a good filling in a disturbing sandwich

 i just woke up a short while ago, and i'm sitting here nursing a coffee and a sore lower back. i barely slept last night due to a combination of physical discomfort and insomnia, i was just uncomfortable throughout. and when i did sleep, i had deeply disturbing dreams.

one of those dreams was like an action movie, where we were defending our company from terrorists trying to take over. i don't recall the precise reasoning or sequence of events towards the end, but i used the new sharp knife in the office and decapitated a few people, who then subsequently came back to life and convinced me that i'd lost my mind.

...

i was woken up yesterday morning by a sharp "tic tic tic" sounds coming out of the wall, and i grumpily, foggily posted a video to our neighbor's group. two minutes later, i opened the window and realized that it was the sounds of water dripping from upstairs, so i wrote in the group that it was dripping from above.

hours later, our upstairs neighbor sent me message saying there's nobody else it could have been, and that i could have just messaged him privately. i only saw that message hours after that, so i scrambled to assure him that i hadn't known where it was from at the time and hadn't intended to call him out passive aggressively, and i've been carrying that shit in my chest ever since.

...

aside from "the usual" random shit over the course of the day: i read some more nightwood (a few pages, and then passed out on the couch), gd beat me at battleship in spite of the fact that she dropped all her pegs (it was the third time she accidentally bumped the game 🤣), mr smear and i walked to the park and played frisbee for a while*, and we decided that mr smear's old enough and watched ace ventura last night. of course he's talking out of his ass now :P

* after yesterday's incident, i discussed with him that i think that a big part of a dad's job is to force a child through all the necessary small traumas in life so that they can grow up strong enough to handle the big traumas. and get over themselves and get good at things that don't come naturally to them.

i went to bed early, after taking a short look at some ideas for the interview i'm doing today.

...

i'm tired. like, burnout tired. i'm sore. i'm a little bit resentful that i'm not on vacation today.

the perfect beach day

yesterday:

we all went off to dizengoff, which was a lot less festive than anticipated. having said that, there was plenty festive outside, and it was a gorgeous day. we took care of a couple of minor things, including picking up a bunch of hebrew comic books, and then took a slow meander up to dizengoff square, where we stopped for a very nice lunch.

we all enjoyed the food, and we all had a good experience.

then we caught a bus home and had a pretty relaxing afternoon.

in the evening i took mr smear to the synagogue, he came without a fuss and in addition to some generally pleasant talks along the way, we had a pretty serious conversation about the weekly portion (which includes the story of the golden calf), why we're supposed to pray so often (specifically, the shema), and how those two both ultimately have the same moral: no matter how smart we may think we are, that we *get* the lessons from the torah, we're descended from the same morons who *forgot* about god after witnessing his miracles directly, after hearing his voice directly, and we need to keep playing our history on repeat so that we don't forget it and lose our way.

today:

i slept horribly last night. i hadn't taken my new nightly pill (alpha lipoic acid) and my hips hurt constantly, so i was in a lot of discomfort and i barely got any rest.

i started the day a bit antisocially trying to catch up with private instagram messages - the result of ignoring them for most of the week - and then i put down for satisfactory which is on sale right now and sat with mr smear while he got into it. so far, pretty damned awesome.

without a fight - remarkably - we began moving out for our ride to the beach around 10.30am as planned. it did take us about 45 minutes to actually start riding, but there were no bad feelings and it was turning out to be another beautiful day.

we enjoyed a good ride to the beach, which was easier now that half of arlozorov is open again and with decent bike lanes, found a good shady spot, completed the sunscreen ritual and headed into the water. the side of the beach we were sitting on was too rocky and cold, so we went to the other side which was easier on the feet but absolutely freezing.

we had fun in the water for a little while, then returned to our spot where mr smear insisted on me burying him a couple of times (it's his favorite thing), and after a lot of time trying to convince him to come into the shade i got to lie down for a bit. after we had agreed that it was a good time to go and find food (and coffee for me), it took about an hour to get him into the water to rinse off some of the sand, then out of the water, then through the showers, and eventually we were ready to ride again.

we tried a very busy coffee shop near the corner of dizengoff and ben gurion, but the service was shit and the menu vegan-unfriendly so we pushed on to eazy cafe, for our favorite salad and a generally good vibe.

we eventually got home quite late, took turns showering and then chilled the remainder of the afternoon away. the evening was pleasant, dinner was good, and after getting mr smear into bed gd and i watched a lot of andrew schultz - life, which is mostly just amusing but does has some really good stuff in it. we're a bit disappointed that monk's been taken off...

