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48 Years and Counting Down

My keyboard is working for the moment so I am going to try and post right quick before it dies or goes Cyrillic again. 

I usually do an Easter post, it is one of my favorite themes. Jesus is a great guy and really gets my imagination going. I have a lot of fun with my posts about the gang in Heaven.

That being said, today is another important day to me, and if Jesus wants a birthday post, He can make sure the old Toshiba Piece O' Crap is still functioning when I drag my arse out of bed on the morrow.

Today is the 48th and 1 day pre-anniversary of the day that the Vulcans will make first contact with us. Stop laughing. I mean it guys. Shut up.

I worry that Earth might be the Saint John of the Universe. I KNOW all the other sentient beings talk shit about us, I just know it. They talk about how we keep idiots in power and can't distribute our resources properly and there is too much poverty and we are destroying some of our nicest real estate with filthy industry and not trying hard enough to be, better. 

I hope somewhere a baby is being born named Zephram and that his mother is feeding him so much science. Is that any crazier than any other hope? What is hope anyway? Not really something Vulcans bother with, that is for sure. Yet for me, and hoards of other nerds, Vulcans symbolize hope. A brighter future, possibility to transcend the mess we made. 

I suppose, this is also what Easter is about. 

Whatever you celebrate, whatever inspires you to dream and hope, have a wonderful weekend.


  

I Hate This City. A Love Story

I live in a strange place.This old city that has cemeteries, factories, beaches, and deer, right in the middle of urban neighborhoods. 

What other places call Downtown, we call Uptown. Because we do. And do not ever abbreviate the Saint. Do not ever EVER add an apostrophe and an s. That pisses us off. 

We adore stories, especially about Americans, who mix up Saint John and St. John's. Did you hear about the travel agent who sent a whole triple A hockey team to the wrong city? That was awesome.

We are a city like any other city I suppose. If all other cities are ass backwards and proud of it. I hate it so much sometimes. 

We have our local crazies that we support wholeheartedly in their right to wander their respective neighborhoods being crazy. Do NOT fuck with our crazy people. We know them by name. We know their stories. We love them. Leave them alone or face the indignant wrath of the community. We have no qualms about sicking a news chaser group on you.  

We swear each side of town breeds it's own type of person. We don't always trust snobs from the burbs. Looking at you Rothesay.

We know what is wrong with our town and we get defensive with outsiders. We seem unwelcoming yet totally welcoming. Here have an Alpine and shut up, you Upper Canadian bastard. 

We know that you are going to judge us and we are working on getting our shit together but it is slow going. We want to show you what we are good at, just, shhhhhhhh about the rest.  

We have an aging conservative population, loads of old money, even more poverty and a dismal job market. We have grass roots community groups that get mittens on little hands and lunches in bellies. In the summer even the poorest kids can get to a beach. Each side of town has well known spot to cool off and who knows how many "secret" ones. 

We have high rates of sexual assault, addiction, teen and single parents, domestic violence, and women seem to disappear or be murdered an awful lot. We do have a police force....

We can't even have food trucks :(

We have a problem with a bad attitude. We are negative nellies. We don't want outsider's opinions on our problems. We barely want our own actually. Oh glaring problems with obvious solutions? Please don't point those out. Lalalalala can't hear yoouuuuuuu.

We are too much like Springfield. Yes, as in the Simpsons. We even have a nuclear power plant outside of town and a Mr. Burns. Our mayors are generally Quimbyesque in effectiveness if not in gender or background. Moncton is our Shelbyville. 

We are envious of other cities and other provinces. l think social media is showing us what we are missing. I am glad so many of us went West and are posting pics. Thank you rest of Canada for rubbing the awesome things about modern times in our faces. Life is not all deep fried seafood and April Wine at the Three Mile.

We have good places for sushi. We have galleries showing of local artists. We are using our boardwalk for outdoor patios and events. Local bands are playing new and exciting music. We have festivals. We have yoga and belly dancing.  We have a place that sells fancy olive oil and we have veggie buying clubs for local produce at good prices. We have bike trails and walking trails and we have seals swimming in the harbour. Marsh creek freezes now. People want blue box recycling.

