Tag: Pondering

Enlightenment For Sale

Sunday was quite a full day of volleyball. A reffing clinic around noon, then dropping in to Intermediate 1 (I figured I’d have a good shot, since lots of people would be away for the long weekend), then my usual Intermediate 2 play. There was also a beginner reffing clinic between I1 and I2; I’d already taken it, so it gave me a chance to go grab a bite to eat.

Sunday was quite a full day of volleyball. A reffing clinic around noon, then dropping in to Intermediate 1 (I figured I’d have a good shot, since lots of people would be away for the long weekend), then my usual Intermediate 2 play. There was also a beginner reffing clinic between I1 and I2; I’d already taken it, so it gave me a chance to go grab a bite to eat.

I went to that little muffin/snack place, corner of Alma and 4th Ave, realised I didn’t have enough cash, and went looking for a bank machine. On an impulse, even though it was dark and drizzling, I decided to wander up 4th and after a block or two came upon Banyen Books. Wow. Now there’s a name that was totally not on my mind. I’d only been there once or twice probably ten years ago, when I was still in my kinda-paganish phase. To buy a copy of the Tao Te Ching, if I recall. Wait, no, it was to buy a copy of The Complete Book of Tai Chi Chuan, as recommended by my then-teacher, and I bought the TTC on my own because Taoism appealed to me. Ah, memories! So, I couldn’t resist: since I still had some time to kill, I went in to browse.

It was just as I remembered it. I’m pretty sure it used to be in another location, so the layout was probably different, not that that mattered much. And I remember they used to have one of those little fountains, the kind that always makes me want to pee, but didn’t this weekend, thank gawd. But everything else? Exactly. The. Same. Incense, soft music, the promise of magic and revelation in every Tarot deck and $50 crystal. I wandered the shelves of books on dream analysis and cosmic science and Celtic Goddess worship and all sorts of weird esoteric topics I’d never even heard of. So many fluffy morsels for people who’ll believe anything that feels good, people hungrily seeking something they can’t even name and wouldn’t recognize if they found it.

Truth is, I could feel faint echoes of the same yearnings inside me. There was a time when I too was a seeker, sort of. After dropping Catholicism, I looked for answers or at least wisdom in mythologies both old and new to replace beliefs that hadn’t appealed to me in a long time. I didn’t put much effort into it because I never felt that the spiritualities I absorbed were really what I needed. Nowadays, of course, I tend to trust my own judgment and revel in my skepticism. I don’t need faiths, spiritualities to make me complete or hand me The Truth.

Still, I have… moments of weakness. Now, in one corner of the store (next to handsome leatherbound Books of Shadows) were a few racks of sketchpads and notepads, all with very pretty covers. I was seriously tempted to get one. I hadn’t done any drawing in a long time, and I thought it might inspire me. Or at least push me to practice regularly, cos Gawd knows I need the practice. But really, wasn’t that more magical thinking? If they’re anywhere, the talent and the potential are in myself. Not some object I shelled out $24.95 + tax for, no matter how pretty it is.

So I left without getting anything, and went back to the gym to sweat off half my body weight. On the way home I bought a pad of unlined paper at Safeway for a couple of bucks, on which I’ve been doodling since.

Dungeons & Dragons

I discovered The Order of the Stick about a month ago (with this episode, to be precise), and was immediately hooked. It’s got great plots, character development, action and adventure and tons of humour. Half of that is the hilarious metagaming dialog which spoke to right to my geek heart.

I discovered The Order of the Stick about a month ago (with this episode, to be precise), and was immediately hooked. It’s got great plots, character development, action and adventure and tons of humour. Half of that is the hilarious metagaming dialog which spoke to right to my geek heart. All this talk of hit points and +5 modifiers and levels by the characters themselves took me back to those long-ago gaming Dungeons & Dragons™ sessions I played with my brother M and a few friends. Ah, memories: the rattle of the dice, the scribbling on character sheets, the memorizing of monster stats, pretending we were wizards or paladins or thieves… Good times, good times.

We started playing around age 8, even before the (1st Edition) Advanced D&D came along. I remember our first couple of games, on our grandfather’s dining room table. Good old module B2! We played with our older brother and dad—who’d introduced us to the game and bought the module and dice. He never wanted to play himself, and bowed out as soon as we found gaming groups of our own. M and I played for more than a decade (and two editions), up until our early twenties when the last of the old gang moved away. I didn’t mind not RPGing anymore, since by then I’d come out of the closet and finally had a bit more of a life. Still, it was fun while it lasted, and I got to flex a lot of my creative muscles. Plus, let’s face it: there aren’t that many social outlets for awkward teens with hyperactive imaginations, and I’m grateful to our parents for, first, introducing us to the game, and second, ignoring the fundie-driven “D&D is Satanism” hysteria that flared up in the 80’s.

