Saturday, May 01, 2004
The Search - A Conversation
There were words that needed to be spoken,That needed to see the light of day.
What were those words?
You work so hard to orchestrate your life,
You work so hard to fit all the pieces together..
Caught up in an endless puzzle you must master.
But you fail to understand the reason for your need to do so.
Life is not simply form,
Life is feeling, too.
I feel..
Sometimes I think, too much,
Too much of the inconsequential things..
At the wrong time, in the wrong place.
You govern.
You govern your work, your friends, your world, your life.
You organize.
You act
And you react
But you do not find what you need to see.
I try..
The heart of magic lies in feeling..
Life is born of feeling
And the magic comes forth from life.
How can you understand either life or magic if you do not allow yourself to feel?
I want..
You search for..
I wish..
But how can you recognize it when you fail to understand what it is?
You search with your eyes for something they cannot see.
You search with your senses for something they cannot touch.
You must search instead with your heart.
Try
And then tell me what you find..
But I cannot tell you what I've found
For now, only one will have to be enough
zzzzz
Man, this cat sleeps a lot. I can't get him to play, all the toys scare the crap out of him. Who knew when I was spending money on fluffy cat toys that he needs therapy? Maybe we could go together. And I think his cold has moved into his ear. When he shakes his head, his ear makes disgusting *gish* sounds.He is wherever I am. Usually right on top of me. I sit and stare at his thumbs, absolutely fascinated.
I also seem to be quite bored. I finished one book today and have started on another, talked to T2, bailed out of Spirits of the West and Saturday night TV is utter shite. Which, frankly, in a weekend of beating myself up, is just one more thing I get to be mad at myself for. I don't even care that TV programming isn't my fault, and in fact, has absolutely nothing to do with me. Trust me, somehow, today, it is. I'm good like that. Feel free to leave things that you thought were your fault in the comments and I will shoulder the blame for the rest of the weekend. Consider it a gift. Cheaper by the dozen.
Going into work tomorrow to take care of the final bits for the off-site on Monday and I was informed that this year I have to arrange the Christmas party. Which I do not want to do. But which I will have to start figuring out post-haste before everything gets all booked up.
ie: I'm not around tomorrow and I'll be fulfilling workly duties until late Monday. So, see ya.
and a good morning to you, too
In the nightmare, she faced eternity somehow. An endless, hopelessness of always. In the nightmare she saw forever. It's form she couldn't really describe, but not monsters with fangs or men with guns, not rape or lead-footed fleeing.It was nothing that she could wake from and know it wasn't real and that she was still safe, still human.
No, this nightmare showed her something so real, so awful that her sleeping body jumped and ran before she fully came to. The nightmare showed her Death, Eternity. The nothingness of forever. Her aloneness in the Universe.
And so while she slept she ran from it, and when she woke her brain mercifully shaded the whole vision. She remembered only a gagging, crippling terror; never its form, never its depth.
Friday, April 30, 2004
I'm not here today
...mostly because I'm pissed off at myself. But that is a story for ...well, never... really. Suffice it to say it involves a broken promise to myself. Which means I get to be mad at myself for a myriad of things and from a bunch of different points of view.How fun is that?
For the old timers - an update. Kyle was in Vancouver last week in a restaurant and who did he see?
Billy.
Hadn't thought about *that* in a while.
g'night.
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
oh, but wait...
During the board budget meeting from HELL, my cell rang. Kyle. Here from working in Libya. Till Monday. Haven't seen him since August last year."No, I can't come out, it's 8:30 on a Wednesday night and I'm in a board meeting with Satan and his minions."
Do you think you could have given me some warning, big fella?
So, tomorrow night I guess but....then I realized my taxes have to be mailed by Friday, midnight or I pay a penalty on top of the money I already owe.
After going over the figures in private for the budget with H (el presidente) - *warning* all bad, all bad - I started in on the taxes. On paper. Cause there is no bloody way in hell that I'm e-filing or net-filing because a) I have to PAY for that and b) they get it SOONER. Cause of course I'm not sending them one tiny red cent of the $789 I owe them. *tick tick* daily compound interest, daily compound interest.
