Hello friends and strange ones, I am looking for a "job". Something to provide a bit of steady cash flow and some rhythm to my week. Something to get me out of my familiar cafes and off this infernal machine. Ideally this job would require 15-25 hours per week. It would be nice if the location offers me an excuse for a bike ride or bus or skytrain swoop, though of course I wouldn't snub my neighbourhood either. Something that has people-contact, but where I don't have to make ALL the decisions or fire it up from scratch...I'd be happy selling books or bikes or apples or other things i like, or helping folks with needs, being a general helper/gopher, solving problems and being creative in small ways. I'm not in it for the big bucks, but some bucks would certainly be useful. If you have something for me or know someone who might, please let me know. Thanks to the Universe that's got it all in hand, Carmen p.s. in case you're not in Vancouver, the word on the civic election is: VICTORY! It's a whole new day. Gratitude to all who helped out, ran, voted, and danced it up.

Six Feet Under is such an amazing series. It ebbs and flows from episode to episode, some episodes are only good while others are mindblowing. But it's breadth of the thing that really blows me away...how someone took the care to draw out this family portrait in such detail, and it just keeps expanding inward and outward, becoming more paradoxical and complex as it goes along. (Most people seem to be at least kind of aware of this HBO series, which went from around 2002 to 2004...but I am a complete pop culture luddite so it went blew right past me. I am into watching the third season now, at about two or three episodes a week.) Anyway in case you are also a pop moron and don't know, Six Feet Under is an American HBO TV series based around a family who are proprietors of a small independent funeral home in L.A. Which is an odd enough premise, but nothing new. What's new is that the series is truly about DEATH. Which is to say it's also all about life, about the big enchilada -- which is a magnificently courageous idea. The funeral home isn't just a plot device like in The Addams Family, it's for real. It's beauiful and epic in the most epic sense of the word. What pins it all together is the writing, the characters are so real it hurts. It really hurts, sometimes I see something in one of those interwoven characters that is me, so much me that i feel nauseous. I see some of my own highest aspirations and neuroses and dreams and deepest fears (what? in a show about death?!) reflected so sharply in these characters, and in the actors' embodiment of them. And it's so funny! SO funny, you would not believe. The best episodes are the ones written by Allan Ball, who created the series. Who also wrote American Beauty. He's a sharp guy, and there's that deep deep humanity, where every character is as convoluted as a real human being, and each one is utterly respected at their best and at their worst. And then there's the music!...la Traviata, Steppenwolf... Anyway I'm coming out of the closet on this. I am deeply engrossed.

Yes it is, today's the day...civic elections...and why should you care? Because how often do you get to vote for one of your favourite dj's for City Council? Make your way to the nearest polling station and put some FUNK on your ballot. I voted in the advance poll, and was proud to stick a black spot beside Mr. Wisdom's name. For real, not to make him "win", but because it's a vote for who he is and what he stands for. Just do VOTE -- this is our chance to get the city we dream about -- performance/party venues, car-free streets, no more freeways, affordable housing for everyone. Having had the privilege of being involved in this one from the inside and I am happy and relieved to report that these people are for real.There's a huge consciousness shift happening so why not ACT ON IT and support the people who support us. I am generally behind the Vision/COPE/Green slate, with Robertson for mayor, but again its fine to mix and match. You get to choose up to TEN for Council, but you can leave some blanks if you want.This is who I voted for (in the advance poll): Mayor: Gregor Robertson Council: Raymond Louis (Vision) Heather Deal (Vision) Andrea Reimer (Vision) Kerry Jang (Vision) Kashmir Dhaliwal (Vision) David Cadman (COPE) Ellen Woodsworth (COPE) Timothy Wisdom (Work Less Party) Geri Tarantola (Work Less Party) Chris Shaw (Work Less Party) For Parks and School, I voted the entire Vision/Cope/Green slate, which includes a whole bunch of truly diverse, dedicated, and interesting people. You can find out more about all the candidates by looking at www.votevision.ca or www.cope.bc.ca or the npa site. Also worth checking is the Georgia Straight's picks: http://www.straight.com/article-169795/straight-slate-vancouver-and-burbs?rotator=1 ALSO: If you live in ELECTORAL AREA A which includes UBC, Pacific Spirit, Pitt Lake, and Boyer, Passage and Barnston Islands - get out and vote for my good friend and co-conspirator BEN WEST (www.votebenwest.ca) for Metro Vancouver Director of Electoral Area A (and unofficial Mayor of Wreck Beach) -- this will give a real voice to our student population and will help preserve the UBC Farm and our precious green spaces for the future. Please encourage anyone you know who lives Electoral Area A to please vote; it's a subversive way to plant the seed of something big, as this area can wield real power. Polls are open from 8am-8pm. Bring I.D. with your current address (or something which has that address, like a bank statement or hydro bill). Find your voting location at: http://vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/election2008/info-voters.htm#where Seeya at the Work Less Party after-afterparty, at the Dharmalab. Or at the (ahem) Hotel Vancouver earlier, to watch the returns roll in.

