Riiiiiiiicola

I'm so sick of Ricola throat drops. Can't I just be better now?

Maybe if I had these guys ministering to me, I wouldn't mind the Ricola so much....

(Be sure to watch the commercial on the linked page.)

Update

Yes, I haven't posted in over a week. I'm still alive. Kind of. Flu. Maybe I'll sit down tomorrow at some point and get together a summary of the past week. There's certainly enough to write about.... Nothing overly dramatic, mind you, just a usual week's worth of stuff.

'Jesus Shaves'

This is the title of one of my favourite David Sedaris stories, in which he writes about his French class attempting to explain—in French—the concept of Easter to a Moroccan student. In it, David also learns that they don't have the Easter Bunny in France, but a bell that flies in from Rome to distribute chocolates to children. He's rather unimpressed with a bell and thinks it highly improbably: 'I called for a time-out. "But how do the bell know where you live?"

"Well," she said, "how does a rabbit?"

It was a decent point, but at least a rabbit has eyes. That's a start...'

Here's the conclusion to the story, which seemed appropriate to post as we head into Easter weekend.

Nothing we said was of any help to the Moroccan student. A dead man with long hair supposedly living with her father, a leg of lamb served with palm fronds and chocolate; equally confused and disgusted, she shrugged her massive shoulders and turned her attention back to the comic book she kept hidden beneath her binder.

I wondered then if, without the language barrier, my classmates and I could have done a better job making sense of Christianity, an idea that sounds pretty far-fetched to begin with.

In communicating any religious belief, the operative word is faith, a concept illustrated by our very presence in that classroom. Why bother struggling with the grammar lessons of a six-year-old if each of us didn't believe that, against all reason, we might eventually improve? If I could hope to one day carry on a fluent conversation, it was a relatively short leap to believing that a rabbit might visit my home in the middle of the night, leaving behind a handful of chocolate kisses and a carton of menthol cigarettes. So why stop there? If I could believe in myself, why not give other improbabilities the benefit of the doubt? I told myself that despite her past behaviour, my teacher was a kind and loving person who only had my best interests at heart. I accepted the idea that an omniscient God had cast me in his own image and that he watched over me and guided me from one place to the next. The Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, and the countless miracles—my heart expanded to encompass all the wonders and possibilities of the universe.

A bell, though—that's fucked up.

Such horrible business/formal language...

...why can't people write?

But....

...I am in receipt of your resume for the Program Assistant position at the Boston Foundation.

We are currently reviewing your background to determine if there is a match. If your background fits our needs, we will contact you.

Thank you for your interest in working at the Boston Foundation.

Sincerely,...

This is the first nibble I've gotten back from the resumes I've sent out thus far. I realise it's just a form-letter response. But it's something! :-D

Allergies and Emotion

They have returned. My allergies, that is. It's a good sign since it means that Spring is here. And before any of you back in Montreal post any comments--I don't care if you all got sick after I did, I still say that those were allergies and not a cold!

For the past two weeks or so, I've had these really low-level and annoying symptoms. Scratchy throat. Itchy nose. To top it all off, my wisdom teeth have been acting up again. Correction. One wisdom tooth. The lower left one. So I've not been sleeping great either.

The wisdom tooth seems to be calming down though, at least. It's kind of odd, actually. They've been trying to come in for seven or eight years now. The dentist always tells me that I have plenty of room and that they're not impacted. They're just taking their sweet ass time. The two top ones are in. It's the two bottom ones now. The really odd part about it, though, is that they always act up in the Spring. Except that for the past five years--when I was living in Montreal--they started acting up around May or so. They're a month early. Which leads me to assume that my body is in tune with the actual temperature and weather in some weird way and that it's not just connected to a 12-month cycle of my wisdom teeth giving it a go and then resting.