...

i'm on a water-only fast now for blood tests in the morning. i hope i sleep alright.

pool day

 it was a regular saturday morning, we played games and i stop-started doing something in preparation for a project (i created a facebook group), and then nystire got in touch and invited us to join them at the beach.

we were planning on taking the bike out anyway, so why not combine the two?

the bike ride to the beach began with the discovery that the back tire has a puncture. i'm really glad we figured that out before we left the building. very soon, mr smear decided he didn't want to ride, and started walking his bike instead.

it took forever to get to a kiosk, where i bribed him to get back on the bike with an ice lollie. but he had to finish the ice lollie first. omg.

the rest of the way to the beach was pretty good - just a lot of little stops along the way - but by the time we arrived nystire and co had just left.

it was a beautiful day, so i suggested we go to the beach anyway, but he wasn't interested. he was, however, interested in getting chips. we went to mike's place, the first time i've been there since just before my 31st birthday.

the vegan burger was good, the bucket of chips was satisfactory and they were kind enough to provide a serving of vinegar, and we enjoyed the meal together. the best part of the visit, though, was him showing an interest in the pool table!

today i taught my son to play pool, and he enjoyed himself and started to get the hang of it by the end. he actually decided that he was happier getting to clear the table after losing than he would have been winning >D

i made a big mistake on the way home by putting my rollerblades back on, because he walked almost the entire distance. and then, in addition to the puncture, the chain came off when we got to dizengoff circle. twice. i treated myself to a coffee after getting most of the grease off my hands, and then we continued the excruciatingly long not-ride home.

i showered immediately, synced with my mom, and then we tried to watch the original mary poppins movie (i'd read an interesting analysis of it in the morning, and i was kinda enjoying it by the time my family decided to nix it and move on). we watched a breakdown of virtual insanity, and then we all laughed hysterically at james acaster not lying. and then we gave the amazing digital circus a try.

it's pretty good.

i was inspired to play portal, and made some good progress before beginning to wonder if i was going to get motion sickness in spite of wearing my glasses to play. which i did because i'm wondering if it helps, if perhaps a part of the motion sickness isn't to do with my eyes operating at completely different distances.

dinner, gd getting mr smear showered and toothbrushed, and now i'm going to say goodnight.

back back

 my lower back and bum are really sore today, i'm having both muscular and nerve trouble and it's distracting. of course, it's friday morning and we're about to have a busy day doing groceries and shopping for a bike helmet (amongst other things)...

wednesday:

who is america rewatch: the first episode is just ridiculous.

a work day full of distractions, but successfully clearing the second stage by the end of it.

yesterday:

who is america rewatch: gd and i watched the second episode, it's nuts. 

yesterday was a struggle, but i managed to complete my task about two minutes before picking up mr smear from his therapy session. it was complicated. yesterday was the kind of day that made me appreciate home offices, it was tough working with the ambient noises and interruptions at home and it was tough working from mr smear's gym...

we had an incident with mr smear last night before bedtime, and that sucked. at least he woke up in good spirits, though, and we're going to fine-tune our approach accordingly...

...

i'm feeling inspired by the space shooter games to build my own, one that isn't all about milking money out of the users. i'm sad that unity is being ridiculous about their pricing model changes, but apparently they're listening.

the fix

 i took a puff on thursday night, and it helped. i took another puff last night, and it helped. i'm going to take another puff tonight, and hopefully my sleep clock will stabilize. i'm actually surprised by how little affected i was - aside from the sleeping itself - i didn't feel messed up going to sleep, nor waking up. this is good.

...

right now, my fingers and hands are sore. i'm really excited to report that i finally got on the climbing wall with mr smear this evening, and not only was it a great experience climbing together but i did way better than i thought i would after more than eight years. i had no trouble getting to the top, nor climbing a lot, and aside from the first attempt i made a point of only doing routes.

...

this post interrupted by yet another protest against our new neighbor. i complained about last night's one in the neighborhood facebook group and learned that i'm not alone in not appreciating their shenanigans. i'm actually surprised that mr smear hasn't woken up yet, but some of our neighbors haven't been so lucky :(

...

friday morning went much better than the previous week. gd and i did a quick grocery shopping as soon as mr smear was in school, then watched randy feltface - smug druggles (it's brilliant). then i picked up mr smear, brought him home, dragged him to the istore* and then rushed through to his therapist, picking up a delicious falafel along the way (he was very happy about that).

* where i learned that i cannot trade in or even submit for recycling our old ipad and my "old" macbook that i picked up from sailor

while he had his session i sat outside the coffee shop and worked on an article while three different places (including the coffee shop) competed for the loudest, most annoying music. it was lovely.

yesterday afternoon / evening was pretty chill, as was this morning. we started off the day with home alone, which was actually better and more interesting than i remembered. then, after a significant downtime, mr smear convinced gd to play goodcritters with us, and while the start was a bit rough we all ended up having a great time!

i agreed to give mr smear another chance and we watched some more of the live action one piece. it's just gorgeous!

mr smear and i had an unpleasant incident on the way to the wall this evening, but ultimately we got things figured out and i feel like i got through to him. the fact that we managed to have a great time after that feels like significant progress on both our parts.

the gauntlet

 this whole interviewing thing feels just a bit ridiculous at this point. i received an email today informing me that the people i spoke to on thursday morning aren't interested - to be fair, i wasn't interested either. it was a weird conversation. the other company i thought i was progressing with still hasn't gotten back to me. the interview this evening seemed to go well - kind of? and it's not the last. that's the... fourth one, so far. holy shit.

apparently mr smear had another good day at school today, i'm nervously hopeful this is a new trend. at least he seems to like the teacher...

today's work was a huge last-push effort, i hit a few snags and ended up so personally invested that it was only around 11.30pm when i finally pushed what i believe is ready to go. intellectually, i know that i need to move on; but for the first time since i signed on i'm actually enjoying what i'm doing.

