all things great and small

I've been trying to reconcile my crushing, pre-cognitize love for critters of every kind with my need to put theory behind my ideas. I'm not there yet. I don't think it's impossible. But it could take a while. Years, even.

(To the right: Ned, an elephant confiscated from his owner and placed with The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee. As you can see from the picture, Ned was very emaciated upon his arrival at the Sanctuary. They are slowly nursing him back to health. For more about elephant welfare, and and to learn why they should never be in captivity, visit the Sanctuary online at Elephants.com)


A few quotes from Thalia Field's Incarnate that have me some of my re-thinking my (liberal, middle-class, privileged) emotions:

While Hediger [sic] famously watched zoo-keepers
psyche-out the inmates with excessive petting
killing with a kindness as unbearable as direct flame
the keepers's self-love of love
a revolting and deadly obsession with touching
the worst possible torture
within a general overarching torture

(p.104)


I'm thinking about the 41 dead stingrays at the Calgary Zoo, and how the officials still don't know what killed them. And why, in this year of our lord [sic] 2008, must we humans still insist on touching the animals?

only tameness, if achieved, is calming, finally
the suffering wild animal resigns
to the stink of the enemy's hands
on everything

(p. 107)


Our sense of entitlement, as humans. Our sense of ownership over the natural world. How it's killing us and we don't even know it. Dr. Georgia Mason talking to Bob MacDonald on Quirks and Quarks about her study about "whether zoos are a good thing or not for elephants." The fact that captive elephants live only half as long as their wild counterparts. How Dr. Mason argues persuasively, I thought, against the keeping of elephants in captivity, and moving them around from zoo to zoo, until the very end of the interview, where she merely suggests that perhaps we need to improve how we move them. I respectfully disagree. Layperson and poet though I am, I think these animals are more intelligent and emotional than we can apprehend with our knowledge and our science, and I maintain that it is as damaging to an elephant to be moved every seven years as it would be to a human to move him or her every seven years, away from friends and family, into a strange situation and with no say on the matter. Think about it. How would you cope?

as zoos get upgraded with scented toys
and other props, artificial snowbanks and "real" carcasses
eliciting new repertoire and better performances
for the captive audience
and still the keepers wonder why hiding remains most
critical to the survival of animals

(p. 121)

The baby elephant that died at the Calgary Zoo

The baby giraffe that died at the Vancouver zoo

Hazina the hippo who died after transfer to the Calgary Zoo

The baby gorilla that died at the Calgary Zoo (is anyone else seeing a theme here?)

Baby lemurs abandoned at the Winnipeg Zoo

Why do we think they own them?

B.C. snowfalls causes slick roads and cancelled flights

So sayeth the good folks at CBC.ca.

Whilst I know the prairie provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba - hell, the rest of the country - surely will have no sympathies for our -1 C temperatures and light snow, might I remind you that at least the buses still run in your part of the world?

We decided to set out on foot from a friend's place on Normandy Drive last night around 11:20 when we realized there'd be no chance of getting a cab. Walked the 7 blocks to Renfrew street. Then discovered that, idiots that we are, we should have confirmed if the buses were even running before we left our friends' place. According to the text message service that Translink offers, they were, though there were no signs of any buses in the entire time we were out in the (mild) Winter Wonderland.

We have normal cellular phones without web technology, so there'd be no checking the Translink Alerts for us.

Set off again northwards on Renfrew, imagining that we'd make it to the next bus stop or so before a bus arrived. Again, no buses appeared. Waited at a bus stop just south of Grandview Highway for awhile. Wondered why there are no customer service numbers for Translink posted anywhere on the bus stops, or the bus shelters, anywhere. Sure would've been nice to call a number to confirm our suspicions that the buses weren't in operation. Yep, sure would've been nice.

Finally flagged down a cab, who said he'd take us up Renfrew to our street, but "no side streets." Yeah, okay, fine buddy. A little bit further, and a car was spun out ahead of us. The cabbie wanted to drop us off right there to wait for the bus, because he wasn't going to get stuck. I'm just trying to get home, he says. Yeah, so are we, I yell.

We convince him to turn around and head west, then take us up Nanaimo. He yells at us for giving him attitude. I'm sure he's had a rough night as well, but my reaction to him was not 'attitude' but rather rising panic as I see where the direction our situation may be heading. I have Raynaud's, so getting stranded outside, even in the relatively balmy -1 temperatures and light snow, is more than an inconvenience for me.

