In Years Gone By

Maybe you've done this: One day you take a look at your closet and decide it's time to clear out some junk. Maybe it's Spring Cleaning time. And in the process of throwing out the pants you'll never fit into again, the single socks, the utterly-beyond-redemption underwear and out-of-style shirts, you trip over an old, dusty cardboard box. And in that box are some faded family photos that have followed you on every move from your first apartment, gathering dust, never looked at.

So you take them out and spend an emotional half-hour (or maybe a whole day) going over them, your original task forgotten, drifting in a timeless universe of your own creation, remembering things that you should never have forgotten, and other things that you wish you could forget.

Maybe there is a bottle of wine involved.

So anyways, I recently re-discovered this blog thingy. Covered in dust, the Blogger UI completely unrecognizable from the last time I visited here, but still here, and so I thought I would reward that stubborn continuity with a splinter of attention, and, I dunno, blog something.

Here are some things:

About 2.5 years ago, Wife gave birth to a beautiful baby, who changed our lives. Again. Thing 2 is a hilarious character, who daily challenges us to be the better versions of ourselves. He loves to watch Top Gear, and can identify about a dozen car brands on sight. He's bossy, opinionated, loud and hilarious. Everything I love about my wife, in a convenient pocket-sized format.

About 1.5 years ago, PerpetualStartup finally disintegrated into its component molecules. When the dust settled, I was out of a job. Just in time for Christmas.

About a year ago, I got a job offer from Amazon. I decided, on a lark, that it would be fun to pick up the wife and kids and move across the country to Seattle, which is in the United States. As with any life change of this magnitude, there have been some growing pains. But we have grown, which is also important.

We don't have any family here, and all our old friends are three timezones away, which casts a sort of dark cloud over the whole move (Seattle readers will pause here to roll their eyes. "Another comment on the weather!"), but I now regularly see IronMan, who flies down to Seattle from Victoria occasionally on business. So there's a silver lining (for me, anyway).

Seattle, on the sunniest day of the year.

About three months ago, Thing 1, who is now 9 years old, (OH-EM-GEE), learned to ride a two-wheeler without training wheels. It is only due to my own parental negligence that this has taken as long as it has, but basically, it went like this:

1. We bought him a bike
2. He rode around with training wheels for about a day, then we took them off.

And now we go on semi-regular bike rides along the canal, down to the lake to watch the sailboats and sea-planes, and feed the geese and whatnot. He's super proud of his new bike-riding skills, and so are we!

About a month ago, I took the family back to Montreal, which had attained a sort of mythic status in all our minds that Seattle was having a hard time living up to. Many things were as we remembered them (friends, family, horrible construction delays and crumbling infrastructure). Some things were not-quite-as-mythic as we remembered them (the food, the weather). We had a wonderful, relaxing time, and I got to see The Boxer and The Directrix, along with a smattering of the PerpetualStartup crew of old. I think this mini-vacation gave us a dose of medicine for our homesickness, while at the same time somehow making us appreciate Seattle a little more. Maybe that's just me, though.

About a week ago, Thing 2 told me "Daddy, I want a BMW."

Blessed Miscreancy, That Abides No Demarcation

Where am I, you ask? That this call to action should awake me from my slumber and renew the vital juices of my pallid, hunkering muse; this is your wish, is it?

I picture this deviceful anthropomorphism as a sort of shriveled salamander, crouching blind by some bio-luminescent underground lake, awaiting only the siren call of Yog-Sothoth to manifest a magnificent rebirth. No sound penetrates the Stygian darkness. No light falls on these unseeing eyes. It is the long, dark twilight of the soul.

Alright Boxer, you win. I'll blog something, I guess.

But hey, enough about me! How have you been? Google Analytics still periodically deposits a tangy and pungent digital turd in my inbox, so I know someone's reading this stuff. And to you I say: thanks for not giving up.

Here's a run-down of some random stuff that's been going on:

• Brother's completed his transformation and emerged from his Chrysalis a full-fledged American (or landed immigrant, or migrant worker, or something. I can't really get my head around the legal details). The whole family recently trucked off to Jersey for the foreseeable future, which is kind of sad. Son has been clamoring for his cousins ever since.


• Speaking of Son, he's turned Six! It puts me in mind of not-too-long-ago, when Six Years Old was the sort of unofficial demarcation between baby and childhood. Put away childish things, boy. You are of two worlds, now. Not man, not child, but some curious alloy, and subject to all the many challenges, and not very many of the rewards, of both your constituent metals. Here are some pictures of Brother and I, at a similarly tender age.


• That ridiculous Gold Buying thing is over and done with, but I'm not really allowed to talk about it.


• ThinFast has announced her departure from PerpetualStartup for the sunny shores of (ugh) Toronto. Her reasons are her own, but we are all very sad to see her go.


