It's foolproof.

Here is the proper formula for being able to sleep on the bus:

1. Eat a deliciously enormous English dinner (roast beef, veg, yorkshire pud, trifle...the works) at 3 pm.
2. Go for a really really long walk (at least an hour and a half)
3. Take a Gravol.
4. Read a book while waiting for the bus to come. Preferably something not too hard to read -- a favourite children's novel works well.
5. Board the bus and listen to soothing music while the sun slowly sets.

Just remember to position yourself so that you don't drool on anyone.

Sweet dreams!

I am an artiste.

Creative impulses are very odd things. Not that I'm saying I'm artistic or talented in any really tangible way (I'm surrounded by too many people with awesome drawing/designing/creating/musical skills to consider myself anything like an artist), but I do get the occasional urge to write out my thoughts in a semi-coherent manner for the world to peruse. Hence, this blog.

But it turns out the world's perusal is not such a big deal after all. Y'see, I wrote a huge long post a couple of days ago. It was about how people are trying to acheive perfection by imposing straight lines and geometric shapes on nature, which is inherently irregularly-shaped and random. And how nature was showing us that we can't ever acheive perfection, and that so-called imperfections are actually what make us the unique and beautiful snowflakes that we are.

So I wrote the post, and then promptly lost it in the wide Sargasso Sea of cyberspace. Due to my inability to remember that I have dial-up now, I tried to post it to an internet I was not actually connected to.

But here's the funny thing -- I didn't care. I should have been mad that no one got to ever read my thological, philosophical treatise on nature not being straight, but I wasn't. As far as my brain was concerned, I'd expressed my thoughts in language, and so I was done. There was no real need for other people to read my work -- I'd explained my thoughts to myself, and so I was done. Publishing it was secondary.

It's very odd. This experience has made me think that really, what I'm after when I communicate (either through speech or essays or in this blog) is to clarify my ideas for myself. Not to convince other people, but simply to organize my jumbled thoughts into a coherent whole which I can then file away in my brain. Maybe that's why I like talking to other people about 'deep' things (religion, politics, human nature, etc) so much. Not because I want to hear what they think, but because I want to hear what I think.

After all, I often have my best ideas while in the middle of writing or talking.

It's kind of a disturbing thought, actually. Is my interest in writing and talking really that masturbatory? Am I just after my own personal pleasure -- don't I care about learning from/about others?

But perhaps these are slightly hysterical conclusions to draw from one misdirected blog post. I'll think about it some more, and will welcome comments from you, my faithful reader (all three of you).

Moby rocks.

In my continuing series (ie. two) of posts celebrating interesting people who I enjoy listening to, I present to you: Moby!

I've known he was a neat guy for a while -- after all, his music is interesting, making me both sad and happy at the same time. His online journal is a marvel of openness considering the scrutiny stars are placed under these days, and his writings during and just after Sept 11 (written from his New York loft) are very moving. Not to mention, he's a vegan (a practice which I'm fascinated by, if not interested in adopting), he owns a very cute little vegan tea&sandwich shop called teany, and he's the only person I know who managed to deal rationally and calmly with being threatened by Eminem.

But the "interesting and good person" seal was officially placed on him in perpetuity when I caught some of the "MTV Cribs" episode which showed Moby's house in New York. In case you're not familiar with the show, "Cribs" basically gives a voyeuristic look into the homes of stars, allowing us peons to marvel at their marble jacuzzis, seven Lexus SUV's, and 40-room mansions. It's a sickening exercise in excess which I nevertheless watch occasionally for the fascinating overindulgence of it all.

Enter Moby. He quietly, calmly, and entirely without hubris shows the cameras around his New York loft which consisted of a room entirely taken up by a king size bed, a living room with precisely four pieces of furniture (a couch, a chair, and two tables), a guest bedroom up a loft ladder with skylights, a normal bathtub with skylights, a soundproof music room and a not very impressive-looking wooden rooftop area with a lovely view of some dilapadated apartments. Moby's prize possessions were a Swedish fridge that is, supposedly, the most energy efficient fridge in the world, a push organ so he could play music even if the power went out, and a personalized picture of Homer drawn by Matt Groening on what looks like a bar napkin.

