My job, my life, and everything in between.

Ten years ago I'd have said that "nurse" and "teacher" were the two absolute last career choice I would ever, EVER make. I stand by the teacher bit. But some of you are wondering what's up with this medical-field melancholy I've been passive-aggresively expressing all over the place lately. The short answer: I don't like my job. The long answer? Well...go get the popcorn.

I worked at a medical clinic - family practice - for just shy of 6 years. Ten great doctors and tens of thousands of patients. In 2001, after I'd broken my ankle while training for the RCMP (I'd already passed all of the intellectual and psych tests with flying colours), my then-doctor offered me a job in his office while I sorted out what the hell I was going to do now. Not that the RCMP should have ever really been a realistic dream; my legs would have destroyed themselves, or me, sooner rather than later. But I hoped I could pass the physical and then go civilian, because my first love throughout my life has always been forensic psychology and sociology.

I'd started a pretty good entry earlier, but then I got on the phone (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE) and didn't realize Vista wanted to reboot without saving my draft...so I'll START OVER AGAIN. I'll try to get to the point faster this time. But brace yourself for complete honesty. It's exactly what I more or less promised you would never see in this blog. All I can say - to some of you, at lest - is, "You asked; I'm answering."

Anyway, that job, for which I was woefully inexperienced and ridiculously unprepared (take, for example, the circumcision in which I assisted only 10 months into it), lasted from February 2001 to January 2007. I loved a lot of what I did there. Stressful? Sure. But I got to do stuff often enough - stuff that didn't involve filing or calling in prescriptions - that I managed to learn a lot, and I got a great deal of satisfaction out of the things I could do to make the patients' and the doctors' lives easier. Somewhere in there I even switched over to taking anatomy and physiology classes in college, and while I sucked at science in high school, I (with the help of a few of my doctor colleagues) started pulling off 80s and 90s on my exams. It shocked me to realize that there was something I was good at that I also wanted to do. I even remember the very day that cemented my desire to be a nurse - it was a Sunday morning, and something especially horrifying and stressful had happened with a patient, but once I'd managed to get the patient, myself, AND the doctor through the crisis, I remember calling my Mom and saying, "This is what I was meant to do."

So why did I leave that job? God knows I've asked myself that a lot, especially lately. But the truth is that my physical health was wearing down to nothing, and it was taking my mental health with it. Add to that a few key ingredients that made my work environment impossible to endure any longer - no matter how much I adored nearly all of my coworkers, my bosses, and the patients - and I knew I had to go.

What I didn't realize, though, was just how bad my health was. So when the job I walked right into upon leaving the Clinic did some major damage to my already lousy ankles, I started to worry. I found another job quickly, but then got so sick with every virus that came through the door that I had to bail after only a few weeks. This happened over and over again - me pushing myself into new jobs, new places, and then having my body and mind fail on me - before we figured out what was wrong with me. The summer of 2007 was hell, but I did get better once we knew what to treat. And I thought, once I was physically stronger, that it would be a cakewalk getting back into the workforce.

Hah.

Two or three more jobs came and went, each one seemingly too much for me in one way or another: bodily, mentally, or situationally. My Mom got sick in January 2008 and our entire world stopped; I didn't want to be away from her, and poverty would just have to do. But in March, I found what I honestly thought was the perfect job. The one that would get me closer to being able to afford to go back to school for my RPN. The one that had these great doctors who were so much fun to work with, and an office staff full of amazing women who I immediately knew would be my friends forevermore, and an opportunity to learn more, to get back into the game, to do something meaningful, however small.

That job turned into hell. On every level. I was treated like garbage by my "manager" (as was everyone else, though some got it worse than others), I was betrayed by at least one of those "great" doctors, and on top of it all, I was sexually assaulted one night by an employee who shared the building. The salt in the wound was being summarily fired for a completely nonsensical reason, only one week before my 3 month probation period was up. Presumably because I just seemed like too much trouble. I'd only just begun to process the assault when I lost the job altogether, and that did something to me - to my dignity - that I cannot put into words. I was broken.

That was May.

In September I started the job I'm in now. And it's okay. The doctor couldn't be nicer. My office mate is wonderful and capable and patient with me while I learn. The money's not horrible. The hours are all right.

