people are dumb and bad (a rant)

i'm so annoyed right now. i just ran into two groups of neighbours at the supermarket. one of them was a nice little old lady, and the other was this young-ish (late 50's, early 60's) retired couple that have stopped smiling at us in the evening when we can see into each other's houses. i've never been sure what offence we've committed, but always assumed it had something to do with the stepbug being noisy in the yard or throwing pinecones (which, for some reason, really seems to bug them).

i hate discord and people not liking each other if there's nothing really between them, so i struck up a conversation. i know when our house came up for sale there was a lot of interest and that our present landlords got it for a song -- maybe 350K? -- it has more than doubled that value in five years. so i was asking them about this and property values on our street and trying to sympathise, but they were very flat and unforthcoming. then the lady said, "well, i noticed they [my landlords] finally mowed the lawn!"

i blinked and said, "no, we do. we mow it. regularly. we just don't have a weedwhacker, so they had someone come over to trim the few inches around the periphery that the mower can't get."

i didn't add that it had pissed me off to come home one afternoon to the grasses, flowering "weeds" and flowers i had bought and planted on purpose cut down. i had liked the foxgloves, snapdragons and buttercups -- even if they do grow unbidden. i had liked the miniature field of dwarf wild barley that had sprung up under the cedar tree. j and i would watch it undulate in the wind and admire it.

so many things are irritating me right now about this whole thing that i don't know where to start.

i'm irritated by people with golf course aesthetics. who can't appreciate a tiny (and i mean, tiny) bit of wild beauty amongst cultivation.

i'm irritated by people with no scope or imagination. why a person would be so dense as to think a lawn unmowed because of a three-inch fringe of (attractive) grass is beyond me. these are the people who see a cup, plate, three crumbs and a twist tie on the counter and think a kitchen "dirty," who equate the actively lived-in with the messy. is it something in their nervous systems? some neurotic defect that requires them to view only vacant and orderly worlds to maintain serenity? i wish they would admit it because then i could have compassion and be more helpful.

even the serene and minimalist zen tradition admires a bit of well-placed nature.

i used to generously attribute this difference of opinion to matters of taste, but i'm going to jump out of my cluttered closet right now as a despiser of relentless and bland order. i think it's actually wrong headed. i think it's the wrong taste. i think it's boring, dead, annoying, ugly, inhuman, messed up and part of what's wrong with the world, inside and out.

i'm also irritated by our landlords. (again.) i've never had a real problem with one before and it bothers me that we can't find a way to live harmoniously together. i feel that they must be new to this landlording business, otherwise i can't explain their behaviour. they told us to manage the landscaping and then, years later, show up and cut things down without warning or asking or telling or anything. i can't tell you how unsettling it is to come home and find your surroundings altered. whether a person rents or owns, he or she comes to take the appearance of their living quarters for granted. and well she should. it's her nest. every reasonably well-behaved person has a right to live unmolested. we are good tenants. they could do much, much worse. if i hadn't run into the male half of the deranged duo that owns our house and brought up the weedwhacking (asking, out of curiosity, if it was him, and saying no more) i would never have known that he also plans on cutting down the blackberry bush. i just would have come home and found it gone. our yard isn't a park. it's our yard. we nap and read and play and eat there. it's almost as much a part of what i consider my home as the inside of my house is. having someone else meddle with it makes me feel like a guest. this isn't fair.

if any of you are landlords, please be sure to fill your tenants in on any changes you plan to make.

in the meantime, they, and our neighbours, can stuff their weedwhackers, lame tickety-boo shrubs and withered plants, walmarts and other category killing mega stores, their malls, fast-food chains, and all other high and low-brow mindless mass-produced homogeneity masquerading as orderliness up the huge hole in their tiny, jazzless souls for all i care. i'm sorry to share a dying planet with these greedy, selfish, rotting boors.

afghanistan and iraq

canadians have a tendency to lump what's going on in iraq with what's going on in afghanistan. and on the surface they just look like yet two more examples of the united states acting with hubris and brutality -- throwing its weight around at the expense of an already beleaguered nation, but unlike many of my fellow countryfolk, i'm beginning to really see iraq and afghanistan as two separate quagmires. after talking with professors who specialise in the middle east, and with afghani businessmen, i feel fairly proud of canada's role there, and reasonably comfortable with someone trying to rid afghanistan of the taliban. it might be better PR if that someone were middle eastern, too, but my point is that the taliban are harmful, oppressive, fanatical loonies -- and if everyone backs out of afghanistan now, they will return and the country will become a living hell for 90% of its citizens.

