Fog

It was nearly 2 AM, so I decided to take the back roads home in order to avoid the RIDE police (or else it would be revealed how much pie I had eaten). For a winter night, it was balmy; where there is balm there is fog.

I've driven through fog before, but not like this. It was so thick I couldn't see more than 3 metres ahead of me. The suspended droplets of moisture refracted and reflected most of my headlights into a halo of diffuse light against a backdrop of pitch black. Good thing I decided to take the roads with no streetlights and sparse residences, eh?

During driving lessons, I would pretty much zone out about situational driving. It was boring, irrelevant and not applicable at the time. Fast forward to the present and even snippets of those memories become lifelines to grasp and clutch when just such a situation arises.

For the briefest moment, I felt a twinge of fear. It was dark out there (you know how Canadians are afraid of the dark). In that briefest moment, my fear took hold of my imagination and all the what-ifs bubbled into my consciousness. What if someone crashed in front of me? What if an axe-murderer jumped out from the ditch? What if the fog was actually a poisonous, sentient cloud of gas hellbent on destroying human life?


We fear the dark for the same reason we fear change: it is unknown. Not knowing what comes next bogs us down with possibilities. For whatever reason, most of the possibilities that spring to mind first are the bad things.

I'm in a big foggy patch of change at the moment. I don't feel well-equipped to handle this uncertainty, or the possibilities. There are days that I am scared into inaction. Driving home on a foggy winter night is a walk in the park by comparison; I have taken that road many times before, be it under bright skies or heavy rains. Did I zone out earlier during this particular life lesson?

I drove slowly, making sure I did not outpace the visibility my headlights afforded, careful to watch out for things on the road so that I wouldn't hit anything, or anyone. Driving through the fog, I hung on to the certainty that I knew my way home and that the fog would not last forever. The sun will rise and the road will become clear.

I wake up every morning cautious of what the day might bring, careful to not push too far forward too fast, dreading the possibility that I might get hurt -- or worse, hurt someone else. But even in the midst of this uncertainty, I know my way home and this uncertainty will not last forever. The Son has risen and the road is clear.

Porcelain Philosophy 14: Tears

Let tears flow of their own accord: their flowing is not inconsistent with inward peace and harmony.

Seneca

When we were wee, whiny, and wonderful, what were our reasons for crying?

If my memory serves correctly -- and though it shames me slightly to admit it -- I was a crier. Scraped elbows and knees, getting caught in misdeeds, losing a game, and getting lost were some of the reasons I would cry. As I got older, tears still sprung forth unbidden from my eyes, once in awhile, whenever I didn't get my way.

Somewhere along the way, the masculine gender identity was determined to be exclusive of the act of crying; as emotion manifest, crying was seen to be of the feminine sphere. It was (and still is) considered unmanly to shed tears. To that end, boys were whipped into bottling up their feelings and distilling it into potent potions of masculine ambition, agression and angst. In my (not-so-humble) point of view, this is bollocks. Male or female, the human head is more or less crafted from the same mold; the ductwork, fixtures and apertures are all the same. To associate crying, a natural physiological response that everyone is capable of, to one sex is chauvinism.


Matters of gender discrimination aside, crying was, for most intents and purposes, a selfish reaction. Waah, I scraped my knee and you need to help fix me. Waah, she took my toy and wouldn't give it back. Waah, I am being pushed around by brutish boors. As a child, those moments happened often, and so crying happened fairly often.

Our tears betray our motivations. What we care about most deeply in our hearts run like underground streams within us. When our barriers are broken and our foundations are shaken, we will spring leaks where it matters most.

I'm not sure when it all changed, but the tears do not come so easily now. When they do, the reason is not because I didn't get my way, nor is it because I am damaged, but because of the pain suffered by others. Maybe it's all part of growing up, or maybe it's just the physical maturation of my prefrontal cortex, but I think I know what I care most about now.

