Habits

I have a habit of breaking habits. If something's going well, I think, hmmm, I bet I could do that better. So I do the thing a bit differently, and then a bit differently again, until I've lost the point of a habit in the first place. Sigh.

I do have routines though. I'm not ready to call them habits, or compulsions. That could be, well, disturbing. My routines include:

- riding my bike to and from work

- coffee before food in the morning (actually ONLY coffee in the morning)

- carrying a pen with me at all times

- carrying my little black book with me at all times

- carrying a notebook with me at all times

- carrying some reading with me at all times

- picking my nose (who doesn't like a clean-feeling nose?)

- making my lunch and packing my clothes the night before

- correcting other people's grammar

- correcting my own grammar

- tinkering with something endlessly until it's worse than it was when I started

- an apple and a grapefruit (or orange) everyday

Sigh.

I could go on.

Habits? I wish I had some good ones - like that I'd write everyday for an hour at a certain time. Sure I blog five of seven days, but that's not the kind of writing I'm talking about.

Oh yeah, I also have a habit of seeing what's wrong before I see what's right. Wait. Is that a habit, or a state of being? What's the difference anyway?

I am what I am.

I do what I do.

Ride report

in: -14'C wind SW 20 ks

out: -8'C wind SSE 30 ks

Ahhh ... Routine!

It's been a great couple of months preparing for, and then finally helping the cast present Grease, but it'll be good to get back to a routine.

This is why I never really liked summer camp; it got in the way of being in a comfortable "rut" at home.

Finishing a big project like this is like coming home after a long, great, holiday. You know there's lots to do, and now's the time to do it, but you just want to sit down in your fat-ass easy chair and sip scotch.

Still, I'll be back on the bike tomorrow.

Are you inviting?

This post is a response to the Winnipeg Free Press article "Rape victim 'inviting,' so no jail" (Feb 24, 2011).

Did you know, guys, that if you wear tight jeans and t-shirts (especially without an undershirt!) and you've, you know, got some "stuff" going on, that you're inviting a sexual assault!? I know! What am I doing wearing my button down shirts with my pants belted up at my waist? What am I doing wearing stylishly modest sweaters and comfortable khakis when I could be inviting some action with my attire choices?

Yesterday a Manitoba judge in Thompson ruled that a "clumsy Don Juan's" interpretation that a young girl wearing a tube top was pretty much by definition ready for his freddy (That's a new one boys! I made it up maself! Ya'll can quote me!) and so he pushed forward. Sure Justice Dewar acknowledged that "this is a case of misunderstood signals and inconsiderate behaviour" (WFP, Feb 24, 2011, McIntyre A1) and that he didn't want to appear to blame the victim, but he thought that it was his job to assess her "moral blameworthiness". Which she was, apparently. Enough to keep the accused out of prison, on a one-year curfew. He'll write a letter of apology to the victim, and his name will be placed on the National sex offender's list.

So again, because of a man's perception of an invitation that did not exist, in fact because of his inability to accurately "read" a situation with a woman, he will be molly-coddled by the courts. And more women will have to manage him and his wandering ... freddy.

There is an inherent insult to men and their intelligence in this ruling. Apparently men are unable to read "sexual situations". Apparently it's not until the police arrive at the door that they are able to understand that what they've done might have been problematic, and even then they're not sure of it. Apparently men become complete numbskulls when they see a woman wearing a tube top. Apparently men, when they hear a woman say she "wants to party" only hear "lay me down on a bed of roses and whisper sweet nothings while freddy does his thing".

Well I, for one, reject this version of male social intelligence. And I wish that once and for all the courts would stop acting as if it's their business to assess "moral" anything, and start assessing how the legal code we've agreed upon applies to the case. Twenty years ago the courts said that "implied consent" is no consent at all (WFP, Feb 24, 2011, Martin A3). That's the law. Now apply it.

There's this silly book out there named something like "Men are from Mars, and Women from Venus". It would seem to say that on matters sexual, etc. we are from different planets. Of course it's only a crappy metaphor. But ultimately it's crappy metaphors like this that somehow become legitimate excuses for lousy behaviour. In fact we all live together on the same planet. We know we (we men that is) can be, and usually are, fully capable of distinguishing between implied and actual consent. We can and do know what an invitation looks and sounds like, and what it actually means. We know that just because there's an invitation to a "party" doesn't mean I get to trash the house.

