Weird Dreams, Yucky Taxes, Happy Feet, Gardenscape

I ascended and reached the top of the narrow stairwell and turned right, entering the place that was my bedroom of my old childhood home. The radio was playing on the cheap, boom box stereo I owned that was perched on the old chest of drawers with the sloppily applied dark walnut-coloured stain and weathered looking varnish.  The radio’s reception was half loaded with static, and I tried to adjust the tuning, but it wouldn’t change to anything clearer. It was night time, and I looked to my left towards the window to see that there were glowing sparks streaking across the sky heading eastward. I went back downstairs, and out the front door walking about 8 meters from the entrance. I turned around, and looked up toward the west, looking above the roof of our house back on the farm. It was a meteor shower, appearing to sweep very low over the sky, directly above our homestead. Suddenly, one of the streaks changed its trajectory, and came careening down toward very close to where I was standing. It brushed over the huge old shady Black Poplar tree that grew on the south east corner on the front of our house, and landed in the yard close to where we used to incinerate garbage. It continued to burn brightly for a while. Unlike any other meteorite when it lands, there was no blinding flash of light or explosive blast upon impact. It rested flat on the ground, making some of the grass burn around it, but leaving no impact crater. It stopped glowing and then instantly became cool enough to touch. The shape of the rock itself was like a prism, about one and a half meters in height at the apex, and 3 meters long. It was hollowed out inside, I could tell by a crack on its surface. I pressed against the end face of the stone prism, and it crumbled away. It was like a weird celestial storage locker. Inside of it were incredible things: rolled up scrolls and canvases of some kind of art that was too intricate and beyond any description I could ever give.  There were bars and ingots of gold, platinum, along with other semi-precious metals; there was another special article there too, which for a split second caught my attention. It was a . . .

And that’s when the train awoke me from this dream, as I heard its whistle and its rumbling going across the South CNR Bridge at 6:00 AM yesterday morning. This really burns my ass. This kind of dream: with myself encountering a surprise source of some sort of treasure, is a commonly recurring theme for me. During the climax of the dream, just when I'm about to see what the big discovery is, there perhaps is a physiological surge of adrenaline that gets triggered through the excitement, which stirs me awake before I get to see what the great wonder actually is, or to remember any more detail in the dreamscape. Or, as in this case with the train noise, I coincidently get awoken by some external stimulus. The initial findings usually appear to be “money”, or strangely printed paper currency, which is another reason why probably collect foreign bills. It would be interesting to know what this all is supposed to mean if it were properly Interpreted. I’ll probably check out the dream section of Hyperdictionary, just for a hoot later.

Sleeping with the window opened a quarter of the way, to have a train’s horn disturb me was a consequence of a forgotten detail from the spring cleaning and airing out the place the day before. It took up most of my day. I honestly shouldn’t have done it because I never felt had energy for it to begin with, since I did a long stint of work before that. I ended that day very exhausted, with a bad headache, but at least nothing is looking further neglected.

I used one of my two mental health days I’m allotted for the year yesterday. I should have used it and the other one long ago. Since yesterday was the last working day I had before the end of the fiscal year, I thought I had better not waste it and I used it to file my bloody taxes, and deal with all other personal fiscal matters. It’s hardly what a “mental health” day should be used for, but I figured it would be in my best interest and easier to pool my energy into dealing with this bit of hell, and then have two full days off to relax, rather than doing it sporadically amidst all the extra shopping and other junk to do; coming back on Monday as a real tired, grouchy son of a bitch. I thought I’d better get those affairs in order and cleared out of the way before making all my other travel plans for the month of April. I’ll be visiting the family for Easter, and attending the burial of my Grandmother’s ashes later in the month. My Dad’s health is as yet a big question mark, but I hope he’ll be released from the hospital before Easter. I’m preparing for contingencies of repeat visits though.

Anyhow, my taxes, plus some other aggravating paperwork, took a few frustrating hours to process, with one break to do some jogging. Then I used the remainder of the day for something else that isn’t conducive for promoting good mental health for me. That would be shopping for shoes.

Sorry boys . . . time to retire.

The 2012 Federal Budget was just released recently from Ottawa, and it’s the Canadian parliamentary tradition for the Minister of Finance to buy new shoes for that day. I figured that since I’ve been probing through my own annual expenses and budget that I should do the same. It couldn’t be avoided any longer, as the ones I have now are pretty much tattered, and I wasn’t going to the bloody malls during a Saturday before the Easter weekend looking for them. I utterly hate shopping for shoes because there are so very few durable, good-quality shoes that actually fit my stupid, semi-deformed feet* properly. It’s easier for me to buy a vehicle for myself than it is to get a decent pair of all-purpose, utilitarian shoes. Like most average Canadian men, I generally avoid shopping for anything that can’t just be grabbed off the shelf and taken straight to the till. I don’t like having to physically try on things to test them; that’s unavoidable when it comes to shoe shopping. I look in hopeless disgust at the heaps of dozens of open shoe boxes that some poor shop worker has went through so much trouble to get for me, only to find out that it was all an exercise in futility to find any hiking or sports shoes that fit my feet, along with my custom made orthotics. I could move on to as many as three or four stores, spending most of a day doing this before I find anything. I’d probably be the shoe customer that would ultimately make someone like Al Bundy blow his brains out. I hate the seriously ridiculous amount of wasted time that is used for this kind of quest. When I do find any they very seldom end up ever being bought at a bargain. This time though, I did manage to eventually find something without too much wasted effort, and not too terribly expensive, but how long they’ll actually last is still a question for debate. I noticed just how much all the running I’ve done has again changed the characteristics of my posture and walking also, and so my orthotics may need to be adjusted, or changed.

