Well there are days when the ball just won’t go between the posts! I was running late pretty well all day. Mike and I went to a consignment store this morning and there were some really great things but nothing in quite the right size. I got an email back from someone who had been asking good questions about WPIT but he declined to donate. I called some more people to be guests at the Wisdom Completion Evening this Thursday but just got message machines. Blah blah blah.
Perhaps the truly concerning “failure” was my need to use Morphine two days in a row. Jen did say there would be major shifts, and there have been. I do recognize it as one of those plateaus before a great step forward. Just the same, I am tired and sore, and kind of wishing I hadn’t booked myself such a busy week! But so it goes and I’m just venting, not really worried or complaining.
It is interesting how the quality of the questions and comments about WPIT as an organization and our projects are taking on a very more rich and serious (in a good sense) quality. I was Skyping with a colleague this evening and she completely bought into our need for a $6 million dollar foundation so that we can do our projects without constantly having our hands in somebody else’s pocket. She also was thinking about who, at the university level, might take on the kind of social/economic research that inclusion deserves. In a sense she is a “nobody” in the world of big money and research but life doesn’t work that way. Talking to her tonight makes it easier for me to talk to the Executive Director of ACF tomorrow, and on the other hand I have no idea who she knows or who knows who she knows. The message is travelling out and getting stronger as it goes.
In Wisdom we talk about fail, fail, failing your way to success. It very much feels like that is where I am at this time. It kind of makes it easier in a way because if lots of failure is the way to success then bring it on, bring it on, bring it on!
Of course, I hope that the failures are getting smarter as we go!
I feel like it’s been a very long time since I worked hard. I did not work hard at my jobs in the early and mid 90’s. The international travel was fun. The paid office stuff was excruciatingly boring and useless but not at all hard. The intense schedule and consistent phoning, writing, speaking that I’m doing now is considerably more difficult in the sense of leaving no room for fooling around, but it’s making a lot of sense and building a network and proving that I can be worthy of a team working with me. It is a very different life than Cycle 2.
Oh yes, I painted today. Well I didn’t actually paint. Mike and I spent about an hour preparing to paint. I am about to attempt reproducing a photograph of a scene outside my window – one of the scenes of the industrial and railway view outside my bedroom. It is a picture that I took during the last week that I spent most of my time in bed. It is very inclusive of all the elements that intrigue me about this view – the cranes, the trains and the sandbox quality of the scene.
At one point this morning I thought that I might not be able to paint today and keep up with all the other things I said I would do. I realized, though, that painting is once again going to disappear as a regular activity unless I stick to it in my schedule. Actually it’s amazing how much disappears when I (or anyone else!) doesn’t stick to the schedule. We talk about freedom of choice etc. But I chose all these things that are in my life and I chose them freely so having them disappear because I don’t keep my schedule is just some sort of insanity. I am free. I just have to remember that!
It’s been a long day. Tomorrow may be a big day if the meeting with Atkinson goes as well as it could! Time to pack it in!
Showing posts with label GO train. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GO train. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Friday, December 17, 2010
December 17, 2010
I made $375 today. Tomorrow I will make $500.
I hope I have made enough to offset the cost of fixing the flat tire I discovered as I set out tonight to shop for Christmas!
As I lay awake this morning before Helen came to get me up I watched in the early dawn light while the crane by the “boxes” inside the railway yard fence drew up its cable. I watched for a few more minutes but it did not move again. The boxes had been rearranged a little overnight and there are new gaps between them. Beyond these alterations, and that the crane is facing the opposite way from yesterday, there is no change in the goings on of the marshalling yard.
I wondered – again – what is going on that must mainly happen at night.
Soon after I got up I counted the construction cranes visible to me from my bedroom window. There are six. Each one is distinct from the others in size, shape and colour.
Nearly always they stand motionless. One in particular has a motion of bobbing like a long-necked bird dropping its beak into a stream for fish. It has stood “beak down” for a few days now, looking very weird indeed. Together, when they stand still all day, they remind me of the dinosaur exhibit at the ROM.