• Many other interesting things happened, but their respective statutes of limitations have expired, so I will light on them but briefly: IronMan and Goldylocks had a beautiful baby boy. The family and I visited The Boxer's farm and milked the chickens (turns out Son has a little crush on BigKid. His eyes still light up whenever I mention her!). Winter finally ended, and the rainy season began, with no end in sight. We've pulled Son out of his English/French/Greek school in favor of one that won't cause him heart palpitations every time we mention it.

...Meh, and that's about it for now. But wait! Big things coming.

Big, HUGE things!

Strong Juju

It started out innocently enough. Ironman got a new Indian cookbook. And it snowballed into a delicious couple of unpronounceable dishes that we scarfed along with The Directrix, Boxer, BigKid and K. Awesome.

At some point, during a moment of uncontrollable laughter, I tooted. Not a long, smelly, epic fart by any means, but noticeable. Sad to say, that was pretty much the apex of my erudition for the evening. Epic wit, charm, style and grace, these I possess in abundance, and they were as useless as prayer.

Grocery shopping in Ironman's neighborhood is like a little slice of heaven. The most amazing butcher's shop I've ever seen. The best patisseries, the best fromageries. When Directrix arrived, we were in the tastefully appointed kitchen, chopping herbs, each with a glass of wine, occasionally nibbling some camembert on baguette, and - get this - James Blunt playing on the radio.

"Holy crap. This is gayer than a handful of rainbows", she said. Somehow we hadn't realized. So I took off my apron, we broke out the beer, and put on some AC/DC, and wrestled some bears in an attempt to restore our temporarily misplaced masculinity. And later I farted, which helped a lot.

I suppose, now that it's public knowledge, I can share the happy news. Ironman's lovely wife Goldylocks is preggers. Also the Directrix is harboring a stowaway of her own, so you would have expected a lot of talk about pregnancy and diapers and swollen ankles and whatnot, but aside from a moment or two of pensive silence as we tried to guess the Directrix's current (impressive) bra size, the conversation was surprisingly free of such predictable fare, which I guess is one reason I enjoy hanging out with this type of riffraff. Thoroughly unpredictable.

By way of unpredictability (lit "non sequitur"), a bible quote:

God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn.

Numbers 23:22 (KJV)

How's that for marketing? "Your God: Strong as a fucking UNICORN."

Come to think of it, I would not be a bit surprised if they actually have unicorn meat at that butcher, nestled between the fois gras and the bison loin. It was that incredible. I never wanted to leave.

More Die of Heartbreak

Yeah, it's been a while. A couple times I almost came back and tried to write something, but then The Fear would stop me. It's been so long, what if I can't pull it out anymore? What if I suck? My mind is a blank, what will I write?

Well, I'm tired of caring, so I'm just gonna wing it.

A warrior lyricist of my acquaintance had recent cause to lament an urban development project that threatens a bit of cherished childhood (or at any rate post-adolescent) real estate. I often hear her wax nostalgic, but more often for some aspect of "the good old days", rather than for any specific childhood memory or experience. Or maybe I'm just not listening. Salome, veiled, dances with Mnemosene, and all memory becomes art.

Once in a while, though, some tantalizing glimpse of previous lives (of which I am sworn never to speak) is revealed in a gap between the shifting veils, and I collage it in with the various other pieces in hopes of constructing a coherent whole. Living in an abandoned office building? Now where did I put my pencil...

And That Makes Me Think Of:

Isn't it funny when you go to some reunion, and look around at all the people you went to high school with, and realize how much they've all changed? There's a real cognitive dissonance there, seeing the balding, overweight forty-something guy in front of you, and trying to reconcile him with the captain of the football team, lady's man extraordinaire, who used to steal your girlfriend and shut you in your locker. You have a view of both ends of a story arc, when most people see either one end (current coworkers), or the whole thing (family members). But there's a middle piece missing.

Everyone has changed, you think.

Everyone but me. I'm the same.

So, with time, people change (duh). And this phenomena is symmetrical. What that means to me, I guess, is that your new best friend, who you've known for a couple years maybe, was a very different person way-back-when. Maybe not a person you would look twice at. Or dangle a participle in front of.

Hey, I didn't say it would make sense. I said I was winging it.

I Never Claimed To Be

I'm not a trend-setter, not a leader, not a frame of reference, or a role model. I don't innovate, I copy. I implement other people's great ideas. I plagiarize shamelessly. Well okay, there's some shame, but not a lot.

So here's a riff on Boxer's non-meme, who got it from a friend, who got it from a friend, etc. Everyone's doing it, so it must be cool, right?

First ten songs on my randomly shuffled iPod:

1. Back In Black (AC/DC)
This is the kind of high-energy, brainless Guitar-God hard rock that just makes you want to yell "FUCK YEAH!" at random people on the street. Brian Johnson steps up for the late Bon Scott, and the band unleashes a guitar-fueled power pumping rocket up the charts, ending up in the number two spot for most successful hard-rock album of all time, and no wonder. Every track is legendary. For those days when I care more about Rocking out than listening to soulful lyrics.