i watched dan cummins: trying to get better while i worked (well, while waiting for tests to run) - refreshingly intelligent and funny!

and then i dived in to a long session of crying suns. i'm really enjoying it. i love the mechanics and i love the story so far (i don't actually know how far i am right now, somewhere between the middle and the end of chapter 2).

good sabbath

 today got off to a rough start - i'd gone to bed around 2am, and four hours later i was paged for some nonsense. fortunately, it was similar nonsense to tuesday night's incident, so i knew where to look. by the time i was on the case the problem had already resolved itself, i'm just a bit irritated that things were broken for about an hour before the alarms went off :/

anyway, we all had a nice, slow morning. i completed steamworld heist for the first time, and i have to say that i've really enjoyed it from beginning to end. the final boss kicked my ass the first time, but by the second i had a simple strategy that held up the entire way through.

a little later we all settled in to watch short circuit. i fell asleep for a good chunk of it, but what a surprisingly fun, entertaining and wholesome film! of particular interest is just how similar wall-e is to no. 5...

we then followed that with a full viewing of funny people; i don't know how much was staged or how to identify what was staged, but the upside-down living room is for sure one of the greatest prank ideas ever conceived!

afterwards, it was a bit of a chore to get mr smear to come outside, but we went to the climbing wall, had a great session, came home for him to shower, then walked to our local vegan coffee shop for dinner. mr smear and i had interesting conversations the whole way, bumped into his best friend's mother and sister along the way, and an old friend of mine from rollerblading when we ate.

it really was a good day. i'm tired, and this weekend was very different from how i thought it would go, but i'm feeling really good about it and i think i'm just about ready to go to bed.

purim sameach!

yesterday (monday) began with a scare, during sunday's housecleaning labor it appears that i managed to tweak one or two things in my back and i spent the morning on the verge of a massive spasm. fortunately i managed to get mr smear to school without incident and gd smeared deep heat (bengay) and hammered me until everything softened up a bit. it continued to threaten for the rest of the day, but the threats were comparatively mild.

it was a busy workday. i enjoyed great successes with some sadness sandwiched in between, but sadly was unable to push my changes before the end of the day as one of my coworkers broke something important. i took today off for purim and i'm hoping they didn't push anything too interesting on my day off...

today was great! it started with a rough wakeup, but quickly smoothed out. gd assisted me with the remaining mold areas and we're pretty much complete, there are difficult-to-reach parts of the apartment (of our windows in particular) that look like nobody's cleaned them in eighteen years...

a cousin from england is here for a week and we bussed through to have brunch with her. we had a really nice time (and i ate far too much), it was all gravy until mr smear decided he was bored... no matter. we went past dizengoff center and stopped at the grocery store, we would have picked up a vegan burger for mr smear at the burger king but there was something wrong with their order systems.

once home, mr smear continued playing minecraft education edition while gd and i watched chris rock's new netflix special, which isn't very funny but is 100% on point and well worth watching.

afterwards, i took mr smear for a walk to and around the museum grounds. on the way we had a "tickle fight", something which had become a point of contention a long time ago (he would consistently use it at the worst possible times as an attention-grabbing device), and we've had enough of a break that i was finally able to relax my guard and we both enjoyed ourselves. we then had a special treat dinner on the way home - i picked up a laffa with salads at one shop and a packet of falafel balls at another, and we stuffed the falafel into the laffa for him while i ate a regular falafel pita. we got home in time to watch an episode of adventure time, and i ended up having time to read to him before heading out to join TAR purim.

it's been a decade...

the evening was fun, and was more of a reunion than anything else! i managed the route in my finn the human onesie with the hood over my eyes (some people managed it in outrageously complex costumes, so not much of an achievement), ending the evening with incredible vegan ice-cream from leggenda.

i've stretched, showered, and posted this, now to find out if i'm going to be able to sleep or not considering i needed a late coffee just to be able to get my blades on in the first place :P

i'm REALLY glad that i took today off. today was an awesome day.

$25 to see the end of louis ck

 i watched louis ck | back to the garden last night.

a few months ago, we purchased his new special, sorry, along with all his other specials for $25. it was brilliant. it was louis ck doing what he does best, and doing so while acknowledging his behavior and (pretty much) apologizing for it.

let me very clear: what he did was awful, and i was (and am) disappointed in him as a human being.

at the same time, he didn't manage - in my entirely subjective opinion - to cross the boundary where i could no longer separate the art from the artist*. his whole schtick is that he's always been a bit of a piece of shit, and his comedy has always been absolutely brilliant. although, now that i think about it, his 2017 special didn't really strike my funny bone, so let's say that his comedy has mostly always been brilliant.

