moby's dick

Get it?




But seriously, the whole thing was really cool and sad and beautiful and stinky. (hello, four day old dead whale...ew.) So basically, for those of you not in the know, this juvenile whale washed ashore at a park sorta near where I live. From the info I can gather it died from a combination of starvation, a wind storm and an orca attack. (why does my spell check not recognize 'orca'?) Rough couple of days, for mister teenage whale, yo.

So we went to see it on Wednesday afternoon.

We used this opportunity to talk about death with the children.

Exhibit A:

Ryan: Be respectful, remember this whale was once alive and swimming in the ocean.

Me: And it's gonna stink. It's a giant dead body!

Exhibit B:

Kid1: What's that green thing in it's mouth?

Me: Its tongue.

Kid1: Why's it green?

Me: I dunno, like, bacteria or something. That's what happens to dead things. They get all rotten.

Kid1: Maybe my tongue will turn green when I die.

Me: Yeah, probably.

---

Here are some pictures, because I know how much you all love dead animals.

Warning: sad and gross photos ahead with some blood and weird square holes for some reason (?) (you'll see)








And I'll be honest; as much as I make jokes and talk about its penis, it was really awful to imagine this whale alive just four days previous. It was a privilege to be able to see it, and ... well this photo makes me feel sad, but at the same time, isn't there something telling about it? I don't know. Like maybe there is a bit of expression left on this whale's face.


I'm super lucky to have seen this.

It was amazing.
:)

I WANT TO SEE IT

so is it weird that I'm dying to go see the beached (dead) grey whale that's out in Sooke?

I've been begging Ryan to take me ever since I found out it was there

zombocat and progress update

Okay well after a crisis around 2pm today where I realized I had wasted around six hours putting together a research paper for my 20th century Latin American Literature class on Jose Marti ... who did not live during the 20th century.

Yeah. It dawned on me after having basically read and typed up his biography like 40 million times.

Wait a minute, is that a nineteenth century date? Hmmm DAMNIT!

Luckily I was alone in the house so the only guy who had to hear any swearing was the kitty and she was like RAAH I'm a zombie because it's easter and that's some hilarious topical humor!

Entertaining, right?

So anyway now I'm just putting the finishing touches on an analysis of a rad story that I'm so glad I got to read. It's called Chac Mool, by Carlos Fuentes. First, CLICK HERE to find out what a Chac Mool is if you don't know, or you'll be like "what the eff is going on?", then CLICK HERE to read the English translation of the story. It's not the best translation ever but you'll get the point.

So anyway yay me, you know, for doing that, but I just finished this paper and it's ten at night and I have like 100 hours of crap still to do by tomorrow afternoon and I'm totally freaking out up in here.

AAAGH

~fin~

Easter Weekend

"good" Friday:

Woke up. Fell out of bed. Dragged a comb acro....oh wait, no, that was the Beatles. I woke up, did my standard blog reading/facebook checking/coffee sipping routine. And then started sifting through the (literally) thousands of pages of info I had downloaded over the previous week for this one paper I'm severely stressed about.

Went to the pet store with Ryan because we needed cat food and I needed a break. Ryan bought cat one of those carpeted house thingys, and it was very exciting because she totally loves it.

Spent the rest of the night listening to a crazy wind storm and working on three separate papers and spending way too much time on my various social media sites.

"non-religious holiday" Saturday:

Seriously...lame. Ryan slept until noon, I worked on things until he got up. On the computer ALL DAY. He watched like 3 seasons of The Wire, which I tuned in and out of.
Around nine at night we went for a walk to the Tim Hortons down the street to get him a pre-work (gross) coffee.
Back home, more work. Bed at eleven.

"Easter" Sunday:

Got up around seven, fooled around for hours. Ryan got up around eleven thanks to the neighbor boy playing with his yappy dog directly outside the bedroom window. He watched The Wire all day and I'm having trouble distinguishing that day from the Saturday except I was wearing different sweatpants and I figured out that my bangs are finally long enough to pin back.

I did more research stuff.

He made vegan "corned beef" which is so good in a rye-bread sandwich with sauerkraut.

Work work work bed

And today, Monday, I don't feel any closer to being ready for tomorrow, in which I submit one paper, and present my research in front of the class in one, and have a class discussion about how the other one is going (complete with fancy typed up outline)...AAAAAAAAAGH

________________

For those of you who went to school in the time before the internet, this is how I do things.

Supplies:

1.Internet connection.
2.Computer
3.Maybe like one book that I already had at home
4.Print card for school computer lab
5.Coffee
6.a 4-day weekend

Research method:

1. Scan all the PDF files I downloaded from the school's online library with my eyeballs, and see if any of the key concepts I'm looking for jump out at me. If they do, I don't delete the file. If it's irrelevant, DELETE.

