At 3 am the small person climbing into my bed says, "I had nightmares, Mum", and I don't even really wake up, just lift the blankets and let her snuggle up. I wake again an hour later, she is nestled in my arms, like she used to when she was a baby, and it's a bit too hot because she is, after all, seven now, but I stick my feet out of the blankets to cool off rather than wake her up. In the morning, she seems fine, and I know that the nightmares are really about Pop-tart being dead, rather than the tornadoes and earthquakes her mind has conjured up for her

The smallest member of the household, Pop-tart the three year old mouse, died today. He was pretty old, as mice go, and his fur had started to fall out, despite the remedy (for a suspected case of mites) that they gave me at the pet store. I'm thinking that in the wild, when they get old and lazy, they get eaten by something young and quick, and I pointed out to Rachel that if she hadn't bought him he probably would have been fed to someone's snake. You know, when they're selling the mice 3 for $5 that they're not intended to be pets.

my dentist, as perhaps you will remember from my previous visits, is insane. In a nice way, but he's definitely insane. He flits around between patients, and talks non-stop while he's working on me, explaining exactly what he's doing and insisting that I watch in the little mirror. "You see that orange spot there, that's decay. That's what the bacteria do to you... I'm using the white filling material on this one, it's got little bits of silicone in it, but it doesn't last as long as the silver stuff..."

Sometimes I think I'd be better off without knowing.

What I like best about working on essays is the bit where they're mostly written and the rest of the work is just playing about with the words. I notice I use the word "people" a lot. Still, hard to write about the justice system without referring to human beings.

I'm going to the dentist tomorrow, with my broken tooth. I think they should just pull the whole lot out and I'll get a nice set of dentures. Stupid teeth keep exploding.

On Thursday, as if I didn't have enough to do, I have to go work a bingo for the school. It's so smoky, it makes me just want to buy a pack and join in. Then the next day I actually get nic fits, even though I haven't had a cigarette since 5:45 am Dec 7, 1999. 1,145 days, 16 hours, a few minutes... nope, not counting, really, why do you ask?

What Type of Villain are You?

mutedfaith.com /
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Every now and then (ok, too often) I get a day where people feel the need to tell me off.

The first pair were buying scratch and wins and when they were finished they threw them down the semi-circular hole in the counter that enables me to lift up the hinged flap and open the little half door to get out of the booth. One said, after throwing her ticket down, "Is that a garbage?" "No," I replied. "You should really close that up, I bet a lot of people throw garbage down there." (it's about one a day, really.) I was dumb though, and had to say, "I need it to lift the counter, it's too heavy." She has to have the last word (or seven) "You should cover it with plastic, then."

Saran wrap, maybe? I don't know. She was quite annoyed with me, even though I was the one who had to go down on the floor to pick up her ticket.

So anyway. The day goes on. Another happy shopper woman comes, and requests a ticket. I print one out for her. It's apparently not what she wants. She starts pacing up and down, going, "No, no, listen..." and then telling me again. This time I understand, that she doesn't in fact want what she originally asked for. But, this is my fault, you know. So I make her the ticket she did want. But like the last happy shopper, she can't leave it alone. "I WANTED the COMBINATION, UNDERSTAND?" Not only do I understand, but she now has the ticket. She goes away muttering.

One more, just to make my day complete. She comes bouncing up with her friend. They're both a sort of woman I'm scared of, with capes and long greying hair and they're discussing herbal tea. Friend walks off, and scary woman moves over to the side counter with her enormous purse and says, "More room over here." The little old man behind her takes that as his cue to step up and order his tiny ticket, while she's going through her purse. So I quickly make his ticket, take his money, and turn back to her. She finishes going through her purse and says to me, very loudly, "I can't believe that old man pushed in front of me like that. And that you served him." I say, "I'm sorry," but she's not done.

Is it a full moon or something? She gave me, I swear, at least 3 minutes on how rude the old man and I were. How I should think of the customers, and ladies should always come first, and on and on.

Big raspberries all round, I think. Retail sucks.

Just so you all don't think I'm picking on the kids, I'm not. I admire their enthusiasm. I enjoyed the class for other reasons, too, but I hadn't anticipated the difference 10+ years would make on things. When I first went to University, everyone in all my classes was shit-scared of the professors, and would never have tried to argue...

University courses are better than TV. I am serious. I had so much fun today. The professor in the "Canadian Criminal Justice" class I hiked over to Burnaby for spent a fair amount of time making fun of how much all the kids in the class didn't know...

He asked, at one point, referring to the Raelians, "How many of you think cloning should be criminalized?" About ten or fifteen of them immediately put their hands up.

He pointed to a brunette in the second row, "Why do you think it should be?"

She replied, "Well, like, it's like, where do you draw the line, you know? Do you know what I mean?"

He waited a second for this to sink in, then he said, "No, actually, I don't have a clue what you mean. Could you be more specific?"

She tried again, "Well, like, who gets to do it? You know?"

Her friend came to her aid, "She means will it be elitist?"

He replied, "No, there will be universal access to cloning, Jean Chretien will make sure of it, because he'll be able to stay in office until he's ninety. Now do you still think it should be criminalized?"

She had nothing more to say. But others did. Everyone who was fool enough to try and answer one of his questions got the same treatment, and like those rats who get an electric shock when they go for the piece of cheese, they all kept going for it. It was way better than TV.

something creepy: every time I go to look at my tuition fee statement online (and I keep doing this obsessively because) someone has knocked another fifty dollars or so off the total. I was getting kinda paranoid about this, thinking up reasons, like that they had decided that I was really old and were giving me a senior's discount, or maybe a stupidity / we-feel-sorry-for-you discount when I remembered that all of the voluminous readings I did last term had to be returned, and that as I was leaving the returning place the cutie behind the counter said, "your refunds will be processed in a couple of weeks."

