good for her.

so i found a lost wallet today;opened it to find a contact number to return it; owner is one 79 year old woman, very pleasant looking, placid, motherly even. rifling through cards, feeling self-conscious and invasive, but also thankful in this moment where i imagined being her being Freaked Right Out that her wallet was missing then coming home to a message that someone had found it and was guarding it (how wonderful would that be)...and then, amongst health card and two different hospital id cards, i came upon a business card for good for her.
that SO made my day.

the issue of anonymity.

Barker mentioned to me over brekkie that he knew a way to prohibit anonymous commenters on this blog, but alas, i can't find it. this is an entreaty...Barker or any other Geeks out there, can you impart me this wisdom?

stop thinking stop thinking stop thinking.

i'm addressing this mantra to the end of every sentence inside my mind, for the next couple of weeks, to see if i can ease the strain of overheating and general inability to just enjoy.
sigh.
perhaps inhaling paint fumes from my new little home will help.

and once again, the Decision...

is to do all the things in my life right now, which are pretty Great, without THINKING so MUCH about them. GAH.

it's odd. i believe truly and strongly that the one thing that separates us from animals is our ability to consider our actions (and their effects on other people), but i think my brain not only has gone Completely Haywire in that department, but is shooting itself in the proverbial foot, 'coz the other people in question just have to listen to this play-by-play of my selfish/selfless conflicting attempts at clarity.

even that sentence was Completely Unfathomable! I'm a NUTTER!

SUNDRY COMMENTS.

it is of course true that the greatest thing about this blog is its interactive nature. i spent years scribbling furiously in books, in the hopes that someday someone might read my great and fascinating (har har) memoirs and have something (anything) to say about them. be affected in some way.
but i cannot fathom peoples' anonymous comments that have nothing to do with the postings at hand. i do appreciate the comment, inasmuch as it's an attempt to share something with me, but the complete irrelevance drives me batty. i must confess, blogging is the one pseudo-sequential thing i have in my life, if only via chronology and subject matter. gods know my conversational skills cannot boast the same talent. please respect this.
there are moments, of course, like the last 10 days, stuck inside my computer with no home phone, that i Truly appreciate my fellow addicts and this viable platform for expedient communication. but to those of you anonymous commenters out there who add vague comments about baked goods and good bands and such, please, i DO appreciate them, but there must be a more apt venue. like direct email. or (Gods forbid) in PERSON!?!?!
perhaps i'm being mean.
how 'bout we leave this particular posting as the SUNDRY COMMENTS post. i'll add a link at the side of my page later on, and all sundry comments can go here, for those of you for whom email is not (??) an option. if you are just looking for some sort of communicative attention, this is your ticket as well (although I must remind you this is Not human communication. all i am in these words is pixels on a screen.)
for those of you doing your own navel-gazing and might be misled into thinking that anonymous comments are the same as comunicating with me, my suggestion is starting your own blog by clicking expediently in the top left corner of this page. then email me the link.

the soccer mom beneath my pillow.

Rebecca brought up this fascinating notion that 'til you're actually settled in a new home, it is quite possible that you could be having the previous tenant's dreams.
this must be the case, because, sweet balls of jesus, last night i dreamt i was a soccer mom.
but it wasn't as simple as that, dear reader(s). in my dream, i was taking care of someone else's baby (as soccer moms do) and suddenly it was time to pick junior up from school, when i realized i didn't know whose baby i was taking care of. they definitely weren't back to pick him up, though, and nary a phone call either. every time i opened the front door he started a fresh volley of terrified screaming, which left me no recourse but to sit inside the house and wait.
so here i am with this screaming infant and my beloved (ha!) junior waiting at pre-school, and then i started having this split-screen dream where junior decided to walk home and i saw him dodging cars in my brain while i stood at the window holding this tot and feeling helpless and irresponsible, not having a clue who he belonged to, only that he had peed on my arm and my patience was waning.

well, a small solace: any junior of mine would be well versed in traffic dodging...

was it tron?