We have Zombie Walks and we have people fighting for the right access abortion and to sell food out of trucks. Saint John is not the town it used to be. Saint John doesn't seem as old but it seems more mature. Ready to do....something. Not sure what, but dammit we're ready.

I will never move from here, that I know. No place I have ever been has made my heart swell as when I see something uniquely, beautifully Saint John. Looking out over the South End from on top of the hill watching the sun rise over the roof tops. The storm swells at Bayshore or Saint's Rest over West. Seals in the harbour, bald eagles on the power lines. Rain on cobblestones. King Square lit up in the snow. Lobster boats loaded with traps at the wharf. The giant trees in the old neighborhoods. Crown molding and marble fireplaces in dive apartments.  

This is home. It needs work, but it is mine, and I love it.  

To Boldly Go.

Like many Trekkies out there, I could say, "Star Trek, Spock in particular, meant a lot to me." and it would be true. It would be an understatement, but definitely true. 

I am who I am because I had a figure, or rather figureS, I could identify with and who inspired me to think about more than my immediate surroundings. To seek out experiences, to not to wait for life to happen to me. To embrace the strange, to not be a passive observer of my own life. 

When I felt alien, I learned to embrace it. The aliens on Star Trek were cool. The cast and crew earned their positions because of their strangeness. If a green chick could land Kirk, I figured someone would have to like me, right? At a time when I was trying so hard to be unique yet fit in, the world of Star Fleet was a world of possibility.

The crew of the USS Starship Enterprise (NCC-1701) each represented a part of myself. Smart and beautiful Uhura. Cocky, passionate Kirk. Cautious protective Montgomery Scott. Innocent Chekov. Sarcastic, McCoy. Cool, logical, detached Spock. Analytical Sulu.

Each new world or alien race they encountered showed me another aspect of my self and helped me understand others. The aliens of Star Trek gave me more insight into the human condition than years of bumbling my way through awkward social interactions at school ever could.  

I learned that you could choose to stun instead of kill. I learned the value of the away mission. I learned the importance of the Prime Directive, to leave people to find their own course. When to say fuck it and intervene. I learned the trouble with Tribbles and I learned logic. I learned sometimes you have to abandon ship. I learned everyone faces a Kobyashi Maru. 

My beloved Instagram account is under Spocksmum. It has always been a silly source of pride that Spock had a human mother named Amanda. 

That beautiful starship is slowly emptying. Kirk, Sulu, Chekov and Uhura man the bridge. Engineering is strangely quiet. No one monitoring for signs of life over at the science station. There is not even a medic. I say goodbye to each of the wonderful people who provided so much fuel for my imagination and l see stations going dark. Lights going out, stars falling from the sky.

"Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before."

The siren song of the theramin. The call of the nerdy, the un cool, the outcasts, the weirdos and the aliens. I will be forever grateful I heeded the call. I learned not just to GO, to boldly go. I learned that to live long and prosper you need to wish others peace and long life. I learned to be confident in what I know, to use my sensors and to wear my weirdness like a uniform that I earned and to defend what that uniform stands for. 

So tonight, with gratitude and sadness, I shall raise a glass to Mr. Leonard Nimoy. A man so much more than that one character yet who embodied that character so perfectly.  May his soul continue to boldly go, and may he be in the company of his crew once more. If only I had a Vulcan Brandy.




   

Tiny Quiche for Jesus Anyone?

I knew a girl who was a virgin well into her 20s. She had reasons, and she stuck to them. I admired her a lot for this, but I used to get annoyed when she would tell everyone, every guy she crossed paths with. At the time, I assumed she was using this as leverage, stating her value as a female, compared to the rest of us sluts, and posting a challenge. 

I realize now how wrong I was. First of all, she never actually gave the impression she gave the tiniest shit what we had done with our hymens. Nor did she seem to be collecting suitors. I see what she was doing now. She was broadcasting that she was in fact, off limits. She had bigger things to concern herself with, your penis and her vagina, not being one of them. 