Mudskippers are completely amphibious fish, uniquely adapted to intertidal habitats (like mud flats and mangrove swamps). Unlike most fish in such habitats, which survive the retreat of the tide by hiding under wet seaweed or in tidal pools, mudskippers "walk" about on the mudflats, "fly" over them, conduct flashy mating rituals, and feast on the intertidal banquet of crabs, insects and protozoans. They pull their protuberant eyes completely under their skin now and again, to keep them moistened. They are found only in tropical and subtropical regions, including all the Indo-Pacific and the Atlantic coast of Africa. I emailed Gianluca Polgar, the sexy Italian zoologist who runs the wonderful website www.themudskipper.org -- he suggests I start up a Canadian Mudskipper Fan Club. Check out Gianluca's awesome drawings and animations of the mudskippers, and gorgeous photos of his adventures and the marvellous creatures he studies. Imagine, fish walking out of the sea! Black american presidents! Massive highway projects aborted! Who'd of thunk it, what are the odds...

I am out the door, off to Birken Forest Monastery (www.birken.ca) near Kamloops for an 8-day silent meditation retreat -- yahooo! (oops, shhhhhh). Preparing for what may come next...maybe this... http://www.bclocalnews.com/surrey_area/surreyleader/news/33472174.html or who knows, who knows, what the next moment brings. Best to be ready. Offline and outtasite til next sunday nov 9, metta.

Someone just sent me this quote from Margaret Wheatley, an organizational change guru. Very useful, as I am starting to consider the "whole system" of my life and my interconnecting communities, and consider how better to link up the pieces...(using my upcoming new website as a metaphor and a tool): To create better health in a living system, connect it to more of itself. When a system is failing, or performing poorly, the solution will be discovered within the system if more and better connections are created. A failing system needs to start talking to itself, especially to those it didn't know were even part of itself. The value of this practice was quite evident at the beginning of the customer service revolution, when talking to customers and dealing with the information they offered became a potent method for stimulating the organization to new levels of quality. Without customer inclusion and their feedback, workers couldn't know what or how to change. Quality standards rose dramatically once customers were connected to the system. This principle embodies a profound respect for systems. It says that they are capable of changing themselves, once they are provided with new and richer information. It says that they have a natural tendency to move toward better functioning or health. It assumes that the system already has within it most of the expertise that it needs. This principle also implies that the critical task for a leader is to increase the number, variety and strength of connections within the system. Bringing in more remote or ignored members, providing access across the system, and through those connections stimulating the creation of new informationÑall of these become primary tasks for fostering organizational change. http://www.margaretwheatley.com/articles/life.html:

I watched out my window the parade of lost souls, one car after another circling and circling and circling in escalating panic as the time of the parade drew closer. Desperate, desperate, to find parking. The Parade of Lost Souls felt empty to me, too many "costumes" and not enough character, too many people talking on phones and taking photos, stumbling in the darkness, not really present...and that greasy french fry booth smell wafting over the altars...ech. I took a scan of the faces walking toward me and noticed how few were smiling or seemed engaged, most looked vaguely anxious or distracted. To keep spirit in large events there has to be spontaneity and the unexpected, space for people to create the experienc and give it meaning... less "performance" and more "happening"...when people expect to be entertained, they consume like hungry ghosts.

