From TORONTO,
DECEMBER 31st, 2006
My dear smushy sweet wonderful people......I have so much useless information for you, it boggles the mind. Where could one possibly begin? By giving you each an electronic holiday hug? By sending on Joy and Peace and crap like that? By telling you all about New York.....or the rest of the run of the show.....or my peaceful yet weird and unpredictable life of the moment? By absolving those of you who only ever get this far into one of my emails and then give up and go pick your noses and watch reruns of The Simpsons? By cursing those people who never even open them and just say "Oh, fucking Norton again."? Yeah. Let's start there. Screw those people. They suck anyway. I hope their 2007 is GARBAGE.
As for you.....well, enough about you. I mean, who am I kidding? As for ME, it all began in a shady New Orleans neighbourhood, where as a child I went from house to house selling coal to prostitutes in the red light district. Oh wait, that's Louis Armstrong. Sometimes I get us confused. (Useless Norton fact number one: I'm on part nine of Ken Burns' Jazz Miniseries. If I start talking about my gigs at Birdland and my heroin addiction - okay, well that part's true.) Who knows what lies I might tell you tonight? The other day I was so worn out from Christmas shopping and lack of sleep that I very nearly told the cashier at National Sports that I needed artichokes, Kalamata olives and a chicken. If only life were that easy.
Last we communed across the web of the wide world, I was telling you all about my (first ever) trip to Vancouver. I ran out of time, and energy, and the will to live in general - hey, it happens - and left you with a month-long cliffhanger. Stop salivating already. Cease the letter campaign. Leave my agents alone. Here, at long last, is the eagerly awaited sequel.
I came back to the T dot O dot et cetera dot in mid-October, and promptly began the run of Of Mice and Men at Canstage's prestigious yet perhaps-seen-better-days Bluma Appel theatre. (Sorry, Bluma: the 80s chandeliers are not lookin' so state o' the art these days.) One or two days of tech and the rehearsing in of a new dog and we were ready to go.
This, of course, would be our fourth official dog on the production. Dog number one, who so convincingly captured the energy of the old, sick, blind animal Steinbeck describes in the novel - wait for it - dropped dead before rehearsals even began. The Calgary Herald, which had shown an almost freakish obsession with our dog casting from the beginning, ran a front-page obit in which the dog's owners said that his ashes would reside next to the family hamster's cage so that the two animals could "talk to one another". Hm.
In a clear backlash against that experience, the replacement dog was Pookie, a spry, happy young thing who, in his scant two previews, was every bit as excited to meet the audience as they were to see him. Thank you Pookie, we have your resume on file.
Our third dog, Maggie, who apparently wowed 'em on the casting couch, was slow, partially deaf, had cataracts and a bad hip, and weighed at least two hundred pounds completely dry. I loved her. She had to be coaxed onto the stage and was just gonna sit wherever she was gonna sit. She might make it all the way to her mark.....or she might barely get onstage and decide it was time for a nap. By the end of the run, though, she knew her cues better than some of the human actors and, according to her owner, was showing signs of a new lease on life. Having a job had given her a sense of purpose, and approaching show-time, even on the day off, she would go out to the car, wagging her tail and eager to go perform. I fear old Maggie didn't deal too well with the closing. Following a brief appearance in Nunsense 3 at Stagewest, she found it hard to get acting work. She's now flipping burgers at a Calgary McDonalds and drinking heavily. But we've all been there, Mags. I mean, at least to buy a Happy Meal or something.
That brings us to Watson, our Toronto dog.....who was one of those hardcore method acting dogs who thought it necessary to live every detail of his character, particularly his oft-mentioned deathly stink, completely fully. I'm not sure how he did it, but MAN did that dog smell. I stopped petting him when I realized it was affecting my social life. Talk about taking "the method" too far! I mean, I may have given the occasional handjob in my dressing room to get inside the mind of a character that everyone calls a tramp.....but I was getting paid extra for that! Jeez.
