2007-03-16 NozUpdate -- What I did on my spring vacation
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: Tool - 10,000 Days
Topic: Noz Update

Hey Y’All!

As my blogs have gone from once a week to once an epoch, it’s hard for me to detail events with the same detail that I would like...

Lo and I just back from the definition of a ‘much needed’ vacation. 13 days in sunny Toronto. We had an awesome time, with my only regrets being not enough time spent with my brothers, father, nieces and nephew. I also didn’t get to see a few people at all, but they didn’t show up to my party, so n’yeah.

I’m currently listening to Tool’s latest epic, 10,000 Days, where each track seems to last an epoch... but it is an Epoch of Rock! Yeah, Baby. I have never heard an album that made me so desperate -- desperate as for water in the desert, as q is for u -- to make music. Now at their forth album, there’s finally a band that can be compared to Zeppelin.

Anyway, if you don’t have it, go buy that right now. Now since you’ve got it, put it on and keep reading.

I was in town for my man Iram’s and my lady Melanie’s wedding. Iram and Melanie are in my sacred inner circle of bestest buddies, many of whom seem to be getting married, are recently married, or are strongly considering getting married these days. Despite my having been gone now for almost as long as I knew them, I was still invited back to be their best man. It was an awesome experience and a rockin’ wedding. We rocked the dancefloor to the wee hours, and I very much enjoyed the privilege of thanking and describing Iram and Melanie’s greatness as a couple to all their friends and family.

Marriage spreads like a wildfire through social groups; like a tidal wave of acid consuming all in its path. Those in my social group are dropping like flies. I must admit I am even less fettered by the suggestion myself. I found myself talking about marriage with Lo with a sense of comfort that speaks volumes of how far our relationship has come. We are doing really well right now, and despite all our challenges -- geographical (we don’t like where we live, and are moving countries together), social (we don’t got a lot of friends where we live), and linguistic (we don’t share a native language) -- we have built something quite wonderful. Everyone back home loved her (ah-duh...) and she has now met my mom, and Iram’s mom, the last two vital check-points before real marriage discussions could happen.

This is not an announcement of engagement or anything, just that for the first time I can say I am happy talking about the idea of Lo and I in a public and “life-long” sense that I would have been chagey about before. Having two weeks away to really get out of our old environment and spend some quality time together has been awesome.

Those who are announcing engagements are my friends Rox and Mei!
I just got the email in the last 3 days letting me know about that Rox's is “official”! This finally ends a lengthy ‘unofficial’ period which we’re all happy to be through. I don’t know Chris as well as Melanie or Iram, but I know him enough to know that he rocks like Tool. He is intensely nice and fits with Roxanne so well I is almost incestuous. He’s crazy nice.  Mei's beau unfortunately I know even less, but I know she has great taste. 

Congratulations to newlyweds Iram and Melanie and all the imminent-weds!

Love!

Other trip highlights:

• TUBING!! (http://www.skisnowvalley.com/tubing.htm) 
• The Stillwater Spa (http://parktoronto.hyatt.com/hyatt/pure/spas/index.jsp?_requestid=668871)
• Ice Skating at City Hall
• The Imperial Jade, La Pallette and Anna Purna restaurants

2006-12-20 Training Big-ups
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Noz Update

2006-11-28 NozUpdate - Oh Lordy, how things can change
Mood:  spacey
Now Playing: Them Bones - Alice In Chains
Topic: Noz Update

Oh Lordy, how things can change

2006-11-28

SO much has happened... as you'd expect in 6 months...

I've got good news and bad news. Which do you want first? Bad news first makes good news seem callous, and good news first makes you end on a downer.

I'll start with the bad news, and hope that you're able to feel what I am - that there's hope around the corner and that respect and valuation of the bad can co-exist with the good.

I will start with a quick bullet update generally in Chronological order for those who don't care to sift through pages of meandering verbiage. I'll then elaborate below:

• I'm in therapy (finally).
• Lo and I are climbing out of our summer rough patch.
• My Mother returned from her 6 month Homeric voyage into the depths of Peru and the human soul
• I am finally finishing Freud's Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis.
• My father survived a heart-attack last Friday and has subsequently had an angioplasty.<
• I went to Stockholm, Sweden with Lo for a much needed romantic city-break and loved it madly. (detail coming...)
• Work is great in the sense I love it, and feel more satisfaction and sense of accomplishment than I've ever had from a job before. (detail coming...)
• Work is hard and terrible in the sense that we are not making enough money. (detail coming...)
• I got my British citizenship approved!!! (detail coming...)
• My music is going nowhere. (detail coming...)

 

TheRapist

I tried getting in therapy as a teenager. I'd sit across from a fat, balding, oily-looking man who'd take his shoes off and idly roll them around the floor with his socked feet during our sessions, which consisted basically of him staring at me waiting for me to bare my soul. Somehow it didn't go anywhere. I dropped it after a month or so.

Now, over 10 years later, I'm back in. This time my therapist is a nice woman, and I am the one who takes my shoes off. I had been suffering a lot because I was not able to find a way to communicate, and as well, I've been having trouble because I'm not communicating. Two interrelated but different problems. Therapy has given me a place and time to "just do it". I've never had trouble communicating quite like this before, and I find it even now a struggle to squeeze out my feelings in Blog form. I never really understood before what it was to have trouble expressing one's thoughts and feelings. It sucks. So I've decided to try to fix it.

A (periodically wise) friend of mine described therapy as disassembling the of automobile of one's soul, laying out all the rusty pieces on the shop floor, and methodically cleaning and reassembling them. A more macho metaphor one couldn't think up given a dozen little umbrellas, a dozen jasmine teas, and the whole of the sunniest Sunday in may. Still, I think it's great.

