choke hold / strangle hold

angry inch

2008-02-20T23:36:00.003-08:00

oh, hello.

i am GIVING AWAY my wig collection.

it consists of 8 - 10 wigs of all kinds... ranging from a couple grandma wigs (from the little old lady phase) to a foot-and-a-half high marge simpson wig in a brilliant shade of lavender.

the catch is you must make arrangements with me to pick them up - and solid arrangements must be made by sunday, march 2nd. additionally, you have to take the whole lock, stock and barrel.

talk soon!

thank u

2008-01-27T14:21:00.001-08:00

thank you to the humans that came out to spin some records, give some hugs, shimmy for a few songs and share the love on my birthday.

so many favorite friends. i love you.

happy 30th birthday to me.

count back from 30...

2008-01-18T11:31:00.000-08:00

Get ready to get sweaty, the dirty thirties are here.

Put on your dancing shoes and come to wish me a happy 30th birthday.

It is going to be madness.

Where:
Black Frog – 108 Cambie Street in Gastown (as far north on cambie as you can go before hitting the train tracks)
http://www.theblackfrog.ca/

When:
Saturday, January 26th
9pm – close

What:
anghold turns 30, so of course there has to be a…
DANCE DANCE DANCE PARTY!!!
Come dressed to impress, after all, I only turn 30 once. I expect some slick moves and some foxy dancing shoes.

Who:
You. Your friends. My friends. Friendly friends.

Other details:
The folks at the Black Frog have been informed that 100 of my closest friends will be joining me in drinking, dancing and celebrating awesomeness.

The lovely and talented Mike Flintoff and the adorable and inimitable Jeffrey McCloy will be spinning 60's garage, soul, r & b, and reggae all night long. They are guaranteed to keep you tapping your feet.

This is not a private party, and the doors are open to the public. Black Frog is a fairly small venue with maximum capacity of 100 – 110. I expect that we will hit that capacity early on in the evening.

I will be there from 9pm until someone sends me home in a cab, party dress soaked to the skin.

Save a dance for me.

Obsequiously yours,
choke hold

i like big butts

2007-12-19T11:38:00.001-08:00

Ass backwards.

So, it appears that I am going back to school again. Since completing my Bachelor of Arts almost 6 years ago, I have completed one college program and am about to enter into another. I say that it ‘appears’ that I am going back to school because I clearly do not have the money to complete the whole program, but I have gone ahead and signed up for the first course anyway. Though I could technically finish the program in 6 – 8 months, I imagine I will stretch it out over more like a year and a half.

It will come as no surprise to anyone (aside from me) that the program that I am doing is for Career Development Practitioner certification. Read: vocational counseling.

You may recall from my training in general counseling, I absolutely hated the elective course that I did in vocational counseling. But, as I find myself increasingly working with friends and family to explore their education and career options, help revise/ rewrite people’s resumes, and scour the interweb for appropriate job postings for people, I feel that it is time for me to gain more skills to help people out. If it ends up leading to my next career, so be it.

On a meta level, it is amusing that I, were I my own client, would likely not recommend that I go into vocational counseling – as it is an industry that is not congruent with my employment needs (very few part time opportunities, very few positions that have medical and dental, mainly contract work, lower wages than my current career, etc.). Good thing I can appreciate irony.

the birthday party

2007-11-28T16:32:00.001-08:00

I had best sneak a post in here before November leaves us.

And now that I have said that, I will not be able to get Guns ‘n Roses lyrics out of my head for the next hour. November Rain.

Anyway, the last few months have been a bit…. mind numbing. Increasingly, I find myself staring off into space, crawling back into bed, performing repetitions, biding my time.

All this happens as I ramp up to my 30^th birthday. I plan to make a big deal out of my birthday… not for anyone’s benefit but my own. A couple of years ago, a lovely lady at the MS clinic asked me if I had re-dreamed my dreams yet.

Have I re-dreamed my dreams?
Have I re-goaled my goals?
Have I re-visualized my vision of the future?

And still, my answer is ‘no’.

Don’t know how yet. Going to try. Even if it means simply imagining how to feel part of a community again. Even if it means simply imagining what my vocational calling is. Even if it means simply joining a hip-hop dance class to see if I have any moves left in me. Even if it means admitting to myself that having Multiple Sclerosis has made me feel more desperately lost than I had ever even imagined was possible – admitting this so that I can really feel that feeling and move on.

30 is the new awesome.

Whatever happens, there will be cake and some ghostly shapes of dreams, desperately trying to take form. Hope you can make it.

every shining time you arrive

2007-10-18T13:35:00.000-07:00

Holy crap, it has been a long time since I posted anything.

I have given up my enthusiasm for blog posting in favour of playing online scrabble. Oh yes, it is true.

Since last we spoke, I have been off on vacation for about two and a half weeks. To be more specific, I had a secret wedding and then went to Tofino for my honeymoon. Har! Har! Har!

This proves, as I have been telling anyone who will listen, that I have somehow learned to keep my own secrets. I have always said that I have no problem keeping other people’s secrets – but keeping my mouth shut about my own surprises and exciting plans has always been a weak area. A ‘problem area’, if you please.

I have been cured!

I have been surprised to find out that the first thing that many people ask me when I tell them that I just got hitched is “Are you going to have children?”

Huh?

Um, no.

The second, and much more worthy of discussion, question that people seem to ask is “What made you guys decide to get married?”

That answer is a little more longwinded.

I suppose that there are a lot of reasons…. Most importantly – I want to be married to Lief because I like him and love him in a way that deserves my commitment. Just as I do no see monogamy in the lowest-common-denominator sense of the word, I also do not see marriage in the traditional way.

Fluttery language aside, I think our vows were pretty genuine:

I call on those present to witness that I,
Angela, take Lief to be my lawful wedded
husband. Lief, I promise to help and
support you as you grow, change, and
become the best Lief you can be, I
promise to laugh with you and have
fun, to listen to you and be
understanding and empathic, to
appreciate you and your skills, talents,
and hard work, and to show you, in
every way that I can, that I love you.

SMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCH!

these are a few of my mother's friends

2007-09-20T11:30:00.000-07:00

no surprise here.

- choke hold

from the Globe and Mail

Want friends? Then better log off the Net

MICHAEL KAHN

Reuters

September 10, 2007 at 12:40 PM EDT

YORK — Having a huge network of online buddies does not mean you have any more close friends than the rest of us, a British researcher said on Monday.

Social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace are changing the nature of how people connect by making it easy to collect hundreds of friends and acquaintances online.

“Our data suggests weak ties are (more common) but there is no difference in the number of close friends people have,” said Will Reader, an evolutionary psychologist at Sheffield Hallam University.

“Nearly all our close friends require face-to-face contact,” Reader told a meeting sponsored by the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

The researchers focused on Facebook and MySpace, two of the most popular sites where millions of people express themselves online with personal photographs, musings and other content while adding “friends” to their network.

In their study, Reader and colleagues asked people a series of questions about their attitudes toward friendships and found 90 per cent of individuals said it was imperative to know somebody face-to-face to form the tightest bonds.

The key it seems is face-to-face interaction where people can interpret social clues such as laughs and smiles that help determine if others are friends to be counted on, Reader said.

“That weird experience of laughing together where people can find they have similar goals and experiences is necessary,” Reader said.

“It is a bit like a dance between two scorpions where one is wondering if the other is going to eat me or sleep with me.”

Other studies have shown most people have about 150 people in their extended networks, with just a small number considered a member of the inner circle of close friends, Reader said.

Even when people's social networks ballooned into many hundreds or more than a thousand people, the number of close friendships did not change, he said.

“One of the possibilities is that changing the nature of these networks can decrease the cost of maintaining friendships,” Reader said.

INSITE - notes on the conservatives in the Van Sun

2007-09-07T14:29:00.000-07:00

Conservatives confuse science and moralizing
Ideology has always driven drug policy in Canada, as demonstrated in the federal government's attitude toward Insite
Peter McKnight, Vancouver Sun
Published: Saturday, September 01, 2007

In an editorial directed at the federal government's mendacious attempts to discredit the science surrounding Insite, Vancouver's supervised injection site, University of Toronto medical professor Stephen Hwang notes that "the health of the nation is placed in peril if our leaders ignore crucial research findings simply because they run contrary to a rigid policy agenda driven by ideology or fixed beliefs."

Although Hwang's comments, which were endorsed by 133 medical and scientific experts, were published in the current issue of the online journal Open Medicine, they could just as easily have been written a century ago.

For ideology has always driven drug policy, and is in fact responsible for the very existence of our laws concerning recreational drugs. One hundred years ago there were no such laws, but ideological, political and economic concerns, along with an unhealthy dose of racism, led to the enactment of laws that still exist today.

More than two dozen studies published in top-flight journals have all found that Vancouver's supervised injection facility is associated with positive outcomes. There is absolutely no research contradicting these findings

And British Columbia has always been ground zero in policies concerning illicit drugs. Today, Insite receives all the headlines, but a century ago, it was Vancouver's Chinatown riot that resulted in the first federal drug laws in North America.

In the middle of the 19th century, B.C. played host to an influx of Chinese immigrants, most of whom worked on the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Although many people supported such immigration since the Chinese were seen as industrious labourers who were willing to work for low wages, things changed drastically after the railway was built.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, B.C. experienced a recession and many individuals -- and in particular, many trade unions -- blamed the inability of white workers to find employment on the presence of the Chinese.

This anti-Chinese animus led to implementation of the Chinese head tax and the formation of the Asiatic Exclusion League, which raised the spectre of the "yellow peril" and demanded an end to Asian immigration. Things reached a head 100 years ago this week when some 10,000 people, after hearing anti-Chinese speeches at Vancouver City Hall, marched on Chinatown in what would later be called the "anti-Asiatic riot."

In the aftermath, the deputy minister of labour (and future prime minister) William Lyon Mackenzie King visited Vancouver and discovered that among Chinese businesses seeking redress for damages were two opium dens. Many of the Chinese had brought opium smoking with them from China, though it was not generally considered a problem.

However, Mackenzie King's discovery of the opium dens led him to write a report about the riot, and within a few months, the minister of labour introduced a bill outlawing the possession and sale of opium: the Opium Act of 1908, the first federal anti-drug law in North America.

The bill passed with no debate, and so began Canada's, and North America's, punitive approach to dealing with recreational drugs. (The United States came late to the table, as it didn't enact its anti-drug legislation, the Harrison Act, until 1914.)

That the minister of labour, rather than the attorney-general, would introduce the law reveals that the legislation was aimed at quelling labour unrest rather than at protecting the health of the public.

Indeed, the Opium Act and its harsher successor legislation, the Opium and Narcotic Drug Act of 1911, were designed to counter the "yellow peril," and were uncommonly successful in that many Chinese were convicted under the laws and therefore presented less of a threat to the economic welfare of white British Columbians.

In addition to labour concerns, the laws also served to placate the burgeoning temperance movement, which portrayed drugs not so much as a threat to users' health as to the morality of the community. Those who adopted this ideology were only too happy to capitalize on anti-Chinese sentiments, and they emphasized that some white people frequented opium dens, a practice presented as a direct threat to Anglo-Saxon values.

Canada's original drug laws were therefore informed more by overt racism than by scientific research, and were also a response to the lobbying of an ideological movement that used racist attitudes to promote its own moralistic agenda. And if we fast forward 100 years, we see just how little things have changed.

At the same time Stephen Hwang's editorial appeared in Open Medicine, federal Health Minister Tony Clement addressed the annual meeting of the Canadian Medical Association in Vancouver, and his comments confirm that science plays no role in informing Conservative drug policy.

In response to questions about Insite, Clement stated: "There has been more research done, and some of it has been questioning of the research that has already taken place and questioning of the methodology associated with Insite. Clearly there is a public debate going on, and clearly there is an academic debate going on."

This is a patently false assertion. To date, there are more than two dozen studies on Insite published in top-flight journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine and the Lancet, and all have found that Insite is associated with positive outcomes. There is absolutely no research contradicting these findings, which means that Clement is either ignorant or he's a liar, neither of which is acceptable for a minister of health.

Evidently, what Clement is relying on is an essay written by Colin Mangham of the Drug Prevention Network of Canada, a Randy White-led group of anti-harm reduction ideologues that includes on its board at least two people who have been affiliated with Narconon, a Church of Scientology-related anti-drug program. (White himself has expressed enthusiasm for prison Narconon programs.)

As I argued previously, Mangham's piece is not a scientific paper, but is rather an error-riddled opinion piece published on a Drug Free America Foundation website. Mangham nevertheless thought highly enough of his shoddy work to write to the federal government about it, and evidently the feds are listening, which isn't surprising given that former Conservative MP White -- and now, the Church of Scientology -- obviously has the ear of the Conservatives.

Clearly, the Conservatives are grasping at anything they can to hoodwink people into believing that there really is a scientific debate about the impact of Insite. This strategy is not unique: Creationists have for years attempted to dupe people into believing that there is a scientific debate about the theory of evolution, and they have succeeded in convincing some politicians to endorse the teaching of creationism in schools.

Yet creationists' real concern is not with evolution -- most don't even know anything about the theory or about science -- but rather with what they believe to be the consequences of the theory: atheism and immorality. Creationism is primarily a response to the culture wars, to the belief that traditional values are under assault.

Similarly, those who oppose Insite seem most concerned with the loss of traditional values. It is no accident that the Drug Prevention Network board is composed primarily of people who describe themselves as social conservatives, and Mangham's opinion piece laments that harm reduction "purports to be values-neutral."

This isn't true, of course, but I have no doubt that Mangham and other members of the network believe it. The network and the Conservative government are concerned that Insite is one more example of the loss of traditional values in modern society, much as the temperance movement saw opium use as corrupting the values of the early 20th century.

The Conservative uneasiness with measures like Insite is therefore understandable, though not necessarily defensible. For here we must return to Stephen Hwang's editorial, and in particular to his comment that if policy-makers are going to oppose the interventions that science has found most efficacious, they ought to at least "make the basis for their actions explicit and transparent."

Indeed, if truth and honesty form any part of the Conservatives' pantheon of values, then they'll stop their mendacious attempts to discredit the science of Insite, and admit that their objections are moralistic rather than scientific. This, at least, would represent a moral advance over the temperance movement of a century ago.

But if the Conservatives refuse to do so -- if they refuse to admit that their position has nothing to do with science, and indeed conflicts with the best scientific evidence -- then they'll affirm that while scientific progress continues unimpeded, Conservative policy, and Conservative morality, are destined to die in dishonour.

holla back girl

2007-09-05T14:47:00.000-07:00

Many of you know this story:

About 4 months ago, Lief and I bought one of those magazines, Consumer Reports, because it reviewed two things that I was particularly interested in at the time:

1/ washers/ dryers

2/ weight loss programs

My mom has had the same washer and dryer set since she divorced my father, which I suppose would be about 16 years ago. With some minor repairs, the set has managed to handle at least 3 humans worth of laundry every week since that time. Both my brother and I are more than happy to head to my mom’s place once a week to do our (and often other people’s) laundry. It is time for a new set and Lief and I wanted to help her do research on what a good investment would be.

Many of you also know that my mom has been dealing with a host of health problems over the last two years… one of which has been an 18 month wait for a desperately needed back surgery. 18 months of waiting. Waiting while she was no longer able to do all the fun, active things she likes to do. There was no walking or running groups, no fitness classes, no water aerobics. To add insult to injury, her foot problems got worse during this time.

It is no surprise that she put on some weight. She and I are both curvy ladies anyway, but almost two years with no activity changed her entire relationship with her body.

As I said, we are both curvy ladies. As much as I get irritated by the fact that clothes sometimes look ridiculous and/ or obscene on me, I like the way that I am – and would only ever try to be smaller for health-related reasons.

I got to thinking about my MS and about how the number one symptom for most MS people is fatigue. Fatigue related to multiple sclerosis is unlike anything that a non-MS person can comprehend (save for maybe folks with fibro myalgia or chronic fatigue). It is a feeling of having ABSOLUTELY NO GAS LEFT IN THE TANK. You find yourself walking down the street and realizing that you may not make it to the bus stop… you may have to sit down. Right. Here. Right. Now.

Being a skinny person is not going to change the fact that I have to live with fatigue, but I started to think that it certainly couldn’t hurt to lose some pounds. The fatigue will still be here, but I will have to lug less of myself around when things are really bad. I have also come to understand that the *only* thing that doctors have any certainty about in MS is that cardio exercise and resistance exercise has a positive impact on the daily lives of MS peoples.

So, I told my mom that she should look through the Consumer Reports magazine and choose any diet that she thought had a good record and that appealed to her. As long as it was vegetarian compatible, I would do it with her.

And so I have been!

I cannot say that I feel fabulous and filled with energy, especially when I have been having so many craptastic MS days lately, but I can certainly feel a strong, positive difference. On my good days, being at the gym has felt even better (which is saying a lot, considering that even at the worst times, the gym has always been my friend).

