A musical interlude for a dim, rainy, post-illness Friday.
Did you catch the six-part Python documentary “Almost the Truth: The Lawyer’s Cut” over the past couple of weeks (Bravo in Canada, IFC in the US, I think)? If not, read this article and get the damn DVDs already.*
Comment and tell me about your favourite Python. Or, your favourite Python sketch.
* P.S.: Christmas is coming. Hint hint.
The Library Bar at the Royal York Hotel has excellent wines by the glass, which they pour from the bottle at your table.*
***
“I did some “life-drawing” last night at the Drake.”
“Life-drawing? What’s that?”
“Nudes.”
“Oh. Cool.” Creepy.
“You still owe me an answer from my email before you got sick, remember?”
“Look, I’m going to be honest with you. I’m just not able to commit to anything right now, and I know that’s probably not what you want to hear. Or what you want generally. But if you still want to hang out from time to time, that’s cool.”
“Well, that’s pretty clear. Thanks. Thanks a lot.”
“Please don’t get all passive-aggressive on me.” Again. “This is not a reflection of you. You’re a great guy. Really.”
“You know, I really have no idea what ‘passive-aggressive’ means. All I know is that it’s insulting.”
“It’s not insulting, it’s just a fact.” OK, it’s a little insulting. But true. “So now what?”
“Now we wish each other well and send the occasional email to see how the other person is doing. Meanwhile I’ll sit alone in my house wondering why I can’t get a girlfriend. Yay, me.”
“…”
*Not to be confused with the York Station, Toronto’s smallest bar, which apparently seats less than 10 people, all of whom are over the age of 70.
*****
If you haven’t yet visited LiLu’s place, today may be the best day to start. You will seriously laugh your guts out. Or be confused. Or horrified. But in a good, mind-expanding kind of way.
fear [feer]
–noun
1. a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid.
Real or imagined.
I was going to post something I wrote a long-ish time ago about my old frenemy Fear. We go back a long way, she and I. But I’ve changed my mind. Mostly because my relationship with Fear is an ever-changing one, and the way I feel about it now is not the same as when I first began writing about the topic.
I was chatting with a friend the other day, and I mentioned during the course of the conversation that I have a natural inclination to believe the worst. Despite my best intentions and my lifelong struggle to overcome this tendency, Fear walks in, dragging along all of the heavy baggage that I thought I left behind.
With each statement Fear makes, another useless item is thrown onto my shoulders.
Maybe he’s just lying to you.
Maybe they’ll discover you’re not as smart as they think you are.
Maybe your writing will be rejected as drivel.
Maybe you’re making the wrong choices and will end up destitute.
Maybe you’ll never see him again.
Maybe you should have settled for less.
Maybe you should have held out for more.
Maybe you’ll never get comfortable with yourself, and you’ll always feel lonely.
Maybe you’re just not good enough.
I can hear Fear’s voice. It’s a woman’s voice, similar to my own, but mocking me. She is irrational, jealous, hurtful. She sounds like my sister.
And she is wrong this time. The Fear is imaginary. The statements are irrational. But the staggering weight they create is very, very real.
Which is exactly why there’s no point in hanging onto it.
Buckle up, because we’re going to see how fast this thing can go, how high it can fly, without all of this excess weight on board.
*Grady Tripp, “Wonder Boys” by Michael Chabon. Just one of the marvellous lines from my favourite character in one of my favourites novels.
I’ve been slowly but surely recovering from what some people have suggested might be the dreaded swine flu. I’m not so convinced.
But it would make for a great T-Shirt, no?
“I went to Washington DC, and all I got was this lousy case of swine flu.”
Between the illness and the fact that I am now preparing at work for an event that will either make me a *star* or will seal my fate as the cutest illegal immigrant housekeeper Lilu and B ever have*, I have let a few things slide.
On Saturday, I decided that it was a good day to clean up the leper colony Shoebox. You know, open the windows, do the laundry, take out the snotty tissues trash.
Goal: Find gloves that are undoubtedly lost somewhere in giant pile of sick-girl unwashed laundry. Or under the bed. Or somewhere.
During the search, I come across the envelope (that I had been keeping in a safe, hidden location), containing my subscription tickets to the Canadian Opera Company. What can I say, I like a little culture from time to time.
I open the envelope.
“Madama Butterfly…two tickets for…Friday, October 23rd, 7:30 p.m.”
Last night.
“Fuck.”
Epic scheduling fail.
New Goal: Organize calendar on blackberry/Outlook* to include important, expensive events like the Opera.
Opera tickets, meet shredder.
This is almost as bad as forgetting my PIN number while standing at the checkout line at the LCBO on Friday. Nothing says “early onset of Alzheimer’s” quite as much as having a complete brain freeze while holding two bottles of wine in your hand.
“Here’s a tip,” the cashier oh-so-helpfully supplied as the words “FINAL TRY” appeared on the card reader, “You may want to synchronize all of your PIN numbers so that you don’t forget.”
Really? Thanks for that helpful fucking hint, Heloise. Here’s one for you: You may want to consider keeping your “tips” to yourself before I breathe the swine flu onto you.
“Uhhhh,” I stammered instead. “Lemme give you cash.”
* Now, THAT’s a sitcom waiting to be written.
** If you have sent me an email or a Facebook message over the course of the past, oh say…month…I promise you are getting really close to getting a response.
According to BlogTO, it’s World Animation Day on October 28th, and the National Film Board of Canada is celebrating by showing three days of animated film at the NFB Mediatheque for FREE. The NFB has a long and rich history of producing great animated shorts, which have actually played a large role in shaping Canadian culture over the years.
