Past is Past

This is probably going to turn into a mini-rant, but here it is :)

Lately on Facebook I've started getting friend requests from people from my past. Ordinarily one would think this isn't bad, sometimes it's nice to catch up with people you lose touch with. But there's a few people who I never expected to hear from again, and in all honesty didn't want to. Without going into too much detail, my parents split up several years ago. It was pretty ugly for a few years. The thing though is that all these people I had known pretty much all my life, some family and some really close family friends, seem to suddenly become completely non-existant after my parents split. Nobody ever came to either my sister or I and asked us how we were doing. There was no neutral party to rant to, to get away from the stress of the split, to have a shoulder to cry on. It was like all those years didn't matter anymore, and they didn't give a damn about us. Some I tried to keep in touch with, but one clearly had ulterior motives and another clearly wanted nothing to do with me, so eventually I moved on. I stopped thinking and caring about all of them and quite frankly, my life is just fine without them. So I don't know why all of a sudden they care so much about what I'm up to that they're looking me up on FB to try and add me. Maybe I'm a little bitter, but I can honestly say I really don't care what they're up to, and I have no desire to find out. If they couldn't make time for me then, they have no place in my life now.

So if they ever read this (they know exactly who they are) I have only this to say: I don't care about you. I have no desire to re-connect. Trying to get back into my life will only be a waste of your time, because I am perfectly happy without you in it. Stay in my past where you belong, because I only have time for the people who truly care about me. But thanks for showing me what a person who doesn't care about me look like, so I can tell the difference :)

Editing My Life

My room's been a hazard zone ever since I emptied that thing in my room called a closet. I'm being far more careful about what's going back in there than I usually have been in the past, as I'm done having crap piling up. Plus I think the last time I did a cleanout was a couple of years ago. It's really amazing how much things accumulate over even that short period of time! But this time, sentimental feelings are going to have to take a back seat; anything that sticks around better have a good, useful reason for being here. It kind of got me thinking though how similar this is to editing when you think about it. You take the product - in this case the mess - and just start slashing away at the unnecessary stuff until you get a clean, neat finished product. And it's not just a one time edit (my room would be my room again if it was), but re-edits over and over. I guess it's life imitating art. Good practice for when I eventually start tackling my stories, I should think! I highly recommend it :)

Marketing or Stupidity?

Last week my sister came over from work and told us about this thing she saw downtown where she lives. Apparently the public health and safety board was putting up notices that there was a siberian tiger roaming around downtown, and that people should be cautious and not go downtown at night. Yes, I know what you're thinking. I didn't believe it myself, and even she wasn't entirely sold. But she lives downtown, you know? There's some concern. But notices were all that was being put up, no announcements or anything. That was the first thing that screamed 'bogus!' to me. I figured it was someone pulling a stupid prank thinking it was funny. Then came Saturday, and in the paper was a section talking about this tiger downtown complete with an alleged picture caught of it that was claimed in the article to be authentic. I still wasn't convinced, something wasn't sounding right about it. Basically if this tiger was ever caught, then I'd believe it. Turns out I didn't have to wait that long.

In the local section of the paper there was an article talking about the tiger and that it was in fact all a hoax, and the other section that was included in this paper was in fact completely fabricated. No I wasn't surprised. Turns out the management of our city football team is trying to increase season ticket holders and attendance in general (since it's been dwindling for YEARS) with what they call viral or 'guerilla' marketing. This whole tiger thing was designed to get people talking, though no one's been able to explain just how this is supposed to be so positive. The spokesperson for the team claim there's been a lot of positive response, but all I've ever heard is from people who are pissed. And rightly so. The presence of a tiger is no laughing matter, that's a dangerous animal. A lot of people took this seriously. There is no public health and safety board (well there is a real one like it, but that's not the name of it) and the website is registered to the team head office. Were this some ordinary moron, the police would have been on that person's case in a flash. I think the same should apply here, because this was completely irresponsible especially for a company. Hiding under the 'this is marketing' excuse just doesn't cut it.

So what do you think? Marketing or stupidity?

Great Friday

I haven't had a really good day in a long time, so it was nice to have such a great Friday after a few funky days. Which always seems to get worse at night. Ever notice how anything not great (depression, flu, headache, etc) always seems to get worse at night?

Anyway, it started with a REALLY good dream concerning something Tessa and I had been discussing the days previous. Basically I was really troubled and down about something that she refused to allow me to give up on, and that dream seem to only illustrate what she was trying to tell me. Might sound silly but it really felt more than a dream and ever since then I've been re-motivated. Feels really nice :) That was followed by a pretty good walk with Dalila. Yeah we're still working on the walking thing, we have our good days and our bad days. Slept well all morning, got ready for my appointment at the clinic and for the first time I wasn't anxious at all. Not even jittery, which is really unheard of for me these days. Panic disorder makes life very hard, and even simple things like a short bus ride can completely set me off. Good moments like this kind of add to the hope that this isn't going to be forever. The appointment itself went really well, we came up with a lot of good ideas that are hopefully going to really help. You know something's right when you feel like you're right where you're supposed to be, and that's how I'm feeling here now. After two years of this I'm finally going to start getting better.

Despite the cold I stopped at Tim Horton's on the way home and grabbed myself an ice cap. It's usually hit or miss how well it gets made, I love it when it's really full. Which this one was, so that was nice. Nearly froze my hand off on the way home since I forgot my gloves (better than forgetting something important though!). Dalila handled the extra crate time well - no whining, no pacing and most importantly, no accidents. Huge bonus. Then I even got around to the task of gutting out my closet. I have a floor in there! And I found a whole bunch of stuff I had been looking for, including stuff I had forgotten about. Lots of crap to get rid of, and hopefully this time I won't bury my floor again. Feels nice to clean up these little corners, and it may sound weird but sometimes focusing on something else gets ideas going. I guess because you're not so focused on the writing, it's easier to see the forest for the trees as it were.

Books and Goodies

I finally sorted my books! These are the ones I'm keeping:



This doesn't include my Tolkien collection, which was already on the bookshelf when I took these pics. These are ones I've read, but not sure if I still want them:



And the monumentous number of books I either need to finish, or start reading:



Guess I should get on that.

I went and finally picked up my package today! Waited almost a half hour, someone was shipping off like 6 boxes >.< I think cdjapan gets a little paranoid when they ship things, because this box was twice the height it really needed to be and there was no way I was going to be able to stuff it in my purse to carry.



At least everything was wrapped nicely :)