In the last couple of weeks, I’ve found myself paying more attention to the names of shops around town. There are the painfully wrong – like the Taste Hair salon – and the gender confused – like Steve’s Nails – and the in-jokes for anglos -- like Pho Bich Nga and Fuk Hing Trading.
This morning I happened to spot the name of one of the skid-row hotels that I pass obliviously on a daily basis: The Wonder Hotel. Of course it would be false advertising for the proprietors to extend the name to The Wonderful Hotel, but, as is, the name just seems downright cruel, as though they should have just called it The "Sit In The Corner And Think About What Brought You To This Place And While You're At It Take A Look At The State Of Your" Arms. Or The Last Resort. There’s no need to rub it in. Unless you're using rubbing alcohol, of course.
I haven't quite reached it yet, but I'm almost there...the point at which I think about this particular online project and wonder "who" and "why?". At the moment, it's still just a place where I can stockpile macaroni so I don't have to carry it around in my bag. But it seems that, sooner or later, everyone port-gazes and either goes the way of bedroom&squalor (gone), or else starts separating macaroni from spaghetti from meatballs, like ftrain.
But as I say, I'm not there yet. So I'll say that my leg is much better -- it now looks like I've slathered self-tanner on too thickly on one side -- and that I'm overwhelmed with work. And I'll believe that I've made it when I have the head of a javelina on my wall.
Though he’s been sickly for awhile, and off the air for longer, this still came as sad news. I’ll be honest – I love the CBC Radio. I’m one of THOSE Canadians who loves the CBC. Radio. Not so much the TV stuff, but they have a certain mandate, and I respect that. Waking up to the voice of Gzowski meant two things: I had the rare chance to slumber past 9 a.m., and I was in a relationship that was working well. Morning radio listenership is one of those issues that doesn’t really surface in a dating situation until things start becoming more settled, more frequent, and when I think of waking up with someone to the voice of Gzowski, only the most serious three relationships of the past twelve years pop to mind.
His voice was the mornings of my twenties, waking up full of blind love. I mourn the loss of both.
My nerves are shot. People keep coming to talk to me and it’s like they’ve slathered me in petroleum jelly and put the heart paddles on extra saucy, when really all they’re jolting me with is a simple "hey, can you…" I can feel the adrenaline crashing when it reaches nerve ends. You can't tell this, but right now I'm typing this at the speed of light and smoke is coming off my keyboard.
Oh, right, and that was me who slathered myself in Vasoline™.
Besides flirting, salty foods, and the Iditerod, the main thing that I've had to put on hold during the leg episode has been my pursuit of a story editor for my project currently in development with the big broadcaster. Tomorrow, I approach two potentials: one who has worked with Bruce McDonald and (sigh) Don McKellar; one who has worked with Mike Myers. I would have done this sooner but for the medication, though I think I might ingratiate myself by explaining my current situation, which arose from a leg waxing gone horribly awry.
Working from home and waiting to see the doctor again. Maybe tomorrow. The subject of "The Singing Detective" crept back into my life yesterday. Entirely fitting as I feel like Michael Gambon today, sliding in and out of states of extreme decrepitude and extreme euphoria. The difference between two states is the new medicine, which, when at full absorption in the blood stream, sends shivers as though I'm falling in love.
I've looked worse than I look now. At fifteen, I went on a skiing trip to Whitefish with my father, his friend Norm, and my friend Suzie, and I think brother #2. It was March -- spring break. On the first day, even the first run, I shed my skipants in favour of shorts. Of course the sunscreen was forgotten on the dashboard. That night, my legs and the side of my face and neck were stiff with sun as though coated in dried egg whites. I was unable to ski again, and decided to caddy for my dad the following day, during a strong westerly, which gave me windburn on top of my sunburn. That was worse than now, but only because of the lack of euphoria.