But though I haven’t felt like playing since, I do get nostalgic. Now, we used to read Dragon™ magazine for most of our gaming life. Dragon had excellent articles on many RPGs (not just D&D), art, modules, short stories… and comics in the back pages. After devouring the OOTS archives, I suddenly had a hankering for those long-ago comics.

What’s New? with Phil & Dixie lasted only a few years, delighting readers with its hilarious commentaries on games and the gaming world. The creator, Phil Foglio, has been keeping busy: check out the terrific steampunk adventure Girl Genius.

Yamara started in the late 80’s and apparently kept going for a bit after we let our Dragon subscription lapse in ’93-94. It was also chock-full of metagaming dialog, with this strip being the best example. And yeah, we totally did that too. Or would have, if our DM’s had introduced this kind of mystery monster.

And Wormy. A beautiful, intricately drawn story about a cranky cigar-smoking dragon, that ended abruptly in the late 80’s. Gremorly the wizard and Solomoriah the winged demon cat kicked all kinds of ass; I believe the July ’81 strip was my introduction to the story—and what a strip it was!

No trip down memory lane would be complete without a nod to Dungeons & Dragons, the TV show. Actually, more than a nod. I recently got my hands on the entire show on DVD, and I’m happily making my way through all the eps. I loved the show when it came out, and it still holds up pretty well. The voice talent is only so-so, the dialog was kind of clunky and (this being an 80’s kids’ show) full of “morally uplifting” messages, but that’s okay because the visuals are what I signed up for, then and now. Venger on his nightmare is still an awesome sight, as is Tiamat and pretty much all the various creatures and places the children see. The animators did a top-notch job of adapting to the screen the fantasy monsters I was already familiar with, and I can tell they had a lot of respect for the source material. Which is more than I can say for the losers responsible for that similarly-named abomination. Bleah.

Accidental Community

I’ve just returned from the first meeting of the Accidental Community project. There was a photo slideshow by local artist John Kozachenko, a very brief overview of the history of gay men’s communities in the West End, Q & A and interactive discussion, and a look at future directions for the project.

I’ve just returned from the first meeting of the Accidental Community project. There was a photo slideshow by local artist John Kozachenko, a very brief overview of the history of gay men’s communities in the West End, Q & A and interactive discussion, and a look at future directions for the project. Fascinating stuff. I learned that the man after whom Davie Street was named—Alexander Edmund Batson Davie, 8th Premier of B.C.—was rumoured to be gay, though he had a wife and children. But apparently he hung out with gay people who, upon his death, started a social club in his honour and renamed the street after him. The articles I could find online don’t elaborate on just what kind of social club this was.

I was invited to this meeting by one of the project members, who’d contacted me a couple of months ago via my queer history project, looking for leads for his research (unrelated to mine, but it never hurts to ask). Unfortunately, I couldn’t really help him, since I haven’t kept in touch with the one person I interviewed and all my other sources are publicly available. Still, I’m enormously flattered that my little project got his attention in the first place.

In addition to some cool history, another thing I got out of this meeting was how disconnected I am to the West End, living way the hell out in the suburbs. True, there are advantages—it’s much cheaper to live out here, and I do have some (non-gay) friends nearby—but maybe I’m missing out on more than I realise. Years ago I voluntarily severed almost all ties with queer communities; I’ve since eased some of the way back in, and only recently have I realised what a mistake that self-imposed exile was. Where to go from here, though? That’s what I’ll have to figure out.

Good Nets Make Good Neighbours

Watched the semi-finals of the Broadway Tech Centre basketball tournament today. It was a pleasant way to spend a lunch hour, though neither of the teams were from my company, and I didn’t know any of the players. One team showed pretty poor sportsmanship: they were way more aggressive, quicker to cry foul (literally) if the other team got aggressive, and had an annoyingly loud cheering section.