Once a week I go to get an hour with my therapist followed by an hour with my osteopath. I come out pretty well "reset" for another week. I've noticed an immediate difference, and I am more relaxed and optimistic than I've been in months. I've always recommended therapy to all and sundry, but never hit a point where I wanted to and could afford to fit it into my own life. I recommend it even more strongly though. Although, I think a proper 3-day-a-week psychoanalyst would be much better than a 1-hour-a-week counsellor - just take what you can get.

Roughage Patch Kids

Lo and I were going through a very stressful period this summer. Job instability, London Loneliness, our relative economic ruin, and our respective families put a lot of outside stress on two people already living together for the first time in a country foreign to both of them, without a common language between them, and trying to find stable livable jobs. They say London is a very hard city to survive in, and all in all, we've been very lucky. Still, we had our share of trouble this summer.

I can't say we're totally out of the woods, because these things don't happen overnight, and there's still some road ahead of us (aren't clichéd metaphors great when trying to express a lot in a few words?). Basically, for those who were up on the latest trials of life we were experiencing, things are much better. For those who weren't - things are much better. We are happier and more at peace in our relationship with each other, and with our lives, than we have been a very long time.

We seemed to be for a while constantly fighting this uphill battle against our lives. Now it seems we've finally achieved what we wanted: some rest and relaxation.

Lo made gluten-free pancakes this morning for breakfast (which we got around to by 4:30pm) and we are having a lovely quiet Sunday afternoon in our underwear.

Mama Said (There's Much Weight You Will Lift)

My mother has finally returned from South America. Many of you won't know, but one of the various machinations grinding up my life as of late was the situation with my mother and our extended family in Peru. I don't know how much I can, should, or want to write about them here.

Let's summarise: they're dicks.

My mother was trying to rescue my grandmother from elder abuse and theft at the hands of her own children (my mother's siblings), and rescue some aspects of herself that were lost in the machinations of growing up among a bunch of dicks. Elder abuse is something I never thought would impact my life and I count myself lucky it wasn't me in a corrupt South American nation trying to do right by my mother.

Still, I could criticise my mom's handling of the situation, but there's a lot I don't know about it in truth. I do think she could have communicated more (hypocritical as I guess that is) and I could probably get away with suggesting her priorities got out of whack staying 6 months away from the situation burbling in Toronto in her absence (i.e., my father in the hospital and the whole rest of the responsibilities in her life which were left behind).

I'm one to always try to understand before criticising. So, I can point-out a fuck-up, but that's not in truth a "critique". I was very hurt knowing that my father and sisters were feeling such a lack of support in their lives, when my Mom gone to fight the good (and/or futile ridiculous) fight in Peru to try to get my grandmother into the protected environment of a nursing home.

There is a natural sense of betrayal in a situation where someone de-prioritises you and things which are plainly important and goes and focusses elsewhere for a while. I am angry and frustrated by the whole situation, but in fact I can't say what I'd have done in her place. No one has ever been abusing or robbing my mother to the point where I felt I had to fly across a continent and sideline my whole life to try to fix the matter.

Basically, it was all a big friggin' mess.

http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/thewaterboy/alwaysontherun.htm

Freud's Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis

I'm finally finishing the summary collection of Freud's lectures. I read the lectures on parapraxes (meaningful errors of the tongue, pen, memory and other such "Freudian slips") like a bajillion frillion times, and never made it through without getting distracted. The problem reading this is that I sort of know it all, so there's a definite feeling of slogging through. I'm now past the halfway mark and getting into interpretation of dreams. This is again nothing new, but reading Freud's specific arguments and examples is a lot more fun than the basic principles of the unconscious and ambivalence.

What's especially interesting is how dated it all is. Freud has to spend about a page introducing the fact that he's going to deal with sexual issues and name specific parts of the anatomy (which he in fact later refers to quite indirectly whenever possible) even though there are "women present". Also references to masturbation and the inherent terror in a child's heart that comes with it (har de har...). I am researching ways to resurrect this guy and have him update everything. In one bit he refers to a boy's fear of "the punishment that masturbation brings" and expects the audience to actually know what he's talking about. What was the punishment for masturbation? Is he talking about hair palms or blindness or one of those things that your dad used to include as punch lines to jokes? In the post-AIDS post-Sex in the City era where masturbation is in fact a form of healthcare, and women discuss their preference for clitoral vs. vagina stimulation in their vibrators, so many of the examples Freud uses seem to be relegated to childhood sexual development. We still have sexual shame, but now we need to take the whole thing up a notch.

Freud analyses a dream and concludes with, "This dream represents the boys homosexual desires towards his uncle" and I'm like, "AND??". When such a suggestion would cause riots in the streets, it's ok to leave it at that and hope you can just get people to digest that much. For me I'm finding reading this stuff really leaves me in the sad situation where I may have to start reading all the case examples before I get to any of the good stuff.

Who's Yo Daddy?

So, as I said, my father had a heart attack last week.

As you probably know, it's very hard for me to be out here with my father living in a hospital. I've been away a long time, but this last year the idea of giving up and coming home has come up many times. What is difficult for me is that it never ceases to be difficult. It's been over a year since the stroke that put my father in a wheelchair and hospital. The year before that he burnt up the house he and my mom lived in. Then this year he has a heart-attack. I am at the point where I am going to be leaving this country soon, and I have to think - where is it that I should be going?

The plan has been, for 5 years now, to leave the UK and go to Spain. Now Lo and I are living together, we share this dream. We've got a budget (yes, Noz has a budget!) and we're working on moving. I've start sending out job applications and we've been looking at apartments in Madrid. But since this heart attack I've had to think what will happen if I go through with it?