I’m torn on my feelings about this leg situation and the adverse reaction I’m having to the either the hydroxyzine or the betamethasone that young doctor fung put me on this past Thursday, though two pharmacists and a clinic doctor all can’t believe that I’d be having any adverse reaction. Is this an all-out crappy thing with no upside, or it is one of those character-building moments that becomes the basis for a series of Oprah-selected self-help books. On the one hand, I’m so miserable that I wouldn’t wish this on my worst…wait, I don’t think I have any enemies. That’s sort of sad in and of itself, because perhaps that’s an indication of my passivity. Then again, it’s a relief to not have to be all Joan Collins in any given room. My hair isn’t big enough for that.
On the other hand, it’s one of those pathetic moments in my life that I’m already giggling about, mostly because I still have my leg, and it’s still functioning. Sort of. Every time I go to walk anywhere – to the laundry room because I’m going through knee socks like a team of mud-wrestling private school girls (just wanted to give you a more pleasant image to mull over than my leg), or to the kitchen for yet more tea – my leg fills with throbbing pain. There’s the one giant THROB, followed by a pulsing pain. But it’s the sort of thing that will make me appreciate my leg once it’s back to a healthy pink hue, and I’ll take it to see Black Hawk Down and buy it popcorn with extra creamery butter and we can muse on the perfect jawbone line of Josh Hartnett.
I take my health for granted. Right now, I should be thankful that I can breathe through my nose, that I’m not passing a kidney stone, that I’m not forced to wear adult diapers (I say "forced"), but instead I’m obsessing about the tip of my nose because I swear someone from the Wax Museum came in while I was in a hydroxyzine fog and dipped my face in liquid paraffin.
So, obviously I’m in no state to be out and flirty, and that’s sad because I was looking forward to celebrating my unsolicited raise. I guess I can use the extra cash for my sanitarium treatments.
Why isn't my leg perfectly healed already? Where's my Hasepfeffer? What ever happened to the phrase "Ah, nuts"? Why haven't you seen Grey Gardens, especially since Little Edie was found dead in her home on Monday?
You know it's going to be an interesting day when the first words out of your mouth are, "This is kind of embarrassing, but..." and they're spoken to a doctor.
It's nothing important, just my leg, though I might want to suggest that, if you're still trying to drop those holiday pounds, just think of the word "weeping" in reference to something like a limb, and that should help supress your appetite.
Addendum, one hour after the above: painkillers. I'm an "undergraduate on 'shrooms" mess, which almost prompted me to begin a sidebar about "undeclared" and judd apatow and how david e. kelley and aaron sorkin could take their emmies and hang their heads in the knowledge that the true genius of television creator/producership is judd apatow, and how "undeclared" should be an example to canadian broadcasters of the sort of programming we could manage here, right here above the 49th because if you look closely at the cut of their jib you'll notice that Jay Baruchel and Seth Rogen are Canadian, and that the dad is played by Louden Wainwright III (who plays the father of Rufus Wainwright in real life, all also Canadian or perhaps dual, but in any event, they understand what a loonie is). Phew, good thing that didn't happen.
I think we were the only unreefered folks at last night’s screening of "Waking Life" in East Van, which is not to be confused with an east van van – the kind that people live in on the corner of Bedlam & Squatter. There was Reg in his fantastic gumboots. Come on, the man doesn’t need any more sole, or soul for that matter, he plainly towers over everyone in sight. Yah, he was in the alley beforehand with his cute’n’nerdy film pals and he admitted as much when mesmerized by the writing on the shoulderstrap of my bag. And there was Nathaniel, who probably wasn’t stoned because he’s too serious to do shit like that.
It’s always strange seeing Nathaniel, and the "I don’t see you before you see me first which precludes neither of us seeing each other" dance we do. Don’t get me wrong -- I like talking to him, I think he’s a damn talented guy, and there are the years of history and shared moments in the apartment on the corner of Cook and Fort in Victoria. He was part of my ex-boyfriend Andrej’s "cheese" gang (everything was "cheesy" except themselves). If the Cheese Gang was a 70s sitcom, then Nathaniel would have played Dietrich to Andrej’s Barney, while Karim and I starred as a couple of foster kids in the spinoff. There’s also the shared experience of Montreal. Still, there’s the dance, and I wish we could get beyond that because he was the one I respected the most.