It's interesting being an urban working nomad. Letting go of the geographical anchor of my office (which was funky and i loved it) was tough, but it has shifted my patterns in interesting directions. I've always liked working in cafes, the right level of ambient distraction, and enough impetus to get out for me to maintain focus. But now I relate to them more intimately, since they are my main daytime space. And there's something umbillical about the wireless connection (and the constant addiction-nourishing stream of cappucinos). I like the shift and drift, finding the right space for the time and the mood and the light. The right seat at the right table. Cafe Prado for creative reverie, its austerity and calm and cream-filled apple muffins (but only one plug). Turks for a harder night-time edge. Cafe Euro for rainy afternoons and egg on bagel. And of course each has its tourists and regulars and occasionals, its readers and writers and pontificators and crazies and geeks. People I know well and others I don't, who I still do, in the way that we are all linked to the urban nomad placenta.

Often I wake up in confusion, residue of dreams swirling (afterimage of my Uncle Vig swimming in a mall fountain, wearing a suit, his tie billowing over the tossed pennies) and anxieties clenching my belly, so hard to lever myself out of bed. But then there is the shower...always the shower...or sometimes, the early morning Britannia pool...and owing in part to my amphibian qualities the water immediately heals and clarifies. The rhythm of strokes, or falling drops, and comfort comes. And ideas come. I just realized that my new blogsite can be the metaphor, the working ground, to consolidate the many puzzle pieces of my life. Suddenly (and for this fleeting moment)it all makes sense. Splish splash, hallelujah. New site redesign coming soon ;) Check out the beta: http://www.carmen.emeraldcity.bc.ca and let me know what you think!

what to do with myself today? myself is sulking in the corner.

Tribe.net seems to be making a remarkable recovery...apparently they've completed upgrade on the server and are now working on the database (whateva that means)...on the other hand: *********************** Mercury, the messenger of the gods Mercury Retrograde Mercury retrograde in Libra [Sep 24 – Oct 15 2008] At 07:18 UT (Universal Time), on Wednesday, September 24th, 2008, Mercury the cosmic trickster turns retrograde in Libra, the sign of the Scales, sending communications, travel, appointments, mail and the www into a general snarlup! This awkward period begins a few days before the actual turning point (as Mercury slows) and lasts for three weeks or so, until October 15, just after the Full Moon in Aries, when the Winged Messenger reaches his direct station. At this time he halts and begins his return to direct motion through the zodiac. Everything finally straightens out on October 31, as he passes the point where he first turned retrograde. Mercury turns retrograde three times a year, as a rule, but the effects of each period differ, according to the sign in which it happens (see box for Retrograde Periods in 2008). (see www.astrologycom.com/mercret.html)

Giving thanks this morning that all my blog posts have been restored...my guess is the poor sods at Tribe.net have not spent this weekend eating turkey. Thank you Darren and all you dedicated geeks, you have more than earned your next-life karma. And phhhhtttt to all you babies who have been whining and ranting for days as your crack supply was cut off. Yeah, it sucks...but thats what addictions are for. Reminders to appreciate the gift of the moment, then say bye-bye. Gratitude, gratitude... for what was and what is. (and now, I am going to spend this lovely moist day copying and backing up all my Tribe material. And making soup, in case anyone is hungry, stop by.)