Opening night!

A smashing success!

We broke several legs!

We brought the house down!

They laughed, they cried!

There's no business like show business!

Wait'll next time! Yeah baby!

Dreams ...

Yesterday I dreamed Paul Bergman walked into my house. He was wearing his hair long, suspiciously like John Lennon. He wasn't wearing glasses.

Then Neil Young walked in, and then Paul McCartney. They all said nice things. Neil picked up my guitar, strummed a few chords, sang a few words, and then passed it along to John/Paul, who did the same (but not without remarking on the weirdness of Neil's chord choices), and passed it on to Paul who played George's Here Comes the Sun. Then he said, "What about that weird bit at the end there? The F C G on the Sun Sun Sun. What about that for weird, eh?"

I could feel right then that I was about to wake up. I was thinking, I need to write this down. I said to the guys, "Just wait here. I'm going to get my pen and notebook and write this down. It'll make a great story." And Neil said, "Yeah man, go ahead! I dreamed I saw the knights in armour sayin' something about a queen."

Well you can wake up, or fall asleep at the most inopportune times some nights. When I got back to the room they were all gone, except for the spectre of Bergman's face in Lennon's hair, this time with those glasses. Was this the Mount of Olives? Were these the three prophets? Why didn't I offer them a place to stay? Why didn't I say that we could just sit down right then and there and sing and play until morning? I'd have remembered it then, maybe.

By morning I'd forgotten it. By now my memory's cruel in its misgivings. I played Here Comes the Sun tonight, though. And then Yesterday.

Ride report

in: -18'C wind 5 ks S

out: -8'C wind 30 ks S

Rehearsals

Today we held the technical rehearsals (we ran through it twice) for this fine little musical I'm co-directing at school, Grease. Tomorrow's the dress rehearsal, and that'll be the last rehearsal for it! After that it's all show show show show me the money!

Don't you love a good rehearsal? No? Well neither do I, but I fear a bad performance more than I dislike rehearsals, so I guess that about determines things.

You just have to practice. You just have to do something often to become good. Tonight, on an Ideas (CBC) program about genius, the writer used Paul McCartney as an illustration of the kind of "genius" that arises from so much repetition that, in McCartney's song-writing practice, there wasn't so much "practice" as a songwriter, as there was "existence" as a songwriter. McCartney wrote (probably still writes) songs all the time. Two or three a day. So much did song-writing permeate his being and his days that he wrote/writes songs in his sleep. The melody for "Yesterday," for instance, came to him in a dream. He woke up and sat down at a piano to play the chords and write them down. Then he wrote the lyric. He recorded it and it sits on back-side of Help!, the second-last track. And today it is distinguished as being the song most covered by other artists (according to Guinness - the book not the beer).

In his sleep! If you're going to be good, you have to be so rehearsed, so comfortable in your practice, that everything you do is both rehearsal and performance! You have to be so much immersed in what you do that the difference between rehearsal and performance is, simply, the presence of an audience.

And if that's the case, you have to rehearse so often, that the audience, when they show up, won't be able to tell that you're doing it. They'll think you're performing, and you are, but you're rehearsing too, because this thing that you're doing ... well that's the thing that you're always doing. And the more you're doing it, the better the doing becomes.

Tweeting? When? Why?

This evening I open my gmail only to find that a friend and former student, from a-way back in the day, has started following me on Twitter. I haven't tweeted in two weeks. You might say I'm constitweeted.

So I considered heading over there just to give Dave an indication that I'm actually, you know, chirping. But to what end? What do I have to say in 140 characters or less? What do I have to say at all?

I've kinda sorta followed Roger Ebert's tweets, who is apparently a tweeting-machine, but all he's doing is promoting this cause or that event. Well that's mostly what he's doing. He's not exactly tweeting his life. He's tweeting the lives of others. Which is a bit creepy actually. How quintessentially disorienting! You might think that, like bats, we'd make these noises in order to home in on something. To find direction. To know where we're going. But tweeting is mostly directionless twaddle.

