Some WARMTH, PLEASE? Fuck!

Oh, my fucking god. If Mother Nature were to stand before me today, I'd slap her. Yeah, I'd haul off and belt 'er one.

This spring? What a fucking joke. Lousiest goddamned weather I've ever seen in Vancouver for a spring. Just dreary and, even when it is nice, it's 5 degrees too cold, at a minimum. I still have to close my windows at night! This is just wrong.

Tomorrow, though, reprieve. A heat wave begins. Four days. And I have five days off. My fucking third eye's working just fine, baby. Booked the right two days off at the right time, and shazam. I get me a heat wave. Brilliant, ain't I?

But Mother Nature still deserves a slap. Today, anyhow. Ask me again tomorrow and I'll want to shower her with kisses, I imagine.

I tell ya, though, if anyone deserves five days off with a heat wave, you are lookin' at her, baby.

I have been holding on to what little motivation I've had with a fucking death grip. I've been hoping, praying, wishing that I can just motivate myself three or four times a week, that's all, so I can stay on this path to a thinner, healthier Steff.... and it has been a HARD struggle when the weather's so fucking not cooperating!

Sunny and 20? I'd feel too guilty to not cycle! I've pretty much warned all my friends that, right now, fitness comes first, so if I, on a whim, choose to cycle or something, I may well cancel or postpone plans as a result.

Right now I have to work harder, longer, and more often, because I'm losing weight. 31 pounds. That's right, baby. A few months from now I'll move from the losing to the maintaining stage, and life will simplify a bit. Right now my priorities are where I feel they really need to be.

But it's just fucking HARD and DEPRESSING when the weather never inspires me. All I want is a little cooperation, you know? And not just for the next four days.

See, another 4-6 weeks and my work will be busy as hell again, and I won't have as much time on my hands. Right now, I'm READY and WILLING to push it for all it's worth. And where's Mother Nature been?

But you know what? I still done good. I've been getting it done for the last while even though I've felt like sobbing some days when I'm trying to fucking motivate myself. So, there's that. I'm very proud and content with what I've gotten done of late. I'm just done with trying to dial things up from the inside.

So, the heat wave, really, it's coming at the perfect time. I'm just about at the end of my rope. I'm angry and pissed. I've lost 31 pounds but I want, no, NEED a little help now. I want to enjoy myself and soak up the sun and be warm and happy.

Tomorrow, I'm hitting up the stairs in the morning, 'cos they'll get too hot in the heatwave, and then I'll do a cycling trip in the evening, but nothing major, maybe 15km. Total, about 2 hours of decent activity. I have two 30-km trips planned on the weekend, and might get out a bit on Friday too. Tonight'll mean some dancing with the Kills' gig I'm attending, but it'll be a bitch on my calves and achilles. Ooh.

I did the stairs yesterday and it really kicked my ass! I'm sore today. All over. I think I didn't realize how much more gruelling it is, hiking up 25 or so floors with all this weight, versus cycling, so now I'm keen to have a plan that includes them both. Also, the stairs perked me up a bit yesterday as I realized I'll have that to get me through the shitty winter next year, so when I can't cycle, climbing 45 floors (which is my goal by September, to be able to do 45 floors... I started at 10, have managed 27, and tomorrow will try 30!) will certainly work in its place.

Plus, I've now lost enough weight that I can feel the bones in my bum. Ha! Trust me, it's been heavily padded for 20 years. This is new.

Sigh. I just find this whole weight loss journey to be really emotionally hard some days. Yesterday and today are sort of me reaching my breaking point in finding the will to power from within. The weather's the main problem right now. I've never been able to be this motivated in weather like we've been having. That I've managed as much as I have will probably wind up really impressing me down the line, but I'm too tired to care right now. Too fed up and frustrated.

Feed me, Mr. Sun. Feed me. Sigh. 24 more hours and that's exactly what will happen. I'm looking forward more to a hot day than I am this concert tonight I've been wanting to see for a good long time. That's just weird.

Anyhow, time to jam for the jobbie. Wound up staying downtown an hour extra last night to sell a ticket to someone, so I get to start at noon today. Sweet! More time to piss and moan before the job. Snicker. Ah, got it out of my system, so now I can go be bubbly at work.

Ooh! Catfight!

Robert Downey Jr. on Jimmy Kimmel

Robert Downey Jr. on Jimmy Kimmel. They're going on and on about the newfangled video games and how tough they are.

Kimmel: "...but you gotta watch out, because instead of you controlling it, it controls you, and you don't want that--"

Downey: "Hey, been there."

Kimmel: "...It's bad."

I love how Downey, in three words, sums up his entire addiction, but they're talking about video games. Downey, totally deadpan, "hey, been there" and shrugs all nonchalant, and the audience fucking cracks up. Because Downey's always been god. I've loved him for as long as I've also been a Depp fan, what, 15-20 years now? Brilliant actor but he just crackles with life onscreen. Love that. Depp can be bleak and dark and it can falter, but Downey's almost always watchable.

I totally want to see Iron Man again. Sorry, left my thinking cap home on that one and you're not getting a smart-Steff review. Great fuckin' flick. Period. Had fun. Must do it again.

Sunday Morning Ramblings

So, I cycled 40km Friday. Ouch. But I was fine this weekend. Stiff, sure, but that's it. Good stuff. Heckuva workout, for sure.

Today's Mother's day. Hmm. I'm all right with it. I've had moments of late, in the last few months, where I've had very bad "I miss my Mommy" days, where I'd have given anything for a mom-daughter chat, but they were situational. Meaning, things happened that caused that response. I'll have those things happen the rest of my life, it is what it is.

But today I'm cool. I'm not even leaving my apartment this weekend. It's awesome. I'm about to watch a couple depressing drug movies while I clean house intermittently. The Midnight Express is first on tap. I've only seen it once and it's been years and years, but I'd like to see it again, though I know it'll depress the hell out of me, but something in me needs to see it.

I don't remember much of it, but I like the idea of watching something today in which someone's wrenched from their comfortable life and needs to fight and persevere to overcome the most horrible of odds. Something about that story works for me today. I'm not sure why. But there you have it. Sometimes these strange compellings lead to good writing sessions, so we'll see what happens later.

Yesterday, as a surprise in the midst of all the morons on the web dating site I check periodically, there's a smart, successful guy who totally fits the mold of the kind of guys I typically like... but, successful. :P

Which is good, because I'm getting pretty sick of the guys who are trying to convince themselves they're happy with their lives because it's easier than trying to get something they've actually always wanted. I'm sick of the fear of trying in my own life, and know the last thing I want is to be around that again in a relationship.

