Darlings, I am coming home.

I don't know which of you are still reading - the LJ community that used-to-be has long since scattered upon the winds of way-too-busy, Facebook and I'd-rather-phone. But to those stalwarts remaining, I send greetings.

Sometime this fall, sometime before November, or at least December, I'm coming back to Vancouver to return to school. I've been able to take courses from up here on the mountain, and have found that my passionate love-affair with my childhood best friend, Science, is truly a lifetime thing. Brainwise, I may be married for all eternity to writing and language, but Science is my mistress, and the name I call her by is Forensic Toxicology. So be it.

As of January, I'm going to continue the march towards a BSc in Pharmacology, from sea level, full-time. It'll be the hardest thing I've ever done, and I cannot wait. The next couple of years will be, essentially, prep for entry into Med school, since that's the faculty that hosts Pharma. So far, so froody. And while I have every Aquarian intention and expectation of doing whatever it takes to get there, I'm Capricorn enough to have contingencies lined up: If not an Honours degree, then a Major; and if I'm not accepted into Pharma, which only takes twenty students a year, then I'll do a regular BioChem degree at the Faculty of Science. All of this will eventually lead to a Master's in some sort of toxicological research, and thence to the Toxicology Section of the RCMP Forensic Lab. Miss Marple of the Test Tubes and GC/MS.

This means quitting my job up here, though I love it. Also giving up a huge amount of security. But it's what has to happen. It won't be too many years before I'm back in the public service again, as a Civvie Mountie, and I'll still have a few decades of useful work in me by the time I get there. They can have my key-card to the lab when they pry it out of my dead, latex-gloved hand.

I feel like I've had five years of my ideal retirement up here, with useful, engaging part-time work, plenty of time for writing, meditating and creativity; copious amounts of solitude and the sparking of new lifetime friendships. Living far from the city is my natural milieu, and I hope I get to retire to a similar place when it's time, but for now, there's more that I need to do. And the Universe has been so strongly and blatantly pushing me towards this, with signals and chance connections and convergences, that it was only a matter of timing after all.

There's so much I'll miss up here (neighbourliness, quietude, the respect given to Nature as being in total control of this little mountain town) and much, too, that I'll be happy to give up (inescapable material poverty, as we all muddle along well below minimum-wage up here; town gossip; the last two months of the six-month winter).

Meanwhile there are a thousand details to research and take care of, and not a lot of time.

And yes, the reports of the Cariboo being on fire are not exaggerated. The smoke is thick and stinging up here, and there's ash covering everything, and we're 200 miles from the nearest blaze. We're the lucky ones...

If anyone reading this is still around Vancouver, we're overdue for tea.

Raincoast halts domestic publishing program

This is horrid news for Canadian publishing. Raincoast has been one of the few, if not the only, true champions of homegrown Canadian lit for over ten years. Sure, that put them in a low-earning category, but they had such a strong critical reputation and a loyal following. This seems like putting all the golden eggs in one basket, in an economic (and, ahem, CULTURAL) climate that needs diversity more than ever. Sigh.

Plus, there were some really amazing parties at the Raincoast warehouse. They were a dedicated, passionate crew, who realized they were holding onto something vital. The night before big new titles were released, you'd find all the staff and about a hundred book retailers - of which I was one for a while, via Book Warehouse - hanging out on the unopened crates, reading out loud from random books we'd grab off the shelves, or telling Author Interaction stories. And then at midnight, the box cutters would come out, and we'd all reach in and start piling up our stores' order...

JAMES ADAMS
Globe and Mail Update
January 7, 2008 at 8:42 PM EST

The Canadian co-publisher and distributor of the phenomenally popular Harry Potter series of novels is scrapping its domestic publishing program and blaming the appreciation of the Canadian dollar for that decision.

Vancouver-based Raincoast Books announced Monday that it will cease publishing Canadian-written titles by the middle of this year in addition to shedding as many as a dozen client publishers whose books it was distributing across Canada, closing the Toronto warehouse it opened in 2001 and laying off 10 to 15 per cent of its total staff – 20 employees, in fact, including its five-member domestic publishing division...

...Carolyn Wood, executive director of the Association of Canadian Book Publishers, described Raincoast's move as “very sad news.” The company “has published some outstanding books over the years. When a publishing program as important and well supported as that one can't be sustained, it tells you something about the precarious world in which Canadian publishers operate.”

I'm perfectly serious. I kept waking up every few hours and chuckling again.

The longest piano piece of any kind is 'Vexations' by Erik Satie. It consists of a 180-note composition which, on the composer's orders, must be repeated 840 times so that the whole performance is 18 hours 40 minutes. Its first reported public performance in September 1963, in the Pocket Theater, New York City, required a relay team of 10 pianists. The New York Times critic fell asleep at 4 a.m. and the audience dwindled to 6 masochists. At the conclusion, one sado-masochist shouted 'Encore!'

Okay, maybe you have to be in my head, or maybe it's lack of REM...or maybe it's just that so MANY people I know would have done the same!

( Yoinked from la belle canadienne )

The early-season Sesame Street DVD's have just come out. Some of them bear the warning:

"These early 'Sesame Street' episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today's preschool child."

( Chasin' the clouds away... )

Reading friends' blogs from around the world, a pattern is emerging: many of us are currently riding a wave of activity and inspiration, from within our chosen fields of work and study. A global lifting of Shakti Pad, the time of tripping over one's ego, missing the spark that once lit the Work, but also frustrated at the lack of progress? A meme among close friends, who have tended to parallel one another for the past several years? A subtle rebalancing of wei tan and mei tan, the Inner and Outer Work?

As with all things, the causes are no doubt manifold and complex. But here's to us. And here's to IT. Make it count.

Madeleine L'Engle has passed away at age 88.

Like many of her readers, I cannot measure the impact of her ideas and her story-weaving upon my life. Her words not only gave me perspective and courage to face the darkest hours, and shoved me headfirst into some of the most profoundly ecstatic and Grace-full moments of my life, but in large part opened my eyes to the ongoing dialogue between writers across history, that knows no contemporary period.

I wish I could have met her - she did make occasional lecture stops at UBC - but it would have been for the experience of sitting at the feet of a Master, and acknowledging the deep wisdom at play in the universe that finds its outlet in us. I'd have come across a blithering idiot, I suspect, if she'd actually asked me anything. Lit-geek fangirlism.

Whatever adventures you're having now, Mrs. L'Engle, I hope the view is fantastic from the back of a unicorn. Or a porpoise.

Researchers discover great hole in the universe

What's the (or a) correct term for a statement that not only disproves itself, but shows the speaker to be a total ninny? Besides "paradox", "fallacy" or "lie".

e.g. "Parliament receives constant updates on the war in Freedonia" or "Of all the things I saw when I visited Spain, I liked the Pyramids best."

ETA: This is not a quiz. I'm just asking for suggestions....hilarious or otherwise.