Assorted Nonsense

I’m attempting a sugar diet (though I had a little marmalade this morning… shhh!)

A friend of mine told me recently she’d lost fifteen pounds in three months by eliminating sugar from her diet. I’d read similar results from other people. And I’ve been really looking for some kind of psychological hook upon which to hang an ability to avoid foods like ice cream, pies and whatnot, which I fear have been contributing to an ungainly size in girth.

Now, I don’t really have that much to lose… just trying to stave off what another friend once referred to as “white man’s gut,” which I consider an awful blight on one’s otherwise girlish figure. I’m about 183 and I’d like to be 175.

So (with the exception of a bit of marmalade this morning… oh, and a tiny bit of ketchup yesterday… oh, and some whole wheat bread containing two grams of sugar per serving both yesterday and today, oh, and some orange juice every morning, oh and… no, no, that’s about it) I’ve consumed no obvious sugar related products in several days. And I must say I don’t really have a problem with it.

I’m going to keep this up until I’m 175 pounds. Here’s hoping I don’t have to give anything else up to make that happen…

And I must say I’ve been feeling pretty good. Less sluggish than usual. Less stupid than usual. Yesterday I went into a grocery store feeling on top of my game. Feeling good, looking good. As the cashier was ringing in my groceries she kept glancing at me. Naturally… cause I was looking GOOD. Right?

Once my groceries were all bagged she leaned over and whispered something to me.

“What?” I whispered back.

“You’re fly’s undone,” she whispered loudly enough for several other shoppers to hear.

Sadly, giving up sugar does not appear to make one cooler.

Daughter: “Can I have a freshly baked cookie?”
Me: “No.”
Daughter: “Why?”
Me: “Because they’re hot.”
Daughter: “Please?”
Me: “No.”
Daughter: “Why?”
Me: “Because they’re hot.”
Daughter: “Please?”
Me. “No.”
Daughter: “Why?”
Me: “Because they’re hot!”
Daughter: “I only want one. Please? I promise, only four. That’s all. Okay?”
Me: “Okay. But get me and your sister some too.”
Daughter: “Okay!”

My daughters have been making lots of cartoons lately on their Nintendo DSs.  Sometimes the Nintendo DSs drive me crazy, but I don’t mind them using them for creative purposes at all. 

They use a program called “Flipnote” to create cute little cartoons like these (click on the play button as opposed to the animations themselves):

And this one, which is more a combination of stop motion animation and rotoscoping:

Okay, I’ll blog both here and there. Wildebear will be devoted to science fiction and fantasy and everything to do with Wildebear’s (almost complete!) memoirs. Assorted Nonsense will be for everything else.

Yes, I am a fool, to attempt blogging in two places at once.

You’d almost think I have free time on my hands. Alas, it has nothing to do with that, and everything to do with this cursed passion for writing, which only seems to get worse as I age.

Et maintenant je passe le coq au l’aine.

Something I’ve wanted to mention for some time is a new blog I’ve discovered. Up until today I’ve only ever checked it out on my Blackberry. One day I was waiting at Union Station for the Go Train to carry me home to a lovely home-made chicken broccoli casserole. The train stubbornly refused to come. Bored, I whipped out the Blackberry and did a random search for something, anything, I don’t even remember what. It may have been “something interesting.” And what should pop up but this blog entitled “It’s Our Time on the Edge.”

A young woman (Catherine, let’s call her, what with that being her name and all) blogging about random elements of her life. To me it has come to represent this odd time in our species’ history when we’re able to observe one another’s lives from afar, without ever actually knowing one another, without ever necessarily making contact, just checking in from time to time to see what we’re up to. And not uninvited, because although at times it feels a tad voyeuristic (although there is nothing in the content of her blog to warrant such a feeling), Catherine has explicitly invited me into her life to this limited extent (just the same as I have done here), deliberately sharing with me the circumstances of her single life (a little bit lonely), her subsequent engagement to a gentleman she had previously broken up with (a frequent characteristic of subsequently successful marriages, I’ve observed over the years), and now her young married life, pre- children (which perhaps will be the next thing, although let’s see how many blog posts she gets in then!).

If I’ve made poor Catherine’s blog sound a bit boring, it’s not. I keep coming back, often while waiting for the train, sometimes while waiting to pick my wife up from work. Always on my Blackberry. She is my Blackberry blog. My only Blackberry blog, I might add. I keep coming back because I like her writing. Never juvenile, always clear, usually thoughtful. Judging from the comments, read by a close circle of family and friends, and who knows how many lurkers, like me.

I wonder if Catherine monitors her traffic. Will she notice and wonder about this link that has suddenly appeared in her stats directing perhaps a handful of more potential readers to It’s Our Time on the Edge? Might it prompt her to increase her (recently erratic) blogging rate? Or will she continue to blog mercifully oblivious to the benign yet inane ramblings of this fan from afar?

We will see…

Hey Folks,

Just a reminder that I’m no longer blogging here for the time being.

Instead, I’m off helping my buddy Barney over at his blog. I humbly ask you to update your links.

You may observe a striking similarity of style…

Hope to see you there!

