I Will Have You

How Do I Love Thee?

2011-02-14T23:04:00.000-08:00

Imagine gentle reader, if you will, my delight upon pulling into my carport this Valentine's evening to discover, lynched from the rafters and twitching in the wind, a voodooish talisman of Love. It was a little bag whose very colour and design seemed to whimper, "Cut me down first." (So much voodoo, so little time.) Once inside the safety of my ivory tower-like abode I studied carefully the family of Matryoshka dolls that emblazoned the outer layer.

Tucked inside was a second bag, more dolls.

And within that bag was a box with more dolls still.

Within the box lay nestled a pair of hearts--the best kind of hearts--jammy ones. I have now set these aside for my afternoon tea.

Clearly my Valentine knows how much I love a package and the conceit of placing my package within a package within a package, all stamped with the image of the Matryoshka was sufficient to tickle me pink. It made me think that the reason one loves a package is just that--the unravelling of many layers, a sense of discovering the unknown, and if you're v. lucky, a jammy centre.

You're Loving On Borrowed Time

2011-01-30T23:05:00.000-08:00

(This one’s convoluted. It’s about love and I’m not sure I’ve got it right. The blog entry, I mean.)

Whenever I spend a leetle too much time in bed I think on a passage from Carrie Fisher’s first novel, Postcards From the Edge, where the (anti?) hero, Suzanne Vale, ends up going to bed for nine days. She is comforted by her mother who compares her favourably with other actors and writers.

'Hemingway needed his rest,' her mother assured her over the phone, 'So did Paul Muni. Alfred Lunt would just retreat to his garden and let his wife answer the phone.'

I, in turn, am similarly comforted by comparing my neuroses with those of this semi-fictional and reluctant Hollywood starlet.

"'You’re like me, Suzanne,' her mother said. 'You just get overwhelmed sometimes. I don’t think you should feel bad about going to bed for a few days. You’re a sensitive, questioning personality.' Suzanne wondered when she had begun to be more of a personality than a person."

People identify with Suzanne. Those of us who have it good (and I feel safe in saying that most people who can afford their own internet connection have it pretty O.K., if not outright good) might feel somewhat guilty for taking to the mattress for a nice round of self-loathing and a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios. I know this isn’t the butch position. These are not the opines of someone in an Irish fisherman’s sweater and a golden retriever by his side. (This is as butch as I can ever imagine getting.) These are the thoughts of someone who clearly wants his mommy but wishes he didn’t. My mommy currently resides in a place where mommies go when they can’t remember whose mommy they are.

Ever since my mother started losing her memories my relationship with her has shifted from me mostly being on the receiving end of everything into me trying to be selfless in my care of her. At the same time, I feel selfish because despite the fact that she wouldn’t even know if I never showed up again, I get something back just from the act of giving to her. It’s fascinating loving somebody who can't remember you're loving them.

Isn’t there a Woody Allan movie called Everyone Says I Love You? Every time I hear that title, I think, “no, they don’t.” I mean, I do, if I’m talking to the cat, or a glass of gin, but not to people, and especially not to people who are in the same room as me. These thoughts of who loves, and to what end, are cropping up a lot because I’m working on a production of Twelfth Night and in that particular work everyone does indeed say, "I love you," only almost never to the right person. This begs the question, who is the right person, and how can you tell when they’re there in the room with you? People worthy of being loved by one ought to come with some sort of radiation so that we can just whip out our Geiger counters and they would tell us it’s O.K. to go ahead and love.

Recently, as I’ve been monitoring the constant editing and rewriting of my memoirs in my head, it has occurred to me that I’ve been living a lie (again—why do these things keep happening to me?). I’ve been telling people that I’ve only ever been in one relationship, hence only ever had one boyfriend. This is because something has caused me to believe that this one relationship was the only one that counted and that all the others were just flings that didn’t merit boyfriend status. I had it in my mind that there were a magical number of days, weeks, months after which someone became “significant,” other-wise. But I have no actual number for this passage of time. So this one relationship became the relationship because of sheer persistence, time-wise. The second factor is that past relationships must have an identifiable ending—a moment of breaking off that is clear. All the so called flings just faded away and I assumed that the feelings were similarly vague on both sides. And the third factor is that the movies, have you met my best friends, the movies?, well, the movies told me that loves is supposed to feel a certain way. Love is supposed to feel like a Doris Day-Rock Hudson film: boy meets girl, girl scores rock star parking, boy get apartment redecorated, etc. You know, Love. (We will not at this time delve into the obvious delusion of this particular pairing of cinematic lovers. We will simply say that dear Doris Day was the scratchy beard that was felt around the gay globe.)

Far from rock star parking, all I get in my car is sticky traffic. While driving to work the other day I was listening to a mixed CD that one of these almost boyfriends made for me and it occurred that all the sad breakup / love songs on this CD, that I originally had dismissed as quaintly ironical, were actually not-so-subtle messages to me saying things like,

Oh, you probably won't remember me

It's probably ancient history

I'm one of the chosen few

Who went ahead and fell for you

I'm out of vogue, I'm out of touch

I fell too fast, I feel too much

I thought that you might have

Some advice to give on how to be

Insensitive

--Jann Arden, Insensitive

Now, I adore Jann Arden, but up until now I always thought myself on the Jann end of this imaginary love complaint. This little musical time capsule is giving me a historical perspective that I’ve somehow ignored thus far. Owie. That sorta hurts some ten years later, as various lyrics suddenly jump into aural perspective while I wait for red lights to change. I eventually had to take the CD out and lock it back in its glovebox tomb. It was ruining my driving mojo. So I replaced it with a side of Jann that I knew I could relate to wholeheartedly:

I'm feeling better

Now that your stuff's out in the yard

I should send God a thank-you card

Cause he'll forgive me

Even if you never do

--Jann Arden, Free

You can see where there might be a discrepancy in feeling. It makes me wonder if I was having the same experience as the less-than-significant others. Well, it makes me wonder, and then confirms that no, I wasn’t. Hence the reevaluation of relationship statuses. I realize now that I’ve actually had a fair number of boyfriends, I just wasn’t aware of it at the time. It’s like finding that extra room in your New York apartment. It was there the whole while and you can’t imagine how you missed it. Or maybe it’s like finding a piece of straw in a stack of needles. (See: Owie.)

By changing a few parameters on how I determine whether a relationship is a relationship I find myself with a slew of ex-boyfriends ready to be catalogued and put in their (historical) place. Of course the original, lovingly named, Ex-Beast takes precedence; this by merit of his longevity, or rather, the longevity of the relationship, but also because he had the balls to say, “I love you, Nicky.” He climbed onto the bed one night and whispered it into my ear when he thought I was asleep and couldn’t hear him . . .

. . . it was more than I ever managed. And for that I’ll always love him back, even if it’s too little, too late.

I don’t want to forget my lovers; and I don’t, really, I just forget the details—details that might actually give them more status in my life than I thought I could handle. Why pick at old wounds, or old loves?

There's that famous fable of the scorpion who asked the frog to carry him across the river on his back. The frog was afraid of being stung, but the scorpion convinced him by saying that if he were to sting him, the frog would sink taking the scorpion down with him. The frog agreed but when they got to the middle of the river the scorpion stings him, dooming them both. “Why?” askes the frog. “Why would you sacrifice yourself?” The scorpion explains, "I'm a scorpion; it's my nature." What then, is the true nature of love? Is it a frog-stinging scorpion, or is it a scorpion-trusting frog? Or is it both—the beast with two backs destined to drown itself?

The secret might be to say, “I love you” when you have the chance. Just like two parallel lines allowed to go on forever will eventually cross, all relationships have an expiry date. Eventually divorce, death or dementia will get us. For my mum and dad it’s dementia, for me and the ex-beast it’s divorce, and for all my new ex-boyfriends it was a sort of social dementia—CDs were being mixed the whole while and I was deaf to the true nature of the lyrics.

This little piggy . . .

2011-01-02T19:20:00.000-08:00

There is nothing like the holidays, nothing, I say, to get people into the my-life-lived-better modality. This encompasses the feeling of expecting that one ought to be spending Christmas in a château in the Loire Valley, when in fact, one is trapped in an overly loud, pardon the expression, gastropub in a part of town that’s been “revitalized” by attracting overly-loud people who like to hover over overly-priced baskets of underworked bread. In order to compensate for the lackofLoireluster quality of one’s life in general, people end up doing things. (My, I’m using a lot of italics today.) One of the things they do is accept the nymphet server’s offer to taste the wine being poured from a screw top bottle. I’m sure others have written volumes about this in their capacity as faux-residents of the Loire, and I’m sure it’s a form of reverse snobbery (remember the good ol’ days when you could just be an outright snob and not get your head bitten straight off?), but when one does go to the trouble of pointing out the inconsistency of tasting a wine to check if it’s corked when there is no cork in evidence one is always shot down by arguments that “it’s tradition.” Piffle. I’d sooner check for monsters under my bed (much more likely) than for phantom cork taint. Encouraging this sort of behaviour only leads to people swirling their wine, and taking great big snoutfuls of what they then describe as notes of pineapple and hints of truffle.

I’m not saying that those in the know oughtn’t to sniff their way to the top of the wine list or the bottom of the barrel, whichever comes first. Why, one of my very best friends is a sommelier but she’s the sort of girl who’ll get into your car after work with a taste of a $300 bottle in a yoghurt container sooner than she’ll bother, without warning or encouragement, to tell you what you ought to think of a wine, when she knows perfectly well you just think it ought to get into your belly just as soon as it can.

The other day, on one of my post-hols walkabouts, the sort of thing required for fresh air and to get one’s head out of the Loire and back in the so called real world, I mentioned to a friend that my wine-y impatience means I’m just as likely to register the back end of a swine than the nuance of blueberries and truffles, whereupon he suggested that we launch a wine label under the name Feltched Pig. This would be in keeping with the tradition established several years earlier by a celebrated society florist who, when the new hybrids of rhododendron arrived at his nursery, got together with his staff and christened each one with a common name based on the names of homosexual porn stars. (Florists, what can you do; an urban legend, I'm sure.)

Now, with regards to Feltched Pig, fair warning to anyone who doesn’t know what I’m talking about; do NOT look it up as it really is a questionable practice. [As Maggie Smith's character says in Murder by Death when David Niven gives her a whispered description of necrophilia, "That's tacky, that's really tacky." (Italics mine.)] Of course, unless you do look it up you won’t really get the joke, or as my friend and I did, spend a joyful half hour discussing potential artwork for the label design. So maybe you had better look it up, or get someone to whisper it in your ear, bearing in mind the fair warning as it is questionable (two italicized words in a row). But DON'T look it up if you're under the age of eighteen, or as they say, “twenty-one in some parts of the world,” or if you're the least bit Anal Retentive, or if you’re keen on very literal interpretations of the Bible or its other top world religion counterparts--although, I'm sure I could find several Bible passages that read as equally questionable. There, I think that last bit takes the warning from “fair” to “snow flurries expected this weekend in New Orleans.” You know, I don’t like to judge people (yes, I do, though I feel terribly conflicted about it almost immediately afterwards) but it’s not the sort of activity one could conscionably endorse if one has any feeling at all about personal hygiene; it really rather is line-crossing in that regard, among others. One likes to think that one is crossing the line even mentioning in connection with oenophilic activity.

This little pic-y just proves that you can find anything on line.

All in all, this has not been a v. improving blog entry and I expect readership to drop off dramatically. Am perfectly mortified to be beginning the new year in this way. Not auspicious in the least. Well, perhaps it’s best to get the toxic jokes out into the air and let them breathe. Who knows, they may get better with age? If not, one can always have another run at the new year when the Chinese one rolls around in February, is it? Sadly, it’s not Year of the Pig. However I remain resolute and am open to suggestions about what to pair with Rabbit.

Tit-for-tat Photo Credit: http://michaelprocopio.wordpress.com/2010/04/17/eating-cute/

Curiouser and curiouser.

2010-11-27T00:20:00.000-08:00

A Curious Thing:

I sleep with a pillow. More than that, one under my head and one between my knees. The one between my knees isn't a full length body pillow because I've always found those mildly disturbing, but it is a king sized pillow, and if I must be honest, and it seems I must because who would lie in a confessional blog on the internet?, it has, on more than one occasion, substituted as a surrogate boyfriend. I'm not violating the pillow, like a lap dog in a lady's boudoir, I'm just holding on to it for dear life in the cold, lonely Canadian winter nights.

Lately I've noticed that I'm shifting from a sleeps-on-his-side type of person, to a sleeps-on-his-back type. These shifts seem to come in waves. The more stressful things get the more foetal the sleeping position until if find myself curled up tighter than a fiddlehead in early Spring. This time there's something new. The only way I can get to sleep is by laying my pillow across my chest, not lengthwise, head to toe, as one would expect a king sized boyfriend to rest upon one, but rather lying perpendicularly right across my sternum. This feels like the pillow is trying to keep me from floating away or coming apart. I'm not feeling nutty or anything, despite the evidence above. It just feels like surrogate-pillow-boyfriend-hugging isn't enough. In the morning I wake up and the pillow is still there, balanced on top of the blanket, on top of my chest, and I marvel at the preceding night of stillness this implies. Sometimes you need a weight to hold you down.

Another Curious (and possibly unrelated to pillows) Thing:

The older I get the more curious I become. I thought it would be the other way around, that I would get easily bored, but I'm not. I can still affect boredom really easily, but that's something else altogether. There seems to be so much more going on than when I was a little tyke. Maybe it's the internet: all those pretty pictures and ideas, like staring into the facets of a revolving diamond. Maybe it is related to needing to be held down at night. Maybe all this extra virtual stimulus requires a pillowy paperweight for my chest. Maybe I need to drink fewer Americanos.

Not really curious at all, but v. charming and amusing:

Attended a David Sedaris reading last week. Took my friend George. George had never heard of David Sedaris (curious) and the next day when I was telling my chiropractor about it, turns out he'd never heard of David Sedaris either (curiouser). To me, David Sedaris is a rock star, and I always think that if I know about something, everybody knows about it. Just goes to show, one person's rock star is another person's "who?" (Not The Who, who really are rock stars and everybody knows it, or do they?)

O.K., here's the not curious but charming and amusing part. Sedaris is known for his marathon book signings before and after his readings (up to five and a half hours once). Part of the reason they take so long is that he loves to chat with his readers. He's genuinely curious about people. Last time I was at a signing he wanted to chat about where would be a place to get a good burger. Then we started talking about acting and he drew a little picture in my book. "This is you," he said, "throwing up from having to say bad lines on T.V." Wow, I thought, in that minute and a half of chat he really got to know me. Later I found out that he had drawn the same picture of me throwing up in a pregnant lady's book, but he told her it was her and she was vomiting because of morning sickness. I quickly forgave him. When you're signing hundreds of books a night the fact that you're taking the time to draw anything and attach a little story to it to boot is impressive enough.

How was he to know that I took that book home and put it under my pillow in the hopes that I would dream of my husband, who would match the description of David's long suffering boyfriend, Hugh, who seems to have all the handyman, computer-fixing, tax-filing, well-digging, cooking, and gardening qualities I seek in a domestic . . . partner. (I'm not sure about well-digging. I may have made that up, but I'm pretty sure Hugh could do anything. And I know I would require him to do everything.) The way I go on about Sedaris you'd think I'd want to spend the rest of my life with him while he sketched androgynous portraits of me in stranger's books, but the truth of the matter is neither of us cook so if you put us in a room together we'd be dead about three days after the cocktail onions ran out.

My friend Michael (@procopster) had a similar experience:

Before I met Sedaris, I was trying to come up with something clever to say to him when I reached the front of the line to have my book signed. As I was waiting, a friend of mine who happened to be in town for the weekend surprised me, so we got to chatting and I forgot all about being clever. When I went up to him, I just sort of stared blankly at him. He told me he loved my shirt and proceeded to draw a picture of it in my book.

I thought I was special because he'd done that. Turns out he did the exact same thing to someone else I know.

But I adore him, just the same.

This is a common reaction to Sedaris; he's acutely adorable and can neither do, nor say, no wrong, unless maybe if you happen to be sooper dooper conservative but most of you people have bad porn under the mattress so I'm disregarding you anyhow.

