Not to wax nostalgic, but yesterday was a perfect prairie winter day. The fresh snow on the trees, softened by the sun, dusted off branches as we drove west to Elbow Falls. Apparently, I’d been there as a child, but after we continued on past the Bragg Creek Trading Post, my memory hit a spanner. The Trading Post was always the demarcation of my childhood – nothing beyond that line past the place where we bought Creamsicles in the summer and gazed at snowshoes where they hung from the ceiling in the winter. Elbow Falls was fifteen minutes west of that. Brother #1 was quick to get the campfire lit while my niece Kirsten and I searched the riverbed for skipping rocks. Every stone was a right candidate. We roasted weenies until our toes lost feeling, my old-timey boots doing little to stave off the cold, then let the fire die and packed up. My dog is obsessed with the snow, will spend every waking moment outside digging – at Elbow Falls he dug until his front feet bled.
Then into the hamlet of Bragg Creek for a quick drive past the childhood home. “Are your memories of this place good or bad?” asked my dad. And sure, those were breaking times for our family, but mostly I remember watching colts being broken in at the ranch, Cuban Lunches in the hayloft, the rush of the release from the rope when swinging into the swimming hole, and Suzie Wilton slapping the back of my hand every time she caught me chewing my eraser in class. It is the fondest era of my childhood, the place outside the city where we ran like feral kids all summer long.
We stopped at the crossroads for pie and I priced out real estate. I’m not ready for that sort of settling down yet, but I could easily come back to this place, stack firewood next to my unibomber shack by the Elbow river and stock Creamsicles in my freezer for my nieces and nephew. In a few years, maybe.
The Classic -- 3 strips of bacon, 2 eggs any style, served with deep fried Breakfast Cubes, toast & jam. Substitute ham or beef sausages at no extra charge...$5.49
Like sand through the hourglass, so is this day in my life.
* Script: 75% done, but I'm worried about the exceptionally late placement of the act break. Let's just say I'm deconstructing the form by putting the crisis two pages before the resolution on an 18 page script.
* Christmas shopping: 75% done, as long as I can swing this for my youngest niece (who also happens to be my goddaughter).
* Packing: 0% done.
* Organizing Karim's stay in my place: I'm hoping this is at 100%, but will allow a 2% margin of error for the things I forgot to tell him. Like that the severed hands in the freezer are meant to be there because my dog's on a new diet.
* Eggnog Lattes: I've only had one so far, and as this is the actual best part of this season, I think I have about sixteen more coming to me.
* Cheer: Not only did they throw us a party that cost in the ballpark of $25,000, my bosses slipped gift certificates to A&B into our cards. LARGE gift certificates, and by large I don't mean a physical size akin to Ed McMahon novelty cheques.
* Tapes for the drive: I'm at 11 tapes, thankful to have found my Leonard Cohen/Lloyd Cole and Police Regatta de Blanc/Outlandos D'Amour double "album" tapes. These will make for smooth drivin' through the Rockies.
* Reading I've promised to do: 50% done. Still. Bear with me, I'm almost on vacation.
From this month's Vanity Fair, an article on the use of cellphones during the Current Situation by Henry Porter:
On the morning of January 5, 1996, Ayyash -- nicknamed "the Engineer" -- was hiding out in the maze of slum dwellings in Beit Laahiya, at the northern end of the Gaza Strip. He had been told to expect a call. When his cell phone rang, an associate named Osama Hamad handed the phone to Ayyash, who began to speak, brushing aside his father's worries about Israeli surveillance. "I told him that we don't want to talk on this phone," said his father at the time. "But he said we could talk. When I told him 'No' again, he asked, 'How are you?'" At that moment nearly two ounces of high explosive packed into the phone detonated. Half of Ayyash's head was blown off, together with his hand. He died instantly, giving the likely architects of this operation, Israel's Shin Bet security service, cause to celebrate. The Engineer had been one of their wiliest foes, and the plan to insinuate the phone into Ayyash's household and set it off while he was using it required exceptional intelligence work. The phone belonged to his associate Hamad, and it is thought that it was lethally adapted during the period when Hamad lent it to an uncle of his, who, it turned out, had connections with the Israeli military. What is certain is that once the phone was back in Hamad's possession, his uncle rang on the landline to the house and told him to expect a call on the cell phone. Very soon afterward Israeli agents blocked the landline so that all calls would have to go through the cell. At the same time, they must have been monitoring the cell phone, because they had to be sure that it was Ayyash speaking before they detonated the explosives. When they heard his voice they triggered the detonator by means of a radio signal which is believed to have come from a plane flying overhead. By any standards, it was coordination of a very high order indeed.