It's time for me to have a blog of my own. This tribe.net blog has become a really useful tool for me...it gives me an easy outlet to test my ideas and hone my writing skills, and I am so glad that you can all read my words and give feedback and comments. I really admire tribe.net's interface, it is easy to use and elegant. Plus I really love to read your blogs, to have this ongoing window to your worlds. Helps me feel truly connected, to a community not of strangers but of friends. But as tribe becomes less stable I realize that like all things, it too will pass...and I need to preserve my work here, for future fodder and publication in other media. Also, I want my words and images to reach a wider audience of folks who don't necessarily feel drawn to tribe.net. I think they could subscribe to my blog, and/or set up RSS feed to it. So I'm working on cutting and pasting it all out of here for safekeeping, and am ready to launch an independent blog of my own. Any advice? I've been recommended to Wordpress because it is open-source, but there are so many other blog sites. Or I could set something up under my own domain, www.emeraldcity.bc.ca. What do you think? Don't worry, btw, I'm not abandoning dear tribe.net -- it seems to have weathered a fierce storm of technical woe and now has only a few eccentric glitches. My intent would be to feed my new blog to Tribe, so I can still stay connected. Any thoughts on that, do any of you do that too?

Yesterday was Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year – the year 5769, if you're keeping count. When my mother died 12 years back I tried to go to the synagogue, but the sight of the hebrew words brought tears splashing down onto my prayerbook. I found myself sobbing uncontrollably in the bathroom, face swollen and head aching. I bolted, feeling like I was becoming a spectacle. I've gone again since, once or twice, and exactly the same thing has happened. It hasn't felt cathartic or productive, just painful and confusing. So this Rosh Hashanah I went to the synagogue, for the first time in many years. To honour the memory of my father. To try again to reconnect with that huge part of who I am today, all the blessing and beauty and pain that brought me to this point. To pray. I biked up to Ahavat Olam, for the Rosh Hashana service -- one of the High Holy Days of Judaism. AO is a very progressive synagogue, very environmenally and politically active. The service is in hebrew and english, lots of activists and young people and gay folks involved -- I wasn't prepared to see so many folks I know there from so many places in my life. I remembered this community of blood and spirit that I share, that I had almost managed to forget, or keep pretending to forget, that is still there for me. Has been there for much longer than 5769 years. Of course the moment I entered the room and heard the first baruch atah adonai, I started bawling. Had to do my dash to the bathroom for wads of kleenex. The keening of the shofar, the ram's horn blown to usher in the new year, ripped me apart. But I came back, tried to breathe between the tears. Thinking how much this sucks, how bad it feels, and vowing I will never EVER put myself through this again. But by the time the service ended, with a circle and chanting co-led by the leader of the Ismaili Muslim Youth Choir, I kind of had it together. There was a nice little kiddush with hummous and crackers, cheese and fruit and cake. I dipped apple pieces in honey, and drank sweet wine. In the afternoon I met up again with Rabbi Dave and the crew at the reclaimed quarry in Queen Elizabeth Park for Tashlich, a ceremony I've never done before. Tashlich means "casting away" -- we throw crumbs into the water, to release the year's "sins" (in the old-school interpretation), or in the more contemporary reading, to let go of what is no longer serving, to release old patterns and attachments, and make new intentions. Under the waterfall in the reclaimed quarry in the glorious sunshine, quite a sight and sound, Jews of every stripe singing, laughing, telling stories and praying, from the orthodox davenners in their shawls and tzitzit to the new-skool freestylers with their birkenstocks and bicycles, together to welcome the new day, new moment, new world dawning. So I guess I have no choice really but to go back to Havat Olam, to sit in the back row and cry more. There is that feeling like once I start crying I will never stop, but I sit here in Turks with tears running down my face, I've become a pretty shameless weeper...and maybe at some point, I will be all cried out. It's a new year, all is possible.

