing wrong with quiet time. i've just got to remember that i don't need all those books. i don't need to learn how to love, how to share, how to be myself. i just want to need them. hmm. maybe that's my problem. where's the self-help book for the person who thinks she knows it all???
:-)
problem is, i'm happy.
13/
spending the morning e-chatting with the loved ones...
her diary comforts me because i derive a similar sense of aloneness from it. a place that only she understands, a private place yet there is nothing secret about it.
reaching deeply for all of the stops now i'm forced to admit defeat. what in fact have we done. what will the lessons be worth? what kind of world am i forced to live in where typing into a plastic box is my only true recluse? dig deeper, poots, dig deeper.
feeling like the guy in vancouver who writes his diary entries at work during lunch break, never thought i'd come to this.
"i don't know how to love him,
what to do, how to move him
he's a man, he's just a man
and i've had so many men before
in very many ways he's just one more"
just some lyrics.
all of those, them, they flash through my minds eyes, nothing about them made them mine and now should be no different but hanging on to memories is what i do best. reliving moments, smelling history, touching the past. sure now is great too there's no reason it shouldn't be, but anything that can be reminisced is better. i can hold it, it's mine, uniquely.
i learned to type when i was nine.
i couldn't have even imagined-no one could have-
what would come of my typing ability. why did i want to type so badly,
so desparately? communication? i wish i could learn to type again, wish
there was something i could do right now whose long term effects could
be so uknown to me.
or am i?
6:08 pm
baa!
!
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11/
listening to the radio this morning, sleep was deep and
rewarding. once the infusion is complete i wil probably feel human again.
yes, i am thinking
about them, all of them, every day. the ones reading here and the ones
not. memories treasured each.
major events of the year list is growing as news from home trickles in.
there's a huge list but bragging isn't necessary. things roll along but
they remain the same which is so so nice. hearing my sister's voice reminded
me that home is still there. spreading maps on the floor, yes, that city
still exists. phewf! these triumphs part of a learning experience, one
that many people are able to learn on their own.
19 minutes after seven o'clock in southern california.
he's telling me to look to the future.
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10/
dark, still in this room, the hot java on my lips like the most
precious of fluids.
only today it's effects won't be as widespread as yesterday.
that
bruised cocyx again-where was i sitting? the beach, was the sand so hard?
achy now i'm not moving fast. i'm lifting the mug slowly as if it were
the last and untying my white Nikes, the world's softest socks revealed.
yeah, slightly hungover-but with good reason.
they are different. they are not from here. like a true breath of fresh
air, we spoke the same song.. observations, confusions, conclusions, ...
this is not America. between the two of them, they know it so acutely;
her from Kentucky and he from Long Island-we trust their opinions, we value
their insight.
and a weekend of little movement but some gain. friday night a local spot with live music and the president, the new bbq (i cannot spell that word) arrived and saturday it was assembled. browsing through the M-ralphs i just put whatever i pleased into the basket...morbier, kohlrabi, olive bread. finally ending up in the store that smells so nice, with a gift for the new baby back home. the evening spent cooking, less whole heartedly but well; in the morning awoken by a 7am call and then homesick, eventually for a short stint to the beach and then back home to finish with dinner. disjointed and lacking excercise, but useful and productive in a different sort of way.
no music now, this morning. 7:18 as little dogs prepare for thier day.
the rush of the caffeine begins, my spirit lightens, my back straight.
the girl in the mirror is back, fears, strengths and all.
===================================
oh, writing here feels good. feels right.