I took a kick at the "Is there a career out there for me?" can and quit my job and tried a few things out, and I hated it all, am glad to be back in my old status quo, and am instead trying to make myself happy in every other area of my life. And it's working. Work is working for me. Do I want it for the rest of my life? No, I want to be a writer. Will other jobs accommodate my writing? No, not like this one. Therefore, I'll stay here as long as I'm able, while I'm trying to make my writing work for me. Doing what I need to be doing, is the nutshell.

So I've no fucking patience for anyone who's going to bitch at me about his job. Not in a relationship. I can handle friends being unhappy at theirs, especially the married ones. They get to bitch about work. But single guys with nothing to lose, no. Not anymore. I don't really respect it.

I don't know if this email will lead to anything. "Great" is my answer either way. Leads to nothing? Perfect. My life's going in a good direction right now, and I suspect staying single's not going to last forever. Not if I keep cycling 40 clicks and achieving things I've always been nervous about. I like this woman I'm becoming, and it's something I can focus on and be happy about for a while. When I'm happier, it'll be infectious, and I won't stay single. It works like that.

But if it leads to a relationship, that'd be pretty great, too. Just so long as no one gets in my way. Those are relationships I can do without. I'm going to be pretty fucking fiercely protective of my priorities for a while. Fitness & writing/blog are at the top of my list, everyone and everything else is a distant second & thereafter.

Still, I'm really digging who I'm becoming. I'm dealing with more and more of my past and my insecurities with every passing week, and it's hard, and I'm often grumpy and tired, but I'm so pleased with what I'm getting done. This is my first 100km cycling week, for instance, in a really long time, and I think I've only ever had one 100-km cycling week, but it was a cycling holiday. This is 100km + work, so it's a great start. I'm aiming for another 100km week this week too, but towards the back end of the week 'cos tues & weds are concert nights, and monday's my gym night with my new buddy. Expensive week at a bad time, which fucking sucks. But I'll have fun doing it.

Well, time to get some coffee on the go and the Midnight Express.

Evil Generous People Fired: Tim Horton's Strikes Back!

A woman at a Tim Horton's in Toronto was fired for giving a kid a free Timbit (worth an astounding 16 cents), but when bigwigs at the corporation, I guess, heard a stink had been raised, they began claiming it was an overzealous manager and the backpedaling began.

I SAY BULLSHIT. (Don't just take my word for it; the story is here.)

See, the woman was caught on the camera, which poor unsuspecting employees believe are there to catch armed robbers in the act, but the truth is, it's to bust the employees, too.

My brother was fired back in the late '80s from, yes, a Tim Horton's, when he too was caught on camera doing the despicable act of... wait for it... wait for it... giving a homeless guy a FREE REFILL of (gasp!) old coffee that was about to be dumped. Yes, costing the company a whopping 35 cents in a generous act of good will using soon-to-be-discarded product was enough to get your ass fired then, and is likely still quite liable to get your ass fired now.

Unless, of course, you go running to the media and the fucking bastards get exposed for the cheap-ass swine they are.

Politics, How Do I Love Thee?

Got into a political chat with a new friend of mine. That was interesting. Love talking politics. It's just so, you know, verboten and all.

She's pro-Hillary, I'm pro-Obama, but neither of us cold-cocked the other, so this is good. We both surmised that, while we'd prefer a Dem clinch it, even John McCain would be a positive force on Pennsylvania Avenue, so, you know, much lower stress, this election year.

But then she played the "Hillary has all that experience" card, and I trumped it with "Kennedy was a junior senator, too."

And I guess that's the thing we both agreed on, with Obama's relative lack of experience, he's also had less time to get ingrained in the wicked web that is Washington. This is a good thing, no matter how you slice it.

I like what McGovern's thrown into the mix today with his decision to switch allegiances to the Obama camp, and how he's calling up the recollection of the evil, bad Democratic conventions of '68 and '72 when all hell broke out to crush the hopes of Humphrey and McGovern in those respective years.

Sigh. I like having a campaign of hope and change happening at the same time I'm trying to have hope and effect change within my own life. Granted, I'm pissy and tired a lot lately and rather lacking of joy in general, it's mostly 'cos I'm so fucking tired of the work-work-work thing, but I tell you, I'm pretty pleased with what I've accomplished so far this year. If it keeps me bitchy for a while, so be it. I apologize, friends and family.

Yet, still, I wanted change, I'm making it happen. It's been a positive, life-altering year so far, on more levels than I could possibly know at this point. If I follow through in all these areas, it's going to be an incredible experience.

Through it all, I'll enjoy watching this presidential race transpire. The campaign of a lifetime, no doubt about it. Political watchers wait their whole lives for such a perfect political storm and just the right cast of characters to weather it. Like, oh my god. This is so the perfect political storm.

Nutshell? Vying for top seat in the land, we have a war hero who endured years of torture as a prisoner of war, a woman who's a political institution in her own right, who's seen the inside of the White House for eight long years, and an African-American being touted internationally as potentially the next JFK but black, not Catholic, and with the middle name of Hussein, for god's sake, all whilst the nation wages a wrongful war not yet lost but sure as fuck not won, while the economy is crashing not just at home but around the world, with a food crisis, and god knows what the fuck else is going to come pounding on the door.

It's not that anyone's enjoying the political climate, but to have THAT political climate, a true need for people in office who are capable of facing those challenges, and to have these three as the candidates of choice? And let's not forget Nader, the man keeping the art of argument alive. And a constant rallying cry of change and now and Yes We Can as a backdrop to serious discussion on serious issues? Well! Sounds like politics worth watching.

This is an absolutely incredible, beautiful, inconceivable, once-in-a-lifetime election for those of us with liberal points of view. What great openminded individuals to be able to choose amongst. Wow. It boggles the mind.

It's so hard to believe after all these years of the backward Bush administration and the horrific crap they've shovelled atop their citizens.

I never thought I'd see an election like this. I'm so surprised at how emotionally involved I am in this. I want to believe in the change that's gonna come. I wanna be just like Sam Cooke and believe. But it's been so, so long that our hope was justified. When Bush won in 2004, I was depressed for weeks, then months, then years. I'm certain there's been a degree that his presidency and the morass that North America has become under his watch has had something to do with my penchant for depression the last eight years. Fuck, he won 3 months after my mother died. THAT HELPED, YEAH, THANKS.

