Computer World

How old is this mouse pad...  Remember how you could not use question marks this eveningÉ.  Just that crazy, never to be used before or used again capital expressionÉ.  Ha. A night of remembrance, the glorious reveal of Bears, just a mustache, less a surprise than the rhythm method described by Mom before Alison tonight over the Dutch oven cookbook on the would-be 80th of el Capitaine.  How old were they in 1984...  Dad 34, Mom 32.  Imagine.

I miss the fun, said Jamesie.  Oh babe.  Debert.  No RCMP due to hearing...

The question comes, from the others, why this infatuation.  And at last I can feel like I understand other people and how they felt before.  How they feel in deciding.  The inevitability.  Inarguable.  Good word choice, says the Bear. Is it not just. Here are two paths, or more, many more, yet there is really only one.  How to explain that. In words. Impossible. I used to think the choice itself was absurd, how people made it.  Maybe I better understand it now.  As Cohen said: not a choice, a verdict.

Three things to be thankful for, and the last and best is us.  Mwwwaaahhh, Mwweeemba.  Talk soon.  Shear, no show tonight, shocking. There is only so much consistency among friends.

Hosting the POD manana.  Co-Mill Manager to open it, Voyager reviews to conclude.  5 hours of sleep, and then. Do not be late. But first, the conclusion of the Muse.

Ah life. 

Lawn Maintenance Basics

"Notice your mind working.  How it plans for the future.  Visits the past.  Notice those thoughts and set them aside.  Turn your attention to the white light, that is your breath."

Last minute Saturday night call amidst the Highballs.  Drink the Glenfiddich dry with the sparkling water.  A nice wrinkle.  Inch struggling throughout the day in the sun with the lawn and the gardening.  As a counterpoint to the thoughts that spring to mind on the walks.  Of the wastefulness of time spent moving the dirt around, and for what.

"It looks like a Kazan signal, Captain."

But, it is pointed out, haircuts, clean apartments, dressing in a collared shirt in the morning.  Perhaps. My point is in how time and effort is spent.  Recognizing, conceding, freely, that I am deeply in the minority.

"We are far from the sacred places of our grandfathers.  We are far from the bones of my people.  But I ask on this day of sorrow and uncertainty that the wisdom of my father, find me, and help me understand my dilemma.  Speak to my father, speak to me in my dreams."

Janeway wants to anticipate a trap.  You think?  Think Basics!  Heh. As Jammer's review concludes...

The question of whether or not the crew recaptures their ship is a no-brainer, which, unfortunately, makes this whole idea seem pointless. Whether or not this idea holds any water is a question to be answered in September. As they always say: "TO BE CONTINUED..."

What a way to pass the 6th Saturday night in a row in quarantine at 207.  Ha.  And now the conclusion...  11:41PM.  Time to get a final refill of the Glenfiddich bottle first.

MacZungu

Another classic night catching up with the old boys on Tuesday.  The nostalgia and memories simply brilliant, as have been the one-liners throughout.  Moments, returning, along with laughter.  Bears regret at Yankee stadium chance lost, wedding speeches and school days gone by.  Yensen's shirt from his time in Z still hanging in the closet.

Now into the sixth week in the basement at 207 Alexander, all the way to the virtual NFL draft.  Next month holds Mothers' Day and the Victoria Day weekend.  Will the SC make it into the water before the 41st?  I wonder.  I despair. 

"When your only reality is an illusion, then illusion is a reality." - The Clown from the Thaw, just after seeing the pitch rules barring them, of all things, ridiculously.  Time is a flat circle and it spins around again, up too late, rewatching episodes of Voyager, just like in the first year of law school on MacLean, among the rats.

Eventually, all vanishes, it is what is done in the interim that counts.  Plan for the free time when the virus has been conquered.  The slow reveal all around as important as the Johannesburg summit?  A summit of a different sort?  Mom's line about an Asian: soft, sweet, gentle.  Prophetic in a different sort of way.  Dad's memories lighting up, forgetting how he tells the story of Gordon Dennis everytime the old Howard Johnson is passed.  The trip with Grandad up the Washington Monument in 1964.

Thinking a lot about how we often do not realize the events/incidents that will be looked back on most fondly.  How often it is not as clear what it is like to live within the day, rather than looking back or forward.  After this, in what comes next, in the next chapter of life, wherever and whatever it is, make that the focus.

All the conspiratorial hints and cues...  Nix in Israel and the multiple jobs and freedom.  The exploration of meditation and off-grid as bookends.  The banker and the Jitterbug.  This time as an example of the freedom and ability to work abroad to set the stage.  It will work.  Trust in that, and the rest follows. 

Like the night the day, as the birthday boy might say.