As for emotion. It's something that I'm lacking. Not as regards the break-up but as regards church. It's been about two months now that I've been going every Sunday. Well, I missed one week because I had to work Sunday morning. I don't dislike it. I decided that I would go at least through Easter, which is this coming Sunday. I think I'll keep going. I was thinking about it Sunday night at work and I realised that although I've very easily opened up to this intellectually, to listening attentively to the readings, to the sermons, thinking about what the prayers and call-and-responses actually mean and not just letting them be rote recitations, I've not yet, it seems, been able to open up to it emotionally.

When I was growing up, I always got excited about going to church. We never went on any regular basis though I wanted to. I was an altar boy by my own decision (not that I was discouraged) but my parents would always drive me to church when I had to serve a mass and then go home. They never actually went to the mass itself. During the summer--especially if I had an 8.15 mass to serve--it wasn't out of the question for them to have me walk to church. It was only a 10-15 minute walk after all. And it was something I was happy to do, feeling kind of cool and kind of completely idiotic walking down the street carrying my altar boy robes. I think once I actually walked to church wearing them.

Before I became utterly disenchanted with the Catholic church, though, going to mass stirred so much in me. The music. The candles. The singing. The prayers. I connected with it on a fairly deep level. Part of me wonders if maybe it was because I was so young and that there was just so much mystery to all of it. I suspect that we're much more open to mystery and wonder when we're young. By the time we become adults, we've become too disenchanted with the lies of the world to readily open up to mystery again.

What made me really realise that I hadn't yet really connected or opened up to the emotional aspect of going to church was during the procession of the palms this past Sunday, Palm Sunday. At the opening of the service, the entire congregation is supposed to process around the church, singing hymns, holding and/or waving palm fronds, as a re-enactment of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. Of course, not the entire congregation did process. Most people just stayed in their pews, but there was a fair number of people. I was sitting alone, as usual, towards the end of a pew in the second to last row. As the procession passed me, one of the assistant ministers reached out to me and motioned for me to join the procession. I would have felt like an ass had I not joined.

So I did. And I kept singing. And holding my palm frond. And processing.

But it was all just motions.

There's one part of the service, though, that stirs something. And it always has. From the time I was a kid, through the few times that I went to mass after I'd been confirmed, and every time that I've gone to church these past few months. At the very beginning of the celebration of the eucharist, the minister says, 'The Lord be with you,' to which the congregation responds, 'And also with you.' 'Lift up your hearts.' 'We lift them up to the Lord.' 'Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.' 'It is right to give him thanks and praise.'

There's something in those brief lines that stirs something in my heart. So, I have some kernel of emotion to work with, perhaps. Part of me wonders if I've just been so emotionally pre-occupied that I have little to spare for this new venture. But I suspect that much more likely is that I really will need to work at opening myself up again to this kind of experience, something that I had closed myself to for so long.

Wait, wait...

I'm listening to 'Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me' for the first time since the breakup.

It wasn't a solid tradition, but often we'd wake up together on Saturday mornings and do our best to stay in bed to listen to 'Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me' together. I never listened to it before I dated him so it has a very strong connection in my mind to him.

I'm enjoying it and not at all depressed and morose about the fact that I'm not snuggling with him right now while listening to it.

As Martha would say, this is a good thing.

Zen?

I was reading through old blog entries last night. Really old. From before I was even here on blogger. Back in my blurty days.

I found one about running into a guy that I dated briefly back in Montreal. In a lot of ways, he was the French-Canadian version of the minister. The post was about running into him many months after we'd broken things off--though we weren't together very long.

It was a different situation, obviously, but it was good to read about him and to remember him and to remember how I felt when that ended and how it felt to see him again. It made me realise--and hammered home the point to a certain extent--that things will get better. And that amazing people can and will come into my life again.

That's unfair, in a way, because I'm surrounded by amazing people. All of my friends are amazing people. Otherwise, they wouldn't be my friends.

I will meet someone as amazing, if not more so, at some point. It won't be tomorrow. It might be. But not likely.

My heart needs time to mend, that much is for sure. But it will. And it's started to already. I have a long way to go, no doubt. But it'll get there. And, hopefully, I'll still have him in my life as a friend when I get there.

