Monday, March 18, 2024

Living with Rex Chapman

I'm reading a book supposedly by the Dalai Lama, "An Open Heart - Practicing Compassion in Everyday Life".👸

It's not very well written, but no matter. I'm not reading it for its literary merit, but inspiration. I want to strengthen my connection to the divine. I was raised in the here and now by my secular mother, but my father was a religious man, and I share his genes, too.🙏

Years ago, I started to wish an enemy well. I forget now where I got the idea but I decided to try it. And it worked. His behaviour didn't change, it just didn't affect me anymore. Wishing him well, sincerely wishing him well, freed me up from the bad feelings I'd not realized were the real problem.💃

Anyway, I'll need ongoing refreshers in letting go if I'm to get through this life in one piece.💪

Sunday morning on CBC radio I heard an interview with Piya Chattopadhyay and Rex Chapman. I only know Rex Chapman as a Twitter wit, I didn't realize he's a famous basketball player, but the interview was about his book, "It's Hard for Me to Live with Me: A Memoir".😎

He stole my title.🙇

My Blond Companion's would be: It's Hard for Me to Live with Her".😃

Anyway, I didn't know much about Rex Chapman except he's hilarious and biting and just an excellent all-round Twitter personality. But he also had an opioid addiction AND a gambling addiction and spoke of both during the interview. He's so eloquent I finally understood just how terrifying the opioid addiction crisis really is.😱

He describes how he felt when he took the first pill, prescribed for an injury in the later stages of his basketball career, all his anxiety melting away, feeling like he was a better person, even, kinder, more sociable, able to connect with strangers in a way he couldn't before. And I could imagine what that must have felt like for him. Not for me, not now, anyway, but for him, then, the way he'd described himself as a young man.😬

I have never felt so lucky to feel good naturally, in spite of issues I've blogged about many times, because I do, I feel good naturally. I wrote my regrets in one column, my values in another, and how to live now in a third. It all added up to more than just sober but sober is certainly the magic decoder ring. Like I said, I'm lucky, and for that, I'm grateful. 💖

Eventually Rex Chapman was up to 40 pills a day, bankrupt, charged with shoplifting, because, of course, to keep feeling good required increased amounts of opioid. He says he's just lucky he got out of it before he got into injecting heroin.😷

It's a stunning story, and yes, he had a long hard fall from grace, but it sounds to me like everybody who gets addicted to opioids ends up at the same bottom.💩

Gabor Mate describes addiction as a coping mechanism for trauma. And while Rex Chapman doesn't talk about trauma, he does talk about privilege, and how he was let off the hook so often, knew why and felt guilty about it. He also talks about having a black girlfriend at one time, and the relationship not being approved of, particularly in the American south. He wishes he could go back and tell that young man to stand up for himself, for others, use his platform, his privilege, for better, instead of wasting it as he did.😇

Don't we all, or most of us, fail ourselves, others, in one way or another, but as someone once said, "The best time to plant a tree was forty years ago, the next best time is now". Hence why I'm brushing up with some reading on how to do better.💁



Friday, March 15, 2024

Old Style - Updated

Update: I weighed in on gender, after all. I'm tired of the same old same old double-standard and Feminists being blamed for the problem of Patriarchal violence against the rest of us.

Look, I really want to be able to quote Bette Davis, "Gettin' old ain't for sissies", because I think given our progress on recognizing gender as a patriarchal construct, we should be able to agree that "sissy" just means "lily-livered", and therefore can be applied to anyone with a liver who shrinks from the tough stuff.

Otherwise, I almost never weigh in on the politics of gender because I'm waiting until transmen demand to compete in men's sports.

Or demand anything, now that I've weighed in to make what I think is a fairly salient yet consistently overlooked point about who presents the real danger to transwomen in our society.

Hint: It's not lesbians. And it's certainly not Feminists - of any wave. So sod off with your firings and cancelings, trans activists, and repeat after me: The problem is the Patriarchy and its perpetration of male violence against women. Period. End of.