10 years ago, my father and I kinda parted ways, like many fathers and sons have when the son starts to develop into a young man. Our relationship was built for a certain dynamic and when I needed it to change, he couldn't adapt. Hell, he was in his 70s when I was teenager. After I left, after the fire, and especially, especially after his stroke, the old bastard realised he'd slipped up and started to reconnect with me. Now I have a father who wants to communicate - who wants to share and connect with his son. Fucking fucker.

It's one thing to keep living in the UK, especially with the crushing debt that keeps me here. But when I've got the money, and the will and way to move to another country, if I move to Spain and then 6 months later my dad dies - what then? He gets off easy! I have to deal with it for the rest of my life! I am now for the first time thinking - maybe I have to go home. If I don't, then I miss out on whatever years my father has left.

A good talk with Lo, my boss and my Mom sorted all this out. Work is willing to allow me to work from Canada a few weeks a quarter, and just airing it all with my mom always helps.

Swedish Meatballs - Stockholm, Sweden

http://scandinaviancooking.com/articles/swedish_meatballs.htm

See, if it weren't for this blog, would you have ever known there was a ScandanavianCooking.com?

Sweden was fantastic, but it wasn't until I was on the way home writing this up that I realised we COMPLETELY forgot to go get some meatballs!

More coming soon…

I'm a Brit!

Coming soon…

Work is great

Coming soon…

Work is hard and terrible

Coming soon…

My music is going nowhere

Coming soon…

2006-08-18 NozUpdate - I Know You Hate Me - London, England
Mood:  don't ask
Topic: Noz Update

2006-08-18

I can hear you out there.

Before I go to sleep, I can hear the voices.  From all around the globe they whir and fizzle through the air like tiny terrorist rockets converging on me.

Whispers...

"Noz is SUCH a dick." 

"...Never returns my emails"

"He doesn't even blog anymore..."

And you're right.  And I am.

I'm afraid that there's this horrible backlog of crap inside me right now that doesn't let anything out.  My family and work life are in such a state that I'm basically an emotional cripple these days.   Before, I'd escape into blogging, writting, music, dancing, etc....  That's just not working for me lately, and I'm trying to figure out what and how to go on.

I'm still here.  I wanted you to know that.  I wanted you to know that you, my loved ones from all over, with your little intercontinental ballastics, help keep me going.  You help me, and Lo, who bears the burden of me, to go on. 

It's the knowledge that all my tsunamis of guilt and sub-strata agonising are an epic work of nihilist fiction.  You remind me that I am capable of an infinite amount of silliness, and that the average level of cool, kind, great, decent, and invigoratingness in the people who read my blogs is such that I by proxy am still pretty a-ok. Lo reads my blogs too and she's pretty wicked.

Lo however, poor thing, has to live with me.  And has to live here in this place where she is like a fish thrown in the dusty ground of the scortching Sahara. The rest of you lot can selectively remember the good, and forget the bad.  Lucky people.  

Think a fond thought for us both and please continue to be as great as you always all were.

2006-08-17 Straight Men, Gay Eyes
Mood:  amorous
Topic: Flickr

I've decded to start posting interesting stuff from Flickr on my blog.  I sometimes write junk on Flickr that I usually would have blogged, but I can't share it with the Blogging World because it's all on security protected private Flickr pages.  So, we had an interesting chat recently where someone asked:

"Do you think str8 dudes mind if guys watch them or look at them?"

and that got a variety of replies.  The most interesting of which was OF COURSE mine, which I've copied for your reading pleasure here, along with one that I mentioned: 

Pacey369 said: "MOST males like to be looked at if they know how hot tehy are. We are vain creatures- to say the least. You don't have to always flaunt it, but any guy that doesn't like to be looked at is either insecure, or have some other type of problem."

Noz said: "It's hard to generalise but I'd agree with Pacey369 that basically, men like to be looked at by anyone who might find them attractive. In my experience out in straight clubs, I've had men - especially younger more insecure ones - be very interested to know if I find them attractive, because they feel it validates them and gives a more "honest" answer then they could ever get from a woman.

One once asked me if I fancied him, and I told him that unfortunately he wasn't really my type and he was visibily upset. He didn't fancy a man but he really liked the idea of being fancied, regardless. I think also, with women, there's a lot of distrust from straight men. i.e., they feel that women may fancy their social status, or their clothes, or their money or their connections, or their job, or whatever isn't really "them". With men, they know we're after their ass and their tongue and their cock and don't really care what kind of car they drive, and as long as they don't look like slobs, our main priority with their clothing is that they remove it.

This kind of honesty and pure sexual interest attracts straight men to our opinions, if not our bodies."

 

2006-07-18 Those birthday things are always right for me
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Net Junk

What's interesting is when they're not generic stuff like "You like cookies and don't enjoy it when people splash cold water on you while you're sleeping".

The ones that actually say something that reflects part of what makes you individual are kind of freaky and I love them.

This one in particular I liked, and there's some personality test I have to find for you guys that actually scared me.

"Strummin' my pain with his fingers..."

Your Birthdate: May 30

You have the type of personality that people either love or hate. You're opinionated, dramatic, intense, and very outspoken. And some people can't get enough of you - they're totally addicted. Others, well, they wish you were a little more reserved. Your strength: Your flair Your weakness: If you think it, you say it Your power color: Scarlet red Your power symbol: Inverted triangle Your power month: March

Heat Magazine Helps Out Normal Gals
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: Rant

This is a little Nozish rant about an article I read which categorically proved to me that men are obviously NOT involved in setting “society's standards of beauty” anymore. It is the sole domain of the insane to set images of beauty. When I was a kid, a size 6 (US size six is like a UK size 8?) was “perfect” apparently now it?s half that. I?ve had woman talk to my face about the pressure that the world puts on them to be thinner than thin, and have had my share of friends and acquaintances that?ve gone to extreme measures to measure up. This was a bit traumatic. From my own aesthetic point of view, the exposure of bone structures usually denied a public viewing apparent on many a top model give me a discomfort - if not make me spasm and retch - like a police tazer to the perineum.

