What Tarot Card Are You?

Strength

You scored 52 change, 72 wellbeing, 50 wisdom, and 57 truth

The Strength cards represents the control over material forces. The lion is a symbol of the fire within or the kundalini force that sits coiled within us at the base of the spine. The woman is symbolic of the subconscious, which controls vital functions without the need of conscious thought. She controls the lion with a gentle spiritual touch rather than from brute force. This card falls under the vibration of the number 8.

some extra words:

showing strength
knowing you can endure
having a gallant spirit
feeling an unshakable resolve
taking heart despite setbacks
having stamina
being a rock

being patient
dealing calmly with frustration
accepting others
taking time
maintaining composure
refusing to get angry
showing forbearance

being compassionate
giving others lots of space
tolerating
understanding what others are feeling
accepting
forgiving imperfection
being kind

achieving soft control
persuading
working with
guiding indirectly
being able to influence
tempering force with benevolence
demonstrating the strength of love

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 32% on changeYou scored higher than 76% on wellbeing You scored higher than 6% on wisdomYou scored higher than 31% on truth

Link: The What tarot card resembles you Test written by KamikazeParrot on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

Mood: busy
Drinking: coffee, black, cheap, strong
Listening To: the wind
Hair: far and away

Must’ve Been Dreaming

Hello walls. Nice to see ya. It’s been a long time. Dude you must be hanging round my subconscious or thinking about me or something cuz you’ve shown up in my dreams nearly every night this week. I think I met someone recently who reminded me of you or something. In the dreams you’ve gone straight, which is good. Which is what I always hoped for you. And in the dreams you’re always pissed at me, which is not so good. But familiar territory nonetheless. God you could be one jealous bastard. Not that it was entirely your fault . . . I even dreamed one night that the wife came back. As if that could ever happen! Last night was most bizarre though. I found myself in a cheap seedy hotel in some city somewhere, based on the flatness of the terrain I’m guessing the prairies, guessing Edmonton. That makes sense. I don’t know why I was staying at this hotel, but I’d been there for awhile, waiting for someone or something to happen. I answered a knock at the door and it was you, wild-eyed, out of your mind, but you. Happy to see you, relieved, for the first ten seconds. Until I heard the warning, realised there was no time, understood you couldn’t (or wouldn’t) protect me, he was coming and there was no way out, no time. You passed out on the bed and I called 911. The 911 operator wouldn’t listen to me, thought I was pranking because I couldn’t tell her where I was. Kept laughing at me and then hanging up. I tried to see the intersection signs out the window. Couldn’t understand why she didn’t know where I was. Couldn’t find any signs or landmarks or any markings to help me understand. God, I was pissed at that 911 operator. What a bitch! Her voice sounded familiar. I think I knew that wench once upon a time. I think she might have been in cahoots with him. You might have warned me calling the cops would do no good. I could hear his boots on the stairs climbing toward my door and I tried to wake you but you were gone, dried puke on your lips. I went to throw myself out the window but they were barred. The room was like a jail cell. I heard him reach the landing, heard the closet door slide open, heard the shot gun being loaded and cocked, safety off. And I slid to the floor beside the bed, covered my face with your big hand, still warm, and kissed your palm as I hid my eyes and waited . . . then I woke up.

Or should I say I jumped clean out of the bed with my heart beating so loud and fast I thought someone was pounding on the door downstairs. Been awhile since I’ve had one of the killing dreams. Guess I saw something last week that reminded me of him too.

Mood: ‘ntranced
Drinking: water
Listening To: Fuck the Pain Away, Peaches
Hair: sick of trying to hold the red . . . might a more neutral brunette be in order? Or even an out and out black? Hmm. Can’t do black unless the spiky butch cut goes with it

Slain

I went to bed at 8 last night. ME! In bed by 8. This simply does not happen, ever. Yesterday afternoon I was struck down by pain. Unexpected. No warning. Oh, I shouldn’t say no warning, the truth is I have a seriously high tolerance for pain, there could’ve been warning. I never notice until it gets so bad it knocks me flat. Yesterday afternoon I started to notice myself being knocked a little flat. I’m talking about passing out from pain, which sucks big time, because even then I could probably continue, work through the thing, if I wasn’t fainting. Damn my family and our proneness to faint! Bad genes. So I took my sorry ass to bed so I wouldn’t fall downstairs or do anything else to hurt myself. And I laid there until almost 5 this morning trying to find some comfort as the thing spread out finding my legs, knees, ankles, toes, arms, hands, fingers. Finally things calmed down enough to sleep for a couple of hours. All those hours in bed and I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck. A nagging ache in my right breast bone, my left fingers, the pads of both feet, my right thigh, but I think I can function at least. I’m going out. I’m getting some Ben & Jerry’s or Hagaan Daz, whichever has the more delicious flavour in my local grocer’s freezer. And I’m going to curl up in my warm fuzzy blanket with a Woody Allen dvd and self-medicate . . . right after I do some of this other shit people are counting on me to do.