Last night, after losing a lung but gaining a newfound appreciation for old school Pond while jogging, I came home to find an infomercial on the telly (I leave the TV on for my dog) for Body By Jake’s 3-minute workout. Damn, if only I’d known I could rock my way to shapely thighs and buns in just 3 minutes, I’d…huh? Wait a second, how is that physically possible? What about the sweat? The toil? The gruel? I thought cutting exercise down to 20 minutes was indicative of our on-the-go society, but now it’s been slashed to a meager 3 minutes.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather run for 3 minutes than 20, but I’m worried about this downsizing of physical exertion spilling over into other realms of our lives. For example, will my sister-in-law be running block-a-thons in the near future? Will the commercial-break-couch-to-bathroom dash become a major Olympic sport? Mostly, though, I’m worried that guys will reduce their concept of "ten minutes" to "two".
So, on my way home after a pint with the bosses. While awaiting the #3 Main, I struck up a conversation with the Keanu Reeves cutie at the stop. He was pulling items from a clear plastic bag -- his cellphone, which had the battery taken out; his earring, which he put back on again; his shoelaces. Wait. His shoelaces? Oh, damn. The plastic bag should have been enough of a tip, but as I glanced down I saw, sure enough, his trainers were minus laces. It was then that I realized that this particular stop for the #3 Main is across the street from the cop shop, and that this cutie had just posted bail.
Having siblings is a strange thing, innit? I mean, take Alexis and her brother Dan -- born 10 months apart, they wore the same clothes (not at the same time), shared the same friends, went to the same parties. Granted, their lives are quite different now, she's married and raising two excellent kids while he's bachelor #1, but for awhile there, they were completely in synch. On the flipside, I have cousins who have such a Springer-esque sibling relationship that the rest of the family shakes their heads in awe.
And while I may refer to a certain brother of mine in less-than-glowing terms, it doesn't negate the fact that I love the guy, and would land a solid punch to the mouth to anyone who referred to him in the same terms. This is the hidden bond between siblings, that we can tear each other down yet defend each other to the hilt. And I'm not just making this up to cover my ass because this brother is pissed with me right now, though his being pissed at me sparked this train of thought.
A few days ago, he told me that he figures I'll go far with this whole writing for TV thing. As soon as I got off the phone, I called my mom and recounted the conversation because I was so honored to hear such high praise from him. So while we put up fronts that we're not really interested in each other's opinion, his opinion of me is more important than most in my family for the sheer fact that he so rarely gives it. Apparently, and I had no idea about this, my opinion of him is equally important and/or damaging to him.
I don't think we'll ever be the kind of siblings who travel together or lunch or go shoe shopping. We're the kind who take the piss out of each other, and sometimes we push things across that line where the barbs sorta hurt. But it keeps us on our toes, and reminds us to be kinder the next time around.
For as much as I whine and moan about certain things -- like not being sent out the door in the morning with a kiss and a pat on the bum, or having to pay full rent because I'm single -- it all becomes relative when faced with an event like the one last night when Mark and I semi-crashed Rene and Sarah's party (only semi because we were invited in thought but no one had our numbers). Rene and Sarah are understated activists and a damn cool couple with a record collection worth covetting and snaps of the Belle & Sebastian concert tacked up on the bathroom wall. (Oh, Stuart, I remember when you struck that pose. Oh, Richard full of good intentions and Stevie, into rock'n'roll). We arrived to find a hamper of baby clothes and bathroom basics in the living room -- a silent santa package for a single mom and her 16-month old daughter. We spent the evening snacking on surprisingly tasty vegan cheese and wrapping presents. Paying full rent? Fwuh, I can handle it.
Is dropping your email address the new route to dating? We'll find out shortly, for email addresses were dropped last night -- one on Dr. Jeff and another on a Quebecois named Alain who was more of a geek than me and logged it directly into his cellphone. This was at the end of the night, after Mark and I had swung by Kino for amazing antipasto and rather lame flamencking, and also after we had crashed the Christmas party of one of the other animation companies and came to the realization that I work in the most superior gene pool going. No, email addresses were dropped at the Railway, long after I missed the opportunity of leaving the first email note with the Chris Weitz lookalike who sat at the bar at Kino, conveniently in the shy-lookaway eyeline of the massive poster for Jacques Tati's Mon Oncle.
