Misc.

Seems all I do is bloody apologize here! But I am sorry: one measly posting saying I will post again soon, and then silence. Pathetic, I know. Let's just move on, shall we?

So, the AIDS Conference. Pretty mad, I'll tell you. Hard not to consider the extent of the expense: if all the delegates, with all their airfares and all their hotel costs and all their lunches and dinners and breakfasts, and all the exorbitant registration fees, and all the useless bloody crap, buttons and stickers and posters and pamphlets, and the entire local host budget, if all of this was converted to cash and bundled off to Africa or South America or South Asia, would there have been anything at all to discuss? And then again, if there's one thing I learned, it's that money is only a part of the problem. Not a very big part, actually...which is, frankly, why the Bills (Gates & Clinton) leave me rather unimpressed. The amount of hoopla and reverence and sheer star-worship that attends them, and really, for what? For having money and being generous with it? When the one promotes sex-worker "rescue programs" in South Asia, promising productive, moral lives in Nike sweatshops, and the other gives nice words of support for the Bush-driven U.S. AIDS programs where abstinence is valued over prevention and developing country governments are quietly "encouraged" not to request generic drugs from other developed countries that are willing to deliver them? A little bitter, me. I confess, I've always harboured one of the more ignoble traits of the socialist-minded: the resentment of money, or rather, the resentment that the money's not mine. Sigh.

What else is going on in my world? Our friends Karen and Shim are coming to visit next weekend, which should be a lot of fun. Thom and I have designed a full roster of proposed events for them, though I suspect they will reject all in favour of city walks and drinking patios - fine by me! I realize suddenly that I have about four weeks of vacation/off time that I need to use I think by the end of October...although I should confirm this. Hopefully I can carry some over, as I don't much relish the idea of taking time off in order to sit at home for three weeks, making hourly postings to my blog (you lucky devils). You'd think we'd arrange a trip somewhere, a "vacation," such as I've heard people do. We'd both like to, I know; I just can't bring myself to justify putting us into the poorhouse for a few idyllic weeks away. Help! I need middle-class intervention, fast!

Babies, babies, babies.... Lololololola (I fear there is one too many lo's there) is "big with child," as I feel they might say in eighteenth-century Nova Scotian fishing villages. Too, too thrilling! It has sent my own biological clock - already an erratic timepiece - into deranged clanging. I look at Thom and think what an amazing father he would be, and I think I would be an OK one too, and I practically itch to do it. Yet, circumspection rules the day: we must, at my insistence, come at it practically, considering pros and cons, inflows and outflows, facts and figures, blah and blah. Many, many children arrive unplanned, with no attendant strategy, and they are fine and happy and their parents, I suspect, delightedly surprised to find that things find a way even without planning. Of course, others grow into serial killers...but that's all part of the gamble, isn't it?

Manifold kisses and pets and wonderments to you, Lo(etc.)lola! I am proud and happy and so excited for that little person's extraordinary future.

AIDS 2006

It's over. The most exhausting ten days of my life are behind me. Apologies to all readers and loved ones, and all inbetween, for my silence. Will continue to post captivating details of my ongoing life later....

This little piggy went to market

So, I needed some new shirts, see. I don't usually dress up for work: it's very casz (I suspect this is not the accepted spelling of this word, but what is? Please enlighten if you know) and, besides, my boss is a major clotheshorse (though I imagine he'd prefer "fashion-plate"), spending on clothes probably what amounts to as much as his rent, so why would I attempt to compete with that? However, there's this huge international conference coming up next week, and I have a full media-pass and will probably need to do a fair amount of schmoozing and pressing of flesh, you know, "face of the organization" and all that crap, so I figure, OK, Scrooge, you need to pony up for a few new shirts at least, this hopelessly outdated collection of Ross-specials won't cut it much longer. There was a time when I could get away with wearing just anything, whether I truly made it work or not, just with attitude. This attitude, I am discovering, had a best-by date and it is now starting to smell a little off. Time to upgrade the duds.

Thus, enlisting T on the promise that it would be a brief in-out sort of thing, we embarked for the mall. This was five hours ago. For further perspective, we only visited two stores. Two stores, five hours. Some more numbers: nine, being the number of shirts at one time or another under anguished consideration, each tried on at least nine times apiece, so maybe 81 is a more accurate number; two, being the number of shirts finally purchased; and fifty, being the amount I'd decided not to exceed for a single shirt, yet also being the price of each shirt I finally bought. A hundred dollars, you say, a bargain for two very nice shirts, which they are. Tell it to the purchase-guilt, my most finely-honed and frequently-used sense.

T was a complete doll, tolerating five gruelling hours in the armpit of the suburbs-invaded Eaton Centre, offering unflagging feedback to all my proposals, even declaring he would purchase them for me if money were my only obstacle (which it frequently was). And when the purchase-guilt kicked in (seconds away from checkout), he offered all sorts of encouraging reinforcement, including putting the tags in a safe place and assuring me that I can take them back at any time. The moment we walked in the door, however, he fell into a dead sleep, no doubt driven to the edge of his faculties.

The shirts? Oh, they're nice. One chocolate brown number with very thin eggshell pinstripes, the other one white (I think) with very pale pink, blue and yellow stripes. Both cotton, both nicely-tailored. Both from H&M, the IKEA of clothiers. That's all. Did I mention $100??!

My female readers (99% of my demographic, I suspect) are perhaps presently rolling eyes in mute exasperation. What constitutes the above-described guilt-worthy splurge must rate very low on the shop-o-meter. It is my endless struggle, however: the fear/guilt/loss of spending money on anything that I can't honestly do without. I need to work through this. I need tools to process purchases, I mean mental/emotional tools, to see value in things other than mere necessaries. Maybe I need a shopping therapist. Any referrals?

This flower wilts

The time is 7.10 PM and the temperature is 34.8 degrees Celsius. With humidex, it's almost 45 degrees. I don't know what this is in fahrenheit, but I do know earlier today, with humidity, it was around 117. This is entirely unreasonable. I demand a recount.