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Sunday, a delicious ly-in, the weather outside - well, cold, rainy, etc.
Wake up, arrange the "Studio", begin my experiments. They fail, which is why I'm doing them, a couple hours of putzing around to no effect, but I'm quick enough to wipe down the boards, need to arrange myself a little better and try again.
A bite of lunch, as I've been using the sink to wash away my paints I content myself with a Festive Shrimp Ring.
Work, peaceful, then, around 7:00 I begin to feel it. Stomach, off, cold, fever, hot, chills, smashing headache, an ague. I have one table, property developers of the "Hell-No" Nelson variety, talking, not eating, they're going nowhere.
And I'm getting worse. My back, tight lines across my lower back, painful, like I'm being stretched, my stomach...
I'm done, I make it to 9:00, 2 hours later and this table, they're looking a little upset I'm throwing them out, but damn...
Home, bed. I die. All night the ague, fever, chills, cold sweats, was it the Shrimp Ring? Or the sausages the day before? I don't know. Fever dreams, of nothing, cardboard, seeds from ash-trees, nothing substantive, disappearing. I'm half thinking - the pounding head, shortness of breath, strange pains in my back, that I'm in anaphylactic shock, it's the dose that makes the poison, after all...
Monday, day off, the same. I wake around 8:00, survive long enough to get a haircut, then home to bed. All day. I wake, briefly, try and read, give up, back to bed. The same dreams, of cardboard, of garbage, fleeting, there's nothing...
I wake, make a giant chicken soup, eat it, back to bed.
In the evening, better enough that I walk over to friends, sprawl on her sofa, watch TV, inane Netflix, I've discovered it's purpose.
Then home again, today, better, somewhat, I could go to bed again, but 28 hours sleep in the last 36, well, it better be enough, today's my long one.
If I weren't so close to death I'd chat a bit more, but, well, not now, not today.
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I had forgotten, then saw a handbill up advertising it and headed up...
Hope against hope, reading Cendrars and Bloch have given me a whole pile of other books and authors I want to read.
This, of course, doesn't happen, but the Library Book Sale, well, it has everything else. Books on self help, grieving, potboilers, divorce, best-sellers, sections on the Titanic (a legitimate topic if so much of it weren't inspired by that insipid movie), history, War, Governer-General Awards, Timothy Findley, Margaret Atwood, the usual suspects, NY Times Recommendations, the Guardians Best Books, books of recipes, a veritable library of art books, covering every artist, style, technique, medium..., books on religion, spirituality, relationships, science fiction,
I really don't need more books, but at $2 each I can't resist. A handful to tide me over until the midnight order of Cendrars begins trickling in, another month before I break down and search out some more targeted reading...
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Today, again rainy, foggy, wet, how many days now? My nose starts pouring from the moment I step outside. Morning, get groceries, then the bus-stop, to Balfour, to hunt arrowheads, all this rain must have turned up something new ...
Cash is there, the Mother-in-Law's brother from the last restaurant, holding his dog. It's a cute dog.
We're catching up, he likes rocks, knows a few things, has ideas, about rubies, sapphires, etc, that he's found, local, only - well, he's unfortunately a junkie. Which is not a slur but it does somewhat mean you got to put things into context a bit.
But we're talking and he's realizing the importance of getting off the junk, just got subsidized housing up lake, wants to make some changes, it doesn't get him high anymore, does nothing for him, and fuck, the amount he needs, his prescription, it'd kill 10 people...
I know what he's talking about. It takes me a mickey to get sober, pass for sober, fuck how well do I know.
SO we chat, bus comes, I confirm a bus will be returning (because damned if on this cold and rainy day I want to be trapped up lake for hours and hours on end).
I was right. The wash-out has grown, some large flakes/scrapers/micro-blades, and further up the shore a couple of scrapers, (maybe, hard to tell, odd bits of stone regardless), and a couple of rude arrowheads.
From loonie, left - a scraper, (I think, oddly shaved to a sharp edge from both sides, bilateral), above left, oddly shaped rock out of some sort of tourmalinated schist, oddly shaped and out of place on a washout. Above loonie, arrowhead, hard to see but to handle it becomes obvious, knapped both sides to a symmetrical point, otherwise mostly debitage, a couple of "micro-blades" (or debitage, again), and to the right, a carefully worked flint, dark grey, knapped both sides, almost as if it were an arrowhead that lost it's head, then got repurposed.
