Entertainment, Economics and Existence

This week finds me dragging a little, as some small foibles start to add up to become bothersome interludes. Still. If you didn't see last week's photo slideshow( Nov. 16th entry ) about Fall here in Victoria, go have a look.

Nov 17th - The Business of Existing

The phrase "There's never enough time in a day" seems to mean many different things to many different people, to use another well-worn cliche.

For some, getting through each day is a small miracle, a wonder that they made it through to another sunset and live in hope of seeing another sunrise, that their illness or poverty or other problems will relent for another day, giving them some peace from their personal burdens.

Choice is there too: choosing to live as you will, the decisions adding up over years to dig your path through the dark woods of the unknown future. Some choose family, marrying their first sweethearts and defining their lives by the creation and rearing of new ones, hopefully in ways that turn children into stable, wonderful people that are a credit to their parents. Others choose careers, perhaps with family as a stable influence on their never-ending climb to the top of their profession. Still more, many more, deal with life as it comes, often getting lost in the blizzard of bills, commitments, accidents, joys and sorrows that fly at us from all directions as we try to make sense of it all.

Daily life, all the little things that pass us by, large and small, are the ticks of the clock. Ever-forward, with fond glances back at what was, things remembered with a golden glow seen through the ever-more opague window of the past.

Yet what does it all mean?

Bhuddist monks spend their lives contemplating existence. Military personnel give their lives in the performance of their duty. Politicians spend their lives getting others to believe what they say, for good or ill. Doctors heal wounds physical, while lawyers bandage other wounds with words and money. All professions, all choices made, even the choice of not resisting what life pushes in front of you.

Meaning is what we bring to our lives, the interpretations we put on what we experience. As the expression goes, sometimes the glass is half-full, other times half-empty... and sometimes the glass breaks. How you deal with your own interpretations gives meaning to them, and shows your mettle to others... for some, this is important, but for other people, what other people think is the last thing they care about, sometimes for unselfish and purely personal reasons.

What you do, how you exist, how you find your place in the puzzle of life, is your business. Judging others by your own standards may help you find your place, but you should always keep in mind that your standards often cannot apply to others - they have their own path to make through the woods.

This brings me back to my own situation, far away from my other existence in Niagara. It is startlingly similar in some ways though, as I have come to realize. The loss of friends, of family, of places, of pets and jobs and things all tumble one around in life, nudging or tossing you in new directions. The same applies to new jobs, new friends, new places... the old fades and the new glides into the empty space of loss. Friends who are no longer in touch, old loves lost, old jobs remembered for the funny and not the frustration of the day to day grind. People who have changed, grown distant with time and other commitments, taking us away from each other though we try, failingly, to stay in touch.

I suppose that is what bothers me, that things cannot stay the same, no matter how much we want them to. When friends become aquiantances, then just names on cards sent at christmas or birthdays... that saddens me sometimes. To know that our choices have separated us after long years together, for good or bad, and that to see each other again is to see in their eyes the distance that those choices have put between us. A distance bridged, for a time, with shared stories and laughter, to bring with us when we must part once more to return to the separate lives that our choices have become.

Nov 18th - Sleepless Near Seattle

I was awake tonight, far into the morning, for no reason I could disern. The quiet hours ticked on, while I lay sleepless, the red glow of the clock shouting silently that I should be dreaming.

It was as through I was a spectator to my own thoughts, watching them chase each other around the room in the dark but unable to see them clearly. My subconscious mind was obviously in high gear, but my conscious mind would not just shut it out and sleep. Damned annoying, to know that there are things bothering me on some level, but that I cannot bring to the fore... and so lose sleep over them.

Plus, it didn't help that the garbage truck made its usual early arrival at 7:10am... or that an hour before that, I received yet another "Uknown Call" to my 935-Niagara line. Which is frustrating, since you'd think that with all of today's modern CID tech, you could trace most every call... but when it shows up as all 0000's there is little anyone can do, especially on a VOIP line. Apart from trying to initiate a police trace, I cannot think of anything I can do to find out who's trying to sell me shoes at 6am PST... likely from a 9am autodialer in Ontario, or somewhere out east. Since I am on the National DoNotCall list, and the jerks don't leave a msg, I am just going to have to wait and see... and lose
sleep.

