Skirting the Mundane

For the past few weeks, and the next few, I am holding myself together with both hands. School and work and trying to find time to see Kyle and maintain a basic standard of nutrition and hygiene is about all I can take. It's just not all going to happen, at least not with sanity intact. The past few days I have felt myself getting sadder and angrier almost all the time, from the moment of waking up, and when I get that way I am the only one who can pull myself out of it properly. It's about school and how much I fucking hate it right now, it's about my job and how I don't have time to do it properly even if I love it, it's about all of the inadequacy and paranoia I can usually keep a lid on but maybe not right now.

I need to spend time with acquaintances, not with close friends and not by myself, because if I do either of the latter it will allow me to get caught up in a whirlpool of self-pity. If I am not comfortable breaking down around someone, that is the person I want right now, because it will keep me from doing it.

Deep breaths, self.

Great goings-on! Given my propensity for listing things, I will proceed that way. In no particular order, here is a grab bag of what's going on in my life:

Our good friend from Ireland, Hubert Watson, passed away about a week and a half ago. He was the nicest man, a very intelligent former pathologist who had worked all over the world. He and his wife Eleanor retired to a beautifully cluttered house to do subsistence farming in Killybegs (Co. Donegal). Our visits there were always very happy. They named one of their lambs after me when I was small, and if there is one way to secure the love of a child, then that is pretty much it. Hubert and Eleanor are both very hardy specimens, but for the past few years you have been able to tell they are aging. The saddest part was that their memories were going, which was a cruel thing for people with such delightful, inquisitive, engaged minds. Eleanor is in a home now, so she won't come to any harm from living by herself on an isolated farm. It is very sad, though. They were great as a couple, too -- never a harsh word to say to each other, very harmonious.

I am taking my driver's test again on Saturday and am beyond certain I'll fail it again. Because if I think I'll fail, then I have already prepared myself for the worst that can happen, and it will all be good!

Boopsie is off to fencing camp all week! She left today, I am sure she will have a fabbo time. Mum is driving back from dropping her off as we speak. Well, we're not speaking, really, so "as I type".

My meeting last week with Andy went just fine; I have tons of work to do before I go, but it'll be OK. I might have to work extra this week, but whatever. I'll get it done. My greenhouse gas paper is actually looking half-reasonable, so that's good. The oil sands project Katy and I have been given is morphing into a behemoth. We had a meeting to explain to everyone what we are doing and they all decided that it is such a good idea for a project that we should expand it so that it covers every environmental effect and potential scenario ever. Since I am leaving in a week and a half, I will not be there to see this thing finished, so hopefully I don't leave Katy with too much work on it.

On Friday I got offered part-time consultancy work at the Canadian Solar Industry Association, just by revealing that I am going to school in Ottawa! Check me out. And their offices are on the same bus route as I am, so that could be very handy indeed. Something to check out. Let's just hope they don't think I have any particular expertise in solar power... apparently there are lots of technical people who would have my back, though, and they are just running short of policy people.

On the Ottawa front, there are a few things going on. It is Jacob's birthday this week, hooray! Emily is going home to the Hammer for a week and then to Scotland with her dad, the lucky fool.

When I get back to O-town, I'm going to get a solar device to run my desk lamp and maybe my laptop. Hopefully such things are available -- the Internet has not been forthcoming with exactly what I want so far. Perhaps the cats at the Canadian Solar Industry Association can help me out!

The truce in Lebanon is definitely not going to hold. But it would be really, really, really nice if, just for one minute, people would realize that maybe the way the past fifty years have gone is maybe not the way we want the next fifty to go, so much, so everyone should put down the fucking rocket launchers and let cooler heads prevail. Hokay?

I have a new haircut. It's like my old one, only better. And Boopsie chopped off a lot of hers, so now she has an adorable chin-length bob. It's very charming.

Last night I went out with a bunch of the gals: Becca, Laura, Diane, Marie Claire, and a few others I hadn't met before, as well as the birthday girl herself, Rachel. It was her 18th, so we were there to show her the ropes. I did this in fine style, I believe, and only fell over once. I tell you, there are days I am embarrassed to even know me. Although if I can figure out how to post it, I will definitely put up our rap video. Laura's the driver, I'm the MC, and Becca was workin' the camera and makes a guest appearance. Anyway, we went to Stolli's (DJ semi-lame, but whatever, it was fun anyway). Best of all, only one or two guys tried to scam on us! This was a positive thing because the pickings were mighty slim. The only guys any of us thought were at all non-creepy-looking were taken. I mean, not that I actually would have picked up (bars not generally being the place to form lasting, fulfilling relationships), but it would have been nice to have the hypothetical option. This morning, Becca woke Laura up by sneezing, Diane had zonked out on the couch in a truly weird sleeping position, and my head felt like it had had coffin nails driven into the back of it. We got Timmy Ho's coffee and made hash browns, scrambled eggy-weggs, and lomticks of toast. Laura and I got baked goods at Timmy's, because we really wanted them, and didn't bring any back for anyone else, winners that we are. Hey, we asked if they wanted any. Anyway, the calorie shock made us all feel better, and I hitched a ride home with Becca's mum, for she is a kind person. All in all, a good night!