Fuck, man. Sometimes you just wanna throw yer hands up and go, "A little fuckin' help, big guy? Like, this too? Really? COME THE FUCK ON, man!"

Yeah, the dead mom, you know, I'll deal with it, right, but this fucking bozo the clown as president? And born-again Christian, TOO? Gotta be kidding me! Just leave me the fuck alone with my grief, and give me a leader of the free world who can at least lead, all right?

Bush... What the hell were people thinking? My god. Oh, wow. I've needed political therapy so long, man. I'm one of those people that, if I had the money, I'd be in the therapist's office twice a week for an hour, so I could spend 90 minutes bitching about society without pissing off friends and family, and about 30 minutes talking about myself. Of the 90 minutes on society, 60%, easy, on politics.

Yeah. You gotta wonder about me sometimes, eh? I was that kid in grade one who could answer a) who the Prime Minister was [Trudeau] and b) what his job was. "He's 'sposed to do what the people want him to do, fix problems with Canada and stuff." Pretty astute for 6.

All right. I gotta find a Scrabble word I can play on Facebook. Foiled with 2 Y's, an X, a J, an I, a D, and something. Hmm.

More Primary Babble

Ah! Wednesday! Almost past the half-way point of my week. The gym is tonight, which'll be a little less hard than the 13-km route I've been taking to and from work the last couple days. So, 1 hour 40 minutes of cycling each of the last two days. Tonight I'm more concerned with weight training than cardio, for somewhat obvious reasons. Glad I'm not biking, it's windier today, and colder!

Yay, Obama! Glad to see he took a victory and significantly closed the gap on Clinton in Indiana. Take that, blondie.

Total kudos to Obama for believing the average voter is sophisticated enough to understand that a "Gas Tax Holiday" is just voter pandering and a Band-aid over a vast issue. Silly Hillary. Yeah, saving a whopping 4.5% off a tank of gas-- which is what 18 cents on $4 gallons works out to-- is really going to make a difference in your life... when it starts cutting services the government can offer. Come on, get real. A tax rebate or income tax shift is a much more beneficial way to relieve burdens, and this way it continues pushing people towards finding alternatives to always driving.

Stupid ideas like "gas tax holidays" aside, Hillary should finally get the fuck out of the way, not only because the math says so, but because her conscience should be saying, "Look, the country needs a Democrat to win, and a united party, and this is just dividing, and not to conquer. It's just not working."

When she does finally step aside, Obama will, I am quite certain, take the gloves off and be the contender I think he can be. I think he'll throw more punches, rally more support, and heal the fissures created by Clinton's divisive approach of late. He appeals to Republicans more than she does, the moderate ones, depending on your sources, and can bridge the divide in the party when she's gone. Plus, he's the one inspiring new votes to come out in record numbers.

It's unfortunate she's used so many questionable tactics of late. Politics gets dirty, yes, but I can't stand the McCarthyist "but he knows a terrorist" (correction: former terrorist your husband pardoned, woman) methodology she'd been using. I still respect her for a lot of reasons, but I really dislike who she's become. She'll have a lot of days to reexamine her behaviour and motives of late when this is all said and done.

Yeah, Obama's done some manipulating of his own, but it's been in a way that carries more integrity, I think. He's certainly no choirboy, though.

And we'll see more of that when he's up against McCain, who he's been pretty delicate with of late.

I'm just getting really fucking tired of the limbo we're in with Clinton spouting the same shit, saying she's on the victory road to the White House, when the numbers still don't back it. And in the face of Obama getting mud slung at him from every which way, with a fucking nutbag minister trying to steal the show for an entire week, and she STILL can't close the deal? What's she fucking need, a gift all tied up in bows? C'mon!

Sorry, honey, but the Teflon candidate's the guy who should be running for the office. It's time to heed your curtain and take stage left. Please? Pretty please with sugar on top?

Babbling about this week's weight struggle

It's supposed to be sunny and 16, which would really help motivate me to ride my bike today, but it's blah and grey, a little like me.

That's okay. I'll ride my bike anyhow. Gonna get ready in half an hour or so. I really don't fucking want to.

Did I mention I laid out my area rugs the other night? My place feels so much more homey. I'm really looking forward to holing up and healing on the weekend after what I predict to be a very hardcore week for me.

I'm really tired and don't know if I'll manage the active week I'm hoping to have, meaning 90 minutes plus of working out each day I'm working... but I'm going to try.

Why? I want to know if I can, I guess. Never have been able to, but I've never really tried. I've never wanted to try. Never thought I could, I guess, so why try? Now I know I can, but I'm not sure I'll be able to yet. Definitely in the coming weeks. But hopefully this week, if weather cooperates, etc. Blah.

I've set 6 hours as the weekly goal for working out, though. If I make that but fail on five-consecutive-days, well, I'll live. :)

But eating, that's goal number two this week. Trying to have a week of eating very, very healthy, balanced, fat-controlled meals, coupled with heavy activity, so I have an idea what I can accomplish when I'm on page in all areas-- especially since next week's a very, very heavy social week with two concerts, two birthdays, and lots of eating out. Ugh. I smell death. It's gonna kill me.

I have five days off next week, too, though, and plan to push it real good for my off-time, too.

You know, all this bullshit about, "Yeah, you'll feel great all the time!" when you're losing weight and busting your ass for fitness. IT'S A FUCKING LIE, PEOPLE!

I feel like crap! I'm tired, I'm sore, I don't want to hang out with people. I mean, GEEZ. My place is a mess 'cos I'm working out too often and don't feel like cleaning up, and did I mention I'm sore and tired? Right. Don't forget, I'm hauling, like, 230 fucking pounds around with me. You think yer fuckin' groceries are weighing you down on stairs? Christ. You don't know nothin'.

HOWEVER.

I feel pretty good about what I've been accomplishing fit-wise. Every time I make it up another hill, I'm happy with myself. For a split second. When, like yesterday, I'm huffing and puffing my fat-fat-fat ass up a big hill and people are smiling at me and pumping the air to encourage me to keep going, I feel pretty fucking great. That did happen yesterday, too. Just big hills I've seen skinnier people walking up, and while I'm looking pretty ugly as I'm doing it, I'm still getting it done, however ingloriously. They were cheering me, and earnest about it, and it felt really, really nice. It really made my whole ride worth it, honestly, especially when I kind of feel that way for just getting up those fucking hills some days.

