Excerpts from My Diary: "Backwash"

But truly, in the end we cannot win. For he has always been there, sitting in the middle of the room, calmly, patiently, without flinching or breaking any sweat even if he could. When our steps were lighter, we leaped across his lap, bumped into him, cried and laughed in our ignorance, screaming out songs of joy and pain. In moments, every slowly, we became aware of his presence amongst us, and yet he was still merely an outline or a shadow that we blocked out with whatever we had in our hands, whether it was a book, the weekend newspaper or a fabulous set of warm tits gently swinging in front of us. All the time however, he has gradually come into sharper focus: each time our bodies failed, each time our bruises became more noticeable or took longer to heal, each time our eyes had trouble focusing on anything else, he became clearer. And then there is the moment we realize that he has the greatest patience, greater than any saint, greater than the sun waiting to one day embrace the earth. In our wild revulsion we gather our fears, eat our children and lash out like small dogs; we bark and yip with false confidence, backtracking fearfully when we see that he is unmoved, as still as the day he got there, which seems to be forever because our faltering memories don’t recall when that day was. Some grow tired of waiting while others watch with trepidation as every last excuse for greeting him slips away. And then he rises, so quickly and suddenly, with a smooth grace of movements that we swear we have seen before; and before we even have time to think about being scared, he’s up and has left the room. And so have we.

Pushing My Wares: An Interview with Holly McRann

Returning to those long turned-over journalistic roots of my high school days, I recently had the privilege of talking to a colleague, Holly McRann, on the subject of the birth defect of her left hand.

While she confessed to being a little nervous at having to think about what to say, I never told her how nervous I was in interviewing her. With such a sensitive topic, I knew that I had to be well prepared. On the day of the interview, I was skittish and the armpits were humidifying my shirt. Despite the initial jitters, I found my voice and she found hers. Holly spoke with her down-to-earth plain speak and quirky sense of humour. I listened and then I wrote.

Thanks must go out once again to Holly McRann for helping me to get such a high from this stuff; as usual, the 'what-ifs' about my life and career kick in but I know that it's much more fun as a hobby than as a job. Check out amateur journalism at its finest here.

Death. Again.

A colleague of mine died yesterday morning, at work, about 200 meters from me, most likely at the moment he fainted and his body struck the cold, hard, granite landing of that corner stairwell. I was not there. I did not see him. I was not there when my friends and co-workers rushed to his side, attempted CPR and escorted him to the hospital.

He was not a close friend of mine, and though our community here is relatively small and the lines between the fraternal and the collegial are blurred, the moments of deep connection did not occur. It is that way sometimes, and I could never pretend that it was any other. I feel privileged to have had those chances of friendly banter and the good cheer of a joke in the hallways.

It is also no lie that we share that common bond of all humanity, the one we are so often reminded of and the one that we so often forget. Those who come into this world, will at one point leave it. And knowing that, we must not be callous or indifferent, but strive to live to the fullest extent that our powers allow. Like so many before him, he has reminded us once again that we must, no matter how difficult, cherish each second of unhindered breath, each victory against the inevitable. We must not restrain our love for our friends, and we must forgive our enemies. For when that day comes, it will likely not be of our choosing. Our debts must be repaid because we will leave our friends and loved ones bereft of something greater than the material. Rest in peace, my friend.

Ack, Foto Geeks!

Long discussed and proposed at various times among my photographic friends, a website dedicated to our amateur photography and professional geekiness is now up in a very infant state: http://sites.google.com/site/thefotogeeks/

I had originally thought about going it alone by extending photography into this blog, but when I realized that it was JUST TOO BIG, then it bled over onto another site.

Gradually throughout the day of creating this thing, I realized then that whatever feeble attempts I have ever made towards artistic/creative photography would never have been possible with the feedback, support and gentle cajoling of the likes of Blake, Kevin and Paul.

Like many side projects, this one will probably suffer as life decides to bombard my time, my work and my play. Still, I'm willing to give it a go if they are.

On Love - Part One

I really should stop mocking adults who enjoy Disney cartoons. If smoking and drinking are legal (and marijuana and heroin are almost legal), then who's to say that it's wrong to be hooked on cans of syrupy, song-filled side characters with foreign accents and overly handsome, baritone heroes? Romance is equal in its cost and potential for destruction when compared to any other drug. I'm just a little miffed that nobody bothered to give me the straight dope.

