Fine.
FINE.
A friend sent me the 100 top tracks of 2010, as rated by Pitchfork. I already had 80% of them on my iTunes. so. fine.
first, i was angry because there was no new music for me. then i was angry, because i am a hipster.
i am a fucking hipster.
i am flaccid with rage.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Holiday She-tale
I am the kind of person who takes enormous pride in sometimes confusing Topo Gigio with El Topo. How I came to work the Christmas Season In Retail, in The City's Fanciest Mall, at Your Dad's Favourite Store is a bit confusing to me, but there you are.
I last worked retail a decade ago, as the manager of a children's bookstore. The store owner was a strikingly attractive Jewish woman of a certain age; a cuckolding, violently narcissistic person with bony fingers and wild hair. She called herself a midwife because she once delivered a baby, and called herself a doctor because she believed herself a midwife. She once insisted on inspecting an employee's infected nipple ring because she was "a doctor", and frequently enquired about my "BMs". She also, tellingly, openly talked about how she thought herself to be "a charismatic leader, not unlike Jesus". Oh, and once, she cried while reciting the most beautiful poem she'd ever heard. THE POEM WAS THE LYRICS TO JUICE NEWTON'S 'ANGEL OF THE MORNING'.
The last time I worked in a mall was even longer ago than that. It was in the era of the Dress I Was Going To Get Married In, and I worked at both Benetton and Mr. Greenjeans at the Eaton Centre. I endured a lot of Japanese tourists miming out sizing requests that involved tapping the top of my head, puffing out their cheeks, then shaking their heads and wagging their fingers while pointing at me. Translation: my wife is a little shorter than, and not so fat as you. Mr. Greenjeans wasn't any better, as we had to advertise their loyalty program on our t-shirts. The program was called "The Eat It Up Club", and the "P" in "up" had an arrow on it that pointed down. Into our pants. Good times for a naive 19 year old from New Brunswick.
I have spent the last decade avoiding malls, and am surprised at how little they have changed. But maybe it's me. Maybe I don't like the assumptions people make about me because I am trying to sell them flannel-lined jeans and a cotton mock neck turtleneck. Maybe I'm still like I was at 19, feeling deeply out of my element amongst the consumers, people with money, being judged on my appearance. A woman snapped her fingers at me the other day. I nearly ground my teeth to dust. I developed an eye twitch during an exchange with a wealthy woman who was unhappy with the cargo pants we had on offer because they were "too casual". I just kept repeating "But they're cargo pants" over and over, in an even tone, as she repeated back to me that she wanted "pants like these with lots and lots of pockets that my husband could wear with a jacket and tie". "But they're cargo pants."
No matter. I work with lovely and smart people. I am not at risk of injury. I am not thousands of miles away from home, in the arctic. I am at the mall. I am okay.
post script: i just got a call from my boss, who is a very good friend. apparently, i didn't show up for my shift. this is heinous. and classic. i will now spend my wage on a cab to the mall.
I last worked retail a decade ago, as the manager of a children's bookstore. The store owner was a strikingly attractive Jewish woman of a certain age; a cuckolding, violently narcissistic person with bony fingers and wild hair. She called herself a midwife because she once delivered a baby, and called herself a doctor because she believed herself a midwife. She once insisted on inspecting an employee's infected nipple ring because she was "a doctor", and frequently enquired about my "BMs". She also, tellingly, openly talked about how she thought herself to be "a charismatic leader, not unlike Jesus". Oh, and once, she cried while reciting the most beautiful poem she'd ever heard. THE POEM WAS THE LYRICS TO JUICE NEWTON'S 'ANGEL OF THE MORNING'.
The last time I worked in a mall was even longer ago than that. It was in the era of the Dress I Was Going To Get Married In, and I worked at both Benetton and Mr. Greenjeans at the Eaton Centre. I endured a lot of Japanese tourists miming out sizing requests that involved tapping the top of my head, puffing out their cheeks, then shaking their heads and wagging their fingers while pointing at me. Translation: my wife is a little shorter than, and not so fat as you. Mr. Greenjeans wasn't any better, as we had to advertise their loyalty program on our t-shirts. The program was called "The Eat It Up Club", and the "P" in "up" had an arrow on it that pointed down. Into our pants. Good times for a naive 19 year old from New Brunswick.
I have spent the last decade avoiding malls, and am surprised at how little they have changed. But maybe it's me. Maybe I don't like the assumptions people make about me because I am trying to sell them flannel-lined jeans and a cotton mock neck turtleneck. Maybe I'm still like I was at 19, feeling deeply out of my element amongst the consumers, people with money, being judged on my appearance. A woman snapped her fingers at me the other day. I nearly ground my teeth to dust. I developed an eye twitch during an exchange with a wealthy woman who was unhappy with the cargo pants we had on offer because they were "too casual". I just kept repeating "But they're cargo pants" over and over, in an even tone, as she repeated back to me that she wanted "pants like these with lots and lots of pockets that my husband could wear with a jacket and tie". "But they're cargo pants."
No matter. I work with lovely and smart people. I am not at risk of injury. I am not thousands of miles away from home, in the arctic. I am at the mall. I am okay.
post script: i just got a call from my boss, who is a very good friend. apparently, i didn't show up for my shift. this is heinous. and classic. i will now spend my wage on a cab to the mall.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Liz Taylor Didn't, Either
I always thought I would get married in the dress, and now I'm selling it.
Soon after my 19th birthday, I moved to Toronto. I lived with three guys from my hometown who were attending theatre school in the city. We lived in a huge, but run-down apartment in the west end, in an area that to this day remains untouched by the gentrification that has swept through most of the other neighbourhoods it adjoins.
Because I was a late-addition housemate, I got the worst and smallest room. It was located in the middle of the apartment, had floor-to-ceiling wood panelling, and its only window was located above the door and opened into the hallway. When I moved out, my former roommates began saving their 2litre pop bottles, eventually filling the room to waist height. They would spend evenings hot boxing the tiny room then rolling around amongst the empty bottles as though it were the adult version of the ball room at IKEA. At first pass, it seems like a fun and interesting thing to do, but upon reflection, I suspect that it did little to help the substantial cockroach and mouse problems we experienced in the apartment.
Our downstairs neighbours were recent musical theatre school grads, and all three were servers. At some point, I loaned a pair of jeans to one of the guys for his first shift at the Golden Griddle. After a couple of wears, he became obsessed with the notion that my $30 Bluenotes jeans were "magic pants", and insisted that I take something of his in exchange. On a Saturday night, drinking a coffee mug of wine poured from a box, I sat in the basement apartment while he rifled through his closet. Eventually, he presented me with a cream angora tank dress with hand-beading and sequins, also in cream. It had been the dress he'd worn for his final recital (in drag, clearly) and had cost a fortune, but he HAD to have my jeans. He'd become superstitious about them by this point, and was convinced that he wouldn't make his rent if he had to give the pants back. I accepted the dress.
I've only worn it once--just a few weeks after the trade, we had a hallowe'en party. I had nothing to wear, and was completely broke. So I put on the dress with a pair of hiking boots. (It was the 90s. I'm not going to say that it worked, but it was less unusual than it might seem.)
I never wore the dress again, but have always somehow believed that I would be married in it. It's gorgeous, like something Elizabeth Taylor might have worn in the early 60s. It would have needed substantial alterations to work on me, being sized to fit a 6'2 man, but still. It is an incredible dress.
But I must part with it. I need the money. I'm as broke now as I was then (which was, coincidentally, the last time I worked in a mall until now, but I'll save that for later). There is no other place to wear a cream, hand-beaded sequin tank dress EXCEPT your own wedding. Considering that I've long been indifferent at best on the subject of marriage, it makes little to no sense to hold onto this dress.
So, after holding onto the dress for 15 years, it's going to go. I need the money, and I need the space in my closet.
For the vintage Armani I've always known I'll be buried in.
Soon after my 19th birthday, I moved to Toronto. I lived with three guys from my hometown who were attending theatre school in the city. We lived in a huge, but run-down apartment in the west end, in an area that to this day remains untouched by the gentrification that has swept through most of the other neighbourhoods it adjoins.
Because I was a late-addition housemate, I got the worst and smallest room. It was located in the middle of the apartment, had floor-to-ceiling wood panelling, and its only window was located above the door and opened into the hallway. When I moved out, my former roommates began saving their 2litre pop bottles, eventually filling the room to waist height. They would spend evenings hot boxing the tiny room then rolling around amongst the empty bottles as though it were the adult version of the ball room at IKEA. At first pass, it seems like a fun and interesting thing to do, but upon reflection, I suspect that it did little to help the substantial cockroach and mouse problems we experienced in the apartment.
Our downstairs neighbours were recent musical theatre school grads, and all three were servers. At some point, I loaned a pair of jeans to one of the guys for his first shift at the Golden Griddle. After a couple of wears, he became obsessed with the notion that my $30 Bluenotes jeans were "magic pants", and insisted that I take something of his in exchange. On a Saturday night, drinking a coffee mug of wine poured from a box, I sat in the basement apartment while he rifled through his closet. Eventually, he presented me with a cream angora tank dress with hand-beading and sequins, also in cream. It had been the dress he'd worn for his final recital (in drag, clearly) and had cost a fortune, but he HAD to have my jeans. He'd become superstitious about them by this point, and was convinced that he wouldn't make his rent if he had to give the pants back. I accepted the dress.
I've only worn it once--just a few weeks after the trade, we had a hallowe'en party. I had nothing to wear, and was completely broke. So I put on the dress with a pair of hiking boots. (It was the 90s. I'm not going to say that it worked, but it was less unusual than it might seem.)
I never wore the dress again, but have always somehow believed that I would be married in it. It's gorgeous, like something Elizabeth Taylor might have worn in the early 60s. It would have needed substantial alterations to work on me, being sized to fit a 6'2 man, but still. It is an incredible dress.
But I must part with it. I need the money. I'm as broke now as I was then (which was, coincidentally, the last time I worked in a mall until now, but I'll save that for later). There is no other place to wear a cream, hand-beaded sequin tank dress EXCEPT your own wedding. Considering that I've long been indifferent at best on the subject of marriage, it makes little to no sense to hold onto this dress.
So, after holding onto the dress for 15 years, it's going to go. I need the money, and I need the space in my closet.
For the vintage Armani I've always known I'll be buried in.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Doo Wah Diddy
Though making fun of hipsters is now a tired cliche, and a beyond joyless one at that because the only people making fun of hipsters are other hipsters (she said, as she proved her own point), I still occasionally see someone so ridiculous that my smirk becomes a sneer as I giggle at a stranger and then I have to try to keep my mouth shut.
(i'm failing, here.)
This guy was like a grocery store California roll of dated affectations. It's pointless to go into it now, really. I'm tired, and already bored, but...Just imagine what the 'edgy' music video television host you hate the most looks like, in whichever country you reside.
As with many things in life, however, the choice was in the details. And this guy? Chomping on a half smoked cigar that appeared dramatically blown apart at the end. Like in a cartoon. Like an exploding cigar. It was nearly perfect. Giant can headphones, slouchy hat, skinny jeans, deck shoes (IT'S MID-DECEMBER, GUY!), fingerless gloves, and waaay too much scarf. My brain shut off after that, as if I'd inadvertently checked off enough items that my mind said, "no no, that's cool. we've heard quite enough". What I'm saying here is: I don't know if he was wearing giant Urkel glasses or not.
(and I'll tell you another thing: when a 60yr old Polish shopkeeper on Roncesvalles attempts to alert you to the hot new trend of giant, round glasses, you might not want to bother jumping on that bandwagon. although I'm looking forward to the moment when [the arcade fire's] The Suburbs hits the suburbs [countdown is on]. Cannibal!)
(i'm failing, here.)
This guy was like a grocery store California roll of dated affectations. It's pointless to go into it now, really. I'm tired, and already bored, but...Just imagine what the 'edgy' music video television host you hate the most looks like, in whichever country you reside.
As with many things in life, however, the choice was in the details. And this guy? Chomping on a half smoked cigar that appeared dramatically blown apart at the end. Like in a cartoon. Like an exploding cigar. It was nearly perfect. Giant can headphones, slouchy hat, skinny jeans, deck shoes (IT'S MID-DECEMBER, GUY!), fingerless gloves, and waaay too much scarf. My brain shut off after that, as if I'd inadvertently checked off enough items that my mind said, "no no, that's cool. we've heard quite enough". What I'm saying here is: I don't know if he was wearing giant Urkel glasses or not.
(and I'll tell you another thing: when a 60yr old Polish shopkeeper on Roncesvalles attempts to alert you to the hot new trend of giant, round glasses, you might not want to bother jumping on that bandwagon. although I'm looking forward to the moment when [the arcade fire's] The Suburbs hits the suburbs [countdown is on]. Cannibal!)