This morning I read about death cafes and then watched an inspiring video about "Fabulous Fashionistas", a handful of octogenarians - all women, so sorry, fellas - who are keeping fit and current, rockin' cool threads - including thrift shop finds - and just generally making older age seem less daunting to the rest of us.

Not a sissy in the lot, they're pretty much made of the tough stuff, so no shrinking from it for them.

I want to emulate their good example but I've a ways to go I'm afraid. Still, one foot in front of the other. I don't want my adult children dreading getting old - or any younger person dreading getting old - so my goal is to make my own aging look like the adventure it actually is, sucking up the daunting bits, revelling in the bonuses.

I plan to blog a lot, including a book, "Memories of Me", in which I'll jot down this and that along the way. It's a reinvention I'm after, a sloughing off of roles I've outgrown, opinions I want to let go of, an opening up to let the universe in - a third act. I'd like to do it without taking on paid work, which I've never much cared for, but I do want to be a "helper" as Mister Rogers would say.

I guess I can pass a police check?

So we'll see you around these parts. Stay hydrated and take the stairs.


Thursday, March 14, 2024

Today in Late Breaking News

So contrary to ongoing complaints from some Canadians that the Liberal government has been supporting Israel in its ongoing war crime against Palestinians, it turns out it's actually been "slow walking" - so not delivering on - requests from Israel for armoured vehicles, night vision goggles, and so on and so forth and more of the same etc etc.

A class action suit for gross negligence as a result of deaths during the pandemic against six Ontario long term care nursing homes is going ahead. In a ruling last week, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice certified class action suits against Sienna, Revera, Schlegel, Responsive, Extendicare and Chartwell.

Peterborough has housed 50 of its estimated 250 unhoused citizens in individual tiny shipping containers with locks. They come with heating and air conditioning, a small fridge, but no cooking facilities, and no washrooms. On site care is available 24/7, violence isn't tolerated, and residents pay a portion of their income for rent, $500 or so, which should net a citizen a studio at least, but it's better than a tent. 

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Pay Now or Pay Later

So I've been thinking about the recurrence of nausea the other day, after my sojourn downtown, which is depressing as hell and not at all normal or how it always was and while the poor may always be with us they needn't be drug poisoned zombies, and how I've tied it all in with the Freedom Convoy's attack on civil society two years in to the pandemic, when I did the math and realized I'd broken my wrist a few months prior.

I remember the 14 hours overnight surprisingly well, too, sitting in a chair, cracked patella and badly broken wrist, masked, commiserating with the other broken people in need of healthcare, witnessing the abject failure of our social safety net, all while reading The Secret History by Donna Tartt (author of The Goldfinch). My Blond Companion, who could not be with me due to the pandemic, had smuggled in an umbrella to use as a cane, an apple, some nuts, cheese, a bottle of water. I wasn't hungry but I drank the water.

He was upset, which helped me be braver about it all, but it also made me more conscious than ever of our age difference, and how falling and breaking a bone was pretty stereotypical old lady of me.

And there's nothing like being in hospital in your 60s to have that "and so it begins" feeling you never expected to have even though I guess it happens to most everybody who lives long enough.

But then there's nothing like finally getting the care you need and being sent home with a knee brace and temporary cast, surgery scheduled for a week later, to have that "this is the first day of the rest of your life" feeling, too. Oh and that sick leave covered month off work, devoted to rest and recovery, in spite of the pain, is a cosy memory I make a point of visiting every now and again.

When I first fell the pain was so bad I wanted to crawl out into traffic and let a car run over my head. Just end it. Done.

A Facebook friend recently said of the followers of Queen Romana Didulo, who I'm pretty sure is in drag, but so what if she is, I guess, they've been "failed by society" to think they don't have to pay their bills and follow the rules like the rest of us.

But aren't they just taking the political ideology that preaches taxes are bad to its logical conclusion?

I remember paying healthcare premiums when I was an office temp in Toronto. It was annoying, $60 a year (I think?) because I didn't have any benefits, wasn't in a union, so no coverage otherwise. Premiums were phased out not long after but they seem to be making a comeback with these nurse practitioner clinics popping up.

