The Dream Circuits

I awoke this morning to find that a super-rink appeared overnight in front of the building, extending down a couple of blocks. I first guessed that it was a water main break, but seeing the sheer volume, and the evidence of pressure for such coverage and the characteristics of the ice, I'm now figuring that perhaps a fire hydrant line burst open instead. No water restriction notices or advisories have been issued as of yet, so I'm reckoning (and hoping) the main line wasn't actually affected. The large of piles of remaining snow in front of the building from last Saturday's gong show were saturated and now frozen hard. The sidewalks around the front and sides are now slicked up with a sheet of ice that is about eight centimeters thick. I suppose the "blessing" of having the huge dump of snow earlier on Saturday was that it managed to block/dam the water, and the deeper ruts on the street helped to channel the water away from flowing into the lower parkade. The drainage below there wouldn't have been able to handle this type of inundation. If it froze down there in the sub -30 temperatures from last night, there could have been a fresh new hell to deal with.
 
This new glacier around the building adds a greater burden to spirits that are already bogged down enough by this bleak and miserable winter that has long outstayed its welcome. The extra shoveling at work and home, and even just the tension from bracing oneself while cautiously traversing the deep snow and now the ice, has stricken me with some new pains and soreness. This has all dissuaded me from trying out a morning run out there like my original plan was. However, in my mind I was still set and geared for it. Rather than confront this new obstacle and wallowing in disappointment, I turned toward some fantasy thoughts in my richer inner life. I was considering all the international marathon races that I would like to try out. Here is the list of options I made as the ones that I would like to participate in; if not for this year, then maybe I'd be in shape and better able to partake in any one of these (if any are annual) in 2016.

Race: Rock n' Roll Raleigh Marathon - Raleigh, NC, USA
Date: April 12th, 2015
Distance: Half Marathon
Reason/Attraction/Significance: It's simply because anything pitched with Rock n' Roll in the title has to be fun. I would guess the weather in Raleigh in April would be close to the same as what it would be here at the end of May when the Saskatchewan Marathon is, thus endurable. It would be a low-key event I'm sure, and not so competitive. It would be a nice beginner marathon for the year. It would be also great to have the chance see a family member living there. While there, I think I'd like to check out the Pirate Museum which I believe is also there. It would be my international half-marathon that would be closest to home.


Race: The Midnight Sun Run - Iceland
Date: June 23rd, 2015
Distance: Half-Marathon
Reason/Attraction/Significance: Iceland is the closest non-continental nation to home* and it wouldn't be right not to explore it a little more. I believe the registration is closed for this one already; it would be one to consider for 2016. The physical challenge and interest in this one would be to see how well my circadian rhythm and the constitution of my running self would be able to handle a 24 hour period of daylight at that latitude. There is no place in Canada where I would want to be that far north given the lack of some conveniences. Iceland would be more civilized to say the least. There would be a certain sense of satisfaction in proving myself as a tough old bugger if I could compete and keep up with people who are for the most part the direct decedents of Vikings. 
 
Race: The Wellington Marathon - New Zealand
Date: July 5th, 2015
Distance: 10 km
Reason/Attraction/Significance: It would be technically my first "winter" race (it will be in that hemisphere at that time of the year) if I were to do this one. Being that it would be the furthest location from home, jetlag would be the major impedance to performance, so a 10 km race would be long enough. Having an Anglophone culture there is convenient, and as it's a lesser opted for tourist destination, it makes it attractive in being perhaps reasonably unspoiled.

Race: The Stockholm Half Marathon - Sweden
Date: September 12th, 2015
Distance: Half Marathon
Reason/Attraction/Significance: As I said before, Sweden would be the first nation I would probably move to if I couldn't live in Canada anymore. I would consider this a perfect birthday present to myself. However, it would also be the most expensive place to travel to. Running through the beautiful city of Stockholm would probably actually be the cheapest way to tour it. What would I do after this race? Probably have a genuine Swedish massage.

Race: The BMW Berlin Marathon - Germany
Date: September 27th, 2015
Distance: Half Marathon
Reason/Attraction/Significance: If I were still in Europe after Stockholm, I would hope that this would be enough time to recover for this next go around. I would hope that the course there would be such that one could see Berlin on both sides of where the former wall would have been, and see how much change there would have been since then. The perfect post-run treat would be heading out to a good old traditional beer hall.

Race: Tamarindo Beach Marathon - Costa Rica
Date: September 12th, 2015
Distance: 10 km
Reason/Attraction/Significance: Should Stockholm not be an option, a cheaper destination may be here. Being that it's tropical, I would most likely dial it back to only 10 kilometers. The attraction of it is that I have contacts there already who could give me insights on things that are off the beaten path and yet safe to tour.

