Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Compression chamber
I had a coffee on a windy patio with a friend this morning, and our conversation turned, as it so often does (no, really), to grief. It's been my main subject for a number of years for obvious reasons, and it's become her subject over the past year for similar ones. I'm further into it than she is, so even though she's older than me, she kind of looks to me for guidance. Today's specific topic: compression. Her family lives, as mine does, in Ontario. So we talked about the feeling that seems to accompany most visits home, the feeling that you need every interaction to be of vital importance. That you need every conversation to be super deep and insightful and meaningful. That you can't just sit and have a coffee with your mother or your sister or whoever. It has to be monumental.
I told her I'm mostly over that feeling. I go home pretty frequently these days. Every couple of months, probably, and I'm trying to do it even more now. (Click over to http://maxedrayder.blogspot.com for some insight into that motivation.)I've learned, somehow, to just be. Just be in the moment. I know that sounds awfully Zen for someone who subscribes to no formal spiritual code (just a casual one, natch), but really, my ability to just be is the thing that keeps me from freaking my beak two or three times a day (or, more properly, two or three times a day more than I already do. I guess it's a skill I picked up sometime in the year or years after Chris died. Or maybe after I moved to Winnipeg and my life became one long Virgo nightmare of uncertainty. Rather than live on the verge of flipping out, I decided (and yes, everything is a decision, but that's a whole nother story) to just try to live in the moment. And it kind of worked! Yeah, actually, I do do a lot of yoga. Why do you ask?
Ok, anyhow, that's a whole nother story, too. The fact is, I do still feel the pressure of compression, but it's become very specific. When I found out that things were kind of going south with my dad, naturally I lost my mind. And the main flavour of that mind-loss seemed to be: but, but, but, but who will answer all my questions? (In an alarming glimpse of the future, I realised that no one could answer that particular question. Though Squinty Moleman [the artist formerly known as the Troublemaker] went himself bravely into the breach, saying he'd try to, before finally assuring me that I'd be able to answer my own questions. Very sweet, but evidence of how thoroughly I've managed to fool him into thinking I'm smart. If he reads this, I'm done for.)
Now, obviously (or maybe not so obviously, so I'll try to be explicit), I value my dad for more than just his ability to answer questions. But believe what I say: His proven 33-year-plus track record of question-answering ability (and that's just my questions; he actually goes way, way back) is symbolic of pretty much everything I value him for. That's not coming out right. It's not just what he can do for me (answer my dorky questions, from circa 1974's, Dad, what's the government?, to the more modern day, Dad, why does my smoke alarm go off every time the wind blows?), but rather how he does everything he does, the personality, the person, inherent in every answer. (It's just a big machine, dear; they do go bad, but you can buy a new one at the store for six bucks.)
More to the point: My dad, like most dads of his day, is an action-oriented kind of guy. I know he loves me because he tells me pretty often, but also because he builds me stuff, or used to, and because he drew me a diagram of how to build a deck myself, and because he explains tricky things to me (full disclosure, sometimes I only pretend to understand. I have no doubt he already knows that, because he chucked his dream of being a writer and instead became an amazing teacher so that he could marry my mother and have a family with her, and he worked not only as a teacher, but also as a bag boy at a grocery store and he delivered pizzas all so we could have stuff, and other man-of-action acts. Now, take your basic man-of-action and put him on oxygen. Forever. Literally tie him to a machine that is a nuisance, but a life-sustaining nuisance. Take away his ability to do most things that involve lifting, carrying, hammering, sawing, pulling, pushing, or otherwise moving with force through space. But! Leave his mind terribly, terribly active. Leave his desire to participate fully in his life and the life of his family acutely active. Friends, I'm here to tell you, actually, you should never do that. Because it doesn't make anyone--man of action or those who love him--happy in any way.
So. Where was I? Compression. Elsewhere on the world wide web, my father has written about his "frantic parenting." Trying to cram it all in. And here on my end, I'm doing the same thing...well, not frantic parenting so much as frantic childing. I am trying to cram as much time in as I can being my father's daughter. Yes, ok, it's a state of being that doesn't go away, I will always be that (in so, so, so many ways), but I mean actively being his daughter.
I weigh the exhaustion I imagine he feels against my need to pester him with questions while I still can. Not just because I'm greedy for his opinion, his point of view, his expertise and knowledge (and I am), but also because I think it feeds him in some way, and because he put everything aside for most of his life to feed me and my brothers and sister, and this is the best thing I can think of, that I can do on a daily basis and from a distance, to let him know that just because he relies on some stupid machine to keep his failing body alive doesn't mean that the mind that body houses isn't still as valuable as it was in 1974 when he was young and filled to bursting with possibility. Doesn't mean that just because he can't physically open the swimming pool anymore but can only stand, tethered to that machine, at the back door and yell instructions and encouragement (and yes, for a few minutes there, just yell nonsense), that he's past his prime in any way. Stupid fate has meant that his prime has arrived shrouded in some equal deterioration. But maybe that's just called balance. Maybe, but I doubt it. But still. None of it means that he's outlived his usefulness to his family, just to put it bluntly. In fact, entirely the opposite.
Compression. It's a virtue in a short story writer. I'm not much of one of those any more. But I'll take compression. Because it's better than any of the alternatives.
I had a coffee on a windy patio with a friend this morning, and our conversation turned, as it so often does (no, really), to grief. It's been my main subject for a number of years for obvious reasons, and it's become her subject over the past year for similar ones. I'm further into it than she is, so even though she's older than me, she kind of looks to me for guidance. Today's specific topic: compression. Her family lives, as mine does, in Ontario. So we talked about the feeling that seems to accompany most visits home, the feeling that you need every interaction to be of vital importance. That you need every conversation to be super deep and insightful and meaningful. That you can't just sit and have a coffee with your mother or your sister or whoever. It has to be monumental.
I told her I'm mostly over that feeling. I go home pretty frequently these days. Every couple of months, probably, and I'm trying to do it even more now. (Click over to http://maxedrayder.blogspot.com for some insight into that motivation.)I've learned, somehow, to just be. Just be in the moment. I know that sounds awfully Zen for someone who subscribes to no formal spiritual code (just a casual one, natch), but really, my ability to just be is the thing that keeps me from freaking my beak two or three times a day (or, more properly, two or three times a day more than I already do. I guess it's a skill I picked up sometime in the year or years after Chris died. Or maybe after I moved to Winnipeg and my life became one long Virgo nightmare of uncertainty. Rather than live on the verge of flipping out, I decided (and yes, everything is a decision, but that's a whole nother story) to just try to live in the moment. And it kind of worked! Yeah, actually, I do do a lot of yoga. Why do you ask?
Ok, anyhow, that's a whole nother story, too. The fact is, I do still feel the pressure of compression, but it's become very specific. When I found out that things were kind of going south with my dad, naturally I lost my mind. And the main flavour of that mind-loss seemed to be: but, but, but, but who will answer all my questions? (In an alarming glimpse of the future, I realised that no one could answer that particular question. Though Squinty Moleman [the artist formerly known as the Troublemaker] went himself bravely into the breach, saying he'd try to, before finally assuring me that I'd be able to answer my own questions. Very sweet, but evidence of how thoroughly I've managed to fool him into thinking I'm smart. If he reads this, I'm done for.)