The hidden purpose behind seeing the film was to distract Mark’s date’s date so Mark could get in some proper face time. Next time, I’ll have to remember to confer with Mark on the physics of the seating plan ahead of time for highest distraction potential. And, might I add that, if I could say I had a "type", the date’s date neatly falls into that category. I think I could get to like this new gig as distraction-for-hire.
How did I live this long without a DVD player? It may have just been Grey Gardens as my choice in first viewing experience, but I opted to go the extra night and subsequent late fees just to explore all the hidden corridors and clickables.
First, a note about the documentary. This is an astounding gem from the Maysles brothers (who rock the film world as my new favourite brother combo -- sorry to the Coens, the Farrellys, the Hughes, the Wachowskis and the startlingly-untalented newcomers the Malloys) about Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, also named Edie. It’s a portrait of High Society turned turvy, with raccoons scritching through the walls of the East Hampton estate and heirloom jewelry holding together ratty, torn dresses.
The documentary is fascinating as a stand-alone project, but then, oh then, there’s the running commentary from Albert Maysles and the various editors on the project, and this truly brings the experience to life. For instance, in the climatic "pink room" scene Edie Jr. is bemoaning the fact that her last potential suitor was snubbed by her mother, and how that could have been Edie Jr’s last crack at the marriage can. In the commentary, we find that the "suitor" was just popping by to see if the house was on the market. In addition, the DVD includes interviews with designers Todd Oldham and John Bartlett about Edie Jr,’s flair for fashion (despite the fact that instead of headscarves, she’s wearing towels or old sweaters) and how her look has been ripped-off over the years. There was so much secondary information that I didn’t even have a chance to get to the interview with interview, or the comprehensive bios of the filmmakers.
If this is the case with all DVDs, if they all hold this much good’n’plenty, I foresee great late fees in my future.
Okay, let’s get back to Friday night, because there were a few issues raised that I haven’t yet addressed, namely because I hit a self-doubt slump on Saturday and retired to bed a la Brian Wilson. Yet, there was Friday night.
Point #1: I’ve never been a "regular" at a bar before, and the thought of being such both frightens and comforts. Sure, there were many hours spent at Miami in Montreal, but I’d known the bartendress (aka "Flow") way back in Victoria, so it really wasn’t like I’d earned my spot at the counter or anything. And I chat with Stan the doorman at the Railway about music, but it’s not like he knows my name or slips me a free beer at the end of the night. Yet, within four or five outings, Mark and I have become "regulars" at Kino. Our coats get whisked to the kitchen for safe-keeping. Our tab has our names written at the top.
Point #2: The statement from man/woman that how’s your news was the best sex she’s ever had. Hard as I try, I just can’t wash this from my brain. It’s like the bad car accident I saw on Saturday night enroute to Nicky’s, or the dread I felt all day yesterday when I knew I was writing dreck. I won’t go into the details, save for the fact that I pegged him as a rutter (conjugate the verb "to rut").
Not at all related: to the person who found this site by googling "bologna nipples" – what more could I ask for? You have successfully married the two funniest words in the English language, and somehow landed on me in the process. Now, if I can find you by googling "gefilte pants", I think we should elope to Tora Bora or WallaWalla Washington or Tuktyuktuk. You know where to find me.
I’m pleased to say that right now I’m listening to Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea on my new multi-format player. I’m not pleased by my logic behind this purchase. Oh, right, there was the CD player that was perpetually crapping out and unable to fully recognized burned CDs as the bounty of possibility that they are. And there was the lack of dvdness in my life. And, finally, let’s not forget the large gift certificate from the bosses burning a hole in my wallet.
