the mEp.com... the second decade	...2007
my    E l e c t r o n i c    pen	the whole year

 

december 17th 2007

this is a blog entry with snowy backgrounds

 some things, you might not want to know. she hadn't recognized me; or had she? she really didn't want to tell her story but there are times that you just have no choice...i followed her to the cash, chloe curiously following alongside. she did look older, and now i know why. i remembered her as so happygolucky. it was just one of those things you HAD to tell someone. that 14 years later, you still think about someone everytime you drive up their street. even if you don't know which house they bought. i'm not sure if she cared; or if perhaps she thought i really needed to get a life. did she still live in that house? no, not for a long time. her children are school-age now. i remember she was pregnant last i saw her. they moved not far from us. nice neighbourhood. i would have said i envied her, until i heard the end of the story. or should i say the beginning. he left them. the husband. they were professors at the University. he was so nice. they were so educated. he left them. two years ago. he found a girlfriend. picked up and left for singapore. Singapore. the children were devistated. they haven't seen him since. how could he do that? my mind couldn't keep up to the story. the children need special schooling now. they have changed. nothing is the same. how could he do this? it's hard she says. but you go on. wow. how could he do that to my story? he had a beard. he left them. so much for Grand. my mystery is solved, 14 years later, but i don't like the ending.

november 10 2007

well slept, i am drawn here and not to paper.

too few all nighters leaves many days strung together
with not much hung on them and much hanging underneath.

i have taken action to undo the destability;
our leader smiles;
our technical leader vacates;
and change is ever-present; ever-present;
it's the norm, as he explains to me.
it's the norm.

november 2 2007

today was international PMS day at STW. and it was a man who signalled it.

just trying to have fourteen minutes to myself in this whirlwind; so i've chosen to make that time. i'm a terrible creature of survival. many things are not acceptable to me. i'm my own critic and i prefer to take advice from someone who doesn't care about me. why is that.

more questions than answers; is destabilizing. i like the thrill of the chase; but i really need to know what i'm chasing. ultimately chasing someone to like me - totally counterintuitive for someone who likes themself so much.
just don't want to end up chasing my tail.

nothing in my notes is useful; it will take time for the gel to surface. i'm not an instant person.

the child coughs...............

goodbye mr floyd; though i never knew you at all
you had the grace to ...

october 4 2007

”through the darkness you can do no wrong. You’re still you”

A planetary alignment from Australia comes thru SMS as I weave my way into the city on a sunnier than LA kind of morning.

Having spent half the night in an illusionary pharmacy; wasn’t so bad as I woke up slepted.

Petula clark rams into my ears as I head downtown; and it’s one of those ‘I don’t care who’s with me or who isn’t’ kind of mornings.

Although, this is followed by a few days of people coming towards me again. There’s a cushion that no one feels;

… we’re over the hump man, we’re over the hump ...

september 26 2007

where are you tony de iure
i'm still here
in this great city of ours
a slice of heaven
that only you and i know about
where are you bernie
you and your beautiful dark haired sisters many
we sat in DJs for endless friday nights
5.70 in our pockets
bought two beers

i did leave
once.
i came back
perhaps you never returned
many did not
perhaps they are not worthy of our great city
perhaps

it's been a long time since i've dreamed;
dreamed of everyone i ever knew being in the same room
a summation of my life's experiences in one space
in one moment
i used to often dream of this

and now
twenty years later
running my hands thru the old haunts of my town
i'm dreaming the same thing

i know different people now
as do you i'm sure

wherver you are
wherever you live
with your children, your dogs, and your barbaque

do you ever remember that house
do your parents live there still

or perhaps GIORGIA FUMANTI bought it
she moved here from italy
and went to Japan to sing
but returned
and called our city
a slice of heaven

it's still my heaven
and if you no longer call it yours:
it's because it probably never was...