Dogstink aside, the Toronto run went well. Our entire time at the Bluma coincided exactly with the construction of a three thousand story condo tower on the adjoining property, but by all accounts, the constant bone-rattling pounding of jackhammers only served to add to the growing sense of unease in the play. It certainly added something.....every performance, as my character's inevitable demise approached, all I could think was "kill me now." Of course, we only had to put up with the construction during matinees - three times a week. And the screaming and innapropriate laughter of the student audiences was almost enough to drown out the pounding.....especially on Special Scarborough Matinees, when there would be a curtain speech welcoming and thanking members of the Future Residents of the Don Jail Club. Only six shootings the entire run - a Club record!
WARNING: ANGRY PARAGRAPH APPROACHING
I made the mistake of once again reading the reviews. I always do; I'm too nosey not to. In my particular case, the critics were split a pretty even fifty-fifty. Depending on whom you read, I was either the weakest link or one of the strongest. Which is so confusing! How am I supposed to know what to think of myself?! Oh well....guess I'll just go back to my default opinion that I AM FUCKING AWESOME. Some dickhead in the Sun, I think it was, said that the design was flawless and then in his paragraph-long diatribe against me, blamed me for the shoes I wore, of which he didn't approve. How did he know that they had made the actors stay up nights in Calgary, designing and cobbling our own shoes? Weird. The reviews that were harshest on the production were tempered by the fact that John Steinbeck himself didn't even escape the bile. Kamal Al SuckMyAss, of the Globe and Mail, said that while the novel is a beautiful and enduring classic, the play is a sentimental old chestnut that doesn't bear remounting. Strange, considering Steinbeck wrote them both and that they're almost word for word the same. Anyway, I felt in good company indeed.
Thought I'd be clever and wear the sexy green dress that I wore to the wedding in Vancouver to Canstage Opening Night. After all, it had gotten great reviews in Vancouver - strangers on the street calling out "Where did you get that dress?", gorgeous, fat burlesque dancers climbing all over me at the reception...... Who wouldn't want to repeat that? And besides, no one in Toronto had seen it. But then some stupid Ontario friends who went to the wedding just had to come to opening in Toronto, and be all supportive and stuff. Courtenay Stephens is now under the impression that I own one dress. You can't know, dear readers, how hard that is for me. ME, of all people! I actually have the biggest evening gown grow-op in Ontario. The smell of taffeta in the hallway is starting to make my neighbours suspicious.
It was a little sad to see the ol' Steinbeck go, though we had a good long run at it. Just a great gang, both on and off stage. Too bad I've forgotten all of their names. I was hoping what's his name might hire me for something some time. Oh well.
To hold the unemployment demons (albeit not the bill collectors) at bay, my mom, the lovely Lolita, suggested a mini-vacation to New York just after closing.
I think I ought to travel more in general. First of all, I love being away and broadening my horizons, if only so that I will have new and more numerous things to make fun of. And that's important. Secondly, I'm having a lot of fun, in this era of hyper-security, in seeing how much I can get away with at airports. At first, I would honestly forget I'd packed a nail clipper or a pair of tweezers or something. At the Calgary airport, I accidentally went through the scanny beepy thing (yes, that IS the technical term) with a pocket full of change - and no scanny beepiness! On my most recent flight I got through U.S. security with two lighters, several packs of matches and a dazzling assortment of undeclared liquids and gels. Next time I'm bringing a hunting knife, with which, after boarding the plane, I will pick my teeth while staring at fellow passengers in a menacing way. I'm not quite sure if there's a non menacing way to pick one's teeth with a knife while on an airplane..... If there is, I'll avoid it.
We also quite enjoyed the airport staff. Except for one dink at the Montreal airport (where we had a stopover en route to NY) who made fun of my French the second I opened my mouth and said it was "worser dan" his English, and then called me a "pretty lass"......everyone was great. A security chick at Pearson actually handed me back my I.D. saying "You're awesome". Chubby, nerdy U.S. customs officer Dansby happily chatted with us, taught us some interesting trivia, and called out "Ciao, Bella" when we walked away.
