Went off to Gjoa Haven to work for a while.  Apparently Kugaaruk is now jealous so I will probably have to go there, too.  I like going to Kugaaruk, they have a cute little apartment at the detachment and I take my school work and hole up for a week.  Really wish I could go have Thanksgiving with the kids.  Miguel will be there, but I'm up here.

However.  I did acquire a turkey today.  There was one in the freezer downstairs but since Patti has been inviting random people it was looking a bit small at 10 pounds.  Co-op actually had some, so I bought one when I went to the post office this afternoon, and then took it back to work.  Sat it on my desk, since it needs to thaw anyway.  Nathalie who's currently doing our cleaning came in and dusted it.  Eric came in and hugged it.  Jean-Guy (new boss) said, "Do you know there's a turkey on your desk?"  At 3:30 I told him my turkey was bored and wanted to go home, so I should take it, but he just laughed at me.

So the plan is that Gord cooks ham, I cook turkey and Patti invites people.  Good division of labour.

Cool thing today - 18 days since I had a cigarette.  Honestly, I seem to be really good at quitting but also really good at starting again.  Not sure what that's about.

Ian is in Spain, doing the Camino.  I'm following along, remembering all my fun.  He's currently somewhere past Carrion de los Condes, I'm thinking headed for Astorga.  Then up into the hills.  

There aren't any words, really.  Just a lot of love and not enough time.  Like life in general.

Took Ian and Rachel to the Hip concert in Edmonton - the extreme nosebleed seats were awesome, a small block of chairs up under the roof, surrounded by grandmas and bikers and teenagers and dads and little kids (wearing industrial headphones like workmen wear when jack hammering) and it was super loud and we were so elevated that we had a bird's eye view of a bird's eye view.  (I promise, that's the only lyric reference for this one, but it came into my head when we sat down and watched the stadium fill to ultra-capacity.)  I had to close my eyes, at one point, partly because they were filled with tears and partly because I wanted to feel the music in my body, hand over my heart, so close to them inside.

It's the music of my adult life.  I first heard Boots or Hearts when I was 21, walking on the estuary behind our trailer, and fell in love instantly with the music, Gord's voice, the line about fingers and toes.  In a way Gord Downie and the Tragically Hip have been like a bubble around me, my second self, in parallel to the first, whispering and shouting in my ears through everything that's happened to me in between, and I colour and filter all my experiences through them.  Driving down the steep road from the spiral tunnels, shouting the words to Smalltown Bringdown with the kids, dancing in the kitchen with them to Fireworks (they always called it the 'hockey song'), Wheat Kings the story of my high school reunion, Cordelia of course, Bobcaygeon and Nautical Disaster for late night depressive episodes, and going to two spectacular concerts that were peak experiences leaving me deaf and with new admiration...  I love how they play a song live and it gives you a new take on it - Long Time Running at the Queen Elizabeth theatre, Bobcaygeon at BC Place, Membership in Edmonton (I needed more concerts. Never got them) and you carry that along with the recording.  The words, the key shifts and tempo changes that I know off by heart, the changes in the lyrics when Gord is performing, the ecstasy that I can't explain to anyone.  Serendipity.

And I don't care that so many other people in Canada love them.  I can share.  I'm not jealous with my  bubble.  Everybody in Edmonton that evening was in the same space, both physically and emotionally.  How must it feel to have 20,000 people chanting the words to your songs?  I don't care that it's probably not cool to be 'their biggest fan' as Miguel described me the other day.  If you think less of me, so be it.  

My sorrow at this time is shot through with joy, that they were in my life all this time.  That I got to see them again through some amazing act of God.  Ian said he lost count of how many people said, "HOW did you get tickets?" and he said, "My mom got lucky."  I totally did.  For 28 wonderful years....  

Two weeks in the south...  Busy weeks, getting ready for the wedding, gardening, walking with kids and dog (took Mulder, he needed a holiday too), then Roy, Robyn, Luci, Mum, Dad, Paul and Karen came to the wedding so lots of visiting.  The wedding was well-planned before I got there, Kirsten is very thorough, but running around to do as she worked right up to a few days before the big day.

All the groomsmen boys came down from Cambridge Bay to be in the wedding, so we all hung out at the Edmonton house and it was just like old times, boys playing video games, rummaging through the fridge, laughing in the background.  Like taking a holiday in the past.  I think we may have alarmed the nice people at the Devonian Gardens when we went to rehearse, though.  The wedding patio features a bridge that the bride walks across.  Kirsten (in her ripped jeans, her hair loose, looking fifteen) wandered across the bridge, dutifully rehearsing.  The Devonian lady said, "Have you decided on a song for her walk down the aisle?"  As she reached the far side of the patio, the boys on Jorden's other side started singing the Star Wars tune.  She laughed, kept walking.  About half way down the aisle, accompanied by her baritone a Capella choir, she said, "That sounds really good, I might have to go with it".  Jorden found an instrumental version of a piece of Star Wars music, nice strings, and afterwards Roy said he was listening and all of a sudden he thought, hey, wait a minute, that's Star Wars.  Which was exactly what the kids wanted so...

It's hard to believe she's old enough to be married, to change her name and be Jorden's wife, but she was beautiful and composed all day and I enjoyed the whole thing.

Went to England again, last week.  No, wait.  Week before last.  Good conference, stayed in a hotel on the beach in Portsmouth, presented my research, got to hang out and be a student for a while.  Came back to piles of work, but oh well.