let me be clear: i'm a pro-choice, homo-lovin' commie-pinko pacifist. i'm horrified by the industrial military machine, and even feel uncomfortable with my kid playing with water pistols. killing people is awful, but what's happening in afghanistan isn't simply an atrocity: good is being done on so many levels apart from the battles being waged. infrastructure is being rebuilt, women walk the streets, amazing initiatives are working to provide opium farmers with free fruit and nut trees to replace their poppies, water and juice plants are opening and, slowly, tangled property rights issues are being unraveled. it's all happening and it's good.

the biggest problem seems to be that afghanistan shouldn't really exist. like pakistan was artificially created by britain, afghanistan was set up more or less arbitrarily as a buffer between lucrative colonialist interests to the south, and russia. it contains about five very distinct ethno/cultural groups living in separate regions, and the challenge of finding a man who can inspire trust in such a diversely rooted place has so far proven impossible. eventually a leader will emerge, though, and this will do a great deal towards stabilising the country. in the meantime, the taliban mustn't be allowed to return. they simply mustn't -- as a human rights issue completely independent of this nonsensical so-called war on terror.

i felt compelled to write this because canadians have such a delicate sense of honour when it comes to peacekeeping, and i hate to hear afghanistan tossed into the same pot with the horrific disaster that is the situation in iraq. especially now that the CBC has, by association, created a tenuous connection in the minds of its listeners between the 17, uh, Gardening Enthusiasts recently arrested in toronto, and canada's involvement in afghanistan. we don't need to be there ourselves, but somebody should be.

hawaii

we're here we're here -- finally.

i wanted to put an exclamation mark after the first "we're here," but it looked too chipper and alert.

i am neither chipper, nor alert.

we had to be at the airport shuttle stop before 4 a.m. this morning, which sucked, then, after our three, or so, hours of sleep, found ourselves on a worryingly schizophrenically temperatured series of flights where we alternately froze, and then boiled, becoming terribly dehydrated.

we emerged from the plane into the thick, warm, moist blanket of air in honolulu with headaches and a serious lack of personality.

finding our way from the airport to the pali highway was an exercise in futility. J was applying the tiny part of his head that wasn't annoying him to driving our rental car, and my already questionable map reading skills crawled into my primeval lizard brain to take a nap while i stared pointlessly at all the squiggles on the piece of paper in front of me, knowing they were roads, but unable to make much sense of them as my head pounded. i didn't know where we were going, and what was worse, i didn't care.

"just go that way. i'm sure we'll come across the exit at some point. doesn't it look like it would be over there? let's just go over there."

how lost can you get on an island, anyway?

we found the highway eventually, after only a couple of wrong/illegal turns, and made a bee-line for our favourite food store for provisions, then came here and fell into bed at two in the afternoon like a couple of zombies.

do zombies fall into beds?

i don't know.

well, anyway, we fell into bed like a couple of things that fall into bed. J's still there, trying to chase the idea of a migraine away. i may be awake, but i'm still stupid and sore brained, if that makes any sense.

despite feeling so woolly, it's surprisingly exciting to be back, i have to say. the heavy air, and all our familiar little spots -- and by that i don't just mean grocery stores and beaches, but rather, the way a certain road curves around a banyan tree, or the familiar mural of sea turtles by the side of the road, or a wall on a certain street that i remember giving off the sun's heat, so that you can feel it radiating out, well after dark. little things that we didn't realise had jumped out at us and made an impression a year ago -- until we saw them again and realised how easily we could slip back into recognising them and liking them. it's like we've never left. everything is just the same.

even the howling trade winds are the same. we're staying on the "windward" side of oahu, and i'd be willing to bet that the winds are at around a 60 kph constant, with occasionally stronger gusts. the ratty palms stream constantly out in one direction, and the ripe coconuts swing and sway ominously. i walk under them looking up.

not that i've walked anywhere today other than from the car to the house carrying our stuff. nevertheless, there the coconuts are, dancing up there, like a reminder of impermanence.

tomorrow will be a flip-flop and bathing suit day.

supremo-supremo-ex-ray-machino

watch out: i'm about to foam at the mouth.

consider yourselves forewarned.

this boxing day, a bunch of kids in their late teens and early twenties opened fire on yonge street (in toronto) while it was full of shoppers looking for post-christmas deals. seven innocent bystanders were shot, and one fifteen year old girl was killed in front of her mother, shot in the head, because of arguing gangs, or whatever these people were.