In any event, I've yet another song to post. I know that seems to be all I've been posting recently but it's part of my coping process. Deal. I certainly am.

'For Good' from Wicked

ELPHABA
I'm limited.
Just look at me - I'm limited
And just look at you -
You can do all I couldn't do, Glinda
So now it's up to you
For both of us
Now it's up to you

GLINDA
I've heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you

Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
I have been changed for good

ELPHABA
It well may be
That we will never meet again
In this lifetime
So let me say before we part
So much of me
Is made of what I learned from you
You'll be with me
Like a handprint on my heart
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have re-written mine
By being my friend
Like a ship blown from its mooring
By a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a skybird
In a distant wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you

GLINDA
Because I knew you

BOTH
I have been changed for good

ELPHABA
And just to clear the air
I ask forgiveness
For the things I've done you blame me for

GLINDA
But then, I guess we know
There's blame to share

BOTH
And none of it seems to matter anymore

GLINDA (ELPHABA)
Like a comet pulled (Like a ship blown)
From orbit as it (Off it's mooring)
Passes a sun, like (By a wind off the)
A stream that meets (Sea, like a seed)
A boulder, half-way (Dropped by a)
Through the wood (Bird in the wood)

BOTH
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
I do believe I have been changed for the better

GLINDA
And because I knew you

ELPHABA
Because I knew you

BOTH
Because I knew you
I have been changed for good.

Once again, Free Will Astrology

CANCER (June 21 - July 22): 'All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware,' wrote philosopher Martin Buber. That's something you're on the verge of proving, Cancerian. Any day now I hope you will discover the hidden truth about a treasure you didn't know you were searching for; you will stumble upon the surprising answer to a riddle you hadn't even realized you desperately needed to solve.

And what about the riddle that I know I desperately do need to solve? The one that involves the boy? And my stomach and heart lurching when I walked by my bar last night and saw him sitting there? At least, I'm 99% sure it was him. I only saw him from behind.

I know he'll always have a place in my heart, I just wish that my heart would get a grip and let him go enough that I can really start to get on with things. So that I can see him and not long for him, long to be with him, long for a situation I know just isn't possible right now.

I keep listening to the Ben Folds Five song that I posted lyrics to a little while ago, 'Don't Change Your Plans'. It's more or less what I'd imagine him saying to me, not something I'd say to him right now...

Sometimes I get the feeling
That I won't be on this planet
For very long
I really like it here
I'm quite attached to it
I hope I'm wrong

All I really wanna say
Is you're the reason I wanna stay
I loved you before I met you
And I met you just in time
'Cause there was nothing left

I sat here on my suitcase
In our empty new apartment
Until the sun went down
Then I walked back down the stairs
With all my bags and drove away
You must be freaking out

All I know is I've gotta be
Where my heart says I oughta be
It often makes no sense, in fact,
I never understand these things I feel

Don't change your plans for me
I won't move to LA
The leaves are falling back east
That's where I'm gonna stay

You have made me smile again
In fact, I might be sore from it
It's been a while
I know we've been together many times before
I'll see you on the other side

Don't change your plans for me
I won't move to LA
The leaves are falling back east
That's where I'm going to stay

All I really wanna say
Is you're the reason I wanna stay
But destiny is calling and won't hold
And when my time is up I'm outta here

All I know is I gotta be
Where my heart says I oughta be
It often makes no sense, in fact
I never understand these things I feel

I love you, good bye
I love you, good bye...

Because things like these need to be shared...

www.catsinsinks.com

www.kittenwar.com

Hmm...

I think I mentioned in a previous post that I've been renting a lot of movies recently. Today, I went to return some and to rent the last two episodes of Ric Burns' New York documentary. It's been really good, slightly addictive. I got really frustrated with the episode that I finished watching the other night ended. Because I didn't want to.

Anyway, there was a new, cute boy working there. This is a good sign, right? That I'm starting to check out boys again?

I think so.

Morning randomness

Mike Tyson pays respect to Mao

And I woke up with the first track, 'Hung Up', from Madonna's not-so-new-anymore album stuck in my head. An album I own but have listened to MAYBE twice.