Really what does tweeting add that a Facebook status update doesn't cover? Or even this little, mostly daily, ranty thing that I do? If someone can tell me why tweeting is grand, other than being obnoxiously self-absorbed with my mobile device in the lobby of a "generic public space," I'd like to hear it.

I understand the usefulness of it in a revolution, as in Egypt, but that's just a kind of shotgun texting. The cell phone doesn't really need Twitter does it. Isn't the cell phone text "Twitter" itself? So why why why is this so huge? It's just a repeated money-shot spunk spew landing on anyone who'll pay attention. Why are we so open-mouthed about this idiocy?

On a promotional note (I know I know, I ought to Tweet this), Grease, the musical I'm directing together with Jana, will open on the 23rd and run to the 26th! It's fun and it'll be a great little evening of entertainment!

Ride report:

in: -7'C wind NW 30 ks

out: had a rehearsal, a blizzard blew in, wimped out and took a car-ride

I've gotta go adjust my rear derailleur

I don't know exactly what's causing the cable to slip, but I think it's because I cut the cable sleeves a bit too short, so when I turn sharp (or when I crash) it tugs hard on the whole cable, perhaps causing the cable to slip at the derailleur. That or it's just the cold. Anyway, the cable slips, I adjust the rear cable tensioning screw, the cable slips, I adjust it again, and so on, until finally, like tonight, I just have to loosen the cable set screw itself, and reset it.

I'm sure Tim's smiling now, from the heights of his pricey Rohloff. Ah the life of a man prepared to pay the price to do it right. I can only aspire to such greatness. And smugly shake my head from a way down here in the land of derailleurs and pulleys and rear clusters.

I'm sure there's a metaphor here, but I've got a cluster to ...

Ride report:

in: -2'C wind SE 30 ks

out: 0'C wind NE 30 ks

Let it be Spring

I feel like writing something about my life, but I forget so much of it. Like just a few minutes ago I was certain that I knew what I'd write tonight. I'd just read a few essays by Wendell Berry, and then one by Annie Dillard, and I thought, "Well now I'll have something to say." But in the face of them I'm dumbstruck.

Then I started to read a GQ article on the sad life of Billy Ray Cyrus, who's headed for a divorce, and concerned about Miley. "Well things could be worse," I say to myself. A lot worse.

So what I've noticed lately (and maybe this was what I was going to write about, but I can't say for sure - which is another sign that I'm aging - my memory - which was never that good really anyway) is that this warm weather - the whiffs of Spring now and again, the early thaw and melt - make me anticipate Spring and Summer in a way I just haven't expected.

I'm usually one to enjoy a good long winter. I like the temperature when it's between -15 and -20'C. I like it when it snows. I like it when it blows. I like that shut-in feeling. I like to sit by the fire and read, or whatever. These last few days however, I've started to feel like it would be okay if this was, in fact, an early launch into Spring. I could live with it if it meant that in a few weeks, in March say, I could be cavorting on the lawn in shorts and a t-shirt, or going for an 80 k ride to Walhalla and back.

I would really be okay with it if it didn't snow again this winter. I know it will. I suspect that we'll get another month or so of winter weather, and that the flood they're predicting will, in fact, be significant. Still, I'm ready for warmth. And that's new to me. That readiness.

This winter, the frost has heaved at the ground around our place more than ever before. The earth was saturated in Fall, and we've never experienced our doors shifting as much as they have this year. That's part of my readiness I'm sure. Winter can be a real pain. There are some things that it's just not that good for.

Winter is expensive. The bills go up. You have to heat the house and drive the car. There's wicked wear and tear. I'm sure that when Dad said that a short winter was a good one, he had these kinds of things in mind. Who really wants to pay more, just to stay alive? It's tough enough to pay more to stay happy and entertained, much less just to keep from freezing, or to keep your house from freezing, or to keep your car on the road, or your bike.

At the beginning of third class today we were looking at the pictures of the day on a news website and one of them was of the record snowfall in South Korea. Three boys who love snowboarding immediately wished that that would come here. This reminded me of my own love for the snow back then. Without the cares of bills and house repairs, who really could complain about snowboarding with your buddies or, failing that, staying up late and playing Medal of Honor. For them, snow is entertainment. For me, snow means running the snowblower, and worrying about a flood. At best it might mean a snow-day.