New babies

I think I subconsciously and purposely keep all my runners shabby, scuffed up, and riddled with holes, as to dissuade anyone from stealing them, and the expensive orthotics inside them. In a scenario where, God forbid, some maniac is trying to mug me, brandishing a weapon, and demanding that I hand over my wallet, I probably wouldn’t think twice about complying**. However, if the same bastard started pressing me to hand over my shoes, all I’d have to do is think about all the miserable frustration, and anger that I’d be faced with in trying to replace them (and the orthotics), and channel that energy onto this prick as I tackled him. Facing that kind of rage and fury, he’d be begging to die by some other comparatively more merciful, less painful/ humiliating/torturous means instead. I know I’ve been on this subject too long, and even though I’d like it to not have to be so, getting a pair of good, durable shoes for my feet is necessarily a big deal for me, since most of my time is spent with serving people who can’t use their own, and are relying on mine instead. Knowing this, one becomes a lot more appreciative and conscientious of allowing their feet do their job comfortably, and even more so, maintaining the ability to walk properly, seeing day after day how limiting life can be without the ability to do so. I suppose that’s also what’s been bothering me a bit: seeing the kind of condition my own father is in now, and how his mobility is being impaired.

The best sign of spring.

Oooh Yeeeah. . . Daddy like!
Must get this for Man Cave.

Today, the trade show in the neighbourhood this weekend is Gardenscape. The only thing garden related and practical for me would be small container gardening for my balcony, but then I remembered after paying my admission that my deck space is going to be renovated this summer, and thus it would be kind of pointless to plan on planting anything out there. So, initially I felt kind of stupid for even bothering to go there. However, I endeavoured to make it worth my while. I found a demo massaging armchair that I used for a few minutes, and it did me a world of good. It made it worth the cost of entry alone. My own therapeutic masseuse's fee is several times more than the admission to Gardenscape was. Plus, unlike my masseuse, the chair didn’t make me feel like I was getting my hide ripped off of me. I feel so much better. By another lucky happenstance, I made contact with a cute little woman in charge of a housecleaning service, who provided good credentials and references. I think I’ll use her instead of troubling myself with the next go around of long term neglect/absence and seasonal cleaning. I wish I found her sooner. My only other big home project is to reorganize my kitchen space, and then I should be content. I some got ideas for that from Lee Valley, who also had reps there. That chair, new shoes, the smell of flowers, and the loamy aroma of living soil, made me I feel like a new person. I entered a few draws, and with my luck, I would probably win the most impractical thing to ever have around this place: a hot tub (there were like a dozen vendors for them there). It would actually be worse than not winning anything. I have nowhere to put one. I hope there is a cash prize option.

The kind of sign I should own.

*-Not really grossly deformed, but enough to keep me out of the CAF (Canadian Armed Forces) back in the years when I would have considered enlisting, and enough to give me a lot of future spinal/ambulation problems without any corrective support. It didn’t help that my feet/knees were subjected to a lot of punishment doing repetitive and intensive heavy labour during the years of my first wage-earning job after high school, which still has as impact on me I’m sure even today.

**-Judging by all my earlier tax calculations, he wouldn’t find anything in there anyway. The federal government beat him to it.

Post Equinox

Right now, I sit here writing all this during another bad bout of insomnia. It’s around 4:00 am; I find it to be like a deserted temporal shore that my mind has somehow become washed up and stranded on, and left to just wander about to find some way to subsist. Sleep ain’t happening. There is no TV to watch, and even if there was, right now I can only tolerate silence, so music is out too. I can’t be troubled trying to process the words in a book or webpage written by someone else now. It’s like I have some sort of terrible mental itchiness, and writing was only way I could find to scratch at it.

I’ve been going back and forth from work in the past eight days on autopilot, not being really conscious of what I do here when I do stay at home, except to try to sleep, but it doesn’t seem to happen easily, even with the good fortune swapping a nightshift over to something more conducive to preserving my sanity. By the looks of things, I’ve been neglecting stuff around here. It’s like I’ve had to backtrack myself forensically to see what I’ve been doing for the past few days. My dishwasher contents show that only meal eaten here is breakfast, plus a couple of early lunches. There are lots of freezer containers from frozen leftovers. Those, plus the garbage contents, tell me that I’ve been depriving myself of anything fresh. There is an unnerving absence of things in the laundry hamper, which means I’ve been over-wearing some clothes, and since there are less sweaty gym clothes than there should normally be, I’ve been also neglecting gym time. I’m relying on more showers instead (judging by the state of bathroom, and amount of used towels) to feel awake and refreshed during my days. I also notice the strewn receipt slips and piles of neglected statements all over my desk, that’s enough to tell me that I’m in a bit of a depressive slump if I’m doing this much procrastinating in my home life. I don’t know what else to call it.

I think most of the issue is that I just feel spent. Along with coming through the doldrums of winter, I made a realization that between the two positions; with this present go around, that I’ll be working a sixteen day stretch before my next scheduled day off. I had coffee with a friend earlier in the day and realized, through our discussion, that I haven’t been on a real getaway vacation since 2006. I used to travel more frequently, but then I became perhaps too responsible for other things. Despite living alone, it seems like there’s very little ‘me’ time left to have. When I have time off, it seems like the last thing I want to wire into is yet more issues dealing with other people; so I tend to opt not to be social, no matter how cordial people are about things, so that attitude pretty much makes me veer away from making new friendships beyond work, or tuning into any other kind of special ‘love vibe’. It’s the only explanation I can give as to why I’m probably still single. I haven’t been feeling focused, and lately I just don’t feel recharged enough, from day after day, to do anything effective at work anymore. It seems like I genuinely need holiday time, or time away, I just don’t know how, or where.