Sunday, December 5, 2010
i have never relied on the kindness of strangers.
i was so busy trying to convince everybody to trust me that i didn't realize i trusted nobody.
so. november. there you go. good riddance, and i'll miss you. what started off as a dog-walking adventure and punchline to my year-off joke...turned into a life and game-changer. i spent 13 months trying to decide if i would stay in toronto, finally signed a lease, only to--less than two weeks later--wind up with a whole new set of decisions to make. decisions that involve investing in myself, something i'm not particularly good at doing, particularly professionally. my previous professional objectives involved something vague about always being able to afford good cheese and avoiding blended whisky when possible.
november was so crazy that i met paul weller and forgot about it days later. there’s too much. I’m getting swept under. i fear forgetting what i want to remember, while being stuck remembering what i need to forget, if only due to exhaustion and the clusterfuck of existence.
i was in new york for the month, in the end, with only a brief mid-November interlude back in toronto that involved a frantic move in torrential rain and winds gusting 80k/hr.
i went back to new york. i ran. i pondered. i walked. i pondered.
with new determination, the night before i left, i went to (literally) take a victory lap around soho and wound up with a pretty solid ankle sprain.
and THEN, just before midnight, hours before my departure, i locked myself out of my place with no coat and $1 in my pocket. i spent hours in the cold being stoic, waiting for locksmiths to fail, for people not to return my calls. what started off as another lesson in the ongoing series of dangling carrot failures of my life, however, wound up being one of the best, most affirming experiences of the year. sometimes, you meet good people, and sometimes they do great things. someone i barely know, at 2:30 am on a sunday night, paid for my cab to brooklyn, put ice on my ankle, make me laugh when i was at the breaking point, gave me a place to sleep, and paid for me to get back to manhattan the following morning. (so i could get off a bus in the middle of the night and finish moving, which took...27 hours. but that's another story.)
if you'd asked me 6 months ago if i could have trusted strangers, i would have laughed in your face. 6 months ago, i locked the gates and discontinued ferry service to the island.
and then this happened.
and in the 5 days SINCE then, because i let them, in addition to the amazing rallying of my core troops, i have been supported, saved and surprised by several new friends, virtual strangers all. i will be worthy of your investments, old friends and new. i will feed you when you are hungry and take care of you when you are sick, wherever and whenever possible. we are all in this together.
life is too short not to allow this sort of intimacy. everything fails. everything disappoints. everything dies. take the kindness and pleasure as it comes, and don't hold out for things that don't exist.
this is all a little (read: LOT) bullshitty and soft for my taste, but most of my bouts of insomnia are fuelled by horrible things and panic. to not be able to sleep out of sheer gratitude? bears acknowledgement. so thanks, assholes. thanks for winning my trust. you all suck balls. and i love you.
so. november. there you go. good riddance, and i'll miss you. what started off as a dog-walking adventure and punchline to my year-off joke...turned into a life and game-changer. i spent 13 months trying to decide if i would stay in toronto, finally signed a lease, only to--less than two weeks later--wind up with a whole new set of decisions to make. decisions that involve investing in myself, something i'm not particularly good at doing, particularly professionally. my previous professional objectives involved something vague about always being able to afford good cheese and avoiding blended whisky when possible.
november was so crazy that i met paul weller and forgot about it days later. there’s too much. I’m getting swept under. i fear forgetting what i want to remember, while being stuck remembering what i need to forget, if only due to exhaustion and the clusterfuck of existence.
i was in new york for the month, in the end, with only a brief mid-November interlude back in toronto that involved a frantic move in torrential rain and winds gusting 80k/hr.
i went back to new york. i ran. i pondered. i walked. i pondered.
with new determination, the night before i left, i went to (literally) take a victory lap around soho and wound up with a pretty solid ankle sprain.
and THEN, just before midnight, hours before my departure, i locked myself out of my place with no coat and $1 in my pocket. i spent hours in the cold being stoic, waiting for locksmiths to fail, for people not to return my calls. what started off as another lesson in the ongoing series of dangling carrot failures of my life, however, wound up being one of the best, most affirming experiences of the year. sometimes, you meet good people, and sometimes they do great things. someone i barely know, at 2:30 am on a sunday night, paid for my cab to brooklyn, put ice on my ankle, make me laugh when i was at the breaking point, gave me a place to sleep, and paid for me to get back to manhattan the following morning. (so i could get off a bus in the middle of the night and finish moving, which took...27 hours. but that's another story.)
if you'd asked me 6 months ago if i could have trusted strangers, i would have laughed in your face. 6 months ago, i locked the gates and discontinued ferry service to the island.
and then this happened.
and in the 5 days SINCE then, because i let them, in addition to the amazing rallying of my core troops, i have been supported, saved and surprised by several new friends, virtual strangers all. i will be worthy of your investments, old friends and new. i will feed you when you are hungry and take care of you when you are sick, wherever and whenever possible. we are all in this together.
life is too short not to allow this sort of intimacy. everything fails. everything disappoints. everything dies. take the kindness and pleasure as it comes, and don't hold out for things that don't exist.
this is all a little (read: LOT) bullshitty and soft for my taste, but most of my bouts of insomnia are fuelled by horrible things and panic. to not be able to sleep out of sheer gratitude? bears acknowledgement. so thanks, assholes. thanks for winning my trust. you all suck balls. and i love you.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
i still love you. i don't love you anymore. i never loved you. i'm falling in love with you. i could never love you. love is a joke.
i'm in new york. again. i'm doing things like wearing swing coats and jackie o. glasses and silver kitten heels while running errands. i'm doing things like jogging 17k in 2 sessions in 3 days, in long johns and flashdance sweatshirts. i'm doing things like mending fences and burning bridges. i'm eating a lot of cottage cheese and drinking bourbon with impossibly attractive friends in hipster hell.
it looks like work lives here for me, and me will live here for work, eventually. i'm terrified.
i like you. i don't like you. i don't like talking about the things we never did. i don't like thinking about the things we did do. you're not who you think you are. you're exactly who i think you are. i'm a late bloomer. i'm an early adopter. i'm an abrupt abandoner.
i've been in new york long enough that the vendors on canal street have stopped trying to sell me things. i haven't been here long enough that i don't find rats adorable.
thanksgiving in america is making me think about the family i don't talk to. it's making me think about the people i love who aren't family who i do talk to. the odds are that if you are reading this, i love you or once loved you, or almost loved you.
make me love you. i have enough to give. make me hate you. i am due for a cull.
tell me to go. tell me to stay. come with me, and go away.
most importantly, ask me questions, because i have no answers.
i'm everything i never thought i was, in a surprisingly good way.
etc.
love,
me
i'm in new york. again. i'm doing things like wearing swing coats and jackie o. glasses and silver kitten heels while running errands. i'm doing things like jogging 17k in 2 sessions in 3 days, in long johns and flashdance sweatshirts. i'm doing things like mending fences and burning bridges. i'm eating a lot of cottage cheese and drinking bourbon with impossibly attractive friends in hipster hell.
it looks like work lives here for me, and me will live here for work, eventually. i'm terrified.
i like you. i don't like you. i don't like talking about the things we never did. i don't like thinking about the things we did do. you're not who you think you are. you're exactly who i think you are. i'm a late bloomer. i'm an early adopter. i'm an abrupt abandoner.
i've been in new york long enough that the vendors on canal street have stopped trying to sell me things. i haven't been here long enough that i don't find rats adorable.
thanksgiving in america is making me think about the family i don't talk to. it's making me think about the people i love who aren't family who i do talk to. the odds are that if you are reading this, i love you or once loved you, or almost loved you.
make me love you. i have enough to give. make me hate you. i am due for a cull.
tell me to go. tell me to stay. come with me, and go away.
most importantly, ask me questions, because i have no answers.
i'm everything i never thought i was, in a surprisingly good way.
etc.
love,
me
Thursday, November 18, 2010
You Might Like Me Now, But I Will Like Myself More Later
"Again? Really?"
"Yes, really."
"Jesus Christ. Really?"
"Yes."
I make terrible first impressions. I make terrible second impressions. Hell, I make terrible fifth impressions. You might think you know me, but you really won't until you've logged some serious hours with me. Until you do, you will think I'm wild and gregarious and brave. And it's true; I am those things, in part. But I'm also very anxious in a lot of social situations, and I bluff better than most.
I'm a great dinner party guest. But it's not necessarily me you're hosting.
I'm often told, after the feathers settle, months into friendships, how much quieter and softer I am than initially perceived. How calm and soothing and focussed and gentle I am. How much less space and energy I consume. I know how intense I can seem, how exhausting it can be to keep up with me in a large social situation. Imagine how tired I get.
I try to tell people off the bat how anxious I am, as if to hopefully diffuse the anxiety. It seldom works. Nobody believes me, they pour me another drink, and I tell another ridiculous story. Everyone laughs.
Stick around, I want to say. It's worth it.
During my short-lived experiment with internet dating, I used to talk a lot of talk about going with my gut. About the lizard brain, and not wanting to waste time. Over the last few months, I've been feeling somewhat badly about the men I cut off immediately, without allowing them to warm up. The lizard brain only really tells you if you want to fuck someone. The lizard brain knows nothing of companionship, and can really only tell you how the first three months will go. The lizard brain fucks, and eats crickets. That is all.
I am the most confusing kind of slow burn. I start at a rolling boil. I polarize people. The energy somehow forces them to make snap judgments about whether or not they like me, romantically or otherwise. Except it's not really me, of course. This is why, I suppose, women often drunkenly confess at parties that they hated me for the first six months they knew me. Men come back to me later, after we've become friends, after we've decided not to date, and I've moved on. They get to properly know me, and have some sort of epiphany, and...i'm so amazing and how didn't i see it at the time and why don't we...There is one man who, 13 years after he put me in the friend ghetto, still emails me three times a year to tell me that he is in love with me. I haven't seen him in a decade. He's not the only one.
No. This is not about you. Or you. Or you, for that matter. It's about me. It's about the girl who thrice moved in after first dates, now wanting to go slowly. Wanting to go very slowly, and trying harder to give people the time to settle into themselves in the hopes that they will grant her the same generosity. Friends, lovers, whoever you are, be patient. You might like me now, but I will like myself more later.
"Yes, really."
"Jesus Christ. Really?"
"Yes."
I make terrible first impressions. I make terrible second impressions. Hell, I make terrible fifth impressions. You might think you know me, but you really won't until you've logged some serious hours with me. Until you do, you will think I'm wild and gregarious and brave. And it's true; I am those things, in part. But I'm also very anxious in a lot of social situations, and I bluff better than most.
I'm a great dinner party guest. But it's not necessarily me you're hosting.
I'm often told, after the feathers settle, months into friendships, how much quieter and softer I am than initially perceived. How calm and soothing and focussed and gentle I am. How much less space and energy I consume. I know how intense I can seem, how exhausting it can be to keep up with me in a large social situation. Imagine how tired I get.
I try to tell people off the bat how anxious I am, as if to hopefully diffuse the anxiety. It seldom works. Nobody believes me, they pour me another drink, and I tell another ridiculous story. Everyone laughs.
Stick around, I want to say. It's worth it.
During my short-lived experiment with internet dating, I used to talk a lot of talk about going with my gut. About the lizard brain, and not wanting to waste time. Over the last few months, I've been feeling somewhat badly about the men I cut off immediately, without allowing them to warm up. The lizard brain only really tells you if you want to fuck someone. The lizard brain knows nothing of companionship, and can really only tell you how the first three months will go. The lizard brain fucks, and eats crickets. That is all.
I am the most confusing kind of slow burn. I start at a rolling boil. I polarize people. The energy somehow forces them to make snap judgments about whether or not they like me, romantically or otherwise. Except it's not really me, of course. This is why, I suppose, women often drunkenly confess at parties that they hated me for the first six months they knew me. Men come back to me later, after we've become friends, after we've decided not to date, and I've moved on. They get to properly know me, and have some sort of epiphany, and...i'm so amazing and how didn't i see it at the time and why don't we...There is one man who, 13 years after he put me in the friend ghetto, still emails me three times a year to tell me that he is in love with me. I haven't seen him in a decade. He's not the only one.
No. This is not about you. Or you. Or you, for that matter. It's about me. It's about the girl who thrice moved in after first dates, now wanting to go slowly. Wanting to go very slowly, and trying harder to give people the time to settle into themselves in the hopes that they will grant her the same generosity. Friends, lovers, whoever you are, be patient. You might like me now, but I will like myself more later.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
That Thing You Always Were, That Thing You'll Always Be
(i just got back from an extended trip to new york. it was so spectacular that i'm still processing it, but hope to find a way to articulate how great it was soon enough.)
Over the last-night dinner in SoHo (corn dogs from house-made hot dogs and Tecate, in case you were wondering), we had a discussion about the character traits that define us. These traits manifest themselves pretty early on, and they often do not change over time.
I walked very early, as a baby. Like, freaky early. I just stood up one day, stumbled a few steps, then ran. Expertly (albeit in one direction, in laps), for an hour. And then I tried to change direction. And then I fell. Hard. Apparently, I sat in silence for a bit, then howled with rage and embarrassment. I didn't stand again, let alone walk, until much later than is normal. But when I finally did, I never looked back.
That's me. In a nutshell.
I'm still walking.
Over the last-night dinner in SoHo (corn dogs from house-made hot dogs and Tecate, in case you were wondering), we had a discussion about the character traits that define us. These traits manifest themselves pretty early on, and they often do not change over time.
I walked very early, as a baby. Like, freaky early. I just stood up one day, stumbled a few steps, then ran. Expertly (albeit in one direction, in laps), for an hour. And then I tried to change direction. And then I fell. Hard. Apparently, I sat in silence for a bit, then howled with rage and embarrassment. I didn't stand again, let alone walk, until much later than is normal. But when I finally did, I never looked back.
That's me. In a nutshell.
I'm still walking.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Taking It Back
When a relationship ends, romantic or otherwise, things get divided. Someone gets the stained-glass Elvis. Someone gets the autographed book. Nobody wants the nature watercolors, because nobody asked for them in the first place. Friends divide themselves, sometimes with misinformation. And the music? What about the music? These days, vinyl collections aside, most music collections are digital, easily copied to external drives, and nobody “loses” anything.
Except.
