Zen iPad

I figured I’d add my $0.02 to the throng and write a few words about the new Apple toy, coming soon to a store near you. As a recently (four years or so) converted Mac fanboi, I thought maybe I could offer something a little different than what’s being said.

Among my fanboi brethren, there is much unrest. Everyone was expecting the next best greatest thing, and a lot of people are upset because instead of the second coming, they got a “giant iPod Touch”. Heh. Someone should make up an “I went to Apple’s January 2010 event, and all I got was this lousy iPad” shirt.

In a lot of ways, I commiserate. I was let down initially too. Not so much because the tablet is a letdown, but because the hype had my expectations at an entirely unreasonable level. I guess that unless the thing did anything less than read my mind and act as an extension of my own arm I’d have been disappointed.

But even accounting for that, I was decidedly disappointed because it really isn’t anything revolutionary, save for the size. People don’t know where it’d fit. But given the time, I think I have found a place. And, just maybe, it is a little revolutionary, particularly if you see it as a device that specifically doesn’t cater to the geek squad.

At the risk of becoming the stereotypical fanboi who first derides a new Apple offering, swearing I’d never even look at that hunk of garbage and then a year later be singing its praises and owning two, here’s what I think.

This thing is exactly what’s needed when you aren’t sitting at your computer, but want to do simple things. Apple started the whole event talking about mobility, and that’s what this thing is. It’s a mobile device that picks up on the essentials of computing. Even the die-hard programmer geeks do the things that the device does every day. Email. Web. Address book. Calendar. Listen to your tunes. The rest of the custom things that someone does in a day is readily handled by whatever app you want. Recipe book? Health tracker? Shopping list? Whatever you want.

I spent this past weekend away from the computer, but in the house, because I was tending to sick people and fearing my own impending illness that never came. During that time, my iPod Touch got a LOT of use. I could check email and facebook in bed, get info I needed and then put the thing down. It was always close by, unobtrusive, always on, and moved with ease to wherever I was. The only thing that would have made it easier is if it was *ding!* larger.

Why do you think Steve and company chose the ‘chair’ setup at the event over the usual desk? The idea is that this thing is highly mobile and can be wherever you are and doesn’t need a plug, peripherals or much of anything. You just sorta use it.

Speaking of use, it occurred to me yesterday as I was talking to my mom (who incredibly mentioned wanting to learn to use the computer–this is a woman who doesn’t know how to correctly use a mouse) that the idea of a touch-and-use device is exactly what she could use. One slab, and you just see what you want and touch it to use. If the UI is intelligently designed and clear, anyone with two hands can use this thing. The geeks who know everything about everything can scoff at how basic it is, but this thing could very well open up a market that, due to complexity (perceived or actual), was ignored by folks who haven’t as yet hopped online.

We won’t talk about the discomfort I feel at my mother browsing my facebook page someday

Finally, I want to touch on the point of basic, just to bring this around to the self-improvement topics that are currently so near and dear to me. One of the biggest complaints out there is that iPad cannot multitask. Dear god! A computer device that can’t do the most basic of things! Christ, the Commodore Amiga back in the early 80s made a big deal about multitasking! It’s a simple no brainer that anything with a chip on it released today should be able to do 25 year old tech like multitask!

Consider this: There’s a distinct movement toward monotasking as a better way to work because human brains aren’t actually good at multitasking, even if your computer is. Bearing in mind that this device is designed to tackle the basics of computing in a highly mobile way, I ask you why do you want it to multitask? Do what you’re doing and then do something else. This thing pretty much takes that at its core. It’s a Zen device. It’s basic Zen – “when you shit, shit”. Stay in your moment and give it your all.

I am reading and sending an email.

I am surfing the net.

I am looking up a recipe.

You know, you should only do one thing at a time. You’ll enjoy it more, and your mind won’t fragment as badly. I think it falls perfectly in line with what this device aims at. Sometimes I wonder if Apple knows more about how people should work than even they do. It’s sorta scary.

All that having been said, I still doubt I’ll get one. Not because I don’t think it’s a good device. I do. For me, it’s more that it’d be redundant because I can use my iPod Touch if I need that and its size doesn’t annoy me. But then, I guess once I actually use one, all bets are off. Maybe I’ll borrow my mom’s.

The guy with no arms and no legs who lies on the floor

So, the new year has started, and with it, a little bit of a resolution. It’s been a while in coming. What I wanted to do was to start meditating. This I did, and then to make things even more interesting and new-agey, I started a beginner’s yoga course, too.

So, that makes me the master of the mats right now. I have one for meditation, and one for yoga.

The meditation one, I suppose, is not strictly necessary. It’s sort of a throwback from the last time I tried to meditate. I’ve been trying to remember when that was, and why I decided to try it, but I completely forget. What I do recall is why I got the mat.