2. Dirt Bag (Psycraft Remix) (Brad Sucks)
Hmm. My iPod says this is by "Brad Sucks", though I'm not sure that's accurate. To be honest, I don't know where the hell this song came from, but it sounds like the kind of thing you'd here on a depressing "Basketball Diaries"-type soundtrack. Still excellent lyrics, depressing vocals, swelling orchestral back, some acoustic jangle. I give it four awesomes.

3. Music Is My Hot Hot Sex (Cansei de Ser Sexy)
You maybe heard this song in a recent iPod commercial. A driving synth-pop booty-shaker with a familiar drum and baseline, the song gets my legs twitching within a bar or two. The video sucks, but I defy you to play this track and not break out doing "the Robot". Way too sexy for a Brazilian band whose name means "Tired of Being Sexy".

4. Man of Constant Sorrow (Soggy Bottom Brothers / Dan Tyminski)
This one's off the soundtrack for "O Brother, Where Art Thou". The movie version was better, but the twangy banjo, and low hooting of the jug just puts it over the top. Fantastic bluegrass, that makes me want to ride the rails with a stalk of wheat in my mouth.

5. Cha Cha Twist (The Detroit Cobras)
First track off their "Mink, Rat or Rabbit" album, this is a wicked, rocking cover of the Brice Coefield original, retaining all of the original 60s charm. For it's time, this was "bad boy" rock n' roll. Now it seems quaint, but the remake keeps the rock-quotient turned up to eleven. Perfect for karaoke, or nostalgia for a time you can't remember.

6. Let Go (Frou Frou)
Classic post-club chillout Europop. Imogen Heap delivers syrupy smooth vocals. Great for: Lying on your back looking at clouds in the sky; rekindling your love for humanity; de-greasing your curmudgeonly soul; coming down from an Ecstasy high.

7. Black Devil Car (Jamiroquai)
By far the best track on their recent "Dynamite" album. What seems at first like a bunch of hard-to-parse atonal progressions quickly smooths out into a sort of meta-funk cum badass rock vibe. Uplifting and energetic. Definitely a pick-me-up.

8. Re: Your Brains (Jonathan Coulton)
From the same guy who brought you the acoustic folk version of "Baby Got Back". Every track is a tongue-in-cheek gem of melodic folk crooning. When you feel like going on a zombie brain-eating rampage, pause for some mellow dining music.

9. Everybody Got Their Something (Nikki Costa)
From the opening "plinky" base line, this song just makes me so happy happy happy. I don't know if it's a remake or what. Don't even know what album I ripped this off, but it's consistently in my top 10. Perfect for sunny days, it'll put a funk-strut in your step.

10. Low Rider (War)
For some reason, I thought ZZ Top sang this song, but I guess I'm wrong. Makes me want to put a fuzzy steering wheel cover on my car and go cruising. Perfect for a blunt in the park, with sunglasses.

About halfway through writing this, I realized that I could just link to YouTube for most of these. It's Infringeriffic!

Also, I seem to have lucked out with this random selection, since a good eighty percent of my music library sucks balls.

In other news, I'm rockin' in the free world with Guitar Hero III. Buy it. Buy it now. Then call me. You can be my roadie.

Seriously. I'm a Rock God.

Blue Skies and Brittle Smiles

So here we are, in the throes of Indian Native-American Summer. Neither lazy autumn, nor fully a return to the halcyon summer, and about as far from the bitter, frozen, whistling wasteland of a Montreal winter as it's possible to get. It's warm enough for shorts and sandals, but I've decided to spare you the sight of my winter-pallid legs, and hobbit-hairy toes. You can thank me later.

Much discussion of late, with IronMan (among others) on the art of small-h-happiness, the merits of trees over forests, and What, O What, Does It All Mean, Really? Heady stuff indeed, but the final syrupy essence is that: a) you can't just wait for happiness to happen. b) Big-H-Happiness, the meaning of life, the one thing that will just complete your existence here on Earth? That doesn't exist. So c) You have to cobble it together out of smaller pieces.

Big-H-Happiness is Enlightenment is Nirvana is Truth is Beauty is Meaning is God is The Soul. This is the thing those little monks in the orange robes spend their not-inconsiderable lifespans pondering. Once in a thousand years, a "living Buddha" achieves perfect enlightenment, and let's face it, you're not him.

Small-h-happiness is Autumn colors (or in Boxer's case, shoveling your sidewalk. Freak), is hugging your child, is finishing a Sudoku, is watching cartoons, is riding bikes, is dinner with friends, is making love. These small joys are pretty much within reach for all of us, and they add up to... Something. Probably something pretty good.

Our consumerist society teaches us from a young age that rarity equals value. Gold is worth much more than salt, by reason of its rarity. We are taught that "common" things, commodities, have little or no unit value. And so it's perhaps made a little easier to commoditize the small-h, and to always be looking for the magic bullet of enlightenment. And of course I, prey to all the foibles of the human condition, fall for this trap every time.