But...I feel as though I am so, so much farther from where I really want to be than I've ever been before. I don't make enough money to set it aside for school. I don't do anything that affects people's lives at all. I...file. And at least once a day that famous quote from the movie Heathers goes through my mind: "I'm using my grand IQ to figure out which gloss to wear or how to hit three keggers before curfew." In my 6 years at that first Clinic, I learned a lot about medicine and people and life and death, but I learned even more about myself. And now? Now I fax referrals. That's what I do. Moreover, I fear, that's what I am.

That is not enough for me.

I was meant for more than this. I have to be. I see others' successes and am so proud of them, while still feeling like I missed that train, and they're all waving to me as it pulls away. I don't know if there's another one coming.

I know I'm lucky to have a job at all, let alone one where I'm treated kindly and am not doing anything too heinous to my body. I do know that. But I've grown so tired of feeling lucky. I want to be HAPPY. I want to stretch the limits of my potential and see if maybe, just maybe, I'm even smarter than I thought I was. I want to do something that matters, to the people I help and to myself. I don't want to spend five hours taking phone messages. I want to be elbow-deep in something gory and terrifying and possibly life-changing.

(And no, writing for a living is not that. Not for me. It is for some, and rightfully so, but...it's not my dream. I do love all of you who praise me so often about my writing - biased though you may be - but...it's not what I truly want. It's not all.)

What stands in my way is money. And the waitlisting going on at every school that offers the nursing program I want. And, I grudgingly admit, my guts (and lack thereof). This past two years has shaken my self-confidence hard. I'm amazed I have any left at all. I have failed over and over again, which, to a born perfectionist, is like dying tiny deaths with each near miss. Each of the experiences I've had since leaving the Clinic has chipped a little more away from Me, from Who and What I Am, and I fear that, if the money were to fall in my lap tomorrow, I wouldn't be strong enough anymore to even chase my dream, let alone catch it.

My recent trip to the UK, as I have said to some of my friends, affected me deeply. Because it made me see that I can watch some of the dreams I've had since I was nine years old come true. It showed me how big my world is, and how small a part of it I've been cowering in all this time. But it also devastated me in the strangest way, because it gave me the chance to look at my life from the outside - really and truly, for once - and I hated what I saw. And right now, at least, there is nothing I can do to change any of it.

So, in 6 hours, I will get up once again, put my scrubs on, and I will go to a job that I know full well is not what I thought I had/have to offer - and there's nothing at all wrong with that, if it's a means to an end...but...it isn't. It pays the bills now (and, actually, not even that, since I haven't gotten a single paycheque since I started last month; that'll change soon enough, mind), but I stand to learn nothing, and it's not contributing to a tuition-shaped nest egg in the least. I come home from a day at work and I just want to cry, because I think of all the hours I just spent making nary a bit of difference to anyone, anywhere. Including (or especially?) me.

But, for now, these are the cards I've been dealt. They are the product of some bad decisions on my part, as well as some limitations over which I have no control, and just good old fashioned fate. I wish I could see a light at the end of a tunnel. Any tunnel. But I feel like I've euchered myself somehow, and everyone else has gotten up and left the table. I have no idea when the next game will begin, or what the stakes will be, or if I'm just stuck sitting here, staring at the four 9s and one 10 in front of me.

I'm thinking those of you who asked are probably sorry you did now.

Scotland, and how my blogs are "graded", plus LINKSPAM!

I've had a couple of people ask me when I'm going to post in this public forum about my recent excursion across the pond, and...well...the answer is: I'm not. There are a few reasons for this, the principal of which being that I have posted an awful lot about it already, but have done so in my Very Private Blog, and if you could see how bloody long those entries are you would immediately understand why I don't feel like I can rewrite the whole thing (or scrub it up enough to have it be fully public). I do come bearing an offer of compromise, though, for the Very Interested (and I won't even ask you why you're Very Interested). I have a mirror blog that acts as something of a second-tier privacy module, if you will. Yes, I have three blogs, and yes, they all share some of the basic posts, but they each have varying degrees of privacy. It's kind of like the CDC, and how they classify deadly viruses.

• Biosafety Level 1 is PrettyH @ Blogger (You Are Here). It's open to the public and is searchable on Google. Anyone and everyone can read what I write here; I don't censor or edit posts, and I welcome unmoderated comments. If you're A-OK with just getting my occasional topical rant or a collection of bizarre links every so often, and never having to see any of my more personal stuff, this is where you wanna stay.
  