So while I was getting the pitch from the salesman at A&B on the merits of the moderately-priced multi-format player with the sleek black design versus the knock-off in silver, the thought that actually went through my mind was that I’ll just get the knock-off because all of this is temporary. Not temporary in the sense that I’m planning an alien abduction in my near future, but temporary in this sense: There are things that women bring to relationships, like an understanding that green and gold should not be worn together, or how to fold fitted sheets, or how to get past the border without really having to declare anything. And there are things that men bring to relationships, like music and electronics and mastery of cooking meat. In my cup’s-half-full logic, I went with the knock-off in the certainty that, when his universal remote meets my mishmash of inherited turntables and components from Mongolia and the VHS player with its high-tech barrette eject system, there will be no question which stereo stays in the living room and which hits the curb for pick-up.
This would make sense if there was a superior male stereo on the horizon. Yah, whatever. So it’s just me and Polly Jean (and this damn script that is giving me panic attacks) in for the afternoon with the big metal box.
What I remember most vividly was the Bingo. The smoke and the ginger ale, and how she could deal with what seemed like 300 cards while I could only manage four. There was Bingo in Leroy, and in other towns further past the swimming hole, the details of which blur in the night but the clouds of mosquitoes were just as thick. Driving there in the white sedan with the red plush interior – a pimp car in an urban environment made every-day when pulsing down the unpaved roads of the prairies. Her nails split from the toil, perpetually propping a slow-burning cigarette at attention.
Down the aisles of the garden, clad in gumboots and shorts, we filled a wheelbarrow with pea pods then spent the afternoon on the shuck. I ate until I swore I wouldn’t eat another pea again in my life.
One generation of my family is…what’s the right word? Eroding? Disappearing? Dying? Those first two are not right, and the truth is too raw. The –triarchs are leaving us behind. It’s hard to fathom a wedding without my Uncle Pete cosying up to the bar, or a summer without my Aunt Rosina, but these are new realities I must accept. Damn.
When did I start my aversion to the telephone as a viable medium of communication? From whence did my disdain for Ma Bell arise? I think it may have something to do with my stint at the Georgia Straight years ago when I worked the personals. My days were spent on the phone consoling and counseling the singles of the city ("When you say you like music, it might help to be more specific. Like are we talking Verdi or Andrew WK?"). After a day of SMWBCMFHWP walks on the seawall, candlelight dinners, ISO 40something brunette who likes hockey ("…but hey, you sound good, are YOU single?…"), the phone became not so much a tool for convenient communication as a wailing, demanding beast with full diapers in the corner of my apartment.
Since then, I’ve never taken a job where I’d be in a position to answer the phone. I’m tucked safely behind the wall of receptionists, office managers, assistants and producers, so that the only phonecalls that trickle through to me are (a) my mother or (b) the various story editors and writers. In fact, at times, I’ve even left a list with the front desk to say "these are the calls I’m willing to take". That, for me, is the highest of all high trappings in the office workplace, far above sending out for lattés or having the paté guy swing by or free legal-size file folders.
At home, I rarely answer the phone, and my friends know this, and the ones who count accept this as a major flaw in my character. I pick-up about 1/4 of the time. And I screen my calls via caller display, and I let things bounce to voicemail, and I unplug the thing off every so often. I’m on dial-up 56K at home and that suits me fine. DSL would only free the phone line up. My (Liane’s) cellphone is for outgoing calls only, or for use when I’m out of town.
It’s not a power thing. It’s not like "I’m not picking this up because I want you to be on MY time and not the other way around". Or maybe it is like that.
The one good thing about the phone is you can hold world-shaking meetings from the sudsy warmth of the tub.
This afternoon, I sat in a room with the who and the whatnow of local film and television producers while our big national broadcaster (not the mothercorp, mind you, the one with Lloyd Robertson) ran through their guidelines for their various development and production financing streams, and while the enthusiastic and hopeful rep from Toronto explained why the majority of their impressive sum of money is reserved for writers so they can build a talent pool and how they're looking to find programming from these writers that will make the investors thrilled to invest in Canadian television rather than look southwards to acquire shows. Though I knew about 1/3 of the producers in the room, I quietly sat in the back corner, not taking notes, but gazing out the window at the sky and the fact that the rain had let up for a few moments. Grinning to myself, and hoping my appreciation over the fact that I'm now one of those writers wasn't too transparent.
