mousme: A view of a woman's legs from behind, wearing knee-high rainbow socks. The rest of the picture is black and white. (Default)
I learned today that two of my long-running LJ friends, [livejournal.com profile] tx_cronopio and [livejournal.com profile] blackmare both died. The former died only a few weeks ago and the latter died well over a year ago but I somehow missed it. I was just thinking today that I hadn't heard from either of them in a while, and I went to look them up on Facebook and LJ, which is how I found out. [livejournal.com profile] blackbuffet died earlier in 2021 as well, and somehow I thought I would be older before I started losing friends quite so regularly. I thought I had at least another decade before that would begin happening, but here we are. Both cronopio and blackmare were "pocket friends," and it was unlikely we'd ever meet IRL, whereas I went to university with V. (aka blackbuffet) and we even dated for a very brief time long before I figured out I wasn't into men, and I considered him a good friend, even though we'd mostly lost touch over the years.

I am very sad about all three of them, in different ways, and in the same way, in that I wish I'd had more time with them. More time with their words, their posts, their art, their sense of humour. I had intended, once the pandemic had eased up, to reconnect with V. the next time I went to Montreal, to invite him and as many of our friends as could attend to the restaurant we all used to go to, and laugh and reminisce about our university antics together, and now that will never happen, and I am really sad about it. I suppose it's often like this: we imagine we have more time than we do, and we make plans based on that assumption, and then we get a nasty reminder that life doesn't actually care that much about our plans after all.

I'm going to be 43 in a couple of days, and I am nowhere near where I thought I would be at this age when I was a kid, a teenager, or even a young adult. That's not a bad thing. There were lots of things I didn't understand, and even more things I didn't know back then, and there's nothing wrong with life turning out differently than you imaged. I do still want to change a lot of things about my current situation, but I have come to learn that changing my circumstances is not going to change who I am nor how I feel about it. As the saying goes: No matter where you go, there you are.

I will try to make a more comprehensive post about my own stuff later. In the meantime, farewell, dearest friends, and Godspeed. I will see you on the other side. <3
mousme: A text icon that reads: "When the sun has set, no candle can replace it." (Sun has set)
 Backdating this entry as well...

I learned today that two of my long-running LJ friends, [livejournal.com profile] tx_cronopio and [livejournal.com profile] blackmare both died. The former died only a few weeks ago and the latter died well over a year ago but I somehow missed it. I was just thinking today that I hadn't heard from either of them in a while, and I went to look them up on Facebook and LJ, which is how I found out. [livejournal.com profile] blackbuffet died earlier in 2021 as well, and somehow I thought I would be older before I started losing friends quite so regularly. I thought I had at least another decade before that would begin happening, but here we are. Both cronopio and blackmare were "pocket friends," and it was unlikely we'd ever meet IRL, whereas I went to university with V. (aka blackbuffet) and we even dated for a very brief time long before I figured out I wasn't into men, and I considered him a good friend, even though we'd mostly lost touch over the years.
 
I am very sad about all three of them, in different ways, and in the same way, in that I wish I'd had more time with them. More time with their words, their posts, their art, their sense of humour. I had intended, once the pandemic had eased up, to reconnect with V. the next time I went to Montreal, to invite him and as many of our friends as could attend to the restaurant we all used to go to, and laugh and reminisce about our university antics together, and now that will never happen, and I am really sad about it. I suppose it's often like this: we imagine we have more time than we do, and we make plans based on that assumption, and then we get a nasty reminder that life doesn't actually care that much about our plans after all.
 
I'm going to be 43 in a couple of days, and I am nowhere near where I thought I would be at this age when I was a kid, a teenager, or even a young adult. That's not a bad thing. There were lots of things I didn't understand, and even more things I didn't know back then, and there's nothing wrong with life turning out differently than you imaged. I do still want to change a lot of things about my current situation, but I have come to learn that changing my circumstances is not going to change who I am nor how I feel about it. As the saying goes: No matter where you go, there you are.
 
I will try to make a more comprehensive post about my own stuff later. In the meantime, farewell, dearest friends, and Godspeed. I will see you on the other side. <3
mousme: A view of a woman's legs from behind, wearing knee-high rainbow socks. The rest of the picture is black and white. (God sent me)
I wanted to say something about Carrie Fisher, and that was before I even knew about Debbie Reynolds' passing. One of my favourite stories about Carrie has been circulating around the internet ever since she passed, and I see no reason not to include it here, if only to have it for myself. She told this anecdote concerning the white dress she wore on the first day of filming:

George comes up to me the first day of filming and he takes one look at the dress and says, "You can't wear a bra under that dress."