I have been very surprised at how much my actual eating habits have changed. I am learning to make the best choices for myself every day.

To date, I have lost about 10% of my body weight, which I am totally stoked about. After my next major MS attack (and let’s hope that is a long, long time away from now) I will let you know if shedding pounds and adding more muscle made a difference. My bet is that it will.

Sure, all my pants are looking totally dumpy, but it is nothing a pair of scissors and a sewing machine can’t fix.

As for my mom, she says that she is also learning a lot (especially about what is actually *in* her food). She keeps asking me things like “Why are these little guys so good for you again?” as she chomps on some edammame. Even though she is probably overwhelmed by some numbers and long term goals she has, I think she is doing really well.

Go, mom, go!

pictures of houses

2007-08-30T14:31:00.000-07:00

As I make payments for content insurance, property tax, and mortgage prepayment, I realize that it has been a year since I bought the adorablest apartment.

Holy.

In some ways it hasn’t quite sunk in that I am a homeowner. I am a bit of a slow learner that way. Lief will attest to the fact that I randomly say “Can you believe that this is our apartment?” once every couple of weeks. It is still exciting.

Before moving in, we did so much work… painting, caulking, sanding, cleaning, rewiring, drilling, and laying of floors. Since we actually moved in last October, I would say that we have spent a grand total of about 10 hours doing any additional renovations. I can safely say that I will not become a property flipper any time soon. Organizing and carrying out renovations, and actually managing to stick within a reasonable budget, is not my strongest skill. We went a little nuts buying supplies, appliances and eating out for every single meal for six weeks – and are just now recovering from the financial chaos brought on by the months of transition into the new place.

Along the way, I met some people that I didn’t know anything about: real estate agent, financial planner, building inspector, insurance agent.

I also had the misfortune of using the services of some other humans that made their way onto my shit list: mortgage broker, notary public.

You know, it was exciting to buy my little home. This was made more entertaining by the Lower Mainland housing market – which ensured that my real estate agent and I had to meet at midnight or later on more than one occasion. There were offers, counter-offers, deals were accepted and others fell through.

After the first apartment that I made an accepted offer on fell through (and I was feeling confident in my decision to walk away from it, yet was no less bummed out), Lief and I drove past a three-storey building that looked adorable. There were fun little gardens and everything looked well taken care of. All the trim was painted blue. We stopped the car and talked about what a great location the apartment was in.

A year later, The Dorchester, blue trim and all, is our home.

Things that I learned:

- If you have any sort of relationship with the company you currently bank with *plus* you are willing and able to go to a few appointments with financial peoples at some competing institutions, there is no need for a mortgage broker. I found the mortgage broker to be a hassle and ended up wanting to kill him on the day that I took possession of the property. In the end, my own credit union would have given me the same rate that the mortgage broker was able to provide. You can educate yourself on mortgage options by looking around online and just talking to people you know who have one. Simple.

- Make sure that your credit cards or lines of credit are payed off and that you have some liquid money available. This will be needed during the transfer of possession.

- I strongly urge people to buy a home that is $20,000 less than what they feel they can afford. You will, inevitably, underestimate costs of the professionals that you hire during the process (lawyer, real estate agent, movers, whatever) and also the level of work that needs to be done to the home to make it *your* home.

- Don’t use a notary public. Spend the extra money on a lawyer – and get one that comes with a personal recommendation from someone you know.

- If possible, don’t move in before major renovation things are done. This is especially important if you are buying a small place (which is the only option for most of us in Vancouver!).

- You have to keep yourself from falling in love with a single aspect of a new home to the point where it clouds out your judgment in other areas. Awesome location is not that important when you have overlooked the fact that the building has an impending special assessment of an undecided/ undisclosed amount.

- Set an absolute limit to what you can afford.

another dime in the juke box

2007-08-16T10:44:00.000-07:00

last night i was sitting in front of my coffee table, looking down at all the pills i was going to take before bed. what are all these pills? why am i taking them?...

Flax Oil – I take it for the Omegas! 3/6/9

Wild Fish Oil – to help regulate cholesterol and for more Omega-3’s. I am going to eliminate either flax or fish, I am not sure which one is getting the axe yet.

Lecithin – Well, this one is a little more morbid. Apparently, when doing autopsies on people with MS, it has been found that there is significantly less lecithin in the brain and myelin sheath than normal persons. Additionally, taking this may be helping me avoid having outbreaks of psoriasis. Who knew?

Evening Primrose Oil – Studies have shown that taking Evening Primrose Oil, along with an Omega 3, early on in the progression of MS can help to keep attacks from being as severe and as frequent. For 10 cents a day, I am willing to take that gamble.

Multivitamin – Regular, run-of-the-mill vitamin. You know, just in case.

Vitamin D – It maintains our organs and there is a strong possibility that having enough Vitamin D can help us ward off cancer. Being that I don’t eat fishes (aside from the oil pills) and I avoid sunlight whenever possible, I have added this to the roster.

Milk Thistle – Cleanses my poor liver. All those interferons and random pain-killers have got to be doing *some* damage.

Greens Plus – Bought some of these on a whim. I haven’t found them to provide any extra sense of vitality or energy. I know a number of other people who have gotten great results from taking the mixed powder drink. I don’t think I will buy these again for myself. Expensive!

Melatonin – This is to help me sleep at normal times. After having been prescribed all kinds of wacky things to help me induce sleep, this over-the-counter, under-the-tongue health supplement has been the only thing that has actually helped me. Thanks, melatonin.

long cool woman in a black dress

2007-07-27T10:47:00.000-07:00

thanks to sara pt, these foxy shoes have arrived on my doorstep.

me? wear high heels? crazier things have happened.

:: swoon ::

i love jack white like a little brother

2007-07-23T00:33:00.001-07:00

humans!

timothy has launched a blog to connect you with his acupuncture and reiki healing services... go here.

he will begin working with Heart Quest Holistic Wellness Centre and Balance Health Professionals as of August 7th.

hooray!

my precious time keeps slipping past

2007-07-12T12:11:00.000-07:00

Get ready for an increase to your transit fares.

Translink has got be joking when they say that 95% of people support the increases to fares – which will bring the cost of a 3 zone ticket up to $5.

When they commissioned Ipsos-Reid to poll for them, the questions they asked were around whether people agreed that services needed to be expanded and improved. Duh! Um, yes? After having hacked the transit system to bits, making stops so far apart that people with mobility issues couldn’t even get to their stop and go out to get groceries any more, Translink now wants to know if people would like some services that actually help them get around the city. We would also like HandyDart services brought back – in a way that actually *helps* people with disabilities and elderly people to live their lives and participate in their communities.

Yes, yes we would.

Would we like you to impose further financial hardship on the members of society with the least money and who are the most vulnerable?… uh, no thanks.

Many of you may know that social service programs, things like social assistance and disability, used to provide transit tickets or transit passes to individuals accessing their services. They recognized that transportation was a major barrier for people who were living in poverty. It is no longer the case that any transit subsidy is provided.

Arghh. It just pisses me off that the media is trying to make the people who attended the Translink meetings (in order to stop the over 6% fare increases) look like they are in the minority. They are not.

Transit improvement, I am for it.

Transit fare increase, I am against it.

some new kind of kick

2007-07-05T11:04:00.000-07:00

Woah, I’m here! Here I am!

Well, now that the year is officially halfway over, thought I would check in to see how some of my plans for the year are coming along…
- start learning American Sign Language ~ Nope. Still haven’t found a program that I like or that is within reasonable transit distance from my home.
- make a design plan for renovating my bathroom ~ No. Still totally blank on this one. Last time I checked, Lief and I planned to take this on next summer. The bathroom is ugly, but functional, for now.
- find a new ‘home’ pool and gym (goodbye cameron rec centre and city centre aquatic centre ::sniffle::) ~ Yes and no. Definitely found a new home gym (within 5 minutues walking distance from my apt). Still haven’t walked to Canada Games to see how long it takes to get there. Should also check to make sure there is an adults-only time.
- decide on education plan (masters? tech training? eeep!) ~ Yep…kinda. Miikey is going to help me find a weight training/ fitness theory course to take to get me on the road to being a personal trainer. Hoping to specialize in working with people who have mobility issues.
- see mike and christina get married in hawaii ~ Nooooo! Was way out of financial possibility to go. Thankfully, they had a reception when they got back.
- take a class in vegetarian indian cooking ~ Oh yes! Was it fun? Yes! Would I do it again? No. I would not take a class with the lady that taught the veg indian cooking class, but I am open to other options. Haven’t cooked a single indian dish since the classes.
- go cross country skiing ~ Um, still no. I *do* have plans for snow shoeing this winter though. I hope that counts for something.
- start my BCRPA certification ~ Almost. Please see education plan above.
- launch my button pressing company ~ Woah, also no. There are altogether too many ‘nos’ here. Guess I should get my butt in gear. Come to think of it, I haven’t even been doing that many button jobs lately… mainly just making them for myself and friends.
- buy an additional button press (either 1 + 1/4 or 1 + 1/2 inch diameter buttons) ~ Nope. This will be part of that whole nebulous ‘launch my button pressing company’ plan.
- max out my RRSP contributions (oh yeah!) ~ Done and done!
- have fun with the new book club ~ Oh yes! We are currently reading (and by ‘currently reading’, I mean: I need to read it by Sunday) Heart of Darkness. We will also be watching Apocolypse Now at the book club meeting. Fun *and* creepy. THE HORROR!
- get more sleep ~ Not so much. Maybe this will change when the people upstairs are finally evicted (3 weeks and counting) and/ or Miss Missyfuss finally shuts the fuck up.
- learn more about public policy on the issues of both literacy and dis/ability in BC/ Canada ~ No. Not even close.
- sew some retro-inspired change purse thingies ~ Yeah, yeah yeah! I have made about 7 – 8 of them. So far, the proud owners are Andrea, Christina, and Katie. The rest of y’alls will have to wait for X-mas.
- knit the hells out of some things... and remember to actually document it ~ The knitting continues. The documenting never started.
- remember how much i love my rocky mountain and actually take it out of its resting place at least once this year ~ So far, the pink Rocky is still living at my mom’s place. Boooo!
- learn things about wine from sarah and jules ~ If by ‘learn things’, I mean: call them from the booze store every time I have an alcohol emergency - - - then mission accomplished.
- aquafit! shallow and deep water... bring it on! ~ Not at all. Not even once.
- make concrete plans for visiting iceland ~ I concretely found that I can get there for much cheaper than I thought, and realized that saving a couple hundred dollars each month for that epic of a journey is going to have to wait until early 2008.

The moral of the story is: when you make enough goals, *some* of them are bound to be accomplished.

rock and roll all night

2007-06-21T15:00:00.001-07:00

The ongoing saga with the resident who lives above Lief and has been…. exhausting.

Here are the Coles Notes of the situation, for those of you playing along at home:

- When we moved in, we assumed people were doing night time renovations in the suite above us. The sounds were bizarre. Are they having roller-chair races across the apartment? Are they laying new floor? Do they have multiple pets?
- We waited it out for a while, feeling that because our neighbors had afforded us the time and leniency to carry through with 6 weeks of our own renovations, that we ought to cut them some slack.
- When the noise became unbearable and had gone on for far too long, Lief was the first to act… going upstairs to request that they hold off on the renovations between midnight and eight in the morning, only to realize that there weren’t ‘people’ up there, but rather, one lonely old drunk man. He is the only ‘resident’ of the suite. Anyone else we heard stomping around at 3am was merely his guests.
- As time went on, we came to find out that our single upstairs neighbor was a long time alcoholic who, in the last year, had met a woman who is a drug user and she and her friends had been causing a great deal of disturbance in our building, including, but not limited to: breaking the front door/ buzzer system in order to ‘fix’ it so that they could get into the building without being buzzed in, sorting through people’s recycling in order to gleam personal/ financial information, bringing in johns and prostituting in the hallway, putting out cigarettes and joints on the walls and carpet, and making outrageous levels of noise all night (we are talking from midnight until 8am with breaks no longer than 5 minutes) several nights a week.
- You would think that there would have been multiple complaints to our Strata and to our business manager. At least, that’s what I had figured. When I lodged my first complaint last month, I was quickly contacted by the President of our Strata, thanking me for being willing to stand up on this issue.
- What?
- Turns out that people in the building have been scared of the repercussions of making complaints against the resident of our upstairs neighbor.
- Once the complaint had been filed and the owner had been fined for his tenant’s (our neighbor) breech of the Strata Bylaws, the owner served the tenant with an eviction notice.
- As of July 30th, our upstairs neighbor will have moved out.
- In the meantime, the noise level has increased and become much more intolerable. The last thing we heard was that the police had been at our building to remove friends of the tenant who were sleeping in the garbage room (and any other room they could jimmy into downstairs) and there are about 10 people sleeping on his floor on any given night.

The *obvious* exhaustion that I am feeling is caused by the noises emitted all night from the suite above us. I will quote myself from one of the letters of complaint I have submitted:

There has been loud noise emitted from suite 303 between the hours of 10:30pm and 7:00am - including, but not limited to, stomping, crashing, yelling, screaming, tapping, banging, slamming, music and TV played at high volumes, repetitive opening and closing of sliding doors, windows and cupboards, etc.

*Equally* exhausting has been trying to figure out how to deal with the situation. I spent a lot of time feeling like I was being prejudiced against people living with addictions – feeling like a hypocrite for my not-in-my-backyard attitude. Because, the truth is, I have wanted the tenant’s guests to be thrown out of our building for 6 months now.

I feel fucking terrible for the guy who is actually renting. It is clear that he is old, sad and lonely. Over a decade’s worth of going to the Legion has resulted in what seem to be major health concerns. He has very low mobility, strength and endurance.

However, he has chosen to create an unsafe, upsetting, unhealthy living situation for the other 60 or more residents of our building. The people that he is allowing into the building are not assisting him financially or emotionally - - and I don’t think that they are even keeping him from feeling so lonely. When there are parties upstairs (6 nights out of 7) we *never* hear him. He is passed out in his room… just like he would have been before he allowed people into our building.

And while I wish that things were different and that the resident could stay in his apartment, he has been served his eviction notice and will be leaving in a number of weeks.

I didn’t want him to be evicted, but because he was entirely unwilling to even acknowledge that he has ever had anyone stay in his apartment with him – he was evicted on the basis of the disturbances that his guests have caused.

It all still leaves me feeling uneasy.

InSite: the motion

2007-06-20T17:18:00.001-07:00

for those of you who were as concerned about the possibility of Sam Sullivan selling off the future of InSite in favour of his own pet projects/ 'civil city', i turn your attention to this motion passed in city council. thanks to Nathan Allen for forwarding this on to me. my apologies for the poor formatting.

- choke hold

Mover: Kim CapriSeconder: Mayor Sam Sullivan

Whereas:The Vancouver Coastal Health Authority's Safe Injection Site:Was first formally introduced by former Mayor Phillip Owen withVancouver's Four Pillars Strategy to improve conditions in the Downtown East Side;Is one element of a drug strategy that also includes prevention,treatment and enforcement;Has been successfully operating for the last 3.5 years under a federal regulatory exemption which expires this year;Has been the subject of research studies that support its effectiveness in reducing the harm associated with drug use and addiction;Supports the City of Vancouver's goal of civility on our streets andfinding compassionate solutions to challenging social issues;Supports Vancouver's objectives as identified in Project Civil City;Complements the groundbreaking North American Opiate MedicationInitiative (NAOMI) heroin assisted treatment trials led by researchersat the University of British Columbia and University of Montreal, andfunded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research;Will be an important agenda item on Mayor Sam Sullivan's meeting next month with the Four Pillars Coalition;Has submitted an application to Health Canada for a 3.5 year extension of their federal exemption.

And Whereas:The Inner Change Society's Chronic Addiction Substitute Treatment (CAST) research trial:Will work with addicted people to change their drug habits from illegalstreet drugs to legally available, orally-administered prescriptionmedications;Will analyze the effects on both the user's health and the community at large;Will include regular interaction with health professionals andfacilitate interventions to help users develop an "exit strategy" to endtheir drug dependency;Proposes to help reduce the open drug market and other illegal activity, improve health, increase access to housing and more employment opportunities for individual addicts;Is being developed by some of the most experienced health researchers in the field of mental health and addiction;Is based in Vancouver and has garnered support from a broad range of key stakeholders and an experienced Board of Directors;Is consistent with the drug substitution elements of the Four Pillarsstrategy;Is one element of a drug strategy that also includes prevention,treatment and enforcement;Will be an important agenda item on Mayor Sam Sullivan's meeting next month with the Four Pillars Coalition;Will also require a federal regulatory exemption;Complements the objectives of Vancouver's safe injection site and NAOMI heroin assisted treatment trials;Is likely to receive referrals from Vancouver Coastal Health'ssupervised injection site.

