Why do people want to die in their sleep? I have to ask because I want to know the dreams other people are having that I’m not having that they’d want to die during one of them. I mean, seriously. I have a variation on one of the following dreams every night.

 I’m at a crowded party, making merry in the living room, the total center of attention, when I realize I have to go to the bathroom. Then I notice a toilet in the middle of the dance floor. So I take off all my clothes and sit on the toilet. I don’t know why I take off all my clothes, but the point is I’m in the middle of a crowded party sitting naked on a toilet. And I keep sitting there, with people coming and going all around me, because I can’t seem to pee. And I’m getting increasingly uncomfortable because I’m the only naked person at the party sitting on a toilet in the middle of the dance floor trying to go pee and not having any success at all.

It’s Christmas Eve and I’m a hideous teenager at home in Sault Ste. Marie playing chess with my brother. All of a sudden I realize I forgot to buy any Christmas presents. I look at the clock and it’s after store closing time. If the dream just ended there it wouldn’t be so bad, but no – I decide to head out in the blizzard which has just started to look for a convenience store that might, just might, still be open – in bare feet. Lo and behold, I find a convenience store open but it’s Charlie’s which is the store just up the street from our house except in my dream it’s out in the middle of nowhere and I’m stranded there, the buses having stopped running hours ago, in my bare feet, in a blizzard. That’s when I notice the escaped serial killer working behind the counter.

I’m back at university, living in residence, yukking it up in the common room when someone comes in and says, “Could you keep it down, please? I’m studying for my Economics exam tomorrow.” Which is when I realize that the Economics exam is tomorrow and I haven’t attended any classes and I have no idea what Economics even is but I give it the old college try anyway and start studying except that the next day I sleep in until 9:00, which is when the exam is starting, and then I can’t find the building where the exam is being held and by the time I finally find it, I’ve got ten minutes to write a three hour exam and it takes me ten minutes just to read the first question and then I realize instead of studying Economics last night I studied French.

There’s a tornado on the horizon so I decide I should get playtime in before it hits so I take my kids to the edge of a cliff to play while I go off into the woods to make sure there aren’t any bears nearby. Partway into the woods I realize I’m naked and covered in honey. Then I see a baby black bear and give it a little playful kick to nudge it out of my way. Just before the mother bear comes out from behind the tree where she’s been watching and hiding all this time, I look towards the cliff and see the terrible mistake I’ve made in leaving the kids alone to play right by the edge.

I’m living in Toronto with my boyfriend. It’s the 80s.  He’s out-of-town at a conference so I go out and get really drunk and pick up a great guy, the best guy ever, and I bring him home and I’m having sex with him in my boyfriend’s apartment and we’re planning a wonderful future together and he knows a terrific girl who could be my old boyfriend’s new girlfriend so everybody will live happily everafter when my boyfriend shows up “surprise!” from his conference that ended early and when I turn around my great guy has reverted back to being a dirty old hobo with rotten teeth.

 Or wait… nevermind that last one.

Anyway, I’ll leave you with a joke that pretty much sums up how I feel about the die-in-our-sleepers: “When I go, I want to go peacefully in my sleep, like my Uncle Pete – not screaming in terror like his passengers”.

As a Feminist, I do enjoy watching the New Conservative Government of Canada aggressively defend the idea that a decision by a retired judge (i.e. the courts) should take precedence over the will of Parliament (i.e. elected officials). Finally, we can all take a breather from the fight to ensure that abortion is not re-criminalized. You know, since the courts decided quite some time ago that it shouldn’t be.

Ah, the tangled web of deceit. New Conservatives twisting and bending like so many big soft pretzels. Department of Justice officials, as in, public servants, threatening other public servants against telling what they know to Parliament. Who knows? Maybe Judge Iacobucci will call the government to account and it will be found guilty of lying about what it knew when regarding the Afghan detainee situation. And whether he does or doesn’t, there will always be their smear job on the whistle-blower of the whole affair to remind us of who these New Conservatives really be.