Middle-class parents will sign up in droves, I think, willing to pay an annual fee of a few hundred dollars to belong to a clinic they can access whenever the need arises, while emergency rooms remain for the rest of us. And maybe it'll alleviate some of the pressure on the system as it is now, and maybe it won't, but whether it's through taxes or fees, healthcare was never free, and if taxes aren't going to be raised then fees will have to be paid.

What's important is to keep insurance companies out of it, those money grubbing merchants of fear who never pay out as promised. Ever. We know - we know - from our American cousins where insurance companies in healthcare lead - to unconscionable suffering and death. No, whatever we do, we have to say no to insurance companies being involved in our healthcare system any more than they already are, scamming old people and just generally scavenging around the edges.

So sure, let middle-class parents be shareholders of nurse practitioner clinics. They can afford it or they wouldn't be voting Conservative. And if they can't afford it, well they can just cancel hockey for one of the kids, or the family vacation to Disneyland, or give up one of the two cars and take public transit. 

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Setback

I'm just putting this out there in case it helps somebody else, although it helps me, too, to recap.

I had a setback yesterday, after having lunch downtown with a friend. After being home for a bit I experienced nausea and was eventually sick to my stomach. It lasted a couple of hours, mostly because I wanted to allow it to happen, not force it, but was fighting it, too. So from about 5 until 7:00 p.m. Then I took Gravol with a glass of cold water and went to bed.

I'm still tired but otherwise fine.

Lunch was at a vegetarian restaurant on Rideau, and I only mention that because I had a sandwich made with tempeh bacon, something I don't normally eat. But I knew even before I ordered I wasn't comfortable and should just get on a bus and go home. But I didn't want to make it awkward, either, so I forged ahead.

Rideau Street is in a very sad state. I have a hard time squaring lunch out with homelessness and addiction. The drugs people are taking are so powerful and dangerous. It's Russian Roulette. It felt all wrong to me, windows looking out on the human misery and despair, eating a $35 lunch.

My friend had been advised to sit away from the front, too, but she told me about the server asking a fellow to move along who'd positioned himself in the window where a couple of women were having lunch. He kept miming a request for money at them.

In Florida he'd be sent to one of its private prisons. I don't know what she said to get him to move along but the servers all seem decent enough and used to their surroundings so I imagine it was done politely. When I worked at the store in the Rideau Centre I had occasion after an evening shift to witness the goings on at the McDonald's, now closed, and wondered if the staff had MAs in Social Work.

I told my friend a story at lunch about something I'd seen on a CBC nature show Sunday evening. I don't usually watch nature shows but TVO had something involved on and I was working on curtains for our bedroom so just had the tv on for a bit of company. Anyway, at one point I turned to see a herd of wildebeest getting set to cross a fast flowing river filled with hungry alligators. Almost to the other side a baby wildebeest got caught in the current. Its mother tried her damnedest to save it but eventually she had to let it go to save herself. The baby drowned and was eaten by an alligator. The mother, safe on the other side, looked back at the river, but her baby was gone. Then she turned away to rejoin with the herd.

It broke my heart seeing it, broke my heart telling the story at lunch, is breaking my heart typing it out now. So I remind myself, mother alligators have to eat too. Perhaps the mother wildebeest will go on to have another baby, that one older and stronger when it comes time to cross the river again.

My mother always thought I was upsetting myself on purpose by caring about the world. She didn't concern herself with it and so didn't understand why I did. I get her point of view, sometimes I wish I had it myself, but she honestly, I think, didn't get mine. It wouldn't have made any sense to her, empathizing with a mother wildebeest.

Maybe a therapist would say it's not really about the wildebeest.

I don't think I'm being unfair to my mother here. I wonder if there aren't a lot of people who grew up as she did who don't concern themselves with the world outside their chosen parameters. Certainly I grew up in very different circumstances than she did, part of a post-war baby boom of relative affluence, challenging authority, breaking down barriers to create a more egalitarian society.

Maybe we just have more caring to spare.

For years I could run on empty, trust my body to tough it out. Now my body says no, the title of a now famous book by Gabor Mate, "When the Body Says No", which is really an indictment of our society and how we're being made to live in it, as is, "The Myth of Normal".

