Tag Archives: kate

09.12.31 [Thursday]
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whining

fuck you 2009, i piss on your rotting corpse

The past few months have had really long days because of my frequent talking to people in places where it’s already tomorrow. I wake up and talk to Holly where she’s already had the day I just woke up to, then if we talk when I get home she’s home for lunch the next day. Keeps me falling forward in time. It’s 2010 in China.

I fucking hated the fuck out of 2009. This was the year my condo ate my life. The decision to buy was in 2008, but the badness was all this year. All the arguments and irresponsibility and hassle. The lack of sleep because of worry. The resignation to the fact that I made a really bad decision and have basically wiped out all the money left to me by all my dead relatives. Awesome. If you want to buy it, I’ll take offers way below the current asking price. Please. Let me out of here.

The best parts of 2009 predictably happened when I was far from the condo. I visited Caroline & Co (even though it was too early for Paisley to actually remember), went to Los Angeles, and of course enjoyed the hell out of my time in China (which it seems I never did write about extensively here).

I didn’t work anywhere and nothing of any interest happened at the places I didn’t work (oh right, I work in a cheese factory – forgot there for a minute) so “work life” falls neither in the good nor heart-shittingly bad parts of the year. The cheese factory did fund my escapes from the (utterly privileged) hell of thinking about the condo though.

My plans for 2010 are to feel way less responsible for this fucking condo bullshit. Also: Write something. Go to school. Watch some baseball. See friends get married.

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09.12.21 [Monday]
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music, winnipeg

seasonal reasoning

This is my fourth day off work in a row, which has been great. In order not to spoil it I’ve been ignoring condo corporation emails, though from the snippets that are visible in my inbox it appears there’s a bunch of sniping going on at our property manager. I have no desire to get in there at all. I’m enjoying the end of my weekend. Tomorrow.

Friday I watched Battlestar Galactica in the morning and then went to get tattooed in the afternoon. I didn’t know I was going to get tattooed. I was fully planning to go down, make an appointment and then wander in the village a little while. But the kid behind the counter asked if I was free, and I was, and so was an artist, and now I’ve got twice as much ink on my arms as I did before. (Still a very small quantity of ink, all told.)

Friday night was a party at Michael’s. I showed up late but had some really interesting conversation. A big conversation about the Mental Healthcare system went on, which isn’t something I know very much about at all. I stayed on the sidelines, acting a bit as an audience, but that’s a role I’m good at filling so yeah.

Saturday was Unrau family Xmas and I saw my cousins and played video games with my once-removed cousins. Oh, they had a karaoke Xbox game, so after people had been mumbling through Christmas carols (and I’d been hiding in the kitchen) for a while, Austin and I closed the singing off with U Can’t Touch This. Done really quite poorly. But it was fun.

The Danny Michel concert on Saturday was super. Danny Michel has actually spoiled me for basically every other live show ever. I want everyone else to be as funny and not taking himself super seriously but also sincere and not stagey as he does his inbetween song bits. The fact that he builds these great soundscapes with his loop pedals and shit is icing. They were recording the show (along with the Friday night edition) for a live CD so he paused to redo lines sometimes. In Tennessee Tobacco he explained that everyone clapping along was probably going to be a problem, recording wise, because he doesn’t actually play in time. I loved the songs where he sat at the piano. My favourite of the evening was his piano version of Valley of Doom, which was sad and dark and a lot creepier without any guitars.

Then off to Sean’s, where we ate burnt ochre velvet cupcakes and stacked chairs and generally had a good time drinking whisky. I may have been the only one drinking whisky. But I didn’t tell anyone off so it counts as a win.

Sunday Kate was in town before heading off to Europe in a couple of weeks and we went for lunch to a Portuguese restaurant, and set up her blog, and then off to my Mom’s for dinner, where Kate was a very good conversationalist. There was a big thing on why/how people make judgments about people, which was a sort of voluble discussion about race. Mom tried to head it off (in an “Agh! Don’t get angry!” kind of way) but the academics kept charging forward, and actually agreeing with each other more than you’d think from the volume. Good times.

And now here I am. I’ve got a book review to write, and Traveller to play this evening. This weekend was pretty much the part of Xmas I was most looking forward to, so I’m glad it met expectations. Go me.

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09.06.19 [Friday]
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food, music, travel

invaders from non-space

In Los Angeles there were hipsters. I will not lie to you. I also will not lie and say I saw these hipsters as invading some pristine unspoiled place that should have been “mine” since on the general local likability scale Tourists rank below Hipsters. I’m pretty sure. We don’t get many tourists here so I could be wrong. No, when I saw them invading some habitat like Clifton’s Cafeteria we were both invaders. My Dodgers cap probably branded me a Tourist though.