So yeah I'm getting older; I'm praying for Spring. I smile when I smell the melting.

Ride report

in: -1'C wind SE 30 ks

out: 1'C wind W 30 ks

Love songs are easy, you are not

Into the darkness, into the light
I wanna see rainbows with you tonight
I watch the sun rise and the night fall
Light and darkness will cover us all
There's a fly on the window, a spider in the bed
Rainbows keep splashing over my head
Rainbows here, rainbows there
I wanna see rainbows everywhere

I waited for comfort, I longed for good news
I couldn't get rid of these missing you blues
Still sunspots are flaring, the heat's coming on
It's not just me who's limping along
Since I've been singing, since you've been gone
the clock has been caught ticking out this song
Rainbows here, rainbows there
I wanna see rainbows everywhere

I don't know just how this is going to end
I'll need pencil and paper to make amends
When Noah saw you hanging up in the sky
he whispered a thank you, rather than a why
But I'm not that certain, I'm a little on edge
my heart is hanging over the ledge
of you and me standing out in the rain
of you and me holding each other again
Out in the darkness, and in the light
I wanna see rainbows with you tonight

Welcome to a real world

On Friday night, after working on the set at school for a few hours, M went out to rent a flick for the rest of the evening. She chose "Welcome to the Rileys" starring James Gandolfini, Kristen Stewart, and Melissa Leo. Well I like Gandolfini's work and the choices he makes (except for that uber-intense US General part) and, although I've never seen the Twilight schlock, I've liked Kristen Stewart in things like Adventureland and Into The Wild. So I was hopeful, despite the lame sounding title. But you shouldn't judge ...

Anyway this is story of brokenness and the tragedy that descends from the hubris of parents. Mid-life hits Doug and Lois Riley hard as they have to deal with losing their daughter in a car accident about four years ago. Since then Lois has become a cold, angst-paralyzed, agoraphobe, never leaving the house. Doug continues his life as a successful widget seller who plays poker with the boys, but to compensate for Lois's decline he has a four year affair with Vivian, a waitress at a local pancake shop, where she knows him as "the waffle man."

When Vivian suddenly dies of a heart attack he struggles mightily not to fall into full-on despair. He attends a widget-selling conference in New Orleans and, after glad-handing more than he can manage he heads for Bourbon St. There he ducks into a strip joint for a drink. He's lonely. He wants comfort. That doesn't mean he's interested in the strippers. However when a 16 year old girl makes it her business to interest him in something, or at least take as much of his money as she can, collides with the sudden entrance of the loud bunch of fellow widget-conferencers he's been trying to avoid, he takes her offer for a private room. Once there he pulls a Holden and insists that he just wants to talk. He pays $100 for the talk, which goes badly, and he gets his $100 back.

Later that evening in a coffee-shop, Mallory, the stripper, enters and he apologizes and pays for her sandwich. It becomes obvious she's alone and not in control of herself. He offers a ride home. She asks for the $100 anyway. He gives it to her. When they get to her place they laugh and smoke a joint, and Mallory remains incredulous that he wants nothing sexual from her. All he can see is his own daughter.

Doug decides to stay in New Orleans to help Mallory. He phones Lois to tell her. Lois is shocked, and roused by this. She packs her bags, gets into Doug's Caddy, smacks it around a little and eventually makes it down to the Big Easy herself. Along the way some 50-something guy hits on her in a highway truck stop and she, in her new, tousled, un-uptight look begins to come alive again, though she doesn't take him up on the offer.

Well, after that Doug and Lois become the Rileys again. They try to parent Mallory and do help in some ways, but this endeavour is doomed, and they know it. Though it's a bit sentimental to say it, they come together over this new failure, and are able to face up to the failure of four years earlier.

The story is redemptive - for this couple, for the young girl, and for New Orleans. Sure the city is portrayed honestly, but the food and romance of the place is obvious. It revived my curiousity to visit it (I missed my chance when I broke my kneecap a few years back and had to miss an education convention I was booked to attend).