Ah well. At times like these, I think about how cool it would be to have a TARDIS... here's a look at the 45 Coolest Moments in Doctor Who history.

Nov 19th - Snappy TV

A long, long day... I ended up working 10 hours, due to two last-minute customers with large, complicated transactions. I really hate the part of human nature that makes people wait until just the last moment to really screw up someone else's day - combined with the other after-closing tasks that I had to get done, I was really tired by the time I cycled home in the cool mist.

Safely at home once more, I watched S:AAB ep 'Hostile Visit' which had a moment in it. On the eve of a suicide mission, one of the characters mentions the date... November 19th, today! I guess it's a 1 in 365 chance, or similar odds, but it still snapped me to hear it. The character talked about how she had fallen in love with Autumn, all the romance of the slight chill in the air, and how she would never see it again.

I was reading some of the SG: Atlantis production blogs, which are rather interesting for the insight( if slight )they give into the world of TV production. All the more interesting for that it takes place in Vancouver, which is not as far away as it was from Niagara - day-trip distant, in fact. Again, too bad both series are now over with, although SG: Universe is in the works, showing that the franchise has life left in it yet.

Nov 20th - Um, your hat...!

A promised windstorm never materialized today, despite some nasty-looking dark clouds that swooped in from the west. The rain was heavy, on an off, in that peculiar passing way that happens here in Victoria: pours for ten minutes, then light sprinkles for the same, then repeat. Nothing like the hours-long soakings I am used to from Niagara, or even the brief deluges that soaked me in Florida. I still remember a vast, dark cloud crossing the sky when I was living in Fonthill, a black wedge that reminded me of nothing other than a Star Destroyer moving against the lighter clouds around it. Yeesh.

One of the last customers of the day provided some entertainment: a solid construction worker, he came in shaking the rain from his jacket... and trailing smoke from his hat! I waited a beat, then said with a straight face a phrase I never thought I would utter: "Umm... you know your hat is on fire, right?" He said something colourful and then reached up to swat at his right ear... dislodging a still-burning cigarette and crushing down his briefly-smouldering ballcap. Apparently he had not quite pinched-out his cigarette before tucking it behind his ear and entering the store, so it had started to burn his hat! Luckily only a few seconds had passed, and his hat was wet from the rain... otherwise, he might have had a really bad evening. I'd not want to be the first person in MMart history to lose a customer due to a flaming hat...

Nov 21st - Economics

Mulling over the current economic downturn, I was perusing the 'net for opinions, articles and general thoughts about how things are going to go for the next six months. With the downturn affecting consumer spending, retailers are holding their breath for the next thirty days to see if wallets will open.

DollarStretcher.com recently posted an article about how the market downturn is affecting people's retirement plans. The article is interesting as it looks at various life stages of investors, from people just starting out fresh from university, to middle-career folk, to those already retired and watching their plans being jumbled by the economic uncertainty. Though it is not nearly as bad as the Great Depression( what was so great about it, anyway? )... from the people I have talked to who lived through it, the gist is that if you haven't lost everything and need to stand in line for days to apply for a job, then things aren't as bad as they were back then. At least every guy wore a decent hat and shoes.

Myself, I have migrated to a low-key holiday season... the days of ripping open presents under a tree are long past for me, save reminiscing over old and faded photos. I enjoy the holidays now more for their good cheer than anything else, though that's hard to muster when shoulder-to-shoulder with crowds in a shopping mall - hence my plan to avoid most such places evenings and weekends in December. I might enjoy the holiday music piped in as well, with less exposure to it; one can only hear "Jingle Bells" so many times before it becomes grating on the ear with false cheer.

Nov 22 - Overtime Saturday

The morning dawn'd bright and clear, though clouds lurking on the horizon shook their fists at the sun as they blurred across that firey disk from time to time. Much better than a gray, flat ceiling of clouds, glowing in one spot as the sun tries to burn its way through to smile on the earth below. Yep.