It occurs to me, as I sit silent and chastened in the back of the cab, that what feels like fear and panic on the inside of a person often reads as aggression to others. Surely that's the error that fell poor Robert Dziekanski a year ago? Reacting with emotion rather than subservient gratitude?

At our street we thank the cabbie, apologize, and tip him 30%.

So we finally made it home at around 1 in the morning. Took off our snow encrusted pants and made some tea. Felt grateful to be home.

I notice the CBC story quotes a Translink spokesperson that "Buses in Vancouver avoided some routes on Saturday night," and wonder how at the time we might have learned which routes, exactly? All's well that ends well, but...

condohype!

just read about this blog (on Sachi M.'s blog).



spent the next half hour in giddy delight at condohype's well-crafted, well-aimed snark. condohype says everything you think when you see those ridiculous condo ads in the Georgia Straight, with an insider's perspective. delicious.

wish i'd come across this post when i was accosted by a banking professional at my back last month. i was just transferring over an old RRSP, but Ms. Moneybags had to give me the Why Aren't You Saving for a Downpayment Lecture? sent me into High Anxiety for weeks.

here's a poem, written partly in response:

hello! have you used Pears soap today?
what pulchritudinous hell is this?
hello! what kind of painfully self-aware asshole will you be today?

pick one:
a) chin cupping
b) as awkward as grade 7.
the smartest girl in grade 5.
fill yer boots. saving up for chin implants.
we, too could make a $15,000 downpayment on a 452 square foot condo downtown we’re young so heaven knows we won’t need to be home anyway outside’s free crammed tight with husband cat saxophone full-priced designer clothes for which we feel appropriately guilty books n’ books by the Old Masters carted from basement suite to basement suite but never cracked this pedestrian language won’t get us a 3-book contract anyways we’re just paying somebody else’s mortgage think how good we’ll feel to be in our own place those prices will always go up and the figures don’t matter once we’re in the market
c) so what?
d) so we met with the professor and we listed all the people in the class whom we thought would still be writing in ten years. what? no, you weren’t on the list. well, we think you’ll be doing more important things
e) ergo, you won’t still be writing by 2011. publish or perish. by which we mean, still trying to write your way out of your own self-hatred. but there’s no rhetoric there, no sense of formal strategy.
f) we held his soft body in that room for almost half an hour. still warm but void of life. the vet said after you leave i’ll give one more shot to stop his heart. a spot of blood, and yellow fluid where the needle had gone. his fur wet with our tears.
g) don’t you think it’s time to start exercising?

in conclusion, i urge you to visit condohype immediately.

Ooops

In which nascent bomb makes a bunch of hetero-sexist assumptions, looks like an ass and hangs head in shame.

Also remembers why she generally tries to avoid stating her opinions in public (this asinine little blog notwithstanding.)

another homage to the mineral of borscht

(after Moure)


time for an “homage to the basic mineral of borscht.” and beets and cabbage. we bring potatoes peeled and sliced thin. press the delicate earthy flesh into the old lady’s palms, clean as soil. there’s no language here; no words for the smooth embrace of cabbage leaf against her cheek. only mushrooms and lilacs, leather and orange. the back of her neck smells of citrus and musk.


the nun said ‘if she’s unable to swallow the host, come find me. i have to wrap it in a tissue and burn it.’


o flesh of my flesh. always tilling the earth. always scrubbing the pots. neurons fail; you lose strength and cannot move. none of use speak ukrainian; no mother tongue to lick your face clean. we brought rabbits and chocolate milkshakes but should have packed carrots and onions in a wheelbarrow. chopped and boiled. we could have filled your bed with vegetables and water.


she said remember when i used to pick you up from school and take you out for lunch said you grew up too fast she said i’ll never meet my great-grandchildren. the end of speech reduces us to letter-boards and blinking. please scratch my nose my arm hurts please my elbow thank you for the letter yes no please thank you always thank you.


i should have brought beets, sliced them widthwise, pointed to the purple concentric rings. this is my blood; drink from it. it will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven.



did they have to break your bones to straighten your hands? folded with rosary beads. we brought smoke and white roses tablecloths starched white stiff. we brought incense and holy water. we should have filled the casket with borscht and rye bread. we should have brought you fresh laundry anais anais and cigarettes.



no language for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. the soul makes no sound when it leaves.



