For Aunt Jean

This post is a tribute to my great aunt Jean of whom I was very fond.

She always lived across the hall from or with my grandmother so she is woven into many of my childhood memories and I think of her as my aunt even though technically, she is my dad's aunt and my great aunt. Anyway, She raised a son on her own, worked hard for a living, survived childhood illness, a brain tumour early on and and 2 brain aneurysms before finally succumbing to another brain tumour late in life. In spite of all of that she never seemed hard or bitter or sad. Always smiling, hugging and laughing. She truly had the greatest laugh. A sort of booming cackle, if you can imagine, that could always be picked out from all the other laughter. Skilled in the art of joke telling, leaning forward, deadpan while telling it (always an obscene one) and then letting out that great laugh after delivering the punchline. Just a super cool lady.

My grandmother and her had a total Patty and Selma style apartment together complete with the 2 single beds in the same room separated by 2 night table with 2 big '70's style lamps. And beer and cigarettes. I don't think they watched MacGyver though.

With the thick Cape Breton accent I hear her saying "OH my soul!" in response to a good laugh or a piece of news or gossip. And I see the genuine smile on her face each time she grabbed you for a big hug.

Shout out to the memory of my Aunt Jean.

What the hell.

Ah screw it. If I stop the blog, how can I tell people about things that are good? As if I ever tell you anything that is good...Well, I am now and have done so occasionablly( I know it's a typo but I happen to like the word better this way now that I think of it. Like a friend of mine who prefers to say volumptious, knowing it's not really the word. I say good on her and good on me.) lost my train of thought.

I think I may have finally gone mad.

Still, came across these great comics.

I say, dig it.

stop the madness?

It's funny. I just watched a web cast that was work related at work and all the things that I remarked upon to write about, were news items 20 minutes after it was over. So forget it then. If you read any news, particularly financially related news, you've read about what I just saw. And that's all on that, because T has advised me that saying more about work would be bad.

So so so. I am considering putting a nail in the coffin of this old blog. Old in the sense that it's lasted about 6 months which is not long at all so my point is flawed from the start....I don't think anyone reads this except for one person, overseas. Thank you Joby for your continued patronage. I can just email you directly! And T, I know you read this but I see you everyday at home so I can just tell you.

I want to record the world in a different way and already my posts have waned in their frequency and quality. Who am I trying to convince?

Whatever, I'll just do whatever because I'm a free human being right? Maybe I'll write more here, maybe I won't. Sorry for sucking.

New cult to join. Easy and satisfying!

Today is simply about appreciating this hilarious sign I made to designate containers for depositing paper that needs shredding.

Twas made entirely in the excellent graphics generating program-microsoft word because that's all I have at work and I am too lazy to utilize my sexy adobe creative suite on the sexy mac at home for such things. Besides, it's more of a challenge using hell-sent Word.

Enjoy, explore, put it everywhere you can. We'll start a scene! Cult of the shredders! It'll be great. Our manifesto will be in pictograms made with word and then shredded!

Ahem.

So, ya.

Union Bank of the Snake

This morning the sun made everything so bright and sharp and warm looking, like an intense wash of sienna orange had been painted over everything except the sky, which was candy blue. After 6 months of wearing my damn winter coat I welcome today’s potential to be over 10 degrees Celsius.

Just now, while sending off a request for a bank to be opened in a system I work in, I could not resist breaking strict, no personality allowed protocol. The emails, I send are to some faceless person I will never meet. I don’t even know what city or country they are in. Don’t know how old they are, nothin’. I just request and they comply.

This particular time, I wrote to open an account for the Union Bank of country X (just so I don’t get it any trouble, I won’t mention entire names). ANYWAY. I, being the Duran Duran fan that I was and still am. Couldn’t help but think of their classic hit, Union of the Snake, of course. So, in the email title, where I usually just type the bank I am trying to open an account for, I put: Union Bank of the Snake. I had to. I even tried to erase it and put the proper name but had to put it back again. If the person at the other end is my age, maybe they will get it. If not, they will probably be very confused and need a confirmation email to clarify.
Sigh.

If only I could work at a place where I could for real, open accounts for the Union of the Snake Bank. And where people, handsome and funny people, would spontaneously come to my desk to quote lyrcis at me: "Oh Melissa, by the way, the union of the snake is on the climb. Apparently it's moving up and going to break for the borderline. Just thought you should know."

That would be great.