So, I say, "Okay, I'll bite. Why?"

And he says, "Because... there's no underwear in space."

I promise you this is true, and he says it with such conviction, too! Like he had been to space and looked around and didn't see any bras or panties or briefs.

"What happens is, you go to space and become weightless. So far so good, right? But then your body expands but your bra doesn't—so you get strangled by your own bra."

Now I think that this would make for a fantastic obit—so I tell my younger friends that no matter how I go, I want it reported that I drowned in moonlight, strangled my own bra.


So in accordance with her own wishes, that is how I'm going to remember her death: not cardiac arrest, but drowned in moonlight, strangled by her own bra.

strangled_by_bra.jpg

People on social media have been very loud about how we should remember her as General Organna, or for all the brilliant writing and script doctoring and acting she did aside from that, and not as Princess Leia. The regular media all seem desperately keen on showing her in the "slave Leia" golden bikini, and there is no middle ground, it seems.

The thing is, Carrie Fisher was absolutely brilliant, and passionate. She was an outspoken mental health activist long before it was socially acceptable to talk about bipolar disorder in public. She survived drug addiction and living with mental illness for years, and she made it to age 60 by becoming unapologetic and giving no fucks about people's opinions of her. That didn't start after Star Wars, though. Her mother had already provided an example for her, and she then blazed her own trails. There are photographs of the Star Wars scripts she annotated, adding her own savvy corrections to improve the films.

I grew up on Star Wars. I grew up admiring Luke Skywalker and wanting to be Han Solo (mostly so I'd know what Chewie was saying), but it was the only woman in the films that I identified with the most, and that was Princess Leia. I grew up knowing that little girls should aspire to be princesses, that our lot in life was pretty dresses and hairdos and marrying princes and living happily ever after. Princess Leia, though, taught me that princesses could be fierce and badass and lead rebellions. I was at the perfect age to understand that Leia was bucking against everything we'd been shown. She was beautiful and vulnerable, yes, but she was also tough as nails, and she choked to death the crime lord who had imprisoned her against her will and forced her to wear clothes that she would never have even thought of putting on herself. I had seen Leia Organna's choice of garments, and they were sturdy and practical, common sense articles for someone who might be plunged into battle at any moment. Even her ceremonial garb was simple and white, another nod to practicality in spite of the colour.

No one was surprised that she became a general in the sequels. Not a single person, not even the most backward and sexist Star Wars fan out there.

So, no, I won't remember only General Organna. I'm going to remember Princess Leia, who showed me what all princesses could and should be: loving, independent, leaders, and strong with the Force. Leia stood up to Darth Vader without blinking, and slew her captor with the very chains with which he'd tried to enslave her.

I'm also going to remember Carrie Fisher, who showed me that a life beyond bipolar was not only possible, but desirable. That there was a tough but doable future beyond a diagnosis, and that you could live unapologetically and survive it. Do I live as she did? No, because we're vastly different people. But that doesn't mean I didn't learn many valuable lessons from her. I also learned that, if you're going to be a woman and be brash and outspoken and give absolutely no fucks about what people think, then most of the media are only going to treat you nicely after you're dead (if you're famous, that is).

I'm also probably going to cry all the way through Episode VIII. RIP, Carrie, and thank you for everything you did for generations of girls.

mousme: A view of a woman's legs from behind, wearing knee-high rainbow socks. The rest of the picture is black and white. (Always Summer)
Warning: contains harm to an animal done by another animal )

In other news, everyone is dying this year. Brian Bedford, Alan Rickman, David Bowie, Prince, Mohamed Ali, Gene Wilder, Florence Henderson, Anton Yelchin, John Glenn, Alan Thicke, Zsa Zsa Gabor, and now George Michael. I'm sure I've forgotten a bunch. Not to mention Carrie Fisher's massive heart attack, from which no one is sure she'll recover. Though if anyone can give 2016 the finger, it's our General.

Someone on Twitter summed up this year nicely:
Uncheerful thoughts about 2017 )On the plus side, so far Christmas has been kind to me. I've put up a tree, which the cats, weirdly, are ignoring entirely. Clearly, Christmas ornaments just aren't as interesting as live mice. It was a bit of an adventure, as first of all the place I went to no longer had any small trees, so I am now boasting an eight-foot tree, which I had to cut down a bit because my ceilings are not high enough to accommodate eight feet of tree plus a stand. I have a special stand that I bought years ago at Canadian Tire, which balances your tree by itself so that perpetually single people like me can put up a tree on their own. It still works well after all these years, and after being left outside for two years in the rain and the snow (because I'm a careless person, sometimes).