• Biosafety Level 2 is PrettyH @ InsaneJournal. It acts as a mirror journal to my Level 3 blog, meaning I transfer the less controversial or disturbing or objectionable entries there, still giving a fairly good glimpse into The Real Thing but without the worry of any sensitive info getting into the wrong hands. I tend to set up accounts for people I trust and give them the passwords to allow them to read at will; if you want to do the same, or if you want to make up your own account, GO HERE, then add me as a friend, and chances are - if I know who you are - you'll be admitted without hesitation. (I'd suggest you get a username that I can figure out, or comment here or on my IJ to let me know you've arrived!) There are a few very specific people I'm actively keeping out, which is really the only reason I have it locked down at all.
  
• Biosafety Level 3 is PrettyH @ LiveJournal. I have an established Friends List there, complete with filters for various subjects, and as a rule I no longer add people to that list. I've developed a degree of trust with those who read my near-daily posts (and whose I read daily as well), and the balance is good; I don't wish to allow any further additions lest I err in my choices and find my private business being splashed all over the 'net. It contains details about everything from my boyfriends to my job to my family to my strange adventures and experiences, and it is therefore locked down like a prison during a riot.
  
• Biosafety Level 4 is my actual, physical, paper journal, kept since I was 9 or 10 to the present, which gets read by NOBODY (although a small handful of you know about two other secret locations where I occasionally transcribe the deep, dark stuff that usually comes first from my pen).
  

My point in telling you this? I know there are a good number of you who have this blog on GoogleReader or on their RSS feed, and some folks have emailed me asking why A) I don't update this one very often, and/or B) this blog is so...surface, most of the time. Now you know. And the invitation to step up to Level 2 is there for you now, should you wish to take it. That is where all of what I've written thus far about my time in Scotland is located, so it's there, if you're willing to reach for the key to open the lock!

Meantime, I can and will gladly share my photo album, at the very least, with anyone who's interested (and who isn't on Facebook already): Ehch's UK Trip 2008 in all its glory can be viewed at your leisure.

And I'd love it if you'd leave a comment here and direct me to your blog, if you have one, because I like keeping up with my friends' lives (and those of strangers, too...)!

Now to the fun stuff (because, here in Canada, we're just coming off a long weekend for Thanksgiving, so this is technically a Monday for us in terms of the work week - BLARGH - and you know how I like to amuse you with twisted links on Mondays). Long live the time-sucking glory of my lists! (Note that some of these links may contain mildly NSFW material, so don't go clicking away while your boss is standing behind you or anything.)

• The 11 Most Awkward Imaginable Moments - I don't know how these people had enough time to devote to these photo manipulations, but a couple of them made me laugh aloud.
  
  
• 7 Music Trends Whose Return Must Be Stopped - I am unaware of any up-and-coming mass celebrity Christmas songs in the works, but I do think that Hair Metal is a threat about which we should all be vigilant. (Also worth noting: Level 42 escaped mention in the "Bands With Numbers 4 Names" segment. I think I'd have boggled if they hadn't.) "Dudes As Ugly Chicks" made me spit out my drink.
  
  
• 5 Bizarre Ways The Weather Can Kill You Without Warning - because, apparently, terrorist alert levels aren't enough; now we need to live in ph33r that Mother Nature is gonna bust a cap in our asses for no good reason.
  
  
• 6 Horrible Lessons Movies Like To Teach Kids - even if I've mentioned this one before, it is so worth reading again. The Creepy Recluse is Actually the Nicest Person on the Block gets me every time. It's so true. HOW DID WE NOT ALL GET KIDNAPPED?!?
  
  
• 6 Famous People Who Pissed Away Their Fortune - because it's fun to laugh and point at the Have Nots who did it to themselves. Greedy bastards. Yes, I'm talking about you, Ed McMahon.
  
  
• The 5 Most Clearly Insane Public Figures Endorsing McCain - I would've enjoyed this more if they'd also done a Top 5 list of Obama-llamas, too. If anyone happens to find one, please do share! Still, I did get a chuckle out of the GW pics, like this one...
  
  

And now, to wrap up, a few of the newer (and funnier) urban legends hitting our beloved Snopes.Com lately:

• Doll Talk - A Fisher-Price doll utters phrases such as "Satan is king!" and "Islam is the light!" Where can I buy one of these??
  
