Category Archives: Rants

On Misfiling And Missing The Point

I’m collecting information on the books that are coming out within the next few months within one of my fields of specialisation, and at Amazon I made a sickening discovery.

Out of all the decent books out there on witchcraft and the occult, I am horrified — no, that’s not quite right; shocked? dismayed? spitting mad? — that the top-selling book in that category is The Book of Shadows: The Unofficial Charmed Companion.

So help me Gods.

You know, in every interview I do, I’m asked my opinion on shows like Charmed and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. My response? “Hey, I’m a huge Buffy fan. But Willow’s not Wiccan, and what she does isn’t real magic.” If they press me about Charmed, I usually say something about Wicca 90210 and heavily stress the 90210 part, because Charmed has even less Wicca in it than Buffy does.

These shows, and films like The Craft and Practical Magic, are double-edged blades. On one hand, they introduce a whole new crop of people to the idea that people who practice a discipline like magic aren’t, by definition, automatically evil, which is great. On the other hand, they’re an incredibly inaccurate portrayal of the path. Wicca’s about spirituality and responsibility, not spells, demons, and warlocks (don’t even get me started on that inaccuracy).

This is why I still do interviews with students, for newspapers and on radio, and why I continually write articles. I’m trying to raise the general level of awareness out there. And most of the time, people walk away with a better idea of what it’s all about. Sometimes, though, you just can’t get through to them, and they walk away determined to find “a real witch” who will teach them how to change their hair colour without the aid of L’Oreal.

It’s not easy. I’ve chosen to teach and educate on this path, though, and if this is how I’m being called to serve, then this is what I’ll keep on doing. However, if you ever feel inspired to do a bit of reading on Wicca, please, please ignore the sales ranks at Amazon. Read anything by Doreen Valiente, and Vivianne Crowley, and Gerald Gardner. Or read something like Essential Wicca by Paul Tuitlean and Estelle Daniels, or Scott Cunningham’s Wicca- A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner. But for the sake of all that’s intelligent, stay away from books that purport to be about spirituality and use pop TV shows as source material.

My skin feels all crawly. I’m going to go make more tea.

Too Much To Expect?

There was a knock on my door yesterday morning at about eleven-thirty. I opened it to find a young woman with a dog standing in the hall.

“Hi,” she said with a smile. “I used to live in this apartment. I don’t suppose you have any mail for me?”

Now, we moved in thirty-eight days ago. The apartment was empty for a month before that for renovations.

“Er, no,” I said. “We’ve been writing `Return to Sender – Moved- No Forwarding Address’ on them all.”

“Did you get any mail today?”

“Well, I’ll put some shoes on and I’ll check,” I said. We went downstairs, and sure enough, there was a GST cheque for her in my mailbox.

“Oh, great!” she said. “Listen, if you get any more of may mail, can you just give it to Dale in apartment one? I’ll stop by for it every once in a while. I’ll be changing my address soon, I promise.”

Thirty-eight days, plus a month. Now, I don’t know about you, but when I move, I use that handy-dandy mail forwarding service which the Post Office provides for a nominal fee. The previous tenant’s mail that we have rejected included several government forms, parcel pick-up slips, school documentation marked `Time-Sensitive’, and personal letters.

I so do not understand people like this. Call me crazy, but I see it as my responsibility to ensure that I still receive my mail, to let the various organisations and offices know that I’ve moved. My husband says that some people don’t want their mail to follow them, that it’s an easy way out of responsibility for them. Granted, there have been times I’ve changed my phone number and deliberately not given certain people my new number, but that’s a slightly different matter.

I just don’t get it.

Grumblings About Store Reorganization

My posts have become infrequent because, well, there just hasn’t been much going on in my head, really. Most of my time is spent sleeping or reading or rearranging that last pile of boxes to look smaller, somehow. I appear to have developed a need for a mid-afternoon nap, which is slightly embarrassing although not surprising after three weeks of sick and insomnia and moving. I think my body has taken the bit between the teeth and is now setting its own sleep-rules, denying my conscious mind of any input. I can’t seem to focus on work for any long period of time, and I think I’m undergoing an enforced vacation imposed by psyche and physical body alike.

It’s kind of a relief, actually.

I went downtown today to HMV to pick up a couple of recordings to help me out as I practice for orchestra, because I’m getting really frustrated. When I got there, I spent time upstairs in the relaxing classical section, bought the required CDs (three for $20, I feel so smug) then went downstairs to the basement to cast a quick eye over the soundtracks.

