Hopefully, I'll be able to do this a few times, but it requires ascertaining information which may or may not offer up any leads. Rest assured, the information I have through the tracker is extremely limited. But I figure it's only right to acknowlege a few folks, and thank them for their continued readership, even though I have no idea who they are...
Orwellian greetings then to the person from Young & Rubicam who drops by Things Fall Apart from time to time. Y&R (besides being my soap-opera of choice as an impressionable teen), is in the business of "bringing our clients the best in commercial persuasion". That is, by far, the best euphemism I've heard this week, so thanks for bringing added joy to my Friday. Pull up a chair by the fire. The hostess will be by shortly with hors d'oeuvres and cocktails.
There are mouse droppings in my desk, some black, some green, indicating that poison has been put down and that somewhere, not far from where I’m typing this, a small corpse is slowly completing the cycle from dust to dust. I’m not down with that.
When in Prague, I had an enviable daily schedule. After a night at the disco Ubiquity, I’d climb from my bed around 11 am or so in the Sector 9 pension that I shared with six guys from various countries and one American girl. I’d shower, then a few of us would hop the tram to the Palmovka metro station, where we’d lunch at U Govinda – the pay-what-you-can Hari Krshna restaurant.
Don’t chuckle or guffaw our choice of diner; were it not for the Hari Krshna’s, I would have been forced to live on questionable mystery meat and knedlik rather than the wholesome vegetarian dishes that kind, voiceless women in pastel robes spooned out for me daily. A meal at U Govinda consisted of a bowl of dal, lahsi, a main course of vegetable curry and rice, chutney/pickles, and a peda sweet for dessert.
Every day, the Hari Krshna played the same looped tape of the all-star hits of their standard chants -- the only remotely propagandist element in the restaurant were these incantations, repeated phrases that might needle into your brain and begin the conversion process (Mark may now be forming his own Pot of Gold cult, if only he could find the rainbow’s end). But the music was tolerable, in fact it was tap-along at times, and tinged by the magic touch of a certain Beatle.
Most days, as my lunch was placed before me, a meal for which I had paid the equivalent of CDN $1, I gave thanks to George Harrison, for his benevolence to this particular religion, because it's not true that all you need is love. George also knew that you need peace of mind and a warm bowl of dal.
So a coworker has headed off to Wuhan sans Wu Tang, thinking he could scoop CDs on the cheap in the markets, but, alas, it's all Cantopop. A plea for CD burning has been picked up on the wires, and so I'm sending the following in tomorrow's FedEx pack. My tastes in hiphop are akin to my tastes in Chinese medicine: I stick to what I know, and I likes what I likes. 'Nuff said.
Black Sheep - This Or That
Handsome Boy Modeling School - Rock&Roll
DELTRON 3030 - Things you can do
Blackalicious - Don't let money change ya
Dr. Octagon - Earth People
Company Flow - 8 steps to perfection
Eric B. and Rakim - Follow the Leader
DELTRON 3030 - Mastermind
The Roots - Proceed
Blackalicious - Ego Trip By Nikki Giovanni
Jurassic 5 - Concrete School
Mike Ladd - Blade Runner
Wesley Willis - Cut the mullet*
Gangstarr ft. Inspectah Dek - Above the Clouds
Ol Dirty Bastard - Got Your Money
The Coup - Pimps
Kool Keith - Get Off My Elevator
* "Get your ass to the barber shop and tell the barber you're tired of looking like an asshole"
I wanted to send you an email. I wanted to ask about Thanksgiving, and point out that it's almost December and have you started making lists and looking them over, calculating the amount of cash divvied amongst relatives, how it becomes evident which is the complicated parent, the one who has everything and says, when you ask about what they really need, "just your love" and how that would be the easiest thing to give because you give it every day, but it's sort of difficult to wrap so how about a bread machine? I was feeling nostalgic about Montreal after having watched Velvet Goldmine tonight, about how two people, strangers even, could just walk up to each other and kiss, the lock of lips and lives like the perfectly lit Gap commercial that played endlessly this time last year with the early strains of Badly Drawn Boy and how that song always reminds me of the sound of a San Francisco night through the other end of the phone, the sigh of cigarette smoke and strange, strange, momentary and frighteningly perfect love. And how it's coming up on a year since I've moved into this apartment and there are so many unmeasured triumphs still to take place here, like the night he might have shown up on my doorstep, breathless and soaked by October monsoon, just to say "I was hoping you would have stayed" to my face rather than over the phone. And how compromise is just not on, not when there's the hope, however remote, of two people, strangers even, walking up to each other, fearless.
But my email account seems to be down at the moment.
I feel all caught up, and had a pleasant no-laundry morning after having left a polite note for the upstairs neighbours about liberty, fraternity, and warm showers for all.
Today’s Cainer couldn’t be more bang-on, yet again:
Everything is coming to a head at once. Or, at least so it seems. You feel overwhelmed, yet undermined; angry that nobody seems to appreciate how much you have on your plate and that, even when you try to stop to explain, they still keep piling more on it. Though the factors now taking you so close to the end of your tether are real enough, they are not as important as you fear. It's the build up to the Full Moon (which will be in your sign at the end of the week) that's making them seem so big. Relax. You really have nothing to fear.