And what can I say about New York, really? First of all, I have no idea what to say because I can't remember it. It was so long ago now that I've forgotten all the details, and this as much a lesson in how old and senile I'm getting as anything else. Vague memories of tall buildings.... aggressive drivers...noise...Jon Voigt lookin' stupid...Diane Keaton in a shirt and tie...Dustin Hoffman in a dress.... Pretty good celebrity spottings, huh?
Speaking of celebrity spottings, we probably had the lamest ones of all time. We saw, not necessarily in order of unimportance: 1) The guy who plays Larry's agent, Jeff, on Curb Your Enthusiasm. Maybe. I only saw the back of his head. 2) Some celebrity chef from some assy chef show in which he shouts at people on TV. Mom recognized him but couldn't remember his name, and if she had any feeling about him, it was a mild desire to kick him in the shins. And 3) Some Guy sitting near us in a pizzeria who I thought might be on a reality show or something but maybe not maybe he just looks like someone I knew once in school or something.
The most important person we met was probably this round and funny teenaged rapper who chatted us up and tried to get us to buy his homemade CD (after leaping out at us from behind and yelling in my ear, making me jump seven feet into the air). He said he was related to some "famous" hip hop artist I'd never heard of, and promised us he would make it big soon, too. Someday I'll see his big fat face on MTV and I'll regret not having had my picture taken with him. Or just going to bed with him, which was his other, very generous offer. He actually used the line "Once you go black you'll never go back." Look, I've had back-and-forth privileges since high-school, baby. Don't tell me where I can't go.
We did see Jon Stewart, but he wasn't within hugging - or shin-kicking - range. Mom and I are both huge fans, and this being her belated birthday vacation, I thought I'd surprise her by booking tickets to a taping of the Daily Show. Yes, free tickets, big spender that I am.....but we all know it's not about the money - or didn't you watch your Christmas specials this season, boys and girls? Of course, you can't just book tickets and show up; they routinely overbook the show by half, so you have to get there early to ensure a seat. An odd birthday present, really: Surprise! You get to sit on urine-smelling pavement for three hours waiting to see something we could have watched on TV later tonight! But we did get to see Jon in person. And he comes out between the warmup dude and the taping to field questions from the audience. I sat there petrified with fear that either Lolita would say something mortifying, or that I would be unable to stop myself from blurting out the only question I could think of, which was "WILL YOU EVER LOVE ME AS MUCH AS I LOVE YOU?!" Not cool.
After the Daily Show we went for a fantastic dinner at a very good Ethiopian place, the name of which I of course don't remember. (See? Old.) New York - or I should say Manhattan, which was all we had time for - was a pretty great gourmet-on-a-reasonable-budget experience. Between wandering around and trusting serendipity to do its bit, which it always seems to, and an emailed Cheap Eats guide courtesy of Derrick Chua, we just went around happily stuffing our faces for four days straight. At first when deciding, we'd say, "Oh look, this place is Zagat rated"....until we noticed that every fricking restaurant in the city is in the Zagat Survey. The street meat vendors have been reviewed for God's sake. Breast-feeding babies get shoved aside by food critics: "Move it, kid; we haven't reviewed these boobs yet." "What do you have to do to get a good table at this rack?" "We gave her crotch a great rating last year - you'd think she'd be grateful for all the business we've gotten her."
My favourite may have been an adorable and delicious joint on 10th Ave called Empanada Mama. Great food, cool decor and a cute waitress with a funny accent. We thought at first of limiting our trip to Matriarchal experiences, like Don't Tell Mama piano bar, the MOMA, Empanada Mama, Mamma Mia, etc. Fortunately, we're not morons. One fun meal was at Mara's Homemade (almost a Mama name) in the East Village, a personal recommendation from Derrick, who drops in whenever he's in town. It's a Cajun/southern comfort food place, run by a cool chick from Texas who you'd swear was a born-and-raised New York Jew. We feasted on oysters and barbeque ribs and catfish and collard greens and crawfish etoufee and sucked back hurricanes all night.
