Blame Canada

The first few days of taking this time off were rough. I felt angst-ridden, uncomfortable, self effacing – just plain not great, frankly. As I noted previously, I had one of the least enjoyable hikes on the mountain and none of the things that normally fill me with glee were working. Yesterday, however, I started falling into my skin. On the mountain my mind began racing – in a good way – lost in ideas, the moment, the smell of dust.

I ordered a debris box and put off the Honey Bee’s morning walk until it’s delivered. I was just chuckling to myself how I’m still in my sweat pants and it’s 11 am, when I looked out the window and realized that there’s a debris box in the drive. When the hell did that get there? Now I’ve no excuse to be in these sweat pants… damn.

I spent eight hours yesterday listening to Leonard Cohen. Can we say, swooooon! I wasn’t just listening to Leonard Cohen, I was, of course, predictably, painting Hell’s Kitchen at the same time. So while I was putting on the second coat of Glass Slipper, listening to Leonard Cohen and swoooooning, I thought I should pay a tribute to things from the 49th parallel that I adore. And it got me thinking of the Canadian arm of the American space shuttle, Bruce Cockburn, William Shatner, Peter Jennings, Ad Busters… And then I thought about something I overheard some Canadian’s saying about Pamela Sue Anderson – how her talent came from Canada but her implants came from America (and there, I thought her implants were her talent… silly me)… And I thought Leonard Cohen’s inspiration came from America no matter which two ways you look at it. And everything I thought after that would likely just piss Canadians off and the intended tribute just fell right in the crapper. And the difference is… if someone pointed out a handful of ways that the US sucks, I’d likely just nod and agree. I mean, 40 some million of these fuckers voted for Bush – they’re proud to have a man who can’t pronounce three syllable words representing them in the world market. And that’s not the half of it – even without Bush (hey, now there’s a thought) there remain troubles, errant ways, missteps from our founder’s visions. Those were largely good visions conceived of thoughtful statesmen – not perfect, but a great first start. Be that as it may… like I said… in the crapper.

There is a crack in everything… it’s how the light gets in. - L. Cohen