Three major irons either in the fire or about to put shoved into hot coals, and a few minor irons as well. This is all very vague, and I apologize. More details to follow once linens have been smoothed over and ducks have been lined up. Wait, can I even say that? Who are you? Oh right, relax. I have nothing to fear (after all, fear is just "raef" spelled backwards).
I’m an idiot. The Aristotle/Plato error has been corrected, sorry Lili. It was Plato all along. But she brings up the point: is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? I suppose; then again, it's also said that ignorance is bliss.
Alright, I’m cranky. My upstairs neighbours set their house alarm off at 7:15 and made no large attempt to shut it off before it started wailing madness into the morning calm. Dragging myself from sleep to hit the shower, I was then met with the 7:30 #$*&#$ laundry bingeing, which subsequently cut off my hot water mid-conditioner. I am not pleased. It’s my own damn fault for not having said anything over the weekend, because they had established this new laundry schedule last week. It’s at times like this that I wish for the burly boyfriend who could walk upstairs, arms crossed over his barrel chest, and stare them down with intimidation. This wouldn’t be so difficult considering the upstairs husband is the live-action version of Ned Flanders. Of all the infractions, I’m most aggravated by the fact that I have to crack out of my hermitage to put my foot down.
Instead of confronting my neighbours, I spend the weekend at the movies! First, The Daddy of Rock’n’Roll with Mark. Please see this film about Wesley Willis if you can. It made getting out of bed worthwhile. Ra’n’Raow!!
Then, Harry Potter with Nicky.
Yesterday was chores. Sewing. Writing. Reading the script I’d promised to read months ago. And culling through my tapes to find suitable listening material for the 13 hour road trip I’m embarking on with my mother next month. That’s 13 hours each way, and there’s about 3 hours of listening time worth of crossover in our musical tastes. Neil Diamond. The Police. Patsy Cline. She has hidden stashes of Rita McNeil and German oompah scheisse in her car, and I fear I’ll careen the car straight into the depths of a Roger’s Pass riverbed if one of those cassettes hits the stereo.
My tape collection is a blatant indicator of when the shift in technology occurred in my life. It begins with Wham! and ends with Dinosaur Jr. I found a few tapes that will work nicely on the road trip (Madredeus, Leonard Cohen), then I found a tape without a playlist called "FunFunFun Jeremy, FunFunFun Fifi", which I’m guessing was created circa 1987 as it references a Housemartins song that was on heavy rotation in our first year dorm room. To illustrate the John Hughes infused summer of transition between highschool and university, I offer the playlist. Picture us in NafNaf and Topsiders (ouch).
Side A – FunFunFun Jeremy
New Order – Shellshock
Depeche Mode – New Dress
Erasure – Yahoo
Bros – When Will I Be Famous (Yikes! I hang my head in shame)
Curiosity Killed the Cat – Mile High
Erasure – Six-Five Thousand
Stewart Copeland & Stan Ridgway – Rumblefish Theme (then, and always, a damn cool song)
The Smiths – What Difference Does it Make?
Tree of Plenty – Love Just Weakens
Grapes of Wrath – Backwards Town
Housemartins - Build
Side B – FunFunFun Fifi (By the sounds of it, I may have planned this side for future seductions of moody poetry professors?)
Kate Bush – Wow
Roxy Music – Jealous Guy (live)
Thompson Twins – If You Were Here
Kate Bush – Cloudbursting
Housemartins – Flag Day
Terence Trent D’Arby – Sign Your Name
Kate Bush – The Man With the Child in his Eyes
The Smiths – Please, please, etc.
Then something instrumental that I couldn’t identify and it's going to drive me crazy that I can't peg this song because it's so damn familiar.
I think I can safely toss this one back into the vaults for another ten years.
Two years ago, on November 24th, I got the call from Karim. John had finally succeeded. In fact, he'd pulled it off so well that it took three days before anyone figured it out and climbed through his living room window to find him. As much as I might claim otherwise, I haven't gotten over John's death, because I'm unable to complete a circuit of necessary emotions. Like anger. Sure, I can get angry at fate for dealing him a chump hand, or at him for not tipping anyone off to his plans so that his excellent dog Knup could have been elsewhere instead of staring confused at her master for three days. But I'm not angry at him for what he did. He did what he always knew he had to do. And we knew it was going to happen.
John carried me through months of doubt, when I didn't think I could stick out the long-distance bit with Chris. John, forever impressed by Chris' stints in DOA and the Dayglo Abortions, had a respect for my absent boyfriend that was unmappable. And even though, had we stayed in the same city, we would have grown apart, our blended moments shine in my memory. Whenever I went back to Montreal, I saw John, would show up unannounced at his doorstep or attempt to track him down at Miami or the Biftek (though I wasn't roughneck enough to try Bar St. Laurent). And whenever he saw me, his grin would erase the time spent apart. "Holy shit, look what the cat dragged in," he'd say, and swing me into a hug. He kept looking worse and worse, but inside, he never changed.
The last time I saw him, a month before his death, we went for juice and he told me he'd saved an old message I'd left him on his machine, just so he could listen to it and remind himself that there were people who cared, that there were places outside of the abyss into which he was sinking. I brushed it off, and said, "oh, yah, I do the same thing." It was a call I couldn't manage to answer at the time, yet it left a message I'll never be able to erase.
Dates are for having fun, and people should use them to get to know each other. Even boys have something to say if you listen long enough.
