tonight i cannot find the words. so instead, i will tell you that i sit here in the semi-darkness (just enough light to not go blind infront of this screeen), flamenco sketches (miles davis, kind of blue - thank you Rob) playing in the background and this photo by Peter Lik simply titled genesis - for all that i feel and the thousand words that are not coming easily tonight.

In just a couple of weeks I'm headed to the city. And this is my inpiration for while I'm there!!!!

Prodigals

While he was still a long way off, his father saw him

and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son,

threw his arms around him and kissed him. Luke 15.

Choices. Life is full of them.

I'm close to tears tonight. The kind that are born out compassion so deep it is difficult to even put your finger on that particular part of yourself. It is from nowhere and everywhere all at the same time. Tears that dance on the edge of your lashes and quietly spill over without so much as a sob or whimper.

When it comes to Miss K, I've shed plenty of tears. God, sometimes I almost can't believe how much I love that girl. I war between slaying all of her dragons for her and giving her a royal ass kicking of my own! I may not have given birth to her, but few would disagree that she's all mine when it gets right down to it. From the very day I met her, we've had an otherworldly cosmic bond.

And now, after months apart, she's coming home. A little battered, maybe even broken in some spots. But sometimes we need these battles scars, so we can re-believe in the truths of who we are and see more clearly the paths that lead us.

.

Stranger than your sympathy

And this is my apology

I killed myself from the inside out
And all my fears have pushed you out

And I wished for things that I don't need

And what I chased won't set me free

~GooGoo Dolls, Sympathy

Happiness depends upon ourselves. Aristotle

I'm very at peace with myself and the world today. It feels wonderful to be well again and have my energy returned to its normal moderate-to-high level. I also just put down the phone from a long and heart-warming conversation with my mom - nothing in particular, it was just nice to talk and not feel hurried and to have good things (the everyday kind) to share with each other. At one point I realized I was a bit monopolizing on the conversation but pointed out that she is my mother so by default she must listen when others may not be quite as generous! She just laughed and gave the go ahead to keep on with the incessant talking.

I also have to secretly admit that work feels very satisfying at this time and space. I've so rarely had the pleasure in my professional life of such gratification and participation in the work I am doing. Yesterday I caught myself in a moment of shear excitement just waiting to get out the door and into my classroom. This week I started the planning process for a grade 3 team building afternoon - I'm downright giddy with thoughts about this project and best of all my colleagues are garnering full support!

It is a beautiful winter Saturday here in the northern climes of Canada. I'm going to be very decadent today and squeeze out every last drop of this weekend that I can (right after I clean the bathroom that is). The coffee pot awaits along with a good book and pj's til mid-afternoon. Wherever you are...may you be so blessed!

And seeing as I've never posted any pics of my new home and my camera suddenly decided (after months of being contrary) to speak to my computer... sorry the color quality is a bit off.

My place of work has many employees. Every employee has an email address. Now, I don't disagree that email does benefit our work environment by making information easily accessible...HOWEVER! it would seem that said place of work has (until today) lost all boundaries with regard to what should and should not be sent. Personally, I find it a constant struggle to keep important and informative emails away from the ever growing herd of chain mail and the ever cursed 'all recipients' button.

Yesterday someone emailed district wide a petition to reinstate prayer in schools, the subject line of course was "If you care you will forward." I can assure you that many cared but not in the regard the sender had anticipated.

This mornings 'you've got mail message' was a scathing rebuke from the IT department indicating that staff email was neither the time nor the place to be debating school prayer - which turned out to have originated in the US.

I fought my deep burning urge to email IT (and cc district wide of course) and applaud them for their show of kahunas on this subject. Go IT.

Bridget (because I'm too lazy to email),

An REM day sounds like my kind of day. Go girl go.

My love,
a

But that was just a dream
That was just a dream

my mind has become a muddled mess of thought pollution. cluttered and self-defeating. i'm quite certain that it is exhaustion that opens the door and keeps it open. a few years back I had real difficulty with this - certain the solution was to run away. now I see it more as spanning of the fine line between self love and hate.

I do my best to stay on the side of manic. the slope can be slippery and fraught with obstacles. but I recognize it now, feel the slide.

the answer for me is found in time out. time away from the world. finding my spirit. finding my joy. and then finding the same in you, whoever you may be. and knowing that tomorrow is a new and beautiful day.

If I say, "Surely the darkness will overwhelm me; the light around me will be night;"
even the darkness doesn't hide from you, but the night shines as the day. The darkness is like light to you. Psalm 139: 11,12

I find myself frustrated and anxious tonight. Irritated by a head cold that has lodged wholey in my voicebox, making me sound like a 50 year smoking veteran. My work requires not only that I talk a lot (understatement) but also that I emote and project - both impossible given my current condition - hence the anxious feelings.

I'm not good at being sick.

As a side note, I fricking hate football and it has been on our tv ALL day.

