I spend most of my day working on the computer, then I come home and spend my spare time on the computer reading theonion and cuteoverload and gofugyourself or checking my credit card bill or my bank account or looking for cheap flights or lately playing typeracer of all things (I hate it!) and so, no blog, no chapbook making, no writing. Sigh. I'm on the wrong side of the pendulum swing, I guess. Sooner or later something'll have to give.

Feeling Overwhelmed, Stuck, or Burned Out? Personal Life &Work Life out of Balance? Having Trouble Saying No?

This is a workshop for lawyers that want to learn to:

· Work more effectively, yet also have more fun in their lives!

· Create healthy personal boundaries.

· Enhance all their relationships!

· Make life affirming decisions about balance!

· Make changes or complete ongoing changes.

· Maintain excellent mental health and manage stress!

I feel stressed! from all the exclamation marks! !

One of the most pleasing things is stamping DRAFT in big, red letters on legal documents. Stamping COPY comes a close second, but stamping DRAFT is more satisfying somehow.

Slowly turning into a lawyer: yesterday I added a "furthermore" of my own volition to a court order I was drafting, for no reason other than to make it seem more "legal". But the furthermore looked incredibly strange and I had to google it to make sure it was really a word. And later I took a "therein" and a "thereon" out of a contract I was editing. So all is not lost, yet.

Ridiculous but persistent fear #783: mistaking the Lysol bottle for the Listerine bottle, as they're both under the bathroom sink, and I keep forgetting which brand name belongs to which product.

Is it normal to notice language this much?: A co-worker was telling me about how her Dalmation attacked the neighbour's Chow and I said "Isn't it like, five times the size?" And then I didn't hear anything else she told me because all I could think about was all the "i" sounds in that sentence, all the words that go letter-i-letter-e, the progression of "s" throughout the sentence, the odd rhythm (iambic mixed with spondaic, I think). And of course I've had that sentence in my head all day...

The question is, am I obsessively noticing that stuff, or do I say the things I say according to some need to align words in poetic ways? Oh no, that sentence rhymed too (sort of).

Ugh. I think this might be the cause of some major failures to communicate. I think I sometimes say what sounds best (poetically) instead of what I mean.

Oh well, communicating is one of the least interesting things there is to do with language anyway.

Still under the thrall of Saturday night's movie, The Visitor, which is refreshingly complex, quiet, slow-paced, but still engaging, romantic, clever, and deeply yet subtly critical of the perennial dangers of fear, complacency, bureaucracy.

It left me wondering what I can do.

The immediate answer is nothing, as I'm not American so can't vote or otherwise affect American immigration policy. The slightly less direct answer is to work in immigration law, which I've considered before, but I honestly don't think that's an area of law in which my strengths lie. The oblique but most significant answer is to be more engaged with politics, policy, law - to understand who represents us and what decisions they are making and how those decisions affect us, at all levels, from municipal to federal to international.

Canadians always have recourse to the comforting yet deceptive notion that we're not doing as badly as they are - our immigration policies are never quite as Draconian, our detention policies are never quite as constitutionally unsound, our social policies never as regressive, our criminal justice system never as cruel. But is any of that even true?

We currently have a prime minister who openly models his governance after the Bush administration, with one major difference: he's intelligent. He's competent. He doesn't want open debate, and for the most part, we're not demanding it. The foundations of democracy are eroding or at least being obfuscated, and we're not complaining.

My thinking in this area is always muddled, nihilist, conspiracy-theorist; I tend to overstate things. But I'm tired of being afraid of what governments can do, I'm tired of the false dichotomy of powerful against good.

The unfortunate result of reading in Vancouver and seeing so many Vancouver writers in Calgary is that I want to go back... I miss the beach, I miss the old buildings, I miss the humidity, I miss the trees, the uneven sidewalks, the density, the little produce stores, the electric buses, the hills....
Of course when I'm in Vancouver, I miss the sky, the light, the smell of snow, the smell of Chinooks, some strange unnameable quality of Calgary that I can't quite put my finger on...
I will never be content.
Merely form ill fitting into form...