It was as a result of seeing some show somewhere about Muslims and their prayer rugs. As I was watching the show, the thing that intrigued me was the fact that the rug was a sacred item. It’s not used for anything else, and is treated reverently because of what it is. When someone puts the mat down, it’s a way to create instant sacred space, regardless of where one happens to be. I found that really appealing. I’ve long had a problem with ’sacred space’. Most of the time, it doesn’t work for me, because I never feel it’s mine. I do, however, feel it’s really important to have a particular space to do work like this; but it needs to be a personal space, too. Churches feel like sacred space, but they don’t feel personalized enough for me. A labyrinth is good, but only if you can find one, and the outdoor ones are no good for half the year. I felt best when I was in a circle that I cast for ritual during the time where I was a better pagan. The thing about circles though is that for me, they take a lot of time and energy and planning to make them feel right, and the fact that they are necessarily maintained in the mind always made it hard for me to do the work therein. For me, it’s easier to have physical space in addition to metaphysical space. The rug was such a simple, awesome idea. Thank you, Islam.

Not to say there’s no metaphysical component. I love the humble gesture of intent. When I lay down my meditation mat, it’s a sign to my mind that I’m now doing something important and worthwhile that I have chosen to do. It’s also a welcome mat… sort of a way to invite my best self to come on in and reach for me, because I’m reaching for it. And, I love that the more I use it, the more sacred it becomes.

I got the mat at the Farmer’s Market, believe it or not. There’s a pleasant Mennonite woman there who makes the rugs out of worn denim clothing. I can only speculate, but it seems to me that the odds are pretty decent that my mat has material that was worn by Mennonites as they went about their work. Something about that appeals to me. I have a certain respect for these people, and the ways in which they live their lives. I love that the mat is made of things that have been repurposed, and created with human hands rather than by machine. It feels right that its new use is meditation. The religious scholar in me just loves the theological hooks, too: clothing worn by Mennonites, attained by a post-pagan through Islamic inspiration to achieve a work with Buddhist roots. Gotta love me.

I’ve been at it for over a month now, each day 10 minutes was my goal, and I’ve hit it without too much trouble. It really is getting to the point where I even look forward to it a little. The reason I started this time was probably better than the last reason. I have been doing loads of reading lately about mindfulness and meditation and its actual quantifiable benefits. It’s worth it, and for some reason, I feel ready. So far, I haven’t seen any of these benefits that I’m aware of, but I have noticed that I’m much more apt to be in the moment than I once was, and that in itself is a win. I hope I can keep this up from here on out, and maybe even bump the time I devote to more like 30 minutes a day. That’s apparently where one starts to see some pretty impressive benefits, if the studies are right.

The Yoga thing was more because I needed to get some sort of exercise, and I wanted to help out my stiff, tensed, awful little muscles a bit. Oddly, this is the second time I’ve tried Yoga, too. The first time I went by myself and it scared the pants off of me because the positions that required my head to be lower than my heart made me extremely lightheaded when I came out of them. At the end of the class, I very nearly passed out, and I figured that was my body telling me something. This time around though, I’m taking my time about it, and Suz is there to help me out if need be.

So far, so good. I haven’t even really had any trouble with dizziness. Seems that I might be improving without knowing it. I don’t think though that I’ll continue past the beginner’s course. This seems to be another in a line of things (the last one was running) that while good for me, I can’t find my passion about.

There’s got to be something out there that I can both like to do that is also good for me to do from a physical standpoint. I just haven’t found it yet. Ah well, no one can say I’m not trying at this point, anyway.

Maybe if the Yoga mat were as special as the meditation one. Nah, it’s just rubberized machine made sticky stuff.

Delurker day

I fully expect that no one is out there, but just in case…

Delurker Day 2010

So, if you’re reading my blog, I invite you to say hello. It’s always nice to hear that someone’s out there.

2009 year in review

Seems it’s that time again, eh? This year feels the same as last, and yet a little different.

