Sixteen years old in the fall of 1989.

After the Queen of Hearts had made her fateful deal with the old magician, she was still very ill and had a heart full of lead. She did not know where to begin for she was still very afraid and uncertain where to begin her task.

There was one thing she did know — fear was blindness and if she wanted to see once again, she would have to conquer this darkness.

It was a darkness many deny that they themselves possess, but the nature of this blindness was such that it would be well-hidden from the host — and the Queen could sense the deceptive nature of fear.

So she went to consult with a friend who understood the nature of fear and could provide insight and a starting point.

The Gentle King of Calm.

He had explained much to the Queen and the Queen had realized much of what he discovered she had also unearthed on her own for she studied war and lies in the Intangible Realm.

She knew fear, anger, and hatred were inter-related and that all three were the cause for people clinging to lies and darkness.

Fear prevented people from seeing the truth and most importantly, from using their hearts to guide them.

So the Queen had always known what the King of Calm had known for both used their hearts to find truths instead of the mindish ways of the Spades who were all too afraid to trust their poisoned hearts.

And with that, a grateful Queen of Hearts thanked the gentle King by bowing to him, blowing him a kiss, then promptly began her quest…

A week of insights.

It wasn’t easy. Grandma had to go to the doctor’s, but her theory of what was wrong with her was wrong — and far less than what she thought the problem was. The past was no measure in her case, she got a few pills, and felt better.

I heard that Vanessa Wade was freed from the prison that kept her away from the land of the living for far too long.

The Immaturity Room is complete. A place to have fun has taken shape.

I have to finish the Chapel still, but I did finish the backyard.

There’s never a shortage of things to do — or things to ponder while you are doing them.

But things are moving along…

Before Lu went forward to the past to undertake his assignment at the Castle of Time, he had told the Queen of Hearts how it was that he was poisoned by lead so many years ago.

The Queen had always suspected as much and recounted her small friend’s tale to the Heart Collector who, in addition to collecting hearts, also collected fables and riddles and songs and jokes and love — anything and everything that made the heart feel light.

“Lu was so lonely and had wanted to share his burden for so long, but he was buried underneath all that posionous lead,” began the Queen as she ate a baked apple stuffed with sugar and walnuts. “He recounted the story at first amid tears, but the best remedy for tears is to kiss them away, which, of course I did. Lu is quite the mushpot, and before I knew it, he became spoiled and silly — always asking for more kisses and scratches behind his ear and more rubs for his round belly. He passed out from bliss many times, so it took a little while for him to recall all that he remembered from his horrible ordeal.”

“But what did he say?” asked the Heart Collector.

“That he, like all Hearts, was responsible for making light, which he did. He would always laugh at the old magician’s jokes, which helped him make light.

“But one day, he saw something he never saw before — something dark. It was lead and Lu had no idea what it was. He went to take a look — it was as if he was compelled to go near it. That’s when he touched it — but then heard horrible, wicked laughter, which, for the first time in his life, frightened him.”

“Lead poisoning, no doubt.”

“The first known case of it, I am sure. He thought he was fine, but over time, he began to change. The change was slow and subtle, but he would laugh less and less until one day, his poor heart turned to lead and we know what happened after that.”

“But that would mean that Lu is not the true source of the lead.”

“I never thought he was. It made no sense. Lu was just a child when the lead infected his heart, besides he was only a Card, not a magician. The scales of this battle were always unequal and if Lu was the true culprit, the old magician could have resolved this himself long ago.

“But I always felt in my heart that Lu was only an unwitting front for the true culprit, yet everyone always blamed Lu. ‘Lu made me do it,’ they’ll say — that, and all those contracts he was forced to deal with — whoever heard of a leader doing all that paperwork? It’s absurd.”

“So Lu was only the face of the true magician who was out to make trouble for our old magician.”

“Yes, Lu was merely a misdirection and distraction — and it is the most encouraging news I’ve heard in a long time.”