===================================
8/
i still can't pick up the phone and call everyone i've ever known.
this wanting is a symptom, a sign of not accepting that the past
is gone. this music is happy, yet reminds me sadly of the old days.
weirdly enough the old days were long ago. it becomes quite the
mish mash trying to figure out which past i really long for. but i
do know that the more recent one was much better than i ever
accepted it to be at the time.
fitting, i suppose
that it caught up to me a bit late. we're late bloomers and so it takes
us a bit longer to get around to doing stuff. i wanted, all my life, to
be somewhere else-even for a short time. wanting more, always. not accepting
what was given me. what i was blessed with. then finally once i had what
i wanted i ripped myself from it to fulfill this ancient desire of mine
to be
somewhere else. thinking, assuming, that it might bring me back.
back to those stinky sandbox days. the one in rodney smiley's
backyard, beside the old shed that we cllimbed on in late night
hide and seek. when your thick skinned bathing suit didn't even
pinch your skin and when you got home you were so full of dirt
it was stuck everywhere and even a bath didn't get it all out.
maybe it's just about the days when there were no good old days.
everything and everyone was in the present. no old friends, no
old songs. it's in my genes to want the past, i know it is and i won't
fight it, but i won't forget it either. i pass my self in the mirror and
barely recognize my sun bleached locks, now messy and quite
west-coast looking. the music speaks of seasons i no longer live,
friends i left behind and warmth that my mother taught me. we hope
there is a bigger point to this. something god-given tells me there is.
==================================================
5/
1-800-usarail - - - 80's in the valley.
Ramona wants to say Hello to everyone. She's a bit lonely.
This is a picture of her in her old home: She liked it there with all
her friends the plants.
She's
just getting a little bit nostalgic. That's all.
Telling stories of our Canadianisms, our country, as if it was foreign, almost exotic. Some of them understand, wide-eyed, fascinated. Some are unable to. Learning of what we have to give-an interjection. making out lives richer by sharing. photos given to me can be scanned and distributed continent wide, faster than it takes to describe the picture. this is the type of technology that we don't exactly know what to do with. piles of papers, it's friday no matter which time zone we are in. Gear-down, relax the shoulders, walk in smiling, puff the chest. don't take it personally, even though it's personal. ha. :-) smile and know that perfection may sometimes involve using others more. but for God's sake don't stop striving for it, man.
4/
angry dreams, i don't know why. waking alone; when i awake here
alone,
alone takes on another meaning. long conversations with my only (other)
friend in the same time zone, comforting. mapping friends ;
learning as we go, the distinction between forward and backward is dim.
the mundane is emphasized, preventing any great waving of the arms.
6>58 now; the outside is different today. a treat for our eyes: FOG.
humid, salty, thick air. unusually warm weather but how would we know.
"there may have to be a referendum on bilingual education" sounds
familiar...
2/
the screed is writ. what does it say,
who knows. it's written for an old friend.. someone who was by my
side for a long time, what seems like a long time ago.how can parts
of my life seem so long ago; like a dream, as if they never happened.
and things are changing, now, so time takes on yet another perspective.
3/
years are simply a fragment of time which get distorted as you
age. watching a young child at the burger joint the other day, i marveled
at her perception of the future. such a vast space-mostly blank, entirely
huge, unending. yet yesterday, i myself restsed my head on arm thinking,
re-thinking my current concept of time.
stopped at a light
sat a large white pick-up to my left. a grey-bearded man sat at the wheel
and i imagined him a type of do-gooder, spending his days helping those
in need. perhaps fetching a box of cans to bring to the needy. sure there
are those who would have told me that he is just as likely to be a ganster
or a mass murderer; however, i enjoy the freedom which lets my mind stay
on the positive energy side of things. i enjoy it immensely.
7:09 am now the infusion is complete and the nervous little dogs begin their day. the mindspace still cluttered with leftover tryptophan, it would need a good shaking. but the workings are there, the functions remain intact. the observations, endless-and the time and space that was so cut and dry back in august now has become more seamless. there is a flow to all that moves and every morning when i see that sun rise i still tell myself that Today is Mine. no matter what you say or do you still get that, if you're lucky.
yeah-i'm still pensing, still dreaming, still floating, still wondering and wishing.
g'day eh.
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to see the index, click on the Mep Logo.
photos: (taken by me, except the one of me)
me atop mount st. hilaire, Quebec
sheep in the San Diego Zoo
market in San Diego
panda.jpg;San Diego zoo.
mountain crocus;Banff Springs, Alberta.
Ramona; taken by me
turtle; San Diego zoo.
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Peace.