Unrelated Addendum: What kind of latte sipping elitist takes a government jet to attend his own photo op at a Tim Hortons? Why a New Conservative latte sipping elitist, of course – Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty.

It’s a beautiful day in March, but I have no desire to go outside. I woke up feeling burdened by a lack of purpose. My lower back aches, my stomach is unsettled and I have no energy. I was kept awake all last night by the transgendered asshole who lives above me. She was moving furniture around. There’s nothing to be done about it. Complaining is a waste of time since she has no consideration for others and is a pathological liar. The idiot landlord would seem to have made her some kind of superintendant of the building, such as it is, too. I dislike my landlord. He’s a cheapskate. He’s also a millionaire, of course.

His judgment is terrible. I’d really like to move, but to where? Ottawa rents and housing prices are geared to senior civil servant salaries. Like everything in this corrupt and crumbling capital city.

Also, I have a meaningless job that pays decently. It’s the best job I’ve ever had, to be honest. So I’m having trouble going in to do it every day on account of the meaninglessness, but I’m having trouble making a decision to quit it, too, on account of it’s the best job I’ve ever had.

So, to get some inspiration from others who seem to be having more fun than I am, I decided to check out the blogs of a handful of Conservative women bloggers I happen to know about. I do this on occassion because I enjoy reading the approaches to life by people different from myself. The ones I like best are the single, childless Conservative women bloggers who have made themselves famous for speaking out on how other women should live their lives – which is to get married and have children. And then both stay married and stay home with children. They advise women to do this while still young.

I got married and had children and stayed home with them. To be honest, I couldn’t have conceived of doing anything else. But my reason wasn’t so much because I wanted to be a homemaker as that I didn’t trust anybody else to love my children as much as I did. Also, I’m a little bit paranoid (see any entry on Sooey Says) and didn’t trust myself not to spend my coffe breaks and lunch hours lurking outside a caregiver’s house. After a while, I really took to homemaking, too. Although I didn’t ever really take to marriage. I was older, though, so maybe that was the problem.

Or maybe the do-it-when-you’re young advice is just some sort of dating survival instinct. Certainly roping a man off from the herd is easier with the competition stuck at home with kids. But I also like the honesty of Conservative women bloggers, which I find refreshing, in admitting that they don’t care about anybody other than themselves. That may be a product of not having children (the honesty) or it could be the reason why they don’t have children to begin with. There’s a character in The Robber Bride, by Margaret Atwood, named Xenia, who is supposedly modelled after Barbara Amiel, who says to another character, who would seem to be modelled after any and every Feminist on the left, “Fuck the third world”, in response to a lament about injustice. The Feminist character on the left gets a vicarious thrill just from hearing someone say something so honest. It’s like that with me and Conservative women bloggers, I guess.

To be liked, or not to be liked, that is the question. Because when you do what you want, and clearly I’m not doing what I want or I wouldn’t have the blahs, is to risk not being liked – if you’re a woman. And that’s a fact. What’s also a fact is that the whole world conspires to prevent women from doing what they want. I did what I wanted once. I know. The funny thing is, most people thought I was leading with my heart when in fact I was leading with my head. My heart kept me married. It was my head that got me out.

I still consider that an accomplishment, leaving my marriage, a positive as opposed to a negative. And I mean that – honest – because I went from wishing my husband would be run over by a bus, to wishing him a long and happy life.

Ah happiness. Now there’s something worth pursuing.

Another thing I find interesting about Conservative women bloggers is that they think having children is selfless. I suppose they think that because they think themselves to be selfish because they decided not to have children and to have fun instead. (Not that one can’t have both, but most of us who have children have them because we don’t know how to have fun anyway and we figure we may as well get something out of marriage. Okay, that may just be me.) Still, any parent who claims to have had kids through a selfless desire to yaddayaddablahblah, is either a liar or so self-deluded that they should be watched very carefully around liquor and medicine cabinets. People have kids because they want kids. There are a variety of reasons for wanting kids, but none of them are selfless. Of course, having kids turns you into an incredible liar, too, so don’t expect to hear that from any other parents.