The reviews of this film are split. It's either seen as over-sentimental, or as a showcase for great acting by Gandolfini, Stewart, and Leo. Well there are times when sentimental works. And it's usually with family. You can't get around it. Family stories that go from bad to worse to better but not perfect are going to get you all soft in the middle. And I think that family stories ought to do that. And I think you ought to watch at least two of these kinds of movies a year, together with that someone that you love most of the time, but occasionally you wish was someone else.

What made this film work for me that none - none - none of the difficult questions were answered with anything other than, it's better to care for someone than not. And if you care for someone you let them make their own decisions, even when you think they're being stupid. There's nothing at all wrong with the conventional social construct called "family." Some reviewers seem to wretch and puke at the sight of it; they need to grow up and experience dependent and interdependent relationships that you don't choose. Because that's what family is - caring when you don't want to choose to. It's hard. But it's what humans should be able to do.

Then on Saturday night I watched Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. Really??? What a piece of total bum-banging crap! Geez! I watched so that I could say that I did. And I mourn the time lost. For a review that I will totally agree with, go here.

Friday ride report:

in: -7'C wind SW 15 ks

out: -2'C wind NW 20 ks

Can it be?

I was driving in to town tonight and I could smell Spring! I believe! But we've been fooled before. Likely all it means is that we'll have another thaw, more snow, more cold, and more ice. This treachery will not stop.

But I must.

Ride report:

in: -23'C wind SW 20 ks

out: -21'C wind S 15 ks

There's a limit ...

... to what you can say some days.

Also, we're in our overdraft, and there are five more days till payday.

And, I didn't wipe out today (but I only rode one way - had to bring the car in for some work - then B drove it home - I biked home); I biked home in the light and was able to see and avoid.

Rocks, brooms, and sliders! We won a curling game! The first win of the year!

It's gonna be cold tonight, but the wind's shifting to the South.

I forgot to bring David Portnoy's Complaint tonight. That's probably for the best as he's still happily married, bringing his five year old boy to hockey practice at the rink and all. Wouldn't want to mess with that.

Speaking of which, I wonder what I would have turned out like if I'd have had boys, brought them to hockey practice, and had to deal with their "boy" stuff (eating all that food and wrecking the car). I don't think my overdraft could manage that. This makes me feel simultaneously lucky and inadequate.

And that use of "simultaneously" may be one of the few times when using an adverb made my writing more concise. I still agree with my good friend Steve, who maintains that adverbs and adjectives are the tools of the devil. Amen?!

Ride report

in: the car

out: -21'C wind SW 20 ks

Down twice

For the whole winter thus far, I have not "had a spill" as they say. When people ask me whether or not I fall during my Winter riding, I say "Yes, I usually go down two or three times a season." And then they ask me whether it hurts, and I say "Not as much in winter as it does in Summer." In Winter, when I go down, it's usually on ice, and I and the bike will slip earthward in a kind of arc. Sometimes I stay with the bike, and sometimes not. Whatever the case, going down in Winter is much less traumatic than going down in Summer.

Well today I went down twice. We had a few warm days at the end of last week, so the snow melted. Then we had a bit of rain too, which froze when it got cold again. And then it got really cold, and windy, so the icy sections were really buffed.

So Monday's ride was cautious, but successful, and this morning's ride was the same, but into a stiff West wind. I stayed at work late however, so it was dark by the time I got on the bike. I have lights, but they don't really tell you clearly, or with enough warning, that you're about to meet an icy patch. So today, heading home, with wind, at a good pace, at more or less a complete surprise, I met a patch of ice that I could not handle. The bike seemed to fly out from under me, because I was moving pretty fast, and the two of us slid for about 10 yards - separately.

Well there was no damage done to the bike (not even the chain was off), and I thought nothing was done to me, so after I was done cursing and inspecting and readjusting the lights, I got back on and kept riding (I was about two mile from home). Then, just as I was turning onto the yard, I met another patch that I couldn't handle and the bike slid out again. This time the chain came off. Disgusted, I just walked last few metres to the house.

When I got the bike in I had to adjust the seat, and put on the chain, but everything else was fine. When I took off my gear I found a rip in my jacket, about where there was a reasonable scrape on my forearm, and as the evening wore on, my left hip and knee began to ache. Right now my knee is pretty stiff.