* only two artists have managed to cross that boundary in my eyes: ian watkins, the voice behind shinobi vs dragon ninja which i can no longer listen to without being filled with disgust, and marilyn manson, who turned from hero to zero and took all of his music with him a few years back when it turned out his personal corruption matches what he's been singing about all along.

anyway, aside from the 2017 special i was able to enjoy it even while he himself made me uncomfortable, and his older work is mostly fantastic.

back to louis ck | back to the garden.

the first disappointment: i could skip past the jazz, but not the two decidedly uncharismatic, unfunny comedians he wheeled out to open for him. this was just like bill burr presents: friends who kill: did bill burr actually perform? i couldn't make it through the opening acts. where did they find these people? why do these events smell like great artists selling out? wtf is going on?!

but this time, i pushed through, and i bore witness to each and every excruciating minute of louis ck's performance. it was... it was louis ck, and it was louis ck doing louis ck-style bits. but he just didn't have any funny. he didn't have that light shining out of his eyes. his jokes... his jokes weren't funny. they weren't even interesting. there were three minor chuckles in the entire set, and then an almost-clever bible reading bit, and then nothing less than a resounding disappointment.

the staycation: over

i'm starting this post at 2.15am on tuesday morning. i've spent more than two hours lying in bed, the first hour or so reading and the last stretch just trying uncomfortably to sleep.

friday:

we went to the tomorrow exhibit at the ramat gan museum. the AI-assisted videos were mostly amazing, but we could have experienced that at home on youtube. the female pop icon NFT thing (women ape yacht club?) was dramatically unimpressive and the icons themselves so remarkably uninteresting that we rolled on by, the VR experience was interesting for all of two minutes (the games we've played on the mongoose's setup were incredible, this seemed like an attempt to suck the joy out of the technology), and the "classics" stuff was hebrew-only; one section was boring, the other was cool for gd and me but unnerving for mr smear.

i hard napped when we got home, then dragged myself out of bed to walk with mr smear to the beach to join cm and his family. we had a really great time!

overall, it was an excellent day.

saturday:

we started walking to the port to meet up with ric and his family, but a quarter of the way there gd realized she was in too much pain so i walked back to pick up a car and we drove there instead.

driving in tel aviv? not recommended.

we enjoyed our outing with them, their little one's super cute. mr smear was mostly cool until just before we left, and we ended up with a bad vibe on the way home.

we stopped at home for a short while, then i took mr smear to ra'anana to meet up with dod* and his family. mr smear wasn't being particularly social (we have to teach him that the concept of "strangers" in israel works a little differently), but he thoroughly enjoyed the ninja obstacle course.

* divan orange dude. i've just learned that le divan orange closed down a few years ago and that makes me a bit sad

we left just after a gangly kid wearing glasses tried to run up the side of the ramp mr smear had been using, and i looked on in horror as he slipped and smashed his glasses into his eye socket. dod and his wife helped tend to him while his grandparents made phone calls, the cut looked awful and i hope his eye's still functioning.

sunday:

sunday was accompany gd to the pain clinic day. it was a long day of doctors and bureaucrats. some of it felt constructive and promising. between clinic visits she got her nose piercing switching out and mr smear and i had a huge hummus breakfast at mashawsha. it was expensive but delicious.

monday:

back to work! aside from a tedious day of completing reports (two down, one to go) interspersed with multiple distractions, it was a good day and i must admit that it feels good to feel welcomed and appreciated.

gd had a rough day (feeling nauseous), but i was pleased to hear that mr smear had a very successful playdate.

...

the other day we watched a compilation of child comedians on the got talent shows, and mr smear is trying very hard to be funny, with results that are sometimes hilarious but usually for the wrong reasons...

...

i've been re-reading neuromancer for the last while, there's soooo much i'd forgotten and it's really, really amazing in spite of the anachronisms. during the staycation i also started reading the elements of eloquence, and it's very enjoyable!

...

of course, i got side-tracked writing this. i wonder if i'll be able to get to sleep soon.

borat subsequent moviefilm

no way. but... i mean, of course. then again, no way.

sbc is not the hero anyone wants, but he's definitely the hero they need. and i'm just as impressed by maria bakalova who deserves at least as much credit!

actually alive - summary and part i

the shortest summary: the week before this last one was plagued by enormously powerful screw-ups caused by good intentions. it might have been fueled by my not feeling well, which lasted until this week, and it brought about deep despair and intense emotional distress and anguish for gd and myself. we did learn a lot through it, we're in an amazing place right now.

[there's a very cool reason for the sudden rekindling of interest in jewish history, philosophy and rituals]

work's mostly excellent, though i'm a little concerned that big junior's becoming more defensive. i'm super-excited about the art / poetry projects that are moving along right now, and things have heated up with the slam team's preparation because we only have a month left before we head off to victoria.

huh.

---tuesday 26th:

• general feeling of well-being before bed, perhaps brought on by my having fed the blogging-ocd demons
  
• good sleep
  
• fighting about not taking advice when asking for it, eventually resolving it
  
• introducing gd to shane koyczan
  
• good progress at work
  
• shirtbreak [what was i on about?]
  
• javascript binding trauma - seriously, binding in java is unnecessarily complicated
  
• too much halva
  

...

satisfaction at the end of the day, marred by a pinching nerve as i walk out to the gym? after almost fifteen minutes with a jump rope i rushed to the bathroom, and wobbled out sweat and woozy. i tried to continue training but after a couple of rounds i was a disaster and i showered and went home. i'd continue to feel awful for the next few days.

i slowly did the quickest shopping i could on my way, caught a bug with my eye while thinking that if i'm not in cape town then it simply becomes far from fair.

good dinner marred only by our fighting over music and raising children.