Well, thank god I'm an insomniac. Cause otherwise, this kind of day would keep me up all night.
Where on Earth has the day gone? I still have so much to do.
- arrange off-site meeting room in ritzy hotel for business unit next Monday, negotiating a fabulous room for half price - it's the voice, I tell ya
- talk to the president of the condo board about our budget meeting tonight
- arrange hotel rooms for US participants in off-site meeting
- talk to the mechanical contractor who works for condoboard but has no current contract
- email, print and fax copious amounts of info for new management company and the rest of the lazy board
- convince hotels to give the rewards points for meetings and rooms to DB - the office points-whore, not really thinking that points-whore is probably not acceptable corporate-speak outside of our foul-mouthed office environment until the comment is met with silence from the other end of the line
- sign all sorts of contracts and provide someone else's credit card number for said meetings and rooms so I am not liable for anything
- read 15 increasingly nasty hockey-pool emails
- speak to president again
- arrange another meeting for VP's in own boardroom
- list all cities in Alberta with over 10,000 people in them
- call Brian and leave a message on home phone referencing tennis balls and courts, pretending I do not see the cell phone number listed above it, while ensuring that my cell phone is not on
- eat lunch at desk while checking new RFP's available worldwide
- talk to president of condo board, again. She teases me with Starbuck's caramel macchiato someone has brought her without being asked
- research all gyms within one mile radius of boss' hotel in Houston, since he made the mistake of going for a jog 'out in the open' on last business trip, afraid to ask if this refers to the heat or the local population
- make catering choices for all meetings, based on what *I* like because it's payback for being the only woman who will be there
- check bus schedules for visit to doctor this afternoon
- reply to one round of nasty hockey pool emails in an attempt to diplomatically remove myself from the fight, as last week one reply from big boss included the line...." First, I suppose we should all wish Jen well in her future endeavours."
- try to figure out how to pay my taxes, since I owe money, but have none. Anticipating nightmares filled with monsters dressed like government workers screaming "Daily compound interest!!! Daily compound interest!! Muah-ha-ha-ha!"
- Try to ignore return email from SVP in Vancouver saying..."C'mon Jen. Pick a side.", but not offering job in lieu.
- Comic relief - reading Donna's email but all reply time today taken up by post and rapidly shortening time-frame of task completion
- briefly wonder if T1 realizes how redundant it is to ask me if we have any *insert anything* here and then when I say "no", to respond with, "Okay, well, I'll go look."
- continue design of database for another department wearing headphones in an attempt to drown out the yelling
- throw various things off my desk in the general direction of loudmouth who just called me a CHICK but who I cannot hit because I throw like a girl
- leave office to go to doctor
- return home, feed demanding cat before he decides to demonstrate that his opposable thumb will allow him to squirt water at ME when I'M bad
- go to board meeting, repeating over and over in head, "Must...control...fist...of...death.", whenever butthead board member tries to make it sound like upgrading HIS condo is OUR responsibility and then half the rest of the board caves in and agrees with him even though our fees are already 20% higher than any other building and we're in a huge financial hole at the moment
- go home, ready coffee and clothes for am, obsessively check if there are any voice mails, calling myself to make sure it's working, before going to sleep with the cat stretched draped over the back of my head
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
we have to stop meeting like this, people will talk
I woke up this morning to the sound of barfing. Now, normally, when the Munchkin would barf, she would climb up on the bed and nudge my face, before promptly throwing up on my neck --- "Mommy, wake up, I don't feel so ..blurg...retch." --- It seems that Cabot is polite enough to get off the bed (he was sleeping between my knees all night) and get into his litter box to throw up in there.Not that I minded. But it's creepy. Creeeeepy.
Anyways.....
Let's travel back to.... early 1996 .... when I worked for a golf company in BC, (I've mentioned this before), but since they cannot be named, let's just call them the OldDirtyBastards. So, in working for the OldDirtyBastards I spent a lot of time on the phone with golf pros. A couple of which, Neil for one, are still people I keep in touch with. Back then I spent a LOT of time on the phone with four in particular. Neil in BC, BU in Toronto, WM in Winnipeg and JT in Ottawa.