and for that, makes me sad
in all my happiness

this year will mark 30 years i have been keeping a diary on paper
and 11 years online
i could write here cryptic messages about the new faces in my life
i could write about the one with the shirts hanging out
or the one with the mustache
and our difficulty communicating
which is so weird
because i do so love communicating with him
however fruitless
at times
what part is he not used to?

could i write cryptic messages here that someone would read?

august 30 2007

back to the beginning again with Netscape editor.

i'm here to tell a story of a week that began with CBS and ends with PMS.

we board the plane. things are as they should be. we wait. we wait some more. no one seems concerned. yet. the pilot comes on. "as the maintenance crews were doing a last check of the exterior of the plane they noticed some gasket on something or other that was loose. they are investigating. i will let you know when i have more info"
we wait more.
the flight attendants bring drinks.
the guy in front of me starts bitching about "if i failed as many times as these people; i'd be fired along time ago" "these people are unbelievable"
time passes.
the pilot come on again.
"the maintenance crew tell me that they have the part and they can fix it but it will take about 30 minutes"
loud sighs from the plane and more swearing from the asshole in front of me. i mumble something to my neighbour about what m husband does for a living and she wants to know if he can get the problem fixed faster. she thinks he and i are having an SMS conversation about fixing the plane.
we wait.
finally, the loudspeaker crackles and more talking from the pilot.
unfortunately this time it ain't good.
time to deplane and go to gate 86 where there's another flight just in from La Guardia. Now there is generalized New York complaining, from A6 to 29D. i'm not sure whether to laugh or cry. here's my one chance to show up rested and ready for action, down the tubes. i can see that it's going to be a long night and that stresses me already.
we walk to 86 and sit down.
we wait.
we watch.
baggage moves.

finally, some movement at the gate. the red haired one has a plan. the guy has a different plan and then the blond one shows up and says "EVERYBODY ON THE PLANE". I'm thinking, shit, i hope no terrorists have snuck into gate 86 waiting area while we were on the other plane. i decide not to worry about it. but i'm really wondering why they don't. what's up with taking off my Gdamn shoes and walking with my clean feet in an international airport and then them just letting us all walk onto the plane cattle? now even i'm getting discouraged.

they stop the mob at the gate. the guy with the walkie talkie is staring into the computer. "They didn't release them! they just disembarked them!" the red haired one looks at the supervisor for guidance. "manual?" she asks. the walkie talkie guy does nothing, staring at the screen. the supervisor says something and they all start scribbling down our seat numbers as we push past.
about 10 of us get to the end of the ramp corridor and realize there's no one behind us. the walkie talkie guys stops us.

"Sorry folks, there's a problem."
i'm wondering how loud is the yelling back at the gate. i'm stuck up front with an elderly couple originally from London now living in New York; a techie dude with messy hair and a blackberry; two young Indian girls chit chatting and SMSing their boyfriends back home; a greying salesman, and a tall scandanavian looking blond who never said a word. Perhaps she didn't speak english. everyone is completely attached to phones or blackberries. even me.

the salesman pushes up toward the plane and gathers information. he comes back saying that there's no way the plane can't leave because it would mess something or other up in the morning. anyways, if the plane wasn't leaving the pilots would be gone. as long as the crew is there, we're leaving, he tell sus.

the walkie talkie guy is running back and forth yelling "they told me 5 minutes! they told me 5 minutes!" everyone says "WHO?" he says "Dispatch (tower)" For what??? To find out if we can land. Same thing repeats ad nauseum, some of us sit down. the English people are quite modern and not complaining at all. Chatty and up to date. I guess it takes that when you live in NYC. Eventually people start threatening to find this dispatch person on the 5th floor and talk to him themselves. people are angry but not unruly. I'm dying to know what's going on at the gate but i remain there, frozen, wondering what time i'll get to bed and can i recuperate in the morning....

someone mentions the move 'the terminal' ... we chuckle. i'm getting tired.

