Musings on the Eve of 2009

Myself and Colin (at the dawn of time) being smart and good looking

While 2008 has had its up-and-down moments; my particular annus horribilis was 1996.

Lost loves are meant to stay that way.

If there were a single word essence to my philosophy it would be ‘forgiveness.’

In one of her drunken rambles my mother once said in reference to two of her sons (both of whom were present): “You were always the smart one and Colin was the good looking one. Thus damning us both. Forgiveness still comes hard for this one. Maybe someday.

I love my brother, Colin, dearly. And he me. We both cherish that and need it.

Ants are intriguing. They ‘speak’ to one another. There are more of them than there are of us. They are likely more important.

Because I was ‘too talkative’ in my third grade class the teacher banished me to sit on the ‘girls’ side of the room I was in heaven. I suspect that was where it all began.

Maybe I was a class clown, but never thought of myself as such. But I was funny. I know that now.

A kid in junior high once asked me how I knew a particular fact. I said I had read it. “Is that all you do is read?” he asked disdainfully. He became a plumber. He probably made more money than I ever did.

The stupidest waste of a year of my life came when I, after I got my degree, decided to take secondary teacher training. It was all inane. You either are a teacher or not, and no half-baked pedant can teach you to be one.

I was a good teacher and a popular one. I hated it. In retrospect those eight years were not happy ones.

Good reporters follow the wisdom of the old guys. Read some H.L. Mencken and Ernie Pyle and you don’t need much more.

In loving ‘more’ is not necessarily ‘better.’

Every man should someday meet with a femme fatale. You learn from that – if you survive.

Drug addicts have found their ‘happy place’, but it is a brief one punctuated by depravity, dishonesty and despair.

I believe in God but I don’t need somebody in a white backwards collar to interpret God for me.

A friend went on three spiritual pilgrimages to India in vain attempt to find his true spirituality. Eventually he found it was inside himself all the time and he could have saved the airfare.

Vancouver likes to sell itself as a ‘world-class city.’ It is nothing of the sort. True world-class cities (and there are others) that I have spent time in include London, San Francisco, Montreal, and Dublin. Dublin may seem like a bit of a backwater, but there is more history and soul (albeit often misguided) on a single block of O’Connell Street than in the whole of Vancouver.

The best Chinese restaurant I ever visited was in Honolulu’s Chinatown.

I got Griffin, my cat, at the beginning of 1997. He is now old and spare of shank, yet he somehow seems wise. I don’t know how I’ll take it when he goes.

I rarely cry. I mist, but rarely cry. But I did in early 1997. Great racking sobs that lasted hours. I think it was needed.

Love may keep us together, but money seems to be a vital part of the equation, too.

I’ve had many crushes in my life. I always remember them, and sometimes they have lasted down the years. They must never be realized. That destroys the mythology.

I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions, but I do ‘intentions’, as in this might be attainable or not. But at least I’ve tried. Each year we write out our intentions on a sheet of paper, and as the new year comes in we take them outside and burn them; turn them over to God, or whatever cosmic muffin might be listening. And, I believe He/She/It is.