So, when I'm sitting on my ass all tired and dead later, I know I've earned the sloth. Which is quite different from sitting on one's ass and feeling like an ass for failing to move said ass, of course.

Well, I've got to go grab my laundry, put it all away, then cycle to work. Bah! I'll cycle. I just don't plan to be happy about it for a bit. Mmf. :P

SOME 20 or 30 MINUTES LATER: I've grabbed a pair of cut-offs, and I had a moment of brain-hit happen, you know, where some thought just slaps you awake and you go "Wha?" But, if memory serves, these cut-offs are the ones I bought in England in '91... Like, a long time ago. They've never really fit me but for a bright sunshiny month before I had my first of two accidents, in '03. But they've never been loose enough to cycle in, except maybe now. But it startles me to think I've been more or less around this size since '91, but usually a bit bigger. That's kinda freaky. I think the only reason I kept 'em around is because they were one of three things I had from my vacation with my mom and brother to England, the only such trip we ever took, the three of us. Sentimental. Nice to have them fitting now.

Well, I'm off to cycle my sore ass 13km to work. I've lengthened my route by 2km each way. Dumb, but true. Whatever. I figure I need a little extra kick in the ass, so we'll see how it helps. Enjoyed it yesterday... a nicer route, more people peopling the path, more camaraderie and community feel. It feels better than the wealthier, more upscale routes I've been trying of late, so it's worth the added distance, plus, there's now some waterfront in my ride. Slick route retooling! :)

A bedtime story

Between the 80 stomach crunches and the now-lengthened cycling-to-work return trip, our heroine really fucking hurt. All over.

"Come thither," she whispered to the painkillers.

So they did.

And they lived happily ever after. The end.

Manufacturing Dissent, or Just Rehashing Rhetoric?

I'm watching a bit of Manufacturing Dissent before work today, a Canadian documentary exposing Michael Moore as... wait for it... a spin-thrift manipulator with a political agenda and a tendency to selectively inform in a way that pads his argument.

Oooh, big expose, this. Woo, woo.

I was just curious what the doc had to say. I like Michael Moore's work, but I'm under few illusions of how well he stacks the deck when making an argument. Sure, his work is mainly true, but it's seldom accurate or even fair. Take his depictions of Canada when he's trying to wax romantic about the utopian world we have up here.

So not true. Sicko glosses over our medical system, for instance. I love our free medical, don't want to see it any other way, but it needs work. The system needs revamping for a new age. We need more of Britain's wait-free system and preventative care focus. We need more access. We need fewer wait times. (Granted, Britain has a fucking island to put roads on, and Canada this monstrous nation and half the population of Britain, so how can we pave all these roads yet still have the UK's incredible, envious system? Our nation's disposable income is nothing like the UK's.)

Yes, we get surgeries when they're urgent/emergency surgeries, but when it's deemed as less than life-or-death, the waits can get long and unpleasant. But I do pay for my medical separate. I get a bill monthly. It's different from province to province, so let's get real here. ($36 a month, but still.)

But that doesn't bolster Moore's claims, so why point out that, while most of us wouldn't want to be without our system, most of us do believe improvements can (and should) be made? It just doesn't help his case.

Is Moore a bad guy for making a one-sided argument with sexy legs? No, but it goes back to caveat emptor for his viewers. Just 'cause you see it don't make it true. You gotta see through the spin, whether the spin favours your POV or not. You have to find your own answers, too. You need to accept all arguments with a grain of salt, then look into unbiased, objective sources.

This film was probably the low-point of Moore's life, though. 2004-2005. His films were doing incredibly, but he managed to make himself a liability to the Democrats' campaign for control of Pennsylvania Ave. I honestly believe that, had Michael Moore just released Fahrenheit 9/11 and said, "This movie speaks for me" and walked away after three weeks of release-date press, Americans would have voted against the war.

Instead, he stuck around so long that the movie stopped being about an unjust war, and the press became about an argumentative lefty calling Republicans every name in the book. He lost his equilibrium and he lost his control of the spin. He sounded petty and venomous. Instead of tempering his argument, he amped it up.

And the Democrats lost the election. And the Americans stuck it out in Iraq.

There comes a time when some people need to shut up and take a back seat. When your voice drowns out all others and you instead become a beacon of discontent, a target for your opposition, then maybe it's time to sit down and shut up.

But Moore never understood that, maybe he never will. I worry that, now that he's come out on the record for Obama, that he may ingratiate himself into this campaign as well, which I feel might be disastrous, even if Sicko's brought him more non-partisan support than he has enjoyed in the past.

God knows Obama's taken a whuppin' of late, too, so having Moore rallying behind him might be just the last "fanatic" he needs throwing weight behind him. Farrakhan, Wright, now Moore? Good god. The guy doesn't need a new stump speech, he needs a fucking paddle and a lifejacket, 'cos he's drowning in shit!

The reports on Moore being an unrelenting employer, well, those hardly surprise me. As a guy who wears his passions on his sleeve, it wouldn't be a stretch to think he'd be one of those guys who thinks everyone's passion should similarly sustain them through difficult work and such. Insecure, controlling, liable to feel victimized? Moore? Geez, you don't say.

I worked for someone like that last year for six months. The kind who thinks you should feel privileged to have that job, that working beyond closing hours is for the good of the cause, who needs overtime? Who needs raises? Pfft! The world spins on good intentions, doesn't it?

The fucking nobility of the cause. Well, I couldn't deposit nobility for my rent payments, and I didn't like overtime being a way of life, so I fucking walked. I can't stand the person any more, even though they were always pretty honest about who they were, you know? And I feel BAD that I feel that way, 'cos they were always, always honest about who they were. I just wanted to believe something else, is all.

I get the same sense from Michael Moore. I'd like him for a week or two, but I'd probably lose my taste for him pretty quickly. Sanctimony only works on me for a short while, but then the light of day shines and I avert my eyes.

Still, he contributes important arguments. I think he's an important watchdog of politics. He just needs to watch that people don't get too wise to him, or he might fall further out of favour, and I suspect he'd hit the ground pretty hard after toppling from such a height, or maybe he'll just play his "poor me" victim card for good measure.

And, then there's the legacy of Moore, the next generation, the generation that understands the value of his work, but also understands the way the media must be played in a post-digital society, and the unending ability for the average person to now fact-check on their own. A generation being headed mostly by Morgan Spurlock, who has yet to fill me with the ambivalence I feel towards Moore post-2004 Kerry/Bush.

