  Wow, I keep thinking that I'm going to go onto a roll of posting, and then it absolutely doesn't happen. Some reasons why, which will also serve as a Life Update: a) I went to Kentucky for Memorial Day weekend. This was not arbitrary: a big chunk of my family lives there, and yes, I had an ever-so-slight drawl when I returned to Canada that my coworkers were kind enough to point out.
Far from finding this hickish, however, I find Southern accents very soothing, and there's a peculiar cachet in being lulled into security by one's own voice. It was the second anniversary of my grandmother's death, and this woman was one of the singularly extraordinary people of which there is only a handful in the course of one's life, if that.
She was kind and loving and everything a grandmother should be, but more than anything she was so (sometimes senselessly) proud of me, and everyone else in my family, and it was impossible to feel bad about anything when she was around. Her body aged far too rapidly, and by the time she died at the age of 69 - far, far, far too young - she was in almost constant pain, and she stated at the time that she was ready for Heaven. For me she is the quintessence of all that can be beautiful and uplifting about Christianity, or pure faith of any kind that finds its base in kindness and giving.
She is buried in a family plot outside Louisa, high on a hill overlooking a valley of cows and houses and almost Irish greenery; she is there with her parents and four of her sisters, and her headstone is inlaid with images of hummingbirds and these words: Clara Louise Bowling July 20, 1932-May 23, 2002 Our Dear Mother When we arrived at the site it was plain that we had not been the first to visit - flowers and birdhouses in their multitudes already adorned her grave.
Later, I learned that her older brother, Commodore Junior or "June" to those who know him - who is 78 now - made a pilgrimage to her grave, up the gravel hill that those in our troupe decided was too steep and muddy to climb. b) For the week after I returned, I was looking after my boss's children, which let me tell you is a singularly terrifying undertaking. Not only were they children, and my boss's children to boot, but they were bigger than me, and more clever than me, and I pull absolutely no authority as a fake mom.
However, I found out that in addition to being monstrously clever they were also startlingly well-behaved, and ultimately I realized that my presence was needed only to ensure that no letterbombs made their way into the house - in which case I don't know what I would have done anyway. I went into the bathroom and by the time I got out the eldest would have supper underway; the dishwasher was unloaded and the cat box cleaned out every day without the slightest prompting from me, and the responsibilities I was given made me feel like an utter dunderhead. That week - last week - made me very tired, but it was certainly not the fault of the children, who came and went rather like quiet clockwork and gave me virtually no trouble at all, excepting the youngest occasionally flying through the house on his rollerblades.
It was the idea of parenting that frightened me, and I told my mother much to her dismay that the entire experience showed me how far indeed I am from becoming a parent myself. Can there be anything more horrifying than the prospect of something emerging from you and then becoming larger than you? I mean, let's look at motherhood in its true colors, without indulging in any of this rose-colored crap. All the same though these kids were models of virtue, while managing to be rather interesting at the same time - the middle child, on my last day there, was attempting to make a cell model out of Chinese food.
I can only hope to have such good kids when the time comes that I forget how freaked out I am by the prospect. c) My job is changing. The woman I'm standing in for has finally made her return, on quarter-time only, so I'm slowly being moved to a middle cubicle with a beautiful view but no tech specs whatever: no computer, no telephone - in fact, the best I'm able to do at the time of going to press is a humidifier that I don't know how to work. "What a golden opportunity, though," my supervisor tells me with wicked glee and a smile that could light the Eiffel Tower, "to get some really good filing done!
" So now I'm responsible for making the office - and by extension the building - a little lighter. Actually filing is very calming in its way, though I'm grateful for the moment that I'm still only doing it for half-days at a time. The rest of the time I'm here, warding off crazies and generally being charming. d) In an ongoing attempt to stop my brain turning to mush (see directly above), I've been seeking out contracts with old acquaintances and professors across campus.
So far I've picked up two, one in editing and the second in research, and they're keeping me rather busy in the evenings - happy too, though. Nothing like vocation to make you not want to jump off a building and end it all. I'm also continuing with my own writing - which I'm currently seeing through a fuzzy monitor, darkly - and undertaking several projects at once in an effort to neither bore nor disgust myself.
All in all, it's a full life. The federal election maintains a fluttering pulse in the background, and now in our dining room (em, pardon, Mike's "Business Centre") there hangs an enormous sign asking me to vote for Rahim Jaffer. Amid all this, do I have the time or resources to post? Oh, probably. I get the occasional query about what is "up" with this site, and the truth is that entrenched in everything else, most days I just forget.
But one person pointed out the site's value as a diary, and that brought me back. We'll see if it happens again. Till next time, if God wills it, &c. 