eventually, we get on the plane
, and eventually, the plan actually takes off.
when we land and walk toward the baggage; we get to a chain fence that is closed. closed and locked. the airport is nearly closed too. people at the front start yelling. now the scandanavian girl is laughing. we are all kinda hysterically exhausted. more jokes about Terminal with tom Hanks. I"m laughing too. nothing else to do. finally someone comes and opens the gate. i'm just happy that it's not only Montreal aiports that fuckup.

when we arrive, it's New York City.

what was i thinking, hop in a cab?
25 minutes later on the sidewalk lineup; i didn't even have the brainspace to find a limo or as i joked; a helicopter. didn't anyone know a faster way downtown???
i wait.

here's the part where it's a good thing i was so tired.

i get an older man as a cabbie. he doesn't get out to put my luggage in the trunk. i throw it in and tell him where i'm going.

as we're going over one bridge i ask him the name of the bridge.
since he was missing some faculties; he thought i was changing my destination and begins to panic. ASTORIA? ASTORIA? You live in Astoria?
If you want to go to ASTORIA I should have taken that exit other there? See, here, we're going to Manhatten? Astoria is over there!!!
i reasure him several times that i'm going to the Marriott Marquis, and he repeats his same panic about Astoria about 17 times.

during the converstaion, i pull forward so i can hear him better thru the hole in the glass. that's when i notice his eyes. he's pretty much BLIND.

i hadn't really been paying much attention to his driving in all my exhaustion but now i notice that the line is in the middle of the axels. people are swerving not to hit us and to go around us. at one point there was an SUV and a scary looking dark windowed car behind us leaning on the permahorn. the cabbie mentions that in the seventies, he'd been shot at several times but now new york is safe.
i sit back and duck slightly in my seat.

he pretty much talked the rest of the way now that he had a captive audience; and the part i recall the most was something i didn't understand. he explained that i could get 'corn hosed' or somethign like that, which meant people, EVEn women! would lure me away and scam me out of money. i wish i wouldn't have been so tired because it would have been funnier. just another new york minute.

i arrive, alive.
the lights are blinding. it's surreal. i'm tired. i search for the lobby which is on the 8th floor with absolutely no indication, and then i teach myself the elevator system. i think i missed that lesson in cobol class. it's 1:13.
i hurdle myself into this bed about the size of a medium sized swimming pool, it's comfy, it smells good, i'm alone. it's dark and quiet.

i can't sleep.

june 27 2007

this was the dawning of the age of Aquarius...

now, more important things dawn.

talk about planetary alignment.

the world is still; but scary, at 5AM. the loud bus fumes stinkier.

the scrambling is OVER, now a different type of scrambling begins.

and these ain't eggs, toto.

______________________________________________________

time passes....

may 4 2007

a day downtown is always refreshing. just give me something on a different platter; with different lighting, that's all i ask.
so this margaret wheatley is actually a soft, genuine person with a real message. actually not just another bullshitter.

________________________________________________________

her book reads:

"this is the era of many messes"
"we act as if humans exist as individuals, free of the obligation of interdependence, that hierarchy and bureaucracy are the best forms of organizing, that efficiency is the premier measure of value, that people work best under controls and regulations, that diversity is a problem, that unrestrained growth is good, that a healthy economy naturally leads to a healthy society, that poor people have different motivations than other people, that only a few people are creative, that only a few people care about freedom.      these beliefs are false."

remember what Einstein said: "no problem can be solved from the same level of thinking that created it"

is that a conundrum? is it possible to 'decide' to fix our level of thinking? could the flatlanders have known they lived in a 2-dimensional world? hmmm.

wednesday april 18th

Blog silence

http://www.onedayblogsilence.com/OneDayBlogSilence.com.html

April 30 2007

"There's got to be a morning after.."

april 17

listening to some of the things june callwood said;kurt vonnegut
many of these daring, bold things, are things that i think every day but have learned to keep inside for fear of being ostracised; i was ostracised for much of my childhood because i just didn't see things the same way; and now i see famous people saying it too - and even friends across the pond recognize it :-)

thanks for the chicken drilling story
i too am scrambling to stay engaged but actually just came out of a meeting
where i actually had some info they wanted. doesn't take much, man, doesn't take much.
it's like being on the edge of the edge. doesn't take much.