Today, and this in no way makes up for my lack of spine on the Chris Weitz lookalike situation, I stumbled into a bakery on 4th and found that they make the perfect canoli. Right here in Vancouver. AND, when I woke up this morning, there was a mandarin orange in my jacket pocket. How great is that?
Egads! The wind was up to 100 km per hour last night and I think the whole city managed about a 1/2 hours worth of sleep. The only adjective to describe my patio and alley is "strewn". The ferries are canceled, power lines are down, and drivers are muddled in confusion because the lights at intersections have blown clear around their cables so they face the wrong way. In fact, the wind was so strong that my toilet bowl water was breaking whitecaps. I’m not kidding. And my poor gimpy dog was gusted over this morning while trying to pee.
Make-up tip for blustery days: long hair + lip gloss + wind = frustration.
Wait a second, was that just me writing about the weather? Did I just, yet again, mention my dog? That’s it, this self-inflicted hiatus must come to an end. I think you know what I mean.
"There is a reason for everything, and it is [one's] duty to try to discover it." – Ralph Nelson Elliot.
His Babinski's reflex had tested positive – large toe arcing to the overhead lights as the doctor on housecall stroked the bottom of his foot. Certainly the ailment could have been diagnosed by his inability to hold down the simplest of meals: boiled rice and plantains washed down with weak tea. This had been his diet during sicklier times in Guatamala; happier times. The pernicious anemia would leave him bedridden, in and out of a conscious state, dreaming of the ebb and flow of human emotion and activity; how the ubiquitous laws of nature can pull entire economies to the ground.
I think I may still be drunk. I think I just uttered the phrase "I’d like to be the meat in that sandwich" and I’m not really shaped like bologna.
Anyway, let me say that I think the indicator of true friendship is when someone understands your pop culture references. Case in point, throughout the course of last night, people kept asking me where my dog was. Does this seem as retarded to you as it does to me? There are myriad things to talk to me about besides the whereabouts of my dog, mostly because he was at the Feldman/Characters Christmas party being surly in a corner with Matthew Good. So, I’m talking with Mark and Alan Levin, one of the writers, after yet another person has asked about the dog and I say "I couldn’t bring Lecky to a party, he’d be underfoot. I should get him his own MasterBlaster get-up." Mark immediately knew I meant my dog needs an overpumped Down Syndrome kid to carry him around on his shoulders. Alan was alone in the dark.
On the subject of 80s movies, I had my own John Hughes moment last night when I walked in to the restaurant. I haven’t yet met the executive story editor for one of the shows in development, but I know his name (Jono) and I knew that, apparently, he’s an attractive guy. How did I know this? When Beth was pulling together the invite list for our Christmas party, I gave her the info on all the writers, including Jono. "Mmmm," she said, "We like Jono." So when I walked in the restaurant last night, and stepped up to the bar, and while waiting for my drink, I glanced around the room and spotted three men in suits and black-framed glasses at one table. I knew right away that the one in the middle, the handsome one, was Jono. How did I know this? Flashback 20 –odd years ago, when I was in Grade Eight, perhaps Grade Nine. The North Van track meet was at our high school, and I remember going down to the field to watch my jock friends compete when I saw this teenaged god tossing javelin. I knew he was from Handsworth by the cut of his jib, and so I scanned the roster of Handsworthian javelin tossers. There were three or four, but I remember seeing the name Jono, and thinking, cool name, cute guy, they must go together.
They go together. The show in question, the one he’ll be executive story editing, runs from January 2002 to February 2003. If I haven’t mentioned it yet today, can I say how much I love my job.
I’m also pleased that I never suffer from insomnia, though, while I’m sleeping, I often dream about the things I could accomplish by not wasting so much time in a dormant state. But Mark assures me that insomniacs spend those hours wishing they could get some damn sleep. I’m almost narcoleptic in my ability to fall asleep at a moment’s notice. At any given time, providing there’s space enough on the floor, I could be sound asleep within five minutes. Four if the space provided is on a bed with down comforter.
Today, this is working against me. I’m so dopey in snooziness that I’m unable to hold the simplest of conversations. I’m thinking about sliding into the gym and curling up on a yoga mat, but then it occurs to me that someone’s bare foot may have been there before me, so I’m more likely to end up napping on my boss’ leather couch.