Therefore Be It Resolved That:This Council formally express its support for the Vancouver CoastalHealth Authority's federal application for a 3.5 year extension ofVancouver's Safe Injection Site.

Be it Further Resolved That:This Council formally express its support for the general principles andobjectives of the Inner Change Society's Chronic Addiction SubstituteTreatment (CAST) research trial.

love

2007-06-13T13:44:00.000-07:00

holy crap, sara pt really was as big as a house last night (before she went in to have her babies today).

congratulations to sara and jason (and daughter hadley) and welcome to new *adorable* *healthy* babies sophie and miles.

hi sophie!

hi miles!

i can't wait to meet you.

acadia

2007-05-25T16:43:00.000-07:00

The plans (so far) for the summer include: Halifax, Princeton and Gambier Island.

I keep forgetting that I am actually going to Halifax for a conference. I must remember that I am there to work/ learn and not just to search for rock and roll/ heavy metal gigs and drink wine.

Only 5 more sleeps!

I don’t really know what we are going to do there when I am not in conferences, but I look forward to finding out!

Upon my return, I have a full week off, which I plan to spend at home with my cat. We are going to maybe make sure buttons for people and get going on some crafting jobs that I would like to see come to fruition.

L. and I had tentatively planned to go and stay over on Gambier Island for a whole month this summer, but that was before he took his contract position. Thus, we will have to revisit the idea next year.

If we go and live at Gambier for a month, we plan to coordinate ongoing visits with people. Stay for a couple days – stay for a week! We will make tasty food, play cards, go swimming, and have late night dance parties. You’ll see… but for that, you will have to wait a year.

For now, I make friends with the Haligonians… and maybe some Acadians.

raise your flag

2007-05-23T23:42:00.000-07:00

well, i guess i didn't invoke THE SECRET hard enough. the seller of the amazing table and chairs (below) got so many offers on it that he raised the price by $800.

another one bites the dust.

:-(

rest assured, this is not the end of me obsessing over the Great Danes and their furniture.

great danes

2007-05-23T16:16:00.000-07:00

in order to fully invoke the power of THE SECRET, i am now posting some pictures of the table and chairs that Lief and i, with the help of mr. manzl, are going to pick up from langley after work tomorrow. they are going to look lovely in our little home, and you are all going to enjoy eating tasty food around this sweet piece of danish furniture.

LOVE!

get on your bikes and ride!

2007-05-23T12:30:00.000-07:00

oh gosh, the only thing missing from this girl's article in The Peak (SFU student newspaper) is further criticism of the lack-of-helmet issue when it comes to hipsters. news flash: your hair isn't actually that good!

personally, i would have been more obnoxious if i had written this article - so it's best that she beat me to the punch.

- choke hold

Editor's Voice: Bikes and berets
Stephanie Orford, Arts Editor
With Bike Month in June just around the corner, and Bike to Work Week starting May 28, it’s officially bicycling season again. I suppose some brave souls bicycle all year round, so allow me to qualify that: for those of us who hate traveling outside in the cold rain, it is officially bicycling season again. With the sudden warmth that’s bloomed over the city in the last couple of weeks, myself and others like me have been coaxed out of our layers of scarves, and into our biking gear for another half-a-year of glorious riding.
Unfortunately, in the past few years I’ve observed an irritating trend on the rise, which has me embarrassed to call myself a bicyclist: bikes as a symbol of cool. These aren’t just any bikes, they’re vintage (real or fake), they’re often impractical, and their riders never seem to wear helmets.
Seeing hipsters tool these hip bikes around town pains me. I feel as if I were watching an old friend hanging with the cool kids who only like her because her look is so now. These vintage European-style bikes are so over-ripe in their coolness that even real estate and bank ads have picked them up. They’re now as common as the Vespa in ads for new condos in downtown Vancouver — of course, always with a baguette and a bouquet of flowers in the front basket.
This cool bike trend annoys me not only because hipsters have picked it up, but more because some people actively put more ‘utilitarian’ bicycles down. Some time ago, I read a review in the Globe and Mail [June 17, 2006] of the Dutch bicycle store in Vancouver, Jorg and Olif. I was irked to read a quote from a new Vancouverite and Jorg and Olif customer who said, “When I first came here, I felt shocked. Those trashy mountain bikes were all over the place. This bike has a sense of elegance, and I feel graceful on this bike.” Do you still feel graceful when you’re grunting and sweating up our steep hills with your bike’s heavy frame, awkward upright seating, and ineffectual eight gears?
Yes, the bicycle is a design marvel, but not just because of its looks. It is ludicrous to hear hypocrites like him praise one aspect of a bicycle’s design, for example the elegant European styling, while they ignore or insult other integral design aspects of more utilitarian bikes, such as the light but strong frame, all-terrain-gripping tires, and many useful gears on so-called “trashy” mountain bikes. So what if my bike has a lime green lightning bolt on the frame? I can take it anywhere, from cruising on the Sea Wall to heading up Burnaby Mountain.
All grumbling aside, I do think many of these vintage or faux-vintage cruisers are attractive. They are perfect in form and function for a particular type of riding: cruising slowly on flat ground, leaning back on the wide, springy seat, and watching the world go by, going no place in particular. Alternatively, the skinny ‘70s-looking road bikes with the curved drop handle bars are a good compromise between the cruisers and mountain bikes. They’ve got the cool cachet, but can still handle the commute.
Although I had been a staunch mountain bike advocate, a bikeless friend of mine recently opened my eyes to these benefits of cruisers. Over the weekend he went for his first bike ride in several years. He cruised around downtown, Stanley Park, and out to Kits Beach, and said it felt great. He saw the city from a new perspective, felt the wind against his face, and even found more people talked to him than normal. These are the true joys of bicycling, and you can enjoy them no matter what your bike looks like.

fish hook, open eye

2007-05-17T16:13:00.000-07:00

I have been getting a friend to do acupuncture treatments on me. In mere weeks he will be finished his doctorate in traditional Chinese medicine. In the meantime, he does treatments for me. I go and hang out on the futon in his living room and he sticks a bunch of needles in me.

I should note that I have basically no understanding of acupuncture. For reals. You get to the point when you have a chronic illness that you pretty much stop caring about the science and start caring about the results.

I have had acupuncture treatments on and off for almost 5 years now, administered by practitioners with various levels of training and experience. In the past I have not made a long enough commitment to it in order to garner any significant results. As with many healing styles, one tends to feel a lot worse before they feel better.

When it comes to pain and enduring strange and invasive procedures, I kind of feel that I have already paid my dues. I have had all kinds of tests done to me – poking and prodding – pills and concoctions. It takes a lot for me to sign myself up for any medically related endeavors.

But considering that my doctor friend has personally suffered from some of the same things that I am asking him to treat, I believe him when he says that he will be able to help reduce some of my symptoms - - - perhaps even help me to rebalance parts of myself that are causing physical and emotional stress that I haven’t yet begun to acknowledge.

I have only gone for a handful of appointments with him. Not to jump the gun or anything, but I can already see improvements.

You won’t be able to recognize those improvements in my health, but I can.

*******************************************************************

I felt really sad driving along in the car with Lief a few days ago. I have felt so negative, so limited, so exhausted by my health issues lately… and it has been showing. And despite me feeling all of these feelings – and sometimes expressing them whether or not I have wanted to…. the truth is that the people around me do not know what I have gone through in the last 4 years. Being, as one of my lovely friends would say, a ‘chronic babe’ is an amazingly lonely place to be. And I am beginning to see that a lot of that loneliness is self imposed.

sour sour times

2007-05-16T12:52:00.001-07:00

In the past few weeks, it has become clear to me that I have some skill in the realm of print design.

Keeping in mind that I have no Illustrator or Photoshop to work with on my office computer, I am forced to harness Word to its fullest extend.

It comes as no surprise that the talent for design that I show some promise in is the talent for recreating poor design. Make no mistake, purposefully bad design isn’t as easy as you may think.

It takes a certain…. I don’t know what… to decide to create storefront signage using Comic Sans. It is not second nature to everyone to use italics in order to highlight important and also random words in an advertisement fax.

Last week I was given the single most hilarious and super-fun task to do at my job. It involved creating several documents using bad, but believable design. To my surprise, and perhaps to the surprise of my boss, I not only excelled at this task – but also told him that it was the most fun I have had since I started working here 3 years ago.

This all strikes me as being kind of amusing, particularly because I had never really stopped to consider whether I had any talent or inclination for print design.

I am not sure why I had not considered it, but now I think I will. I wonder if I could have as much fun doing *good* design.

INSITE - CKNW May 2, 2007

2007-05-02T15:43:00.000-07:00

here is a 'news' article from CKNW from today. this is a gentle reminder that the INSITE issue has not gone away. don't even get me started.

The future for safe injection site looking bleak.
May, 02 2007 - 3:10 PM
VANCOUVER - A new report issued today is painting a bleak picture of the long-term success of vancouver's supervised safe injection site.
The report published in the Journal of Global Drug Policy and Practice is being touted by the drug prevention network of canada -- a group long opposed to the safe injection site.
The report notes some serious problems in the reporting and interpretation of findings from the safe injection site.
Group spokesperson, Randy White says in other words, the expensive harm reduction program currently in place just isn't working.
White also says funds should instead be going into badly needed drug treatment and prevention programs.

the district sleeps alone

2007-04-27T14:10:00.000-07:00

I may as well just get it out there. I know that a few of my friends that are involved in city-centred activities or areas of work/ study read my blog – but none of this will come as a surprise to them.

I find the entire realm of city planning to be really, really fucking elitist. I mean elitist to the point where even the mention of it kind of irritates me. I have done my best to be supportive of friends involved in this realm because I know that they, personally, are not jerks. I am under the impression that many of them also find the genre to be uppity and irrelevant and are trying to do something about it. And there must be something to it that so many of the people that I like and admire are people who are involved in urban planning/ design and community development stuff.

And so, I have avoided the whole genre as much as possible.

Until now…

I recently took some friends to see The Radiant City. No offense to the directors and theorists involved in the making of this ‘documentary’, but it certainly wasn’t the quality or the poignant nature of the film that has made me rethink my moratorium on city-planning. I think *timing* had a lot to do with my change of mind.

*** I should probably do an entry on my feelings/ reactions/ observations of The Radiant City – stay tuned ***

Rather than allowing the sheer narrow-mindedness of how much of city planning comes across – with the creation of dichotomies, lack of understanding of ‘the other’, the inability to include today’s reality in positive solutions for the future – I have decided to seek our areas of city planning that I actually want to participate in.

I have a strong feeling that my educational background will actually allow me to bring some theories and processes to the floor that seem to be conspicuously missing from the realm of city/ suburb/ rural planning. It seems that planners could learn a thing or two from the application of race and gender studies theory from 20 – 30 years ago.

For now, my city of interest is my home, the City of New Westminster. Suburban or not, I still find myself choosing to stay at the fringes.

goodbye blue monday

2007-04-13T14:45:00.000-07:00

nice, nice
very nice
all these people in the same device.

goodbye kurt vonnegut. it's been a wild ride.

sun in my mouth

2007-03-30T10:18:00.000-07:00

this morning, i managed to buy 4 tickets to BJORK.

yes, for the second time in 5 years, i will see ms. bjork in concert, dressed to the nines in her questionable/ adorable attire. i pray that bonnie prince billy is not opening for her this time. he came *this* close to ruining the seattle show.

bjork bjork bjork.

i guess this is going to make me want to go to iceland even more than i already do.

:: sigh ::

dalia and i will hold hands like grade 8 girls and cry through most of the show. i would put money on it.

last man standing

2007-03-23T08:59:00.000-07:00

If you are someone who has a neurodegenerative disease that is going to cripple and torture you in the most unexpected ways, I urge you to not look up that neurodegenerative disease on www.youtube.com to see what other people (including the frustrated, sad, lonely, angry, traumatized children or life-partners of people with this disease) have to say.

Especially do not do this at 7:45am when you get in to work, before your boss gets there. Though I guess at least this way you can openly cry while you watch each of the little videos.

In some strange way it is a privilege for me to be able to hear about the terrible things that *could* come my way. Other folks that I have met who have Multiple Sclerosis have had the more feared symptoms (loss of bladder control, becoming wheelchair/ scooter-bound, blindness/ optic neuritis, slurred speech, etc) encroach upon their lives before they had the chance to hear other people’s stories – before they even had a chance to feel *anything* about what was to come.

I, however, have been given plenty of time to fuck with my own mind. According to my neurologist, my MS is considered to be ‘extremely mild’ – and has been so for almost 5 years now.

This leads me to wonder, on mornings like now, just how bad things could get.

the muffs

2007-03-22T15:00:00.001-07:00

Holy crap. Lief and I leave for Sooke/ Victoria/ Sydney in less than 48 hours.

We have been duly warned that we should cough up the big bucks and actually make a ferry reservation, but I don’t think that is going to happen. It is unclear to me as to when Spring Break actually happens – and who actually is on holidays at this time. Because Simon Fraser University did not have any kind of Spring Break or Reading Break while I went to school there, it has been eons since I attended a school that took holidays at this time. Therefore, I plead ignorance and hope that creepy teenage boys wearing Snoop Dog T-shirts and disturbing teenage girls who worship Nellie Furtado are not on our ferry… or at least that their presence doesn’t prevent us from getting out of town by mid-day on Saturday.

And so the fun begins. I can’t even remember the last time that I drove a car onto the ferry. Though I manage to get to various islands and mainland stops on a pretty regular basis, I tend to be a walk on passenger. Though I suppose I used to take a couple of ferries (by car or by bus) to get up to Powell River. But I think that it has been almost 2 years since I did that trek.

I hereby urge the lovely and talented Douglas Coupland to address Vancouverites and our ferry-taking habits in the way that he addressed Vancouverites and our Seattle-visiting habits in City of Glass.

I cannot resist a veggie burger en route, no matter how full I am or how not-heated-properly the burgers are. Fuck it. While I am at it, I will play some pinball.

I look forward to being in Sooke and finding out how eerily similar Lief’s cousin Megan and I are. I can already tell. I can spot a soft-heated loud-mouth from a mile away. My fingers are crossed that we will be able to check out the potholes while we are there. http://www.sookepotholes.com/swimming_sooke_pot_holes.html

From there we will visit another Meghan, only this time she is no relation to Lief. She is a stellar lady who I have had about 20 mutual friends in common with for the last 5 years and didn’t even know it. Luckily, we met face to face at Yvonne’s birthdoo (it was 2 years ago, I can’t f*ing believe it) and have been interweb buddies ever since.

The gang of us is going to eat some grub and then go and meet up with my cousin-once-removed. For those of you playing along at home, my cousin Erin moved over to Victoria and then promptly got pregnant. She and her man-friend are going to come and meet us for drinks (some less alcoholic than others) in some kinda local dive. It will be a triple date, I hope.

Our final day on the island will be spent hanging out with my Aunt Jan. I have insisted to her that Lief and I will go with her to do any activity she wants. I am hoping that she chooses yoga. I am also hoping that Lief has to squeeze into some of her old LuLulemon pants in order to participate. In fact, that is the sole reason that I am going on this trip.

Amazingly enough, one of my actual cousins (not to be confused with a cousin-once-removed) will be there at my Aunt’s place. I think that this will be more family-related activity than I have had… ever.

As usual, I welcome any recommendations that people may have. Good places to stop for a bite to eat? Record shops we have to check out? Tattoo shops that we have to visit? Let me know. I like to learn.

C U Next Tuesday. For reals.

next exit

2007-03-16T19:32:00.000-07:00

The music scene here in Vancouver slays me.

Today I went to pick up tickets to the Ted Leo & the Pharmacists show and to Interpol.

Interpol I found out about by reading the very dodgy music section in the Georgia Straight. The GS seems to be waffling these days – not sure if they are going to list all the things that they have in their print version on the website. Thus, forcing people like me (who only read the Georgia Straight for the Music section, as a general rule) to actually pick up a copy/ waste paper.

I am not even going to waste my breath talking about Discorder. I am careful not to talk too much smack about a magazine that friends, past and present, have been involved in. It seems safe to say that their motto is ‘if you don’t already know about it – you won’t read about it here until after it has happened… if at all’.

The Ted Leo show, though I am a dedicated lover of the band, I had not heard hide nor hair about until Sarah emailed me asking if I had bought my ticket yet. She found out about it only because she was already at Scratch Records to buy something else.

And while *I* was at Scratch, I also realized that The Frames are coming. I have seen no indication of this anywhere else. What the fuck? How often do they come here (from Ireland)? Not often. That’s for fucking sure. To be sure, to be sure!

For the last 15 years I have tried to support places like Scratch records. I have tried to save some cash by buying tickets there – and tried to avoid using Ticketmaster wherever possible.