I know, I know – but if parents are such incredible liars, why should we believe you, Sooey? Whatever. Don’t. I don’t care. Fuck you.

So yeah, back to the blahs and how I try to kick them when they start winning. Another thing I admire about Conservative women bloggers is that they seem to be very successful in pursuing their writing/punditry dreams. And not to be mean, but I don’t think they’re doing it on talent, either. They’re doing it on nerve, nerve and self-confidence. Which makes me envy them even more.

What’s kind of unfair in terms of genetics is that I have an older sister who had an art show in a gallery on Queen Street West in Toronto – and she can’t even draw. I mean, that would stop me from trying to make a living as an artist right there, a complete lack of drawing ability. But not my sister. She calls herself an artist, therefore, she is one. And she didn’t waste much of her life working in offices doing jobs she couldn’t care less about, like I have. She sleeps in, smokes dope AND she got married and had kids. AND she’s an artist. She spends her life in creative pursuits. Stoned. And very satisfied with herself and her life.

Even better? She gets to be the black sheep of the family because we come from a long line of Scottish Presbyterians. Work hard. Then die. No one cares if you’re happy or not. Put your money in the bank and keep it there. Which means she doesn’t have to answer to anyone about anything. She just does whatever and ignores the tsktsking.

Gawd it’d be nice to be able to throw out all that bullshit we start collecting almost the minute we’re born, what’s not already bred in the bone, of course – preconception preconceptions - and start fresh. At the very least it would be nice to rise above it, to accept that working, unless you like what you do, is a kind of insanity, really. It’s not responsible, it’s stupid. It’s not setting a good example or being a good role model, it’s not even a whole lot different than being a suicide bomber, if you really stop and think about it. Make money to appease the ghost of John Knox, fly a plane into the twin towers for allah.

Or get a paypal button and be a Conservative woman blogger.

The rambling blahs. That’s what I’ve got to show for myself.

Subtitled: Ferchrissakes – Grow Up and Be a Secular Humanist!

Brace yourselves, there’s a new sex scandal at the Vatican. However, this one involves consenting adults, for a pleasant change, and therefore should be none of our business, really.

So without further ado:

Apparently, one Angelo Balducci, a Gentleman (chicken hawk/john) of His Holiness (brothel owner/madame), was caught by police (other Italian mafia) on a wiretap allegedly negotiating with Thomas Chinedu Ehiem (executive assistant/backroom boy/political aide/pimp), a 29-year-old Vatican chorister (sings like a girl), over the specific physical details (“younger lookin’ than his age of consent <nudgenudgewinkwink>”) of men (Adams) he wanted brought to him. Transcripts in the possession of the Guardian (pretentious newspaper) suggest that numerous men (oops, whores) may have been procured (for the purposes of prostitution) for Balducci, at least one of whom was studying (auditioning on the casting couch) for the priesthood (sex ring/men’s club/homosexual hideout/holy closet/coven).

Anyway, I don’t think the above is a scandal so much as “what the hell else are a bunch of confirmed Vatican bachelors going to get up to behind closed doors?”  And since there were no women involved, where’s the sin? See, from the Vatican’s point of view, it’s okay if priests have sex with men and boys. It’s not okay if they have sex with women. Having sex with women is “having been led into temptation”.

Girls are a bit of a grey area, especially if they’re old enough to get pregnant.

But at the end of the day, it comes down to this: Nobody’s got a gun to anybody’s head forcing him or her to be Catholic. Don’t like what’s going on at the Vatican these days? Well, no one is born Catholic. Being Catholic is a choice – a lifestyle choice.

I really only have two things to say about the throne speech and the budget. But come back later and I’ll have a short story for you that has nothing to do with either.

1.  Slipping in a plan to gender neutralize the national anthem was either a stroke of genius or just the result of someone having had a stroke and nobody else recognizing the signs, “I thbin we shoo shing li gir.” “Excellent idea, we should gender neutralize O Canada!” Because, of course, New Conservatives don’t give a rat’s ass about Canadiana, or women, but neither does any other party of we’d have a gender neutral anthem already. But now, of course, the Liberals and NDP are left to complain about political correctness and change and yaddayaddablahblah “where’s my cardigan?” and “you kids get off my lawn!” and “Jesusshit! Those rat bastard New Conservatives are really taking advantage of this minority government, by gum!” and “damn those Canadians for not wanting an election.”