And now, Jessica's Media Watch:

I neeeeed Neko Case's new album, because Dirty Knife is such a creepy song. Shudder!

Sexyback is actually kind of good. I am ashamed to even say it, and will probably go to rocker hell for doing so, but it's true. And rocker hell is probably kind of cool anyway, so there you go.

Here is a funny blog: Lady Jaida.

And here is something utterly brilliant:


And something else utterly brilliant:


This has been your Recommended Daily Intake of my musings. I'm amazed if anyone made it this far, because it is turning into a monster post.

So... my boss wants to know what I've been doing all summer. Shit, guys, I don't know. None of it's all that presentable, frankly, and now I feel like an idiot for not having really developed a plan for presenting this stuff earlier. I think that disagreeing with so many of the policy decisions that this government makes and yet being in no kind of position to kick up a long-term fuss, I maybe haven't put my work together all that fast or well. Or maybe I am just kind of a putz and am now making excuses so that I don't have to type the word "partnership" any more. Anyway, if I put in a couple of long days, it should work out OK. I just have to whip millions of pages of work into shape by... oh, Thursday. And I have a meeting all day Thursday. And a huge database project to finish by Friday. And something else due Tuesday. Crap. Why didn't I work hard earlier? Why are environmental impact assessment reports so impenetrable? (As impenetrable as we would like the linings of oilsands tailing ponds to be to heavy metals and hydrocarbons, HA!)

On the bright side: Folk Fest is this weekend! I'm very excited, though it is supposed to rain Thursday. And I'm going back to Ottawa soon! And I have just had the brilliant idea to get The Office off BitTorrent, because all the idiot video stores in my area aren't stocking it right now and I love love love Pam and Jim. Finally, I am having a little get-together two weeks from now. If you read this blog and didn't get an invitation, then I probably meant to invite you, so send me an e-mail and I will give you the details. Yeah?

Dad is going to Chiapas on Thursday, and Boopsie is going to fencing camp soon after (Sunday?). I will miss the little scamps.

Cheers to Jacob who went sky-diving and lived, and chucks under the chin to Katherine, who went cliff-jumping and pulled her intercostal muscles (for those of us who are not medical students, that means "an injury that hurts like a beatch").

Maui Photoposto!

Who is that hot surfer chick? That photo of me on the water is one that was taken by the photographer for the surf school, not by my loving parents, who were busy taking photos of the wrong group lesson entirely.
Here is a tiny tiny pineapple. We named it Kai, after the guy who tried valiantly to sell us a time-share. Thus, it was the Kainapple.
What an attractive Boopsie. This is on the day we drove around the north/west side of the island.

Honolua Bizzay, mah homizzles!

Here are some strange people who followed me around the whole time I was on Maui.


Here is a very lovely sunset on the Fourth of July, just before the scary amateur fireworks started up.

It is really fucking hot out. It is not a nice heat; it is one that is making me cranky and irritable. I don't want to touch anything or do anything or be anywhere other than a cold movie theatre with a pint of iced tea (or, if they'll let me, a stiff drink). Our Internet is slowslowslow and my hands smell inexplicably of wet dog. Mum is all shirty because she can't find her sewing scissors and blames other people, i.e. me or Boopsie. The way Boopsie spreads pizza sauce annoys me, because she uses little tentative "pit-pit-pit" movements of the spoon instead of just doing a couple of big swirls and having done with it. I haven't done any of the work reading I brought home for the weekend because we have been getting ready for the visit of the Belgian Delegation, commencing Wednesday. I'm even mad at myself for having wasted the entire summer hanging around at home instead of having fun with, you know, people my own age or, just maybe, getting my driver's. So I slept till noon and have felt all annoyed with everything since then. Even a good margarita at dinner didn't help much, because the blender started leaking as I was making them. Poot.

This is too bad, because this weekend had such promise. It started off Thursday, with Katie and I going to walk Megan, who is a very nice Labrador who belongs to a little old lady. Katie brought Gromit along. He is now four months old and is full of bens. We walked him four kilometres and ran almost four, and he was fine at the end. Impressive. After, we picked up Mike and Keith and swung by Timmy's for iced cappucinos. Most excellent. Friday Boopsie and I went to see My Super Ex-Girlfriend, which I give 3 stars. Two of these stars are for the sainted presence of Eddie Izzard ("not kill, 'neutralize'. This is Switzerland.") and one is for the use of a shark as a projectile. Saturday night we went over to Ho #2's house for dinner, and Pimp #2 (or Richard, whatever you prefer) and my dad had a good old talk about herbicides. I would like to voice at this point my approval of Richard. He seems like good quality, and is certainly very funny. So kudos to Ho #2 for a good selection. She herself is just fine, and seems to be settling into the summer job and the summer apartment very well (which is good since it's nearly August). She guided our discussion of race's existence as a biological or cultural concept -- cool stuff. And then we watched a gory movie, 28 Days Later: not actually terrifying, but sort of thought-provoking. The concept is good, but once they had revealed the "rage virus" disease and its effects on people, there were not really any new tricks up the sleeve, horror-wise. So instead it almost becomes a commentary on the horror of normal existence: the most revolting act of violence is not committed by an infected person, but by one of the uninfected, "good guy" protagonists. In case you haven't seen the movie, I'll just say this: this act involves eyeballs.