On this particular book tour Sedaris' conversational gambit is that he's collecting and sharing jokes. He arrived with a box that provides an electronic laugh track. He asks people to tell him a joke while he signs their book and if you don't have one he tells you one from one of several note pads he keeps with him. I told him my gay joke, that I can't repeat here because it's visual. That held the line up a little longer because I forced him to look at me and he was distracted from signing. I think I may have fudged it a bit because I'd never told a joke to a rock star before and I was nervous.

Then he asked George what kind of joke she'd like to hear and being from an oft-maligned ethnic minority herself, she said, "racial." Well, this pleased him no end as it appears people have been contributing steadily from this particular genre to his cache. After several of those, we chatted about the difference between appropriate racial humour and inappropriate racial humour (debate amongst yourselves); and after what must have seemed like an interminable amount of time to those in line behind us, but before we knew it, George and I were shuffling off to the bar while he proceeded to swap jokes with legions of adoring and forgiving readers.

The reading itself included bits from his latest book, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, some material from his work for the New Yorker, and most delightful of all, excerpts from his personal diary. Laughter, it appears, continues to be the best medicine. If you don't know David Sedaris yet do yourself a favour and introduce yourself. You'll feel like a weight has been lifted off your chest.

Pop Quiz

2010-11-08T11:19:00.000-08:00

It’s not that I had a lot of lovers.

It’s that I never hide them.” –Carla Bruni

You know when you go get an HIV test? You do know, don’t you? Because unless you’re celibate (not like a monk, real celibate) or in a monogamous relationship in which you actually trust the other person (and even then?), you should know. So let’s assume that you know, y’know?

I love the questions they ask because I know I’ve got all the answers. And they always ask them so matter-of-fact-ly it’s like getting an injection of normalcy. “Have you done crack, do you use needles, have you been with a sex trade worker. . . ?” (No. No. And does it count if I wasn’t actually required to pay them?)

They always top off with the how-many-people-you’ve-been-with-since-your-last-test question. And the honest answer (we are being honest, aren’t we?) is “I dunno.” Who still keeps track of these things after thirty? By gay nightlife / internet standards I’m practically a virgin, but I realise that not everyone is being held to such high standards. Still, I couldn’t say with any degree of certainty. Like Andie MacDowell quips in Four Weddings and a Funeral, “less than Madonna, more than Princess Di –I hope.”

Of course the questions themselves aren’t really part of the test, they’re just more stats for the mill so that they can figure out how many people are doing what to whom and see if that causes a spike in the number of cases of etc, etc. But I find the process itself v. calming. It’s good to stop and reflect about where you’ve been. It tells you a little bit more about who you are. It’s a bit like doing your taxes at the end of the year and discovering you’ve made more money than you’d thought. (Where does it all go? It's like I'm giving it away.)

So you’re in the little room and they ask you the myriad of questions to which your mother doesn’t want the answer, and yet the person asking always seems to look just like she might be your mother, or grandmother. There’s something dear about pretending that your grandmother would yield no judgment on the information that you’ve slept with more people in a month than there are numbers of weeks, days, hours, what have you. This is my favourite part: judgeless sex talk. It’s a bit like confession, if confession didn’t involve the assumption of guilt. The motherly Florence Nightingales gently wrangle me into counting the sheep of my sexual dreams come true. They leave me with a feeling of gentle compassion. The only thing better would be if they handed out cookies and peach juice afterwards.

I'll Take the Cake

2010-05-08T11:02:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning, unlocked the bedroom door (home invasion--you can't be too careful), and trundled up the stairs to find the house empty (not of furniture, just people) and a big ol' box that looked suspiciously cake-y sitting on my kitchen counter. At first I did what I always do when I see an unattended cake box, ignore it and pretend to flirt with the gang of croissants on the counter opposite. For a while I toyed with the idea of calling somebody. But they probably wouldn't hear me due to the amount of croissant I can put in my mouth all at once. So rather than cause panic or a choking hazard, I looked both ways and crossed the line.

Now, I could wax cute about this till next year, but the plain facts, as I'm about to taste them, are that somebody, after years of canvassing on my part, has sent me a cake on the occasion of the month that bears the cake's name, Coffee . . . I mean, May . . . urhm . . . Cake . . .sorry, the impending delirium of pleasure, backed up by croissant residue is making me go wonky.

The mystery of who has so willfully joined my little cake of the month club remains. I don't think it's my house mates because our address is written on the box which leads me to believe that this was delivered, and you know how I love a package being delivered.

Well, I'm not going to waste my time on speculation when I could be grinding beans to go with my impending sugar high. I close by saying that this just goes to show that "ask and you shall receive" is never an outdated modality. In fact, I highly recommend it as a replacement for "don't ask, don't tell." (Mental note: have Deborah get the number for the American Congress or the Pentagon, or whoever it is you call.)

Meanwhile, thank you for the cake, Cake Fairy.

Do A Little Dance

2010-03-06T13:15:00.000-08:00

There's a line from the film Singles that haunts me. The film is about a group of twenty-somethings that are trying to figure themselves out, with beautiful Seattle as a backdrop. At one point early on Bridget Fonda's character says, "I'm 23. I think time is running out to do something bizarre. Somewhere around twenty-five, bizarre becomes immature." This used to depress me. I thought my time was up, bizarre-wise. But it's not true. People do bizarre things all the time. And while they do often come across as immature, we live in an era of media spin. As one of my favourite anti-heroes said, "provided you take a few elementary precautions, you can [be as immature as you like] as often as you like, in as many different ways as you like." (With apologies to Pierre Choderlos de Laclos and Christopher Hampton.)

Immaturity has its place. The dangerous part is not engaging in bizarre behaviour but doing so thoughtlessly. Personally, I like to balance my bizarre with a little yoga. It keeps me from staying at parties for too long after they've expired. Last night I went dancing to celebrate a friend's 25th birthday. It was 80s Night at the club where he works. So I was at 80s Night with a bunch of people born in the 80s. Oh dear. Some people went to quite a bit of effort to recreate the era--fashions so alien to them they may as well have been wearing powdered wigs. I just put on my penny-loafers and rolled up the cuffs of my jeans. I pretty much dress like Andrew McCarthy on his down time on a daily basis anyway. The day before, I informed some friends that I'd have to make sure I took a disco nap prior to going out. "A what?" They had no idea. At first I thought it was an age thing, disco being something they research when they're designing period pieces for the stage. There must be, I thought, some other, updated name for the naptime prior to going out for some late-night dancing. But there didn't seem to be a correlate. And then I asked some other people, older people, people who still use disco as their primary reference to dance, and they didn't know what I was talking about either.

Was it a gay thing? I asked some gay folk. Nope. Clueless. Surely it's not a west coast thing. I refuse to believe that. I'm still unsure what's going on. I'm feeling v. parallel universe. It's like no one has ever heard of salt.

On the other end of this particularly blunt stick of anachronism is a term introduced to me by the young, jet-less set: "pre-drink," as in, "let's pre-drink at my house before going out." Or in one memorable case, "we're going to pre-drink in the car" (see: thoughtless immaturity). At first I had no idea what they could mean. Was it some sort of activity that occurs prior to drinks being served? Like nuts at an hotel bar? No. It has been explained to me that pre-drinking is drinking prior to going out in an effort to a) save money on bar drinks, and b) get as squiffy as possible before arriving. Well, now I know what they've been doing with their disco naptime.

Pre-drink strikes me as a particularly unfortunate term. For starters, it breaks the illusion that you're just having a drink to be sociable and if you happen to get a little tight it's just because you were swept away by the bonhomie of the moment. Whatever happened to "cocktails at Lucy's and then we'll move on to dancing." I blame the decline of the country club where people had the decency to at least pretend they weren't trying to get as soused as possible and when it came to it retired to somewhere around the 9th hole to have their sloppy sex and do their eventual vomitings. As far as I'm concerned, it's not a party until someone comes in from the garden with twigs in their hair and a button missing from one of their braces. If we're going to evoke by-gone eras let's resurrect the ones where it was still required that immaturity be covered up. Otherwise bizarre just becomes par for the course.

The Back 40

2010-01-26T23:09:00.000-08:00

On my most recent visit, for reasons mostly innocent, to the doctor, I was informed that a man in my condition (40+) ought to have 30 grams of fiber in his daily diet. Thirty grams?(!!)? That’s more than the weight of my soul. Those self-righteous broccoli on brown rice lunches I've been packing are barely making a dent. Turns out I'd have to eat a basket of broccoli. Brown rice? 2.5 grams of fiber per cup. Pffft! That's peanuts (2 lousy grams). If I'm going to make my target I'm going to have to take a step of milestone proportions: Metamucil.

Metamucil is to the 40+ crowd what the moon landing was to mankind--a giant leap. But only for the first little while, and then it just goes back to being what it really is, a small step made all the more palatable by the fact that arrives in a container, texture, colour and flavour v. reminiscent of Tang. In a way it's saying, "Welcome to the first day of your regression to childhood."

In the annals of coming out there are some fantastic steps that we in Western culture all acknowledge. Nothing says you've been let loose on society than your first long trousers (bell bottoms in my case); getting your driver's license; your debutant ball; losing your virginity; losing your virginity the second time; various graduations, jobs, marriages, homes . . . . Some of these milestones are more epic than others. Some hang around your neck forever. Some just fade into the sepia mist of time. Remember sepia before it was an effect on photoshop? Most of mine seem to be of the latter variety. Until recently, much of what I remembered from my past seemed to be mostly from films and novels. Then it suddenly struck me, like a knobbly umbrella on the head, that it wasn't my past at all. It was Helena Bonham Carter's paycheck.

I remember a beautiful description in E.M. Forster's A Room With A View that closed with those five most cherished of all cherished words in the English language: "the upper lawn for tea."

In spite of the clearest directions, Miss Bartlett contrived to bungle her arrival. She was due at the South-Eastern station at Dorking, whither Mrs. Honeychurch drove to meet her. She arrived at the London and Brighton station, and had to hire a cab up. No one was at home except Freddy and his friend, who had to stop their tennis and to entertain her for a solid hour. Cecil and Lucy turned up at four o'clock, and these, with little Minnie Beebe, made a somewhat lugubrious sextette upon the upper lawn for tea.

It was thrilling then, watching the Merchant/Ivory film production to find this description meticulously reproduced. The detail in all the Merchant/Ivory films is always scrupulous. What wouldn't I give to have that sort of crispness in the memory of my own life. The last forty years seem like the most diluvial blur. My childhood and youth are a collection of external memories frozen in Kodak Instamatic Technicolor (the sepia of mine own generation); my twenties are hazy at best (due to Persephone-like randomness on my part and hardly at all to any sort of Dionysian excess, damn it); and my thirties, well, they seem like yesterday--only the sort of yesterday where one draws a blank.

Worse still, last night I shot straight up in bed, as I'm wont to do, bit down on my knuckle in Lichtensteinian horror, and thought, "I never made it onto a '40 Under 40' list. Fuck." Of course, I never made it onto a "30 Under 30" list or a "20 Under 20" list or even a "Ten Tweens to Watch" list. But as there are ten more spaces on the list with each passing decade the situation is becoming embarrassing. What will I tell my agent, who I think has taken me off her email list as I'm no longer getting those group messages saying what dire circumstances the industry is in and how "we're all hoping things will pick up next season." I know the feeling. Next season simply cannot arrive fast enough. Is this why Paris always shows six months ahead of the rest of us? While someone is designing all the frou-frou six months prior to the sell date? Somewhere in all this time travel is a solid yogic argument for honouring the present. I can't think of them in the moment but there are all sorts of catch phrases and wiser-than-thou quotations arguing just that. If I had the energy I'd consult my fridge magnets. I'm putting that on my mental "to do" list for tomorrow: focus on the present. Good. That's done. Now, where was I?

Kevin Kerr's new play, Spine, is having its world premiere next week. In it he explores the idea of the "self" and the identity that we create to package our sense of self. Every time something happens to alter our idea of what our self is (age, illness, marriage) we have to reformulate the identity to suit. Time consuming. And v. painful. See: therapy. How much better would it be, posits Kerr, if our idea of self was fluid and our identity adjusted to new circumstances as they occur. This must be the definition of aging gracefully.

Fran Lebowitz wrote in her 1998 Vanity Fair article on age that you can tell how old someone is by who they find to be glamourous. Cary Grant, she found glamourous. Sophia Loren, glamourous. But Brad Pitt, she quipped, "just looks like a trick." And this was an age ago when Brad Pitt was probably around 35 and did indeed look like a trick. And while I don't find him glamourous he repackaged himself quite adeptly as the Octodad. It looks good on him. And if Brad can't make the forties fabulous, well . . . .

Of course, the real reason for having all those children, I've now discovered, is for the IT support. I remember squandering my teens away (when I ought to have been vying for one of those top ten spots) vainly teaching my parents (over and over again) how to record on the VCR (Video Cassette Recorder), set digital clocks, mute stuff. What, oh what where these people still doing alive? Now, in just two short decades I can't even turn on a television to save my decrepit life. Fortunately no one seems to be watching television on actual televisions any longer so this seems to go by unnoticed. Also, I no longer have any friends because I refuse to text message. The other day, a friend of mine, to whom I'm barely holding on, and who is a software engineer accidently replied to all twenty-seven recipients of an email instead of just the sender. Maybe it's his failing eyesight or maybe his fumbling old fingers couldn't negotiate the touch pad properly, but when software engineers start bungling it's time to hire a twelve-year-old to be your personal assistant in charge of correspondence. Meanwhile, sit back, pop a few prunes and stay tuned for future posts where we'll be highlighting romantic restaurants with adequate lighting and fifty-five flavours you should experience before the bloom is off your taste buds.

*Image: Drowning Girl by Roy Lichtenstein, 1963.

(NB: Gentle reader, while scrounging around the interplace as I was writing, I discovered that Metamucil has side-effects. I couldn't bare to bring myself to read up on them. It's too soon. And I figure Tang must have had side-effects too. And I'm sure we'll find out about them when they start exhuming the bodies. I'm just saying, don't take my word for it. Do your research.)

Sign(s) of the times.

2009-12-18T22:50:00.000-08:00

I just overheard someone described as an "opium-smoking, gossip-loving, Chilean diplomat" and I thought, "Lor' apart from the opium-smoking and Chilean bits, that could be me". Only I don't think of it as gossip. It's merely news ahead of its time. I often think of how I might be described, mostly because I'm entirely vainglorious; but also because I have a lot of time to think while my friends are engaged to or by their various beau-hunks, and I'm avoiding memorizing scripts. (Writers are so specific with all their crazy words and the order in which they think they want them to go.)

A couple of months ago, or was it weeks? a friend described something that I found apocalyptic: $8 spheres of ice what go in your drink (well not your drink, some fool with $8 burning a hole in his pocket--I take that back, people spending $8 on spheres of ice probably don't carry cash, or have pockets). Another friend, in order to keep me preoccupied from the obvious lack of beau-hunks and the pressure of scripts, suggested that I do a list of ten contemporary signs of the apocalypse. This is the same friend who always quips, "Après moi, le déluge, baby," whenever I try to convince her that something bad is going on in the Amazonian rainforest. Once you've seen $8 spheres of ice, however, you ought hardly to need another nine signs that the end is tailgating you. Take the hint and step on it, darling. You are now officially in a terrible rush.

Here however, largely for my own amusement, are some of my favourite signs.

This was a good sign. Sent by a third friend, it comes in the form of one of those cards that give you directions. Whenever I see these cards I think, "I'm not going to buy that, I could just write that on a piece of paper myself and save $4.50. Does this card come with a hemisphere of ice?" And yet, it was a v. comforting message. I did indeed need to calm down. Who the fuck doesn't. Jesus, the Dali Lama needs to calm down. You can never have too much calm. So up it went right onto my bathroom inspiration board.

Quiz: Ought you to be more comforted that your shoes aren't covered in questionable flame retardant chemicals, or more nervous that should your foot spontaneously combust it's likely to spread faster than if you were wearing say, brogues.

Also, if you don't read German or English is this a sign of litigation to come?

This falls on the Apocalypse side of my fence. We're not in Kansas no more and no amount of heel snapping is gonna get you home.

This is a sign that's seen better times and whose current days are numbered. There used to be ice in this building, but just the flat kind.