Race: The Dublin Marathon - Ireland
Date: October 26th, 2015
Distance: Half Marathon
Reason/Attraction/Significance: This is probably the most feasible one to register and attend out of all these I've posted so far. If I have the medical all clear in May, the amount of training time I  would need will coincide perfectly for this one. If I live through it, an intimate tour of the Guinness brewery would be my number one priority to clear off the bucket list.

*- Actually, I just realized that the closest nation to Canada after the US is not Iceland. Technically, it's France, or rather French possessions. The islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon are just off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, and are principalities of the Republic of France. They are within our territorial waters, so then maybe that makes the US actually the second closest national neighbour. Then there is Greenland to consider, which is a possession of Denmark, and is only 50 km or so from Ellesmere Island, and they are actually attached by ice to each other for part of the year. Svalbard Island, belonging to Norway, is close too if you readjust your perspective. I suppose to be more accurate, Iceland is perhaps the second closest landmass that is a fully autonomous self-governing nation neighbouring Canada after the US, but then again, our distance from mainland Russia across the Arctic Ocean is probably a lot closer than we think. Things always get weird when contemplating the geographies of the Polar regions, because we generally hold the Mercator projection in our heads when we think of the world map, which greatly distorts landmass size and distance. Given that, I can easily forgive myself if I'm wrong this time. I imagine that I already opened a can of worms of debate for any of the readers who take this kind of shit seriously. I would consider it a job well done if my question ends up starting a couple of bar fights out there somewhere. Maybe Google Earth will help straighten things out later.

Bloody Valentines

I have expressed often enough in previous entries my great loathing for Valentine's Day. I make no secret and don't deny at all that I am to Valentine's Day what the Grinch is to Christmas. I've been single through most of them, and the additional spitefulness towards the day comes from living in a region where 80% of the Valentine's Days during my lifetime have been blasted with winter storms, not unlike the one arriving today (more than 15 cm of blowing snow coming). I was initially going to travel out of town earlier, but I wised up to the advisories considering what my trip back home would be like. I've already been harshly greeted and woken up with a cruel icy bitch slap of a face-shredding wind outside this morning while walking the dog (-37 wind chill), and it doesn't help much knowing that the worst is yet to come. I work this evening, and I'm debating whether I should risk driving there and getting stuck, or try walking there in near white-out conditions. It's pretty much assured that given the weather that we'll be short-staffed. It's a day of anomie and isolation for singles that occurs when one is already in, and enduring, the deepest trough of mid-winter depression. For this province, in this climate, there couldn't possibly be a more poorly-placed, or more idiotically contrived occasion in the year to celebrate and glorify romantic love than today. My apologies to those who have already done so, but if you live around here, and chose today to propose marriage to your sweetheart, just because it's an easy date to remember, on this sort of miserable day, you ought to be automatically and officially classified as some sort of retard.

For me, I just had to find some way to keep myself busy. For the morning of this most wretched of all observances of the year for me, I ceremoniously grabbed my sharpest knife and cleaver and applied them to disarticulating joints, cracking bones, slashing up and peeling away skin, and hacking at, grinding, and macerating raw dead flesh. 

It's OK, relax! Don't over-react, I haven't gone off the deep end! It's not like I was in Halifax* . . . I was just processing and trimming some bulk pork for making my own homemade sausages. It's my way of rebelling against eating the industry-processed food. I at least know what's going into my own stuff. Sure, it's a dorky and weird thing to opt to do on Valentine's Day, but for me it's perhaps appropriate. Like the old European cheese, wine and beer-making traditions, sausage-making seems to be one of those food crafts best-suited for the monastic sorts**. I might as well call myself a monk, since it's another Valentine's Day with no one to share it with. Making tubular meat-filled phallic symbols all morning was as good as it got for me today. To be honest, it felt right to do, or it was at least chopping, cutting, and slashing at some inert fleshy mass was a more benign way to be cathartic, but what would have been perhaps even more fitting for me to do was to take the actual heart of the same poor beast and use it as an additional ingredient to pass through the meat grinder, thoroughly disintegrating it: an act truly demonstrative of my contempt for this damn stupid, inclement, ridiculous, alienating day. Thankfully, there are limits to both my appetite for destruction and gratuitous expressions of spite. That extra step would have just probably only edged me further toward a darker place. However, my focus wasn't tainted by too much bitterness. I concentrated on making my knife work flawlessly. I managed to take some gross-looking stuff and make it more delicious and aesthetically pleasing. My execution of this project was reasonably quick, efficient, inventive, well-contained, and clean, with no indication or evidence afterward that some orgy of blood, greasy lard, and raw pork had ever graced my kitchen. I think that Hannibal Lecter*** himself would have been impressed with my methods. As usual, nothing was wasted. Today's renderings were: three kilograms of Cajun style cured sausage, three kilos of Hungarian style smoked paprika and garlic sausage, three liters of Vietnamese Pho broth made from that noble hog's baked bones, marrow, tendons, and trimmings. For the finale, I fashioned a sort of a chichorón cassoulet made with the rest of that marvelous skin (to be served with some fava beans and a fine Chianti . . . slurp, slurp, slurp, slurp . . .). Through reviewing some recipes online, it seems like it's only the English, the Spanish/Mexicans, the Filipinos, and myself who can appreciate how delicious pork cracklings can be.

