Maquinna's Poop du Jour: February 2005

Monday, February 28, 2005

Gourds, 2003

Goin' out of my frickin' mind

This day is going to hell in a handbasket and it's only just noon.

First was the dentist appointment, to discuss what to do about why I STILL can't put anything cold on the left side of my mouth without feeling like someone just stabbed me with an icepick. This, after having a tooth crowned in December and then having said crown ripped out last month and replaced after a root canal. My share of that bill: $800. The dentist is first-rate - no quibbles there - but he isn't cheap, either. Still, he tried to talk me into having the tooth beside it (now considered the co-conspirator of my pain) re-filled with some space-age goo that would hopefully desensitize it 'until the nerve calms down'. Why the hell would the nerve calm down now when it's been like this for over a year? Methinks Dr. SpaceGoo would like to see me in his chair more often. I told him screw that, we're goin' in and getting this over with. Root canal that sucker. OK, he said, agreeing that it would likely come to that anyway. Estimate for this one: you guessed it, another $800. How I'm supposed to pay for all this and still try and save tuition money is beyond me.

So then I come into work. How is it possible that you can have a productive week at work and come in on Monday to piles TWICE as large as before? Work must breed work; the only cure is to stop doing it altogether. The ad agency I'm dealing with are frickin' amateurs; my Einstein account exec plainly had a lobotomy before joining her equally koo-koo firm. I can barely express my lack of appreciation without it causing a severe migraine. Suffice to say they end up eating a lot of charges because of their own incompetence. I can't wait to show them the door - but I have to hang onto them for another two months before that thrill. Thank the politics of a university bureaucracy for saddling me with them in the first place.

Through all this this morning, I get saddled with a phone call from a certifiable nutjob who has now figured out, at age 58, that she's missing 'computer stuff' from her resume, and that is holding her career back. Forty-five minutes on the phone with her. I think I'll give her to my director to talk to. I owe him for making me interview a whacky Renaissance-fair type for our database coordinator position last month. She was a drama teacher who had been fired by her school board ('they didn't understand my methods'), had no computer skills, and was really just looking to do 'something completely different'. He thought that was pretty funny. I was this close to strangling him.

So now it's lunchtime, and I'm scarfing down salad before my 1 pm meeting. During the time it took to type this message, my desk gained two more pieces of paper. Work DOES breed work. I can't wait until my desk job days are behind me.

Friday, February 25, 2005

Bancroft Tower, 2003

Sowing Early Seeds of Self-Doubt

Once when I was very young, I woke up convinced that I could fly. I truly believed I could; it was just a question of stepping off the top of the stairs, raising my arms, and moving forward into the air, as though I were swimming. I was still in my pajamas when I opened the door to the back porch and went to the top step, some five feet above the concrete patio below.

Something made me stop. I raised my arms, but I was unsure of myself. Something nagged at me to believe I could do it, but something else pulled at my ankles and made me afraid of falling onto the cement.

I still wonder sometimes what would have happened if I hadn't hesitated. Maybe I really could have flown then if I had just believed it enough.

Thursday, February 24, 2005

Entering Active Pass, 2004

Saltwater in the Blood

One of the things I miss most about home is how close I was to the ocean. I didn't have to be down at the shore everyday, but I liked knowing it was nearby, and looking out my window to see it. I could see all the way across the Strait of Juan de Fuca towards the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state. I watched freighters and cruise ships and sailboats, and sometimes nothing at all, just light spilling across the water.

I'm lucky that in my current situation, we have access to a family place on Cape Cod that is also close to the water, and we go down there as frequently as we can. It doesn't feel quite the same to me as the ocean back home. I still like it very much - it's just different, somehow. Less wild, and yet less familiar too.

For three summers I worked aboard the ferries that travel between the island and the mainland. These are very large passenger ferries, carrying 1500 or so passengers and about 350 cars, on each run, when full up - and they were usually full up in the summertime. It was good money for a university student and a fairly mindless gig, and the crews would frequently head out to the pub together after each shift. The best part, though, was just being out on the water for eight hours a day. I could step out on the deck and feel the spray, or daydream about buying one of the little houses on the shore of one of the smaller islands that the ferries wove between.

I don't think I've left it behind forever. Some part of me knows that ultimately I will end up back where I started.