We are so busy looking for the forest, that we fail to see the trees. So obsessed with the Big Picture, that we ignore the magic of those tiny pixels of which it is composed. Eyes always on the horizon, we trip on the the artifacts of our missed opportunities. Searching for le mot juste, we write a bunch of crap and overstate our case.

Any conversation on this topic with IronMan usually ends with a half-joking resolution to Lower Expectations. "If you're not satisfied, lower your expectations until you are". Then we laugh. But there's many a true word spoken in jest. Narrow the scope. Lower Expectations. Don't look over there, look right here. Stop waiting.

Today we talked a bit about Boxer (yes, Leila, we talk about you when you're not around. Aren't you appalled?). How the hell does she do it? She's always so damn happy (or at least she fakes it convincingly). Boxer smiles, even when she's crying, which is tough to pull off.

Not that I cry.

You know, being a guy and all.

Behold This, Biatch

Keats says "Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know". Keats, in many ways, was a genius. In many other ways his stuff is utter, utter shite. The same can be said of most of us. Literary deconstructionists and philosopher pedants like myself will try to put one over on you by suggesting that The Truth Can Sometimes Be Harsh And Disturbing, So How Is That Beautiful, eh Smart Guy?

By way of riposte, allow me to arm you, not with any real ammunition, but something that makes a loud noise and bright light, enough to distract these assailants while you escape via carefully pre-planted neologism. Just as there is no Objective Beauty, there is no Absolute Truth. While it's quite the leap to suggest that this mere coincidence implies equality, at least in this, they are equal abstracts, convenient placeholders for whatever the hell it is we were just talking about.

Ooh Look! Something shiny!

I spent a thoroughly delightful evening in the company of the League of Overachievers last night, "swilling wine with willing swine", as it were, and came away with that warm, fuzzy, light-hearted feeling that has been all too rare lately. Boxer, IronMan and Directrix were all there, along with Boxer's Big Kid (probationary League intern). Of course I dazzled with my usual charm, wit, charisma and bonhomie (or at least drank enough wine to convince myself of my own charm, wit and charisma. The bonhomie, I still maintain, was genuine).

Of such an intensity was the awesomeness, that at times I cried tears of joy, and where my tears fell, tiny white flowers blossomed. Until around 2:00 AM, when I cried tears of intense peptic discomfort as all the wine I had downed wreaked it's tanniny revenge.

So, for lack of a feast, my brain has baked us a couple of Welsh rarebits:

1. Clichés should be avoided like the plague.
2. Speed Dating vs. Carbon Dating: Discuss.
3. The trick with Midget Porn is to watch it on a really big TV. Then it's just like regular porn.
4. Did you know that the word "gullible" is not in the dictionary? ("Oh no", you will say, astute reader, "I'm not falling for that one. Everyone knows there's no such thing as a dictionary!")
5. Yes, I sometimes have stubble. Does it make you want to kiss me any less? No? Then what's the problem?
6. I wonder if they have Methadone clinics, but for boobs? I'm totally addicted to boobs.

Next time: Stay tuned, victim! Is that...doggerel?

Probably not, actually.

Stop and Smell the Leaves

Buried in the warm, loamy compost of complacency, I've neglected you. But Boxer has awakened me from my blogging interregnum, and reminded me of my never-sleeping duties.

The air conditioner still has it's place in my bedroom window, more as a monument to wishful thinking than pragmatism, but even I, with my limitless powers of persuasion, can only lie to myself for so long, and one day soon I'll break down and admit it: Summer is over. In the meanwhile, don't tell me. I want to let myself down easy.

This was the end of my first week back at work after a longish two-week vacation. Family and I spent three fantastic days in Niagara falls, feeding belugas and swimming with dolphins and discovering new phobias (heights) and obsessions (water slides) and whatnot. A thoroughly enjoyable (and, when solitary, boring) vacation that saw me return to work refreshed, bright-eyed, and ready to re-commit my life to the furthering of corporate objectives, etc, etc.

Son absolutely loved, went ape shit for the water park / resort that we stayed at, while in Niagara falls. Oh yes, there will be pictures, fear not.

Last night saw the launch of an exciting new product pilot here at work, so I was at the office from about midnight to four a.m., along with a handful of other people. During this time slot, we pulled in a whopping seven dollars in revenue, most of which I found between the cushions of the couch I was sitting on. So yeah. Time well spent.

I've a feeling the twofour of red bull, heaps of pizza and junk food, not to mention my expense report for parking, will burn through that windfall rather quickly.

When I was leaving, a planned Hydro power outage left me stuck in the elevator between the first and second floors, along with IronMan. I called upstairs to Lipstick and Tortoise, who wisely took the stairs. Five minutes later, the power was back on (wehter because Lipstick pulled in some favors at Hydro HQ, or by blind luck, I won't ask). This is one of those stories that is more humorous in memory than in life.