So, what of the other aspect of that main element of Valentine's Day: the LOVE part. Sorry. Love is a topic that I don't touch on here in this blog, or with any other company. I come nowhere close to being an authority with any wisdom on such a thing. It's too irrational, and too conditional to allow me to figure it out. I've heard of this myth of unconditional love; I live each day never seeing it really happening. I only know that I've witnessed and endured too many examples of what it isn't (in my mind anyway). To say I'm a bit jaded about the subject is perhaps an understatement. I could expose my thoughts about it, but it would be at the risk of sounding like a cold-hearted bastard, like I was once indoctrinated by the Khmer Rouge, or had once been some sort of feral child that was raised by a troop of rabid badgers. I'll limit myself by saying the following things about it and be done with the subject from here on in.

In regards to love and entering romantic relationships:

• In the history of literature, Dante Alighieri, writer of The Divine Comedy, foolishly forgot to include "dating after the age of 40" as another one of the circles of Hell****.
• I'm absolutely powerless to "make" someone love me back. Whenever love felt real to me, it has only turned back against to me and disappointed me and made me suffer by being unrequited. It has happened too often; so much so that one can't help but to feel isolated and to give up hope.
• Too many instances and too much exposure to what I would call "50 Shades of Crazy" has no doubt left me somewhat gun shy.
• It's far better to be alone than being around someone who does nothing but argue, nag, belittle, and accost you with other forms of negativity. So far, I've met more people who are like that than those who are not. The ones who don't sadly are either adults who are a just few too many years my junior and wouldn't be interested in me, or else too many years my senior.
• It's most often the case that, given this age, any women who are interesting enough for me are usually already partnered.
• The women I've found most endearing to me now all live afar. Life is unfair

I don't know why, but I do hold out for the chance for when, like the Grinch, my heart somehow grows three sizes larger someday upon crossing paths and meeting that most wonderful person. Right now though, it feels like a mostly useless and unwanted thing: one that has been passed through a meat grinder again and again; weakening and disintegrating more and more, feeling like less and less.
 
Just one positive Valentine's Day in my life is all that I humbly ask for. I guess I just have to somehow stay strong and survive through this one to see if that will ever happen. Today, however, is just another wretched winter day here, made all the more challenging and difficult by having to fumble around through it in knee-deep snow and wind to acquire the more basal elements of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, never mind trying to attain that which approaches a higher love, intimate contact and connection, and acceptance.

*- I just heard on the news about some sociopathic misfit loser punks who were planning a murder rampage in a Halifax mall. As a much as a downer this bit of writing is, nothing tops that sort of unfettered anger and contempt. Thankfully, that was thwarted by the police there today.
 
**- Sausage trivia - I learned that the name of the type of delicacy we Anglophones call "summer" sausage has nothing to do with the season, and is actually a corruption of the words "seminary sausage", i.e. sausage that was traditionally made in a monastery. I can't guess as to why; maybe it changed to "summer" because the word "seminary" perhaps sounded too unnervingly close to the word "semen", which would undoubtedly be an obvious PR nightmare for the church, especially if it was construed that "semen sausage" was prepared by some monks . . . Ew, nasty! That, as I say, is a whole other weekend of entertainment. Anyway, more seriously, before the days of scientific thinking, having something wonderfully appetizing rendered from something like spoiling curdled milk, souring grapes, musty grain, or something formed from the less appealing bits and pieces of an animal was really thought to be miraculous and an act of divine intervention. Thus, such processes of fermentation and controlled decay and denaturation were left under the auspices of chaste and holy men who were charged to be in good standing with the Lord almighty. Speaking of holy men, it still baffles me as to how Valentine's Day, a day originally commemorating the execution and martyrdom of a priest, got deviated into what it is today.
 
