Mojo's unibrow

Mojo in sepia. The little dude has a unibrow. Somehow on dogs it's more becoming.

pinky on the brain

to see the inside, deep
to touch with metal and cameras and mris
can you feel the thoughts of a person
through your fingers?
its a thing that we know is there
by virtue of being there, here
but we never dream it will be seen
covered by the modest sanctity of the bone
and blood and excess 'product'

like on the beach
lise is very private, covered
catch me in a bathing suit, ha!
but you know what i mean
really i'm out there every day
and yet to cut it all open
and see what was never meant to be seen...
but a blog is more revealing
not a tv show
not sponsored reality
edited reality
and i'm as unedited as i can possibly be
or i try to be
everyday
without crossing the moving, growing line
and collapsing in on myself

C is for Cookie, that's good enough for me...

Okay, let's be real, not sure how long this picture is going to stay up here because I look like shit, but right now I'm in that kind of mood. There is too much noise in my house right now. Too much confusion. It's another comedy of errors...like a previous post "if this wasn't my life it would be so funny." Obviously I need to manage stress better, but in the absence of valium, DQ will do.

Which reminds me, Cookie Monster has been overtaken by the politically correct police. I'm sorry, but when I was little, he was funny. And besides, you could tell he was just a puppet and not really eating cookies when all the mashed up cookie bits fell out of his mouth. It was just funny. *Sigh* things were all so innocent then.

So now I read on CNN that Cookie Monster will now be devouring vegetables (an anytime food) and only ocassionally enjoying his very namesake, cookies, now ghettoized as a sometimes food. But maybe we should be asking why Cookie Monster feels the need to eat cookies all the time in the first place. Did he not get enough love as a child? Does he feel his body image is vilified by the media? Does he feel alienated by the other folks on Sesame Street, I mean they do call him a Monster after all? How perfectly awful.

So yes, if Cookie Monster will learn about how cookies are a sometimes food, then obviously childhood obesity will be slayed. Okay, so it isn't really such a bad thing that kids learn how to eat healthy, but it just seems like such an over the top thing. I feel like my childhood is being invalidated! Don't get me wrong Sesame Street has done a lot of good work, especially for kids in the Middle East, but the whole thing makes me very sad.

Back to my DQ blizzard.

The hair from your last haircut ... what would it say about your new style?

Jeez, you keep going for something different, but keep ending up with basically the same thing. If you had any guts, you would grow me long enough to shave off and donate to charity, but you're not quite that ballsy, are ya dear? Pretty soon these tough grey hairs around your right temple will overtake everything and then you'll be forced to make a decision about dyeing your hair and stop being so wishy-washy or neglectful (depending on the kind of day you're having). For now at least, they lend you a bit of credibility. Remember, I will always get you back in the end with my flippity floppity unpredictable ways. I am in control. Always have been. Hahahaha.

You've successfully slain the dragon! How will you toast your marshmallows?

Just enough so they're mushy, but not hard or burned. Perhaps over the repurposed drum of a washing machine on a farm in Langbank, Saskatchewan.

I am tired of playing defense...don't even have hockey skates

So I've heard a lot about Kathleen Edwards lately and I'm really loving her music. There's something so real about her voice and the lyrics are excellent. Very though provoking. She did "Hockey Skates" a few years back (remember "Men with Brooms" the movie?), which is where the title for this post came from. You'll notice that she's overtaken Robert Frost at the top under the blog title too. Here are the some of the lyrics to "Back to Me". Even without the music, it's great, but you should really listen to the music too.

I've got ways to make you hear me just by whispering your name
I've got ways to make you think you'll never be happy again
I've got ways to make you see I'm so much better than before
I've got ways to make you swear you won't want your old life anymore

I've got lights you've never seen
I've got moves I've never used
I've got ways to make you come
back to me

My Mojito

Mojo, again, quel surprise!
It's quite the action shot, but it wasn't intended that way. I really just wanted a nice head shot after his latest grooming (plug for groomer here, Stephanie from Pets are People too).