Now that Scratch and other places are basically selling tickets at their places that have already been processed by Ticketmaster, I just don’t think that I can afford to attempt to support them anymore. The service charges are fucking ridiculous. If I had known that the Interpol tickets were going to end up costing $36 (I think they were advertised as $28.50), I actually wouldn’t have bought them. Ticketmaster takes $5 of my money and Scratch takes another chunk. And for what? Dude at Scratch lets his telephone buddy know that he will ::sigh:: have to call them back. He has an ::eye roll:: customer or something. Moral of the story is: if Ticketmaster is going to save me $3 on a ticket price, Ticketmaster wins.

Now that there is basically only one mid sized venue – I can see that the Commodore is going to be banking on its monopoly. Ticket prices are beyond inflated.

Maybe the Red Room will step up to the plate and cut back on their halter-top dance-party nights and start getting some more live acts in. Chances are that Pub 340 is going to be taking up more space on my dancecard too.

I guess I am showing my age when I recount tales of $3 shows at Southwall and $8 shows at the Starfish Room.

It would surprise most of you to know that the music scene in Winnipeg is far superior to what we have going on here. More venues. Cheaper shows. Less places that kick you out at 10:30pm to make room for canned music dance parties.

Hopefully the nostalgic sounds of Interpol will soothe my agitated mind when they arrive in April. Until then….

Blargh!

... trail of the dead

2007-03-01T15:56:00.001-08:00

I don’t want to have to follow the trail of email or archives of my online planning calendar to get a picture of ‘what I have been up to’.

It’s true that I feel as if I haven’t had a single day to ‘do nothing’, even though I am sure that I have had several of them in the past month. Being a purposefully un-busy person doesn’t seem to be going as planned.

The combination of Multiple Sclerosis, Avonex, Alertec (for those of you playing along at home – these are meds for narcoleptics that are also given to MS patients to deal with fatigue), Mersyndol, muscle relaxants, and high levels of codeine seem, surprisingly, to be affecting my energy levels. In the past 2 years, less than 20 days have gone by that I have *not* taken some form of downer or pain killer. It may be time for me to realize that the ‘vacation’ that I hope to get by taking these meds ISN’T GOING TO HAPPEN. I have almost forgotten what my body felt like before I reached out for all these pills. It is often hard to tell the difference between physical pain and emotional frustration.

A friend of mine, who has been my other half for 15 years, and I finally got a chance to go out for a long dinner and catch each other up on our seemingly adult lives. After a lengthy discussion about recreation and health – she asked me if I had been able to take my own advice – if I had mourned for a body/ nervous system that I used to have, and moved on to actually enjoying the things that my body now does/ is capable of doing.

I don’t lie about this shit, man. As I have said a million times, I chose early on to NOT be a happy face painted on Multiple Sclerosis. I will not pretend that things are okay when they are not. I will not pretend that things have healed when they have not. I will not pretend that things have been mourned, when clearly, they have not.

While I think it is safe to say that I am through the worst of it, the years where I wanted to erase my body/ smash my body/ ignore my body/ suffocate my body – I certainly haven’t re-engaged with it.

I don’t dance like I used to.

I don’t really know what this post is about. I guess that I am feeling so busy – and maybe part of that busyness (as it is for most people) is to avoid dealing with the dark, looming things that we keep in our lives.

hXc judge

2007-02-22T18:56:00.000-08:00

It was recently brought to my attention that I come off as being judgmental. For many of you that know me, this may seem overwhelmingly obvious. To me, it was not.

Truth be told, I was a little shocked. I wondered how my ‘insides’ had gotten so bungled and misshapen that when they got to the ‘outside’ that they had turned into exactly the opposite of what I had intended them to be.

Deep breath.

Aside from my desire to be defensive, to blame other people for misinterpreting my actions/ my personality – it actually made me wonder why so many people have told me so many secrets over the years. It made me wonder why people would make ‘confessions’ to someone who is so judgmental.

And then it hit me….

Much like my falling in love with a compulsive liar at the age of 16, there is something even more *particularly* meaningful about exposing your underbelly scars to someone who is liable to rip them apart and show you just how nasty they are. Being close to that liar made me feel like I was the only person alive that could be trusted with the truth.

But it’s true. I find myself thinking “Who does shit like that? How does someone who acts like that actually have ‘friends’? You have got to be fucking joking.”

Tonight, over drinks and platter chatter, I found out that two people who are close to me have gone so far beyond stepping over a personal/ respect boundary that I could not even sit there with them. It actually boggles my mind that they would not think of their actions as being inappropriate – as they would both be deeply hurt (on both an emotional and intellectual level) if someone did to them what they did to me.

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

As ungodly as I am, the concept of ‘Do unto others’ seems beyond elementary.

For the love of fuck… Don’t lie. Don’t make excuses. Don’t fucking rationalize it. If you do something that is absolutely offensive and hurtful to the ones that you love, learn how to be a better friend.

It’s true. I am judging whether or not I can trust you. I am judging whether or not I want to stand toe to toe with you. And I am also judging my own moves – and ways that they may impact you, for good or for bad.

I want to throw up right now.

conjunction junction

2007-02-21T16:17:00.001-08:00

How very productive of me.

Had a bad morning… a little something called Interferon hangover prevented me from going out for breakfast at Dockers before sliding in to work at 10:30am. By the time noon rolled around, I was in much less pain – yet decidedly incapable of focusing on my work.

When in doubt, run errands!

The roundtrip tour, by foot, of downtown Vancouver lasted from about 3pm – 5:15pm. Whew!

The good thing about running errands is that they are so nonspecific. As long as I managed to mail some business-related materials and also stop by to do some company banking, I figured it was a good use of my time.

As luck would have it, I also managed to squeeze in *a few* personal stops along the way.

What personal errands did I run today? Well, let me tell you:
- Picked up a schwack of tickets for the Saturday portion of the Vancouver International Burlesque Festival. For those of you playing along at home, it’s true that I am not a huge fan of burlesque. I have done my fair share of strutting and shaking it on stage – and I wholeheartedly support burlesque as an art form, but the truth is that I find it boring and/ or annoying. In this case, my brother has chosen to celebrate his birthdoo at the show. Happily, Lief and I both now have tickets and are well on our way to having costumes to wear to the show. The costumes involve short shorts.
- Bought tickets for Lief, Emme and I to attend the Katari Taiko show at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre. It sounds like Reiko and her crew have been working their butts off to get this performance together. I look forward to lots of yelling. I like yelling.
- Browsed for shoes. Six years later and I have still not found black pointy flats. Kitten heel? No thank you. But alas, I keep looking.
- Also looked for replacement green mary janes. Why do I always seem drawn to green mary jane’s? I dunno. I had to turf the last pair a few weeks ago and my business casual wardrobe is suffering because of it.
- Ate lunch at a food fair place called ‘Opa!’. You may be savvy enough to guess that it was Greek food. It was fine. For the $8 I paid, I would probably not eat there again. I give it a 4 out of 10. Luckily, as I was munching away, Elsie walked by. Even without my glasses I was able to recognize her and hail her down. Seeing her made the ‘Opa!’ experience worth while.
- I browsed for both panties and a new swimsuit. Yes, I know I have a million pairs of unnawears, but I am always on the lookout for a style that will give me a boner *and* fit on my butt. The new swimsuit is absolutely necessary – but nothing was found. I checked a couple of the sports stores at Pacific Centre and they do not carry TYR, the only brand that makes a speed suit that actually fits my ass and titties. The hunt shall continue.

As you can see, despite minor setbacks and feelings of extreme pain and nausea, I managed to have a relatively productive day.

whores of babylon

2007-02-09T15:29:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I got a message from my mom, saying that she had a question about the internet.

My guess was that she was wondering why her hotmail wasn’t working (again). As adorable as she is, I am entirely unsure as to why she wanted me to get her an email account, considering that she has an ongoing problem of ‘failing to sign in for 30 consecutive days’.

But I digress…

Before bed, I finally get a chance to phone her back and ask her what her question about the internet was.

Turns out that she wants to buy something over the internet and wants to know if it is safe to give her VISA number out.

My first question is: What is it that you would like to buy?

Like 10 million other humans, my mom watched the Oprah show yesterday and heard about this amazing thing called The Secret. The Secret is a book and video project that involves all sorts of spiritually fulfilled people – telling you how you, too, can be fulfilled.

Why do I know this? Well, a friend of mine, a recovering AA person with an admittedly Amway type of job asked me if I would be open minded enough to watch it.

Hells, I have paid people $50 and hour to cure my MS by having them push on my tendons, so why not give The Secret the benefit of the doubt?

Sitting down to watch The Secret, it looked kinda hippy-ish/ eclectic/ cheesy, but that’s okay. The initial message is great. Filled with common sense. Some might even say that we have heard it many times before…

THINK POSITIVE

Okey dokes. Moving right along then… well, the thing is that The Secret doesn’t actually move along past that. The whole ‘secret’ is that there are laws of positive attraction. If you ACTUALLY will good things into your life, they will come. If you do it wrong or fake it or are a crappy person, they WON’T.

The stars of this DVD, outrageously fulfilled people with all sorts of hairstyles, repeat over and over – in as many superficial ways as possible – that ‘you are the master/ mistress of your own destiny’, ‘there is more than enough wealth and abundance for everyone’.

The philosophy, while with some merit, is individualistic to the point where it pretty much asserts that if you are down and out, doing badly, fat, poor, depressed, oppressed, bored, etc that it is because you have willed those things into being. The lack of *any* understanding of community/ society/ systems is actually angering… at least to me.

So when my momma wanted to buy this video, I told her not to waste her money – and that she may want to reconsider wasting her time. I offered to bring our copy over to her (See? Abundance is everywhere!), but I told her that I could sum it up for her in a few words.

IF THERE IS ANYTHING WRONG IN YOUR LIFE, IT IS BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T INVOKE ANYTHING BETTER

‘nuff said.

A tiny little part of me felt like “Oh crap! I *totally* just invoked negativity into my life because I talked shit about The Secret”.

Fear it.

everything is going extremely well

2007-01-30T12:40:00.000-08:00

Not so good.

I am at the point where I am actually annoying myself. My health, energy level and general outlook has been *dismal* for the last month or so… perhaps longer.

Some of this negativity can be directly attributed to my usual/ chronic/ ongoing/ totally boring health problems. Some of it can be attributed to side-effects from interferons. The only new development in the health area is that my migraines may be caused, out of the blue, by my birth control pills. Though it seems odd to me that, after being on them for about 10 years, my birth control pills would all of a sudden cause migraine/ cluster headaches, my GP let me know that I “owed it to myself” to find out if that is what is causing them. His suggestion is to use condoms for a couple of months and see what happens to the headaches.

I am also concerned that the mold around the windows in my apartment may be causing some sort of airborne contamination. What the hells do I know about mold? Nothing! I guess I am going to have to learn a few things quick.

I estimate that it will cost between $2,000 – 5,000 to have both the sliding glass door and the bedroom windows replaced with mid-quality double-paned windows. The ones that I currently have are singled paned and they sweat like a son of a bitch. The sill in the bedroom is rife with mold and the metal sill around the glass door often actually pools with several millimeters of water. Yeah. That shit *can’t* be good for you.

It irritates me that I have to be so conscious of these things – that health related issues seem to dictate so much of my life. I feel worn out by waking up each morning and having to hope that sleep has provided me with some amount of rejuvenation.

And here is the kicker… I am actually very happy. In the midst of feeling physically decimated, I am loving my job more than ever, I feel settled in to my new home, I am surrounded by wonderful humans – both new friends and old, I have lots of plans to learn things and travel, my button business is going well and I have had the chance to create some amazing designs for people, and my finances seem to be in very good order. What gives? How can I feel so bad on so many days? Fuck, I dunno.

All I know is that I need some sort of relief. I wish I knew how to make that happen.

red hot and dance

2007-01-18T19:45:00.000-08:00

I have been waiting for about 6 months to take a vegetarian Indian cooking class that is only *sometimes* offered through the Vancouver School Board.

The day is almost upon us.

On February 12th and 19th I will be learning how to make Indian food… fast and easy!

******

COOKING: FAST & EASY SIMPLY INDIAN VEGETERIAN MEALS

Learn how to create dinner meals fast & easy...& economical too! Join Tahera & learn the easiest ways & tips on making Aloo Gobi, Masala, different kinds of Potato Curries, Kholapuri Eggplant cold dish, a variety of Daal dishes & Indian Breads that go with Curries, such as Rotis, Spicy Puris & more! Also learn how to make the famous Puri, Wada Chaat & other Chaat dishes too. Course features Tahera's book "Simply Indian" which will be available for purchase at a reduced rate
in class. Bring a container & apron.

******

I am hoping that this will add a little fever to my usual rotation of quick/ tasty/ marginally healthy dinners.

There will be the added excitement of having both Lief and Sarah in the class with me… so if I forget how to do something I can always get them to cook for me. 

To add to the fury, David, Julia and I are also taking a class on making vegan soaps.

*****

Vegan Hand-Milled Soaps

Great Family Fun! In this hands-on class, create healthy handmade suds with natural herbs, spices, and scents using vegetable based soap blocks. Make a ginger n' ginseng soap, an almond exfoliating facial bar, decorative soap balls, citrus dish soap and men's shaving soap. Recipes for soap on a rope and powdered hand-wash soap. No previous
soap making experience required!

*****

I can hardly wait for ‘Family Fun’!

After buying David a few vegan soaps while we were down in Seattle at the D.I.Y. craft fair, I feel oddly compelled to try it out. I am not sure if I care, particularly, whether my soaps are vegan or not – but if given the choice I would rather make ‘em myself and know what’s in them. Some of you can already guess what you will be getting as your Christmas/ Birthday/ Snowflake Day/ Housewarming presents in the coming year. Word!

Slowly but surely I am crossing things of my ‘list of things to make happen this year’. I will report back as things develop.

While I am eagerly taking these small session community courses, the question of continuing on with my academic education remains unsolved…

under the blade

2007-01-10T10:35:00.000-08:00

I flew into a panic and a rage when I found out that there had been “production problems” with the birth control I am on.

Like most of the women I know, I had a great deal of problems getting on to birth control (yes folks, that was about 15 years ago). I changed pills about 4 – 6 times before settling on Alesse. Unfortunately for me, this low dose pill is the only one that my body and brain could handle without complete malfunction.

In establishing myself on a pill I dealt with the following issues:
- weight gain of about 30 pounds.
- boob increase from a D to an E cup.
- extended ‘periods’ for the first 6 months. During most of that time I had some amount of bleeding or ‘spotting’ throughout the months.
- mood swings, confusion, anger, lethargy, soreness, achy-ness, crying, pain.
- diarrhea.
- cramps and very sore breasts,

A few weeks ago I go to the pharmacy to pick up my pills, only to find out that they *still* do not have any Alesse in stock. They suggest I make an appointment with my doctor and get a prescription for some kinda other pill.

I tell them that their suggestion is:
a/ not possible. I have no time or ability to get out to see my doctor and get a new prescription before the time at which I need to start my next cycle of pills.
b/ not a good idea. I have had major problems in getting my body and brain to adjust to the pills that I am on – and a change is bound to mean very negative things.

Too bad for me!

The pharmacy lady is huffy, but agrees to call my doctor and do the prescription change over the phone.

A couple days later I pick up my prescription for three months worth of Marvelon. Fuck.

Though the media reports out of Toronto suggest that 50% of the back-stocks of Alesse have been replenished, this is (at the time) not the case here in Vancouver. My only other option was to sit down with the phone book and call every pharmacy in the Lower Mainland and ask if they could *please* allow me to come and get some Alesse. Seeing that the *three* pharmacies that I normally deal with do not have any in stock, nor do they know when/ if they will get some – this task is too daunting for me.

I start taking the Marvelon.

Oh good lord.

The last two weeks have been a confusing blur of depression, hysterics, feelings of violence and absolute inability to control myself. I have been, a la Pulp Fiction, “pretty fucking far from okay.” There has been a lot of crying. Let’s just say that.

Now, I am not suggesting that Mavelon is an inferior medication to Alesse. My point is that birth control pills are a very specific thing and that yanking someone off a prescription that actually works for them is a bad idea.

‘Luckily’, last night when I went to my pharmacy, they had some Alesse back in stock. Despite the *excruciating* 20 minute wait until I could actually get some and take it home, I am thankful that I was able to go off the Marvelon as of last night.

I am hoping that over the next few days that my hormones readjust and that my brain and face no longer feel like there are going to explode with pressure/ anger. I am also hoping that I will stop feeling like I have to throw up every hour or two. It would be nice if I also didn’t feel like hiding under a blanket all the time. Those would all be good things.