We’re past that hump of the Vernal Equinox, so we officially enter the phase of the year when there is more daylight time than darkness. More daylight means more time and energy during the day to feel obligated to work on stuff, personal stuff. Because if I don’t in this next while, I really won’t feel like I’d have anything left in me if something else charges into my life that would be really critical that I’d have to tackle.

I’ll start out with an intensive trip to the gym, and see what momentum gathers from there onward. That is, if I ever get enough sleep.

Collections and Collectors

Fishing Lures?

In my younger adult years, one of the more interesting and educational occupations I had was working in a museum, actually two of them. I had a brief stint doing some communications and database work in one heritage centre, and before that, I worked in a curatorial centre doing conservation and cataloguing of artifacts. From those vocational experiences, I can assert with great certainty that I learned these four things:

1.  I developed a greater sense of awe and respect for the histories of people, and disclosing their stories accurately;
2. I like antique furniture;
3. I greatly dislike using industrial and household polishes and cleaners*;
4. And, coupled along with my schooling in psychology, those jobs made it interesting for me to sometimes use an anthropological perspective in studying the strange ways people like to relate to their household possessions.

 I think that’s why I used some of the brief bit of time I had free this weekend to tour the Collectors’ Show at Prairieland Park.

I remember that my Dad had
one of these novelties,
. . . a pissing whiskey
dispenser. What a treasure!

Straight razors, from a collector who probably
viewed Sweeny Todd a few too many times

I remember and thought about the comment I made in my last entry about people trying to fill voids with shopping, and collecting and hoarding stuff. There are very intelligent and dignified people with an encyclopedic knowledge and keen sense of history and detail, with a sound sense of pride in preserving antiquities. I’m not talking about them; from what I saw at this event, their population was rather small. They were the ones more likely to be selling the stuff than buying it. I totally do not get what the drive is for people to start amassing and keeping huge collections of bizarre and useless things as a serious interest: an oddly focused, yet wasteful, form of consumption. I understand the acquiring of stuff that appreciates in value after a while as an investment, and selling it for some kind of profit, but I fail to see the appeal of using a whole room to store shelf loads and boxes full the same sort of object, be it in theme, quantity, or quality. That kind of collecting, to me, is what I would just call object-specific hoarding. Some of random photos I posted here say it all. I don’t hate or abhor collectors; I’m just saying that I’m not on the same vibe as they are.

Matchbooks and bottlecaps?

Perhaps it’s because I’m not a very sentimental person**, and commemorative things just don’t appeal to me that much. Maybe I just have a different sense of aesthetics. I don’t really covet trophies, or trinkets, or “artifacts”. I don’t own or wear jewelry. I mentioned that I like and appreciate antique furniture, but I’m quite indifferent to owning any. I’m more likely to check out a book about it, which I still wouldn’t bother to keep. Books, or videos, you’d think would be a passable substitute in lieu of actuality collecting stuff, but some people are just hard-wired to possess the actual object. I don’t have a much of what can be construed as an addictive personality, and I’d fit on the low end of percentiles as one who would be prone to having any type of obsessive compulsive disorder. I’d think you’d have to have a blend of all of those sorts of things to have a hardcore philia-complex approaching an object-porn/fetish thing going on.  I saw very little there of what I would consider “valuable”.

Tobacco Tins?

Don't you . . . step on
my blue suede pooh!

That’s the other thing that floors me about collecting things as a hobby: it’s the absurdity of the arbitrary prices and values that some things are appraised at, and the hype and mystique that has to be tagged to it to make it valuable. A piece of dog crap on the sidewalk is a worthless nuisance; a fragment of coprolite*** extracted from the colon of Elvis after his autopsy, presented in a blue suede gift box is probably worth a small fortune.  Who decides the value of this shit (literally, in this example)?

You have got to be kidding me
. . . is this like Toaster Porn?!
Butter me up baby!

My foreign bills

My own history of collecting stuff isn’t really anything that notable. Maybe I did collect more stuff; if so I don't remember it, and didn't prize it enough to keep it with me today. I grew up in a very small house with not a lot of personal space to use, so I never had anything really big in terms of collections. As a child, I liked models, but wasn’t a hardcore collector of them. I mostly collected cassettes and later CDs of my favourite music as a teenager; nothing else really that was in an inordinate scale compared to anything else I had. My subjects of interest were, and continue to be, pretty random; nothing really intense, nor passionately specific. I like the simplicity of uncluttered space; that’s what I missed most growing up. I read a lot of books, but yet my own personal home library is quite small, because I like space and also being frugal . . . I let the public library store all the books I want to read, or I buy them used and re-sell them, all else is digitized as PDF and other ebook formats. I’m not a bibliophile: the kind of person who is fascinated by a book as some kind of totem object rather than having it for its content. I have a much smaller than average DVD collection. The only really weird thing that I admit that I fancy collecting now and then is foreign currency notes, and even that isn’t a big thing for me in terms of quantity, or use of my money, time, and energy.****

I'm doubtful that I'll ever have one of these.