Anyway, this all started after the Freedom Convoy took over our downtown, the nausea and vomiting, and I think it's connected but I don't know. I'm certainly feeling the effects of Russia's destruction of Ukraine and Israel's destruction of Gaza, where civil order has broken down. I almost want the Freedom Convoy to come back and try again so I can show up to physically fight back, see if that slays this dragon.

Thanks for reading.

Sunday, March 10, 2024

Spring Forward

It's been an unsettling winter here in Ottawa. Half as much snow as last year. Mild. Grey skies.

Yesterday, Saturday, we had cold rain.

The winter haters love it, but I've missed the cold and the snow. It's really messed with my identity as a Canadian. Thrown me off my timeline, too. I feel like I only just stopped riding my bike to the pond for a swim. And I'm already stressed about the coming forest fire season out West. And East. And Central. And North. Last summer there were a couple of days I didn't even ride my bike to the pond, the air quality was so bad here in Ottawa. Other days I did, anyway.

I was in Las Vegas in August once and I couldn't believe people actually live there. I could feel the moisture being sucked out of my body every time I stepped outside, like walking around a 400 degree oven. Inside was worse. Dank and moldy. I got dysentery in Las Vegas, like I got dysentery in Mexico, like I got dysentery in Venezuela.

Americans terrify me. So in love with the afterlife they ignore the real one.

But I'm working on live and let live, putting aside ego when I catch it getting in my way, reminding myself over and over and over again: It's not all up to me. And if Poilievre is elected Prime Minister and tries to steal the Canada Pension Plan I'll take it to the mat then.

She's a complete fucking loon but we should thank Danielle Smith for giving us all a heads up because the only reason Pierre Poilievre is pretending not to support Alberta taking its cut now is because his fascist sugar daddies expect him to deliver the whole enchilada to them later.

Not your gramps' Conservatives.


Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Girdin' Me Loins

I was feeling too responsible again yesterday, the fate of the country resting on my shoulders because there was a federal by-election in the 905, and I'd seen on CBC who was getting out the vote.

The Conservatives won it in a landslide, 57% of 27% of eligible voters.

Taxes and tradition in the year of our Lord 2024.

Even accounting for the vote split between New Democrats, Liberals and Greens the Conservatives won.

I decided to not let it get me down, even though that odious little creep, Pierre Poilievre, will likely be elected Prime Minister in 2025.

He doesn't care about anybody or anything, so we'll all pay the price when he is, but that's democracy. He also wants to exact revenge on women, as lots of men do these days it seems, so it'll be a war on us, but there's always protesting in the streets.

I wonder if he'll just have us gunned down by his private police force?

Public police force?

The police have been dying to take the Freedom Convoy's public humiliation of them out on us and no doubt look back fondly on Stephen Harper's G20 when they could kettle and jail liberals like me for being in our public streets.

Journalists will be at risk unless they work for Post Media. Of course, CBC will be destroyed so I guess we'll have to depend on journalists from outside Canada to report on our government.

It's like a friend has always said, we're ten years behind the states in our politics, so welcome to our 2015 in 2025, sister and brother Canadians.

Of course, if Donald Trump is elected President again, we'll be right up to date with Poilievre in power here, won't we.

Americans could vote Donald Trump into the Presidency again even if he had to do his bloviating from a jail cell.

Andrew Scheer will vote for him, regardless. He loves Donald Trump.

Is it better or worse that Poilievre and not Scheer will be Prime Minister? What a hard choice that would be, eh?

Satan's Choice.

Anyway, I've given up on strategic voting advice. Who am I to advise someone else on how to vote, even whether to vote. The NDP doesn't want to win, and so won't, but it's hard to tell these days if the Liberals do or not, either. I don't really blame them, to tell you the truth. Politics is tiring. People are selfish and stupid.

Listening to their reasons for voting Conservative in yesterday's by-election they sounded exactly like Trump supporters.

Oh well, I expect the country's big enough to survive another round of Conservative hatred of liberal democracy, but I guess we'll see.