No mo mo

On November 15th it looked like this:

Today it looked like this:

Well that's something, I guess. Truth be told, I want to be rid of the schnirr. It always feels a bit moist underneath it, and it just itches and scratches and aggravates. I don't think the skin on my face and the hair it produces are out of the closet compatible. My skin tolerates it, but after a couple of days it just screams "get this ingrown stiff-necked heretic out of here" and I oblige. 

I still haven't taken the knife to it. If not tonight, then tomorrow night, but soon there must be no mo mo.

Ride report

in:      -8'C wind 20 ks S

out:   -4'C wind 15 ks NNE

 

Doing good

This can only be a beginning. I'm going to continue it sometime. Honest. I've been impatient. I confess it. Who wants to wait? I've been waiting long enough. Putting it off really. Putting it off so long that all I've managed are small spurts of it, which is more dabbling than engaging. I have a long way to go, and I've really just started down the path.

I'm mixing my metaphors. Spurts. Paths. Enough of that. I am so slow to believe. I know, if you know me, you know that I have a gullible side - a "want to believe it" side - that keeps me going. But in truth I don't really believe in myself, or in the goodness I apparently hope for. 

I say apparently because when I rave on about how things could be or should be better, I recognize a kind of fundamentalism of hope. It's in my genes I think. One philosopher (I recall who - John Gray?) says that "hope" is pernicious and the root of religion and foolishness because it distracts us from the toil and crap of today; it averts our eyes upward to some vista that may as well be a mirage.

Rather, one must examine the crap, pay attention to the labour at hand. This is such an obvious maxim. Live in the now. Do what you do now, well, and confront it when it's bad. Stop then, and proceed to the next good thing to do. Seek only to know enough to tell good from bad, and then to do it (the good that is).

And what is good? What does one draw on to determine that? I had a dream last night. I'd fallen behind again. We'd been called in to work. It was an email message that I had seen but not opened. When I finally did open it, I was already late. So I rush out the door. Better late than never I think. Even though it's on my Christmas holidays that's the sort of power my boss has over me. It's a whole staff affair, and it's some kind of a trust-building activity day. I get there just in time to help a group of them try to lift and roll (or were we trying to bounce it?) a large tractor tire the size of the ones that are used on four-wheel-drives. The goal is to move it from one line to another one, but the tire starts out in a kind of a ditch, so we have to roll it up the ditch hill first. It's heavy. It's hard. The tire wants to roll back down. 

Sisyphus. This is the first sign of bad. Engaging a contrived task that threatens to become repetitive, alone or with others, that has no inherent meaning or purpose. We roll the tire not because it needs to be moved, but because the authority has asked us to, and because we trust that authority and each other to be looking out for our best interests. But we suspect they're not. We suspect they're looking out for their own best interests. We suspect that we are putting off our own best interests in an attempt to garner their favour, and the favour of those around us. This is bad. 

I know this means I'm defining good in the negative. That is, if I can figure out what is bad, then I'm halfway to determining what is good. Well, halfway certain is better than not certain at all. I'll take that much for now. It's taken me a while to see that just persevering in doing bad stuff, isn't good. Just because perseverance is virtuous doesn't mean that practicing it is always taking you down the path to goodness. I've spent a lot of time and energy being mad at others for working hard at foolish tasks, and even hating my own foolishness in engaging such tasks. So now I must engage in the task of undoing this habit of mind, this way of being, that is founded in any hope that someone else will see the merit of my effort as worthy, rather than the merit of the task. Which is to say that I have to stop worrying about my effort being measured, and worry more about doing good things, right now, for myself. 

Oh that sounds selfish. See? My religion bears down on me again. 

Ride report

in:      -1'C wind 8 ks S

out:   -4'C wind 2 ks W

Three things from the weekend

Sunday: 10 Myths About Introverts describes me. Pretty much exactly.

Saturday: Watched Everything Must Go. 

I love watching Will Ferrell being serious. He's still funny, it's just a different kind of funny. He's not trying  to be funny, he's just funny to watch. And he can act. Although I don't think he's as engaging in this performance as he is in Stranger Than Fiction, he's working harder here. The cast isn't powerful  and overwhelming in this film, as compared to STF (where he was working with Emma Thompson, Dustin Hoffman, and Maggie Gyllenhaal) so he's got to carry things on his own. He does. I liked the movie, but since it's based (loosely) on a Raymond Carver story - Why Don't You Dance? - I had that thing in my head too, and I ended up thinking too much about the opportunities the movie missed. 