We just drilled a .250 “ diameter hole through a 7” block of hardened steel in 7 minutes within .001” dia tolerance and .004” positional tolerance.  Very cool technique called gun drilling.  It is used alot to … uh … drill guns, I guess.

That, and the chicken byriani is about all my work excitement for today. 
Scrambling to stay engaged.

scrambling.

april 16, 2007

on a icky blustery mon day in april
there's not much to do but mEp

we're glad it took 41.5 years to get to the point where it becomes necessary to learn the lesser of life's harsh realities but remember, it's more difficult after coasting for so long too.

the mail icon glares at me; i see it appear re-appear and appear again in the corner of my recently bespeckled eyes. each alt-tab only proves that for a few more minutes on this icky, icy, sloshy morning, the universe is stable as i know it and i can ooze the coffee a few minutes more.

new dynamics here at work;
new ones at home, but better,
i didn't need the yoga nidra to feel my feelings
but it's always nice to learn what you already knew you knew.

send a mail, come back, poots.
send a mail, come back.

security sally awaits: and that's not a joke
this coffee is actually enjoyable.
yesterday's cost 114$

the gang slowly trickles in, i'm seranaded to my right, alternate wind swells - click click click - tiny ice on my big huge windows.
chloe asked "mommy, what is THAT?" (hail)

"that, my dear, is SHIT"
i did not tell her.

March 28, 2007

there are cohesive thoughts around me now

taking the bus is liberating in many ways:

no parking; no lights; no thinking; no clock;
just the two of us against the world;
chatting, eating, giggling, watching...
we sit side by side, her and i, arm in arm;
what could be better for the soul than that?

sunshine out my window makes me lighter;
spring is springing and soon,,,warmth will wrap us up in days over days

rub your face, poots, his virus is in you now,
take long breaths and think warmer thoughts;
you can out this bug
it doesn't need you
your humanity is stronger than it
and God knows, so is your soul...

but seriously, it's a trap, that car, they all are,
they are secret traps that we don't know about
because they provide a certain freedom
because they are warm:
they fool us
as they get us from here to there
they are laughing as they're trapping
and we are paying
to rush to much too much

March 21, 2007

you have to check the date a million times a day;
you wander thru the web and still nothing to say
it's procrastination at it's finest,
you're living on the edge of life,
again from outside looking in,

and nothing changes, nothing changes.

a zillion times you've checked your mail;
a billion times the banking done
no more emails, no more spice,
i'm on the outside, watching life

March 12, 2007

half way thru the front section i remembered past the belize beach dream (swimming upcurrent to a warm rock) to the steamy one involving simon and then his sudden disappearance, weird dancing couples (aka Dancing on Ice wigs from Lilo and Stitch) than then the sudden disappearance of everyone.

and then, out of nowhere on page A4, in between cancun's eroding beaches and Chirac's retirement, i have this major epiphany where i realize why everyone is so miserable.

he's been trying to explain to me for how long, that he would love to be able to sit and read the newspaper in the morning. countless friends are amazed that i sit and read the paper every morning. it's not about the paper but it's about having any time for yourself. and finally now, being in this situation i loathe, i'm starting to understand that this is exactly the same situation that so many people are in and have been in for years. dead-end jobs, no time to read the paper (or do anything except get yourself to work and back home for more work), and really only living for the next weekend, vacation, or hope of a change.

it's a sad, sad situation, but no one i plan to tolerate for much longer. there, it's writ. this is what i need to do to settle things.