People kind of  mentally crossed her off a list in their heads. Not for Fucking. They still flirted. So did she. However by stating her position from the start, and her reasons, Jesus, marriage etc, people respectfully backed off. Her choice to not have sex became a non-issue.

So why then am I over here, having broadcast that I am Not for Fucking, feeling like Rodney Dangerfield, wondering why I don't get no respect. 

Is it because I did it before? Are orgasms linked to the power grid and all our mod cons are dependent on all adults to do their duty and put out until some sexual retirement age that I did not know about? Does masturbation produce a lower voltage? Is this like Monsters Inc. giggles vs. screams? 

All I did was say I don't feel like dating and don't miss sex. I just want to be left alone, I never asked to collect government benefits for abstaining. Settle down, I am not after your taxes. How would that even be calculated?

In this day and age, at my age, do I really have to invoke Jesus to make not wanting to screw around sound more legit? No deity of mine cares about when and if and how often I choose to "get to KNOW someone" in the biblical sense. As for your pervy God, give him some magazines, show him the Internet or better yet, keep him to yourself and out of my hoo ha.  

I should not have to explain myself. Especially beyond "I don't feel like it." 
                                    
People have become concerned about my mental and physical well being.

"Is it your hormones?"  Does it matter? What if it is my hormones changing and I don't care? Should I go on hormone therapy so that I want sex I don't want? I don't wanna.

"Is everything..OK...*whispers* down there?" In Hell? Why are you asking ME? Do have Satan's Minion written on me somewhere?
  
Or do you mean my lady bits? Have they been so ravaged by childbirth and time that they no longer function properly? Well, I suppose after almost 40 years and 2 kids, no, the old grey mare is probably not what she used to be. However medically speaking, she's A-1 thanks for asking. I may take her trekking the Andes sometime next year. 

"But you used to like it." I also used to like doing those shots of Amaretto that the bartender sinks in a pint of beer and you chug until the shot glass hits your face. I also might not say no to one of those in the future. What is your point? 

I never said I suddenly shut off all feeling and don't like sex anymore. I said I don't feel like doing it with another person, that it is not a need in my life and that I am not missing having a person to have sex with. Maybe if you listened better you would find someone to have sex with you.

"Get someone to watch the kids for the weekend." And? No really, I mean it, AND? What do think is the first thing I am going to do upon finding myself alone for a weekend? Let me give you a hint, NOT A FUCKING ORGY YOU FUCKING FUCK WAD. Not even a nooner.

Dude, to you it is coming over for a movie and some booty. You forget that you will want attention and food, that you will be here for hours. That I will have to be the one who feeds you and pays attention to you and attends to your needs and your happiness. When you leave I get to clean up the mess. Great so I trade my kids, who are now of an age that they know when to leave me to my solitude and feed and clean up after themselves, for a fully grown adult that chooses not to.

If my kids were gone for a whole weekend my time would be equally divided between bubble baths, drinking wine with and without my friends, Pinterest, wine, and fucking up the projects I found on Pinterest because, wine. Sorry/not sorry for the lack smooshing genitals. Hors d'oeuvre? There would be loads of hors d'oeuvres. 

From now on I shall decline offers to bump uglies with "I am sorry I can't. My vagina is in a sling for Jesus. But you can sign my cast and have a tiny quiche!" 

Post from the Snowpocalypse II

I am now certain I would prefer zombies. 

If a zombie said "Well I guess those global warming people feel pretty silly now!" I would not need to stifle my exasperation. I could axe it in the face.

"You wouldn't see me working for a company that makes employees go to work in a blurricane!" You know, what with all those other jobs with the good companies floating around... Machete to the frontal lobe.

"Is Tim Horton's open?" because although you won't work for a company that expects employees to risk life and limb of themselves and first responders, you fully expect other people too, because you want a cup of really shitty coffee. *wipes brain bits off face and takes swig from flask*

"But I HAD to go to ___ activity/event/place during an RCMP order to stay off the roads! Children would have been disappointed!"  Oh, COME ON!! 