Sunshine Diamonds

Nostalgia the word of the week.  Leaf, Nerds t-shirt, Shrimp, and the rest from the theatre arts timeline assignment.  Joel and 44 and the window at the Inn.  The Livingstone connection from Engineers without Borders.  Photos distributed tomorrow in advance of the Zoom... 

Pandora or Swarovksi, had me thinking for a second, until I realized.  M. was right about the mayo on the lips.  Good on her attention to detail.  Wonder which brand she prefers. Wonder what Shears will think.

Orange highlighting on Psalm 23, led me to google tonight, which led to a Paul Kelly Nov 2019 article, and Auden through Four Weddings. "I was wrong." Seemed right to buy the $40 book and have it sent home to Dartmouth. Mother's day seems like the natural end of this quarantine in Moncton, with an LM weekend effort in between. Can you parlay the social distancing? Heh. And is it Mother's or Mothers'...? Strange. 

No MMc comments on the stories today on the walk. So weird, the difficulty in finding people to read the words, or honestly comment on them. The NS contest seemed to ignore the work, and I am not of the mind to follow-up at this stage to see. Should gather a bit more material here before departure in three weeks, but to what end... such writing seems so evidently self-indulgent to me.

Increasingly hard not to think of it all as a simulation. So many experiments around, evidencing things unneeded, paths not wanted, subtle directions. More so, thinking back. More so, looking forward. The one perspective and set of eyes we must see through. All the work that goes on around. The examples. Faceless. Nameless. Driving. Gardening. For what?

The senselessness of today. How can it be, the largest mass tragedy in the country begins in Portapique? A denturist. Words without meaning, absurdist. Sadness for some without end. Choices, always choices. Consequences of freedom. Yet what makes sense? Driveways and weeding and dog-walking and suits and ties....  dangerous edges to walk toward. Fires in houses and soup kitchens and disease and poverty from which we turn away. What qualifies as shocking, outrageous?

The world turned upside down. A few more weeks. But what it all means? Time to plan the escape. Later than you think. And you have already waited way too long.       

4PM

Who remembers..  Jason Gay and the CLam challenge...

How could you remember.

The face.  The instruction.  The towering body.  Heh.

Gins full. Porto.

Alobar.  Anderson.   Jensen in Livingstone.  Hard to...  well...

Gord.  Next week. 

Do not lose the proper memories.

Easter Rising

Long walk to the Moncton Coliseum, Easter egg hunt for the first time in forever, video call with M, massive turkey, more Netflix.  Almost into week 4 of the quarantine.  The thread about time carrying through.  The dreams about what comes next, when this is over.  How to use time.  I see the path for the book becoming clearer.  In some ways.  Struggle always for recognition in the submissions.  In the stories.  Time to live it properly and leave some words behind.  Shower and change tomorrow before the work call starts?  Pourquoi pas?

Before

Trilogy day, amid a POD call, Covid rate memo, 2009 application call-back to 1996 costs, urgent union issues and a call that never occurred.  Short walk around Centennial, then burgers and films.  23 - 32 - 41.  I can’t believe I never saw the third before tonight, the best of the three.  Wonder how Mirriam will react to them.  The stories/conversations, in Vienna and Paris and Messina, so wondrous as a way to pass this time of the quarantine.  I hope they follow through in 2022.

Maybe they will call back to the cow play?

Speaking of which

Grand day and night.  More work continues.  Zambian assignment received.  Speed walk around Jones.  Landrigan to chat with the famous trio.  Late night email from Long.  The start on compliance and reopening with Williams Blake.  The old school Zoom.  41 and the living is easy.  Thou shalt not pass.  Just for men.  Yak.  Waste Management.  Wax Stache.  Chaz Reeves.  Time.

Jensen a continued inspiration of the absurd.  The 4-way duplex he shares with mother, father-in-law, second wife’s adult son, and his old family on a week on/off basis.  Gandalf pipes and such.  Shear doing well amidst the new house, but still a riot.  The rest well seen in the Bears sunset shot of years ago.  Summer after Antarctica?  Crazily.

I think you should try for Greece for 41. Need the international license and some international flights to work out.  First plane out.

20 Year Old

What odds?  The timing of the scotch purchase, the MacDuff Distillery, November 1997 to October 2017.  Some time frame.  Tonight the nachos and the George Mason 2006 game, evoking the idea of Shari in Indy if they had won the semi-final; “I can’t wait for the second wave, that will be the fun one,” says Cuming; Any dream will do from Joseph; Joel Plaskett on the front lines in hard times (“a few days old”); a family photo for the ages, and dreams of Livingstone and Greece.

Day 18 of the Quarantine.  Mom’s random deep-breath sighs, Dad’s love of Sobey’s.  Strange days, trying to save lives by staying home.  How will it end?  Time will show.