Thursday, January 08, 2004
Home (crankiness, avoiding stupid taxes, and an exodus from an undesirable place)
from my Outlook Sent Items:
near downtown Vancouver, 0916 PST, 6 January
Vancouver is supposed to get 15-20 cm of snow today. It started about an hour ago. Visibility is limited. It is now just after 9 am and my flight supposedly leaves at 6:35 pm. I think I may be hooped. So I'm getting packed up now and heading for the airport, to see if they can either get me on an earlier flight or at least let me hang out in the Maple Leaf lounge. I just checked the YVR website, they have wireless internet in the departure lounges, so I may be stranded and miserable, but I should be connected.
Vancouver Airport, 1530 PST, 6 January
The wireless network is active here in YVR, but DNS is not. Grrr. Also I can’t find any power points, so I’m running on battery power. Bad technology is making me cranky. Maybe it isn’t such a bad idea for me to nap instead.
I nearly paid a very expensive stupid tax [a pet notion of the e-mail recipient, see below]. I checked in very early, which meant the Air Canada agent had plenty of time to inspect my passport and notice that it expires in March. She looked up British immigration’s rules, and I need a valid passport for the entirety of my planned stay there. And the return date was set for June. Because I’m flying on points, it wasn’t the end of the world – she re-ticketed me for a flight returning mid-February, and I just need to get my British passport before late March, or renew my Canadian passport, and I can rebook that flight for whenever is convenient. I really ought to have renewed my passport last summer. Dumb dumb dumb.
I had a moment of panic when she first looked up the rules that I wouldn’t be allowed to fly at all, which would have been the worst stupid tax ever. Then, because I’d been apologetic and charming and fairly calm, she managed to waive the $75 rebooking fee and I didn’t even pay that stupid tax. To assuage the karmic stupid taxes collectors, should they exist and be feeling robbed, I used the last of my Canadian bills to buy some super 7 and 6-49 tickets.
It’s still snowing and planes are continuing to arrive and go away, so I’m hoping I will be doing the same in 3 hours.
Just North of the Southernmost Point of Greenland, 0930 GMT, 7 January
Seabiscuit just ended; I looked out the window and saw the Northern Lights. I felt myself making the mental shift from thinking of Vancouver and Kelowna as home, to feeling like I belong in London. Now they’re showing Out Of Sight, one of my favourite movies ever. Anyway, things are looking up.
Mid-Atlantic, 1030 GMT, 7 January
My battery’s almost done, no more work for me. And the movie’s bowdlerized. Part of the appeal of Out Of Sight is the wonderful but nasty dialogue. Quick question, which of these lines works better for you:
“Well, the man don’t just have to die, Foley. I mean, he could accidentally hurt himself falling down on something real hard, you know? Like a shiv… or my dick.”
or
“Well, the man don’t just have to die, Foley. I mean, he could accidentally hurt himself falling down on something real hard, you know? Like a shiv… or my stick.”?
I thought so. They also edited out the bit where Steve Zahn’s character talks about how he had to go smoke a joint just to chill out. Motherfucker is consistently monkeyfeather. So annoying.
[My Address], London, 1612 GMT, 7 January
Hooray, I’m home, showered, and feeling moderately human. No snow, and it’s warm here, comparatively. I took those no-jet lag homeopathic sugar pills every two hours, and I can’t tell if they worked or not. I’m very tired, but I’m not feeling the jet lag paranoia. Either it’s the pills or it’s having fully committed to the fact that I live here, for now at least, and am not just a tourist. FutureISConsultant and FutureAmbassador made me tea. It’s good to be back. And the last bit of Out of Sight resonated (I don’t have it memorised, I googled):
Foley: What kind of name is Hejira?
Hejira: It's Islamic.
Foley: What's it stand for?
Hejira: The Hejira was Mohammed's flight from Mecca in 622.
Foley: His flight?
Hejira: Brothers in Leavenworth gave me that name.
Foley: You were in Leavenworth, huh?
Hejira: For a time.
Foley: Meaning?
Hejira: Meaning, time came; I left.
Foley: You busted out.
Hejira: I prefer to think of it as an exodus from an undesirable place.
Which is not to diss Vancouver; it was weird being there and not living there, but I hung out with a few friends (not for as long or with as many as I'd like to have) in between slaving away on my projects, and I still miss living there in some ways. I do not miss snow, and the consequent slipping on icy sidewalks resulting in bruised hips/hands/knees.
an explanation of stupid tax, from the originator of the term:
When you're stupid (like me), you end up paying various stupid taxes. When most people think of stupid taxes, something like lottery tickets probably comes to mind. This can also loosely be interpreted as a tax on people who can't do math. Alternatively, an economist would argue that there is an extra utility created by the fun of playing, which is why people purchase them, but this isn't central to the arguement here.