John and Jill live near the conference venue, so John came and got me on the Friday afternoon and took me back to their place for dinner.  We discussed Brexit.  No-one I met in England was for it.  We also talked about me leaving England for Canada when I was in elementary school, and how that affected my life.  It occurred to me, while I was wandering around listening to my music, on the waterfront in the rain, on the way to the university from my hotel, that my life would have been very different if we'd stayed there.  I'd maybe feel a sense of belonging, at least in one of the countries.  But as I get older I find that I don't have the self-consciousness I used to have, I don't hear my accent as different, I say what I think and then grin and mostly people deal with it.  I don't want necessarily for people to think I'm English - I am what I am now and whatever they think is not really relevant.

Having said that, I got up at 5am the morning of my presentation and paced around the parking lot at the hotel, rehearsing it out loud.  It went well, I managed to say everything I needed to say in the 15 minute time slot, my slides all worked, and the audience said nice things afterwards.  The students I travelled up with told me I didn't seem nervous, but I do have a poker face when I need one.  

I have, of course, acquired, with much cursing at Ticketmaster, three tickets to the Tragically Hip in Edmonton on July 28th.

But first, I would like to point out that the universe is inherently lacking in fairness.  Why does the dangerously cheesy Donald get to continue to deposit slime on the world stage and Gordon Downie gets a brain tumour?  Who decides these things?  I'd like a word.  Selfishly, I need Gord to live forever and continue to sing the contents of my thoughts to me, the thoughts I didn't realize I had until he growled them.  Which, i believe, is the real purpose of poetry.

Years ago, when the kids were very little, I went drinking with Graeme, between Christmas and New Year, in Lake Louise.  It was a good night, with an excess of beer.  Something the bar under the Lake Louise Inn specializes in:  surfeit.  Graeme and a girl (I'm sorry, it was a long time - I forget her name.  Hopefully she's forgotten mine.) were walking behind me, and I shuffled my feet through the snow, that sparkled unbearably under the streetlights, over the tourist bridge behind the Post Hotel, after last call, singing Cordelia at the loudest possible volume.  I remember feeling the song with my whole body - "Just to see how alive you really are..." and in that moment, being elated and sad at the same time...  Graeme and girl were laughing at me.  I didn't care.  I sang all the verses and didn't get arrested.

Rachel and Ian are coming with me to the concert, Kirsten will be on her honeymoon with Jorden.  Which I suppose is only right.  

So in the middle of the night a couple months ago, I'm home alone and I can't sleep.  the dog and I are watching the Investigation Discovery channel.  which, if you've never seen it, is all true crime, all the time.  addicting.  anyway.  I quit smoking with Champix, which was amazingly easy and painless, with the added bonus that all the noise in my head tapered off and I was calm and even.  no problem.  didn't even want to smoke.  three months without smoking.  magic.

then the Champix had to stop.  and within a week, the stuff in my head came back, and having had a nice rest, it was raring to go.  middle of the night, as I mentioned, and my brain is suddenly in full-on 'you should kill yourself' mode.  I don't know why my brain is so bent on self-annihilation.  usually it takes a few months to get to that point, during which time I can get used to it, talk to it, tell it to fuck off.  use all my coping mechanisms - long walks to get physicality, music to get a bit of joy, dog cuddles, obsessive work...

anyway.  my response to the sudden rush of suicidal ideation was to get out of bed, go in the other room, find an old tin of tobacco, and make myself a cigarette.  the strong urge subsided to a manageable level.  I'm used to this...

in the morning I had a health centre appointment, a weekly bp check as they still don't like my numbers.  the nurse says to me, "how did you do with quitting smoking?"

I'm exhausted, reeling at my near-miss (or near hit?) and I say, unwisely, "I started again last night.  It was either that or kill myself"

how fast do you think I was seeing the mental health guy?

anyway.  long story short, the doctor is making 'you're bipolar' noises.  I've backed off.  I shucked my last appointment.  I don't want drugs.  (I won't kill myself.  Promise).

But the interesting thing out of all of this is that although I've known about the depression being a factor for so many years, it never occurred to me (and I'm bright, aren't I?) that the other side of it, the high points were also an altered state.

And I don't want to think that everything I am is attributable to some sort of brain chemistry imbalance.  awkward.  more obsessive rumination is needed.  In many ways, the depression aspect of me has driven a lot of the things I've done.  proving to myself that there was meaning in life, forcing myself to perform difficult juggling acts and get every last drop of work out of myself.

If I relax, how will I finish my Phd?  hahahaha.  I'm pretty sure that starting that was a definite sign of mental illness.  although I am enjoying it.

This week I'm vibrating a bit.  Just a mild undertone.  listening to X Ambassadors' Renegade on repeat.  talking too much.  getting the urge to write blog posts :)  wanting to go for reallllly long walks.  (dog doesn't mind this phase).  but that's fine, because I've got a presentation to finish for a conference in June.  and an ethics document to write.  which I should get back to...

Last night I dreamt that the world had come to an end, that I was in a huge, ruined, pitch dark city, huddled in a dingy room with candles and the last of the food, terrified and alone, not knowing what to do next.

This morning, it makes sense.  Prince is gone.

It's strange, because David Bowie dying was a shock, I thought he was hyper-real and possibly alien and not capable of dying.  But Prince, he has always seemed to be on the edge of mortality, understanding that the line between here and gone is always moving.  Now he has stepped over.

When I was a teenager, I dreamt that I was folding laundry and he showed up, wearing his pretty clothes, and wanted to kiss me.  To do so, he was forced to stand on a box, and I dissolved into helpless laughter.  (please note, I am not tall enough for this to be true, I'm sure).  I hope he's forgiven me.  And that wherever he went, he knows we all loved him, back in 1984.  Everyone is quoting appropriate lines from his songs today, I won't do that.  I don't need to.  They are the soundtrack in the back of my mind always.  so long, sweet prince.