Odin's day

Bush for another term. Two quotes by others:

Virgil, as ever, has it down: "Dis aliter visum."

And Davie Bowie: "Look at those cavemen go."


So last night I headed downtown to hook up with Rickets and see a movie. Unfortunately, the computer that controls the Waterfront to Nanaimo section of the SkyTrain decided to surf porn for four hours, bringing twentyfive percent of the system to a screeching halt. Bah.

On the other hand, even though that meant extra crowding on the infrequent remaining trains, I got to get off at Commercial and ride the bus along Broadway to Granville, so that I could catch a bus down Granville which is where I was trying to get. I love this corner. I got out, and the smells, the lights, the people... all of it was just great. I don't know what I like about this area, but like it I do. If I'd had a longer wait and it was a bit colder, I'd have gone into Big News and got a chai, just for old times sake. I don't even drink chai lattes anymore.

Anyhoo, caught my bus downtown, hoofed a few blocks up Davie (also my old neighbourhood) towards Ricket's place. Ah, the puffs of smell coming out of the places on Davie! Fried this and garlic that. Mmmmm, wish I had a big stomach and a hedonistic nature. ;)

Grabbed some Barq's and headed up to watch the John Stewart election night special. It was okay, but without his monologue the whole thing was just...

Didn't go to a movie, but got to play a bit of Fable. It's okay, I didn't really feel immersed in it enough to offer any sort of real opinion, and I didn't get far enough to be able to rate it.

Spent the night as it got late and I'd had only a couple of hours sleep, and Rickets is a lightweight anyway. Woke up and played some more Fable. Then Rickets had a meeting to go to, so I headed off to see my movie.

On the way, as I was crossing a street, I heard some sobbing. I cunningly used the reflections in my glasses to determine who it was without craning my head around. I saw a young woman walking and holding her stomach. She was walking away (same direction as me, of course) from a local hospital, so for some reason I thought maybe she'd just had an abortion. Go fig.

After walking for about a block like that, and hearing her cry the whole time, I glanced in the reflection of some shops. She wasn't holding her stomach anymore, so I turned and asked if she was okay, and if I could help her.

With an accent that I couldn't nail at first, she told me that she needed to talk to her mother, and held up her cell phone. Assuming that she'd run out of juice or minutes, I offered her my phone. She said no, that it was long distance. I asked her where.

"Switzerland."

Ah.

I asked if it was important, and she indicated that it was. Seeing that we were next to a convenience store, I said "Let's get you a phone card then." She didn't seem to understand, and didn't go in when I held the door, so I went in and said "Come on." She followed.

I asked the guy behind the counter if they sold phone cards, he said they did. I told him she need to call Switzerland. He pulled out one and said it was a good card. Five dollars it was. I must have looked skeptical, because he hastened to tell me that to Switzerland you got a rate of five cents a minute. Wow, that's an hour for five bucks!

I asked her if that was enough time, and she seemed befuddled. So I sprang for the ten dollar card. As I was running late for the movie, I asked the guy behind the counter if he could explain how it worked to her. He said he would, and I wished her well. She still didn't seem to be in total understanding of what was going on, but she said thanks at least. I wonder if she knows that she speaks in French at least half of the time? I was surprised that I appeared to understand it easily. Perhaps high school isn't as far behind me as I thought. ;)

Ghost in the Shell: Innocence. I liked it.

It had a very different feel from the first movie, but since it didn't fill in any of the backstory or set the scene for the world as it is, there was more time for the story. I think.

Vaguely like a Tarrantino movie, GitS: Innocence has the majority of the characters speaking in highly stylized dialogue, with many conversations consisting of nothing but quotes. However, this isn't as bad as it sounds.

The visuals are beautiful. There's a weird juxtaposition of drawn, animated, matte, and computer generated graphics, but it all somehow works.

There's a great action scene in a bar too. ;)


Now, I'm currently pissed off. But not at something that was done to me. Weird, huh? Here's why:

I have friends. Yes, we've drifted geographically over the years, and with that comes some distance, but I think that by and large if we met somewhere, it would be with as much familiarity and like as we ever had.

Now... one of my friends had a girlfriend a few years back that I didn't like. I thought that her very aura caused problems. Certainly I didn't want to be around him when she was there, and she was there a lot. Ah well, you adapt.

But even though I didn't like her, and he obviously did, that didn't make me dislike him. Even though he'd chosen her, and even though he wanted to be with her, that didn't make me like him any less, or think badly of him. I'd like to think that most of my friends are of a similar mind.

Then you try a similar example with family. Family you don't get to choose. So why should you be judged by an outsider based on something a family member does?

I'm nearly thirty two years old. My family doesn't have a lot of influence over what I think or do. That's not a brag, just a statement of how it is. So if my mom has a strict Roman Catholic friend (made-up example, this isn't rooted in any actual facts that I'm aware of) who find out that I'm "living in sin" with a girlfriend, wouldn't it be odd that my doing so would reflect badly on my mom? My mom didn't have anything to do with it, and doesn't have the kind of influence it would take to make me change my life around her friend. So?

And how much validity should I give to my mom's friend's feelings?

Now pretend that this friend gives my mom grief over it every time they talk/visit. While people are entitled to their own opinions, obviously I'm not keen on how this friend cuts my mom over me.

Now pretend that the friend invites my whole family out for dinner or tea or something. I'm already predisposed to not like this friend very much, because of the demonstrated shit that she does. I have no personal interest in spending any time with her. To not go would make my mom look bad to this judgemental woman.

I'm not an especially social person in the first place. I'm way more of a hermit than those around me. I'm pretty comfortable with this. My social graces are somewhat lacking too. At a party I'd be the wallflower, but not (entirely) out of shyness. To go to dinner with this person who's already riding my mom, and know that my performance at dinner is going to affect whether the treatment gets any worse or not, and being inclined to not be shy about my dislike, what am I to do? Go or not go?

Both have their perils. To not go offends the friend, resulting in worse treatment for mom. To go and do a poor job (and to not even be sure of just what criteria I'd be judged on, assuming I could act) risks even worse treatment for mom later. That assumes I'd be willing to indulge this person's whims, which I really dislike, even though they're not directed at me.

So let's see, bad for mom if I don't go, worse for mom if I go and rate poorly. I'm enough of a screwup in real life that I can't imagine doing a good job at dinner even if I try my hardest.

Plus, I'm predisposed to dislike the person. Think I can hide that? I don't.

It would be a good time for me to pull a week's worth of 24-hour shifts, or injure myself badly, eh? :)

As it stands now, I'm not inclined to go. Mostly because I don't want to, but there is that factor of being a piss-poor actor and not wanting to make it worse.

While I'm far too ignorant to judge any culture, society, religion or philosophy objectively, I'm a product of what I've been exposed to. With that in mind, I don't like having to indulge someone that would judge someone on something they have no influence over. That (to me) is like being apologetic for living on the coast to someone that doesn't sailors.

Okay, rant over for this installment. Looking back over what I wrote, it's a mess. And to repeat: as far as I'm aware, mom doesn't have a Roman Catholic friend that objects to me living with a girlfriend. (Which I'm not doing, btw) ;)

Oh, and for anybody who's still puzzling over the Latin at the top of this entry, it means "the gods declared otherwise". :)