Ter and I have been sick for what feels like forever
though I’m sure it’s only been a couple of weeks, but it’s interfered with any
sort of mystical magical airy-fairy philosophical wonderment that normally
makes my day more hopeful. When I’m trapped in an ailing third dimension, I get
no further than the first rung of the survival ladder, and that means
little-to-no astral meandering while my compostable container fights off the
flu bug.
Life dares to continue without me, however. Canadian
women have won tons of gold at the Olympics, this week. Curling, halfpipe,
bobsleigh. The hockey game was on in the boardroom at work yesterday and man,
was I glad I hadn’t taken the day off to watch it from the beginning; by the
time my 10:00 meeting was done, I dropped in to discover that the girls were
almost done as well. 3.5 minutes to go and they somehow scored twice to force
overtime, then scored on a power play. If not for Marie-Philippe Poulin and
some questionable calls, we’d have been singing The Star Spangled Banner
instead of O Canada. I was briefly kinda sorta maybe a little but not
really sorry for the US team, given that I’d have been extremely bitter
to lose the gold after shutting out the opposition through 56 minutes … but
since the outcome went my way, I’m good with it.
Oh, and it’s always good for morale, when you’re in
your fifties and feel like crap, to watch figure skating of any ilk. Ramp up
the competition to Olympic caliber and prepare for tears. I’m grateful that I
had no aspirations as a kid because my bones would have shattered bigger
dreams, but I still envy the athletes who can create such memorable moments of
grace, beauty, art and physical strength. I don’t always care which country
they’re skating for, either. Yuna Kim skated a short program that was pure
poetry; regrettably, she lost the gold to Russia. Controversy rages after that
one, too, by the way. Will they never get past Salt Lake in 2002?
I’ve also been watching True Detective. Another
grisly-crime-committed-in-a-southern-backwater-dump-cop show where said cops
are polar opposites yet must forge a relationship if they want to bring the
murderer to justice. This one is interesting because of the format—the cops who
solved the murder are being interviewed 15 years later, and the story jumps
back and forth between then and now—and because Matthew McConaughey plays the oddball in the pair. I want to see where he goes with it …
and it’s entertaining me between sneezes and re-steeps.
I read more when I’m sick. I’m almost finished with Dangerous
Women and am three-fourths through a steampunk mystery/romance that has
pretty well assured me that it isn’t my genre. Then the author of Fifty
Shades of Gray was in Vancouver for a book signing last week. She wasn’t
interviewed but a few folk in the lineup were—the most amusing thing about the
story was the one member of the broadcast team afterward who admitted to
reading the first book and clearly did not get the cult obsession that sprang
from it. The inevitable movie is in production, gods help us. Maybe I should
start writing porn, since that’s what seems to be selling.
I’d have to lower my standards, though.
Augh! Can’t do it!
So much for that idea.
*cough, cough*