Meanwhile, on being transparent in other areas, two guys (one who knows me very well, one who doesn't yet) nail me, though not in the way you're thinking:
Telephone conversation at 12:30 a.m. my time last night/this morning when he decides to phone because he can't sleep and it's 3:30 a.m. his time:
Me: ...because, you know, not all the world's a stage. Sometimes it's just the bathroom at Burger King.
Him: You'd make a great golden shiksa.
IM conversation last night while I was procrastinating from revising my first draft of my script for the new animation show:
Me: first thing he asks: "can I use this phone to call my girlfriend?" my thinkbubble: not unless you're using it to dump her.
Him: are you on the prowl? i am sensing you are on the prowl as of late. that you are prowling. you are a prowler.
Sometimes, when driving, I witness such stupidity at the wheel that I think there should be some sort of law that forces bad drivers to give their cars to me, because even if these people can afford fancy automobiles, they don't deserve to own them. I should be allowed to own all the cars of all the stupid drivers in this city. If that was the case, I'd have a fleet to rival Shree Rajneesh. After this weekend, I would like to extend this edict to include the children of mean parents. They should have to forfeit the rights to their children (and their cars) to me. Cases in point:
* the parents who were outside Solly's and who, when I came out with my bag of bagels on Saturday morning, started screaming at their son for dropping his hot chocolate on the sidewalk. Actual words screamed from the mother: "Don't buy anything else for him, he doesn't deserve it!"
* the parents who were walking with their son while I was peeing my dog this morning (you know what I mean). The kid merely said, "okay, let's play", and the father pushed him hard enough that he fell to the grassy knoll. The kid lay there for a couple of seconds, the wind knocked out of him, then weakly said "that's not how you play" while his parents walked away.
You people suck. You may leave your car keys in my mailbox and your children on my back porch for me to collect tomorrow after work. We'll have popcorn and lemon cookies.
Raunch arrived in the mail, and sparked the mood for the evening. Not an evening of raunch, mind you, an evening of, well, folks being a little off kilter. "How’s Your News" came in the form of a saucer-eyed fellow clapping his hands with glee when he slipped into the kitchen at Kino. The staff, not quite sure whether he was with the dancers or on his own, didn’t quite know what to make of his giddiness.
"You think he’s cute, don’t you?" asked Mark. Um, maybe. He had a good haircut, and if you minus the Manson grin and vacant glazed-over look, then he would have been within ranking. Who am I to kid? I’ve dated worse. He ended up leaving with man/woman.
Two characteristics of sambuca: one shot gives you the sort of taste people will cross rooms for. Think about licking the inside of a mouth that’s just been coated in that sweetness. However, it also lays you out with a hangover that’ll keep you in bed until well past noon. The pluses, the minuses. I guess I should have opted for the coffee beans.
Time was I was afraid of the two-year thing. This began when I turned thirty. The logic of this fear was, if you stack up a bunch of two-year long relationships, then all of a sudden you're 38 and nowhere. So I never let anything get beyond a couple of weeks. Then, at about the time I turned 31, I flipped and feared the two-week thing. What’s the point, I thought. You just get to know someone, then it’s like eh, why bother? So I’d go on first dates but nothing beyond that. The thinking here was, why get into something when it’s not 100% right. Meanwhile, half of the clothes in my closet are less than 45% right and in need constant alteration. Now, at 32, and 2002, I’m rethinking all of this, and I think the new plan will be two months. Two months with a wide margin for impromptu redefinition.
One of these days I’m gonna get it right. Six years from now, I’m gonna get it right.
Why, oh why do our IT guys choose 12:22 pm to fix the internet connections? Do they not understand how this infringes on my productivity? Damn, now I’ll get all sorts of work done this afternoon.
