Good on them! I haven’t checked the news, but I hope they (we?) were able to make a point.

There was a survey from Quebec about aboriginals that was pretty depressing, and I hope the rest of Canada doesn’t feel the same way. Like the natives are “exaggerating”. It’s “not so bad”.

Really?

My father is metis. I have a native heritage I know nothing about. There has been a systematic ruin of the native culture in this country and it is pathetic.

I have seen it. I have seen my relatives brought to their knees. Or deny their culture altogether. Or struggle like I do.

This was mine, but it was taken from me.

- By the people who told me I didn’t “look” indian.

- By my father who didn’t care enough to pass on what he knew.

- By the schools and the systems that made him ashamed to be native and gave him a stutter.

- By his family who called him an Apple (red on the outside, white on the inside) when he married my mom.

- By the government who made me feel I needed their “status” to really be anishnabe

- By the same government who denied me that status because they took it from my grandmother when she married a white man (like they wanted her to).

- By my grandmother who didn’t hold on to her traditions and teach the next generation.

- By all of those who think my heart does not lie with the native people as much as it does in the rest of my heritage.

There is a collective unconsciousness. You may not believe me, but it’s there. And it lives in me. It lives in me for my grandmother who was assimilated, and my father who had a bigger war within him than I do. This native man went to church at the Martyr’s Shrine and did anyone think what that might do to a metis child? That it might make him hate himself in one way or another?

So block the highway. I hope it works.

One of my most vivid memories in childhood was watching Little House on the Prairie every Sunday with my Mom and my sisters (for whatever reason I don’t remember my brother being there).

This episode (one of several) stuck with me. The girl who couldn’t walk like the others.

I don’t think they knew how much I noticed when I was little. I must have been less than 10. Maybe even less than 8. But this episode felt like home to me. When I was older I was sad to discover that children weren’t as accepting as Laura Ingalls and I couldn’t be fixed by adding wood to my boot.

It was a heavy blow.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEOoZlMTt0s]

Some days the universe is really good to you.

Wow.

The Thirteenth Tale is a book about books, as well as a book about stories. Diane Setterfield wrote penned this novel about an aging British author (Vida Winters) who has evaded all attempts to find out her background and her past.

Facing death she has invited a young amateur biographer to hear the truth of her life tale. Intrigued, said biographer (Margaret), comes to know Ms. Winters very well, guessing at the secrets in her past.

I read this book relatively quickly, as these things go recently. I took me two half days, made easier by having the large print version. It was also a quick read, in and of itself — not too mired down in its own seriousness, full of just enough intrigue to keep you turning the page.

**Minor Spoilers below **

The resolution of Ms. Winter’s story was relatively surprising on two levels, her own identity, which I did not guess outright until it was stated (though I had certainly caught the foreshadowing and hints) as well as the reality behind Emmeline. That, I never would have guessed at. Indeed I’m not even sure why it was included, as that twist seemed entirely unnecessary.

Indeed there were a few plot twists that seemed unnecessary — Margaret’s twinness, for one. Setterfield, it seems, wanted to mash as many twists and turns into this story as she could. She handles most of it well, even some of the stories that seem unnecessary keep you wanting to know more (see: Aurielius). But there are a lot of intertwining of relationships that are in the book just to have one more twist.

That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it. On the contrary, I enjoyed it immensely. I was surprised. Part of what drew me in were the descriptions from both Margaret and Vida about books, stories and reading. They felt very real, obviously written by someone who has enjoyed reading immensely.

This particular bit rings the most true for me, and it is when I knew I would forgive the book all its faults based solely on the fact that Setterfield (via Margaret) expressed something I have felt for a long time:

I have read at every stage of my life, and there has never been a time when it was not my greatest joy. And yet I cannot pretend that the reading I have done in my adult years matches in its impact on my soul the reading I did as a child. I still believe in stories. I still forget myself when I am in the middle of a good book. Yet it is not the same. Books are, for me, it must be said, the most important thing; what I cannot forget is that there was a time when they were at once more banal and more essential than that. When I was a child books were everything. And so there is in me, always, a nostalgic yearning for the lost pleasure of books. It is not a yearning one ever expects to be fulfilled.