So I'm just about at my quota of falls for the winter. It wasn't too bad really, I think if I'd been riding in the light, I'd have been able to find a less slippery spot. (I'm sure there's a spiritual lesson in there somewhere.)

Ride report

in: -21'C wind W 40 ks (very cold on big Jim and the twins)

out: -17'C wind W 30 ks

What season is this?

"Could you remind me?" he says. "It's been mild, then not so mild, then cold, then damn cold. What season is that?"

"February," she says. "In Manitoba. Canada. North America. The Northern hemisphere. The Earth. The Solar system. The Milky Way. The Universe."

"Right. Thanks, Rebecca," he says. "I knew that. The question was rhetorical, if you hadn't noticed."

"Sure George. Rhetorical. Is everything ironic around here? I make an obvious reference to a pre-WW2 American play set in the midwest, and you have to go and snark on me? What's eating you?"

"Everyone's so phony these days. You never know when someone's gonna come out of the woodwork with some declaration about this or that: foreign policy between the USA and China, Ronald Reagan's failures, Maggie Trudeau's nights with the Stones, Bob Dylan first arriving in NYC 50 years ago, paying for bandwidth use, getting a picture of both sides of the sun simultaneously. Something like that. Something momentous. You know?"

"Okay. Your point?"

"Well it's all so huge these days. The weather's the worst ever. The polar bears are dying. You've never been able to eat Ethiopian food for this cheap. There have never been so many concussions in hockey, or football. Kids have to wear helmets to curl."

"Hey George. I'm serious here," says Rebecca. "Really. What's your point? I mean there's no snark in this question. I just want to know what's really bugging you?"

"Really?" says George. "You really want to know?"

"Well, I think so," she says. "You know, if it'll maybe help. Like maybe you just need to get it out."

"I can't nail anything down!" he says. "It all just keeps moving. Coming around. You're supposed to aim and shoot, to be precise, to have a direction. To know where you're going - what you're doing. But it all just changes on you the minute you think you've got it. You know what I mean?"

"Maybe," she says.

"We're just all so small. So insignificant. But we're making these decisions, about what pants to wear, or what to say to a friend, or what word to type next - like 'asparagus' - there. I didn't even decide this. I just wrote the first word that came to my mind: 'dilettante'."

"I think you're taking this all too seriously."

"Exactly! You know. Exactly that! The other day I'm out with friends and this guy that I've worked with walks up. Like he's working in another division now, but he's actually pretty close to retirement. Like he says that he's going to retire after the next full year. So that means he's going to stick it out for another year and a half. And so I say to him, you know, to make conversation: What'll you do after that? And he says that he's a few months and credits away from getting his therapeutic hypnosis certification. That when he's done he hopes to do that during his retirement. What? I say. Could you explain that? And after a few minutes of explanation I realize that I've asked for more than I might be able to give, but you know what? I keep on giving! I keep on listening. I totally stop talking to my friends who are still sitting at the table with me and try to tune into what he's saying. I feel like I owe it to him somehow. And he goes on about how when he takes people in he takes them on a journey above their lifeline. It takes me a few minutes to realize that he's talking about something like reincarnation. Like he'd take me out of my consciousness and then have me, in my mind, fly over my soul's lifeline, which could take me back to medieval times, or even to the time of the Greeks, and then he'd ask me questions like where's my future, like in what direction is my future, and where's my past, like in what direction is my past. And then he'd ask me to name the main source of my anger or discontent (my memory could be totally failing me here), in my timeline, and he'd ask me to land there. On that spot in time. I could end up in a village in Kazakhstan for all I know. It could be in the dead of winter. And then, when I'm there I'm supposed to find what makes me angry and, I don't know, get over it! You know. Confront it or something. Realize it for what it is, and then decide to move ahead. Yeah. To get over it! Then he'd call me to fly up over my timeline again, and come back down in the present and then he'd take me out of the trance and we'd talk about it."

"What?"

"Yeah. I know. I think that's pretty close to it."

"No kidding."

"Yeah, and this guy's actually pretty cool. Pretty smart. Really smart actually. So I just listened. I mean I like him and everything, and part of me is intrigued by this stuff. Part of me thinks it might be real. It might be more real than whatever we think is real now. I don't know. Everything's sort of up in the air for me these days. You know?"

"Not really."

