Tag: Life

Odd Skeptic Out

Last night I was over at a friend’s house (we’ll call her “S”) for dinner. At some point (I forget how) the conversation wandered over to Edgar Cayce. S told a brief story in which Cayce was about to enter a crowded elevator but, seeing that all the occupants’ auras were dead or dim or something, decided to wait for the next one. The story concludes with the elevator falling, and everyone inside dying horribly. But Cayce was safe, ’cos of his second sight.

Last night I was over at a friend’s house (we’ll call her “S”) for dinner. At some point (I forget how) the conversation wandered over to Edgar Cayce. S told a brief story in which Cayce was about to enter a crowded elevator but, seeing that all the occupants’ auras were dead or dim or something, decided to wait for the next one. The story concludes with the elevator falling, and everyone inside dying horribly. But Cayce was safe, ‘cos of his second sight.

Okay. There are several questions to ask at this point. At the top of the list, of course, are “Did this really happen?” and “How do you know?” And also, “So Cayce just saved his own ass and let everybody else die? Well, good for him, I guess.” But I didn’t say anything. Part of me didn’t want to offend (S is a dear friend, and I was a guest in her home). Part of me figured I probably wouldn’t be changing any minds (there were a couple of people nodding along, though I don’t know if they were just being polite) and it’d just be wasted energy. And, well, I’m just not that quick on my feet. By the time I got beyond raising a skeptical eyebrow, the conversation had moved on. I do a lot better when I get urban legends in my email. Then I can take a minute or two to gather my thoughts, check my favourite debunking sites (Skeptic’s Dictionary and The Urban Legends Reference Pages, if you’re curious) and carefully craft a reply.

A little thing, maybe, but it’s not the first time it happened to me. It soured the rest of the evening a little, and it’s been bugging me all day. Should I have said something? Or not? In a way, it feels like being in the closet, and gathering the energy to come out as a skeptic. (And, funny thing, everybody at the party knows I’m gay, but I don’t know how much they know about my nonbelief). Sigh. So, I’m venting here. Isn’t that what personal sites are for? At least I’ll be better prepared next time.

Winter Wonderlands

I’m flying back to Ottawa tomorrow, to hang with the family over the holidays. Frankly, I’m a bit torn about it. On the one hand, it’ll be good to see everyone, since I usually only fly home once a year (plus exceptional events like weddings, etc…), and I do love me a white Christmas. On the other hand, living on the West Coast for eight years has turned me into a huge wimp, and I can’t take Ottawa winters anymore. So, I guess I’ll be doing what I do every year: stay indoors as much as possible, get cozy with space heaters, and admire all that beautiful snow from where it’s warm. And if I have to venture outside, bundle the hell up.

I’m flying back to Ottawa tomorrow, to hang with the family over the holidays. Frankly, I’m a bit torn about it. On the one hand, it’ll be good to see everyone, since I usually only fly home once a year (plus exceptional events like weddings, etc…), and I do love me a white Christmas. On the other hand, living on the West Coast for eight years has turned me into a huge wimp, and I can’t take Ottawa winters anymore. So, I guess I’ll be doing what I do every year: stay indoors as much as possible, get cozy with space heaters, and admire all that beautiful snow from where it’s warm. And if I have to venture outside, bundle the hell up.

Just for fun, let’s see what the weather in Vancouver was like today, shall we? A high of 9ºC, which is a bit above seasonal; low well above freezing, so no lovely frost in the morning (it usually dips just below freezing at night); reasonably sunny (though with nasty dark clouds piling around the North Shore mountains); not much wind and no rain at all, which to be fair is unusual for this time of year. There was just one half-hearted snowfall a couple of weeks ago, but the flakes melted as they hit the ground. I wore shorts to finish the last of my Christmas shopping. It got a bit nippy after the sun went down, but it was totally worth it just so I can brag to my family that I wore shorts the day before the winter solstice, while they huddled together for warmth in the frozen wastelands of the Ottawa Valley and Montreal Island, peering out at the polar bears walking by. Heh.

(Just kidding about the polar bears. They wouldn’t last five minutes against the roaming herds of carnivorous penguins.)

A Moment of Patriotism

Fall is in full swing. Trees are reddening (and browning and yellowing and orangeing, and is that even a word? Orangeing? Orangening? I could look it up, but it’s more fun to speculate). I felt like writing something here, but it all came out so generic. The leaves are falling and the days are getting shorter and the birds are flying south and something about the changing seasons and maybe the circle of life, and then a rousing rendition of Turn! Turn! Turn!

Multicoloured Cocoon

Fall is in full swing. Trees are reddening (and browning and yellowing and orangeing, and is that even a word? Orangeing? Orangening? I could look it up, but it’s more fun to speculate). I felt like writing something here, but it all came out so generic. The leaves are falling and the days are getting shorter and the birds are flying south and something about the changing seasons and maybe the circle of life, and then a rousing rendition of Turn! Turn! Turn! Gah. Maybe I wasn’t that inspired after all.

(Problem: if I’m going to have a more bloggish feel to this Web site (ie: shorter, but more frequent, updates), I can’t just write something for the sake of writing. It has to have… substance. Or at least, style. Or a point. Or something. It can’t just be about what I had for lunch, or cleaning the appartment, or talking about people you don’t even know, stuff that would be boring to anyone but me. But on the other hand, I can’t keep writing these big long essays with deep insights and stuff that take months or years to finish (depending on how disciplined I feel). There’s got to be a happy medium; I just have to find it. But then I’ll probably have to rename that section. “Essays” sounds too… stuffy. Unspontaneous. I don’t know if that’s a word either. Making up words is doubleplusgood.)

So, fall. This weekend I went down to Como Lake Park to add to my Fall Foliage gallery, and got some gorgeous pics of a young maple tree showing off its red leaves. Wow. I ask you, is there anything more spectacular than a maple leaf’s unique fiery orange-red? And even though the colour actually has nothing to do with why it was picked for the Canadian flag, for just a moment, it made me feel all… patriotic.

O Canada, terre de nos aïeux
Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux

(Second aside. I only knew the first stanza of the French and English versions. Then I looked up the rest of the lyrics, and they’re even more fiercely royalist, nationalist and Christian. Oy. Although I did get a giggle out of the first line of the third stanza: «De son patron, précurseur du vrai Dieu» Heh. The original version was French, after all. English Canadians, not so big on the Saint-Jean-Baptiste.)

Maple Fire

The days are getting shorter, and the sun’s lower in the sky. No more outdoor volleyball at work. But when you’ve got spectacles like this, I really can’t complain.