Now, obviously (or maybe not so obviously, so I'll try to be explicit), I value my dad for more than just his ability to answer questions. But believe what I say: His proven 33-year-plus track record of question-answering ability (and that's just my questions; he actually goes way, way back) is symbolic of pretty much everything I value him for. That's not coming out right. It's not just what he can do for me (answer my dorky questions, from circa 1974's, Dad, what's the government?, to the more modern day, Dad, why does my smoke alarm go off every time the wind blows?), but rather how he does everything he does, the personality, the person, inherent in every answer. (It's just a big machine, dear; they do go bad, but you can buy a new one at the store for six bucks.)
More to the point: My dad, like most dads of his day, is an action-oriented kind of guy. I know he loves me because he tells me pretty often, but also because he builds me stuff, or used to, and because he drew me a diagram of how to build a deck myself, and because he explains tricky things to me (full disclosure, sometimes I only pretend to understand. I have no doubt he already knows that, because he chucked his dream of being a writer and instead became an amazing teacher so that he could marry my mother and have a family with her, and he worked not only as a teacher, but also as a bag boy at a grocery store and he delivered pizzas all so we could have stuff, and other man-of-action acts. Now, take your basic man-of-action and put him on oxygen. Forever. Literally tie him to a machine that is a nuisance, but a life-sustaining nuisance. Take away his ability to do most things that involve lifting, carrying, hammering, sawing, pulling, pushing, or otherwise moving with force through space. But! Leave his mind terribly, terribly active. Leave his desire to participate fully in his life and the life of his family acutely active. Friends, I'm here to tell you, actually, you should never do that. Because it doesn't make anyone--man of action or those who love him--happy in any way.
So. Where was I? Compression. Elsewhere on the world wide web, my father has written about his "frantic parenting." Trying to cram it all in. And here on my end, I'm doing the same thing...well, not frantic parenting so much as frantic childing. I am trying to cram as much time in as I can being my father's daughter. Yes, ok, it's a state of being that doesn't go away, I will always be that (in so, so, so many ways), but I mean actively being his daughter.
I weigh the exhaustion I imagine he feels against my need to pester him with questions while I still can. Not just because I'm greedy for his opinion, his point of view, his expertise and knowledge (and I am), but also because I think it feeds him in some way, and because he put everything aside for most of his life to feed me and my brothers and sister, and this is the best thing I can think of, that I can do on a daily basis and from a distance, to let him know that just because he relies on some stupid machine to keep his failing body alive doesn't mean that the mind that body houses isn't still as valuable as it was in 1974 when he was young and filled to bursting with possibility. Doesn't mean that just because he can't physically open the swimming pool anymore but can only stand, tethered to that machine, at the back door and yell instructions and encouragement (and yes, for a few minutes there, just yell nonsense), that he's past his prime in any way. Stupid fate has meant that his prime has arrived shrouded in some equal deterioration. But maybe that's just called balance. Maybe, but I doubt it. But still. None of it means that he's outlived his usefulness to his family, just to put it bluntly. In fact, entirely the opposite.
Compression. It's a virtue in a short story writer. I'm not much of one of those any more. But I'll take compression. Because it's better than any of the alternatives.
Sunday, May 30, 2004
May 30, 2004
If it's Sunday, this must be Charlottetown
...but is it Sunday? Days have blurred together for...days, now.
There's a steady drizzle falling here in Charlottetown. I'm holed up in the Delta hotel, getting a little work done and hoping the rain will dissipate before I have to go out and find some Islanders to interview. We arrived here last night...it took us all day to get out of Halifax. We had to lay in some supplies, and by the time we were done shopping, we'd worked up an appetite, so we stopped for lunch and finally got back on the road around 4 or 5pm. We stopped in Oxford, Nova Scotia, for a coffee and to snap a photo with the giant blueberry there (it's the blueberry capital of Canada, after all).
Let's see...before that, I spent an excellent couple of days at home in Halifax. So nice, after a week on the road, to slide into my own bed for two nights.
Before Halifax, we were in Sydney, Cape Breton. Saw the Tar Ponds...depressing and smelly. People I talked to there were concerned about credibility...nobody really buys the recent tar ponds clean-up funding announcement as anything more than a cynical vote-grab. A nice cab driver gave me a Sydney legion pin and told me to start a collection. Maybe I'll do just that.
Before Sydney was Port-Aux-Basques, Newfoundland. I loved Newfoundland, and will have to go back there soon. PAB is a small town of about 5,000 probably most famous for having a ferry out of there. I met a great couple, Barb and Albert, at the Tim Hortons, who drove me around town and showed me the sights. Lovely waterfront, incredible landscape. It's a town of brightly coloured houses perched on these huge rock cliffs that roar out of the sea. Nothing to do there, though, no work, so everyone's leaving. It's the story of Newfoundland, and very sad indeed.
We took the ferry from PAB to Nova Scotia. The Clara and Joey Smallwood. I did a live interview with the CBC Radio morning show in Cornerbrook, Newfoundland while we were waiting in the bus to board the ferry. Been doing lots of those lives, and they're going well. Also while we were waiting to board the ferry, a minivan-load of Christian youth ministry workers came aboard. They were very excited to meet us. The first one on, a guy maybe 20 years old, came right up to me, stuck out his hand and said, "Hi, I'm Ernest." I choked back the obvious jokes: you sure are; you're telling me; yes, I've been accused of that too; hi, I'm sarcastic...and shook his hand and said, Hi, I'm Stephanie. Ah, lost opportunity...
Looks like I won't get to stop in New Brunswick and see the many family members who have been clamouring for a visit. We'll drive through tomorrow on our way to Quebec...our satellite vehicle went ahead to NB to do a story from the Miramichi. It's a big country, and sometimes scheduling adjustments are inevitable.
I'm looking forward to Quebec City...I've never been there before. And then by the weekend, I'll be in Toronto for a quick visit with the folks and the fourth annual Chris Domet Memorial Hockey Game. I'm hoping to be named MVP this year...I hear there are prizes.
If it's Sunday, this must be Charlottetown
...but is it Sunday? Days have blurred together for...days, now.
There's a steady drizzle falling here in Charlottetown. I'm holed up in the Delta hotel, getting a little work done and hoping the rain will dissipate before I have to go out and find some Islanders to interview. We arrived here last night...it took us all day to get out of Halifax. We had to lay in some supplies, and by the time we were done shopping, we'd worked up an appetite, so we stopped for lunch and finally got back on the road around 4 or 5pm. We stopped in Oxford, Nova Scotia, for a coffee and to snap a photo with the giant blueberry there (it's the blueberry capital of Canada, after all).
Let's see...before that, I spent an excellent couple of days at home in Halifax. So nice, after a week on the road, to slide into my own bed for two nights.
Before Halifax, we were in Sydney, Cape Breton. Saw the Tar Ponds...depressing and smelly. People I talked to there were concerned about credibility...nobody really buys the recent tar ponds clean-up funding announcement as anything more than a cynical vote-grab. A nice cab driver gave me a Sydney legion pin and told me to start a collection. Maybe I'll do just that.
Before Sydney was Port-Aux-Basques, Newfoundland. I loved Newfoundland, and will have to go back there soon. PAB is a small town of about 5,000 probably most famous for having a ferry out of there. I met a great couple, Barb and Albert, at the Tim Hortons, who drove me around town and showed me the sights. Lovely waterfront, incredible landscape. It's a town of brightly coloured houses perched on these huge rock cliffs that roar out of the sea. Nothing to do there, though, no work, so everyone's leaving. It's the story of Newfoundland, and very sad indeed.