If you haven’t seen me over the last couple of weeks, be thankful. It has been pretty ugly.

new kind of kick

2006-12-31T18:11:00.000-08:00

resolutions? goals? same thing....

things that i intend to make happen in 2007, both big and small:
- start learning American Sign Language
- make a design plan for renovating my bathroom
- find a new ‘home’ pool and gym (goodbye cameron rec centre and city centre aquatic centre ::sniffle::)
- decide on education plan (masters? tech training? eeep!)
- see mike and christina get married in hawaii
- take a class in vegetarian indian cooking
- go cross country skiing
- start my BCRPA certification
- launch my button pressing company
- buy an additional button press (either 1 + 1/4 or 1 + 1/2 inch diameter buttons)
- max out my RRSP contributions (oh yeah!)
- have fun with the new book club
- get more sleep
- learn more about public policy on the issues of both literacy and dis/ability in BC/ Canada
- sew some retro-inspired change purse thingies
- knit the hells out of some things... and remember to actually document it
- remember how much i love my rocky mountain and actually take it out of its resting place at least once this year
- learn things about wine from sarah and jules
- aquafit! shallow and deep water... bring it on!
- make concrete plans for visiting iceland

...to be continued.

hope everyone has a lovely new years. i look forward to rocking the hells outta stuff with you in 2007.

johnny rad

2006-12-31T10:58:00.000-08:00

don't you wish this was going in *your* pinstriping portfolio!?!

strangle hold pinstriped the hell out of a gator. john deere, eat your heart out.

john cusack, dennis hopper, and me

2006-12-20T11:12:00.000-08:00

it turns out that i am a myers briggs ENFJ

anyone surprised by that? i thought not.

- choke_hold

Extraverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging
by Joe Butt
Profile: ENFJ
Revision: 3.0
Date of Revision: 23 Feb 2005

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ENFJs are the benevolent 'pedagogues' of humanity. They have tremendous charisma by which many are drawn into their nurturant tutelage and/or grand schemes. Many ENFJs have tremendous power to manipulate others with their phenomenal interpersonal skills and unique salesmanship. But it's usually not meant as manipulation -- ENFJs generally believe in their dreams, and see themselves as helpers and enablers, which they usually are.

ENFJs are global learners. They see the big picture. The ENFJs focus is expansive. Some can juggle an amazing number of responsibilities or projects simultaneously. Many ENFJs have tremendous entrepreneurial ability.

ENFJs are, by definition, Js, with whom we associate organization and decisiveness. But they don't resemble the SJs or even the NTJs in organization of the environment nor occasional recalcitrance. ENFJs are organized in the arena of interpersonal affairs. Their offices may or may not be cluttered, but their conclusions (reached through feelings) about people and motives are drawn much more quickly and are more resilient than those of their NFP counterparts.

ENFJs know and appreciate people. Like most NFs, (and Feelers in general), they are apt to neglect themselves and their own needs for the needs of others. They have thinner psychological boundaries than most, and are at risk for being hurt or even abused by less sensitive people. ENFJs often take on more of the burdens of others than they can bear.

TRADEMARK: "The first shall be last"
This refers to the open-door policy of ENFJs. One ENFJ colleague always welcomes me into his office regardless of his own circumstances. If another person comes to the door, he allows them to interrupt our conversation with their need. While discussing that need, the phone rings and he stops to answer it. Others drop in with a 'quick question.' I finally get up, go to my office and use the call waiting feature on the telephone. When he hangs up, I have his undivided attention!

Functional Analysis:

Extraverted Feeling
Extraverted Feeling rules the ENFJ's psyche. In the sway of this rational function, these folks are predisposed to closure in matters pertaining to people, and especially on behalf of their beloved. As extraverts, their contacts are wide ranging. Face-to-face relationships are intense, personable and warm, though they may be so infrequently achieved that intimate friendships are rare.

Introverted iNtuition

Like their INFJ cousins, ENFJs are blessed through introverted intuition with clarity of perception in the inner, unconscious world. Dominant Feeling prefers to find the silver lining in even the most beggarly perceptions of those in their expanding circle of friends and, of course, in themselves. In less balanced individuals, such mitigation of the unseemly eventually undermines the ENFJ's integrity and frequently their good name. In healthier individuals, deft use of this awareness of the inner needs and desires of others enables this astute type to win friends, influence people, and avoid compromising entanglements.
The dynamic nature of their intuition moves ENFJs from one project to another with the assurance that the next one will be perfect, or much more nearly so than the last. ENFJs are continually looking for newer and better solutions to benefit their extensive family, staff, or organization.

Extraverted Sensing
Sensing is extraverted. ENFJs can manage details, particularly those necessary to implement the prevailing vision. These data have, however, a magical flexible quality. Something to be bought can be had for a song; the same something is invaluable when it's time to sell. (We are not certain, but we suspect that such is the influence of the primary function.) This wavering of sensory perception is made possible by the weaker and less mature status with which the tertiary is endowed.

Introverted Thinking
Introverted Thinking is least apparent and most enigmatic in this type. In fact, it often appears only when summoned by Feeling. At times only in jest, but in earnest if need be, Thinking entertains as logical only those conclusions which support Feeling's values. Other scenarios can be shown invalid or at best significantly inferior. Such "Thinking in the service of Feeling" has the appearance of logic, but somehow it never quite adds up.

Introverted Thinking is frequently the focus of the spiritual quest of ENFJs.

uno, dos, tres, quatro

2006-12-18T11:14:00.000-08:00

oh yes, a year goes by fast.

happy anniversary, lief.

if anyone is wondering where we are, we are enjoying the human-soup that is harrison hot springs.

see you in a couple days. hasta luego.

bootylicious

2006-12-13T09:12:00.000-08:00

The jury is still out on whether or not our neighbors are as happy as we are about our new window coverings in the bedroom. Thanks to amazing donations received at the house-swarming party last week, Lief and I had more than half the money that we needed to purchase some lovely chocolate-brown blinds for the bedroom.

Last night Lief put them up. They look fabulous. For reals. Come over and see them for yourself if you don’t believe me.

Not only did we collect cash for the bedroom blinds, but we also collected about 40 pairs of socks to give out to INSITE participants. I was totally overwhelmed by the quality and quantity of sock-wear that you guys brought. From what I understand, socks can actually be a life-saver (and a blessing) on really bad/ cold/ damp days here in Vancouver. I am sure that these socks were distributed within less than half a day at INSITE. That gives you a small indication of the need of these types of goods in the east side. Thank you.

To top it all off, Lief and I now have a heap of booze at our house. *Everyone* brought more booze than they drank. Subsequently, we now have a liquor cabinet that is rock and rolla, outta controlla. The only thing that we don’t have is whiskey (which I discovered upon inquiring about a whiskey sour last night). Most of the alcohol comes in the form of hard liquor. C’mon over and mix yourself up something good. A special thank you, of course, goes to Sarah – who mixed drinks for even the most vague drinkers at the party (“Yeah, sure. I would like a drink. Um, I dunno what I want... Surprise me!”). Thanks Sarah! We couldn’t have gotten tipsy without you.

ship building

2006-12-07T09:27:00.000-08:00

As many of you know, I have been going through training to become a one-on-one literacy tutor for adults who are trying to gain literacy skills. The training has been intensive, sometimes intimidating, and certainly enlightening.

Wrapping one’s mind around the meta-processes of ‘how one learns to read’ and ‘how one learns to comprehend’ is boggling.

Phonetics? Sight words? There are so many different ways to go about *reading*.

As many of you also know, I was surprised to find out that the day class for literacy students is made up mainly of adults who have mental disabilities and brain injuries, etc.

One of the students in the day class who does not have any cognitive disabilities is a younger girl. I would guess that she is about 18 or 19 years old. She comes to class with an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter who both relays what the teacher/ classmates say during class and also verbally speaks her words for her and responds to questions for her during class.

I have been thinking for many years about learning ASL. It sounds silly, but watching the literacy student and her interpreter speak just looked so engaging and *fun*. I want to talk with my hands too!

So, I have started the process of looking around for ASL classes. I know that both Vancouver Community College and Douglas College have actual *programs* (you have to do the VCC one first, before you are eligible for the Douglas one). But the problem is that you have to have your basic ASL levels before you can apply to VCC. Complicated!

I have started looking around online and also asking friends who might have info in this area. So far, I have learned that I know pretty much nothing about hearing impairments/ challenges and also know pretty much nothing about deaf culture. I have a lot to learn. And hopefully, I’m going to!

stay hungry - part four

2006-11-22T10:27:00.000-08:00

last ones...

stay hungry - part three

2006-11-22T10:26:00.000-08:00

still more.

stay hungry - part two

2006-11-22T10:24:00.000-08:00

more more more.

stay hungry - part one

2006-11-22T10:16:00.000-08:00

i was going to sort through these and just post a few... but why would i?

fabulous.

how amazing is it that we ran into this car show near bellingham. hopefully some of these photos chold took actually convey the phenomenal pinstriping work that was on these vehicles.

diggit.

you'll shoot your eye out

2006-11-17T15:14:00.000-08:00

this is what happens when you meet mr. aki mimoto for ethiopian food at lunch time.

everyone is suddenly full of beans!

fun.

right around the corner, that's where my baby stays

2006-11-15T15:48:00.000-08:00

No matter what she tells you, you must understand: Miss Missyfuss and buttermilk do not get along.

An amazing day was punctuated yesterday by having my cat barf all over the floor. Flavour! I *knew* it was not a wise decision to let her have even a teaspoon’s worth of buttermilk – but seeing that she had survived the car ride from hoolie’s place to our new apartment, I thought it prudent that I make an exception and allow her to eat something not meant for cats. This will not happen again any time soon.

Regardless, yesterday was lovely day.

Despite my waking up with my usual post-injection MS hangover, I was up and running by early afternoon. Lief cleaned and organized the living hell out of our apartment in preparation for visitors (and in order avoid me having a stress attack). I prepared foods to share with a couple special guests.

The apartment, though dusty, is finally looking like a home. There are couches and chairs available to sit on. I can open the fridge without trying to avoid scraping it against a wet-paint project in the middle of the kitchen.

Is everything done? Fuck no.

There are still bedroom closet doors to be sanded and painted, electrical sockets to be rewired, lighting fixtures to be hung, and a great deal of washing and vacuuming to be done. But like I said, there is somewhere to *sit*.

I celebrated last night by ‘watching’ a little Firefly and doing some knitting…. On the couch!!!

As of yesterday, I also have a lovely Adrian Tomine-inspired hairdo, and Miss Andrea also did a cleansing/ house blessing. Our house is starting to smell, look, and *feel* like home.

I will see all of you at the house-swarming party on December 2nd. Be there or be square.

is she weird?

2006-11-10T11:50:00.000-08:00

is it weird to be choosing a new hairdo out of an adrian tomine comic book?

nope, not weird, just hella sexy.

mall of america

2006-10-30T01:04:00.000-08:00

tonight lief and i are having a sleep over at hoolie’s. we will be sleeping here tomorrow night as well, on account of our bedroom floor being refinished.

then, finally, we may be able to start unpacking some of our things at the new place. there is still some painting to do (the insides of the closets are now being ripped out and repainted in favour of erecting good-quality shelving/ storage units). the closet doors (to the storage room, hall closet, bedroom closet) all have to be painted as well.

in the meantime, lief finished the ungodly process of melamine-ing the cupboard doors and will be attaching *new* hinges and *new* pulls on them in the next two days. the kitchen is finally starting to look like a kitchen. i am nearly peeing my pants with anticipation of actually *cooking* things there.

today, chold, lief and i went on a road trip to the united states of america.

the highlights and lowlights:

- lief and i fail to realize to ‘fall back down’ and get up an hour early. i call chold at what i think is 10:10am saying “where are you, duder?” and he is all “chill, it is only 9:10am... i will be there in 45 minutes - as planned”.

- breakfast at mcdonald’s. don’t buy the horse shit that “supersize me” sells you. sometimes an egg mcmuffin with no meat is *exactly* what you need to do to maintain good health.

- dicknose at the border asks us where our passports are, when the canadian gov’t web site clearly indicates that you *do not* need your passport to cross the border by car - until january 2008. dude treats us like twats for 10 minutes and then tells us, vaguely, that we may enter his country.

- ‘bed, bath, and beyond’. chold finds sheets. lief and i find pant hangers. it’s not even noon and we have already spent $60 USD.

- we accidentally run into a hotrod show. in the very, very cold and rainy weather, we all ooh and aah over some deliciously pinstriped cars and trucks. chold takes pics. maybe i will post some.

- taco bell for lunch. run for the border. choke_hold eats two 7 layer burritos. apparently, my ridiculous appetite has not yet waned.

- more items purchased: tattooing magazines, hot rod magazines, crafting magazines, DIY magazines, *two* pairs of shoes for choke_hold, some hexmas prezies, boxes of ‘good and plenty’.

- lief tries on some tapered hipster pants at ‘hot topic’. laughter ensues.

- we try to find out what the store ‘lovers package’ actually is. we arrive 1 minute before closing and the woman reminds us three times as we enter “we are closing very, very soon”. for future reference, ‘lovers package’ is a cheesy, zellers-style store for crappy lingerie and sexually-related products. bet there would have been some cheap and predictable naughty-nurse and naughty-schoolgirl outfits there. too bad we didn’t have the chance to make chold try them on.

- more grease at an american red robin. jalepenos are consumed.

- oh god, you thought it would stop - - - but we go to krispy kreme and eat a free donut. then we buy 6 more. none of the donuts are eaten on the way home. we have all reached maximum united states of america food consumption levels.

- canadian border guy is so friendly and laid back that we all cheer silently as he waves us through onto canadian soil. i am pretty sure we all liked him so much at that point in the day that we would have gladly given him a handjob. separately or as a group.

okay - it’s late. me and miss missyfuss are going to bed.

why am i already thinking about hexmas? what the hell? i have already bought half my presents. i get so excited sometimes.

you should sleep late, it's just much easier on your constitution

2006-10-26T08:56:00.000-07:00

what happens when one of the founders of wikipedia becomes a critic of the wildly popular open-source encyclopedia? well, he splits off and starts a new site - this time enlisting acacemic editors to keep the operation in line.

you heard it here first, kids.

the citizen's compendium, "Citizendium", is slated to be up in running in the next few months.

http://www.citizendium.org/

oh, beloved academics.

ch-ch-ch-changes

2006-10-15T00:58:00.000-07:00

in a mere 8 hours the big move begins.

chold, sarah, dalia, jules, miikey, david, parween, lief and i will all be there. hope i haven't forgotten anyone.

there are still heaps of things to do at the apartment, but the time has come to haul our belongings in and claim our space.

i wish that we had taken better 'before' pictures, so that i could post a before + after in a few weeks (when the rest of the apartment has been brought up to speed).

it has been a long few weeks - and it is looking like the next couple of weeks will be jam packed too.

stop by and help me paint some baseboards, if you have time. the kettle is always on.

promise ring

2006-10-14T00:36:00.000-07:00

i promised both myself and lief that i would be home tonight between 10 and 10:30pm so that i could get a decent night of sleep before literacy-tutoring class tomorrow. it is now 12:32am and i *just* got in the door.

the good news: i am a caulking ninja. no shit. i think it may be my calling. i am good at it and i love the work. i may become a tradesperson after all. tonight i finished caulking all of the baseboards. holy f*.

the other good news: tonight i spent !!! $2,000 !!! on a new king sized bed. it will be delivered on thursday. cross your fingers that they can actually get it *into* the apartment. by our reckoning, the only way to do it may be up and over the balcony (keep and mind we are on the 2nd floor). fuuuuuuuck. we'll see what happens. i look forward to having people over for sleepovers and not even noticing that they are there.

tomorrow i have an all day class and then i need to get down to some serious packing. good luck with that, eh?

do you realize?

2006-10-10T03:30:00.000-07:00

lief and kevin did an absolutely *amazing* job of laying both the armstrong flooring in the kitchen + storage room and also the parquet flooring in the bedroom. i can't wait to come home to our new home.

as most of you know, the official move-in day has been set. so far, chold, dalia, parween, aki, and david have all replied to let me know that they will be there. it will be an all-day affair. october 15th is the big day. hooray.

with this many helping hands, it is bound to be more fun and less stress than previously anticipated. now all i have to do is actually pack up the 15 years worth of objects that inhabit my current home.

anyone need a shoebox filled with clothespins? a vhs copy of 'the titanic'? gothic goblets in tomato red? i thought not....

hallelujah

2006-10-07T12:03:00.000-07:00

wonders never cease.

home depot called this morning. our parquet flooring has arrived. it is FOUR DAYS EARLY.

you guys must have been crossing your fingers on my behalf.

hallelujah.

wig in a box

2006-10-05T02:21:00.000-07:00

shea is in town. if you want to see her, you’d better act fast. she leaves again in two days.

in other news, i have officially started my x-mas knitting. i am making an *adorable* and *tiny* scarf for sara and jason’s daughter. it is pink cotton and purple tweed. apparently, hadley is really into those colours right now - so i am hoping that remains true when winter arrives. the scarf is already an amazing 3 - 4 inches long, thanks to an evening spent with shea - watching ‘hedwig and the angry inch’ and knitting up a storm.

how can you tell that i am on vacation?

lief and i had been planning on going to san diego to visit sara, jason and hadley for the first two weeks in october - but because of the purchase of my home, we have too many things to work on and not enough money to allow us to take that trip. we hope that the san diego adventure will happen in springtime. hooray.

last weekend’s painting parties went amazingly well.

thank yous to:

~ dalia
~ yvonne
~ jules
~ parween

your helping hands are greatly appreciated.

it looks like sunday the 15th will be move-in day, regardless of whether or not every single thing is done.

please cross your fingers in hopes that the dolts at home depot actually manage to get our parquet flooring in time for installation on the 14th.

tomorrow i sleep in and then go to drool at things that i cannot afford at Gravity Pope. god speed.

angermeans

2006-09-27T13:55:00.000-07:00

I joke all the time about how, because I already have MS, I am immune to other illnesses.