We have a new girl training at work. I stopped in Saturday night to get an espresso on my way elsewhere. I was sitting at the back counter drinking my espresso and she came back to grind a pound of coffee for a customer. After most of the beans had gone through, she looked into the top of the grinder and saw that there were still beans stuck to the sides of the hopper. So, I watched in horror as she reached her hand into the hopper to brush the beans down towards the grinder. At this point, I practically leapt across the counter and started shouting her name. To no avail. So I started clapping my hands. I was less than three feet away from her. My co-worker at the cash, easily 10-15 feet away (I'm really bad at spatial estimates), turned around because she heard me. Not the new girl, though. After she turned the grinder off, she was rather surprised to see me leaning across the counter and so close to her. I practically yelled in her face, 'DON'T EVER PUT YOUR HAND IN THE GRINDER LIKE THAT WHEN IT'S PLUGGED IN, NEVER MIND TURNED ON!'

'Oh,' she responded. 'Yeah. I guess that's not such a good idea, huh?'

Did I mention that I have a job interview on Thursday for an office assistant position? With the non-profit that my roommate works for?

Highs and Lows

The high point of my day so far? The only piece of mail was a notice that I've been pre-approved for a Home Depot card. Great. Have I been pre-approved for a home to improve, too?

The low point of my day? Getting called to go in an hour early to work because someone was a no-show. Can I get a new job now, please? I'm waiting to hear back for an interview with a local non-profit for an office assistant position. Hopefully this week or next. *fingers crossed*

Actually, the real high point of my day is probably what I've made for lunch/dinner to bring to work with me: a tuna and potato salad with onion, celery and carrot, seasoned with salt, pepper, coriander, fennel seed and olive oil. Yum.

And now I'm off to enjoy a bit of the gorgeous 11c day outside before being trapped indoors all day.

I think...

...I want a dog. Not a big one. But not an over-size rat, either. Maybe Boston Terrier sized, like my neighbour's dog, Guinness (so-named for his pint size) but perhaps a bit larger.

And I shall name him Dante.

(PS Boston weekend post upcoming. When I get around to sitting down to write it.)

The brilliance of the Onion never ceases to amaze me

Franz Ferdinand Frontman Shot By Gavrilo Princip Bassist

March 17, 2006 | Issue 42•12

GLASGOW, SCOTLAND—Lead singer and guitarist for pop band Franz Ferdinand, Alexander Kapranos, is in critical condition today after being shot by a man identified as the bassist for rock group Gavrilo Princip. "We ask fans to cooperate with Interpol to find the assailant, and call upon British Sea Power, Snow Patrol, and The Postal Service for help," drummer Paul Thompson told music magazine NME Monday. "The suspect had links to The Decemberists and The Libertines, and we are following up on all leads." It is unclear whether the shooting was linked to The Polyphonic Spree's invasion of Belgium earlier this week.

(of course, these are all real bands, including Interpol.... The history: The First World War was sparked by the assassination of Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo by a Bosnian Serb nationalist, Gavrilo Princip. So far as I know, though, there is no actual band named Gavrilo Princip.)

Through the Inferno

I finished reading the Inferno tonight. Now it's on to the Purgatorio.

As for my own hoped upward arc, I'm still feeling pretty good about things. Relatively, anyway.

And I'm going to Boston for the weekend. Yay. A chance to get out of Portland! :-)

Random

I got a free bottle of Worcestershire Sauce today.

'And so it is'

And so it is
Just like you said it would be
Life goes easy on me
Most of the time

from 'The Blower's Daughter' by Damien Rice

I saw the boy for the first time yesterday since we broke up. And...it was good.

I didn't really know quite what to expect from it, or how I would really react to seeing him. I didn't cry right away, at least.