‘toward the end, people often open their eyes, some people smile; they just look very placid and calm ’



at the end my brother said i think her brothers and sisters the room filled up with people.

Bloody Facebook

Dear friends,

Don't try to change your sign-in email on your Facebook. It's a good way to get locked out of your account!

(Grumble.)

Thanks Georgia Straight!

Rod Filbrant illustration



And thanks Jacqueline Turner, for naming disjunct! performance series best disjunctive literary performance series in the 2008 Georgia Straight Best of Vancouver issue! We weren't even aware of the category.

at the physiotherapist's this week

the good doctor says: "take it easy. don't lift anything heavy. just pretend you're a senior citizen."

and i thinks: "baby, i live like a senior citizen."

i need further evaluation for alzheimer's disease

i need further evaluation for alzheimer's disease

cabbage roses

----------------
Now playing: Ryan Adams - Pearls On A String
via FoxyTunes

Baba and Dido - April 24th & 25th

April 24th 2008 would have been my grandmother Anne's 78th birthday.

On April 25th 1992 my grandfather Joe died of cancer. Before he died he'd chosen a gold heart pendant necklace out of a jewelry catalogue to give to my grandmother for her birthday. My mother, who was staying with them to assist in Dido's palliative care, went to Birks and purchased the necklace for Baba, as per Dido's wishes. She had it engraved "To Anne, Love Joe."

My mother told me that Dido was not lucid toward the end. He faded in and out of consciousness. But I like to think that he waited till the day after her birthday to go, just as I like to think that she waited till the day after Ukrainian Christmas to go.



Here is an email I recently received from my cousin Warren:

Hi Guys
Had a dream the other night, (which I believe was a message) about Anne and Joe. Walked up to a door and knocked on it and Anne answered. She was wearing a tracksuit. Inside was Joe making coffee. Anne went back to doing her exercises and I asked why a tree in their house was decorated. They said that they just celebrated their anniversary. They said that they were very happy and things are great and they are glad to be together. Woke up and I believe that it was a message from them.
Glad they are happy!
love, Warren

In the 16 years she was without him, Baba did receive occasional attentions from men. A fellow at church, her next-door neighbour. Sometimes they'd hang around for awhile, waiting for a sign of interest. But she couldn't be bothered. She could shovel her own damn walk or pay someone else to do it. He was the love of her life.

urbanity within reach: a play for two performers

act one: western alienation

Baker
Balance
Barn
Bean Coffee Co.

Castle Homes
Choices
Construction

Development Institute
Dieter
Dog Marketing

Fringe Salon

Glassworks
Grill

Homescapes

Image Fine Homes
Innovations

Laser Hair & Tanning Studio
Legal Recruitment
Life Design

Men

Nail Design

Oasis Massage

Palate
Pet “Dogwalking & Petsitting Services”
Pioneers
Pizza Co.
Planet
Projects Corp.

Rice


Safari Tours
Signs
Society for Aboriginal Youth
Sound Exchange
Sprawl Interior Design Group
Systems Ltd.

Tech Homes
Trade
Tree Flooring Inc.

Venus Nail Bar
Vibe
Village Hair Products

Window Fashions



act two: west coast gentrification

Academy
Analytics Inc.
Animal Hospital
Art
Attic, The
Attitude Inc.

Baby Design
Barkery Holdings Inc.
Barn
Behaviour
Bistro, The
Body Laser Ltd.
Buffet

Casting Inc.
Chiropractic
Comfort
Condo
Critter Rescue

Dance Company
Deli Inc.
Design Group Architects
Development Institute Pacific Region

Empire
Engineering Consulting
Environments
Equities
Expresso
Eyes Doctors of Optometry
Eyewear

Fare
Farm Market
Finishings
Forum Associates
Futures Institute

Garage, The
Garden
Green
Group Office Furniture Manufacturing

Hair Studio
Herbalist, The

Impact Recycling, The
Incorporated Productions
Links
Links Golf Centres
Living Design & Materials Inc.