  
• Spare Ribs - a collection of photos that show a woman who had her lowest ribs removed so she could look extra faboo in that corset.
  
  
• Dolphin Rings - a video apparently showing that dolphins can make bubble rings and actually play a game with them. That's smarter than a lot of humans I know.
  
  
• Why English Teachers Die Young - a list of hilariously bad metaphors that would probably be enough to drive any teacher to suicide. (If that doesn't work, try reading a Laurell K. Hamilton blog entry. WORDS IS HER BUSINESS.)
  
  
• Obama Sex Video! - I cannot believe there are enough people who would want to see such a thing that this would be an effective way to spread a computer virus... Eugh. But I do love the text of the email, which ends off so eloquently with, "Obama it's not right choice!!" Poetry, I tell you.
  
  
• Strawberry, QUICK - so we're just getting over the whole Jim Jones Kool-Aid business, and now we have to wonder if there's meth in our Quik?? Is nothing sacred??
  

Hope that helped you kill some time at the start of our short week, fellow Canucks. To everyone else...well, you're just as close to Friday as we are (hell, some of you Aussie types are even closer!), so... Wait. What was I talking about?

This is what happens when I let myself blog before sunrise. Hardy har.

I'm sure my next entry will have a little more substance than this one did. We can hope.

For those asking about my trip - where and why, for example...

Mmkay. I leave for the airport Thursday morning (Oct. 2nd) and won't be back until probably late Tuesday/early Wednesday (Oct. 8th). The Glasgow airport is mercifully only a 15 minute taxi ride from our hotel. And oooh, they only have those awesome black taxis with the doors that open the wrong way!! [/geek] I'm 90% sure I'll be taking my laptop (free WiFi in my room, plus I can upload my photos every day & clear off my cards), so I may be able to be in touch that way. My Mom has gotta be freaking at the thought of being without her daughter AND her husband AT THE SAME TIME (this has actually never happened in their 34 years of marriage), so she's hoping I'll find a way to access Facebook & can then pretend I'm only in the next room. Poor Mommy. (But my uncle is here with her the whole time we're gone, so he'll doubtlessly keep her occupied and thoroughly entertained.)


I called the hotel yesterday just to confirm everything (since we booked through Expedia, I figured it'd be wise to ensure that all our bases are covered before we jump on a plane), and it was hilarious. First I kept dialing it wrong - there's a zero you have to drop, and I never remember which one (which is why I put the CORRECT number above), so I kept getting told the number was out of service. NOT WHAT YOU WANT TO HEAR from a hotel at which you're supposed to be arriving in a few days!! So I sent an email to their reservations inquiries address, which said, in part,

Hello! I've been trying to get through via the telephone, but I'm being told the listed number is no longer in service. (This could, however, be as a result of me being from Canada and being hopeless at dialing internationally.)

Uh...d-uh. "Me Canadian! ME NO DIAL GOOD!!" This appearance of stupidity skyrocketed when I finally DID figure out how to get through, and - after not understanding a bloody word the woman at the front desk said by way of greeting - I had to confess to her that I'd also sent an email and that she could delete it now. She had a good laugh over that. "It's not Mars, dear!" she said in her lovely brogue, and I chuckled and explained the whole I've-never-been-off-the-continent thing. She got quite excited at that.

"Oooh, you've not been out of Canada and you've chosen us, then?" was what I believe she said (but don't quote me on it).

"Well, I've been to various parts of Canada and the U.S., but our phone numbers are a lot shorter here. We need simplicity."

That gave her more to laugh at, of course. "Let me check my schedule to see if I'll be at the desk when you check in, love," she said, which amused me, and after hearing pages flip for a moment (and listening to my phone bill rack up with each passing second), she said quite gleefully, something that sounded like, "Oh, aye! It'll be me here to greet you! We love having Canadians stay. You're a charming lot."

Pity I didn't understand what the hell she was saying when she spoke her name at the intro. It sounded Martian, anyway.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that, when she asked for my name so she could confirm the details, I said, "There are two rooms, both under the same last name but different first names."

"All righty," she said. "Last name, then?"

"It's Swanson. S-W-A..."

She laughed. "It's all right, dear. We have a lot of those."

*laughs* Yeah. I guess they would.