where the guy somehow finds himself trapped inside his computer?
is this my retribution for being so bloggey?
4.5 hours late and a 40 minute wait on a pay phone before i get a human being in internet hookup-ville.
who thanked me for not yelling at him after i told him the situation...which i admired myself for as well, 'til i realized i've been Broken.
i've been Broken by corporate communications, i am now UTTERLY apathetic to whatever may happen in my world of communication technology.
i'm going to the goodwill to find myself a bullhorn. (but with my lungs, perhaps i don't even need one?)

so finally this bumbling mofo shows up and the internet is working...one would thinnkk....'xcept i can't send out email.
via mail program OR server.
all my responses to eager addicts and work people alike are trapped inside this computer.
i can practically see myself smushed against the screen (from the inside) trying to be heard.
how very very tragic.
who knows if this posting will even work?

if it does, thank you most kindly and gratefully, Miss Rebecca, and how 'bout brunch on the weekend, Barker? you should be able to shoot a paper airplane message through my window...

perhaps one day i will be able to send out personal messages of care and concern to both of you and everyone one day...onnnneee ddayyyy....

now you may be wondering, dear reader(s)...

where have i been for the last couple of days? perhaps enjoying life in the west end in my glorious new apartment, amidst the rubble and the boxes and the expired anxiety?
well, kind of.
alas, the fascists at Bell had Rebecca and I plotting revolution from our office chairs the other day, trying to sort out our respective apartment phone line situations whilst maintaining our Brickly duties.
By the end of the day she proposed taking to the streets with twine and paper cups as a more viable option to the corporate communication iniquities; it seems that i will be without phone 'til July 13, and without internet 'til (fingers crossed) tomorrow.
as for now, i'm sneaking these pithy remarks into the end of my working day, and wondering what my biographer will think of these sundries years from now. it will indeed be a fascinating sociological experiment on my tiny brain, to be sure, but this is why i have been blogless as well.
just you wait tho'...i'll be back with a vengeance.
tomorrow? the day after? i'll leave you waiting with bated breath. (or bad breath, as the case may be...)

my latest claim to fame.

Rebecca told me today that some uppity sort had once said he was the only man on earth to have read Ulysses twice.
HA.
i'm sorry to disappoint, good sir (whoever you are), but i Too, have read Joyce's brilliant work of literary excess twice.
of course, it's been so long ago now, that were i in some life-threatening predicament where i would have to prove this fact, i would most likely die like a dog.
but i do Insist on claiming joint ownership to that Weighty assertion. somehow it gives intellectual weight to my geek-dom.

hmm. perhaps i'm the first female person on earth to have read Ulysses twice?
perhaps there are many of us out there? closeted sorts, who are hesitant to admit to this? perhaps there should be a support group?

I hereby send out the call, to those of you who have read Ulysses more than once, may you step forth into the blog-light, and be acknowledged in your full glory!

and to those of you awaiting trousers...

fret not! I have two new chapters on the way, the irascible Willow Dawson, and the gloriously ephemeral Kari Minchin both just sent me some Glorious photos from their respective vacation places in BC. patience, dear readers, patience. more astonishing stef-made garments and their exotic adventures to follow...

ok, i give in.

I've lost my interest in blogpatrol of late, mostly 'coz one of my more clever readers thinks it's funny to taint my google subject matter with stef-blog-specific searches. (like names of my friends all mixed together + the word nudity or some such pap)
Which, to me anyhow, makes it less of an interesting insight into the googling world, and more about some trickster determined to get a laugh. And it really gets on my nerves, to be honest. one mustn't ignore my obvious tendency to get quickly annoyed with people making fun of me (I'm still a recovering 11 year old outcast, keep this in mind.)