I must say that out of all the crowds at the events I witnessed at Prairieland, the Collectors Show has drawn out the weirdest, most eclectic and eccentric bunch yet so far that I’ve seen there. The weirdest of them, disturbingly yet unsurprisingly, hung around the gun tables and displays. I heard a lot of American accents around there. I overheard things like complaints about how much cheaper this guy could buy so-and-so model of shotgun in Nebraska, and about the comparative legal strictness of purchasing and owning firearms here in Canada. I find that most people who love guns beak off a lot about the right to carry firearms, but sure don’t give much thought about the responsibility involved in owning and using one. The guns themselves didn’t give me the heeby-jeebies, it was the weirdos hanging around them who did. I don’t care much about the issue of gun control per se; I do care about the issue of 'whack-jobs-with-too-much-access-to-guns' control. I didn't want to start taking pictures around some of these crazy-looking buggers: I’m talking about the mean-looking anarchist types who looked like they wore camouflage every day, bikers drooling over the automatic pistols, creepy sociopathic-looking bush-hermits from up in the sticks, and some ultra-conservative redneck assholes who were a little less than tactful in being outspoken with blunt, and blatantly racist opinions in less than politically correct language in such a public place. I detected that it was the smelliest region of the exhibition hall. 

Here are some toy cap guns for the
wackos to go play with instead.

Not with the smell of the gunpowder residue, as one would expect amidst such a massive collection of firearms, but of the stench of great volumes of flatulence wafting throughout the crowd. It was like that had to be done by more than just one person. From all that, it kind of scares me to think that if you’re the type who has no civility or enough manners to care about what comes shooting out of your asshole in public, and cares even less and what comes shooting out of your mouth in terms of bigoted slurs, and angry misanthropic remarks in an open public place, I’d think that you’d be close to having the type of personality that could pick up a gun and shoot it in a public place as indiscriminately as well; that’s bothersome to me if your interest in a gun show isn’t so much for the hunting rifles, or admiring craftsmanship. There were too many kids around the gun tables as well, with their stupid parents who weren’t supervising some of them, making it look like it was as casual as a goddamned trip to the zoo. If has come to be such that there are advisories on movies and video games with simulated violence, do pre-teen children have any business being at a place with real weapons on exhibit? It was also sickening to note that in this one place alone, there looked like there were more guns there than there was available big game in a season in all of Saskatchewan. It was a gross example of wasteful over-marketing of a destructive force. That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

beaver stamps

HMCS Saskatoon, in very vivid detail.

There were some model-builders and artists there with some of their stuff. Model-builders and artists are different from collectors, in terms that they actually have a talent with working with great attention to detail in a medium, whereas a collector just merely possesses something possibly created by the model-builders or artists. You don’t have to be talented to be a collector, just obsessive. Collectors, to some degree or extent, render fun or useful things useless. They have the toy, but don’t dare open the box. They have that china that’s reserved for the “special occasion” that somehow hasn’t come yet.

Teak root chairs; it looks like furniture
from a Tim Burton movie.

It wasn’t all bad at the collectors’ show. Another thing that really impressed me was the teak root furniture from Java. It was great to see that there is an effort to use all of a tree and freeing the soil up for other life to take root, rather than abandoning a stump (teak takes a long time to decompose), and halting re-introduction of flora in that bio-space for a long time.

One could observe that in the past few years that there has been a wild onslaught in terms of TV shows about collecting, pawning, auctioning, treasures from trash, picking, appraising, and the transactions surrounding them, that are our ‘reality’ entertainment now. Is it because we have an aging population, and this is the most adventurous thing they’d rather do? Is it because of the long spell of global economic downturn, and everyone is desperately trying to assign a hyper-inflated value to any stupid insignificant thing in their attic? Is it like I mentioned before, another way to protect oneself from existential angst as we neglect other things that a genuinely self-actualizing mind needs to nurture itself?

I say pull out those toys out of the boxes and love them, use your fine china more often; leave your guns in the safe, and enjoy life.

*-I’ve had some extremely bad physical reactions to some products with VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) in them. Plus, as I learned from the conservator, if you really want to preserve your antique furniture, common commercial furniture wax is not the way to go.

**- I’m sure some would say that more accurately I’m closer to being an apathetic son-of-a-bitch. I don’t care; I don’t feel like arguing with them (ha ha, get it?).

***- Coprolite: a piece of fossilized fecal matter. There’s some trivia for you. What a shame it would be to waste that wonderful museum knowledge I learned, why not use it for illustrative purposes here. Now go use it in a sentence and impress your friends.

****- Again, I sort of do this as an anthropological/demographic study, kind of related to what I already mentioned. The representation of objects, words, art/ design, and people printed on a nation’s currency, a share of its economic energy, is like a strange little snapshot of the things that a culture values (or what that country’s government is trying to project that they value). Saying this now, I now understand the mentality of a philatelist. Postage stamps, by rights, represent the same sorts of things (but I still wouldn’t bother to collect them, my weird money collection habit is enough).

Thoughts on Universe

I just came back from work. The brisk walk in the evening left me a little too invigorated to just head straight to bed. Today was the day that I’ve been left a little off kilter, since I live in one region of this continent that doesn’t switch back and forth to daylight savings time. Yesterday was the change over for everyone else. The thing that is notable that throws one off base is that the television programming schedules have shifted to begin one hour earlier on the non-local/non-provincial channels and the American networks. Thankfully PVRs are automated to detect this, not that this matters much to me now since I’m suspending my cable TV service starting the end of this week and on through the spring and summer. That’s when I concentrate more on life-enriching things, like fitness and reading on other deeper subjects.

Anyway, the shifting of the time zones, the material I’ve been reading throughout the weekend, and perhaps serendipitously noticing the way Venus and Jupiter were positioned in tonight’s sky, have really inspired me to think about stuff on my academic/intellectual bucket list, as it were. As of late, some of those deeper subjects I’ve taken an interest in learning more about are astrophysics and cosmology; in particular, trying to make better sense and efforts to learn the intricacies of the moment that our Universe* was created. Why? I suppose I’m ultimately curious about learning about my home right down to its most basic foundation. I’ve been absorbed and enthralled with Bill Bryson’s book, A Short History on Nearly Everything.  It’s helping me with trying to noodle out some other supplemental research and writings from guys like Steven Hawking and Michio Kaku.