I'd have hoped that since this production was about as close to an independent release as you can get in Hollywood it might also allow itself to get closer to edgy. That's what Carver's stories do - play on the edge: the guy drinks a lot of whisky, not a lot of Pabst Blue Ribbon; the guy himself sets up his furniture on the front lawn in the same way that it was set up in his house, he's not been kicked out with all of it by his wife (that's been done in a few movies before); the young couple shows up and he plays them records and they dance together and he with them, he doesn't meet an underprivileged kid with whom he plays catch, and who he grooms into a salesman, nor does he meet a tender-hearted young mom-to-be who nurtures him back to health. These re-visions are not better than the source material. 

In fact maybe they only noted the source material to avert a possible complaint, and then went about there merry business disregarding the story (except for the furniture on the lawn bit). Maybe the screenplay based on Carver's story should have been written by Tom Waits (or at least by Charlie Kaufman). Maybe then it would've hung onto the grit and the rough. Then we'd have to do a little good work ourselves to see what good has come of it for the fired, down-on-his-luck lost American-dreamer. Do we always need to be told that there's a "diamond" in there?          

Friday: Won $70 at poker (2 games, subtract $20 for the fee to play). Won the first game, came in second in the second.

Curling season win #2

Tonight was a good night! A win against win of the best teams in the draw, and two free beers to fortify the ride home! I'm gonna sleep well tonight!

Ride report

in:     -1'C wind 15ks S

out:  2'C wind 15 ks S

Make it strange

The Errol Morris Op-Ed doc explaining the apparently sinister and inexplicable "umbrella man" of the Kennedy assassination makes the point, again, that truth may well be stranger than fiction.

Well that's a cheap shot at fiction. The nub of the matter is that if we scrutinize any moment in which numerous people are going about their routines, or breaking out of them, we will find oddities that, if we are looking for devils, will look devilish.

That's a fair and reasonable. When we observe things, we change them - some psychology study said so. And so what about fiction, and truth, and strangeness? 

There isn't enough time to get into it right now. No matter what I do, I always end up here at about 11:35 pm scrambling something together for this consumptive blog-monster. That's true. It's not strange. It's completely predictable. Almost reliable, except that I'm not. 

And I'd use this situation in a piece of fiction because it might be interesting, and because it's easy to believe that it's true, and because fiction isn't supposed be strange, it's supposed to be plausible and, wait for it, insightful. The point of most fiction, from Stephen King's horror to Ursula K. Le Guin's speculations, is to say something about the "human condition." (I put that phrase in quotation marks because I need to tell you that while it should be ubiquitous, and in many ways is rather than cliched, you can't be sure of much these days. But in some circles you can't say "It's about the human condition." without a significant incidence of eye-rolling.) 

What is "strange" anyway? Purely a matter of point of view isn't it? We don't need too many examples to recognize that the major factor in anyone's declaring an event or a person as "strange" is their perspective on the subject. 

What is "true?" A matter of point of view too? Likely. That and consensus I imagine. If a large group of us agree on an account or an explanation, we come to allow ourselves the luxury of certainty and we declare the thing as true. Ahhh. Now we don't have to think about that thing anymore. We've got it filed. If anyone asks, we can refer them to our neatly stored reality.    

What is "fiction?" When someone has the audacity, or imagination, to go back to one of those files, open it, reread it, and suggest another interpretation of the person or the event, he's created a fiction, another version of the truth. Sometimes these story-bound suggestions go further afield than others - read Philip K. Dick sometime - and sometimes they read like, well, like it's not been imaginative enough, that the interpretation is more like a paraphrase than anything - think about the trouble James Frey (A Million Little Pieces) got into when he (or his editor) walked this line.

So what is fiction? It's that truth we've all already agreed upon being made strange again so we can re-see it, re-imagine it, re-consider it, even re-tell it. Truth is not stranger than fiction. Fiction is truth made strange again. 

Ride report
in:        -3'C wind 20 ks S
out:     -5'C wind 15 ks S

Layout and decline

Clever title eh? I learned today, from a trusted friend, that a person in the city was asking $2500 to complete a task I've done 15 times (and am now doing my 16th and final time) as a volunteer over the past few years. Well I guess I'm either a tool, or a really generous guy. 