When Mama Lo was in the washroom having her wash, I secretly ordered a chocolate souffle, and when it came, I, timid Canadian, coaxed a bunch of New Yorkers into singing her Happy Birthday. Dessert was warm and gorgeous and gooey, and I was feeling the same way at this point, so I decided then to be all generous and make this a Big Birthday Meal On Me. Of course, I was doing the math through a haze of rum and chocolate......so it didn't turn out quite as smooth and cool as intended. "Happy Birthday! Um.....do you have a twenty on you?" And then we walked out into a crazy wind and rainstorm. Hey, better than the pee-covered sidewalk.
Our hotel was The Paramount on 46th Street, a block from Times Square and right across from the half-price ticket booth. It's a pretty groovy boutique hotel where everything is designed by Philippe Starck, and where they pay good looking people to hang about the lobby being cool. Shaun Smyth later told me there's a line in Patrick Marber's play Closer about the Paramount Hotel being staffed entirely by hookers. So you can get a little more than a mint on your pillow if you know what I mean. If only I'd known. Come on, people, you need to give me useful travel tips before I go somewhere.
The rooms, according to the Paramount website, feature "the now legendary gilt-framed headboards, most depicting images from famous Vermeer paintings". Ours were blank. Blank canvasses. Legendary my ass. Mama Lolita suggested we fill them in with our sharpies. I was thinking feces. You know, I like to live on the edge. Plus I like to mention poo in my emails whenever possible.
Speaking of legendary art/poo (check this segueway, people!), we spent most of one day at the MOMA, which was fantastic. Had the classic "I could have made that" vs. "Yeah but you didn't" argument, which is unresolvable but fun.
Did Central Park, too, of course. I'd convinced La Lolita to add one pair of non-pointy, un-high-heely shoes to her collection - and that was a struggle; we kept the staff at Discount Shoe Warehouse up waaay past their bedtimes, while she tried on every shoe in the place....including all the pointy black leather high-heeled boots. Anyway, I had to teach her how to walk in flat shoes, and she did crawl a lot of the way, but we had a lovely time, and Central Park was amazingly beautiful and still autumnal, by which I mean lots of purty leaves on the trees.
Have I mentioned the weather? Aside from that windy rainstorm - which was a lot of fun to walk in, actually, and strangely pretty in its spectacle of abandoned broken umbrellas everywhere like the corpses of crows - the weather was amazing. Mostly grey, but so beautifully warm that we were walking around in T-shirts half the time. We're talking mid-November here. We'd walk out of our hotel, take off our coats....and Al Gore would come running across the street with a blanket, crying "Cover yourselves up for Chrissake! Don't encourage it!" Poor Al. If only he could learn to love Global Warming, like the rest of us.
We only hit one play while in town. I figure we watch so much theatre at home that we didn't need to spend our entire vacation sitting inside in the dark. I mean it's not like we're from Moosenee and only get to see the local seniors put on Dreamgirls once a year. Our pick was The Drowsy Chaperone, good little Canadians that we are. I had seen the Toronto Fringe production in '99, and it was great to see it all expanded and so successful.
Our only other dark theatre experience was seeing Babel at the fifty-something screen Empire Theater on 42nd Street, and we only did that because some passerby, hearing us discuss whether we were too tired for it, fairly forced us to go inside. The man felt so strongly about us seeing this movie, I thought he'd cry if we chose not to. I now suspect he works there. When we left, he was in tears telling some tourists how moved he was by Jackass 2.
All in all, New York was fucking fantastic. I found myself, while looking down from a revolving restaurant high above the city, thinking "How do I get to live here?" And wondering how long it would take until I did. This was on my very first day. People who know me even a little have always told me I would love New York. They were definitely not wrong.
Since coming home, I've been living the unemployed life, catching up with friends and my apartment, celebrating Christmas with my family, doing the occasional audition. Don't think life is all just one big lazefest for me, though: I've decided to devote myself quite seriously to the art of masturbation. I mean, there are just too many armchair masturbators out there who do it as a hobby, and not enough people really putting in the time and dedication it takes to further it as an art form. I proudly consider myself a professional. For tips on how to join our ranks, go to www.wanking/whyjustahobby.ca .