Market
Media Inc.
Military Store Inc., The

Native Indian Education Society
Native Youth Association
News
Niche Landscape Design

Pacific Development Consultants
Parking
Peasant Productions Ltd.
Photography Workshops
Pictures
Planet
Projects Group Limited
Promise Ministries
Puppy Shop, The

Rack Clothing Company Inc., The
Rack, The
Renewal

Samurai Hobbies Limited
Sawing & Grooving Company Ltd.
Settler Antique Company Ltd., The
Sitters
Source
Spa, The
Spice
Sushi
Systems Limited

Tanning Studio Ltd.
Tea Merchant Limited, The
Techstyles
Thai Bistro
Trends Magazine
II Recycling & Fuels

Vintner
Visuals

Wares
Well Kits
Wood Waste Recyclers Ltd.

Yarns
yoga


Urbanbites Inc.
Urbanity

Matt Good and Manic-Depression

Had the fortune to attend a taping of The Hour here in Vantacular (it's the job) and was excited to see that one of the guests for this evening was Matthew Good, whose Beautiful Midnight (with the Matthew Good Band) was on heavy rotation in my car circa 1999-2001. Love that album.

Matt Good is also a fairly prolific blogger and political commentator with a nifty website. I used to read the previous incarnation of his website several years ago and I remember being quite taken with his politics and his writing skill.

Today on the show, he discussed his recent diagnosis of bipolar disorder. I find it very heartening and encouraging any time a public figure 'comes out' about this type of illness. We've still a long way to go as a society regarding the destigmatization of mental illness, and I think that every public face helps.

And I also know from experience how important it is for a sufferer of mental illness to realize they're not alone, trite or cliched as that may sound.

Day 35

not THAT clever

I'd been thinking of asking my buddy Kevin, web & graphic designer extraordinaire and general computer wunderkind, for assistance in creating a website: part promo, part bio, part vanity piece, (not porno......ok, maybe a little porno...) The impetus was for a writer's webpage, like Anne Stone's for example. Essentially an online CV where I could include a blog, music files from pppoetryband gigs, etc. Thought it might be useful as I start trying to get my work published. Sensible enough, yeah?

I'd like to have a website that looks a bit spankier and reads a bit more professional than the current hack job you're reading. For example, So Misguided. Monique spoke at an SFU Writing & Publishing Program course that I took on 'Writing and Editing for Multimedia and the Web.' Web writing's, like, the FUTURE, right? Right?

Anyway, disorganized little whelp that I am, I figured I'd need to start with a glib title. Glib titles used to get me everywhere.

Exhibit 1:

The cheeky writers associated with (orange) magazine invite you to join "Calgary's hippest upcoming writers" when they launch their second issue. Who are these avowed hipsters?
- Harry Vandervlist, Bookends Column, FFWD Week of Dec. 7, 2000

Exhibit 2:

Calgary's literary fortunes have been mixed since 1995, but the forces of good are holding their own. Fortunately the city's young writers are imaginative, energetic and savvy enough even to get themselves on TV, as at last week's (orange) magazine launch.
-Harry Vandervlist, Bookends Column, FFWD week of Dec. 14, 2000

Yes, it's true, both press mentions were due to press releases drafted by yours truly, and yes, it's true, myself and my efforts used to find themselves in the public eye quite regularly. I may have even started to take for granted the fact that publicity would come naturally to me. These events occurred in 2000-1, mind you, back when I was an emerging writer in Calgary, Alberta. And certainly none of this had anything to do with the sexual frisson of my relative youth and inexperience, right? Right? (see lime sucking photo, above).


(Please note that I mean no disparagement towards Mr. Vandervlist, who was professional and encouraging at all times towards me and my literary efforts.)

So, Fast Forward six or seven years, and Ms. Reimer is still an emerging writer. The image, if you'd care to use your imagination with me for a second, is of an infant's head caught at the cervix. Still emerging after all these years.


So in order to break with tradition and not be a cynic about this stuff, I figure I'll draft my glib, cheeky little blog title and get moving, so to speak.

And what have I come up with?

(wait for it.....)



Reimer Reason.


Get it? Punny, yeah? Rhyme-or-Reason, as I'm a poet who shuns rhyming couplets, whose last name is Reimer, who lives and writes without any regard to logic whatsoever. So we could call it reason in an ironic sense (sorry Alanis.)

Alas, a few other Reimers have had the same idea:

- Sandra Reimer of Reimer Reason Communications promises to bring you a method to marketing madness.