Sometimes you want to lose the music. Sometimes, it’s just a song. Sometimes, it’s a playlist. Sometimes, it’s the collected works of an artist. It sits in your iTunes, lying in wait. It ambushes you, waiting for moments when you have a leash in one hand, an umbrella in the other, and no way of getting to your music player in time. Sometimes, you let loose an audible groan. Sometimes, your eyes roll so far back in your head in frustration that you imagine that other people can hear, like a playing card clacking in a bicycle wheel. NO! NOT THIS NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL SONG! NOT NOW!
At some point, recently, I realized that there was a lot of music in my library that I was actively avoiding. Which is, I don’t have to tell you, ridiculous. So I’m on a campaign to reclaim these ghost songs. First up is Bob Dylan. I’m not sure how it happened, but over time, after a series of vaguely negative associations, I phased Dylan out. I have to confess, I’m pretty specific about my Dylan tastes to begin with. Breaking up with Victoria’s Secret Bob Dylan wasn’t difficult. It was a lot easier than getting back together with Bringing It All Back Home, John Wesley Harding, and Blood on the Tracks, for starters.
In 1995, I saw Dylan and The Dead in Highgate, Vermont. I went with my boyfriend at the time, and a bunch of his friends. I had no interest in seeing The Dead, but my mother had been a big Dylan fan, and it was my first chance to see him. I went. We drove. As the girlfriend, I got the privileged “hump” in the back seat (chivalry!). Partway there, we (my boyfriend and one of his friends) stopped for the night to camp. The spot was in the pitch dark, but my boyfriend had to take the car (and its headlights) to the highway to watch for other members of our party. As he left me and the friend to set up the tent, a biblical rain began. So, in the absolute black of night, in pouring rain, the friend and I attempted to assemble a tent that had never been assembled before. Eventually, the boyfriend returned. He was road-trip chipper and dry. We were crabby, and soaked to the bone. The three of us slept in an inch of water in wet clothing. The other members of our party never showed, having chosen to travel in a newly-procured VW van (trustafarian street cred, represent!), so new that they didn’t know that the headlights didn’t work. When they hit the border, they were stopped and forced to overnight in a parking lot until the light of day. We awoke (itchy! wet! angry!), and continued on to our destination. We set up our wet tent again. We bought beer. We headed off in a convoy to the show, a 20-minute drive away. And then we hit traffic. It took us 5 hours. We drank all our beer. We refused many offers to sell our tickets for many times what we’d paid. We arrived at the gates. Dylan was onstage, singing Like a Rolling Stone. AS WE CROSSED THE GATES (literally), they decided to let everyone in for free. Dylan finished his song AND HIS SET.
Sober, we sat though The Dead (sigh). Drums In Space can kiss my ass.
The trip home wasn’t much better. I rode the hump in a now-packed car to Quebec City. The boyfriend was nervous about driving on bridges, and made us turn off the stereo and roll up the windows every time we crossed one. His friends teased him, and his mood grew sour. He and I went back early to the hotel because he hurt his back.
Shortly thereafter, we broke up (again, for the last time). Dylan reminded me of the endless frustration of that young relationship, not to mention the fact that I bought TWO tie-dyed t-shirts on that trip, which…no.
There have been other reasons for Dylan distance—a long estrangement from a very close female friend, a misguided relationship with a complete bozo who only spoke in song lyrics (relying heavily on Dylan and Neil Young), not to mention Bob’s own decline (Christmas album, anyone?).
Those orphaned songs deserve to be heard. I’m coming for you, Sad Breakup Songs. I’m coming for you, High School Mixtapes. I’m coming for you, Songs I Shared And Blew Someone’s Mind And Then Regretted It. It’s time.
Except.
Sometimes you want to lose the music. Sometimes, it’s just a song. Sometimes, it’s a playlist. Sometimes, it’s the collected works of an artist. It sits in your iTunes, lying in wait. It ambushes you, waiting for moments when you have a leash in one hand, an umbrella in the other, and no way of getting to your music player in time. Sometimes, you let loose an audible groan. Sometimes, your eyes roll so far back in your head in frustration that you imagine that other people can hear, like a playing card clacking in a bicycle wheel. NO! NOT THIS NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL SONG! NOT NOW!
At some point, recently, I realized that there was a lot of music in my library that I was actively avoiding. Which is, I don’t have to tell you, ridiculous. So I’m on a campaign to reclaim these ghost songs. First up is Bob Dylan. I’m not sure how it happened, but over time, after a series of vaguely negative associations, I phased Dylan out. I have to confess, I’m pretty specific about my Dylan tastes to begin with. Breaking up with Victoria’s Secret Bob Dylan wasn’t difficult. It was a lot easier than getting back together with Bringing It All Back Home, John Wesley Harding, and Blood on the Tracks, for starters.
In 1995, I saw Dylan and The Dead in Highgate, Vermont. I went with my boyfriend at the time, and a bunch of his friends. I had no interest in seeing The Dead, but my mother had been a big Dylan fan, and it was my first chance to see him. I went. We drove. As the girlfriend, I got the privileged “hump” in the back seat (chivalry!). Partway there, we (my boyfriend and one of his friends) stopped for the night to camp. The spot was in the pitch dark, but my boyfriend had to take the car (and its headlights) to the highway to watch for other members of our party. As he left me and the friend to set up the tent, a biblical rain began. So, in the absolute black of night, in pouring rain, the friend and I attempted to assemble a tent that had never been assembled before. Eventually, the boyfriend returned. He was road-trip chipper and dry. We were crabby, and soaked to the bone. The three of us slept in an inch of water in wet clothing. The other members of our party never showed, having chosen to travel in a newly-procured VW van (trustafarian street cred, represent!), so new that they didn’t know that the headlights didn’t work. When they hit the border, they were stopped and forced to overnight in a parking lot until the light of day. We awoke (itchy! wet! angry!), and continued on to our destination. We set up our wet tent again. We bought beer. We headed off in a convoy to the show, a 20-minute drive away. And then we hit traffic. It took us 5 hours. We drank all our beer. We refused many offers to sell our tickets for many times what we’d paid. We arrived at the gates. Dylan was onstage, singing Like a Rolling Stone. AS WE CROSSED THE GATES (literally), they decided to let everyone in for free. Dylan finished his song AND HIS SET.
Sober, we sat though The Dead (sigh). Drums In Space can kiss my ass.
The trip home wasn’t much better. I rode the hump in a now-packed car to Quebec City. The boyfriend was nervous about driving on bridges, and made us turn off the stereo and roll up the windows every time we crossed one. His friends teased him, and his mood grew sour. He and I went back early to the hotel because he hurt his back.
Shortly thereafter, we broke up (again, for the last time). Dylan reminded me of the endless frustration of that young relationship, not to mention the fact that I bought TWO tie-dyed t-shirts on that trip, which…no.
There have been other reasons for Dylan distance—a long estrangement from a very close female friend, a misguided relationship with a complete bozo who only spoke in song lyrics (relying heavily on Dylan and Neil Young), not to mention Bob’s own decline (Christmas album, anyone?).
Those orphaned songs deserve to be heard. I’m coming for you, Sad Breakup Songs. I’m coming for you, High School Mixtapes. I’m coming for you, Songs I Shared And Blew Someone’s Mind And Then Regretted It. It’s time.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Personal Floatation Devices
arugula and prosciutto quiche for 30 = done.
mushroom and truffle soup for 30 = done.
balcony, tinkling reward nightcap in hand, stone-faced, staring at slick queen street and sunday night club goers, queen's 'don't stop me now' on the headphones.
at some point, i realize that i'm smiling.
at some point, i realize that i'm sort of dancing.
at some point, i realize that i'm pretty content.
when those moments happen, in a dirty plaid shirt and vintage stewardess' hat from the 60s, i realize that this whole thing is what i make it.
and then, 'we are the champions' comes on.
and i laugh so hard that i choke on an ice cube, and have to give myself the heimlich on the balcony railing.
life and death and food and internet. my life.
sigh.
mushroom and truffle soup for 30 = done.
balcony, tinkling reward nightcap in hand, stone-faced, staring at slick queen street and sunday night club goers, queen's 'don't stop me now' on the headphones.
at some point, i realize that i'm smiling.
at some point, i realize that i'm sort of dancing.
at some point, i realize that i'm pretty content.
when those moments happen, in a dirty plaid shirt and vintage stewardess' hat from the 60s, i realize that this whole thing is what i make it.
and then, 'we are the champions' comes on.
and i laugh so hard that i choke on an ice cube, and have to give myself the heimlich on the balcony railing.
life and death and food and internet. my life.
sigh.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
delete
i've been deleting myself all over the place of late.
untagging.
un-posting.
deleting.
culling.
i'm not going anywhere, just being quieter. i prefer quiet and stillness.
but don't worry, i'm not going anywhere. i'm just turning the volume down.
untagging.
un-posting.
deleting.
culling.
i'm not going anywhere, just being quieter. i prefer quiet and stillness.
but don't worry, i'm not going anywhere. i'm just turning the volume down.
Stay Classy, Saturday.
I am working overnight, making forfty or so sandwiches, among other things. Between the hours of 4 and 6 am, I received no fewer than THREE bootycalls. I've only kissed one of these three people, and quite some time ago, I might add. My favourite was an IM that read, "Bootycall? Ha ha. I'm high. I'm just riffing."
I don't really "get" bootycalls. By "get", I mean "understand". Because...I get bootycalls. In clusters like this. One night in June, TWO people buzzed my apartment after 3:30 am. Maybe I'm showing my age here, but when did this become a "thing"? Technology has officially gone too far.
I would be flattered, but the whole thing just smacks of such laziness that more often than not, I find myself a wee bit insulted. But...thanks for trying?
In the meantime, I'll be over here. Listening to Queen and slicing roast pork.
I don't really "get" bootycalls. By "get", I mean "understand". Because...I get bootycalls. In clusters like this. One night in June, TWO people buzzed my apartment after 3:30 am. Maybe I'm showing my age here, but when did this become a "thing"? Technology has officially gone too far.
I would be flattered, but the whole thing just smacks of such laziness that more often than not, I find myself a wee bit insulted. But...thanks for trying?
In the meantime, I'll be over here. Listening to Queen and slicing roast pork.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Drive'er, MacGyver
I don’t drive. I got my learner’s permit just before my mother fell ill. Before her diagnosis, the teaching sessions with my father were tedious but short. We would go to a parking lot—he would drive there, though I was legally allowed--and he would only let me work on one “skill”, and I had to do it until he was satisfied. An hour of 3-point turns, and then we would silently walk counterclockwise around the car. Me, around the back, from driver’s side to passenger’s, and my father around the front. Then my father would drive home. Often, these parking lots were less than a ten-minute drive from our house. During my mother’s illness and treatment, the sessions became understandably infrequent, and generally devolved into thinly veiled exchanges about our mutual disapproval of how the other was dealing with my mother’s inevitable and imminent death. Somewhere in there, my learner’s permit expired.
One way or the other, I just never managed to get my license. This has only rarely been an inconvenience; I moved to the big city 6 months after my mother died and never looked back. You don’t need a car in the city. Not having a car in the city allows you to pretend that you’re some kind of environmental hero or political activist, when really you’re either just poor or lazy. Or both. I don’t drive. Make of that what you will.
ANYWAY.
Not driving became a bit of an issue when I worked in Nunavut, where 5 months a year it’s not just difficult to walk, but actually dangerous. And so it became necessary for the office to ensure that at least one person in the office drove, so I wouldn’t get lost in a whiteout and freeze to death while trundling 200 metres down the dirt road for a $28 can of Tim Horton’s coffee. Eventually, the driver job was expanded to a kind of long-haul taxi driver to and from the mine site. The drive to site was, at best, a seven hour round trip, made twice a day in two shifts, day and night. It was a highly desirable job. Prior to the construction of the road (which took years, and cost approximately a bazillion dollars), the longest drive in town was a 3km stretch between town and the airport, with a very exciting speed limit of 70km/hr. It became slightly less coveted once we banned smoking in company vehicles, but was still sought-after nonetheless.
The second shift generally finished around 9 pm, and despite starting my workday at 7 am, I was usually still in the office when the second shift ended. I worked a minimum of 14 hours a day, the average was 16, and I once worked 20 hours a day for nearly two weeks straight. I lived on red bull and beef jerky for the better part of a year. I was, to put it mildly, on edge 99% of the time. Wow, this is a lot of backstory.
It was a long day. They always were, but this one was particularly long, owing to a communications failure along the road, several vehicular strandings on the tundra, a lack of water in the office, and an abundance of unpumped sewage at the crew house (basically rendering the toilets unusable and shutting down all running water). So it was 10pm, I was still in the office, and I couldn’t lock the doors until every worker staying at the crew house had come to use the washroom and gone to bed. Several contractors were also in my office, trying to sort out the communications failure. One of them went to the reception desk to use the phone. Seated at the reception desk, he yelled to me, “Hey, this is a pretty good picture. Who drew this?” I couldn’t see the picture from where I sat, and mumbled that it was likely the 4 year-old niece of the receptionist—several of her drawings were taped to the wall. The contractor said that it couldn’t have been drawn by a 4 year old, and held the drawing up so his coworker could see it. The coworker, seated across from me, nodded enthusiastically that indeed, it could not have been drawn by a 4 year old. Still unable to see the drawing and irritated by the chatter while I was CLEARLY still hard at work, I quickly said that perhaps it had been drawn by the community liaison officer’s 8 year old, and shut down the topic of conversation in order to, you know, talk about THE WORK THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO BE DOING. The two contractors giggled for another 10 minutes, and eventually left the building to FINALLY deal with whatever generator had failed, causing the communications failure. It was close to midnight by the time they left, so I ended my 16-hour workday and went home.
