CSI Ottawa

I was in the CSI lab for the Ottawa Police today. Ever neat. It's just like the CSI show on TV just on a smaller scale. They were checking out a car that was involved in something. Had the special lights ready to go. There was no charismatic red headed detective saying everything with pregnant pauses like on the show. 'That's why we... do this job.' The detective was more like tick, tick, sign, sign, things to do, thanks, away you go. The circumstances are much more clinical and institutional than what you get on TV with the Miami sunsets and romantic subplots. In the real world someone got hurt or killed and someone is going to prison for it, for real.
Also recently walked through an area of a hospital where they keep the bodies. 'That guy's DEAD!' I found out when I asked one of the hospital staff what was the deal with the sign outside that said Undertakers buzz security to be processed. He explained that we were in the morgue and the bodies come and go through this area while he was showing me where the caf was.
A small business that literally cleans up after all of the violent crime in Vancouver might not be the worst idea in the world. I desenitize to all the grotesque things I've been exposed to of late very quickly. That's going to be a whole, other, long blog entry. I'll warn people not to eat just before I start in on what my recent escapades have involved.

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Blue Alert
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There's perfume burning in the air
Bits of beauty everywhere
Shrapnel flying, soldier hit the dirt

She comes so close
You feel her then
She tells you No and No again
Your lip is cut on the edge of her pleated skirt
Blue Alert

Visions of her drawing near
Arise, abide, and disappear
You try to slow it down
It doesn't work

It's just another night I guess
All tangled up in nakedness
You even touch yourself
You're such a flirt
Blue Alert

You know how nights like this begin
The kind of knot your heart gets in
Any way you turn is going to hurt

There's perfume burning in the air
Bits of beauty everywhere
Shrapnel flying, soldier hit the dirt
Blue Alert

She breaks the rules so you can see
She's wilder than you'll ever be
You talk religion but she won't convert

Her body's twenty stories high
You try to look away, you try
But all you want to do is get there first
Blue Alert

You know how nights like this begin
The kind of knot your heart gets in
Any way you turn is going to hurt

There's perfume burning in the air
Bits of beauty everywhere
Shrapnel flying, soldier hit the dirt
Blue Alert
Blue Alert...

Porn Star Name

'The name's Dirk. Dirk Hugecock. Porn star.'

River Photo

The river in the photo runs right through the central part of Ottawa. In warmer months the water temperature goes up and the water levels go down so you can walk out to the middle and sit in the flow. I was once jogging along here early in the morning when two police in a cruiser on the path warned me of the presence of a moose in the water. Full sized moose swimming along in the central part of the capital city. Very Canadiana story. Couldn't grab a nap at this spot the other day because the frogs were making too much noise.

Summer's Here

There are two Ottawa's. There are the months and months you endure here where it hurts to go outside from the cold. Then there is the summer in this city. Ottawa is a whole other ball game in the summer. It is an absolutely beautiful place at this time of year. Too bad I can't earn worth a damn here.

An estimated 80, 000 people assumed to be trapped alive under rubble from that earthquake in China and the big western auto makers release media statements that their manufacturing plants are still intact...

Asia

Got an email from a guy I taught with in Japan today. He's still at it. Has a very good teaching gig at some big engineering firm or something. Not far from some really good skiing. A day in Tokyo is an option for him. He is doing a fair amount of travel during his weeks off. Quality of life in Canada is undeniably better in many ways than it is in most parts of Asia. However, quality of life for ME was better in Asia in many ways than it is for me here. I talk to some people who are still teaching in different parts of Asia. They justify their decision to stay when I talk to them. Stay if you're staying. Go if you're going, I say. You don't have to justify any aspect of it to anyone. You go where life feels best for you. Life in Ottawa is pretty much a diaper rash for me. Going to try Vancouver again then see what appeals. Vancouver is a cess pool in many ways compared to any other Canadian city but you get access to more of what appeals to me than anywhere else in Canada, skiing etc.