- Some character named Kristian Reimer (an Alberta prairie boy?!? Why have I never heard of him?!?!) based in Toronto already has a website at reimerreason.com. This fellow has apparently been in a comedy show directed by Eric Amber. Eric Amber, of Hot Nuts & Popcorn. Eric Amber, whose sister Renee Amber of the Wind-Up Dames was the reason a certain A.W. was too distracted to go out with me in December 2000. Ahhh, six degrees of my life.

- Then we have No Reimer Reason (yeah yeah, funny) a blog about the life of a young family named Reimer, somewhere in the USA. The blog is penned by the mother, and she writes about her life, her husband, her job, and her young daughter. No offense to this lady, but I think I'll go see about removing an ovary with a spoon now....

- Jodi from Western Washington, who lives with "one sweet husband, one 19 year old drama queen, one 16 year with an extra chromosome, two cats and one rowdy dog." She also has a blog titled "Reimer Reason" about her life and her disabled son. (Subtitled: "Sharing our son with the world. He's too much for one family to contain.) Her blog is written with humour, honesty and grace. Kudos to you!

- Brie Reimer from Cleveland Ohio, a pretty young blonde thing (barely younger than me but she looks like a pretty young blonde thing) quotes the gospel of James in her Reimer Reason blog description. She's off to Zambia to work with rural people, before she returns to the States to begin her Masters degree at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena. And what have you done for the world lately? Yeah right.

- The Reimer Reason Reimers from the North Olympic Peninsula of Washington State sell wool, mirrors, bread, honey, straw, blankets and more on their website and at etsy.com. They appear to be real-life Mennonites (as opposed to me, who just pretends to be a Mennonite when it's convenient, or when I'm talking to Jeff Derksen.)



Well, back to the drawing board.......

The Bully's Mark

I'm currently viewing The Bully's Mark on Global. It's a documentary by a woman named Erin Thompson, who I've chatted with at work from time to time.

A synopsis from the Facebook event page:

Many of us fantasize about returning to junior high to confront the kids who made life a living hell, but Erin Thomson actually did it. Her quest to discover why she was the target of bullies is captured in the unsettling one-hour documentary, the Bully's Mark, airing October 27th on Global Television's documentary series, Global Currents. Today, Erin is going to law school. She's 26, attractive, articulate and extremely personable. But in grade eight, at junior high in Edmonton, Erin was miserable, bullied relentlessly. Scared silent, it was months before she spoke up and was moved to another school – never to be bullied again. From that point on, Erin has always appeared to be a most successful and confident young woman. But underneath, she continues to question what weakness in her made her a target – why me? Although she recognizes that the question is tantamount to blaming the victim, she can't help asking it.

Before the first commercial break I'm inundated with flashbacks, and feel an instant kinship with the victims profiled in the doc.

I wonder, in my own case, what precipitated the bullying? I've battled depression forever and have suffered several major episodes. I was first clinically diagnosed at age 14. So I wonder if that personal suffering marked me as a victim?

Have you heard of me? Bessie the Cow? Bubble Butt? Carrot Skid? Yeah, that was me.

And, not to belittle the pain caused by bullying, but my favourite ugly duckling story of personal vindication is as follows: Circa 1990, I was constantly teased and ridiculed by my peers for having a god-given, exceptionally oversized ass. However, circa 2000, that same bubble-butt proved to be a ticket into the pants of several extremely attractive men. And I ain't ashamed of it, neither.

(Of course, I've been bullied as an adult as well, albeit in far subtler ways, proving my theory that grade school is just life writ large. And bullying's longest-lingering gift is the following thought that pops into the sub-conscious, unbidden: Every person in this room hates me.)

What else brings bullying on an individual?

Any type of non-conformity, being younger, being of lower status, being sensitive, reacting to the bullying, not fitting in, having a submissive personality, not having a group of friends to provide protection.


The Bully's Mark is a thought-provoking and important documentary. Watch it if you can, whether you've been a bullier, a bully-ee, or a reinforcing bystander. Because when it comes to bullying, there's no such thing as an innocent bystander.

And, oh yeah, those former bullies of mine who are on my list of Facebook contacts? I'm so de-friending them. Right now.

the tale of a bleeding hear liberal, and some animals

On Zoos

Thank you Only Magazine for this moving interview with Derrick Jensen, author of Endgame: The Problem of Civilization and Thought to Exist in the Wild: Awakening from the Nightmare of Zoos. I will return to Mr. Jensen in a moment.