The next morning, I arrived to find my day driver already in the office, seated at the reception desk. He was chuckling to himself, and as soon as I was settled at my desk, he came in, a piece of paper in his hand. “I forgot I left this here,” he said, extending the paper in my direction. “Ha ha,” he said, with a forced laugh. I took the paper and looked down. It was quite obviously the drawing the contractors had been discussing the night before. The page was divided horizontally in two by a pencil-drawn dashed line. On the left was a blue ballpoint pen drawing of a naked woman on her back. Her knees were bent, and her genitals were exposed to the artist. Her face was not visible. Knees, breasts, and crotch. The end. It was, in all senses of the word, incredibly crude, but a lot of time seemed to have been spent filling in her voluminous and very curly pubic hair. Think Phil Spector’s murder trial hair, before the blond blowout. The right side of the page was a drawing of a man, penetrating a woman from behind. He was grinning. He had jack-o-lantern teeth and was very, very clearly my day driver. The woman, well, she was not his girlfriend. I was a little uncomfortable at this point, as one might expect. I couldn’t make eye contact with the driver, so I continued to stare at the drawing. And that’s when I realized that the woman had curly hair. She had hair on her head like Phil Spector’s murder trial hair before the blond blowout. She was built like a cartoon character, and had very round not-Inuit eyes. The woman, I realized, was me. That’s when I went from being moderately uncomfortable to, let’s say, very uncomfortable? That sounds about right. I think I made a very small squeaking sound in that moment of realization (as I sometimes do, because I am a cartoon character, after all), which then tipped him off to the fact that I’d figured it all out. He yanked the drawing from my hands and ripped it up into many, many little pieces.
I can’t tell you how often I wish I’d been able to save that drawing from destruction. I mean, how often does a coworker leave explicit fanart—FEATURING YOU—lying casually around your workplace? The answer, kids, is not often. But actually, as I type these words, I realize that this has happened to me once before. I was on tour in a show when I was 18, my learner’s driving permit nearing expiration, in the first month following my mother’s diagnosis. About 3 weeks into the tour, a devoutly Christian castmate woke me up in the middle of the night to tearfully confess to having drawn a series of very un-Christian images of me. Which is pretty amazing, now that I think of it. Huh. This ended up being like the story version definition of ouroborous. Rush would be proud. Now, if the driver for this movie I’m running craft services for sketches up a little something involving me, him, a crappy ancient Camry and nudity on a 100l cooler, this story is going to be a whole lot better the next time I think to tell it. I’ll keep you posted.
One way or the other, I just never managed to get my license. This has only rarely been an inconvenience; I moved to the big city 6 months after my mother died and never looked back. You don’t need a car in the city. Not having a car in the city allows you to pretend that you’re some kind of environmental hero or political activist, when really you’re either just poor or lazy. Or both. I don’t drive. Make of that what you will.
ANYWAY.
Not driving became a bit of an issue when I worked in Nunavut, where 5 months a year it’s not just difficult to walk, but actually dangerous. And so it became necessary for the office to ensure that at least one person in the office drove, so I wouldn’t get lost in a whiteout and freeze to death while trundling 200 metres down the dirt road for a $28 can of Tim Horton’s coffee. Eventually, the driver job was expanded to a kind of long-haul taxi driver to and from the mine site. The drive to site was, at best, a seven hour round trip, made twice a day in two shifts, day and night. It was a highly desirable job. Prior to the construction of the road (which took years, and cost approximately a bazillion dollars), the longest drive in town was a 3km stretch between town and the airport, with a very exciting speed limit of 70km/hr. It became slightly less coveted once we banned smoking in company vehicles, but was still sought-after nonetheless.
The second shift generally finished around 9 pm, and despite starting my workday at 7 am, I was usually still in the office when the second shift ended. I worked a minimum of 14 hours a day, the average was 16, and I once worked 20 hours a day for nearly two weeks straight. I lived on red bull and beef jerky for the better part of a year. I was, to put it mildly, on edge 99% of the time. Wow, this is a lot of backstory.
It was a long day. They always were, but this one was particularly long, owing to a communications failure along the road, several vehicular strandings on the tundra, a lack of water in the office, and an abundance of unpumped sewage at the crew house (basically rendering the toilets unusable and shutting down all running water). So it was 10pm, I was still in the office, and I couldn’t lock the doors until every worker staying at the crew house had come to use the washroom and gone to bed. Several contractors were also in my office, trying to sort out the communications failure. One of them went to the reception desk to use the phone. Seated at the reception desk, he yelled to me, “Hey, this is a pretty good picture. Who drew this?” I couldn’t see the picture from where I sat, and mumbled that it was likely the 4 year-old niece of the receptionist—several of her drawings were taped to the wall. The contractor said that it couldn’t have been drawn by a 4 year old, and held the drawing up so his coworker could see it. The coworker, seated across from me, nodded enthusiastically that indeed, it could not have been drawn by a 4 year old. Still unable to see the drawing and irritated by the chatter while I was CLEARLY still hard at work, I quickly said that perhaps it had been drawn by the community liaison officer’s 8 year old, and shut down the topic of conversation in order to, you know, talk about THE WORK THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO BE DOING. The two contractors giggled for another 10 minutes, and eventually left the building to FINALLY deal with whatever generator had failed, causing the communications failure. It was close to midnight by the time they left, so I ended my 16-hour workday and went home.
The next morning, I arrived to find my day driver already in the office, seated at the reception desk. He was chuckling to himself, and as soon as I was settled at my desk, he came in, a piece of paper in his hand. “I forgot I left this here,” he said, extending the paper in my direction. “Ha ha,” he said, with a forced laugh. I took the paper and looked down. It was quite obviously the drawing the contractors had been discussing the night before. The page was divided horizontally in two by a pencil-drawn dashed line. On the left was a blue ballpoint pen drawing of a naked woman on her back. Her knees were bent, and her genitals were exposed to the artist. Her face was not visible. Knees, breasts, and crotch. The end. It was, in all senses of the word, incredibly crude, but a lot of time seemed to have been spent filling in her voluminous and very curly pubic hair. Think Phil Spector’s murder trial hair, before the blond blowout. The right side of the page was a drawing of a man, penetrating a woman from behind. He was grinning. He had jack-o-lantern teeth and was very, very clearly my day driver. The woman, well, she was not his girlfriend. I was a little uncomfortable at this point, as one might expect. I couldn’t make eye contact with the driver, so I continued to stare at the drawing. And that’s when I realized that the woman had curly hair. She had hair on her head like Phil Spector’s murder trial hair before the blond blowout. She was built like a cartoon character, and had very round not-Inuit eyes. The woman, I realized, was me. That’s when I went from being moderately uncomfortable to, let’s say, very uncomfortable? That sounds about right. I think I made a very small squeaking sound in that moment of realization (as I sometimes do, because I am a cartoon character, after all), which then tipped him off to the fact that I’d figured it all out. He yanked the drawing from my hands and ripped it up into many, many little pieces.
I can’t tell you how often I wish I’d been able to save that drawing from destruction. I mean, how often does a coworker leave explicit fanart—FEATURING YOU—lying casually around your workplace? The answer, kids, is not often. But actually, as I type these words, I realize that this has happened to me once before. I was on tour in a show when I was 18, my learner’s driving permit nearing expiration, in the first month following my mother’s diagnosis. About 3 weeks into the tour, a devoutly Christian castmate woke me up in the middle of the night to tearfully confess to having drawn a series of very un-Christian images of me. Which is pretty amazing, now that I think of it. Huh. This ended up being like the story version definition of ouroborous. Rush would be proud. Now, if the driver for this movie I’m running craft services for sketches up a little something involving me, him, a crappy ancient Camry and nudity on a 100l cooler, this story is going to be a whole lot better the next time I think to tell it. I’ll keep you posted.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Muse Sick
when you turn off the music, there is ringing in your ears.
eventually, the ringing stops.
and then it's quiet. too quiet.
you miss the noise, or even just the ringing. you don't remember that silence can be a nice change. you smack your ears with your hands to try and recreate the ringing. you clear your throat to hear sound.
you get used to the silence. you collect your thoughts.
and then you are surprised to hear a song in the air that you like. so you find out what it is, and you turn on the stereo.
at a volume that does not bring to mind the torture of manuel noriega in 1989*.
at a volume that does not cause you pain or give you headaches or ruin your speakers.
so you start listening to music again, and it's good.
*(although there WAS a lot of sabbath and maiden and zeppelin on that playlist, which is awesome)
eventually, the ringing stops.
and then it's quiet. too quiet.
you miss the noise, or even just the ringing. you don't remember that silence can be a nice change. you smack your ears with your hands to try and recreate the ringing. you clear your throat to hear sound.
you get used to the silence. you collect your thoughts.
and then you are surprised to hear a song in the air that you like. so you find out what it is, and you turn on the stereo.
at a volume that does not bring to mind the torture of manuel noriega in 1989*.
at a volume that does not cause you pain or give you headaches or ruin your speakers.
so you start listening to music again, and it's good.
*(although there WAS a lot of sabbath and maiden and zeppelin on that playlist, which is awesome)
Friday, October 1, 2010
My Stupid Blog
A year ago today, in a leather jacket, plaid dress, yellow tights and knee-high boots, I quit my job.
I had no idea what I was doing when I burned my life to the ground three years ago, but you can't stop a chain of dominoes. When the last domino falls, you have to set about picking them up. I guess that's what I was trying to do this last year. That was the plan, at least.
As this year dragged on, I began to dread the last week of September, the thought of having to take stock of it all, what with my introspective nature...ugh. I was pretty convinced that I wouldn't like what I figured out. At times, I really felt like this year was just another abstraction I was failing at quantifying.
And then the last week of September came.
My best friend from high school traveled 10 hours to spend 12 with me.
I had an epic chat with an old friend that began in tears, and ended with hysterical laughter.
I reconciled with a dear friend after a 2 year estrangement.
I had a perfect adventure day.
Investments in people will be rewarded.
Everything gets better.
Time is the only answer.
I like being happy.
*******************
I am pretty comfortable in my skin. I learn from my mistakes. I love and am loved. I am very, very lucky.
(and glad that i quit that stupid job)
NEXT.
I had no idea what I was doing when I burned my life to the ground three years ago, but you can't stop a chain of dominoes. When the last domino falls, you have to set about picking them up. I guess that's what I was trying to do this last year. That was the plan, at least.
As this year dragged on, I began to dread the last week of September, the thought of having to take stock of it all, what with my introspective nature...ugh. I was pretty convinced that I wouldn't like what I figured out. At times, I really felt like this year was just another abstraction I was failing at quantifying.
And then the last week of September came.
My best friend from high school traveled 10 hours to spend 12 with me.
I had an epic chat with an old friend that began in tears, and ended with hysterical laughter.
I reconciled with a dear friend after a 2 year estrangement.
I had a perfect adventure day.
Investments in people will be rewarded.
Everything gets better.
Time is the only answer.
I like being happy.
*******************
I am pretty comfortable in my skin. I learn from my mistakes. I love and am loved. I am very, very lucky.
(and glad that i quit that stupid job)
NEXT.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Horse and Carriage
I went to an incredible wedding recently. The couple is amazing, their love and relationship is wholly inspiring to me.
But.
Something goofy ALWAYS ends up happening to me at weddings.
Years ago, in Fredericton, I ended up roped into a poetry slam. IT WAS THE 90S, ALRIGHT? I WAS ALSO WEARING CORDUROY OVERALLS. Anyway, my coworkers signed me up, poured vodka down my gullet, locked me in a toilet stall, and then I wrote a poem according to the slam guidelines. About losing my virginity.
When it was my turn to read, I stepped up to the mic, announced my name, and began:
It was almost Winter when I lost my virginity. He was going to Paris
I said "Put it into me".
I was young and naive and I had a bad haircut, and because he was cool, he was cold.
It was almost Winter when I lost my virginity, but for sure at an age
That it was still quite a sin to me.
He wasn't too short, but the hem of my skort* was much shorter or maybe he was just proportionally smaller because he WAS so goddamn short.
It was almost Winter when I lost my virginity, and the heat of his splinter is forgotten and eclipsed by me.
I THINK that's all of it. I was incredibly drunk by the end, and this took place well over a decade ago, my apologies. You get the point.**
Stepping off the stage, the first person I ran into was the sister of the virginity dude in question. She was upset. I scurried home. The next morning, I had a doctor's appointment. The nurse, the mother of a friend, asked me, with pursed lips, if I was there for a pap smear or STD test. She gave me a disgusted look, and clucked her tongue. I had no idea what she was talking about, shuffled over to the waiting room and read Woman’s World.
When I got home, the phone calls started. Apparently, the CBC had been at the poetry slam, and had recorded it without informing the participants. And THEN they played it on the driving to work show the morning after, with a strong parental advisory warning before my piece. Thousands and thousands of people heard me drunkenly recite an incredibly vulgar poem, AFTER announcing my name. Ugh.
I'd forgotten about this until a wedding a few years ago. I'd been quite nervous about being a bridesmaid, and was a bit of a jittery mess. After the ceremony, I went to a storage closet to compose myself for a minute, and when I emerged, the Nurse was standing outside the door with 5 friends. They were formed in a semi-circle around the door. Waiting for me. "Tell us the story of the last time I saw you," the Nurse said slowly, and with a pinchy smile. "What?" I asked. And then it all came flooding back. Oof. There is an infamous photo of me with my back to the camera, facing 6 middle-aged women wearing THE most disgusted and judgmental looks on their faces. It was uncomfortable to say the least.