Ahh... documentary film-makers. God bless 'em.

Steff's Take on the Middle Eastern White Bean Salad

I'm about to bake some honey-cilantro-crusted salmon, and I'll letcha know how that works out.

1 can butter beans, if you can find 'em, or navy beans, etc.
1/2 an English cucumber, diced small
4 roma/plum tomatoes, chopped
6 green onions sliced thin
1 green, yellow, and red pepper, seeded & chopped small
1/2 cup chopped flat-leaf/italian parsley

Combine all these ingredients in a bowl (don't worry about mixing it yet, and be careful of the tomatoes when you do).

Dressing:
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
1 teaspoon honey
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
salt
pepper
3 crushed, minced cloves of garlic
black pepper
3 tablespoons olive oil

Combine dressing ingredients and mix well. Drizzle over salad, mix well, serve. Will keep for several days.

This is an awesome all-purpose salad I'm officially going to make more often. It's for dinner with my salad and my asparagus. Very healthy, no? Hopefully I'll be doing this more often.

**

In other news, I've hung some art, laid out rugs, put a few cluttery things away. It's still a messy pad, but the things I've been getting done are ones I've been ignoring for a while.

GayBoy and I both encountered the same post-painting "fuck that" attitude towards the finishing of the job.

So, slowly but surely. I have a five-day holiday weekend two weeks from now, and know I'll polish off the rest of my stuff in between fun things. Yay. Oh, to finally be done.

Not really possessing of endless "yeah, clean up!" energy right now, what with the exercising and all. But hey. Soon. :)

The salmon is summoning me. Back to cooking, then.

15 Minutes of Craftiness Becomes an Afternoon of Smug!

Martha Stewart called. She wants her neuroses back.

I reupholstered my AbSwing.

It comes from the factory in this stupid red vinyl with "AbSwing" written on it, because that's exactly what I want to have on my gym equipment that sits in my living room next to all my fancy antiques.

So, I used the same cream/off-white vinyl that my dining room chairs all have on 'em. It's not so "$79.95 at Zellers!" now. Now no one will know it's an AbSwing. Now I'll have to say "Oh, it's an AbSwing".

I did 65 stomach crunches Friday night. If you use this thing right, man, it will HURT the next day. I still hurt, two days later. Laughing and coughing, ooh, it hurts.

But now it's shiny and white! Marth would be proud. I'll go now and do 70 aesthetically pleasing stomach crunches. Delightful. (Puke.)

MREOW! The Cat Logo!

Lone Dog saved me and found me a copy of the cat restricted logo I was seeking! I did a whole bunch of "cat" searches -- lioness, tiger, leopard... and I knew I was forgetting something, but hey. It's a cougar. And it's a born-in-BC regional symbol. Apparently it's quite popular in the adult entertainment industry.

Whatever! I got it now. Putting it up on the other blog, keep the youngins out. Here's how the end product looks. Originally I just wanted it black and white but then I tweaked one or two other things. Totally bad of me, but it rocks, so there ya have it.

A Coffee Break (Hi!)

I've been searching off and on since last night for one of those old black-cat "restricted" logos for movies that I used to see in my childhood. I tell you, there are few web searches I've failed at, but that's one. What the hell? Bah. I'll keep looking. If any of you can share, though, feel free!

Well, I hit bed around 2am last night. Guess I'm becoming more and more of a night owl. I got a comment on some posting last night off Smut, really enthusiastic, so I reread the posting, was pleasantly surprised that it read better than it felt to write it, and thought "Hmm, wonder if that's been the case more than I think of late..." So I started reading other stuff.

You know, it was a really pleasant experience. I liked most of it. Even found one good quote.

See, the last time I'd really read anything was, what, a month ago? Or so. I'd gone through some of my archives (about 6 months of work), and then I stopped when it began getting depressing last year. Just had nothing to say, and when I did have something to say, I said it poorly.

But reading decent writing from the recent past is really empowering. That my traffic's picking up is just icing on the cake. I'm getting it all done, though. I've added more advertising options to my blog, fun quotes reflecting various writing modes and sentiments of mine. I've tweaked the layout in bits.

The project for the next few days is to learn about adding DIGG and other webtools to Smut.

The traffic here... snicker. I probably get 3-4 dozen hits a day. Know what? I'm good with that. Mostly people I know personally, stuff like that. I don't care, I'm not writing for anyone here. I'm writing for myself, just journaling for the hell of it. Keeps my head straight. And I'm not sure I want this blog popular, anyhow. I like its lowkey status. Keeps it a simple hobby for me, like mental enemas or something. Get it out, get on with things.

But I have big goals for the other blog. To be finally getting it all together after two years of neglect is very, very uplifting. Maybe I can be more than just a legend in my own mind.

Ah, well. I'm getting somewhere with it. This is good. I've probably spent 10 hours doing blog stuff (not writing) this week, and it really does show. It's proving to me that if I take a little more time to apply myself to it, that's all that's required. It's really being a second job for me right now.

My home, however, looks like shit because I've been ignoring everything outside of the blog and working out. I'm accepting that these might be the prices I pay, and I need to decide what's more important right now to my sense of self-worth. Exercising and blog, yeah, they're top of the list right now.

Too bad choices need to be made, but it is what it is. At least progress is being made on all fronts now.

Work's quiet and I'm being allowed to go slow and neurotically on the digital stuff I'm learning, which is wicked cool. I don't want to hand in sub-standard work and use the excuse that I'm learning; I'm learning new methods, but the grammatical basics and fundamentals of captioning still apply, and I'm well-versed in both of those, so why take the easy way out on new work, right? Right.

But it's hilarious, the bosses are so, you know, "Oh, do what you can, you'll pick it up sooner or later" and mellow about it, no pressure. I think they must feel like maybe they're putting the pressure on me or something, but, no, I'm just built by Neuroses, and Ford tough. It's how we roll. I know what I can deliver, and it pisses me off to deliver anything less. I get angry when I'm not allowed or able to work to my standards, whether it's because a client doesn't follow specs or because I'm foiled by new media, it really doesn't matter. I'm neurotic. I wear it well. See?

Ha. Yeah, well, whatever, I'm not thrilled to work today but that's 'cos I'm too motivated to get other things done, and work's kind of that thing standing between me and VICTORY right now. There, I'm over it. Off I go.

HOLY EYE-OPENING MIND-FUCK, BATMAN!