• What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?
  • Lots. But none of it feels like the answer I’m looking for.
• Did you keep your new years resolutions and will you make more for next year?
  • No. In fact, it seems I’m in roughly the same place I was last year, in spite of the fact that it was my hope there’d be some sort of a sea-change with regard to my life. As it stands, lots did change, and yet I don’t feel different. If anything, I feel more stressed because I’m jittery that nothing’s changed, and I feel like I’m truly running out of time to make any sort of real change.
• Did anyone close to you give birth?
  • No new children this year.
• Did anyone close to you die?
  • Yeah. Suzanne’s dad. There were a couple others, too, but none so ‘close’.
• What countries did you visit?
  • Heh. Right. We DO know at this point that I’m completely hodophobic, don’t we?
• What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
  • Gentlemen, start your photocopiers: The same things I lacked in 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, AND 2004: Intangible things like serenity, happiness, security, optimism, joy. All the things that money can’t buy, and so I can’t go out and get from the store. One would think, given that it’s been a priority with a decent time line, that I’d have figured some of that out by now. As it stands, it just depresses me that I haven’t.
• What date from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
  • March 11. I managed to rise from the ashes of unemployment yet again.
• What was your biggest achievement of the year?
  • Finding the job I currently have, and actually being good at it. For the first time since my first job, I actually feel competent in some way.
• What was your biggest failure?
  • Once again being unable to make any sort of movement from what I’ve become.
• Did you suffer illness or injury?
  • No. I managed to avoid pretty well everything this year, knock wood.
• What was the best thing you bought?
  • I dunno. I guess I’d say it was the Canon 7D. Fine camera, but I am not getting the use or joy out of it that I’d hoped–probably not the camera’s fault.
• Where did most of your money go?
  • Photocopiers, gentlemen: Rent. Bills. Eating out.
• What did you get really, really, really excited about?
  • I don’t think I can get excited anymore. It feels like that whole area of my psyche as been amputated somehow.
• What song will always remind you of 2009
  • Weirdly, I didn’t find too much this year. I remember discovering “Not As We” by Alanis Morissette and listening to it a lot. I don’t know if there was anything else new per se. The only album that came along I listened to more than a handful of times that is still in rotation is Damien Rice’s 9 Crimes. Just two weeks ago, I discovered Fever Ray’s album and it took me back to the days of ambient dark techno ritual stuff. I like it.
• Compared to this time last year, are you:
  a. happier or sadder? Sadder. That is no small feat.
  b. thinner or fatter? Probably about the same.
  c. richer or poorer? Far richer.
• What do you wish you’d done more of?
  • Photocopiers, gentlemen: Being silent. Being away from all the computers and enjoying living more.
• What do you wish you’d done less of?
  • Photocopiers: Generally wasting the only life I have feeling exactly the way this entry indicates.
• How did you spend Christmas?
  • I went to my brother’s for dinner. It was nice and low-key. None of the traditional elements were at play though. I wonder if they ever will be again.
• Did you fall in love in 2008?
  • Nope.
• How many one-night stands?
  • This question gets stupider every year.
• What was your favorite TV program?
  • I enjoyed The Tudors this year. Otherwise, nothing’s really entered the radar as a ‘must watch’ for me.
• Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
  • Nope.
• What was the best book you read?
  • Hm. I don’t really know. I did read a few this year, but they were mostly for my own interest and none were whiz-bang awesome books that changed my life. I’m wondering if this year I can maybe foist off the best thing I read to blogs like Dumb Little Man, And Wildmind.
• What was your greatest musical discovery of 2009?
  • I guess it’d be Damien Rice. Nothing else really hit me at all.
• What did you want and get?
  • A decent job.
  • New camera.
  • New TV.
• What did you want and not get?
  • Positive change.
  • Stability.
• What was your favorite film of this year?
  • I suppose Star Trek was the best one.
• What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
  • Not telling my age. I worked, which is something I haven’t done on my birthday in years. Beyond that, I don’t recall. Sigh.
• What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
  • Progress of some sort.
• How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?
  • Unchanged, really. In fact, it’s sort of disturbing to realize when I look at photos from 2002 that I still wear some of that stuff.
• What kept you sane?
  • Just…trying. Just soldiering on. Winston Churchill said, “If you’re going through Hell, keep going.” While I wouldn’t really characterize my situation as “hell” (in fact, it’s a damned good hell… more like a gilded cage). But I seem to want change, and I can’t seem to get it. My habits have an utter strangle hold on me. But keeping going kept me from succumbing.
• Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
  • None. I couldn’t care less about all that rot.
• What political issue stirred you the most?
  • Canada’s stance on the environment. In fact, the whole of Conservative idiocy that’s festering right now. I truly hope that this year sees the end of Harper, that self-centered nitwit.
• Who did you miss?
  • Me. The best me I know is here, but I can’t find him, and I miss him. Beyond that, I’m with Selene in missing RGD. That show was a welcome and necessary fixed point in my week. I feel even more adrift without it.
• Who was the best new person you met?
  • I guess by default this falls to the people I work with now. They’re all a great bunch. I’ve been truly blessed with regard to workmates through the course of my working life so far. All the people I’ve worked with are just great. This new batch are exceptional.
• Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009:
  • The story of the frog and scorpion is deceptively astute. Many, if not all of us, are held to the rails of our lives not by what we desire, but what we are conditioned to. God knows, I am. People will choose what’s safe over what’s right, and very often, hedonism trumps logic. Stasis trumps development. I hope that I can find some way to dislodge in 2010.

In spite of the fact that I had high hopes for 2009 to be better and it turned out, with the exception of finding a good job, to be no different than 2008, that I am similarly optemistic about 2010. I feel like I can make a difference for the better, and that the year will be okay. Somehow, someway, I’ll be able to write it’s better next year. So very many things were lost this year: people died, homes were lost, well established cornerstones of my life were taken down. Not very much has gone up in their place. Sometimes, I feel like this year will contain some new foundation. It’s due.

Earlier this month, someone said on a message board that the secret to marriage is simple: “Get over yourself”. I think that’s not just the secret to marriage… that’s the secret to much more, including engaging with life. I think I need to better understand that phrase, and then try to live it.

Happy New Year, everyone. I wish you all the very best.

Plastic

So, there’s been a little activity rolling around in my pseudo-possible-hypochondriatic mind lately around the idea of plastic.

See, Suz and I eat lots of soup. This is one of the happy places in our relationship where similar interests intersect. We both like to eat soup, and Suz is exceptionally good at making it from scratch, from ingredients we often buy locally at the farmer’s market. It’s tasty, healthy, and environmentally happy.

Add to that, in most cases soups are highly convenient. Suz makes mostly ones that freeze well (the few that she makes that don’t are, of course, some of my very favs. Bacon potato, and oyster mushroom veggie–mmmmmmmm), and so the usual way of things is that we go out and buy all the ingredients at the market. Suz then whips up a huge batch of yummy soup, we portion it out, have some for dinner, and then freeze the rest. On work days, I commonly grab one out of the freezer, and take it to work for lunch. Eating soup at the office that’s home made by Suz makes me happy. The whole thing is made of ‘win’.