***- An interesting, yet creepy,Valentine's Day bit of movie trivia: The Silence of the Lambs was released in theatres on February 14^th back in 1991. I wonder: how many rejected marriage proposals happened that day after such a movie date? So, today's bloody activity thus seemed to be a bit of the homage of sorts. As dark, disturbing, shocking and graphic as it is, it still remains on my Top 10 all-time favourite movies list, and worthy of all the Oscars it won. More interesting facts about this film from this Mental Floss link
 
****- He should have added "February in Saskatchewan" as a circle as well.

0.1 Of 2015

By my reckoning, I realize that as of noon today we will have exactly one tenth of this year behind us. It's also a dear friend's birthday today. Treating her to an enjoyable lunch was probably the only thing that gave me enough drive to wander outside and beyond my home for the day. Flurries have been occurring since last night, and it's still continuing to snow now. Anything pleasant and alleviating that resulted from the abnormally early thaw we had in mid-January has now been buried, obscured, and erased in the bleak whiteness.

At the beginning of the year, I made some 52 week to-do and wish lists. So far, I'm on track with keeping on task. Today was used to do and assess the progress of such things. The best thing about it is that I'm forcing myself with my own curiosity to try out some new hacks to overcome the procrastination. Some of the goals and expectations on them range from a blend of the realistic to the trivia, to the eccentric, to the outlandish and extravagant. The lists contain anything at all that I feel puts me a few steps forward towards whatever I liken to be as abundance and progression towards the better. I told myself that if I could even fulfill 10% of these things I've brainstormed I'd be happy. Well, the tally shows that I've done this, or at least got the smaller things cleared away. I am happier, or at least a little more content and satisfied; and along with getting other spaces and other stuff in order, I'm feeling a lot more confident that I can achieve even more yet.

One cheap old shoe rack + 4 notch cuts + Ella's
kennel + fitness gear = New exercise station +
2 cubic meters of reclaimed condo space.

Regaining my strength and endurance back has still been a major struggle. Now that the last of my closets have been organized, I managed to station my fitness equipment in a place where I'm not tripping over it, and yet at the same time, in a convenient enough spot where it's accessible and not likely to be completely ignored. I did have some lavish plans to build a more elaborate shelving system, but after some more juggling and reassessment, I resorted to some repurposing and hacking with using only a saw. Making four simple notch cuts saved me time, space, and money. I didn't even need to consult Pinterest to figure this hack out.

Rediscovering my near-to-expired passport some time ago has sparked me up with a travel bug. Holidaying abroad was on that list, but so far the picture is no clearer than to just get out of the country. I'm not interested in going to the USA*, or Mexico, or any other Latin American or Hispanic nations. Been there; done that. I want the chance to go someplace and use either of the two other languages I know, or either of the two others I've been casually learning now while I still have the capacity to use them, and also to allow me enough freedom to avoid the tourist resorts entirely. That's about as clear as the picture gets for me as far as travel goes thus far. It's one of those more extravagant things on my list.

I'm hoping tomorrow will be more moderate weather-wise. I think I'll dare myself to try out some Nordic skiing now that enough snow has returned to do it.
*- Maybe some other time to visit my dear cousin.

The Bachelor Spring Cleaning Chart

I've been going through a phase of insomnia since last Thursday, due to a mixed bag of reasons. I have brainstorming, with the help of Pinterest, to blame for last night's round of it. I don't know why I've been so geared to start my "spring" cleaning so early, but I did. It's something I'm usually a consummate procrastinator for doing as such. Perhaps it was due to the past few months of aching for change for the better, or a prompt from the last couple times of having avalanches of junk from top shelves falling on me when I've opened closets. Whatever the case, I welcome having now the health, energy, and motivation to commit to such a task. You'd think that making room and carting away trash would help set my mind toward a peaceful ease. However, that hasn't been happening. Instead, I've been setting my brain on fire with wild ideas, and researching ways to repurpose and reorganize space and objects after I've cleared away and purged all the surplus detritus.

This time around hasn't been as overwhelming and frustrating though. I fashioned a bit more of a sounder system for conquering clutter. For my own benefit, I've listed some common sense things to remember that greatly simplified things. Since it is very process oriented that goes through some repetitive loops, I decided to make this a flowchart, and take advantage of using a learning moment on how to create such things. To see the flowchart better, use the "Ctrl and +" keys to zoom in, and "Ctrl and - (minus)" to zoom out again.

  

Or, I could scrap all this and call the new Maids in Lingerie service, that has recently established itself here (or so I've heard)