Bryson himself isn’t a physicist, or even a scientist. However, he is very masterful at doing what scientists often fail to do. That is, explaining scientific material, or whatever other complex subjects he writes about, in a non-pretentious manner, in language that fabulously illustrates and renders the dimensions of such subjects into non-esoteric terms that are more comprehensible. Even with the simplified explanation, I still have to scribble out and diagram things as I try to follow the jest of what I’m reading to figure it all out and pose my own questions.

The challenging thing to start with is to understand the concept of the singularity. The point at which all matter/energy, space will ever be derived from, was hyper-condensed into a super-compact point where there is infinite space-time curvature. When that got a little too tight . . . KaBlammo . . . the Big Bang resulted, creating the expanse, and all the goodies within it that we call the known Universe. In a singularity, the mass within it approaches infinity, and yet the space it occupies approaches the infinitesimal, and there is no motion. With no motion or “space” to move through, there then is technically no such thing as “time”. What is outside of a singularity? Absolutely nothing: in the strictest sense of the word, “nothing”.

Those are the things for me that make a singularity (the magnet on my white board I designated alpha, α) such a hard thing to figure out. Firstly, the sheer density of mass in such a small space is mind boggling, and secondly, because it is so incredibly hard for a human mind to actually think about, or conceive of “nothing” beyond it. If you ever tried Zen, or other forms of meditation, you would know exactly what I’m talking about. As you try to empty your head of thoughts to try to pinpoint your focus onto just only your breathing, thinking of “nothing” else, notice just how many free-floating and intrusive thoughts re-invade your brain soon after you attempt this. It doesn’t surprise me that it can take an entire lifetime to master such a thing. Even the most dull-witted of people have a hard time allowing themselves to imagine or think about “nothing”. Like nature, the mind doesn’t like voids or vacuums. Trying to conceive of something that technically has no “outside”, but rather only just an “inside” with an incredibly small scale and intense density totally baffles me.

The other thing I find myself hung up on in bewilderment about our Universe’s creation is the transition from the singularity to that instant where the Big Bang occurred, and then the resulting rapid expansion of space-time, matter and energy. I’ve just nicely come to terms with Einstein’s theory that nothing in nature travels faster than light in a vacuum. Apparently though, the expansion of the formation of Universe is exempt from this somehow. According to what Hawking and others theorize, the rate of the expansion of the boundaries of the newly formed Universe happened much faster than c, like the c in E=mc² . . . the constant of the speed of light in a vacuum.

Find the thinnest piece of thread you can, and cut it to about 30 cm (12 inches) long. That is a nanosecond, or rather the distance that the fastest thing in nature (a photon of light) travels in one billionth of a second**. In my mind, if Einstein is correct, the newly formed Universe, after one nanosecond, the Big Bang would have been limited an expansion of about the size of my underused Swiss Ball that’s in my collection of other underused exercise equipment. However, according to Steven Hawking, the expansion of the Big Bang was millions and millions of times larger after an even smaller, infinitesimal increment of time under a nanosecond. This really fries my brain. I have no idea why this is so, even through reading the complex literature about it. I’m not sure if I have the wherewithal to understand it completely. It’s probably one of the most perplexing, divine, mystical, oogity-boogity things which, so far, would prevent me from ever becoming a complete atheist.

I try my best not to be ignorant of physical science, but the terminology and the explanations of the esoteric abstractions that are made in the field of physics are far from user friendly. This is the biggest wall I hit when I try to sort this stuff out. As I study this field more, I only get more and more suspicious and confused of such abstractions, especially the ones, it seems, that start with the letter “q”, like “quanta”, or “quasars”, and “quarks” . . . oh those friggin’ quarks! I really can’t make sense of them at all (up, down, strange, charm . . . and these are “flavours’ of the things . . . what kind of crazy bullshit terminology is that!). It makes me think that this was all dreamt up by some physicist getting high on Quaaludes. It’s no wonder with non-simplified and non-contritely explained stuff like this that the masses in general opt to glaze their own minds over with things like wackity-hoo-hoo religious and superstitious beliefs, crappy "reality" TV shows, video games, and shopping, collecting, and  hoarding material shit to smooth over those voids of knowledge that give them existential angst, rather than trying to educate themselves about science, and the things that make up the fabric of reality.

For now, I’ll make my best effort to use my brain for understanding at least little more of this cosmology stuff. Like learning Zen meditation, this has the potential for needing a lifetime to figure out. If I’m not any more enlightened by doing so for this next while, at least through the pages of this book, I’d be better off by spending time with my underused Swiss Ball instead.

*- I’m of the same school of thought as Buckminster Fuller, who always chose to capitalize the word “Universe” ,like it was a proper name of a country, or the way we address “God”, or anything else that is very vast and all-encompassing and singular. I think Bucky was on to something. He even went so far as to drop the use of definite and indefinite articles (“the” and “a”) when he referred to it in his writings, just like the same way we English speakers do with God and nation’s names. I don’t commonly say “a Canada”, or “the Canada” when referring to my own country, like there is more than one Canada to differentiate it from (unless of course you are putting it in a context where Canada is being compared to itself in different scenarios). Why should that not then be the case with Universe: a place that’s home to all and a source of our creation, like supposedly God is?