FIVE SACRED MINUTES to spend with my couch before I rush off to play soccer for the first time in years!

I whipped by GayBoy's Starbucks and he shared the "nutritional analysis" of all their food with me, and I'm HORRIFIED. It just shows me how ignorant I've been all my life.

The coffee cake I once loved and ate 2-5 times a week? 900 calories! And has been discontinued, thank god.

The banana loaf I thought was a "restrained" choice and a reasonably healthy selection? FUCKING 400 calories! Just 80 shy of their delicious and honestly evil donuts.

No fucking wonder I was so goddamned fat. Duped by all these evil purveyors of fat, fat, with a side of fat. My GOD. Ignorance may be bliss, sure, but it also adds about 20 pounds a year. Holy crap!

Wow. I knew I was ignorant, but my god. I used to think a slice of banana loaf was better for me than a bag of chips, but it turns out it's exactly the same, if not a little worse.

Good! I'm thrilled I know! Weight loss isn't about willpower. Rely on willpower and your ass'll be kicked six ways to Sunday. It's about reprogramming and knowledge. That's what's working for me. (28 pounds lost now.)

Speaking of losing, I think I have a game of soccer to play. Gotta jet (and then suck). Thank god it's the energy I burn tonight that matters and not the score!

Writing: I Don't Need a New Drug

I'm obsessing about the blog again. I can't help but to feel I ripped myself off by pulling back the reins there in '06. But I did what I needed to. I imagine I would do it again if given the same life situation and same life challenges.

But I did what I needed to. I'm starting to get on track here. The writing's coming back to me. I'm feeling more plugged into the world at large than I have in a very, very long time.

Any writer needs to be plugged in. We're seismographs for the human collective, aren't we? Life shakes, we record it in our skew? Fucking beautiful thing, that.

Some days. I mean, fuck, writing's a shitty life most of the time. Constantly trying to ride a literary wave where you're seeking something new, something true that's worth saying, and trying forever to carve out exactly how it should be said.

Something worth saying's the challenging part. I think it was Robertson Davies who once said one ought not write until the thought of not writing becomes unbearable. In a way, I feel that's true. It's elitist, idealist, but sometimes true. It's just not at all pragmatic, because writing needs to be a job if one's to succeed in it. I still haven't the job part nailed down; I prefer the act of writing to the act of marketing, but I must get the 70-30 ratio of writing/marketing into play or I'll always just be the girl who writes for kicks, but writes really well.

The best writing I do is typically that which I was strongly compelled to do, just couldn't resist. But, then, the most surprising writing I do is when I sit down and start off with "Sadly my scrambled eggs were overcooked, but..." and five minutes later have tapped into something I had no idea was looking for an out. So, I try to write daily, but when I start to WANT it, that's when things start feeling fantastic. Most of the time, it's just sludge-like, like exercise. Might not wanna do it, but it's gotta get done.

Writing's an unpredictable mistress, more mad than she is sensible, but when she's in her right head and you're in yours, it's an incredible union that just doesn't fucking get any better. Writing's the original passion, the original drug. Writing's the thing that will always, always get me off in life. No person, no thing, no place, no time, nothing will ever be for me what writing is.

Which is to say I'll spend about 96% of my life unhappy about it, but that four percent will make it all worthwhile, man.

This is not, however, any sort of inference that my writing right now happens to be the bomb. It's so not. But I'm loving the chase, man. Just loving the chase. I don't care if it's not fully on the money, I don't care that I find errors every time I reread anything these days. I just don't care, because I'm loving the chase.

Writing is a drug I'll mainline till the day I die, 'cos it's the old Mark Twain adage of the destination being irrelevant, it's all about the journey. I don't care if I don't get paid or famous or known. Just doing it is enough. I'd like to get paid, famous, and known, and I want to do it my way. I'm not even 35 yet for a few more months, there's still time to do it my way without selling the fuck out.

(We'll see. I'm prepared to sell out if I need to one day. Ha-ha! Not till I'm older and more jaded, man, and not until I start listening to my music quieter, either.)

Okay, let's see if I can put this into words without sounding a right cunt. Hmm.

Two years ago right now, I was writing better than I ever have. It actually started in February and continued until about May. I wrote so many things I'm proud of, that had my twist of angst-meets-humour-meets-philosophy, and in such rapid succession, that I began to think I'd never have a golden, varied period like that again. That mindset's rapidly changing and I'm believing it's almost mine again for the taking.

For a while there, over the past couple years, I have wrongly fallen into the habit of thinking that, because I was in a relationship for a good chunk of that phase (and after), that the relationship a) caused me to write well, and b) caused me to stop writing well when things went to shit.

Here's the thing, though. The guy I was with had fucking jack all to do with my writing. Yes, he was smart and good to converse with, but so fucking what? *I* did the writing. *I* coined the phrases. *I* saw the interplay in life and its players. *I* did it. Conversation with anyone, when I'm on my game, can spur me to write; he was just the face in the frame at the time, to put it crassly and in an undervalued kind of way.

I don't know where the insane assumption came from that made me start believing the relationship had anything at all to do with my being able to write well then. But that's what we do, we tell ourselves we require propping up, that we can't get through turmoil alone, that we need a muse, whatever the fuck we want to believe, for whatever stupid fucking reason.

But now I'm starting to realize that it really is all me, the writing. It's not about who's in my life or what's going on, not really. It's about me looking for the stories in the world. They're out there. When I'm at my best, writing-wise, it's when I'm most alive, I see ideas everywhere in life. I run out of time to write them all down! I have a fucking box of "idea cards", for god's sake!

There's always happenings that, when you think on them, can jar your existential point of view. Life's a mystical, wonderful thing, and I absolutely love living the examined life when I'm tuned into the examining process via a healthy writing phase.

Ahhh. Sigh. Don't you just love spring? Wakes my mind up something fierce, man. And despite being sore and rather miserable about it, I think I'm cycling today. Cycling's proving terrific for writing. Wouldn't think that after cycling my end-of-day ass-killing ride that the first thing I'd want to do is sit down and write, but that's exactly what happens.

The weather gods, today, claim seven days of sun are beginning for us today. Believe it when I see it, but I'm hoping. Daring to believe. More ways than one, it seems.

God, I need coffee. And a muffin. Mmm. Muffins!

About a Browser, Writers' Mojo, and Archiving

I should be racing off to work but this coffee is too good, and I'm in a mode, so instead I'll pop in and write.

I need to report on my new browser: I downloaded Flock Saturday night as something to distract me after the funeral and all. Boy, did that work!

