Lost in Space?

Have you ever had that feeling that your safety tether has snapped, you're out of reaction mass, your transponder has failed, you're slowly drifting away from the only source of oxygen within a million miles of vacuum in every direction, and flapping your arms ain't gonna help?

I've had that feeling. But I'm still here. Things worked out.

I know exactly what she's talking about

Great news from 5M today: She's not going to see M for a while. She's decided it's better that way. Amen.

Meanwhile, R is not respecting her feelings. He's doing the staring at other women thing. Looking right over Musie's head while he does it, too.

I know exactly what she's talking about.

Well, not exactly. None of my girlfriends have been big on staring at men while they were with me. A few were big on staring at other women. (I knew because I'd look to see where they were looking before I'd do my staring. Fellows, it's an excellent argument for dating the bi-curious.) But they'd never stare over me to do it, because I like to arrange seating so that we're not across from each other.

But where a number of my girlfriends have shown a lack of honouring me is when we'd be walking somewhere and come across a puppy or a baby. There you are discussing how you'd like to install a fireman's pole in the house or whatever and suddenly she's forgotten you and is down on her knees talking like a deranged nanny. "Look at you, isn't you a wittle sweetie! awww, I wanna take you home."

No, you can't take him home. Leave these people alone and pay attention to me, dammit!

Let's not get into the issues of how she's objectifying these human children or animal companions.

Me and my misdiagnoses

I'm struck by yesterday's posting from 5M. She's chided me in the past for suggesting that depression might be a factor in her life. Yet it seems that a problem that is costing her $50 a month has made her unable to write in her blog. My mind leaps to depression as the reason this makes her not write, but perhaps it's red hot anger? $50 a month is worth paying attention to, I'll agree, but making one unable to blog?

Yesterday, she walked to Sandy Hill and got blisters. She mentions that R did not tell her how far they were walking. Perhaps R assumed as I would that 5M would not own a pair of shoes that would injure her while doing what is ostensibly their designed purpose. If I was writing the DSM-V, I'd put a disorder in for that, but I'd be excoriated for my sexist bias.

Questions

1. Where is the wee she-demon? Silence since Thursday. What was bothering her and keeping her awake at night?


2. Where on that big blue ball are my old friends Agatha and Conch Shell? Are they even alive?


3. When Musie says "A work of post-modern/feminist/colonial fiction" is it "postmodern, postfeminist, and postcolonial fiction"? Or does the "post" only go with the modern? If it's the one where everything is "post", does "post" mean the same thing for each of those words?


4. Will Coyote dislike the picture I sent him because he thinks I made him look too fat? Everyone knows that a spacesuit adds 30 pounds.

Poetry Review

I pretty much always like Musie's poems, but I don't generally say anything, because I figure my reviews fall in the "don't know much, but know what I like" category. So I don't say much about Coyote's poems either, even though I like them too.

The other night I ran into Coyote at the Cantina and he brought up the poem 5M wrote on November Sixth. (The one with the "your leg against my thigh and yellow-shot blue eye pressed into mine".) I've reproduced Coyote's concise but heartfelt review in the accompanying cartoon.

I suspect this poem is what triggered the Chair's "final" posting. One of his best, I thought. Good and punchy, and introduced several dating concepts that haven't been overworked on Seinfeld and Sex and the City, and are relevent to life in Ottawa.