“How so?”

“Simple — if this magician was truly as powerful as we are lead to believe, then why does he not show his face to us? Why is he in the shadows? Because if we were to see him, we could put a face to him, and he — or she — would lose all power. And judging by the way this shady character operates — if I were to see his face, I would laugh, and then that would be it for his reign of terror. Finished. He can’t show his face because if he did, he would immediately lose all the darkness and all his advantage and his game would be over.”

“So we must coax him out in the open.”

“That’s the riddle we need to solve — and I have to know which laugh to use and why.”

“But you are certain laughing is the best medicine?”

“Of course. Solutions are always simple and the answer is always right under our noses, and what is always under our noses? Our laughter — it’s the only place you’ll find them. That’s why we must always laugh and laugh for as long as we can — we need to find this smile stealer and stop the production of this lead that has caused too much sorrow for far too long…”

The Queen of Hearts looks for riddles to solve other riddles and a good place to find Solving Riddles are in dreams.

Last night was no exception.

She was asked to solve a riddle about who was responsible for the death of a Queen of Diamonds.

The Queen came from a bygone era and although she was not a well-known Queen, she greatly emulated Gem Queens of the past.

The dream search began, and under her own covers, the Queen of Hearts went undercover herself.

All the Gem Queens looked the same for the competition looked for the Queen who most resembled the most celebrated Gem Queen of modern times.

They all looked the same, at least, to other Cards.

But the Queen of Hearts doesn’t look at the tangibles for tangibles are lead to be melted away to make light.

Some of th Queens were not true Gem Queens.

Some were misguided Queens of Hearts who were teetering on becoming Diamonds.

For them, this would be a step down.

For others, they were Queens of Clubs hoping for a promotion.

But there was one queen the Queen of Hearts could sense was a Queen of Spades.

A true wicked queen.

And the Queen of Hearts knew this was the Queen who was responsible for the death of the fallen Gem Queen.

She had planted seeds of lead into this Diamond’s heart, but this was meant as a distraction — so that the Gem Queen would feel insecure and look to her false friend for support while becoming blinded to the truth.

The Spade isolated her pigeon — but then would kill her competition and take the Gem Queen’s crown for herself at the competition.

The scheme was a complicated one with secret and stolen identities and ruses.

And although the death of the Gem Queen at first appeared to be a suicide, the Queen of Hearts discovered this one was a cold-blooded and brutal murder.

And she brought the Spade Queen and her minions to justice by finding a small clue — a previously discarded receipt that showed the small apartment room where the deed was done was rented by the Dark Queen under an assumed name.

But just as the Queen of Hearts wrapped up her case, she was shocked to see a small mouse running across the room — wearing a cape and mask of a well-known sidekick to a dark knight who is in fact a Jack of Hearts.

The Queen of Hearts was floored and thought this dream was a bad omen since mice are a symbol of loss, but the costumed mouse read her heart and scurried over to her and began to speak.

He assured her that no mouse was ever her enemy, but would always be her friends for they had all heard of the Deal she made with the old magcian and that she included all animals — including mice — in the bargain.

And they would also be on the lookout for lead and bring them to her to consume.

The receipt she found thrown away was no accident for it was he who found it and brought it to her himself.

And he, in a way, just like Lu, was her sidekick who was always there when she needed to find hidden grains of lead.

And he bowed to the Queen, wished her well, and disappeared.

And the Queen was left scratching her head, wondering what other surprises would await her in her slumber…

A Queen with a Heart of Light is a queen who is made of living fire.

The fire doesn’t burn her, but it helps her see through the darkness to find the truth.

A Fire Queen can make you feel warm and happy and safe and full of life when you are close to her.

But beware! If you try to grab on to her to claim ownership, you will get burned….

While the Queens had their meeting, Lu was busy with his mission of finding the critical lead he had squirreled away in the hearts of the Cards.