Another industrious move is my taking baby steps toward getting my driver's license at long last. I'm doing Young Drivers of Canada, and my Dad's joke that I should be at Middle-aged Drivers was confirmed when I walked into a YD classroom full of sixteen year-olds. The in-class portion of the training was all this week at Bloor and Islington, with a bunch of rich Etobicoke kids who can't wait to get their hands on Daddy's SUV. I mean, teenagers have always wanted Hummers, but that used to mean something different. Something much more innocent.
At first I was disheartened by how reticent these kids were. They were so concerned with being cool, so worried about looking stupid, that they wouldn't answer anything, let alone ask any questions. For instance, there were the Sarahs, two blond high school hotties and obvious BFFs (that's Best Frendz 4Evah, oldie). The Sarahs sat at the back and didn't talk to anyone except each other and their cell phones. If the instructor asked one of them a question, they'd look at one another and giggle and say "I dun-noOOoo". If anyone else spoke to them, you'd hear a faint beeping and a tiny voice calling "Intruder Alert. Intruder alert. Outsider attempting entry to Sarahtown." Yeah. It was weird. Lucky for you, if they ever manage to get licensed they will outfit their matching Escalades with vanity plates that say I'MDUM and YAY. Wow... Should I have put an anger warning on this paragragh, too? You'd think cute blond girls were mean to me in high school. When in fact it was the Chinese.
Over the week, a few of the students did come out of the cool shell, which is nice. My favourite was The Doomsayer, who seemed to have a morbid example for everything the instructor brought up. Like "Yeah, you have to be careful? Cuz my cousin was driving, right? And this guy threw down a bucket of acid from an overpass? And it like burned through her windshield and melted her face." Or "I read in the paper one time about how with hatchbacks, sometimes all four tires just, like, fly of off all of a sudden. And then you get raped."
The holidays have been great except for the complete lack of snow. For those of you not in Toronto, we didn't have a single flake of snow for Christmas. Well, there was one......but he looked around, said "What the hell....I thought there was supposed to be a party down here tonight," and went straight back up. Al Gore ran after him, screaming "Come back!!! Come back!!!! Bring your friends! Pleeeeeeeaaaase!!!!!"
Tonight is New Year's Eve and I'm exhausted, since Tracy Dawson and I went out last night determined to go dancing the night before New Years Eve, and I was up till five. I hate going out on the 31st and being surrounded by drunken assholes. I'm drunken asshole enough for me, thank you very much. I don't need any other morons stealing my thunder. Shortly I shall rent some stupid movies and head over to Bunker's to hang about and try to feel the year change.
I do encourage you all to make at least one New Year's Resolution, the Lisa Norton way, which is......pick something easy! Really....choose one or more totally attainable goals and don't worry about the big ones like "Quit Smoking" and "Stop the Killing Spree". You will never win with those. A couple of years ago, I chose "Take the Stairs", and I have scarcely ridden an escalator since. Last year? Stop complaining about the weather. And my great big resolution this year: Don't Swallow Your Gum. This one I started early, and it's proving SO DAMN EASY that I may have to add another. Of course I have been swallowing gum for twenty years or more, so I may have a relapse at some point. If I show up at your house at three a.m. begging for Hubba Bubba, well.... give me some. But FOR THE LOVE OF GOD make sure I throw it out when I'm done. Anyway, regarding my next resolution, I'm open to suggestions. As long as you take mine. You shall begin by wearing less underwear. And drinking eight to ten glasses of brine per day. Nothing like it for the kidneys. Send ideas to: http://www.youhavetoomuchtimeonyourhandsnortonyouidiot@loser.net/
Stay tuned for tips on how to live like a tourist in your own hometown, a fool-proof method for making your children behave, and instructions for building an eight foot christmas tree out of pipe cleaners and icing sugar. Oh, who am I fooling? I already told you that all I do is play with myself.