--Lynnette, age 8
On the first date, they just tell each other lies, and that usually gets them interested enough to go for a second date.
--Martin, age 10
These from Liane, who adds a bit of salt-in-the-wounds words for the single from Plato. Yes, I remember a time when mixed tapes were made for me, when I was sent out the door every morning with a kiss and a pat on the bum. I still have the "melt" to look forward to. (Yum, I know what I want for lunch, thanks to Platonic notion of representation=recommendation. Catharsis awaits!).
Emails this morning from China. The hotel minibar has been duly raided and the coworker has begun his explorations of the local nightlife. Includes eating donkey meat!
Last night, opening night at the theatre with my mom. For me, live theatre always triggers an embarrassing reaction. As soon as the lights dim and the orchestra (or source music, as the case may be) begins, I well up with tears. I don’t cry, per se, but well. Okay, don’t laugh…I was once a theatre kid with aspirations of being a Broadway triple-threat, but as the years wore on, I found that my true triple-threat potential was not to be found in singing, dancing and acting. I’m too shy to sing, unless I’m in the warm arms of the Dufferin on a three-pint blur and Crimson & Clover is about to hit the karaoke machine. I’m about as limber as a week-old corpse. Okay, I suppose I can still act, but have no inclination of pursuing this because, really, I like having money. Still, when the curtain rises, I can’t help but feel a small pang of remorse.
This is short lived. It fades right about the time that the intermission lights come up and the audience mingles. As phrases like "Oh my god, I haven’t seen you since the Kelowna production of Our Town" or "Oh, him, he’s mounting a one-act play about his divorce. I hear she took the house AND the car" are muttered, I can’t help but feel thankful for the road not taken. Theatre people are frighteningly, well, theatrical. They're all hugs and kisses and booming voices and gesticulations and they seem to stand with one hand forever poised on their hip. No, not quite the hip, more like half-way up their backs, as though they're all pregnant with feeling and have to support the weight of their massive emotive baby.
Though, I suppose film people are just theatre people in fleece and Gortex™. Take, for instance, the film moniker "sweetie", the meaning of which runs the gamut from "my close personal friend" (high-pitched tone, followed by air kiss by each cheek, often including those of the posterior variety) to "the nameless underling who fetches my non-fat frappuccino" (monotone, often accompanied by rapid finger snapping as though attempting to toilet train a puppy) to "the ignorant bureaucrat at the funding agency who wouldn’t know genius if it punched him in the mouth" (punctuated by single or multiple rolling of the eyes, depending on the budget in question).
This kid has it all figured out:
You got to find somebody who likes the same stuff. Like, if you like sports, she should like it that you like sports, and she should keep the chips and dip coming.
--Alan, age 10
In an effort to divest myself of one area of hermitdom, I have decided that I am not buying anymore new books. This isn't to say that I'm not reading (whoa nelly, am I reading!), but that, until the books currently on my shelves have been duly dealt with, no new material will be smuggled into the house.
This is a big step for me, because I'd always envisioned packing it in and heading off for some remote Grizzly Adam's style shack, if even just for a short sabbatical, with my books wrapped neatly in fish paper and stacked on the dogsled. Or maybe just a summer in Tofino. In every case, the books factor into these fantasies -- a time and a place where I'd be able to read anything and everything, not necessarily just the tomes from university reading lists, or the stack of scripts I had to lug to and fro in my days as a development girl.
But enough of the strange hermit fantasies. I've been charging through my stack of unread books like a overachieving freshman, and have set out a reading list that plays like a well-planned mixed CD: begin with something robust! (On a CD, this would be Bjork; in this case, Faulkner). Then something light, then something old school, then something introspective, then something light'n'introspective, then something quirky. I'm at the quirky point now, which, on a mixed CD would be a perfect spot for Aphex Twin. The book in question: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. Brilliant!
Some years past, the feature film director with non-ironic uncool velcro Walmart runners, had mentioned that he most wanted to make a film of this book. The Powers That Be (Miramax, Rudin, Soderbergh) have tried to no avail. The role of Ignatius J. Reilly would be an actor's dream -- during the middle of viewing yet another Hollywood schlock mooovie, Ignatius stands and demands from the audience, "What mongoloid is responsible for producing this abortion!" All id, all good.
The UK Co-producers have approved my springboard, so I'll be spending the weekend writing the outline for this episode. That is, I'll be writing during breaks from Ignatius!
Make no mistake, I’m no expert on Chinese medicine, but I know what I like, and I know what works for me, and so you’ll always find a vial of something from the Chinatown drugstores on my person. Everything I’ve sampled from the Chinese pharmacies has done exactly what it says it will do, and for a fraction of the cost of Western medicine. Recently though, I’ve limited my pharmaceutical shopping list to three items: Nin Jiom cough medicine (mmmm…tastes like molasses); Po Chai (for bad bellies, hangovers and general overconsumption, including too much turkey on Thanksgiving); and Yin Chiao (stops the flu and cold/flu combinations dead in their tracks).
Of course, the best part of Chinese medicine is the packaging – the noble photos of the chemists who’ve concocted the remedies or the clean, pristine simplicity of a white box with gold lettering. Other than the sex aids, which feature full-colour art taken from ancient Chinese how-to erotica, very few of the items on the shelves give any illustrative indication of their true purpose. Most pharmacies will lump similar products on the same shelf, which is somewhat helpful, but then again, you might end up with a kidney remedy when you need a gall bladder cleanser.
