atadir's Blog

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  dunno why, i've had this one stuck in my mind lately
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Mukesh Kapila was the head of the UN mission in Darfur.  He did a painful interview with CBC this week, describing some of his experiences in Darfur, and watching helplessly as the UN failed, *again*  to act.

http://www.cbc.ca/player/Radio/ID/2385645213/   

alternate link:  http://www.cbc.ca/asithappens/features/2013/05/16/mukesh-kapila/

I got this old relic stuck in my brain this week.  No idea why.

 R

Love After Love

The time will come 
when, with elation 
you will greet yourself arriving 
at your own door, in your own mirror 
and each will smile at the other's welcome, 

and say, sit here. Eat. 
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart 
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you 

all your life, whom you ignored 
for another, who knows you by heart. 
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, 

the photographs, the desperate notes, 
peel your own image from the mirror. 
Sit. Feast on your life. 

Derek Walcott

-------------------------------------------------------
Kim Rosen, authour of Saved by a Poem, recited this in an interview I heard recently.

http://www.amazon.com/Saved-Poem-Transformative-Power-Words/dp/1401921469


 

i always look forward to seeing the first robin every year.  it's one of those signs that winter is nearly finished.
we seem to be having our spring thaw now, and i had been hoping they would be back soon.
today was the day.  i saw one this morning!

A transplanted Senegalese, now living in Montreal.  I'll have to see him if he ever plays Toronto.

 

Just before X-mass, my shrink referred me to a sleep lab for a sleep study. 
I had it done in the middle of January.  It was kinda interesting:  they hooked me up to a polysomnograph, which is like a fancy polygraph, with about 24 electrodes attached, and bands around my chest and abdomen.  As well, there was an infrared camera, so they could see my position. 
I was surprised that I was even able to sleep with all that gear attached.  As it turned out, I nodded off after 30 minutes and slept all through the night.
I got my results a few days ago.  I have a moderate case of sleep apnea.  Overall, it's at the low end of the scale, but much higher when I'm dreaming or on my back.
So, this is one of the big reasons I've been so tired and dopey.  Now I know that it wasn't entirely from the depression or from the meds.
The doctor has given me a prescription for a machine to treat it.  I've picked up a loaner, and I'm supposed to go back to the lab in a few weeks to get it calibrated for my needs.
It looks really awkward, uncomfortable, and inconvenient in the pictures online.  I wasn't looking forward to using one.  However, it's not as bad as it looks, and I'm getting used to it.
After four nights with the machine, still not completely used to it, and even with the default settings, I'm feeling a huge improvement over the way I felt even a week ago.  I'm looking forward to the results after it's been set up specifically for me.

 

i usual play q/a online here.  i'm gonna start posting the frequent answers here, just to save repeating myself

1. 
   what would you do if you found out you were about to die?  take up smoking and start going to all-you-can-eat buffets
2. at what age did you lose your virginity?  i don't feel like saying.  the answer is out there, if you're willing to search for it.
3. have you ever dated outside your race?  yes
4.  what languages do you speak?  english is my first language, my french isn't bad, i can have limited conversations in mandarin, and i have survival spanish

 

An awesome episode of CBC Radio's Ideas.  Three wonderful speakers from Moses Znaimer's Ideacity conference, each offering his or her perspective on the search for meaning.  Safe for most audiences, though some might consider it heresy.

Do yourself a favour and put this on your mp3 player.  It should be about 60 minutes.

http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/podcasts/ideas_20120914_23926.mp3

 

I forget who they all are, and I don't always know why....

• SoftCoreBoy ...prolly because I keep answering his "what if" questions with "I'll cross that bridge when I come to it"  EP Link
• Rolo65...because we had a tiff once.  he may have finally unblocked me
• grayday104 ... i probably criticized his manners a few times, but i don't know exactly what the final straw was
• stormyknight ...flamed me and blocked me ... never heard of him before that or after
• badassquiat  ... complete stranger
• avibot...another complete stranger
• theblessedone...a complete stranger, with an aversion to perverts...i guess it was a proactive block...unblocked now...and i'm blocked again
• nedkelly1 ... he caught me making fun of australians
• nigeldoes ... i think it was an australian thing
• huntressartemis ... crossblock, i suppose, but i've unblocked her now ... unblocked
• thefeministantichrist  ... another complete stranger
• saxpower ... i mocked one of her rants
• anthem91 ... a complete stranger
• msowl ... complete stranger
• vessa ... complete stranger
• occreator ... i criticized him/her
• mc19 ... complete stranger
• palejohn ... i didn't see that one coming
• sadpuppy80 ... another stranger
• thatpetrovafire92 ... complete stranger
• spiceZ ... hates my sense of irony ... http://tinyurl.com/c5dxgje
• calorman ... i guess i outrage him  ... http://preview.tinyurl.com/cqbr65o
• billymadisonj ... unprovoked, we never speak to each other

I keep hearing this on the CBC...old Gospel tune

 

 

Advice To Myself

Leave the dishes.
Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator
and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.
Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.
Throw the cracked bowl out and don't patch the cup.
Don't patch anything. Don't mend. Buy safety pins.
Don't even sew on a button.
Let the wind have its way, then the earth
that invades as dust and then the dead
foaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch.
Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome.
Don't keep all the pieces of the puzzles
or the doll's tiny shoes in pairs, don't worry
who uses whose toothbrush or if anything
matches, at all.
Except one word to another. Or a thought.
Pursue the authentic-decide first
what is authentic,
then go after it with all your heart.
Your heart, that place
you don't even think of cleaning out.
That closet stuffed with savage mementos.
Don't sort the paper clips from screws from saved baby teeth
or worry if we're all eating cereal for dinner
again. Don't answer the telephone, ever,
or weep over anything at all that breaks.
Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons
in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life
and talk to the dead
who drift in though the screened windows, who collect
patiently on the tops of food jars and books.
Recycle the mail, don't read it, don't read anything
except what destroys
the insulation between yourself and your experience
or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters
this ruse you call necessity.

-- Louise Erdrich

the california sound went out of style after 1980, but this was a big favourite of mine at one point

 

 

Billy Bragg did a killer version, too...maybe i'll post that later

 

For years, there has been a little single-cup coffeemaker gathering dust in my office.  I bought it, then never used it.  I brought it home recently and bought a tin of name-brand coffee.  I have loved every cup.  I love to smell it brewing, and  every cup has tasted so good!  So glad I finally smartened up.

This was on the radio this morning.

One woman's stark, raw and brutal account of being single and pregnant in the 1960s.   Sounds fairly typical.  Thrown out by her family, then forced to give up the baby for adoption.  Painful to hear, even after all this time.

http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/news-promo/2012/07/04/motherhood-interrupted-documentary/