Watched the semi-finals of the Broadway Tech Centre basketball tournament today. It was a pleasant way to spend a lunch hour, though neither of the teams were from my company, and I didn’t know any of the players. One team showed pretty poor sportsmanship: they were way more aggressive, quicker to cry foul (literally) if the other team got aggressive, and had an annoyingly loud cheering section. All in all, they seemed more interested in winning than competing and having fun. So I started thinking: does this happen more in basketball than volleyball? Because I don’t remember ever seeing it in the games I’ve played, even in tournaments (and if you’re thinking gay volleyball doesn’t get competitive, think again). True, there’s some posturing and trash-talking (gawd knows I’ve done my share), but in my experience it’s all been good clean fun. And in volleyball each team stay on its side of the net. In basketball, though, you’re up close, in your opponent’s face all the time. Hands get waved around, elbows and knees bump (intentionally or not), personal spaces get invaded… and tempers flare. Kind of like hockey, I guess. Not to say it’ll necessarily be a worse atmosphere than volleyball, but the basic setup seems to make it more likely.

(I never did like basketball in high school. All that running around back and forth, didn’t have the endurance for it. Never got the hang of getting that ball in the basket, either.)

PS: the team with the cuter (and less aggressive) guys won. Yay!

Dancers, Drag Queens and Devout Nerds

Taking a brief break from Web development, with the coding and the styling and the restructuring, to write a quick entry. (A month between entries is not good. At least I’ve got a good excuse this time.)

So anyway, last Saturday I went to Davie Days, a street festival sort of thing where the businesses (queer and otherwise) along Davie Street all have booths displaying their stuff; there were a couple of beer gardens, a guy making balloon hats for the kiddies (of all ages) and a couple of stages for entertainment.

Taking a brief break from Web development, with the coding and the styling and the restructuring, to write a quick entry. (A month between entries is not good. At least I’ve got a good excuse this time.)

Mina and Gill

So anyway, last Saturday I went to Davie Days, a street festival sort of thing where the businesses (queer and otherwise) along Davie Street all have booths displaying their stuff; there were a couple of beer gardens, a guy making balloon hats for the kiddies (of all ages) and a couple of stages for entertainment. A friend of mine was in a show in front of Celebrities, as a backup dancer for a drag queen lipsyncher by the name of Mina Mercury. Great show, preceded by another great show by a belly dancer troupe. Did I take pictures? Why, yes I did.

Sword Balancing

"Hey, Mister DJ, put the record on..."

Fierce!

Continuing from last entry’s tradition, here’s another hilarious link: Jesus of the Week. And ohmigawd, did I ever flash back to my long-ago Catechism classes when I saw this one. Mind you, I had to look up the exact passage, but I remember so clearly reading those illustrated booklets with all the feel-good parables from the New Testament: the Good Samaritan, the house built on sand. Lots of others. I loved reading them. Well, partly because I loved reading, period. But I liked the stories too, and I effortlessly memorised them, to recite back in Sunday School. Damn, but I was a devout little nerd back then.

Well, enough lollygagging down memory lane. I’ve still got a site to upgrade.

Thirteen And Counting

Every year around this time, it hits me: the nagging urge to write and post something for the anniversary of my coming out. I’m not sure what to write about, exactly: something deep and meaningful where I’d explore issues politics or identity, or just how I’ve changed and grown in the time since coming out.

Every year around this time, it hits me: the nagging urge to write and post something for the anniversary of my coming out. I’m not sure what to write about, exactly: something deep and meaningful where I’d explore issues politics or identity, or just how I’ve changed and grown in the time since coming out. But that essay kept on not being written, year after year. Maybe it was laziness. Maybe it’s that I always remembered at the last minute, and realized by the time I got my thoughts together and wrote it and posted it, it’d be too late. An essay like that has to be timely. Maybe it’s that queer identity and politics weren’t terribly important to me for a while, so—even though part of me wanted to—I wasn’t actually too inspired to write about the day I “officially” adopted that identity. Besides, why was this milestone any more important than all the others in my life: when I stopped going to church, or moved to Vancouver, or took up Taijiquan, or started playing volleyball again? I didn’t celebrate those anniversaries, after all. Still, this is the first milestone, the one that made all the others possible and drove a lot of my life for years to come. “Every saga has a beginning,” right? (Except my saga doesn’t star Ewan McGregor, although it’s still better written than those crappy prequels. But I digress.)