It's based on the Mozilla platform, and it's so fucking useful for someone like me who's using the net for research and media. It's called the "social" and the "media" browser because of its built-in tie-ins to Facebook, Youtube, Flickr, and more. But it's got phenomenal plug-ins, too, some that just blew me away.

Later this week, I'll have to start using Zotero, its most mindboggling resource. It's an organizing program for web-based information. Like me, I'll be needing to do more and more research as I get more into political sex blogging again -- you know, about things like STD transmissions, the sex trade, the AIDS plight, violence in relationships, things like that-- things I have very, very strong feelings about and a desire to be a part of the solution for.

I need facts, research, and I need things annotated. I do not blow smoke out of my ass when I write about such tragic things as AIDS. One of my great strengths is my ability to put a human spin on stats. I don't want to have to do the same research over and over again, but bookmarking pages is useless since the web constantly changes and always becomes obsolete in short order, but statistics and research are interesting in historical context, too; as new research becomes available and older stuff fades away, having a comparison can make for really great fodder.

Zotero offers a library sort of facility. You can click on the link in the address bar, save it to Zotero inside a filing system you create with folders you designate. You can click and get a screen shot that will save attached to that link. You can write notes and comments, which will also attach to the document. You can create tags and "related to" fields that allow for smart-system scans. It's fucking brilliant. It's the kind of organization I need that I would have had to use at least 3 programs to make happen before now. It's magnificent. The system viewing process is easy, too, so you can see the rooted linkages between topics and tags.

In the short term, there's Flock's built-in web clipboard. I can highlight a passage and drag it to the clipboard, and it'll remember the link. I then can click on any of these tabs: view, email, blog, or delete, and it'll instantly make that happen, since it has a built-in blog publishing platform so you never have to go to your blog's edit page, if you like that kind of thing.

Smart software for smart people. I like it!

Zotero will make me a better writer and a better blogger, and I'm excited to see what comes of it. I especially love the way I can use Flock's web clipboard for quick-n-dirty archiving for immediate use, or for what I'm trying to do, build an archive of my better written sentences/lines/passages to use for marketing means.

I remember a writer co-worker of mine who sputtered rather passionately "You can't quote yourself!" in commentary regarding someone else, and I kept my mouth shut, thinking, "Why can't I quote myself?"

Bullshit, says I. Who else knows your work as well as you do? Who else really knows the great lines you've nailed over the years?

Writing's not like everything else. If you're a painter and you have a great stroke, one can easily focus into that, or you're a photographer and you print your best work, well, people will notice it then. If you're a writer, you can have a millisecond of brilliance, create one perfect sentence, and the rest of what you've written for weeks could be shit. Should that one sentence die a death because you had the lack of wherewithal to hang onto it for a better day, a better piece?

I say no! I have a plan to use some of my best lines as graphic art to make my blog look cooler, hipper. It's all about appearance, and, frankly, some of my lines have the edge and humour I'm trying to market myself as having.

I want someone new to be able to log on, skim down my sidebar, see a couple of my quotes, and know right away that they've entered an intelligent, argumentative realm of free speech and sexuality.

I want people to know, right off, that I'm very, very political. I want people to know I'm not going to say what they want to hear, that the opposite is probably far more true. I'm tired of being delicate and toeing the line.

In fact, when my blog was at its most popular was when I was most angry at politics, most belligerent towards the right wing, and most intolerant of intolerance. Why, then, have I been being careful?

Ha. There's a fucking realization it's worth working till a later hour to have had. "Stop worrying, just shoot your mouth off, and the public will follow!"

I'm not courageous enough right now to be THAT Steff all the time. Not sure I can go there just yet-- mounting what's tantamount to ideological throw-downs. I need to be in a pretty confident space to be that rant gal there. I need to feel that my angst is justified. I think my angst just got too heavy to carry for a while, but now I feel it bubbling and wanting to come to the surface.

A piece I wrote about Lenny Bruce way back when on the other blog is what's had me thinking of that time. I just read it a few minutes ago and its eloquence startled me. Very well written, I thought, a great homage to an underrated man and his landmark battles against obscenity. That piece was in the same month I wrote a manifesto telling the religious right that my sexual preferences are NOT who I am. That month, those postings changed my standing on the web.

I guess the thing is that I know what I'd written that got me noticed. I know the headspace I need. I'm getting there. What I wrote last night is probably my best on-theme writing for Smut & Steff I've done in a while, so it makes me feel like I'm headed back to my earlier success.

Mostly, though, it makes me feel like I'm getting back on the right path, and it's all about the path, man.

A Literary Detour Before the Day Job

Ah, I should be jetting to work, I have a weird day, but it doesn't matter. I want to write. About what, I don't know, but it's like those Sunday morning drives; we'll know where we're going once we get there.

I'm beginning to reread Hunter Thompson. I want to reread a lot of it this year.

I had a rather revealing chat with GayBoy the other day, sharing a lot of the fears and self-loathing I've felt in the last two years, many of which still go truly unspoken and unexplored on these blogs of mine. Thing is, sharing our dark side doesn't work so well if there's no light to shine in them. Bleak, bleak, and bleak with a side of, you guessed it, bleak, doesn't really serve up too well in a world of gratuitous self-indulgence where most people just want distraction from the mundanity of their lives.

A lot of it stems from my fears of what I want to be, and my horror at the thought of needing to live up to what I think I can achieve. While I'm working towards that, I want to reread Hunter Thompson, because I think the thing that killed him as a writer (in the longterm) was creating an image of himself that was larger than life, even though he could live up to that image. I've always seen him as this sad guy who got what he wanted before he knew what he didn't need, if you know what I mean. He wanted fame and fortune, and when he got it, I think he lost the seclusion mindset that a lot of truly great writers seem to require.

I sometimes adopt a really wild persona when I'm writing, and it's part of who it is I am, but it's not the person I'd like to live my life as. I'd rather live as the occasionally funny-as-hell, but largely silent and experiential person I'm more comfortable being... but that's usually my wish to remain safe and unchallenged speaking there. Ideally, I'd be able to balance the wild and the introspection, and use them both to propel me in my writing life. I suspect I toe that line well on the page, but now need to bring that to my life.