So I had a moment...sue me

an email I received today from my husband (who honestly is quite wonderful and I'm not even being sarcastic).

Telemarketers and call-center employees train specifically for persons like you!

You are in the category of "Pissed off Teacher who has been sick for a week, going through her period and suddenly gets a bill in the mail for an account that was supposed to be closed".

Oh, by the way, the garage door was open when I came home at lunch ... I assume you forgot to close it this morning.

Enjoy Oprah, Dr. Phil, and other self-help talk shows.

Take it easy ... I am thinking about you.

Luv, jb

Well for the time being at least... the bi-polar episode coupled with psychotic coprolalia has passed.

Three cheers for me.

I really hope I get my period soon because right now I am in one goddamn pissy state.

The short of it is this... I need to be in Edmonton for a conference on Feb.15 & 16. If I'm not there, I get charged with professional misconduct! That's right folks, professional misconduct. The association I belong to fronts me almost enough money for the flight down (incase it isn't oozing out, this sentence has been loaded with sarcasm). Apparently the conference centre (which I have been told is a shit-hole) set aside rooms for all of us out-of-towners at a "reasonable rate" - which I assure you isn't all that reasonable. When my colleague called to reserve yesterday she found out that all "these rooms" have been taken. Our room will be double the "reasonable rate". Lovely.

Now to add insult to injury, I asked husband to please book his meetings in the city for the same dates - seeing as he conducts business there at least once a month you wouldn't think it would be that big a problem. Well what-d'ya know, for the first time in the god doesn't exist knows how long, his meetings will be taking place here - in god fucking no where!!!!!!!!!! Oh right, because the boys from Edmonton decided they should try and make travel time more equitable. Fuck me. One way travel never seemed to bother them in the past, lucky for me their conscience got the better of them and their good deal which is punishment only to me will be carried out in February. Hmmm, do you supose they will be recipricating the equitability in April, June, August and so on? Sadly I guess no.

So I tried to convince husband to make the trip anyway and we drive instead. Oh but my husband is so busy. He works so hard. He couldn't possibly take a day off let alone three. Oh right, and what would he do with himself while I'm out all day. Men are assholes. All of them.

I'm going to bed.

what would life look like if we just granted ourselves permission to let go of all the crappy shitty stuff.

i don't see a problem with denial especially if the alternative is contentment.

WOOLGATHERING

Just a day. One of those days. Where I find myself with too much time on my hands and little ambition to fill it. I get lost in thought. Close my eyes and listen to those sad songs that in their own way bring me reflective and meditative joy. I think about crying but the reason are too pathetic to give in to. My blood and brain tick-tock to an unresolved becoming. I am uncharacteristically quiet. Husband keeps asking what is wrong. Nothing. Nothing is wrong.

For years an image of another life has been embossed in that part of me that only feels the world.

I live alone in a small cottage, reclusive but upscale in a minimalist design. Writing is my passion and my work is in high demand. I have done my share of suffering for my art. Divorced. Childless.

I try to live a balanced life, but it is difficult. I am a woman given to highs and lows. My characters are born of both sinners and saints and eventually become the other. I am in love with a man who loved me years before. Between us is a moral divide he refuses to cross over. He knows that I know that he wants to. I sense him everywhere. And when I take a lover, it is his hand that touches me. And with that hand I both adore and betray him over and over.

I get lost in the life of my novel. The cast consumes me. The stories are pieces of you and me, twisted until I can no longer recognize quite where they came from.

And on a day such as today... I question what it is that keeps me from this life.

Perhaps on most other days, I just don't want it enough.

Free to be pure - free to be sane

On a day like today

Free is all we gotta be

Dream dreams no one else can see

But you never know what might be coming for you and me

~

Bryan Adams

She Gets Down

Don't you try to tell yourself you travel undetected
When crawling with your face down to the ground
She's always got her eyes on you
When she gets down

Remember all those gentle nights you drifted off believing
You'd be safe if you just never made a sound
You wake up with the deepest cut
When she gets down

Sometimes the world we want is different than the one we find
I remember every soul that has touched me
Every hand that was held out so simple and kind

Down here after midnight there's many a man screaming at the sky
With all the fury he has found
She can shatter all your nerves
When she gets down

When she gets down storms that come suddenly up
make you stumble and fall
She takes your voice away when you face her
Leaves you confessing nothing at all
If you ever felt like you could lift up your life
Like you were diamonds that were pushing through the ground
Don't ever put your faith in her
When she gets down

Jim Cuddy

my girl is not doing so well. i'm worried. concerned.

sometimes we just need someone. makes you wonder who rescues who. perhaps we all need a saviour afterall.

Strip

Bellagio - foyer ceiling



Paris Hotel & Casino

Paris Hotel & Casino

Caesars Palace

Mirage Hotel (we stayed here)

Venetian Resort, largest integrated resort in the world

Strip view from hotel room at Mirage