Note to Self

It's a week-long vacation in a hot Central American country. You will eat lobster, swim through the second-longest barrier reef in the world, go kayaking, read in a hammock, visit Mayan ruins, and see your one-and-only brother get married. Your parents are paying for you, a fact for which they have neither made you feel beholden nor guilty.

So for God's sake enjoy it! Forget about your money problems and stop worrying about getting a job for one lousy week and just enjoy yourself. You'll thank me later. Trust me.

Three Things That Made Me Laugh Today

1. Seeing My Dad Have His First Conversation on a Cordless Phone
The phone rang while I was in my bedroom, so I picked it up on my recently-transplanted-from-Kingston cordless phone. It was a call from one of Dad's colleagues, so I naturally wandered out of my room to call Dad up from the basement, phone in hand. I gave him the handset, and it was about three-quarters of the way to his ear when he noticed that (horror of horrors) this phone had no cord. He gave me a very eloquent look that was halfway between "What the hell is this?" and "I would rather trust a fast man on a well-shod horse than this contraption." But I gave him the thumbs up, and so opening greeting into the handset was not only loud enough to reach his collegue without aid of the phone, it was also tentative enough that he could laugh it off if it turned out that (as he suspected) I had actually given him some sort of pretend phone.

After his conversation was done, I pointed out the hilarity of his expression. While he tried to say he was just playing his confusion up for laughs, I know better -- the Luddite doth protest too much.

2. Lamb, by Christopher Moore
"Know what?" Jesus said. " I love bunnies. They toil not, neither do they bark. Henceforth and from now on, I decree that whenever something bad happens to me, there shall be bunnies around. So it shall be written. Go ahead Biff, write it down."

That's from "The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal". Not only is the book hilarious, it's also actually pretty accurate. I mean, not about the bunnies, but it does try and figure out what Jesus did between 12 and 30 years old (short answer: Kung Fu and Meditation) and it does a fabulous job of recasting those famous Gospel sound-bites into very human interactions. It's good with the historical details and doesn't bother itself with reverence, but it doesn't take pot-shots at Christianity either. Plus, it's one more book getting out the word that Mary of Magdelen is not (repeat NOT) a prostitute. Hurrah!

3. The New Brazilian Football Star
If you know anything about Football or the World Cup, you've probably heard the names of some of the famous strikers on the Brazilian team. Ronaldo. Ronaldinho. For some reason (probably because their last names are frickin' long), Brazilian footballers tend to take on a snappy single moniker for themselves when they get to the big leagues. Sometimes this works quite well -- Ronaldo De Assis Moreira becomes... Ronaldinho! Sometimes it works not so well, as in the case of Ricardo dos Santos Leite, who thought it would be a good idea to become Kaka. Oh dear.

However, nothing can beat Frederico Chaves Guedes, who scored a goal in Brazil's last game after coming on as a substitution. The man who will forever more be known only as the name on the back of his jersey, which proudly proclaims Fred.

Empty is Just Full of Things You Can't See.

Both my parents work. I live in a town with no good friends nearby. I don't have a job. My two friends who I see on a weekly basis have been away the past few days. All these things conspire to force me back inside my own head.

It's not like I don't like it in here. It's warm and comfortable and somewhat soporific. Rather than defining myself by the endless stream of words that come out of my life, I get to be defined by the shapeless, near-instinctual quality of pure thought. But I love words, and I love people, so pretty soon all this silence becomes suffocating. I start to wonder how many hours it's been since I've said anything, how long I've gone without real human interaction. I start to understand the mentality of the Crazy Cat Lady.

But then there's moments of pure interior joy. Moments when I really and truly see the limitations words place on me, when I know that there's a realm of thought where things make sense without needing to have syllables or prepositions. And there's moments when I realize what a great gift it is to be at ease in my own company. Because one of the saddest things I know is people who can't stand to hear their own thoughts, who spend their whole life drowning that still, small, interior voice out with drink and friends and tv and noise noise noise. So as much as I may chafe at the quietness that is my life right now, I also rejoice in the fact that sometimes silence really is more profound than words.

Gah!

While walking back home from an interview this morning, I passed by a park I've been to since childhood only to see a giant hole where my beloved Spiderman jungle gym used to be! Gah!

Now, for those of you who don't know this park, let me explain. Rather than just the usual park-type apparatus (slides, swings, stuff to climb on, those weird animals on springs that you can "ride" by rocking them back and forth...) this park also had a huge tetrahedron-type structure covered in bars and dotted all over with occasional hard rubber mats suspended between the bars. Whether you were three feet tall or five, you could climb up it, play king of the castle, and get a good view of the whole park. I don't know what it was officially called, but everyone I know just says "The Spiderman Park" and we all know what we mean.