2. Copy and paste the text from the remaining PDF files into a word document and then meticulously delete everything that is irrelevant, being sure to keep track of who was the author of what, for future citations.

3. Cut and paste info into groupings depending on subject matter. Usually by this time I have changed the colors or fonts so that I can easily keep track of who wrote what. For example, the red font was all written by the same person, the comic sans was another guy, etc.

4. Re-read info, and begin writing paper in sections.

5. Cut and paste sections of paper into one long crappy rough draft that makes no sense.

6. Go over rough draft and try to figure out how to make it sound awesome, and figure out how to make it lead to the point I was trying to get at in the first place.

7. Make sure I didn't accidentally violate copyright laws.

8. Make the sentences flow nicely together.

9. Write intro. By this time I'm soooo sick of looking at the stupid thing.

10. Write conclusion.

11. Spell check like a motherfucker.

12. Go over again, making sure it really does make sense.

13. Walk away.

14. Come back.

15. Re-write large chunks of the text because they sound totally stupid.

16. Go to website that reminds me how to write works cited list in MLA format.

17. Read website, and realize that I did my in-text citations wrong. Fix them.

18. Do Works Cited page, which takes like an hour longer than I thought it would because they're so particular about where the comma and brackets go.

19. Put paper away for a while.

20. Come back to it, read it and totally hate it.

21. Fix a few more grammatical errors that I somehow missed the first 80 times.

22. Put it away. E-mail it to myself and tell myself it's done.

23. Print it at school, hand it in. Tell myself it's not the best I could do but it's good enough, and I just want to pass the stupid class.

24. CELEBRATE!

the day I knew I was a grown-up

I was ten or eleven years old and lived with my (divorced) single mom and my younger brother (who would have been seven-ish) and my sister (who would have been around five).

I knew the truth about the Easter bunny. And Santa Claus. And the Tooth Fairy.

In fact, I'm pretty sure I had known it for a few years by then because I was well-versed in the Easter routine: after the 'little kids' went to bed there was the super fun chore of hiding frilly baskets full of that rustly Easter-grass crap and candy, and making trails of candy to make them easy to find (thus eliminating any Easter morning frustration for the youngest child). And lastly, hiding any evidence (i.e. packaging) of the elaborate holiday ruse.

I woke up with the sunrise on this particular Easter morning. My brother and sister were still asleep.
My mom was also sleeping.

I tiptoed around from room to room, checking. I had to be sure because I wanted to sneak some early morning candy before breakfast(and before anybody was awake to tell me "no").

My mom was actually snoring. She had been out the night before and I didn't want to wake her up because she got home kind of late. Like, super late. Even after I had fallen asleep, which was like at ten at night. That's almost midnight!

I slowly sneaked down the stairs, being sure to walk on the edges of the steps to avoid any tell-tale creaks.

There were no candy trails to be found.

Hmm.

I began a fruitless search behind couches and under blankets. Nothing. My state of alarm rose as I searched behind the T.V. I even looked in the kitchen cupboards and inside the fridge.

Still nothing. I couldn't believe how good of a hider my mom was!

I looked in the microwave, in the toilet tank, and then just stood in the middle of the living room, scanning the landscape with my eyes, searching for any obvious signs of camouflaged candy.

It then dawned on me that the unthinkable had happened: Mom had forgotten Easter!

I scurried back up the stairs into her room.

"Mom," I whispered.

No response.

"Maaaahhhhm"

"Hm?"

"Maaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhm"

"Hm? Whaa?"

"Maaahm, the Easter bunny never came"

It took a few seconds for this fact to dawn on her. "Uuuugh"

I realized that "maaahm" had had a few cocktails the night before and I could see in the pallor of her face that she was not feeling so hot.

"I can do it...if you want"

"Oh, hun. Thanks. Stuff's in the cupboard above the fridge." And she went back to sleep.

It was up to me to be the unsung hero of our home. But I had to hurry because the kids were going to be up soon.

I valiantly climbed onto the kitchen counter and pulled out dollar store baskets and packages of that retarded Easter grass. (Seriously, what is that stuff?) There were bags of tiny chocolate eggs and three large profiles of white-chocolate Easter bunnies. Hollow, each with just one pink sugar eye glaring out of the gaudy packaging.

Ew, white chocolate.

I threw everything together, found some amazing hiding places, (Under the kitchen table? GENIUS!) and saved Easter.

I went back to bed, shifting the covers noisily enough to wake the other kids up, and lay under the covers listening.

"It's EASTERRRRRR! THE EASTER BUNNY CAME!"
"CANDYYYYY!"

At the time I was so proud of myself and felt like the ultimate child that every parent would be proud to call their own. Today, looking back, I feel scandalized. What a traumatic moment that should have been.

But it wasn't. And honestly I'm still kind of proud of my ten year old self. Good job, me!