---wednesday 27th:

slow morning, stretching, mango shake, figuring out how to watch music videos (from youtube, mainly) on the ipad (vevo and youplayer apps), and ordering a bluetooth keyboard for it. more of the pinching nerve. that prompted the purchase of dr kelly starrett - becoming a supple leopard. i picked it up on ibooks, intending to put it on the ipad but forgetting that the ipad's registered to a gd's account.

fortunately, i'd discover later that apple allows us to share purchases if our devices are registered to the same computer. a lot of unhelpful forum posts and bullshit later, but my usual complaint that apple keeps its shiny shit obfuscated (like how to use a mac's touchpad properly) isn't that surprising.

thought for the morning: those who play the loudest music usually have the worst taste.

i made it just in time for the bus to the beach club, read my new book most of the way. the beach club wasn't much to look at and the music was particularly shitty; having to keep out of the sun because i'm currently undergoing laser hair reduction kinda ruined the company event for me. at least the main speech was quick (and interesting. and i learned that i'll be out of the country for the next two events), there were vegan braai* options even though they were terribly marked - and the salad had egg yolk in it :(

* they brought in a team of south africans to handle the barbeque.

i learned an important lesson about the people i work with: a lot of them won't wear the company apparel because it has the word "geek" on it (demonstrating that they're true nerds), but think that wearing apparel advertising the products they work on is cool. let me tell you something: women wearing porn site t-shirts? sexy, not very classy, but sexy. guys wearing those shirts? creepy. and it doesn't matter what you look like. you don't look like a producer, you look like a (literal) wanker.

at least most of my team are rum drinkers.

the sumo suit competition was cut short when a man passed out in the suit and landed badly. eventually an ambulance came to pick him up. the ordeal was pretty surreal. he seems to be okay now, whoever he is.

i found a bench in the shade and took a nap for a while, i got up with a sore back, dazed and needing to pee. on my way to the washrooms i was intercepted by one of the security team. who knew my name and had been informed that i trained at tristar. we had a really good chat about jiu-jitsu for about five minutes and he threw me some tokens for free drinks.

afterwards, i picked up a drink and realized that my team had all disappeared. i did some exploring and found a dancefloor playing decent music, and hung around there until the bus arrived.

there's not much like a long ride on a bus with shitty suspension when you need to pee (for the second time).

...

buying tickets when tired and with alcohol in your system? #@$!. i'd been thinking "oh, i'm not training tonight" and forgetting that i wasn't going to be training anyway. getting gd excited for a night out and having to cancel on her because we had a team meeting? that's fucked up. that was the beginning of three days of overwhelming misery, during which i learned that there'd been some things bubbling under the surface that needed some serious addressing.

stupid levels of guilt and can't-think-straight, a better talk after gd got off work. the refund policy for the tickets was ambiguous and confusing at best, and i almost gave up on trying for it.

team meeting: important strategies and team planning and freaking out about the fact that the first slam of the season was almost upon us.

back home: relationship therapy, essentially.

---thursday 28th:

in spite of the emotional discomfort, it was a good start to the day minus the back issues. there was slam team weirdness. i purchased bill hicks - arizona bay on itunes having been inspired when introducing gd to tool - aenima. i can't believe i've never heard that material before! it's really funny.

not a bad morning, and i managed to get my movie tickets refunded. i needed to go to the bank during lunch: the highway had a gas station smell, and somebody in the line at the bank had awful body odour.

after completing a big project and saying telling him i'll explain what i did, big junior responded with "i'm not stupid, i can read code".

...

kc gave birth! i found that very exciting news, i'm extremely pleased for her :)

i was also pleased to hear that gd's no longer working at her gym any more, it was hurting her and she can afford to pay for classes now. that was the good news: the upsetting news was that we'd both completely forgotten about godmother's summer party and my reminder only caught me two hours before it started. i was feeling stressed and dark still from the day before and now i was feeling like every #$@!ing day there was something else. i just wanted a little bit of a routine and to get some training in and spent time with gd.

[to be continued...]

RIP robin williams

your genius and inspiration will never die. you've played wonderful characters, but yours shone through.

permission granted!

achievement unlocked: work permit acquired (the next milestone).

one of the lawyers drove me to the border as my representative, and i was shocked to learn that the previous time my lawyer had given me bad instructions! as it turns out, if you tell the americans that all you want to do is turn around at the border they will refuse you entry and give you a white slip, which you then take to the canadians. as far as the work permit application is concerned you're entering the country from the united states, but as the united states denied entry the border officials essentially have to let you back in because they weren't supposed to let you out in the first place.

that's all very, very weird, and super-bureaucratic. but i guess if everyone's happy with it then i'm happy with it, and the guy who admitted me was really cool and efficient. having been through the process a couple of times before i was a lot less nervous. but still a little nervous: those guys are essentially omnipotent regarding permits and visas, i wouldn't want them to dislike me.

...

i was pleased to learn that i pretty much know my shit regarding the permits and residence application procedures, but i was fortunate to learn that the rules for applying for residence might change soon. this means that i need to pitch a no-hitter for the next four or five months if i don't want to find myself having to fight to stay here...