We took the ferry from PAB to Nova Scotia. The Clara and Joey Smallwood. I did a live interview with the CBC Radio morning show in Cornerbrook, Newfoundland while we were waiting in the bus to board the ferry. Been doing lots of those lives, and they're going well. Also while we were waiting to board the ferry, a minivan-load of Christian youth ministry workers came aboard. They were very excited to meet us. The first one on, a guy maybe 20 years old, came right up to me, stuck out his hand and said, "Hi, I'm Ernest." I choked back the obvious jokes: you sure are; you're telling me; yes, I've been accused of that too; hi, I'm sarcastic...and shook his hand and said, Hi, I'm Stephanie. Ah, lost opportunity...
Looks like I won't get to stop in New Brunswick and see the many family members who have been clamouring for a visit. We'll drive through tomorrow on our way to Quebec...our satellite vehicle went ahead to NB to do a story from the Miramichi. It's a big country, and sometimes scheduling adjustments are inevitable.
I'm looking forward to Quebec City...I've never been there before. And then by the weekend, I'll be in Toronto for a quick visit with the folks and the fourth annual Chris Domet Memorial Hockey Game. I'm hoping to be named MVP this year...I hear there are prizes.
may 25, 2004
Rattle and hum along the highway
Boy, this bus has a rattle to it. I’m aboard right now, tapping away on my laptop. It’s a helluva thing to be cruising through rural Newfoundland…big beautiful lake just appeared out the right side window, mountains everywhere, trees for days….in a giant RV equipped with the very latest in communication technology. Satellite dish, cellphones galore, this laptop with its WiFi card…unfortunately, rural Newfoundland has other plans for us. Cellphone reception is spotty at best…no story meeting for me this morning! And the wireless connection between the onboard device and my computer is classified as “excellent,” but I still can’t check my email. No network to grab onto in the big wild world, I guess. And so I revert to an old-world task. I knit to pass the time.
Last night we stayed at the Comfort Inn in Gander. It was a little like a minimum security prison, but the Mars bar in the vending machine was fresh as fresh can be. Guess they go through a lot of them here. In terms of local cuisine, my busmates (Sat, a cameraman with a dry, dark sense of humour; Paul, a cameraman who keeps mainly to himself, but who is patiently helpful with tech troubles; Catherine, a TV producer with a raucous laugh and the best shoes in Newfoundland [and, I’m willing to bet, pretty much every province we’ll visit] and Bonnie, a videojournalist who looks sweet but is sharp as a pointy thing {Mark left us yesterday to fly back to Toronto for his mother’s funeral, poor bastard. He’ll join up with us again in North Sydney tomorrow night}) and I decided last night that we’d better not put it off any further. We were at Lilly’s Landing, reputed to be the best restaurant in town, so we figured no time like the present to try the fried cod tongues. Or froyd cad tangues, in the local accent. Anyhow, we ordered up a batch to share. Sat had half of one and put down his knife and fork decisively. The rest of us ate them up. Sure, they’re a little gelatinous, but if you don’t think about the fact that you’re eating a fish’s tongue, they’re pretty tasty. Of course, you could dip just about anything in batter and deep fry it and it’d be ok, I imagine. That seems to be the prevailing culinary attitude round these parts, anyhow.
Haven’t talked to many ordinary Canadians lately. Mostly, we’ve been on the bus. Tried to go to the Atlantic Kingfisher in St John’s yesterday to say hey to cousin Terry and maybe grab a little tape of the oilmen on board, but damned if that ship wasn’t behind some kind of serious security fence. No way in I could see, and no one hanging around the outside for me to yell to: Hey, is Terry-the-cook on board? It’s his cousin. So no tape, no visit, no tour for me.
And today will mainly be taken up with driving. We’re bound for Port-Aux-Basques, many many kilometres away…seven hundred from where we started this morning. We’ll bunk there tonight and then get the ferry at 8 tomorrow morning to Nova Scotia. On the way there, I’ll do a quick interview with the morning show in Cornerbrook, Newfoundland, let them know how it’s going so far, what we’re up to, what we hope to find.
Meantime, I’ll wait for cellphone service so I can check in at the office, and for email capability so I can send this off. And I’ll knit. And look out the window at this big old country as it goes by.
Rattle and hum along the highway
Boy, this bus has a rattle to it. I’m aboard right now, tapping away on my laptop. It’s a helluva thing to be cruising through rural Newfoundland…big beautiful lake just appeared out the right side window, mountains everywhere, trees for days….in a giant RV equipped with the very latest in communication technology. Satellite dish, cellphones galore, this laptop with its WiFi card…unfortunately, rural Newfoundland has other plans for us. Cellphone reception is spotty at best…no story meeting for me this morning! And the wireless connection between the onboard device and my computer is classified as “excellent,” but I still can’t check my email. No network to grab onto in the big wild world, I guess. And so I revert to an old-world task. I knit to pass the time.
Last night we stayed at the Comfort Inn in Gander. It was a little like a minimum security prison, but the Mars bar in the vending machine was fresh as fresh can be. Guess they go through a lot of them here. In terms of local cuisine, my busmates (Sat, a cameraman with a dry, dark sense of humour; Paul, a cameraman who keeps mainly to himself, but who is patiently helpful with tech troubles; Catherine, a TV producer with a raucous laugh and the best shoes in Newfoundland [and, I’m willing to bet, pretty much every province we’ll visit] and Bonnie, a videojournalist who looks sweet but is sharp as a pointy thing {Mark left us yesterday to fly back to Toronto for his mother’s funeral, poor bastard. He’ll join up with us again in North Sydney tomorrow night}) and I decided last night that we’d better not put it off any further. We were at Lilly’s Landing, reputed to be the best restaurant in town, so we figured no time like the present to try the fried cod tongues. Or froyd cad tangues, in the local accent. Anyhow, we ordered up a batch to share. Sat had half of one and put down his knife and fork decisively. The rest of us ate them up. Sure, they’re a little gelatinous, but if you don’t think about the fact that you’re eating a fish’s tongue, they’re pretty tasty. Of course, you could dip just about anything in batter and deep fry it and it’d be ok, I imagine. That seems to be the prevailing culinary attitude round these parts, anyhow.
Haven’t talked to many ordinary Canadians lately. Mostly, we’ve been on the bus. Tried to go to the Atlantic Kingfisher in St John’s yesterday to say hey to cousin Terry and maybe grab a little tape of the oilmen on board, but damned if that ship wasn’t behind some kind of serious security fence. No way in I could see, and no one hanging around the outside for me to yell to: Hey, is Terry-the-cook on board? It’s his cousin. So no tape, no visit, no tour for me.
And today will mainly be taken up with driving. We’re bound for Port-Aux-Basques, many many kilometres away…seven hundred from where we started this morning. We’ll bunk there tonight and then get the ferry at 8 tomorrow morning to Nova Scotia. On the way there, I’ll do a quick interview with the morning show in Cornerbrook, Newfoundland, let them know how it’s going so far, what we’re up to, what we hope to find.
Meantime, I’ll wait for cellphone service so I can check in at the office, and for email capability so I can send this off. And I’ll knit. And look out the window at this big old country as it goes by.
May 22, 2004
There's a reason they call it the Rock
It's Saturday night and I'm in St John's, Newfoundland and the antibiotics I took today mean no drinking for me a for a few days...plus, a missed flight meant (I think) my bus-riding colleagues gave up on me and went into town. I'm sure I'll hear stories (and see hangovers) tomorrow, so it's probably just as well that I got in a few hours later than expected.