I worked an extra shift today at our Colwood store, which brought back some memories of Welland Ave in Niagara, where most every store, including Welland Ave, had a Timmy's nearby. In matter of fact, Colwood has the best setup I have seen: literally steps from the door, there is a Tim Horton's, and a few steps the other way is a Wendy's. Not that I eat out all that much anymore, but it pained me, almost literally, to see that the Bacon Mushroom Melt was back at Wendy's after a two-year absence... must be that time of year again - loved that sandwich. Though my coworkers back at Office Place asked me NOT to have it for lunch when I was working, as it tended to... disagree... with my digestion. But it tasted so GOOD. *sigh* Now that I have the gallbladder issues, beef has been off the menu for some years now, so I have made do with Chicken Grills, as well as enjoying soups from Timmy's such as Potato Bacon: now THAT is a satisfying meal.

Nov 23 - Cow Bay

Took a road trip today up to Cowichan Bay to celebrate my dad's upcoming birthday, he's turning sixty one... glad to see he has been retired for ten years already, and not the other way around, to be still waiting for retirement.

It was a scenic ride, as the weather cooperated and the clouds stayed away. We traveled up the Malahat Drive, hugging the mountainsides and taking in the great views across the Saanich Inlet - there are a few scenic outlooks along the way that are simply breathtaking; mere words cannot describe the sweep of the forested hills, the deep blue of the waters or the pearlescent snow-topped glow of Mt. Baker far to the east. The smell of dead fish when we passed Goldstream park was very strong, even with the vents off... I am not sure when that will end; hopefully after Christmas.

We had lunch at the Oceanfront Grand Resort & Marina, which is renowned on the island for its amazing Sunday buffet. It reminded me in a way of the Beacon Harbourside Hotel in Jordan, which my family used to head to on occasion for their Sunday buffet... which I recall as being rather limited, but they had lots of pancakes. We used to travel all over to check out new places for Sunday buffets, even up to Hamilton a few times, though most of the restaurants we went to are long since gone - anyone remember the old Julio's on Ontario St., where Jack Astor's is now?

The evening vanished in the usual blur of catch-up, as I juggled laundry loads with cleaning, to get things done so I can enjoy my total day-off tomorrow. Supposed to be bright and sunny, albeit chilly, so I may decide to take a walk around the block or to Cook St. Village, though doing so by myself really stinks sometimes... I can think just as well at home here, where it is warmer and less likely to rain on me indoors. MUCH less likely. Not that I mind the rain, when it could be snow... *smiles*


No spiders this week; the closed windows and scattered chestnuts around the apartment seem to have put paid to their nocturnal ramblings. Which is nice, as they don't pay any portion of the rent, the sods.

Compliments, Crusade and Cable

There’s a sea change in weather happening this week… it started with the iron underbelly of clouds a slow-rolling ceiling above everything. Then so…

July 28 - Living next to the sea

The weather here has gone grey. From the shining sun to the dull pillowed fluff of lint found in a dryer, it's an odd shift. The rain here too, does not slam into the city as much as it drifts by, like a sprinkler waved over a patch of garden. No storms, no thunder, no pressure of black clouds crowded with unleashed waters eager to drown the land beneath. No, here Nature takes a gentle hand when the sun hides, moderate in that as in many other things in this city on the coast. The people seem to take the rain in stride as well, for few I see duck for umbrellas as the water falls. Which may explain the prevalent smell of ‘wet’ one notices inside on rainy days among people here in Victoria - odd, but there it is. Especially noticeable when the person next to you in line is wearing a wool coat...

I don't hear the sea here, and I rarely smell it. Since Victoria is not exposed to the full front of the ocean, there are no crashing waves blasting their sound across the shore. Perhaps I might find that soothing at night, but then again I have read stories about how the fury of the waves often pounded onto Dallas Rd here in years past, before breakwaters were built offshore to calm the waters somewhat. The complex workings of Nature can be beautiful, but you still have to watch your fingers; she bites too - this webcam may catch a storm or high winds, if you're lucky.

July 29 - Fionavar

I started re-reading an old fantasy series tonight, the Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay. The first book, The Summer Tree, was just as I recalled, full of moments that draw the reader completely into the world the author paints. Some very moving moments in there, beautifully written. I have not read it all these long years, since my high school days in fact, when Prisoners of Gravity did a few interviews with Guy Gavriel Kay. Heck, they interviewed pretty much every decent SF and Fantasy writer there was at the time - over 600! But back to Finoavar... with the drift of years and experiences in between, I can say that I enjoyed the book even more.