Second, I had trouble with the tree lights. I bought a second strand (because eight foot tree), and wound it first around the tree. I was talking to my mother on the phone, and accidentally unplugged the power supply while I was trying to light the strand. Oops. Then when I got her back on the line I dropped the phone again, so we decided to call it there rather than invite further problems.

That's when I discovered that my first strand had a neutral prong that was bigger than the hot prong (which is how most are made these days), while the new strand had equal sized prongs, which made them incompatible. No worries, I thought, I would simply switch them around and plus the new strand into the old strand instead of vice versa. No dice. The old strand only had half the lights working. Since these are LED strands, I don't think it's a question of one light being burnt out (the way they used to: I have memories of exasperatedly switching out one bulb after the other to determine which was the defective one, and sometimes it was two bulbs and then you were screwed), so I had to go out and get more strands. I got two to be on the safe side, so now I have a very lit tree. No complaints, tbh. I didn't even have to use the extension cord I got.
mousme: A view of a woman's legs from behind, wearing knee-high rainbow socks. The rest of the picture is black and white. (Make it so)
This is my only Star Trek icon.

Very sad to hear about Leonard Nimoy's passing yesterday. But he had an incredible life, and left behind a legacy that will not be quickly forgotten. He lived long, and he prospered, as many have already said. He was a good man, generous with his time and attention, and worked very hard to build others up throughout his career.

He offered to be honourary grandfather for anyone who wanted or needed it on Twitter. I haven't been able to read a singl tribute to him online without tearing up. His portrayal of Spock on Star Trek was my first exposure to science fiction, and guaranteed that I would be a sci fi geek for life. I remember hearing his stories of young scientists inspired by Spock who would come to him and excitedly tell him about their projects. Nimoy was an actor and knew nothing about science, but he understood their enthusiasm and, not wanting to dampen it, he would nod sagely and tell them: "Well, it certainly seems like you're on the right track!" And they would beam at him, because validation from Mr. Spock was the height of accomplishment.

I'll leave you with his very last tweet:


A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP

— Leonard Nimoy (@TheRealNimoy) February 23, 2015

mousme: A view of a woman's legs from behind, wearing knee-high rainbow socks. The rest of the picture is black and white. (Candle)
Nana passed away the day before yesterday, from pancreatic cancer. She was at home, surrounded by her chosen family, and as far as I know, it was quick and relatively painless.

I am... I don't know.

She was one of those seemingly indestructible tiny maritime women. She would have been 96 this spring, and when I saw her last February she was in perfect health, and in fact made a joke that one of those "assisted living" programs had refused her access because she was in such good shape. I thought she would live to be 100, at the very least.

Nana was the closest person I ever had to a grandmother. I'm going to miss her so much.



Nana's on the right. With her is my childhood friend E. and her father.
mousme: A view of a woman's legs from behind, wearing knee-high rainbow socks. The rest of the picture is black and white. (Candle)
As most of you no doubt know, Dr. George Tiller was murdered yesterdaywhile attending his church.

Now, I don't usually care what people's politics are. As I've said before, I'm anti-abortion, but pro-choice. I don't like the fact that abortions are necessary, but I firmly believe that it's every woman's choice to make.

This killing? This was murder. This was the murder of a good man, who not only stood up for his convictions, but lived by them, every single day. He went out of his way to perform a service for women that many others could not, and would not perform. Calling him a mass-murderer is, as [livejournal.com profile] lightcastle put it, a particular flavour of viciousness. It's not subtle to encourage people to invade people's sanctuaries, no matter how you try to couch your threats in terms of "peaceful" protest.

I don't know if it makes it somehow more heinous that someone violated holy ground in order to perpetrate the murder. The act itself was so heinous that I am hard-put to see how it could be made more so, but whoever the suspect is, he certainly gave it the good old college try.

Every time I think we might be going forward, something like this happens.

:::ETA:::

Here are a few posts by friends of mine, both of which offer particular insight into the matter:

Meallanmouse's perspective, as the daughter of an ob-gyn, with useful links too.

Lisa Small's entry, complete with links.
mousme: A view of a woman's legs from behind, wearing knee-high rainbow socks. The rest of the picture is black and white. (Valar Morghulis)
Quite literally.