All the recent frantic scrambling and layoffs, trying to suck the last of the blood from the stone that is our chosen market, has resulted in various initiatives to strike out into new product lines. Memo to the chiefs: may I suggest Organ-legging? Panhandling?

And now, as the week, and the season, draw to a whimpering end, and I must close one eye to prevent double vision due to exhaustion, it may be time for another vacation.

"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower." - Albert Camus

That Deaf, Dumb and Blind Kid Sure Plays a Mean Pinball

After grumbling and mumbling for (according to Wife) an eternity about how I need a vacation (despite, or perhaps because of, my inability to coherently explain to anyone what exactly it is I do), I finally took Friday and Monday off, and tried to relax. Since being stressed out doesn't appear to be helping my productivity, perhaps some chillaxin' would do the trick.

Friday was spent taking Son to the doctor, dragging him home from the park in a thunderstorm, and generally spending some quality father/son time. At some point I texted The Boxer, wanting to see if she felt like basking in Son's radiant glory (and my own, lesser, light). She declined on the laughable pretext of being a couple hundred kilometers away, and thus unavailable.

"Ottawa, eh?" says I, "Hmm...". And so, the inspiration for an epic family road-trip was born. Wife and I packed a bag, got a hotel using some sort of mysterious "points" system, the mechanics of which elude me, and boogied on down the T-Can to O-town for the bitchin' night-life and wild orgies.

Okay, no seriously. We went for the museums. First stop was the Museum of Nature, which is just like a zoo, except all the animals are dead, stuffed and mounted. This used to be called the Museum of Natural History, but that had a nasty boring historical ring to it, so they renamed it. The dinosaur exhibit is still in full effect, thank God (that's right, Creationists, "God" and "dinosaurs" in the same sentence. Suck it!), so Son spent a good hour and a half ogling the petrified skeletons of Devonian sea-creatures and the like.

They even had dinosaur poop! Which really didn't smell as bad as it sounds, and actually had a sort of burnished quality to it, as though transformed through the magic of fossilization into bronze or (*gasp*) Gold! I couldn't believe it. Here was a creature whose fleshy bits became oil, whose bones became stone, and whose poop became Gold. Truly a masterpiece of Intelligent Design, all form and function designed to serve that pinnacle of creation, Man (or, you know, Woman, whatever.). No wonder the creationists let this place slide!

We then whipped through the other five floors of the museum in about fifteen minutes, and adjourned to Sparks street, where a Buskers Festival assailed our senses. Seriously. That guy on stilts who plays the saxophone and looks like he's gonna kick you in the face with his skinny two-by-four legs? He was there. So were the break-dancers, the guy who draws Vermeer on the sidewalk with colored chalk, the man who bites the heads off chickens, that fucking string quartet who don't seem to know any songs other than Pachelbel's Canon, the Spoon Man, the puppet-show guy, the cotton-candy lady who always has a cigarette in her mouth, the chicken who bites the heads off men, the bloody Peruvian Pan-Pipe Band (or maybe they were Andean?), and various T-shirt, slushy, and snake-oil vendors. The highlight of the affair for Son, though, was bouncing around in an inflatable trampoline at 2 dollars a minute.

Lunch was crappy and expensive, and would set the tone for all our culinary experiences in Ottawa. Maybe living in Montreal has spoiled me, but the trip seemed salted and peppered with universally shitty and expensive food.

Finally, it was check-in time, and we repaired to the hotel for a quick nap. The rest of the day was spent in a whirlwind walking tour of all the salient touristy parts of Ottawa: the Hill, Byward Market, the Canal. We finished off the night with a dip in the hotel pool, and a light show on Parliament Hill, and hit the hay.

Sunday was breakfast at Chez Cora, more Byward Market, watching the boats in the Rideau Locks, then hitting the Museum of Science and Technology on the way home.

The Museum of Science & Technology was a heterogeneous mélange of the mundane and the fascinating, the old and the new, the shiny whiz-bangery of The Future and the insufferably dull nincompoopery of "The Future". Believe me, it's a subject for a whole other post, but by way of a tempting morsel of Things to Come, check it. I came across this unassuming black box in the "History of Radio" section of the museum:

	Herald of the age of Bakelite and cast-iron, the "fathometer", I assumed, was used to gage how Fat one's "Ho" was. Not so! (I was informed by a patient museum volunteer) In actuality, submarines had this on-board to determine the depth of the sea bed, in order to avoid the embarrassment and inconvenience of running aground on the bottom of the ocean.
	Another miracle of the future: The Satellite Phone! According to the plaque, in distant 199?, "Earth stations like this, forecast for the future, would let you be in contact with anyone, anywhere, anytime. Would you want one?" Gosh, and how! What won't they think of next?

