Or maybe just buy a box of those cheap Greek clay plates and smash the fuckers. or maybe the window of Gordon Campbell’s constituency office window. Not that last one, how un-Canadian.

I love you Spike. How can I help?

-Elaine, the aforementioned gf

….as I ride past your home, I think of the time when my beloved was going through what you are enduring now, and how it belittled all I had learned, and how it made me realise how ignorant we really are, and what a trap science and engineering is, ’cause it gets you to thinking that all you have to do to fix the world is sit down, get the facts, figure it out, then address the issue and fucking fix it and move on to the next problem.

And it makes me remember the anger and frustration that corroded my soul because I couldn’t just get out my wonderful toolkit, the finest that money could buy, wielded with the skill that only broad knowledge and years of experience can convey, open her up like one of my computers, find the defective part, replace it, and make it all work properly again.

But I couldn’t, and it made me angry and resentful, ’cause it showed how little I really understand, and how fuckin’ helplessly mortal we
are, and how evil the bastards who rip off our treasure to fight *another* fuckin’ war with, to spread more death, more suffering, more destruction, more misery are, and how these rotten young neo-liberals have pillaged our equalities to buy a fancy yacht and house on Marine Drive, and fuck your health care system you snivelling commy pinkos.

And I don’t even feel shitty!

But let me know if/when I can come around: I have a soft spot for saints with slightly sulferous halos myself.

Francis

I haven’t been in touch as much as I intended when I first heard about the cancer thing. But I have been reading your updates and thinking of you often.

I don’t think I could have written out all the hard realities you have put to words when I was in my period of hospitals and surgeries. But reading your words, memories of some of that come back. Lessons of that time that seem faded out start to re-emerge. Having a wife (at the time) who saw me through it all, really seemed to be the one thing that pulled me through the muck the most. I am glad you don’t walk this alone. It does take a special woman to stick by, but they are out there. Glad you have one.

Amazing how much vanity we have. I still can’t believe my body. I still expect to see something different in that mirror. Eleven fucking year later. But I try to allow that mourning. At the same time, I try to allow it only in moderation and kick my own ass and remind myself that in the end, it doesn’t matter – I can *see* that mirror now and I can’t change the past. So I try and be brave at rebuilding the person there, not wasting too much more time missing the former. I am trying to address some of that more seriously at the moment, clear some of the complications in my life and remember the most simple lessons that only truma/major illness survivors can fully know. And that is, like you mentioned, to figure what is actually important, what really fucking matters, and try and find a way to actually make that (whatever your THAT is) a true priority in life.

Thanks for the reminders. And wishing you strength to just find a way to persevere through the toughest times, so you can see what things are like on the other side.

Lots of love,
Kip