On Sunday (man the time flies), Ruth and I got to hang out with Lisa and Camille for a while. Lisa was in town for the Radiohead concert, which Camille also planned to attend (see the review here). We had hoped to organize a more elaborate event involving more of the Vancouver sissies, but no one else could make it. So the four of us goofed around at Science World, then went for a bite at one of those trendy little cafes down near Kits Beach. We had a blast; Lisa and Camille are both a ton of fun, both smart and witty and interesting to talk to. But, I guess you all know that by now.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, Camille did NOT wear her toque. But she looked bitchen in her Rocker Girl T-shirt, even if it was a little too baggy for rock n roll.

I was thinking about kara's and simon's comments about art and writing being relics of a previous version of ourselves. Sometimes I'll read something I wrote a long time ago and feel a twinge of embarrassment. But usually it holds up pretty well as a fair representation of who I was then. In general, I don't like the idea of destroying your art after it is created, just because you have "moved on." In my view, the art we make has value in and of itself, independent from our relationship with it. We don't own it just because we made it -- and I mean that in a spiritual, not material or legal way. A painting or a story becomes an idea. Once people have seen it and been affected by it, it has a meaning and a worth all its own.

This kind of thing occurs to me when I hear some musician being interviewed, and he says he is totally sick of some song that he recorded a few years ago, which became a huge hit and everyone loves it and yells requests for it at concerts. "I never want to play that song ever again," says the rocker. Well, fine, he's played it too many times and is tired of it. But millions identify with the song, some people fell in love while it was playing, so although he might want to suppress it if he had the power, he has no right. It's our song now. Same thing if Da Vinci got sick of looking at the Mona Lisa and wanted to paint over it ("I'm into laughing clowns now").

Some other thoughts. Kara, I feel really bad about you being snubbed over there. But it confirms my prejudices against a certain kind of English person, of which Oxford has too many, apparently. No offence intended against you English journallers, who I know are not that type. But I bet you know what I mean.

Nessa, whenever you repeat that "I'm not your attorney general, California" line, it reminds me of a story Ruth told me, about the corner store in her old neighborhood. They had a set of drawers built into the wall behind the cash desk...and one drawer had a label on it reading, "The chocolate is not in here." This always struck her as hilarious -- I mean, what else might not be in that drawer? "The goat testicles are not in here." "Jimmy Hoffa is not in here."

Woo hoo, Beef, your BF is CUTE! Hee hee!

Nick, your "no ice" story reminds me of the Monty Python sketch about the cheese shop. I always thought those Python routines were flights of fancy, but more and more, I'm coming to realize they were filming a documentary about English society.

I wonder if Terra tried the Rice-a-Roni? Apparently San Francisco is famous for it.

Last comment. Stuart, good luck quitting the demon weed. I am trying to work up the nerve to tackle that project too. I just wish smoking hadn't become such a dear friend; I know I'll miss it, long after the physical craving is gone.

June 19, 2001

My apologies for bragging in my last post or two. I had an uncharacteristic bout of self-confidence. Fortunately, it has passed.

Father's Day is so lame. For one thing, it's another holiday made up by the retailers (like Mother's Day) to create an artificial demand for buying stuff. But their evil plan hasn't worked out so well, because lots of people feel no need to do anything special for poor old dad. Dad doesn't want for anything, he's self-sufficient, why bother even making the effort? But woe betide any kid foolish enough to miss Mother's Day! *grumble grumble*

June 16, 2001

Congrats on getting the job, Mallus. I hope this doesn't turn out to be one of those "be careful what you wish for" scenarios.

Late-breaking news from the World o' Trubble: I rock. The other night I received an Award of Excellence from my professional association, the International Association of Business Communicators, for a communications project I did last year. As Liz would say, go me! They're making trophies out of glass these days, by the way. Tres cool.