Keep hope alive (unless it signed something saying it didn't want to be on life support),
Your coolest friend,
Lisa
the skeptical tourist vs. santa claus
vanewyorkouver....and sweet home
From TORONTO
DECEMBER 4th, 2006
I've just read one of those emails that people forward you all the time with you know, ADVICE ABOUT LIFE. This one was very nice, full of sound advice from the Dalai Lama (that he will supposedly be very upset if you don't forward to, like, eighty-nine people by the end of the day). Apparently it's a list of his tips for the year to come.....but I'm pretty sure I've read some of them before. No Usesies Againsies, Dalai! I want fresh maxims, every year! No more of this "Be good to others" shit. I mean, that one's even in the bloody Ten Commandments! And "Spend some time alone every day"? You used that back in '97. Jeez.
Anyway....one of his Holy Baldness' pieces of advice, which I quite like, is "Once a year, go someplace you've never been before". Well, Mister Lama - and dear friends - have I got you trumped! In the past two months alone, I have finally hit both Vancouver and New York City, two places I've been meaning to visit since I was, like, born. And my experiences of which are as follows:
I had, as you may remember, just three days between performing Of Mice and Men in Calgary and in Toronto into which to squeeze a jaunt (how jaunty!) to Vancouver to attend the nuptials of my pals Mike Wasko and Jenny Paterson - who I still think spells her name wrong, by the way. Was supposed to head to Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall's folks' place on arrival, but due to a combination of closing a show and packing and drinking, not sleeping and running around, and Shaughnessy having dropped off the face of the earth......I hadn't spoken with him and had no idea where they lived. I sat on my bags in the Vancouver airport wondering where to go and what to do.
I left several messages, talked to strangers, beat some noisy children, rode the baggage carousel until that got boring (and believe me, that takes a while), and eventually got in touch with the then soon-to-be groom, Michael Jack Wasko, who instructed me to make my way to the happy couple's home in Kitsilano, where I would find not only Mike and Jenny, but our dear friend Thom Payne, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for laid-backness eight years running, all the way from his oppositely coastal home in Nova Scotia. Actually, all three deserve a gold medal in cool. Here I am thinking, I shouldn't be bugging Jenny and Mike, they're getting married tomorrow for God's sake. Surely they have things to do, responsibilities, people to shout at for no particular reason.... But no, after a lovely cab ride there - with a great driver, indeed one of the most interesting people I've ever met, through sunny blueness with the windows down - I found them sprawled about, just emerging from the haze of the "rehearsal dinner", which from what I gather was basically a rehearsal for getting loaded. Complete with a never-ending flow of champagne cocktails courtesy of Mike's little mama, Penny. Seems everyone really threw themselves into the spirit of the thing.
Hung about yawning and smoking and catching up, was shown a series of truly odd bachelor party photographs, and then we all headed out for a walk to Jericho beach. The weather was just amazing, as it would continue to be for my entire time in the city. Shaughnessy would later tell me that the weather in Vancouver is always beautiful, and that all that stuff about rain and fog and drizzle is a myth that people from the east have made up and tell themselves as consolation for living in places that suck. This, of course, comes from his entirely unbiased objective journalist's point of view.
So yes, after we'd dragged our sweet asses (taking our sweet-ass time) back to the apartment, and talked and smoked some more and fritatta'd our way to happiness - thanks Jenny! - Shaughnessy BS did finally appear. Seems he'd been off having ADVENTURES WITH BRIDESMAIDS, which is exactly the type of thing one expects and trusts Shaughnessy to do. I love it when people live up to their expectations; it's so comforting.
He and I then took off to install me in the empty basement apartment at his parents' house, only stopping along the way to buy champagne. "Champagne!", he would shout all weekend, "We must have more champagne!" I happily concurred, each and every time. Between that and all the turkey, it's a wonder I'm not paralyzed. Did I mention it was Thanksgiving?