July 30 - Blogging and Crusade

Blogger has been annoying me of late, causing my blogs to become much more work than needful. It has been losing( and adding )keystrokes to my work, causing paragraphs to run together or links to be lost, doubling the time I usually y take to create these entries, which is not inconsiderable at all. I'm going to have to write these in a separate text editor, copy it all over and then add the links to the blog, in the hopes that it will save properly - damned annoying for something that was working perfectly up until a few weeks ago. I have suspicions that 'invisible' characters are sneaking in from the blog entries I create on my PDA; if so, I may try to alter the way I create those as well. This week, I am trying to edit it in both Opera and Firefox, as switching between the two seems to 'fix' the formatting problem somehow... grrr.

Watching the B5 spinoff series Crusade has been a treat these last few weeks. I've been watching it in an episode order that JMS preferred, as opposed to the broadcast order it originally aired with - the SciFi channel link above was the only network to air it the way JMS wanted, and I have to say it's flowing a lot more smoothly story-wise than when I recall it on air the first time.

It's a damned shame, a crime almost, that the series was canceled. It is obvious that the cast & crew had a fantastic chemistry and that the show was poised to go places SciFi on TV had yet to dare venture into, much as B5 had done before them. To think that the Network system still revolves on suits with calculators for brains, who wouldn't know( and wouldn't care about )a good story if it bit them on their collective behinds. If there is one thing, and one thing only, that I hope the 'net will do, it is this: to allow creative artists to break free of the chains that corporations and other controlling bodies put on what we see and hear. To allow anyone with an idea and a good story to TELL it, as best they are able, to an audience that would otherwise never have known about it at all. It always amazes me what passionate, driven people with a vision can do with the smallest of budgets, in this day of desktop CGI and YouTube.

July 31 - A Compliment!

I continued reading the Book II of the Fionavar series, The Wandering Fire, in the early morning. The depictions of heroic characters and deeds, the language and all the many tropes of true Fantasy are present in Kay's work. As I read, I found myself lost to the words on the page; the grey skies and leaden feel of the ordinary day here vanished into the flow of the tale, and all too soon the hours had blurred back into time to leave for work in the early afternoon.

The rain today too, elicited comment by both myself and my co-worker. Across the road is a line of dark-leafed trees, with purple leaves. This afternoon, as the rain fell, my co-worker exclaimed "Is that smoke? Can't be, in the rain..." It was the rain itself, as it turns out: the drifts of droplets appeared like a fog or smoke against the dark trees. I had noticed this a few times myself, and wondered that my eyes were playing tricks - now I knew I was not the only one who had seen the rain that way. Smoke, in seeming, blurring the view gently.

Something else tonight: a compliment at work, and a good one at that. A nice customer, who sends money transfers abroad, came in and exclaimed in delight "Oh good, I was hoping it was you working!" She said she really appreciates the fact that I have been "very efficient and fast" while serving her the last few times, without making her feel rushed or in other ways compromised as a person. Not that anyone here is rude, mind you, but she wanted to point that out. In the course of the conversation, it turns out she is a doctor, born in Kenya and will be working for the UN in Africa soon, where she has not been since she was in her 20's. It was enlightening to talk about world culture with her, and so reminded me that some few of those who walk in the door are truly nice and interesting, intelligent people. Goes to show you can get in a mental rut at any job, despite trying to keep an open mind towards people to try and explain their many odd and frankly rude behaviours towards total strangers. Which is hard to take, when you're naturally empathetic and have to fight the urge to solve other people's problems... yeah.

Aug 1 - Lazy Summer Days

Ah, August... my favourite month of the year. This is the time for relaxation and reflection in gentle ways, a time to enjoy the weather and treat each day as a small vacation in and of itself. In years past, August was the time to relax from the frenetic pace of July, when the excitement of finishing school was over and the fact that the summer was half done had sunk in. Early days and late nights were the norm, as you tried to maximize the time you had left and enjoy every beautiful moment, be it with friends, family or just taking in the simple wonders of the day in a hammock on the back porch.

