I’m going nuts. How can repeatedly paying over a hundred bucks repeatedly lead to me getting shitty products? My next keyboard will have a FUCKING WIRE THANK YOU. As for the mouse, that’s much more of an issue. *SIGH* WHY CAN’T PRODUCTS MADE IN 2010 ACTUALLY WORK LIKE THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO?

Stores aren’t honest. Their fliers and websites should advertise “huge selections of pieces of shit, crap and other random useless items that will make you go nuts before they quickly end up spending all of eternity in a landfill”.

(Somehow over the past few years, sharing something has come to mean “giving it more value”. But that’s 100% artificial, and in some cases the value is entirely destroyed instead. Thanks for listening.)

Now time has passed and frankly with age came a very welcome softening of life-and-death importance when it comes to friendship and the like. Also, I now have a partner who is actually a partner to me in most possible meanings of the word. If he hurts me, I know he never meant to, and we can move on. With true friends, I’ve also forgotten to count or care. Stuff becomes small with perspective.

Yet if I don’t hold back and cut all lines of communications with the whole of humanity seemingly out there, I’ll expose myself to pain. To being under-appreciated. Blatantly screwed even sometimes (it must say “sucker” on my forehead, I swear…). That’s fine — I’ve always made the choice to be bold and open and get hurt once in a while rather than stay by myself and be falsely safe. I take it all in. But here’s the thing I’ve learned (prepare yourself to not be awed): life is short. I’m getting older. And people who hurt me will no longer be given a second opportunity. Such is my new policy. Now move along.

I say bullshit (and shenanigans and muggins!). I’m done week 5 and symptoms are showing no sign of relenting. What symptoms? Utter stupidity for one thing. Herb and I have to discuss every single little plan three or four times, as we forget what we’ve just said and have trouble taking into account, well, more than one factor at a time. Oh and my fingers get so numb they hurt (and guess what, I type for a living!). From what I’ve read, that could actually be tingling from my blood circulation getting back to normal. Meanwhile? OW! Sleeping is now an issue. Not falling asleep, mind you: feeling any rest from sleeping! I sleep eight, nine, ten hours a night, more than before, and I wake up feeling not rested. How does that connect with smokers not sleeping as well due to constant low-grade craving? Oh and that mouth-guard thing? It does stop me from grinding my teeth. Oh yeah. But I’ve discovered I ALSO clench! And of course now that’s what wakes me, biting hard into the mouth guard.

And let’s be honest and frank and blunt. If you’re prone to major depression, guess what, you were using tobacco as an anti-depressant. Which means, KABLOUIE, welcome back to the big D! Say hello to that little voice that’s constantly providing de-motivational chatter. I’m incompetent, I’m stupid, I’m broke (that one is fascinating since quitting smoking is the best financial decision I could ever make!), I’m dying (obviously all my bubonic cancers waited until I quit smoking to manifest themselves, d’uh!), nobody loves me, boohoohoo. Okay so I can still make fun of the Voice. That’s because I know it all too well, and I know I’ll eventually manage to shut it up. Were I in my twenties, this would be suicide-tendencies alley.

Dopamine. How I crave it. By smoking, I’ve fucked up my brain, and now it’s trying to convince me that everything was so much better six weeks ago. Yeah, right (shut up brain or I’ll stab you with a Q-Tip… say… Homer’s stupidity is pretty much like my current modus operandi…). Turns out my other love, coffee, is also to blame. It’s not even the rather strong morning=coffee+cigarette association, which I’ve let go if; it’s the fact (seemingly, apparently…) that coffee increases my dopamine levels… only to make them (and me) plunge. Apparently green tea will help with dopamine issues.

So what are my weapons, as I prepare to keep on enduring until the shit passes? Green tea, just started. I’ll try to lower my coffee intake (which honestly feels like just taking another love of my life away…). I’ll try to drink more water (my water here being the purest possible - at least I feel great about that). I try to breathe better (deeper, slower). I try to calm the hell down.

