July 2004 Archives

I know that the older I get, the more people I meet. But it seems as though the more people I meet, the more likely they are to be depressed, bitter or both. I had lunch with a coworker today. We were in the kitchen and she just looked like shit. I mean, depressed, that is.

I asked her what was wrong and she said that she was having trouble with her boyfriend. Then we got into a discussion of various things, and it turns out that she is a Sad Girl. She is a failure, nothing works out, people suck, there's nothing new under the sun, blah, blah, blah. I basically said that life isn't that bad (she countered that it is worse), and thought to myself that I won't bother with people who are like that all the time. I have enough on my plate emotionally as it is.

UPDATE 8/10: She broke up with her boyfriend. She still seems negative and mean.

While Liz has been posting like mad over at CO and LMM, I have been doing SFA, and I don't mean sales force automation. I still have little to say, so I will post some pictures from Saturday.

A former co-worker, Nadine, called me up last Friday afternoon to say that there was an event for Vincentian people in the Thousand Islands where I grew up. Since both my parents are Vincies, and live in the Thousands Islands region of Ontario, I was definitely intrigued.

So I'm told that it is wrong to say, "You look great today", because there is a definite implication that yesterday you didn't look great, and it doesn't matter whether or not it's true. I'd just like to say that there is no reason to believe this, in general. Why not think that the man means that you look particularly good today? And what is wrong with this? That's what it means, at least when I say it.

If you ever want to get a peek into what keeps so many women down in the dumps (and how they are working to get out of those dumps), then check out the blogs of women who need to lose a lot of weight. They talk about a lot of other issues that aren't obviously related to weight loss.

Obviously there is more to sadness than this, it's just an interesting phenomenon.

This really bugs me. But maybe I'm just "sensitive" right now.

If a woman works to make some improvement to her looks, or if the light hits her just the right way, why is it that when you compliment them, they usually say in an accusatory and defensive tone, "What, so you didn't like X before?"

I live in a residential urban neighbourhood in Montreal. Here is a picture of my street, facing north:

The more people I meet, the more it seems that competitiveness is seen as a major character flaw, and as a competitive person, I think that this has the potential to be a bit of a problem.

For example, I play Ultimate Frisbee. So does a coworker. She said that the guys on her team give her a hard time because she doesn't take the game seriously, and doesn't really try very hard. It's not because she is out of shape, or that she doesn't know the rules, it's that she doesn't want to "play that way". This means that since she is there purely for the fun aspect of it, she won't try to make good plays. She putters around on the field and won't really try to get open to get the disc, won't really try to intercept it unless it is going to hit her. Her reasoning is that she has had enough of "that type" of play. Competitiveness only breeds bad or hurt feelings on at least one side, and she wants no part of this.

Apparently we once did business with a company with the word Cerberus in its name. When I learned of this I immediately thought of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. This is such a beautiful story reading it brought tears to my eyes. It's the fifth and sixth paragraphs that really do it to me.

You probably know the story, but it's worth reading, even this abridged version. Of course, it all depends on the telling.

Rose and I spent Saturday afternoon watching movies. It was fun; we watched Ron Mann's "Grass" and "Le Nèg'" from Robert Morin. It's the latter which is more interesting for me, because I am a Black man in Quebec and I don't smoke pot, (well, I don't buy pot, but I'll smoke it is offered...I'm not a pot-head, okay?). Without giving you a review of the film, I'll take a few elements of the film and relate them to my experiences.

Rose et moi ont passé l'aprés-midi samedi en regardant des films. C'était l'fun; on a regardé "Grass" de Ron Mann et "Le Nèg'" de Robert Morin. C'est le dernier qui et plus intéressant pour moi, parce que je suis un Noir au Québec, et je fume pas (ben, j'achète pas le pot, mais j'en fumerais si c'est offert...chuis pas un pot-head, oké!). Sans vous donner un revue du film, je vais prendre quelques éléments du film et les relier à mes expériences.

1. Get a small box.
2. Put a sticky note on the outside that says "Don't open."
3. Put another one on the inside that says "Bonehead".
4. Put the box on a coworker's desk.
5. Watch the hilarity ensue!