I don't feel generous these days. Behind maybe. A bit bitter to be sure. Not generous though. It says a lot (and not very good things) about me that I'm still doing this, despite my misgivings. My generous spirit is in sharp decline. I've given more than I should have, and now I'm in a tailspin. 

It's going to be positive though. I'm going to come out of this having to figure out how to use the time I'm going to take back, to develop something more lasting - myself. If this all sounds kind of hokey and 21st century whine-o-rama so be it. I'm due. It's in the design. 

Ride report

in:     -11'C wind 12 ks S

out:   -10'C wind 15 ks S

       

Pictures of children (fiction)

He buys the scooter and has it delivered. It's perfect. Italian and cream and tan and parked outside on the front walk. Leaning there, nonchalant on its stand, it makes even Winnipeg under the elms look like residential Paris.   

Still, the shine is off. Neither of them wants to admit it, least of all he. There is always a way to avoid it, though in her eyes the signal flickers. If however, you don't keep your eyes open wide when you greet her with a kiss, you'll never notice. 

The question is whether he understands his need to continue, or how this, his most recent effort, might only be an attempt, yet again, not to lose. Does he understand the question? We do, but Vincent's awareness has become, in some way, our question too.

For instance, he's just read the latest New Yorker, to which he subscribes on his ipad, and on it he's chuckled at the cartoons (which he reads first, always), in particular at the one with the caption: "We realize it's a win-win, Jenkins - we're trying to figure out a way to make it a win-lose." 

The men around the boardroom table get it. So does Vincent, but not in the way that will be helpful for him, and for us. Meredith might get it too, but she would never read The New Yorker on her ipad. She'd want to know what Babble or dooce would say.

Wistful, she'd enter the blogger's world hoping for pictures of children. The one of the two girls standing at the front door, backpacked and bundled for the trip to school. Herein lies our first clue. It's obvious really. Embarrassingly so. 

Like riding through a culvert

Riding home at 10 pm, into an East wind of about 30 ks, with a heavy snowfall happening as well, is a bit like riding in through a large culvert with a flashlight. You're working hard to keep your eyes focussed five to ten feet in front of your front wheel. You don't notice what your legs are doing, unless you drift off of the hardpack and onto the soft gravel that gets humped up on the sides and middle of the road. Then you notice that you have to pump harder, and keep from oversteering. You just ease your way back to the good path. 

In a heavy snowfall, with a bit of wind, it's like riding through a storm of christmas mini-lights. You know that there's a lot of possibility for light, but not a lot of focus. You want to look up a bit to see the whole road and get a little perspective, but that doesn't always help. You know you're going to ride where you look, so you've got to look at the right place. 

I walked out of the school today geared up for the first bona fide winter ride of the season. The wind would be in my face for three miles. The snow was coming down good and steady. It was about -15'. Perfect. In a few weeks this will be no big deal. For today it's worthy of a smile and moment to tell myself to take it easy and concentrate. I blow out and I start riding.

On rides like this I can only guess what gear I'm actually in. I can't look down to check. I'm grateful that the bike's working well. I'm grateful that I'm moving pretty easily into the wind. I'm grateful when the ride takes less than 25 minutes on a day like this. Later in the winter, when it's twice as cold (is that how to say it?), it could take another 10 minutes. Maybe more. 

For today the only place that I wish I was better prepared would have been my ears. The wind got in a bit. Tomorrow I'll wear a headband over my skullcap, just to make sure. 

Ride report

in:       -8'C wind 10ks NW

out:    -15'C wind 30ks E (snow)

There's too much at stake

So I'll get right to it. I'm done for the day. 

Ride report

in:      -8'C wind 15ks W (first substantial snowfall too)

out:   -11'C wind 20ks NW

By that time (fiction)

The rocking of the boat is significant enough to alert Mr. Sawatzky, but it's too late. This trope weighs heavy on the-boy-in-the-striped-shirt, named Paul, who, at this time in his quest to do what Jesus would do, has waited. Rather than being a harbinger in action, he has chosen to wait, to watch, to know what will happen, to be implicated in it, to suffer within it. The frantic pulling of the starter cord, the futile mechanical noises and the clenching of a jaw. These things comfort him. He hides them in his heart. Surely he hopes to reach the shore once more, but the simple satisfaction of knowing his fate has calmed him. 

