http://youtube.com/watch?v=33w6R85eKzs
Dusk and Summer by Dashboard Confessional.
It has been a pretty nice Sunday summer day today, though it has gotten rather windy and cloudy in the last hour. The wind gusts are over 30 km/hr. There is that constant flapping and clicking sound associated with wind. I have been spending time with my niece Amalea and it is fascinating how children love you unconditionally, as I suppose we do them. There is no thought process in it, it just is. She is 9 and a pleasure to be around. We all; my parents, Amalea and I, had a great dinner of breaded Chicken, green beans, potatoes with sour cream and brown rice with a side of garden salad, it was really good. Though I think I ate too much.
Today I finally finished reading Snow by Orhan Pamuk, it was okay, I had trouble getting through parts of it. With it finished I started reading The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence, a book I had to read in high school, and liked it, but think I will like it more now that I am older.
"In beds, in little rooms, in buildings, in the middle of these lives which are completely meaningless..."
http://youtube.com/watch?v=gGWJ0TIEN40
Perfect Blue Buildings by Counting Crows (live Oxegen Festival, Ireland, July 12, 2008)
I spent the early part of last night drinking tea in a cafe and trying to piece together a poem that was formulating itself in my head. The results are below. It is about a lot of things, the least of which being summer, though summer did find its way into the title. It is more about the natural growing apart of friends and how it is nothing to worrying about, it is a chance to find people with more common interests. Of course, it is not to diminish any current friendships, it is just realizing that we aren't the same people we were 1 year, 5 years, 10 years ago and so naturally we would want to find people more similar to who we are now.
Summer Is The Season Of Our Redemption
A feeling of separation
Has imbedded itself in me
The distance is growing
Between casualness and awkwardness
There have been too few conversations
For us to pick up like old friends
Saturdays have become Mondays
Silence strangely surrounds everyone
The normalcy of it equally strange
Have we all accepted this new reality
Where close friends are strangers
I believe it is part of our evolution
There should be no struggle
Memories are created and lost
Faces remain and in their faces
We too easily see our forgotten past
Those days have run their course
Our sun rose and our sun set
Often appearing brighter or warmer
The failures inevitably make it colder
Winter is the season of our defeat
Summer is the season of our redemption
Nourished by rainfall through spring
We are greener and more lush
Waiting for new songs and lovers
Hours to ponder a future of happiness
Separating ourselves from ourselves
The person we were is longer viable
Change means making difficult choices
Abandoning our protective and restrictive layers
Finding new friends with similar interests
Since we all do not grow the same
Throughout this life and its many challenges
Humanity forces loyalty upon us naturally
Until we realize separating is necessary
A snowflake from a cloud at a certain altitude
The conditions of its formation completely random
Much like our own individualized genetics
We could very easily have been anybody else
Fortunately there is only one of us
With our idiosyncrasies and our stubbornness’s
Defining another person is never fair
There is no way we can every know everything
Humanity is too complex and simple
When we think the answer is easy, it is hard
The opposite is completely true as well
A feeling of isolation
Can only last as long as you let it
Separating ourselves from others is hard
Though at times it necessary
So we can once again form bonds.
07/12/08
"You can't ask what you're asking me to do and I hope you understand when I refuse, I'm going North with my point of view and I'm never gonna think the same as you and I'm where I can't be found and I won't be coming 'round, no, I'm an American on the Canadian Shield and I'm putting down roots in your frozen fields, it gets cold but you feel so good to be a stranger in a town and you're understood..."
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Cm21sjHvi40
An American Draft Dodger In Thunder Bay by Sam Roberts.
Below is an interesting article from the NY Times about how Canada isn't as welcoming to American war deserters of the Iraqi war as we were during Vietnam. I feel if a soldier signed up for the army before the Iraqi war than I would welcome him or her into Canada. But if the soldier signed up for the army after the war had begun in Iraq then I would want them sent back to America. They made their choice and unlike Vietnam, they have a choice. This would explain the relatively low number of Iraq deserters in Canada, as outlined in the article. It is definitely an area that our Conservative government is trying to stay out, by making our courts decide for them. The opposite parties have tabled legislation to allow these deserters a safe haven in Canada. Stephen Harper would never want to do that, he is ideologically too close to America. Liberals like me, and like past governments of Trudeau and Chretien would welcome any American opposed to the war in Iraq. This is because we believe it is an illegal war, according to International Law, and obliging by International Law is what Liberal Canadians believe in.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/world/americas/13canada.html?ref=americas
The Blue Jays finished the "first half" of the season on a winning note, beating the Yankees 4-1, highlighted by strong pitching from A.J. (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) Burnett. The Jays are now 47-48 heading into the All-Star break, 12-9 under new manager Cito Gaston, they are still 9 games out of the division lead, but they aren't dead, yet. A great second half, 47-20 or better, could get them into the playoffs. It is a longshot but once in a while longshots hit the board. Though they are much more exciting to watch now and it doesn't feel like time wasted watching them.
Enjoy what is left of your Sunday.
jr.
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