"So everything really makes sense to you, and you've got no major questions about existence or about what you're doing today, and why, much less what you might be doing say, in a year from now?"

"Well, it's not that I don't have my doubts, but look at you! You're a bit of a mess right now, because you're thinking about all this stuff. I mean really, can you actually find an answer to your questions?"

"Yeah. Good point. There's probably not much point in going on about it, eh?"

"Tomorrow we die."

"Maybe I'll end up in Poland. In a village. As a gardener for some five hundred year old church that tourists visit on tours. And I'll know the tour guides speech about what's important and what the church has in common with other churches in the area, and what makes it unique. While she's giving the speech inside the church I'll be outside weeding the flower beds and mouthing the words, maybe speaking them along with her. She'll be about five foot three, with dark hair and green eyes that sparkle. She'll only smile occasionally but when she does I'll be entranced. One day, after a tour she'll come back to thank me for keeping the grounds neat and she'll offer to buy me a drink and lunch at the village cafe, and that'll be the beginning of our lives together. Nothing will change really. During the tourist season she'll give tours and I'll tend the grounds. And at the end of the day we'll meet at our apartment on the third floor overlooking a valley, the green hills rising just beyond the winding river that the road in and out of the village follows. We'll have supper together and then go for walks, or read, and then go to bed to start it all over again. In winter we'll just spend most of the time inside. Then it'll be tourist season again and we'll start it all over again."

"Sounds nice to me, but ..."

"Yeah, I know. It's not going to happen."

"Or it already has."

"Don't mess with me, okay," he says.

"Whatever. It'll be Spring-time soon enough," she says.

Ride report:

in: -24'C wind NW 20 ks

out: -21'C wind NW 30 ks

Krahn's Kvetch

Yeah okay so yet you could just write something down yet on the paper to always just whine about what your mommy has yet done to you with her immer always wanting to know wheres you are going and that you're having to careful be, but is it yet really so bad? Once you could just give it a rest that sure it bugs you that your dad is yet so much to the church going, and then always to work or to the meetings, but that is yet not so bad. He's not at home then yes? Is there so much that is with that wrong? And sure the Sears catalogue takes a beating when you into the bathroom sneak it all the time and the door you lock always even when there's no one at home. And yeah this makes you yet feeamasich Jeschlajchtlich all the times, even now when you're too old for that kind of thing and should be once trying to be grown-up about it. But still it is with you always so much of a thing this guilt that you should maybe immer always do what it is your mommy and daddy want.

So you yet never once can grow up. You are always yet thinking that your mommy will you see doing whatever you are yet doing. Even when she is the grave in and you are away moved, and your daddy is in the old folks home living. Still you are about them so worried. Still you are going to the church in the Sunday morning because you want to yes say when they you ask for what the message about was. And you yet worry about your own children that if you are yet not an adult with your worries still too much by someone else decided that how can they yet grow up to be what you are not?

Still at least you have yourself a marriage bought and a house built and three daughters made. Not like that Alex Portnoy who with his dongle dangling cannot yet keep it long enough in one place. You are yet not so upyamixed. You are yet not to the Seelelea-man going to his ear talk off for as long as it yet takes to a book write down. You are yet able to keep the respectable job and the respectable family and the urges are there but you are them always down-keeping. You are yet going to make it all work once. You are yet going to find what you yet have not.

And when you do, then, oh then will you this have the world to stand up once yet to for you water make. And you will say then to them all how high to make it and when to stop. Then once yet will they all stand to make it, even if it is the wind into, and they must themselves wet make. Then once yet for you all this will even up be. Then once yet for you yourself will you your own decisions make. Not for no one else. Then once yet, on that day, you will your own self to be true.

For now yet though, you have this book finished the reading, and it is for a Pepsi and Revel time to Winkler yet to go once. Do I you jealous make?

Tending bar

No, I haven't suddenly taken up laws. I'm at the curling club for a second night this week, tending the bar. As I type there are two games on: on sheet two it's 2-0 for blue, and on sheet three is 2-1 for yellow. Epic battles to be sure!

It's a wondrous thing to open up your notebook and find that there's wireless even here at the arena and curling club. Is it too good to be true?