At any rate, here I am, eating pretty substandard room service fare and looking out my tenth floor window over hugely hilly St John's. The sky is blanketed with quick-moving dark grey clouds, and the hills make my calves ache just looking at them. A nice cab driver gave me a quick tour of the place -- the harbour is incredible. The houses downtown are close together and brightly coloured. All in all, exactly as beautiful as I expected. Beautiful too the view while coming in for a landing, sheer rock faces rising out of the sea. I am entirely too excited about being here. Hope I'll be able to focus on the work I came to do.
Ah yes, the work. For those who don't know, I'm on the road for the next three weeks riding (and sometimes, to my chagrin, driving) A Bus Called Democracy. It's an RV all tricked out in CBC logos, and it's travelling across the country over the next five or so weeks, throughout the election campaign. I'm on board for a new, short-run radio show called Spin Off, airing 11:45am Tuesdays and Thursdays on CBC Radio One and repeating at 8pm on those nights, with another episode on Saturdays around 6:15 or so... the last 10 minutes, roughly, of The World This Weekend. I'll ride the bus as far as about Thunder Bay, debarking around June 11, blinking and stunned, I'm sure. Our first episode airs Thursday, May 28, and features a piece by me, starring my Dad. All about how I got started on my search for democracy.
Other than that, there's not much to tell yet. We get started tomorrow...hit the open road in the bus, searching for regular Canadians who won't mind having a microphone shoved in their faces while I ask personal and impudent questions about why they vote or don't, what they think of the election campaign so far (please, please call it tomorrow...) and where they stand on democracy these days.
I'll write again as I can. And I'd love to hear from you, too. I'll be busy, that's true, but boy, there'll be some long ugly stretches of New Brunswick to get through, so do write when you can. And please forward this to anyone you think might be interested. The more the merrier.
There's a reason they call it the Rock
It's Saturday night and I'm in St John's, Newfoundland and the antibiotics I took today mean no drinking for me a for a few days...plus, a missed flight meant (I think) my bus-riding colleagues gave up on me and went into town. I'm sure I'll hear stories (and see hangovers) tomorrow, so it's probably just as well that I got in a few hours later than expected.
At any rate, here I am, eating pretty substandard room service fare and looking out my tenth floor window over hugely hilly St John's. The sky is blanketed with quick-moving dark grey clouds, and the hills make my calves ache just looking at them. A nice cab driver gave me a quick tour of the place -- the harbour is incredible. The houses downtown are close together and brightly coloured. All in all, exactly as beautiful as I expected. Beautiful too the view while coming in for a landing, sheer rock faces rising out of the sea. I am entirely too excited about being here. Hope I'll be able to focus on the work I came to do.
Ah yes, the work. For those who don't know, I'm on the road for the next three weeks riding (and sometimes, to my chagrin, driving) A Bus Called Democracy. It's an RV all tricked out in CBC logos, and it's travelling across the country over the next five or so weeks, throughout the election campaign. I'm on board for a new, short-run radio show called Spin Off, airing 11:45am Tuesdays and Thursdays on CBC Radio One and repeating at 8pm on those nights, with another episode on Saturdays around 6:15 or so... the last 10 minutes, roughly, of The World This Weekend. I'll ride the bus as far as about Thunder Bay, debarking around June 11, blinking and stunned, I'm sure. Our first episode airs Thursday, May 28, and features a piece by me, starring my Dad. All about how I got started on my search for democracy.
Other than that, there's not much to tell yet. We get started tomorrow...hit the open road in the bus, searching for regular Canadians who won't mind having a microphone shoved in their faces while I ask personal and impudent questions about why they vote or don't, what they think of the election campaign so far (please, please call it tomorrow...) and where they stand on democracy these days.
I'll write again as I can. And I'd love to hear from you, too. I'll be busy, that's true, but boy, there'll be some long ugly stretches of New Brunswick to get through, so do write when you can. And please forward this to anyone you think might be interested. The more the merrier.
May 23, 2004
They call me Butterpot
Ok, they don't really. Butterpot Provincial Park is the name of the place the Bus Called Democracy made its first official stop at. Oh dear, there's some very bad grammar indeed in that sentence. Well, it's very late and I've been up and at em for hours now. I've given myself a foot massage with peppermint foot cream (how can it be that simply riding a bus all day kind of makes one's feet hurt? I mean, it's not like I had to run along beside it or anything...)
Anyhow, we started around eight this morning. Beautiful, beautiful morning in St John's. Bright blue sky, tonnes of sun, open road. We hauled out to...well, Tim Horton's first, of course. And THEN to Butterpot, where everyone who's anyone in St John's goes the May long weekend to kick off the summer season. Strolled through the park looking for Newfoundlanders to chat with. Tough going at first. I found a likely looking group of university aged kids, but they claimed to be too hungover-slash-shy-slash-uninformed-slash-downright stupid to speak with me. No joke. Later, my TV counterpart Mark Kelley gave me a good tip...don't ask, just start rolling. They can always tell you to turn it off, but if you give them a choice in the matter, they're most likely to shut you out. Thanks, Mark!
His first piece aired on the National tonight, by the way. If you happened to see it, I was in the passenger seat of the bus when it rolled past the guard house at Butterpot. But you couldn't see me. Couldn't see Mark, either, for that matter.
Tomorrow we'll leave St John's around noon. Rumour has it my cousin Terry is in town on a ship called Northern Princess...if I get a chance, I'll hop down to the lovely lovely harbour to say hey to him before we get on the road to Gander in the afternoon.
Oh, almost forgot! Went up Signal Hill to shoot some bus exteriors (yeah, I've been hanging out with and even helping my TV compadres...I drove the minivan nice and slow while cameraman Paul hung out the back shooting ht bus as it cruised past. I'm still not ready to pilot the big rig, I have to say. But walkie talkies are fun, and I use one every chance I get!) anyhow, Signal Hill! So amazing! Awfully high, if you've never been there. Open ocean on one side, the city spread out beneath on the other side. An earlier visit by Bonnie (videojournalist) and Paul resulted in whale sitings, but none frolicked for me when we were there later in the day. Ah well. Lots of ocean-side days left on this trip.
Can't believe it's only really been one day. Twenty more to go. I suspect I'll feel like someone entirely different when all this is done. Possibly that someone different will never want to hear another word about democracy...or maybe I'll run for office. Hmmm. We'll see.
Wave to the bus as it goes by...
They call me Butterpot
Ok, they don't really. Butterpot Provincial Park is the name of the place the Bus Called Democracy made its first official stop at. Oh dear, there's some very bad grammar indeed in that sentence. Well, it's very late and I've been up and at em for hours now. I've given myself a foot massage with peppermint foot cream (how can it be that simply riding a bus all day kind of makes one's feet hurt? I mean, it's not like I had to run along beside it or anything...)
Anyhow, we started around eight this morning. Beautiful, beautiful morning in St John's. Bright blue sky, tonnes of sun, open road. We hauled out to...well, Tim Horton's first, of course. And THEN to Butterpot, where everyone who's anyone in St John's goes the May long weekend to kick off the summer season. Strolled through the park looking for Newfoundlanders to chat with. Tough going at first. I found a likely looking group of university aged kids, but they claimed to be too hungover-slash-shy-slash-uninformed-slash-downright stupid to speak with me. No joke. Later, my TV counterpart Mark Kelley gave me a good tip...don't ask, just start rolling. They can always tell you to turn it off, but if you give them a choice in the matter, they're most likely to shut you out. Thanks, Mark!