The flu is ravenously circling the office, and it’s the sort of repeater virus that isn’t content with just one visit per person. So I stocked up on Yin Chiao (Great Wall Brand) and will be popping these sweet green pills until I’m sure I’m in the clear. For your reading pleasure, I present the enclosed drug description from the Thentsin Drug Manufactory, in Tientsin, China:
"Colds or influenza is a disease that people are apt to be attacked. When weather is uncertain with constant changes in temperature, people are liable to colds due to over-fatigue, insufficient rest, lack of bodily resistance, etc. When infected, in mild cases, they will snuffle, sneeze, cough, snivel, and feel feeble, while in severe cases, they will have headache, fever, etc. Though not a serious disease, colds or influenza is detrimental to health and affects work, and especially when influenza is in serious conditions, the complication such as bronchitis, pneumonia is likely to be caused."
I’m intrigued by the use of "etc" here, which is disconcerting when used to vaguely extend descriptions of health issues. ie. this medicine may cause vomiting, diarrhea, etc. But I’m assured by the packaging that Yin Chiao "has become a household medicine without side effect", and I’ve been taking it for long enough to know this already. (Quick check to make sure I haven't grown a third arm). What I hadn’t noticed before today, though, was the slippery nature of the creator’s name: in English, he is Dr. Wu Chu-tung; in French, Wou Kiu-tong; and in German, Dr. Wu Tschu-tung. I propose that my Chinese name should be Daiken Golden Warrioress.
In the vein of Taxi Cab Confessions, over lunch today I blurted out that for years, and I mean years, I could not figure out that, during the opening and closing credits of the Flintstones, the waitress at the drive-in restaurant places a slab of brontosaurus ribs on the side of the Flintstone car, thereby causing the car to tip over. It always looked like a giant crimson wave, or some sort of massive cochlear device with which Fred would call in his order to the kitchen. I think I finally had to ask brother #1, who finally shone some light on the situation, enabling me to see beyond the crude drawings to the half-ribcage of prehistoric BBQ'd goodness.
Just back up from the 4th Floor, where I've been spreading the good word about The Hives because they're playing here on the 8th with International Noise Conspiracy.
While on the 4th, I was able to view the animatic for the episode that I wrote in August. An animatic matches a scan of the storyboard with the voice record to make a rough timing for the episode. The storyboard artist has added in all sorts of cool swipes and fade devices (blood oozes down the screen) and it's pretty much just as I pictured it as I was writing the script, right down to shot angles and close-ups. This is encouraging, because we're just about to send in my revised (to the power of 10) springboard for the other show to the UK co-producers, and I'm feeling tense about whether it will be tossed on the massive heap of springboards which haven't made the grade, and so any small token leading me to believe I might have any small semblance of writerly talent is much appreciated at this point.
The myth of the Sunday night family dinner is that it’s a place of warmth and tender loving care. I keep forgetting that, in my family, this is at times not the case. So yesterday, after dragging all sorts of dead organic matter out of my garden (did I mention the rat skull that I found two weeks ago, perfectly licked clean by cats and worms alike? I’ve passed it on to my artist friend Rob Chaplin, who will probably dip it in gold and make something very goth out of it), I didn’t bother to change out of my dirty-kneed pants, or the sweater encrusted with dried leaves. After all, it’s just family, right?
Granted, I was already in a pissy mood after the realization that the noodly handshake late Friday night was about to constitute the final good-bye between myself and the oft-mentioned fellow, as we had spent the rest of the weekend avoiding each other in some sort of juvenile punishment routine. (I tried to get in a proper goodbye this morning, and walked to his place, but he didn't answer the phone, and fearing that he was trying to get in a last bit of sleep before the journey, didn't want to buzz him awake. He phoned me at my desk at about 10:30, and good-byes were said. Still, I regret not having at least given him a hug.) I somehow thought I’d find solace with my kinfolk over a meal last night.
Here’s a transcript of the first few minutes after my arrival:
Brother #2 sits on the couch, well, lounges on the couch making it impossible for anyone other than my small dog to sit on the couch with him. He’s taken over the television, and is flipping between various sports, and a movie about sports. I grab the tv guide as I’ve forgotten to tape the Life Network show about the belligerent Newfie who’s sailing around the world with a handful of other hapless souls, and want to see if it’s repeating later in the evening.
Brother #2: You’ll probably think I’m an asshole, but…
Me: I’m not going to ask you to change the channel. I’m just looking for something.
Brother #2: No, I wasn’t going to tell you not to change the channel. I was going to ask if you’ve put on a few.
(note: huh? this is purely a case of the double boiler calling the saucepan black)
Me: Thanks. Actually, I’ve lost weight. But these are my fat pants, and I was gardening.
Mom (coming out from the kitchen): You know, everyone in the family dresses so normal. Who did you inherit this (waves hands in my general direction) from?
Brother #2: Vano.
(note: Vano was my paternal grandmother’s curmudgeonly and miserly second husband. I think the guy made his underwear out of newspaper to save money).
Mom: I mean, all the other girls from Crofton House dress normally.
(note: I graduated from private school 15 years ago. Also please note that my fat gardening pants are from the Gap! Can I get much more normal than that?!?!)