In the news later in the week no one will know that the boy understood what would happen before it did, well before it did in fact, or that he chose the paradox of silence in the face of destruction, even the possibility of his own. If we all could know of his silence and inaction we might see tragedy. Catharsis. We might see reason and cause. More than sympathy, we could realize that had the right person acted at the right time, disaster could have been, would have been, averted. The scientific view of things could have won the day, though there would be no fanfare or self-congratulation. Only the young hero thanked by the heedless, now grateful, father.

But what would this do for you really? Assuage your fears of a numb and nameless universe? Certainly Paul, the-boy-in-the-striped-shirt, finds no gain in once again being right and helping others avoid destiny. Where's the betterment for anyone in these scenarios? Shouldn't we let the chips fall? Shouldn't we nod and wince at the train-wreck, the highway mishap, the slipped disk and subsequent back spasm. It happens. It should happen. It must happen. The universe wills it. 

It only takes a few hours for the searchers to rumble down to the bridge where the truck is parked, note it, launch their boats and head up and down stream at once. At the downstream rapid would-be rescuer James Friesen, familiar with the river, lands his boat and walks the shoreline. Fifty yards later he picks a child's sneaker, blue with two gold stripes, still wet. Ten yards farther he picks up a fishing rod. Sure now, but heartsick, he approaches a monstrous cottonwood sweeper looming over the fan of the current on the outside of a bend that turns the river back East. Its overreaching  inert forking limbs have caught something larger. James wills it to move, to sound out as he approaches and calls out, to return his call with a plea for help, but the life in that small down-turned body bears its witness in silence.        

Ride report

in:       -3 wind 10ks W

out:     -1 wind 25ks WNW

Post haste

After a day at the mill, the meat grinder, the salt mine, the chocolate factory, the farm, I headed over to the curling rink for the second game of the season. What could be better, really, than sliding rocks on ice so that they hit one another, and after two hours of that, heading up to the club for drinks and laughs. 

When I got home I ducked in on my facebook page only to read a status update from a former student: "Screw studying, let's go on facebook:D" Well I had to click my way out of there as fast as I could. This my friends, may be what it's all coming to. You might hope for better. You might say that we are the "god species" and we can't help but get it right eventually. You might even think that facebook can help. 

But I don't think so. I'll give myself the luxury of hoping that I may work harder to unleash myself from this electronic tether to spend more time riding my bike and sliding rocks on the ice, but as a group humans are too much like water - they follow the paths of least resistance. In the spirit of more resistance I say, "Screw the internet, I'm going to read a book in bed :D" 

Ride report

in:        -3'C wind 20ks W

out:      -1'C wind 25ks NW

Email woes

Apparently there's software out there that can determine the tone of an email you've written;-) Oh Lordy Lord Lord!! :D What I wouldn't have given to have that handy bit of ones and zeroes to flag my negative tone this morning>:-( Dag-nabit !-o 

If I really was the dirty scoundrel that I made myself out to be with the first two sentences of my response to a missive suggesting some misbehaviour on my part, I might have avoided the subsequent conversation, and the avoidance in the hallway tactic, and the general malaise that overcomes some of us when we've been rankled, and we've replied unkindly in kind |-( Oh if only I had a tighter grip on my intonations ;() What's a dude to do? %-)

Alas I do repent me of my misemailthropic nature. Perhaps there's a niche opening for a technology that encourages a return to cursive and HP inspired owls, or carrier pigeons, or the tristero =) Or the vacuum/air tubes of 1984, lest we be relegated by a rogue fly and a Brazil-level typographical error |D

Buttle!!!

Ride report

in:       -4'C wind 5ks SSE

out:    -2'C wind Calm (facing W)

A few firsts

Cross season

This Sunday, at St. Malo, I rode in final race of my first complete (well nearly, I missed one race) cyclocross season. It will not be the last, as I cannot think of a Fall activity that could give me more hope and anticipation for the future. A big thanks to my bike for being there, to JS and ABES for a series generally well-placed jabs that finally shamed me into this marvelous thing, to Albert for being over 50 and still being great, to M and the big Gd for graciously giving me those Sundays, to M (again), G&J, & S&R for showing up at a bunch of the races to make it a family thing (now if you guys would just get some bikes and join me in the pain and pleasure!), to the MCA and all of the clubs (esp FGBC)  that organized the races, and to Dr. John Wiens for fixing my kneecap a few years back when there was some question about my riding future. Here's the final picture of the season (thanks again to JS).

