Bailing Bucket is the personal blog and website of Rhett Soveran. Rhett is a writer, poet, blogger, podcaster, editor and web consultant. Previously, Rhett blogged at rockstarpoet.ca.
There are feelings that I remember—the quick-step of heartbreak, a bare-skin leg slapping against a moped engine and the melting skin rolling like a tide, the empty-stomach fall of a rollercoaster. But there are worse. The feelings that I forget, like loneliness. On my twenty-fourth birthday, Canada Day, I sat in this bigfoot city alone. In the distance I could hear the fireworks and below my apartment, on the street, the celebration. The vacant sound between an echoed explosion and the songs of alcohol is what makes loneliness.
Two years later, that same fear is awakened in letters sent without the hope of a reply.
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This is the first of my attempts at creative blogging. Thanks to Brenda and Gerry for the inspiration to get me going down the path I had always meant to travel. I turned comments off. This is awful, but I need to start somewhere and I would rather feel like I was speaking to an empty room right now. And that is more poetic than anything I wrote above. Shit.
On Tuesday, I was laid off from my job, so I am in the process of looking for a new job, doing a few freelance jobs and potentially temping. You can read about it on soveran.ca.
So, we had the housewarming party and it was a great time. The house finally feels like a home. Everything that needed to be done is done and now Leah and I can relax. I also have a video in the works, but Windows Movie Maker kept crashing so I think I am going to have to find a different program to use. Until then, watch this cat… this ninja cat.
Recently, Curtis accused me of Green Washing. Well, I didn’t want you to think that I didn’t notice this baseless accusation. In fact, I mean to disprove it!
I am now a composter. Earth Machine Go!
The great thing about the Earth Machine composter is that the City of Calgary pays the majority of it, so it only costs $20 or so. Otherwise, I believe they are closer to a hundred. The reason Calgary pays for them is to reduce garbage and now that we are all moved in and things are settling down, our garbage has normalized once again. But now, with the composter, it has completely shrunk.
One bag of garbage and the kitty litter/poop. I don’t know how much garbage we produced at the apartment, but I know it’s more than one bag. Anyway, take that Curtis!
I am Rhett Soveran, your friendly neighbourhood green, mean composting machine!
I don’t know how, but somehow, the Zoo knew that it was Leah’s 50th birthday* last week and they put flamingos out for her. How nice. *Leah’s birthday may or may not be until October where she may or may not be turning 50.
Oh and here’s the video from the Zoo. As we walked through the zoo, I shot little snippets of video and this is the collage created from those shorts. The video was shot without sound and so I went on a web adventure looking for some open music and I found Allison Crowe. It’s really interesting how much the video changes depending on the music.
In case you didn’t notice, I have uploaded a set of pictures from our latest trip to the Calgary Zoo. I also took a lot of video from that trip, but I want to edit that together into one video. So you can look forward to that.
P.S. - I don’t think I actually got a picture of the Sloth Bear, but it’s still fun to say.
I don’t know if my back yard is sort of like my Field of Dreams, but I put out bird seed and the birds are beginning to come. Other than the lousy squirrels who are making a mess and shelling all the sunflowers, this is the first bird I have seen eat from the feeder. It’s also the first time I have ever seen a blue jay. Maybe it’s good luck? I bet my grandma would think so.
In an attempt to spruce up their image, Microsoft has hired Jerry Seinfeld to appear with Bill Gates in a series of commercials. The commerical is kind of weird, but it’s funny and I like it. I could take or leave Microsoft. They get a lot of bad press, but MS really isn’t that bad. It’s just the biggest and when you are the biggest everyone wants a piece of you. Do you dislike Wal-Mart because they underpay, short-change and overall disrespect their employees? Or the incredibly negative impact they have had on communities, environment or developing nations? Have you seen a documentary on all these things? It’s because they’re the biggest. Zellers does the same thing, but no one is making a documentary about Zellers.