Clifton’s was a pretty neat place though. It served cafeteria type food (I had baked macaroni and cheese and a Boston cream pie with a glass of pink lemonade) and was kitschy as all hell. The main area (two floors) was done up like a wodsy area with a waterfall and smiling bears fishing and an animatronic raccoon (that only went in and out of its hole) and illegal Mexican balladeers. You know, like the woods. The third floor was all red carpet and chandeliers and stuff.

The hipster quotient in there was probably around 15%, with most of the rest being large familial groups. There were a couple of birthday parties too. Back in the Depression this place downtown was a pay what you can for all you can eat kind of deal. There was another one that was done up in an underwater theme closer to the coast I think.

The middle aged guy who was playing guitar and singing came around to our table (it was just Kate and me at this point because Tiago had to talk to someone about an apartment) and asked if we wanted a song. Kate asked for a specific tune and he sang (for more dollars than I would have paid but he’s got a lot of mouths depending on that money so whatever). He wasn’t very good and didn’t know all the words but with these Mexican love songs all you need is the same few words tossed in there: a few corazons and everyone’s happy.

After lunch we went to Olvera street which is the oldest inhabited part of Los Angeles. Kate had billed it as the oldest Mexican part of town and I think we were both disappointed in that aspect of it. It was stuffed with tourist junk and overpriced margaritas. But there was a good busker there at the end of the street, singing with feeling. I tossed her a couple of coins (were you aware that Americans have gold-coloured dollar coins too? With all sorts of different presidents on them? I had no idea) even though she didn’t need them like the guy at Clifton’s did.

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09.06.18 [Thursday]
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food, sports, travel, tv

watching the hockey

On Friday after Kate was done with her grading and meetings and stuff we went to a graduation reception for her friends in the MA stream of her program. I sat around awkwardly listening to people talk about grant money and human research subject forms and how all they really needed was to change a couple of words from previous applications to get them through. Ah science. The thing lasted an hour though with no sign of beginning, which was nice as I didn’t have to listen to people I didn’t know get recognized for their achievements and was free to munch on veggie wontons, but bad because this was the West Coast and the hockey game was soon to begin. Thankfully Kate didn’t feel bad about ditching it. One of the “to be honoured” guys told her to leave, that he wouldn’t be there if he didn’t have to be. So off we went.

We watched Pittsburgh and Detroit at a sports bar right near Kate’s apartment. Sat at the bar with the other hockey fans of which I was glad to find there were a handful more than us. Through the whole game I had to talk a lot so as not to let the tension build up too high. I really wanted to see Pittsburgh win and Crosby get his first Cup and if I was just completely focused on the game I would have died from stress. Marc Andre Fleury does not let me enjoy a hockey game. In the third period with Pittsburgh up by two Detroit was putting on more pressure and I realized the last three minutes were going to be insane. And then Detroit scored. If I had been at home I might have had to leave the room, but I was in public and forced to watch Detroit hit the post and Fleury make a couple of game savers in the last minute before cheering my fool head off.

One of the funny things about watching the game there was that just on the other side of Kate were two girls who were there to watch Pittsburgh win and just on the other side of me were a couple of guys looking to hit on these girls. They wedged themselves in between Kate and the girls in the first period but were shot down. Later on Kate passed on a note from the guys “to the blonde one, not the dark-haired one.” Eventually the guys left. There were a couple of guys in the bar wearing Penguins jerseys (with Crosby and Lemieux on the backs) and one of them had a black eye and a couple of cuts on his face. I thought, “Now there’s a hockey fan who’s also a hockey player” but it was Los Angeles and I am sure he could have found a good makeup person to do that to add authenticity to his ensemble.

I was glad to see Crosby lift up the Cup, and this was the first time in years I’ve watched all the subsequent parading the Cup around the ice (last time was probably when Ray Bourque finally won it with the Avalanche). It felt really good to see Mario out there hoisting it too.

After the game we were happy and Tiago picked us up to go for Thai food. Inexpensive delicious Thai food. Kate and I had made a bet beforehand and the loser was to buy dinner. I didn’t have faith in the kids, I’m sad to say (and when I say “the kids” I mean “Marc Andre Fleury”) so the meal was my treat. And well worth it.

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08.12.31 [Wednesday]
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books, writing

growing fungus

I decided not to go out for New Year’s tonight. My coat was on and I was halfway through pulling up my boot when the realization I didn’t need to go fell over me heavy, like the parka. I’ve seen pretty much everyone I needed to see these past couple of weeks to get that sense of why being home in the cold is the right place to be. At Xmas at least.