On Bears

On October 11th, CBC's The Nature of Things with David Suzuki aired an amazing documentary titled The Bear Man of Kamchatka, the story of Charlie Russell and his study of grizzly bears in Far Eastern Russia. The documentary portrayed these bears as sensitive, inquisitive, intelligent creatures, capable of harmonious co-existence with humans as long as basic rules of respect are followed. At the close of the hour, the husband and I wept at the beauty and gentleness of these bears, and the gentleness of the man who for 12 years was their steward and surrogate mother.

I immediately found Charlie Russell's website and sent some money to his foundation, which is, perhaps unfortunately, my immediate response upon encountering the potential suffering of any little creature that cannot speak for itself. I say unfortunately because money seems like such a trite, stereotypically middle class response. Anyone can send money. It's far easier to open the wallet and put the thing out of mind than to work towards change, is it not?

But typically this is what I do. However, uncharacteristically this time, I also emailed Mr. Russell to tell him how moved I was by the documentary, and to ask what I could do to help.

His response was heartbreaking.

Dear Nikki,
As you might know, I am not going back to Kamchatka because it is impossible due to the poachers getting the upper hand there now. I have no idea what has happened to my bears and it would cost me about 30 grand to find out and I am too afraid of the answer.
I got a lot during those 12 years and had lots of privileges there. Now I am continuing the other part of my job, that of taking advantage of the attention I am getting and talking to as many people as I can to persuade the world that there are better ways to manage these animals than we are now doing. It is happening slowly. I will update my web site soon.
I have raised a pile of money over the years, but never paid myself much because I never seemed to have enough for the projects I was doing, therefore any money now is sure welcome, even though it just goes into a general fund that buys gas and hotel rooms. This is not the romantic part of my life of living with bears in an exotic place, but it is just as important and I sure appreciate any help I can get.
As for what else you can do, just keep adding to the growing pool of positive thinking.
Thanks for your interest and for taking the time to write.
Charlie

On Elephants

The elephants make me cry. I feel particularly drawn to the elephants; their complex social groupings and familial bonds, their experiences and expressions of grief.

Joe Schlesinger with CBC's The National did a lovely story about one of my favourite organizations, The Tennessee Elephant Sanctuary. Watch the video here. (Runs 11:38)

To quote Tennessee Elephant Sanctuary Director Carol Buckley, "Elephants are walking bodies of emotion." Which is probably why they make me cry.




Back to Derrick Jensen and our civilizations & our zoos:

Incarcerating animals in zoos is to entering into relationships with them in the wild as rape is to making love.

Hyperbolic? I don't think so. I don't think we can employ enough rhetorical devices to properly capture the myriad ways in which humans have inflicted suffering and torture upon our planet and the creatures we share it with.

This is why an organization like The Elephant Sanctuary is so important. Humans have orphaned these creatures and sold them into slavery in the form of zoos or circuses, but humans have also built a place of refuge for the lucky few to live out their days as nature intended. With adopted friends and family and the freedom to roam. The freedom to be their own elephant selves.

Another organization dear to my heart is the David Sheldrick Wildlfe Trust in Kenya. The Trust fosters orphaned elephants and rhinos, and raises the animals until they go off into the wild of their own accord. The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust also engages in important community outreach activities in its regions, including assistance to schools, conservation initiatives, and initiatives to discourage poaching.

As well, the DSWF has a program whereby individuals can 'foster' an orphaned elephant or rhino. From the DSWT website:

A tiny newborn elephant is orphaned, often its mother and family gunned down to serve the Ivory trade, its life support gone; any survivors fleeing in terror; its fate now suffering and death in hopeless and lonely isolation it cannot understand. For an elephant, the family is all important; its very existence dependent upon its mother's milk for the first two years of life and a life that should span three score years and ten, equivalent to that of man. In a perfect world that elephant life would be filled with fun and joy through the companionship of friends and a close-knit and loving family, whose love is pure and unconditional all the days of its life.

As you can imagine, I was compelled to become foster parent to a baby elephant. Little Sinya (above at left) recently rescued from a livestock well at approximately eight months of age, and Edie (below) an adventurous eight year old, also retrieved from the bottom of a well, in 1999.