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

Cally, 2004

Cat Nap

I'm in a photography program that meets two nights a week and every other Saturday. It's a bit of a drive from my house - over an hour each way - but as long as the weather isn't entirely the pits I don't mind it so much. I like driving. I hate automatic transmissions. Yeah, I'm a bit of a control freak.

The mornings after my night classes, however, are the toughest part. I do NOT want to get out of bed. Leave me the hell alone, I just want to sleep. Tell that to the mammals, though. They know that food comes from me, so at 6:30 (or earlier, if they feel like it), the dog starts whimpering and nudging at the covers, and the cat starts her perimeter patrols of the bed (with occasional forays into the bedcover caves, see earlier post), punctuated by the abbreviated little croak which is her all-purpose meow. I ignore them as long as I can, but eventually you know they win out. I'd love to stay in bed all morning, but I have to get to work anyway.

So now, I'm here at my desk, ready to pass out. Couldn't even make it to the gym this morning - I promise myself I will go after work. Maybe a little cat nap at my desk this afternoon...

P.S. That's Cally up there - one of the last photos ever taken of her before she passed away last year. I doubt I'll ever stop missing her, but I like to think of her like this, fast asleep. She always curled into this tiny ball of sleeping fur, so compact and delicate she made my heart burst.

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Winter Glass, 2005

The Donut Manouevre

I spun out on the way to the gym yesterday. Nobody got hurt and nobody lost an eye, and the car is fine. It was sort of annoying, and embarrassing, though. I was being so careful - the roads were very slippery after the latest snowfall, but the car was doing quite well with the new snow tires on the front, and I was actually getting rather smug behind the wheel, driving along in perfect control without even the barest hint of a slip on the hills. Look at me, you peasants. I'm such a good driver. THIS is how it's done.

I crossed through this intersection at the bottom of a hill, where all these funky little businesses lean against one another as if for protection. There's the 'Moscow Nights' Deli - Craig always thinks that would be a great name for a nightclub - a used book and record store, the BYOB paint-your-own-pottery place, and one of my favourites, the Corner Grille pizza joint.

Wait a minute, I think, passing through the intersection. Why is there plywood over the windows at the Corner Grille? That's kind of odd. Did someone break in? Did the windows get smashed by accident? They couldn't possibly be going out of business...

Holy shit. The car is facing the Corner Grille head on. Compensate, woman. Ah, fuck, too much. Correct again, carefully. Uh oh, back end's slipping out on me, turn the wheel into the skid...oh, this isn't good...

And now the car is spinning a full 360 degrees. I look around, thankful no one's coming up the street the other way, and the traffic behind me is well back and can see exactly what's going on. They stop to enjoy the show while my car's performing unplanned pirouettes. Finally I stop, facing completely the wrong way. The car's stalled so I restart it, back it carefully towards the curb to make a three-point turn, correct my direction, and carry on towards the gym. Face beet red, and pissed at myself for losing my concentration.

Those of us who think we're hot shit are always just a nanosecond away from proving ourselves to be complete dorks.

Monday, February 21, 2005

Bird Feeder and Cherry Tree, 2005

The Squirrel Relocation Program

I guess I always entertained a casual interest in birds, and usually put up some kind of feeder for them near the house. Since moving to New England, however, my interest in birds has escalated, and so have the number and kinds of feeders I am maintaining to attract them.

There are many birds which are common here but with which I never grew up, so to me they are still a novelty. Titmice and cardinals were some of the first new birds I got to know. The ubiquitous winter juncos clearly illustrate how regional populations can have quite different markings. Here they have a tendency to be a little more varied in their grey and black tones along their backs and sides with white underbellies; back home they are virtually solid black on top and snow white underneath.

With birds, inevitably, come squirrels. For nearly a year after moving in with Craig I enjoyed watching the birds at the feeders without worry about squirrels; the house is plunked in the middle of a field with only a few trees around it, and a squirrel would have to cross a great deal of open ground to get to it. I suppose it took them a while to figure out that there was enough food to be had up here to be sufficiently tempted.

I have nothing against squirrels. OK, I take that back. The grey ones are noxious little tree rats whose only claim to cuteness lies in their bushy tails. They bully other native squirrels and chipmunks out of their territories and can create a hell of a mess if they decide to winter in your attic. And never mind what they can do to your bird feeders and nesting boxes. They will quickly empty a feeder if they can, and will chew open wooden birdhouses to get to the eggs inside. These are creatures only to be tolerated from afar, well in the bush where they belong.