And a couple of nights before that, Ruth and I went to a concert at the community theatre just down the street. It featured the Vancouver Symphony accompanying a succession of young, award-winning pianists doing concertos by Chopin, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff and the like. It was amazing -- some of these kids weren't even 12 years old and they were playing like Glenn Gould. One was so small he had to stand at the piano, just leaning back against the bench. Interestingly, most of these child prodigies were Chinese kids. It seems that anything that takes hard work and discipline, Asian kids tend to excel at.

I can't believe it, Nick, you have a bike club called OUCC?? That is too perfect! Do you get together and compare bruises? Is there a juggler's club called OOPS?

Liz, if you want more daylight, you'd love it up here in Canada at this time of year. It doesn't get dark til well after 10 at night, and the sky starts lighting up again at 4 in the morning. We got more daylight than we know what to do with.

Kara, after seeing the picture of where you live, I'm a little concerned for you. When you roll out of bed in the morning, what's to stop you from rolling all the way out the window and crashing to the sidewalk? I hope Simon's bunk bed has one of those safety bars on the side (you're in the top bunk, right?).

Yes, Brian, I had heard that "D'oh" had been added to the OED. And yes, I am proud of the English language. I used to be a bit of a tightass when it came to messing with the language, wrinkling my nose at common but incorrect usages (like "hopefully" to mean "I hope that"). But now I think the flexibility of English is its strength. There are way more words in our vocabulary than in any other language, with more added all the time, and the rules are continually being stretched and reformed to fit the changing realities of everyday living. To me as a writer, English is an amazingly rich medium to work in. And I know what you're thinking right now, and no, it's not against the rules to end a sentence with a preposition, as I just did. So there.

June 12, 2001

Interesting thoughts about time, Nick. I've seen Memento too, and really enjoyed it. It's a good exploration into the way memory makes us who we are. A man forced to live permanently stuck in the present can never grow or learn. A horrible prospect, I think.

As I get older, I am more and more acutely aware of the the passage of time. The weeks and months seem to blur by at a distressing rate, as if time was being accelerated. I remember when I was a kid, the summer seemed to last for ages. It was a delicious feeling, as if I had all the time in the world to do whatever I felt like doing, nothing more. Part of that is probably just proportionality -- when you're 10 years old, a month is 1/120th of your life, whereas when you're 40 it's just 1/480th. But more than that, I think being young and responsibility-free allows you to live more fully in the moment. Now I have too many things to do, too many worries crammed into every hour. I wish I could get off the merry-go-round for just a few days, to lie on my back in the grass and watch the clouds the way I did when I was 10.

That brings me to another movie, one of my favorites: Groundhog Day. You know the one, where the Bill Murray character is doomed to relive the same day over and over again. I'd love to be in that situation. Just think of the things you could do with the luxury of all that time. You'd have your memory, so you could learn and grow, experiment with human relations, delve into the meaning of life. The only thing you couldn't do is write, because when you repeat the day, everything you did becomes undone. Too bad I'm not as spectacularly self-centred as the Bill Murray character -- the Powers That Be don't have enough reason to teach me a lesson that way. Pity.

Kim, thanks for digging up that album cover. Haw! I haven't seen that in years! I confess that the picture of a hot babe covered in whipped cream was the cause of much fantasizing. I once examined the photo so thoroughly that I detected the faint evidence of a bathing suit or body stocking underneath, which was a huge disappointment. Sigh.

I was listening to one of The Beatles anthologies yesterday, getting all nostalgic. I'm of an age when The Beatles were not ancient history; their music was an important part of my growing up. But listening to those recordings of the boys creating magic in the studio, it's impossible not to feel a pang of loss. John Lennon's death was for me the end of my youth -- The Beatles could never get back together again, and therefore those golden days of my early teenagehood could never be brought back either. Often I think that, if I could go back in time to do just one thing, it would be to intercept that asshole Mark David Chapman and whack him before he could do what he did.

Oh well. Time marches on. I guess that's okay.

June 8, 2001

I'm a teeny bit worried about cash flow right now. My main contract has petered out and I've been a little slow at hustling up replacement work. I'd better get on the ball and sell some freelance articles soon or I'll have to borrow Nick's hot pants and hit the badboy stroll.