Because even though I suck at hearing the messages my body sends (long story here, and I still don’t have all the pieces), I am now (like… as of today…) able to realize just how insanely stressed-out I am (mostly due to quitting smoking). Well, granted, that twitch in my left eye was quite a fun hint. Is. Anyway. Oh and the fact that my shoulders and neck are ONE knot. That my knee is acting up. I think I’m forgetting quite a few symptoms. So I have to pause and re-learn to breathe properly (by properly I mean yoga-like, not ordinary-human-adult-like).

Five weeks. I should feel elation, pride, at not having had one cigarette in well over a month. Big D prevents that, turns it around and tells me (repeatedly) that I suck. Well fuck you, big D. I don’t care that you tell me everything (everything!) is Herb’s fault and you tell him everything (everything!) is my fault: we (individually and together) are stronger that your shit. We will get by. We will survive. (Ok so right now I don’t know how, but that’s ok: it’s not like I have the brain power to reflect upon it in any case!) But when you’re thinking about quitting and they tell you not to worry, it’s just a bad phase to go through, a month at the most… feel entitled to punch them. Hard. For me. Then send me their contact info so I can pay them a visit and punch them myself. Hard. (I understand that some people need illusions to live (church-goers, anyone?), but lies just offend me and prevent me from moving forward; to each their own, but in my frame of mind… to each MY WAY. Yeah, quitting smoking has turned me into a teenager — it’s all about me. All about me, but I don’t have a teen’s naivete or sense of self-importance. So it’s all about me, and it all sucks, etc.)

So yeah, I’ll survive. I’d just like to know WHEN.

So I had begun a small but precious collection of Richie-isms, and loved to compare specimens with Sol, who appreciated them as much as I did. That day, I recall, I had shared with him, “Don’t kill the goose that laid the deviled egg,” and “You can’t sell a fuckin’ book by looking undercover.” John threw one in, then: he’d heard someone ask the pair why they were constantly together, and Richie had said, “Tho heads are better than none.” And Sol had just gifted us all with the gem “Atojiso,”, as in “I knew that would happen. I hate to say atojiso, Jules, but I fuckin’ atojiso,” and we were roaring with appreciation.

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Have you ever had a serious fever? The misery seems not only to last forever, but to have lasted forever—and then it goes on like that for days. But there comes a point when some kind of knot inside suddenly lets go—at the base of the throat, it feels like—and something starts to ease, or melt, or release. It’s a little like drifting off to sleep, only it leaves you more conscious. At first you can’t believe it, and then for a time you’re tearful with gratitude, and about ten minutes later you’re demanding food and the remote control.

Si vous souhaitez ajouter votre voix à la mienne, voici l’adresse courriel: nouvelles-internet[@]radio-canada.ca (crochets en moins).

Et voici ce que j’ai écrit (recopiez autant que vous voulez, en notant toutefois que vous être peut-être lecteur et non lectrice!):

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Bonjour,

Je suis une lectrice assidue du site de nouvelles de Radio-Canada, que j’aime énormément et qui m’est fort utile.

Un seul élément y détonne par l’absence de qualité et de jugement, et il s’agit des commentaires de certains de vos lecteurs.

Loin de moi l’idée de les empêcher de s’exprimer! Par contre, je vous invite à remarquer, sur ruefrontenac.com, la fonction qui permet, d’un seul clic, de ne pas afficher les commentaires. Cette fonction sur le site de Radio-Canada serait la bienvenue!

(Même que si on en venait un jour à faire du site un site avec abonnement payant, je refuserais de payer avant la mise en place de cette fonction! Ce sont des textes journalistiques que je veux lire quand je consulte le site, pas les états d’âme et jugements de gens inconnus qui ont oublié de tourner leur clavier sept fois avant d’envoyer un message!)

Merci de tenir compte de cette requête, ou du moins d’en prendre note!

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Pour Le Devoir, l’adresse est internet[@]ledevoir.com sans les crochets. Mais la situation est un peu différente, car l’abonnement payant est déjà offert.

Don’t know what I mean? Say I’ve decided — not a major decision, but I’ve planned in my head — to spend the evening quietly at home (that’s what I do with most evenings thank you). Then I get offered to go out. Frankly? I just feel like saying no. And I most often do. But I’ll take a minute to evaluate whether my no comes from rigidity or is truly meant and heartfelt.