His first piece aired on the National tonight, by the way. If you happened to see it, I was in the passenger seat of the bus when it rolled past the guard house at Butterpot. But you couldn't see me. Couldn't see Mark, either, for that matter.
Tomorrow we'll leave St John's around noon. Rumour has it my cousin Terry is in town on a ship called Northern Princess...if I get a chance, I'll hop down to the lovely lovely harbour to say hey to him before we get on the road to Gander in the afternoon.
Oh, almost forgot! Went up Signal Hill to shoot some bus exteriors (yeah, I've been hanging out with and even helping my TV compadres...I drove the minivan nice and slow while cameraman Paul hung out the back shooting ht bus as it cruised past. I'm still not ready to pilot the big rig, I have to say. But walkie talkies are fun, and I use one every chance I get!) anyhow, Signal Hill! So amazing! Awfully high, if you've never been there. Open ocean on one side, the city spread out beneath on the other side. An earlier visit by Bonnie (videojournalist) and Paul resulted in whale sitings, but none frolicked for me when we were there later in the day. Ah well. Lots of ocean-side days left on this trip.
Can't believe it's only really been one day. Twenty more to go. I suspect I'll feel like someone entirely different when all this is done. Possibly that someone different will never want to hear another word about democracy...or maybe I'll run for office. Hmmm. We'll see.
Wave to the bus as it goes by...
Friday, January 16, 2004
Mmmm, burger
Or, So what you're saying is, my ass looks fat in these jeans
So the other day I'm hustling along Portage Avenue on my way to get a big salad for lunch. It's freaking cold, the kind of cold that makes exhaust, smoke and voices hang in the air just a bit longer than is strictly necessary. I'm pretty sure this accounts for the clarity of the insult hurled from a passing car.
"Another burger couldn't hurt," a voice says, clear as anything. I don't think I have to tell you it was a male voice.
I look up, and sure enough, some pasty dude is looking my way and rolling up his window with a satisfied look on his face. Was the remark directed at me, someone else? Doesn't matter. This guy was motivated enough to crank his window down in minus a billion weather to register his opinion.
Another burger couldn't hurt. I turn it over in my mind. Undoubtedly an insult, hurled by a dumpy dude driving a car at an admittedly voluptuous woman walking on the sidewalk. At the same time, mmm, burger. Haven't had one of those in ages.
I try to parse the insult. It's somewhat imaginative, for which Hurler gets points. He had to work to hurl it, so that's...something, I guess. But then, imagine being so...what? offended? appalled? affronted? by the look of a stranger that you were compelled to roll your window down and tell them so by shouting across three lanes of traffic.
I try to parse my reaction. Am I blushing? I don't feel hot. Am I angry? Maybe a little, but I'm more curious about Hurler's motivation. I pass a woman whose legs are easily each twice the size of mine. Did Hurler yell at her? Or am I still among the save-able, and therefore worth yelling at, whereas my fatter fellow pedestrian is beyond hope? Should I, in some bizarre way, be flattered? I'm not. Perhaps I'm just ungrateful.
Later, much later, I'm walking through Portage Place on my way to check out the Y with Meag. As we stroll along, a young guy in oversized hip-hop togs comes toward us. "Lookin' goooooddddd tonight ladies. Lookin' very good." Oh, the mixed messages. Still, I'm more inclined to take this guy's word for it. He's motivated by...well, who knows what he's motivated by. But he doesn't seem as mad as Hurler. Maybe the Hurler was just hungry, that can make a guy cranky. But you know, another burger couldn't hurt.
Or, So what you're saying is, my ass looks fat in these jeans
So the other day I'm hustling along Portage Avenue on my way to get a big salad for lunch. It's freaking cold, the kind of cold that makes exhaust, smoke and voices hang in the air just a bit longer than is strictly necessary. I'm pretty sure this accounts for the clarity of the insult hurled from a passing car.
"Another burger couldn't hurt," a voice says, clear as anything. I don't think I have to tell you it was a male voice.
I look up, and sure enough, some pasty dude is looking my way and rolling up his window with a satisfied look on his face. Was the remark directed at me, someone else? Doesn't matter. This guy was motivated enough to crank his window down in minus a billion weather to register his opinion.
Another burger couldn't hurt. I turn it over in my mind. Undoubtedly an insult, hurled by a dumpy dude driving a car at an admittedly voluptuous woman walking on the sidewalk. At the same time, mmm, burger. Haven't had one of those in ages.
I try to parse the insult. It's somewhat imaginative, for which Hurler gets points. He had to work to hurl it, so that's...something, I guess. But then, imagine being so...what? offended? appalled? affronted? by the look of a stranger that you were compelled to roll your window down and tell them so by shouting across three lanes of traffic.
I try to parse my reaction. Am I blushing? I don't feel hot. Am I angry? Maybe a little, but I'm more curious about Hurler's motivation. I pass a woman whose legs are easily each twice the size of mine. Did Hurler yell at her? Or am I still among the save-able, and therefore worth yelling at, whereas my fatter fellow pedestrian is beyond hope? Should I, in some bizarre way, be flattered? I'm not. Perhaps I'm just ungrateful.
Later, much later, I'm walking through Portage Place on my way to check out the Y with Meag. As we stroll along, a young guy in oversized hip-hop togs comes toward us. "Lookin' goooooddddd tonight ladies. Lookin' very good." Oh, the mixed messages. Still, I'm more inclined to take this guy's word for it. He's motivated by...well, who knows what he's motivated by. But he doesn't seem as mad as Hurler. Maybe the Hurler was just hungry, that can make a guy cranky. But you know, another burger couldn't hurt.
Monday, October 27, 2003
Man, enough
On the main shopping street in the cool neighbourhood in the city in which I'm currently living -- the city in which, a few days before Halloween, shopkeepers have seen fit to start playing Christmas music and upon which god has seen fit to dump several centimetres of most unwelcome snow, but never mind that right now -- there is a store that drives me crazy. Oh, it probably doesn't mean to. In fact, most likely, it doesn't even know I exist. Regardless, just thinking about it, as I'm doing right this second, drives me to a bit of a boil.
First off, it's called Dick's Buckets. As far as I can tell, however, buckets are not its main merchandise. Also, the name Dick's Buckets makes me feel uncomfortable. I can't exactly put my finger on it, but I think you'll agree, it's a squinchy-sounding name. So what is its main merchandise? Well, in addition to being called Dick's Buckets, it's also called Gifts For Men.
And that's what's getting to my nerve, as I-ball's mother would say. And I mean it is REALLY getting to my nerve.
Because. Because it might as well be called Gifts For Men From Women Who Truly Believe Men Are From Mars While They Themselves Are From Venus. Or Gifts For Men From Women Who Simply Haven't Taken The Time To Get To Know The Men They Want To Give Gifts to.
I mean, just for a second, just for a moment, can we all stop with the men already? Stop with the dumb, hapless men in television commercials who can't feed the baby or clean the bathroom or remember to make their special sandwiches for their special date? Can we, please? Please, I'm begging you here. Men are no more and no less equipped than women to apply cleaning products to porcelain. If Dad can make his special spaghetti sauce, he can damn well also be trusted to wipe up the saucy splatters as they happen. Why? Because Dad's not some sauce-making idiot savant! He's a regular person who lives in the same world as you and I do. Though, granted, his world includes more CLR than mine.