Tonight Ruth made me dinner; it has become part of our Friday night unwinding-from-the-week routine for her to invent some yummy fish dish. Tonight it was snapper fillets done Mexican style, with a mango and hot pepper sauce, accompanied by soft tortillas and fresh corn done with diced tomatos and lime juice. It smelled like Punketa's kitchen. We miss her.

The recipe is available if you're interested, but it will cost you (see paragraph 1).

Kara, I am impressed that you once owned a big mortgage dog. That's a rare breed from France, right? I believe the name in French means "death meter" (mort=death, gage=meter), because they were originally bred to protect hydro meter readers while doing their rounds in seedy neighborhoods.

Also, you asked us to share some secrets from our past. I've been in one fistfight in my entire life; I was seven years old at the time, and have not punched anyone since. I used to be a card-carrying member of the Musicians Guild, the only union I've ever belonged to. When I was a kid they tested my IQ and I scored 140, but I've gradually become stupider ever since. I like growing my own sweetpeas. The first record album I ever bought was "Whipped Cream and Other Delights" by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. That enough dirt for you?

Terra, I thought your old desktop was funky and unusual, but your new site design is really nice. Very clean and easy to read, and therefore inviting. I'm happy to learn that I added a new word to your lexicon (although I notice you didn't have to look up "wanker"). Effete is a good word. But there are other words I like better. Some of my current favorites: grunt, swerve, floozie, dint, and puddle. Words that have fallen out of my favor: tot, pundit, splay.

Lisa, have you recently started dating a teamster or dockworker? Just wondering.

Carol, I think it's a good thing your dream ended before that guy caught up with you, because I'm sure he just wanted to have sex with you. I do that in my friends' dreams all the time.

We're taking a run for the border tomorrow. Wish us luck.

June 5, 2001

I used to think Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher (the somewhat less annoying of the two brothers) was pretty much an effete wanker. Then I read an interview in the weekend paper, in which he revealed that the guitarist he admires most is Neil Young. Great choice, Noel: Neil Young absofuckinglutely rocks! Ruth and I saw him (Neil, not Noel) in concert last summer, outdoors at the Gorge Amphitheatre in Washington State. It was magic. His quiet stuff was sweet, but when he played it loud, and ripped into one of those tortured, demented, nobody-but-Neil-sounds-like-that riffs, my heart was in my throat. Woo HOO. I wanna be Neil.

Kara, I don't know what I can say to make you feel better. I actually wrote a long piece about overcoming rejection and being true to yourself, then scrapped it because I was afraid it would come across as condescending. I mean, you know all that stuff already. You know that, to your core, you are an artist. And no matter whether your art sells or not, or whether you get invited into the clubhouse or not, you'll still be an artist. You'll still have that need to make pictures that come from your heart. No one can take that away from you. You know that.

I hope you also know that a shitload of people -- me included -- think your art is wonderful. It's a shame that the artnazi establishment over there is shutting you out and dissing your work, thereby making it more difficult for you to support yourself while doing what you love. But you must not let them set you back. Keep pushing. And for God's sake, never stop painting.

Stewart, you old charmer you, I'm impressed. Too bad you had to run away, or Big Ben would surely be chiming midnight by now. I agree, a good flirting is the best tonic a guy's ego can have.

Good job-getting luck to Cindi and Mendi. And, um, some other stuff I wanted to say, but I'm about to do a faceplant into my keyboard. L8ter.

June 3, 2001

A confession: I often delay making my first post of a new month because it means I have to then make the effort to archive the previous month's posts. Sometimes it just seems like too much hassle. Haw! Does anyone else do that? C'mon, I know you procrastinators are out there, I can hear you breathing.

Of course, this does not apply to the web wizards among us, whose sites are so seemlessly organized they are practically automated. Paul, for example, probably makes his posts via satellite hookup, from wherever he happens to be when the inspiration strikes. Like, in his car, driving around looking for morons to fight with. Heh, just kidding Paul. I'd be happy to be a character witness at your assault trial.

By the way, Cindi, I wanted to tell you that I enjoyed your story. More, please.