I'll get back to you with the final scores in a bit. ... 9 pm and on sheet two it's 6-0 for blue in the 6th end (I think they'll be up for drinks soon), and on sheet three it's 3-2 for yellow in the seventh. I'm getting ready to serve up the treats.

To pass the time, listen to this great Thom Yorke cover of Neil's On the Beach (thanks for the find GeeVs!).

The final result on sheet three was a 7th end final shot double take-out for blue to score 4 for the win, 3-6! The drama!

Ride report:

in: -9'C wind W 20 ks

out: -3'C wind SW 20 ks

That guy

Tonight around the post-curling game post-mortem table (yeah we lost again) the talk turned to that guy in town that everyone knows as a jerk and an asshole. He has power. He makes decisions. A lot of people think he makes bad decisions. No one thinks he's an idiot - no, he's too smart for that - but they do think he's lazy, self-serving, arrogant, negligent, maybe even vengeful. They think he's swayed by relationships and expedience. They think that some people must like him, because someone's always getting what they want, at the expense of someone else, and it sure looks like that guy is behind it.

Do you know this guy? Yeah? I do too. Sometimes he might be me. Sometimes I think it's all right that a lot of people think that guy exists as a jerk and an asshole. Sometimes I think a lot of people are right. But I'd bet that there are a reasonable number of times when a lot of people (altogether and all at once) are wrong.

Ride report:

in: -21'C wind 25 ks SW

out: -15'C wind 30ks SW

Online is not real life

I'm kidding right?

Had an interesting conversation with some young friends today. The three of us are a part of an online community known as deviantart.com - we're part of a small, real life and as well as online writing group. So we have these moments where we've communicated online - commented on a piece of work, or talked about the last time we were together - and then the next day we meet in person. I, for one, noted that often the young person I'd "talked" with online, would essentially make no open acknowledgement of the online conversation, no matter how interesting or intimate. Curious.

Today one of these people says that now that a person that she "follows" online (as in follows a blog) is attending school (this person attended an offsite program last semester) she finds it awkward seeing her in person. She says they don't really acknowledge one another though they have shared intimate and deep conversation, and really appreciate one another's art (photography and such). Hmmm.

So I asked these two about this phenomenon, and they readily acknowledged the duality of their lives. What they do and say during their online living is not at all necessarily evident in their real-life living. In fact they say that they feel much more comfortable online because they are able to take the time to think before they interact. They don't have to respond right away. They don't have to deal with the awkwardness of their bodies, their eyes, their hands, etcetera. Then, when they come to school, or some other public place, and meet someone that they've interacted with online it's a real "buzz-kill." It's as though you pull back the curtain on the wizard and he's not what you'd hoped (my analogy).

Well to me this helps to explain the retreat into hooded sweatshirts and ear-buds of some young folks. They don't really feel like their real-life self matches their online persona, so they minimize that impact for themselves and others as much as possible.

If this is the case there's something both wonderful, and weird, about it. It's wonderful because young people are finding places to have deep conversations and to express themselves in ways they might not have ever had before. It's weird because they are doing this when they are physically isolated from other humans - and they seem to need (some of them anyway) to "carry" that isolation with them into the public spaces they are forced to inhabit.

Some of this seems ominous to me. The virtuality of the screened world attracts me. I like to be online. I like to smile and chuckle at the screen. I like to look at people's pictures. I like the way a webcam can help to recreate, in a flattering way, who I appear to be. I like to be able to take my time to respond. I like it that this helps to make me appear, and feel, more competent.

But, it's all at the expense of real time spent with people. Is this virtuality becoming a more palatable substitute for our physicality? Or is this all just growing pains, and as these technologies become regular and common, we'll learn how to balance the virtual and the real - the online public and the physical public?

My experience with online communities has tended to enhance my real life interactions with people. I love commenting on the ABES blog when I can't ride with them in winter. It feels like I can, in some way, keep up. I like knowing that someone's reading this blog, and when they've commented, and I meet them in person, I'm likely to say something about it. But I do also feel this strange separation of the online and the real. My sense is that this disconnect will faze out over time, or we'll just get used to managing multiple personas - real, online, and so on.

Ride report

in: - 28'C wind WNW 10 ks

out: - 27'C wind WNW 10 ks