That said, I have an admittedly narrow top threshold as well... However, all of the woman mentioned below are well within their carrying capacity as far as even I am concerned.

Many of you will know my hate-love-hate relationship with a little snot-rag of a tabloid travesty called “Heat”. It?s the periodical responsible for distributing hard-hitting articles such as “Celebrity Sneezes” - a full-size photo spread of about 6 pages of celebrities about to, just having, or in the process of, sneezing; and “Stars Bundle Up” - a similar pictorial smorgasbord showcasing the bold and the beautiful in hats and scarves. Nothing particularly high-fashion was featured, and no designers were named, it was just a rare peek at Ben Affleck and his ilk wearing toques and gloves. Fascinating stuff. I couldn?t put (or keep) either article down. Riveting.

I?ve got the November issue handy, and one of the cover stories is called “We Love Our Curvy Bodies: Stars Tell Us Why”. The premise being that “imperfect” celebrities with non-Hollywood-standard, “rounder” bodies give regular gals some insight into how they cope in such a high-pressure environment. How do they deal with having bodies that don?t measure up to what “society” deems to be ideal? A big issue for Heat to tackle. Let?s see how they handled it.

So, Grrrls, who are the spokeswomen? Who are the proud, plus-sizers? Who are the attainable beauties, that offer hope outside the ridiculous super-woman images that the evil, chauvinistic, patriarchal, demanding, glass-ceiling installing, unrealistic boyfriends insist that you torture and surgically alter yourselves to become? Who is there to show them they should be satisfied, and love you as you are? Who are the sisters in the struggle?

Let?s run down the list of some of the curvy gals, shall we:

Rachel Stevens - “I think it?s great that curvy girls like myself, Beyoncé, and Jennifer Lopez can be role models for young girls. I saw Beyoncé in concert not too long ago, and I just find it so inspiring to see her shake her ass even though she?s not the tiniest girl in the world.”

Wait for it...

And… now, you may now return your jaws to the fully upright positions.

***

Salma Hayek - “I refuse to become part of this perfect body syndrome. I like my body. It looks good on screen, and not because it?s perfect. ... One guy I dated said, ‘You?re beautiful, but you?re soft.?... I?m against living your life around the concept of having a perfect body.”

Wow. Thank god that normal-shaped gals like Salma are around speaking up for everyone else, eh? 90% of the men I know would have probably made that same comment about Ms. Hayek. I?d guess most would say she?s not “kick-out-of-bed” porkie, but that she?s really got to watch it. But hey, guys are jerks. God knows men don?t like a woman?s body unless they can play her ribcage like a hammer dulcimer. Guys are all bile-gargling, diarrhoea-spitting monsters who won?t give an imperfect girl like Salma Hayek a break in life. “I like my body”; Hey, at least someone does, Softie. Most guys wouldn?t take you out of the house in case their friends caught sight of them.

***

Beyoncé - “If you?re smaller, that?s great – small is beautiful too – but I think if you?ve got some curves, there?s nothing wrong with that. I don?t like to see girls trying to starve themselves so they can be what society says is beautiful.”

Proof: Beyoncé is an inspiring role model for young girls. Yes, my expanding young feminists, the noose isn?t your only option. If you can?t be really thin and sexy like Victoria Beckham, Paris Hilton or that archetype of famine sexuality, sorry feminine sexuality, Kate Moss, you can always settle at the half-measure of Beyoncé and know you haven?t let yourself go completely to hell. Phew. I can feel the relief coming through from y?all across the internet.

Beyoncé, you go, Grrl! Fight the power! You?re Gravy in Love, child!

***

Kelly Brook - “I?m different in Hollywood because I?m not one of those skinny girls. I refuse to get like that. ...Halle Berrry?s got a very sexy body - she's so womanly. And Beyoncé, too”

Great to hear you?re taking a stand, Love. I hope this article got shoved in front of Ms. Berry in time for her to get her head from the oven and shut off the gas. Also nice that it?s not just Ms. Stevens cutting Beyoncé some slack. Throw the poor thing a low-cal tofu bone!

***

Others in on the Dessert Trolley to Curve Town that I thought were particularly rich:

Scarlett Johansson - “I?m never going to look at a picture of Uma Thurman and think I could have her body”

***

Jennier Lopez - “I?m not a tall, thin, size-three actress, which is good. I think that?s a positive message.”

***

There were three others of whom I?ve never heard. Some even looked noticeably larger than the XXL Scarlett Johansson! Overall, the article did deliver J-Lo?s positive message: there are alternatives besides self-immolation for those who, like her, are unable to fit their round pegs into society?s square holes. If you?re only as attractive as this humble crew of frumps, then you too can have self-respect, a career, vote, use public washrooms and do all manner of other things we once thought reserved only for “the beautiful people”.

Take two steps back from the window-ledge all you depressive Halle-Berries! Yes, maybe most men would take some sinew and gristle stretched across a wire coat hanger rather than you, but thanks to these plump celebrities and Heat?s relentless attack on body fascism, we can all feel more comfortable in ourselves and in the knowledge we live in a more accepting, level-headed world.

NozUpdate - Dad, Lo, and I - en route to Mechelen, Belgium
Mood:  down
Topic: Noz Update

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Hello Nozfans,

I’ve been neglecting you as of late. I’m sorry about this. It’s been a very difficult last few months for me. I’d have to flip through my blogs to even remember how I was doing before about 6 weeks ago, but in retrospect, I see it as the rosy days of my youth compared to the last few weeks.