**-Now look at the end of that thread, at the actual width of the cross section of where it was cut. All matter in the Universe was trying to trying to occupy a space much, much, much smaller than that in the form of a singularity. Isn’t that wild shit to think about?

Weekend Photo Spontaneity

Just for the hell of it, I thought I'd share a few random pictures of the rare times that I get a couple days off in a row, with no commitment to do anything that looks like work during that time, starting the instant that I wake up. Sleeping in is futile as the day begins with . . .

sniff ... sniff ... sniff ... SLURP!!!

getting woken up with a very enthusiastic "Good Morning!" kiss. Actually, it's more like a warm, wet, panting whisper telling me something akin to a, "Daddy, please take me outside to pee. . . RIGHT NOW!" request. My own enthusiasm and energy to move arrive much later.

A better view of the face of the dream-interrupting culprit.

I'm left feeling somewhat a little derailed mentally though, because I think that this is the first time since this year began when I was not sick, stricken with pain, or scrounging around trying to madly catch up with household obligations. Time to get up and move.

I'll spare the details (and pictures) of my ablutions and hygiene, except that showering and grooming happen after the running/fitness: the only thing I feel obligated to do on days like these.

An app-shot of my performance,
 during mid-run.

 I needed to make a scene like this better, it's such a sad affair. . .

Breakfast . . . usually I try to keep at least this meal of the day high in protein to accord with my regimen. I don't keep any bread for toast in the place. Today, however, I felt like I need some extra carbs. I succumbed to the temptation to slip out for something special.

add a hot buttered Almond Croissant and a slightly
better cup of coffee from Il Secondo, and I'm a little happier.

There's that cheeky "Yeah, I'm gettin' some cookies!
 WTF are you gonna do about it?" expression.

After breakfast, and regaining a little more energy (from the extra starch/sugar), a mind with no commitments starts craving new ideas, and gets desperate to seek them out. But first I'm strangely compelled to tour the old neighbourhood. Ella loves that idea, as she has quite a few aunties (kindly female merchants along Broadway) who she likes to visit, and from whom she likes to mooch treats.

Just some of what I perused.

I forgot how nice it is to immerse oneself in the stacks at the public library; losing all sense of time there. I took some time to do that. I went straight to the magazine section, checking out random things. It's just more comfortable than glancing at the same content through a computer screen.





Then came lunchtime. . .

I needed something a little bit Asian and really hot . . . but since
Olivia Munn wasn't conveniently available, this had to do instead.

Then after that, just on a whim, I thought I'd check out a local music shop. I think I'm now in love with Roland guitar effects systems.

I took some of these out for a test drive. . .

.

. . . and monkeyed around on these babies as well. It was great!

2012 Sport and Leisure Show

If trying to tune myself into leisure was my mission I'd thought I'd better check out the Sports and Leisure Show at Prairieland. It was disappointing for me. The showroom was dominated by hunting, camping, and fishing vehicles and equipment promoters, and there was nothing of what I construe as 'sports' gear, like bicycling, skiing, or running, or team sport gear. I threw my name in a few draws, but found nothing much else there to interest me.

After touring around there, I was tired to return home for a nap. Woke up, poured myself a brew, and switched on the TV to probe through the listings for anything that won't waste my time.

Homemade 5.7 % alc/vol Dark Ale, plus watching TV
indiscriminantly usually results in a whole lotta stupid.

 Finished beer; napped again. I started reading when once I awoke. Non-fiction choice: The Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson. Fiction choice: The Outlander, by Gil Adamson. I'm sure I'll be continuing with them well into this evening, so I won't waste any more words on that. I could just as well as pass on supper if more beer becomes an option. 

As the day cycles to a close, it has all just been a reminder that confirms that I seem to have highly limited capacity for using energy for seeking or deriving entertainment socially, or from external stimuli. The only thing I like socially is chatting one to one with people, and finding comedy in things.* The most entertaining stuff for me that ever happens in my life occurs between my own two ears, and I don't need much to stimulate me to think. I suppose that's why I've felt such an urge to start writing more, so as to pick through and recover the myriad of the stuff, both deep and trivial, that is trapped in my skull that puts a smile on my face. Some (much) of it is way too complicated for others to get, and greatly loses its impact when I have to try to explain it verbally. And therein lies the value of spontaneity.

*- Well . . . actually, as far as social activities go, sex trumps everything; in my little world though, finding and drawing humour out of people is a hell of a lot easier than getting sex from them.

International Women's Day

I’m one of very few men who, in their lifetime, have worked in a sexual assault crisis centre. That was many years ago. Whenever International Women’s Day comes around, I do a lot of reflecting about what social attitudes there were back then about the crime of sexual assault, and how far we have come along in changing them.  

It dismays me to say that I feel the progress hasn’t come that far after close to twenty years ago since I worked in such a place. Yes, with the growth and expansion of the access to the Internet, we gradually became better at communicating the subject of sexuality better, or at least more openly, but we’re not any better at dealing with gender targeted aggression, we are just better at exposing more of it now that there is more global transparency.

It’s shameful that in this age where the ability to access information has multiplied so greatly, that there are forces out there, mostly radical/ultra-orthodox religious* based ones, who are supporting and out rightly condoning the violation of women and their rights with social sanctions, physical and even sexual violence.  We have exposed the barbaric treatment of women in Afghanistan and Pakistan with acid attacks and other torturous mutilations inflicted upon them for daring to explore  social circles beyond their own home and family, or taking on non-traditional roles. Sadly, it took full scale invasions of involving other political issues before the news media ever brought this stuff to light. Women in some parts of this world are still sentenced to stoning and legally sanctioned ‘shame-rapes’ for things like adultery. Access to education, or even basic literacy, is not reality for some girls and women on this globe. Here in Canada, we recently closed the Shafia affair in court, but it’s sickening to know that there is still yet a community of supporters out there who sympathize and even condone his action for the “honour killing” of the female members of his own family.