Happy: Finally bought a bookshelf and was finally able to rescue a box of books from storage. Earlier this year I sorted some of my books by genre, so I grabbed one of the poetry boxes and am now surrounded by many books I sort of forgot I owned, such as Erica Hunt's Local History, Nathalie Stephens' somewhere running, Dennis Cooley's Bloody Jack, Susan Holbrook's misled, Dionne Brand's No Language is Neutral, Robert Kroetsch's Hornbooks of Rita K, Steve McCaffrey's Seven Pages Missing and on and on...

Even happier: The bookshelf is one of those big square IKEA ones that can probably fit another two boxes' worth of books at least...

Things I noticed this week:

There's a store across from my bus stop that sells tennis rackets and skis called "What's Your Racket and Ski". Maybe they figured one pun was enough...

A coffee mug I used at work had the motto for Calgary Independent Reporters Inc. on it: "Stepping into the Future... Today!" Awesome.

Petition against Bill c-484, Unborn Victims of Crime Act

There's a bill under consideration at Parliament right now that purports to protect pregnant women by making it an offence to cause injury to an unborn fetus, but which, quite obviously, will merely make it easier to impose restrictions on women's right to choose to abort their pregnancies.

The bill has passed second reading, so it's well on its way to becoming law. Canada has not had any legal restriction on abortion since 1988 (although procedural policies have certainly restricted many women's access to facilities where safe and timely abortions can be performed).

I was involved in a Students for Choice club in my last year of law school, and the vitriolic opposition to the concept of choice frankly shocked me. Just to be clear: I don't advocate abortion. I think having to choose whether or not to end your pregnancy must be the worst experience any human being could ever go through. But if the choice has to be made, the decision should rest solely within the power of the women who have to make it, not within the power of men in suits in Ottawa or anywhere else (well, unless they're the father... you know what I mean).

Anyway, sign the petition here. Read more about it here, here, here and here.

Apparently I started this blog over five years ago (April 10, 2003, but I hid the first year and half or so of posts). Back then very few poets had blogs. Then most poets had blogs. Now most poets have abandoned their blogs. And still I blog. And still, as far as I can tell, hardly anyone reads this. How charmingly futile.

I ordered a bunch of books about three weeks ago, then forgot what I'd ordered, but decided not to find out, so that I'd be surprised when they came. Today I was pleasantly surprised to receive The Book of Beginnings and Endings by Jenny Boully and My Emily Dickinson by Susan Howe. Nice work, self of three weeks ago.

Best parts of working in a law office:

1. Clients come in a lot, so there is always coffee.

2. Saying things like, "Did that fax come in for the Smith file?" or "I'm working on the Jones file right now." Who knew that could be so satisfying?

Well, blog, I've enjoyed our time together, but I have to go be a lawyer now.

Maybe I can visit you on weekends...



UPDATE: I'm not actually miserable, just adjusting.

I'm not big on hippies, but I love this Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song.

"almost cut my hair
it happened just the other day
it was gettin' kinda long
i coulda said it was in my way...

but i didn't and i
wonder why
feel like lettin' my
freak flag fly"

Today I'm trying to remember how to publicize a poetry reading. Remember way back in the day when it was all about making lame-ass posters and putting them up around the university or on 17th ave and expecting people to a) notice them and b) remember where to go when? I miss that in a way. Although it is definitely better to spread the word electronically and not have to leave my house or pyjamas.

Caught the new Joe Strummer documentary last night. Maybe it was the wine I drank prior, or my semi-traumatized emotional state going in, but I walked out of that movie wondering how I got so distracted, so complacent, so bloated and ineffectual. I want to trim fat, I want to walk away clean, keep walking, keep writing, forget success and failure, forget status, forget reception.
I want to be productively angry.
I want to wear army boots again. Why the hell did I stop wearing army boots?

Overwhelmed by fonts.

Anxiety: too many projects, too little resolution, too many self-imposed deadlines, too many books on the go, too many lists, too many possibilities, too little focus, too much coffee, way too much chocolate.