The best part about being sick is being single. You can hit your own personal nadir of gross-icity without the mess of spectators. The bucket can remain beside your bed for days, and your hair can take on new definitions of bedheadedness. The entire mattress is yours for the taking, because it’s hard enough to fall alseep when you feel this beaten up – it’s just added torture when there’s someone else in bed too.
The worst part about being sick is being single. The dog still needs to be walked. The soup still needs to be made. Consoling yourself is just plain empty.
More and more I’m starting to realize that I’m not looking for a boyfriend, I’m looking for a personal assistant.
There are times when work is so stressful that I wish for the full punch of an intense flu. To just be bed-ridden for a week seems like bliss, with the added bonus of weight loss. But then there's September, when the children of coworkers resume their schooling in the germ-infested dens of education. They inevitably bring home the sniffles, which get passed on to their parents, who bring them into the office and promptly sneeze straight into the coffee machine. Ugh. Now, in the full punch, I wish for an appetite and an end to the dizziness. Today's voice record was an exercise in flu sympathizing, as if we were all in some sort of support group -- minus the danishes because the talent booker forgot to order our deli trays. Not that anyone was interested in food anyway. Why can't I get sick on Mondays? Why is it always on Fridays?
I was set to go out tonight, thought I could beat this thing down for one night. Oh, how wrong I was. It kicked me in the gut and continued kicking until I became flu's bitch. So it's me and OZ, (and really, they need to not have musical episodes). And I've managed to get ahold of the partial oeuvre of the Coen brothers as research for the script editing gig I landed this week. The director and I met and had an instant mutual admiration over each other's outfit. He's a suit-wearing director, and if you watch the additional features on CQ, you'll have to agree that a suit-wearing director is preferable to the sort of full-on gortex we usually get in these parts. The suit commands authority and respect. Gortex commands pill-balling.
When I ran into Graeme on Thursday, I was already down a pint and mid-gossip session with Karen about the Toronto Film Fest. Well, really, I was listening as she was dishing. But I don't even know half of the people she was talking about so I nodded and smiled when appropriate. Then along came Graeme, whose last feature went huge in Japan and so he's living off the fat of residuals and the strokings of the funding agencies. He pulled up a chair, ordered a pint, and slapped down his vinyl purchases from the new/old record store on Main Street -- an assortment of K-Tel magic. His true search, though, would end with one K-Tel gem in particular. Goofy Greats.
I remember this album well. Ahab the Arab. Guitarzan. Surfin' Bird. I mean, those songs were already out there but never so lovingly packaged in one collection as they were on the "2 Funky Albums" of Goofy Greats (unlike the art above, mine boasts 28 original hits). My brothers owned this one, and it was overplayed and overloved in our household. That is, until my delinquent step-brother stole all of our albums and sold them for pot money.
Then, today, on the off chance of finding new records at my well-combed-over favourite thrift store, I spotted that familiar album cover. It was the first record in a box of new stash and contained (alas) only Album 2. I grabbed it for $0.81. Graeme's in Greece for two weeks, so I'll play it out until he gets back, then pass on the goodness.
I'm not saying they're the best band going, but damn if they haven't tapped into some ancient self I'd long ago forgotten. Out from my closet are my Converse All-Stars and I'm finding myself spending nights lying on the carpet in front of the stereo with headphones on in full angsty-teen-girl crush mode, the likes of which I haven't been in since Peter Murphy flung himself against the metal grating at the beginning of The Hunger. I'm half-expecting my mom to come through my bedroom door to ask me to please turn down that infernal noise and could I please get to the dinner table as the pork chops are getting cold.
Why, just this morning I giddily skipped into class, er, um, work with a tape of their latest video to share with my workmate who's equally enamored (granted, it's a bit different as he's a straight boy). In lieu of that, watch this. Swoon.
I'm intrigued by the unspoken arrangements of the city. The outdoor message boards in specific locations for apartment rentals. The cycling directions on the Burrard Street Bridge. These things help keep the sanity in the bell jar. Most days, I cycle past the odd-jobs corner. It's grown to a block now, men in steel-toed boots leaning against telephone poles along Ontario Street, waiting for a construction truck or bored housewife to cruise past and pick them from the crowd. I wonder how this started, how long it's been on this particular corner, if odd-jobs corners exist in every city.
Hello sailor! After seeing the season premiere of Sex and the City, I'm now 100% sure this series is written by gay men, is about gay men and is for gay men. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I mean, I'll be the first to admit a soft spot for Queer as Folk, and not just because of an acquaintance with one of the writers. You can put lactating breasts on Miranda, and it's still not about women.
I'm also 100% convinced that the evil mega-chain video rental store is on a mission to fatten America like Babe's mother to the slaughter. For an additional 50 cents on the price of a video rental, they'll toss in buttery-butter flavoured butter nuggets, a keg of cola, lard cakes, and Babe brand pork rinds. I'm blessed with an amazing neighbourhood video store which specializes in cult videos and foreign films. But they're so great that I feel as though I can't possibly rent crap without either coming in dressed in "flu" attire, or sending in a foil to rent Paully Shore ahead of me so my selection won't seem so pathetic (and we can gain mutual indie acceptance by mocking my foil's Shore choice). It pains me to say, but from time to time, I'm in the mood for crap, and when I say crap, I mean steaming coils of bad Hollywood fare. And lard cakes. So that's when I take my business to the evil mega-chain video rental store, where crap can be found in abundance, and where the clerks never pass judgement on your rentals. In fact, they've been reborn to see the good in every film. "Signs? Oh, you know the casting agent did a wonderful job with that corn." "I hear that Dragonfly had some amazing craft services." So I'm taking the weekend off from writing (!) and am home tonight with not-so crappy films, lard cakes, and my free-with-DVD-rental defibrillator. Clear!