i'm outrageously angry about this. like, on the verge of spontaneous human combustion angry. and i'm fighting every urge to just fill this post with useless expletives.

i wish i had one of those guys, those shooters, in front of me right now, so i could shake him and shake him and demand to know which one of his personal problems warranted this public display of violence? which one of the problems -- which slight, which insult, which anxiety -- justifies and explains this shattered girl, twitching in a pool of her own blood and brains in front of her own mother?

what the fuck's the matter with people?

i can't stand it.

i actually can't stand it.

paul martin is building his current election campaign on, amongst other things, banning handguns altogether in canada, and while i may agree with this personally -- because i think that handguns are stupid and creepy, just like the people who use them or collect them -- i have to admit that i don't think this will solve the problem of growing gun violence in, especially, toronto. stupid creepy gun collectors aren't the ones displaying their macho vigilante prowess on our streets. legal guns aren't the issue.

can't someone invent a supremo-supremo-ex-ray-machino that will pick up handgun metal in houses so that we can just go in and take them? or *something*?? what is the answer to this?

i suspect the answer lies in community building.

canadians, this is our country. our home. our living room. we live here. it's time to take matters in hand. the police, by nature, have to follow a strict set of laws and rules when it comes to their conduct, and this is as it should be, but regular citizens are not bound by all of these same rules. mothers can go through their children's rooms. siblings can turn each other in. grandparents can shake the nonsense out of their grandchildren.

this is our home, our house, and we are allowing it to be befouled by mindless selfishness and arrogance. it's like we're all sitting around waiting for someone else to clean up the kitchen, or something, but it's not going to happen. it's *Our Kitchen*.

ugh. i'm just... i'm truly sickened.

oh. my. stars.

there are five 12 year olds running around screaming in our backyard.
it's 7pm, but pitch black.

i'm just waiting for the neighbours to complain.

i hope no one breaks anything. i think someone just fell down the back stairs. i'm not looking unless there's screaming and/or blood. i feel like i'm under siege in my own home. like i'm being set upon by a brigade of crazed, semi-pubescent midgets hopped up on sugar.

i'm glad they're too scared to go to the park in the dark, though. (they're afraid of "stalkers.") i'd rather have them closer at hand. now i think they're playing hide and go seek in the backyard. the lady who is mean to her dog has taken to turning her porch light off these days (or maybe it has burned out from all that over-use) so the backyard is actually really, really nice and dark.

like last year, j got only money (rather than gifts -- a new trend?), and, like last year, people barely touched the birthday cake i bothered to make. am i the only one who likes chocolate cake?? it's weird. it's an awesome cake -- delicious and chocolaty with a chocolate-mint icing -- but each kid only hate half his (admittedly huge) piece. (seriously, though. i would have barfed from over-eating as a child before i left cake on my plate. c'mon guys! it's CAKE!!)

kourtenay was the only girl for the bowling part of the party. she went home after that, leaving the remainder who are here for a sleepover. she was a trouper (literally. she's a cadet), and by far not the worst bowler. she's a funny monkey, that one. we chatted a bit, being, you know, girls. she's a military brat and is going to the target range tomorrow. (i can't tell you how weird i find that.) maybe this is part of where j gets his gun thing from. or, rather, maybe this is one of the things that makes him hold onto the idea of the coolness of guns as tenaciously as he does. she was chasing the boys around the bowling alley trying to put their hair in ponytails. remember that kind of thing? any excuse to connect with someone when you don't really know how to.

i kind of feel like i'm still like that.

ugh. someone just knocked over the huge, very full box of recycling that we have been saving to get money back for. do you think they'll clean it up?

what's your bet? my vote is for a half-assed attempt distracted by the start of a new game.

robbie is here -- he was my laser tag nemesis last year. i swear that kid can teleport. i actually really like him, even though he doesn't like me at all. i think he's hilarious and cute and charmingly dark spirited. you can barely see his face for the poker straight dark brown hair that falls closely on either side of it. tonight i'm going to spy on him to discover his inner nature.

nick is such a bruiser. he's smart, streetwise, pessimistic, and addicted to eating crap. i think our healthy food scares him. i confronted him with this and he denied it, claiming that he "loves vegetables and dip" (which was somehow supposed to prove that he likes "healthy" food, even though i've never fed him veggies and dip in my life, and even though celery coated in ranch dressing isn't particularly healthy).