Lately I've wondered about my qualifications. (I'm not, after all, an expert.) And not in any specific way, like "Am I qualified to do my job", but am I qualified to do anything really? Be a father / husband? Be a (yuck) "blogger"? What the hell qualifies me to try and make people think, when I can barely bestir my own gray-matter from it's perpetual hibernation?

Some people are uniquely unqualified for specific tasks. You wouldn't ask a gay man to judge a "Miss Nude Hawaiian Tropic" competition, for example, any more than you would ask a Catholic priest to babysit your kids, or an esotropic homeless man with an inner-ear infection to lead a firing squad. There are some specific unsuitabilities (all racism, sexism, ageism, creedism and nationalism aside) that simply cannot be overlooked.

When you're interviewing prospective employees for a position involving, say, fire safety, are you going to hire the former chief of the Asbestosville Fire Department, or a three-time convicted arsonist? Arguably, the arsonist knows a lot more about fire.

But this isn't a question of being uniquely unqualified. My disqualification feels, at times, universal, and I flash on the image of myself, or the meager accomplishments of my life, gathering dust in some Museum of Human Nature, atop a faux-brass plaque inscribed with my various paleontological vital statistics. And the sum of my contribution to the universe will be Son. The torch is passed, and now no light falls on me.

The good news is that you can't be fired from any of the really important stuff (short of a court order, and if you're reading this, Kevin Bacon, stop calling me). Sometimes, a nearly infinite series of second chances awaits. And I figure, if a four-year-old can offer unconditional forgiveness and acceptance, then how hard can it be?

It's a fucking work in progress, is all. Cut me some slack.

All I'm Sayin' Is It Goes Without Sayin'

Some people find it difficult to make friends. I have been, and sometimes still am, one of those people.

There are lines drawn in the desert of our interactions with others, and these lines must not be crossed. Of course, they are constantly shifting with the winds and the dunes, and what may be appropriate dinner conversation in one context will get you thrown out of the restaurant under different circumstances.

For people who are less well equipped to discern these societal norms and unspoken rules, charting the waters of human interaction can be tricky business. Reefs and shoals abound, invisible tides and currents wait to carry you out to sea, beyond hope of rescue or redemption. Cut that girl loose, because after what you said last night, she'll never talk to you again.

These are the people who don't get the girl, who don't have a lot of friends, or who always say the wrong thing. The people who don't shower on a regular basis, because no one ever told them they should. The guy might be brilliant, he might have a heart of gold, he might even be a demon in the sack, but he doesn't shower, doesn't shave, and has no idea how to talk to co-workers, superiors, or women. He's toast. And no one will tell him why.

No one comes out and tells you what is acceptable behavior, you just have to figure it out. The topic of situational appropriateness is, paradoxically (or ironically, I can't remember which), one of the things we never talk about. I guess it's inappropriate.

(Something else weird: You know that Alanis Morissette song about how everything's ironic? And you know how all the things she talks about - rain on your wedding day, a free ride when you're already there, etc - aren't actually examples of irony? Don't you think that's a bit.... ironic?)

One of these unwritten rules of "appropriateness" (or maybe it is written, but I'm too lazy to look it up) governs the use of mixed metaphors. In a nutshell, the rule is: Don't. Reading back, you can see I've employed the use of "desert" and "ocean" metaphors, to describe the same thing. I wish I could say that this was by way of illustrating some point, but really it's because I'm a frickin' rookie.

There are some questions to which only personal experience can provide the answer. Things that cannot be taught, only learned. These lessons are always the most valuable, but so priceless is the lesson we have learned today (or failed to learn), that we should encase in salt and bury it a thousand miles beneath the Nevada desert, preserved for generations to come. Then, like the Egyptian pharaohs of old, we should bury the architects and builders of this tomb, and ensure that this lesson can only ever be "self-taught".

Of course I exaggerate to make a point, but if you've ever read anything that tries to teach the rules of human interaction, say a book on how to make friends, or how to meet women, you can begin to understand how difficult it is to verbalize some of the things we need to learn, to pass on. These books are almost painful to read.

If you can't verbalize it, you pretty much can't teach it. And so our loser-protagonist is doomed to wander the arctic wasteland of peer-society, never or rarely to know the warmth of successful interaction, and the many rewards it brings. Yet another metaphor. In case you're keeping score, that's 3-0.

Some things can be spoken, or written, and some can't. And some things cannot be blogged.

Totally unrelated: Condolences on the ending, and congratulations on the beginning, Boxer. She'd better deserve you.

All My Friends Are "Work Friends"

"Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say 'infinitely' when you mean 'very'; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite."
-- C. S. Lewis (1898 - 1963)

You're on my list, Lewis. I don't care if you're dead. I'll find you.

Cognitive Dissonance is that uncomfortable feeling you get when you try to hold two contradictory thoughts or beliefs in your head. I would imagine this is the type of thing that Church-going physicists are good at dealing with.