She also added that she'd try to get us rooms that overlook the pond, to which I responded, "You have a pond??" (As though somehow that's the most absurd, bizarre thing I could imagine..? I...dunno. I think my excitement about the trip has overtaken my IQ points.)

A moment of silence. "Why, yes, dear. We're called the Glasgow Pond Hotel."

"I just figured it was a pretty name."

Again she laughed. "No, dear. One side of our grounds is taken over by a large pond that's full of swans, which I'm sure you'd like to see from your window."

I assume this is because of my name...? Either way, the pond-side rooms are an extra £s;25 a night, and she wants to just give them to us for being Canadian and being Swansons and being phone-illiterate, so I'll take it! I'm rather looking forward to meeting this woman, whatever her name is. She made me day. (*LAUGHS* I meant to type MY, not ME. Oh, god, it's starting already.)


There's something to be said about staying in a Best Western no matter where you are. You have a reasonable expectation that things will be nice. Not fancy, but nice. Having said that, though, this one has just been overhauled, and...it would seem they went for "fancy". They're graded as a 3-star (presumably because of the not-outrageous cost compared to the other hotels in Glasgow) but actually fall into the requirements of a 4-star, so...again, I'LL TAKE IT.

The website shares all sorts of happifying information, like the fact that the bar is open 24 hours a day. Whoo! That plus 24 hour room service and a dessert list longer than one's arm? Yeah. I'll have to be conscious of not spending too much time in my room. But it's really good to know that, at the end of an exhausting day of prowling about the countryside, we have such a nice place to crash. For whatever reason, my Dad and I each got a double room, so I plan to switch beds each night. And if I pick up any cute Scottish boys, I'll have somewhere to chuck them when I've gotten what I wanted and would prefer not to share a bed once I'm ready to sleep. Works out well, I think.

My Dad is going to have to be torn away from the huge flat screen LCD TVs that are on each of our walls. That could get interesting. By the way, the principal reason for getting separate rooms is because my father snores like the world is ending, but yes, it is in the back of my mind that I'd like to have at least one illicit hookup. Hah!

Yes, I am bad. But that makes me FUN. And on that particular subject, does anyone have any advice for me on how to snag me a Scottish one-night stand? I have the whole Canadian thing going in my favour, but if anyone would care to offer some tips (especially if you've had your own overseas hookup adventures!), I'm listening. Closely. I'd like to have the entire Scotland experience, if you get what I'm sayin'. Nadine and I were just discussing this the other night - my lack of whore-dom when I was at the prime age to slut about freely - so I'd like to remedy that with at least ONE international one night stand.

Morals? What morals? I never said I had any, did I? If I did, I was lying through my teeth. Besides, it's been 2 years since I last got any (we know who ruined me for a while), so methinks a vacation is a good time to...er...get back in that saddle. (I'M KIDDING.)


I suspect we'll be spending a goodly amount of time in this lounge, because my father is a sucker for fresh scones, and they have an after-hours menu that puts Fran's to shame. (Toronto nightlife reference; don't mind me.) I'm also hoping that it'll be chilly enough to warrant them having their 7,012,548 fireplaces going. I swear, you look at pictures of this place and wonder how they managed to divide every single room and lobby and section of anything with a great big modern fireplace. Gorgeous! Not sure if I have one in my room, though, but as I said, I'll be distracted by the wall-sized TV. Who the hell said that the rooms in UK hotels are ridiculously small compared to North America??

I'm not positive, but I think this is a photo of the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, which is where, on the evening of Sunday, October 5th,I'll be scratching one more thing off my Bucket List and finally seeing my most beloved band: Level 42. I canNOT put into words the degree of excitement I feel about this. And yep, I'm goin' alone. 4th row centre!! I've never been to a concert alone before, but I suspect this will be a lot of fun, because I can just make friends with everyone sitting around me. And, eventually, with the band (although I wish to hell Mark King had answered my diva-free request for a backstage pass; I only asked because I want photos to bring home to my Mom, and you can take pics during the show, so I HAVE to meet them! I'll use my womanly wiles if I have to. Flirt with their security guards. It can be done.)

