n: vb: the spice of imagination
Aside from all the other amazing things that life consists of, this evening I am made happy by passionfruit gelato, chickie nobs, and the line, “Someone’s being attacked by a platypus bear!”, upon which, indeed, a platypus bear appeared onscreen, truly one of nature’s more creative miracles.
Also, the incredible people and technology involved in the Chilean miner rescue. That too.
Driving lessons begin today, a fact that’s been living like a ghost inside my chest. Though I’m well aware the first lessons are unlikely to leave the classroom, that I’m going to soon be controlling one of the western world’s most common death-machines has been skimming through me with mild, theoretical horror. When I read about black ice, drunk drivers, or any other of the thousand easy ways to lose control of the vehicle, I think, right there, that might be how I die. Or worse, how I murder someone else. Statistics are only a little bit, in this case, on my side.
I also have an appointment with the JobWave people today, to rework my resume and update them on how my job search has been going, which lately, isn’t so great. No recent call backs, no interviews. Hopefully this retooling of my resume will help and I will emerge from the office with the confidence of a multi-platinum rockstar and immediately land a job. Maybe the driving school people are hiring. They certainly seem disorganized. When I went in to pay, they couldn’t find my files for fifteen minutes, and the reminder e-mail they sent me yesterday spelled my name “Jynae”.
What are people doing for Hallowe’en? We don’t have a costume concept, let alone a party plan. Blasphemy! Unheard of! I would be ouraged, except that it’s an annual issue. Once again, like every year, I had some utterly fantastic ideas early on, around February or March, that I have completely forgotten. Things I remember liking were the low rez girl and the Lichtenstein couple, (see also: these girls), as well as a seriously dashing faun costume at Teatro Zinzanni that added an incredibly handsome men’s corset to the regular furry legs. In the back of my head is an idea to go as Sputnik and Laika, a retro nod to the history of future, wrapped in tin-foil and fun fur paws, but I haven’t run it past Tony yet. Given his fluffy head, I’ll argue, I totally get to be the satellite.
Scientists and the army team up, figure out what’s causing honeybee colony collapse.
Over the last four years, 20 to 40 percent of the honeybee colonies in the U.S. have mysteriously collapsed. The killer has remained unknown–until now. A team of entomologists, along with military scientists from the Department of Homeland Security, have a new prime suspect (or rather, suspects), as shown in a new report on the science website PLoS One. A tag-team of a virus and a fungus show every sign of being the culprit. Now it’s just a matter of eradicating that dastardly partnership.
[…]
Of course, just identifying the culprit is only the first step. The entomologists still have to find a way to stop the tag-team attack. It looks as though they’ll focus on the fungus, which is easier to block and defeat than the virus, and which, if defeated, should be enough assistance to help get honeybee populations back on track. And there’s always more to uncover–the tendency of the bees to wander off just prior to death is still a mystery (a University of Montana doctor actually uses the phrase “insect insanity” as a possible explanation), but that should all come in time.
Today I am putting together a set of Ikea shelves as an act of devotion, running the pieces through my hands like rosary beads, expressing a sweet swell of affection with every screw and wood dowel. On half a whim, Tony and I went to Ikea yesterday, fount of all things storage solution, to unearth a set of shelves to go under my computer desk and slaughter all of the spaghetti cord monster clutter there. We found some that seemed perfect – tiered, white, with a cut away back for cords – but fifty freaking pounds. Not being drivers, either one of us, it was decided that walking the flatpack box to the skytrain would count as an adventure, if a somewhat dubious one, in part spurred by the fact that we both need significantly more exercise and that the station, while a few blocks away, was in no way far. An idea which would have been completely fine if we had walked down the correct highway, which we did not.
Instead of turning down Highway 1 we stubbornly continued along Lougheed, completely ignorant of our missed turn. Eventually we found a gas station and called a cab to rescue us, but not before Tony, bless him, insisted on carrying the unwieldy box alone for about twice the distance as would have been required to get to the train station, all up-hill, proving without a doubt that he is willing to carry my damned metaphorical books as far as a boy can and still walk the next day. And so, today, here I sit, surrounded by computer parts, boards, and pages of wordless instruction manual, assembling the shelf like Lego for grown-ups, breathing his name into every piece so that it may stand in my room as an unobtrusive yet significant statement to love.
via Buzzfeed:
I’m finding the newest Predators movie bizarre, as the formulaic genre pick-them-off is more than a teensy bit hilarious, (really, you just pulled out his entire spine with bonus! attached skull, okay then, and your leader wears a plastic goth-lego helmet with gold teeth on it, uh-huh), yet slathered with genuine moments of spookiness. Not what I was expecting.
p.s.