Anyway, this most recent wedding was more of the same. I mean, I ran into the dude I made out with by a dumpster last year. I’d forgotten that he was close with the groom. Heck, I’d forgotten he actually existed. I was so confused when I saw him, that instead of behaving like a human being, I actually thrust out my hand to shake his, through a large circle of people, and said, “Hi.” He clearly didn’t recognize me, and looked confused. I said, “We made out by a dumpster? Summer 2009?” Recognition dawned on his face, but he still didn’t shake my hand. So I shot finger guns at him and walked away. And then every time he was within a few feet of me, I made sure to wave, say hi, and then say, “Oh, that guy? We made out by a dumpster! Summer ‘09”. And then I’d try to fist bump him. That poor, sweet man. Sorry, dude.
What I’m saying is, think carefully before inviting me to your wedding. Because I might just come.
*quite pleased for having used 'skort' in a "poem"
**the guy in question is amazing, and still a good friend. i miiiight have still been carrying a torch for him all those years ago. it's the only explanation for the nasty (untrue) things i said in the poem. 22 year olds are monsters.
p.s.(incredible wedding. blew my mind.)
But.
Something goofy ALWAYS ends up happening to me at weddings.
Years ago, in Fredericton, I ended up roped into a poetry slam. IT WAS THE 90S, ALRIGHT? I WAS ALSO WEARING CORDUROY OVERALLS. Anyway, my coworkers signed me up, poured vodka down my gullet, locked me in a toilet stall, and then I wrote a poem according to the slam guidelines. About losing my virginity.
When it was my turn to read, I stepped up to the mic, announced my name, and began:
It was almost Winter when I lost my virginity. He was going to Paris
I said "Put it into me".
I was young and naive and I had a bad haircut, and because he was cool, he was cold.
It was almost Winter when I lost my virginity, but for sure at an age
That it was still quite a sin to me.
He wasn't too short, but the hem of my skort* was much shorter or maybe he was just proportionally smaller because he WAS so goddamn short.
It was almost Winter when I lost my virginity, and the heat of his splinter is forgotten and eclipsed by me.
I THINK that's all of it. I was incredibly drunk by the end, and this took place well over a decade ago, my apologies. You get the point.**
Stepping off the stage, the first person I ran into was the sister of the virginity dude in question. She was upset. I scurried home. The next morning, I had a doctor's appointment. The nurse, the mother of a friend, asked me, with pursed lips, if I was there for a pap smear or STD test. She gave me a disgusted look, and clucked her tongue. I had no idea what she was talking about, shuffled over to the waiting room and read Woman’s World.
When I got home, the phone calls started. Apparently, the CBC had been at the poetry slam, and had recorded it without informing the participants. And THEN they played it on the driving to work show the morning after, with a strong parental advisory warning before my piece. Thousands and thousands of people heard me drunkenly recite an incredibly vulgar poem, AFTER announcing my name. Ugh.
I'd forgotten about this until a wedding a few years ago. I'd been quite nervous about being a bridesmaid, and was a bit of a jittery mess. After the ceremony, I went to a storage closet to compose myself for a minute, and when I emerged, the Nurse was standing outside the door with 5 friends. They were formed in a semi-circle around the door. Waiting for me. "Tell us the story of the last time I saw you," the Nurse said slowly, and with a pinchy smile. "What?" I asked. And then it all came flooding back. Oof. There is an infamous photo of me with my back to the camera, facing 6 middle-aged women wearing THE most disgusted and judgmental looks on their faces. It was uncomfortable to say the least.
Anyway, this most recent wedding was more of the same. I mean, I ran into the dude I made out with by a dumpster last year. I’d forgotten that he was close with the groom. Heck, I’d forgotten he actually existed. I was so confused when I saw him, that instead of behaving like a human being, I actually thrust out my hand to shake his, through a large circle of people, and said, “Hi.” He clearly didn’t recognize me, and looked confused. I said, “We made out by a dumpster? Summer 2009?” Recognition dawned on his face, but he still didn’t shake my hand. So I shot finger guns at him and walked away. And then every time he was within a few feet of me, I made sure to wave, say hi, and then say, “Oh, that guy? We made out by a dumpster! Summer ‘09”. And then I’d try to fist bump him. That poor, sweet man. Sorry, dude.
What I’m saying is, think carefully before inviting me to your wedding. Because I might just come.
*quite pleased for having used 'skort' in a "poem"
**the guy in question is amazing, and still a good friend. i miiiight have still been carrying a torch for him all those years ago. it's the only explanation for the nasty (untrue) things i said in the poem. 22 year olds are monsters.
p.s.(incredible wedding. blew my mind.)
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Get Some Shit For Snacktime
She returned from her vacation, jet-lagged and exhausted, to an office in chaos. The photocopier was down. The scanner was broken. The shredder made low, groaning noises, and smelled of smoke whenever forced to shred more than 5 pieces of paper at a time. The sewage hadn't been pumped out in two days, which didn't matter because they hadn't had water in the tanks in three days, which didn't matter because they'd run out of coffee the week before.
Having traveled for 12 hours--the last 4 of which were spent in a filthy truck with no shocks, driving across the dusty tundra--her only intention was to quickly grab a few things from the office, then get as much sleep as possible, but The Receptionist hovered over her. The Receptionist rocked on his feet, shifting his weight back and forth. The Receptionist cleared his throat. Sometimes, it was clear that he wanted something from her, but the words he chose were too vague for her to quickly grasp his meaning. Other times, his words simply made no sense. Although he spoke English more clearly and articulately than most of the other locals, language often failed him. Occasionally, he would resort to acting out what he was trying to say, and this time, he was attempting to describe the dimensions of a man. He stretched, arched an arm in front like a belly, swirled a flat palm on his head to indicate a combover, gestured that the man was short. Then he stuck his index fingers in both ears, and made a cringing face.
It was in that moment that the short, fat, balding man walked, loudly, into her office. The receptionist scrambled away. The short, fat, balding man was sweating, even though it was winter in the Arctic. He was sweating, red in the face, and he was swearing. A lot. She quickly remembered that Jerome was in the building, and rose to shut her door behind the cursing man. Jerome was incredibly religious, and particularly sensitive to coarse language. She couldn't afford another complaint about the office environment from Jerome. He was a terrible employee, frequently absent without explanation, but it was imperative that the local employees be kept happy.
The door closed, she returned to her desk, working her way around the man, who was still sweating and swearing. She interrupted him to introduce herself. He quickly spat out that his name was Bill before returning to his tirade, which continued to make no sense. He had a thick Newfoundland accent, his vowels bouncing as though elasticized. Bill suddenly fell silent. He took off his coat, but not his work gloves, and stood on the other side of her desk. He was still breathing heavily, and his coveralls rustled every time he took in air. After about a minute, he took a slow, deep breath, removed his gloves, and moved to shake her hand. He smelled like diesel. Without thinking, and before she could stop herself, she put her hand to her nose and sniffed. There was a pause, and he locked eyes with her. Somewhat calmly, Bill explained that he'd arrived just after she'd gone on vacation. In the three weeks he'd been there, he said, he had not had one decent meal. This was, unfortunately, not an uncommon complaint. The food situation had been deteriorating since Christmas, and moving two rotating cooks into the guesthouse hadn't appeased people in the way that had been expected. Instead, it just gave people more to complain about. They developed preferences, allegiances. One cook's brown sauce was superior to the other's, they insisted, despite the fact that all the brown sauce was made from the same dusty powder. One cook's meat sauce was superior to that of the other, despite the fact that it had been sent to town from the mine site, prepared by neither of of the cooks in question. The white sauce was delicious. The white sauce was wallpaper paste. So much cheap frozen meat, so much sauce, so much disagreement.
"I ain't fuckin' around," he said. "We need snacks for morning breaktime. I don't want no bullshit pudding cups for snacks. Pudding isn't for morning break. My men need cookies. And Red Rose tea. Not that fuckin' Tetley bullshit. Nothing is worth this bullshit in this fuckin' cold! But I'M diabetic! So I can't haves cookies. I need bananas. I will pull my men, and we will walk. Like I said, I ain't fuckin' around. We gotsta to have the shit we asked for, or we will walk." He turned on his heel and left. She needed to appease Bill. Barge season was close at hand, and he and his crew were repairing an ancient, rusty, dilapidated crane that was to be used to offload materials. Without the crane, the entire mining project was sunk. So she went out and bought the cookies and the tea and the bananas, and several hundred dollars more in snacktime-appropriate groceries.
The next morning at ten, she heard the back door slam. She heard him swearing his way down the hall to her office. She rose and stood by the door for his arrival, which she quickly shut behind him as he entered the room. Again, he was swearing and sweaty and red. "Macaroni is bullshit," he muttered, seemingly to nobody in particular. "I comes up here, and I work some fuckin' hard in this God-foresaken shithole of a town, and they can't even serve me real fuckin' juice? It don't have to be freshly squeezed or nothing', but not even from concentrate?" He drew a deep breath. His face grew redder still. "And then this?! Macaroni is bullshit. My wife knows better than to put bullshit macaroni on my fuckin' table. She would never serve me fuckin' macaroni." A long-distant customer service job had taught her to ask probing questions in the face of perplexing complaints. No, he did not have a gluten allergy. Yes, he liked spaghetti just fine. But no, he would not eat macaroni, and he would pull his crew and leave town if macaroni appeared on the table again, without a moment's hesitation. She suggested that perhaps the matter could be resolved by simply not eating the macaroni on the days that it was served, but this was not satisfactory to Bill. So at 2 pm, when she knew the cook would be taking her mid-day nap, she snuck up to the house and threw out all the macaroni in the pantry.
Two days later, he again presented himself in her office. It was breaktime, and he was loudly insistent that the groceries had been stolen, throwing accusations at the local housekeepers who worked days at the guesthouse. She defended the housekeepers, and in a patronizing tone, explained how quickly groceries get eaten in a house of 15 people. She reminded Bill of her long-standing experience in matters relating to the crew house, and ushered him out the door, promising to buy more food. She went out and bought two kinds of cookies and tea, a dozen very green bananas (at $6/lb), a wide assortment of non-macaroni foodstuffs, brought them to the house, then went back to work.
The next day, Bill returned. Again. He was clutching a black plastic garbage bag that appeared to be mostly empty. His hands quickly fell limply to his sides, dropping the bag. It hit the floor with a muffled thud, and the bag rustled in the draft that blew under the door. He took two steps towards her. He took a deep breath. He closed his eyes. She could only imagine what the problem was this time. "They were the only bananas I could get, Bill. It's the Arctic. I am doing my best. But you need to meet me halfway." He opened his eyes. He took another deep breath. He nudged the bag towards her with his steel-toed boot. He looked her in the eyes.
"Some fuckin' eskimo got into the fuckin' kitchen. She corrected him, reprimanded him for using the offensive term. "Shit, man. In the kitchen." Again, he nudged the bag with his boot, pushing it even closer to her. "Someone got into the house. Someone got into the kitchen." "We went for break. We went for cookies and tea." "And bananas", she interjected, sarcastically. He looked her in the eye. He was not amused. "My men," he continued, "sat down for tea. In the kitchen." In the kitchen, he said, on top of the garbage can, they found a pair of men's briefs. The briefs had been "unloaded in", he said. Deliberately removed, then extensively, enormously, and attentively shat in. "You asked for shit for the kitchen?" she joked. He did not laugh, and she had to buy two $11 cartons of orange juice a day for a month so he wouldn't tell her supervisor.
Just another day at work.
Having traveled for 12 hours--the last 4 of which were spent in a filthy truck with no shocks, driving across the dusty tundra--her only intention was to quickly grab a few things from the office, then get as much sleep as possible, but The Receptionist hovered over her. The Receptionist rocked on his feet, shifting his weight back and forth. The Receptionist cleared his throat. Sometimes, it was clear that he wanted something from her, but the words he chose were too vague for her to quickly grasp his meaning. Other times, his words simply made no sense. Although he spoke English more clearly and articulately than most of the other locals, language often failed him. Occasionally, he would resort to acting out what he was trying to say, and this time, he was attempting to describe the dimensions of a man. He stretched, arched an arm in front like a belly, swirled a flat palm on his head to indicate a combover, gestured that the man was short. Then he stuck his index fingers in both ears, and made a cringing face.
It was in that moment that the short, fat, balding man walked, loudly, into her office. The receptionist scrambled away. The short, fat, balding man was sweating, even though it was winter in the Arctic. He was sweating, red in the face, and he was swearing. A lot. She quickly remembered that Jerome was in the building, and rose to shut her door behind the cursing man. Jerome was incredibly religious, and particularly sensitive to coarse language. She couldn't afford another complaint about the office environment from Jerome. He was a terrible employee, frequently absent without explanation, but it was imperative that the local employees be kept happy.