---saturday:

i forgot to mention a thought i had on saturday about the burqa fundamentalist muslim women wear: its use puts humans on the same level as all the other animals, where the females have drab colours and the males have otherwise useless or counter-productive flash, like the peacock.

with the good news that i'll be working again, i splurged on itunes: i bought foo fighters - greatest hits for $7. and then today i picked up a comedy album whose proceeds are all going to a good cause, but i'm so far a lot less satisfied by that one :/

---i tried to take a nap after lunch, but my ocd was acting up and i began compulsively tidying. which mostly consisted of setting up the old amp and speakers in gd's "salon". we're now one rca-to-headphone cable shy of awesome :)

we watched stake land after going shopping, and were both thoroughly enjoying ourselves right until the end. it's a bad-ass super-cool movie about what are essentially a cross between vampires and zombies, and the ending made me feel like the world had dropped out from under me. in a bad way. other than that, the writing was really good, aside from one scene where it felt like someone had just stopped caring for a moment because they wanted a fun, scary effect that couldn't be easily justified.

gd made a double veggie / daiya cheese burger that was delicious, and we watched a bit of dan cummins - crazy with a capital f until i realized that it was midnight and i needed to be up at 6am.

---today:

around 4am i got up to serious rls, and it took about forty-five minutes to go away. i finally fell back into bed, and had a nightmare in which i watched a large green spider enter an infant's nose. after that i rushed off, barely in time to meet with the lawyer and cross the border, but had to get off the bus i'd just hopped on to return home and pick up forgotten documents. i woke up with that dread still in my chest, and discovered that i'd slept through my alarm and it was ten minutes after i'd intended to leave; it took me half an hour to get out - butterflies in my stomache turned out to be more than just butterflies - and thank all the gods gd had ironed my shirt the night before and knew where the shoe polish was.

of course, my representative would call when i was down in the metro: why does my phone bother ringing if there's not enough signal to talk? then there was a metro service slowdown, but it was only for a few minutes. then i got lost in the building, but the guy found me instead.

...

it was a gorgeous morning and the scenery on the way down to the border was stunning. on the way back, my lack of sunglasses, my lack of sleep and the looooong drive with aircon and no fresh air had me trying to hide yawns all the way. i kicked myself for a while after we said our goodbyes and i ended with "see you soon" :$

i thought i was going to take a quick nap but i crashed hard for an hour or two. gd and i played carcassonne, which she eventually enjoyed, and the rest of the afternoon has been a whole lot of random, including some very unpleasant political stuff with our friends on facebook.

at least there's more good news: vector's back on the project! very cool, that had been upsetting me.

armageddon

after months of fighting with the israeli tax authority, and being threatened with an insane fine (something like NIS 20000) in spite of the fact that *they* owed *me* money, the accountant finally managed to get the fine dropped and they're depositing NIS 1735 into my account.

accountant's fees: NIS 1770.

how very convenient.

---monday:

on the way in to see maleficent i managed to offend gd, and on the way out we had a fight that escalated to serious trouble. we kind of resolved it before bed - kind of - and although i woke up feeling really shitty about everything things went back to normal (really good) fairly quickly. what followed was a great day, but in the afternoon the previous night's fight started anew and became even worse. when we finally reached a conclusion everything was clear and good, but we'd both had a rough time of things. as i'm writing this i'm thinking of how i don't really mention all the good stuff here, which might be presenting a rather negative slant to our relationship...

the truth is that neither of us have ever been in such a good space, such a healthy space, and as scary as our fights can be we always end up on the same side once they're over. and now that we've properly moved in together, things feel a little more under control and sensible, even if our home looks like a tornado struck.

---maleficent is magnificent. it's beautifully produced, and the little twists were very sweet. gd had reservations about angelina jolie playing the part but she really performed excellently, and i guess we're going to see it again when it comes to netflix.

summer is here in the worst way, we're sweating when we sleep and everything's uncomfortably humid and hot. the swimming pool next door is certainly making that easier to deal with, but i'm *praying* that i'll soon be employed and unhappily wearing uncool clothing to work!

speaking of which, my plan for today is to call my future boss to see what's happening, but i can't do that until i've worked through the list of technologies he wants me to be familiar with... so that's today's mission.

yesterday was consumed by a little studying, some serious tidying, watching bill burr: you people are all the same again and really enjoying it, swimming a little and even diving a few times when a kid whose hair gd cuts wanted someone to join him :)

the cloudy weather made the pool experience a little weird, the suddenly sore neck made it a bit uncomfortable. gd and i went straight from there to her gym, where we did a little conditioning and i taught her some boxing. she learns *really* fast, in spite of our training session being the cause of world war iii.

...

we made an incredible salad last night! it's like each one is somehow better than the last, and i've absolutely no clue what's changing :P

i woke up this morning for breakfast (coffee and awesome vanilla-progressive-peanut-butter-banana-almond-milk shake) with gd, and played a lot of tekken while she got ready for work. now i'm tekkened out, and ready to study a little. after i do the dishes and run a load of laundry, perhaps. it's really hard to focus with all these boxes and unsorted clothes lying around.