Things change over time, summers begin to blend into the rest of the year as school becomes a thing of the past, recalled sometimes with distaste but the moments and memories that stood out becoming brighter of themselves the further one draws away from them over the years. Working all year long, with a few scattered weeks here and there for vacation, makes those long memories of summer all the more vibrant for the feeling of freedom that they embodied: to run in the summer sun with friends and know that the next day would be more of the same joy. Now, far from friends and those same, somewhat smaller places that I ran those too many years ago, I find myself feeling nostalgic. Not sad, but sorry all the same that I will never know again those lazy summer days, free of cares beyond finding lunch after breakfast, and being home in time for dinner. All the hours in between were mine, to share and spin bright threads of memory that would reach out to me here today, shining with the innocent joy of youth, energy and shared friendship.

A bearable day, overall, and when I finished work in the late afternoon I found myself profoundly grateful to have a weekend off. It was a rough week, in some ways, with a lot of tossing and turning and very little solid sleep – lots of things on my mind, of late.

I also canceled the cable today – it was a surprisingly easy thing to do. Now I have to spend some time getting all the shows I’ve kept on the PVR off the thing, and then give it to my parents – teaching them to use the interactive TV Guide should be amusing but ultimately prove fruitful for their use. For myself, as I have mentioned before, I will have my many DVD movies and TV boxed sets to watch, as well as the vast bounty of the internet at my fingertips. The key will be to find the time, in between my other projects; time to relax can so easily turn into time wasted, as I know from much experience. Cutting out the temptation of the TV tuner forces one to focus on the now, as much as moving out here to BC has cut down on the daily distractions. Here, at the end of the day, when the day job is finished with and the dishes done, there is only me and the work. Anything I do not accomplish can be laid squarely on my own head, for though I may be tired, the work does not care. It simply waits to be done, sooner… or later.

Aug 2 - Finishing Fionavar

I finished reading the last book of The Fionavar Tapestry today. Entitled The Darkest Road, it is beautifully-crafted example of the writer's art. There is symmetry and balance throughout the work, things that are very hard to pull off as a writer unless you plan them beforehand long in advance of setting pen to page. Have a look at the link above; there are numerous discussions and examinations of GGK’s work that provide some illuminating insight into the themes he explores in his work.

Something of note I caught: on the last page of the last book, there is printed the phrase "the wheel of time." Since the Fionavar trilogy was published a few years before Robert Jordan's massive Wheel of Time epic( may he rest in peace )I find that little coincidence rather amusing, since I would eventually read that series as well, courtesy of Matt( thanks dude! ). One little note from Robert Jordan though: like JMS and B5, he said in this interview back in 2002 that he knew the last scene of the last book before he began his series – amazing, given the scope of his writing, with hundreds of characters!

Aug 3 - Shattering Slips

Did a few things today, most of them productive... except for the glass I dropped in the kitchen, which exploded all over the place. It's been so long since I broke a glass, I'd forgotten how they like to spread shrapnel everywhere - and me in my bare feet. After checking to make sure my legs were shard-free, I climbed OVER the kitchen counter and began the cleanup process... it ended up taking an hour, all told, to find every little nasty bit. One trick I recalled from years back was to use a powerful flashlight to catch glints from the sneaky shards that embed themselves in things like floormats and slide under the edges of counters or fridges. Good thing my vac is powerful enough to pull every last one of those hidden ones right out again.

Productive; I mentioned that, right? Well, I typed up two stories and juggled around some website concepts, which took me well into the afternoon - even with a short Civ break( I won! ). In the early evening, I went to visit my parents for dinner, and afterwards we headed up to the ninth floor to listen to the concert that was taking place across the harbour at the Parliament Buildings. Or at least we tried to; the prevailing wind and the shrieking of the gulls settling in for the night on nearby buildings meant we could hear very little besides the general murmur of the orchestra. It was disappointing, and I left well before sundown to come back home... where ironically, I COULD hear the performance, if I listened hard enough. Oh well; we'll know for next year.

This week began grey, and finished sunny - VERY sunny. The forecast is for a week of nothing but sunshine, with low to mid-twenties. How can you beat that, with no smog and no humidity? *grin*