Since I was in a counting mood I counted the different types of rail car visible in the yard. Again six. The large double decker orange/white/yellow passenger car belongs to a train called “Rocky Mountaineer”. (I drove closer mid-morning to read the indistinct words.) The remainder of its cars are black and white. This giant train has been here, motionless, for about a week.
Eighty percent of the cars on or moving through the yard are “Go Train” vehicles. These double decker conveyances are big, but not nearly as tall as the three or four cars of “Rocky”. The seven “Go Train” engine cars that are lined up in a flying wedge formation have not moved for about a week either!
The single story passenger cars of the “Via Rail” seem miniscule in comparison. However, they don’t hang around!
The rest of the train cars are flat beds – part of a freight train. Occasionally one will see the other sorts of freight car, but not today.
It is something of a mystery to me that so much valuable stuff – gigantic construction cranes, passenger cars, each with the capacity of a movie theatre, huge prefab buildings, sleek and fast engines – can sit idle for such long time periods. Certainly we are given to believe that the economy is run as efficiently as possible and that there’s an elaborate plan behind it all. But from the vantage point of my bedroom window I have a very different impression.
Have I stumbled across a train set that has been abandoned while some bored child of a giant takes an afternoon’s nap? Why does this huge child play only at night, or is it his father who secretly moves the blocks, cars and cranes around while his son sleeps?
I can only exercise my imagination – likely I will never know what is behind this great idleness. However, I am very pleased that I am a spectator to it all.
I hope I have made enough to offset the cost of fixing the flat tire I discovered as I set out tonight to shop for Christmas!
As I lay awake this morning before Helen came to get me up I watched in the early dawn light while the crane by the “boxes” inside the railway yard fence drew up its cable. I watched for a few more minutes but it did not move again. The boxes had been rearranged a little overnight and there are new gaps between them. Beyond these alterations, and that the crane is facing the opposite way from yesterday, there is no change in the goings on of the marshalling yard.
I wondered – again – what is going on that must mainly happen at night.
Soon after I got up I counted the construction cranes visible to me from my bedroom window. There are six. Each one is distinct from the others in size, shape and colour.
Nearly always they stand motionless. One in particular has a motion of bobbing like a long-necked bird dropping its beak into a stream for fish. It has stood “beak down” for a few days now, looking very weird indeed. Together, when they stand still all day, they remind me of the dinosaur exhibit at the ROM.
Since I was in a counting mood I counted the different types of rail car visible in the yard. Again six. The large double decker orange/white/yellow passenger car belongs to a train called “Rocky Mountaineer”. (I drove closer mid-morning to read the indistinct words.) The remainder of its cars are black and white. This giant train has been here, motionless, for about a week.
Eighty percent of the cars on or moving through the yard are “Go Train” vehicles. These double decker conveyances are big, but not nearly as tall as the three or four cars of “Rocky”. The seven “Go Train” engine cars that are lined up in a flying wedge formation have not moved for about a week either!
The single story passenger cars of the “Via Rail” seem miniscule in comparison. However, they don’t hang around!
The rest of the train cars are flat beds – part of a freight train. Occasionally one will see the other sorts of freight car, but not today.
It is something of a mystery to me that so much valuable stuff – gigantic construction cranes, passenger cars, each with the capacity of a movie theatre, huge prefab buildings, sleek and fast engines – can sit idle for such long time periods. Certainly we are given to believe that the economy is run as efficiently as possible and that there’s an elaborate plan behind it all. But from the vantage point of my bedroom window I have a very different impression.
Have I stumbled across a train set that has been abandoned while some bored child of a giant takes an afternoon’s nap? Why does this huge child play only at night, or is it his father who secretly moves the blocks, cars and cranes around while his son sleeps?
I can only exercise my imagination – likely I will never know what is behind this great idleness. However, I am very pleased that I am a spectator to it all.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
December 15, 2010
I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to do this.
Childish, isn’t it?!?