Except for the plastic. See, we use either Ziplock containers, or the no-name equivalent. Over the years, we’ve amassed a massive collection of them. It’s sorta silly. Thank god, they stack well when not in use, and we have a decent chest freezer. But the soup goes from the pot to the container hot, then gets frozen in it, then goes straight into the microwave at work to heat and then into my little human ecosystem. All of these temperature changes and stuff have me worried. I’ve been aware of the whole bisphenol A stuff in the news, and the types of plastics that are ’safe’and all that for a while. Normally, I’m not too concerned.

But I got to thinking that given there’s virtually no research that can say it’s all safe, no matter how much companies swear in blood that the plastics don’t leech carcinogens into the food, that I might be wise to at least minimize the plastic. I eat soups many days a week like this, and I have started to wonder. Plastic is one of those things that humans made–it’s not a happy substance, in spite of the fact that it’s absolutely everywhere and stupidly useful.

I mean, for the first time EVER, cancer showed up in my family last year. I cannot escape the thought that it has to be environmental. We just don’t get cancer.. at least, we haven’t ever before, so why now? My family is more a heart attack-stroke group of people by way of shuffling off the mortal coil.

The solution then seems simple enough. Go for glass. Pyrex makes wonderful containers that are exactly the right size that go from freezer to microwave. We sought some out and bought a few. They’re pretty damned expensive comparitively, but seriously, they’d last many, many times longer than the plastic ones. I don’t mind paying for something if I get my money’s worth. They work like a charm.

The problem is storage. These things stink for that. The plastic bowls nest into one another and take up very little space when not in use. These glass ones need to be stacked on top of one another. Two glass ones take up the space of 12 plastic ones when not in use. That’s a pretty high premium to pay when one considers my home doesn’t have much by way of kitchen storage. If I replaced every plastic bowl with a glass one, I’d need many cubic feet of storage, just for the bowls alone.

So, I have a dilemma. How can I get good, safe food storage that goes from freezer to microwave and gets the heck out of my way when not in use?

If anyone has any bright ideas, I’d love to hear them.

Getting nothing done today

Much as I’m loathe to use my space on the net as a never ending array of bitching and seeking of pity, I guess sometimes, that’s what I’m inclined to do. In spite of the fact that I’m more blessed than probably 90% of my fellow human beings who do not even have the ability to complain, owing to lack of house, computer, internet access or health good enough, about the things that easily trump my teeny concerns, I still complain and somehow feel like I’m justified to do it. I don’t know what I think complaining will get done, except maybe the act of writing can ease the psychological pressure a little when I’m feeling overwhelmed.

About two hours before I left work yesterday, I got this little headache, which by the time I left, became an astounding headache. By the time I got home, I was feeling godawful sick, and while I tried to eat something, I didn’t get all that far. It was all I could do to swallow a couple Tylenol and go to bed for an hour and a half. While I was lying there half comatose, I swear I heard Suzanne typing away in the next room–an entirely impossible feat, considering she was at a conference across town. I remember thinking that I should check who in the heck was in my house using the computer, but I couldn’t bring myself to get up. It was surreal.

When I finally came out of my stupor some 85 minutes later, I felt all fuzzy and strange, and that feeling is still with me. The headache is this shadow pain that’s just sorta lingering around, and I can’t seem to focus on any damned thing. I just don’t care today. It probably would have been better if I’d stayed in bed and done nothing but listen to the rain fall. Alas, I need to live life I guess.

In the time between waking and going back to bed last night, I wrote. I had yet to inform my journal about the selling of mom’s house and all the things that went with it. It’s a lot to write, and taking multiple days to get through. I hope I can find the time and space to finish tonight. But as I sat there in the light of two candles (which was about all I could handle–some days, I hate these LCDs) sipping my chamomile ginger blend tea, I found my centre again. I really love to sit in the dark and write. I love to listen to good music on the stereo and just put thoughts down on paper with ink. I have this feeling that if I really did have to lose everything, or most everything, that my exorbitant life currently offers, and if I had to pare down to the essentials… well, I think the essentials would be shelter and food (and good tea), journal and pen, books to read, and nice music to listen to. Somehow, I think if I had that, while I may jones to the point of pain for my computer and electronic wonderland, I would stay sane. I would live.

But then, the computer was waiting in the other room, sorta saying “you’ll be back” in its silent, smug, assured sort of way. And, it’s right. It is easy to feel like I lack for nothing and could give it all up when everything is around me just waiting on my decision to use it. One does not need to want what one has. Still some part of me is drawn to the romanticized idea of a simple room, with only the essentials that I need which would then receive all of my attention, because I’d have more attention to give. It wouldn’t be divided amongst all the endless possessions and things going on. In some world, some reality, I think I’d have made an excellent monk.

Alas, the world got me, and its hooks go deep. Beyond just my social and financial realities, they go into my psyche. It’s tough to work with that, so I get swept along.

I guess I should get sweeping again. Lunch is done. Perhaps I can be of some worth today as long as the pain stays at bay, and I can stay awake.