We're also spending a day in Edinburgh, of course (and, if we can pull it off, Belfast as well), which will involve - among other things - one of the coolest walking tours I've ever heard about! It's called "The Ghosts & Ghouls Underground Tour, which is apparently creepy enough that they have to give you complimentary BOOZE once you get through it. (My Dad doesn't drink more than once every couple of years, which means he gets goofy after half a glass of wine; this oughta be fun.) About the tour: By day Edinburgh is a bustling metropolis – but at night the old buildings and narrow closes take on a more sinister air…A long history of murder, torture, hangings and plague has left a haunting legacy on the city's Old Town and ghostly apparitions now walk its streets.

Enter the underground vaults whose walls, it is said, have absorbed the memories of those who once lived and worked there. This part of the tour is not for the faint-hearted. Cling tightly to the person beside you: we try to leave with the same number as we had on going in!

Choose the extended tour and end your experience with a complimentary drink in the atmospheric Megget’s Cellar, a candlelit nook located above the Underground Vaults, where the guide will continue to entertain you with eerie tales from Edinburgh’s past.

Be Warned: Mercat Tours employs neither sound nor visual effects on this tour. If you see or hear something untoward during your time with us - Be Concerned !!!


Ohhh, yes. This is gonna be SO MUCH FUN. Add in a bus tour around Loch Lomond (which, as you can see from the photo, is incredibly beautiful... I seriously thought places could only look like this in the movies, after a lot of touch-ups from the FX crew. Apparently not...) and a whole bunch of cool stuff right around our hotel (like The Necropolis - how deliciously creepy to think my hotel is across the street from 3,500 corpses...), and whatever else catches our fancy, and it's gonna be epic. There are endless antique bookshops around our neighbourhood, which will have my father completely thrilled, and I think just being surrounded by that fantastic accent for most of a week will make the whole experience well worthwhile. Everyone's surprised that we're not going for longer, but between my Dad's work schedule (and now mine), money, and the odds that we'll be bloody knackered by the end of the fifth day, I think we're doing just fine.

[ Glasgow's Necropolis ]

I am also, as you can imagine, thrilled to pieces to discover that I'm going to the one city in the world that calls its subway "The Clockwork Orange". It's the weirdest little train - only 3 cars long, and it comes every 5 minutes, and it has a track that's only about 11km long! My hotel is close to the main train depot, so I'll definitely be hopping on at least once to take a spin around the underside of the city!

[ CLOCKWORK ORANGE!! ]

And as you can see...
...it looks like - according to BBC's weather report for Glasgow, we'll be flying into a sunny, chilly day, which is exactly what we want!

So there you have it. I unfortunately can't promise postcards to everyone this time, because that could get SCARILY expensive, but if you want to email me your complete mailing address I will certainly do my very best.

One last question for those who do a lot more international travel than I do: What can I bring as far as toothpaste/mouthwash/lip gloss/other liquids when I pack?? I can't remember how to go about that whole "you can't have liquids on the plaaaaane" thing, so I'd like to know how to get around that or how to make it simplest. And how much can I bring back? Is there a monetary limit on the souvenirs I can come home with?

I can't believe I'll be on six different planes over the next two weeks, when everybody knows I HATE TO FLY. Oh, god. (And yes, I'll gladly take advice or anecdotes on HOW NOT TO FREAK OUT ON THE PLANES, too.) These are the right models but not necessarily the right airlines. I'm flying US Airways and British Airways only.

From Toronto to Philadelphia: Canadair RJ


From Philadelphia to Manchester: Airbus 330-300


From Manchester to Glasgow: EMB-135


And coming home...

From Glasgow to London: Boeing 737-400


From London to Philadelphia: Boeing 757


From Philadelphia to Toronto: Canadair RJ


AUGH! Some of them are just...way too small. ESPECIALLY THE FIRST AND LAST ONES. I barely kept it together on the EMBs from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara! *deep breath* Xanax and beer. Xanax and beeeeer.

ANYWAY. Consider that my comprehensive pre-Scotland post. It took me TWO HOURS to type. I need a nap now.

Amnesty International - "Small Places" that you should see.

I know there are a million causes out there, and I know that charity fatigue is a very real problem, but I ask that you take a moment to look at something that my friends in Wide Mouth Mason (one of the best Canadian bands our beloved country has seen) hold dear to them. We've heard a lot since yesterday about the great things that Paul Newman did for the world in which we live; now we can focus on what we can do.

Amnesty International's "Small Places" is all about Human Rights, and what everyone - from musicians to us regular folk - can do to improve the conditions for those whose most basic rights are ignored every day.

