the otter is my totem animal.

I am thinking of getting a stylized tattoo (sorta photo-realistic but with Haida influences) of a river otter on my right shoulder.

It started to come to me when I watched this footage of sea otters in an episode of BBC's Blue Planet. My parents had it at their place (presumedably a gift from my sister, I'm betting), and it hadn't even been taken out of the shrink-wrap. I had seen a copy of it sitting under the TV in the dive shop that we had been scuba diving out of down in Carriacou only the week before. Suddenly it was the gem of quality footage of the underwater kingdom that I was much more prepared to appreciate than I was before that month, before I had actually seen the kinds of coral life that they were showing - except that they had filmed, with big BBC budgets, the most untouched, exemplary examples of coral life on this whole planet earth.

It is fitting to get an otter as a totem animal (and if you're going to describe it as a 'totem animal', then it is very appropriate to use Haida stylisations if considering a tattoo, as they were the originators of the concept). The more I read about and seek out pics of 'em, the more I like how cool they are. Except that apparently they bite each other hard on the muzzle and noses during sex, which I'ld like to say does not represent my approach to foreplay. Although a little light nibbling can be sensual...

But anyway. I only managed to watch about two out of the total five discs that comprised the Blue Planet DVD set at my parents' house in the week and a half I had in Toronto, but rented the rest from Black Dog last week. The real treat on it, besides the otters, was... well, I kinda feel silly geeking out on the Blue Planet series and telling all you guys about already, so I'll stop here. Check it out though, and also the Planet Earth series (the land-based one).


I'm liking this new title, for a new episode in life, named after a off-hand remark by my friend Rob who commented that our phone conversations tend to 'segue into infinity'. We're now thinking of making that into a band name.

My life is a bit quieter, taking a kind of shape, lately. We'll see where it takes me.