Cigarettes were once billed as being healthy. Any current film that takes up the banner in the war on tobacco will have a black and white clip from the 1950s showing a white-coated actor playing a doctor who will suck on a fag, flash a mouth full of teeth and describe how his low-tar cigarette is good for him. Wine makers try to convince us that sour grapes not only help to embarrass us at parties but can help us live longer to apologize for the damage. Marijuana kills brain cells, heroin will just plain kill you, but good ol' romance is responsible for a litany of destruction: divorce, depression, murder, suicide, STDs, war and of course, getting addicted to other drugs. If somebody had just simply told me that "falling in love" was a type of physio-psychological-chemical dependence, things would have been a lot easier.

Now it was true I didn't ask or even if I had or did, I probably wouldn't have gotten the answer that I wanted. My parents never gave any information even remotely close to what it was all about. I knew if your parents smoked, you'd probably smoke; but on this matter, I could never fathom the random musings of God that put my parents together. Luckily around the time I was graduating, my father did check up on me. He asked, "So you know about sex, right? They taught you in school?" I nodded. "Good." He then joined into a nodding which was tinged with an assuring hue.

The best part about love as a drug is its you still get a kick out of it even when it goes bad. You can remember the funniest time you got high, but you can't remember anything after being completely blotto. I can however, remember every time I've been turned down. There is always that moment, the twist, the increasing pitch of the faltering airplane propeller, the turn of the screw in the stomach, the forming of the 'o' on the lips. Hours, days and possibly weeks later, I am replaying the tragicomedy of it before my friends. I'll remember each break-up and at various times afterwards I'll forget the bad parts and remember the good, cheerfully and blissfully bringing the glass/bong/pipe/needle towards me again.

The next time I'm at the local DVD pusher, I'll probably run into a colleague, we'll probably drone on about work and then they will gush at having found "The Little Mermaid". I'll nod, smirk, keep my mouth shut, cast my eyes downward and also think wistfully about a fish story.

On Pride

Why do we work? Why do we force ourselves to get up in the mornings, when our bodies tell us otherwise, when we would rather be fogging about how the head of the franchise barista wound up on that advert on the side of the bus that steamed past as you stood there on the freezing pond about two blocks behind your old house when you were eight? Some will grimly quip, "It's for our children". Others will happily chirp, "To sustain the habits one has from not having children". Belonging to the second camp, I am lusciously afforded the luxury of considering an answer.

Or not. Maybe instead I'll surf the net again. Drown in the thirst for the new. Stock up on my social stalking. Oh would you look at the time. I really should copy and paste and change all the names, him's and her's for that kid's reference letter. Perhaps take a look at one of my projects. I've made an online calendar. I suppose I should fill it in now too. Drat, was that the sound of the bell? Am I late for class? My back hurts. These kids are the dumb ones. No wait, I shouldn't say that. Sigh. What is that piece of garbage on the floor? I don't get paid to clean up this mess. I get paid to teach. Hand out some worksheets now. I forgot to correct that typo from last year. I really should try to get some marking done after school. I'm so tired I can't focus. I wonder if anyone replied to my blog. Let's have a look.

That doesn't seem right at all. But neither does having your boss tell you that you're not doing a good job. And then having your other boss tell you that you are. I should have just walked out of there. I should have stopped my active listening. I'm going to quit. I really am. I really should. I'm going to make a big fuss of it all by writing an e-mail or maybe even a letter; when I'm gone, they'll be sorry. But I can't really quit because that would be quitting. I can't let anyone down because they would never let me down. Well would you look at that? That student did much better on this than he did last time. I probably had nothing to do with it, but I think I did.

Oh God, must we do this again?

How did they ever convince me that being busy was a good thing? A large part of our culture frowns on having free time, frowns on "sitting around", frowns on "reflection"; the words alone conjure up images of misspent hours on the couch wearing tracksuits, being high and covered in crumbs. I woke up on Christmas morning wondering how I could best balance the work I had brought home and the obligatory Christmas cheer that I would be attending. I don't have the gumption to quit this job and tell someone to shove it somewhere. Besides, I would then be unemployed and people would call me lazy.

As the media spin and spin up the doom and gloom, as we rodents of the world see pink slips dangled before us in our wheels, I have managed to squeeze out enough time for a thought to myself, a thought to put out into space with the meager expectation that someone else has managed to squeeze some free time out of their lives (most likely as they're squeezing something else out) and will give this a squeeze. And so on.