It’s been one of those days. The good part was that I went to the pain clinic again and got to try a TENS machine. I was quite doubtful, but the 20 minutes I did spend on it were quite comfortable. I can see that it can be made easily portable. Perhaps it is a useful way to make travelling in airplanes doable again.
Other than that, Helen was sick, and because we only have cell phones around here, nobody knew until 15 minutes into her shift. It was a big disruption to Mike and then Peter jumped in. It’s been a long time since Peter did a day shift. Basically I was pretty tired by the time his 6 hours were up. He was going to go out but he was tired too and fell asleep. Then Mike got stuck in a traffic jam and I was alone, in pain again, for 2 hours.
I didn’t do the stuff I should have done. It reminds me of January when all I could do was sit and play Freecell because my brain was too bloody tired to imagine doing anything else. Probably I should just go to bed!
I don’t know if you’ve noticed yet, but I keep trying to make things work – to fix the broken systems. For years we’ve used a manual that we wrote ourselves, and that I update regularly, performance reviews at least once a year, sometimes more often, mentors for the staff, circle meetings, circle teleconferences, etc. In the end, things get fucked up just about as much as when I don’t bother. It probably would be a lot more helpful to me personally if I just accepted that things get fucked up. I haven’t been left stranded since about 1975, I haven’t died, I still have a home and don’t have to declare bankruptcy yet, lots of people admire my work and are inspired by me – and so far so good – I can still pay my staff. I can imagine that I could be satisfied. But I’m not! I’m grumpy!
I think it’s the money thing. I have written about it before a couple of times. Money used to come quite easily to me even though I took no particular pains to hang on to it. Now, it’s always a one month to the next thing. Largely I am very successful. 15 months in this apartment and the rent has been paid on time each and every month. Just the same, I get anxious when I can’t see beyond two weeks from now. I feel like I’ve lost my luck or my nerve or something. I get brought down by that funny feeling that somehow I’m not carrying my weight. I am, but I don’t feel like it.
It’s ridiculous and I know it and I’m almost ashamed to admit it. However, the weight is there in my head, in my words, in my language, in my thinking and in other people’s way of thinking and it has somehow crept into me.
It is my intention to not pay any more attention to it, and in fact to create something much more empowering. It is my intention to be at peace, and not brought down by this invented sense of scarcity.
At the same time, there is work to be done to find and/or raise the money that I need, and I’m not doing the work. That is what must change. That is what I am committed to.
Change is kind of a sneaky beast. I was looking out my bedroom window at about 11:15 this morning, waiting for Caleb to pick up his glasses that he left here two weeks ago. The crane that is between New Toronto St. and the GO Train tracks began to move west at a stately but ponderous rate – probably about 5 km/hour. It became apparent that it is also on one of the train tracks. Very slowly I was able to see that people were harnessing one of those very large grey cubes that look like a modular section of a prefab building. The “stevedores” raised the cube – maybe 3 feet – and then nothing happened for a good half hour. Was it lunch break? I had to leave and when I returned at about 3:30 the cube was gone, the crane was still sitting there, and there is no way that I can tell what happened. I will just have to keep on watching.
Will I master money in such a slow and invisible way? Will I wake up one morning and realize that I’m fully funded for my personal assistants forever, that I have an equally beautiful condo that has a similar view in the same neighbourhood that is fully paid for, that I am able to be generous with friend and stranger alike? So be it!
Childish, isn’t it?!?
It’s been one of those days. The good part was that I went to the pain clinic again and got to try a TENS machine. I was quite doubtful, but the 20 minutes I did spend on it were quite comfortable. I can see that it can be made easily portable. Perhaps it is a useful way to make travelling in airplanes doable again.
Other than that, Helen was sick, and because we only have cell phones around here, nobody knew until 15 minutes into her shift. It was a big disruption to Mike and then Peter jumped in. It’s been a long time since Peter did a day shift. Basically I was pretty tired by the time his 6 hours were up. He was going to go out but he was tired too and fell asleep. Then Mike got stuck in a traffic jam and I was alone, in pain again, for 2 hours.