Last fall I saw the first one. It scampered up the hickory tree near the barn. Little devil, I thought. He was joined shortly by a second, then a third. Within days my big hopper feeder was laying on the ground, not only completely emptied but with a broken lid that required gorilla glue to repair.

At first we put the Have-a-Heart trap out with a handful of seed in it, since that was what they were after in the first place. Several juncos managed to trip it in turn, and nearly died of heart attacks until they were relased. It took weeks before one of the squirrels took the bait, and only after I let the feeders get empty so they had nothing else to go for. We talked to Craig's aunt, a seasoned squirrel trapper who had even taken to spray painting their backs so that she knew without a doubt that they were returning to her yard even after being taken a mile away. She said the magic bait was peanut butter. Make little peanut butter sandwiches with crackers, she said, and even put a big fat peanut on top. They can't resist it.

The next squirrel was caught within hours. Like the first, we drove it down to the reservoir about five miles away and released it, where it took off into the woods like a shot. Craig said he had visions of it heading in the opposite direction and getting pasted by a car, but fortunately we didn't have to watch that happen.

The third squirrel laid low for a month. If he was going to the feeders, we didn't see him, and he was careful only to take as much seed as wouldn't be noticed. I began to wonder if he had witnessed the fate of his buddies and had made the pre-emptive strike by getting the hell outta Dodge while he still could. I guess the call of the feeders was just too compelling, though, and there he was the other morning, swinging like an acrobat on a branch of the cherry tree and trying to pull suet out of the cake holder. Time to get the trap out again.

It snowed again last night and the trap was buried this morning. I could see it hadn't been tripped yet so I guess the squirrel decided to ride out the storm in the knotholes of the hickory tree. If he's smart he'll stay there with all the chestnuts he gathered up last fall. His days are numbered.

Friday, February 18, 2005

I'm Going to Hell.

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Second Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	Extreme
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Moderate
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Moderate
Level 7 (Violent)	Moderate
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	High

Take the Dante's" Divine Comedy Inferno Test

Mystic Beach, Vancouver Island, 2004

Ex-scent-uated Memory

It's the smells I miss most. The briny, cool smell of low tide, sticking in the back of your throat. The dank earthy smell of damp moss and the bright smell of ferns carpeting the forest floor under the cedar and douglas fir. Even the acrid smell of fish rotting on the shore, their eyes picked out by the gulls. Diesel engines idling in the harbour. Salt water. Kelp. Sometimes if I close my eyes and plug my ears, try to stop everything else from reaching me, I can search back and touch those smells again in my memories.

Thursday, February 17, 2005

Barn Window, North Brookfield, 2005

Weekend Forecast: More Snow

People in New England assume that because I'm Canadian, I'm used to cold temperatures and a lot of snow. They are often surprised to hear me tell them that where I lived, on Vancouver Island, snow fell rarely and usually doesn't stick around for more than a day or two. I don't know what causes this misperception other than general geographic ignorance. We refer to home as the wet coast. The town I grew up in had about 180" of rain each year - it's in a rainforest, so that's what it does - it rains. We wear Gore-tex, not down parkas.

When I first moved to Massachusetts several years ago, it was January and there was a heavy layer of snow on the ground, covered in a crust of ice. I don't believe I saw grass, that first year, until April. Just as snow began to melt, another six inches would fall. I saw more snow that first winter than I had in an entire lifetime on the west coast.

My boyfriend loves the winter and loves the snow. It has taken me a long while to warm up to it. I can't help but agree that it makes the trees and fields around us look incredibly beautiful. The charm of it, however, quickly dissipates when you're trying to do any of your normal daily activities. Cars are a menace. Uncleared walkways are treacherous. Three-hour commutes on the turnpike through a nor'easter at 10 mph are not fun. If only I didn't have to go anywhere, I might be able to embrace winter as lovingly as Craig does.

I'll say this much: winter back home was five months of grey drizzle. You could go weeks on end without seeing much sun. All that fog and rain can be romantic, but it isn't long before it can be incredibly depressing. At least in New England, you get plenty of sunny days through the winter. I suppose it's just a question of appreciating the particular beauty of each place. The longer I am here, the more keenly I feel how divided my heart is between the two.

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Baba Strolling in Vancouver, late 1930s

A Belated Inheritance on Neutral Ground at Art's Deli

I have tried several times over the last few days to write this particular post. I expect that like my previous attempts, this one will end up long and rather unwieldy. Regardless, it needs to be written, tangential rambling though it may be.