david is annoying. and is a blond, hyper, oblivious kid who does things regardless of whether you asked him not to with the look of adrenaline rush always on his face. i think he's an adrenaline junkie, addicted to being a punk. after bowling was over, he kept sneaking away to hurl balls down the lanes, despite my reprimands, and the bowling alley people bawling him out. i imagine him growing up into the sort of adult i avoid.

then there is bob. poor bob, saddled with a grown-up name, a quiet introverted personality, and a droopy, slightly pear-shaped body. i've never met or heard of bob before, and am not sure why he's here. he doesn't seem like the type that j likes. he has no edge. he's a tag along, a frumpy wallflower, an audience for the more active kids, a spectator in his own life. i feel like bringing him inside and trying to pay attention to him. trying to coax the person out of him.

bob ate the least amount of cake. sort of chubby, like his mother, i think he may be on weightwatchers, too, like her.

she (bob's mother) was at the bowling alley before i was, which was embarrassing (we had cab problems. it took over half an hour for one to even show up, which is really unusual), and she stayed for the bowling part, helping me to keep score (when i realized that i had never kept bowling score before, and that you didn't just get one point per pin knocked down), then she went to walmart while we ate, and came back and drove a handful of kids back here. robbie's dad drove the other half. i rarely feel like a stupid kid trapped in a woman's body because i don't drive, but tonight i did. anyway, bob's mum is, amongst other things, a romance novelist. it turns out she's a member of the romance novelists of bc society, or something like that. i'm thinking of going to a couple of their workshops to see what it's about. i confessed my taste for ladies in metal bikinis brandishing swords and riding white tigers, and she said that fantasy-romance was super hot right now. should i swallow my literary snobbery and try writing some chick-lit? anyway, she gave me her card.

two of the kids just took the hugest, stinkiest dumps in our toilet and the smell is wafting throughout the house. jesus. what the hell was in that bowling alley pizza? maybe it's just been a while since i spent time with the shit of people who eat meat. ugh. it reeks. (like, preternaturally.)

hm... worrying silence coming from outside. i told them to tell me if they go anywhere else... hm.

well. if they're gone, they're gone, and there's nothing i can do about it until they come back. i told them, before we went in the house, that these are the rules: no running inside. no throwing *anything* inside. no going in my room. no going downstairs. please put the toilet seat down after you pee.

that's it.

when they went outside i told them i wanted to know... ah... now i hear them again. good.

whew.

so, i guess that's that, then.

to everyone’s utter lack of surprise, our government has just fallen, moments ago, in a vote of no confidence in the house of commons. it seems there will be an election in january, which is weird. a vote of no confidence is weird, too, but a january vote? it's a terrible time of year to have to leave your house on a civic errand that you were unlikely to have run in any case.

we'll see, i guess.

throughout the coverage, though, i was struck over and over again by the youthful humour with which the commentators remarked on the proceedings. cbc has always been in my background as an adult voice of mature reason and intelligent reflection. as a child i strained to understand the political discussions and the well-read sense of humour bandied about so easily. i admired all of it terribly.

then today i heard two commentators snicker over the moustache a former parliamentarian used to have in the 70's, saying it was magnum p.i.-like. and i realised:

i'm listening to people my age.

cbc now employs smart 30 year olds. it probably always has. it never occurred to me that it was possible for me to work at cbc, (realistically, that is. i mean, sure, i could put bullet deflecting bracelets on, too, and run around saving the world in my see-through airplane with my golden lasso, but, i mean, how likely is *that* to happen?) and now i feel stupid for having been conned into staying a child in front of the radio. i want a job at cbc.

i could do it.

i've seen magnum.

everyone, and i mean *everyone*, i know is getting married and having babies right now, but not me! i'm a kid in front of a radio.

shit.

zach over the rainbow

zach was a rainbow puppy
a swimmer, a sniffer, a blue box diver
a humper a thumper a dog

turkey, kale and brown rice eater

evening blanket ravisher
waking everyone up with his five-star, three a.m. fart alarm

don't wait by the shore of your death
whining
as we swim on through our lives.

instead, chase rabbits
through tall grasses alive with chirps,
bound through wildflowers --
puppy breath exalting the warm sweet breezy smell of summer
eyes dancing
tongue lolling

as you jump over the star-fields
and out of sight.

we'll miss your warm body
and comforting cheerful disposition
farewell, zach! thank you!