And, if I needed another reminder…

Over on Reddit, which I sometimes check, someone asked the question, “What’s your favourite album of 2009?” Some other kind person consolidated a list from the answers. As I read it, a few of things became clear:

• I am an unhip, unaware, old fart.
• I know OF maybe 3% of this list, the rest are completely new to me.
• Of the ones I know OF, only 3 are anything I’ve ever listened to.
• I did not know any of the three I listened to had released a new album this year.
• I am clearly out of the demographic of users who read Reddit.
• I should probably do something else with my time.

The list follows. Given that my iPod contains the likes of Pink Floyd, U2, Paul Simon, Natalie Merchant, Bruce Cockburn, Aimee Mann, Radiohead, Fleetwood Mac, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Sting, Genesis, Sarah McLachlan, The Eagles, Led Zeppelin, and Blue Rodeo, does anyone know if there’s anything on the list that I might actually appreciate?

The Dirty Projector’s – Bitte Orca
Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Fever Ray – Fever Ray
Muse – The Resistance
Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest
Royksopp – Junior
Passion Pit – Manners
The xx – xx
Various Artists – Dark Was The Night
Flaming Lips – Embryonic
Micachu – Jewellery
The Antlers – Hospice
Dan Deacon – BROMST
Metric – Fantasies
Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca
Mastodon: Crack The Skye
Raekwon: Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… 2
Nas – Illmatic
Mos Def – The Ecstatic
Ghostface Killah – Ghostdini Wizard of Poetry in Emerald City
Monsters of Folk – Monsters of Folk
Decemberists – The Hazards of Love
Daisy – Brand New
K’naan – Troubadour
Dethklok – Dethalbum II
Yeah Yeah Yeah’s – It’s Blitz!
Silversun Pickups – Swoon
Them crooked vultures – Them crooked vultures
Between the Buried and Me – The Great Misdirect
St. Vincent – Actor
Nile – Those Whom The Gods Detest
Porcupine Tree – The Incident
Sunset Rubdown – Dragonslayer
Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport
Lamb of God – Wrath
Yo La Tengo – Popular Songs
MuteMath – Armistice
Kid Cudi – Man on the Moon
Either Karnivool – Sound Awake
P.O.S. – Never Better
Lady Gaga – the fame
Dinosaur Jr – Farm
Burial & Four Tet – moth/wolf cub
Warm Heart of Africa – the very best
Girls – album
Sunn O))) – Monoliths
Shpongle – Ineffable Mysteries From Shpongleland
Andrew Bird – Noble Beast
Sonic Youth – The Eternal
Matt & Kim – Grand
Cage The Elephant – Cage The Elephant
Fun – Aim and Ignite
Wooden Arms – Patrick Watson
For Lack of A Better Name – deadmau5
Rx Bandits – Mandala
Neon Indian- Psychic Chasms
Dream Theater – Black Clouds and Silver Linings
Mr. Lif – I Heard It Today
Baroness – Blue Record
JayZ – Blueprint 3
Just Jack – All Night Cinema
Eluveitie – Evocation I: The Arcane Dominion
Florence + the Machine – Lungs
Big Business – Mind The Drift
Blut Aus Nord – Memoria Vetusta II: Dialogue With the Stars
YACHT – See Mystery Lights
Atlas Sound – Logos
DMB — Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King
Propagandhi – Supporting Caste
Morphine – At your service
future of the left- travels with my self and another
Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros – Up From Below
Tragically Hip – We are the Same
Felix Da Housecat – He Was King
Fanfarlo – Reservoir
Thrice – Beggars
Washed Out – High Times/Life of Leisure
Diablo Swing Orchestra: Sing-Along Songs For The Damned & Delirious
k-os – Yes!
Big Boi – Sir Luscious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty
Trans-Siberian Orchestra: Night Castle
Islands – Vapours
IQ – Frequency
Julian Casablancas – Phrazes for the young
Cass McCombs – Catacombs
Joy Orbison – Hyph Mngo
Karnivool – Sound Awake
Ramona Falls – Intuit
Local Natives – Gorilla Manor
Pearl Jam – Backspacer
Dying Fetus – Descend Into Depravity
Wolmother – Cosmic Egg
mewithoutYOU’s – “It’s All Crazy! It’s All False! It’s All A Dream It’s Alright”
People Under the Stairs – Carried Away
Bomb The Music Industry! – Scrambles
AIC – Black Gives Way To Blue
A Sunny Day in Glasgow – Ashes Grammar
Bibio – Ambivalence Avenue
Gazpacho – Tick Tock
Monster Monster – The Almost
The Prodigy – Invaders Must Die
Great Escape – The Rifles
Toro y Moi – My Touch
Heaven and Hell – The Devil You Know
Our Lady Peace – Burn Burn
Air – Love 2
Manchester Orchestra – Mean Everything to Nothing
Eels – Hombre Lobo
Miike Snow – Self titled
Alka – A Dog Lost In The Woods
Transatlantic – The Whirlwind
Young Widows – Old Wounds
BLK JKS – After Robots
Matthew Good – Vancouver
Clues – Clues
Paul White – The Strange Dreams of Paul White
Relient L – Forget and Not Slow Down
Brother Ali – “Us”
Marcy Playground – Leaving Wonderland…In A Fit of Rage
A Mountain is a Mouth- Bruce Peninsula
Crippled Black Phoenix – Night Raiders/ The Resurrectionists
Mike Posner- One Foot Out the Door
Dan Auerbach – Keep It Hid
Psychostick – Sandwich
Langhorne Slim- Be Set Free
Miike Snow – Miike Snow
Eminem – Relapse
K.O.D. – Tech N9ne
Omar Rodriguez Lopez – Xenophanes
Neko Case – Middle Cyclone
The Dead Weather – Horehound
MSTRKRT – Fist of God
Infected Mushroom – Smashing the Opponent
Crash Kings – self-titled
Part the Second – maudlin of the Well
311 – Uplifter
Say Anything – Say Anything
Breaking Benjamin – Dear Agony
Franz Ferdinand – Tonight
Dan Bull – Safe
Chickenfoot – Chickenfoot
Mayer Hawthorne – A Strange Arrangement
Underoath – Lost in the Sound of Separation
Symphony of Science – Auto Tuned Sagan, Feynman, Tyson and Nye
Arctic Monkeys – Humbug
Mumford & Sons – Sigh No More
Rural Alberta Advantage – Hometowns
Soldiers of Jah Army – Born in Babylon
The Legends – Over and Over
Twisted Sister – Stay Hungry
Them Crooked Vultures – Never Deserved the Future
Parachute- Loosing Sleep
Kylesa – Static Tensions
Third Eye Blind- Ursa Major
Andrew Dost – Columbus
Beatles remasters
Full Circle – Creed
Red Jumpsuit Apparatus – Lonely Road
Green Day – 21st Century Breakdown

