The weather inside is frightful...

I'm in a sour mood. I have been for the last few days. I'm the first to admit that it isn't pretty. A handful of stupid things have happened that are so mundane that I can't bring myself to even discuss them but I'm irritated nonetheless.

Why is there nowhere to smoke shisha in Vernon? Why is there no late-night kebab places? Probably for the same reason.

How is it just hitting me that you can't 'entertain' at your parents' house without your parents? I love them dearly, don't get me wrong but sometimes just some asshole young-adults-who-are-really-still-adolescents conversation and multiple beers consumption is all I want.

Am I whining? Yes. Do I have any right to do so? No.
And I haven't even started on my feelings about our current government situation. Or lack of government is probably more appropriate. The silver lining to the dark, dark cloud that looms over Parliament Hill is simply that the democratic, constitutional process is at its finest and though its most recent machinations are foreign and scary and easy to dismiss as a futile waste of money: This is how it is supposed to work.

The GG did her job and implied that everyone needed to cool their jets. I couldn't agree more. If only I could do the same...

No one to blame but yourself (ves)...

When I awoke this morning it felt like just another ordinary day. The CBC news jostled me from my slumber and then it dawned on me: Today is possibly the most important day in US history as I have lived it. This is a day where I will tell my children how the fate of the world rested in the hands of the American people and how they collectively voted for a change, be it monumental or not, in their country.

I hope by the time I wake tomorrow that the world is a different place. I hope that Americans wake up with a fresh perspective where they are ready to show the rest of the world that the great nation they once were is the great nation they will again become. Over the last eight years, the world has watched and pointed fingers and bitched and bemoaned everything and everyone American. Heavy is the head that wears the crown.

In eight short years we have forgotten the nation that saved Europe after WWII. We have turned a blind eye to one of the only nations in the world where ambition and self determination are personified in it's people.

And so, on this very important election day I hope that America gets what it needs and what it deserves: Another chance.

But let's not kid ourselves. For those of you out there who can vote and don't: When shit hits the fan, you've got no one to blame but yourselves.

I would not trade you for gold...

Suffice to say, I can still be moved by the simplest pleasures in the world.

Symphonies don't always come in the form of 4/4 measures and treble clefs.

A row of bins, full of apples, white tags matching up like dominos.

An old friend's latest music recording that brought tears to my eyes.

I guess I haven't quite reached dried up, retiree status yet. There is hope for me still.

square one...

There's so much to say right now but as usual, just like all those times that slip into a vortex where you were sure you had so much to tell someone but when you have them living and breathing in front of you you have nothing to say, well here we are...

Being back in my home and native land has left me surprisingly little time to contemplate and return to the neurosis of my ever-active mind in which my fantasies are played out on mute in my brain because I'm surviving in spiritual and cultural, not to mention personal, limbo right now.

I find myself hearing other people saying, "I heard (... insert random thing here) on the CBC the other day." and I'm already ahead of them because I listen to it every waking moment of the day and I remember what Kamloops's mayor had to say or what people think about graffiti artists and uncontrollable semi-weeds in their gardens. I found myself wishing that I could listen to the US presidential debates in the car whilst simultaneously sexually climaxing and found myself utterly disillusioned and disenchanted that I could not because I was busy downshifting.

What am I to do here? What does my life entail? Will everything work out to some pre-destined plan of which I am unaware? Am I resting too comfortably on my laurels? Why is it raining and a bit cold in the middle of an Okanagan summer?

I feel as if I'm back to square one but keep looking for the beginning and all I find is a circle...

journey not destination...

This year has seen a lot of destinations. Exotic ones. Historical ones. Gong show ones.

But there's one destination that I haven't yearned seriously about until now...

Home.

In six weeks I will be home. Do I remember the last time I thought this? No. Not really. In fact there was once a time when I thought, just how much more could be different when I come home? That time I came back to new home/new dad/new life but that all turned out pretty darn good, didn't it? So here's what I hope, this time when I go home I hope that nothing has changed. I hope that my parents love me as much as they did when I left. I hope the Vernon summer is as spectacular as I remember it. I hope that having tea out on the veranda watching the pheasant skulk around with binoculars peering at Stevo's from across the lake, waiting for a perfect day for pull the purse, swimming past the shore-line murk with the dogs in tow, Canada Day, my friends, my family, my dogs.

As sad as I am to leave this place, the destination remains the same.

Volver. Go home.

A Modern Day Marshal Plan…

I was going to launch into a great creative comparison about how sometimes enough time and investment of resources can make even the most dire of enemies come to terms with one another but instead I’ll just say that I had a nice time. It has been good to see you and I think I will leave it at that. It has reinforced some things that I was uncertain about and reconfirmed the things about which I was sure.

And a big thank you to those other people who have been patient with me, even when they think I’m absolutely mad to venture down that road again. I promise this time it’s just a corner store stop and not a transatlantic voyage.

I'll play me in the movie version of my life, thank you very much...

I hate this never ending comparing myself to others routine. It is old and no matter how hard I try not to, it still occupies my mind every once and a while. But despite of ever feeling like maybe I haven't accomplished what others have, or obtained what others might want, I don't feel like anything is missing. Maybe I live in the clouds. Maybe I'm unrealistic. Maybe I just am charting my own course and I'm grateful to be able to do so.

So I might learn another language. So I may in fact take up another degree. So I may never be the 'grown up' that you describe. I think for me that's okay. I think I'd play myself in the movie version of my life. Just seems better that way.