So, given the rain and chilly day, my nose draining me perpetually, no box of Kleenex could keep up, my bag filling with water, not at all unsuccessful, given my last day out there a positive victory, the rain, despite running off my nose, jacket, hands, despite freezing to death and getting soaked through and through, if you keep on looking you'll keep on finding.
Worth noting, while most of the rocks above would be invisible in any other setting, but the distinctive green/grey of the Kootenay Argillite does stand out in the fog and the rain. it's obvious, the paler examples especially. The scrapers on the left, well, that's just intuition, for once not discarded....
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Grey clouds lowering on the mountains, rain, rain, dismal leaves crushed under foot, the blackened silhouettes etched onto the sidewalk, and the rain, non-stop, snow visible but not into the valleys yet.
Yesterday, at Save-On foods, a case of Hari-Kari, someone, an unidentified male, used their washroom, came out with his neck sliced open, a proper bloodbath, no updates, only severely injured, self-inflicted, witnesses are recommended counselling, this weather, government, age, it would do it. I'm curious as to who it is, was, someone no doubt on the peripheries of acquaintance, everyone here is.
Rain, rain, and when I let myself indoors it continues, the pitter-pat of my nose dripping everywhere, a terminal cold, I've become an extension of the clouds that cold-sweat buckets on the street, forever a Kleenex, tissue, scrap of toilet paper or napkin wiping my nose, drip, drip, drip...
Yesterday morning, a train derailment, blocking all access to the mall. I had no need to go, just news.
And today, setting about on my second round of errands and the power goes out. All over town, 45 minutes, then it's back up.
The news, I've gotten quicker, I just get the gist, we're in trouble, everyone, global stability, it's all done, the end game is being played out. The appointments, cronies and kleptocrats, experts in nothing but their own self-enrichment, whenever things can't get any worse they invariably do, I'm dropping the news by and largely from my list of things to do, catch-up upon, there's no good news at the moment, only bad news and irrelevant news, and - worst of all, with the right leader (not Poilievre, not Trudeau) we could be not only prospering but flourishing, per capita we're the richest country on earth second only to Australia, we only need clear vision, governance, leadership, a plan...
Stop importing minimum wage-paid slaves, cheap foreign labour, instead import experts, engineers, begin the industries wherein we can become self-sufficient, produce our own consumer goods, recycle, innovate, to hell with all the lowly service jobs lets get started on the ownership and fair distribution of our own resources, we could, should be a model to other countries...
Instead, well, instead, the news down south is as terrifying to us as it is to them.
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The end of the world, delivered to your door in a cardboard box, courtesy of Amazon.
Not that I'd in any way support them, but having a list of supplies I needed before I could get underway on some bigger painting projects, and having had no luck sourcing them in town, I turned to Amazon. .Com as I'd forgotten my .Ca password.
And - my god, if they didn't deliver everything I ordered in 2 days. From the US, to my door.
To compare, all the books I've been reading, most of which didn't arrive for 2 weeks, some as many as 5, well, - Amazon - all things aside - and they shouldn't be put aside, enough with the billionaires already, off with their heads, but bloody hell are they efficient.
So, supplies garnered, to Dollarama to buy up a big stock of cheap disposable paints - I have some ideas, that before I waste quality paint and canvas on I want to first experiment with cheaper mediums. Before committing to the big guns, maybe a hundred dollars to figure out what I'm doing will save (the theory goes, at least) a few hundred dollars in painful mistakes.
I'm counting on this to buy my jeep for next spring, on Facebook Marketplace I've seen a few for sale, of interest, on old Mercedes (SUV Jeep Style) that'd be perfect, only I'm about 30K short. The helicopter, well, that sold pretty quick but who knows, maybe by spring there will be another?
The living room fills with garbage and it's time now - today, after my volunteer shift, to start mixing up colours and begin the experiments.
Outside, the last of the fall colours peeling from the trees, the fog hangs lowering on the mountains, grey and rain, giant ravens circle the parking lot, no reason now not to get this underway...