Mood: exasperated
Drinking: coffee
Listening To: Living Dead Girl, Rob Zombie
Hair: ponytail head

On the Ball

Still being without data I seemed to have more time/less pressure about me, so I thought I’d seize the opportunity to find a time management tool that might actually help me to get organised, stay that way, and become more productive. It’s hard when you’ve got so many different balls in the air at the same time. It’s hard to know what to do first. Sometimes the weight of the tasks at hand is so overwhelming I can’t get out from underneath it and finish anything. The result is I have dozens of projects underway but not too much to show for all the work I do. I’ve taken some time before to look around for free day planners and software like that, but I’ve never found anything truly good. Until now! I’m very excited about this little gadget. I think it’s just the ticket for me to keep me focused and on top of things. So much so that I might even splurge and buy the professional version. (Provided I actually use the free version this week and see vast improvement in my life.)

Finally I feel like I might be getting On the Ball! I can plan projects, meetings, and simple tasks. And it’s like a game to see how quickly you can complete these things. Like this post for example, I’ve allocated 20 minutes and I’m down to the last 9 (better hustle!) There’s a small box at the top of my screen, out of the way, where I can access the ball at any time to add new tasks, to see how much time I’ve got left to complete the task at hand, etc. I get points for doing things in the amount of time I’ve guestimated the task to take, bonus points for finishing early. So it’s fun, it’s productive, it’s kinda sorta making me a happy girl today.

Anyway, with 6 minutes to spare, I’m outta here! Tech support are returning my computer this morning and I should do a quick tidy. That’s another thing about the ball, I just had to rearrange the whole first part of my day and I did it quite simply with a few clicks. The tasks are on tap for tomorrow and Thursday now, instead of today. This is fun stuff.

Mood: zoned in
Drinking: cheapo columbian
Listening To: adrenaline buzz in my brain
Hair: severely tight to my scalp

I’m It

Lookee here, I’ve been tagged by Liz. Hmmm, let me see, answers buried in this brain somewhere . . .

Four jobs I have had in my life –

1. dog sales, retail, PJs Petstore, Sherway Gardens (heartbreaking, dirty, terrible job, where the manager had a super crush on me and proceeded to make my life hell after seeing my boyfriend pick me up from work one night)
2. admin, arts, Ontario Ballet Theatre/Ontario School of Ballet (and you think poets are divas . . . there’s nothing quite like a dancer in the morning)
3. admin, tech, Interactive Media Group (absolutely insane position on a team of two where we basically provided all admin support from event planning and ordering supplies right down to sending everybody’s faxes and doing all the wordprocessing for 100+ head office employees of three companies [Phoneworks, Telepersonals, Axon Studios] with offices in most major North American cities and a few abroad handling the switchboard alone was a full-time job. Hundred hour weeks were the norm, with maybe an hour or two of sleep each night, three was a huge luxury, the rest of my time was spent in transit or socialising with co-workers. Is it any wonder everyone’s marriage/relationship fell apart within the first six months of employment here? Cuz everyone was living the same way. I was well-paid though and loved my job at the time)
4. waitress, Darlene’s Tea House (suffice it to say, I am probably the worse waitress ever, but when I needed some cash Darlene helped me out. I’m a much better bartender though. The thing about waitressing was I wasn’t allowed to smoke or drink while I was doing it, plus I had to remember tons of stuff OR be organised enough to write it all down in a concise easy-to-follow manner, which lets face it is not a recipe for my success. Also I had to pretend I liked the public, which can only be faked while drunk)

Four movies I could watch over and over –

This is super hard! So many movies . . . only four . . . there are hundreds of them I could (will/have) watch(ed) over and over. Of course you already know I love Platoon, Fight Club, Vanilla Sky, Lost in Translation etc. so maybe I’ll go another route . . .

1. The Wedding Singer, Adam Sandler & Drew Barrymore, the 80′s complete with a Billy Idol cameo, c’mon, what’s not to love?
2. Intermission, Cillian Murphy, Colm Meaney & Colin Farrell, 54 characters and 11 storylines, dark, edgy, and freaking hilarious.
3. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Johnny Depp & Benicio Del Toro, Hunter S. Thompson, the critics gave this one a hard time but I nearly pee my pants every time I watch it, they did a good job . . . and of course I’ve got the Criterion Collection edition with all those great extras like rare Hunter radio interviews and tv documentaries.
4. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, completely off the wall and wacky, yet serious, scenes all out of order, c’mon, of course I love this movie.