It was a good conversation. He told me things I already knew, but that helped to hear from him anyway. Like the fact that there's nothing that he can say or do--unless I feel like I have specific things I want to ask him--to help me work through my own feelings. He reinforced how much he does care for me and how much he does still want me in his life but also that we can't start working towards a friendship--a friendship that he thinks can be a very good and strong and intimate one--until I can get myself to a point where I can see him and talk to him without having expectations for things that he doesn't feel that he can give me right now.

I told him about how I keep having these stupid fantasies about five years down the road, where we're both at different points in our lives and it makes sense then. I told him that I realised how stupid and academic those fantasies are given just how impossible it is to predict a day from now never mind five years from now. And he agreed. He said, Yes, maybe five years from now things will be different. But neither of us can even pretend to predict that and so it's probably not a good thing to spend a lot of time thinking about. I was rather happy that he didn't completely deny the possibility. But I know that he's right, too, that it's something so beyond our control that it's really not something to put a lot of energy into.

I also told him that I am continuing to work through all sorts of emotional baggage that I thought had been long dealt with from the aforementioned relationship of four years ago. I didn't give him specifics but told him that the baggage had been bringing me to really dark thoughts. Not 'I want to kill myself' thoughts, mind you, but thoughts about reasons for the break up that I know are unworthy of him and contradictory to everything that he is. Thoughts that have been very tough to get out of my mind but ones that I know are entirely created by a past pain. I told him that I knew that it was far beyond the point that I could talk to my ex and think it would make things better--and also that I didn't think talking with him (the current boy) would necessarily help either. Mostly, I just wanted to put it out there so he knew where I was at with things.

And so...

Nel mezzo del camin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
ché la diritta via era smarrita.

When I had journeyed half our life's way,
I found myself within a shadowed forest,
for I had lost the path that does not stray.

I started re-reading the Divine Comedy last week. I'm almost through Inferno. I'd been looking for something to lift my spirits and hadn't had any luck. I'd been thinking of re-reading this for a while and it seemed an appropriate metaphor for me right now as well as appropriate for this time of year, since Easter is coming up and the work takes place over Easter weekend.

Last night, I came to one of my favourite canti of the Inferno, XXVI. Here, Dante and Virgil encounter Ulysses and Diomedes entwined together in a single flame in the pouch of the false councillors. Only Ulysses speaks and he tells of his attempt to sail past the Pillars of Hercules--the westernmost limit of the Ancient world (indeed, of the known world until the Americas were reached). He recalls the speech he gave to his men:

'Brothers', I said, 'o you, who having crossed
a hundred thousand dangers, reach the west,
to this brief waking-time that is still left
unto your senses, you must not deny
experience of that which lies beyond
the sun, and of the world that is unpeopled.
Consider well the seed that gave you birth:
you were not made to live your lives as brutes,
but to be followers of virtue and knowledge.'

And so he and his crew strike out, into unexplored territory. Eventually, they draw near the mountain of Purgatory, the only land mass in the southern hemisphere (if you want to know more about medieval geography, ask). As they approach, though, a whirlwind is sent out from the mountain which tosses them back to the Mediterranean.

And for this he winds up in one of the deepest levels of Hell. This has always bothered me. A lot. He encourages his men to seek out new knowledge and is punished for eternity for providing false council. In other words, seeking knowledge beyond the set limits is an affront to God. I think Dante was rather wrong on this one. It's the thirst for knowledge that is beyond our limits that is one of the things that makes us human. And, if we go with the Christian notion that we were created in God's image then it would seem that to seek new knowledge, if it is an inherent impulse, would be rather a godly thing to do.

But I digress. This wasn't supposed to be about theology.

My whole point about the Divine Comedy and Easter coming up, and the fact that today is the first full day of Spring is that these are all things that are somehow connected with renewal and rebirth and resurrection.

I always knew that I would eventually heal from the breakup. I'm not saying that I have yet. I suspect that it will be a very long time, in fact, before I am entirely healed. But talking to the boy yesterday gave me a glimpse at what's waiting once I begin to heal: he'll still be in my life and he can still be an important part of my life. Just in a different way. The song 'Don't Change Your Plans' by Ben Folds Five comes to mind:

Don't change your plans for me
I won't move to LA
The leaves are falling back east
That's where I'm going to stay

All I really wanna say
Is you're the reason I wanna stay
But destiny is calling and won't hold
And when my time is up I'm outta here

All I know is I gotta be
Where my heart says I oughta be
It often makes no sense, in fact
I never understand these things,
I feel

I love you, good bye
I love you, good bye...