And then today has been oversleeping and tidying and crankiness. Blargh blargh augh. Goodnight.

One thing I forgot: I went to see Pirates on the opening night. MY GOD it was brilliant. I loved the Hamster Wheel of Death, the witchy woman, the way Barbossa was clearly dead at the end of the first film and yet!!!, the three-man every-man-for-himself swordfight, the kickassness and good sense of Elizabeth Swann, and... well, everything, really. Except the part where I didn't get to go with Bev and the rest of the gang, as I had promised for months.

Also, I totally called Cap'n Jack falling out of a coconut palm, as he did one of the fight scenes with rolling things (not every movie has a choice of these). My reasoning was that Keith Richards did it recently, Cap'n Jack is often near coconut palms, and the destinies of the two homunculi are inextricably bound. For every action by one, there is an equal and concordant reaction by the other. Thus is balance restored to the universe.

No longer in paradise! We got back this afternoon. In the days of vacay since last I wrote, the Fightin' McClays have been busy. We attended 'Ulalena, which is a Hawaiian dance theatre show. It supported my idea that the Hawaiian pantheon is pretty groovy. They have a half-boar, half-man god! Who gets it on with the goddess responsible for the volcano, like, what an odd couple! And the island Maui is itself named for the trickster god who pulled the island out of the sea's depths with his magical fish hook. For truly, that is what was missing in my life: a magical fish hook.

Also missing was an evening watching VH1 and eating sushi with my sister, but I took care of that on Wednesday after a worthwhile trip to the Shops at Wailea, where I found a sale at Banana Republic and thus got to pick my own Christmas present. Dad was absent most of Wednesday, because he was off helicoptering around the west side of the island with his entomological cronies, looking for Miconia.

Thursday, we had our last dinner in Maui, at the Ma'alaea Grill. Ma'alaea is a small town in between Maui's two high areas, the West Maui Mountains and the dormant volcano Haleakala. It is a town blessed with constant gale-force winds, which I imagine make the new wind power installation on the ridge above the town very profitable. The restaurant was, happily, out of the wind, and the food was very good. Through the whole trip we ate vast quantities of seafood: shrimp, tuna/ahi, mahimahi, scallops, opah, ono, delicious delicious delicious fishes. There was tasty Mystery Fish in the fish tacos we ate for lunches, and there was fresh, garnet-coloured tuna in the sushi Boopsie and I bought. I also ordered clams and mussels once for dinner, but only because I'd forgotten I don't like them.

We saw vast quantities of seafood, too, if one is willing to consider beautiful and toxic reef fish as "food". Just on our last day of snorkelling at the Kamaole 2 Beach right across from the hotel we saw two cornetfish, an octopus, two cuttlefish, scads of Hawaiian sergeants, many humuhumunukunukuapua'a (a triggerfish), various parrotfish, Christmas wrasses, birdnose wrasses... oh, lists are boring. Suffice it to say that the reefs were varied and wonderful. The beach we went to in Wailea on Wednesday, however, was not such a hit: the coral seemed to be suffering from some kind of algal bloom or bleaching. Consequently, there weren't many fish about. I suspect that Josh, the rather dishy naturalist guide from our snorkel cruise, would be saddened. It was such a contrast from the healthier-looking reefs that we saw in other places. If you are planning a Maui trip, I cannot recommend the Kamaole beach parks and Honolua Bay highly enough for snorkelling, though who knows what those reefs will be like in a few years?

Friday we got in a full day, because our flight was not until early evening. We returned to Makawao and took full advantage of the many little shoppes there, and had some excellent sushi in one of the town's three restaurants. Then it was off to Kahului airport to go to Kona, then to Salt Lake, then to E-town. I learned a lesson on our trip back, and that lesson is this: never visit the Kona airport after dark. By day it would be very pleasant. It is a cute-sized airport, very small and open-air, with a little restaurant and a central square around which the nine gates are arrayed under Tiki hut awnings. Upon our arrival from Maui, though, a few things happened. First, the restaurant was closing: no actual food available, only sandwiches with no vegetables of any kind. Then the sun went down: inadequate lighting, cockroaches, and actual feral cats. Fighting feral cats. So that was interesting. But nothing bad went down aside from the desperate craving for fruit & veg, water, and fresh air that plane travel strikes into me. We are home safe and sound, all of our stuff is fine, and I'm tentatively OK with going back to work Monday. Euuu, work.

Just talked with Katherine on the phone for, like, forever. She assures me that my return to work will be triumphant. Also, we are concocting plans to be EU interns next summer. Because that would RAWK. Anyway, I'm out! Later, suckahs!