Last night, while digesting the last bits of the latest Vice, I came to a full and complete understanding of why I’m so damn disappointed in this city. It’s not because of the lack of fashion (more here than Toronto) or the cost of living (which, when you factor in my relative income, is less than Montreal but only because I didn’t have any income while living in Montreal). It really comes down to the raunch factor*.
Now I’m not a raunchy girl per se, but I like to have options, and in Vancouver, that option just does not exist. There’s really no gray area between the off-the-rack bars with cover bands and full-scale downtown eastside junkiedom. Don’t try to tell me the Railway is all that, because it’s not. The Brickyard used to hold some potential, but like everything else in this city, the management screwed with a half-good thing. DSK broke up, as did Flash Bastard. And let’s face it, you’d never see the "c’mon, let’s go" one-finger-curl Karim-patented pick-up gesture in Vancouver. Even The Hives/International Noise Conspiracy show, which had so much potential for raunch served up Swedish style on a slice of crispy Wassa bread, was packed with zombie-esques who applauded politely at the end of each song. Myself included. (Sidebar: Upcoming musical show of note: Wesley Willis.)
There’s a maximum shelf-life to this sort of thing and time is running out. I don’t think wearing the lei of raunch at 45 is advisable, very few people outside of Iggy Pop can pull this off. I shudder at the thought of our favourite grip still waking up years from now to the sound of his cellphone, the first words of the day being "Uh, hello…wait a second, where the hell AM I?"
I’m not saying I’m going to start a campaign to bring this factor to the city. I’m just as likely to order it as a topping on my weekend pannekoeken than to bring the Irish back to town. I’m just slightly disappointed. That’s all.
(* Please note: this rant is outside of the jurisdiction of peeler bars and The Cobalt/Columbia Hotel, which are in a category unto themselves, and not the sort of thing I'm talking about. Thanks.)
8:40 am – while ditching the requisite dog-owner’s plastic bag into the trash can by the bus stop at Main & 16th, I spot a cutie window shopping at Puff, the head’s friend. This particular stretch of Main has taken a recent faux-white-trash turn, from the hipster eatery Public where you can get mac’n’cheese with weenies, to Barbarella, which will coif the perfect mullet, to the latest crop of tattoo parlours. The bridal gown store on the corner with the obscenely so-ugly-they’re-almost-hip taffeta numbers in the window has always been there and isn’t a part of the new face of "Uptown". But at 8:40, as I ditch the plastic bag and head across Main, one eye on my dog as we cross the street and another on said cutie, I see him cut directly into Red Hot Video. Hmmm…very interesting. The early bird gets the porn?
8:45 am – he still hasn’t come out. Does he work there, or is he a discerning shopper? Just then, a sporty blue import parks across the street, and another hottie jumps out and heads into Red Hot Video. Huh?
8:50 am – my bus arrives. Neither of said cuties have come out of the porn shop. Then again, as the sign says, they do also have over 1500 videos for the WHOLE family, so maybe they’re picking up Police Academy III or Ernest Goes to Camp rather than Pee On Me III or Camp Boys. (Oh, the googling I’m going to get after that.) A beefy fellow offers me his seat. Thanks!
I’m thinking about the new Mini which will hit our shores in March of this year.
8:55 am – our bus driver, in a moment of bravado, challenges an obvious nutbar with a duct taped bongo set who’s jumped on the bus via the back doors. Why, oh why risk our lives for the sake of $1.75 and principles? Tensions run high as the nutter races to confront the driver, points at his schedule, then says "You know how it’s going to be? YOU KNOW HOW IT’S GOING TO BE!?!? (pregnant pause) I’m going to get on the next bus." Exhale.
8:56 am – I decide to ride an extra stop to get a muffin, so I get out at Hastings and Carrall. Much human fecal matter strewn about. At my favourite café, I amaze the friendly girl behind the counter with French money which must be converted soon (so pretty, it’ll be a shame to trade it for the ugly Euro). She doesn’t believe me when I tell her the prices of pints of beer and cups of coffee in Paris.