Stories still appear about immigrant families from Africa, and South/Central Asia living in Western nations are still sometimes caught performing clitorectomies and other forms of genital mutilation on their female children. One can imagine that it’s happening much more commonly in their original homelands.

From a year ago, but still very much valid. Thanks again to Dame Judy Dench and Daniel Craig.

It’s not much better in Western/industrialized countries. If you have ever read the Stieg Larrson series of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, there was exposed just about every issue of abuse, power and control over women in what one would think is a very civilized country with a more secular society. Of course that was fiction**, but there were lots of corellates and congruencies that showed up in those books that matched up well with the dynamics exposed through the real life statistics I processed, and files and reports that landed on my desk back then (minus the murders thankfully). The use of physical force, sexual aggression, financial control, and isolation/alienation*** from society are still very much at play against women here in Canada.

If there are going to be any misogynist assholes out there who are going to pooh-pooh my words about this matter, I think the best lesson they should have is the shock of being woken in the middle of the night to get to a hospital to witness the aftermath of a violent sexual assault, like I’ve dealt with back in the day. I’d have them witness such a thing happening to their own family member just to make the point hit home. Unfortunately, that would necessitate having yet another victim, and it might be just a moot point anyway for guys who are that indifferent, insensitive and uncaring, since most violence towards women is committed by someone known to them, like spouses and family members.

I’m sorry ladies and friends that the subject material was such a downer of a posting on your special day. I hope it’s a better day for you than this picture I’ve painted here.

*- Another reason why I can’t delude myself into thinking that I’ll find any promise of “salvation” in any religion.
**- I drew a general example from fiction mostly to avoid specifics of cases that I know about. I'm relegated to uphold confidentiality up to this very day.
***-I think more specifically of what I’ve seen as incidents that happen rurally, and on the First Nations’ reserves.

Some Magazines I Like

It was more than a little disheartening for me to wake up today and see twenty centimeters of new snow covering everything outside, and then hearing a report that another ten centimeters will be blowing in and accumulating throughout the day. There is more snow coming today than what I think we’ve had accumulated so far for all this winter. I saw my igloo encased car earlier and thought of how it totally sucks that I still have to trouble myself to go to work on a day like this. I thought about what I would rather be doing on a day like this with being holed up inside, apart from trying to regain some sleep. For whatever reason, all I could instantly think of was that it would be the perfect kind of day to just enjoy the simplicity of having some tea and reading all the latest issues of the magazines that I prefer if I had them here. I don’t though; so the next best thing I thought I’d do is hone my wit and writing skills by listing them all, or at least the ones I would read on a snowy day like today. 
 

National Geographic – I love nature photography, and studying the great diversities of biology and geography, and how human and animal life adapts and evolves to each one on a developmental and social level. This magazine has been around since 1888. Pick a subject from the size of an atom to the furthest extend of the cosmos, from viruses to blue whales and it’s a sure bet that National Geographic has done a terrific exposé on it. They do great focused editorials on nations and cultures without too much political or religious bias either way. After spending a little time studying the masterfully shot photos in National Geographic after a tough day, I regain some sense of not really being so hard done by; noting how beautiful this world can be if we only allow ourselves a chance to see it. On a day like today, I’d most enjoy the photos of tropical locales.

Colors – Kind of like NatGeo in that it’s heavily based on geography, but it’s more geared to social demographic research in an artsy, creative kind of way. It’s a publication from Europe by Colors by Benetton, which is renowned for their use of simple, yet alternative and sometimes controversial advertising photos. Each issue is dedicated to focusing on one central theme, and puts it in a global perspective; things like water, prison, death, money, fat, etc. The last issue of it I looked through was simply themed Shit, and yet somehow it wasn’t as disgusting as one would think. It was maturely informative, using just enough impact and shock value to draw one into and hold interest about a subject that one wouldn’t normally opt to read about. The pictures are striking, but many have a grittier edge to then that provide some very sobering glimpses on reality. Other languages are interesting to me; I like the fact that each issue is multilingual. It gives me a chance to learn more vocabulary and grammatical nuances from each one printed along with the English articles and captions for comparison.

Adbusters – A global magazine published here in Canada. It’s an (anti)advertizing magazine about the deplorable and irresponsible ways that advertising is being used, and strips the sugar coating away from the biased media and their messages. Marshall McLuhen would be so proud.*

Popular Science – As a younger teen, while every other guy my age back then was reading hot rod magazines or trying to scam a Playboy from somewhere, I was enjoying reading this magazine instead. I freely admit that I was a weird kid in that respect. The most fun thing for me while reading this magazine was comparing the technology we were actually currently using to the earlier bizarre Jules Verne-esque visions of science and technology that this same magazine was predicting we would be using in our present from their issues from a few decades earlier. With this magazine, I was always wondering why there weren’t any hovercrafts in people’s driveways yet; or why we weren’t living in geodesic domes, or why we weren’t having robots to do our ass wiping for us (or at least to clear away all this goddamned snow), or however the vision of things to come was so predicted. Popular Mechanics is of the same ilk as well. 