And now it's gone, sacrificed to the cruel monster of "Safety Standards". I am very upset about this. Even the construction worker overseeing the removal of sand from where my beloved childhood play park used to be commented on my stricken expression. He did assure me that "something very similar" would be going back in that space by July first, but I am both skeptical and pessimistic about the new apparatus being anywhere near as awesome as the old one.

Also, lest you think that this is just me whining about everything changing and being uselessly nostalgic (which I am, kind of), I should tell you that I still used this jungle gym. Why, just two weeks ago it was where Biku and I came up with the now world-famous Binto Scale and McKay Point . So by removing this beloved play place, not only is the cruel Town of Newmarket denying thousands of future children hours of enjoyment, they're also preventing me from becoming a world-famous inventor/writer/creative genius who will then reflect glory back on them.

So, in conclusion, this is bad. Very bad.

Reality is my stalker

So now that the birthday excitement is calming down (I get a weekend of party, and then I get another weekend of eating delicious food and playing board games all day -- how fabulous is that?) the cold hard facts of my summer are slowly sinking in.

I need to make money so that I can buy my plane ticket to Japan. I don't currently have any way of making said money. Uh-oh...

I did apply for two jobs today -- both as prep cooks in semi-upscale restaurants. It'd be a fun job, I think (I like chopping things, and I'd like to see how exactly you make a pot roast for forty people every night), but I have no relevant experience and can only hope that they call me in for an interview, thereby allowing me to charm them with my aura of fun hardworking-ness.

Luckily, I do have lots of things to distract me from worrying too much about getting a job -- Biku's coming over tonight, I have Japanese to study, there's lots of good books to read, and of course, the World Cup to watch. So really (as I often realize when I complain about my life via blog) things aren't that bad. Yes, I need money, but there's still time to get it, and in the meantime I might as well enjoy all the good things around me.

(P.S. -- I may have mentioned this before, but I love getting my presents all spread out and in different ways. I got some for graduation, some on my actual birthday, some this weekend, and today Brier sent me a lovely necklace in the mail! And I still have Zen's present to look out for! So instead of one day which is over far too fast, instead I've had what seems like weeks of celebration and exciting moments of unwrapping. Hurrah!)

The Great Shindig of Aught-Six

It's the morning after what (in our family's general experience) was a very large party, and all went well. There was enough food, the Weather Gods smiled on us (although Dad did make some rather ominous remarks about having to sacrifice his youngest daughter to procure the sun), and people seemed to mingle and chat amiably. I received numerous material goods (everything from a white linen skirt to a handmade quilt of +10 beauty to books to a nostalgic picture of Stitchface the Large to a poseable Jesus action figure) which reminded me once again that I'm not the free-wheeling anti-consumerist hippie that I'd like to think I am. Bottom line is, I like pretty things, and I like even better receiving them as gifts.

By the way, for those who know my general tendancies, I'm pleased to report that I actually took full advantage of being one of the honoured guests at this party. I didn't spend the whole time in the kitchen, or even most of the time serving people or making sure they were getting along well. My graduation/birthday took away any of the guilt I might have felt for receiving such fabulous presents, and I generally just loafed about and had a good time. This is a minor victory for me over those pesky demons of guilt and obsessive working, so I feel pretty good about it.

We also received a lead on some kittens we could be receiving in a month's time. It feels a bit weird to be so excited about new cats when even remembering Spooky still makes me very sad, but I miss having an animal around, and I can only hope that it's a tribute to Spooky's greatness that I'm now addicted to these graceful, aloof, loving little creatures. So I'll try and go see the (possible) future Cruttwell kitties today with that in mind (as well as taking the time to properly remember all the fabulous Spooky-as-kitten stories.

Playing Hookey

I am currently AWOL from my own graduation, and it feels good! I just got the crazy hood thing ("Rise, Bachelor of Arts!"), but there's still more than half the alphabet to go before I need to go up and get my shiny medal thingy.

It's been a pretty good ceremony so far -- I got to sit next to an amusingly ironic guy, so he and I made silly comments to keep ourselves amused. It's not too hot, so my black polyeter robes aren't suffocating me. And, our graduation address was given by William Hutt. William freakin' Hutt. For those who don't know, he's a fabulous Shakespearean actor who I once saw play Prospero in The Tempest. He spoke about love and metaphors and teaching and the creative act, and it was just great. Much better than those normal "You are the hope of tomorrow" speeches.

Anyways, I should probably get back now -- I left my piece of paper of +5 Learnding inside, and I don't want anyone to steal it.

Everybody Knows...

I'm back in Kingston, being overwhelmed by memories. This was the table where I had that great meal with 8 friends. That was where I first went to learn how to sign up for courses on QCard. This was my favourite study spot. That was where I had a picnic last summer. This is the house of that weird "Canadian Action" political candidate. That's the place where my desk and computer used to sit. This is where my life used to be.

Some of my memories are significant, and some are just stupid. But they're all there, on top of each other, demanding my attention.

I guess this is what nostalgia feels like.