They’ve moved everything around. Again.

It made me grumpy, although the terrible, awful, horrible music they were playing might have had something to do with that as well. Then, I thought I’d check on the new DVDs releases, since it’s been forever since I’ve been in HMV, but the massive DVD section had somehow shrunk to a measly two displays and that little room once devoted to film is now acid. I walked around it in disbelief – what, had they decided to stop selling DVDs or something? – and finally went back upstairs to the main level, where I discovered that they had moved the DVD section there, so unsuspecting clients walk right smack into the stuff (unless, of course, you avoid the main floor like the plague, as I do, and head right upstairs for jazz and classical.). I walked through it to get my bearings and saw way, way too many movies I wanted to own in among the 2-for-$30 stickers. I was trying to decide which two to whittle my vast list down to when I realised my folly and made my escape into the clear cold morning. If I trip across a couple of hundred dollars, I know where I’m going.

I’ll just have to bring a guide with me, because they no doubt will have hidden what I want from me between now and then.

In Which She Rages Against The Injustice Of The System

Oh, I’m just livid.

My student loan payment goes through on the first of the month. Since the first of March was on a weekend, it went through on the Monday instead.

Turns out that I was fourteen cents short of my payment. Fourteen cents.

They NSFd me to the tune of $25.

I’m livid because in the past, internal transfers like this have dipped below the zero mark with no penalty, up to about five dollars in the negative. It hasn’t happened with any kind of frequency, because I’m really careful with my loan payments; maybe twice. This time, though, for some reason, for fourteen cents, they decided to penalise me for $25.

Livid, I tell you. Livid.

I Call A Do-Over

Well. Wasn’t that not fun.

You know, I really, really don’t want to go into detail, but that was the worst move I’ve ever been involved in. Being ill and missing three key people from our standard moving team which resulted in not all our stuff getting here was a large part of it, but the icing on the cake was having our phone line at the old place disconnected before 7 AM on March 1, and not having a phone line at all in the new place until 11 AM on March 4. Yes, that’s today. Gods bless the cheerful, accomplished and all-round-nice-guy Gilles Lavallee who came to double-check on the wiring after the first Bell technician came by yesterday and pronounced our entire apartment’s phone wiring dead, with the necessity of installing completely new wiring from the bottom up. Gilles found the sole live wire in the whole nest of ancient phone wires and reconnected us to the world.

I relapsed into bed with coughing and fever yesterday afternoon, and that’s where I’m headed again right after I take a warm bath. For those who are curious, having seen the three square feet we had to move around in here immediately post-move on Saturday afternoon, the place is three-quarters unpacked. Yes, I am a goddess. (Okay, the drive to restore order to my life probably contributed to my collapse again yesterday, but damn it, at least I have living space now.) This is officially a beautiful apartment. It will be even more beautiful without the pile of boxes in the dining room/office area, and when I have somewhere to put knives, forks, and spoons in the kitchen.

Okay. We’re here. That’s all I really needed to tell you. And that we didn’t have a phone for three days, so it’s not that we were ignoring you, we just, well, didn’t hear the phone ring. Not being connected and all.

Sigh. I’m going to take that bath now. And a handful of Advil, because I’m out of my wonder syrup that lets me sleep and not have a headache and stop coughing.

Twilight Zone Wednesdays

Sigh.

I’m starting to doubt my sanity. Person after person has asked me if I’m preparing for a book discussion being held on Wednesday night.

It’s nice to be loved. However, I’ve been doing something every Wednesday night for almost two years now. It’s that thing called orchestra. “Nope,” I say when invited to Wednesday events, “no can do – that music thing, you know.”

Except now I’m beginning to feel vaguely Twilight Zone-like. Maybe dimensions have warped, and timelines have crossed, and in this timeline, my orchestra never existed, which would explain why I’m the only one who remembers it.

I’d be more worried if I wasn’t working on a press release announcing the orchestra’s new conductor, and receiving regular e-mails and calls about it. So orchestra exists in at least some other minds.

It’s rather amusing, actually. Maybe aliens have descended and have wiped selected memory banks. Or maybe I should just be more vocal about my extracurricular activities. You know – share openly with confident, voluable enthusiasm. Enough of this self-effacing shyness! I’m a cellist with the Lakeshore Chamber Orchestra, and we rehearse every Wednesday night!

Surprised?

Never mind.