They finally reached out and touched one another

The big news of the last couple months has been that my mom decided to sell her house. This is a house that has been in the family for nearly 45 years; the only one I have ever known. It’s the place that, to me, has always been home. There’s so many stories that have come out of the last little while, so many little rituals and memories.

As of today, the house is out of our hands. 7 Cardill belongs to someone else. The letting go has been hard for me. That house and everything about it not only embodies my family and my growing up, but is also, in a lot of ways a character. A family member. I feel sometimes either like I’ve disowned it (literally) though I did not not want to, or that it’s somehow died. I think the latter is just a coping mechanism, whereas the former is more the truth. We all agreed that it was the right thing to do at this time, but it’s clear to me that sometimes, the right thing doesn’t feel right at all. I guess change is just inevitable. Even the things you thought were forever really are not.

I’d like to tell you a little story about the house from last night. I dunno how many stories I’ll tell, but this one hit me. Last night, after everyone had gone, and I had looked my last upon those rooms and hallways, I went out to the back yard. Having been built in the ’60s, the house has a sizable back yard–probably more land than the house actually occupies.

Throughout the years, my family had many trees in the yard, all of which we planted, as originally the land was a farmer’s field and had no trees when the neighbourhood went up. In my time, we had a row of five pines along the back of the yard; two apple trees (macintosh and golden delicious); a pear tree; a plum tree; a big, beautiful cherry tree in whose shade my father spent many hours reading and sleeping; a couple of birch trees; a magnolia; a black walnut tree; and two silver maples.

Today, all that’s left are the magnolia and the maples. Either age or sickness took the others. Rarely, my dad decided that a tree had to go for other reasons, but I don’t recall that happening more than once or twice. We liked having the trees, much as the leaves around this time of year were irksome.

I stood in the back yard, and it was a little strange to see it so unmanicured. Given we knew we were moving, not a lot of effort was put into landscaping and maintenance of the outside–we spent most of our time moving and tidying the inside. As a result the backyard was utterly blanketed with yellow leaves from the maples. Usually, these were all raked up and removed, but last night, they were all there. I loved wading through them and hearing them crunch and whisper under my feet.

I thought it’d be dark out back, given that it was well past 9pm when I was back there, but I could see almost everything. Maybe it was because the moon was waxing into full for Nov. 2 and the cloud cover created some sort of diffuse glow, but the back yard was almost as detailed as it is at twilight.

The only things back there were the trees and the bird bath. I remembered these trees; I know them very well. The big maple at the rear corner of the lot is older than I am. My brother tells me it was fortunate happenstance that it grew where it did. Apparently, when the house was built, there were all these maple keys floating around from wherever. One of them took root somewhere on the property, and my mom decided she’d try to save it, so she replanted it in the corner, in the hope that it would be out of the way enough to not fall to construction or lawn care or whatnot. And there it thrived. It’s so very high now, and so very strong, I think that it’d stand there for a long, long time to come. I truly hope it does. I cannot count the times that I climbed that tree, both with friends, but also alone to just sit in it and think while it cradled me in its crooks and leaves and cool bark. It tolerated my carving girlfriend’s initials into it, up in the highest branches I could climb to. It was the base of many a ‘fort’ I built as a kid, and it supported more than one hammock over the summers it has been there. It is an old soul, nearly as old as the house itself, and it has long stood there and watched over it.