I didn’t do the stuff I should have done. It reminds me of January when all I could do was sit and play Freecell because my brain was too bloody tired to imagine doing anything else. Probably I should just go to bed!
I don’t know if you’ve noticed yet, but I keep trying to make things work – to fix the broken systems. For years we’ve used a manual that we wrote ourselves, and that I update regularly, performance reviews at least once a year, sometimes more often, mentors for the staff, circle meetings, circle teleconferences, etc. In the end, things get fucked up just about as much as when I don’t bother. It probably would be a lot more helpful to me personally if I just accepted that things get fucked up. I haven’t been left stranded since about 1975, I haven’t died, I still have a home and don’t have to declare bankruptcy yet, lots of people admire my work and are inspired by me – and so far so good – I can still pay my staff. I can imagine that I could be satisfied. But I’m not! I’m grumpy!
I think it’s the money thing. I have written about it before a couple of times. Money used to come quite easily to me even though I took no particular pains to hang on to it. Now, it’s always a one month to the next thing. Largely I am very successful. 15 months in this apartment and the rent has been paid on time each and every month. Just the same, I get anxious when I can’t see beyond two weeks from now. I feel like I’ve lost my luck or my nerve or something. I get brought down by that funny feeling that somehow I’m not carrying my weight. I am, but I don’t feel like it.
It’s ridiculous and I know it and I’m almost ashamed to admit it. However, the weight is there in my head, in my words, in my language, in my thinking and in other people’s way of thinking and it has somehow crept into me.
It is my intention to not pay any more attention to it, and in fact to create something much more empowering. It is my intention to be at peace, and not brought down by this invented sense of scarcity.
At the same time, there is work to be done to find and/or raise the money that I need, and I’m not doing the work. That is what must change. That is what I am committed to.
Change is kind of a sneaky beast. I was looking out my bedroom window at about 11:15 this morning, waiting for Caleb to pick up his glasses that he left here two weeks ago. The crane that is between New Toronto St. and the GO Train tracks began to move west at a stately but ponderous rate – probably about 5 km/hour. It became apparent that it is also on one of the train tracks. Very slowly I was able to see that people were harnessing one of those very large grey cubes that look like a modular section of a prefab building. The “stevedores” raised the cube – maybe 3 feet – and then nothing happened for a good half hour. Was it lunch break? I had to leave and when I returned at about 3:30 the cube was gone, the crane was still sitting there, and there is no way that I can tell what happened. I will just have to keep on watching.
Will I master money in such a slow and invisible way? Will I wake up one morning and realize that I’m fully funded for my personal assistants forever, that I have an equally beautiful condo that has a similar view in the same neighbourhood that is fully paid for, that I am able to be generous with friend and stranger alike? So be it!
Monday, December 13, 2010
December 13, 2010
Those who know me well will recall that my apartment is exceptional in that it is designed to wrap around a stairwell. This gives me two south facing windows from which I can see several parks and Lake Ontario. I also get a north facing window from which I can see two highways, abandoned industrial land, a dozen or more train tracks, parts of three housing coops, several streets and two buildings under construction.
Now you may well imagine that I and my various visitors spend as much time as possible looking at the gorgeous waterfront vista. Not! Almost to a person folks admire the south view for about thirty seconds, walk through to my bedroom, lean on my bed (it’s set to its highest position) and start pointing out the curious things they see – from joggers proceeding along the lonely stretch of road beside the abandoned fields to planes landing at the Lester B. Pearson Airport more than fifteen miles away to massive construction cranes in motion putting up high rise condos.
I am reminded again and again that humans love to watch. My north bedroom is replete with watchable entertainment, and – better than TV – it’s all real.
When I moved in 15 months ago I somewhat reluctantly chose the north facing bedroom because it is much closer to the bathroom and gives my assistants more privacy with the activities around my personal care. With some awkwardness we placed my bed right under the window so I could look out during those frequent hours when I am not sleeping. I knew the first night here that I had made one of the best decisions of my life in coming to the Robert Cooke Housing Coop and in taking the north bedroom.