2. Every time there’s an attack on public servants it’s not an attack at all but a mere holding of the line. And yet, some bozo will always go on tv to complain that senior civil servants will jump to the private sector if they aren’t handsomely rewarded in every government budget for hunkering down in their cushy secure overpaid jobs in the civil service. Did you know, for instance, that senior civil servants are paid bonuses for essentially fucking over everybody else in government and grants, contributions and government contracts land? Which is pretty much everybody else in Canada who isn’t a senior civil servant? Well, now you do. If one thing is a certainty in this world, it is that senior civil servants aren’t going anywhere and they never were going anywhere. Unless it’s to leave the government and come back as consultants at quadruple the pay and none of the drudgery to hold training workshops so that the poor saps left behind can attempt to implement whatever stupid new procedures they put in place before they left. And since they pretty much write the throne speech and the budget, I think we can all stop worrying about senior civil servants fucking themselves over.

Fucking rat bastard senior civil servants.

Okay. Later. Short story. Sooey Says.

Remember reciting this rhyme?

Of course you don’t. Not if you’re under 50. Although Kelly Terry (an anagram of his real name) up the street who was the same age as me never made the switch to “Catch a tiger by the toe”. He was what people used to call an asshole. And a Conservative, even as a little kid. It freaked me out every time he recited that blasphemous devil version, which he did just to bug me. Fortunately, there were no black people in Sault Ste. Marie at that time, although I always did an outraged perimeter check every time he did it, just in case. Not that he ever would have done it had there been any black people within 1,000 miles of Sault Ste. Marie.

Speaking of which, I know a lawyer who once defended another lawyer to the law society as a result of the above rhyme. The guilty party was from the real boonies, Thessalon, Bruce Mines, Debarats – one of the little towns that wasn’t Sault Ste. Marie – and in reference to an unpalatable choice to do with a murder trial, recited the “pre-enlightenment” version of eeny meeny miny moe. The kicker is that she is 20 years younger than me, it was during a meeting, AND there was a black person in attendance. A black LAWYER as it turned out.

Ah well, live and learn. Or pay “failed to learn in a timely fashion” fines to the law society.

So it’s kind of a surprise that the gooberhicks in the New Conservative Party Goverment of Canada want to change the lyrics to O Canada. And hard to believe that they care about women all of a sudden. Or sexism. Or outright misogyny, come to think of it. Of course, O Canada is totally gay, and the New Conservatives are totally gay, too, except with self-loathing on top. Anyway, I don’t care about our national anthem at all, or, at least, I didn’t until I came across the English translation of the French version. Check this out: 

O Canada!
Land of our ancestors,
Thy brow is wreathed with a glorious
garland of flowers.
As in thy arm ready to wield the sword,
So also is it ready to carry the cross.
Thy history is an epic
Of the most brilliant exploits.
Thy valour steeped in faith
Will protect our homes and our rights
Will protect our homes and our rights.

I dunno. I think I like it. It’s boring, demented and kind of creepy. Sort of like the Vancouver olympics. Or a combination of Stephen Harper, Michael Ignatieff and Jack Layton. Besides, who the hell sings O Canada anyway except kids and jocks.

I live in Ottawa, so it’s hard to tell if the recession is over. Or hasn’t started yet. Or has and we’re right in the middle of it. Life’s like that for us Ottawans. It’s like living in a cold damp LaLaLand. Well, not like it. We are living in a cold damp LaLaLand. Replace Hollywood celebrities with Members of Parliament, add cold and damp, and mix. And because we’re a government town, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere – in government. Not that it matters where you go in government. Working in government isn’t about where, not if you’re still capable of realization, it’s about why.

Anyway, my point is, the people who wrote the throne speech and came up with the budget live in Ottawa.