The door closed, she returned to her desk, working her way around the man, who was still sweating and swearing. She interrupted him to introduce herself. He quickly spat out that his name was Bill before returning to his tirade, which continued to make no sense. He had a thick Newfoundland accent, his vowels bouncing as though elasticized. Bill suddenly fell silent. He took off his coat, but not his work gloves, and stood on the other side of her desk. He was still breathing heavily, and his coveralls rustled every time he took in air. After about a minute, he took a slow, deep breath, removed his gloves, and moved to shake her hand. He smelled like diesel. Without thinking, and before she could stop herself, she put her hand to her nose and sniffed. There was a pause, and he locked eyes with her. Somewhat calmly, Bill explained that he'd arrived just after she'd gone on vacation. In the three weeks he'd been there, he said, he had not had one decent meal. This was, unfortunately, not an uncommon complaint. The food situation had been deteriorating since Christmas, and moving two rotating cooks into the guesthouse hadn't appeased people in the way that had been expected. Instead, it just gave people more to complain about. They developed preferences, allegiances. One cook's brown sauce was superior to the other's, they insisted, despite the fact that all the brown sauce was made from the same dusty powder. One cook's meat sauce was superior to that of the other, despite the fact that it had been sent to town from the mine site, prepared by neither of of the cooks in question. The white sauce was delicious. The white sauce was wallpaper paste. So much cheap frozen meat, so much sauce, so much disagreement.
"I ain't fuckin' around," he said. "We need snacks for morning breaktime. I don't want no bullshit pudding cups for snacks. Pudding isn't for morning break. My men need cookies. And Red Rose tea. Not that fuckin' Tetley bullshit. Nothing is worth this bullshit in this fuckin' cold! But I'M diabetic! So I can't haves cookies. I need bananas. I will pull my men, and we will walk. Like I said, I ain't fuckin' around. We gotsta to have the shit we asked for, or we will walk." He turned on his heel and left. She needed to appease Bill. Barge season was close at hand, and he and his crew were repairing an ancient, rusty, dilapidated crane that was to be used to offload materials. Without the crane, the entire mining project was sunk. So she went out and bought the cookies and the tea and the bananas, and several hundred dollars more in snacktime-appropriate groceries.
The next morning at ten, she heard the back door slam. She heard him swearing his way down the hall to her office. She rose and stood by the door for his arrival, which she quickly shut behind him as he entered the room. Again, he was swearing and sweaty and red. "Macaroni is bullshit," he muttered, seemingly to nobody in particular. "I comes up here, and I work some fuckin' hard in this God-foresaken shithole of a town, and they can't even serve me real fuckin' juice? It don't have to be freshly squeezed or nothing', but not even from concentrate?" He drew a deep breath. His face grew redder still. "And then this?! Macaroni is bullshit. My wife knows better than to put bullshit macaroni on my fuckin' table. She would never serve me fuckin' macaroni." A long-distant customer service job had taught her to ask probing questions in the face of perplexing complaints. No, he did not have a gluten allergy. Yes, he liked spaghetti just fine. But no, he would not eat macaroni, and he would pull his crew and leave town if macaroni appeared on the table again, without a moment's hesitation. She suggested that perhaps the matter could be resolved by simply not eating the macaroni on the days that it was served, but this was not satisfactory to Bill. So at 2 pm, when she knew the cook would be taking her mid-day nap, she snuck up to the house and threw out all the macaroni in the pantry.
Two days later, he again presented himself in her office. It was breaktime, and he was loudly insistent that the groceries had been stolen, throwing accusations at the local housekeepers who worked days at the guesthouse. She defended the housekeepers, and in a patronizing tone, explained how quickly groceries get eaten in a house of 15 people. She reminded Bill of her long-standing experience in matters relating to the crew house, and ushered him out the door, promising to buy more food. She went out and bought two kinds of cookies and tea, a dozen very green bananas (at $6/lb), a wide assortment of non-macaroni foodstuffs, brought them to the house, then went back to work.
The next day, Bill returned. Again. He was clutching a black plastic garbage bag that appeared to be mostly empty. His hands quickly fell limply to his sides, dropping the bag. It hit the floor with a muffled thud, and the bag rustled in the draft that blew under the door. He took two steps towards her. He took a deep breath. He closed his eyes. She could only imagine what the problem was this time. "They were the only bananas I could get, Bill. It's the Arctic. I am doing my best. But you need to meet me halfway." He opened his eyes. He took another deep breath. He nudged the bag towards her with his steel-toed boot. He looked her in the eyes.
"Some fuckin' eskimo got into the fuckin' kitchen. She corrected him, reprimanded him for using the offensive term. "Shit, man. In the kitchen." Again, he nudged the bag with his boot, pushing it even closer to her. "Someone got into the house. Someone got into the kitchen." "We went for break. We went for cookies and tea." "And bananas", she interjected, sarcastically. He looked her in the eye. He was not amused. "My men," he continued, "sat down for tea. In the kitchen." In the kitchen, he said, on top of the garbage can, they found a pair of men's briefs. The briefs had been "unloaded in", he said. Deliberately removed, then extensively, enormously, and attentively shat in. "You asked for shit for the kitchen?" she joked. He did not laugh, and she had to buy two $11 cartons of orange juice a day for a month so he wouldn't tell her supervisor.
Just another day at work.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
See-Kow-Me-Took
Everything, it seems, is on the barge. The ice came in early this year--a full month earlier than last--trapping the barges in towns which were not their final destinations. Wedding dresses, snowmobiles, building supplies, furniture, and case upon case of pop.
He has a girlfriend and two young children, and his truck is on a barge. It's not his truck, rather it belongs to the company for which he works. He knows it's there, has photographs, like many others do of the things on the barges. Photographs of objects rendered intangible by distance, nature, and impossible Arctic logistics.
His family isn't on the barge, but they might as well be. Not terribly far when referring to a map, but inaccessible, removed enough to nearly not exist. She doesn't care about the things on the barges. They are just things, and she doesn't feel their absence, only the inconveniences that their absence cause for her. Initially, she feels the same way about his children.
It has become a bit of a joke or at least a stock answer of sorts to every question asked. Where is the office furniture? Where are the tools? Where are the toilets? Where is the photocopier? Has anyone seen my sister? Why can't you get wholewheat bread in this shithole town? The answer is simple, and always the same: "See kow me took". It's on the barge.
At first, it is frustrating. The barges nearly make it to town before getting turned around, and there is hope for a few days that a thaw might occur. It does not. Eventually, it becomes apparent that the items are trapped, not to be received until the summer, a full year after being ordered. Once this sinks in, it becomes a joke. The waiting is over, and people move on, able to survive without the things they thought they needed. They move on, planning to sell the snow machines still on the barge in favor of next year's model. No-one seems to notice how funny it all is--a culture seemingly averse to planning for anything in advance, planning obsessively, only to have it consistently derailed by predictably unpredictable weather. Sometimes, it makes her laugh to herself. Then again, it isn't her wedding dress stuck on a barge, just out of reach.
At first, it's innocent. In fact, it's innocent for the better part of a year. But one day, something changes. His truck is still on the barge, he still comes into town every once in a while, but something changes. She wonders if perhaps he'd been eyeing her all along, because she's never met anyone who falls in love as quickly as she does. But he does, and has. Suddenly, his children are real. Their absence is problematic, but not like a missing toilet or ATV. It is problematic because they are real, and they matter, suddenly. Suddenly, and somehow, she might love them. Not like a missing wedding dress.
He is as far away as the barge, but in the opposite direction. He is barely less abstract than the truck, but he is absolutely real. He has a girlfriend and 2 young boys and his truck is still on the barge, but he is not.
He has a girlfriend and two young children, and his truck is on a barge. It's not his truck, rather it belongs to the company for which he works. He knows it's there, has photographs, like many others do of the things on the barges. Photographs of objects rendered intangible by distance, nature, and impossible Arctic logistics.
His family isn't on the barge, but they might as well be. Not terribly far when referring to a map, but inaccessible, removed enough to nearly not exist. She doesn't care about the things on the barges. They are just things, and she doesn't feel their absence, only the inconveniences that their absence cause for her. Initially, she feels the same way about his children.
It has become a bit of a joke or at least a stock answer of sorts to every question asked. Where is the office furniture? Where are the tools? Where are the toilets? Where is the photocopier? Has anyone seen my sister? Why can't you get wholewheat bread in this shithole town? The answer is simple, and always the same: "See kow me took". It's on the barge.
At first, it is frustrating. The barges nearly make it to town before getting turned around, and there is hope for a few days that a thaw might occur. It does not. Eventually, it becomes apparent that the items are trapped, not to be received until the summer, a full year after being ordered. Once this sinks in, it becomes a joke. The waiting is over, and people move on, able to survive without the things they thought they needed. They move on, planning to sell the snow machines still on the barge in favor of next year's model. No-one seems to notice how funny it all is--a culture seemingly averse to planning for anything in advance, planning obsessively, only to have it consistently derailed by predictably unpredictable weather. Sometimes, it makes her laugh to herself. Then again, it isn't her wedding dress stuck on a barge, just out of reach.
At first, it's innocent. In fact, it's innocent for the better part of a year. But one day, something changes. His truck is still on the barge, he still comes into town every once in a while, but something changes. She wonders if perhaps he'd been eyeing her all along, because she's never met anyone who falls in love as quickly as she does. But he does, and has. Suddenly, his children are real. Their absence is problematic, but not like a missing toilet or ATV. It is problematic because they are real, and they matter, suddenly. Suddenly, and somehow, she might love them. Not like a missing wedding dress.
He is as far away as the barge, but in the opposite direction. He is barely less abstract than the truck, but he is absolutely real. He has a girlfriend and 2 young boys and his truck is still on the barge, but he is not.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Blazers Not Optional / Shinan Govani's Nipple
I have a friend. No, wait. Read on. It gets better.
I have a friend, and she's a babe. Every time she and I go out, ridiculous things happen. On my birthday, we wound up at a frat party (red solo cups and tray after tray of jello shots). Another time, I got punched by a homeless woman. Last night, she took me as her +1 to some TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival)-related party, sponsored by a vodka company. The whole thing was on a parkade roof. Getting to and from the party involved a high-speed, terrifying golf cart ride. And by terrifying, I mean shrieking, holding on for dear life, and coming VERY close to wetting myself on the way up. I was anxious about the "fancy party", I had a full bladder, and sitting backwards on a racing golf cart nearly pushed me over the edge. As we took our first turn, my friend yelled, "WE DIDN'T SIGN A WAIIIIIIVER!", and all I could think of was, 'I need to fall off this thing rightfriggingnow. I need new teeth and to have my nose straightened (it got broken by a truck door in 110km/hr winds in the Arctic) and I need a reason not to work for another few months.' We screamed and yelled and a little bit of pee maybe came out, but I failed to fall off. The universe provides me a bounty of potential riches, and still, I cannot succeed. I take lemons and...promptly find an open wound to squeeze the juice into.
Anyway, we made it, and I have never seen so many blazers in my life. We caught Shad's set (more on that sometime soon), had some cocktails, and saw our respective favourite Canadian gossip journalists. This is where I admit to loving Shinan Govani. I got pretty excited about meeting him and I made him laugh and he was wearing a really great shirt and I asked if I could touch it and he said yes and then I touched it and then I realized that I'd totally just stroked his nipple. I am a total liability. I stroked Shinan Govani's nipple. Through his shirt, but still.
You can't take me anywhere.
I have a friend, and she's a babe. Every time she and I go out, ridiculous things happen. On my birthday, we wound up at a frat party (red solo cups and tray after tray of jello shots). Another time, I got punched by a homeless woman. Last night, she took me as her +1 to some TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival)-related party, sponsored by a vodka company. The whole thing was on a parkade roof. Getting to and from the party involved a high-speed, terrifying golf cart ride. And by terrifying, I mean shrieking, holding on for dear life, and coming VERY close to wetting myself on the way up. I was anxious about the "fancy party", I had a full bladder, and sitting backwards on a racing golf cart nearly pushed me over the edge. As we took our first turn, my friend yelled, "WE DIDN'T SIGN A WAIIIIIIVER!", and all I could think of was, 'I need to fall off this thing rightfriggingnow. I need new teeth and to have my nose straightened (it got broken by a truck door in 110km/hr winds in the Arctic) and I need a reason not to work for another few months.' We screamed and yelled and a little bit of pee maybe came out, but I failed to fall off. The universe provides me a bounty of potential riches, and still, I cannot succeed. I take lemons and...promptly find an open wound to squeeze the juice into.
Anyway, we made it, and I have never seen so many blazers in my life. We caught Shad's set (more on that sometime soon), had some cocktails, and saw our respective favourite Canadian gossip journalists. This is where I admit to loving Shinan Govani. I got pretty excited about meeting him and I made him laugh and he was wearing a really great shirt and I asked if I could touch it and he said yes and then I touched it and then I realized that I'd totally just stroked his nipple. I am a total liability. I stroked Shinan Govani's nipple. Through his shirt, but still.
You can't take me anywhere.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Stuff I was interested in as a kid
and this is why i'm like this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhi2xtJZ2PQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhi2xtJZ2PQ
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Ricocheting Rhetoric
I have a friend who tries to be practical and unemotional when it comes to matters of the heart. He tries hard to weigh the facts, consider the reality, find the truth. I absolutely understand and respect his motivation, but there are a few problems with this, unfortunately. Truth, logic, and reality are all subjective. When you make subjectives your absolutes, you make your opinion the only one that matters. You become incapable of actual compromise, of seeing other people's perspectives. While it's true that perspective IS reality, when you cling to YOUR reality SO tenaciously, you sometimes end up alone in your righteousness.
I worry that this is the situation he might find himself in. I worry, because he's basically my favourite.
I worry that this is the situation he might find himself in. I worry, because he's basically my favourite.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
This Is What I Am, That's Why.
A month or so ago, while exiting the post office across the street from my apartment, I was stopped by a very handsome young man sitting on the front steps. He was eating a sub. He'd watched me go in, and said that he couldn't let me go on with my day without (effusively) complimenting me on my outfit. It made my day. Especially the part about the sub. I really love subs, so obviously the young man and I were kindred spirits. Which clearly makes him an expert in ridiculous outfits.