Four Places I would love to visit –

1. Italy
2. Ireland
3. Australia
4. New York

Four Places I have lived –

1. Barnettville, NB
2. Toronto, ON
3. Moncton, NB
4. Sackville, NB

Four TV shows I love(d) to watch –

Lets go with “loved to watch” like when I was a kid, though I’m not opposed to getting sucked into a few episodes now

1. Laverne & Shirley (I wanted to be Laverne)
2. Happy Days (I wanted to date Fonzie)
3. All in the Family (Archie Bunker cracked me up)
4. WKRP in Cinncinnati (Dr. Johhny Fever was the original cool dude)

Four websites I visit daily –

1. Zip.ca
2. AskOxford.com
3. Thesaurus.com
4. Sackville.com

Four places I have been on Vacation –

I haven’t taken many “vacations” in my life . . . I’m more of a road trip kinda gal

1. Toronto (sightseeing & shopping when I was 16, recent jon bon excursion)
2. Collingwood (a ski trip to Blue Mountain . . . that’s Collingwood right? So long ago and so traumatic I’ve almost completely blocked it out)
3. Alma (seedy motels abound)
4. PEI (a tenting disaster, back in the ferry days the boys held me over the edge about mid-way out there, fun, wow!)

Four things on the floor/ trunk of your car –

No trunk. No car. But I’ve got a floor littered with . . .

1. hundreds of manilla envelopes
2. an unopened Duracell battery charger
3. two unopened white extension cords
4. my old brown leather wallet Emerson made me, empty

Four friends tagged –

1. Trish of course
2. Jenn should be able to get her 10 minutes out of this
3. I think Andrea did this one already
4. Am I allowed to triple tag Joe?

Mood: list tired
Drinking: coffee still
Listening To: Time of Your Life (‘Til You’re Dead), Matt Mays & El Torpedo
Hair: unchanged

Reporting Live from the Front

Back from whirlwind Fred excursion with blistered heels. Tho to be fair, I didn’t get the blisters until trying to navigate icy sidewalks last night on the walk home after the bus. There is a guy in this town who thinks he knows me. Everytime he sees me he lays on the horn and waves like he’s trying to take off. Young guy, probably a student, dark hair cropped short, the kinda guy who wears his ballcap backwards, drives an older model cream coloured car, perhaps a caprice but my make/model knowledge has spiralled downward without the constant presence of an auto obsessed boyfriend so I could be dead wrong on that one. Anyway, I only mention him because his horn honking scared the bejesus out of me on the hill very nearly causing me to go splat on the ice in an unnatural splits. I’m sure I provided some comic relief to anyone looking my way at that moment. Maybe he doesn’t think he knows me, maybe he just enjoys the fun of spooking me. There’s that squirrely girl again, lets see if we can make her fall down.

So I bussed to Fredericton for Wednesday’s day-long Writers’ Union workshop and found myself as a radio guest on Tuesday night. A LOT of talking! And what is up with my cheeks?! They’re absolutely bulbous. At least I don’t have that whole googly-eyed thing going on (most aptly seen in video) or the wide-eyed deer-in-the-headlights thing. But anyway, it was kinda fun to be in a studio again, especially one using a board as old as the one I used to work on.

A big crowd showed up for the workshop, a mix of students and experienced/less experienced writers. I pity the most inexperienced participants because the amount of information was overwhelming. Lots I knew already but it’s good to be reminded, some things I knew less about, some grey areas still. The hand-outs themselves were worth the price of admission for me though, particularly in the area of copyright as that’s always a concern in my business. This will really help me to develop my own workshop on publishing that’s coming up soon, as far as what REALLY needs to be said etc.

A little souvlaki break and it was back to the library for Joe’s reading. It went really well, got to hear some new work, had a top-notch quality audience come out for it. Though all those hours in the same room was a little excessive, at least the lay-out changed a bit for the different events. Afterward we went for drinks with an artist/author and ended up closing the place. Great conversation and stories. Lots of fun. I liked Robin a lot. There’s really no better way to spend an evening. Of course I paid a wee price yesterday for the excess of the night before, but hey, what’s a little foggy head amongst friends? Child-proof? Child-birth? Same thing only different, right?

Overall, it was an excellent excursion and I’m feeling like it did the trick on the motivation and focus issue. I’m dead tired, blistered, arthritic from the storm that threatens yet never arrives, but clear-headed at the same time, if that makes any sense.

I was supposed to be visited by the tech types this morning, bringing my data back, but this fake storm has delayed the visit until Monday or Tuesday. Oh well.

Mood: sharp
Drinking: coffee
Listening To: The Freshman, Verve Pipe
Hair: a mess

Off for Motivation

Another early morning in the Tantramar, dark and chilly. I should be sleeping. Did not sleep well last night. Must’ve been the full moon. Insane dreams! It was one of those nights where I wake up after the most intense action-packed bizarre dream to discover only 10 minutes have passed since the last time I woke up from the most intense action-packed bizarre dream. It’s an exhausting way to try and rest.