The Smiths and non-denominational agreements

One of the gals from my knitting group invited me to a Smiths evening held at a very cute little bar by someone who works across the hall from her. I had told her the story of finally getting on stage to hug Morrissey a few years ago. Even though I was a bit old for such things it was a long-held wish of mine to do one day. I described, as I always do when telling the story, that he smelled like church. Like pinewood and incense. Ahh. So obviously, I was gung-ho for an all Smiths night.

Such a strange mix of young and old. 20 year olds in their pencil tight jeans and converse, giddy with their retro-ecstasy and tired and slightly sheepish looking 30 year olds(myself included)(and actually, even more oddly, a high number of which, were neurobiologists), giddy with nostalgia. It was so interesting to see the new fans dancing and happy and the old fans hiding in the corners.

I pointed out to my friend J that a textbook, oldschool Smiths fan was present. We made a check-list of attributes:
1. Quiff
2. In the corner
3. Over 34
4. Dressed in black
5. Sitting with legs crossed
6. Not smiling except maybe a little grimace

This, of course, could also have described Samuel Beckett or an Irish priest but the lines of distinction, so fine....

Har har.

Anyway, it was fun until they stopped playing all Smiths and started playing Smiths-linked music. Seriously, if I wanted to go to an 80's retro night I could have gone to any bar any night of the week here in Montreal. The youngsters were loving it but I could see that the over 30 set were annoyed. We dragged ourselves out of reclusivity(new word?) to pay homage to The Smiths and were robbed! Well, ok, it wasn't that bad. Blur, Sundays, New York Dolls...all good music, but it would have been way cooler to hear all Smiths.

I even went into town, after 9pm, on a weeknight for it! I'm usually in bed by 9:30! Didn't get home till 1am and somehow, lost one of my favourite scarves. Not sure how since there were about 12 people there, it was tiny and I only sat in one place. I'm still annoyed. Some bastard took my scarf. Some impostor, for surely, no real Smiths fan would steal a scarf.

So today, I am so tired. So very tired. At about, 4pm I hit the wall of insanity. It was nice actually. A sort of languid, spaced-out confusion which is progressing into a black-out, I presume, at any moment. Don't do good with lack of sleep. No matter, only 40 minutes left of work and then I can pass out on the train and drool all over the window ledge.

Yesterday, I wrote about one hundred blogs and didn't publish any of them. They were all tied up to a recent event. Someone told me something that indicated a great lack of understanding or caring toward me and the responses I wrote were many and prolific. In the end however, I decided it was futile. I used to try so hard to have everyone understand me all the time. I'd work myself into a fever thinking of ways to rephrase things to make someone agree or understand. Now, I say screw'em. Futile to try to make someone believe what they clearly prefer not to. Now, I wash my hands and rise above. Can I get a non-denominational agreement in lieu of an amen?

Oh ya!

for the sake of fine cheesies

Here is something to think about to depress you(unless you are a movie star). Place an estimate on how much money a stranger would have to give you to have you sit in one place for an hour. Let’s suppose you could not read or talk or anything, you’d have to just sit. How much money? $5? $20? $50? More??

Now consider having plans to go out some evening. How much money would a stranger have to pay you to give up those plans and go sit in his or her house. Again, you’re not going to be doing anything, just sitting there. So how much to give up an evening’s plans? $50? $100? More?

Now, consider how much money you’d have to be paid, by a stranger of course, to stop whatever you were doing out on the street, and put some papers in alphabetical order for one hour. How much to dig holes in their lawn for one hour?

Now think about how much you are paid to do whatever you do all day. If a stranger interrupted your free time to request that you do whatever your job normally is, would you accept to do it for the hourly rate you are actually paid?

You see, I just got a $3 raise. I appreciate it and I get it pretty easy for what my job is. Lots of people work much harder than me and get half of what I get. Yet, if a stranger were to offer me that same rate, even to just sit for an hour, I’d hesitate. It might not even be worth it to me. If a stranger asked me to sit for 7 hours for that rate instead of having free time, I’d tell them to go take a munch of a dogs’ hotdog hole. If a stranger asked me to do actual work for him or her on my free time for that same rate, I’d laugh riotously at their deluded hopes and keep on truckin’, into the sunset.

So there it is. I imagine it’s the same for you. Look at us chumps, working for the “man”, not getting anywhere near what an hour of our precious time and effort is worth. All so we can afford to buy the finest cheesies(or soy-based-cheese-like-productsies) money allows.