I called my mother yesterday to see how she was, and got a boatload of death notices.

Penny Beaudinet died. She was a friend of the family, and had been struggling with cancer for a long time. We're going to miss her: she was good people.

My G.P. died. (Oh, the irony) I can't bring myself to feel bad for the misogynistic SOB, but I'm put out that I now have no doctor. Bleh.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn died too. Yes, he was old and it wasn't unexpected, but I still feel like another bit of my cultural history has died.
mousme: A picture of the muppet Forgetful Jones from Sesame Street (Forgetful Jones)
I've been too busy to post. I keep telling myself that I should write posts in here that aren't "here's what I did while I wasn't posting" entries, but I never seem to get around to writing those meaningful, insightful entries. I rather think that I don't have any to write. I've lost the knack of writing analytical text ever since I left university. Besides, I don't know that I'd want to inflict my essay-writing skills on my beleaguered flist, as I seem to recall that I bored myself silly with my own academic writing. I remembered wondering who would ever want to read such dry stuff as I was able to produce. It's not that it wasn't good —it was just really, really dry going.

Anyway, I've had a busy couple of weeks.
I saw an old friend of mine from high school last Saturday, although we didn't have much time to actually catch up as he had to go back to his office right after lunch (he's a lawyer). We did have a nice chat, and wandered through Atwater Market before he had to go, and it was really nice to see him again. Of all my friends in high school (of which there admittedly weren't many), he was the one with whom I got along the best. We're supposed to meet up again at some point in the near future, which ought to be nice. After that I got treated to a lovely private concert in the living room of some family friends, and spent the afternoon and better part of the evening making slightly awkward small talk with three roomfuls of people I didn't know and with whom I had nothing in common. Still, the concert was quite nice. The violinist was a young man, somewhere between nineteen and twenty-one, and he's quite promising. His playing was very adept, although it lacked depth and intonation, but with time I'm guessing he'll turn out quite well.

Sunday was spent hiding from the world recovering from that stupid migraine which started late on Saturday. Annoying in the extreme, as it was a gorgeous day out.

Monday was a writing jam with [livejournal.com profile] owldaughter, in which I got more writing done in one morning than I had in the past four weeks combined. I'm finally getting back into my ongoing YA novel, and I'd like to have it finished by the end of the year. I might "cheat" and make finishing it my NaNoWriMo project for this year. Either that or I'll write another horror novel, since they appear to write themselves for me.

I forget what I did on Tuesday, but I do remember that I had to be out of the house stupidly early to do it. That's probably why I don't remember: I was still half-asleep. ;)

I met up with [livejournal.com profile] ai731 on Wednesday morning, and she taught me the mysteries of canning. It's a really fun process, I assume more fun because there were two of us. We went through about three-quarters of the 20lb bag of apples I'd picked, and made apple sauce, apple butter (so very yummmy!) and an apple cake based on her grandmother's recipe, which was so very very delicious that I brought it to work with me so that I wouldn't be tempted to eat the entire thing by myself. I brought half to work, and [livejournal.com profile] ai731 kept the other half, naturally. I had to abandon ship just before the end of the session, as I had to go to work, and I just received the last three jars of apple sauce last night. I am very pleased with how the whole thing turned out.

Thursday was spent driving my mother around so she could get some errands done without spending the whole day doing it. Since she doesn't drive, and generally gets around pretty slowly anyway, it's easier for her if I occasionally spend a morning driving her around, and I don't mind doing it in the slightest. I tend to lose my mind if I spend too much time with my parents, but a couple of times a week is enough for me to keep my sanity.

Friday's Ubisoft lunch got canceled for me due to the (not unexpected) passing of my great-aunt Margot at the age of 93. I have very fond memories of her, and of going to her apartment in the Linton for a New Year's Day luncheon every year until I was about eight or nine. After that she moved to a smaller place (I believe it was a residence for relatively independent retired folk who only needed minimal amounts of help to get through the day), and she became a little too frail to be able to put on the spread she really wanted to. None of her three daughters ever kept up with the tradition, and so I sort of lost track of her for a while. We still saw her at the larger family gatherings, but it wasn't really the same.