Thanksgiving Dinner at the Bishop-Stalls, after a nap in a darkened basement: Who could ask for anything more? The Bishop-Stalls: Cinnamon, Cardamom, Jacqui and Old Whatshisface (I may have taken some liberty with their names), not to mention my friend Young BS, are, as had been promised by Wasko, the loveliest family you could hope to spend time with. The gang was all there, along with two dogs, three cats (one is retarded and lives in a three-story cage so that he won't eat spatulas and things like that) and a few good-looking special guests. Perhaps that is the house guest-list criteria: no ugly people shall darken this door. Ug-ism being the only prejudice I wholeheartedly support, I have no problem with that. I, of course, was right at home, though happily out-beautified by Shaughnessy's gorgeous mother and sisters; and definitely out-weirded by Bob Stall, the funny little patriarch. I love that however brilliant a man may be, and in Bob's case I gather that is quite a lot (he is an accomplished and award-winning journalist), there is a law of nature saying that once he reaches fatherhood he must make the same lame and often incomprehensible jokes as dads the world over. And that he can't compose full sentences while the hockey game is on.
(A Speaking-of-hockey-side-note: Buses and billboards in Vancouver sport ads with splashy colourful images from Vancouver Canucks games and the phrase WE ARE ALL CANUCKS. Bloody brilliant. What could Toronto do to compete with that? WE ALL...HAVE LEAFS. IN OUR YARDS. IF YOU HAPPEN TO HAVE A YARD. UM. AND IF "LEAFS" WAS A REAL WORD. SHIT.)
Anyway, Thanksgiving Dinner was a great mixture of the entirely silly and the stunningly erudite. And as the wine flowed we just got cleverer and cleverer and cleverer.....though it is questionable how many of us could have pronounced the word "cleverer" by the end of the evening. I, for one, never talked so much shit in my life (and y'all know how I can talk shit). I woke the next morning with a distinct feeling of remorse.....and then got in an argument with BS over things he swears I was spouting at the end of the night and which I was sure he'd dreamt.
Thank God for that cozy dark basement apartment - where, incidentally, I kept finding condoms. Unopened, don't worry. I don't know if that's a traditional West Coast Welcome, hiding condoms all over the guest's room for her convenience.....or if the basement is just the traditional place for Bishop-Stall kids to sneak their partners off for rendezvous. Either way, I've decided that my fifth novel shall be named Condoms in the Basement.....and will be a tribute the Flowers in the Attic series. Thank you, Bishop-Stalls. God Bless You, every one.
No doubt you've heard of Triptophan. It's the hormone in turkey that knocks you on your ass, and which is the original date-rape drug. It went out of style when Rohypnol appeared on the scene; frat boys who'd been sneaking turkey drumsticks into cocktails for years were relieved to discover something less conspicuous. Well... you'd expect a lot of clever people, who know ALL ABOUT triptophan, and in fact made EIGHT-THOUSAND stupid jokes about it over dinner, to not spend an entire wedding weekend gorging themselves on leftover turkey sandwiches. That, of course, is exactly what we did. By the time the wedding rolled around, my blood was seventy percent turkey and I could barely walk. It didn't help that another twenty percent was champagne.
Day of the wedding, and almost everything is closed for Thanksgiving, which throws a temporary wrench (OW!) in my plan of buying a sassy new number for the wedding. The BS siblings, however, spring into action and drop me off near two of the best (and most not-closed) shops on Main Street - right near Heritage hall, where the wedding is taking place. Grocery bag full of black accessories in hand, I do some power shopping, finding a perfect dress and bag with an hour to spare - which I then use up cabbing back to the house and running around because the new dress is green and brown and my black friggin' boa just ain't gonna cut it. Brown accessory emergency! Just the type of life-and-death pressure I thrive under. Doctors Without Borders, sign me up.
The wedding was sweet and dreamy. First of all, I love these guys. Second of all, and probably slightly more important, they love each other. Another second of all, this is a couple that has already been through thick and thin, hell and highwater, et cetera et cetera. They've even managed to get over the fact that neither of them is very nice, or interesting, or charming. (What dumb, ugly losers Mike and Jenny are, really. They make me sick.) So everyone there had complete faith that they will continue on together happily for the rest of their lives. Which made for a totally relaxed, loving vibe......but an unfortunate lack of bitter speeches and nasty whispers. The highest drama of the evening came when one of the guests swallowed a hunk of glass that was in the bottom of a faulty Perrier bottle. But she happens to have grown up with severe allergies, and was used to keeping entirely calm in emergencies, so even she didn't freak out. Fucking pothead Vancouverites! What does it take to get a tantrum out of one of you! Even when I started sobbing loudly throughout the vows and moaning "ME!!!! She said she loved Me-e-e-e-e-e-e-e!!!!", I couldn't seem to get a rise out of them. They just laughed and passed me the joint that that was going around.