I think this is what China did to me most: made me think of rarity as normality. I mean, I just saw everyone I’d end up talking to at Sarah’s New Year’s party two nights ago at the Camby. Nothing has changed since then. I feel like months should go by between meetings for me to build up enough half-way interesting things to say to people. So I can think as soon as I’m out of my friend’s presence “Oh man, we never talked about this that and thus.” That’s how I always felt going home from Nanchong, and every time Kate or Aileen go back to wherever they’re being. All that wasted potential, all those things undiscussed. It almost feels overindulgent to see people more than one time at a time. Decadent.

So all my Xmas presents have been given out and I can make mention of them without spoiling surprises. What I gave this year were copies of Nowhere Near Barstow, my 02-03 travel journal from the Middle East and India. I used Lulu.com because I own a couple of Lulu printed RPG books that seemed to be good enough quality binding for my purposes. I only made a few copies for close friends (possibly not as few as some people might like) and it’s not like I’m going to sell them.

And just to be clear here, because I don’t think I wrote it in each person’s copy, I don’t count that as a real book. No editors saw it. It wasn’t chosen out of any sort of slush pile. The only people who made a cent off it were the printers. (And the shippers, boy did the shippers make money.) It was a Xmas present for the people who got it and that’s it. It can sit on a shelf and look like a book but if the rest of your books look askance at it and beg you to put it somewhere else where it won’t bring down the property values, that’s fine. The copy I kept for myself is at a shelf-break so it only needed to have one neighbour. The Tynes book was much more accommodating than the Updike.

Holly’s comment (on the contents of the book, not the quality of the binding): “wow, I’m impressed that he’s being this honest.” Which, of course, I am usually not, so it probably does deserve a bit of recognition (although being honest about things six years in the past is considerably easier). If I were a resolving kind of person I might try to make being honest less noteworthy in the future. Selah. I’ve also heard there are too many Dune references, but that prompted no thoughts of resolutions at all.

Anyway, New Year’s wise, I am sorry to miss the gingerbread legislature and old-school Louis Riel statue but I hope pictures will show themselves somewhere.

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08.12.13 [Saturday]
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winnipeg

windchill warnings in effect

Kate called from Los Angeles this morning. She was wearing sandals. I think I managed to stifle my squicky groan as I used that bit of knowledge how the “winter” outside Winnipeg can be to stab myself in the brain. The eye is part of the brain, right?

I hate the cold so very much. At work today Ivy said it sounded like the walking to work in the cold was making me bitter, but she missed the main point which is that winter itself, not whether I am walking to work or not, is what makes me hate. I really wonder what it would be like if I had grown up in a place where half the year wasn’t a constant war with the goddamned motherfucking elements. Where I wasn’t aware of the need to double up the fabric between mitts and sleeves so your wrists don’t die. What would my personality be like without this infusion of pain and misery every year?

I went to Quinzmas tonight only to be told that it was sold out. It was a 45 minute trip across the city (not the whole city) in the -39 degrees, directly after a 45 minute trip home from work in the -39 (but the wind then was at my back so I didn’t die as much as I will tomorrow on the way to work when it’s scheduled to be -47), only to have to walk out the fucking door and run to catch a bus that passed me. I did and so didn’t have to stand around waiting for a bus home until trying to get a connection. Still took another 45 fucking minutes though.

Needless to say these trips are glasses-less so my scarf can mummy me up and I expose as little skin as possible (and don’t have metal next to my flesh; just handling my keys to open my apartment direct from outside hurts), but that means I can’t see shit for finding buses. And Winnipeg’s cornucopia of different bus models doesn’t make it easy to memorize the smeary light patterns they make on my retinas.

I hate so fucking much.

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08.08.04 [Monday]
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winnipeg, 中国

the pain of an old wound

Alison’s wedding happened and was all dandied finely. Now they are not home and no one will be making huge amounts of stuff again until I’m not living here anymore.

I have never been inside the Yellow Dog Tavern. Between the ceremony and reception the Westgate 98 representatives (and SOs) were going to go there for a drink, but it was closed so we went to the King’s Head instead. This has happened every single time I’ve tried going to the Yellow Dog. I must never go there at a normal time or something. Though really, late afternoon on a Saturday shouldn’t be that odd.

At the reception I was seated at the Fight Club table with Kate and six people I didn’t know, but who I felt comfortable berating for their lack of enthusiasm in acting out Fight Club scenes (instead of tinkling glasses you were supposed to do a bit from your table’s movie, or some wedding pun stuff). Two of us did the “I want you to hit me as hard as you can” scene, which played well to my strengths of taking fake punches and dramatically falling over. I have been doing that shit for fifteen years.