Me: It has more to do with the fact that I lived in Victoria for five years. Plus, I’m in a generation unto myself in this family. There's a span of five years on either side of me. I don’t listen to the same music as anyone in the family. I don’t dress the same as anyone in the family.
Brother #2: And you need a haircut.
(note: I just got my haircut four days ago.)
Me: Jesus. It's Sunday night. I spent the day gardening. I didn't think I needed to do my hair and dress in semi-formal gear to have dinner with my family.
Brother #2: Hey, no need to over-react.
I think the secret to the Sunday night family dinner is to show up just as dinner is served. This, though leaning on the rude side, ensures that mouths are filled with pot roast rather than bile and such.
Quick fix to the template. This should hold for awhile, until my next personal crisis, at least. Comments came and went, and may return. More importantly, Liane has posted some of her amazing pics from the film conference in London last weekend -- Robert Altman, Graham Swift, Anthony Minghella, and the Butterworth lads.
I feel I should start this with some non-sequitur, like how I'd buy the Cube over Xbox based on the ads alone. My dog is on a diet of raw, unbleached tripe (nature's toothbrush!) to eliminate his stinkmouth. I have a new haircut, and am contemplating a new hair colour. But if you're here at Things Fall Apart, you probably don't care about any of the above, which isn't to say that you're not interested in my happenings, or opinions, it's just that I left things off on Friday in dramatic fashion, and I felt an update was in order.
So I'll begin by stating that one of the hottest characteristics a man can have is conviction. Waffling is for Belgians (sorry, it's late). Conviction and steadfastness. I bring this up because I think my frustration on Friday seemed a little strong, but then I haven't prefaced any of this properly by explaining how the situation with the oft-mentioned fellow over the span of the last two months had more two-steps-forward-one-step-back's than a Michael Jackson video. Suggested DJ handle: Mix Master Message. So, I did go for dinner on Friday, as a friend, along with a tableful of other friends who were pleasant, interesting, funny. It's fascinating to be introduced to a group of friends who are just that, a "group". Since moving back to Vancouver, I've become a bit of a one-on-one sort, not necessarily shunning the pack mentality, but neither attempting to break into nor develop a gang. Groups, though comforting, are hard to coordinate.
After dinner, we retired to the apartment of the oft-mentioned fellow, and I spent most of the evening talking with the two women friends, which was amazing because it's damn hard to meet women of substance. Women of substance know what I mean when I say this. But the drinks wore off, or wore themselves badly, and the time came to leave, and rides were offered, and I opted for an east-bound car. Each friend said their good-byes, and shuffled out, and I was towards the back of the line, and when he saw that I was up and about to leave, he looked perplexed, and said "I thought you would stay." I was tired, and tired of the waffling, really. There had been no indication of his intentions earlier, so this statement came as a bit of a non-sequitur itself.
Last night, I dreamt I stepped onto an elevator, going down, a strange towel wrapped around my head. I stood infront of the oft-mentioned fellow, who leaned forward and whispered, "Dance". As I turned to look at him, an elderly man started to panic when the elevator failed to stop at his floor. He pushed buttons, but the elevator began to freefall. Oh shit, I thought, this is it.
Tonight I went to see Amelie, but it was sold out and Novocaine had already started so I caught The Man Who Wasn't There. I went alone.
Comments are back for this exciting and interactive polling session.
First, the case of the Jack Russell. Jamie at work told this story yesterday of his aunt's Jack Russell who had been hit by a truck, but lived. When you read that sentence, you probably pictured something straight out of ER with the internal bleeding or head trauma. However, what really happened was that the Jack Russell's john thomas (four first names all in one go, how great is that?!) somehow got caught under the back tire of the car, and he was dragged by his member for a block, therein losing 3/4 it.
Does this story make you laugh, cringe, cringe while laughing, cry, or were you, like me, grabbing for a pad of paper and pen to figure out the physics of this freak accident?
The Second, which is really the first chronologically, but should be placed second so that you have the light poll first, then the meat of the matter second. No pun intended. I'm driven to this method because Karim, Mark and MontrealPaul have all but given up on trying to figure out the oft-mentioned co-worker.
So, last night, a call from the oft-mentioned co-worker, inviting me to dinner tonight (tonight being Friday night) with his friends because, and I quote: "you're a good friend". Oh fuckery, the fbomb has been dropped, and it's just this sort of thing that makes my stints of coming out of retirement so rare. What infuriates me in this instance (well, perhaps infuriates is too strong, but it's early and I'm too tired to find the right word in my muddled brain) is that I don't believe I initiated any of this. Right, Liane? Or am I living with my head affixed elsewhere? My understanding of the situation was that I was merely following suit, just curious to see where this all would lead. Then, the fbomb.
Right then. Do I go for dinner, as a good friend would? Do I conveniently find something else to do this evening? Do I march downstairs, stand on the coffee table in the middle of the animator's zoo and declare that, contrary to popular rumour around here, I'm still available and that nothing should be assumed because we're just "good friends"? Do I discreetly pull him aside and punch him in the mouth for wasting my time, while utilizing 3 out of the 6 suggestions from yesterday? Do I...oh fuckery. What do I do?