I didn’t blog about it at the time because I didn’t know what I wanted to say, but my father had a serious stroke earlier this summer and I spent a week in Toronto visiting him and my family. It was a difficult week, and has been a very difficult period since around that time. I still don’t know exactly what to feel – there’s a potent impotence of being the one remote in a situation like this. I can’t really do much other than ask any of my friends in Toronto who can, to please drop by the hospital to visit him when you are able. What he is really lacking is human contact that isn’t a nurse or a doctor, or a rehab person. His persona has returned and is snared in a broken shell, and it is very frustrating for him. He’s been very appreciative of Roxanne’s visits, and I think that if anyone of the home-crew can go by to just say hi, even for 15 minutes, it would brighten his day significantly.

I can’t really bring myself to write much about my feelings about my father’s situation. I’ll avoid the question – hey, I’ve been in Britain 5 years, I’ve learned all the tricks – by talking around the issue: It’s a very difficult situation for my family. Logistically and emotionally we’re pushed to work together in ways that, like most families, we’re not especially good at. I myself am thinking often that I have for 10 years been avoiding any emotional interaction with my father, due to the rift that grew between us in my adolescence, and now, when I would like to connect with him, I find I no longer know how. The funny part is that I knew this would happen, but at the time, I didn’t think I would care so much.

Basically my Dad’s always been a big nut-job, and now he’s a nut-job that is suffering, and that’s very different. Also, the fact he’s being regularly medicated means that he’s in many psychological ways, being restored to being the man he was before the diabetes made him such a morose cantankerous old curmudgeon. He’s interactive and funny again, and tragically, has a certain vibrance that he’d been lacking, but it’s a vibrance that’s confined to a bed or if he’s lucky, a wheelchair.

I’m torn by the fact that this man, who so disappointed, failed, and in my mind, betrayed me as a father, is now in need, and I am driven to help and support him. After 10 years of anger, and 5 years of ambivalence, now I’m trying to reconnect with feelings of love. The ironic bit is that he doesn’t seem to have a clue that this rift has existed. My family is similarly torn by varying levels of drive and availability. Everyone feels justified in their position, and in these situations there’s little ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ and so everyone has a constant sense of righteous indignation combined with bitterness, tempered with the underlying reality that our individual concerns and squabbling have to be set aside occasionally to check on my dad in the hospital. It’s a bit of a mess really, so it’s both frustrating and relieving to be five or six timezones away from the whole situation. I’m left to feel guilty that I’m not able to do more, and guilty that I’m happy about not being able to do more.

I guess I talked a bit about my feelings. I’ve learned the theory of the stiff upper lip, but I’m pretty shit at maintaining it. Gotsta keep keepin’ it real, I guess.

Work continues to suck like a cavernous shotgun wound to the chest. They have finally, after nearly 18 months, gotten around to calculating our commission payments for 2005. (God knows what happened with 2004). Lo and behold, they’ve figured out that not only do I get no commission, I owe them several thousand dollars. How this happened I won’t detail here, but I want to add it to the stack of hideous travesties perpetrated at this monkey-house chicken-shit outfit. I’m starting to realize that it’s simply the case that no one agrees with what I think, and to “define my own destiny” as it were, I would have to “step up to the plate” on a lot of “challenges”.

Frankly, I’m freaking tired of stepping up to the plate. I have been pushing through ridiculous workloads, laughable objectives, and clueless management for a very very long time, and I just don’t care to help anymore. I’m tired of fighting against a company just to get the chance to help it. Everyone I talk to fundamentally disagrees with me, but says that if I set aside even more of my evenings and weekends to put together the business context and supporting arguments, then they’ll at least hear me out. Fuck it. I’m exhausted, bitter, disgustingly underpaid and undervalued, unsupported in an infrastructure or personnel investment sense, and constantly treated as if I’m lucky to even be employed. Screw that. Whatever happens, send me an email. I’ll be in the john masturbating to gay porn. Business Develop that, bitch.

What’s freaky is that I thought it was a departmental thing, but since I’ve started to be more vocal about my frustrations, it seems I’m a carbon copy whiner. Everyone I speak to, regardless of role, has all the same complaints: no one listens to me, those who do can’t get any momentum behind their words, and the companies internal workings are a shambles so pathetic, if there was a license to employ people, it would be revoked. And through it all there’s this atmosphere that if you’re not happy you A) are a trouble maker spreading lies and will get your boss in trouble with their boss, so shut up B) are a greedy lazy failure of an employee, and want get paid seven figures to lay in the sun all day masturbating to gay porn C) are an ungrateful bastard who just doesn’t ‘get’ why you’re lucky and should seek professional help to remedy your inherent stupidity. It’s like everyone has their fingers in their ears and is playing the Flintstones theme song on 11 while great employees resign and projects spiral into disaster so that they don’t look like ‘a downer’.

If it weren’t for the staggeringly wicked teams that we all work in, I think everyone would’ve just walked. We love each other, hate our company. Such a waste of personnel bursting with potential the world has truly never seen. It disgusts me to the deepest recesses of my soul.

What keeps me here is the relationships I’ve developed with my coworkers and the various partners around Europe. Internally, we are a great team, and I love the people I work with. Externally, we have people I’ve developed both personal and professional relationships with, and furthermore, to whom I have made promises. I have said “We’re going to do X and Y - together” and now they expect me to keep my word. I take that very seriously. I see it as an obligation that I’m not quick to walk away from and I am to a great extent honour-bound to work through our internal “challenges” to make good on what I’ve promised to deliver. They have earned a hell of a lot more of my loyalty than my company has. They have invested in me.