The reason that I joke about this is because, on some level, when one has an incurable illness, one may begin to *actually* think that the worst has already been done to them.

MS will pretty much cripple and kill me – so it really wouldn’t be fair or statistically reasonable for me to get some kind of other illness.

… or so I would like to think.

This week, I was proven wrong.

A couple of days ago I found myself standing on the side of the road in Port Coquitlam, crying harder than I have in a while – which is saying something.

Cars were streaming past me, everything was grey with smog and concrete, and for once I didn’t have a Kleenex in my purse.

I am surprised that I made it out of my doctor’s office before my body began heaving with tears. I am proud of myself for that.

It turns out that after having told all of my doctors (that’s at least three or four that I see on a semi-regular basis) about certain symptoms for over three years – that none of them had actually understood what I had told them. They all assumed, or at least made no indication other wise, that all of my symptoms were MS related. They were all wrong.

In addition to multiple sclerosis, I has been confirmed that I also have IBS (irritable bowel syndrome).

My doctor was very quick to tell me that IBS is:
a/ incurable.
b/ there are no medical treatments that he would recommend – because he says that they are all only marginally effective, they are expensive, and they have heavy side-effects.

My doctor is not skilled in the area of bedside manner. I have known that for a long time. But his parting words “You’ll just have to live with it” is what put me over the edge.

Live with it?

Fuck you.

In my five years with MS I can safely say that they have not given me any drug or treatment that has helped me. Some treatments have done nothing. Other things have made my health worse. Nothing has made my day-to-day life any better. I have had to rely on my own treatments in order to cope and manage. And now it looks like it will be the same way with this.

It’s all still sinking in – but you can imagine that I am going through all of the initial stages of shock/ mourning.

I feel angry and scared and lonely and frustrated and irritated and exhausted.

< deep breath >

Live with it.

i hope you're happy now

2006-09-23T01:02:00.000-07:00

i feel so happy, i could barf.

it is past midnight and i am hanging out doing laundry. it has been a long, busy, grueling week. there have been ups and downs - but no drama or panic.

i was just explaining to lief tonight about how i aim to be a purposefully un-busy person. i have friends that are always running here, attending this, telling everyone about the new hot thing, buying tickets, starting projects, making resolutions, being ‘happening’... and it’s just not for me. i have done all that. i went to university. i worked full time. i volunteered. i established programs. i knew bigwigs. i fucked record producers. i was a woman about town. i was never famous, but definitely ‘seen’. there was a lot of pressure to be ontop of things all the time. trying to keep your mind wrapped around politics, activism, academia, fashion and music at the same time is no easy feat.

i don’t want to be a busybody. i aim to avoid it.

albeit these next few weeks i will engage heavily in busybody behavior. i hardly have a moment to spare. and, as we have seen this lovely friday evening, the moments that i do have to spare i intend to spend doing laundry and sitting on my living room floor.

the only time that i will likely see my friends during the upcoming weeks will be painting days (today and tomorrow) and move in day (it is looking like the 14th of october).

and yet i feel very aware these days about what amazing friends i have. part of that may be due to dalia coming back from croatia. just having her gone for a few months made me realize how much i value her input into my life and how much i value learning about her life. feeling ‘patient’ and looking forward to her coming back helped me to further appreciate other people that i have intense connections with. i can’t explain it in a way that sounds less cheesy. i guess it just refocussed some things. thanks for going on holidays, dalia!!!

additionally, some days i have to pinch myself about how rad my job is. i should clarify that and say that i have a pretty great job, with a *sensational* boss/ mentor. i enjoy learning about him almost as much as i enjoy learning about and doing research and advocacy for post-secondary education in BC. it also doesn’t hurt that i make a living wage working 60% time. there are ways for me to grow and move there, and it is up to me how i choose to utilize those mechanisms.

my new project of becoming a literacy tutor for adults is challenging, thankfully. i feel that i will make a stronger connection to the program administrator and the tutor trainer than i will with most of the other students, but that doesn’t really matter. being in a room with like-minded people, no matter how very different we may be, is heartening. becoming a tutor is going to shake my values and my self-confidence. i am sure of it. but even talking about literacy/ education for 5 minutes is enough to get me riled up for the rest of the day. i had forgotten how pivotal certain things are to me.

aside from the two weeks when lief was in turkey, we have spent at least part of pretty much every day together since we met last december. yesterday i ran into an acquaintance of mine in the streets and he referred to lief as “my guy”. at first i was all “what the fuck?” and then i realized that it was just his way of saying that lief is my permanent partner in crime. it’s true. i want him to stick around! i don’t know if ‘proud’ is the right word, but i will use it anyway - i am proud to say that he is my special gentleman friend.

the feeling of being ‘happy’ is not quite as titillating as angst or sadness or remorse - but i am not feeling a lot of pressure to titillate people these days.

i just keep on rocking on - and things just get better and better.

thanks friends!

starry lemon

2006-09-20T11:01:00.000-07:00

Most of you humans that read this blog have already received an invitation in your in-box.

However, I will post things here – just for the sake of clarity.

So far, Parween and Yvonne have said ‘hells yeah!’ to painting on Saturday and Chold and Sarah will be joining us for the all day Sunday extravaganza.

We have room for one more person to join us on each day, if you would like. Email me ASAP and let me know if you are interested.

Lots of love,
choke_hold

EDIT: i have now confirmed that parween and yvonne will be helping us out on satuday and chold, sarah and jules will be hanging out all day sunday. unless one of these people has to cancel, i think we are all booked up. i will let you guys know if a further painting day will be required. thanks to everyone who responded so quickly!!!
****************************************

hello friendly-friends,

lief and i have been working super hard at the new apartment and we have managed to get the whole place primed. from top to bottom!!! (except for the bathroom - which we will not start working on until *after* we move in).

we have chosen lovely paint colours, which we will be picking up later this week.

i am writing to ask you to donate some of your time and energy to helping us paint.

we have extra rollers and paintbrushes waiting for you! (though if you have more - bring them along!)

all you need to do is show up wearing grubby clothes and grubby shoes and lief and i will lead the way. please bring any snacks or drinks that you would like for during the day (i will make sure there is bottled water on hand) keeping in mind that we do not have a refridgerator hooked up). at the end of each painting day we will either order pizza or indian take-out.

we hope that on both saturday and sunday that we will have 2 - 3 of you there to help us.

please email me and let me know if you will be able to come for one of these days. if you can come out and paint for anywhere from 3 – 6 hours, it would be *greatly* appreciated. it is also fun. no shit.

painting days:
saturday, september 23rd ~ noon - 6pm
sunday, september 24th ~ noon - 6pm

see you soon!

blutvergiftung

2006-09-18T01:35:00.000-07:00

this week i gave one amazing gift and received *two* amazing gifts in return.

firstly, i have a problem. i seem to be entirely uncoordinated when it comes to documenting the knitted gifts i make. so far, i would say that 20-30 knit things (mainly scarves) have gone out in to the world. this week i handed over the snuggly baby-blanket that i knit the crap out of for two weeks. if ever i have the chance, i will go over to sam & matthew's place and take a picture. for now you will have to believe that the fade from yellow into 'mixed apple' and then on through to aqua blue is absolutely adorable. it was a lovely present to make and to give.

the first present that i received this week was a new syringe box. now, to normal people that is not a rad gift. however, lief got me a super cool one where i can lay the used syringes on a tray, pull a little lever forward and the needles drop safely into the body of the box. it is not only hygienic, but also entertaining. MS membership has its privileges.

finally, today when i checked the mail at my apartment there was a non-letter shaped envelope addressed to me. because of the printing and the way it said Ms (the s looked a little like a zed), i thought it was a note from dalia. no such luck! however, once i went up to my suite, i sat on the floor and opened it up. it was a thank you card from my real estate agent. a very sweet and personal note. she also included a smaller envelope. in that envelope was a generous gift certificate to my favorite bedding store. she knew that lief and i will be buying a king sized bed - and she has helped us afford to adorn it with extravagant sheets. i teared up. but then again, i tear up fairly regularly.

day-in day-out

2006-09-14T16:32:00.000-07:00

this is as much for my benefit as it is for yours.

i will be at the new place:
sunday, sept 17th noon - 5pm
monday, sept 18th 6pm - 9pm
tuesday, sept 19th 2pm - 6pm

in case you lost track, and i know that i did, this week also marks the onslaught of training for the I-CARE literacy tutoring.

additionally, lief will be going for his motorcycle exam (yeeeeaaaaaah!), i have a couple dr appointments, and there will be a super-special visit to the massage therapist.

dalia is going to come by the new place on tuesday afternoon and get elbow deep in primer. then we will go back to my mom's place to work on a not-so-super-secret secret button making project. right on!

email on the streets says that the lovely why-vonne may also make an appearance at chez hold-eriksen this weekend. out of sight!

lily white hands

2006-09-13T22:52:00.000-07:00

as you can see, when i am not having nervous breakdowns about the financial and emotional pressures of home-ownership, i am having a really fucking good time.

the lovely and handy lief eriksen breaks all the rules by painting in his unnawears. yum!

this apparatus must be unearthed

2006-09-09T02:44:00.000-07:00

if you are wondering where i am, it is safe to say that i am at the new place doing *something*.

this weekend will involve much organization, procuring of supplies, preparing of surfaces, and launching into PRIMING the hell out of the apartment from top to bottom.

if you want to drop by the new place, i will be there:
saturday 12 - 4pm
sunday 12 - 4pm
monday 11 - 6pm
tuesday 11 - 6pm

let me know if you are going to drop on by.

she blinded me with science

2006-09-08T15:50:00.000-07:00

I just wrote to the folks at the Masters in Genetic Counselling program at UBC to ask them how I could best utilize my background in Women’s Studies, Sociology, and Counselling in order to excel in their program. Ha! Bit of a longshot. I reckon I would have two years of science in front of me before I would be eligible to apply to their program.

Does it make a difference that I *intended* to do sciences at SFU? For those of you who have known me less than 5 years, you may not know that I actually went to SFU to do Physics and Math. No shit.

I think I took one Biology course, some 1st year Calculus, and some kind of Environmental Sciences Class (help me out here, Dalia – you were there! Remember? Woah!) before I quickly shifted gears into post-colonial, post-modern, gender-sex-sexuality-queerio-freakazoid studies.

I meant to head towards some kinda quantum physics realm and I ended up writing papers on a feminist’s right to be a kinky slut. What gives?

And now the hunt for a Masters program is on.

Really, the only reason I even know what a Genetic Counsellor does is because I have met several of them along the MS Path of Making Friends and Influencing People.

I have about two months to get my ass in gear if I want to start a program in 2007. I think we can safely say that the outcome is unlikely. I have one of my academic references lined up and I have a couple solid work/ research/ professional references.

The problem is…where do I apply….?

i can't wait

2006-09-07T17:28:00.000-07:00

in case you are wondering, *this* is where i will be preparing snacks for you when you come over to our house.

oh, and what will the kitchen look like? something reminiscent of *this*.

curse of the lighthouse keeper

2006-09-03T21:38:00.000-07:00

lief and i seem to have no problems finding/ making/ buying both chairs and lighting.

while we are still on the hunt for a dresser, a bed, a headboard/ bedframe, sidetables, and bookcases, we clearly have the coolest lamps in the universe.

love.

LOVE.

i've tried the phone, but i'm too shy... can't speak

2006-09-01T17:07:00.000-07:00

i am trying to decide what i will do about phone/ internet/ cable at the new place.

here is what i would like:

- high speed internet (none of the 'light' versions, thank you)
- basic phone service with some room for decently priced long-distance in canada
- basic or full cable, depending on what the jump from one to the other is

i don't want to committ to paying a monkey load of money every month. i have enough big bills for now! if there is any way to do all of this for under $100, i would be happy. no hidden costs! no unexpected fees! (though i do understand that there are inevitable hook-up costs).

we have ownership of both a telus and a shaw modem - so that helps a little with the prices offered by both of those service providers.... but i still really want to look around and weigh my options over the weekend.

who do you guys use? for what? how are the services? what about the prices? TELL ME MORE!

birds of prey

2006-09-01T09:09:00.000-07:00

pink is the new black.

orange is the new pink.

and clearly, owls are the new crow.

did i call this one or what?

angermeans

2006-08-29T17:31:00.000-07:00

let me tell you right now, i will *never* use a mortgage broker again.

never.

while there are so many amazing and positive things happening, i find myself overwhelmed by violent, heated, seething anger.

i take possession of my new home in two days. however, i will be untangling someone else's bureacratic mistakes for the weeks to come. if i am unable to untangle the mess, it could cost me $30,000 in added interest costs over the next 35 years.

i am practically on fire.

it's a fire

2006-08-25T13:34:00.000-07:00

Claustrophobia.

So, a few days ago I went to get an MRI done. Now that my neurologist has realized that my MS is, in fact, active, she is insisting that I go for an MRI every 6 months so that they can track how quickly my brain is dying.

When MRI’s are done on your brain area they have you lay back on a bench. They then put a set of blinders on you and strap your head down so that you don’t move too much during the procedure. They also either give you headphones (they have a selection of ‘calming’ music – you are also allowed to bring your own CD) or put earplugs in your ears (because the machine is so loud while it is taking images).

In my case, they also throw an IV drip into your arm to get some dye into your brain area and have the images come out with more definition.

All that happens after you have taken out all of your body piercings and changed into a set of hospital PJs.

They slide you into the tube-like machine and leave you there. The tube is barely wide enough to accommodate my breasts.

In my case, all of your doctors seem to somehow forget to tell you that you will have to have dye injected into your body and that the procedure is now going to last 45 – 50 min, rather than the 20 minutes that you have come to expect.

Most of you do not know that I am claustrophobic. If I had to rate my level of claustrophobia in an MRI situation, 1 being ‘could care less’ – 10 being ‘no fucking way will you ever get me into that thing’, I would rate myself at a conservative 8.5.

And so, I get sedatives for these occasions.

This time around, the ativan was not enough. Not nearly fucking enough.

The second they strapped me down I began hysterically crying and could not stop myself not matter what i did. This resulted in them hauling me back out of the MRI room, IV-buddy in tow – so that I could take MORE DRUGS and wait for another 45 min for them to kick in.

If it weren’t for the fact that I have had my body poked, prodded, examined, assessed, treated, labeled, and diagnosed, I would have never known that I was claustrophobic.

Sometimes I don’t know if I need to know myself in this way. Know what I mean?

loving the alien

2006-08-23T15:21:00.000-07:00

well, this article (below) says that about 2/3 of people who have MS have had this particular symptom that used to drive me crazy. it doesn't happen anymore (at least not right now), but when i told my drs about it, they didn't have a clue what i was talking about.

nutso.

anyway, learn something new about MS... i did.

* choke_hold

L'Hermitte's sign describes electrical buzzing sensations in the limbs and body brought on by movement of the neck. These sensations are known as paraesthesia and include tingling, buzzing, electrical shocks, partial numbness and sharp pains. L'Hermitte's is most often triggered by lowering the head so that the chin touches the chest. The sensations usually only last for a second or two. It has been called the "barber shop" symptom because it is often evoked when the hairdresser asks you to lower your head when he or she shaves the back of your neck.

L'Hermitte's is associated with a number of conditions including arthritis, cervical spondylosis, disc compression, pernicious anaemia, tumours and multiple sclerosis. In many cases, the cause cannot be found.

Because the cervical spinal cord is a frequent target for multiple sclerosis it is a very common symptom of MS. Aproximately two thirds of people with multiple sclerosis experience L'Hermitte's symptom at some point during the course of their disease.

In MS, L'Hermitte's is an indicator of lesions in the cervical spine (the part of spine in the neck). Movement of the neck causes the damaged nerves (the demyelinated neurons) to be stretched and send erroneous signals. The symptoms can occur anywhere below the neck and many people with MS find that it moves around their body from one day to the next.

