If you happen to be a subscriber to the Calgary Herald, you can read this. If you happen not to be a subscriber, well, they don't want your sort reading about me and my poetry adventures. And you thought the internet was a democracy, or at least an anarchy. Ha.

You can take my word for it that it was pretty cool: I got a CanWest-owned newspaper to print random lines of Stein, Kroetsch, Mullen et al., including "Lapwing is, improbably, the name of a bird. Titmouse. Goatsucker." from Robert Kroetsch's Excerpts from the Real World. Unfortunately I discovered that speaking intelligently off the cuff about why I like particular books of poetry is not my forte. Oh well, at least I take a half decent picture on very little sleep, no breakfast, no time to prepare and not necessarily having even brushed my hair (pictures in print version only).

I re-read Postmodernism for Beginners every couple of years, just so I can try to remember some of the things that I think I ought to know. It's a fun book to read, although I'm skeptical about how accurate its explanations can be, considering how much material it covers. The few pages that deal with theorists I actually do know something about (de Saussure, Barthes) just confuse me, and that makes me wonder about the sections on modernism and post-modernism in visual art, which seem concise and condensed enough for me to grasp: a good sign that something important is being left out. Nevertheless, it's a great book to steamroll through, letting the names of artists, philosophers, theorists pile up and blur, ending up with a vague sense of discombobulation and awe. Also, there are pictures.

My fortune at lunch the other day: You have a charming way with words. Write a letter this week.

Speaking of herring, I'm not a very good law student. In first year, we had an assignment to write a memorandum, which is basically an opinion written for a client stating their legal position. The prof gave us a legal scenario, then we had to research cases that deal with similar issues and analyze the similarities and differences between the facts of the cases and the hypothetical situation, and then reach a conclusion about the likely outcome of the case if it were to go to trial. The scenario my class got dealt with a contract between two businesses that one wanted out of, and the question was whether it had a right to break the contractual obligation without paying damages to the other business. It was a fairly wide open question in a well hashed over area of the law, so there were a lot of different cases applicable to the issue. I tried to choose cases to discuss based on their relevance, but I kept getting distracted by odd facts or words. One case in particular I relied on just so that I could write this:

...a poor fishing season and difficulties with packers were not sufficient to frustrate a contract to supply a specific amount of herring. The court ruled that although supplying the herring was more difficult and less profitable in the circumstances than the defendant had anticipated, its obligation to supply the herring was not significantly altered...

Is it fun to write about herring? Of course! Was that the point of the assignment? Probably not. Maybe it shows a healthy disregard for the educational system and its pedestrian methods of evaluation; after all, I doubt I'd be as easily distracted writing a memo for a real client. On the other hand, maybe I'm not cut out for law. I mean, who cares if a company has to pay money to another company? I don't. I guess I care more about how to draft a contract to avoid conflict, but once the conflict begins, I want no part of it. I also care more about individual's rights, especially when they come in conflict with the government, but that's more a vague sense of justice than a palpable engagement with the details.

Collected thoughts:

1. IKEA should have grocery stores everywhere. Elderberry flower juice is awesome; so are salted licorice fish and ginger cookies. Next time I'm trying loganberry juice, and maybe something involving herring.

2. Yoga is a great way to calm down and get in touch with your body. Going to a yoga studio downtown that only offers classes during rush hour (for the exquisitely lululemon-ed after-work crowd) and is conveniently situated on the corner of two one-way streets is somewhat less calming. After looking for a parking space for ten minutes, attempting then abandoning a parallel park over my left shoulder, and crossing and recrossing adjacent avenues with interminable and yet uncoordinated red lights, repeatedly screaming FUCK so loud my vocal cords do this weird vibration thing that feels like shredding about to snap -- however cathartic that may be -- indicates that I probably need more help calming down than yoga can provide.

3. The Calgary Fringe Festival has some brilliant theatre on offer, for just a few more days. I highly recommend Do You Bite Your Thumb At Me, Sir?

4. Theatre people are still annoying.

5. I'm so glad So You Think You Can Dance is finally over and I can get on with my life.

6. New tires make car go fast!

7. There's a sheesha bar in Calgary, they serve Arabic coffee, I just had some and it's midnight and I ran up three flights of stairs and now I'm typing! Neat!

There's nothing I love more than a good story about punctuation derailing a legal document: Comma quirk irks Rogers. Especially when the title internally rhymes.

I know that chapter I wrote in my thesis about punctuation will come in handy if anyone ever hires me to do legal work, I just know it.

...lead us on in barren mazes or midway leave us whelmed.
-- Herman Melville, Moby Dick

I have a pretty neat job. I’m writing grant proposals for a charity that trains people to take care of senior citizens with Alzheimer’s and other dementias. It’s not a cause I know a lot about or have ever thought about at all, so it can be hard to write about persuasively. But I’m getting pretty good at it. I just wrote a long, involved letter about the frustration of patients who can’t communicate with their caregivers and the potential for abuse and how we have to be a voice for voiceless seniors and yadda yadda. I made it pretty bloody heart wrenching, and now I’m kind of depressed.

In other less distressing news, I’m organizing a used book sale to raise funds for the charity. I spent most of yesterday alphabetizing hundreds of paperbacks. They’re mostly fantasy, so blah. Definitely not my cup of tea, but if it’s yours, I can hook you up. The book sale will be August 19 in Sylvan Lake, right next to the beach (did you know there’s a beach in central Alberta? I totally didn’t). Should be pretty sweet. Let me know if you want to donate books, come to the book sale, come to my office to check out the books before the book sale, etc.