Baba - my grandmother - was born on a farm in Saskatchewan around 1919 (I can't be entirely sure of this year, but today it is my best guess), one of the first children, of the nine in her family, to be born in Canada after they emigrated from the Ukraine. Sometime during the late 1930s she moved to Vancouver, where she found work as a waitress, and ultimately met my grandfather and married him. Baba believed in living as well as she could, and the farm was not for her. I find it important to say all this, because despite her humble origins, my Baba had a very strong sense of her own style, and took great pride in looking her best. Check out that strut as she walks through downtown Vancouver. That's a woman with class and substance.

In short order my father was born, and several years later my uncle completed their family. Rumours abound of other pregnancies, and of stillborn twins, but I cannot verify any of this. They settled in a small town on Vancouver Island where my grandfather was the local barber. He was also, from all accounts, a binge drinker and gambler, and not a particularly reliable provider. He died in his fifties, most likely from the effects of perpetual fermentation. I don't believe I was even yet born at the time.

After a respectable amount of time, Baba met Joe, who was also a widower, and one day they walked into town hall and got married. Joe, who was Papa Joe to my siblings and me, became the only grandfather figure we ever really knew. We also believed that they must be quite rich. Joe owned hotels. Every year they went to Maui for a month, and Baba would bring back hula dolls with little plastic leis and fake grass skirts. They lived in what, to us, was a very fancy house with a typically slavic sense of grandeur: velvet furniture, and lots of silk flower arrangements on a marble fireplace. The garage held Cadillacs and Lincolns. Baba grew roses; to this day whenever I smell luscious, fluffy tea roses, I am reminded immediately of her. We believed our Baba was happily married to a man she loved, and that they were enjoying their golden years together.

Baba was a paradox of frugality and generosity. Perhaps it was her farm roots that made it impossible that anything should go to waste. This meant that there was always a ridiculous amount of food constantly available, and constantly eaten. We used to crave the rings of kolbasa - Ukrainian sausage - they would always have, still fresh and steaming, made at Art's, a local delicatessan. Ukrainian candy, she would say. Better than candy. She taught me to play cribbage, and she never, not even once, let me beat her. She would give away her used things to us - towels (they still have a lot of wear left in them!), clothes - God, my sister and I would be given polyester cruise ship party dresses, floor-length in bright circa 1968 colours, and bras so enormous - 44FF, I swear - we couldn't imagine ever filling them (little did we know then how that genetic joke would come back to bite us in the ass). Enormous underwear found in 12-packs in the clearance bin at Zeller's, such a deal! We considered ourselves lucky if we managed to escape with nothing more than a bellyache from a pan of her amazing lemon squares. When I married, she gave me a silver tea service she had bought when she first moved to Vancouver. Slavic people placed more confidence in that kind of wealth than in money in the bank, especially after the depression, and for her, that tea service was security. I was often told that I resembled her, and I think it's true I have many of her features.

It was hard to watch her decline as diabetes, and then cancer, took hold of her. She wasted away in pieces, painfully. When she began giving away more of her things to us, and then rather large sums of money, I suppose we just sort of shrugged it off uneasily. That was just Baba's way. We just didn't know, then, how much she was trying to tell us. Sometimes Baba and Papa Joe would bicker, or I would hear Joe make comments about how difficult this all was, and I just thought it was a normal thing for him to be frustrated and angry at the prospect of her dying.

There was jewellery she had, that she wanted to make sure we got. Some furniture, some other items. Baba, we said, don't worry about those things. It didn't strike me as strange that my father and uncle had been given power of attorney in her affairs and were helping with her medical arrangements. They were her children; why shouldn't they?

I don't like remembering the last time I saw her before she died. She was not herself, and she said things I know she didn't want others to hear. I smile more when I think of her funeral. She had become fed up with the Ukrainian Catholic church some years previously, after all the clergy sexual scandals became known, and had made arrangements with a Ukrainian Orthodox church. Hundreds of people came that summer day. Tall, lanky priests with even taller and lankier hats swung pots of incense over her, and chanted somber prayers. And Baba, true to form, lay in her teal coffin - teal! - wearing an eye-poppingly bright orange-red dress. I had to laugh. The juxtapositions were inescapable at every turn.