---three israeli teenagers murdered. one palestinian murdered. a video of hamas children's programming wherein little kids talk about growing up to shoot all the jews. i don't have anything to say on the matter, i'm just sad and disappointed and pessimistic.

unprofessional expert removals

we met kgb at my apartment, but when he realized how little we'd intended to move today and that we needed a few minutes to pack things up he rushed out to a friend of his who could organize a u-haul van for us at a moment's notice and with far better terms than the booking i'd made. by the time he returned everything was ready to go and we wasted no time getting everything loaded, then hurried here to unload and take gd's couch back.

that damned couch. and our damned sliding doors*. everything else was quick and easy, but the amount of effort and frustration that went into removing the doors, fitting the couch through them and then replacing them was insane. it's a good thing we're both in good shape, and with our combination of russian removal skills**, solid physical condition and a bit of blind luck we managed to get all the major stuff out of the way and the u-haul back to the lot with five minutes to spare.

* gd didn't tell me who it was, but she knows who installed the sliding doors and threaded every damned screw. we had to use force but without breaking anything.

** kgb asked me early on if i'm sure i'm not russian when i did something a bit ridiculous but totally practical, which i found flattering. i told him that the first person i ever saw carry an entire fridge by himself was a russian.

i was SO relieved^† and grateful to have sorted all the heavy lifting out this evening! that means that tomorrow we can focus on all the little details and take it easy, especially considering that we've now got all the drawers we need to make space for shit.

^† except for the fact that i can't find my playstation. it *should* be at my apartment, but i'm troubled that it might have been with all the other stuff and was somehow stolen :(

kgb and i took our coffees outside and talked for a while, he's hatching an interesting (business) scheme and i'm hoping that i'll be able to get involved somehow.

i was tired and lazy, but i had to eat something solid. this steaming veggies thing is beginning to get comfortable, and what i produced was - according to both gd and my tastebuds - the best i've produced so far! shit's gooooood.

---tom papa: live in new york city: we just finished watching it, and when he talks about vegans he shows that he's just plain uneducated and is happy spreading stupid sentiments for laughs. the other offensive bit was making a pirate reference as if the life of a pirate is a bad thing - entirely against my religion. otherwise, he was good. not the best, not a full five stars, but certainly worth watching.

summer filing

yesterday:

i forgot to mention my knee hurting me before training, feeling better after warming up and then hurting again later... but it seems okay now.

i handled the most meaningful part of the move last night: my laptop. now i'm 100% moved in and the stuff that's left is stuff i can live without.

---have i ever mentioned here that i'm freaked out by nail files? since i was a child, the mere sight or sound of them - no, the mere *thought* of them freaks me out and makes me shudder uncontrollably, much like nails on a chalkboard for normal people. gd and i have been joking for a while about obtaining chloroform so that she can knock me out and take care of it, but i cut my nails last night so i had a couple of sharp edges to deal with and we didn't have any on hand.

i put in my headphones, blasted dark trance (rev, to be precise) and squeezed my eyes shut while she filed my nails, trying to keep calm and not be there as much as possible. every scrape i felt was a battle between my body's need to spaz out and my ego's to keep control.

we got through it, but just the thought of the experience now while writing this all down is making me convulse. ugh!

---neither of us had much energy last night, we watched a bit of tom papa: live in new york city. i don't agree with everything he says, but a lot of it is spot on and the man's pretty damned funny. freakishly clownish, i gotta say, but funny.

---today:

okay, there's some serious summer action going on in montréal right now. perfect swimming pool weather!

...

i woke up at 5am from an epic dream, the tail end of which saw me and some others trying to climb over a hill that had been covered in velvelt.

i went back to sleep, straight into another long series of weird dreams; this one ended with a scene wherein i found myself in a bath, someone in the room freaked out and angered a hive of bees, one of whom stung me and the rest of whom chased me covered in a towel or a shirt or something across fields, and when they finally gave up i entered a bar in toronto where a reunion of ex-south african schoolmates of mine was taking place.

my third round also included amazing dreams and deep sleep, but i don't recall anything specific.

i've just returned from lunch with godmother, and am continuing the digital cleanup i began earlier before gd and i head to my apartment to move smaller items with kgb.

neapolitan

i'm currently doing my duty by consuming as much of so delicious' neapolitan container that i bought by accident as i can so that i don't bring anything into gd's home that might accidentally poison her (strawberries). my wrist is hurting pretty badly post-boxing but i think the ice-cream's helping... no, i'm applying it orally, don't be foolish... boxing was fantastic, it's the first time in ages where i've walked out feeling tired and sore but *good*. i needed somewhere to focus my irritation about losing my ipod and my situation in general - i found my ipod when i came home, after a couple of days' frustrated searching - and the only thing tonight that worried me is that the timewaster was talking crazy tonight, including describing how amazing he is in judo and how he'll beat me up when he's bigger, and i couldn't help wondering if the kid's troubled and this is a cry for help that i'm laughing at* or if he's just as big an asshole as he seems.

* for me, this just gave a whole new meaning to "as funny as a cry for help"

it was a gorgeous, hot, sunny day so carrying my snowboard across (and in a packed metro car) felt a little weird. my pre-training meal was in front of the second episode of arrested development that i've seen, and i've reached the conclusion that it's a rubbish series, unfunny and not for me.