What in the name of God is Harper doing by eliminating the mandatory long form census questionnaire? Why would he want to deprive us of the ability to know ourselves better? Know thyself, said Socrates. I guess Harper doesn’t take his orders from Socrates. It is true that Socrates thought that this newfangled “writing” thing would rot people’s brains (fortunately Plato thought differently, or we never would have heard of Socrates), so he may not be the be all end all, but I do think he had something with the “know thyself” bit.

I can’t help but ascribe sinister motives to Harper in pretty much everything he does. If only he had credible opposition he wouldn’t last the year.

Alas.

Yes, you’re all quite right, it’s time I picked up the blogging again.

To answer Mr. Lozinski, the novel is not quite finished, but we’re getting there, certainly another eight or nine years and I’ll have it. Sigh. But seriously, I am just tidying up the second last chapter, after which there is the last chapter to sort out, then a brief epilogue. My main accomplishment over the last little while has been jettisoning an entire section having to do with seagulls, which I tried desperately to make work but was, in the end, clearly a digression that could not be made to work because it just didn’t belong.

I’m on vacation now for a couple of weeks. Not doing too much of anything, family visiting, off to Stratford to see Peter Pan this time next week. Reading an excellent book by the name of The Annubis Gates by Tim Powers. It’s the first Powers book I’ve read but I quite like it, quite similar in tone (if not content) to the novels of his good buddy Blaylock, author of several terrific, rather understated reads.

Nothing of tremendous import to report or relate, sadly, perhaps why blogging has been minimal of late.

Perhaps I will attempt the odd deep thought later in this vacation…

“You worry too much,” I’ve been told.

It’s true.

I’m capable of worrying about all kinds of crazy things. Things that make no sense whatsoever, but I’ll worry about them nonetheless. Because I’m the kind of person who wants definitive answers. Unfortunately, there are usually no definitive answers to be had when worrying.

“Hmm, I wonder if I have a horrible disease?” I might ask. Or, “Hmm, I wonder if something horrible is about to happen?” or whatever other silly worry I happen to be obsessed with at the moment.

There’s usually no way to know for sure whether any of these bad things will happen. So I find myself in this endless loop of constant worry because there’s no way to answer the question I’ve asked myself. There is no answer.

Which is what worries are.

Questions without answers.

There are some questions without easy answers that are worth asking. What is the meaning of life? comes to mind.

Worries are questions that are not worth asking.

I heard a story about a concentration camp survivor. He said the night before they transported him to a concentration camp he worried and fretted. What’s going to happen? he wanted to know. It was a question without an immediate answer. The next day they transported him to a concentration camp. It was without a doubt a horrible experience. But he survived.

Afterward, he remembered worrying about it. Worrying about it, he said, didn’t help at all. He claims never to have worried about anything again.

And that’s what I’m going to try to do.

I have a couple of friends who are going through some stuff right now. I’m sure they already know this, but just in case they don’t I thought I would remind them that there’s always light at the end of the tunnel.

Always.

Which is why I wrote the following silly but heartfelt post (presented here ever so slightly tweaked from the original):

There’s always light at the end of the tunnel.

Always.

Unless there isn’t, of course. In which case you’re probably not in a tunnel, you’re in a cave.

Not a problem. If you’re in a cave and you can’t see light, well, that’s just because you’re facing the wrong direction. You need to turn around.

If you turn around and you still don’t see any light, don’t panic. It’s just night outside, or really, really overcast. Wait a little while until morning comes, or the weather clears up.

If morning never comes, relax. You never were in a cave, or a tunnel; somebody just buried you alive when you weren’t paying attention.

This sounds more serious than it is. If in fact you have been buried alive, simply dig your way out with your bare hands (if you encounter wood, you may need to punch your way out first).

If you dig and dig and dig and dig and dig and still can’t find your way to the light and your seasonal affective disorder is acting up and your Vitamin D deficiency has kicked in and you feel yourself beginning to go stark raving mad…

Relax.

Try the dip.

There was no tunnel, no cave. You’re not a character in a Quentin Tarantino movie. Those were all just annoying little metaphors — mere reflections of reality, if you will. Obliterated now by light. Shining in through my window. I feel it on my back, see it reflected on my computer screen, obscuring what I write.

Light.

Hmm.

Just outside my office.

I think I’ll go for a walk.

Some day I’ll have to write about some good stuff that has happened to me.

But for now, another (cue fanfare) Banner Sport Moment in the Life of Joe Mahoney.

I may have mentioned this one before. If so, forgive me. But my sister Sam reminded me of this one, talking to her on her birthday the other day, so I thought I would write about it.

I studied karate for awhile until life got too busy. I don’t think I sucked as badly at karate as I did at hockey. Sensei told me I moved well, and my reflexes have always been pretty good.

None of that helped me in this, the second installment of Banner Sports Moments in the Life of Joe Mahoney.

So one day my wife washed my Gi (the karate outfit sometimes referred to as “pajamas” by certain friends), which was a nice thing for her to do. I put the Gi on in the dojo and the class began its warm up en masse. At one point the warm up consisted of throwing punches into the air.

On the first punch, something flew out of the sleeve of my Gi. The class stopped. Sensei stooped and picked up a pair of female underwear from off the floor. Belonging to my wife.

That and the time I accidentally punched myself in the face are probably my two favourite karate moments.

Ah, the good ol’ days.