9:00 am – back on Main street at the office. On rotation: The New Pornographers. Seems appropriate.
Moodstats. According to the site, "Moodstats is an application that allows you to quickly record & rate how your day has been in six different categories. You can also attach comments to these values to further illustrate why your moods are the way they are."
Seems everyone else got the "make-out till you drop" one. Dammit, once again libido is foiled by grey matter. Why can't those two elements learn to get along?
(And I will also resolve to stop being stupid, because that's what I originally thought the resolution was...duh. I'm worried about the type of folk who will follow my revolution after admitting something like that).
Damn, it's good to be home. It was good to be away, but damn is it good to be home. And it's not just because I have a Power of Green Cyoni for drinkin' (no hangover here) and Flying Wedge for dinner (empty fridge), but because my friends rule. They're all in absentia, but nothing beats coming home after a 10.5 hour drive through shit weather to find a stack of CDs and two Vices from Montreal on my kitchen counter. Two Vice magazines, not my standard Montreal vices -- smoked meat and 25-year-olds. The CDs are pure Karim magic: (a) a mixed number he knows I'd like because it has Kruder & Dorfmeister on it; (b) Hard Grammar by Graig Markel on Woody's Mag Wheel label; (c) L'eclat du ciel etait insoutenable by Hrsta on Fancy, which also put out the amazing Molasses and which may or may not be run by Fluffy of Molasses fame; (d) sings reign rebuilder by set fire to flames on alien8recordings, run by Gary and Sean O'Hara. For the first time in my life, I have no idea what the music sounds like but I know it'll be good because the boys who run these labels have swell taste.
Oh, nostalgia.
The whole trip to Calgary was ten days of nostalgia. Consider the fact that brother #1 lives just up the hill from my last elementary school in that city, where I completed Grade Three and owned a dog named Tobey and had a crush on the boy next door whose name escapes me now except that I know his last name was Reynolds because of the Reynold's Wrap in our cupboards. I can remember the layout of our house, of that school (Dr. Coffin), of my piano teacher's office at the bottom of the hill. His name was Ace. He taught both piano and drums. I wanted drum lessons.
New Year's was quiet -- a family affair complete with non-alcoholic champagne for the kids and for those of us who had to get up at 5:30 for the drive home, and fireworks, which are illegal in Alberta, so my youngest niece was certain the choppers were enroute. I have a gut feeling things are changing this year, I can't quite articulate what I mean, but it was important to spend this Christmas and New Year's with my nieces and nephew because I'm not sure when I'll get to Calgary again. Which is to say, I'm preparing for an exciting year. I'm not pregnant. But I have two new pairs of shoes.
So, resolutions. I have a few. But then again, a few too many. I will not fear the doors that have opened to me as a writer, lest much shooting in the foot will occur. I will watch the entirety of The Decalogue. I will get back to dating, because I miss the small liberties like knowing you're allowed to slip your hand into his back pocket and kiss him on the neck in public without fear of a restraining order. If we erase the overly-long episode of the oft-mentioned fellow (which we should, we definitely should), then I believe my last date was the 40something Serbian artist who was pleasant enough but, really, I felt like a teenager around him. Nothing to do with him, entirely to do with me. So, no fear of success, Kieslowski, dating...more downward facing dog because that helps with the headaches. And I will take a vacation this year, a real vacation, not just a weekend in cottage country crammed between meetings.
Other good bits about the year thus far: in my mailbox -- a letter from Revenue Canada regarding my taxes, and the fact that I miscalculated by $40 in my favour, and so they've adjusted my payable to account for this $40. Yes, I was a little late filing this year, but I knew they owed me, so where's the rush? Nicky is absolutely right, why bother paying for an accountant when Revenue Canada will do the work anyway? Not in my mailbox -- items from London and Brooklyn, so Christmas is extended beyond the first day of 2002. Alas, the first day ends with a headache from driving through the pounding rain behind a convoy, so I'm off to bed.