With him was the Spirit of the Castle of Time.

And because the Spirit of the Castle was a Heart, he was more than happy to help Lu. The Castle’s crown looked strange, but it was no less powerful.

They say the pen is mightier than the sword, and the Castle made sure the Chronicler Knights were mighty fighters with the pen.

But the Castle could keep up with the times — the pen had changed its shape, but not its power.

But there were other weapons in the Chronicler Knight’s arsenal.

With the deep understanding of the investigative ways of the Chronicler Knights, the Spirit of the Castle of Time would help Lu find all the lead to give to the Queen of Hearts to turn to gold and light before the deadline as all good Chronicler Knights do!

What we perceive is not what is, but what our interpretation of reality is.

I’ve known that since I was a teen when I realized actual sound is different than perceived sound. 

And I’ve always had a theory about why we had vast differences in mindsets.

Why scientists tended to be atheists, why spiritualists shied away from science — and why people who had mental disorders had a hard time communicating with those who didn’t and vice versa.

The best way to describe it would be if someone invited hundreds of people to a party and was giving everyone free sunglasses — but what they don’t know is that these are no ordinary sunglasses — they are virtual reality glasses with hypersonic sound that are rigged — the majority are made to see one image and hear one sound — but a small subset are made to see and hear something else.

And now try to bring consensus or convince the majority that the minority need understanding, not a condensending or fearful response.

It’s a double blind of sorts — one side is blind to what the other sees — and the other side is blinded to what the opposite side sees. Huge clues are missing because both sides are incapable of seeing them.

The brain and the mind are not the same — the brain (the hardware) is very limited and prone to shortages the way the mind (the software) is not.

Our knowledge is limited by our brains — physical damage is a common problem, but so are wiring problems, chemical imbalances and the like.

So for some, their partial blindness stems from a visible obstruction — they can’t see what we see because their brain blinds them to the truth.

But I always said our subconscious is a whole lot smarter than the conscious part — which can be very limited and easily prone to sesnory overload.

And it’s here where I think a lot of “double blindness” takes place.

You have people who see the world in tangibles — the mind part living in the same world as people who mostly see the intangibles — the heart part of the equation.

One group doesn’t see the intangibles, so they dismiss things and don’t think they exist — but for those who can see it — they don’t see what their critics see, either. So as much as atheists are blind to the spiritual because of their blindness — those of a more spiritual nature are blind to the tangibles — and rather than either side facing the fact they may be partially blind, they merely dismiss the opposite side so they don’t have to alter their perceptions of reality.

And that’s why we really have a tough time getting along with people with different opinions or priorities — both sides are wearing two different virtual reality glasses.

But to have a “double vision” — the ability to see both the tangibles and intangibles — the ways of the polymath — can be extremely taxing to the limited brain — and the brain may break down.

Savants are people who can see one thing further ahead than most people — but they tend to have a more limited view of other things. Those deemed genius can have similar breakdowns — it’s not a question of sanity so much as having an overheated system.

We have people like Jill Price — someone who has an extraordinary memory, but she also pays a price.

I also believe that Louis Wain — an artist who drew cats who was diagnosed with schizophrenia much later in his life than is the norm — did not actually have schizophrenia — I think he may have pushed his mind too far and saw further ahead than what a normal brain can handle.

I mentioned this before, but even in the case of schizophrenia — a lot of the supposed gibberish isn’t really gibberish — it’s just the connections between thoughts are not as obvious. I remember in one of my undergraduate psych classes had us read passages from schizophrenic patients — I could follow the train of thought — mind you, the train was a runaway one, but there was a whole thought in there.

Amnesiacs can retain memories, but they can’t retrieve them directly. Even those suffering from various forms of dementia have moments of lucidity — if their brains are ravaged, then where are those smooth memories and sense of self coming from?

Even people in comas can pick up information even under their delicate state.