I can see the post office from here.
I can see that same young man from my balcony, at this very moment. He is sitting on the steps of the post office, reading a newspaper.
The young man clearly works at the post office.
I'm having a tough few days--post-vacation blues, and all that--and was seriously debating putting on an "outfit" and going to the post office...until I noticed that he was wearing long shorts. Like, manpris. Hmm. It puts his compliment into question.
But now that I've typed out the above, it occurs to me that I am inches away from becoming the woman who puts on red lipstick for the mailman. Sigh. Even when I'm busy, I have too much time on my brain.
I had Ringolos and Riesen candies for supper. I can't tell you what to eat anymore.
I can see the post office from here.
I can see that same young man from my balcony, at this very moment. He is sitting on the steps of the post office, reading a newspaper.
The young man clearly works at the post office.
I'm having a tough few days--post-vacation blues, and all that--and was seriously debating putting on an "outfit" and going to the post office...until I noticed that he was wearing long shorts. Like, manpris. Hmm. It puts his compliment into question.
But now that I've typed out the above, it occurs to me that I am inches away from becoming the woman who puts on red lipstick for the mailman. Sigh. Even when I'm busy, I have too much time on my brain.
I had Ringolos and Riesen candies for supper. I can't tell you what to eat anymore.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
The Mayor of Non-Sequitur City
I had a dream the other night about a writer who I sometimes have a crush on. I hadn't thought about him in a while, so his appearance in my dream was a bit of a surprise. In the dream, he called me to tell me that he'd named both his television remote control and fantasy football team after me. I was very touched. When I awoke, crush somewhat reinstated, I emailed him for the first time in months and months to tell him of my dream. He wrote me back the next day to tell me that he thought it was a pretty great dream. I was drunk when I got his email, and responded perhaps a little too flirtatiously. I guess I was still feeling chuffed about the remote control. Regardless, I'm feeling a bit sheepish about all of it. But I'm probably going to name all my remote controls.
When I was a child, my mother built me a dollhouse that was an exact replica of the home we lived in while in Newfoundland (ages 1-6). I loved it. At the time that she built the house, I was obsessed with frogs (i remained so until my early teens, at which point i lost interest in animals until my late 20s, but that's another story). Instead of buying little dolls to fit in all the delicate, expensive, mail-ordered furniture, my mother spent weeks figuring out how to sew tiny frogs that would fit in the furniture. Rice left them too rigid, they couldn't settle into the tiny rocking chair or sit at the piano. In the end, she went with tapioca. They were more flexible, but still never got the hang of using the tiny knitting needles or enamelware cookset. Years later, my father hired a student to clean out the basement. I was living at home that summer, and came home one afternoon to find the student chopping the dollhouse to pieces with an axe, on my father's direction, in order to maximize space in the truck for the haul to the dump. There were only three frog dolls--these were in the days before my brother was on the scene, and now there's but one left. The father. Of course.
I'm returning to Toronto tomorrow, with incredibly mixed feelings. I have no idea what will happen in the next three months. My burn it down/build it up year off is drawing to a close, and I can't help but wish for the universe to intervene. I don't care what I do, I just want to be happy. That's not too much to ask, right?
When I was a child, my mother built me a dollhouse that was an exact replica of the home we lived in while in Newfoundland (ages 1-6). I loved it. At the time that she built the house, I was obsessed with frogs (i remained so until my early teens, at which point i lost interest in animals until my late 20s, but that's another story). Instead of buying little dolls to fit in all the delicate, expensive, mail-ordered furniture, my mother spent weeks figuring out how to sew tiny frogs that would fit in the furniture. Rice left them too rigid, they couldn't settle into the tiny rocking chair or sit at the piano. In the end, she went with tapioca. They were more flexible, but still never got the hang of using the tiny knitting needles or enamelware cookset. Years later, my father hired a student to clean out the basement. I was living at home that summer, and came home one afternoon to find the student chopping the dollhouse to pieces with an axe, on my father's direction, in order to maximize space in the truck for the haul to the dump. There were only three frog dolls--these were in the days before my brother was on the scene, and now there's but one left. The father. Of course.
I'm returning to Toronto tomorrow, with incredibly mixed feelings. I have no idea what will happen in the next three months. My burn it down/build it up year off is drawing to a close, and I can't help but wish for the universe to intervene. I don't care what I do, I just want to be happy. That's not too much to ask, right?
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
(over the course of an email exchange yesterday, i remembered something: i used to beg for finger sandwiches as a child, having seen them on Another World, but was always denied by my mother. the reason, according to her? much like the peel of apples, the healthiest part of the sandwich was the crust. if only i'd more strictly adhered to her recommended diet of lobster legs and bread crusts, i might have actually become a fully functioning adult. hindsight, wha?)
time moves differently, here. or i suppose, more colloquially, diffurntly. i dropped a chip on the floor today and finished all the other ones in my hand before picking up (and eating) the one from the floor. a 75 (or so) second rule.
i could watch hummingbirds fight all day. i love the sound of their tiny hollow bodies thwocking together, their squeaky spring chittering, their unflagging energy....i like birds.
time moves differently, here. or i suppose, more colloquially, diffurntly. i dropped a chip on the floor today and finished all the other ones in my hand before picking up (and eating) the one from the floor. a 75 (or so) second rule.
i could watch hummingbirds fight all day. i love the sound of their tiny hollow bodies thwocking together, their squeaky spring chittering, their unflagging energy....i like birds.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Lobstereality
Growing up, there were two things I could count on happening every year:
1) The brown paper and twine-wrapped shoebox of "irregular" Ganong chocolates purchased for Christmas at the Main street Irving. It was always a gamble. Sometimes, you got lucky, and the box would be filled with dented caramels, coconut cups and buttercreams. Sometimes, you got unlucky, and wound up with a baseball-sized lump of orange creams and a leaky, sticky mass of crushed cherry chocolates. 5lbs of chocolate, heaped unceremoniously in a box. Good luck!
2) A lobster feed, usually in July. I never really 'got' lobster as a kid. I really enjoyed setting them up for races on the kitchen floor, determining who was going to land in the pot first (the loser, naturally). I really, really enjoyed tossing them into the giant pot reserved strictly for the yearly lobster boil. But eating them was, as far as I could tell, a lot of work with little reward. It seemed to me that lobster was little more than a butter-delivery system, and I always ended up having a peanut butter sandwich after a lobster dinner because I could never get enough to eat otherwise.
I never complained about the lack of food though, because my my selfless and generous mother always, ALWAYS gave me ALL the legs. They were, according to her, the best part, and they were just for me. I would intensely suck and work away at the legs while my mother would very slowly nibble on the claws. If I was particularly hungry, sometimes she'd give me a thumb. And then, because "raccoons would just get into the bags if we put the shells out in the trash before garbage day", my mother would get up and put them in the fridge.
If you've ever had lobster, you're probably asking yourself, "Wait, wait! Back up! What about the tails?"
Yes. What ABOUT the tails?
Well, according to my mother, the tails were the opposite of the legs. They were not just the worst part of the lobster, but they were actually UNPLEASANT to eat. She often backed up this argument with the following example: "Of COURSE McDonald's has the McLobster*. It's made with TAIL MEAT. Like how the McNuggets are all ground up leftover stuff..."
And then she'd pull a dismissive face.
And then she'd throw the shells into the fridge.
And later, while we slept, she ate lobster tails. Plural.
I didn't figure this out until I was 28. It was a revelation. I still start with the legs, though.
(*yes, there is such a thing as McLobster in the Maritime provinces. i know. seriously.)
1) The brown paper and twine-wrapped shoebox of "irregular" Ganong chocolates purchased for Christmas at the Main street Irving. It was always a gamble. Sometimes, you got lucky, and the box would be filled with dented caramels, coconut cups and buttercreams. Sometimes, you got unlucky, and wound up with a baseball-sized lump of orange creams and a leaky, sticky mass of crushed cherry chocolates. 5lbs of chocolate, heaped unceremoniously in a box. Good luck!
2) A lobster feed, usually in July. I never really 'got' lobster as a kid. I really enjoyed setting them up for races on the kitchen floor, determining who was going to land in the pot first (the loser, naturally). I really, really enjoyed tossing them into the giant pot reserved strictly for the yearly lobster boil. But eating them was, as far as I could tell, a lot of work with little reward. It seemed to me that lobster was little more than a butter-delivery system, and I always ended up having a peanut butter sandwich after a lobster dinner because I could never get enough to eat otherwise.
I never complained about the lack of food though, because my my selfless and generous mother always, ALWAYS gave me ALL the legs. They were, according to her, the best part, and they were just for me. I would intensely suck and work away at the legs while my mother would very slowly nibble on the claws. If I was particularly hungry, sometimes she'd give me a thumb. And then, because "raccoons would just get into the bags if we put the shells out in the trash before garbage day", my mother would get up and put them in the fridge.
If you've ever had lobster, you're probably asking yourself, "Wait, wait! Back up! What about the tails?"
Yes. What ABOUT the tails?
Well, according to my mother, the tails were the opposite of the legs. They were not just the worst part of the lobster, but they were actually UNPLEASANT to eat. She often backed up this argument with the following example: "Of COURSE McDonald's has the McLobster*. It's made with TAIL MEAT. Like how the McNuggets are all ground up leftover stuff..."
And then she'd pull a dismissive face.
And then she'd throw the shells into the fridge.
And later, while we slept, she ate lobster tails. Plural.
I didn't figure this out until I was 28. It was a revelation. I still start with the legs, though.
(*yes, there is such a thing as McLobster in the Maritime provinces. i know. seriously.)
Friday, August 13, 2010
Freddy Beach aka Day 2
Mike Doherty coined the term "Saussagio". I forgot about that. So, there's that.
Day 2: I wrote, puttered, and wandered to King's Place, a terrible mall in downtown "Freddy Beach".
When I was in high school, 'Freddy Beach' was a popular nickname for Fredericton. It was cheesy, but their rugby shirts were cheaper than the Roots rugby shirts which were hugely in fashion at the time (we'd just gotten our first Roots store. fredericton still doesn't have a GAP, to my knowledge). The Freddy Beach store was at King's Place, and briefly provided the sad sack mall a resurgence. I bought anti-histamines, deodorant, and toothpaste. I hope my purchases keep King's Place alive, giving the retired men wearing G-Sus and FBI hats a place to drink.
I ran into an old friend at the mall. It's hard to know how to feel when you see people you haven't seen in nearly 20 years. I've been gone as long as I've been "away". We don't look the same. We don't know each other. We had to say 'hello'.
I am not good at small talk, and I don't know how I would have managed any of this without Facebook. Seriously. I feel blessed to have been able to say, "Oh, you work with X! I saw that on the Facebook! How lovely!", or "You got married! Crazy!". I think I might make it through / enjoy this trip solely BECAUSE of Facebook. I hate giving Facebook positive credit. Ugh.
That night, I saw that friend again, along with several others, at a local "must-see" weekly live music night. I said presumptuous things about his marriage, and drunkenly gloated when I was proved correct. Later, I ran into a couple of my first boyfriend's closest friends. The chats were lovely, and absent of the thing that had coloured the bulk of our interactions over the last 15 or so years. And...I got this soundbite, "You look hot. Seriously. I don't remember your hair being so shiny."
Day 2 was a success, I suppose.
Day 2: I wrote, puttered, and wandered to King's Place, a terrible mall in downtown "Freddy Beach".
When I was in high school, 'Freddy Beach' was a popular nickname for Fredericton. It was cheesy, but their rugby shirts were cheaper than the Roots rugby shirts which were hugely in fashion at the time (we'd just gotten our first Roots store. fredericton still doesn't have a GAP, to my knowledge). The Freddy Beach store was at King's Place, and briefly provided the sad sack mall a resurgence. I bought anti-histamines, deodorant, and toothpaste. I hope my purchases keep King's Place alive, giving the retired men wearing G-Sus and FBI hats a place to drink.
I ran into an old friend at the mall. It's hard to know how to feel when you see people you haven't seen in nearly 20 years. I've been gone as long as I've been "away". We don't look the same. We don't know each other. We had to say 'hello'.
I am not good at small talk, and I don't know how I would have managed any of this without Facebook. Seriously. I feel blessed to have been able to say, "Oh, you work with X! I saw that on the Facebook! How lovely!", or "You got married! Crazy!". I think I might make it through / enjoy this trip solely BECAUSE of Facebook. I hate giving Facebook positive credit. Ugh.
That night, I saw that friend again, along with several others, at a local "must-see" weekly live music night. I said presumptuous things about his marriage, and drunkenly gloated when I was proved correct. Later, I ran into a couple of my first boyfriend's closest friends. The chats were lovely, and absent of the thing that had coloured the bulk of our interactions over the last 15 or so years. And...I got this soundbite, "You look hot. Seriously. I don't remember your hair being so shiny."
Day 2 was a success, I suppose.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Saussagio
The first thing you need to know is that the Fredericton Airport only has one gate: Gate 3.
The second thing you need to know is that I have lived in absolute fear of visiting Fredericton since I left for good over a decade ago. So, for the most part, I haven’t. My last time in the province was two years ago. I went for dinner exactly once, and spent the entire meal looking over my shoulder. I spent the two nights hiding at my friend T’s house. Though I had a lovely time with T, the whole experience was akin to being way too high. Minutes were hours were days and when was this gonna be over, man?
Mostly, it’s all because I’ve become really spoiled by the anonymity of big-city living, and feel incredibly put-upon when expected to provide personal information to, essentially, strangers, knowing all the while the judgments they will pass. Our family was ‘from away’, so maybe I just wasn’t bred for Maritime small talk. Who knows?