Men’s Health – For basically learning and reminding me how not to do stupid stuff that will put me in hole in the ground sooner than I’m due for. It’s important to consider, since I’ve reached that critical age now where my current state of health determines how rapidly it declines once (if) I reach my senior years. I object to the condescending tone of some articles in the magazine for speaking to men like they were complete idiots about some manners regarding general common sense stuff about health and wellness (especially cooking), but the sad fact is that most men are that way. There are a few good reasons why men generally die sooner than women. It would be generally due to our own stupidity and ignorance about what it takes to stay fit and survive: proneness to doing stupid and harmful risk-taking behaviour due to competitive one-up-man-ship, and the general avoidant behaviour when it comes to men learning anything medical about themselves. This magazine serves as a passable substitute for the time that I spend living apart from estrogen-based life forms, which generally are the ones with more vested interest and advice for men to live healthier**, or at least helping one to look a little less slovenly. It’s not a magazine for your average macho dumbass . . . that would be more like the next one on this list.

Maxim – I like booze and bar room humour, but I don’t like hanging around with other immature idiots in bars, and overpaying for drinks. Maxim is, at times, my substitute for that. I like boobies***; I confess I like the smoking hot swimsuit/lingerie models that some of the better ones are attached to. I like guy toys and gadgets also. Conveniently, Maxim covers all that too. I don’t read it that much anymore, but there are times I suppose when I don’t really want to over-intellectualize things, or times when I need to prove to myself that I have a few molecules of foul testosterone left in me, and I need such moments for getting in touch with my inner pig. So, I sometimes indulge in perusing through some articles of the odd issue of Maxim now and then, mostly for a good laugh. After comparing Maxim’s articles with those of an ex-girlfriend’s issue of Cosmo, I found Cosmo had equally, if not more, raunchy sex tips (just worded differently). So ladies, please spare me the backlash and hypocrisy. Maxim also provides the remaining unique and more curiously weirder bits of health and wellness advice and answers that won’t be found in Men’s Health. Like, for example, how to lessen your chances of being tortured and gang-raped in a Lebanese prison. As adult male entertainment, it’s definitely not a magazine for intellectuals or sophisticates, but it has just enough tastefulness to keep it from sinking into being something totally pornographic.

Flavours – A quarterly periodical released around the Solstice/Equinox seasons of the year through the Saskatchewan Liquor Board Store, about available stocks of wine, beer and liquors in the SLBS, sources for gourmet ingredients, and recipes of how to blend them together as pairings. It’s local, and totally free.

Puzzle magazines – Mostly logic or math puzzles, like sudoku, kakuro, or logic grids, or else the odd crossword. Just to keep those two scoops of grey matter active.

Woodworking Magazines – Small carpentry projects are probably another hobby I’d be doing more intensely during my retirement years.

Magazines You’d Think I’d Read More of (but actually don’t)

Running Magazines – This is the Zen of running: quickly putting one foot in front of the other, in a careful manner, and repeating that until you reach your goal distance or destination to the best of your ability. You may, or may not, do better than the last time you did it. When it begins to hurt too much, then stop it dummy! And that’s it. Yes, I run for my fitness, and to some extent the challenge, but I fail to see (or maybe just not yet where I’m at another new competitive level to see) what else could be so new or intricately complicated about doing it (for me) where 12 issues per year can be written/read about the subject. To me, that's about as sensible as making a magazine entirely devoted to pushups. 

Computer magazines – Reading a monthly periodical on printed paper about enhancing a machine that can automatically download updates for itself every day if need be seems like a waste of time/money for me. They are written in baffling tech language which bogs me down most times. They are only useful of IT tech is your actual trade.

Brewing magazines – I have a lot of respect for the kind of intellect needed to craft a decent pint of beer. To be a respectably better than average home brewer, you need to understand the fundamentals of biochemistry, organic chemistry, microbiology (specifically zymurgy), thermodynamics of heat exchange, fluid densities/dynamics, sanitization/risks of cross-contamination, food science, stoichiometry, and the general math formulae to take into account all of these variables, and the engineering know-how to create a good brewing system. The brewing magazines out there are for the hardcore brewing über-geeks who invest a lot of money, space, and time to make and drink it, which I just don’t have. It’s just practical to follow the simple kit instructions that I use now.

Tricycle – A magazine about Buddhist living. I appreciate the teachings of Zen Buddhism; I have enough books on the subject already. Honestly, after reviewing them all, I see the fundamentals of Buddhism as stuff that can all be completely written out on a fortune cookie slip, and Zen is just a matter of conducting yourself mindfully in the here and now. I confess and accept that there are some days when I’m better at doing this than others. I don’t need to look for things to be deeper than that; there’s nothing else I have to buy into. I don’t place too much gravity on matters of meditation; or whether or not there are cycles of reincarnation; or whether it’s ethical or not to drink alcohol or eat meat; or what kinds of karmic rewards and punishments there are, or other matters that most people mistakenly believe Zen Buddhism is about. Thus, like with case of the running magazines, I need nothing to be made more complicated by monthly issues on subjects that are cyclical anyway. No disrespect to the people who do find solace in this publication, or to the people who put effort into creating it. Each has their own path to find. I wouldn't dare say that this magazine is a wrong way to go about it, I just don't follow it as fervently as others think I might.

*- Warning: this magazine will make you madder than hell at the corporate machine, and the things they do to mess with your mental environment.

**- Men generally don’t care much about seeing and keeping other males in good health unless: it directly relates to their paying job, it involves a member of their own family, or if they are in some gay relationship. If it were otherwise, we wouldn’t spend so much time laughing when a buddy of ours has some clumsy, but non-serious, accident; or being engaged in, or spectators of bodychecking/tackling/fighting in contact sports, or be so willing and eager to witness and fight in wars.

***- To prove just how much I like boobies, I’m seriously thinking of having one of my running goals as joining in on the Run for the Cure event in October in my community: out of support and respect for my female relatives and friends who have been threatened with breast cancer.