Seriously, the wedding was gorgeous. Jenny wore an awesome gown made out of the wings of real-life fairies, which she and her sister have captured and de-winged themselves since childhood. The couple got through their vows with only a tasteful amount of giggling, and those of you who know Mike will be happy (or devastated) to know that he wore pants, though there was a piper. I didn't really moan and sob, nor did anybody else, except for the usual isn't-this-so-sweet sniffling and retching. Shaughnessy did an admirable job as MC, and there were some hilarious and touching speeches, and a proliferation of songs containing lyrics about what a big jerk Mike used to be. Awesome food! Great company! And Wasko-Paterson soundtrack CDs for all the guests! Dancing in the hall......and dancing our way down the street to the after party at Sarah's place and partying as much as the turkey sandwich coma allowed us.
I was overjoyed to be able to be there, to see some old faces, and to put faces to other people I've heard about for years. And to see my friends so happy.
There must be something in the air right now out West. In Calgary, I had a fantastic reunion with my old college chum, Jacquie - excuse me, Jacqueline....though she lets her new redneck friends call her Jadie - and she nearly electrocuted me with happiness, she is at such a brave and happy and exciting moment in her life.
Also in Calgary, I met up with Dean Carter (another pal from the James Brown years) and his wife Luka Symons, and their sweet little girl, who nearly didn't survive infancy. They are so grateful to have her, all fun and full of joy, and also madly in love with their jobs. Luka has her own radio show on CKUA, that station I plugged in my last email (pure coincidence) and Dean is a teacher at the Waldorf School , which is the coolest institution on Earth.
At the wedding I got to catch up with Jody Marklew, who was in my class in first year and then went to Studio 58 with Mike and Jenny. She recently went through a divorce and a year of hellish health problems, which doctors couldn't diagnose after ten billion tests for everything under the sun. She was just about to start a regimen of drugs for MS, which hadn't been ruled out, when she figured out that it was MERCURY POISONING. From an old filling that had fallen apart. She is now healthy, amazing, as gorgeous as ever, starting to act again, and dating an awesome new guy. I wonder if I were to continue across the country, finding all the people I've lost touch with, they'd all be this happy. It was really something, all these joyous people. If I made them shed just one tear each, my travels have been worth it.
One more day - sleeping, a farewell turkey sandwich, post-wedding lunch, goodbyes, dinner with Young BS, a mad dash to the airport singing G n' R at the top of our lungs - I and my new green dress took our bags and reluctantly left green Vancouver. It's so green! Why did nobody tell me it would be so green? Everyone talks about the mountains - but the trees! So many trees! Or was I just seeing them through fresh-from-the-prairie-eyes, and not used to seeing green again? Six of one?
On the redeye back to Toronto, I was politely holding in three days of champagne gas, and eventually went to the washroom for just long enough for an old lady on the plane to have a heart attack. She was between the washroom and my seat, so I couldn't go anywhere and was stuck at the back of the plane with a very boring person who is too tall to sit comfortably in airplane seats and so spends his flights at the back of the plane annoying flight attendants. I heard all about his (boring) trip, his (boring) job, his (boring) wife and his (boring) allergies, until I was wishing for a heart attack myself. Watched all the drama unfold from back there: the calls to the pilot, the appeals for a doctor, the five doctors on the plane all getting in each others' way, the defibrillator coming out, the defibrillator going back in......eventually she came around, and they arranged for paramedics to meet us at Pearson. I never did get a wink of sleep on that overnighter. I just couldn't rest easy knowing that my farting in the bathroom was enough to stop someone's heart. What if I fell asleep and let one go? It could be the pilot next time.
And on that elevated note, dear friends........it's 2:45 am. New York will have to wait a day or two. But hell, I waited thirty years for it.
Off to dreams of places i've never been before,
Lisa