The funeral itself was interrupted when my cousin Ophelie (the youngest of all the cousins, and one of the two cousins near my age with whom I actually keep up and get along) suffered some kind of seizure or syncope in the middle of the service. She was sitting right next to my father, and the next thing we knew she had turned a horrid shade of green, her eyes rolled back in her head, and she slumped forward. Luckily my aunt (not Ophelie's mother, but another aunt) is a nurse and took over immediately. I was rather grateful not to have to step in and apply my limited first aid skills to the situation. Someone produced a cell phone (a blackberry, I think) and called 911. I spent most of the time keeping people from crowding around, and reassuring people that no, it wasn't taking as long as they thought for the ambulance to get there. I timed it, see, and it took nine minutes from the moment the call was placed to the time the paramedics got there. In times of crisis, people's perception of how quickly time elapses gets seriously distorted.

My mother spoke to my cousin yesterday, as well as my aunt. Ophelie is doing okay, as it turns out, but she's going to have to see a neurologist, as her symptoms were quite alarming (swelling in the throat, stiffening of the extremities, extremely elevated heartrate, etc.). My mother, in true keeping with her nature, has invited her to dinner next Sunday.

After the funeral I took my mother to Juliette & Chocolat for lunch. Egads, it should be illegal to make chocolate that good. I have rarely had anything quite that sinful. I must go back.

Yesterday I got shanghaied by my parents into helping them shop for appliances. God help me. The less said about that, the better. The day improved immeasurably by the time I got to [livejournal.com profile] luvenditti's for dinner, and had a wonderful time with all my friends, chatting about movies and books and games and food and all the usual things we end up talking about at these events. I borrowed the movie "Clue" and watched it last night: it's a great deal of fun.

All right, the rest of my day beckons. More updates when I have something to say. ;)
mousme: A view of a woman's legs from behind, wearing knee-high rainbow socks. The rest of the picture is black and white. (Candle)
There was no news coverage of this death, because clearly this guy was unimportant. He might be a blurb in a newspaper somewhere, known only as "the victim, a middle-aged man."

We were involved in a car theft (imagine that, in a company that deals with stolen vehicles?). When our trackers found the car, the thieves were still in it. They spotted the trackers and panicked, flooring it. Our trackers have a strict policy of "no pursuit" unless there's no way they've been seen, which wasn't the case. So they followed at a really discreet distance while the thieves floored it through several red lights.

...

And rammed into another car. There was a middle-aged couple in there. The man, we think, has died. No news of the woman.

Our company is mostly worried that this will backfire on us, although I fail to see how it's our fault that these men broke the law, and then decided to break a few more laws before killing someone (albeit accidentally). No one seems particularly upset that someone died.

The office was full of talk about Anna Nicole Smith, the random celebrity who died yesterday.

Whoever this man was, no one but his family will ever know his name. He doesn't get a splash in all the tabloids (and his family are probably grateful for that), and no one outside his family cares that he died.

All in all, I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
mousme: A view of a woman's legs from behind, wearing knee-high rainbow socks. The rest of the picture is black and white. (Frog)
I'm oddly saddened by the news that Stever Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, is dead.

I wasn't a fanatic of his show or anything, but I enjoyed it on television, and I admired the lengths to which he went to promote conservation.

It's not a surprising death, really, but it does go up there in the Annals of Weird Deaths: turns out he was stung by a sting ray during a film shoot, and the barb went right through his chest. He was 44.



Using my frog icon because it's the closest thing I have to a reptile. Amphibians count, right?

:::ETA:::

Holy cow! Everyone's talking about this today!

...

Dec. 5th, 2005 04:27 pm
mousme: A view of a woman's legs from behind, wearing knee-high rainbow socks. The rest of the picture is black and white. (Default)
My godmother just died. It was announced in the paper today. I found out because my mother called to ask me to bring home a paper so we could keep the obituary.

For the record, I have three godmothers. Had, that is. Now I have two.

Aunt Molly (not my real aunt) was ninety-six years old, and was one of the pillars of anglo Montreal in her day. She was tall and beautiful in a non-classical way, and had a tongue so sharp she could cut steel at thirty paces with it. She led a colourful, eventful, sometimes tragic life, a life without compromises.

She kept to herself for the past ten years, didn't want to see anyone, embarassed by the toll that age was taking on her, physically and mentally. I hadn't seen her in nearly eight years.

I am very sad that she's no longer with us, and sad that I never got to say goodbye, but I know that she'd been ready to move on for a long time now. I hope she's found what she was looking for.
mousme: A view of a woman's legs from behind, wearing knee-high rainbow socks. The rest of the picture is black and white. (Fizzgig)
Jerry Juhl died.

How sad. All the muppet icons are slowly disappearing.

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