---the more i think about gd's situation, the more i feel like this town runs on madness. but it's fun, and beautiful, and interesting, and getting started here is the easiest way to get started.

restart required

it's been quite a morning so far. it began with me going to bed last night and having serious difficulty sleeping; i got up in the middle of the night and saw what appeared to be those black things from blue exorcist sliding around and hiding in the shadows.

gd and i rarely argue, but when we do it's like a flash fire; this morning's was a continuation of the one on the weekend (a misunderstanding about something i wrote in last night's poem brought that back) and things got really crazy, but i think we've established rules that needed to be established earlier. it's really hard fighting with someone when you're both actually agreeing and phrasing keeps getting in the way.

it doesn't help that her back issues have worsened.

my toronto cousin sent me some files he needed converted for tonight's festivities in honour of kc's grandfather's 90th birthday... of course he'd only find out at the last minute that his computer couldn't play them, so i sat down at gd's desktop and tried to get it done as quickly as possible.

an hour later, and i still don't have a clue what i'm supposed to install on ubuntu 14.04 if i want to convert wma to mp3. and it seemed like every application was taking forever to load and switch. reading somewhere that this is a new issue, i moved to my little netbook, installed sound converter and had the desired files to my cousin in a matter of minutes. thank you, ubuntu 12.04. thank you.

and thank YOU whoever knows how to sort this out on 14.04 and has written instructions that include help instead of excuses and blame. </sarcasm>

...

i'm now off to my apartment to bring back laundry so that the entrance doesn't smell like a gym locker when the couple comes again tonight to check it out.
*still crossing fingers and praying they'll take it*

---john oliver is a hero. a hero! could we add regulation to gmo as well?

happy saint-jean-baptiste day?

it's monday night, i'm feeling physically and emotionally exhausted; i skipped training and the only writing i'm managing to get done today is this. the past two days have been full of ups and downs and i've been brooding over the fact that after finding a job i was expecting a couple of quiet months wherein i'd get to do what i want to do... instead, during the past couple of months i've had relatively little focus-on-me time and i've been constantly stressed about whether or not i'm going to get to stay in this country.

---yesterday:

we had plans to go out and enjoy the tams, but instead of an anti-histamine gd accidentally gave me a pill that totally knocked me out. i spent the next few hours flat on the couch or on the bed, it was all rather sad. in the evening we went to visit her tattoo-artist friend who owns the gallery where we met.

we drank a few glasses of wine (and i had a beer), we advised the owner on real estate, website development and marketing, and then i got into a long discussion about being vegan in which i think i became a friend of theirs' guru (a link to nutritionfacts.org and my training diet seemed to be enough).

gd had one of those memorable moments - she'd had a bit to drink, and gestured as if she was going to throw her phone in the air... it slipped out of her hands, and she was then forced to perform one of those amusing juggling acts brought on by almost catching it and having it immediately bounce back into the air. the impressive part was her successfully catching it on the sixth or seventh try, and we were rather grateful that we didn't have to add "replace phone" to the list of things to do today :P

the owner has the sweetest little handbag-dog. i usually can't stand those, and i don't consider them "real" dogs, but this one's like a cross between a dog and a hamster, like a tiny, sensitive toy designed to be petted. anyway, we all decided to go to p.m. for dinner and the poor little creature was sneaked in in the handbag and hidden until the table the entire time. phenomenally well-behaved, she only barked once and we all managed a most amusing cover-up; we were legitimately worried that we'd find ourselves banned, and that would totally suck!

p.m. was delicious, their dishes are designed to be shared and four of them between five of us was still too much to handle.

gd and i said goodbye and came home to watch the boondocks. i've seen a few episodes before but not in any particular order. damn, but that stuff's offensive. and it gets stuck in your head in the worst way...

---monday:

i woke up still feeling tired but good nonetheless, however uninspired to write i might have been. aside from more of the boondocks and shopping, the main focus for the day was showing my apartment to a potential taker for the month of july. i will be very disappointed if she doesn't take it, she was asking about things that would really only matter if they were planning on renting it long-term and it's perfect for her needs...

on our way home i stopped by the building manager's office to give them a ball that some kid had landed on my balcony. the woman there began lecturing me about playing responsibly, then reminded me that if i do sublet i'll have to pay $150 out of my own pocket for the credit check they run on potential tenants.

she asked me if i'd told anyone i was subletting, and i informed her of the distinct lack of support i've received from her co-workers.
"well, you know we have empty apartments right now..."
"... and i'm living somewhere else and being forced to pay rent for an apartment i'm not using."

i walked out, updated gd and the two of us were steaming about the fact that they're worried about not making maximal profit and i'm worrying about not being able to afford food. what a bunch of greedy bastards, as soon as i'm out of there they won't be getting any more referrals from me - by that i mean to say that i'll be sure to spread the word of their attitudes through any channel available.

...

i walked past the park next door, and was pleasantly surprised to find that during the summer all of the kids' bars and decorative features turn into a miniature water park, with a fountain in the middle. the neighbourhood kids were out in force having a whale of a time :)

shane mauss - mating season: as he was describing the theory of how people walk on two legs because women like stuff, gd complained about the chicken no longer being edible and i found myself rushing off to the supermarket to buy some more. coincidence? it's a great show, what he lacks in execution he makes up for in wit.

we watched a few episodes of blue exorcist over dinner, and i read the wonderful tale of ahmed sadiq before making myself a salad. now there's a story of justice being served. powerful, painful justice.