The Social Network aka the facebook movie:
1. I had no idea I’m only two degrees away from Mark Zuckerberg.
2. WTF is up with that freakishly shallow portrayal of women!! For reals, people. Sad!
p.p.s.
Yes, this is my literacy level at 4 a.m. I have a detailed and complex reduction of the various issues, but not the wherewithal to care enough to shove myself into the wakeful mental state required to properly unpack and spell them all out. Not that there’s anything wrong with “reals”, because there isn’t. At all.
p.p.p.s.
I mean, seriously, fail! It didn’t even, at bare minimum, pass the Bechdel Test.
p.p.p.p.s.
Beautifully shot though. Breathtaking. Truly masters of the craft. Fingers crossed that such movies will put an end to the loathesome blue/orange oversat nightmare that’s cursed this decade.
As part of a resolution to attempt to get more exercise, now that I’m an unemployed blob that hardly leaves the apartment, I’ve joined HealthMonth, a beta stage on-line game that let’s you choose customizible health rules and then tracks your progress as you follow them through a month, (or don’t). My rules are fairly simple: Exercise for at least 30 minutes three times a week; write 750 words in a journal four times a week; and Ride my bike at least 20 miles a week. My progress is a little spotty, as I forgot about it until now, a full week in, and I should have chosen one of my rules better, as due to my glasses, I can’t bike in rain, (one of the more unfortunate side-effects of Octoberism). Instead I should have made a rule about my diet, as all I’ve been eating at home are microwavable cup-a-noodles, an entire Costco flat of them. On the plus side, food has been entering my body at regular intervals, on the other, even I have to admit that’s an extremely shoddy definition of “food”.
Speaking of food, Esme recently introduced me to the most pornographic food blog I’ve ever seen, Tastespotting, a Trendspotting for your mouth and belly. Just scanning the page starts saliva flowing, as well as the profound desire to push technology to the point where it’s possible to to reach through the screen and pick up delicious baked goods. Nom. It’s not as internet classic as whatthefuckshouldimakefordinner.com, or as useful as Recipe Matcher, which makes suggestions based on what ingredients you have, but it’s certainly more inspiring.
Freeze! revisited, edible ice guns, 2009, Water, flavour (coke, black currant, licorice, cherry), food coloring, counter top freezer,
by German conceptual artist Valentin Beinbroth, in cooperation with Florian Jenett.
Cleaning: Boxes of misc. need to be sorted, tidied, reintegrated into my room.
Driving: Signed up for Young Drivers of Canada classes, Oct 13th – Nov 8th.
Education: Social Services may pay for a First Aid certificate, but not school. Need to research student loans.
Employment: Still on welfare. Still applying to everything possible. No recent job prospects or call-backs, no upcoming interviews.
Finances: Income = rent minus $25. Immediate Debt = $9000. Approx. complete and total debt = $27,500.
Health: Degloved toe is almost better, with the possibility it may not even scar. Need new contacts.
Photography: Continuing to slowly finish Foxtongue.com, update Etsy store, Thread of Grace.
Repairs: All hard-drives are with Tony, being backed up. Coat rack still broken.
Taxes: Need to have an accountant double-check my paperwork.
To start, I’ve been researching available classes, the sort that would give me a foundation of skills upon which to build an actual career. Painfully, the only one that I’ve found that teaches precisely what I want to learn is a year long VanArts course with the currently insurmountable price-tag of about $35,000 once basic living expenses are added in. $35,000 is a terrible lot of money, especially while unemployed. If I had that kind of dosh sitting in a bank account, I could easily put a down payment on a cute little house in Seattle and be done with it. Alternatives, however, are tricky to come by, as the only local school/course that’s better costs the same plus the expense of moving to the Comox Valley, which is even more beyond my means. (Unless I attempt to live with my not-actually-aunt who wants me to have her baby.) So the next step is looking into student loans and what sort of financing is available, as well as attempting, somehow, to teach myself some of the skills required, even though I don’t have those resources either. Yes, this last week has been full of terror, why do you ask?
Tomorrow I’m attending an information session for the tuition-free BCIT Business Skills Training Program, with intent to enroll. In a perfect world, it will help everything fall in line. Training that leads to a job that leads to enough money to pay for school that leads to a better job that pays enough for me to leave Vancouver. Talk about a happy ending.