So, while there are certainly individuals and organizations like Mr. Jensen, Mr. Russell, Ms. Buckley, The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee and the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Kenya, and while I want to remain hopeful for the future of animals on this planet, I find it difficult not to remain deeply pessimistic. It's up to us humans, and we have a really lousy track record.

who do i think i am?

I've always had an unhealthy fascination with the personal, the familial, the familiar. I may in fact be a narcissist. I think I'm ok with that, except that, as a writer, all of my narrative and most of my attempts at critical writing seem to end up firmly influenced by my own small little life. Not so much of a 'personal is political' 1st wave feminist slant as an inability to make any sort of observation or argument without tying it back to personal anecdote.



I do accept and recognize that this impulse is probably the mark of an immature writer, no less an immature person. Fine. I've always thought that my family is fascinating. Most of my grade school story assignments revolved around family incident; many of the people in my family have always appeared to me to be larger-than-life, fully drawn dramatic characters, as marked by star-cross'd tragedy as anybody out of Shakespeare. Like any family we have had our share of small-scale domestic tragedies, on both sides: alcoholism, mental illness, drownings, miscarriages. My paternal grandfather whose buddy's twin-engine Cessna 310 fell from the sky in 1971, leaving behind a poor widow and four kids under the age of 18. My first published poem would be a meditation on this grandfather, the one I'd never get to meet, and the other grandfather who was the only adult to seek me out and hold my hand in my self-exiled childhood misery.

It wasn't a good poem; lyrical, maudlin, sentimental, but the same can be said for my obsession with my family...

Or my maternal grandmother's twin brother, Walter, who died of the pneumonia they both caught at nine months old. And the fact that her Auntie Kay would recount, more than once I'm sure, that my grandmother had survived this illness because Auntie Kay had held her throughout the sickness; whereas an uncle had cuddled poor Walter throughout his decline.

Can you imagine? How much would that story fuck you up as a child?

Then there are the little tidbits that slip out now and then, such as the following tales leaked by my 3-martinis-to-the-wind-mom during a visit to Vancouver last year: My great-grandfather's brother John who went mad after his wife left him, dug a hole in his parent's backyard, and lived there for a year with only the Bible as companionship. This would be on the Cherwoniak side. Then, on the Wasylciw/Wasylow side (damn Anglicization), my grandmother's grandfather's attempted suicide, which was written up in the Ukrainian-language newspaper in Saskatoon at the time. And how my grandmother, only a child, sharply rebuked her Gido at their next meeting for having brought such embarrassment upon her.

I'm itching to discover the rest of the stories......and let's be honest, this is dramatic gold!

So obviously I'd be drawn to CBC's Who Do You Think You Are? program, and it's website, which boasts links to genealogical resources and where you can create your own family tree.

And, sentimental or not, I do feel that the role of family historian is a mantle that I need to assume from my grandmother. For a lady who loved to talk, and more specifically who loved to tell the same family stories over and over again, it's a bitter irony that she's dying from a disease that has taken her speech from her. Baba has always known everyone's story. Who married whom and who gossiped about whom and all the funny poignant upsetting little tales that make up the fabric of the family history. So as the oldest and favourite grandchild, I do feel a responsibility to carry these stories now.

I've added about a quarter of the names to the maternal side of my family and am eager to do more research. But the My Family Tree site, tied to the CBC.ca network, is only ok. The Flash interface is clunky and a little glitchy. It switched some dates around on me, so that a relative who's birthday I'd entered as the 4th month and 24th day become the 3rd month and 24th day. It froze when I tried to upload pictures. And though it allows you to enter "partners" of either sex (which is useful for my tree) it doesn't allow you to accurately enter folks who've been adopted (part of my tree as well.) But now that I've put in so much data, I'm hesitant to switch to a paid site such ancestry.ca. But I suppose that proves that you get what you pay for.


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Now playing: Phoenix - One Time Too Many
via FoxyTunes

On civic strikes and corporate whores

The following was recently posted on a CBC discussion board responding to the most recently published union vote results. (At week eleven of Vancouver's civic workers strike.)

I think this is not going to end well for the librarians. For all the bromides regarding the joy of reading and learning, they don't provide an essential service that will bring the city to its knees when withdrawn. The pay equity issue is specious - the pay gap likely has less to do with the demographics of the librarians than the nature of the job. They're a very well educated group of people who contribute to society, but like classical musicians, artists, and writers, they're in a career that doesn't have the high economic value of other professions. Other city office jobs may seem to do comparable amounts of work for more pay (like construction permitting), but again they have more value in the end. I think if you're drawn to a career with a high intrinsic value like a librarian, musician, acting, writing, even teaching as an academic, you have to accept that there is an economic price to be paid. (My emphasis.)