Chats With My Shrink

'I have this dream. I'm walking through Times Square. I look up at the big video screen. Stocks from the stock market are tickering across the screen. The words All, The, Love, In, The, World ticker by like they're stock names.'
'How much was Love?'
'I don't follow.'
'Under the word Love. How much was one share of Love stock?'
'Funny you ask. Love was free. Under the word were the numbers 0.0 going by.'
'But the other words had prices.'
'Yes. Yes, they did.'
'What else happened in the dream?'
'I look down to my right and my little son is walking beside me holding my hand.'
'You know he is your son?'
'Yes, Doctor. He is my son. Walking through Times Square with me.'
'Does he speak?'
'He tells me that I don't have to worry about any karmic consequences for him being aborted.'
Doctor scribbles.
'Did someone in your life have an abortion?'
'There have been several. And one miscarriage that I'm aware of.'
Scribble, scribble.
'And what do you associate with that?'
'I guess it has me wondering what spiritual consequences are involved for the male when a female aborts their child.'

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A guy I worked with in Korea told me about a conversation he once had with Kurt Vonnegut. The author told him about how dialogue is supposed to get the reader thinking. That's the writer's job, essentially.

Lunch With My Lawyer

Had a very Jewish lunch at a deli here in Ottawa with my lawyer/ brother yesterday. He introduced the prospect of legal proceedings which I hadn't even considered before. Can't wait to get started on that.
And then one day. One not so special day. I got to utter the phrase, 'Vancouver one way, please.' Bought my ticket to return out west. Putting the final touches on my departure. Soon.
Canada's foreign affairs minister, kinda like our Connie Rice, was dating a biker slut while he was in this very important cabinet position. Forget the risks to national security this whole thing poses. Imagine the sex with that woman? French Canadian AND a biker whore. It's not who you know...
You're curious about the smell that has been part of my latest job aren't you? I'll fill you in on that shortly. Once it is a memory to me I will be prepared to go into details on that. There is revulsion on a natural level where we're exposed to something through one of our senses and the body responds. And then there's revulsion on this level. This was different.
My screenplay/hobby is coming along well. I am spending most of my spare time putting anything hand written into digital form as I don't feel like carting all these binders of writing out west with me.
Currently reading The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time. Not bad.
Watching a show I recently discovered called Little Britain found here;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/littlebritain/

Good British comedy always has me howling. This show is absolutely brilliant stuff.

Smells like...

Rally race drivers, while racing, are required to keep their vehicle at red line while getting from point A to B in the fastest time possible. Their right foot stays planted on the gas peddle to the floor from the time they pull away to the moment they cross that day's finish line. I can do this with a 5 tonne truck. I have been practising this driving in downtown rush hour traffic with this very large vehicle. When people give me 'the look' as I go around screaming through the gears I try and hand gesture to them that I am pretending to be in the Paris-Dakar rally race, while moving through rush hour traffic in Ottawa. Some of them don't seem to get it. I'm not sure what the smell coming from the vehicle is after I do this for a while.
Speaking of smells, while I am working I have been exposed to a certain odour of late which is very, very disturbing. I will not go into details just yet. I'm going to describe the circumstances of this particular odour when this smell is nothing but a very bad memory. Remind me.
My current employment nonsense is probably the most labour intensive I have ever endured in my life. I don't remember ever having upper body strength like I have right now. The benefit is the physical conditioning I am developing. While enduring this latest job I am also developing a determination like I have never felt before to get out of Ottawa ASAP. I have never been more determined to make somethign happen in my life. It would be straight up delusional behaviour for a person with my employability elsewhere to stay in the life circumstances I am enduring of late here in the nation's capital. You'd have to be nuts to stay here with the level of opportunity available to me elsewhere.
To Vancouver, yet one more time. I'm coming back, gorgeous. We're not done yet.
I am starting to type up the last novel I wrote. I wrote the thing by hand in coffee shops in three different countries. You know, it's not that bad. You forget what you even wrote until you start to go back over it.
Remind me about the smell I am enduring as part of my current employment. You will be revolted on several levels.