In any event, I need a nap. I’m in desperate need of a nap. I’m drinking coffee at 3:00 to stave off my need for a nap, but it’s not working. I’ve tried glasses of water, and it’s sort of keeping me awake because I have to pee so much, but I’ve had to stop the water for fear I’ll doze off, and wake to find my face plastered against my desk and my coworkers handing over samplers of Depends. So now I’m on to coffee.
Tonight is our company Christmas party, and thus the crux of the napless state. I’m not planning on drinking too much, but I’m worried about staying awake if I don’t. Thankfully, my date is big enough to carry me around if I slump off to my own private idaho for awhile, and less thankfully, the oft-mentioned fellow is burning in his own private hell so I won’t have to have energy to deal with that situation. And I’ve managed to figure out what I’m going to wear (this was accomplished at 7:00 this morning when, in a flash of brilliance, I remembered the vintage black Hepburn – Audrey, not Katherine – dress that my ex-friend Helen gave me two years ago and which, when on, eliminated all of my "I feel fat" issues from yesterday’s televised interview of me and my apparent goiter). Now if I can just stay awake long enough to sort out my hair and lipstick…
I'm most pleased when my adult-onset dyslexia provides me with moments of humour. Why, just in the last hour, I've managed to create the following gems:
1. Instead of typing "turn" during a line of the animatic script, I wrote "at every twist and turd..."
2. While reading another script, my brain altered the word "plans" so that the sentence read, "I'm going to have to accelerate my pants."
I was interviewed this morning for a local cable show. Previous to this, I didn’t think it was possible to slip the word "format" into a sentence 16 times, but I managed to pull that off today. "Format" isn’t as versatile as, say, "fuck", which can function as verb, noun, adverb, and adjective; still, the word "format" was stuck on a loop in my brain and I must have sounded like Rainman. No matter, I rocked the same style I wore to the Hives show, mostly because I glanced over my wardrobe this morning and realized I have nothing that’s camera-friendly. So I wore RED. This is a cardinal sin (see that self-proclaimed wittiness? so subtle, so sly…why can’t I pull that off when a camera is in my face?). Plus, I while giving props to the company that lets me write scripts, I forgot to give props to them for letting me bring my dog to work.
The segment is "a day in the life" but they only stuck with me for ten minutes, and seven minutes of that was a faked scene wherein the producer of the animated series and I shuffled through the storyboard for my episode. I felt like a fraud, like those actors who play doctors who champion certain cold remedies when really all they ever take is time off and a hot bath. Certainly my adoring audience will see through the façade?! Letters will come spilling in, exclaiming "and what of the time she spends updating thing fall apart?" or "why didn’t we see her eating tuna salad on toasted brown at her desk? I mean her REAL desk, not the clean one in the private office that she sat at for the purposes of looking important?"
If the last trip to the 4th floor was any indication, the remainder of my day today, the part that’s not going to be shown on cable tv, will be comprised of my 50 brother-substitutes here at work poking me in the ribs and asking if I’m famous yet. I’ll try to give them my best Kate Hudson.
Sucess: The ahi-tuna sandwich I had for dinner. Rare.
Failure: My attempt to rent either O.C. & Stiggs or Tim Burton's Vincent from Black Dog Video. They are also lacking a copy of How's Your News.
Success: The (International) Noise Conspiracy & The Hives show this very evening! Such showmanship! Such footwork! Such matching outfits! Such Swedish sensibility! Sometimes, when I see men like the two lead singers of these bands, I realize just how much I adore men, to the extent that, well, I would like to trade bodies. Just for a day, mind you. But for a day, I'd be able to flail about like these two, straight from the Jon Spencer school of stage shimmying. I could to climb to the balcony level, or leap from tall amp stacks in tight cigarette leg jeans. It would be a day of good rock hair, stubble, and no breasts. Yah, I'd like a day of that. Just a day, mind you.
Failure: The Smugglers as the middle act between these two Swedish powerhouses. It was like putting limp lettuce between two slabs of stek mackerel (that's all the Swedish I know, beyond Ikea). Mackerel steak.
Success: MontrealPaul was able to land a flight to NYC on Monday for $299CDN plus taxes on Cathay Pacific. He's off to interview DJ Krush. I'm putting in my request for more Origins Pinch Your Cheeks, currently not available in Canada. Though, for $299CDN plus taxes, I'm thinking maybe I should just go pick it up myself.