It was only hours later, at the wake, that I started to realize that all was not as it had seemed to me. My mother, who Baba always regarded as her daughter, even after my parents divorced, noticed Baba's favourite ring - an enormous oval emerald surrounded by diamonds - being worn by one of Joe's son's wives. She knew Baba had intended that ring for one of her own granddaughters, as well as the rest of her jewellery.

None of us ever saw anything that Baba had willed to us. Joe said it wasn't hers to give away, and that he could sell whatever he wanted and do whatever he pleased with the rest. Baba must have known this, must have known Joe would not honour her wishes. She gave away all the things she was able to, while she was still alive. How could Joe do this to her, to his wife of nearly 30 years?

The truth spilled out slowly. Theirs had been a marriage of mutual convenience. He needed someone to cook and clean after his wife died. She had few skills and little money of her own to live on. She took care of him, and he took care of her. Being married meant they could maintain their social lives. But as soon as my Baba's illness prevented her from keeping up 'her end', he was ready to wash his hands of her. He resented the fact that she was ill because it was inconvenient for him. She meant very little to him.

Yes, much of the jewellery Baba had was given to her by Joe, over the years. That was the kind of present a man like him gave when occasions like birthdays and Christmas required him to. And don't get me wrong - my siblings and cousins and I aren't really concerned about who got a few baubles, or whether my mother got a promised dining room set. What bothered me most was Joe's complete lack of feeling and respect for her. I think we all felt grossly betrayed. And that was before we learned he tried to her have exhumed and reburied back in my hometown, so he could sell the more expensive plot she had arranged for herself. Thankfully, my dad and uncle were able to put a stop to that. We never spoke to Joe again.

It's been nearly eight years now since Baba died. I spoke with my sister the other night, and she said Joe had called my uncle. He had found some photos of Baba and her family, and wanted to know if he would like to pick them up. My uncle refused to talk with him and certainly wouldn't go to the house Baba had lived in with Joe. I guess Joe then contacted my father, and some kind of arrangement was struck. Joe would leave the photos at Art's deli, where my father could pick them up the next time he went there to get rings of kolbasa.

As someone who intends to be a photographer, getting these pictures of my Baba means more to me than any money or emerald rings ever could. I feel like we're finally getting the inheritance we really wanted all along.

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Outdoor Shower Buoys, 2004

True Colours

Sometimes I think the reason why I like to shoot in black and white is that colour can be so distracting. Colour is such a strong element that it can be easy to stop looking at things, like composition, tone, texture, light, etc. I'm not saying it should do that, but I think often it does.

I'm doing a lot more colour work now and I have to let this be a continual lesson - to not let colour overwhelm my judgement or make me too distracted to make the image right. I have to think in black and white sometimes.

Many animals, like dogs, only see in black and white. What does this say about how they view the world?

Monday, February 14, 2005

And Another Thing, 2003

Craig

That guy up there is Craig, my boyfriend. When he holds me, all is right in my world and everything I can dream of is possible. He is without a doubt the coolest person I have ever met and a complete wiseass. Having him beside me has actually made me more *me* than I've ever been, probably because he is always so unapologetically himself. My life is authentic and joyful, passionate and content. Sometimes I can't believe just how lucky I am, and then he rolls over and puts his arm around me, and I can believe anything.

And man, he cracks me up.

Friday, February 11, 2005

Cassie, 2004

An Unrepentant Ailurophile

I love cats. This does not make me anti-dog, just pro-cat. Dogs are fine and noble creatures, but I admit without reservation that I resonate more strongly with cats.

Some people say that cats are self-serving, lazy creatures. I cannot entirely disagree with this, and yet I think that has much to do with my respect for them. They live their lives without apology, in complete pursuit of all that pleases them. They are shamelessly hedonistic and never mask their opinions. I think many people are annoyed by cats because they represent everything they wish their own lives could be if they were free of self-imposed moral restraints and responsibilities.

They are not without their habits. Anyone who has lived with a cat knows that they have definite preferences for prime sleeping spots, sunny windows, and even people. They often develop routines, demanding their food at a certain time, or expecting to be catered to in some particular way. My beloved Cally, who I lost a year ago, considered a green blanket I bought in Arizona to be unequivocally hers, and no matter where it was, she claimed it. Motorhead, our current cat, was lately taught to go under the bedcovers; now she insists on having a 'cave' of bedcovers made for her whenever I am in bed.