Snow

There was a "dusting" of snow on the ground this morning, and the roads were lightly layered in a crisp icy pebble that didn't hold up once the sun came out. The winter commuting season begins.

Floor hockey

As a wind-up to our successful soccer season, the team engaged in an intense game (the first of the year for me) that was about as much fun in a gym as I've ever had! (When "last goal wins" was declared we played like maniacs for more than 10 crazy minutes before we won! Oh the glory!)

After 399 posts, I'm unlinked

I've unlinked this blog from my workplace website. I don't know about this first. It's kind of like heading out on my own. And it's getting free of something. The fact is that though it's good to write with limits that are imposed from outside oneself (in this case it was the wideness of the audience), but a recent complaint from a work-related audience member about my word choice has me thinking that the limit may be more strict than I'm prepared to accept. Anyway, don't expect a sudden unhinging and flapping in the wind. It'll take me some time to decide what this change will mean. 

400th post

This is it.

Ride report

in:         -3'C wind 25ks W

out:       A ride at 10:30 from Adam!

WWYD

Having nothing to say can be freeing.

Ride report

in:      2'C wind 10 ks SSE

out:   6'C wind 8 ks S

 

First curling game of the season

Well another fine (I have more faith that it will be great then I do that the Euro will survive until this time next year.) curling season has begun. Though we lost today, at least we lost on the last rock of the eighth end. The short version play by play would run like this. We pulled ahead early, leading 3 to 1 by the fourth end. Then gave up four, and then one, to fall back 6 to 3 by the sixth. Then we took four back to head into the final end up 7 to 6 (and telling ourselves that we'd either have to win, or make sure they took two - not that an extra end is that bad, but the beers upstairs were calling!). We gave up two, by about half an inch, on the last rock of the game. A respectable loss against a worthy opponent. 

The upstairs talk ranged from geotherm heat systems (good but no panacea), to the new Altona brand (not good, not even approaching a panacea, and pretty expensive to boot (Thanks TKennerd! Seems there's no media niche safe from the retired sports wankers of any league!)), to the benefits of a heated garage (good, and a panacea) even if you were not asked about the height of your garage ceiling and ordered a door to fit the opening, for which you've just been told that the hardware will not work, because you do not have enough interior clearance. Sigh.

Yes, if you're looking for a 7 x 9 r16 steel garage door, I have one available for a reasonable price. Now excuse me while I order another door and reduce the opening to 6'6" x 9 so that the hardware will work. By Christmas the door will be on and the garage will be warm. I hope.

Ride report

in:      4'C wind NW 15ks

out:   8'C wind W 15 ks

I had an idea

But then I was reading an article in the paper on an issue that means a lot to me. So I read the article and then, vexed, sat down at this machine, typed in the reporter's email into the address line and proceeded to tell the reporter my story. Having finished it (although I did not give all the details) I hovered over the send button, and then moved right and clicked save now. 

What's the point I say to myself? Even though I addressed it to the reporter, and asked that it not be considered for print, what might come of speaking your mind on an issue on which you do in fact have hard experience and evidence? I don't know anymore about standing up and speaking even if your voice shakes. I don't know anymore about trying to make a difference in some systemic way. I don't know about occupying this or that place or institution. I don't have the energy to stand in the fray and fight for what I think is right. 

Have I ever had that energy? I don't know. But I'm going to sleep on it before I press send. I used to care a bit about things to do with the institutional church. I'd attend conferences and occasionally approach the mic during discussions on one issue or another. I'd say something about it. I'd feel that I had contributed. I might even have a further discussion about it in the lobby over coffee later. Now I look back with a little smile and wonder what change I thought I might actually effect. 

I don't know about crusades and preaching and letting yourself be heard anymore. Sure I'll still hold forth and say regrettable things in the staff-room or the bar or at the dinner table where my ambition and damage is, of necessity, more limited in scope. I still end up wincing, or apologizing, or regretting things I've said about as many times as I feel vindicated. It's all a vestige of that evangelical zeal and certainty that seems to have been a part of the natural and nurturing gift of my parents. I say "have been" in the hopes that I have passed less of it along to my own children. Less or none at all of this sort of legacy would be a fine result. To that end I believe I'll let the saved email molder in my drafts folder.

Ride report

in:      5'C wind 10 ks NW

out:   9'C wind 18 ks NW