WM was the assistant pro in Winnipeg. (I actually only met him in person once, right after I moved here, he looked like John Denver). Anyways, there was usually an assistant-to-the-assistant pro (otherwise known as "In this hierarchy, I get to make *you* do the shit jobs") but I never really chatted with the one at WM's club, at least not enough for him to have made a lasting impression on me.
Fast forward six years to 2002. Peter (still working for the OldDirtyBastards but now in BC instead of Toronto) left entrance tickets at the golf show when it was in Calgary and we stopped in to see him. He introduced me to Brian, who was the new sales rep for Alberta. As Peter introduced me as Jen and mentioned that I, too, used to work for the OldDirtyBastards, Brian screeched, "JEN ****!" and promptly threw his arms around me.
Now, while I'm not really minding that he's got his arms around me and is jigging me up and down, I'm thinking, "Who IS this guy? I'd remember someone so hot, I'm sure. How did he know my last name? Heyyy, I'm liking this!"
Turns out he used to be, yes, you guessed it, the assistant-to-the-assistant at WM's club. Who still remembers my last name after six years. This may be slightly self-promoting but apparantly I have a legendary phone voice, so people tend not to forget me and in fact, wrong numbers frequently leave 'great voice' messages on my answering machine, although I personally think I sound like an 8 year old boy with a cold who just woke up. ...
He gave me his number and asked me to call him so he could take me out.
But, then, you know, things were happening. Every three or four months I come across his number again and always contemplate calling him. Before thinking, well, it's been a year/18 months/two years - that's a classic case of too little too late there, I'd say.
Last night, my phone rings. It's Tony:here. He sounds a bit pissed (it occurred to me here that pissed means different things. I don't mean mad. I mean slighty drunk, kinda sloshed, almost hammered, etc). He says, "There's someone here I think you know."
"Who?" I sigh
"Bonesy." he says.
I do not, nor have I ever, made the acquaintance of someone named *Bonesy*. That I know for sure.
The phone changes hands, and the voice says, "Jen! It's Brian! Where the hell have you been? How come you never called me?"
I assuming = boys in a sports bar, bonding, someone mentions golf, some guy known only as Bonesy tells Tony:here he used to work for the OldDirtyBastards. Tony:here says, "My friend Jen used to work there!"
And there you have it.
Yet again, I've written down the digits. Yet again, I promised to call. So we can have dinner. I think that may be.. you know.. a date.
I probably won't call.
Then again, maybe I will.
Maybe I should.
lyric at post:
..sometimes I hear my voice and it's been here,
silent all these years..
Monday, April 26, 2004
evolution or deformity?
Along with saying - "Good boy" for the first time in 17 years, this is hard to get used to. I think it's cool but it's just...strange.
Or, little creepy evolving hands that reach out in the dead of the night as you're sleeping to.....
arrrgh!
I'm thinking about chaining him up at the next full moon, just in case.
Seriously.
Sunday, April 25, 2004
Inside the trees
Some little bitty thing from BC a couple of weeks ago, at a place called Witty's Lagoon, near where I grew up.I leave the pathway, knowing that I did not want to go where others had already been and needing to be fully surrounded. Awed, but also a little afraid as there are few places I feel like the intruder that I am. As if Nature, whom we decimated and chased away to live as an artist in exile, may yet at any moment start hurling paint and take her revenge.
I take my time, stopping occasionally to stand completely still and listen. Listen for how the forest might sound if it didn't know I was here.
There is a sudden and ludicrous desire to burrow into the masses of fallen leaves and wait for metamorphosis into - into what? Something uncomplicated. Something that does not fear or grieve. Something content. To wish to never have to go back and have that wish come to life in an unexpected and spectacular way.
A girl... in need of a sweater under the coolness of the trees; eyes closed; face turned up towards the treetops; standing alone in the mud far inside the canopy... making impossible wishes.