I'm on the tail-end of a migraine, all med-ed up, and therefore a bit too howsyournews to write anything. So go to 300 exposures and check out Liane's photography and also Stacey's.
My first boyfriend (Grade One) was named Stacey. He lived in Cochrane and was the only one who believed me when I said that a gopher bit my toe when I tripped over its gopher hole while running around the school yard. In retrospect, it was probably a tree root or stone.
The universe knows how to mend my spirit, how to kiss my boo-boos, how to lick my....you get the picture.
A crap day turns excellent. Opportunity goes awry, but then, on my way back to work from Army & Navy, what do I come upon but an abandoned stack of records in a shopping cart. One guy had gotten there before me and pulled all the Miles Davis and John Coltrane, but I snagged about 20 records of crazy old school folk & jazz & blues & theatre, plus Patti Smith and The Style Council and Billy Bragg. !!! Amazing. I'm not sure about the dodginess of this operation, but two other rubby-esque fellows were there and they assured me the albums were for the taking. I asked myself, what would Mahalia Jackson do? What would Bertold Brecht do? What would Snooks Eaglin do? And the universe answered: they would want the albums to go to good homes, because their albums were included in the bunch. So to a good home they go.
Nicki says: maybe you're going to be like seinfeld, always evening out. you just randomly find a stack of records on the street. wtf is up with that? who does that happen to?
Once again, British television execs have out-programmed their North American counterparts with the creation of I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here, wherein the sub-famous get shipped off to a remote Australian island for a few weeks of survivor-style living. Includes Uri Geller, who used his psychic abilities to foresee the heaps of bugs that awaited him on the island but yet could not predict the outcome. According to a press release on Geller’s site, "The show promises a combustible mix of celebrities - DJ Tony Blackburn, comedian Rhona Cameron, former boxer Nigel Benn, Christine Hamilton -- wife of former Tory cabinet minister Neil Hamilton, actor Darren Day, It-girl Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, and model Nell McAndrew."
I can’t wait for the Americans to recreate this in their own glitzy way, and I’m putting in my list for celebrity participants now: Joey Fatone, Tori Spelling, Carrot Top, Mike Tyson, Kelly Rippa, and Anna Nicole Smith. The biggest requested change to the show format: we put them on the island, and never, ever bring them back.
For the past 11 years, I've been involved with the same brutally thin Futon. Oh, sure, there have been the random, shame-filled evenings spent elsewhere -- other cities, other beds -- but my futon has been there as my silent support all along, the gulf airstream beneath the wind beneath my wings. We first met in 1991 in a seedy lot tucked behind the Red Lion in Victoria. Two shy kids in undergraduate studies; me in my final year and him smelling strongly of pine. I was instantly attracted to his interest in minimalist Japanese aesthetics. When we finished in Victoria, he followed me briefly to Calgary, then waited patiently for me to return from overseas. He came back to Vancouver with me, stoic in his resolve to lose weight and slacken his posture. In Montreal, he kept nocturnal hours with me, held my hair back when I got the flu, and worsened Boreale-fueled evenings. Then, after our return to Vancouver again, the relationship slowly soured. In the last year, he became abusive. He no longer wrapped me in his arms evening to evening but kicked me in the kidneys on a nightly basis. He was gaunt, sickly; his ribs poked through his shirt.
But today I put an end to it all, kicked junkie Futon to the curb (well, the storage room) and moved in beefy Mattress and his bottom-boy BoxSpring. Sure, he's a big queen, but he's got junk in his trunk and meat on his bones. I foresee a brilliant romance.
At what point did the marketing executives of the world decide that Method Man and Redman would be the ideal spokesmen for deodorant? Sure, matching sweaty sports figures with anti-sweat products would have been too easy – we have to keep reinventing the wheel, right? And who sweats as much as a sports figure? Who rocks the track suit just as well? Exactly. What I want to see is Winona Ryder’s AmEx commercial. It could happen.
One thing that I’ll never get used to: the interview process. I guess I’m lucky that I’ve never gotten used to it because it means I've only had to go through that particular ringer a few times in my life. I’ve been very fortunate in that respect. Yesterday’s experience was an intriguing study in nervousness – I think my vocabulary shrank to these five adjectives: excellent, cool, rad, kick-ass, brie. That string of adjectives would have been proper had I been interviewing for a QC position on the new Tony Hawk game. Alas, not. But in the off-chance that they're looking for an inarticulate, stunned doe in the headlights, I'm a sure thing!
The day turns around. A clean bill of health. A back-on-trackedness to my schedule for script #2. Ah, the difference an afternoon can make.
Admittedly, I'm killing the ten minutes before American Idol (joy! cringe! joy!), only to learn that Signs went to principal photography on September 13th. Perhaps that accounts for the inconsistent performances.
Two consumerisms I'm currently covetting: this and something as styling as these, but yet not US$1000. Yikes!
How did I spend the labour day weekend? Labouring, of course, on script #2 for the big Canadian broadcaster. I'm so far behind schedule now that sheepishness is being replaced by guilt. And I've been suckered in by the nostalgia of school supply shopping. I'm jonesing for a new binder with a velcro closure and subject separators.
Speaking of sheepish, I can't stop looking at this link Liane sent through "exposing" Tobey Maguire as he high teas with David Blaine and Leonardo Dicaprio. Oh, the googling. And the oogling. This photo can't be true, or if it is, Maguire can link his lineage back to a clan of ungulates. I'm not giving the link. You can email me if you really want to see it.
The day can start out so well -- hunky window washers and peanut butter bagels -- and then take such a downturn. My little story department (read: me) has had another show assignment. Twenty-six more scripts to deal with, no increase in pay. Sigh. Oh, Tobey, keep me focussed on the big picture.