We understand very little about the differences between the tangible brain and the intangible mind — and yet we make a lot of rigid judgements nonetheless…

Boxing went really well today considering I didn’t get much sleep yesterday.

A lot of repetitive exercises, tho, which was good.

I gave my trainer a book on the Joe Louis-Max Schmeling bout. I saw it in Chapters and I thought he might enjoy it…

A meeting of the Queens took place.

Nine lives rolled into one space.

But a time barrier was opened and the Nine could interact with one another.

The meeting was a productive one.

The opening remarks came from the Fifth Queen who gave the advice, “If you can’t beat ‘em, eat ‘em.”

There were many discussions about timelines and bottom lines. The Third Queen said she was stuck between a hard place and a rock for if she rewarded gold instead of the lead, the consequences would be heart-breaking, but rewarding the lead instead of the gold would prove equally problematic.

The Fourth Queen said what needed to be done was to open more space so that light could be rewarded over either gold or lead.

The Fifth Queen reminded everyone about the Deal and that everyone — people, animals, plants, figments, dieties, demons, angels, spirits, imps, monsters — everyone had to be included in this deal for this was largest deal ever to take place.

The First and Second Queens recounted their experiments at the Castle of Time with much laughter and applause. The pranks they pulled during this time amused all the Queens, including the Third Queen of Hearts.

They had gone back and talked the former King of Hearts into numerous absurd scenarios and had even managed to trick the former Jack of Hearts so many times that the two had complained to one another about it — that is when the First Queen of Hearts disguised herself and told them that they should get together and play a prank on the Second Queen of Hearts — if she reacted in anger, then they had taught her a lesson. If she responded with laughter, they had found a powerful ally.

The Second Queen responded with laughter to their prank.

There were many more riddles that needed to be solved, but the foundation was set.

The Third Queen had reported on the progression of the merger — she had said that their acquired realm was very mind-ish — all decisions were based on the mind, not the heart and this was where the Queens could make the biggest difference to free the souls trapped there.

The Fourth Queen also reported that the spirits of the King and Jack of Hearts were resting nicely in her heart — so it was decided that she would receive their crowns and go back in time to release them; so that she could be free to do other things.

The Maiden reported that the Card she knew back at the Forest Green was too forward, a contrast to the former King of Hearts who was too backward. This area needed further study.

And after they could solve the Riddle of Space, they could all return to their respective eras.

The meeting was one which would be too cryptic for the mind, but perfectly reasonable for the heart, and that is why many Cards of other suits who were listening in were very confused.

But the Queens promised that in good time, all would be made clear and the meeting was suddenly over before it began…

I was a little behind on my pcture uploading, but this is Niagara College’s restaurant — quite nice — hard to believe this is a training restaurant:

Mom used to work as a driving instructor there.

It’s not the HAC anymore — and they’ve moved out of there.

My mom organized a union there — the Teamsters, no less.

They went on strike once. I remember walking the picket lines as a kid.

Where the logo used to be…

Slowly getting things in order!

But it takes a while.

A long while.

But here is my handiwork:

An explorer of memory.

I studied his model of working memory when I studied psych at Mac.

I found it interesting that he postulated that problem-solving took place in our short-term memory.

We could take in only so much information — even if we “chunk” pieces into groups together into more managable groups. If we get distracted, our ability to solve problems (let’s say a math formula), decreases.

But it doesn’t take much to distract us.

We can be asked to repeat a single word and that will do it.

When I took a cognitive psychology course, I wrote an essay (and if I find it, I will post it here; so far I can only find the original outline I had to submit), that suggested the best way to test Baddeley’s model (or almost any model of short-term memory) would be to study a group of people who would be always taxing their memory with distractions — people with Tourette’s Syndrome.

So I think Baddeley’s theory was always ideal theory to test the limits of human intelligence and memory.

But it’s an elegant theory nonetheless…

Conflicting reports at the time and I couldn’t get too close.