Strangely, this rigidity comes from (or isn’t helped by) me working at home by myself. Those are MY processes, MY ways of doing things (which might not be the best but are the best I’ve found for me so far — good enough). That’s fine. But add to that the specific realities of my work life, and you’ll soon realize I have many clients who have many projects. And each and every project is due yesterday. Or perhaps later today (that’s what we call “not rush”), even if physically typing that many words in a day would be impossible. There’s days when I have to stop whatever I’m doing every ten minutes to field requests and re-plan the rest of the week. At the end of a day like that, try to change what I had set my heart on and you risk being bitten.

This being said, I understand how important it is to be open to new possibilities. My gut reaction may be to slam the door, but I try to look on the other side first.

I recently received a totally unexpected offer to change an annual project of mine, to turn it into something else, something new. Gut reaction, of course, was to slam the door. But I looked. And reflected. And in the end I sent a long proposal of the terms that would be — not acceptable, but — perfect for me, and also for the other people involved. Well I was shut down. Probably because I scared the offerer with my too many details (yeah well, my mind does not deal in the high spheres of theory — it clamps down on practical details and wants to sort them out).

Meanwhile, in my mind my annual project had morphed into this new, better deal. Now it’s back to what it was. Back to what made me perfectly happy before the offer came out of nowhere. Not only is that not helping me work on my rigidity, it’s making me want to shut out every other person who may come to me with a proposal for anything. Oh, I’ll get over it, of course. But it pisses me off (and usually when I’m pissed off, I’m actually not — I’m simply hurt, but it comes out as rage). Because had I shut the door at first, the result would have been the same: no go. But I would have been happy — not that it was my decision so much as… I wouldn’t have wasted my time reflecting, planning, drafting, dreaming. And I wouldn’t be left with a slight taste of bullshit on my tongue. (So if you have the greatest proposal of all times for me, y’might want to wait a couple of weeks…)

Update. Well I’m learning, I’m learning. I didn’t let go. I re-explained to make sure I’d been understood. I even expressed my disappointment. And all it was was a misunderstanding. So now I have to realize that the emotional roller coaster that I’ve been on all day was caused by… me. Make a mental note, don’t repeat, and we’re good. Learning.

What I find fascinating, as I watch the train pass by (and I’m not tempted to hop on), is that the loose communities I am in contact with online seem completely oblivious to the rest of the world. I mean they are, by definition, more urban than rural, more technology oriented than the norm — it’s a simple fact. But there’s buzzes going on — about the iPad, electronic books, geolocalization, etc. — that seem to rouse something like a consensus: these things are new, shiny, and therefore good and we should all want them. Or rather, they are the future, we don’t even need to consider whether they fill a need or not, let’s just go with them, want them, adopt them and move forward. More services, more apps, more more more. (Hey, I’m geeky enough to understand that drive, don’t get me wrong!) But here’s the thing. Though my work life, from 9 to 5, is spent online with tech-savvy people, my real life happens in the country, where not everyone has Internet access or wants it, not every home is filled with computer equipment like ours and very few people have cellphones (or get reception on them if they do!). So electronic books and magazines, you say? Wake up: most of the planet isn’t there, doesn’t want to get there and will refuse to get there. It’s just not practical for all. It’s not a matter of natural evolution, they’ll need to adapt and that’s that: it’s a matter of will or lack thereof, interest and lack thereof.

I can easily imagine, a decade or more from now, something horrible happening to all of Earth’s satellites all at once. And all of you techie urbanites will be at a loss: you’ll crawl on your hands and knees to knock on country doors: madam, please, how do I cook a carrot? I relied on my cellphone to tell me what was edible and not, and now I’m lost without it, roaming, roaming, roaming… (Okay, so maybe that precise situation won’t happen, but we here, in the regions where your food is grown, your air is purified and our water is still clean, would appreciate it if all you future-forward people didn’t completely forget about us, didn’t entirely despise us and consider us backwards just because your priorities seem completely frivolous to us. Thank you. And if you have no more us for those paper books, we’ll take them too.)