INSITE - Call for volunteers

2006-08-23T11:55:00.000-07:00

As you¹re probably aware, InSite for Community Safety is running a campaign to keep InSite open. You¹re also likely well aware how very important this issue is: it is literally a matter of life and death that the facility remains open and we are working hard to ensure that it does. On that note, we could sure use your help. Over the next couple of weeks leading up to the expiry of the exemption that allows InSite to operate (Sept.12), we will need as many volunteers as we can muster to collect letters, man (woman) information/letter booths, help out in the office, and be their lovely, creative, socially-conscious selves helping us win this fight. If that sounds like something you¹d be interested in, please contact us (see below)right away. Even a couple of hours of your time over the next couple of weeks would be a huge help to us and would be very much appreciated.

Thanks so much and look forward to seeing you,

Megan McKinney
InSite for Community Safety
Office: (604)255-5457
Cell: (778)829-0792
Email: info@communityinsite.ca
Website: www.communityinsite.ca

shake, senora

2006-08-23T08:08:00.000-07:00

let's see if blogger is going to be a little less assy on a different computer.

voila, c'est some new household items.

stir and enjoy.

raspberry swirl

2006-08-23T00:08:00.000-07:00

well, i tried to make a posting yesterday - but blogger unceremoniously crapped out on me.

this week has been a roller coaster ride introduction to the world of craigslist.

if you think that ebay is cutthroat, you have likely not tried to make an actual purchase for a sought-after item on craigslist. and neither had i, up until this week.

oh sure, i have browsed the list for things like motorcycles and real estate, but i had never tried to buy danish teak furniture for my house.

the short story is that the *amazing* arc lamp that i had made a verbal contract to purchase was sold to someone else, right out from under my nose. the seller was totally disorganized and unapologetic... going so far as to even ask me if i would still like to come and look at his other items. i said “no thank you”.

the good news is that i bought an adorable swirly glass fruit bowl that will live on our new coffee table. blue glass + teak looks lovely. for $5, i couldn’t go wrong.

lief is clearly the hero of the week. he scored a cherry-coloured chair (which i intend to take over as my official knitting perch) and an orange swedish light fixture (it’s huge!). for those of you who know what my couch looks like, you will understand why the light fixture is *such* a good idea.

what i have learned this week is that if you want items from people on craigslist, you must do the following:
- check the list every hour.
- if there is a phone number in the posting, call *right away*. emailing is a waste of your time.
- tell the seller that you will *buy* the item. don’t tell them you ‘might want to take a look’.
- tell them you have a truck or transport to pick it up.
- be prepared for disappointment.

i am going to have to lay off the craigslist-crack for the next week, methinks. my nerves are shot. i am at the point where if i see a listing that says ‘danish teak’ i just say “i want it”, even if i clearly don’t. it’s like when you have been in value village for too long and you start thinking that buying a tube top made of towel material would actually be rad and ironic. just walk away.

the saga shall continue...

blogger is being assy, so i will have to post pictures of the previously mentioned furniture items in a later entry.

INSITE - National Post article by Mason Wright

2006-08-17T22:12:00.000-07:00

Drug measures merit support
Vancouver's Insite, Toronto's safer crack use kits success stories

Mason Wright
National Post

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Whether drug addiction is a criminal or health issue would seem to be a fairly polarizing question. But in Vancouver there has been a surprising amount of agreement among governments, community activists, police and business groups, thanks to the Downtown Eastside's safe injection site for drug (especially heroin) users, Insite.

Yesterday at the intersection of Yonge and Bloor, local activists and delegates from the International AIDS Conference staged a brief demonstration by blocking traffic to raise awareness of Insite, which is threatened with closure next month after a three-year trial period unless Health Canada extends its exemption from drug-use laws.

The facility's success is undeniable. It offers a clean, health-focused location for addicts to inject safely and get information about addiction treatment services.

With the availability of clean needles and medical staff on-site, Downtown Eastside rates of blood-borne infections such as HIV and hepatitis C have reportedly been reduced, and there are fewer instances of people shooting up in public -- a plus for nearby Chinatown businesses that originally opposed Insite.

Add to that a record of zero deaths despite 453 overdoses at the facility between its September, 2003, opening and March, 2006, and it's easy to see why Insite has the support of Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan, the B.C. government and former mayors Phillip Owen and Larry Campbell.

"My staff has been working on the front line with the VCHA [Vancouver Coastal Health Authority] to ensure that both enforcement and health related goals are addressed in this project," Vancouver Police Chief Jamie Graham wrote in a letter to Health Canada supporting Insite.

Vancouver's Insite experience has also provided an example for Toronto. While heroin use is not as big a problem as crack cocaine addiction, the principles of harm reduction are the same. In Vancouver, they call the plan for fighting drug addiction the "four-pillar" strategy, with harm reduction, treatment, enforcement and prevention playing equal roles in the battle.

City Hall adopted its Toronto Drug Strategy in December, 2005, with harm reduction strategies that include a needle exchange and the distribution of safer crack use kits.

Crack cocaine use is risky: the rock form of the drug can be injected after being diluted with lemon juice or vinegar, which carries the usual problems of needle-sharing and overdoses, but is commonly smoked, which provides an intense and immediate high.

Because the majority of crack users live in poverty or on the streets, there are many risk factors associated with the addiction. The spread of HIV is one, since some smokers engage in unprotected sex in exchange for money or drugs or risky sexual behaviours with unfamiliar partners. The use of makeshift smoking pipes and the sharing of pipes can also spread HIV and hepatitis C because burns and sores on the mouth can allow for the exchange of blood.

The safer crack use kits distributed by Toronto Public Health's needle exchange program include clean glass stems, mouthpieces and metal screens, as well as information on how to prevent the spread of diseases. They also give outreach workers the opportunity to make contact with some of Toronto's most isolated people, building trust and connecting them with support services in the community.

With Vancouver's Insite and Toronto's safer crack use kits showing the benefits of harm reduction, Canada can continue to be a world leader in reducing the ills of drug addiction. This, however, will require a show of support from all segments of society to win the Health Canada exemption from Ottawa.

The Conservative party's tendency to view drug addicts as criminals instead of treating the problem as a community-wide health issue means Health Minister Tony Clement and Prime Minister Stephen Harper may need some persuading.

INSITE: CJSF special program

2006-08-17T17:21:00.000-07:00

a message about some more coverage on INSITE, sent to me by parween:

My old community radio station will be airing a news piece on INSITE tomorrow, August 18th, from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. (PST). If you are able to take time out of your day to listen to this piece, check out CJSF at one of the following:

In the Lower Fraser Valley: 90.1 FM
In the Upper Fraser Valley: 93.9 FM Cable
Anywhere that you have Internet access: http://www.cjsf.ca

black metal

2006-08-17T11:12:00.000-07:00

God bless the Danish.

Not to jinx things or anything, but I may as well tell you guys that I have bought an apartment. As of this afternoon, I will have removed the subjects from the contract. At the end of the month lots of funky things involving notaries, banks, and possibly lawyers will happen.

September 1st, I will be given the keys to my new home.

Seeing that I have oodles of expenses coming up (those extra bureaucratic fees add up *very* quickly) it seems like a good time for Lief and I to buy the hell out of some Danish furniture and push our VISA limits to the max.

A few nights ago, L and I drove way out to Mission and had the opportunity to poke around in the basement of a mod furniture “lifestyler”. There is really no other way to describe the level of design/ form/ function of this guy’s house. The whole basement was filled with teak, in all states of dis/repair. The salesman and his wife have some amazing pieces – many that they will be taking with them when they move into their new home (their new home, btw, was pretty much designed around an 8 ft arc lamp that they have – which called for a mega-open floor plan).

L and I drove home from Mission with three chairs (photo examples above) and a wonderfully worn teak coffee table. The chairs that we bought are not in as good shape as the photo above, but they are adorable, sturdy and radtastic.

After a couple more sandings, some teak oil, and some TLC, our coffee table is going to be ready for action. Who knew oiling wood would be so fun?

Tonight L and I will continue the spending spree by picking up the arc lamp (above) from a guy in Delta. It stands almost 6 ft high. I imagine it will have no choice but to be the focal point of our livingroom (keep in mind that the new apartment is only 580 sq ft).

Things that I hope to buy before moving in to the place in October:
- teak credenza with some kinda storage space (rather than one that is just all ‘display’ space)
- king sized bed + frame + headboard
- dresser
- small computer desk that will accommodate my computer + Lief’s laptop
- more lighting
- a couple large bookshelves (I intend to leave my old ones in behind Value Village during the moving process)
- hangers (oh, I know that sounds weird, but I have a strange fetish for matching hangers. Again, my current hangers will be left at VV)

The other things that are on my WANT list can wait.

I will keep you posted as the spree of domesticity continues.

INSITE - CBC News, August 11, 2006

2006-08-14T13:02:00.000-07:00

Safe injection site will continue, with or without Ottawa, supporters vow

CBC News
Supporters of Canada's only safe injection site for intravenous drug addicts vow to try to keep it running if the federal government withdraws its support.

The three-year Health Canada exemption, which allows the facility in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside to operate legally, expires next month.

Mark Townsend of the Portland Hotel Society says the group is 'morally bound' to keep a safe injection site open.
(CBC)
Supporters have been lobbying keep the facility open and say they'll try to maintain a safe injection site if the Conservative government pulls its support.
Mark Townsend of the Portland Hotel Society, which operates the current site with the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, said there have been more than 1,000 overdoses at the clinic since it opened in September 2003. Staff are trained to deal with overdoses as well as other issues and try to steer users into counselling.

Figures released by the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority for the two-year period ending on March 31, 2006, show:

7,278 unique individuals registered with the clinic, with a daily average of 607 visits.
453 users overdosed, but no one died.
4,083 referrals were made, with 40 per cent of them to addiction counselling.
368 people were referred to withdrawal management.

"I think we, as a community group, would be morally bound to keep it open," Townsend said, "because we would have evidence that if we shut it, people would die."
When the clinic opened in 2003, it was estimated there were nearly 5,000 injection drug users in Vancouver's poorest neighbourhood — with some of the highest HIV and Hepatitis-C infection rates in the world.

Health Canada gave the clinic a three-year operating exemption under Section 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. The B.C. government provided $1.2 million to get started and provides operating funding through Vancouver Coastal Health.

New clinic 'no problem' says veteran activist

Dean Wilson, the former president of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, opened the city's first safe injection site more than seven months before the federal government approved the project.

Wilson said he would open a new facility immediately if the legal site is shut down.

"First of all, I know people would volunteer for it, and I know we'd have enough people to operate. We did last time, with no problem. Supplies always managed to get to us and everything else. There are a lot of wealthy individuals out there who support us."

The current site has been endorsed by Vancouver police, the City of Vancouver and the provincial government.

A spokesperson for federal Health Minister Tony Clement says no decision has been made yet on the future of the site.

INSITE - CBC News, August 14, 2006

2006-08-14T12:59:00.000-07:00

Safe injection site should continue, B.C. criminologists report

CBC News
The federal government should give Vancouver's safe injection site for intravenous drug addicts an extension to its three-year mandate, say two B.C. criminologists commissioned by the RCMP to study the issue.

The clinic on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside hasn't been open long enough to determine what its impact has been on the transmission of HIV and other blood-borne diseases, reported Ray Corrado of Simon Fraser University and Irwin Cohen of University College of the Fraser Valley.

While the site may not have delivered all of the community benefits promised, it has helped addicts, they said.
"For those individuals who access it, the evidence is pretty clear that they learn how to inject safely, the overdose tragedies are prevented," Corrado said. "To me, it's a research issue. It needs to be conducted as an experiment, to be judged on its own merits."

The site can only operate legally until Sept. 18, under a three-year Health Canada exemption to Section 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said he would wait for the RCMP report before deciding whether to allow the site to continue with federal approval.

Fears haven't materialized

Cohen, who looked at safe injection sites around the world, also notes that none of the fears voiced by opponents of the Vancouver site have materialized.

"The main argument for those against supervised injection sites would be that it would bring crime to the area, that it would increase the use of drugs, that it would actually encourage people who don't use drugs to begin to use drugs," he said. "And none of that has been borne out by the research anywhere."

However, Cohen noted that the site is not yet attracting enough users, adding that the vast majority of addicts in the area are still injecting drugs somewhere else.

Vancouver's supervised research injection site, which opened in September 2003, is the only one in North America.

According to research by the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, there were an average of 607 visits a day to the clinic during the two-year period that ended March 31, 2006.

The health authority says 453 drug users overdosed at the clinic in that two-year period, but none died, thanks to staff trained to deal with overdoses.

The staff also provide counselling and made 4,083 referrals during the two years, 40 per cent of them to addiction counselling.

The clinic was established to help the nearly 5,000 injection drug users the Downtown Eastside, which has some of the highest HIV and Hepatitis-C infection rates in the world.

Supporters have been lobbying keep the facility open and say they'll try to maintain a safe injection site in the hard-pressed neighbourhood if the Conservative government pulls its support.

video killed the radio star

2006-08-10T15:57:00.000-07:00

will i be a home-owner as of september 1st?

stay tuned...

i'm an adult now

2006-08-06T17:39:00.000-07:00

today our blog turns two.

hapir birthdoo.

smokin' in the boy's room

2006-08-04T14:01:00.000-07:00

Unlike most people, I waited until I was about 22 before I ever took a sip of alcohol or inhaled from a cigarette.

It occurs to me that it has now been over a year since I quit smoking.

No congratulations are in order - I still consider myself an addict.

And maybe that is why I was straight-edge for so many years. Even before I had ever tried alcohol or cigarettes or any form of street drugs, I already knew that I felt ‘addictive’ towards things. I knew that if something was fun or felt good that I would want to do it all the time, in as many ways as I could possibly afford.

I make a distinction between the way that I am addicted to smoking and the way that most other people are addicted to smoking. For me, I was obsessive about it. Rather than waiting for any kind of feeling in my body to tell me that it was time to light up a fag, I would already have one lit. I would sit for hours smoking cigarette after cigarette. I would do any and all of my normal daily tasks with a smoke in my hand.

A special pleasure was smoking in the bathtub. I would lay there for a couple hours, soaking, soaping, smoking. No shit.

How I managed to quit, I am not sure. When I think about it now, despite the myriad of reasons why smoking is fucking terrible, I still think of pleasure and indulgence.

There is something so languorous and decadent about smoking. It made me feel relaxed, yet occupied. It made me feel like I was doing something special for myself, yet it made me feel sick and tired.

I guess I wanted to feel sick and tired. I wanted that to be okay. Feeling sick and tired felt inevitable.

My smoking was markedly worse for the first couple of years I had MS. I was sick and scared and in pain and isolated – and I always had a smoke in hand. It did not help that I was unable to work a regular job and was living in poverty. I worked 3 – 6 hours a week at an under-the-table catering company – making $8/hr – just to subsidize my addiction. At worst, I smoked almost 2 packs of those crazy long lady cigarettes on a daily basis. Driving to the 7-11 at 4am was a regular occurrence for me. During the years of extreme insomnia, I would underestimate how many cigarettes I would need to last me through the night, finding myself at random convenience stores at unreasonable hours.

One of my friends, a *long time* smoker, told me that even 15 years after she quit smoking, she *still* has cravings. Fuck.

Die hard.

lip gloss and black

2006-07-31T01:02:00.000-07:00

oh yes, it's true. i bought a motorcycle helmet. i wonder what will happen next.

INSITE - Letter from MP Libby Davies

2006-07-27T14:35:00.000-07:00

Dear friends,

I am writing you today regarding the fate of INSITE, North America's first supervised safe injection facility. As you may know, this program started as a three-year study in September of 2003, and the results have been incredibly impressive. INSITE has reduced public injections, reduced the transmission of blood-borne infections like HIV and Hepatitis C, and reduced the number of injection-related
infections. Most significantly, however, is that of 453 overdoses at INSITE, not one has resulted in a fatality. This is strong evidence of the success that this project has had in reducing the harm to drug-users.

However, despite its successes, INSITE is at risk of closing down. The facility exists because of an exemption under Section 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. If Health Minister Tony Clement does not renew this exemption, this facility will close down as of September 12th of this year. Therefore, I am urging you to take action.

If you believe that INSITE should continue, then please let Tony Clement know!

His email address is:

Minister_Ministre@hc-sc.gc.ca

Please send me a copy of your email to the Health Minister if you decide to write, and also send a copy to info@communityinsite.ca. I have included some recent letters that I have written to Prime Minister Harper and Health Minister Clement below for reference. You can also get additional information about the facility at "Insite for
Community Safety" (www.communityinsite.ca). If we can speak with one voice, we can let this government know how people really feel about this important program.

I thank you for your continued support!