I should also mention it's in a part of town called Belgravia. And when I say town, I don't mean London, England. I pass it every day and it makes me wonder if I myself am the real thing, or just a cheap imitation of someone else.

Dude, it wasn't me. I don't even own that colour spray paint.

This looks like there's an oil barrel of burning tires just out of frame, but in fact it's on some middle class fencing in a v. close-to-reputable neighbourhood just on the other side of the Light Rapid Transit tracks from Belgravia (not London, England).

I have to say, probably true, although, how capitalistic can a place be if they're letting the Curling Club fall to ruins?

Best thing: dude, semicolon.

Edmonton is a confusing place: capitalist rape vs. anarchist bookfair. This is what we, here at I Will Have You, like to call a mixed message; like when someone gives you all the signs that he wants you to kiss him and then you try to kiss him and it turns out he doesn't want you to kiss him. Like that.

So many poles. So little time. Does this even merit comment? I'm going to say this goes down on the apocalyptic list. Why? Because I don't care to be unintentionally moist.

Fifth horse(wo)man. "You betcha."

Don't do it, man. It's not worth it.

Well, yeah.

O.K., that's enough. You get the picture.

Hello Levi.

2009-10-20T21:59:00.000-07:00

Money, pardon the expression, is like manure. It's not worth a thing unless it's spread around encouraging young things to grow.

--Mrs. Dolly Levi

Say what you want about Levi Johnson but he's taking a pickle (the one he's gotten himself into) and turning it to profit. Mrs. Palin ought to be darn'd proud of her almost son-in-law. He is exhibiting (or soon will be) the sort of enterprising spirit that has turned America into the free market paradise it is today. Levi is taking his most precious resource, selling it to the highest bidder, and they are packaging it, marking it up, and selling it off. If Playgirl doesn't double its sales when Levi's issue comes out, well, then I'll be jiggered. Why people want to buy this product is irrelevant. What is important is to recognize that in one fell stroke Levi is doing more to boost the economy than all the manure spreading Mrs. Palin could manage in a lifetime. Now, if Levi was really to take advantage of some matchmaking kismit, he'd get together with Kate Gosselin. He's just the sort of teen spirit she needs to revitalize that franchise--give it the pseudo-political edge that's so popular with the Yanks these days. Think about it: he's a single dad, she's a single mom and I'd say it's much more than a hunch. They're both so damn fertile. If they can't encourage young things to grow, who can?

The September Issue

2009-09-30T21:51:00.000-07:00

In many parts of the world it's already October, and by the time my four readers get to this post, October will most surely have engulfed the entire globe. I was rather thinking that by now I would have managed to see The September Issue, so imagine my surprise this week when I couldn't find it playing anywhere in my vicinity. It appears that in the city, a term I use loosely, where I currently reside they've cancelled September, or at least postponed it until it comes out on DVD. No great loss really, but I'll take any excuse to mope a bit, and so I was until a wonderful thing happened. A parcel arrived. In the post. And as I think I've said before, there's nothing better than a parcel. It wasn't a package in brown paper, or wrapped up with string, but receiving a lovingly packaged care pack is my favourite, and here's why: it's impressive. It denotes care, attention, and effort. And parcels are fun. There's a reason why Jack comes in a box. (Steady on.) Other great things that have come in boxes: there's cake, of course; books are always good; hand made gourmet marshmallows; clever ceramic mugs; a rabbit (I didn't see that one coming, or going); and a Martini once, in a little silver shaker with a lemon twist, and an arrow on the outside pointing "this side up". (You have to know the right courier.) No diamonds yet, but I'm not in desperate need of a best friend.

I love a package because it's crossed time and space. And usually you're the only one who's got one. People don't get packages every day. Well, maybe Anna Wintour. And that's why it's so impressive. If you're not Anna Wintour and you don't live on her block then probably you're the only one to get one today. The day my parcel arrived there was no one home so the postman, in lieu of ringing twice, left one of those little slips inviting you to come on by and pick up your own damn parcel. Well, as it turns out I'm v. busy in my little city that doesn't merit proper film distribution (I may as well be camping in Russia) so I did the most Wintourian thing I could think of; I sent one of the BA students to fetch it. This accomplished two things: it alerted those around me that I was expecting a parcel (Hey, I'm not beyond sending myself large bouquets with notes that read, "Please say yes. Love Jonathan." Thank you, Ms. Ephron.), and it heightened the inherent Christmas-y anticipation. I know, how bourgeois to anticipate anything. But anticipate we did, my people and I.

After walking around the department once or twice with the parcel (marked "perishable") under my arm, sauntering past accounting, lurking around the photocopier, borrowing post it notes, I was sure everyone had been subtly alerted to 'the presence.'

I then proceeded to put the parcel on my desk and read an article. I didn't want to appear too eager. After all it's not like I don't receive impressive perishable parcels every day, is it? Or isn't it? Well, there it was, impressive, and perishable, sitting on my desk while I, with my back turned, studiously highlighted upside down words. "Hmmm? What? Oh yes, uhm, does anyone have a paper knife? No? Well maybe I'll just wait till I get home. What? Your scissors? A nail file? Well, I suppose, I may as well get this big bulky thing out of the way." And so came the magic moment of reveal. And my parcel didn't disappoint. Chocolate, baby. Artisanal Chocolates from a little outfit called Christopher Elbow. Delectable. And the inside of this parcel was more impressive than the outside.

Suck it, brown paper packages, now it's all about silver Mylar cooler lining with ice packs. You could have shipped a kidney in this set up. But instead, it was nine tender lovings of sugary, cocoa-y goodness; that I immediately did not share with any of my hard won audience. "What? Is that my iPhone buzzing to the tune of The Impossible Dream? V. important meeting, must fly . . . " Artisanal Chocolates wait for no one, not even October.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

2009-08-24T15:59:00.001-07:00

"I don't do anything. But you're darling to ask."

--a Tom Wolfe character?, in one of his books?

Recently, on the Paris metro, I was reading over a friend's shoulder a portion of The Sweet Life in Paris, by David Lebovitz, surrealistically enough, while on the way to have a drink w. David Lebovitz, so really it was by way of cramming. I thought I should at least have read some of his book. The portion that caught my eye was a bit about how in France it is considered rude when meeting someone for the first time, to ask, "what do you do?" Inquiring about someone's profession is thought to be too closely akin to asking, "so, how much do you make?" Instead, Europeans are apt to ask, "where are you from?" as a form of ice breaker.

I'd noticed this before. I was askance that my Greek cousin didn't know what his best friend's parents did for a living. Yesterday, watching the Vicar of Dibley, one of the characters commented on how rude it was to bring up the subject of profession too soon. Europeans simply do not talk about work. Now, I'm torn. On the one hand I find this fantastically refreshing 'coz I don't care what you do, talking about your work is going to be (ultimately) a) bloody boring for you, b) bloody boring for your companion, or c) bloody both, in which case the conversation is going to be dead before it gets off the ground. If you've got nothing better to talk about other than work you might want to consider reading a paper or becoming Governor of Alaska, or something diverting like that. On the other hand, "where are you from" is rarely as interesting in North America as it might potentially be in Europe.

What does one do is best brought up when you are talking about someone who isn't present. The other day I inquired after the profession of an absent acquaintance-in-common and was told that she was a lawyer but had been off work for a year due to a horrible car accident that had left her etc. etc. Now, good thing said acquaintance wasn't there because whenever I'm in a room with a lawyer, I always pretend I'm not in a room with a lawyer. (Thank you Mr. Thurber.) But, and, also, had I merely inquired from whence she hailed I would have been rewarded with a curt, "Connecticut," and no mention of comas or anything like that, and been left to my own devises. Sometimes you just need to know.

On Tuesday afternoon I walked into a production meeting and met a young woman in a full-on gingham dress reaching from the top of her throat to her ankles and covering her elbows. Her feet were shod in little black booties and her straw-blond hair was pulled into a disciplined bun. The moment I turned to see her I wanted to say, "Are you Amish?" and that's how I missed most of what was said during the rest of the meeting because I had to keep my teeth clamped shut while this unfortunate phrase tried valiantly to smash it's way out of my mouth. (She's not. She was on a break from the historical museum where she works. Honestly, a gingham dress arouses more suspicion in me than a sequinned thong. It's so kinky.)

Speaking of religion, or maybe speaking of kinky, I was stopped on the soon to be overrun by fresh students but currently deserted campus where I sometimes study, by a young Korean man-boy who wanted to ask a question. O.K., it's a lazy Sunday afternoon and I'm gayme. I thought it was going to be one of those ESL deals where they've been sent on a series of tasks and are encouraged to talk to strangers in an effort to improve their English. (A questionable pedagogical practice, I've always thought. Ask any fairy tale character in a red hoodie, lost in the woods.) But no, or nay, as it were. He's a theology student. And here were his questions:

What's your name?
What are you studying?
Do you believe in God?
What's your religion?
Do you know about the Heavenly Mother?
Would you like me to give you a lecture about it to save your soul?

And here are my answers:

Nicky D.
Theatre.
Urhm, yes?
Well . . . Orthodox, y'know, Greek.
Y' mean, like, the Virgin?
Look, darling, I'm a grad student. I'd rather go to hell than sit through another lecture.

Then he wanted to know if there was a better time that we could meet and discuss it, and I had to just fess up and say that I'm verrrrrry busy. Now I'm afraid that he might be one of the students in the Oral Communication class I'm teaching and I'll have to refrain from making dick jokes in class. Bother.

So, sometimes, yes, you can ask the wrong, and too many questions. Or maybe it's just about asking questions that are too easy. Personally I'm going to challenge myself to not care what people "do". And to start caring about who they might be. I know, I'm just asking for a load of sincerity, but what Can you do?

On a Sunday? Always.

2009-07-24T12:38:00.000-07:00

Fag Hag. I know it's a term Margaret Cho has taken back like the night but it doesn't sit well with me. I've never thought of any of my girlfriends in that way. Something about it implies that a woman might enjoy my company strictly, or largely, because of my sexual orientation. It makes me think that any fag will do. I'm prepared for men to enjoy my company on those terms but women fall under a whole 'nother catagory.

I think of the pantheon of smart, beautiful women I count as my friends and how, for periods of time, we fall into roles that give off something of a marital tone. This reminds me of a term I recently came across in my research for a biography of George Bernard Shaw. (I can't remember which book this comes from but I copied it down: "In The Millionairess (1934), Epifania defines 'Sunday husband' as 'a gentleman with whom I discuss subjects that are beyond my husband's mental grasp, which is extremely limited'; and in Buoyant Billions (1947), Tom Buoyant explains: 'My wife needed some romance in her life when I ceased to be romantic to her and became only her matter-of-fact husband. To keep her in good humour and health I had to invite and entertain a succession of interesting young men to keep her supplied with that I call Sunday husbands.'" And so the other day when someone compared my girlfriend to a fag hag, I made a correction, "Oh no, she's my Sunday Wife."

Now, I myself don't have a matter-of-fact husband from whom I need distraction but you've got to have someone with whom you can discuss your dates. And as much as I'd like to discuss Tuesday's date with Wednesday's date that never really goes over well. Many of the Sunday Wives, however, do have their own husbands. Regardless of the level of romance between them the fact remains that there are certain things that you can't, won't, or shouldn't discuss with your husband, either to avoid his divorcing you or your boring him to death. I'm v. fond of most of these other husbands but that doesn't keep the conversation from turning to the polite whenever they enter the room. Lately, in a mad effort to be egalitarian, I've ceased censoring my comments in front of the husbands and I modulate my conversation based on their eyes' level of glossiness. But even then, it's a bit of a show.

The crux of the Sunday Spouse relationship is that you're a little bit on vacation and your relaxed behaviour reflects this. The romantic relationship, on the other hand, is work, often happy work that is rewarded, but work nevertheless. The Sunday Spouse ought never to feel like work. The Sunday Spouse is a holiday and even though one wouldn't want to be on holiday forever (you think you do but you don't, trust me), we still all need a break, and maybe a touch of sun.

(Image: Detail from A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat)

Post Script: If you're not familiar w. the plays and writings of GBD then you might want to consider some summer reading. His plays are actually as wonderful to read as they are to watch.

George Bernard Shaw (1856 – 1950)

Bernard (he loathed the name George) Shaw was a vegetarian. He was an ardent non-smoker. “Self-appointed iconoclast and gadfly, Shaw devoted his life to exhorting the world to overhaul its old ideas about love and sex, romance and sentimentality, marriage and divorce, prostitution and venereal disease, asceticism and adultery, obscenity and censorship, birth control and sexual education” (Pharand 1). In short, either Shaw was a man with values far ahead of his time or we, in the 21st Century are lagging far behind our own. He left school at the age of 14 to work for a land agent. At 20 he moved from Dublin to London and for nearly ten years sequestered himself in the Reading Room of the British Museum and read everything he could. Believing that sex and marriage were not mutually exclusive, he was happily (and wealthily) married to Charlotte FrancesPayne-Townsend from 1898 to her death in 1943. Their marriage excluded sex. The author of five unpublished novels, his career as a writer began as a critic of art, music and theatre. He loved music, especially Mozart and Wagner. On stage he was a proponent of the work of Ibsen, whose complex characters were an anti-dote to the two-dimensional heroes and villains of the popular melodramas . His views were strong and outspoken, and he loved to promulgate them in pamphlets, polemics and hundreds of letters. In 1884 he co-founded the Fabian Society and overcame a vocal stammer by training himself to become a powerful public speaker on the soapboxes of Hyde Park’s Speaker’s Corner. The social reforms promoted by the Fabians and Shaw’s Feminist ideals informed all his future work. Having honed his teeth as a speaker and a writer, he wrote his first play, Widower’s Houses in 1891. It was not well received. Nor were the eleven plays that followed. The 1905 production of Man and Superman marks the beginning of Shaw’s celebrated career as a successful playwright. His anti-war stance became legendary, and shortly before the outbreak of the second word war, in 1939, he wrote to his biographer in characteristic satirical style: “What a comfort to know that if we kill 20 millions or so of one another, we’ll none of us be missed.” Dedicated to reform to his last days, he was pruning a tree in his garden when he fell from his ladder. He died a few days later. He was 94.

(Pharand, Michel W. "Introduction: Dionysian Shaw." Shaw: The Annual of Bernard ShawStudies 24 (2004): 1-10.)

"I wish I knew how to quit you."

2009-07-18T12:09:00.000-07:00

I'm not a quitter. But I do sometimes fade away, like old soldiers who never die. I'm lucky enough, however, to have dear friends who shake me up by making reasonable demands:

There's been a waiter in your soup since March 7th.

I've been waiting 4 months for a blog update.

I like to think this absentmindedness is one of my cuter characteristics, like a version of Doris Day (an old soldier if ever there was one) who's unknowingly drunk some water with sleeping powder in it and can't quite stay awake. And Paul Lynde, or some other Hollywood proto-homosexual keeps having to slap her conscious. "Huh, wha . . . ? ? Oh, Peter, it's you." But as cute as this may be, especially at dinner parties, or the opening of Parliament, my cute days are currently and happily waning. I'd much rather be a quitter. Nobody likes wishy-washy past the age of, well, ever. And the only way you can even slightly get away with wishy-washy is said Cute Factor (CF). After a certain age (oh I dunno, three?) being definitive shows a strength of character that is desirable in a pre-school candidate. Quitting is definitive (unless you're making a Palinesque manoeuver), and I don't think we ought to be so ready to put it down.

Quitting is a choice. You're either in or you're out and sometimes when you're out life gets a whole lot more interesting. While discussing my relationship one morning my shrink told me there was ambiguity in my life. "What are you getting from it? Is it feeding you in some way?" (I love shrink talk. They manage to sound utterly aloof and at the same time concerned. If your shrink doesn't sound like this quit him immediately.) The word ambiguity was like a huge light bulb going on. And off, and on, and off, with me rocking in the corner in the fetal position. Leaving the shrink's office, I proceeded to luncheon w. my boyfriend and we broke it off. It had been a long time coming, but one of us was wishy and the other was washy, which originally made us the perfect couple. It wasn't easy, but a good break up (for realsies, not the kind where you're still sleeping together) is definitive. Now he's in a loving relationship with a beautiful man, and I'm, well, currently I'm renovating my bathroom, but there's no doubt about it. And once Elizabeth Gilbert really let go of her ex-husband she managed to write a best-selling novel. Did I mention I'm renovating my bathroom?

