[sunnykerr]

It's awesome that you can write poetry in both French and English. I mostly meant that if slam poetry is big in French, it's likely that something like it can become popular in English.

The main thing is that you derive joy from it. These days, that's worth everything.

[MsPerfectionist]

I'm not really up-to-date with the local poetry scene since I've been away for the past 2 years. I don't know how popular slam is in the local scene. I know it's popular in Ireland, they had slam championship competitions. I wish I can slam though, it's so cool haha.



Meanwhile, brace ourselves for 2nd wave anytime now. Masks become mandatory indoor, that's a good thing.

[sunnykerr]

I'm going into town tomorrow because I have a dental appointment and my dentist is close to work. It's becoming such a weird ordeal. The mask, my cousin is driving me, they'll take my temperature when I get there...

I mean, I get all of it. I appreciate all of it. It's just... it's complicated.

And I'm not even a little bit familiar with the local poetry scene either. But I do know David Goudreault is a massive deal and I think he's a slammer? He's on everything, all the time, anyway. I sorta assumed he wasn't doing it all by himself.

[MsPerfectionist]

yeah it's complicated. it's the new normal, still not quite used to it.

hmm i'll look into him.

[sunnykerr]

He wrote a book, Ta mort à moi. It's in prose. Before he was a professional slammer, he was a social worker. So his novels (I think this is his fourth) tend to be based on the world he worked in at that time.

He's a lovely interviewee. Seems like an awesome guy.

[MsPerfectionist]

cool hmm social work, he probably saw a lot working with people. observe and analyse.

[sunnykerr]

He says that it put him in contact with a strata of people that you don't see much in the media. You know, people who maybe didn't finish high school, who maybe never learned to read fluently, people with addiction issues of all sorts... Not necessarily dumb or mean or nasty. But people who, through one circumstance or another, have found themselves in a whole and they can't see the way out.

And there's something to that, isn't there? I remember when I lived in Verdun, my mother freaked out one time because she read about these two people (kids?) who were killed a street away from mine. I lived there for almost 20 years and I never witnessed any distress, violence or crime like that... But it was obviously there.

[MsPerfectionist]

Marginalised population. it's not easy. i can imagine that he'd feel powerless at time. I was a career counselor and there's only so much that we can do.

some people hide it well.

[sunnykerr]

He does seem to want to shine a loving light on them, though in saying that... I haven't read his books.

I'm sure there was some helplessness, but from the way he talks about that part of his life, there seems to have been a lot of affection as well.

[MsPerfectionist]

sounds good

[sunnykerr]

So... is this the second wave already? I have a feeling we just messed up on the "return to normal" re-entry, if you will.

[MsPerfectionist]

i consider it the second wave as people caught the virus when restaurants and bars reopened. we should stick with takeout. it's doomed to happen as you have to eat without a mask and there are so many people in a restaurant even with reduced number of seats and tables. people in average stay for at least an hour and talk so much after their meal without putting their mask back on.

[sunnykerr]

I guess I expected a period where things got back to semi-normal before calling it a second wave? Like, to me, this just feels like we rushed back to opening things before the first wave was over.

Of course, and this is a crucial aspect of my argument, what the heck do I know?

[MsPerfectionist]

to me, it never really stopped. it's only a "second wave" as in "second rise" in the number of cases.

[sunnykerr]

Sorry.

I spent too much time in hospital, around nurses and doctors. It's taken over my life in ways I don't anticipate. I was looking at it from a virology perspective (even though I'm not qualified to do so) where I don't think the virus has had time to mutate yet.

Again, what do I know? I believe viruses change and adapt. That's what they do, right? Hence why we can never get the hang of a flu shot that works 100% of the time.

So, to me, we haven't hit the second wave.

But you're right. It did go down for a second. It was heading in a downward direction. And now it's climbing back up since we've eased things up...

And, hey, they found the dead body of that dad who killed his two daughters. So today's a good day, as far as I'm concerned.

When I got the Ambert Alert, I ran into issues with my cellphone because I'm terrible at technology and it kept ringing and ringing... I had to push the OK button. Duh.