Have you ever visited a friend or relative at their place of work? It's like they're a completely different person. "This can't possibly be the same guy that was telling fart jokes at last night's poker game", you'll say to yourself, as you observe your drinking buddy, the one who wore the goat's head during Frosh Week, efficiently direct his team in the pursuit of Operational Excellence.

"I need those numbers on my desk by Thursday," he'll say.
"If we can't assess that risk, then we need to reexamine their value proposition," he'll say.
"If the delivery date slides, that revenue goes to next quarter. That's unacceptable," he'll say.

"Pull my finger," he'll say.

Psychologically, there is no immediately apparent way to reconcile these conflicting images of your friend/spouse/parent. In the heat of the moment, cognitive dissonance will force you to consider them as two separate people, one an efficient manager of operational "flow", the other a drunken practical joker / mother of two / yoga instructor / whatever. This is a postponement of analysis. Basically, your brain is saying "I can't process this right now, I'll deal with it later."

The scary thing is that other people think of you this way.

I have previously mentioned that buddy Ironman will be assuming responsibilities that could broadly be considered "boss-like" vis-a-vis myself. This scenario falls nicely into the category of psychological states that Cognitive Dissonance seems purpose-built to handle. This has even been unintentionally illustrated right here in this blog by my constant reference to him under two different names; Ironman and Boss Jr, a handy device that I think I'll continue to make use of.

Conclusion: I will continue to refer to him as Ironman when discussing him as a friend, and Boss Jr. when discussing him as a superior, and continue to think of him as two separate people.

Can you believe I've never undergone therapy of any kind?

Back in the day, during those brief periods of bachelorhood between long-term relationships, on those rare occasions when a woman would tell me I was cute, or (more rarely) "good-looking", I would usually offer one of two canned responses:

1) Well, my mother thinks so. (laughs all around, no one gets hurt).
2) Prove it.

HaikuBoxer, that paragon of wisdom and charm, has recently sent me zero-or-more flattering emails, responding to something or other I wrote herein. Neither of the above responses seems appropriate...

Next: Doggerel!

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously

The title is a Chomsky gem. A sentence which, while grammatically correct, makes no sense whatsoever (remind you of anything?).

Related: Other languages don't have spelling bees, because they would be too simple. They hold grammar bees, though (cadavre exquis, anyone?). The Boxer is a grammar fiend. She subscribes to a grammar magazine, is a member of a grammar Facebook group. They have tee shirts. God-damn, I hope she never reads this.

In Other News That I'm Not Even Remotely Qualified To Comment On:

Liberals: Tax cuts for everyone!
Public: YAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY!!!!!
PQ: Wait, let's use the money to fund health care instead!
Public: Um. Yay!
Liberals & PQ: We disagree! Time for an election!
Public: wtf?
ADQ: Yay!

"The duty of an opposition is very simple: to oppose everything, and propose nothing" -- The Earl of Derby, British Prime Minister

This adage in mind, the newly-captained PQ appear to be performing their duty admirably. Dumont has to be smarting that the ADQ's best chance at winning an election has come and gone. It is, after all, unlikely that the PQ will soon put another straw man in the captain's chair whose unpopularity could ever approach that of Boisclair, the coke-snorting homosexual.

Let's take a moment here...

I mean, they had to figure that the portion of their voter demographic that would not be alienated by Boisclair's homosexuality (and let me assure you that this is not my personal sticking point), would likely fall to his admitted cocaine use. I mean a simple Venn diagram, a technique imparted to third-graders, could have saved them.

By spinning their budgetary objections as a health-care issue, the PQ have set the stage for a potential victory in a snap election. The only chance the Liberals have to conserve power (albeit in name only), is to come to some agreement.

Honestly, it's a win-win. Either we get tax breaks, or we get better health care. My vote? Tax Break. Here's why:

Quebec has a fairly high tax rate. The old chestnut that we are the highest-taxed nation in the western hemisphere, while not strictly true, certainly corresponds to citizen's feelings on the subject. It hurts. quite a bit.

Quebec's health care system is in need of, if not an overhaul, then at least some major financial shoring-up. On this topic you will hear no disagreement from me. However history has shown us that government spending is as leaky as Montreal's wooden plumbing. My bet is that a three-hundred million injection to the health care budget won't see a lot of improvement on the ground.

Sure, the PQ can walk away saying "Look what we did: We just gave you 300 million dollars! We're heroes!", but what the average shmuck - lying for nineteen hours on the floor of a hallway in Montreal's Royal Vic hospital, for lack of a stretcher, before seeing a doctor - wants to know is: will this reduce waiting times? Will I be able to find a family doctor now? Will I still have to wait in line for six months for an MRI scan to diagnose my tumor? Can I get a fucking bed, or a stretcher, or a chair, or something?

In case you hadn't noticed, I don't know squat about politics. It is that most base profession, vocation of swindlers, sheisters and lawyers that aren't attractive enough for more conventional forms of prostitution. Idealists, believers of a political stripe, such as the Boxer or Delrin, are reserved a special kind of pity (that I'm sure is mutual).