This morning on the Tiajuana Express, I witnessed a boy, perhaps six years old, gaze up at the person next to him, completely deadpan, and ask, "Are you a boy or a girl?" Imagine how great life would be if we could all maintain that right to ask whatever hits the mind, filter-free. Perhaps it would come back to bite me, but I'd like to ask these questions, or make these statements:
• Do you guys do a lot of coke? Because you make more than me and never seem to have any money.
• You know, ponytails on men really went out of style like ten years ago. Maybe more.
• Quit staring at my dog, that's plain insensitive and he's getting an inferiority complex because of people like you.
• Are you gay? (not that there's a problem with that)
• Fuck off (to spare-changers and squeegie kids only)
• Um, what is this? (so multi-purpose)
And of course I would like to spring the boy vs. girl question on occasion.
Last night, over drinks at the Railway (otherwise known around these parts as the Animators’ Graveyard) with old co-workers, I ran into a tableful of folk from the glory days of the Yaletown office. Most endearing of the bunch is Werner, the crazed German PA who desires to make the quintessential Canadian film about schnee. Years ago, Werner tailgated me through Roger’s Pass; through a heavy fog, inside my head, outside my windows, and I had to keep screaming at him over our walkies. Werner, get off my ass! When our little crew descended on Vulcan, Alberta in our best Mamet form, Werner was the comic relief that kept us from leaving the director behind, and the childlike wonder that reminded us that, despite having done this drive a thousand times, really, the Rockies are rather spectacular.
A few days later, Werner was sent on a run back to the office to get red and blue gels for the gaffer. He crashed through the storage room, located the gels, then spent half an hour gazing perplexedly at the rolls of acetate in his hands, but was too shy to explain to anyone that he had red/green colour blindness. So he ended up at set with the entire spectrum in his trunk.
In an effort to bring some class to the peasant wagon, the transit system in this city posts poems alongside ads for pregnancy crisis centers and Skittles. This rainy morning, crammed on the bus as though we were headed to downtown Tiajuana, I spotted a familiar poem from Suzanne Buffam:
I walked out into the early evening calm
and crossed the narrow street despite the sign
forbidding me to cross: Don’t Walk/Don’t Walk
Don’t Walk, its voice an angry orange glare
that stammered, steadied, held, and finally, broke
mid-sentence, as a man, watching a woman
walk away from him, across a narrow
side-street into darkness ,will finally break
his stare and blink up blindly at the light.
Fine, he’ll say (the flame burns white when hottest), walk.
I seem to recall workshopping this poem in a class on the long poem, but I could be wrong, memory serving itself rather than me lately. What I remember of that class was Ayaz’s thigh as he sat next to me, and how badly I wanted to place my hand there. His long poem was, fittingly, about desire. Peter assures me that Ayaz is fine, but I’d be happier if I knew he was anywhere but Texas. Like Vancouver. The fact is, were thigh and hand to meet, it would have been welcomed. I didn’t know this until years later when comparing crush notes with Ayaz the night before my thesis defense, but it remains as a "could have been", some unresolved business that perhaps will never be satiated.
There is no neat way to wrap this up except to say that (a) when in doubt, bring the lot and (b) the Rockies are spectacular. Oh, right, and then there’s that part about not allowing any current situations to end up as a "could have been". I’m still working on that.
Scattered thoughts. So many scattered thoughts. Such as: I sincerely hope that the swanky new Bruce store on Alberni is not an offshoot of Bruce Mau’s empire, because that’s just wrong on so many levels. What’s next? A specialized cologne for designers too? Is it not enough that they get the new VW Beetle and San Francisco (unless you’re Bruce Mau, in which case you can poo-poo SF and opt for the Big Smoke). Cough.
How did I get started on that? I really wanted to start on the greatness of today, and this cool moment from last night when I was walked to the elevator by the oft-mentioned fellow, who had to dash back to his cousin’s birthday party, and so didn’t think to slip on shoes. Just as the elevator doors were closing, in an act to rival Indiana Jones, he slipped his hand through to stop the door, stepped in, clasped my head, kissed my cheek, and stepped back out again. The door closed before I could react. So my 29-flight ride down to the awaiting cab was smirky.
Every morning, I have to ride past the Catholic private school that trounced our asses in independent school league basketball. Every morning, I’m reminded of the coach’s cliched phrase "look alive out there!"
But even before I cycle past the Catholic private school, much before, while I’m still in bed listening to CBC Radio, and while the news plays of the daily count of cyclists who have been hit by the great motorists of the city, I cringe at the thought of getting on my bicycle and heading off to work, knowing full well today could be the day that my dog and I end up on the hood of someone’s car. And every day, at least one slow-moving truck cuts me off or a scattered motorist decides to turn right at the last second. I keep thinking I’m tempting fate, that with every morning’s ride downhill from Broadway to Terminal I’m one day closer to the accident. This is my logic behind fearing plane flights now: the more often you fly, the more times out of a million you're using up, thus increasing your chances of being on the flight that goes down.
Across the continent, an equally swell evening was had here, but I must ask: what’s with the phones? It gives the whole place the ambiance of a prison visiting room. I spied around in a non-stalker fashion, gauging the number of photos that contain either (a) cleavage (b) kissing (c) Tremble (d) all of the above.
I have one photo of (a), taken at the Railway Club with Liane (angel) on one side of me and Helen (devil) on the other side. I was wearing a black wig, we had just come from the DSK show. It was a good night. I’ve lost this photo somewhere, if you have it, please send it to me.