Today's task is a short script for the new animated series
Penned in rhyming couplets and the tone must be eerie.
Okay, okay, my chops are rusty, my rhyming elementary. Coffee is on the boil and so I'll be duly wired soon. I'm awaiting word from Mark. Last night, there was a thinly-veiled attempt to set Mark up with a friend of Nicky's. This wasn't my intention off the top -- but when I saw that she was not an unreasonable candidate, chairs were shifted, seating plans reallocated, and they began to chat. Nicky and I exchanged invisible high-fives as though we were old school yentas.
Later though, and even today, I felt strange about the set up. I imagine it must be like that first day of school, when you watch your child enter the elementary school doors. You know they'll be okay, but you can't help wishing you could go along too, just to make sure everything is running along smoothly. In this case though, had I jumped in the car with Mark and this girl, I may have landed in yet another situation. So, I'm at home, awaiting word.
I've tried to set Liane up as well. That went well at first, then took a turn for the bizarre. Thing is, I question my own choices where dating is concerned, so I'm not quite sure I should be subjecting my friends to my choices either. I have these amazing single people in my life who deserve love. They also deserve no-strings-attached sex, but more importantly they deserve love. So I'm awaiting word, thinking in rhyming couplets, watching yet another John Hughes teenage rom-com, and hoping that Judd Nelson has found his Molly Ringwald.
If you’ve been following Canadian news, more specifically, British Columbian news, and I know you have because, really, what else is going on in the world right now besides sports, then you’ll know that we have a bit of a health care crisis up here. (I say up here, because, according to my sources, you live in the States). It’s not that we’re not healthy physically, it’s that we’re not healthy financially, and so nurses and the fine folks who work in our hospitals are getting paid less and less. Yes, we have free medical, and that makes my Swedish socialist genes glow with pride, but when the system means that the equal rights for everyone are equally crappy rights, then the system needs an icy stethascope to the heart.
I came face to cold face with our health care crisis this morning when I had to whisk my mom off to Emergency. She’d been diagnosed with TB about two weeks ago, TB which she had caught as a child, fought off, then which reappeared after a bout of E Coli food poisoning from the (otherwise good) sushi restaurant that I had chosen for a family dinner two years ago. Sidebar: brother #2 likes the place with the floating boats, and, as a hypochondriac, food placed on boats that float around a large table scares me. Who knows where that food has been? Someone may have sneezed on the ebi, or, touched the unagi with their feet as it passed out of my line of vision.
Back to ER…my sickly mother and I padded through the doors this morning, and were greeted by the surly sunshine of a disgruntled gay male nurse. As my lesbian pal Nicky says, why is it that there are these stereotypes out there to drag the whole community down? Mr. Surlyhospitalpants had the audacity to make my mother feel bad about feeling bad – "how dare you come into Emergency," was tone as he informed her that SOME people had been waiting upwards of six hours to see a doctor. Is that supposed to make her feel healthy all of a sudden? Then, when she informed him she was having an adverse reaction to her TB medicine, he did it again: "Well, you’re SUPPOSED to be wearing a mask". Not the golightly tone of "Oh my, I’ll have to ask you to wear a mask" or the throbbingdisco tone of "You will survive, but I’m going to have to get you a mask", but three-snaps-in-the-air-and-a-hand-on-the-hip cockiness of "I can’t believe you haven’t asked for a mask, you inconsiderate bitch."
After Surlyhospitalpants, we were taken into a waiting room where we were introduced to Intern Letmecheckmyguidebook. He began by taking my mother’s pulse (already taken by Surlyhospitalpants), then, he stood back and said "Hmmm…what should I check next?" Perhaps the medical schools in our province might want to add a new course to their curriculum: Premed 101 – Internalized Thoughts (and How to Keep ‘Em Inside). Letmecheckmyguidebook was pleasant, I’ll give him that much. And sorta cute.
Next, the ambulance driver started my mom’s IV (short-staffed are our hospitals) but blew through her vein. I’m not too fond of needle play, so when he blew her vein, I nearly blew my coffee. I had to walk away, which left me open prey for the jokes of the ambulance drivers. Fine, fine, I’ll just never be a junkie. Or diabetic. Or blood doner. Or sick or pregnant or anything that would require an IV. Mean.