For a while, though, I did celebrate my coming-out anniversary. Between 1995 and 1997 I made up a ritual that involved going through my diary to sort of get the big picture, see at a glance how much I’d changed. (There was a bit more to it, but I won’t go into details.) Before that, nothing. The 1- and 2-year marks came and went with hardly any mention in my diary; but back then, I was just barely ex-Catholic, and still not big on rituals and spirituality. And no rituals after 1997, for a couple of reasons. One, going through years of diary entries was getting to be too much of a chore. Two, my Pagan-ish spiritual phase was over. Cynicism and skepticism became the thing, and this annual retrospective looked more and more like simple wallowing in the past, pointless navel-gazing (which, granted, is exactly what I’m doing right now. At least now I don’t pretend it’s anything more). Though it had felt important at the time, in hindsight all of this spirituality and pretty symbols and things hadn’t really made a difference in my life. Better to look at my present and future than my past. Better to live my life, and continue my coming out process, than count the days and years since it started. But… it is and always will be an important date to me. As important as my birthday, if not more so. And part of me still needs to celebrate it in some way, however small.

It’s been thirteen years and one day. Happy anniversary to me. I’ve come a long way, baby.

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.

Grins Are Not Enough

I had a couple of interesting dreams over the holidays. In the first, I was biking home (from work, I think) on Broadway through East Vancouver (which in reality would be out of my way). The sky to the north, over the mountains, was a gorgeous sunset gold, so I decided to take a picture. I turned north and biked a few more blocks looking for the perfect view. The street where I stopped was also the inside of a house (or large building) in the process of being renovated. There was a roof overhead but somehow the mountains were still visible.

I had a couple of interesting dreams over the holidays. In the first, I was biking home (from work, I think) on Broadway through East Vancouver (which in reality would be out of my way). The sky to the north, over the mountains, was a gorgeous sunset gold, so I decided to take a picture. I turned north and biked a few more blocks looking for the perfect view. The street where I stopped was also the inside of a house (or large building) in the process of being renovated. There was a roof overhead but somehow the mountains were still visible.

One of the people there (worker? owner?) and I started talking. Apparently the place was going to be turned into low-income housing. The guy somehow knew what I did for a living, exactly how much I made and where I lived, and made me feel guilty about how relatively privileged I was. Also, I think I was trespassing. And I never got to take a picture of the northern sunset.

In the second dream, I was in a school—possibly a high school, possibly a university. There were bits of Ottawa U, at least. A friend of mine, a nice-looking FTM transsexual guy (blond, short, a bit chunky, with a wispy soul patch; nobody I knew in real life, but probably a composite of a bunch of people) was dealing with harassment and bullying, and had set up a meeting with the school administration. I went with him, mostly for moral support. The meeting took place in an empty classroom, with spectators and guests sitting in those little schoolkid desks. My friend’s issues were never actually discussed, because there were a lot of invited speakers from a bunch of big corporations including McDonald’s. While the McD spokeswoman did her spiel, my friend stood up and started an anticorporate protest chant. A few people joined in, but I didn’t. I just sat there, grinning silently, enjoying the show.

Okay, I get it already. I know what my subconscious is trying to tell me, and it’s nothing I haven’t known since the US elections last November: I need to get political again, to be better informed and more active. It’s a fact that I’ve grown pretty (well, hugely) apathetic in the last few years, what with my burnout, followed by a touch of introspection that today seems a little self-indulgent… followed by graduation, and work. I don’t think my politics have really changed—though I’m on the sidelines, I’m still grinning with the activists—but my angry activist self is gone, maybe forever. Which isn’t such a bad thing: I don’t need anger anyways, just compassion and a sense of fairness. And the will to use my privilege for the greater good. Which maybe sounds really trite, but I don’t care since right now The Incredibles is my most favourite movie of all time.

I don’t think I’ve got the time to volunteer anywhere, but I can make monetary contributions. The only question is, to whom? Well, there’s the UNICEF Indian Ocean Earthquake Appeal—a no-brainer, really (plus, all donations received before January 11 will be matched by the Canadian Government). The James Randi Educational Foundation: another great cause, and I’ve enjoyed Randi’s weekly commentaries for the last couple of years. Some donations to User Friendly and Fametracker, two excellent sites I’ve loved for a while. They’re not out saving lives or changing the world, but damn do they brighten my day. The Vancouver Independent Media Centre? Yeah, I think freedom of speech is worth some of my money. And… other groups. I’ve got time to think about it, the year’s still young. The point is to do something.