Publication Ban

The news is that some Minnesota blogger has blown the lid on the publication ban set up by the Gomery Inquiry. But he's American so apparently that's okay. And which side of the 49th parallel you're on matters a whole lot on the internet....right *eyes rolling*. I remember when American TV stations were reporting on details of the Bernardo/Homolka trial and we ended up with blank nothingness on our TV screens here in the GTA. Doesn't work so well ten years on, does it? Ten years ago it wasn't feasible to think that I would own and operate a TV station to be able to disseminate such information, and there was this tacit agreement in our society that in order to have such power you would use it responsibly, whether through ethical standards you had been taught in journalism school (whatever!) or because you were concerned about the impact of such a move on your profits (more likely).

But now here I am with only my morals to guide me. Should I write about the Gomery Inquiry or not? Okay, truth be told, I don't know anything that hasn't already been reported on CBC News (all of which is legal), but I could probably find out. But I just don't care. Quite frankly, I'm just not getting why so many Quebecers, before it went "in camera", were taping the inquiry and watching it after work. Huh? Of course, maybe the secret is that juicy. But still, I have other things to care about now.

What I do feel uncomfortable with is the idea that I could be jailed for typing something here. But then again I already censor myself by not writing about my working life here. And I try my best only to invade my own privacy and no one elses. So I guess minding my own beeswax about adscam, at least for the time being, is just a continuation of that.

But I don't want to be too reverential of the Canadian government, the PM, the Liberal Party. Somethin' tells me they really do deserve what might be coming to them.

Then again, if the only option remains the band of wannabe opposition leaders..... *Sigh*.

Shocking?

So maybe you are shocked at how closely I associated myself with a belief in Jesus in that last post. Doesn't sound like Lise? Let me be clear.

I believe in God. I do not believe in the Catholic Church.

Although I do pray for its salvation every day. ;)

And if you feel that I have disrespected your beliefs in some way by the above statement, get your own f***ing blog. I might even read it.

Jesus walks

As an adult, I've always thought that the Church does a great disservice in painting a portrait of a warm and fuzzy Jesus. I remember going to catechism when I was little and it was all about Jesus and the little children and lambs and love and sunshine. I think the reality was a man who pushed the boundaries of the status quo so far that they felt they had no choice but to kill him. He was a radical, and I think saying that is more helpful than singing "Jesus loves me" a thousand times over. It's a helpful philosophy to take on in business, relationships and yes, even faith. Stand up for what you believe in, and know that there will be a cost. Hopefully, it will not be as drastic as death. Hopefully you will make a difference. At least you will have tried. And there is still a place for the doctrine of unconditional love in all of that. In fact I think one cannot follow without the other.

In looking at all this recent coverage of John Paul II after his death on Saturday, it almost looked like he started out with the warm and fuzzy stuff with that "John Paul 2, he loves you" declaration. But it's clear that there was some radical activism there: supporting First Nations on land claims issues, and standing up with the Solidarity movement. Too bad it wasn't there for liberation theology but hey, he isn't God after all. Pobody's Nerfect.

Okay, but here's my problem. There are no women priests in the Catholic Church. Priests are denied the right of marrying and have full lives like the rest of us (and yes, that should include same-sex marriage too). Contraception, despite it's benefits as a tool against overpopulation, is just not an option, at least officially (ask a bunch of "practicing Catholics" in Canada and they might disagree).

But then I come across a conundrum I've been pondering for some time. Am I a hypocrite? Why is activism that supports my beliefs more right (and in keeping with the tradition of Jesus) than others? Last week, while I was cursing the US government for getting involved in the private matter of Terri Schiavo, I was forced to ask myself, but if the situation were the reverse, if the government wanted to overturn court decisions that I was fundamentally opposed to, would my opinion be different. I ask again, am I a hypocrite?

I think if, by some miracle, the next pope appoints women as priests, bishops, maybe even *shock* cardinals, he will have to do so by saying that God didn't intend women to be second-class human beings and not because there aren't enough priests to go around. Because that, my dear friends (as Father Ben used to begin his sermon), would surely be hypocritical.

Oh, there is so much work to be done. And I think Jesus walks among us hypocrites who care enough to think about it.