Night or day there is always something going on. For three days this weekend there were seven GO trains, stationary side-by-side, positioned one car ahead of the next. GO trains are green and white, and the engine car has a flying wing design. The seven side by side but spread out so all were visible at once was quite a sight. I imagine it was done to take advertising photographs!
About three weeks ago I began to notice that the area between the train tracks and North Toronto Street had about half a dozen curious boxy structures, two windows each, seemingly dropped down helter skelter. Of course for a few days I wasn’t sure if they really were newly arrived, or if I simply hadn’t noticed them before. By the third or fourth day it was clear each morning that there were a few more than had been there the night before.
Then began to arrive different boxes, similar but with clear differences. About a dozen are slightly larger and a somewhat darker, more greyish hue. Another dozen have doors as well as two windows.
For a few nights last week something projected an intense light - bright enough to make me squint - and I had to cover part of my window and give up some of my view so I could sleep! The light would come on around 11:00pm and was gone by 6:00am. Now it’s gone. Also the forty or so boxes are neatly stacked in two layers and in straight rows instead of scattered about.
What are they building so close to the train tracks? Do they intend to lift each box over the road into the abandoned field? Will this be an industrial condo or rental prefab? Is this merely a way station, and someday soon I will awaken at 4:00am to dimly view a train made up of flatbed cars being loaded to take this nascent building away?
Of course I could do some research, probably quite easily, and get answers. I could have stepped back into the advocate role and complained to my City Councillor about the night light disturbance. But I didn’t and I don’t.
I am simply loving to watch.
Now you may well imagine that I and my various visitors spend as much time as possible looking at the gorgeous waterfront vista. Not! Almost to a person folks admire the south view for about thirty seconds, walk through to my bedroom, lean on my bed (it’s set to its highest position) and start pointing out the curious things they see – from joggers proceeding along the lonely stretch of road beside the abandoned fields to planes landing at the Lester B. Pearson Airport more than fifteen miles away to massive construction cranes in motion putting up high rise condos.
I am reminded again and again that humans love to watch. My north bedroom is replete with watchable entertainment, and – better than TV – it’s all real.
When I moved in 15 months ago I somewhat reluctantly chose the north facing bedroom because it is much closer to the bathroom and gives my assistants more privacy with the activities around my personal care. With some awkwardness we placed my bed right under the window so I could look out during those frequent hours when I am not sleeping. I knew the first night here that I had made one of the best decisions of my life in coming to the Robert Cooke Housing Coop and in taking the north bedroom.
Night or day there is always something going on. For three days this weekend there were seven GO trains, stationary side-by-side, positioned one car ahead of the next. GO trains are green and white, and the engine car has a flying wing design. The seven side by side but spread out so all were visible at once was quite a sight. I imagine it was done to take advertising photographs!
About three weeks ago I began to notice that the area between the train tracks and North Toronto Street had about half a dozen curious boxy structures, two windows each, seemingly dropped down helter skelter. Of course for a few days I wasn’t sure if they really were newly arrived, or if I simply hadn’t noticed them before. By the third or fourth day it was clear each morning that there were a few more than had been there the night before.
Then began to arrive different boxes, similar but with clear differences. About a dozen are slightly larger and a somewhat darker, more greyish hue. Another dozen have doors as well as two windows.
For a few nights last week something projected an intense light - bright enough to make me squint - and I had to cover part of my window and give up some of my view so I could sleep! The light would come on around 11:00pm and was gone by 6:00am. Now it’s gone. Also the forty or so boxes are neatly stacked in two layers and in straight rows instead of scattered about.
What are they building so close to the train tracks? Do they intend to lift each box over the road into the abandoned field? Will this be an industrial condo or rental prefab? Is this merely a way station, and someday soon I will awaken at 4:00am to dimly view a train made up of flatbed cars being loaded to take this nascent building away?
Of course I could do some research, probably quite easily, and get answers. I could have stepped back into the advocate role and complained to my City Councillor about the night light disturbance. But I didn’t and I don’t.
I am simply loving to watch.
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