Better Than Cursing The Darkness

Winter’s officially already here. Oh, I know the solstice isn’t for another three weeks. Technically, this is still autumn. But autumn’s gorgeous show is long over; the leaves have almost all fallen off the trees, and the remaining ones are dead yellows or browns. When the clouds clear up I can see snow on the North Shore mountains; even at ground level the temperature’s dipped below freezing for the last few nights.

Winter’s officially already here. Oh, I know the solstice isn’t for another three weeks. Technically, this is still autumn. But autumn’s gorgeous show is long over; the leaves have almost all fallen off the trees, and the remaining ones are dead yellows or browns. When the clouds clear up I can see snow on the North Shore mountains; even at ground level the temperature’s dipped below freezing for the last few nights.

It does make for pretty mornings, though, with frost on the ground sparkling in the sunlight. Good thing, because Vancouver winters are distinctly lacking in prettiness; not a lot of snow falls (at least, not in the lower mainland), so you don’t get lovely white landscapes like, say, in Ottawa. Here everything’s grey or brown and depressing. And let’s not forget the long nights, which are a lot darker that Ottawa’s because of the lack of snow. Then again, the clouds do reflect the urban lights more; so, yay for light pollution, but I’m not sure the dark orangey-red night sky is all that cheery.

But then, that’s what Christmas lights are for. I put mine up last night, for only the second year since I moved out West. Until last year I was never much into the holidays; I’ve always loathed the intense commercialism, and of course couldn’t get behind the religious traditions. But then I watched my TV boyfriend get all worked up about Chrismukkah… and damned if a completely made up uber-holiday didn’t sound perfect for me! So I went out and bought lights. And it feels good to see them shining out there. Maybe because part of me likes to participate in the season’s rituals, but mainly because… they’re bright. And having lights outside my place, shining through the night, is better than having nothing at all. That’s what it comes down to, right? Strip away the rituals and traditions, and it’s just about driving the night away, making your own light at a time of the year when light is in very short supply.

Corvids Are Cool

Every evening before dusk, I can see hundreds of crows flying past my workplace on their way to roost in Burnaby. They stream past, cawing to each other, either alone, in small groups, or in larger murders. (That’s the correct term, incidentally. A murder of crows, an unkindness of ravens, a parliament of rooks, a tiding of magpies—that last one probably referring to magpie counting rhymes. Damn, but Corvids have cool collective nouns.)

Every evening before dusk, I can see hundreds of crows flying past my workplace on their way to roost in Burnaby. They stream past, cawing to each other, either alone, in small groups, or in larger murders. (That’s the correct term, incidentally. A murder of crows, an unkindness of ravens, a parliament of rooks, a tiding of magpies—that last one probably referring to magpie counting rhymes. Damn, but Corvids have cool collective nouns.) Every once in a while I’ve just stood outside and watched them go past. The light’s fading and it’s nippy and sometimes I get bored (if there’s a long gap between groups) or annoyed by the rush-hour traffic or feel self-conscious standing there where the smokers gather during the day. There’s never anybody here this late but if someone I know comes along and asks what I’m doing, I’d feel silly answering, “I’m looking at the crows.” Ah, but then when they do come… I remember how stunned I was the first time I looked, really looked, at crows flying overhead. The birds aren’t out for murder, they’re out for fun, swooping around, mock-fighting, diving at buildings and pulling up at the last minute… All just for the thrill of it. Even in the middle of their commute, they find time for play. Amazing stuff. I could watch them for hours.

And then there are ravens. Back when Cayenta was located up at Discovery Park I’d sometimes hear their distinctive “Rrrrok!” coming from the treetops. (Amusingly, one time it sounded more like “Rrrrowf!”, as though the raven were barking. And maybe it was: they’re apparently very good mimics.) One afternoon I looked up from my desk and saw a raven right outside my (ground-level) window. Let me tell you, ravens are gorgeous creatures, twice as big as crows, with shiny black plumage and nasty-looking beaks. This one had a mouse (or some other small rodent) with it, still alive and feebly struggling; the raven circled its prey, slowly, in what I thought was a very dignified manner, every once in a while giving it a sharp peck. I felt kind of sorry for the little critter but hey, a bird’s gotta eat, and I was fairly desensitized anyway. Our cat back in Ottawa—a first-rate huntress—used to bring us a lot of “gifts.” Besides, I was absolutely fascinated by this beautiful black bird.

I don’t remember what happened after that. At some point I turned back towards my computer—and then the raven was gone, along with the mouse. Oh, well. That was the only time I ever saw a raven up close. In spite of what it was doing, I never thought of it as unkind.