In the end it feels like The Thirteenth Tale is just a well-written VC Andrews tale — instead of being told in the present it is a long-done history.

I am so not doing this again.

So last year when I was in Ireland I visited Trinity College Library in Dublin. While there I saw the Book of Kells and the Long Room.

Oh the Long Room. This place is clearly the inspiration for the Jedi Archives in Episode II: A Horrible, Horrible Movie.

I totally geeked out when I was there — and not just because of the Star Wars thing (although that was pretty huge). But man is this place a real library. The kind you can sink into.

Unfortunately I have no pictures of it, because pictures were not allowed.

But it was BRILLIANT.

The Jedi Archives

Trinity College Library

Today I am wishing that I still had that playlist “songs to be happy to” on my iPod.

Have you ever woken up sad?  And I don’t mean inexplicably, or based on a sad dream you just had, but the kind of sad that’s based on something big and real in your life.  The kind of something that normally doesn’t get to you, but every once in a while sneaks up on you, and one unsuspecting day BAM! there it is again, a wound you thought had scabbed over at least a little open and festering.

I’m not sure what it is that causes me to be so disappointed in people, but that’s usually the cause of my feelings.  Or maybe it’s not so much disappointment in people, but regret at how much things can change, how people can be your lifeline one day, and then suddenly you’re no longer important to them, barely registering on their radar.

Life marches on, as always, and I’ve always really sucked at accepting that.  I like people to remain who they were; who they were to me, and who I was to them to never change.  That never happens of course.

As I’ve gotten older I’ve learned not so much to deal with it, as to push it down, ignore it.  To retaliate by distancing myself as well, building a world where only the privileged few get access.  There are consequences to walking away from me.  You may only walk a few feet, but I will turn and sprint in the other direction.  Because what you’ve said to me is that I no longer count, am no longer important.

Not likely a healthy response, but generally speaking, once someone turns away from you they rarely notice if you’ve zipped off even further away from them.  It rarely impacts them; it’s the ultimate in “you’re only hurting yourself”, if you think about it.  But it’s also quite the automatic defense system.

Not to get all maudlin, movie-of-the-week, etc., but I’ve had a lot of people let me down in my life, only to be told time and time again that it’s “natural” for them to do so, or that I need to forgive them, or I need to let it go.  Ultimately that no matter what, my disappointment is my own, and generally unfair and wrong.  And sometimes I even put myself out on the line and tell how I feel, only to have it do nothing.

So be it, then.  It’s pretty tough to be told that the very core of your feelings are wrong.  I don’t believe that any feelings can be wrong.  But I’ve accepted that my expectations are different from everyone else’s, that maybe this is my problem.

And for the most part I’ve dealt with it in my own ways, for the most part, the seeping disappointment doesn’t hurt any longer.

Except for today, apparently.

In 1995 I think I was surfing the internet on a 14.4 baud connection on mostly a text-based browsing system (although it was really browsing at the time).

I made a very earnest, teenaged angsty comment on a (now) embarrassingly named webpage. Under my full, real name. (It was the early days of the net. I HAD NO IDEA WHAT I WAS DOING.)

This thing is still out there. LONG after badly designed well-intentioned webpages (and their caches) would have disappeared, this thing still exists 12 years later. I cannot believe I’ve been on the internet THAT long.

In my defense, it was barely even “The WEB” yet. I think I was surfing from a used 286 (and if you know what *that* means you’ve been around as long as I have).

Anyway, after many aborted attempts over the years I found a contact email for the PAGE THAT WOULD NOT DIE and sent this email:

I put up a quote on a website many years ago. Long before I knew the joys of Google Cache and not using your real name on the Internet.

It’s been 12 years, and my earnest yet embarrassing comment still comes up on a google search of my name.

My name is Axxxxxxx. I made that comment when I was 17. I am 29 now, and I’d prefer it not exist. PLEASE acknowledge this email, and please remove my comment from the web page.

Thank you.

I got a response back within half an hour. It stated this:

LOL….we’ll get it to our webmaster.

That’s good enough for me