Bravo Alex!

You made our country so proud tonight. Congratulations!!!!!

Tags: Vancouver 2010

Somebody up there is smiling on me

In spite of everything that has happened in my life, somehow my mother and I are still capable of having these amazing conversations that are both touching and inspirational. It proves that I am actually capable of being something other than snide and cynical about my family. It’s refreshing.

World AIDS Day

Spare some thoughts for the cause. Go (Red).

Wordpress app for iPhone/iPod

Can I get a “shit yeah”?!

PS)

I’m getting long-winded these days. I must be preparing for old age, so I can talk and talk and talk and talk and no one will be listening, but I’ll just keep talking because I like the sound of my voice and everything was better back then.

Disappearing, reappearing posts

I believe I have tracked the problem back to one of my plugins in Wordpress. If you continue to notice posts disappearing and reappearing from the front page, let me know and I will continue the hunt for the culprit.

Breaking up with my job

That’s basically what it is. It was an unhealthy work relationship, and now I’m in that phase where I haven’t moved out yet, but we’re trying to be civil. No matter how bad the relationship, you inevitably question your decision, start remembering the good parts and forgetting the bad parts. The comfort of what is familiar becomes enticing again, and you find yourself eventually dunking your head in cold water to get a little perspective.

The big difference between this and a break-up is that people don’t generally come up to you and ask if his/her daughter should date your ex. Okay, maybe they do, but that’s beyond stupid.

The economy is in the shitter, everyone is looking for a job, and everyone wants my job. I get that, it’s secure, it’s got a lot of perks. But it won’t be long before each new applicant becomes aware of why the position was vacated in the first place. I have to resist the siren song that is a cushy job with decent pay and benefits, because eventually it would have cost me a great deal more than it would have given me.

That’s the cold water. I’ve seen a lot of people trade their happiness for security, including myself. Life is too short. It’s going to take a monumental effort on my part to keep my chin up and not doubt my decision, but I’m going to. I have to have the courage to walk away from this and carve out something I deserve, or I will watch my spirit trickle away with every year that goes by.

That said, I still think it’s awkward for someone to ask me if his kid should apply for my job. Use your judgement. Anyone who has been here longer than me knows the challenges involved with working with certain individuals in this place. If the position never stays filled for more than a year, you can be pretty sure that there are some difficult personalities involved. If that’s something you want to send your daughter into, I hope your daughter has better judgement than you do.

Dear Jerkface,

Now that you know I wasn’t bluffing, might I note that treating people like shit is not the best way to accomplish your goals? Yeah. I might think of you briefly, after rolling lazily out of bed, and somewhere between my latte and muffin. Then again, I might not. Enjoy the paperwork.

A Note to the Universe

Sunday night was cute. 10 minutes from home, having driven 1200 km from our vacation in Vancouver, a truck rear-ends the car and mashes the back to shit. Your sense of humour is warped, but seeing as how no one was injured, I too can appreciate the utter ridiculousness of the situation.

The reason why I’m writing is this: seeing as how I’ve handled this situation with much calm assertiveness (hi Cesar!), could you maybe sort out my douchebag boss situation? I was happy for a while, but now I’m pretty much done with the whole thing. No matter how much I like the atmosphere and the other people, having a boss who nitpicks every goddamn thing I do just isn’t going to work. He has sucked the fun out of life, and I stand by my original assessment that he hates life. He’s determined to be the guy who constantly points out other people’s faults in order to prop up his flimsy self-confidence.

Don’t get me wrong, the new office, the shiny computer, and the corporate card were all very nice perks that made me feel rather important. However, when someone is on a mission to cut you down a few pegs, even when your whole day is dedicated to assisting said person, the perks don’t quite cut it. I will gladly take similar perks, if you can just find me someone to work for who is calm and pleasant to be around. I want peace and balance, instead of retreating to a bathroom stall every hour to silently scream my head off.

I don’t know whether the future will take me to Vancouver, but I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to relocating there. In fact, that would be yet another lovely perk to add the peaceful and balanced work environment. So, thanks in advance, I’m looking forward to seeing the awesome you have in store for me.

It’s too early to be this serious,

but that’s how it is sometimes. My dad finally got a firm diagnosis for the medley of health problems he has been having for the past five years. It’s called Multiple System Atrophy, which is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder. In plainer terms, it’s a breakdown of several components of the nervous system, primarily focusing on the parts of your brain that controls all the things you don’t think about: blood pressure, balance, motor control and so-on. The disease covers a variety of symptoms, including Parkinson’s-like tremors and rigidity, but in my father’s case, his is the variety most commonly referred to as Shy-Drager syndrome. Shy-Drager covers the kind of MSA that focuses more on the autonomic nervous system, particularly relating to blood pressure.

It’s partly a relief to finally have a diagnosis, as not knowing what was going to happen was making his health problems that much harder to deal with. All my life he has taken exceptional care of himself; no smoking, no drinking outside of the recommended glass of wine, low-fat diet, lots of exercise, lots of vitamins. This allowed him to reach 70, and still have the capacity to keep up with people half his age. That was, however, six years ago. It wasn’t long after that that he began to suffer from low blood pressure. At first it was just a nuisance, but it began to make all physical activity extremely taxing. Even mealtimes became more complicated, as the type of food and quantity would determine whether he would be able to function for hours afterwards, as blood being drawn to his digestive tract was depriving his brain and muscles.

That continues to be what he is struggling with, in addition to non-MSA-related problems such as a heart arrhythmia that required a pacemaker. He is almost completely deaf, due to a further degradation of his hearing from damage done while working in a Boeing factory in his twenties. It makes it impossible to have any phone conversations, and as we don’t live in the same city, our communication is reduced to email. While I do think the diagnosis is a relief, it doesn’t make me feel better about him dying.

Individuals diagnosed with MSA usually have ten years from diagnosis, however he first started exhibiting symptoms five years ago. Some estimates suggest that he has less than five years left, although he has already done far better than one would expect from someone suffering from this illness. In other words, I don’t have a lot of time left with him.

I haven’t decided what I want to do. My first reaction is to pick up and move to where he is, but that’s no guarantee that I will be able to see him much more than I do now. I’m not married, I don’t have children, and at this rate I don’t have much more time to put things off if I want my dad to be a part of it. Even if I have children now, in all likelihood, they won’t really know my dad, not the way I would like them to.

I think the world of my dad, and while no one is perfect, I feel lucky to have had him for a father. He is a brilliant, brilliant man. He filled my life with knowledge and learning that most children couldn’t even hope for. I was hungry for knowledge and answers, and he had so much to share. He is a retired psychology professor, and his understanding of the human brain and mind shaped the course of my life in ways I can hardly begin to describe. His knowledge went far beyond his field of study, and every moment with him was like attending a university science class, be it biology or sociology or psychology. He absorbed so much information in his lifetime, and I was privileged to absorb so much from him.

The most painful part of being away from him is not being able to have the long talks we used to have. I miss our intellectual discussions about concepts like meditation and the brain. I miss our intimate discussions on psychology and our personal experiences, reflecting on the past and contemplating the future. I miss his calm energy, how his presence soothed me without a single word.

The choices I make over the next few years will be something that I will likely come back to throughout my life, and I want them to be choices that I feel good about having made. Whatever I choose to do, I want to do what is best for me, and have those choices be something that I will be content with in the longterm. I obviously have a lot of decisions to make.