Anyway, that’s a bit of a rant. Watch the video and giggle a little.
Two years ago today, Leah and I got married… and I am still wiping her juicy kisses away. Just kidding baby.
It’s funny how two years have gone by. In some ways, it’s seems like forever ago and in other ways it seems like yesterday. Just remembering that it was a year ago we went to Drumheller for our first anniversary seems like an eon. Well, yesterday, we celebrated by a day at the zoo with some close friends and then a few drinks and supper at our neighbourhood pub.
I have learned a lot about Leah and myself over the last two years and even though I generally don’t believe in progress (at least on a macro scale), I think I am progressing. Lately, I have been thinking about Leah. There are a lot of great things about her. But my current revelation is that Leah possesses the rare strength that inspires me to be a better man. You know, that old-school strength. Happy Anniversary, my love.
I don’t trust memory. I fear it. I can’t recall if I have ever written or even told anyone about this before. Aside from close friends, I probably would never mention it out loud. But there is something inherent in writing that propels me to tell the truth. It’s the one rule I won’t break. I think I fear—as if I were to curse the spirit—that it would be unforgivable. If I set a precedent of hiding myself in writing, I fear it would snowball on me.
There is a lot I don’t know or only half-know about the Soveran side of my family. I never met my grandfather. He died before I was born. And he had Alzheimer’s. Now I don’t know if that’s why he died, but I am pretty sure he had it. I don’t know anything about Alzheimer’s—except that you loose your memory and, I think, it’s hereditary. And without analyzing myself too much, some how with all that knowledge put together, I am pretty sure that at some point my memory will turn on me.
I developed this fear early. You always develop the best stuff early. In grade 5, two years after we bought the Honda Civic brand new, I continuously forgot my homework. It’s not that I wasn’t trying to neglect it or didn’t want to do it (well, who really wants to do homework?), but I simply couldn’t remember. My best guess is that somewhere between there and being a teenager, I gave up on memory. Or, rather, I went the complete opposite direction and thought I would simply remember everything. I didn’t take pictures. I didn’t have people sign my yearbook. I have no real evidence that I was ever a teenager. But I did tie my memories to physical things.
I have a theory about my memory. I tie my memories to physical things and if I lose that physical item then slowly the memory will go too. I will have no reason to recall the memory, thus keeping it alive.
At some point in 1990, my parents bought a brand new Honda Civic. At that point I would have been 8. I clearly can’t remember family trips. I feel as though I can remember one point when the Civic’s fan actually blew cold air. I can remember the roof rack. I can remember going to the farm. The second farm, when my grandmother remarried. John’s farm, where I learned to drive.
There are certain moments, not overtly large ones, but a handful of moments that I am proud of. One such moment, is when I turned 16 and took the test to get my driver’s license. I was in the Civic. If you had more than ten demerits, you didn’t pass. I passed the first time, 8 demerits, in a standard. Lots of people get their license their first time, but how many of them do it with a standard transmission? From that point on, I have many memories. Learning to understand Regina’s road system, cruising Albert St., driving back and forth from summer camps, visiting friends in other cities, going on dates, driving to Calgary to see if things would work out with Leah (Spoiler Alert: Things worked out). There are so many memories and for the most part, would be uninteresting to recount—or too interesting. And they are my memories, for me and I don’t want to lose them.
The thought of losing the Civic nearly brings me to tears. I get physically sick at the thought. It’s not just some material possession. It’s been part of my life for 18 years, 10 of which I was driving it. There is a lot tied up in it. It’s part of my trademark, part of who I am and now I have to let it go.
I realize now that my memory is probably not something to fear. Or at least not as much. Or I have time before it turns on me. I have at least learned to take pictures (which are on Flickr) so that even though the car is going to go (to the Kidney Foundation) I will hopefully be able to recall all my memories from the pictures.
Please feel free to leave any memories you have of the Civic.
In case you didn’t notice, I have uploaded a 