Anyway, I landed at Gate 3 yesterday.
My friend C (she’s ‘home’ from Toronto for a visit, too) picked me up at the airport, with her delightful baby in tow. We spent the afternoon in and out of C’s in-laws’ pool. At some point, C’s sister-in-law notified us that she would be rather late, and could we cook the sausages in the fridge?
C started the BBQ. Giant flames shot up everywhere. We put the flames out. Once everyone else was safely indoors, I put ten chicken and mozzarella sausages on the BBQ, closed the lid, and walked away for 2 minutes, per the instructions. I should mention at this point that I only had a giant BBQ fork for a utensil.
When I opened the lid two minutes later, all ten sausages were alternately squirting 20-30cm arcs of grease and molten cheese. Some were spinning around like Catherine Wheels (the firework, not the band, though that would have been interesting). It was like the water show at the Bellagio in Vegas. Only, again, with hot grease and molten cheese. Saussagio, if you will. Within seconds, giant flames were again leaping from the grill. Blinded by smoke, I grabbed the BBQ fork to get the sausages off the grill. You see where this is going, yes? I poked huge holes in the sausages. One sausage managed to propel itself off the fork by harnessing the power of a jet of grease and cheese. I got a painful burn on my arm. On the upside, my favourite shirt didn’t get splattered, and I later went for $3 pints with probably the coolest people in town. Day one. Done.
The second thing you need to know is that I have lived in absolute fear of visiting Fredericton since I left for good over a decade ago. So, for the most part, I haven’t. My last time in the province was two years ago. I went for dinner exactly once, and spent the entire meal looking over my shoulder. I spent the two nights hiding at my friend T’s house. Though I had a lovely time with T, the whole experience was akin to being way too high. Minutes were hours were days and when was this gonna be over, man?
Mostly, it’s all because I’ve become really spoiled by the anonymity of big-city living, and feel incredibly put-upon when expected to provide personal information to, essentially, strangers, knowing all the while the judgments they will pass. Our family was ‘from away’, so maybe I just wasn’t bred for Maritime small talk. Who knows?
Anyway, I landed at Gate 3 yesterday.
My friend C (she’s ‘home’ from Toronto for a visit, too) picked me up at the airport, with her delightful baby in tow. We spent the afternoon in and out of C’s in-laws’ pool. At some point, C’s sister-in-law notified us that she would be rather late, and could we cook the sausages in the fridge?
C started the BBQ. Giant flames shot up everywhere. We put the flames out. Once everyone else was safely indoors, I put ten chicken and mozzarella sausages on the BBQ, closed the lid, and walked away for 2 minutes, per the instructions. I should mention at this point that I only had a giant BBQ fork for a utensil.
When I opened the lid two minutes later, all ten sausages were alternately squirting 20-30cm arcs of grease and molten cheese. Some were spinning around like Catherine Wheels (the firework, not the band, though that would have been interesting). It was like the water show at the Bellagio in Vegas. Only, again, with hot grease and molten cheese. Saussagio, if you will. Within seconds, giant flames were again leaping from the grill. Blinded by smoke, I grabbed the BBQ fork to get the sausages off the grill. You see where this is going, yes? I poked huge holes in the sausages. One sausage managed to propel itself off the fork by harnessing the power of a jet of grease and cheese. I got a painful burn on my arm. On the upside, my favourite shirt didn’t get splattered, and I later went for $3 pints with probably the coolest people in town. Day one. Done.
Friday, July 30, 2010
kayaking, and nature
On lake ontario this eve. perfect night for kayaks. i'm along as a fill-in at k's weekly staff event, in attendance at the harbourfront kayak and canoe club's 'social night'. there are easily 70 kayaks, singles and tandem, on the water.
after a bumpy start (i'm too short for the steering pedals which, though a cheat, are a total godsend), k and i hit our stride, get good, and i can start enjoying the sunset, the birds, the hilarity of 100 people in plastic cups on the water.
we pass drunken teens singing nickelback songs, i spot a night heron in a tree, the common ontario cigarette butt (white tip is male, the female is less showy with a brown butt), etc. we see a cluster of tents. k says, 'look, campers.' 'yeah,' i say, 'boy scouts?' k says 'i see a neckerchief. so it's either boy scouts, or an asshole convention." it turns out to be the former. boy scouts. one yells out to the cluster of kayaks. 'hey! where did you come from?'
loudly enough for k (but hopefully nobody else), i say, 'your mother's asshole'.
we laughed for about 10 minutes. i snorted.
i am a monster.
after a bumpy start (i'm too short for the steering pedals which, though a cheat, are a total godsend), k and i hit our stride, get good, and i can start enjoying the sunset, the birds, the hilarity of 100 people in plastic cups on the water.
we pass drunken teens singing nickelback songs, i spot a night heron in a tree, the common ontario cigarette butt (white tip is male, the female is less showy with a brown butt), etc. we see a cluster of tents. k says, 'look, campers.' 'yeah,' i say, 'boy scouts?' k says 'i see a neckerchief. so it's either boy scouts, or an asshole convention." it turns out to be the former. boy scouts. one yells out to the cluster of kayaks. 'hey! where did you come from?'
loudly enough for k (but hopefully nobody else), i say, 'your mother's asshole'.
we laughed for about 10 minutes. i snorted.
i am a monster.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Cleaning
I hate tidying.
There, I've said it. Everything was fine in the new apartment until I acquired 'stuff', and now I just can't be bothered to put it away most of the time. I find reasons not to put things away, like, "I'll need this sooner rather than later", or "there was something I needed this for, and when I remember, I will need it out immediately," or "I will just lose this if I put it away". I am not visually oriented; my mind can't figure out where items should 'live', so I just leave them about.
I read an article in the New Yorker years ago about people who need objects in front of them to function, in order to work. I remember smugly feeling validated after reading that people who leave things lying around have greater memory capacity than those who do not. It may be true, but people who put things away probably entertain more at home than I do because they can find a place to put The Six Million Dollar Man board game, and I can't.
My apartment isn't dirty, and it's not even that messy. But somehow, tidying up just isn't a priority for me, and I can't help feel that something is wrong with me because of it. I rarely sleep well, but as soon as I contemplate cleaning up, I immediately become incredibly drowsy, as if drugged by the boredom I feel when cleaning.
I'll fold that laundry. After a nap, perhaps.
There, I've said it. Everything was fine in the new apartment until I acquired 'stuff', and now I just can't be bothered to put it away most of the time. I find reasons not to put things away, like, "I'll need this sooner rather than later", or "there was something I needed this for, and when I remember, I will need it out immediately," or "I will just lose this if I put it away". I am not visually oriented; my mind can't figure out where items should 'live', so I just leave them about.
I read an article in the New Yorker years ago about people who need objects in front of them to function, in order to work. I remember smugly feeling validated after reading that people who leave things lying around have greater memory capacity than those who do not. It may be true, but people who put things away probably entertain more at home than I do because they can find a place to put The Six Million Dollar Man board game, and I can't.
My apartment isn't dirty, and it's not even that messy. But somehow, tidying up just isn't a priority for me, and I can't help feel that something is wrong with me because of it. I rarely sleep well, but as soon as I contemplate cleaning up, I immediately become incredibly drowsy, as if drugged by the boredom I feel when cleaning.
I'll fold that laundry. After a nap, perhaps.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
I need a globe.
When I was 20, I applied for a job with Canada Post. There was a breezy interview, where I got to tell charming anecdotes about my adventures in customer service. After the interview, I was left alone in the conference room to fill out a lengthy questionnaire. The questionnaire covered much of the same ground as the interview (strengths, weaknesses, etc.), and concluded with a single page that simply asked for the names of all the provinces and the capitals thereof. I smugly filled in the answers, and was just about to call the examiner back in when I realized that...I was missing a province. And capital.
And I sat for 20 minutes.
And I was never, ever able to remember: Manitoba. Winnipeg.
Tonight, I looked at a map and thought, "Huh. What's that? What IS that landmass?". I stared at it for the longest 30 seconds of my life. I had to click to another page, where the countries were identified. Asia. It was FUCKING ASIA. A CONTINENT. I FORGOT A CONTINENT.
In my defence, I've been stripping paint for the last week. With a heat gun. In a heat wave. And for the last 36 hours, I've been stripping paint with industrial paint solvents. And it was 4 am when I looked at the map.
But still.
I think I'm going to wear a face mask next time. You know, just to be sure.
And I sat for 20 minutes.
And I was never, ever able to remember: Manitoba. Winnipeg.
Tonight, I looked at a map and thought, "Huh. What's that? What IS that landmass?". I stared at it for the longest 30 seconds of my life. I had to click to another page, where the countries were identified. Asia. It was FUCKING ASIA. A CONTINENT. I FORGOT A CONTINENT.
In my defence, I've been stripping paint for the last week. With a heat gun. In a heat wave. And for the last 36 hours, I've been stripping paint with industrial paint solvents. And it was 4 am when I looked at the map.
But still.
I think I'm going to wear a face mask next time. You know, just to be sure.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
At least once a week, I get a certain kind of email. I can often tell it's going to be one of 'those' emails by the subject line alone, something like, "Hey!" or "Long Time!" or "Craaaaaazy!".
They are almost always riddled with spelling errors, and make liberal use of internet shorthand.
The emails generally read something like this:
"Hey girl! I know it's been a long time, but damn! When did u get so hot!? LOL!!! I wish I had known u would have turned out like this back in high school! LOL! JK! I'm going to be in you're (sic) city soon for work. We should def. have drinks and catch up!"
There is a slight variant on this that i refer to as the "when did you get cool" email. But it's basically the same thing.
I'd be lying if I said that these emails weren't somehow vaguely rewarding to me. I very much wanted to be pretty/cool in high school, and wasn't, based on how those things were quantified at the time.
But.
I haven't changed. I did the running man at the grocery store yesterday. I ate so many mini sloppy joes last night that I woke up at 4 am and vomited. When I'm walking somewhere with purpose, I hear the Dr. Who theme song in my head. I sleep with cookbooks in my bed, and am very interested in ornithology.
So, thanks. Thanks for coming around to Team Sociopath. We aren't currently recruiting at the moment, but we'll keep your information on file in the event that Hell freezes over. Try to remember how you've treated me, now and then, when you're sending your kids off to school. Hopefully, they won't have to sit next to people like you were, and seem to still be. Keep posting your horrible photos to Facebook, though. They bring me a lot of joy. Man, you have bad taste in furniture.
Love,
GS
They are almost always riddled with spelling errors, and make liberal use of internet shorthand.
The emails generally read something like this:
"Hey girl! I know it's been a long time, but damn! When did u get so hot!? LOL!!! I wish I had known u would have turned out like this back in high school! LOL! JK! I'm going to be in you're (sic) city soon for work. We should def. have drinks and catch up!"
There is a slight variant on this that i refer to as the "when did you get cool" email. But it's basically the same thing.
I'd be lying if I said that these emails weren't somehow vaguely rewarding to me. I very much wanted to be pretty/cool in high school, and wasn't, based on how those things were quantified at the time.
But.
I haven't changed. I did the running man at the grocery store yesterday. I ate so many mini sloppy joes last night that I woke up at 4 am and vomited. When I'm walking somewhere with purpose, I hear the Dr. Who theme song in my head. I sleep with cookbooks in my bed, and am very interested in ornithology.
So, thanks. Thanks for coming around to Team Sociopath. We aren't currently recruiting at the moment, but we'll keep your information on file in the event that Hell freezes over. Try to remember how you've treated me, now and then, when you're sending your kids off to school. Hopefully, they won't have to sit next to people like you were, and seem to still be. Keep posting your horrible photos to Facebook, though. They bring me a lot of joy. Man, you have bad taste in furniture.
Love,
GS
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Meh.
I'm somehow following my own blog. I don't know how that happens. I hate the internet.
(just kidding, Internet! don't ever leave me!)
I'm working on some slide shows for your viewing pleasure. Hopefully, I'll get them up soon.
(if the Internet cooperates.)
(just kidding, Internet! don't ever leave me!)
I'm working on some slide shows for your viewing pleasure. Hopefully, I'll get them up soon.
(if the Internet cooperates.)
Saturday, June 12, 2010
strategy
...so this is how this is going to work: i will obsess about this until my head is about to blow up.
...and then i will drink calimochos until i stop being precious, and post something stupid like this.
but if the point of all of this is to get over myself, i suppose it has to start somewhere.
and now, to play the cure until everything feels good.
...and then i will drink calimochos until i stop being precious, and post something stupid like this.
but if the point of all of this is to get over myself, i suppose it has to start somewhere.
and now, to play the cure until everything feels good.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
New Beginnings
My iPhone died a few weeks ago. I picked up a cheap loaner phone from my cell provider, to tide me over until the 4g comes out. It was then that I realized that I'd never actually owned a cell phone before, only so-called smart phones.
I'm taking a lot of do-overs these days, so it makes perfect sense to get in the old time machine and learn how to retro-text.
Following that logic, I've decided to start blogging. Yes, I am arriving late (and drunk) to the party. Shut it.
I like to think I'm being thorough. I'm gonna live the shit out of my life.
Or something.
I'm taking a lot of do-overs these days, so it makes perfect sense to get in the old time machine and learn how to retro-text.
Following that logic, I've decided to start blogging. Yes, I am arriving late (and drunk) to the party. Shut it.
I like to think I'm being thorough. I'm gonna live the shit out of my life.
Or something.
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