Yesterday, at the rather large arts organization where I occasionally go in to organize the art that, like life, can get messy, word came down that the artistic director had quit. Not knowing the circumstances I immediately rushed to his office to congratulate him. That's when it occurred to me that my first impression of quitting is that it's a step in the right direction. Every time I hear about someone quitting I think of what a relief it must be to them. The one time I quit a nine-to-five job (the only time I ever had a nine-to-five job) I gave my two weeks notice and what had previously been a soul sucking drudge became a sweet daily adventure. I floated through the office popping paper in inboxes, I mailed cheery emails, I soothed irate customers, and I did it all without breaking a sweat, on my own time, and with the most benevolent nods to my harried co workers. Knowing I wasn't going to be tied to that job for the rest of my life certainly had something to do with it. I had been there nine months already and as a baby wasn't forthcoming I felt it was really time to go. Why can't we always behave like nothing is forever? 'Coz, y'know, it's not. (Barring diamonds which you might get to keep if you quit at the right time.) I used to lament the passing of things, things like flowers, time, cheese, relationships. But not so much anymore. There's always something new coming down the pike, and if not something new then something old and familiar, and having quit it once we now know better how it is to be dispatched.

Doctor, there's a waiter in my soup.

2009-03-07T13:25:00.000-08:00

The last time I flirted with a waiter, I ended up going home with the food runner. I have an eating disorder. Food makes me flirty. (So do first snows, spring days, and Vicks VapoRub.) My flirtation style is buckshot. Buckshot flirtation is dangerous because it's aimless. Here's how it works. I see someone I like, and I flirt. But instead of solely flirting with that one person I just, well, Flirt. With everyone in the immediate vicinity. I flirt with the hostess, the bus boy, the people sitting next to me, the table, the chairs, people walking by in the street, I send buckets of champagne to strangers, I send messages to the kitchen staff . . . It's random and unfocused. I've seen people with great laser flirtation. They lock on to the target and nothing else exists. I just spin like a Catherine wheel. The results are either collateral damage--someone else takes the fall, or I end up in the bathroom, throwing up and holding my own hair (there's nothing worse than the hang over from unfettered flirting).

But practice makes perfect. A couple of weeks ago I was dining with friends and something told me it was time to put my freshly honed skills to work. It wasn't my braised lamb shank telling me so. There was a twinkle in our server's eye. Was it for me or was he giving excellent service and I've just forgotten what that feels like? If the sex trade is the world's oldest profession, then acting and serving are close behind. They are body trades. To excel in any of them you have to acknowledge that you are there to be used, to be 'of use' to the other. And to survive in any of them you should know how much of yourself you are prepared to give.

You can tell a lot about a man by the way he serves you dinner. It's not often you have the opportunity to watch somebody for two hours while they're at work (well, really more than that if you count last week when I went back for a little risotto and a Saturday night stalking). With doctors and lawyers and bankers (yes, yes, "oh my") it's easy to be unsure. Those types of professions are set up to hide a myriad of sins. (Poor bankers, the green curtain's been pulled aside and everyone can see your smoke and mirrors now.) But a server, amateur or professional, can't hide much in the course of his or her duty. And this guy's a pro.

So here I am, the afternoon before the morning after (and I only say that because I'm meeting him for a drink after he finishes his shift tonight and by the time we're done it'll be morning in any case). I'm trying to recall the last time I went on a date with someone I didn't meet online, hadn't seen photos of their cat, their vacation home, their high school grad, all before ever laying eyes on them in the flesh. All I really know is: 1. cute as the dickens; 2. can work his way deftly around two toney sittings a night; 3. firm handshake. This old fashioned approach to dating has got me a little giddy. Largely because I'm learning to be straight forward and sidestep the pussyfooting. It's hard being a man. Especially if you've been training your whole life to be a boy.

A New York Minute

2009-02-20T20:55:00.000-08:00

Ever feel like you're playing fast and loose with your sanity?

--Mary Jo Shively

There's a stack of New Yorkers in my bathroom that grows with every passing week. Whenever I look at them I'm reminded of time passing and all the creative, delicious things that I may or may not be doing. At least wine bottles get recycled, but there's always that little snippet in a magazine to which you might want to refer back. So they sit, and grow. And refer back I do. They feed me, and inspire me, and depress me. They remind me that my world is bigger than, well bigger. It's a big world, after all. It pretends to be small but I think that's just a blind. It's big, and bold, and time is whizzing around it like a cold wind. Would we stop time if we could? Mmmmmaybe, just for a bit.

It would stop us from doing silly things. Things like spending Valentine's Day on the dog end of a pile of coeds. Of course, it was just incidentally Valentine's Day. I didn't really think of it till the next morning. Well, the next afternoon. And all the rest of the week. What could it mean? Probably nothing. And yet . . . It probably means I should be dating people my own age. Like the doctor who sat on his Blackberry while we were saying goodnight (that's a euphemism) in his car and speed dialed his mother, whose voice was subsequently amplified through the Bluetooth speaker system. At first I thought it was his car talking. Lemme tell you, this is one way to stop time. Or at least your heart. Not that my heart was really in it. Doctors aren't really everything your mother cracked them up to be.

Damn, this was going to be a blog about time and it's just turned out to be about people I shouldn't be kissing. Here's something from The Book of Questions by Pablo Neruda, just to round things off:

What is the distance in round meters
between the sun and the oranges?

Who wakes up the sun when it falls asleep
on it's burning bed?

Does the earth sing like a cricket
in the music of the heavens?

Is it true that sadness is thick
and melancholy thin?

Kind of makes you want to put Pablo in a burlap sack and drown him in the river, don't it? Never mind. Probably lost in translation. There will be no drowning today, not of dear old Pablo, unless it's in your sorrows.

O.k., final volley. (I know, I'm playing against myself here, but give me a little break.) Here's my favourite thing from my recent trips to New Yorker: a photo layout of people who'd attended the 2009 Innaugural Balls. One of the photos is of "Jeremy Leffler, an analyst from Indianapolis, and Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Alejandro Aleman, from Washington, D.C." That's what the caption says. But the photo speaks at least another 984 words. They look normal, and spiffy, and in love, and full of hope. They're going to live in my bathroom for a while. Hope has a tendency to rub off. And it's timeless.

(Hand made erotic "Be Mine" Hearts courtesy of the x-Beast. Best Valentine's gift ever. Except for that trip to Jakarta. But that was really a form of reimbursement.)

Crocs. Get over your denial.

2009-01-24T12:26:00.000-08:00

The tide is turning.

Been Quashed, Bothered and Bewildered.

2009-01-21T22:46:00.000-08:00

I've been quashed. By Alberta Justice no less. And they reserve the option to re-lay.

Follow. Early last November I was awarded a traffic violation ticket for allegedly being somewhere I oughtn't have been--in an automobile apparently. The details are unimportant. Not having time in my schedule to appear before Her Majesty's justice I opted to throw money at the problem and make it go away. ("Don't look so bewildered. Surely you've noticed me writing cheques before.") By some slip of my pen, however I must have made a mistake on the date because my cheque was returned with a note explaining that unless I delivered a fresh cheque by December 17 a warrant would be issued. Let me be clear. A warrant for my arrest. Well, by the time I got that note--who knows where the mail gets to nowadays--it was well past the 17th. So I wrote a new cheque and carefully explained the circumstances that led to the delay, expressing in the most hopeful terms that I dared to imagine this new cheque would remove my name from Alberta's list of most wanted--criminal list, I mean. Well, I forgot all about it until today when I received this most inexplicable letter advising me that the violation has been "quashed". What could it mean? Who quashed it? Were there words? Did someone put one in? A word, I mean? Was it a good one?

The best bit is the parting phrase: "The Police Officer may choose to re-lay this charge." I can't imagine what it's all about. All I know is that it's my very first quashing and I will now live in constant fear of another random letter, the receipt of which will leave me laid all over again. I feel a little like Cary Grant in North By Northwest standing on a barren highway, exposed, waiting for a crop duster to come by and finish me off.

Paste Y'rself.

2009-01-13T23:27:00.000-08:00

One of the pitfalls of being a grad student is making sure you get enough to eat. Proper nutrition, you know. Often I'll come home after 10:30 at night, having survived the day on a few leaves of red lettuce I was diligent enough to pack for lunch and several cups of coffee paired with cran-oatmeal cookies. Having little energy left for anything that might resemble cooking, I thank my lucky stars, and really the ex-beast, for introducing me to the Ikea food hall. Thus it is that I found myself indulging in an impromptu cocktail party of one involving my favourite tubes of seafood: crab, salmon, and creamed smoked roe. Like toothpaste for grizzly bears, these fishy tubes make for instant fin-de-jour relief. Squeeze a dab onto some rice crackers, pour a glass of yesterday's red wine languishing on the counter and you've a midnight snack fit for, well, I'm not sure whom exactly, but if it's good enough for whomever, it's good enough for me.

NB: If you start to get a little light-headed it means you're overdosing on the crab. Time to put it away and wash it all down with a Bread and Butter pickle from the good people at Vlasic.

"Anal Sex"

2008-12-27T18:32:00.000-08:00

I was lunching with a friend the other day, a sweet girl named Evie who'd ordered a Salade Niçoise. We were talking about Jesus or something, casual-like, when all of a sudden she said, "Tell me about anal sex." Whaaa? I looked down at two medallions of seared Ahi tuna on my plate thinking maybe they had said something. Clearly this was a case of someone waiting for the appropriate moment to bring something up and then just having at it when they realize the appropriate moment is never to be had.

Evie has just started dating a young man who she assures me is v. straight and v. interested in knocking at her back door.

"We've already done it once," she confessed.

"Did you use lube?"

"No, but there was lots of spit."

"Whoa, back up the truck."

Now, I'm not an expert by any means, but I read Dan Savage, whom she'd never heard of. (Doesn't everybody always turn to the last two pages of their entertainment weekly first?) Spit, I informed my young friend, is all well and good if you're in a hay loft with your cousin. But proper anal sex, like real estate, has a mantra. That mantra is "lube, lube, lube"--the location is implied. Now I have to admit, this isn't the first time this has happened to me--the lube discussion, I mean. Many of my straight friends just don't think about it and when they do, are under the impression that their choice of lubricant is limited to regular KY or KY Intrigue.

"Take me to the nearest gay bookstore," I said, assuming control of the situation. Everybody knows that if you want a great selection of lube you go to a gay bookstore. It wasn't half an hour before we were standing in front of a wall of the stuff. Lube for every possible occasion in every conceivable sort of packaging. It was like being at the lube section at Dean & Deluca. While we were perusing the vast array, a bright young shopgirl came along and sat on our tuffet to ask if she could be of any service.

"Yes," I responded in my most booming and confident voice. We're wondering if you could tell us what the differences are between all these lubricants. For example . . . " But before I could finish speaking, she looked me right in the eye and asked, "What's it for?" My voice trailed off. My eyes wandered to a sign behind her head advertising a vibrating duck, and my ears began to turn red. After what seemed like a v. long time I heard Evie's voice coming from somewhere behind me. It reverberated in my head like a gong. "Anal sex." "Oh," said the bright young shopgirl and proceeded to discuss water based vs. silicone, etc.

I was mortified. It hadn't occured to me before, in all my bravado and eagerness to be Evie's guide to the underworld, that anyone would think that I would be having anal sex with her. Call me old fashioned, but I don't do that to girls. I do it to men, because let's face it, men deserve it. And I think that's God's plan, otherwise He would have given Adam a vagina. It had been a v. revealing afternoon. If I didn't know it before, I'm sure of it now; I'm on the express train to boy button, there are no ifs, ands, or detours about it.

Bell Is Hell. cc: Telus

2008-12-24T23:40:00.001-08:00

Oh dear. This has been a long time coming. Many of you know of my cc: Telus Campaign. Here's how it works:

Telus sucks poo. Everybody knows it. I've never heard anyone tell me of anything other than the most nightmarish stories whenever Telus comes up. They cannot possibly be getting the amount of complaints that they truly deserve because part of their m.o. is to frustrate you to the point that you just want it to be over and you've no strength or will left to do anything about it. The cc: Telus Campaign is designed to adjust the level of complaint letters Telus receives to more accurately reflect the amount of pain and suffering they inflict.

It's simple. Every time anyone writes a letter of complaint to anyone, it needn't be Telus, they just make a copy and cc: Telus. For example, didn't get your Kosher meal on your flight from Vancouver to Toronto? (You'd be surprised how often this happens.):

Dear Air Canada,
Suck it.
Yours, etc.
cc: Telus

It doesn't matter that this has nothing to do with Telus. Chances are you're simply making up for an injustice someone else has suffered at their hands.

Now it seems we're going to have to add to the cc list. Telus, you've got company. Below is an open letter to Bell Canada, to whom it may concern at Bell Canada, if in fact anyone is at all concerned. I've been saving this up so you'd better mull some wine, pull your blankie tight 'round your chin and settle in for a nightmare before Christmas.

Think back. Think back to when Nicky was just a boy. Innocent in the ways of the world and angry only at Telus.

Dear Bell,

Following is a log of my recent experience.

August 30, 2008: I go to Bell World in South Edmonton Common. I nice fellow named Kaz helps me out. We discuss new phones and signing a new three-year contract. There would be a new start-up fee of $35. Could he waive it for a returning customer? No he can’t but why don’t I call Bell directly. I call Bell directly and wait twenty minutes to speak to a fellow who doesn’t think it’s a problem. OK, the upstart fee has been waived, a fee that seems to want to pelinize you for retruning your business to Bell. Never mind, I congratulate myself of a bit of consumer savvy and return to Bell World. I renew my contract and I ask for change of phone number in store. Kaz tells me it’s best to do so on line as I can save the $20 fee if I change the number myself. I go home and try to do so but can find no link on the web site that will serve me. I try several different times. I then call Customer Service and explain that I need help. The representative advises me that he is unable to view the web page from his location and that I ought to send an email to on line support.

September 2: I go back to the site and try to navigate to a place where I can send my email request.
I “rate the page”: horrible.
I finally manage to send a message.

Original Message Follows:
------------------------
The following information was received from an HTML form on the Bell
Canada Web Site.
The Date and Time of receipt was 2008-09-02 06:24:23.120

Your Question : How do I change my phone #?
Category : Cell phone
Topic : User Guides
Additional comments : The rep at the store said I could do this for free
online. The web site is v. confusing and I need direction on how to
change the number. Thank you.

I receive the following response two days later:

September 4:
Ref.: 7782336267

Dear Mr. Dunbar,

Thank you for your recent email.

My name is Angela and for your reference, my employee identification is
6001507.

Upon full review of your email, I am pleased to inform you that it is
indeed possible for you to do this via your online profile.

To change your mobile number online, please follow the steps listed
below:

- Visit our website located at http://www.bell.ca/login;
- From the login page, enter your My Bell username and password;
- Click on your mobile number;
- From the Wireless Services page, click on ?Change my phone number?;
- Select the Province and City for the service area of your choice;
- Choose a new number from the list and click ?Continue?.

Please note that a $20 fee for this service will be billed on your Bell
Mobility monthly invoice. Special number requests with the dealer will
incur a charge of $25 instead of $20, however, online special number
requests will still only be charged $20. By completing this change via
your online profile, the $15 programming fee will not be applicable.

Did you know that our self-serve options provide 24 hour access to your
account? Check your usage, account balance and much more. Simply send
a text message to 82273, which spells out Tcare on your key pad. For
more information on this unique service, please visit our website at
www.bell.ca/tcare.

I would like to thank you, Mr. Dunbar, for using Bell's website and for
choosing us as your wireless communications provider. I hope to have
addressed your points and welcome your response if you require further
clarification.

Additional information can be found at www.bell.ca and we can be
contacted again at www.bell.ca/contactus.

Kind regards,

Angela
Bell Mobility - Online Client Care

I go to the site and try to follow instructions. The web services page does not offer a “Change my phone number” option. I try several different ways to find this option. I think maybe I’m doing something wrong.