He needs to do what he needs to do for himself before he can think about someone else. I can't keep him from that and it would be unfair of me even to try.

I still have a fairly deep hole that I need to get myself out of but I feel like I have a sense of how to start now.

Number 4...

They want to give the Montreal Olympic stadium ANOTHER roof. This would be the fourth roof that it's had in its 30 years. Why can't they just let it rot? As some kind of testimony to how much the games cost the city and the province?

Jean Drapeau, mayor of Montreal at the time of the games, once said (and I've always assumed that this was in reference to the stadium, but I'm not positive), 'The ugliness of slums in which people live doesn't matter if we can make them stand wide-eyed in admiration of works of art they don't understand.'

The More You Ruv Someone - Avenue Q

(Note: these lyrics are not wine-related. They are connected to my thinking about last night and talking to the boy today, which I was surprised by, given that I drunk im'ed and then drunk dialed him and then drunk im'ed him again and said a few stupid and nasty things.

He wasn't blowing me off so much as we had misunderstood each other. I thought he was going to phone me from work since he had lost his cell phone but he was expecting me to phone him when I finished work and, failing that, to im him when I got home since I don't have a set time that I finish work by, just a general idea.

I've left the ball in his court about getting together. He says he does want to see me but doesn't want it to be forced or contrived. And he doesn't want there to be any yelling involved. I don't want there to be any yelling either. My stupidity last night aside, I'm not so much angry with him as I am just hurt and confused about the situation. I told him as much when I talked to him earlier. Knowing his schedule, I'm guessing/hoping that we'll get together sometime early next week.

In the meantime, Videoport has become my new boyfriend. I've rented SO many movies over the past couple of weeks and am well on my way to watching David Lynch's entire oeuvre. I'd only ever seen Dune and Mulholland Drive. I watched Blue Velvet Wednesday night and rented Lost Highway tonight but haven't watched it yet. I also rented the first episode of Ric Burns' documentary on New York. Pretty good. I'm sure the other five will live up to this one.)

Kate Monster:
Why can’t people get along and love each other, Christmas Eve?

Christmas Eve:
You think getting along same as loving?
Sometimes love right where you hating most, Kate Monster.

Kate Monster:
Huh?

Christmas Eve:
The more you ruv someone,
The more you want to kill ‘em.
The more you ruv someone,
The more he make you cry

Though you are try
For making peace
With them and loving,
That’s why you ruv so strong
You like to make him die!

The more you ruv someone,
The more he make you crazy.
The more you ruv someone,
The more you wishing him dead!

Sometime you look at him
And only see fat and lazy,
And wanting baseball bat
For hitting him on his head!

Ruv

Kate Monster:
Love

Christmas Eve:
And hate

Kate Monster:
And hate

Christmas Eve:
They like two brothers

Kate Monster:
Brothers

Christmas Eve:
Who go on a date

Kate Monster:
Who....what?

Christmas Eve:
Where one of them goes,
Other one follows
You inviting ruv
He also bringing sorrows

Kate Monster:
Ah, yes.

Christmas Eve:
The more you ruv someone,
The more you want to kill ‘em.
Ruving and killing
Fit like hand in glove!

Kate Monster:
Hand in glove.

Christmas Eve:
So if there someone
You are wanting so
To kill ‘em.
You go and find him.
And you get him.
And you no kill him.
‘Cause chances good

Both:
He is your love.

For what it's worth...

...the previous lyrics have been thanks to a bottle of Jacob's Creek Shiraz and the boy blowing me off tonight. We were supposed to get together tonight to talk, and he never phoned.

Any further lyrics dated from tonight or tomorrow will likely be from that same bottle unless otherwise noted.