The thing is, see, that men are just like women -- no, stay with me here, bear with me while I explain this very simple point -- men, just like women, like stuff. They're into stuff. Some of them even collect stuff. They do stuff. Some of them even have hobbies, and you can buy them stuff they use in enjoying those hobbies. No, really. Just talk to one for a few minutes and I guarantee you'll find a clue to some of the stuff they like and enjoy. If you ask the right questions. Like, maybe try: So, what did you do on the weekend? You might have to ask a few follow-up questions, but the thing is, if you're buying him a gift already, you probably can stand to have a quick confab with the dude. You dig?
And yes, I will admit that in my family, for nigh on a decade, my sister, my mother and I have been carrying out an elaborate Christmas ruse. I mean, elaborate. It involves slips of paper, all with one name on them, and a hat. Well, it doesn't any more, because we finally copped to the ploy a couple Christmases back, but up till then, we were basically conning my dad and my brother into always, every year, without fail, drawing each other in our annual stocking draw. It's not because either of them is hard to buy for. Mainly it's because when my sister is in charge of filling my stocking, I know it's going to be good. Really, really good. I know she's going to keep it in mind all year. She's going to think, Would she like that in her stocking? And if the answer is yes, she's going to buy it and put it away for me. My dad, god love him, is not going to do that. But not because he doesn't have breasts. No, he's not going to do that because he doesn't like to shop. And because he has a lousy memory. And because, well, because he's just not going to.
My friend Tom, on the other hand? Would totally do that. And he's a guy.
And see, I worry about guys, I really do. I mean, I wouldn't be one for all the money in the world. Well, maybe for ALL the money in the world. But seriously. The poor bastards. Between never knowing if they should hold a door open, usually having to make the first move, finally falling prey -- and falling hard -- to the beauty myth women have become so adroit at navigating and never, ever getting their due from television commercials for cleaning products and breakfast cereals, damn, they have a hard row to hoe. Also, all their bits are on the outside and could betray them anytime, though I'm assured by the adult males I know that this is pretty much not a problem after grade eight or nine, but still, couldn't such an experience scar a guy for life? Also, male pattern baldness. And erectile dysfunction. And no one ever buys them an engagement ring. And people still snicker at the phrase "male nurse," whereas only my grandmother still says stuff like "female doctor."
Oh sure, they still run pretty much everything. That isn't changing as quickly as some would like. But they are paying for it now. And not with all the money in the world, either. Now, they're paying with their dignity. As long as they don't pay Dick's Buckets, I think we'll be ok.
On the main shopping street in the cool neighbourhood in the city in which I'm currently living -- the city in which, a few days before Halloween, shopkeepers have seen fit to start playing Christmas music and upon which god has seen fit to dump several centimetres of most unwelcome snow, but never mind that right now -- there is a store that drives me crazy. Oh, it probably doesn't mean to. In fact, most likely, it doesn't even know I exist. Regardless, just thinking about it, as I'm doing right this second, drives me to a bit of a boil.
First off, it's called Dick's Buckets. As far as I can tell, however, buckets are not its main merchandise. Also, the name Dick's Buckets makes me feel uncomfortable. I can't exactly put my finger on it, but I think you'll agree, it's a squinchy-sounding name. So what is its main merchandise? Well, in addition to being called Dick's Buckets, it's also called Gifts For Men.
And that's what's getting to my nerve, as I-ball's mother would say. And I mean it is REALLY getting to my nerve.
Because. Because it might as well be called Gifts For Men From Women Who Truly Believe Men Are From Mars While They Themselves Are From Venus. Or Gifts For Men From Women Who Simply Haven't Taken The Time To Get To Know The Men They Want To Give Gifts to.
I mean, just for a second, just for a moment, can we all stop with the men already? Stop with the dumb, hapless men in television commercials who can't feed the baby or clean the bathroom or remember to make their special sandwiches for their special date? Can we, please? Please, I'm begging you here. Men are no more and no less equipped than women to apply cleaning products to porcelain. If Dad can make his special spaghetti sauce, he can damn well also be trusted to wipe up the saucy splatters as they happen. Why? Because Dad's not some sauce-making idiot savant! He's a regular person who lives in the same world as you and I do. Though, granted, his world includes more CLR than mine.
The thing is, see, that men are just like women -- no, stay with me here, bear with me while I explain this very simple point -- men, just like women, like stuff. They're into stuff. Some of them even collect stuff. They do stuff. Some of them even have hobbies, and you can buy them stuff they use in enjoying those hobbies. No, really. Just talk to one for a few minutes and I guarantee you'll find a clue to some of the stuff they like and enjoy. If you ask the right questions. Like, maybe try: So, what did you do on the weekend? You might have to ask a few follow-up questions, but the thing is, if you're buying him a gift already, you probably can stand to have a quick confab with the dude. You dig?
And yes, I will admit that in my family, for nigh on a decade, my sister, my mother and I have been carrying out an elaborate Christmas ruse. I mean, elaborate. It involves slips of paper, all with one name on them, and a hat. Well, it doesn't any more, because we finally copped to the ploy a couple Christmases back, but up till then, we were basically conning my dad and my brother into always, every year, without fail, drawing each other in our annual stocking draw. It's not because either of them is hard to buy for. Mainly it's because when my sister is in charge of filling my stocking, I know it's going to be good. Really, really good. I know she's going to keep it in mind all year. She's going to think, Would she like that in her stocking? And if the answer is yes, she's going to buy it and put it away for me. My dad, god love him, is not going to do that. But not because he doesn't have breasts. No, he's not going to do that because he doesn't like to shop. And because he has a lousy memory. And because, well, because he's just not going to.
My friend Tom, on the other hand? Would totally do that. And he's a guy.
And see, I worry about guys, I really do. I mean, I wouldn't be one for all the money in the world. Well, maybe for ALL the money in the world. But seriously. The poor bastards. Between never knowing if they should hold a door open, usually having to make the first move, finally falling prey -- and falling hard -- to the beauty myth women have become so adroit at navigating and never, ever getting their due from television commercials for cleaning products and breakfast cereals, damn, they have a hard row to hoe. Also, all their bits are on the outside and could betray them anytime, though I'm assured by the adult males I know that this is pretty much not a problem after grade eight or nine, but still, couldn't such an experience scar a guy for life? Also, male pattern baldness. And erectile dysfunction. And no one ever buys them an engagement ring. And people still snicker at the phrase "male nurse," whereas only my grandmother still says stuff like "female doctor."
Oh sure, they still run pretty much everything. That isn't changing as quickly as some would like. But they are paying for it now. And not with all the money in the world, either. Now, they're paying with their dignity. As long as they don't pay Dick's Buckets, I think we'll be ok.
Thursday, September 25, 2003
K-I-S-S-I-N-G
So you're single for what feels like forever. Oh sure, maybe you date a little here and there, but nothing you'd tell your folks about (or in some cases, nothing you'd tell your folks about without the fledgling relationship immediately being jinxed and washing up, tattered and forlorn, on the rocks mere days later). And yes, in this context, you kiss people and they kiss you, and maybe other stuff, but again, nothing to write home about. You know, if you were the sort to write home about such personal details. Then you meet someone you really like and you start spending all your time with said person and BAM -- you come down with a raging case of mono.