And I now have two more photos of (c). Glasses! How cute is that!
I have two photos of (b), both involving Christian. One was taken in the Place des Arts metro station, days after arriving in Montreal. While waiting, we slipped into a photo booth and took these shots in this order: smiling, serious, smirking, kissing. A few hours later, he flew back to Vancouver and I attempted to drive home from the airport, but had to pull over because I was too devastated to drive. The other is from New Years, three, maybe four years later. We had been snowed in at his uncle’s in Langley, and as the clock struck over, his sister caught us in the kitchen. This photo is more about warmth, less about passion. Still, I find it strange enough to be caught in photos at all, let alone photos in which I’m kissing someone. That the camera could attempt to capture that moment of connection. They are treasured reminders of the everyday events that are not caught on film: gazing up from the newspaper to watch him fry bacon in his underwear on Saturday mornings, cursing the sear of popping grease on his chest but too concerned about achieving the perfect level of bacon crispness to run to the bedroom to get a shirt.
Or the moment you first can look at someone in a new way, that way, and realize that you could possibly stop reading for a moment, or stop the ritual of must-see-tv, just stop everything that passively points you in the direction of being satisfied with being alone, and start looking alive out there.
So, this isn't a certainty, but the oft-mentioned fellow may be moving. He'll find out in a few days, and if it's on, he'll be gone by this time next week. This news came over after-work drinks, at which point my attraction to him escalated tenfold (a) because he was taking the initiative in changing his fortunes for the better and (b) he's about to leave! This is one of the best aphrodisiacs going: the leaving. After two Kilkenny, I was about to walk him home, about to get to that business of the first kiss, about to finish the last few sips of my drink and deal with the aforementioned points of action when he pulled on his jacket, made apologies for bringing me for a drink and then bolting, then bolted. Huh? Damn. Someone should rip all copies of The Tao of Steve off the video rental shelves so guys won't be aware of the "be desireless, be brilliant, be gone" mantra, which really sort of (and I hate to admit this) works. I reiterate: damn.
Something bad: today was perhaps not the best day for me to realize that, during the translation from Word PC to Word Mac, a four sentence paragraph from my three day novel was lost, thus rendering meaningless the entire following section.
Something good: during lunch hours at the animation studio, we watch cartoons. Yabadabadoo!
There should be a follicle treatment that, while washing away grey hair, restores grey matter.
(Sorry, in hindsight, today being Thursday, I realize how much I dislike this sort of non-sequitur in the blogs of other folks, and so, an explanation: something had been rejected. Rejection sucks. Yet, wallflowering sucks worse. So, after a few days of wallowing in self-pity, I'll bounce back.)
Yesterday afternoon: a matinee of the new Lynch with the oft-mentioned fellow. No handholding, but closeness, until the gratuitous lesbian scene followed by gratuitous masturbation scene, during which much shifting in our seats occurred. Then we walked through fall leaves, and I left him off at his aunt's. I'm still not sure what I'm doing here, in this situation, dropping innuendoes with this fellow because I'm really quite on about not mixing business with pleasure (unless I'm at the Montreal Film Festival, in which case business is my pleasure). Moreover, what I am doing dropping innuendoes when I'm not even sure if I'm serious or just mucking about with the innuendos themselves. I suppose I'll never know my level of seriousness unless I...well, until I kiss him.
This is not such a strange thing for me, and the first kiss has proven to be a deal-maker or deal-breaker in the past. It's like the High Fidelity test of taste in music -- these characteristics point to likes and dislikes in other areas. And it comes down to how you're going to spend a Sunday afternoon: making out on the living room floor in a sleepy ray of sunshine to Bowery Electric? Or watching the golf channel after steaks at the Keg?
From where does this first kiss mentality stem? The 80s oeuvre of John Hughes, of course. Why, just this afternoon, I swooned over the first kiss between Eric Stoltz and the boyish blonde drummer girl in Some Kind of Wonderful. 30something guys can thank John Hughes for messing with the romantic scale of an entire generation of women. Every film he cranked out in the 80s (with the exception of anything starring John Candy or Chevy Chase) dealt with this idealized teenage love, in which a single kiss between friends sparks lurf of the highest calibre. In that one moment of holy palmers kiss, their relationship is forever altered from "going nowhere" to "going around".
But I can't place the blame entirely on the shoulders of Mr. Hughes. There were other contributing factors to the mess that is my version of natural selection. Here are a few:
The Outsiders
Single-handedly responsible for all the musicians I've ever dated. This film, in which Greasers are idolized and Soc's condemned, boasts an all-star cast of hotties, the likes of which has never since been duplicated. Our two heroes, Ponyboy and Johnny, shiv a former teen star in the playground, yet they remain heroes, merely misguided at worst, and really, Leif Garrett had it coming. He was wearing madras, after all. Oh how I cried when Ralph Macchio, burned like a campfire weenie and flaking bits of char, died in the hospital, harnessed upside down, followed by Matt Dillon, hollow chest exposed, losing it in the street. Includes Tom Waits! This, along with the John Hughes films, began the early basic teachings of the deconstructionist binary system, in which poor=good, rich=bad and first kiss=last kiss. Stay Gold.