Thank god very few people from work read my blogs…

And my teeth are rotting out of my head! I’ve needed a root canal for a month, and it’s so painful that I am having constant headaches and have to take painkillers just to sleep and get through the days. I went to the dentist in Canada, he said he couldn't do anything that day because I was leaving. I went to the dentist as soon as I could when I returned from Canada, and they opened up the worst of the three endangered teeth, told me the problem, and then said they couldn’t do anything until the next time I came to see them. That was a week ago. It’s going to be another week at least before I can get it looked at, as I’m in on the road in Germany all week immediately after I leave the Netherlands.

And I don’t do any music anymore... I will, but I haven't in ages.

And then there’s my back, which caused my mother to swoon with woe over msn describing my “curved spine”, “hunched shoulders”, and “hanging rib cage”. “What’s it all about?” Jesus Christ. There’s nothing I need more as I rush on towards thirty and spend my 5000th day bent in front of a computer screen than to be described as if I’m the hunchback of Notre Dame. Everything except Lo is going to hell in a hand-basket, and I’m supposed to find additional time in my gapless schedule to search out and then take Pilates classes in Amsterdam, Welwyn, London and Paris. Christ. Everyone wants me to do everything all at once, and with a bright smile on my face while I do it.

My saving grace, if somehow still stressful: Elodie is now less than two weeks from moving to the UK on an indefinite basis. This is great. This is also scary. I want to be more excited for us, and I want to be upbeat and supportive, but everything else in my life is so difficult right now, that it’s hard for me to have the attitude I’d like. I am excited, and I’m of course scared to crap at the same time. Elodie is able to be a lot less anxious than I am, and she’s lucky. I am in a sense the passive one in all this. I am committed to our plans, and I am looking forward to living them out, but in the end, she’s quitting her job, has left her house, and is couch-surfing so that she can come live with me in my country, where she would never otherwise live. That’s hard to live with without feeling fear and guilt. Lo’s sweetness, patience and support is making it easier, and really, I think if it was anyone else in the world, I’d have given this whole thing up long ago. Wish us luck. With finding a job, and a home, and moving, and taxes, and all the rest, we’re in for a lot in the next few months. We’re very lucky to have found each other, and I think with the strength in our relationship, we will do fine. We balance each other’s insanity nicely. That’s everything that I could want in a partner.

It's been very hard for her for me to be so totally embroiled in my own dramas when we're just two weeks from moving in together. When you're at a distance, when things are bad it is the most stressful. I have been absent and distant and not as supportive as I would've like to be these last weeks. It's an awful thing to love someone but be too weak to show it. I'm trying to give my share into things, but I have been failing. Although periodically she can lay a guilt trip so good sometimes I think she's a closet jew, I can only thank her for putting up with me. In the end, when we really need each other, we come through.

My Dad is at the Baycrest Hospital
Floor 3W
Room 28, bed D
Hiis telephone number is
416 785 2500 extension 3876 (better to call him after 8 in the evening as he usually is away from his bed

Like the Damned
Mood:  amorous
Topic: Poetry

"Make love to me like the damned," she said, as she clamped his eyes with hers.
She gripped his neck and pulled. She kissed him -- hard. Little bruises-to-be stung his lips.
She gasped. "Fuck me like you're trying to kill me".
So he did.
There was much screaming and weeping and sweating and smiling.
They panted in decelerating stereo.
She sighed and tickled his ears with her nails.
He rolled his head around her chest and kissed whatever flesh was nearest.
She giggled.
When he woke,
She was gone.

The Latest Episode in my War with God
Mood:  caffeinated
Now Playing: Depeche Mode Personal Jesus (remix)

Dear Reader: This blog may offend you deeply, and for that I am sorry. Read on if you wish.

I’m in a hotel in Amsterdam, and someone has left a CD in the player. It ranges 20 years and an array of genres. Songs I love, songs I didn’t know by artists I like, and songs I didn’t know, by artists I didn’t know, but that it turns out I like too.

When I decided to write this, I had no idea that the song just starting was a remix of Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode. Spookey, eh?

Sure. But meaningless.

I am sitting in this hotel doing nothing today. I tried texting and phoning people, but no one wanted to hang. I read the blog of a guy from work. Two entries struck me as having resonance with each other. I doubt he intended this at the time. The first was more directly about what I’ll be talking about in this entry. It’s about our ability – need even – to imperfectly represent an infinitely complex world, and our endless efforts to try to get our outside world to match as closely and have as many relationships as possible with our inside worlds.

The second kicked off a bunch of thoughts in me about the nature of thought and communication. How can we convey so much in a few words? Such intense understanding and fluid communication as we see in poetry and other great writing? Because we are in fact not saying it, but simply cross-referencing an experience that the other person also has. The skill is a stroke of luck that we can select, and find pleasure in doing so, the words that will stimulate the relevant feelings in the audience. It’s like some sort of encryption, or lock and key system, where we both have the safe full of goodies in our minds, but you can’t access yours until I duplicate my key and give it to you. The experience, or even the idea, isn’t shared, but two actually separate ideas/experiences trigger each other such that a comparable feeling is felt by two distinct individuals. The actual exchange is infinitesimal compared to the result that it kicks off.

As so many things tend to, this brought me to thinking of a girl. This one is one that I recently (a few years ago) nearly fell for. If you’ve read the comments I wrote on my colleagues’ blog, no, not that girl. I wasn’t into this girl until after highschool. Anyway, since I was originally into this girl, she has become quite religious (by my extremely strict standards), and we’ve had endless argument about inherent meaning in things. Endless, that is, until I ended it by “agreeing to disagree”. Or in other words, by me agreeing to think she was just crazy. I still love her as a dear friend, and respect her as an intellectual and as a person, but just less than I would otherwise. She’s lucky she’s got a good religion with tonnes of value above and beyond the theological aspects. If she was into one of the really dumb ones we’d have a serious problem.