I also discover in Angela’s email that this is not in fact a free service, as promised by Kaz at Bell World, South Edmonton Common. There are all manner of charges associated even if I do it on my own. At this point I have spent far, far more than $20 of my own time. I send a second message via the website explaining how frustrated I am.

Original Message Follows:
------------------------

Dear Angela,

Thank you for getting back to me.
I followed your instructions but the web site just puts me on a loop.
When I click "change your phone number" it sends me to a page that explains the process as you have below. It tells me to log onto bell.ca and when I do it goes right back to the original page. I've just spent the better part of an hour trying to find some way to get this done on line and nothing has worked. I'm v. frustrated and angry that I signed a contract w. Bell.

So far I've talked to someone in a store, I've talked to someone on the phone and I've gotten your email and I'm still no closer to changing my number. I've just moved to a new city and this experience is taking up time and money. And nobody can call me without incurring long distance fees.

I'm sure it's not your fault personally, but the system that Bell has set up has let me down. At this point I don't know what to do next.

September 6: I go back to the web site to try Angela’s instructions again. I am still unable to find a “Change my phone number” option. I call Customer Service (611. On hold for a total of 30 minutes.
Transferred from Customer Service to Technical Support.
Technical Support (Emp. ID # 6038043, Maria) tries to transfer me to Client Care but instead I am disconnected. Maria calls back within minutes and puts me on hold while she discusses the situation with Client Care. After three minutes Maria returns to say that there is a long wait and while she was trying to conference me in w. Client Care, could I please hold for them.

All the representatives I have spoken to and interacted with on line have been pleasant but have been limited in their ability to be helpful by being ill informed (in store associate who said it was free on line), ill equipped (Customer Service that can’t view the companies own web site), Technical Support (doesn’t have authority or ability to perform a task as simple as changing a phone number, and yet I’m expected to do so on my own on line).

I cannot begin to rate the customer service at Bell because you come nowhere near what I could recognize as reasonable service. I bitterly rue renewing my contract and will do everything in my power to dissuade others from becoming Bell clients.
Also, your hold music is tinny, on an infuriating loop and spiked with endless sales pitches and announcements. It does nothing to ease the fury that must be building in your clients as they endlessly wait (not momentarily wait, as the kind recording tells you every minute).

Meanwhile, I’m still on hold.I’m on hold for an hour and 20 minutes. I finally speak to Ryan. Ryan is very kind but can do nothing to change my phone number. I explain to him that my total hold time since I started trying to get some service a week prior has been 2 and a half hours, plus the time I’ve spent on line trying to figure out the site. He offers me 50% off the next two months of my billing. This comes to a $30 discount. I still have to go to a store to get my number changed.
A day after I speak to Ryan I get a message from Claude regarding my last email:

September 7:
Ref.: 7782336267

Dear Mr. Dunbar,

Thank you for your recent email.

My name is Claude and for your reference, my employee identification is
0108674.

Upon full review of your email, I regret to learn that you have been
unable to use this online interactive function. We are currently
experiencing technical difficulties and our technicians are working
steadfastly to rectify the problem. However, I am unable to provide you
with an exact timeframe for a resolution.

I have also noticed that you have already contacted our Client Care
colleagues who were able to assist you.

Did you know that our self-serve options provide 24 hour access to your
account? Check your usage, account balance and much more. Simply send
a text message to 82273, which spells out Tcare on your key pad. For
more information on this unique service, please visit our website at
www.bell.ca/tcare.

Please note, clients subscribing to a shared price plan must retrieve
this information through the prime mobile number.

I would like to thank you, Mr. Dunbar, for using Bell's website and for
choosing us as your wireless communications provider. I hope to have
addressed your points and welcome your response if you require further
clarification.

Additional information can be found at www.bell.ca and we can be
contacted again at www.bell.ca/contactus.

Kind Regards,

Claude
Bell Mobility - Online Client Care

Claude seems nice, but useless to me, and also unaware that Ryan wasn’t really able to assist me. He just gave me a $30 discount that hardly covers my hourly rate in this affair. I send him the following note:

Original Message Follows:
------------------------

Dear Claude,

Thank you for your reply. Unfortunately I remain far
from satisfied. Your Client Care colleague, Ryan, offered
me, after some prodding, a fifty percent discount over the
next two months ($33 approx. value) and has agreed to
waive the $20 phone change fee. This comes to a $53
rebate / discount. I feel it hardly makes up for the time
and frustration that I have suffered in the past week
trying to get a simple phone number changed. Nor does
it compensate me or my friends and family for having to
call me on a long distance number while in the same
city. I am a graduate student and have just moved to
Edmonton. My schedule means I have to be on campus
for up to twelve hours and the only time I have to deal
with this issue is in the late evenings or weekends. I now
have to wait till the weekend to go back to a Bell store and have
them change my number. They'll undoubtedly want to
charge me the $15 programming fee, which Ryan was
unable to waive as it is under the actual store's jurisdiction.
So I"ll have to explain the situation all over again to yet
another hapless Bell employee. By the time this is wrapped
up it will have been at least two weeks.

So far all the employees I've dealt with have been very
polite but due to the nature of the corporate system in
which you work I feel you are rendered helpless.
I fail to understand why I can't speak to someone on the
phone and have them change my number in a quick and
efficient manner. I might not even resent paying all the
extra surcharges if the service was anywhere near the
levels promised by the endless recordings I hear while I'm on hold.

At this point I am in the process of writing a letter to your
president and will be forwarding a copy to the CRTC. I
feel that you would help me if you could but sense that
Bell has not empowered you to do so.

Sincerely,
Nicky Dunbar
At Rope's End

Chris opens Claude’s mail and sends me this response:

Ref.: 7782336267

Dear Mr. Dunbar,

Thank you for your response to Claude's email.

My name is Chris and for your reference, my employee identification is
6022071.

I regret that our services may not meet your needs or that some of our
policies may not address your concerns to your satisfaction. I thank
you for providing us with your opinion on this matter. Although you
will not be contacted by a representative, rest assured that a copy of
your message has been sent to our administrators.

Furthermore, I am pleased to provide you with the mailing address of our
Executive Office:

Bell Mobility Executive Office
5099 Creekbank Rd. East tower
Main Entrance- Ground Floor
Mississauga, On
L4W 5N2

I appreciate that you took the time to provide us with this valuable
information. I thank you, Mr. Dunbar, for your patience, your
understanding, and for choosing Bell as your wireless communications
provider. I hope to have addressed your points and welcome your
response if you require further clarification.

Kind regards,

Chris
Bell Mobility - Online Client Care

September 15: Because of my schedule I cannot get to a store during business hours until eight days later. I walk in feeling like I am going to have to go through this whole story again and ask if they would be so kind as not to charge me yet another fee for being inconvenienced. Victoria helps me. She’s obviously heard it all before. She reads my face. I’ve barely begun explaining it to her when she asks me for my information, clicks a few buttons on the computer and not four minutes later I have a new number. Done. Finally. Why this couldn’t have taken place over the phone, I don’t know, but I must strenuously protest.

September 27: My mail is forwarded to me from Vancouver. The package includes my bill from Bell (when did you start charging a dollar for “Paper Invoice Charge.” This, incidentally is a charge that appears on two lines of text on a piece of paper that is otherwise blank on both sides).

Included in my bill is the information that the time I’ve been on the phone with Bell since August 30, over the course of four phone calls is 146 minutes. The last call was the one where I was disconnected and then Maria called me back. This is listed as an incoming long distance call timed at 85 minutes. I am charged $25.50 for it. I’m about to go on line and send a note asking if Kaz, Angela, Claude, Maria, Ryan, Chris, or maybe Victoria will be so kind as to reverse that charge. I’ll spare you the details.
Not a single person I’ve spoken to since, and I’ve spoken to plenty, has not had a similar experience with Bell. Your employees are obviously eager to give service but something about your system is denying them the ability or authority to do so. Whatever it is, please stop. You’re making us all crazy.

Kind Regards,

Nicky Dunbar

cc: Telus

Epilogue: We are not alone.

Notes on a Sandal

2008-11-05T21:16:00.000-08:00

(* thanks to Kathleen, my Life Dramaturge--Dramaturge for Life, really-- for the catchy title)

Something fantastic has happened. I've been discriminated against. This is coming from the homosexual son of immigrant parents so I'm sure I have been discriminated against at some point before this, but I was never aware of it. But this is different. This is about footwear. Follow: I belong to an institution (burrr) that is housed in a complex of buildings connected by overpasses that keep one from having to venture into beastly old nature. When I arrive in the mornings I promptly change into someone more comfortable. I shed my heavy coat and sweater, I lose my boots and socks and slip into the the coziest James Perse Micro Twill Track Pant and an organic cotton tee, something like that. But the shoes and boots have always been a problem. I find myself having to put them on and take them off every time I want to pop into the commissary for a little lunch or drop by the library to pick up a novel on hold. I noticed the prinicpals in my programme of study have solved this peripatetic problem by keeping a pair of those squishy Crocs at work into which they can just slip in and out. So off I went down the high street to the Croc Shoppe and promptly purchased the brightest, but yellowest, pair I could find. Knowing, mind you, that this was going to be an unconventional move with the other institutionalized kids I thought to find the most obvious pair of faux pas I could get my hands on.

Never, however, in my wildest dreams could I have anticipated the savage reception my lithe steps recieved in the days following. People seem to have no problem informing me that I am quite out of step, that their opinion of me has been irrevocably altered, and that I am not the man they thought I was. And that's just people I know and pretend to love. The best part is the looks of sheer distain tossed my way by utter strangers who cannot even be courteous enough to hide their disgust. I could be a drug addict lying in my own filth and people would have more regard for me. Friends, you'd think I'd slipped a pair of orphaned babies onto my feet and gone for a trot. Whatever happened to "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all?" Whatever happened to talking behind my back? If I had shown up with a bad hair cut, for example, most of these same people wouldn't even think of mentioning it. If I had spinach in my teeth, mum's the word. If I showed up in an unflattering sweater, no one would say a thing. And yet, at the first sighting of my Croc-y Crocs has hoi polloi foaming at the mouth. Despite this unsolicited deluge of ridicule, nobody has seen fit to say exactly what is the offense. It's not as though I'm wearing them with a suit and tie. I won't be showing up with them at a wedding where the dress is "semi-formal" (whatever that means) or even to a wedding on a beach, for that matter. Are people still getting married on beaches? The beach, of course, is the other place where these types of sandals would be suitable attire. In fact, I seem to recall a similar pair from my misspent childhood. Unfortunately my current environs are missing a beach so my institution will have to do. I'm going to squish squish my way down the halls, in and out of studios, and over to the Green Room for a quick coffee. And I'm going to count this as a blistering success in the sort of attention mongering I usually only dream of as an adult.

Diary of a Citizen

2008-10-14T17:56:00.000-07:00

I'm just back from voting and I couldn't be happier. For weeks I was worried that I wouldn't be able to vote (a first since my coming out into society). I missed the chance to do the advance poll for my own riding back near The Avenue, and I was told I'd have to provide some sort of identification with my current address; something like a utility bill or bank statement. But as I've yet to deal with utilities and banks (I can barely decide if I want to be the little shoe or the race car), the only other thing I've got with my new address on it is the label off my New Yorker subscription. Now, for me that would be proof positive, but I had my doubts about Elections Canada. At the last moment I found some notes from Canada Council and I thought, "Well, they're the government, even if they can barely afford stamps anymore, so they'll have to do."

Off I tramped in the crisp Albertan eve, dry leaves critch-crunching under my sturdy brown walking shoes. I wore a pair of dark, twill trousers with the ever so slightest sheen to them, and my new soft-like-cashmere Scotch heather sweater made from bamboo fibers and offset by a knit muffler made by Diantha, my favourite ex-boyfriend's mother (she's really a botanist by trade but keeps a loom on the second floor of the ranch house). This particular muffler was saved off the top of a good will pile. "You're not giving that up. Firstly, your mother made it, you beast, when she could have been out cataloguing wild flowers, and second, I feel it's going to be my voting scarf. I truly do."

Ballot-wise, things couldn't have gone better. I showed up at little Belgravia Elementary with their little, dear gymnasium and a bake sale going on in the hall--such a mercenary lot. The whole show was run by little retired folks with their World War II handwriting and their hearing aids. I love them and I can't wait to be just like them one day. Only what kind of writing will I have, and what will I wear? I must save the muffler. I got all registered in a jiff and they ask you if you want to put your ballot in the box yourself. Well, of course I do. This is the one time when I don't resent self-service in the least. If only Bell Canada were staffed by little old dears in jumpers. (More on those bastards later.) So anyhow, democracy served, another "up yours" to Mr. Harper and that whole crowd, and felt self righteous all the way home. I never feel prouder than when I'm voting. Someone really ought to take a photo.

Check, please.

2008-10-11T17:12:00.000-07:00

I've been rain checked. This is not a problem in and of itself. I respect the rain check. I use the rain check. The rain check is socially acceptable in my book. But when it comes hard on the heels of a second date it can't help but beg the question, "Is this a legitimate check or is this an I've-changed-my-mind-and-am-letting-you-down-easy check?" When is the rain check really a check mate?

It doesn't help that the third date was scheduled prior to the second date taking place. (A rush of ardor coupled with the realities of a cramped social season.) It doesn't help that the second date was overwhelmed by a longish piece of unnecessary theatre. (Bad move, I know. No movies, no plays, and certainly no three and a half hour long plays that you can't escape from for professional reasons. Live and learn, again. And die another day, while you're at it.)

Here's what really, really doesn't help. It doesn't help when someone says they're attracted to you. It's like standing in a remote location and getting a really clear mobile signal. For the rest of the call, you're less concerned with where you are than with maintaining that signal. It's the signal you never want to lose.

Are you attracted to me now?
What about now? Are you attracted to me now?
How 'bout now?
Now?
What if I stand over here?
What if I turn my chin this way? Now?
What if I stand on my head?
What if you ask me out for Saturday night and then give me a rain check on Friday afternoon? Now are you still attracted to me?

Of course, there will be roaming charges.

Counting by Numbers

2008-10-06T22:32:00.000-07:00

Last week temperatures were soaring dangerously close to 30 degrees celsius, so I took my highlighters and stickies, stripped down to my skivvies and lay on the tramp (that makes me a lady). This week the dippings are in the negative arena. Such, my dears, are the vagaries of love and Albertan weather patterns.

The only thing for it, besides plenty of moisturizer, is a list. Yes, it's time for a list.

Here it is:

Number of spiders evicted from the bathtub since I arrived (the go there to do their waterings): 10

Chances that it's the same spider finding his or her way back into the house: 1 in 10? I don't know, that's math.

Number of spiders regretfully flushed: 1 (he was already in there, the little glutton)

Number of library research tests taken: 1

Number of library research tests potentially failed: 1

Number of study-sleepovers: 1

Number of academic discussions ending with my saying, "Shut up, you don't know.": several

Number of interviews with the ladies and gentlemen of the press: 1

Number of times I said "butt plug" in that interview: 1

Number of people who, following my interview, asked me what a finial is: 2

It's a game of chance, mes amis. (See: math.)

Quaecumque Vera

2008-09-20T21:48:00.000-07:00

The motto of the University of Alberta is Quaecumque Vera. It's the latin for "Whatsoever things are true". It's a bit of biblical text (Phillipians 4:8) that goes something like this:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is fair, whatever is pure, whatever is acceptable, whatever is commendable, if there is anything of excellence and if there is anything praiseworthy-keep thinking about these things.

This is something I can get behind. I'm gadding about UAlberta these days and it's about a twenty-five minute walk from the avenue where I currently reside to the heart of the campus. That gives me a little time to think, and I'd rather think of things that are true. (Or as close to the truth as I'm prepared to believe.)

In between thinking honourable things, here are some of the sights.

First slide please.

Every day I walk through the little park with the winding paths and the rusted-iron sculpture, under the post-modern, Asian-West Coast influenced ornamental arch, cross the street, and I'm on my way.

Sometimes, if my in a rush (hardly ever) I cut through the bark mulch and skip the arch, but usually I'm an arch guy. It's a good, triumphal way to start the day.

Next slide, please.

I walk up the street.
I walk past my local watering hole that serves up crepes for breakfast and local and international crooners late night.