How many Canadian kids remember this?
For some reason, watching that short makes me weepy with joy. And yes, those are the voices of the McGarrigle Sisters (mother and aunt to my darling Rufus).
Or maybe it’s just the Neo Citrin numbing the portions of my brain that regulate emotion.
Have a great weekend, chickens!
So it’s come to this, has it?
We live in an age where we officially have more money than sense. We’ve gotten to the point where we must purchase life experiences.
Victims Participants paid $10,000 to James Arthur Ray, “new age guru”, to engage in a 36-hour “vision quest”. The vision quest required participants to fast alone in the desert. This was followed up by a two-hour “rebirthing” experience, during which participants were sealed into a makeshift dry-cleaning bag sweat lodge.
Three people died. A “channeler” (whatever the hell that is) was called in by Mr. Ray after the incident, and told participants (and presumably, their lawyers), that those who had died during the experience “had left their bodies in the sweat lodge and chosen not to come back because “they were having so much fun”".
I’m not making this up – it was in the New York Times. Mr. Ray has appeared on Oprah. This is not some backwater operation.
Leaving aside the legal issues of civil liability or whether or not this constitutes criminal negligence causing death, I think this brings up a number of other serious questions.
How spiritually and intellectually bereft is our society that some of us feel a need to purchase services such as “soul retrieval, vortex healing and dolphin energy healing“?
Can we manufacture life-altering change? Can someone give it to me for $10,000?
I suppose that in a world where we have turned love into a commodity, anything is possible. Why bother having the journey, when you can purchase a ticket directly to the destination?
When I read articles like this, I fear that North American society’s spiritual account is officially overdrawn.
I was going to write a great post about these articles. A nice, medium-sized rant about how I prefer the title “Ms.” because I deserve the same marital anonymity as a man, but won’t get my panties all bunched up if someone happens to say “excuse me, miss” or even when the store clerk calls me…*shudder*…ma’am.
But I’m just too sick.
And one of the worst things about being single is being single and sick.
No one will make me a hot drink, or rub my feet, or say “there, there, poor baby”, or pick up my snotty tissues*. Even people who are attached to the worst louts and bitches in the world at least have that possibility.
Nope, it’s all me, all the time. Pity party for one. Unless, of course, you count my new boyfriends Neo (Citran) and Vick(s).
Back to our regularly scheduled programming tomorrow.
Now go buy some flowers for someone you know who isn’t feeling well.
* Picking up someone else’s snotty tissues is, by definition, true love. Not that I throw them everywhere. They have a habit of multiplying.
As you should have gathered by now, I don’t write about my current place of work. However, since this story blurs the line between personal and professional, and only happened to take place in my office, I feel obliged to share.
Maybe “blur” isn’t the correct term. Perhaps “obliterates” is more appropriate.
Anyway.
More than a few months ago, my boss walked into my office, and turned to close the office door. For the uninitiated, this is the office signal for “important conversation”.*
“I have a proposition for you,” she says as the door clicks shut.
Please, please, please extend my contract.
She smiles.
“Would you like to go on a blind date?”
Damn. What?
“Uhhhhhh.”
“I know, I know, blind dates are scary.”
“I’m not afraid of first dates, really. I think I make an excellent first date.”
Shut up, shut up! Now is not the time for bragging!
“Good, good! This fellow is a lawyer at XABC Bank.”
Great. A lawyer. I don’t know any of those.
“That’s…nice?”
“He’s a friend of my friend. He’s in his early forties.”
I must be sitting in what can only be described as shellshock, so she continues.
“He’s very nice, he’s just shy.”
Right.
I must still look unimpressed.
“His parents own a house in Rosedale.”
So does Conrad Black.
“And he really wants to have children.”
Is this an argument for or against? Hello, have you met me?
“So, what do you say?”
“Uhhhh.”
“You can think about it if you like.”
“Uhhhhhh…well, I’m not against meeting new people, in principle.”
“Great! Normally I wouldn’t do this, but my friend was mentioning that she’s wanted to set this poor…uhhh…nice fellow up on a date since forever, and I said to her…
Wait for it…
“I know someone who could really use a date.”
Aaaaauuugh. Must. Not. Stab. Own. Eye. With. Pen.
I smile weakly.
“This is so perfect! You’ll hear from him, I think, sometime this week.”
Aaaaauuugh.
“Thanks for thinking of me.”
As she opens the door and dances away down the hallway, clearly thrilled with her work, she sing-songs:
“Just be sure to mention me at the wedding!”
Apparently, I have been deemed acceptable and have been recruited for blue-blooded breeding purposes.
And then a horrifying thought occurs to me.
Please, please, tell me that he does not live in that house in Rosedale with his parents.
*AKA “Shit is going down.” “Please pack your Securities Act and go.” “We’re firing Bob and giving you all of his files.” Yeah, I think you get the idea.
It can happen in an instant.
A moment of wordless understanding.
One shared look, unbroken.
A spark so hot that it burns despite the smothering blanket of doubt.
Suddenly, your perspective on the entire world is different.
On September 15, 2009, the temperature in Toronto was 24C.
This morning, one month later, it is 1C.
Walking to work wearing both a suit jacket and a winter coat, with scarf and gloves, this is how I feel:
I usually wear more than a just a scarf.
I’d write more, except that I have to finish things up around here. In exactly 24 hours, I will be leaving on a jet plane to go lick this woman’s face.
Or, as I like to call it, “improving US-Canadian relations, one glass at a time.”
Follow the shenanigans here.
