Excellent weekend!

Friday: finally got out of work, still feeling a tad fragile. Wandered up St-Laurent (closed for the street festival), signed in for my volunteer shift and ate some pizza to ward off starvation (the problem with hangovers is that starvation sneaks up on you out of nowhere).

( More Fringe blather than anyone but me probably wants to read. )

note to self

Buy current issue of Ms. It has Janeane Garofalo on the cover.

apparently ignorance of the law IS a defense...

from Grist Magazine:

People accused of shooting endangered species are getting off the hook thanks to a U.S. Justice Department policy that some federal wildlife officials say amounts to a loophole in the Endangered Species Act. Adopted in 1998 under the Clinton administration, the policy requires government prosecutors to prove that a suspect knew the animal they were killing was endangered. "We have to show a mental state, which for federal agents is very difficult," said Neill Hartman of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The policy has hampered dozens of federal criminal prosecutions in cases where grizzlies, wolves, lynx, condors, and other endangered animals have been killed. "If you don't prosecute, who's to stop someone from going out and taking a bear just because they want a grizzly in their trophy room?" asks Hartman. Wildlife officials have asked the Bush administration to change the policy, but to no avail.

straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Deborah Schoch, 22 Jun 2003

dissatisfaction

As Herself mentioned, I'm feeling a little low.

Also, I had yet another life-changing revelation in the shower this morning. I'm getting a little tired of these. It is this:

I have spent the last 5 years, i.e. the second half of my twenties, in suspended animation. I've been telling myself I'm not staying in Montreal long so there's not much point getting involved in things, making friends etc. (I have some friends, of course, but I'm really pretty damn solitary.) I mean, there's a girl at work who's been in the city TWO years and she's already engaged and has bought a house for God's sake!

I am worried that if I don't watch it I'll spend the next 5 years poised to leap but never leaping, and thus cutting myself off from all sorts of things that might enrich my life. Like, you know, getting involved in the community. And meeting people. And boyfriends.

Now, while I don't want to give you the idea that I believe wholeheartedly in this astrology business, because I don't, nevertheless Rob usually has good advice, and this was last Wednesday's:

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): I'm at a loss to understand why Juneteenth isn't one of America's major holidays. Observed every June 19, it celebrates the emancipation of African-American slaves in the 1860s. Shouldn't it be a time of rejoicing for every race? When one group of people is held in bondage, the lives of all others are distorted. The same is true about the community of sub-personalities that resides within you. When one aspect of your multifaceted psyche is weak and oppressed, the rest suffer, too -- even the supposedly healthy sides of you. I bring this up, Scorpio, because the astrological omens say your own liberation day is nigh. It's time to free every part of you that is in chains.

General consensus appears to be that I am suffering from Severe Thirties-Related Birthday Panic (thank you Bridget Jones), not that my birthday's for another 4 months but that seems about the size of it. Makes a certain amount of sense. I have also received lots of good solid advice (thanks, you know who you are), which I really need to print out and stick on my bathroom mirror. Mostly I think this is something I'll have to work through for myself. At least the weather's nice for it.

Um, that's all really. Getting out of here now.

Found poetry

This was in my mailbox when I got home:

There is no calamity greater than lavish desires.
There is no greater guilt than discontentment.
And there is no greater disaster than greed.

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Belated but sincere thanks

to those of you who responded to my last angst-ridden post. It's nice to know I'm not alone!