Redecorating

Pocketfish is in the middle of some renovation at the moment. I still need to sit down and hash out the colour scheme, standardize fonts and clean up the template clutter. Your opinions and suggestions on the new decor are welcome. Eventually, I would like to design a template from scratch; alas, I am currently not brave enough.

EDIT: Dec 20
Added Post Expansion to long entries to keep scrolling on the main page to a minimum. To expand a post, click the button below to see the rest of it.


Instead of "Read more..." or similar text, I decided to craft a little button that matched the theme of the blog. I am hoping the plus sign is self-explanatory enough.

Pillow Talk

"I'm worried. What's the matter with him?"

My eyelids fluttered briefly, as I contemplated opening them. Short talk: closed; long talk: open.

She turned on the lamp.

My eyelids decided to stay steadfastedly shut; scrunchily shut.

She nudged me gently.

If I pretended to be asleep alre--

She elbowed me in the ribs.


"Eh?"

"Our son. He's been so mopey, lately. Haven't you noticed?"

My ribs let it be known that they would not brook another jab and sent fair warning that I should attend to the source of said jabbing to prevent further abuse. My eyes opened slowly to adjust to the lamplight and I turned to face she of the soft, yet forceful elbows.

"He's 14. Isn't it sort of expected?"

She sat up.

"Can't you take anything seriously? I'm really concerned for him! What if he's gotten into a gang and has been taking drugs or something?"

I mentally chided myself for breaking the cardinal rule of pillow talk: thou shalt not disagree with thine woman. Damage control, STAT.

I sat up as well, and wrapped my arm around her. "That certainly would be a cause for worry. Has he been doing anything suspicious?"

"I don't know. He doesn't talk anymore? He used to be so cheerful; now he looks like everyone's out to get him."

She looked up at me.

Danger! Danger! Imminent request! Imminent request! I knew what was coming next, but I was powerless to stop it. Curse you, mood lighting, warm snuggle and beseeching eyes!

"Can you talk to him?"

I felt the warmth being sapped out of my body. I pulled the blankets higher.

"T-talk?"

"Yeah, you know, man to man, or whatever it is that guys do."

"Uh, guys don't talk."

"Pfft. You talk to me. We're talking right now."

"Guys don't talk to guys?"

"Quit trying to weasel out of it. This is serious. He's your son."

Great idea! How can I weasel out of this? Ah! Throw her off the scent.

"I'm pretty sure it's not gangs or drugs."

"Oh yeah? Well what do you think it is then?"

"I remember being 14. It's probably just a girl." I slouched down against to headboard to return to a position more conducive to sleep. Problem solved.

She turned and put her chin on my chest.

"Really? You were like this when you had a crush on someone?"

"Oh definitely. Mopey, sluggish, completely anti-social."

"That does sound like the way he's been acting. Wait, who did you have a crush on?"

I poked her nose. "You, silly."

"Balderdash. You didn't know me when you were 14."

"Heh. It doesn't matter what age. When you like someone who isn't really reciprocating, you're bound to get mopey."

"I reciprocated!"

"Way too subtly."

"So you think he's just got a crush on a girl?"

"Mmhmm."

She grinned.

"So you definitely have to talk to him about that! Find out who it is! Oh, God. What if he's already... you have to have the Talk with him!"

Ah crud.

Because videos save me the trouble of writing

about how awesome Olive (and Pushing Daisies) is, I'll let you see for yourself.

Hopelessly Devoted to You
Pushing Daisies S01E02 - Dummy

Eternal Flame
Pushing Daisies S02E08 - Comfort Food

Why don't we do this dance instead?

Numfar Dances the Dance of Joy
Angel S02E21 - Through the Looking Glass

Lorne the Host returns to Pylea, his home dimension, with Angel and co. in search of the displaced Cordelia. The prodigal Lorne is reunited with his mother for the first time since he abandoned his music-less world to pursue a singing career on Earth, much to the joy of his brother Numfar. Joss Whedon, creator/writer/director of the show, makes a special cameo appearance as Numfar.

I just thought I'd let you know that