There was trouble at a group home — I got conflicting reports from different people — some thought it was a bank robbery, some people thouht it was a home invasion, but I did get a couple of pictures.

I meant to write about this sooner, but I didn’t get around to it. One young couple brought their baby to the talk (what a cutie!), but they had to leave because baby started to cry (all this talk about what people are doing to the environment sounds sad — but I think he may have been crying thinking about the amount of homework that is in his future).

I’ve taken a picture of this before (it’s right across the Burlington Art Centre), but this was where they held the talk:

It’s interesting that the University of Western Ontario has been working on this issue in a similar way that the old j-school program was set-up in that there are M.A. programs that  are a year-intensive and have a significant internship. The speaker was Professor Robert Bailey.

Some highlights:

1. There is a lot of consilience and collaboration going on among the various faculties in terms of environmental study — business, medicine, science, social science, and political science — a lot of inter-disciplinary study, which is interesting — you don’t usually see that kind of integration, but you are seeing with environmental studies here. Integration is something I think is critical to journalism, but you aren’t seeing it — but you are seeing it in the hard sciences.

2. There is a bigger focus at Western on sustainable development — how to use resources without depleting them for future generations. The impact on technology on the environment is also a big question that needs to be answered.

3. At Western, the line between education and research is blurring as is the line between academia and practical application, which is great to hear about.

4. Some of the new and yet to be built buildings at Western are environmentally-focussed, such as the Biotron.

Lousy picture, but that’s a slide for you.

I could go on, but then I’d have to use words such as paleolimnology and I don’t feel like it…

She left a phone message tonight. She said she’ll call again. I am really, really, thrilled…

And I’m stuck in here!

There’s always tomorrow…

On the eve of the first formal meeting of the Queens, the Fifth Queen went back to the Castle of Time to take a walk around the premises with a friend and aide.

He was once only a speck who she had freed when she consumed all his lead in one gulp, but now Lu had grown into a faithful and loving companion who went to find all the lead he had once squirreled away in the hearts of others.

She was starting to grasp the Riddle of Space so she did not have to go as far back as she once had to go.

She had seen that the first two Queens were having fun with their silly games and science.

She had dispatched the Maiden and the Heart Collector to the Forest Green to have a look around the grounds.

The Third Queen of Hearts had been dispatched with the Fourth Queen to conduct a few experiments of their own as well.

Her small companion was to be dispatched here on a dangerous assignment — to find the critical lead he had placed here and bring it back to her to consume.

The Castle of Time would serve as an advisor.

This made the Castle overwhelmed with joy for the Castle felt useful once again. As a show of gratitude to the Fifth Queen — the Castle had given her the crowns of the Jack and the King of Hearts.

The Castle assured her these crowns had powers that they never had before  — nor were they tainted from the sorrows and lead of the Past.

She took the crowns in gratitude, gave reassuring words to her companion and Castle, then disappeared…

A lot of people, apparently.

They’ll deny it, but they are a little too shrill about their disdain for her.

Why else do they support candidates who have less vision for the future than she does?

Why else do they keep telling her to abandon the campaign when she is by no means an unviable candidate?

Why else do they want her to tone down her already toned down personality?

Darlings, I don’t care what delusions you hold in your dear, sweet heads, but if you think Hillary is too much, you obviously have no idea how much worse I am.

If I ran for president (or more realistically, prime minister), you have no clue how different things would be.

If I ran for Prime Minister, I’d probably get assassinated, and they don’t do that here in Canada.

But for me, sweethearts, they’d make an exception.

How terrible can Hillary be?

She stays with someone no matter how bad they screw up or cause her grief and humiliation.

She raised a young person to be a well-mannered, thriving, educated, successful adult.

She fights on, no matter how grim things look.

She doesn’t shy away from a fight.

That’s leadership.

And yet all those qualities are thrown in her face as proof how bad she’d be for the position.

I guess we