Heard from tech support yesterday and my hard drive will return on Friday. Yay! He’s fixing me right up, making back-ups of all my documents and music. It’s going to be wonderful. Fantastic!

Anyway, I’m off to Freddy Beach today for a couple days to take a workshop sponsored by the Writers’ Union of Canada. Should be good. Should provide some motivation. Should . . . well, we’ll see then. Blogging will cease until my return.

Mood: focused
Drinking: coffee
Listening To: Takin’ Care of Business, BTO (Radio Free Colorado)
Hair: stringy mousy brown

From the Miramichi

Aww, sometimes I get so nostalgic for the river . . .

You know you’re from the Miramichi when:

1. The biggest traffic jam you’ve ever seen was the Blackville Christmas parade

2. “Vacation” means going to Moncton for the weekend

3. You measure distance depending on how long it would take a snowmobile to get there

4. You see people wearing hunting clothes at social events

5. You use “dooryard” regularly in everyday speech

6. You always get sick or go somewhere a couple weeks before winter so you don’t have to help put in the firewood

7. Your highlight of the day is going to Leroy Stewart’s Cloverfarm for Mom and looking through the reduced carts

8. You realize that most of your clothing has Canadian or Alpine beer logos on it

9. You have been to a school function where Susan Butler sang

10. You use the words “friggin” or “arse” or “friggin arse” on a regular basis

11. You know at least three people who took a day off school for the start of hunting or fishing season

12. You know the only reason to go to Redbank is Cloud’s tax free store

13. You know Billy Walls is a local folk hero

14. Burnt Church. Need I say more?

15. You have a friend who writes-off their car on a regular basis

16. You can use the term “Jake-break” properly in a sentence

17. You listen to Tom Connors and Roger Miller on a regular basis

18. You have read Doug Underhill’s “Popcorn Cat and Pumpkin Moon” more than once in elementary school

19. You realize anyone who says the Rapids is the scariest place on the Miramichi has never been down the “Howood Woad” at night

20. You know where the “Howood Woad” is

21. You know all about Weaver Siding

22. You know what “pulamoo” means

23. You know someone who uses “dear” in every sentence

24. Your summer highlight is the 5 minute firework show at the Chatham wharf

25. You have, or know someone who has, a summer camp within 10 minutes of home

26. You have been to more than four UPM Timberwolves games

27. You know all the English people eat at McDonald’s and all the French people eat at Burger King

28. You know that the new bridge in Quarryville took longer to build than the Confederation bridge to PEI

29. You know that REPAP is PAPER spelled backwards

30. You have friends who argue about whose power saw is better

31. You drive out of your dooryard in the winter and your car is still plugged in

32. You use terms like “Not one bit” and “The very best” on a regular basis

33. The best fight you’ve ever seen happened at the Tom Donovan Arena

34. The last concert you were at was opened by “Amy and the Goodtimes”

35. If spinning powerturns on icy roads was a sport, half your road would win gold at the Olympics

36. Your Saturday evening consists of parking your car in the Russell’s drycleaner or the Sobey’s lot

37. You have been to at least 10 Choo Choo’s teen dances before you realized all the people there are under 12

38. You are honestly afraid of the Dungarvon Whooper

39. You use to be a Montreal Canadians fan

40. Picking tobacco and planting trees aren’t just summerjobs: they’re career choices

Mood: light
Drinking: coffee
Listening To: knives out, radiohead
Hair: outlook dismal

Do Not Adjust Your Set

I’ve been tech traumatized. I feel violated. My hard drive is gone, new (well new to me, no doubt ancient in reality) one doesn’t fit right with this desk, wastes tons of space. Now I have to find a new place to put all this crap I had to move. Blech! I hate XP, things aren’t what they’re supposed to be. Whole thing seems slow and cumbersome. I guess I’ll get used to it. But without any music, documents, email, bookmarks, etc. I’m pretty much left out in the cold. There’s not much I can do. My hard drive is supposed to come back in some form or another, sometime this week. Tech support will have to make a special trip. I hadn’t wanted that, but oh well.

Beauty day here, though chilly. Clear skies, sunshine, a thin layer of frost on the 8-Ball window. Think I’ll go for a walk.

Mood: happy
Drinking: coffee
Listening To: Talk, Coldplay
Hair: refusing to hold colour . . . will be blonde again soon

A Test of the Emergency Broadcast System

You know in Vanilla Sky at the end when Tom Cruise kinda figures out what’s up and is running around calling for “TECH SUPPORT!” . . . Tis I. And they’re coming. I may jump off the roof. Blogging will certainly cease for a bit.

Mood: stressed
Drinking: coffee
Listening To: fingers clacking over keyboard
Hair: psst! the shits