I walk past the little blue garage that looks like it might topple over.

Then past the curvy road that I've yet to take and the little garden by the alley, that's almost done. And I catch my first glimpse of the campus by way of these two towers reaching into the empty sky. Simply do not ask me what they are for, my darlings, parce que je ne sais pas. But at night they're lit up in the school colours, green and gold, erect and proud.

Watch out everybody, fire hydrant. Fire hydrant, fire hydrant on the lawn. I know, big ol' signs so they can find it when everything is covered in piles of snow. But when there's no snow it just looks like they're trying to catch a really stupid road runner. Beep, beep.

This is the Asthmar Building (Alberta Lung Association). It's one of the short cuts I take, through their parking lot. There are hardly ever any cars. They must be jogging to work.

Here's the girl that guards the people crossing at the LRT construction near my house. This station won't be open till April 09, or as the nice lady at Edmonton Transit said, "don't hold your breath". That's OK, walking is good for my constitution. Anyhow, this is Lucy (she doesn't know I call her that) and usually she's leaning on something and we say hello when I walk through the zone. Sometimes she stops a big, yellow

construction vehicle to let me pass. Today she was on the phone, probably negotiating a better credit with her agent.

Here's another short cut that I'll be unable to find in the ensuing blizzards.

Home of Speech Language Pathology. Up in that corner is where I have my Speech Science class. The building itself is dear old Corbett Hall. Around the top it's surrounded by groups of finials in the shape of butt plugs, so all the kids call it The Plug. Well, they do now. It was named in 1963 for Edward Annand (Ned) Corbett (1882 to 1964) the second Director of the Faculty of Extension. This campus is the gayest thing ever, and they don't even know it.

Here we have l'Hôpital. It's new and shiny. NB: There are great big heaps of francophones in Edmonton. This is unexpected. I suspect they enjoy the cold.

Almost there. Here's one of those exposed jobies where they save lives or crush neutrons and the like. The arts can't be far behind.

The Emerald City. Let's run (but look both ways before you cross, not that they won't stop for you a mile away).

The Timms Centre for the Arts,

conveniently attached to the Fine Arts Building

(aka: FAB, see: gayest thing ever).

For the moment, whatsoever things are true for me

(and some things I'm just making up for effect)

reside in this building, well within easy reach of latte.

Suck it PC, this Mac is my god now. (Maybe.)

2008-08-29T16:18:00.000-07:00

Big changes on The Avenue. There's my impending nuptials, of course, and I'm residing in another part of the country (Avenue Est). I'm bi-provincial now, not be confused w. French provincial. But the big news is my switch of allegiance from PC to Mac. First there was the "to MacBook Pro or not to MacBook Pro" debate. For those who are living under the Flintstone's quarry, the MacBook Pro is a bigger, sleeker, titanium-like version of the regular MacBook with lots of extra memory and is favoured by the film / music / graphics types. Like I need that capacity for just checking email and surfing porn? Unless you're actually using your computer for something like making porn then a Pro is like a $700 whore. If you've got an extra $700 (the difference in price) then bully for you. Otherwise, nothing the Pro is going to do for you isn't going to make you wake up in the morning and wish you could have had a virginal MacBook and $700 still in your pocket. $700 is a lot of money. That's what everyone kept telling me. It can buy you lunch at Alain Ducasse and maybe some left over for a nice pair of jeans. For a while I was bedazzled by its titanium-like suavity but after many agonizing weeks of soul searching (not for my soul, you bastards, within my soul, god damn it) I am now typing on my lil' MacBook (no-Pro), all sleak and white and reeking of the future and possiblility.

MacBooks are to the naughts (00's) what Douglas Copeland was to the 90's. And frankly, the 90's felt like a throwback to the 50's. They were devoid of sexuality and sterile like an unused Mix Master. I can easily picture a MacBook in a fifties kitchen. I actually just thew out my copy of Generation X but suddenly stareing at my new shiny HD screen I find myself right back where I started.

Here's the problem. If you want to keep your Mac image pristine, like the first day it rolled off the lot, you've got to get the accessories. You've got to put out for the hard casing or the military grade protective shielding (developed for use on the leading edges of helicopter blades), and add to that the now ubiquitous keyboard condom. This is a silicone sheet molded to the shape of the key board and laid over top to protect the keys from unsightly oil and dirt stains that, let me tell you, build up pretty darn quick. It turns out real human beings are covered w. muck and grease and grime and we're spreading it everywhere we go. This causes me to regress even further into my youth, to the plastic covered furniture in the homes of my mother and aunts. No one used the living room furniture except on special occasions. You weren't even permitted to breath the air in there. The living room was a sanctuary, case closed. The real living took place in other parts of the home. That's what "family" and "rec" rooms were for. The living room furniture was kept wrapped in plastic, or in the case of my mother, white sheets, as if the staff had shut the house down for the season. The best explanation for this comes from the Kyle MacLauchlan, playing the spirit of Cary Grant, in That Touch of Pink.

"She still keeps the plastic on the furniture."

"It keeps the evil fresh."

Like the sofa, I feel that the cover will only come off my computer when formal company comes over to watch me work (see: check emails and surf porn). The upshot is that I can't use my computer now without thinking of my mother. Combine that with the fact that typing on silicone feels like you're fingering a dental damn and you really begin to wonder if it's all worth it. I resent the loss of sensitivity and am considering barebacking my laptop. I want to rip all this god damn crap off the machine and just use it up, be a man, and let it go to hell its own way. But I'm the son of imigrant parents who've been through a war or two. This whole preserving things in plastic is all about fear. What if we fall on hard times and this is the last love seat we can ever afford? We have to make it last forever. These people are living w. their past regrets and future worries to the point that many of them haven't seen their naked armchairs in forty-five years. Well, money may not grow on trees, but apples do. This piece of contemporary nostalgia is going to be out of date in three or four years anyhow. Like any good relationship, if you don't use it up then how are you going to appreciate the next one? So I'll keep the keyboard condom because if nothing else it's an homage to Mom, but I'm taking the micro shielding back. I can only be so fucked up and I draw the line at the leading edge of helicopter blades.

Mmmmmmarriage

2008-08-23T23:35:00.000-07:00

I'm getting married. You may be the first to congratulate me. I think it's about time. Nobody's getting any younger. I'm pushing 40, as dear Margaret Cho would say, hard. I haven't got a single marriage under my belt and I'm starting to feel conspicuous when I'm out with my divorcee friends. And I think marriage is a rite of passage. Like getting a tattoo. Sometimes I wonder which would be easier to remove. Not that it matters; both are bound to leave a mark. I refuse to think about that. None of the other people getting married seem to so I don't see why I ought. In any case, on the Avenue, where I sometimes reside, it's legal for boys to do unto boys, unlike some places.

I think it would be v. distinguished to be married right around 40. Not a big splashy wedding with coordinating table runners and dancing under questionable lighting to your favourite 80's tunes. That sort of thing brings out the bleached blonde in me. Not pretty. Best to leave the all night affairs to the kids--like an exaggerated prom night (I know, that's an oxymoron) with some girl who mortgaged her father's house so she can buy a big puffy dress and have five of her best friends hold it up for her while she squats in an hotel bathroom stall.

This is getting negative and bitchy, and it was really meant to be a happy blog. OK. So I'm getting married. Here's how it's going to go down. My beloved and I will spend the night before the wedding apart. That way when we see one another at the ceremony we can pretend that we're seeing the other for the first time, ever. It's one of the nice traditions. And by tradition I mean like in the 16th century when marriage really meant something and people didn't get to see their intended until the veil was lifted. In our case it'll just be a bit of good fun as we'll have met before and probably lived together and broken several commandments. But I still like the idea of marriage at first sight. I'm also going to send him out shopping for an outfit and I don't want to know what it is. We'll both show up w. a new set of clothes bought specifically to look our best for one another. I really don't understand why bridegrooms have to match.

What else? Flowers. As I'm thinking of an early afternoon wedding w. tea and cocktails, maybe in mid summer, somewhere on a clipped-too-close-for-comfort lawn, then perhaps we can do pots of herbs on the tables. Then when people take them home they can actually use them.

Cake? No. See: afternoon tea. That implies several little cakes and pastries, and thick slices of bread w. lashings of butter. So no "wedding cake" per se, especially as one is always overcharged for anything that includes the "wedding" moniker. For god's sake, don't tell them you're ordering for a wedding. Also, I've had so much cake shoved in my face, I don't think I need to recreate my at home eating habits in public. I do think we can include a collection of little vintage bride and groom statuettes. Only because I know where I can borrow some, and they provide a little whimsy.

Rings? Yes. Something plain, I think, with an inscription on the inside. White gold, or yellow gold, or blue gold--whatever's going at the moment. But plain. All symbols of bondage ought to be understated.

Children? Yes. I like to see them dressed up w. lots of shine in their shoes and bows in their hair. They provide a lot of motion and sound and rhythm change, and that's always good for any sort of dramatic event. Of course I'm only saying this because I envision a primarily outdoor event.

Dancing? No. Dancing at weddings only interferes w. people trying to have a good time. As I've mentioned, they never get the lighting right, everyone is waxing nostalgic about high school, which I consider a waste of time, clothes become disheveled and the photos come out all wrong. Maybe just a jazzy quartet, on the lawn. If there must be dancing let it be the sort where one ought to holding on to someone else for dear life, which is what a wedding is really all about.

Hats? Yes, for the ladies.

Registering? No. It's basically like saying you have to get me a gift. You don't. I'm not getting married for stuff. Well, maybe for some of his stuff. But whatever that stuff is, it's part of the package. I side w. Miss Manners, always, but in this case with "the vulgar assumption that people owe bridal couples for getting married."

Whom to invite? Only people I really want to invite. The line must be drawn somewhere.

Invitations? Just a plain white card with the facts. Formal, because how often do you get to send a formal invitation these days? And no response cards. People ought to know how to respond w.out being spoon-fed. If I can make the effort to find your address and lick a stamp then you can do the same. I can't imagine my guests would have trouble w. this. See: only people I really want to invite.

Video? Hidjious.

Photos? Yes, by someone who knows what he or she is doing and isn't drunk. Maybe one of the children?

Witnesses? So difficult, coz it can be like choosing favourites. I like to think everyone present is a witness. Maybe one of the waiters and the bartender, just to sign the papers.

Honeymoon? Surely. I'm going to ask what he'd like. Just as soon as he shows up.

Cold Comfort

2008-07-30T17:18:00.000-07:00

For months, maybe years, I've been wondering, "Why do people need televisions in their refrigerator doors?" Why do people even need televisions in the kitchen at all? I don't buy it that you're in there watching cooking shows while you're actually cooking the recipe they're demonstrating. That's bullshit. Nobody is that organized. Nobody I want to know. And the whole point of cooking shows is that they take the place of actual cooking. Everyone knows this. So what else can it be? That you like the company of the television while you're working in the kitchen? Also bullshit. Or it should be, because really, get a radio. The whole point of television is that you watch it, that you give it your undivided attention. If you're busy mixing eggs and doing dishes or whatever you do in your kitchen, then you don't have the wherewithal to give television the attention it deserves. This is akin to those people that say you can do your twenty-minute a day exercises while watching television. No. Something is going to suffer, the television or the exercise, or both. You're going to end up fat anyhow and you won't know what really happened on So You Think You Can Dance. But the kitchen, I've figured out, and here's how it happened. I was running around this afternoon trying to get out of the house, and I was feeling a little peckish as it had been a whole half hour since I'd had my breakfast, so I open the fridge and there's a bowl of left over watermelon that I hadn't finished last night. So I step up to the fridge (Yes, I step up to it. I have one of those long, narrow refrigerators with the freezer on the bottom so when you open it all the immediately edible foods are right at mouth level.), I look into the bowl and think, "Oooo, goody, nice cool watermelon,” I take the fork out of the bowl and place a piece of watermelon into my mouth. Now, I'm standing there chewing and holding the fork and looking around and see the pumpkin seed butter that I haven't touched in months and I think I ought to throw out. I pierce another piece of fruit, put the fork back in the bowl, use the napkin to dab my mouth, and that's when I realize I'm eating in the fridge. Not over the sink. I didn't go into the fridge, take food out, remove the plastic wrap, and eat it over the

sink like any other self-respecting single thirty something. No, I was practically standing inside the fridge. I had opened the door and found an uncovered bowl of watermelon with the fork still in it and a napkin tucked under the bowl. I put my face on the shelf and started eating. I didn't even have to move the bowl. And then it struck me. If I'm doing it, thousands of other singles, and some depressed marrieds, must be doing it too. And almost at the same time, I pictured all those people eating over their sinks and thought that's what those built into the fridge door televisions are for. Finally, I can put my mind to rest. Speaking of rest, I would never eat over the sink, as it's a little too much work. But tomorrow I begin lobbying the refrigerator manufacturers for televisions built inside the fridge.

Homo, it's not just for milk anymore.

2008-07-28T14:04:00.000-07:00

I've just come from my father's kitchen. Last week my father got his hands on a recipe for homus. It's the first time he's made it. People are surprised by this. They think homus is a Greek dish. It's not. It's a Middle-Eastern dish and like many Middle-Eastern foods it got into the mix and has ended up in Greek restaurants all over the place. And my point is the pater has been making homus, and he's delighted with it. This is fantastic because as a ninety-year old man it's challenging to find new things to interest you. Here's the thing though, for the past week he's been referring to it as "homo".

The first time this happened he came up behind me in the kitchen and said, "Do you like homo?" For a split second I thought he meant the milk, then I thought he was testing me, that he'd finally come around to asking me if I'm gay, but the jargon was all wrong. I didn't know what was going on. For those of you who are going there in your mind, not for one second did I think he was propositioning me because that's just sick and wrong. I'm a v. tolerant person but all you father / son fuckers need to reign it in. It's OK to call your lover "daddy", but if your lover is your daddy then you're fucked up and you need to see a therapist and a police officer asap. That's it. That's the rule. I don't even want to know about it. If, on the other hand, your lover is your twin brother then send video.

OK, back to the homo. So I say, "Dad, what are you talking about? It's homus." He gives me a pitying look like I don't know what I'm saying and goes about his business. Then, for the rest of the week, it's been, "Have you tried the homo? Did you like the homo? Do you want some homo?" Finally today, I can't take it anymore, and I have a little tantrum. "It's homus, not homo, homus." "Why?", he asks. "If it's made from chick peas and tahini and lemon juice . . . " blah, blah, he's all about the recipe. We get it, you're a master chef and you've just discovered homo. "Why do they call it homus?" "I don't know why, dad, if you are in fact my real father. Why do they call cake cake when it's just flour and sugar and eggs? I don't know. That's just what it's called." "OK", he shrugs, "if you put it like that." The fascinating part is that homus requires some kind of etymological debate. He never once questioned why it might be called homo. That was just fine. Why not?

Lest We Forget

2008-06-17T13:36:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of apologies floating around. Australia has apologized to their Aboriginal population. Canada has apologized to the First Nations and Japanese Canadians. And South Africa is truth-ing and reconciling all over itself. The argument here, I believe, is that there is power in forgiveness. Victims and their families can look their tormentors in the face and say "I forgive you". And turn around and walk away. I buy it. We all need to forgive a little. If for no other reason then just because when it's for real it feels so good. But timing is everything. What's the statute of limitations on intolerable injustice?

I was at a dinner party last night when the conversation inevitably turned to the Holocaust. That and residential schools, Japanese Canadian Internment and the effect these events have on the generations that follow the victims. I thought of my friend, oooooh let's call him Evelyn, who had been screwed over by his boyfriend. Evelyn made a comment to another friend of his, something like his feeling like Poland when Hitler walked all over them. The friend went ballistic. He couldn't believe that Evelyn was comparing a broken heart with the systematic genocide of his people (he had lost grand or great-grandparents in WWII). He went so far as to back out of a trip they were taking together with other friends and cut Evelyn out of his life over what I consider an innocent metaphor.