Battle of the Planets
Otherwise known as G-Force. Okay, so it was animated and so my crushes on the characters were marked with an element of the pathetic, but I was still in the magic age where there is little distinction between reality and anime. The premise of the show: five orphaned teenagers possess a spaceship called the Phoenix and special endomorphic skills that allow them to change into bird-based superhumans to save the earth on a daily basis from the Zoltar and The Lumious Spirit. This show posed the classic good boy/bad boy binary with Mark as the angelic leader of the pack and the hot-headed, brooding Jason as his Number Two. Both had the chiseled good-looks that only a pencil can provide and their bird forms - Eagle for Mark, Hawk for Jason - were just so damn manly. Though Jason never really dated, I mean, who has time with all that earth-saving to do, Mark was the ever-loyal boyfriend to Princess, the only girl crew member, which is where he showed his true colours. Rounding out the G-Force five were Keyop, a gangly test-tube produced kid who was about as sexy as Tom Green when he was still in Organized Rhyme; and Tiny, the ship fatty who was too damn lazy to ever leave the Phoenix and who was always falling asleep from carbohydrate overdoses due to his addiction to spaceburgers. Given no other viable options than Mark and Jason, already my girly head was mixed up with this equation: leader=good=blonde=dull vs. second in command=rebellious=brunette=damn sexy!
Battlestar Gallactica
Captain Apollo and his sidekick Starbuck leading a ragtag team of ships through the galaxy in search of a home. Once again, the good boy/bad boy duo was presented in classic form: Apollo, leader of the Blue Squadron, was a man of faith and peace who lovingly provided for his annoying son Boxey and robot dog Muffit. While Apollo is given a love interest in Sheba, they are the intergalactic version of Desi and Lucy, never even sharing the same bed. Starbuck, on the other hand, second in command, rebellious, a gambler (for shame!), by all accounts a smoocher of interstellar repute.
I'm trying to break this old habit, and have been getting better. After the dating experiences of my 20s, I realize that bad=bad and good=good, rich or poor, and that hair colour has little to do with it. That said, the first kiss still comes into play. I haven't grown out of that lesson from Hughes, and hope I never will.
Eureka! Last night, while awaiting the flamenco show with Mark and his daughter Ellie, I spied a dog on wheels across Cambie Street. Immediately, I was tossing on my jacket, furling on the birthday scarf (hand knit by Liane, and hands down the best scarf I've ever owned), and mad-dashing across Cambie to get the goods on the dog on wheels. The apparatus is made by a company in Washington State, and they have a way to convert it so that the dog can still use the back legs but is supported by a doggie girdle. Hurrah! After it took Leck and I thirty minutes to walk four blocks to the store this morning for croissants, I think investigation into the wheel contraption might be in order.
Addition to yesterday's entry: Nipples count for nothing, and the plan will not cover any medical expenses arising from insurrection or voluntary participation in a riot. While the Swedish side of me smokes an inner pipe and puts my inner clog-clad feet up on the inner couch, the Croatian side of me seethes with Balkan bitterness at this clause in my medical coverage. Sranje!
(Did that seem like a bad Mini-Wheats commercial?)
Today at work I received my health plan guide, complete with break-down of payouts for body parts. Strange that losing one foot and one hand pay in full whereas losing either your sight or hearing cashes in at only half of the maximum. I haven't necessarily been in either position (can I say I haven't walked a mile in the shoe(s) of a man with only one foot?), but I think I'd rather lose the hand/foot combo than my sight. But only if I could pick the hand and foot. Would I trade my right hand for hearing? Wait, let's not forget my newly acquired stack of CDs. I can always press the play button on my CD player with my nose or my left hand.
I remember walking home from elementary school on the days we'd been given life insurance guides like this, and we'd ooh and aah over how much cash we'd score if we lost a big toe or blew one eardrum. There was a guy named Brad who lived down the cul-de-sac (oh, how that is about to take on a new meaning as I move to the next point in the story) who had testicular cancer and lost one, but I don't remember anything like that being on the list of payouts. But wouldn't that surely be at least as worthy as a big toe in the great monetary scheme of bodily parts?
A few years back, when I was working at the Georgia Straight, a co-worker was recounting a moment when he was almost run down by a slow-driving John on the kiddy stroll, and how disappointed in himself he was at the moment he slammed his fist on the hood of the John's sedan and did his best Ratzo Rizzo impression because in that split second, he realized he could have rolled up the hood of the car, faked an injury, and settled for a handsome sum right there and then on the curb because, really, here's a John on the prowl for a 14 year-old prostitute.
Tomorrow I'm going back through that guide and I'm going to price out the cost of one nipple. Just curious.
Cainer has this to say to Geminis today: "The sky now speaks of your ability to produce something impressive out of thin air."
Sometimes this man is so bang-on that it's frightening, especially in word choice on the verb. This morning, I didn't think David and I were going to be able to pull our shit together on our NSI application in time for FedEx at 3 pm (note: I'm both producing and writing the film, hence the creepiness factor on the word choice). As of this minute, I'm waiting on one sure-thing reference letter, and a signature on a cheque. That's it! Everything else is printed and ready for posting.
This pleasantry on the tail end of a stack of new CDs. I'm so wired right now after the rush of paperwork (oh, cheque just got signed) that I'm not even going to need the packet of Sour Patch Kids currently on my desk to get me through the afternoon. Look, it's 2 o'clock already!