So, as my mom was off for a chest X-ray with a ridiculous Harold the Duck mask on, Intern Letmecheckmyguidebook arrived with news from my mom’s TB specialist. Turned out she doesn’t have TB, that the tests picked up the old childhood TB but it isn’t active, and that she was meant to be tested for histoplasmosis. "What’s histoplasmosis?" I asked. Intern Letmecheckmyguidebook searched his brain, shuffling through the flashcards of his memory, shifting in his Weejuns, then came up blank. "Thanks," he joked "I’ll have to go look it up."
My mom is home now, and fine, thanks. I’ll drop by later with soup and gravol and the BC Health Care Guide, a 300-page health manual that our provincial government must have spent millions on to publish and mail to each resident of the province in an effort to keep us out of the emergency rooms. She could use some Dickensian kindling to keep her warm during these dark times.
Is it possible that I got up in the middle of the night to snort finely minced smoked ham? Everything smells of smoked ham today, and I seem to be suffering from hammy nasal drip down the back of my throat. You know what I mean. This ham snorting may be accountable for the strange dreams I had last night, like the one where I argued with myself that Snoop Doggy Dogg and Jay-Z ripped their whole izzle/izo thing off from the Bill Cosby pudding pop commercials. Or the other dream where, again, I argued with myself that kids today are lacking the television catch phrases of my youth – highly usable phrases like "Dynomite!" and "whatchu talkin’ ‘bout?"
This all stems from the fact that, when I went to climb into bed last night, I was shocked to find that my otherwise excellent dog had crapped on my bed. I hadn’t done anything to provoke this yesterday – he’d been walked properly, not denied affection, and I hadn’t even mentioned the trigger word "poop". (He’s become so Pavlovian of late that the simple mention of the act triggers the act itself). In any event, we need therapy. He needs it, well, because he has issues. He crapped on my bed. I need it because, upon discovering the doodie, I caught myself saying, "I can’t believe you did this? Do I poo on your bed? Noooooo."
There have been few instances in my life wherein a guy has done something cool enough to bring about actual gasping and jaw-dropping (outside of the bedroom). I think I can count these events on one hand, and though they are few and far between, I'm pleased that they exist at all. Here is a random selection, ordered not by weight of impact nor necessarily by chronology.
1. The day after Valentine's Day, 1985, Grade Nine. My locker happened to be on the bottom floor of my highschool, between the girls' and guys' locker rooms. This, normally, was a less than ideal placement for a locker -- down the sunless hallway which forever stunk of athletic supporters, across the hall from the no-neck weight lifting room, and just a few feet away from the Krueger-esque chalk-brush-cleaning machine room under the stairs. It would have been less than ideal had it not been for its close proximity to the lockers of Grade Eleveners Dave (basketball team captain) and Jason (assistant captain). Thus, my locker became the hangout spot for my entire gang of Grade Nine non-Heather hipster friends. On Valentine's day, we had a tradition of sending secret admirer candygrams -- for a dollar, you could fill out a candygram for anyone in the school -- students, teachers, the counselor who frequented the stoner smoke pit more than the Slayer crowd -- and peppy student union folk would ensure that your missive reached its pubescent target. So, a week before Valentine's, my pal Jen and I decided it was time to take fate into our hands by sending an anonymous candygram to Dave and Jay. Well, not entirely anonymous. In our Grade Nine wisdom, we thought we'd send it cryptically: to D&J, (wait for it...) from D&J. Later in the afternoon, after the candygrams had been delivered, Jen and I and the rest of our gang waited at my locker, unable to exhale, until we saw the Stan Smiths of Dave and Jay start the descent to the lower lockers. We were so nervous, we couldn't even giggle. Dave and Jay went to their lockers, extracted their backpacks, and strolled past us to gear up for basketball practice. Not even a wink of recognition. My teenaged girl heart crumpled. But wait, don't cry for me argentina, for the next day, when I opened my locker, a letter fell upon the chalky linoleum. With two small hearts drawn in the upper right hand corner, and two larger hearts over a basketball at the bottom, the letter read:
"Dear D. and Jen, Thanx alot for the Valentine's thoughts. A cookie helps the algebra go down. You can understand our surprise and belated greatings [sic -- come on, the guy was the captain of the basketball team, he's allowed the odd typo], but we hope you had a fun (?!) Valentines day (sure you had a laugh). Sincerely hope to meet you at parties in the future; we heard "Angela Morton's" on Saturday (Hint Hint!) We'll see! We're anxious to meet the two of your and all your friends -- who probably laughed at you for sending the card. Till then, hang loose. D and J (sounds familiar)"
Besides his use of parentheticals, Dave won me over with his handwriting -- old school g's and a's. Anyway, within six months, by the time we were in Grade Ten, Dave and Jay and their whole basketball team were dating the girls of my grade, so the ice had been broken, the novelty gone; still, I have this letter to remind me of that jaw-dropping moment. In fact, my mom thought it was so cute that she took it to work and had it laminated (she does not work at Kinko's).