Yeah, that's right, mono. Mononucleosis. Yeah, the kissing disease, go ahead, get it all out of your system. Make your smart remarks about high school, call me mono girl, mock the sound of my voice as it squeaks out past my insanely swollen glands that somehow make me sound like I'm wearing a particularly bulky retainer. What, you think I haven't heard it all? All the jokes and snarky comments? Please, believe me, I've heard them.
Sure, I've seen the pitying looks too, and heard the compassionate comments, and received gleefully the homemade soup and four-litre jugs of water that went only a little way toward slaking my incredible, deep-down, older than my birthday thirst. In fact, I drank four litres in 12 hours a couple of weekends ago, and for once, I'm not talking vodka. Actually, for a while I feared I might never talk vodka again, since one of the many little gifts mono gives -- which all seem to keep on giving, like the swollen glands and the stuff at the back of my throat I can't seem to swallow and the killer fatigue that has become my constant companion -- is the real potential for liver damage. That or a burst spleen. Or sure, why not, even both.
On the liver front, I spent precious out of bed minutes every day examining my eyes for that tell-tale yellowish tinge. In bed, I peered at my fast-fading summer tan and thought, yeah, I am turning yellow. For sure my liver is fucked now. I asked my roommate every day if she thought my eyes looked yellow. No, she'd reply patiently. And then not so patiently. On the first day I was well enough to stand up for half an hour without sweating, I went to work. That night, I had two glasses of white wine and immediately felt a pain in my liver. So, back to bed to examine my eyes with a hand mirror.
As for the spleen, apparently any activity the mono patient might engage in -- which, believe me, is not very much at all beyond sleeping and sweating and forcing juice of all kinds over the baseball mitt that grows at the back of said patient's throat -- can result in a ruptured spleen. Yes, I hear you scoffing that the spleen is just one step up from the tonsil or the appendix, and yes, it's true you can live without a spleen, but you'll be more susceptible to infections (like, oh, mono) and also I think it hurts like the dickens when it explodes inside you. I am just saying. And so I laid in bed, sweating, sleeping, not eating and not moving. Every four days, I took a shower, and it took all my energy. I'd let the water run over me till my legs started to wobble like soft-boiled eggs. Then I'd haul my sorry self back to bed and lie there helpless while my hair knotted itself into a giant dreadlock that stuck out to the right of my head.
When I had the energy, I'd ring the Troublemaker and give him a piece of my sweaty mind. The first night, when he answered, I sweetly (though somewhat thickly) said, "how are you?" He said, "fine, how are you?" "I have mono," I answered. "Where'd you get THAT?" he exclaimed. "Where indeed," I mused. "It's called the kissing disease, so let's see, who've I been kissing. Uhhh, you?" (This burst of sarcasm left me ragged and worn out, which gave the Troublemaker time to ponder this turn of events.) He claims he hasn't had mono, so I said, "Jesus, you must be a superconductor, then. You know, you've kissed someone who has poison spit, and their poison got in your spit and it didn't make you sick -- that sometimes happens -- but you have the power to make other people sick." And he said, in his boyish way, "Excellent!" And I said, "No! Not excellent! Awful! I'm really sick!" But I could tell he still thought it was kind of cool, his new status as a superconductor. Boys. What're you gonna do, you know?
As it turns out, if you've kissed the Troublemaker recently, as I have, and you were a total bookworm word nerd in high school and didn't kiss anyone and so never got mono when other self-respecting teens did, you're going to use up 80 percent of your sick days, lie in bed all day long listening to them talk about mad cow on the radio till you feel like a bit of a mad cow yourself, become weak as a kitten, crave weird food, when you finally start to rally, like quarter pounders with cheese and spaghetti with meatballs and suicide wings, read a lot of books, fall asleep drooling on even more books, develop a low-level addiction to a daytime TV show called Crossing Over With John Edward, and begin making a mental list of ways the Troublemaker can make things up to you when next you're in the same city. Once you feel better, you transfer that mental list to paper and start making threatening phone calls to Halifax.
So now I have poison spit. Sometimes, the poison stays in your spit forever. Which is kind of handy, actually. It's just one more way to weed out potential mates. Have you had mono? No? Better not kiss me then.
So you're single for what feels like forever. Oh sure, maybe you date a little here and there, but nothing you'd tell your folks about (or in some cases, nothing you'd tell your folks about without the fledgling relationship immediately being jinxed and washing up, tattered and forlorn, on the rocks mere days later). And yes, in this context, you kiss people and they kiss you, and maybe other stuff, but again, nothing to write home about. You know, if you were the sort to write home about such personal details. Then you meet someone you really like and you start spending all your time with said person and BAM -- you come down with a raging case of mono.
Yeah, that's right, mono. Mononucleosis. Yeah, the kissing disease, go ahead, get it all out of your system. Make your smart remarks about high school, call me mono girl, mock the sound of my voice as it squeaks out past my insanely swollen glands that somehow make me sound like I'm wearing a particularly bulky retainer. What, you think I haven't heard it all? All the jokes and snarky comments? Please, believe me, I've heard them.
Sure, I've seen the pitying looks too, and heard the compassionate comments, and received gleefully the homemade soup and four-litre jugs of water that went only a little way toward slaking my incredible, deep-down, older than my birthday thirst. In fact, I drank four litres in 12 hours a couple of weekends ago, and for once, I'm not talking vodka. Actually, for a while I feared I might never talk vodka again, since one of the many little gifts mono gives -- which all seem to keep on giving, like the swollen glands and the stuff at the back of my throat I can't seem to swallow and the killer fatigue that has become my constant companion -- is the real potential for liver damage. That or a burst spleen. Or sure, why not, even both.
On the liver front, I spent precious out of bed minutes every day examining my eyes for that tell-tale yellowish tinge. In bed, I peered at my fast-fading summer tan and thought, yeah, I am turning yellow. For sure my liver is fucked now. I asked my roommate every day if she thought my eyes looked yellow. No, she'd reply patiently. And then not so patiently. On the first day I was well enough to stand up for half an hour without sweating, I went to work. That night, I had two glasses of white wine and immediately felt a pain in my liver. So, back to bed to examine my eyes with a hand mirror.
As for the spleen, apparently any activity the mono patient might engage in -- which, believe me, is not very much at all beyond sleeping and sweating and forcing juice of all kinds over the baseball mitt that grows at the back of said patient's throat -- can result in a ruptured spleen. Yes, I hear you scoffing that the spleen is just one step up from the tonsil or the appendix, and yes, it's true you can live without a spleen, but you'll be more susceptible to infections (like, oh, mono) and also I think it hurts like the dickens when it explodes inside you. I am just saying. And so I laid in bed, sweating, sleeping, not eating and not moving. Every four days, I took a shower, and it took all my energy. I'd let the water run over me till my legs started to wobble like soft-boiled eggs. Then I'd haul my sorry self back to bed and lie there helpless while my hair knotted itself into a giant dreadlock that stuck out to the right of my head.