Certainly, the apartment was decorated nicely, and the music room had a lot of equipment in it, but a few keyboards and a white-and-black paint job are not my idea of luxuries. And I like that. I like that Moby manages to stay a good person despite all the money and the fame and the so on. It's nice to know there's someone out there who doesn't want the mansion or the cars or the ostentatious displays of wealth. Just give him some orange juice, a guitar and a nice skylight, and he's happy.

He's an interesting man.

I've decided that my father is fascinating. I mean, not that he wasn't interesting before, but some things he said this weekend (while I was at home, going to a wedding of two startlingly young people) cemented my opinion of him as an entirely unique individual.

First of all, he's politically conservative. Which is an odd thing for him to be, if you think about it. After all, he was a hippie who smoked quite a lot of pot in university (and probably still does... I haven't had the chutzpah to ask him) and he's not part of the religious right, he's not at all racist or sexist, he's urbane, and he's very well educated. But those sorts of things are all the stereotypes of conservativism (ie. that they're stupid Christian bigots associated either with farming or with big business). He believes in small government, supported the Iraq war, and has no patience for academic intellectuals who like to slander George Bush or anyone who isn't leftist. I can't quite figure out why he's politically conservative, but he is. He doesn't fit any of the conservative stereotypes me and my lefty friends like to toss around so easily, and I like that.

Secondly, my father is usually a good British stoic (stiff upper lip and all that), but has occasional moments of fascinating openness. While waiting for my mum to get off a plane from Halifax this weekend, he told me he thinks his tendancy not to form lasting friendships and to be a bit of hermit comes from all the travelling his family did when he was growing up. That bit of insight reveals way more self-reflexion than I thought Dad did -- and it was said right before we moved on in our conversation to an affirmation of good British stoicism over the often destructive effects of 'saying what's on your mind' all the time.

Thirdly, he continues to teach me and inspire me to learn. He's kept a diary of all the books he reads each year since he was about 24, and he is constantly reading and learning new things. He knows more than anyone I know about the genocide in Rwanda simply because he took the time to read the books and watch the documentaries. He's always recommending books for me to read. But the learning goes far beyond books -- I firmly beleive that it is his insistence that I think for myself which led me to explore Christianity and (eventually) find a meaningful faith of my own. I can still remember how he made snide comments about commercials while watching tv with me when I was small -- it was my first realization of the trickery involved in consumerism. Even this morning, while in the car on the way to the bus station, I made some remark saying I was grateful that I hadn't grown up rich (since many of Dad's private school students seem fairly screwed up by their wealth). He responded with "Not rich, of course, by Western standards." The answer set me back on my heels for a minute. Yes, I am rich, by any standard the world would make. I am driving in a car from one house to another, with a full belly and lots of nice clothes in my suitcase. I am rich.

Not to mention, my father is fairly hilarious. His tales of exploits with his students, his amusing adventures in cleaning (he once disintigrated an 'indestructible' Tilley hat because he tried scrubbing it in a sink full of bleach), and his linguistic pompousness (he's called me a virago numerous times) all combine to make him a funny, funny man.

And he's my father. He makes sure to kiss me goodnight whenever I'm home, and despite his overwhelming love of his cars, when I crashed one of his 'babies' the first thing he wanted to know was "Are you okay?". I do love him -- in spite of (and perhaps because of) all his oddities and flaws. And because he continues to surprise me and make me think.

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On a totally unrelated note, I just received a fabulous early birthday present from my housemates. Considering that I'm travelling by plane for the first time in over five years, it's only appropriate that they got me both volumes of the graphic novel anthology "Flight". So very cool! Now I'm off to lounge in the sun and read my awesome new books.