Borrowing from WideMouthMason.Com (because they and their Chef de Mission always say it better than I ever could), here's the answer to the question: What IS "Small Places"??

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What "Small Places" is:

• It's a three-month campaign by Amnesty International that is inspired by a statement by Universal Declaration co-author Eleanor Roosevelt that "Human rights begin in small places close to home".
  
  
• It's about artists and other creative folk around the world bringing human rights 'close to home' wherever they happen to be.
  
  
• It's a cross-Canada and 'round the world arts jam with a call to action that celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
  
  
• It's a global effort that Wide Mouth Mason wholeheartedly supports and invites all those amongst its Masonite masses around the world to check out and consider making this campaign part of their Small Places in the world.
  
  With members of Wide Mouth Mason being long-time supports of Amnesty International, Wide Mouth Mason is glad to announce its support of this initiative that has been organised to run right to Human Rights Day on December 10th. Like Amnesty International's Small Places campaign, Wide Mouth Mason wants "to increase global support for human rights in these dangerous times"... and knows Masonites around this wonderful world of ours are a great Mass of Damn Cool people who might be interested in getting involved.
  
  Each Small Places artist champions a community or individual whose human rights are under attack, by calling on fans and friends to speak out and send appeals to governments, in the coming months.
  
  Amnesty International is a worldwide movement of almost two million people who work together to protect individuals and communities around the world whose human rights are under attack. Amnesty International appeals for the violations to stop and mobilize public pressure to prevent human rights abuses. Amnesty International takes action to stop grave abuses of human rights, freedom of conscience and expression, and freedom from discrimination.
  

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  I know most of you reading this have access to my private blog, and are more likely to comment there, but for those of you who are seeing this only here, I ask you to check out SmallPlaces.Ca and comment here to let me know what you think. Or to ask for more info. Anything at all. It's a cause worth reading about.
  
  I promise I'll return (hopefully before I leave for the UK!) for another of my more lighthearted, entertaining entries! But for now, this seemed like an important message to get out there. I hope I've helped in some small way; even if you tell me that you'd never heard about this before I posted it, I'll know that the word is spreading, and that we can effect change.
  

Paul Newman - 1925-2008

1925-2008

My heart is broken.

There isn't a soul alive tonight who's been touched my this man's work, onscreen or off, who shouldn't sit down and pay homage to possibly one of the greatest actors - and philanthropists - we will ever see. Sit down and watch something great. Something he gave us.

I bought my first bottle of Newman's Own wine while in New Hampshire in July, and even then my heart was heavy. That was the same weekend I saw a photo of Mr. Newman on the cover of one of those awful magazines, and...we all knew it was coming. But that never makes it easier when it does.

What a man: With writer A.E. Hotchner, Newman founded Newman's Own, a line of food products, in 1982. The brand started with salad dressing, and has expanded to include pasta sauce, lemonade, popcorn, and salsa, and wine among other things. Newman donates the proceeds, after taxes, to charity. As of early 2006, the franchise has resulted in excess of $200 million in donations.[3] He co-wrote a memoir about the subject with Hotchner, Shameless Exploitation in Pursuit of the Common Good. Among other awards, Newman co-sponsors the PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award, a $25,000 reward designed to recognize those who protect the first amendment as it applies to the written word.

One beneficiary of his philanthropy is the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, a residential summer camp for seriously ill children, which is located in Ashford, Connecticut. Newman cofounded the camp in 1988; it was named after the gang in his film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). Newman's college fraternity, Phi Kappa Tau, adopted "Hole in the Wall" as their "national philanthropy" in 1995. One camp has expanded to become several Hole in the Wall Camps in the U.S., Ireland, France and Israel. The camp serves 13,000 children every year, free of charge.[3]

In June 1999 Newman donated $250,000 to the relief of Kosovo refugees.

On June 1, 2007, Kenyon College announced that Newman had donated $10 million to the school to establish a scholarship fund as part of the college's current $230 million fund-raising campaign. Newman and Woodward were honorary co-chairs of a previous campaign. [from Wikipedia]



So, from someone who never had the great honour of meeting the man, I wish peace to him, and to his family, and tonight I will watch The Hustler for the eighteenth time and cry like the world is ending.

Because a little piece of it has.