2. Phillipe of the strong C-curvature and the blood episode. You'll have to buy me a stiff drink before I can get relaxed enough to spill this one. {Addendum: this did happen in a bedroom, in fact, it happened in his grandmother's bedroom.]
3. Derek (credited on the IMDB as "the guy who broke my heart") used to leave small notes in my text books so I'd find them during boring lectures. The first time I realized this was his M.O., I was in the middle of a gerontology lecture on the proper architectural design of resthomes so as to not allow for patient decline. I cracked open my book to find "show your nipples to no one".
4. Then, this afternoon, as our email was down, enabling me to do little more than refine my layout for a pitch package to the Mother Corp., I did the round of the blogs that I read on a daily basis, taking pdfs of each (sorry) to drop in here and there on the pitch package. A little poking around led me to this. Hours later, and I still can't wipe the grin off my face.
About a year and a half ago, my mom went on a psychic binge. No, no, she didn't go psychotic, she just decided to explore the realm of divination by seeing first an astrologer, then a tarot card reader. After each session, she paid for me to go as well. My function was less about figuring out what I'm doing with my life, and more about acting as a bullshit meter. We'd cross-reference tidbits to see how reliable these gypsies really were.
The astrologer, Miriam, meets with clients in her bauhaus furnished apartment in Kerrisdale, so while sitting on an ergonomically correct German lounger, Miriam told me of my blocked chakra (and dammit if that word doesn't always make me spin out "I feel for you" in my head like some basement dance party circa 1982). I have an inherited thyroid problem, which isn't a problem per se, because I'm rather hypochondriacal when it comes to my thyroid, and am constantly at my doctor's slapping my arm like a downtown eastside junkie to find a vein so I can make certain that I'm not going to end up like my female cousins on my dad's side of the family -- ie. huge and hairy. When Eddie Murphy created that whole goonigoohoo skit, he was thinking of my female cousins on my dad's side of the family. So, I was curious about which chakra (khan) was blocked. Miriam hit the jackpot when she announced that it was my throat chakra, which had manifested itself as a blockage in my thyroid.
"Do hue hues a tootpast wid fleurride?" (she was French)
"Yes?"
"Ho, mon dieu, hue moost stop wid fleurride immediatement. Eet deestroy de tyroid."
Egads, within minutes of arriving home from my session with Miriam, all tubes of Crest, and toothbrushes which had ever been used to apply Crest, were tossed in the trash. Wait, no, I donated the toothpaste to the unibomber who lived out back (this was my old place in the crackhouse). Since then, I've been brushing exclusively with Vicco's Indian toothpaste (flavoured with anise) and have rarely taken tapwater. Not only am I protecting my thyroid, but Miriam assures me that cutting fluoride out of my life would help to open my throat chakra (let me rock you that's all I want to do), thus enabling me to communicate better.
While Miriam told me I wouldn't be settled with my mate until I'm 38, Ming, the tarot card reader, had an entirely different plan for me. I should be living in Germany with my teutonic doctor spouse raising our soon-to-be-born son and world-travelling with herr docktor. Well, first Ming said he was European, and I had to go and ask "which country", hoping for France or Spain or basically hoping for Turkey or Latvia before Germany. Alas, herr doktor did not surface. I don't mind. I still have Miriam's plan to fall back on. My parachute is coloured hopeful.
It's coming around to that time of the year when I bug my GP for a thyroid test. It's best to do this before Christmas, before the endless parade of eggnog and butter-based snacks and lazing on couches while going head-to-head with my nephew on his latest PS2 game. Before the standard five pound variance goes up, because otherwise the hypchondria kicks into full force, replacing visions of dancing sugar plums with fears of cottage cheese ass crammed into white stirrup pants. But I've been good with the fluoride, and I've started to notice a change in my blocked chakra (I feel for you): it's becoming easier for me to communicate when I'm displeased and dissatisfied with a situation. I did just that yesterday. Damn, that feels good.