At first I pooh-poohed this friend. "You're better off without him", I told Evelyn. "Get rid of him. Circle the wagons. The only response to that kind of crazy is no response." What a kook, I thought. But then I began to notice that we all carry the emotional DNA of our family history--it's only a matter of degree. Some of us are fucked up because our great-grandmother was sexually abused as a child. You may not even know that this happened, but the ramifications of that great-grandmother's reaction to her rape have worked their way up the sap of the family tree and are now manifest in your eating disorder. A good excuse for ordering that third ice cream sundae? No. A reason? Perhaps. Most of us probably have our own personal holocausts. For some it's great-grandmothers being diddled under their petticoats, for others it's the Holocaust. And to those people I say, "you win. I get it." I still think Evelyn's friend is a kook. I think he needs a little therapy and I'd happily recommend my shrink, as I fervently do to almost anyone who'll listen, but I get it. I feel compassion for that kook as I can only hope he does for me.

(NB: Evelyn and his friend have since reconciled. So that's good.)

Facial

2008-06-12T12:06:00.000-07:00

I met a man who doesn't know how to wash his face. This isn't entirely accurate. He knows about the water and he knows it's best to mix the water with something but his interpretation of "something" is "a bar of soap". I know this isn't unusual. I know there are many, many men like this out there but there is a name for such men: straight. This label (complete with sweeping generalization) doesn't apply entirely to this particular man. His startling and accidental face-washing confession came while standing in my shower. This alone places him under a very particular shade of limelight. (Thank you Truman Capote.)

I pointed to the face wash in its pump and cocked my eyebrow (we don't need words--or so I thought). He cocked back, questioning.

"Want some?"

"Hum?"

"Face wash." Maybe he didn't recognize it because it wasn't his brand.

"I don't need it.

"No?!"

"I washed my face."

"With what?"

"I used the scrub."

"The scrub? The scrub?" I stared at the tube, then back at him. "By itself?" I felt a mild sense of disorientation.

"I usually just use a bar of soap." I felt confused. Where was I? What was this wet stuff hitting my skin? What were these visible particles floating in the air? Would it be O.K. to breath?

"But you can't just use the scrub with out washing first." Could you? I was panicking. No. No. Push that thought from your mind. I looked into his face. He was so innocent, so naive. Was it possible he was straight and didn't know it? Or maybe he was self-involved--so self involved that he'd forgotten to use toner and moisturize. Again, no, no, no--that's not how it works. I had to save him. I had to wipe that satisfied smile off his face and cover it with Rare Earth Clay for about 15 - 20 minutes before removing it gently with a warm, damp cloth. But maybe it was too late, and it would be useless to masque the truth. Maybe after a lifetime of cutaneous disregard it would be impossible to erase the worry-free lines from his face.

fyi :(

2008-05-28T10:33:00.000-07:00

Omigod. The best thing just happened. Like, the best thing ever. Just when you think May is almost over and there's hardly any Coffee Cake left something so unexpected occurs that you're forced to reevaluate your place in the universe.

So. I've been working for the past few weeks (I've been busy, verrrrrrry buzzzzzzy) on a project that involves a considerable amount of make-up. To this end I've been allocated a young (nineteen year old), talented make-up artist named, oh I don't know, let's call him Kyle. Kyle is v. sweet and charming and it became quickly evident that he had, as someone in the group quipped, "imprinted" on me. He "friended" me on Facebook and quickly came around to asking if I'd like to hang out with him outside of work. I explained to him that I am old enough to be his v. youthful and energetic father (or maybe a brrrrother from his mother's first marriage--whatever) and that if "hang out" was a euphemism for dating then that would be an unwise choice.

I have a rule. I like to keep my dates within the range of my Chinese Zodiac. If you're a Cock and you're dating another Cock who wasn't born in your year then that's just asking for trouble. Kyle's gentle protests were that he is attracted to, God help me, "older men" and that his previous boyfriends had been 42 (when he was 15) and 39. "It's not about the number." Sure, it's not about the number until you're holding it up under your profile as your portrait is being taken and the ink dries on your fingers. What are kids thinking? Who cares. Whatever it is, it's about me and that's reward enough.

Anyhow, just when I thought I'd handled this in a professional and mature fashion, having agreed on a suitable level of friendship, I receive the following message on Facebook from someone with the handle, oh I don't know, let's say "Choppy Lil' Devil":

just for your information...i'm kyle's bf...so i';m not sure what the two of you have been doing behind my back..but cuz of his "crush" on you, he is leaving me[sic]

O.k. How fantastic is that? Because this isn't some 42-year old guy. Choppy is right around Kyle's age category. Choppy's a whole new character out of the blue. He's the real deal. It's teen spirit all over the place. Again, what are these kids thinking? I love it. It's heaven--it's like celebrity gossip, if we were celebrities. The only thing better would have been if it had come in the form of a text message. But you can't have everything. That's really the lesson here. Also:

1. What is the nature of this message? Is it a warning? Is it a public service announcement? Is it howling at the moon? Am I meant to respond?

2. "I'm not sure what the two of you have been doing behind my back" is the sort of statement that flings me into the warm and ample bosom of Alexis Carrington Colby.

3. Any note of complaint to a stranger that ends in a sad face emoticon is too, too precious for words.

There's only one thing to do. Copy the message, frame it and put in on my vanity wall. Also, make a copy for my wallet and dine out on it straight through to the fall (the Charnock Sock is starting to wear).

Middling age never felt so good.

Let Them Eat Cake

2008-05-01T00:10:00.000-07:00

Most of you know this already, so you may consider this a gentle reminder, but for those of you who have been living under a rock, in a barn, let me tell you now "so that you will know and your children will one day know", May is Coffee Cake Month. Not Carrot Cake, which I adore, but which may be left behind with April showers, but honest to God, card carrying Coffee Cake.
May is a month of new beginnings and fresh starts. University exams are over, summer jobs begin, packing occurs, Spring is cleaned, and souls are moved back to or away from what was previously home. Connections that have been dis are re. Old friends are new again and new friends begin the inevitable journey to old. And that's what Coffee Cake is all about. In La Belle Province, Canada's very own nation within, May first is traditionally the day when everybody moves--Journée du déménagement. It's a crazy French mess and you can be sure they like a little Gâteau de Café après the whole thing.

My mother always had some Coffee Cake (it was the only type of cake she knew how to make) in a Tupperware in the cupboard that she would bring out whenever friends came calling. Coffee would percolate in the percolator and the good cups and saucers would come out and little plates for her particularly brown sugary loaf of Coffee Cake. Coffee Cake says, "Come on in and sit a spell". It says, "how d'y'do, how d'y'do, how d'y'do". I never liked it much when I was a kid (complete absence of chocolate) but I would pick the sticky brown sugar off the top and give myself a little high.

Now that I'm older, like my friends, I can't wait for May and the official start of the season. Coffee Cake Season. Bang. Riffle through your mother's recipe tin or the Internet or what have you and take your pick of the many different varieties of Coffee Cake recipes. Shoot one up in a loaf or one of those round baking tins with the hole in the middle and the springy thing-y. (My friend Rachel makes little individual ones up in little, tiny bunt pans and wraps them in Seran Wrap and then sends them to me. She lives in Ohio now with two dogs and a potter named Elton. Somehow they always manage to arrive on May first, right on the dot.) When you're done making yours, call up your friends and have an open house, holler to your neighbours, or if they’re ignoring you then leave an anonymous Coffee Cake at their door. An act of kindness. (That's, like, so random.) Whatever, just don't say you didn't know. May is Coffee Cake Month. Spread the word.

believe you me

2008-04-28T20:20:00.000-07:00

Who believes in anything anymore? Ward Bingham does. He believes in giving a little something back. He believes in paradigm shifts. He believes out loud. Any one of these things in itself is laudable. When you put them together with a little wherewithal things begin to happen--beautiful little things. Ward Bingham believes our thoughts can create change. (I know what you're thinking, if one more person mentions "change" this year . . . But let's not let political rhetoric screw up a perfectly decent word.)

How it works: choose a shirt, choose a belief, choose a charity. Then wait a week and receive your shirt in the mail. (Well, mine came in a week but I'm not far from the source. I can't tell you how long it will take to reach Ohio.) Each shirt comes with a couple of 'i believe' temporary tattoos. Wear w. pride.

But the real gem here is the idea itself, regardless of whether you buy a shirt. The idea is simple and beautiful and something about it makes you want to be a part of it. Log on to mondonation.com and watch the pieces fall into place. This is an award-winning web site. When I say award-winning I mean it kicked Nike's ass--always a good thing. I recommend starting with the fun videos of two frisky spokespersons (Grace Park and JR Bourne--cuties both. I don't know where I know them from, but I do, and love 'em.) telling you what it's all about. (I mean frisky in a good way.) It's an easy, fun, inspiring site. Not crazy-making at all. Browse around, check out the photos and the videos of other people's experiences. Go to the stories section and the blog. The whole site is like going out on a fun date, meeting new people. Good people.

You can also read other people's beliefs and inscribe your own. My favourite from the site:

i believe if you risk nothing, you risk even more

What do I love most about it all? Glad you asked. It reminds us who we are and who we can be. My new shirt says "i believe in fate". A little obvious, but I was looking for something long term this time around. I've been a belief convert this month. Other things I believe in today (off the top of my pointed head):

i believe in Japanese gardens
i believe in Koi
i believe in West Coast Ranchers
i believe in art
i believe in old folks
i believe in holding your car keys for you
i believe in that colour that looks good on you
i believe in museums
i believe in tea houses
i believe that kick-ass love letter at the end of Persuasion where Captain Wentworth lets loose
i believe when people fall in love they belong to one another
i believe i've gone on long enough
i believe in Ward

And that's just today, right now. Gimme a couple of years and who knows what I could come up with. I believe que sera.

All that we are is the result of what we have thought.
The mind is everything. What we think we become. --Buddha

Lost and Found

2008-04-25T00:07:00.000-07:00

Today is Good Friday. In the Orthodox Church. Easter for Greeks and Russians and other Orthodox types usually falls on different days than the Roman / Protestant Easter, overlapping every four years. Why this happens is v. interesting, I'm sure: divergent calendars, the time-space continuum, whatever. David Sedaris writes eloquently about it in Me Talk Pretty One Day:

. . . our mother always suspected it was scheduled at a later date so that the Greeks could buy their marshmallow chicks and plastic grass at drastically reduced sale prices. "The cheap sons of bitches, ' she'd say.

And for you foodies check out Michael's exploration into the Easter Egg.

As a Nicky of Greek origin I always feel a sense of competition about the divergent Easters. When I was a kid I'd be convinced that the Greek Easter was the real Easter because in never rained on the Greek Easter. Never. Our Easter had a sort of "I know something you don't know" quality about it. I like the idea of two Easters. I like having consumer choice. It's like celebrating your birthday on another date because your actual birthday doesn't occur at a convenient time. But mostly Jesus dying on a cross makes me feel a little sad. When I look around, I'm not entirely sure this is the effect He'd had in mind. Wars and genocide and so forth, you know. I find it especially disquieting that everyone and their Dog seems to find Jesus just when they need Him. Just as soon as there is a hint of trouble, boom, "I've found Jesus". Like He's a twenty dollar bill you've just discovered in your Sunday suit.

Oddly, it's the murderers and rapists and clergy and sometimes ill-advised sports heroes that seem to most use the I've-found-Jesus-get-out-of-jail-free card. Well, maybe it's not odd about the murderers and rapists because He was always palling around with them. But I don't think He had too much time for clergy and fallen idols. (I don't want to belabour the point because I really can't speak for Jesus.) Finding Jesus is the poor man's version of apologizing, of asking for forgiveness. If you're in a certain tax bracket it's just laughable. We all know Jesus can't be bought. Well, some of us do. Paris Hilton tried to claim she'd found Jesus, or at least an intense interest in the Bible, but it didn't stick. You can take the girl out of her jail cell but you can't wipe the blank look from her face. Publicists who are worth anything don't let their clients find Jesus. Governors, presidents and terrorists don't have to claim they found Jesus because it's assumed He's been carrying them the whole time. When governors ask for forgiveness it's usually from their stricken wives who I suspect are not going to be as understanding as Jesus.

Does finding Jesus mean that you'd had Him at some point and lost Him? Careless. Is He hiding? Playing a cosmic game of sardines crammed into the cupboard under the stairs with the Madonna and all the angels and saints, Allah, and a laughing Buddha who just won't shut up? My advise is that if you do find Jesus you ought to be quiet about it. Climb into that cupboard and just be happy that there's any room for you at all what with that fat ol' Buddha.

If I were Jesus, I'd be hiding. I'll bet Jesus is tired. He's tired because He's been doing our dirty work all this time. If I were Jesus I'd be in a ranch in Arizona soaking my feet in something soothing and expensive. Guess it's a good thing I'm not Jesus then, i'nt it?

It's a small, small, small, small world

2008-03-25T13:30:00.000-07:00

Bad news. Bad, bad, bad news. The skinny tie is back. Thank you very much Avril Lavinge. (Dear God, please save me from all the nineteen year olds who think they've invented the hangover.) I was in the bath, minding my own business, when there they were in the pages of The New Yorker, no less. Is this a reflection on the down turn in the American economy? Buy a $150 skinny tie to show how restrained you are? All this after I've just spent months clearing out my closet to make room for my future. Turns out my future is really my past, marked up.... I didn't even think the thrift store would want them. And certainly not the leather one I begged my mother to buy me for Christmas. What possible use could one have for a thin strip of leather? No really, what?

For those of you who are what Fran Lebowitz labels as "current" (read: 20 years of age or thereabouts) this will be old news. But I've been in the bath for a long time catching up on back issues of The Fair, and this development leaves me at a loss. Maybe it's because the models themselves are getting skinnier and wider ties were looking albatross-like. The good news is (I'm an optimist) that the skinny craze also hails the return of the Whippet. Whippets are the new it dog, so much so that I'm pretty sure that trend is almost over itself. But the really good thing is that I haven't seen a Pug in weeks.

Here's the last word(s) from Fran herself, from one of the aforementioned Vanity Fairs dated January 1998:

VF: Do you still have a desire to be current, to keep up?

FL: "Still" is not the word you're looking for. I never particularly had a desire to keep up, or even frankly, to sit up. But if what you mean is do I know what's the best club on Tuesday night, the answer is no, I do not. And don't tell me. I want you not to tell me. It's one of those things I don't want to know. I don't want to know my bone density. I don't want to know who called. I don't want to know what's the best club on Tuesday night. When I was 20 I knew, not because I had a desire to be current, but because I was current. That's what 20 means.

What not being 20 means is that half the time I don't even know who these people are. These new movie stars and whatnot. The entire point of a movie star is glamour, and it's impossible for anyone younger than you to be glamorous. Sexy, beautiful, cute, but not glamorous. Glamorous has to be older, beyond your experience, beyond your years. That's what people really mean when they say someone looks like a movie star. Nothing is more telling of someone's age than who they think is glamorous. So, to me, Cary Grant looks like a movie star, Paul Newman looks like a movie star, Warren Beatty looks like a movie star, but Brad Pitt, to be perfectly frank, looks like a trick.

I.C.U.

2008-03-19T16:39:00.000-07:00

It must be difficult being a chocolatier. You can never be sure if people love you for yourself or for your chocolate. It's like being an heiress. Unless you're Paris Hilton; then you can be fairly certain people love you for your money. That's unkind to say. But I wouldn't say it unless I felt it were most likely true. And funny. But who can say why one really loves anyone. The safest suggestion I've heard to date is that we're getting something from it. That sounds mercenary, but being mercenary isn't necessarily a negative thing. You can be pretty sure of a mercenary’s motivation. And it can be a satisfactory arrangement as long as the give and take is balanced because, really, all is not always fair in love and war.

I was at a long red light last week. It was raining and late at night. To my left, a constant stream of cars was turning onto my street. As each one turned their headlights would wash over me, lighting me up inside my car for just a moment. I couldn't see them, but I imagined the short flash of human each driver would see as their lights passed over me. After a couple of cars had passed I began to mouth the words "I love you" each time the light hit my face. I don't know why I started but once I did I couldn't stop. There was something very gratifying about giving it away without expecting anything in return. As I type, my friends Meryl and Augie are sprawled on some pillows bickering over a Vogue layout. Meryl suggests that what I'm getting in return is the spot light, doling out love from a nice safe distance, my victims driving off before they've really realized what's hit them. Augie, on the other hand is taken with the idea and we've already taken several trips in his ragtop (now that the weather's perking up) blowing kisses while yielding to oncoming traffic and making serious eye contact at three way stops. There's something appealing about sharing the love from a distance. Think of all the things we see people doing in their cars; things they shouldn't be doing. Here's a short list: taking notes, dialing, being mean to their children, putting on makeup, putting their finger in their nose, eating, looking sour . . . Here's what I'd rather see: coy glances, knowing smiles, kissing of fingertips, improvised movement pieces, sock puppet plays . . . Cuz the news is, we can see you.