The other maple is younger. I brought it home one day. As I recall, Northdale Public School had a thing when I was in second or third grade wherein they gave each student a sapling on the occasion of Arbour Day. Heh. I don’t think that children today even know there was such as thing as Arbour Day. Anyway, I chose a black walnut sapling and brought it home. We tried it in various locations on the property, but eventually, my dad figured it wasn’t happy and wouldn’t grow, and even if it did, it would attract lots of squirrels with its fruit, so he wound up giving it to the neighbour. As it happened, the tree thrived in his yard, and stands there still, not 10 feet from our property line. The silver maple I brought home the next day. It turned out that the school had extras, and any student who wanted one could come to the office and get a ‘leftover’ tree. I picked the silver maple, and brought it home. We planted it in a couple places before it finally found its ultimate home close to the entrance way of the back yard, about 20 or so meters from the older maple my mom planted. There it grew, very happy, and there it stands still. It wasn’t ever good for climbing because it didn’t grow many climbable branches in arm’s reach, but birds loved it. I always felt proud that this huge tree was so happy, and that I had brought it home and it did well. It’s an old, old, friend.

Last night, as I was standing there by the birdbath, the trees were raining leaves all around me. It was completely quiet, and I could hear the regular soft whisperings of leaves touching the other leaves as they made it to the ground. It sounded like little animals or something. It felt decidedly like I was not alone. I looked up to see if I could follow one of them from its fall from the canopy, and it was a little too dark to tell. But I could see the silhouette of the branches of both trees reaching out across the gray sky, and I noticed for the first time that they could just barely touch one another. The branches of these two trees that had stood together and yet apart for so many decades were finally able to reach out and connect.

That completely filled me with a joyous kind of sadness. On the one hand, they are losing their family, and I am losing them. On the other, they now have one another in a way that they never have. I hope they stand for many, many more years. I hope they are blessed with sunlight, and birds nesting in their branches, and squirrels that can now jump between them without ever touching the ground. I hope they are happy. Most of all, I hope the new owners treat them with reverence. They are very much old souls, and they are the steadfast guardians of the backyard at 7 Cardill.

Long may they stand in silent watchfulness over my childhood home.

This time of year is just… sigh

When I was in University, lo those many moons ago, I was quite interested in all things religion, and in particular, most things Earth-based. It wasn’t until my later years that I got all excited about Buddhism and Gnosticism. Until then, I was all about Wicca and paganism. My first year at Laurier, I gave a talk around this time of year to the then newly-formed pagan group the SEE (Students for Esoteric Exploration) about Halloween, or Samhain, or whatever you wanted to call it. I gave historical context, ritual practice, and religious significance and all of that. It was a pretty good talk if I do say so myself. One of the things that is agreed upon in earth based religion is that this time of year is somewhat special. It has to do with death and reaping and ancestors. It’s a time where one can be closer to the whole ‘out there’ that isn’t you. I’m not sure if my studies around all this made me more psychologically prone to self delusion or just more receptive to things that our ancestors have known forever. What I do know is that this time of year seems to bring with it an ever more predictable pattern for me.

For one, I find that I’m more unstable somatically. I tend to get more anxiety attacks around this time of year. I also often catch whatever the heck bug is going around. My sleep patterns get weird and I alternately sleep loads and loads or cannot for the life of me get any sleep. I have the most profoundly strange, vivid dreams that I often cannot make any sense of whatsoever. My skin starts to dry out and flake no matter how much water I consume or moisturizer I use. My muscles start to ache for no reason at all. All of this passes as this month passes over into November. I sometimes wonder if there’s some sort of seasonal somatic realignment that needs to take place for me that is most pronounced right around now, and will keep getting worse as I age.

Spiritually, I want to practice more rituals. I want to sit zazen, I want to walk labyrinths. I want to write in my journal in the light of candles lit ever more early in the evening. I want to cocoon, nest, hybernate away from people and draw inward. I want to listen to great music and discover more.

Emotionally, I become crazy unstable. I am moody, and I swing all over the place. Sometimes the leaves falling and the sight of bare branches fills me with sadness, and I feel like I’m completely hopeless, and other times, the sun shining through the colours and early sunsets with crisp air fill me with so much joy that I think I’m going to burst. Either way, it seems that for me, tears are never far off, such are the power and strength of the limits of my usually well-fettered emotions.

Practically, I feel this strange need for change. Just… something different from what I’ve been looking at and feeling for the last few months. I want to get rid of old things and replace them with new ones. I want to purge, clean, and declutter. In spite of this, I often find myself in a totally vegetative state in front of the TV.

It’s a totally bipolar sort of time of year for me. I’m sorta looking forward to having it all over with, even though I know that on the other side is Winter and cold, and I truly have no love for that season. But at least I can sink into the predictable sort of ‘blah’ that it brings.

This past weekend, thankfully, was a very good one. I got out a lot, and I managed to enjoy all of it. The weather was nice, too. I hope that we haven’t seen the last of the good weather just yet, but it wouldn’t surprize me if we have. This weekend, I saw the Penderecki Quartet play a concert. I went to hear David Suzuki give a lecture about just how doomed we all are (while Suzuki remains hopeful, and I think his hope is that by showing people just how buggered the world is he’ll shock them into action, I’m starting to believe more and more that humanity as a whole is too damned self-centered to ever be able to stay the coming tempest), and I got him to sign a copy of his autobiography. I saw Stewart McLean and listened to some good stories and music. And then I capped off the weekend with a long overdue trip to Goderich to see the sunset and take pictures, listen to the water and feel the wind on my face.