When I had the energy, I'd ring the Troublemaker and give him a piece of my sweaty mind. The first night, when he answered, I sweetly (though somewhat thickly) said, "how are you?" He said, "fine, how are you?" "I have mono," I answered. "Where'd you get THAT?" he exclaimed. "Where indeed," I mused. "It's called the kissing disease, so let's see, who've I been kissing. Uhhh, you?" (This burst of sarcasm left me ragged and worn out, which gave the Troublemaker time to ponder this turn of events.) He claims he hasn't had mono, so I said, "Jesus, you must be a superconductor, then. You know, you've kissed someone who has poison spit, and their poison got in your spit and it didn't make you sick -- that sometimes happens -- but you have the power to make other people sick." And he said, in his boyish way, "Excellent!" And I said, "No! Not excellent! Awful! I'm really sick!" But I could tell he still thought it was kind of cool, his new status as a superconductor. Boys. What're you gonna do, you know?
As it turns out, if you've kissed the Troublemaker recently, as I have, and you were a total bookworm word nerd in high school and didn't kiss anyone and so never got mono when other self-respecting teens did, you're going to use up 80 percent of your sick days, lie in bed all day long listening to them talk about mad cow on the radio till you feel like a bit of a mad cow yourself, become weak as a kitten, crave weird food, when you finally start to rally, like quarter pounders with cheese and spaghetti with meatballs and suicide wings, read a lot of books, fall asleep drooling on even more books, develop a low-level addiction to a daytime TV show called Crossing Over With John Edward, and begin making a mental list of ways the Troublemaker can make things up to you when next you're in the same city. Once you feel better, you transfer that mental list to paper and start making threatening phone calls to Halifax.
So now I have poison spit. Sometimes, the poison stays in your spit forever. Which is kind of handy, actually. It's just one more way to weed out potential mates. Have you had mono? No? Better not kiss me then.
Sunday, August 24, 2003
Where the heart is
Yes, even shiftless bloggers need time away now and again. To my fans who clamoured -- all two of you -- thanks for your devotion. Neither is actually a blood relation. I must be moving up in the world. Of course, none of my blood relations clamoured, so...
In any event. Just like that, I'm somewhere else again. One minute, it seemed, I was having breakfast in Halifax with Kravitz, having narrowly missed seeing Timmy and his entourage at the North End Diner (and it seemed a shame. It would have been a fitting way to leave town, I thought. Alas, I was too long in the shower and so missed a "chance" meeting), the next I was getting off the plane in Winnipeg to discover my bags had not made the transition. Who can blame them? I wanted to stay behind, too.
With a heavy heart, I laid myself down on the spare futon in The Big Tuna's livingroom. Strange to be in Winnipeg again, I thought. And then I thought, but it's only for a little while. As if I'd be going home, like the other producers from away, at the end of the week. I called the Troublemaker, but he was still out carousing, though it was so late where he was. A deep sigh, life goes on, I guess, and then I stretched out and stared at the ceiling in the dark. No sleep to be had.
Then suddenly I was at work. And so it went. Work all day, stare at the ceiling all night. Eventually that turned in to work all morning, doze through meetings all afternoon despite my best attempts to stay awake, stare at the ceiling all night. Finally, I got a whopping throat infection and my afternoon sleepiness was excused -- in my own mind, at least. And still I thought, just get through this week, then you can go home.
A ridiculous idea, to be sure. I'm here for the long haul, of course I am. But home was so much harder to leave this time. Even though last time, I thought I was leaving the love of my life, and this time I'm not sure who I'm leaving. The Troublemaker, yes, but who he'll turn out to be I've little idea. Last time, I thought I'd be away only four months. This time, I'm certain it'll be ten at least before I'm home again for good. Last time I left the house a shambles, the room unrented, the hallway full of my boxed up possessions. This time the house is in reasonable shape, Sparkly will be an excellent foil for Kravitz and my possessions are neatly stored in the basement and in various crannies in Winnipeg. Still, still, my heart ached all week.
Till finally Iris gave me a present. For your birthday, she said, though that's not for another week -- two weeks, at the time. We drove out along Main Street, to the forgotten North End. Is that it, I asked? The sign says Used Books, Psychics. That must be it, she said. We parked, we went in, my heart, my poor overfull heart thumping.
I know it's ridiculous to make decisions based on what one's psychic says. Or to even call Trevor "one's psychic" as if I were a queen or Nancy Reagan. But all he did was tell me what I already knew. The work is all, right now. The opportunities too great to walk away from. The distance will not prove disastrous, the schism is one of necessity, not indicative that any feelings have changed. And if they do, they do. The world doesn't stop turning. That last is my own, not Trevor's.
I came out more determined than resigned. A huge relief. I'll commit to this place, to this work. See it through the next two seasons -- fall and winter, that is, not two radio seasons -- then see where I am, what I want, what feels right.
So that's that, then. If you need me, I'll be on Ethelbert Street.
Yes, even shiftless bloggers need time away now and again. To my fans who clamoured -- all two of you -- thanks for your devotion. Neither is actually a blood relation. I must be moving up in the world. Of course, none of my blood relations clamoured, so...
In any event. Just like that, I'm somewhere else again. One minute, it seemed, I was having breakfast in Halifax with Kravitz, having narrowly missed seeing Timmy and his entourage at the North End Diner (and it seemed a shame. It would have been a fitting way to leave town, I thought. Alas, I was too long in the shower and so missed a "chance" meeting), the next I was getting off the plane in Winnipeg to discover my bags had not made the transition. Who can blame them? I wanted to stay behind, too.
With a heavy heart, I laid myself down on the spare futon in The Big Tuna's livingroom. Strange to be in Winnipeg again, I thought. And then I thought, but it's only for a little while. As if I'd be going home, like the other producers from away, at the end of the week. I called the Troublemaker, but he was still out carousing, though it was so late where he was. A deep sigh, life goes on, I guess, and then I stretched out and stared at the ceiling in the dark. No sleep to be had.
Then suddenly I was at work. And so it went. Work all day, stare at the ceiling all night. Eventually that turned in to work all morning, doze through meetings all afternoon despite my best attempts to stay awake, stare at the ceiling all night. Finally, I got a whopping throat infection and my afternoon sleepiness was excused -- in my own mind, at least. And still I thought, just get through this week, then you can go home.
A ridiculous idea, to be sure. I'm here for the long haul, of course I am. But home was so much harder to leave this time. Even though last time, I thought I was leaving the love of my life, and this time I'm not sure who I'm leaving. The Troublemaker, yes, but who he'll turn out to be I've little idea. Last time, I thought I'd be away only four months. This time, I'm certain it'll be ten at least before I'm home again for good. Last time I left the house a shambles, the room unrented, the hallway full of my boxed up possessions. This time the house is in reasonable shape, Sparkly will be an excellent foil for Kravitz and my possessions are neatly stored in the basement and in various crannies in Winnipeg. Still, still, my heart ached all week.
Till finally Iris gave me a present. For your birthday, she said, though that's not for another week -- two weeks, at the time. We drove out along Main Street, to the forgotten North End. Is that it, I asked? The sign says Used Books, Psychics. That must be it, she said. We parked, we went in, my heart, my poor overfull heart thumping.
I know it's ridiculous to make decisions based on what one's psychic says. Or to even call Trevor "one's psychic" as if I were a queen or Nancy Reagan. But all he did was tell me what I already knew. The work is all, right now. The opportunities too great to walk away from. The distance will not prove disastrous, the schism is one of necessity, not indicative that any feelings have changed. And if they do, they do. The world doesn't stop turning. That last is my own, not Trevor's.
I came out more determined than resigned. A huge relief. I'll commit to this place, to this work. See it through the next two seasons -- fall and winter, that is, not two radio seasons -- then see where I am, what I want, what feels right.
So that's that, then. If you need me, I'll be on Ethelbert Street.
