peg o' my heart

WINNIPEG, MANITOBA
January 23rd, 2006

My fellow Canadians: HI.

Well....Winnipeg's fine, the sun shines all the time, and the feelin' is laid back....

Oh, wait, those are just the lyrics from a Neil Diamond song. Good thing I stopped myself before the line about the palm trees, or I'd be sitting here in a puddle of tears in a minute.

So. Yeah. Winnipeg. It's actually not FOUR THOUSAND DEGREES below zero, as many BIG FAT LIARS THAT I CALL FRIENDS would have had me believe. So as far as my number one New Year's Resolution goes ("stop complaining about the weather"; closely followed by "Eat more vegetables" and "Stop killing people").....I'm kicking ass! I have now gotten 22 days into 2006 without once whining about how cold I am.

My magical Supercoat is a big help. My da and stepma got me this thing for Christmas; it's, like, a Swiss Army coat. Zipoff fur, secret pockets, knives, a corkscrew...you pull a thing and a parachute pops out; it mixes its own martinis, you name it. (GO GO GADGET BOOZE!) I don't even walk to work - a big plastic ball inflates around me when I walk outside and I roll everywhere. It's, in fact, not a coat - it's actually an intelligent life form. I'm a bit freaked out by the fact that it's been sneaking into my room and crawling into bed with me at night. I mean, that would be fine, but it whispers such strange things ("Jump off the balcony. Make a bomb. No, wait, make a bomb and then jump off the balcony........Fuck your mother.")

Winnipeg is very beautiful. No one ever told me that. The downtown still has all these gorgeous buildings from the early twentieth century. "Chicagoan Architecture", I'm told.....and chic it is. The banks look like banks, you know? You look at the Bank of Montreal here and say, now THAT's a bank. You wouldn't dare belittle a place like that by calling it BMO. Kevin Bundy, who is in the show I'm working on here, stood outside Harry's Bar the other day thinking "This place should be in a movie." And then he went to see Capote and there it was. It makes me ache to know that I live in a town that had all this, and then we went and tore it all down. Just thinking, in contrast, of the hunks of glass growing all over the Lakeshore - and EVERYWHERE - in Toronto, makes me want to tear them apart with my bare hands. Or something slightly more effective. Although I've got pretty effective bare hands; just ask any guy I've dated. (Comedy High Hat, please.)

Of course, our gang is staying somewhere neither old nor beautiful. We are at Holiday Towers, which, as one cast member noted, look about as inviting as the ones from Lord of the Rings. When I say we're all staying there, I mean all of us except for Master Playwright Michael Healey, who pulled the old "I'm allergic to smoke" scam and got put up somewhere else. Yeah - allergic to smoke! Like that exists.

We have noticed that they have all of the MTC visiting artists stacked up on room fifteen of every floor (215, 315, 415 etc.). Winnipeg officials can thereby wipe out a large portion of the local Arts Community at the push of a button, sending a missile sailing down through our section of the building but leaving our crack-addicted, house-arrested neighbours unscathed. Which is exactly what they are under strict orders to do the very minute Stephen Harper is elected. Similar strikes are planned for cheap hotels and theatre bars across the country. Tom McCamus, curiously, is in Suite 213, and thereby safely outside the COLUMN OF DEATH. But he played Wayne Gretzky's dad in a movie after all, and the government can't afford to have the wrath of Wayne on them. That's how you wake up with a severed horse's head. Rest assured that Michael Healey, safely ensconced in his fancyass smoke and bomb-free hotel, will be okay. Until they gun him down in the coffee shop. So there's the Arts Policy you were waiting for from the Conservatives. (Phase One. Basket weavers....you're next.)

We actually ain't got it bad. I quite like my room. And it's got everything I need. I found myself running around my kitchen the other day freaking out because I didn't have, like, ohmigod, a thing to close a chip bag with, when I was suddenly struck by one of those moments when you're forced to see your gross North American Consumerism in a magnifying mirror. Imagine displaced Indonesian villagers whining about their new home not having any twist ties. Well, they won't now - because I just sent a huge shipment of twist ties to the Red Cross! May those lovely little brown people never know my pain.

Winnipeg keeps you regular. No one told me that one, either. I've been pooing, like, three times a day. And I'm talking big, healthy dumps here. Okay....someone's going to make a joke about my having been full of shit living in Toronto all these years, and how I'm just now cleaning out my system. So there. I beat you to it. Just like Eminem in Eight Mile, Yo.

Nothing is open here on Sunday, which is our day off. I mean, no coffee shops, no stores, nuthin'. I guess if much of the world thinks of Sunday as a day of rest and time with family, I am squarely in the other group that thinks of it as that pain-in-the-ass day that the bank is closed. Fuck you, God! I need stuff at Shoppers! I've been trying to buy tampons for three days, for the love of Christ!

The fun Sunday event today, though, was going to see Hughie, a Eugene O'Neill play that Jeff Meadows and Ric Reid (Shaw folk, as is Kelly Daniels, who directed) are playing as part of O'Neill Fest. Every year, MTC spearheads a Master Playwright Festival, and everybody joins in for two weeks of plays, lectures, films. It's a fantastic idea. Other recent ones have been Tremblay-fest, Ibsen-fest, Norm Foster-fest (just kidding). And you can see the whole shamozzle for sixty bucks. O'Neill is particularly fitting: It's Winnipeg! It's January! If you don't want to kill yourself already, come see Long Day's Journey Into Night! Of which there is, by the way, a very fine production at the MTC Warehouse with Dixie Seatle and Graham Abbey and Shaw pals big fat pregnant Fiona Byrne and Mike Shara. It's pretty great. I love O'Neill, so Suicide Fest was made for me.

I'm also really enjoying working on my show (The Innocent Eye Test). The script is a blast - every cheap gag Michael Healey has ever wanted to write. He couldn't very well have the old dudes in The Drawer Boy farting and tripping over things, so it's all in here. It's great to work with Chris Newton again, the actors are all topnotch, the amazing Laurie Champagne is Stage Managing. I feel a bit like the kid who ends up in the Advanced Class when the teacher meant to write down "Special Ed". What am I doing with the frickin' A Team? And, no, that doesn't mean that Mister T is in the show. We've been socializing a lot, too, which may kill me eventually. Last night we had a dinner party in Tanja Jacobs house and I got so high that I came home, washed my face three times, brushed my teeth twice and shaved all nine of my legs. And then I just walked around my kitchen in circles. Wondering where the twist ties went.

I wish you love from this place.

And, oh the snow is beautiful at night......

Lisa