The hellride about full hermitdom would be the lack of any take-out joint just around the corner. The joyride would be that no one would be able to cause such a burst of frustration adrenaline that I wouldn't be able to sleep. However, I suppose if I can be toyed with from 60,000 miles away, I can be just as easily reached in my unibomber shack. See, I can't even form sentences I'm so tired, and yet I have to push through the first of the Christmas parties this evening at the offices of British Columbia Film. Bring on the punch.
Thankfully, it's an easy day of voice record auditions...though, at this point, everyone is sounding the same. It's as if we've started the first annual "Quentin Crisp sound-alike" festival sans white scarves and feathered hats. However, there is enough gesticulation going on that the air is circulating properly, ensuring that we're not getting too sleepy on the leather couches of the sound record studio downstairs. Right-o then, pressing on. Ta.
I'm pleased with technology, for, as a result, I can order the simplest of things and have them delivered to my work address. Time not spent in a mall is time saved for more productive endeavors, which includes anything other than spending time in a mall. Case in point -- I now have 8 more pairs of these:
Note to self: try not to write nor send emails while under the sweet influence of sambuca. This accounts for the previous posting.
Tonight, enroute to the local overpriced vendor of organic yogurts and free-range delicacies, my dog and I were witness to a blissful fall scene: a hippy child running down the sidewalk, playing with her hippy parents who chased behind her. "Stop it," she squealed. "We can't stand being without you, we have to be right next to you!!!" called the father. Cheesy as it sounds, it was really rather pleasant.
First, Jeff, who had asked me out once not too long ago. Let me backtrack...my ex-friend Helen and I were at the Railway Club, sitting at a table. She was engaged in a conversation over her right hand shoulder with someone whom she no doubt later slept with, while I momentarily gazed ceilingward. "Hi" came the chime over my left hand shoulder, and so I turned. It was Jeff, sort of cute in an impish bald way, and so I slightly adjusted my chair. Helen wouldn't be back for hours. But Jeff quickly turned boring and dropped the ball -- initiated the conversation then left me to deal with the particulars, and he never offered up much more than the initial "hi". It was evident at the time that he wouldn't go without digits, so I slipped him my business card. At the time, I was Head of Development (a grand title which obviously didn't promise neither head nor development of such). He called three days later. I never returned the call. I may have if I had any indication that he could hold his own in conversation, but this was not the case. I felt like a steamroller, a cougar, and this is not my style. A few weeks later, he confronted me at the Railway. "Hey, I called you and you never called back." I told him "You can't say that. You have no idea what's going on in my life. Plus, it goes entirely against the rules of being single to ask that sort of thing." I hadn't spoken to him since, until tonight, when he performed as the middle musical act.
Me: You know, the accordian thing is winning me over.
Nicky: Typical of you to fall for the accordian. That would be a deal-breaker for me.
I'm not quite sure if Jeff remembered me, but he would not make eye contact with me when he eventually ended up sitting at our table. I complimented him on his short film.
This was not the case with Pat. When Nicky, Ren and I stepped outside for a quick hit, Pat was on the back staircase having a smoke. Backstory: first year grad school second semester party at the grad house back in Montreal, and I can't remember what Pat was studying, but he was a friend of Nicky's and was therefore defacto invited to the grad party. He ended up walking me home, and kissed me on the neck, and I immediately phoned Chris back in Vancouver to confess my fallings, and over the course of that conversation, Chris came clean: he'd been sleeping with his roommate Jane. As we stood out on the freezing back staircase tonight, I told Pat the wealth of his small passionate act -- and he kissed me full on the mouth. Mmmm...he had that John Corbett goodness and dammit if I wasn't so quick to let history repeat itself.
Balance is a good thing. When you open your inbox to find a lame email from a jerky guy, it's good if there's an email from an entirely non-jerky guy waiting to be read too.
Which leads me to the fact that today is December 1 -- the return of tremble.
George was my favourite Beatle.
Going to Metrotown with my mother today to shop for spectacles was a spectacle in and of itself.
Chinese stores have the coolest shoes, yet the sales girls shudder when they gaze down at my size 8s.
What I'm really lacking in my otherwise excellent neighbourhood is a place that makes a mean palak paneer.
And also a place where I can find pie for the upstairs neighbours because their son is in intensive care.
And that when babies are in the hospital, it makes all the emails from jerky guys in China seem irrelevant.