February 6, 2007

after dropping the cild off at school, i scurried back to the warm car and headed north. at cote st catherine there was a comotion. a tall man and another woman, both on cell phones in the wind, were standing at the intersection beside a red car, which eventually i noticed had a long scrape down the driver's side. the cold was biting and the intersection didn't offer much in the way of shelter. the man had no hat, no gloves, but otherwise was dressed smartly. a phillipino woman and her family, frozen plastic-covered stroller in tow, crossed in front of me at the light. i believe they were wearing every wollen thing they owned, and the children merely held on to the stroller for guidance, since their eyes were barely visible in between the scarves. and the canadians in the middle of the street were getting frostbitten. an ambulance pulled up and i noticed that there was a woman in the car, whose window was open as they shouted and gestured through the icy gusts. i pulled away.

along de la savane boulevard, two bikers loomed. one with a helmet, useless in the cold, and the other with an army scarf tied around his head, flapping in the wind and not covering his earlobes, which i'm quite certain he couldn't feel by now. in the summer they were probably two scary looking dudes. now, they looked scary alright.

why do we do anything at all...

January 2007

 initially i was tempted to write a treatise on the whole scene; a
bird's eye demographic of each of the parcipants, based solely on what  they had given as a reason to be there and their physical appearance;  a synopsis of the class itself, beginning with bumping into two women  who i've had close and regular but personally very distant contact with and following with her entrance into the room (always a moment  of joy for all), and then segueing (sp?) into a veritable  socio-political essay on montreal, vendome, yoga, and an intense  physical description of the room, the passing trucks, the intense
cold, and of course not leaving out the very urban rumble of the metro
underfoot.
 
However i resisted such a feat in favour of brevity (ha ha) and
instead recount to you my abridged version of 'why i was there':
 
talk about the ultimate in moron-ness. i couldn't even tell the class
why i was there. why was i there? i asked myself over, and over, and
over again. and by the end of the 2 hours, all i had were more
questions. since everyone ran out at precisely 12:45, i didn't have
time to scribble my thoughts and figure it out. so i've done so tonight.

bottom line is i've long been drawn to all things marginal;
providing they are legal that is. (trust me, in the 'realm' that i come from, yoga is marginal - well, at least it was when i came from there....

why is that? so many of the people i've been drawn to have
ended up being weak. and i don't like weak. or do it? is it because everyone is weak?  am i drawn toward them in order to make myself feel stronger? the marginal are usually eccentric. are they plainly more interesting than most folk i've met? less predictable? that's possible. less predictable to me, to my world. am i drawn there because they are seeking? because  seeking is like learning once the learning is supposed to be done?

i've studied physiology; psychology; math physics and french. biology, genetics, even theoretical population genetics, statistics,   immunology, biochemistry and histology. i even took a course in astronomy! organic chemistry, experimental cancer methods, and even a course in mental health.  once i was done all that, on my own, i studied gardening, herbal  medicines, french cuisine, indian cuisine, the history of french gastronomy, pottery, and now i've even begun to read essays on american foreign policy. but No where in my flatlander radar of learning, came yoga. no where came anything that couldn't be memorized from a book. i had some deep Muslim friends and even hung out with a hare krishne for a few years,  but yoga, meditation, reiki and a bunch of other things my parent's  never heard of, came later for me, so i guess the reason that i'm here  is the same reason that i took a yoga class to begin with, and that is to learn.  yoga is the non-me. it's a virtual reality for me where no one knows that i know the difference between trans and cis fats. where i can walk in the door and be anyone i feel like being. how totally ironic  then, that when asked why i was there, i had no clue... (bottom line,  i'm not very good at being anyone other than my real self) by adding yoga nidra to my list, i'm not only learning more about yoga, but it seems like i will be learning more about me. maybe by the last class, when someone asks, i'll know why i'm there. :-)

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the mEp
louern@vif.com

1996 - 2007