Well, goodnight.

I think it’s time this country speculated openly and loudly about Jason Kenney’s sexuality. Why? Because apparently, his office excised from the New Citizenship Guide any reference to Canada’s progressive laws, certainly relevant to most other countries in the world, with regard to homosexuality. And I have to ask why a Canadian Minister of Citizenship would be so reluctant to advertise in our citizenship guide that which makes us a welcome harbour from countries where homosexuality is frowned upon, discriminated against, condemned. I also don’t think he should have been allowed to do what he did. Personally, I think Jason Kenney is a deeply, or not so deeply, closeted gay man who is hiding behind Catholicism. Sorry, but I do. And that wouldn’t be a problem except that now he is dangerously misrepresenting in OUR citizenship guide how progressive this country actually is. He is actively denying that he lives in a country where homosexuals are welcome, where homosexuals can live as homosexuals, and where it is illegal to discriminate against homosexuals.

So why would Jason Kenney take that which makes us a better country than almost any other country in the world, and toss it aside as if it doesn’t matter? And when did government ministers become so powerful that he could? Because the facts are the facts, regardless of Jason Kenney’s weirdness about human sexuality, in particular, his own, and I don’t want him to get away with portraying my country as less than it is just because he’s mixed up about what it means to be Canadian.

I say we start asking questions about why Jason Kenney feels so threatened by freedom and why he would feel the need, in particular, to excise any reference to Canada’s position as a world leader in recognizing homosexual rights in our laws. Because, like I say, he strikes me as a classic closet case, hiding behind his chosen God, while he re-writes Canadian history and denies Canadian reality. He can believe homosexuality is wrong, but he has no business holding public office in Canada. We have laws with regard to discrimination based on sexual orientation in this country and he has broken the law in excising references to that reality in the New Citizenship Guide.

Christ, I’m watching former Prime Minister, Jean Chretien, on CBC right now, intoning on the Vancouver olympics (by the way, did you know that the olympics are actually awarded to a city and not a country and therefore it’s pretty nonsensical going around being proud Canadians for hosting the olympics like a bunch of steroidal braggarts and then !yay! beating the Americans in hockey, their national game, whether they pretend their national game is every other sport except hockey or not) and I’m thinking, “What a bullshitter”. Gawd, no wonder he kept winning elections. It’s as if he believes that by being incomprehensible we won’t notice that he’s full of shit. Or as crazy as a bag of hammers. Because he’s either one or the other.  So it’s really pretty fucking annoying to be feeling the warm fuzzies for The Old Monster in spite of his egregious bullshittery. One more blighty apple in my day for which I blame Stephen Harper.

Yes, indeed everyone – it’s the sixth annual Israeli Apartheid Week featuring human rights activists on one side and the usual suspects on the other arguing about whether or not the word “apartheid” can be fairly applied to Israel in the context of its treatment of the Palestinian population. One side argues that “apartheid” is a legal term that aptly describes the situation in Israel and the other argues that Israel is in no way an ”apartheid” state and how the hell else is it supposed to keep those subhuman humanshielders from taking over and why the focus on Israeli “apartheid” instead of countries guilty of way worse human rights abuses, you anti-semitic-left-voting-self-loathing-jew-baiting-terrorist-supporting-hippie-freaks?!

Anyway, I think (therefore I am), in order to escape this rut and maybe even shake off the usual suspects long enough that a debate can actually happen with regard to Israel’s abuse of the Palestinians, the organizers of Israeli Apartheid Week should think outside the box by turning the box upside down and standing on top of it. Keep the box, because a debate needs a box or you just have a free-for-all of ideas and before you know it world peace could break out and our pensions would all be worthless or somesuch, but call Israeli Apartheid Week, Palestinian Apartheid Week.

Because, seriously, I don’t think the usual suspects, torn away from their charitable works hither and yon to confront Israeli Apartheid Week supporters in the same debate year after tedious year, are reacting to the word “apartheid” at all. Meanwhile, everybody else will get it and still show up and the debate can move on to Israel’s abuse of the Palestinians.