Now, I have other friends who believe in God, or are somewhat or somehow religious, but this person hit a triple whammy of: a) I give a shit what she thinks (and still do) b) she takes it pretty damn seriously c) she invests a huge amount of her time into persuing her faith. Eventually it hurt our relationship because we both felt so strongly that it was difficult for us (i.e., me) to refrain from going 20 rounds about it every single time we sat down to talk. It causes me pain that she is sleeping with the enemy.

God is my sworn enemy because I really object to the idea that everything around me has meaning.

But why “object”, Noz?

It’s just a bit too convenient. As organisms, we’re hard-wired to find meaning in everything anyway, and what everyone is saying is, luckily, everything doeshave meaning! Everything has a purpose! Phew! Doesn’t that work well for us? It sure does. I see belief in God like finding a wallet full of money on a deserted beach when you’re dying broke and thinking it was left there for you. What really makes my skin crawl is that there are so many people who would think exactly that. It was left there for them. “I had a great need, it was unexpectedly satisfied in way that is beyond my insight, QED, there is a god.” I can’t avoid the conclusion that the wallet was found because broke people have nothing better to do than wander around lonely beaches, n’est-ce pa?

But seriously, we take our internal world and we project it outwards; we take complex and/or meaningless phenomenon, mark it up with all sorts of meaningful information and tuck it safely away for cross-referencing later based on what it means to us. Such is the human. All things we do are like this, and this behaviour (would) perfectly and seamlessly explain(s) our having created a god. Simultaneous with our continually learning to master and understand the stuff that previously we were told only god was able to understand and control, this implies to me there’s a damn good chance we made the whole thing up. God seems to be beating a steady retreat everyday as people look at all our different behaviours, and all the other times and ways we make junk up to make ourselves feel more safe and less alone, and realise that god fits the modus operandi of an imaginary friend – perfectly.

But still, Noz, why “object”?

Because, we’re supposed to grow out of having imaginary friends, and move on to real ones. Because we’re not supposed to wage wars over whose imaginary friend is the biggest and best on the block. Because when thinking about a problem, as a real person, I object to having to review the opinions of imaginary people. Because everything having anthropocentric meaning seems to me a childish and needless get-out-plan to avoid embracing a world that wasn’t designed for the joy and proliferation of little ol’ you. Because I love the world as it is, and don’t need nor like to attribute all its wonders and joys to something that’s supposedly even bigger and better than the precious, gorgeous and fulfilling world already around me. And more pettily, because it just irks me all to shit when two adults are having a perfectly good discussion and one retreats back into the middle ages, taps their nose, winks, and instantly imbues everything they say with some 3rd party authority that can never be questioned. Everything they say suddenly means more.

So anyway, I’m thinking about all this after I read these two blogs by this guy who wrote them about unrelated subjects he’s never discussed with me even once, all because I happen to be bored and whiling away a Sunday on my PC. Coincidently, on the side of his blog are links to a photo sharing website. I see a neat photo on his area and clicking on it leads me to what’s called a “pool”. A photo pool is where all sorts of people throw in photos about a certain topic. This particular pool is on the subject of “pareidolia”. “What in sweet, sweet, fuck does that mean? “ Noz asks himself, blithely…. A quick Google later and I find:

“pareidolia (payr.eye.DOH.lee.uh) n. The erroneous or fanciful perception of a pattern or meaning in something that is actually ambiguous or random. ”

I.e., The meaning in the inkblots, the animal shapes in the clouds, the man in the moon, the fate in the tea leaves, orrr…. The Judeo-Christian god…? WOW! A whole word dedicated to explaining our tendency to take crap that means nothing, and make it mean something. Why do we do this? Because the meaning is there? Because if you are looking at a fire hydrant, or an electric outlet, or the spots on a potato from the right angle, you can see a real face that’s actually there in front of your eyes, not one that your mind is synthesizing from within its own bank of images and symbols? Because if in 1978, 8000 people did a pilgrimage to see Jesus’ face in the bottom of Mario Rubio’s tortilla pan, they can’t all be idiots? Because someone somewhere actually finds Paris Hilton physically attractive and isn’t just swept up in the hype?

Or is it just because it’s a basic primitive instinct we all share to see what we know, and see what we want to see. Maybe there’s a simpler explanation as to why so much of the time God appears to those that need him most: Because the ones who really want him will create him no matter what anyone says, and no one can really stop anyone else from putting together the puzzles pieces however they want.

So, the CD, no one getting back to me, the two random blogs, my friend of the endless war, the photo site, the photo pool… All these things seem to be falling into places so oddly today, with no logical reason that they should be such. It’s so eerie. And so, the epiphany hits me: God is trying to convince me he doesn’t exist.

Tra-LA!

I have to see this as a sort of personal victory. Two possibilities: 1) God doesn’t exist and this is all just random crap 2) God exists and he’s so sick of my shit that he’s actually wilfully steering me as far from him as he can. Either sick of me or scared he’s going to have to put up with me sitting next to him for all eternity poking him with a stick going, “Is that really you? I don’t know if I buy it…”

I have to end now with my usual disclaimer to separate myself from all the other atheists who somehow think “science” has shown them there’s no god, or those with even more preposterous nonsensical reasonings like, “If there’s a god, then why do bad things happen to good people?”. Nothing has shown me there’s no god. That’s impossible. God is by his very nature un-findable by humans (again, convenient, eh?). So I have only as much evidence against god as any theist has for him: none. BUT, what I do have is humans. I have lots of them, and I have lots opportunity to study, how, when, and why – currently and historically – they manipulate facts for their own comfort. Who do I find smiling back at me like the kid with hand-in-cookie-jar when I chase down the winding roads of man’s self-indulgent make-believe? You guessed it: Santa Claus in a white robe.