Accompanying this post is a picture of my mother's cat, Cassie...but to call her my mother's cat is most incorrect, as it would suggest my mother possesses her. Nothing could be further from the truth. Cassie has always come and gone as she pleases, and even after being declawed to ameliorate relations with a bird-loving neighbour (a procedure I cannot ever advocate; claws are essential to cats, and they are part of the cat contract), she continued to bring in offerings from time to time ranging from small rodents and bugs to full-sized rabbits. She has decided in the last six months that she would prefer to live in the field behind her house, clawless yet feral, and my mother has seen her but rarely since. I admire Cassie immensely for this.

Thursday, February 10, 2005

Cheddar Cheese Cows, 2004

A Yankee Civics Lesson

I should probably preface this by being clear up front that I'm not American, although I live in the U.S., and at this time I have no interest in becoming a citizen, although a green card would be helpful for practical reasons. I am what the INS calls a 'legal alien' - I have a particular work visa status and as long as I keep my nose clean, they're happy to have me bolster their tax coffers, provided I don't taint the place with my sometimes un-American predilections and independence of thought.

I had managed to avoid, until last night, any activities which would demonstrate an interest in my local government. My appearances in traffic court four years ago and in divorce court last year were rather more paint-by-numbers affairs, and could have taken place nearly anywhere in the western world...except maybe for the fact that the traffic court judge had a Boston accent that JFK himself would have strained to understand.

For some time now Craig has been considering options to place the acreage around our house into a land conservation trust. Most of the old farm was sold off to the state years ago, but thankfully has remained undeveloped under some kind of fish and wildlife protection, but about a tenth of if still remains under his complete control. Bless his heart, he's more interested in seeing it remain as is then selling off chunks here and there to build McMansions on. The fish and wildlife folks have made him an offer that has merit, but lately the local town established its own land trust program and was to hold its first meeting last night, so we were very curious to see how it might compare.

First thing you have to do: find the meeting. Now, this is a small New England town, and I mean *small*. As is typical in this area, the center of town is easily recognized by a grassy square (lately snow-covered) surrounded by a colonial-style town hall, library, school, a number of white-washed churches with their classic tall New England spires, and odds and ends like a 'superette' (small grocery store), a 'packy' (the liquor store), and a local coffee shop with coffee the colour of dirty dishwater and equal appeal. There aren't many options for meeting spaces, and everything is within walking distance.

Craig is fairly certain the land trust meeting is at the town hall, but as we pull up it's pretty much in darkness. There seem to be a lot of lights on and cars across the road at the library, however, so we start walking over there. Someone in a car passes by and yells out the window - "if you're looking for the water board meeting, it's at the Seniors' Center." Oh, thanks. Do you know where the land trust meeting is? "Nope."

All the churches are lit up as we walk to the library - besides being Chinese New Year (most townsfolk here would be completely unaware of that), it's Ash Wednesday, so everyone is headed to evening services. You see people today with bits of ash rubbed on their foreheads - a reminder that this place is far more religious, at least in terms of keeping religious traditions if not actual religious doctrine, than my home on the west coast of Canada.

There's a meeting at the library alright, but it's not the land trust meeting. It's a meeting about classic New England architecture put on by the historical society. We check the notice board, but no news about the land trust meeting. We decide to walk down to the Seniors' Center and see if the water board meeting and the land trust meeting are one and the same.

Busy night in town, laughs Craig.

We walk past the town hall again and down towards the Seniors' Center. An older man is standing on the corner in front of the town hall, looking lost. "I'm looking for the architecture lecture," he says. Oh - well, that's at the library. He thanks us and heads across the road. We walk down to the Seniors' Center, and notice that there are lights on and cars at the school next door. We decide to stop in there first, but of course it's nothing but some kids' gymnastics practice or somesuch.

By the time we walk next door to the Seniors' Center I have to pee so badly I'm walking like Catherine O'Hara in 'Best in Show' when she twists her ankle. I don't care where the meeting is anymore. When I have to pee, I lose all ability to think. The very thought of walking into a water board meeting only makes the situation more dire. Craig finds me a bathroom marked 'Grandmas' and I have my pants down before I even have the door fully closed. My rationale is that even if there are seniors crawling all over the place right now - highly unlikely - their cataracts and deafness will preserve my modesty.

Renewed, we peer into a room where some people are meeting about something. They tell us the water board meeting is in the next room, so we crash that meeting in mid-sentence and ask if this is also the land trust meeting. One guy takes pity on us, looks past the antennae growing out of our heads, and directs us back up to the town hall, where he says the person who is the town comptroller or something is working late, and maybe *she* knows.