We sang “You’ve lost that lovin’ feeling” to Alison, though since there was no DJ we had to do it a capella and the only one who knew any of the words was Sean. I think I won a Tshirt but Alison said she’d give it to me at home. And I haven’t seen her since Saturday. I made it clear to Aileen that buying a condo has in no way diminished my resolve to do our (oft-delayed) Trans-Siberian trip next year.

I was talking for a while to a girl who had lived in China and it was very strange and sad. She was all “Oh god, I love China so much and I hate everything that isn’t Chinese including my big ugly self. Why aren’t I 5’2″ and Chinese?” I was just listening to her talk about how wonderful the Chinese people are and the Chinese culture and the Chinese history and all this stuff, while tossing in my occasional comment to show I did know what she was talking about. It’s not like I disagreed with anything she said, but I alternated between feeling bad for not loving China as much as she did and feeling really sorry for her overly Chinaphilic disposition. Feeling sorry because she was here and not there and it was causing her anguish. And it seemed to anguish for an imaginary paradise, or at least a China I never experienced.

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07.09.11 [Tuesday]
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writing

the end of comfort

Is that it?  Are we now entering the cold phase?  Am I going to be wearing sweaters whenever I have to leave the house until April again?

Last week I was dogsitting and changing things around here, as you’ll probably notice.  I migrated over to the WordPress system for a few reasons.  Not the least of which is that I can have extra pages beyond a blog here hosted for free.  I’ll probably hook up a new domain to this site as well.  Get the actual HungryJPropaganda name all done up.  It’s cheap these days for the kind of stuff I want.  Although as you may remember I haven’t paid for the DJS5.com site for a year and a half.  It comes up for renewal in May at which time I’ll move everything off of there.  But for now I’m liking this.  Blogger’s been a pain and a half recently too so there’s that.  And I wanted something different, a bit more cluttered layout wise.

Other things…  I haven’t heard back from the editor for a week on that story I’ve been back and forth with him about.  I did have someone else read it and she seemed to like it.  Sri and Mom had fun at the Grand Canyon.

This weekend I’m heading to Calgary to visit my Jskool buddy Caroline.  She’s pregnant now so I had to squeeze this in before the parasite completely takes over her life.  Oh, and out in California Kate said she’d get me a Wil Wheaton book signed when he’s out doing promotion stuff this month or next.

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07.08.25 [Saturday]
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writing

followed with jeers for the opposite

So this past week I’ve been reworking a story I’d submitted to a magazine. The editor had emailed me and said there was a nugget in there of good stuff but I should go back and rework the story. So I did. I sent in my new version, which I considered to be much better than the original, on Thursday. Friday he emailed back with a “You’re not going to like me for saying this but I liked the first one better. (But still not enough to buy it)” While he makes a good point about the new one feeling a bit forced, I feel like at this point redoing things will just make it even worse.

I’ll email him back tomorrow after working things out with the different versions and his suggestions. Again, nice to have someone reading it and giving some constructive feedback, but shitty that I can’t tell a story right the first time.

I’m having similar issues with my submission for 1234V. Nothing feels good about it. Today I started a new story that’s going slowly but at least is sort of going.

Alison’s birthday was on Thursday and the party was last night. People ate a lot of cherry tomatoes. Kate was in to say goodbye before she leaves for Amerrika. Cheers to people who are good at what they do!

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07.03.19 [Monday]
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Uncategorized

i’m not apologizing for puking on your carpet

So I turned 27 last week and had a good party. I credit that to having good friends. I also credit quitting Tippy Boats while I was behind. I have learned the wondrous lesson of pacing myself so very few people were cussed out for their mere habit of existing (and I didn’t puke anywhere despite what the subject line may lead you to believe). I was even able to do most of the clean up the next morning before the ladies got up from their sexy sexy bed.

My friend Suzanne from JSkool was in from Calgary on Saturday and we got to catch up a bit. I neglected to wear green.

Alison farted on the cat today.

I’m sorry Internet. This isn’t enthralling at all. All my good stuff is stored elsewhere these days. Elsewhere on my desk. Because I’m completing all the goddamned tasks (except one) that my phone reminds me of each morning.

I laughed today because Rachael’s working on a paper and was really proud of her “funny bit” so she read it to Alison in the kitchen and Alison couldn’t tell where the joke was at all. Rachael tried to recover from Alison’s non uproarious response by saying that hopefully her prof wouldn’t be as horrified by the subject matter and would laugh. It made me think of too earnest Mennonites trying desperately to liven things up in a committee meeting by suggesting in mock seriousness that everyone was going to hell for their use of industrial staples, but it’s just a joke and we don’t really think you’re going to hell! Ha ha! And being really proud of their offbeatness in the process. I guess I cringed and laughed in the other room while this was going on.

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