Lit-speaking, I'm trying to go back to my roots, remember what it is that I want from writing, what it is that's important to me in the craft of the written word. Is it what I get from others when they've read what I've written? Not particularly, but then I'm not getting a lot of anything from anyone else right now, write-wise. Not a whole lot of encouragement, commentary, or anything. And I'm not sure I care, to be honest. I'm all right with things as they are today... not too demanding, not too challenging. But I'm not really one for the path of least resistance, not anymore, so it's time to start pushing that envelope and demanding more, but then what do I have to provide in order to make such demands?

I don't know what I need to rediscover about writing; if I knew, then I wouldn't need to be on a journey, would I? I know I need to get over this fear I have, though. All of a sudden, two years ago, my blog just SHOT into the top 10K on Technorati, out of the then-70 million blogs in the world, for a couple weeks there, I was in the top 50,000 WEBPAGES in the world-- not blogs, not papers, but webpages. I was pulling in 5,000 hits a day, making advertising money, had someone throw a new computer and recording gear at me for making a podcast, got interviewed on San Fran radio, and a bunch of other shit.

And it scared the shit out of me. I was, at the same time, reaching a peek in a chemical depression I'd unwittingly foisted on myself by trying to suppress my period for three months with birth control pills-- which ended up in a near-suicidal nervous breakdown that magically felt a LOT better once I finally got my period-- so all of a sudden I felt all this pressure to live up to this image of myself: the happy, shiny, funny, but always cutely rageful Steff of the blogosphere.

So, I snapped. I couldn't be that person, I wasn't ready for popularity, I couldn't handle what MIGHT be next. I pulled back, began to deal with myself... then I lost my job, then I was laid off, then I got a terrible job that spiralled me back into depression... then I quit that, and here I am, six months later, finally thinking I might be ready to tackle the possibilities again.

As a result of all that's come my way these past two years, I've fallen to, what, 300,000th place in the world, about 10% of the daily hit tallies I once had, seldom any comments or letters, barely any advertising to speak of... And now I need to build it all back up again. I think I can. Hell, sometimes I even know I can.

But why do I want to? Why does it matter? What do I ultimately want of it? Is it money, is it notoreity? Is it just knowing my words ring true to more than just myself? Is it just the writing itself that matters?

I'd like to believe that the love of writing and the craft of putting words to page are enough, I really would. Sometimes, it is. Sometimes, just pushing "publish post" is all I need in the world to make a day a good one. Writing's that much of who I am. Do I care if anyone else reads it?

In a way, not particularly. But... I happen to think I'm a good writer. Sometimes, I'm a good writer who even lucks into creating great writing. I believe that. I believe I've experienced enough pain, loss, wonder, joy, hope, fear, and surreality to tap into the human condition and span the distances between us all. I believe I have a unique worldview, one that sees us for all our weaknesses and fears while realizing all that's great and beautiful in who we are. I believe my worldview's worth sharing, and, more importantly, is even sometimes worth reading. After all, that's what writing is; it's a link between each of our humanity. It's our history, our legacy, our ability to empathize with people from all around the world.

And, sometimes, it's just really fucking cool to look at a jumble of letters and words and know that I'm the one that gave it life.

So, journeying back through the books that sort of made me want to have that literary permanence in the world, a voice beyond my years... it's probably a great start.

But now I need a different start; a start to my workday. I'm outtie.

Fuck you, Fate, and the mean horse you rode in on

Bah! Some Mondays suck.

Having an old friend die on the weekend was a heady trip and I'm still kind of morose about it, but I haven't seen the guy in several years, so it's not hitting me like it will some others, particularly my dear buddy. The guy was a new dad, which is just horribly tragic. Like, 10-day-old new dad.

It's the original "WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING" rage one can throw at the universe for taking THIS guy out at this time. Like, what the fuck good comes of a 10-day-old baby never again seeing his daddy?

That's when you have to say some deaths truly are senseless. This one's at the top of that list. Fucking wrong.

Fuck, man. But it gives me other pause. The guy was out riding on his new quad bike when it washed down a river near Squamish. He "washed up" the next morning. There's a reason they call them accidents. None of us ever plan for this shit to happen.

When I woke up all hung over, arguably even still a little drunk, after a concert in '04 and went riding with my friends that morning, I didn't think I'd get a head injury that'd change me forever or nearly fucking die. Yesterday, for instance, I took a large wooden box down to the basement, down four flights of stairs, and lost my footing on a flight-- and totally had this vision play of how my broken neck would've looked had I not fluked and regained my footing at the last second. That wood box would've totally broken my neck had I face-planted.

Incredibly stupid fragments of seconds are what separate our lives from our deaths. A moment we wish we could have back leads us to injuries, broken hearts, and everything else we endure in life. Just little moments. Harmless seconds.

All that had to happen to this friend of mine was one rock in the river slipping under his tires too quickly with just the right gush of current. That's it. A moment. A convergence of convenience. Then, whoops! And death. It fucking boggles the mind.

I'm pretty angry about the injustice of this guy dying. I just can't get my head off his little baby. I'm so angry. Poor fucking child. The kicker is, this guy's mom and dad have both died in recent years, so all of a sudden there's no one left on his side. All that remains is this baby.

And his Facebook page is still there, which is just so fucking odd. It's my first post-Facebook death. Is this what we face for the future? When people do die, their digital fingerprints will be everywhere still? A legacy, yet not?

I tell you one thing, I really don't fucking want to work today. No, sir, I do not. That's the weird like/hate thing about my job: When things ARE all fucked up and I'm riding a bad head trip, I sit there with headphones watching tv, which can mean spiralling deeper into some thoughts that are maybe better left lightly experienced, and not fully delved into. It can cause a mighty deep funk.

BUT... if it's a fun show that requires my creativity, it can alleviate everything and get me out of it, too. Strange. I guess everyone's jobs can be great or bad, depending on the day. Mine just gets weird.

However... I relish the fact that I don't need to think about anything other than what is before me, nor do I need to talk to clients, or, really, my colleagues.Just a polite nod will do.

And... I have leftover butter chicken for lunch. (Kitchens of India brand, made at home-- ridiculously low in fat compared to what you might think, especially if you stick to adding water like they suggest and avoid the temptation to add cream or coconut milk.) That, at least, elevates my Monday to "almost Tuesday" status. Wow.

Gotta say, though. There aren't many things that make me pray in life, but that baby got a prayer from me yesterday. Breaks my fucking heart. What a cruel start to life, and what a great guy for that baby to go a lifetime never knowing.

Some things really do serve well to embitter us. I can't begin to explain how this one fits the bill beyond what I've already tried to clumsily put to words here.