I guess it had to happen some day...turned my back for a moment, caught a flash out of the corner of my eye, and... Gone. Simply gone. My baby, my ride...sweet little silverblue nishiki roadbike (and i do mean small). with orange leather duct-taped seat, dirtier than she deserved to be, straight bars and a funny brake accelerator, rear rack and green pannier full of my ratty yet needed raingear. I had her for 2 years, rode her thousands of km, but she came to me with over 100,000 city courier km under her wheels. I gave her new wheels but couriers would still ride up behind me downtown and say hey! isn't that Lana Fox's bike? She was a personality in the bicycle world. I cry to think of her in a shopping cart, trundling through a DTES back alley. I am grateful for all the pleasure she gave me, so much speed and freedom and joy.

The big rally in Surrey is this SATURDAY, SEPT. 27 -- and we need folks from all corners of the region to come join the fun, support your neighbours, make a BIG NOISE and tell the Province of BC – WE DON'T WANT YOUR TRUCKIN' FREEWAYS! THE GATEWAY PROJECT would be a disaster for ALL OF US, but together we can stop it – and the time to stop it is NOW. Come and bring your family and neighbours to: THE BIG RALLY Saturday September 27, 1–3pm Robin Park, Birdland, Surrey It's easy to get there by SkyTrain...just Google Robin Park Surrey... AND There will be a FREE SHUTTLE BUS from the Gateway SkyTrain Station to the rally, on the half-hour, starting at noon. Please carpool, take transit, or organize buses to the rally if you can. There will be organized bike rides to the Rally – see website for details. FEATURING: The Carnival Band, Lucha Libre Mexican Wrestling, Burns Bog Bouncy Castle, inspiration by community leaders, environmental activists, elected officials, and YOU. Bring signs and banners, costumes and drums, tell your neighbours, bring your family and friends! Download a flyer and poster at www.gatewaytowhat.org, to copy and distribute to your neighbourhood – and check that website for more details. HELP MAKE IT HAPPEN Please help make this event massive and spectactular -- volunteer to help marshal, banner, setup, flyer your neighbours and/or put up posters , distribute cheeky No Truckin Freeways lawn signs , or whatever...contact carmen@wildernesscommittee.org YOU'LL WANT TO TELL YOUR GRANDKIDS YOU HELPED BRING GATEWAY DOWN! See you all out on Saturday, September 27, to witness the historic beginning of the end of Gateway. ...pass it on... FOR RALLY INFO CONTACT Ben West | Healthy Communities Campaigner The Wilderness Committee ben@wildernesscommittee.org w: 604-683-8220 | c: 604-710-5340 | www.gatewaytowhat.org *************************** WHAT IS GATEWAY? The Gateway Project is a massive highway-expansion project being forced on our region by the BC Government. The Project would include a 3-fold expansion of the Port of Delta, a brand-new eight-lane highway (the South Fraser Perimeter Road) to follow the Fraser and cut a swath through our most fertile farmland and living communities, an expanded Highway 1, twinning of the Port Mann Bridge, and more. This is a multi-billion dollar dinosaur scheme that will not reduce congestion. We need transit, rail, and other solutions -- not more freeways-- NOW! FOR MORE INFO ABOUT GATEWAY AND ACTIONS TO STOP IT www.gatewaytowhat.org www.gatewaysucks.org www.wildernesscommittee/gateway www.bridgeviewmatters.ca www.bolivarheights.ca http://sites.google.com/site/lastexitforgateway/

According to the Surrey Public Events calendar, September is: Arthritis Awareness Month; Big Brothers Big Sisters Month; Muscular Dystrophy Month; Ovarian Cancer Month; Breakfast for Learning Month; Healthy Communities Month; and the Kidney Foundation Peanut Campaign. Also, Sept 8 is International Literacy Day, Sept 9 is Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) Day, Sept 10 is World Suicide Prevention Day, Sept 16 is both Ocean Net Day and Take Back the Night, and Sept. 21 is the International Day of Peace AS WELL AS World Alzheimer's Day. Don't forget.