I'm baking potatoes in the microwave for lunch. There's no food in the house, but M's boss (the financial wizard) paid him on Wednesday and told him not to cash the cheque until Friday. I'm currently subsisting on leftover Christmas cookies and a box of Turtles my mother gave me.

Today at work I overheard a woman telling her friend that her New Year's Resolution was to buy more clothes. I think she must watch too much television. I mean, that's like an ad for the Gap or something. "Spoil yourself"...

I will be setting foot in a University lecture on Tuesday for the first time in almost 13 years. Wish me luck.

A few people at work today asked me what I did on New Year's Eve. I replied, "The kids and I watched Dick Clark and drank root beer." Which was only three quarters true. We did watch Dick Clark, and the kids did drink root beer. From wineglasses, their treat. I, however, drank the rest of the bottle of sherry my mother left.

Kids and I took the opportunity also to turn up the MuchMusic 24hr dance party and dance.

I should be doing the dishes. M has gone to Ben's, and the kids are pretending to clean the playroom.

I had a good day at work, today, mostly because at 10:30 one of my customers brought me sushi, and the mall closed early at 5 for New Year's Eve.

I guess I have to think of the word for 2003, now. I don't know. 2002 was freedom... that went well, don't you think? I think perhaps... Equanimity. It's my year, too, year of the Sheep.

Well, it went. Everyone ate, and now they've all gone to bed.

No, seriously, not a bad year this year. Apart from Jazz eating an entire Terry's Chocolate Orange and being heartily sick on the deck, and Rachel getting her sticky little head thingy stuck to the ceiling, no major crises. Tomorrow I have to go and do boxing day at the mall which should be an adventure, and at the moment I don't want to go to bed because I've eaten too much and I'm sure I'll have bad dreams...

when I say a big yam, I mean a really big yam. Every year at Christmas the grocery store fetches out all the decent-sized yams they've been hoarding in the back, and sells them for 49 c a pound. Seriously, they are the size of small chickens. A meal all in themselves. Who needs turkey when the yams are this big. And I have a beautiful butternut squash, and fresh brussels sprouts, I'm feeling quite pleased with myself. My father is bringing the turkey, I figure if he wants to roast birds he can knock himself out...

All this month I've been selling change to the couple running a kitchen implement stall just down the way from me at the mall, and today they brought me a present: red and green dyed popcorn kernels in a plastic bottle with a ribbon round it. It popped up real nice but the kids were disappointed that it was only the hulls that were dyed. We ate it, anyway, but now I'm wondering if I'll glow in the dark from so much dye.

Things that have so far been good about Christmas:

it's a small list, granted

teaching Ian the words to O Holy Night and singing it with him
gin (warms the cockles of your heart, whatever the hell that means)
a big batch of molasses raisin cookies in the cookie jar
the mall's closed until boxing day

that's about it. tomorrow I'm cooking a big yam for Christmas dinner. and making trifle. and probably dodging the missiles launched by my mother.

sometimes I think being an orphan is underrated.

Oh, ho ho, what a joy it is to work in retail at Christmas time.

Can you feel the sarcasm?

Sometimes I forget that although I want to move beyond little kid things, Rachel isn't quite ready. I took her to the mall today, because she came the other day and said, I want to go see Santa, and although the other two proclaim their non-belief loudly I guess they haven't convinced Rachie.

When we got there, there was a miniature ride-on railway, and it turned out that she wanted a ride on it. I said, without much heat, "Are you sure?" and the next thing I know I've paid two dollars and she's riding on the engine, ringing the bell, and there's another girl about the same size as her sitting in one of the carriages. The train probably would have seated about ten kids, but as there were only the two of them the operator (I think) gave them an extra long ride, and when she got off he told us there was going to be a puppet show, and of course, we had to go and see it.

It was actually quite a good puppet show, as these things go, and didn't turn religious until the last minute or two, and Rachel was totally into it, clapping on cue and shouting things and generally having a good time. Kirsten and Ian at that age wouldn't have been, they've always wanted to be more grown-up than they are. Funny how these things work.

Next was Santa. She hugged him and told him she wanted a skateboard. He, amazingly, told her he didn't think that would be such a good idea. We've been telling her that for ages, and have got her a gameboy. (which she also wanted)

Then she did her Christmas shopping. She bought everyone a stuffed bear, each one wearing a different colored sequin shirt. The cashier laughed when she said, "I'm done my Christmas shopping now."

On the walk home, she said to me, "I think his beard was sewn on." Maybe next year she won't want to go, but I'm glad that I managed to find time to do it with her this year....

It's raining, maliciously and unrelentingly. On the floor in the coffee shop, while I'm waiting for the bus, there's a piece of paper that I want to pick up and read, but don't. My mother phones with her annual list of what she wants me to buy. I dutifully write it down. Then she tells me all the same stories she told me yesterday when she called. Now I don't point that out any more, I figure if it makes her happy to tell them again, who am I to be a killjoy. She's been drinking, I can tell, she says she misses me. My mother only loves me when she's drunk. For a while. Then comes the stage where we're all being nasty, or so we're told. She asks me for the eighth time when my last exam is. "I've had it already, it was on Tuesday."

Those of our readers currently in Australia should know that they are always welcome here, at any time, for any length of time, and for any reason with no questions asked. Just thought I'd throw that in, in case decisions are getting made.

more of this... bizarreness

just think of how much could be accomplished with this energy... snowmen?