Now, civic strike aside, and I can't really speak to the library workers' plight as I am at best uninformed, why do I feel/fear the correctness of this writer's statement?

Why does it seem that the economic price to be paid is poverty and/or why does the artist's choice have to be between a guaranteed life of poverty vs. selling out, or as I like to call it, Corporate Whoring themselves out to live a comfortable life which is nonetheless completely unfulfilled because they lack the resources (time, energy) to devote enough time to their craft?

Ok, I admit it, like every half-intelligent thought I've ever had, this one is all about me. I've spent the five years since graduating from University debating whether to pay that economic price vs. whether to accept my lack of literary acumen and throw in the towel. Whilst my father's voice in my head reminds me that money is security. I can appreciate where he's coming from: he grew up in poverty and pulled himself into the middle class through obstinate brainpower. And he gave up the trip to California with the band to move to Calgary, start University and build a decent life for himself. The band, so I'm told, would still be gigging the same small town Alberta bars twenty years later.

The Economic Price to be Paid......now there's a good name for a band.

on grief, part one

My Ukrainian maternal grandmother (Baba) is in the late stages of ALS, also known as Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, after the baseball player who died of it in 1941. The same disease felled jazz great Charles Mingus, but they don't call it Charles Mingus disease, which is a shame.

I suppose to say that she's been an important figure in my life is an understatement, as I do think her influence has been profound. I was her first and only grandchild for six years until my brother was born, so in my early years we spent quite a bit of time together. She used to pick me up from kindergarten in her vintage Thunderbird convertible, which I thought was so glamourous.

She watched me in the early years when my mom still worked at the bank, when my parents went to Hawaii, and Palm Springs, and each trip they took to the hospital after each miscarriage.

Because of her passion and penchant for narrative - her ability to corral her helpless listener into hour upon hour of reminiscence - I came to appreciate the art of a good story. Because of her patrician good looks, penchant for fine clothing and irrepressible vanity, I've developed a keen eye for the aesthetic; I refuse to leave the house without lipstick on, and I've studied mirrors very closely for the past 27 years. Due to her perfectionism and demanding attitudes towards housekeeping/cleaning, I've turned a defiantly blind eye to every domestic task that's ever crossed my path.

There's one right and twelve wrong ways to make the bed? Fuck that!

Any condition (life itself) that is terminal is indeed cruel, but it seems to me that ALS is harsher than most. The body dies, agonizingly slow, with the human being still trapped inside.

At first it curbed her fierce independence.

Mobility limited, and with the right side of her body weakened, she was forced to move into my parent's home for what turned out to be nine months; a gestation period towards an ending rather than a beginning; a pregnant decline. She hauled herself around on a walker and tried to make herself useful by unloading the dishwasher and placing the items on the counter for my dad or brother to put away. She hadn't the strength to lift a dish into the cupboard but she hated to sit around. She kept her little corner of the kitchen table tidy and bitched about the general mess of the place. So Taurus stubborn.

I used to think she was going to outlive us all; perhaps she did too.

Not only was she physically tough; having survived the pneumonia that killed her twin brother at 4 months, having survived getting hung up by her arm from a nail as a child, having survived severe burns to her face and body as a young woman, (and she walked to St. Paul's Hospital at 6 o'clock each morning to get her dressings changed so no one would see her like that; oh, delicious vanity!) and having walked through a blizzard in Saskatoon in January to the hospital to deliver my mother (this is true) -- she was also stubborn and cantankerous enough that I thought she'd have been preserved from the inside out. She was never sick. She nursed us, my mom, my brother and I, through chicken pox and never caught it. She outlived her husband and her entire family.

I often rolled around on the floor with the brutal agony of menstrual cramps as a pre-teen and she would always recount the tale of her first menstruation, right in the middle of a baseball game. (I'm not sure where this athleticism went, but those genes sure didn't transfer to either my mom or myself; shopping is our preferred team sport.) She felt a trickle as she ran to the home plate so she just kept running, to the confusion of the boys. Went to the outhouse, wrapped rags into her knickers, and ran back out to finish the game.