See now, to prevent coming across as a bitter and shallow individual that feels life is "meaningless", or is counter-implying that it somehow has less value that these people think, I'll have to do a similar monologue on the wonders of the world, and it's many beautiful mysteries. I'll - when I get to it - dive into the many great other reasons we have to do everything that small-minded theists say we're supposed to do because if not, god will spank us, and large-minded theists think were put there for us to do for some reason that will get cleared up later... Like when we're all getting rewarded for doing things we don't understand.

“Feeling unknown
And you’re all alone
Flesh and bone
By the telephone
Lift up the receiver
I’ll make you a believer”

As always - response posting's invited: how to post. Or email to noznoznoz@hotmail.com with subject line "Waiting for Blogot"

Poem - Not for Naught (for Elodie)
Now Playing: Lamb (Fear of Fours), in Le Havre, France
Topic: Poetry
Bliss
My life is about this.
Oft trite, but with true insight,
One can see that I'm right.
At least in my attempts to,
For sake of we two,
Release my stuttering heart
To the anxious experience,
The chest-tickling tightness,
That constricts and intensifies the strange lightness
That I feel.
When I open for just an eyelash bat,
Or open an ear to a hear a heartbeat,
Or my lips such that we might meet,
I feel a horrid heat flash through.

Fight through!
Through the fear I might be happy
I might be more
That would be so different, that
That I dread the thought

Push, push, push?.
Breathe.
Let the birth happen.
Let the moment stretch and break you,
And let out the new you.
Reach out a hand, and grasp another.
Jump.
Look down and love the site of the ground,
Rushing closer.
Rush at me. Hit and split me and make more of me,
So that I can do the same for you.
So we can finally be free
Free
Freedom
Bliss
Just bliss
It's all about this

Casuarinas
Topic: Dream

For the first time – I think in my life – it was staged in Casuarinas, Peru, in my Grandmother’s house. I think I was just a bit younger – say, 23. I was with my uncles, who were only slightly older than I, say, 27, 28 (the age that I am now).

We were three in the house, my uncle Jimmy, and one more who was a bit anonymous, but I know he was family. I suppose by process of elimination it was my uncle Cesar. The house was otherwise empty. My memory of the dream only goes halfway back into it. I had already made a big Chinese stir-fry. It was a sweet/sour orange and black pepper sauce, and I used lost of different brightly coloured vegetables. I remember most clearly the green and red peppers.

We were quite hungry. Since it was just the three men in the house, and my uncles didn’t cook, I was given the duty. I went to the fridge and it was a chaotic pile of pots and pans and barely plastic-covered leftovers. The stir-fry I had made the day before was piled into some 4 or 5 different containers and stacked into the fridge such that it looked like a heap. My perspective was so tight on the food it almost seemed I was in the fridge with it and it stretched on for ages, like a mountain range.

I said I would make the leftovers, and add meat. My sister Joanna was there too during this discussion, and she had already made herself a big bowl of Chef Boyardee Ravioli, so I was just cooking for tree. I had to keep returning to the fridge during the conversation to check the possibilities

There were two frozen pieces of meat, and I remember that Jimmy was very sceptical they’d be defrosted in time. I had to write something with my finger in the frost on the side of one piece (both were wedge-cut, like pieces of cake, or cheese). I wrote 3 letters on one side of the wedge, and three on the other. I can’t remember what I wrote! S a o l k … dunno. I think it was something personal like a name. When I wrote it, I was able to come back and say we’d eat the two pieces, and I’d use a bunch of the vegetables from the day before. I brought two pots from the fridge to put on the table so they could check the sauce for quality.

This whole discussion was happening on a kitchen table, the layout wasn’t quite right. There was the table, then the kitchen, then the offices, and there was no hallway like in my grandmother’s house before you got to the offices.

When I brought the food, there was rice in it that had dried to being nearly inedible. I apologized for this and remembered the rice my father would leave in the fridge until it dried out. I asked them to eat the least dry bits. They eat with their fingers, and approved the sauce. We agreed we’d share the two wedges of meat (one was chicken and one fish I think) although it wouldn’t be much. This is when I asked Jo if she wanted any and she said she was ok. I was relieved.

I got to work, and loaded a wok with the meat and just a few vegetables. I was to add more later for some reason. At this point, the other men were in the offices working, and somehow 3 Peruvian girls showed up on the scene. I think they were the three girls I went dancing with in Iquitos. They were definitely love-interests, and I spent a long time with them chatting in different parts of the house. It’s a bit of a blur, but I remember I returned with them to the kitchen and the oil had burned black, and the food was still cooking away in it.

The food was relatively undamaged, but the smell wasn’t great, and news somehow got to my uncles. They began to chastise me with that brand of venom that my eldest brother and other Peruvians use to let you know you’re an idiot. If you’ve not experienced it it’s an essay in itself to explain...

Then my alarm went off; Time to get everyone up and make them banana-chocolate pancakes. I hope I don’t burn them!

Stupid Freaking Internet Things
Mood:  loud
Topic: Net Junk

How the HELL do these things work!?!?!!

Test

Oops - URL Redirect
Mood:  energetic
Topic: Net Junk

1. This poor guy put a redirect on his website, so any URL off the main domain goes to the home page. Seems sensible, but in effect, it means you can type in:
   http://digitalsplendor.com/cunt.html
   and it goes straight to pics of his wedding, honeymoon, orchids, etc.. My first reaction before realising the issue was, "I can't believe he called his page that! What does his wife think?

My Goals as a Musician
This is what I want my songs to make people do:

pump