"You poor saps, can't you see it doesn't matter who you vote for, they're going to take your vote, suck some corporate dick for kickbacks, and leave in four years?", I will say, to which the true-believer will respond: "It is your duty, your responsibility, your privilege to vote, to have your voice heard in the public forum, to affect history!". The true-believer will invoke the ghosts of soldiers dead in various wars, who arguably gave their life for my right to contribute in some small, meaningful way to the nation's political destiny.

I mean what do you say to that? I usually just look at the floor and mumble sheepishly.

They will discuss politics over lunch, have their picture taken with their favorite politician. They will volunteer. They will (shudder) make me care.

Truly, there is no worse fate.

Pissing in the Stream of Consciousness

And so it begins anew. Except it's not really new, and it's not beginning. Forever, since before the word "blog" even existed, back in the days of slashdot and kuro5hin, I've excreted more blogs -- Not blog posts, mind you, but individual blogs -- than I can count. A chronic serial blogger, I would start one, make one or two inconsequential posts, then, spent from the sisyphean effort of self-expression in a medium that seems hewn from a solid block of undifferentiated navel-gazing, I would slouch off into the dark, sunless oort cloud at the periphery of the blog-o-verse, or blogger-system, or blog-space, or whatever meaningless term is most recently employed, to mull and think, and prepare my next post, thoughts skating across the empty ocean of my mind with the speed of continental drift.

The word "blog" itself is distasteful to me on an almost instinctual level. The onomatopoeia of "blog" suggests some regurgitative therapy, perhaps as the culmination of an evening spent doing things one will regret the next day. The parallels here are obvious. One: vomiting. To observe a small sample of available "blogs" is to assault the sensorium with the sour odor of pre-digested content. Ideas once teeming with nutritional value now lay curdled and bubbling before you, full of all the promise of a pavement pizza after an evening of serious drinking (that is to say: none at all).

And really, mostly, at least for me, and as with most things in life, with the possible exception of run-on sentences, blogging involves regret. "I wish I hadn't written that", I will say, or "I wish I had written that witty thing before this other dude wrote it", or "I wish I hadn't plagiarized that one girl whose blog, it turns out, is much more widely read than I had anticipated".

So why the hell am I blogging, one might ask, and to such a one, to whom I would normally thumb my nose, or bite my thumb, or hoot derisively, or whatever it is the kids are doing these days, I will instead extend the temporary grace of my ephemeral and fleeting good humor, and respond "It's all her fault."

An ex-co-worker (the grammatically astute among you are welcome to silently criticize the over-use-of-hyphens), the poet pugilist has ever been an inspiration to me. Braver, kinder, smarter, funnier, more earnest, more cheerful, more honest, more deserving-of-unconditional-praise a person you can never hope to find. In the words of John the Baptist, I am not worthy to loose the thong upon her sandals. Her blog is the rare exception to the rule, the subtle edelweiss that blooms in the shade of that mountain of shit that is the blog-mass. She rises above the blogger lumpenproletariat, and makes me want to be a better person.

...But perhaps I gush.

Superlatives aside, Leila really is a brick of a gal (the first in a series of intriguing and charming characters who pass, underappreciated, through my life, and to whom I hope to introduce you in the course of this intermittent verbal diarrhea), for whom I must confess a slight hero-worship.

She blogs, and therefore must I blog. Blogito ergo sum. I will not, however, I refuse, to use those goddamn e.e. cummings headlines. Ew.

As an aside, and on the subject of Descartes, one finds philosophical depth in the strangest of places...

It is verbose, it is pretentious, it will use big, unnecessary words and complicated grammar, and at times there will be cussing. It will be a journey from unpolished pretension and blatant sesquipedalianism to a hopefully more streamlined, hemingwayesque paradigm.

Paradigm, by the way, is another word that makes me want to vomit. I am comforted by the thought that I'm not alone in this.

So desu ka? To the title of this little literary turd: "Nacho Niche". It's really a reference to my current work environment, in the context of which I am regularly exposed to many pearls of marketing wisdom involving "niches", "long tails", and "the box" (getting outside it, getting back in it, throwing it out, decorating it, maybe adding some nice plants, etc.), combined with an extremely childish (and possibly racially insensitive) joke, the punchline to which is "That's Nacho Cheese! That's Nacho Cheese!".

So yeah, this ain't my niche. I don't blog. And when I do it's fucking unreadable, but if you've made it this far, next post will be better, I promise.

Tomorrow: A poem! My first poem in twenty years! Of questionable nutritional value, but delicious nonetheless. The McDonald's of poetry. Empty calories for all!

(See what I did there? I dangled the enticing "carrot", a promise of improvement, then whipped it away and smacked you with the "stick", a threat of imminent poetry. It was an experiment. I promise not to do it again.)