So, it's back up to town hall. We knock on the door and out of the darkness comes the very nice lady who lets us in to look at the meetings listed on the bulletin board. She's never heard of the land trust group for our town. Naturally, nothing is listed on the board. Craig says to me, let's go home.

We make our way back home and Craig looks for the mailing from the land trust group. Turns out the meeting is in another town altogether, for some reason, and the address of the meeting isn't even listed. I put on my pajamas and pour myself a drink. Craig pulls out a movie from the video collection, and we watch Audrey Hepburn and her giraffe-neck in 'Wait Until Dark', then head to bed.

I think it's true what they say - most of life is about showing up. First, though, you have to know where the meeting is...

Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Peacock, 2004

The Coming Out Party

This afternoon the cat will be let out of the bag. The whole world will finally know the truth. The life I've been living has been a charade, a pack of lies. The English degree, the MBA, nothing more than window dressing, attempting to run from the ugly truth.

I want to be a photographer. I'm going to be a photographer. I *am* a photographer.

And today my workmates are about to find out. I'm having an exhibition of some of my work here on campus and they've all been invited. I figure Chinese New Year is an auspicious day for this...especially as it's the Year of the Rooster...what better day to crow a little? I even wore red for good luck.

So once you step off the cliff, there really isn't any turning back, is there? The question is, what will I land in?

************************

Climbing up on Solsbury Hill
I could see the city light
Wind was blowing, time stood still
Eagle flew out of the night
He was something to observe
Came in close, I heard a voice
Standing stretching every nerve
I had to listen had no choice
I did not believe the information
Just had to trust imagination
My heart was going boom boom, boom
Son, he said, grab your things, I’ve come to take you home.

To keeping silence I resigned
My friends would think I was a nut
Turning water into wine
Open doors would soon be shut
So I went from day to day
Tho’ my life was in a rut
’till I thought of what I’d say
Which connection I should cut
I was feeling part of the scenery
I walked right out of the machinery
My heart was going boom boom boom
Hey, he said, grab your things, I’ve come to take you home.

Yeah back home

When illusion spins her net
I’m never where I want to be
And liberty she pirouette
When I think that I am free
Watched by empty silhouettes
Who close their eyes, but still can see
No one taught them etiquette
I will show another me
Today I don’t need a replacement
I’ll tell them what the smile on my face meant
My heart was going boom boom boom
Hey, I said, you can keep my things, they’ve come to take me home.

Tuesday, February 08, 2005

Ock at the Fountain, 2004

The Pet Hair Dead Giveaway

So I'm at the post office this morning to mail a letter and behind me in line is this guy with a serious Texan cowboy accent. He says to me - and you'll have to imagine the drawl in your own heads as you read this, because it was truly severe - "What kinda dawg ya have miss?" My witty reply - "Huh?" And he says again, "What kinda dawg, or mebbe ya got a cat?" Well, I think I'm a fairly civil person, if not completely friendly (OK, I know I'm not that friendly. My epitaph will say something like 'easily annoyed'), but I can politely engage in conversation with strangers without difficulty. So I reply, "Well, I have one of each, and they're both just your average kind of dog and cat." Now, I could regale people for hours with tales of the animals, because they're very near to my heart, but their pedigrees weren't exactly sanctioned by the American Kennel Club. They just look like any regular cat and dog. But why does this guy want to know? "Why do you ask?" I say. He doesn't say much, just smiles and looks at my black wool coat, completely covered in pet hair. I gotta remember to use the lint roller before I head out in the morning.

Monday, February 07, 2005

Stranded Starfish, 2004

Coyotes and cat pee...

Woken at 3 am last night to the eerie sound of several coyotes whining and howling in the back yard. No idea what they were doing down there at that hour. Was glad to see the cat perched on the nightstand, hackles raised and eyes peeled on the moonlit field, but safely inside. Hundreds of footprints in the snow this morning, all around the birdfeeders, but nothing that looks like blood. Makes me wonder about Milo, 'the interloper'...a junkyard cat who has lately taken to making nocturnal visits made evident by emptied pet food bowls in the morning and a strong smell of tomcat piss in that end of the house. Emptied a bucketload of Pinesol with a mop on the floors this weekend to deal with that. Still, I hope the coyotes didn't get him. He's an alright cat if he just keeps out of the house.

Maquinna's Poop du Jour