Guess who's coming to dinner?

2008-02-24T18:57:00.000-08:00

No one. Nobody's coming to dinner. Dinner parties are expensive and I've been shopping. I've bought jeans. Unsuitable jeans. And by unsuitable I mean I used the money that should have gone to less silhouette-forming endeavours: mundane little things like automotive insurance, blinds, light fixtures. Mundane, unless you're planning to drive anywhere, maintain a degree of modesty in the bedroom or find your way to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Never mind. What's the point of doing all those things if you haven't got delicious jeans to slip into, or out of? (Why isn't "out of" one word? 'Outof'.) All this to say that in order to make it up to myself and save for the inevitable death and taxes I've decided to stay in . . . and cook. The cooking idea is extreme to begin with, but I'm actually cooking leftovers (v. cost saving and environmentally friendly).

It all began with some Shiitake mushrooms I bought four days ago. Turns out fresh Shiitake mushrooms have a v. mushroom-y smell. Suspicious. Are mushrooms supposed to smell mushroom-y? I know fish isn't supposed to smell fishy. That's bad. But I don't know about mushrooms. So when, in my bid for economy, I opened the refrigerator this evening the first thing that hit me was the wall of Shiitake. I called around but most of my friends have lives, or children, so they were unavailable to give me any mushroom advice. So I turned to Epicurious.com and found a recipe for roasted Shiitake, Portobello, and Crimini mushrooms. Well I don't have Portobello or Crimini (crikey, no crimini) so I thought I'd just substitute more Shiitake, less those other ones. Preheated the oven to 500 degrees (this seemed a bit much for just eight mushrooms but I'm not going to argue with Epicurious). Then I thought, I'd better have a drink. All out of Gin from that little affair last night with the Strathcona people. No problem. Substitute Vodka for Gin and here's one last Tipsy Olive that's been sitting in the jar so long the Vermouth has bleached the pimento. So there's that done.

Meanwhile, the preheating oven was letting off an odour of its own. New oven smell. It occurred to me at that point that this is the first time I've turned the oven on (I've only had it since September). There must be something in the instructions (where, oh where are the instructions?) about what one does before using an oven for the first time. Too late, I think. If the mushrooms don't kill me a little chemically oven polymer scent isn't going to. And I've got this lovely chilled drink now so I'd better get out of this hot kitchen or it'll be spoiled. Also, not using the oven for several months must make up for the excessive 500-degree mushroom roast.

Now, I've just got to put the whole thing (the mushrooms--I used a little sesame oil and some of this Italian salt I found on the counter and put them in foil) on a bed of yesterday's quinoa with some Bok Choi that was starting to yellow. To start, I'm going to enjoy the rest of my drink with some pastrami that's getting a little stiff on a rice cracker and then maybe a little of Friday's Greek salad. Then my mushroom-y main course. For dessert there's a fire sale chocolate bar from Over the Moon. Ta-da. A meal fit for anyone with a guilty shopping conscious.

Pull

2008-02-14T11:11:00.000-08:00

Love is in the air, like so many clay pigeons that want shooting down. It's spring. (Well, in right-thinking parts of the world it is.) And it couldn't have come at a better time. I've a new pair of jeans that want showing off.

In recognition of Saint Valentine's ("the sex holiday," Isaac Mizrahi called it recently, "well, it's the love holiday and the sex holiday") I'm posting a list of things that I love (in no particular order and off the top of my pointed head).

I'll start with Isaac himself. And his new website. He's full of optimism and wonderment. Really, he's like a chic little child and I nominate him as my dream Valentine's date this year.

Sei Shonagon and her Pillow Book.
She inspires my list, although her lists were simple elegant poetry and mine are idle social vomit that could barely take the time to make it to the top of my throat. Think of this blog as the waste paper basket I clutch to my chest as I gag on the way to the toilet. Who will hold my hair back?

Cocoa Nymph.
Where it's Saint Valentine's every day.

Crampton Hodnet.
Currently on my bedside table.

The season's first snowdrops.

Dorothy Parker (who needs no link). She summed it all up:

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea.
And love is a thing that can never go wrong,
And I am Marie of Romania.
Not So Deep as a Well (1937), "Comment"

The Charnock Sock

2008-02-03T20:43:00.000-08:00

Step aside Shroud of Turin, make way for The Charnock Sock. Two weeks ago I attended the fantastic PuSh Festival. I took in a performance entitled Fever. It labeled itself as "Shakespeare Sonnets in Voice, Dance and Music". To say that this is an understatement, well, boy howdy. Nigel Charnock is one of the most kick-ass, knock down, drag out performers you'll ever witness. A trained dancer and actor he took to the stage in a flurry of movement that surged on for a full hour. Sonnets? Yes, they were there but it turns out life is what happens in between sonnets.

Nigel Charnock is an improvisational mover. He follows impulse to the nth degree and some of this impulse is not for the faint of heart. Accomapnied by the Virus String Quartet led by German composer Michael Riessler, Charnock both physically and vocally riffs on everything from God (is there a god?) to Art ("dance, it's for near anorexics and heroin addicts"), to Starbucks ("Starcunts"--the English can get away with saying "cunt" because they have a charming accent. Don't try this at home, or as I recently did, at brunch.) He uses whatever is available to him. The curtains in the studio, items from the audience, the railings, the floor, the mike stand, and his own clothing. It's all fodder for whatever is about to come out of his mouth next, whatever move his body is about to make. He relentlessly mocks art, theatre and dance while simultaneously demonstrating a high degree of both artistry and technique. At one point he struck an abstract pose and asked if anyone could interpret it and even if they could what the hell was the point of it anyhow? "Dance is a mystery to me," he lamented. "A bunch of people go into a room full of mirrors and study this thing that no one else can do for four years; and then they go into another room and do it in front of a bunch of people who can't do it, and then those people try to figure it all out . . ."

Look, I don't want to be one of those god-awful buggery bloggers that just flail about and say things like, "I love Julia Roberts, how fabulous is she?"; but I love Nigel Charnock, and how fabulous is he? He danced, he sang, he took Polaroids of the house and flung them into the audience, he lamented being all alone in his room (701) at the Holiday Inn, he tossed his socks into the audience. And in one particularly touching moment he brought his knees to his lips and kissed them, thanking them, I suppose, for not giving out. In many ways the description I give is useless. It was a performance that was more alive than anything I've seen in a long time. One was acutely aware of each impulse as it transformed to another--each moment, like all moments, never to be repeated again.

If I was the sort of person that did this sort of thing, I might find a post card with a lonely little Gorey ballerina practicing at the barre, in front of a mirrored wall. The caption might read, "Her life was rather monotonous". I might find this card and on it I might write:

Dear Mr. Charnock,

I hope you’re really staying at the Holiday Inn because that’s where I’m dropping this off.

I caught your sock in the audience last night and I have to say (well, I don’t have to but clearly I’m about to) that it made me as giddy as a school girl at her first Beatles concert.

I immediately took it to a dinner party and displayed it trophy-like. I shall be dining out on that sock for weeks. In between it shall live beneath my pillow in hopes that it will induce dreams of a husband or some other picture post card version of reality.

So thank you, to you and Mr. Riessler and your terrific ensemble of musicians.

(Here I might sign the card.)

P.S. Clearly that shape you were making was a branch of a lonely tree forever looking out over the barren landscape of . . .

(And I might include a bar of 70% Dark Chocolate. I might, if I was that sort of person.)

Meanwhile, I seem to have this sock. The Charnock sock. Sometimes, in class, I slip it on while I teach, for inspiration. And, I won't lie to you, warmth. We've discussed its future. Shall I make it into a full on puppet and send it back to Nigel? Nige, as I like to think of him. Or, as one of my students suggested, ought I to cut it up into several pieces, encase them in amber and sell them as relics? You too can have your own piece of the true Charnock Sock. I'm not sure, but in the meantime, I continue to take it out to dinner. It's the least I can do. After all, I am sleeping with it.

Nymph-o-Maniac

2008-01-30T18:04:00.000-08:00

When the Lord closes a chocolate shop somewhere he opens, well . . . another chocolate shop. It's all about having faith. And just to prove he's not a vengeful god he's opened this particular chocolate shop right around the corner from The Avenue (where I sometimes reside).

I've been long lamenting the closure of one of my regular suppliers of proper chocolate (Over The Moon). At first I pretended not to care. I was hurt and I wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of knowing how much this betrayal was having its effect on me. Then at a New Year's party in Toronto I ran into one of the proprietors of the shop. I chided her in my coy fashion, and she had some excuse about pursuing a master's degree or some such foppery. Apparently they're still making chocolate for an outfit called Mink. And they have future plans for something, something, I can't recall now . . . but the future is too, too far away. And it's only bars at Mink and like the future, far too far--all the way over on Hastings with its traffic and unconscionable parking. There's always Dutch Girl, my sympathizers consoled. But again, Dutch Girl is waaaaaay over on The Drive (where I occasionally rest my head, but rarely during regular business hours). And besides, I've always found that there is a bit too much going on in that shop that isn't directly chocolate related.

Well, I thought to myself. I'll have to settle for Chocolate Arts, a shop that I've always reserved for those gifts you buy for people who like to be impressed. They've got great chocolate, (though I've recently heard that since they've changed chefs nostrils and eyebrows have ever so slightly flared and raised respectively) and great style but you clearly pay for it through the nose. It's a bit of the sacred room of chocolate w. all those little priestesses running about in their severely starched uniforms (defectors from the Pond's Institute?). As much as I like to worship, remember, this is going in my mouth and there's such a thing as being too perfect. (It's occurred to me that I've been describing Martha Stewart, and really I prefer the Julia Child approach to things.)

Enter Cocoa Nymph. Ta da . . . (fanfare please, spectacular music--probably played on the mini grand piano they've got in the front of the shop that patrons come in and play on a daily basis). No, no, don't thank me now, just send chocolate (from their online delivery service, just click on the Menu, choose a box size and fill'er up). O.K., back up the truck. Here's how it all went down.

The other day while dining with the Pfisters (quelques amis d' Avenue) I began my usual chocolate lament when they innocently (and if you knew the Pfisters you'd know how ridiculous that sounds) ask if I haven't been to Cocoa Nymph. Cocoa miffed, I asked? Mais non, they replied, Co-coa Neeeemfff. Apparently they've been open around the corner for months. Months, and no one has said boo. So on this busy, rainy evening off I trot to do a little investigating. Well, I thought, we'll see. And I did. I saw, I tasted, I pressed lovingly to my palate. Chocolate like I've dared to dreamed of. All of them a treat for the eye (garnishes like solitary pink peppercorns, a tender fleck of gold, and flakes of fleur de sel).

And begging to be popped like happy pills (filled with crispy biscuit flakes and honey, blackberry jelly, green tea and mint, chili peppers, cardamon, and vanilla). And each one lovingly made by the cocoa nymph herself, a delightful creature named Rachel. She even gave me a preview of a little cinnamon flavoured square with a scratchy little red heart on top that she hand paints on the transfer. Undoubtedly coming to a Valentine's Day near you.

Rachel hails from Winnipeg and she'll happily tell you all about it over a cup of proper drinking chocolate. She also happened to be making fresh marshmallows and offered me a taste on a stick. Delicious. Why, I wondered, doesn't it "smell of an unclean cow's ass," as was reported by the intrepid Michael Procopio? I asked Rachel. Michael, you were right, there's cow bits in supermarket gelatin. I can't recall what Rachel said she used because I'm never going to make my own marshmallows so I don't care, but you can email her and ask.

She and her beautiful little chocolates have stolen my heart and the best part is they're just around the corner so I don't even have to get out of my pyjamas should I have an early morning urge. I can just throw on a housecoat and I'm there before you can say, "Bob's your next door neighbour". Aaaaand they're open till, 8 o' clock. Why? Probably because they know that sometimes you need a last minute opening night gift and if you give one more large bar of Toblerone (don't get me wrong, great for everyday chocolate purposes) . . .

So even if you're not on The Avenue, and I'm sorry but we can't all be, don't miss out; visit the Nymph, home of the "sweet talkers" (that's what it says on their cards). And if you're looking for chocolate near you, try Chocomap.com.

Where's the Party?

2008-01-18T14:18:00.000-08:00

In Angels In America, Act One, Scene Seven, in a discussion regarding the "limitations of the imagination" Prior remarks to Harper, "It's something you learn after your second theme party: It's All Been Done Before." Too true. I think back to my own "second theme party". Ah, youth. The theme was "Blue". I, of course, was referring to that "miracle of elusive blue contained in only the most beautiful of emeralds" (thank you, Colette). But most people showed up looking plain bruised. Well just when you think you've heard it all, and I think this on a regular basis, along comes another e-mail. This one wasn't from my dear friend Lou Lou, (a Nigerian princess, thank you v. much), it was from my other dear friend, Tilly, a v. clever law student. Tilly writes, "I am blowing off a Morgentaler Appreciation party cause, frankly, I think it's one thing to believe in the right to abortion and quite another to have a party to celebrate it." At first I thought she was kidding, especially when she followed up with, "I really respect the people throwing it, it's just not the way I would celebrate the right to abortion. PLUS they have t-shirts that say I (heart) Henry! LOL".

This is not a laughing matter, out loud or otherwise. I mean, hoorah for the right to choose (sorry pro-lifers, let's just agree to disagree and not crack that old chestnut open here as it shall bore me to tears--it's my blog and I'll cry . . . oh, never mind), but what I'm more interested in is what kind of canapés are being served? Presumably nothing containing placenta. That would be in bad taste. Will there be readings from inspirational speeches, as one might have if one were appreciating Dr. Martin Luther King? Or quotations from books by Dr. Morgentaler that might offer an evening's entertainment, as one might expect at the Barbara Pym conference?

I don't doubt that Dr. Morgentaler merits appreciation (again, I'm not counting the pro-lifers--NB: people who worship in glass houses of God shouldn't throw Molotov cocktails) but I question the association between Dr. Morgentaler's work and "party". Party to me says, 'Bloody Marys', and Morgentaler makes me think of . . .well, OK, I just crossed that line and I'm not going to pretend I didn't so let's just let it lie. All I have to say (well, plainly not all, but the next thing I have to say) is that if the Dr. Morgentaler Appreciation Party pans out then I want these people to seriously consider the Dr. Kavorkian Dinner and Dance. We can deck the whole place out with Chinese lanterns

[Photo: Peking Lounge]

and Indian spices; we'll have caviar from the Caspian and sit on Persian rugs; drink good Russian vodka to dull the pain, and we can hire some young Asians to serve. Only promise me that it will be the Last Theme Party (the new title of my autobiography) because after that we may as well "all swallow Hemlock--there'll be nothing left to live for." (Thank you Stephen Sondheim.) It'll all have been done before.

Death Becomes Her

2008-01-15T00:10:00.000-08:00

This is my first blog ever. I'm v. excited.
My first entry is in response to my friend Eufemia. (Isn't that a beautiful name? I think so.) In her delightful travel tales from India she queries,

Does anyone else think it's odd to refer to the Taj Mahal as India's enduring symbol of love when it's a tomb?

eufemiafantetti.blogspot.com/2008/01/baby-taj.html

There is only one right-thinking answer to this: No. No one thinks it's odd. And here's why. Death seals the deal. The only way love can possibly endure is if someone has the good sense to die. Otherwise, just as two parallel lines will eventually cross if they're allowed to continue in space indefinitely, two people will eventually separate if something else (death, in case I've lost you) doesn't intervene. I think it's romantic.

In other news, I think Eufemia's blog is invading my consciousness. Last night I had a dream that I could put my left foot behind my neck (it was strictly yogic) and it was one of those dreams that for the majority of the next day I thought was real. I kept thinking, when did I do that? Or, I must try that again some time. And then I would remember, dream, right, dream.