Does the part of our brain that controls arseholey behaviour get snow blindness? More snow is coming later this week. Ugh. I thought I was sick of schlepping through it and trying to get around and do stuff. That is indeed a pain in the ass. I am really, really, sick of schlepping through people's awful attitudes. 

I get complaining about the weather. Fucking look at it. Complaining is all we have. 

Please stop being dicks about people either going to work and/or staying home. Choosing to stay open or to close is never an easy decision for employer or employee. Especially for small local businesses or franchises. Someone will always think that if they want something then it must be "essential".

Regardless of what you think you know about labour code, many employees don't have the choice to stay home without fear of penalty. Call centers are a nightmare about this. The decision to stay home, may not cost  your job but it could mean the difference between a Monday to Friday day shift and working 3:30pm to 11pm for three months, with Tuesday and Wednesday off.

Many employers that do allow their staff to stay home face backlash from pissed off customers. Don't be part of the reason why they have to go to work. You stay home. And while you are there, don't decide a snow day is a great day to call local businesses because you have time. Don't call for take-out.

We get the head's up on these storms a week ahead of time. Make at least a half assed attempt to have stuff you need on hand. "But my special snowflake wants McDonald's" is a stupid, stupid reason to go out and a selfish ridiculous reason to encourage employers to stay open during bad weather. 

Winter is HERE. Grab your #stormchips, gird your loins, and if you cannot do anything to make the snowpocalypse easier for the  people around you, don't go out of your way to make it harder. 

Broken Pieces, Shiny Crazy Diamonds

As with most people's singledom, it started with a break-up. Six months later I don't care if I ever date again. 

I don't know your life and I care little about how you get off and how you think I could help you out. I am not into sex right now. Not having to concern myself with another person's wants and needs frees up so much of my time and brain. I feel like the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz except I just got my new brain. Whiling away the hours conversin with the flowers and consulting with the rain. So far not once have my musings been interrupted with dick my face. It is wonderful. 

Some people think I am being coy. Like saying "I just don't wanna do it." is a tip I picked up from a Cosmo. Nope. Other people think they get it and are all like "You go girl, don't waste yourself on just any one, hold out for the one." Double nope. 

Still others think that I obviously have not found the guy with the right skills. They are fucking idiots. 

I am not some kind of born again virgin, trying to land a husband with my all brand new by way of lack of use vagina. I am a grown up woman, who has had lots of super fun sex, who now has books to read and friends to visit and kids to raise and interests to pursue who could not be bothered with your penis. I am too busy doing things that entertain me to worry about if I can get away with just doing hand stuff before I can go to sleep.

I am also not waiting for anything or anybody. Except maybe the guy who will go to the liquor store for you for six bucks. I am not holding out, saving myself or playing by the rules. I do not have a shopping list of qualities that I tick off every time I meet a new guy. There are no goals to this, I am not celibate pending a tall, articulate DC comics artist who is pro choice and likes to ski. I am just enjoying having older kids and some free time. ALL the free time. No time limits, no ticking clock counting down to my sell-by date. I don't feel pressure to pair off. Yet people seem to feel it on my behalf.  

I like my time being entirely my own. I like that if I don't feel like doing anything after work, no one is going to act all butthurt. I love being able to avoid having to explain myself. Especially when there is no explanation other than "I don't want to. I would rather be _____." and where blank is something so mundane as to cause an argument. It is so confusing for people. How could I possibly prefer reading a book alone to having some guy walking in and out asking questions, commenting or copping a feel? There must be something wrong. Have I been to the doctor? Clearly I must be broken. 

Look, my singleness is neither a malady nor a challenge. As awesome as you are, you will not change that. I don't consider my broken pieces to be damage. I don't want to be a smooth mirror. My broken pieces shine like diamonds, they glitter like a disco ball. Don't you dare try and put them back together.