however, in this instance, i give in. i don't know if this is my googling blog-trickster-genius, or a real google search, but in case it's real, let's face it, it's a Great one. someone typed the following words into google to see what would come up, and wouldn't you know it, they arrived here: "aimless walking around before you get up can't sleep television addict think you are unattractive fascination with wars"

oh yes, and to the person who commented (on a posting far far away from this one, which they probably got to by googling "Igor toronto stolen bikes", which was recorded on Saturday)... about their brand new Kona getting stolen this Saturday from in front of the reference library, I am not only Utterly and Totally Sympathetic, but somewhat horrified, since I myself spent much of this very Saturday at the reference library myself, so this must well have happened as i sat inside drawing weird clowns and whatnot from the picture collection. It is indeed a Weird and Small and potentially evil world.
I don't have Igor specific advice for you, dear bike-theft-victim, except to be MERCILESS. go in, find the bike, bring a cell phone and call the cops, and DON'T LEAVE THE STORE until you walk out with said bike. Best of Luck.

"hellth care" (sic) in Canada.

well. i sat in a waiting room for over an hour today, only to have a FEMALE doctor tell me that women are CURSED TO ENDURE PAIN AND SHOULDN'T BE QUESTIONING IT (her words) and basically i should just Suck it up that I've been experiencing (coming and going) fever, vertigo, passing out (okay, only once) and some invisible entity that is insisting as of late on ripping my innards apart, ovulating or not, all month long.
she told me (i KID YOU NOT) to just take some advil.
perhaps most people don't think this is Completely Fucking outrageous.
i mean this is the sort of prognosis I would expect from a male doctor of course (sorry guys), that sympathetic expression that males have to put on, 'coz the dear things don't know what the hell is going on in there or what it feels like, despite what their textbooks (or girlfriends) might tell them.
but it can't be that bad, they think, or they would call it cancer or something.

But to have a woman say to me that we're meant to be in pain, and just because something is painful doesn't mean there is anything wrong (her words again), and then refuse to examine the problem further, is to me an example of Iredeemable INSANITY.

of course, you can call me histrionic, you wouldn't be the first. Gah.

Essays in Love: Alain de Botton.

"Seeing through people is so easy, and it gets you nowhere."...
May we not therefore fall in love partly out of a momentary will to suspend seeing through people, even at the cost of blinding ourselves a little to the process?"

Mr. de Botton, i Love you. even the second (third?) time around.

fire.

you know, it's not alot of people who can say they set their ass on fire (for about 2.8 seconds) in the middle of Kensington Market on a Sunday night in June.
not alot.

i must never forget i am among the privileged.

nostalgia #4038.

clown.

evil.

in a conversation a few weeks ago, i stated my theory that evil=indifference. that they are synonyms. this theory was countered with the idea that there might be people in the world who don't have enough feeling, literally the way some people have weak muscles, iron deficiencies, gamey legs, some people don't physiologically have enough feeling to handle certain things about life, to feel about life.

i've modified my theory. i believe that evil, and its associated degrees of demonics, is a lack of accountability.
akin to indifference, no accountability means no concern.

no concern gives one the freedom to do whatever one wants, regardless of consequence.
this to me is (literally)inhuman behaviour.
the one thing that separates us from animals is the ability to think about what we do, to consider it, to note its effect on others, to act with compassion, etc. etc.

let's face it, we're all doing stupid shit. but there is an increasing permissiveness in the world; allowing people to act without accountability. emotionally, financially, physically, whatever. it is getting easier and easier for people to find excuses not to be responsible for their behaviour.

i find this Intensely Discouraging.

Self: final thoughts.

well, i had been disparaging, somewhat nonplused, enjoying the novel but not moved by it. i thought to myself, there are a lot of unnecessary thoughts in this book. if i want unnecessary thoughts i can get these in my own brain.
and then, on page 285, about 25 pages before the end of the book, Mister Martel placed a shotgun to my temple and pulled the trigger.

i stand corrected.

JP and trousers in front of weighty german cultural institution.

and again, in front of the Kunstmuseum in Stuttgart. what form! what aplomb! what Trousers!

the adventures of stef lenk's astonishing trousers: chapter 2.

JP on Königstrasse: these pics hail from my ancestral town of Stuttgart, Deutschland, where my fine stef-made trousers see my friend John Patrick through his morning espresso.