Blogger's Block

This is getting ridiculous.

Three weeks between posts? Here we are, forging new lives in the Great White North, hanging out with the exciting and glamorous Fuller family on a regular basis, as our dearly missed Minnesotan friends wait patiently for updates on how we're doing, and nothing for three weeks? The shame.

It is true that, what with work during the week, giving Michelle a break from the kids when I get home, and running new-life-forging-related errands on the weekends, it's harder to find time to write lately. But in all honesty I must admit, too, that when there is time, I seem to be having difficulty even coming up with anything to say. Perhaps my creative juices are a little drained from the effort of adjusting to so much newness. Perhaps I don't want to take the energy to examine and chronicle things right now, because life already takes more energy when it is new and less routine than after it becomes mundane. Perhaps I'd rather just watch movies.

Interesting note: I've only watched 11 movies so far this year. I started keeping track of my movie watching in 2007 (when I watched 67). The first half of this year was busy with preparing for the move, and the second half will be busy with life being new and different, but I will probably catch up a little bit as the year progresses. I almost saw District 9 this weekend, but it sold out just as we got to the theatre and Steve and I ended up just drinking good beer to bad music in a bar and laughing a lot. Good times.

Instead, I'm reading more books these days, because I'm taking the bus to work rather than driving. I just finished reading a book by Vancouver author Douglas Coupland, whom I tell people is sort of the Canadian Chuck Palahniuk, so they can ask me who Chuck Palahniuk is. The American Douglas Coupland, I suppose. This book was about computer programmers who work for Microsoft, and it was written fifteen years ago so it was quite a blast from the past. I've only been a programmer (we're called developers now) for seven years (off and on) now, so I wasn't quite around for these days, but I'm old enough to recognize and remember and laugh at the details of this very funny and poignant book. All of Douglas Coupland's (and Chuck Palahniuk's) writings are very funny and poignant. And other things (caustic, offensive, insightful, piercing, etc.). Now that I'm in Vancouver again, I will definitely have to catch up on all the more recent stuff Coupland has been writing while I've been away.

What else? Books and movies...these things are not our new life in Vancouver, but I think we're kind of ready to move past that. When Alicia was born, for a while this blog was only about Alicia. Has it been only about moving for this whole year? Maybe almost, but maybe I don't want to write about that so much.

It is hard, I will say that. I wrote a while ago about it being harder for Michelle and the kids than for me. Michelle is overstressed and I keep falling short of giving her the support she needs because I forget and expect her to be the same person she was in Minnesota, confident and in control of everything. She probably expects to be that person too, and it is very frustrating and stressful not to be able to be. Like John Travolta said of Europe in Pulp Fiction, it's the little differences, and in Canada they're even less expected. They sneak up on a new American and assault them like a mugger jumping out from behind your own car in your own driveway. You thought you knew how things worked, because honestly, how different can car insurance or banking be? Canada and the States are so alike in some ways that the ways they're different become rather difficult to deal with.

But Canada is a socialized country; it's true. Things like car insurance and banking are more regulated, and thus more expensive, sometimes in terms of money and sometimes in terms of the amount of time it takes to complete the transaction. Michelle has already mentioned that you pay one fourth the price of your car to insure it for one year, and that's with the safe driver discount. I pointed out that insurance and tabs are one thing here and two different things in the States (your car insurance and your plate registration are lumped into one transaction here), but it's still more expensive by a long shot. Banks charge all kinds of crazy fees. Fees for writing a cheque, fees for ATM withdrawals, fees for being charged fees. So yesterday we spent a part of our precious Saturday opening a new account at a credit union that charges fewer fees than the national banks. We were happy about that. This bank feels like it will be more what we're used to. (How about you get to have all our money, and that's a pretty good deal for you even without charging us anything?)

The fact that Canada is more socialized seems to be a hot topic right now, with Obama trying to help Americans understand the concept as it relates to health care. It's astonishing to me how many Americans act as though they're proud of the fact that millions of people can't afford to see a doctor in the States. Only in the very poorest countries in the world, or the richest one of them all. I've heard it pointed out that one and only one aspect of American health care is completely socialized: care for the military. Every single member of the Army, Navy, Special Forces and all other branches receives completely socialized care. So much for being against socialized health care but still supporting the troops?

But if you still really believe that the U.S. should shun socialization, here's something I didn't write (I wish I know who did, but I don't). It's just a fun little rant, reposted here for your edification. Enjoy.

This morning I awoke to the sound of my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the Public Power Monopoly regulated by the US department of energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather would be like today using satellites designed, built and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I did this while eating my breakfast of US Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking drugs determined safe by the Federal Drug Administration.

At a time that has been kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I got into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work on roads built and maintained by local, state and federal departments of transportation. I checked my mail delivered by the US Postal Service and dropped the kids of at public school, then stopped for fuel of a quality regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency.

After work I drove my NHTSA car on DOT roads back home, which has not burned down because of state and local building codes and a fire marshal’s inspection. My house has not been plundered in my absence because of the local police department.

I then log onto the internet which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration and post in discussion forums about how socialized health care is bad because the government can’t do anything right.