I dunno if there’s some sort of a correlation between the whole ‘thinning of the veil’ between life and death that supposedly happens around this time of the year and thinning of the barriers that keep my joy and sadness as separate things. I was still riding high off of all the emotions that the weekend stirred this morning, when one of my facebook friends mentioned the song “Tiny Dancer”. I listened to it this morning on the way to work, smiling my silly little butt off, at the same time sad and teary-eyed that the season is ending, and that I still don’t know what in the hell I’m doing with myself, and yet so, so grateful for my silly little life.

Polar

I’m going to write this down even though it’s pretty personal and thus won’t matter to anyone, and pretty hard to tack down and so likely won’t make any sense. It just feels like this particular emotional space is a little like the polkaroo, and you better engage it while it’s there, or damn, you’ll miss it again.

I started down this negative slope yesterday. I guess the reasons are known, but not really important. Let’s just say that I was in a very familiar place–the place where I’m just negative. The silly stressed, angry, confused, self-deprecating, vindictive, hopeless cocktail that I drink as though it were the sweetest nectar, because its taste seems to validate the ideas that I have about myself. I get that part. While I’ve never really understood how it came to be that my current resting state is so negative, that’s the thing that is most familiar to me. It feels like it’s the way to be, like it’s safe. As has been stated today in an article over at Dumb Little Man,  “if we ever feel that we have to choose between safe and happy, we’ll usually move towards what’s safe”. To that end, I suppose that I also want to feed and validate what is safe, so that I don’t move away from it. That’s likely why the cocktail tastes so sweet, even though it’s comprised of nothing but shit, and ultimately serves to make me quite unhappy.

That said, apparently I’m pretty self-aware about this sort of stuff. I have it on good faith that most people who are depressed do not see this little dance play out and cannot identify the reasons for it. They drink the cocktail without ever turning it into the semiotic analysis that I do. If that’s true, then I have a leg up. Indeed, I think I do have that leg up–I have the ability to counter all that stuff with thoughts that go more toward the outcome I want as opposed to the outcome that makes me feel safe. I can make the leap to self mastery in this regard. I can know, intellectually, exactly the way out of the woods. There’s lots of allegories to help out with this, the most recent of which, to lean on Dumb Little Man again, is the whole Cherokee wolf story. God only knows if it’s originally a Cherokee story or just some appropriated myth from somewhere, but the idea is sound regardless of the poetic imagery: the thing you focus on is the thing that’s important, and ergo gets the most energy and time, and ergo will ‘win’. It is the “one you feed”. If I focus on the negative, then that’s exactly how I’ll feel–exactly how I do feel. If I wanted to, I could be the Adytum builder and wrap this god I am in good stuff as opposed to the stuff I do wrap it in. I have absolutely no shortage of materials, quite the opposite. If I took the time to count my blessings and then to count all the great things in the world that I live, I’d have enough material to build an entire city of god in my little existence. So whay don’t I do it already?

And here comes the polkaroo.

I realized this polkaroo this morning as I walked out to the garage to get on my motorcycle to come to work. Today was a lovely, beautiful, wonderful late summer day. I mean, this is the weather that you pray for on every day where the weather is anything but perfect. Sun, dew on green, crisp morning air. Birds singing, geese overhead. A veritable paradise. I saw all this. I was immersed in it. I completely love all of it. The pagan in me rejoices at everything this morning was caressing me, its special son, with. But I pushed it away… somehow.

I want this to make sense, because the key here is that it has nothing to do with my logical thinking self–the part of me that knows I should just focus on this stuff because it will turn around my mood. It’s something else–something that feels decidedly out of my control, and out of the realm of my logical thinking self. It feels like some primal superpower in me repelled all that blessing as though both it and I were north poles of two magnets. It was like I couldn’t choose to take it in, even if I wanted to. It was as though I was incompatible.

Aha.

I didn’t think that until just now when I wrote it. Maybe it goes to the notion that you can’t fill a full cup. If I’m already full of negative, no positive can enter. If I am a conduit only for negative, then only negative can enter… positives are incompatible. In that case, what I’d need to work on is becoming a sort of semiconductor that can accept good and bad.

Arg. But dammit, how do I do that? Again, it comes down to being unable to concentrate on the good if you’re fixated on the bad. Maybe this is the hard part of brain plasticity. Neurochemically, I know I’m wired for this negative thing, and so when I’m just engaged in the day to day, that’s the default conduit, and so it repels the good stuff, allowing me to remain the comfortable miserable bastard that I currently am. If I take out the time to meditate, however, that might aid in the rewiring. Damn, that’s hard though.

It is Herculian hard.

I guess perhaps it’s about taking it a step at a time, like any huge, difficult undertaking. All right then. I’m going to take this as the first step: I’m going to go outside, feel the sun and acknowledge it, breathe the air and acknowledge it, touch the grass and acknowledge it. I am going to go out there and know I’m blessed. That is the want, and furthermore it is the truth… it’s simply not the case that I am doomed to be forgotten, or that people don’t care, or that my life is any less special today than it was the last time I actually was compatible with the good that surrounds me.

May the cocktail taste repugnant, and fuck you, polkaroo.

How’s that for a catch phrase?