Yours sincerely,

Libby Davies
MP, Vancouver East

INSITE - This Magazine blog posting, July 24, 2006

2006-07-27T14:34:00.000-07:00

Safe injection site needs support
Posted by mason at 02:31 PM | Comments (0)

In September of 2003, North America’s first safe-injection site opened in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Operated by the local health authority, Insite is allowed to exist thanks to funding and support from all three levels of government. Ottawa’s role includes a three-year exemption to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

The success of the facility has been remarkable — it is used by an average of 607 people per day and provides a clean, health-focused location where addicts can inquire about addiction services and health concerns. This has reduced the spread of blood-borne infections such as HIV and Hepatitis C and reduced public injections in the neighbourhood. In its nearly three years of operation there have been 453 overdoses at Insite, but not one has resulted in a fatality.

Despite this excellent record, Insite will be closed this September if federal Health Minister Tony Clement does not renew the exemption allowing it to operate. Certainly, this is a case where voices from the public would help Clement make up his mind. A citizen’s group in Vancouver has created a website with facts about Insite and instructions on how to tell the federal government you are behind the facility.

In addition, you can e-mail the Health Minister at Minister_Ministre@hc-sc.gc.ca.

INSITE - 24 Hours article - July 21, 2006

2006-07-27T14:32:00.000-07:00

Insite has been lifesaver

By MATT KIELTYKA, 24 HOURS

Three hundred and thirty-six crosses overlooking a picturesque Vancouver skyline serves as a chilling reminder to Stephen Harper what life could be like without Insite.

Supporters of the Supervised Safe Injection site erected the makeshift graveyard yesterday in Vanier Park as the federal government debates whether or not to extend the facility's operating exemption, which expires Sept.12.

"In 18 months, there have been 336 overdose cases at the site and the staff managed to revive every person," said Mark Townsend of the Portland Housing Society, which runs Insite. "If the facility closes all of those people would be put back in the street and business doorways and the rate of overdose fatalities will be raise."

Townsend said he is hopeful Stephen Harper "won't do anything stupid" and will continue to support the successful project.

Darryl James, a recovering drug user who uses Insite, said he might be dead if it wasn't for the nurses at the facility.

"About two years ago I overdosed and they saved me," said James, who is taking a drug treatment program because of his experience. "You're saving lives [by keeping Insite open]."

Insite for Community Safety spokesperson Gillian Maxwell said the research done on the program has been "loud and clear" and it would be foolish to cut support.

INSITE

2006-07-27T14:11:00.000-07:00

as most of you know, vancouver's safe injection site, INSITE, is in threat of being closed down on September 12th, 2006, only six weeks from now. i am going to post some of the information and resources that i have on the subject and ask that you consider taking action.

i feel very passionately about INSITE. it has become a hub of the eastside community. it is a place for people to meet, to learn safe injection tecniques, to make contact with health care providers, and to be treated with respect and dignity.

if you read further on the subject you will see that it is well documented that INSITE has been an overwhelming success. INSITE has saved countless lives (453 of which have been documented) and improved the quality of life of many drug users - both from the eastside and those who commute in to use the services.

i cannot stress how tragic it would be for the community and for our country to lose this program. if you agree that INSITE should be allowed to continue providing services, please write to prime minister harper, health minister tony clement, your MP, your MLA, and anyone else you feel will listen - and let them know that you support INSITE and urge them to renew INSITE's exemption from Section 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. i also urge you to pass this information along to your friends, family, and contacts.

Insite for Community Safety

http://www.communityinsite.ca/

Vancouver Coastal Health Authority - Insite

http://www.vch.ca/sis/

she's got you

2006-07-26T15:33:00.000-07:00

Somehow, when I was with him, I was exactly who I am now and entirely unrecognizable as the woman you know. Completely me, yet entirely not myself.

I do not sway often, that much is true. Strident. Confident. Expressive.

But somehow, I was entirely different in his arms than in your arms. Today I wonder what you would think of me if you had seen how I was in my intimacy with someone else.

You know they are out there, women and men whose beds I have been in. It is abstract. Just words. Detached stories of ex-lovers. People from my past. Snippets. The stories are merely vehicles by which you may understand me, rather than actual people for you to know or learn about.

And I thought about it today. I thought about who you may have been in the arms of another.

Would I have liked you then? Would I have liked you wearing her kisses, wandering the city, eating in diners, talking politics, exchanging mixed CDs, getting drunk and scrambling for rides home, being in love?

Patsy Cline sings to me today.

this music sucks

2006-07-26T10:32:00.000-07:00

I did not end up buying the apartment that I thought I wanted. It turns out that the apartment building had been made with cheap materials + labour (26 years ago) and since then, due to mismanagement/ apathy/ laziness, the building itself has greatly suffered. Water-damage, leaky pipes, ill-repaired balconies, foundation cracks and other nasty things have piled up to the point where the tenants cannot ignore it any more. Had I purchased the apartment that I thought I wanted, I would have had to shell out about $50,000 over the next 5 - 10 years. That would be just to keep the building at ‘fair’ condition.

No way!

So, I walked away from the real estate deal about 5 days before it was due to be finalized. I am thankful for my many friends that sat around the Winlaw campfire with me and helped me to decode the strata jargon. I already knew that things were looking a little rough, but my friendly-friends helped me to understand that this was not the place for me to buy.

The hunt is on!

In other news, it is my first day back at work after being away for 2 & ½ weeks. Getting up at 6:30am was not as fun as you may think.

The visit to Winlaw, Nakusp, Nelson + Halcyon hot springs was *lovely*. Fires were burned, lakes were swum, rivers were enjoyed, boats were hijacked, food was scarfed, books were read, knitting was knit by the light of the bonfire, and hot springs were lounged in.

Along the way I got a little sun, bought a few used books (Girlfriend in a Coma – Coupland, Kafka on the Shore – Murakami, and some Ursula K. LeGuin book that I cannot remember the name of), and was given the gift of an amazing hat (white with pink pinstripes).

As much as I wished that I could stay another week and actually begin to tackle the amazing list of ‘things to do’ that Shea + Steph had created, I was also very happy to be leaving the area around Nelson before the onset of Shambhala. An old flame of mine has been an organizer of this event for years. Every time I run into him he asks me if I will be joining him at the celebration this year. While I sincerely appreciate the work that he puts into this community event, I have told him in plain language that Shambhala (and events like it) are my idea of my own personal hell. The only thing that I would find slightly worse would be if I were locked in a Walmart for a week with the furnace stuck on full blast.

Pay $150 for admission to an outdoor hippy rave? No thanks, I am good.

Anyway, no disrespect intended to my fine dreadlocked event-organizing friend. Though I will tell you one of Sarah’s jokes in order to finish off this rant:

‘What did the ravers say when the drugs wore off?’

‘This music sucks.’

frank's wild years

2006-07-13T01:21:00.000-07:00

just look at what you’ve won!

okay, two things:

- i have officially been accepted to become a volunteer adult literacy tutor. i spent almost two hours with the organizer of the i-care program and learned much more about what the program is like and how it actually *works*. sentence fragments can’t even begin to tell you how EXCITED i am. my training and practicums will take place in september and october. hooray!

- remember the apartment (see july 6th posting) i put a bid on? remember how they didn’t even bother to reject my offer and instead accepted an offer from another buyer? well, here’s the thing: when people put an offer on a place it is always subject to a bunch of other things happening (ie a building inspection, a review of the strata minutes). in this case, the offer that was made was subject to the securing of a source of money to pay the seller.

guess what?!? the folks that put a *better* offer on the place have been unable to secure their financing. therefore, as of midnight tonight, the seller is free to go into negotiations with another potential buyer. that’s me!

to keep you abreast of the situation, i have resubmitted my offer (this time at $7,500 more than i offered last time - - - and also about $3,500 more than my self-proclaimed *absolute maximum*). i should know by early tomorrow if the sellers have accepted my final offer.

this may mean a whole domino effect of things that need to be done over the next 7 - 10 days and a further gamut of things that need to be done in the subsequent weeks. if things check out well and the building inspection and review of the strata minutes don’t freak me out, i plan to take possession on august 15th.

anything could happen in the wild, wild, wild world of real estate.

pinball wizard

2006-07-12T02:08:00.000-07:00

lief made the tastiest thing a couple days ago. just like yvonne and david, he seems to be able to just throw a bunch of things together and produce a fabulous meal. food ninjas. you guys are food ninjas. i hope you keep feeding me.

i think it went something like this...

COLESLAW, LIEFLY

salad ~
1/2 med head red cabbage, shredded or finely chopped
1 large carrot, grated
large handful of snap peas, chopped
2 green onions, finely chopped
1 cup sunflower seeds (unsalted)

dressing ~
1 tbs olive oil
1 tbs sesame oil
1 tbs soy sauce
2 tbs rice vinegar
2 tbs balsamic vinegar
1 tsp garlic ginger hot sauce

throw all the salad contents into a bowl and toss it around. blend the dressing ingredients in a seperate bowl. add dressing to salad mixture and toss it around one more time.

this recipe makes a monkeyload of coleslaw. i thought that using only a half a head of cabbage would keep the salad to a dull roar, but i would say that this produces about 8 servings.

eat it.

hem of your garment

2006-07-12T01:36:00.000-07:00

i had been planning on leaving for winlaw two days ago, but because of the miraculous gift of Unholy Alliance tour box seats (avec free booze + vegetarian snacks), plans changed. me and the posse will be leaving at a decent hour on saturday morning.

i have booked from july 8th - 26th off work. if you check your calendar, that means that i have this whole week off work to prepare for the trip. i thought that this meant i could sleep in, putter, go to the gym and go swimming, do a bit of shopping (for shorts, a new bikini top, some kicks, my first pair of flip-flops, etc.), and browse for masters programs online. so far, none of those things have really happened.

busy. against all odds, i find myself BUSY.

here’s the good news: tomorrow (today, technically) i have my intake interview to become a literacy tutor for the program run through douglas college. the i-care program (individualized community adult reading education) allows folks to be linked up for one-on-one literacy tutoring.

because of the enormous social assistance and community program cutbacks, programs such as this one have suffered immeasurably. i am sure that i will learn more about it as time goes on, but it has become increasingly difficult for literacy programs to: 1/ find the clients that need them most 2/ deliver their services to those clients without breaking some sort of governmental rule.

from what i understand, the i-care program is only able to intake and train about 20 volunteers per year. they have an intensive intake process and a lengthy and specialized training program (i think it is 6 x 7 hour training classes).

if you have ever thought that the process to get a job was competitive and unwieldy, imagine doing that to get a volunteer position. anyone who read and/ or edited my intake application will surely tell you that the intake forms were *intense*.

if i am not admitted to become a tutor this year, i will not be terribly upset. there are individuals who have been on the waiting list for a couple of years. i will try again next year!

the moral of the story is that i will be in a 1.5 hour interview (which i am sure will include some tests of my grammar and spelling!) this afternoon.

while i did have visions of sleeping late, racing around in the pool, and eating leisurely meals this week - - - it is hard to feel too put out by the opportunities, work, and excitement that have come my way this week.

by the time operation ‘go outside and play in winlaw’ begins, i am sure i really WILL need a vacation.

get excited: one of my other tasks for this week is to bake *two* cakes for jules’ birthday. if you have been invited, i urge you to come. surely you do not want to miss the chance to give lots of love to jules on her birthdoo and also feed your face with:

- dark chocolate layer cake with coffee frosting

*and*

- frosted apple spice cupcakes

flavour!

two too many

2006-07-06T15:35:00.000-07:00

Yes, it’s true.

Yesterday I put an offer on an apartment. Today I found out that the offer had not even been rejected, but entirely overlooked by the sellers. They are now in negotiations with another party who offered them a ‘sweeter deal’. I was not given the opportunity to counter-offer… so now I am out of the game.

Above you will see a couple photos of the place. Understandably, it was the kitchen that I was most in love with. YUM!

Therefore, there will be no purchases of *biblical* proportions this week, unless that truckload of bibles things pans out.

I had expected that purchasing an apartment would be:

a/ less complicated – who was I kidding?

b/ more stressful – but I guess I have never had much of a ‘sense of doom’

The only reason that I put an offer on a place so soon was that the apartment really was too good to pass up. Most people know that I have been saving as aggressively as I can, in hopes to start looking in January 2007.

Now that I have done the legwork to establish a real estate agent (thanks again, Urs) and a mortgage broker, I think that I am going to go full steam ahead. I am in no hurry, to be sure, but it would be nice to be settled in to my own place before hexmas this year.

Me, Lief and Miss Missyfuss look forward to having you over for tea + shortbread… if all goes well. I may even give in and have a real live Christ-mas tree this year, just for the novelty of it in our new home.

:: sigh :: I cannot pretend that I am not disappointed. I had really fallen in love with the little apartment. But it was not meant to be. Lief reminded me that better things are always around the corner… if you are looking for them.

In which case, I am going to have one hell of a lovely home to invite you to. The hunt is on!

title and registration

2006-07-05T01:40:00.000-07:00

there will now be a reason to celebrate the fourth of july.

today, lief bought his first motorbike. for those of you playing along at home, the bike is a 2000 W650 kawasaki. isn't it purdy?

i am excited and just a little jealous.

if you stay tuned, there may be another outrageous purchase some time in the next week or two.... a purchase of *biblical* proportions.

at dawn they sleep

2006-07-02T09:55:00.000-07:00

the fact that i remember what i was doing last year on canada day kinda freaks me out. i guess it makes sense though, considering the fact that it involved a host of cheeky anti-canada day festivities + george forman grilling at my house. as i recall, last year at this time my kiddy pool was already set up - but no one went in it. red and white cupcakes were eaten.

a friend of mine (who is from ottawa) remarked on how low-key canada day is here in vancouver. she has been finding her first year here to be a lot to adjust to. are west coasters less patriotic or just too laid back to care? hard to say. comparatively speaking, *nothing* happens on canada day in vancouver. who knew?

i don’t remember canada day being a big deal in winnipeg either, but that may have been because i was so much more interested in the onset of gay pride day. so really, who is to say whether the prairies get more excited about our national day than BC does? not me.

i hardly even noticed it was a holiday, truth be told. yesterday i woke up and finished washing massive piles of laundry over at L’s house. our 15 year old washing machine has called it quits, so i will be spending many hours washing clothing and linen at other people’s houses for the next week or two.

after clothing was dried and folded (5 hours later), L and i went to take a look at an apartment in new westminster. clearly, the apartment is $20,000 out of my price range (not that my mortgage broker would agree) and clearly i am in love with it and would make a down payment tomorrow - - - if i thought it was possible. i could easily call that place home.

the rest of my day was spend preparing food for today’s hair-chopping party and pressing about 200 buttons for a client.

it’s the day after canada day and instead of having a hangover, I have a sore back from hunching over the circle cutter + button press and i smell like garlic and mint from handling food yesterday. sounds good to me.

reign in blood

2006-06-23T11:18:00.000-07:00

I am sorry. I cannot hold it back. I don’t tell this to you to rub it in your face or anything…

SARAH GOT BOX TICKETS TO SLAYER!!! SARAH IS TAKING ME TO SLAYER!!!

In the words of L, “I sure hope they are evil.”

Pure. Evil.

under the blade

2006-06-22T14:55:00.000-07:00

I was just asked if I would be willing to pose for a calendar that is being put together by the lower mainland chapter of the MS Society of Canada. The calendar is going to be called The Many Faces of MS.

Anyway…

I said yes.

we all know art is hard

2006-06-21T16:23:00.000-07:00

I have said it before and I will say it again… endings are hard.

I have been in friendships and in relationships that I felt clearly must come to an end. I have often instigated the endings of those partnerships. As many of you know, I am not shy about breaking up (in the platonic and the sexualized sense) with people who have a negative influence on my life. The catch is that it is, in some ways, more challenging to be on the pro-active end of things. It can be harder to take responsibility for the ending, to be expected to ‘justify’ the ending, and to been seen as having made someone else a victim.

It’s tough, man.

There are people who are of the mistaken impression that, because I openly encourage my friends and loved ones to *delete* negative people from their lives, endings are somehow easy for me. I will save you the suspense and tell you that this isn’t the case.

Whichever side of the whip you are on, there is a process of mourning to go through. Sometimes the mourning is as simple as “fucking good lord, glad that shit is over” and sometimes the sadness and heaviness crawls with you through many days/ months/ years. The ‘deaths’ of certain things in our life can set off a chain-reaction. We may be looking at a situation and see a reflection into past experiences. Sometimes we are unable to separate the current termination with the terminations that have happened before.

Something very simple in my life is about to come to an end. It is no big deal, really. However, as I was spacing-out during a business lunch today, I realized that I know myself well enough to know that I will cry.

I never know why, exactly, I am crying. But if you want to earn some good money, place bets that I will be raw and open and tearful when something comes to an end – no matter how small that ‘something’ is.