WE KICKED ASS! Andrea topped the polls for the non-incumbents nominated (that is to say, was the star of the newbies)... And also and as importantly, there was a great e-night party. A beautiful election-night party, with a degree of sincere and hopeful jubilation common to both the "winners" and the "losers". There were nerds and freaks and kids and the alarmingly stylish, lots of Sikh men in turbans, poltico types in suits and japanese language students and journalists blogging in corners, financial managers and hot young bikesheviks and candidates and their entourages and their (ranging from cucumber cool to sweaty and shaking) campaign managers. I was doing the ersatz hora around Science World with a conga line of Demitri's young greek contingent (to Rah Rah Rasputin), playing with the funky Science World toys, and watching it all unfold. My friends I shit you not it felt in an essential underlying way, like the greatest of all-night raves where the dancefloor is going off and everything, everything, seems possible. Because it is.

Yesterday I stumbled out for coffee and glanced at the newspaper boxes, which trumpeted the latest collapse of Wall Street. The biggest dive since 9/11, they screamed...ah well...i sat down with my coffee and blueberry cream-filled muffin, and text messaged a bunch of folks at random: "Pssst...the global economy is collapsing...pass it on.." My brother texted me back, in a suitably testy sibling fashion: "So you think i/we should pull all of our investments and put them in a mattress?" I shot back, "Nope, just doing my little bit to bring it all down...the sooner it happens the more we save" Giggled, and went back to my muffin. But then I thought, that's such a glib answer...what do i mean by that, really? I think what I mean is this: yes, the global economy IS collapsing. And it will all fall down...all the investments, all the mortgages, all the savings, the whole kleenex mountain of false security we have managed to erect around "our" money (oh yeah i forgot, it's all ok, we've got insurance!). Why? I don't really know, I'm not an economist. Peak oil (or at least the end of cheap energy) and rampant speculation, fed by a couple of decades of living on debt and borrowing and spending mania, fuelled by the devastation of our planet, exhaustion of our resources, and exploitation the world's "developing" nations and people, I'd guess...but again, I'm not an economist, and I won't play that boys' game of speculating on WHEN and HOW and WHY it will all come down. I just know, that it will. As all things do. And I know that the "global economy" is not sustainable, and this is what "unsustainable" means: it will end. Maybe in my lifetime or maybe not, it doesn't really matter. What matters is that it will end (like all things) and I KNOW it will end, I accept that. What matters is that we do not live in denial, of what is so clear, right in front of our noses. This dream will end. So, what to do? I think, no, don't take all the money and put it in the mattress, necessarily. I think the thing to do I think is this: we each do what is wisest, in the big picture. The little stuff doesn't matter. For the meantime, play the stock market if you want, buy a house, bank your cash, whatever. Just remember that at any moment...it may end. In fact, it is ending, now...there will be no great defining moment. And again, it really doesn't matter, because this little lifetime, that little bank balance, is not really that important. In the big picture, what matters is what you do NOW, what is closest at hand, within your grasp: growing your garden, expanding your mind, raising humane children, supporting good leaders, riding you bike, learning new skills, LEARNING, knowing your neighbours. Becoming ever more resilient and resourceful. And a little money in the mattress is probably not such a bad idea, cuz when the lights go out, the atm won't be working. Pass it on! ************************** BTW here's a great piece on that tip by Jan Lundberg: "Do not be distracted by the hysteria of the news-media circus regarding the “credit crunch” and the other names given the process of collapse. The monster under the bed is real, but most of us are hiding under the covers. By embracing our fears we can roll with the changes. At the same time look at who and what are propping up a hopeless, destructive system, and take action. It’s not difficult..." http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=218&Itemid=1%3E

this pawlitix game is as terry says, always so perfect in his choice of metaphor: Byzantine... the machinations and manoevers, the twists and turns and hairpin shifts, the alliances, suballiances, cross-alliances and counteralliances. Fascinating, all-consuming, adrenaline-fuelled beautiful painful multi-dimensional paradoxical addictive freaky shit.