From TORONTO
January 5th, 2013
I’m obviously very emotional right now. I mean, you listen to this song and tell me if it makes you weep uncontrollably:
As for me, I’m a snotty mess over here. This track came on and next thing you know I’m yelling, through sobs, at my laptop, “Don’t hate Big Boi! (Or KiD CuDi, or whatever enthusiastic user of the uppercase, or whoever.) HE LOVES YOU, you stupid bitch! Oh my gawwwwwwd - and he just wants to raise his little man?! Woman, do you have no heart? Aaaaaaggghhhhh!!!”
I should really stop screaming. I might get evicted.
There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this. I ran out of birth control pills, and what with having the flu and being generally lazy, I keep not going to pick up more. And with all these unregulated hormones just running amok all up in me I’m experiencing an unfamiliar flood of human emotions. I might even get my period now, which is just nuts. I mean what am I, a woman? (These days I take the pill continuously – yes, doctor-sanctioned – so get no period. Best secret evahhh.) Anyway, I’ve been on Non-mother’s Little Helper for oh, twenty-two years now, almost continuously (Can I get a what-what? All the ladayyyys!), so I don’t even know what’ll happen. I mean, without the pill maybe I weigh three hundred pounds and have a beard. A red one. Curly. Soft. Little blond tufts at the edges. Okay, I’m talking nonsense – for instance why does my idea of life off the pill seem to evoke Hagar the Horrible? …LOOK ALL I KNOW is that my veins are jonesing for a dose of sweet sweet estrogen right now.
As for the actual “control of birth” function, no worries there, since I’ve not been laid in, oh…I can’t even tell you. Not that I’m being demure, Dear Reader; simply that I count count that high.
I was, with some effort and wilful concentration, being totally serene about that. I in fact took one of my occasional Vows of Celibacy, which is a handy thing to do when you’re not getting any anyway. I’m about to head west to the mountains to do a training program and then a show (Margaret Atwood’s Penelopiad) with thirteen other broads, directed and choreographed and designed by broads. Possible recipe for Vow of Celibacy success! Excepting Sapphic Saturdays! (And allowing for Cute Lighting Tech Tuesdays!)
Here I was, going all beatific full-monk, “what is sex to me or I to sex”, “we are all but clouds”, “let us look inward (but not down there)”….when suddenly, the cat I’m looking after went into heat.
Now I know it’s only nature, and she can’t help it, and my exhortations to “God, show a little restraint, Isabelle” meant little or nothing to her furry cat ears…but I couldn’t help but be a little miffed. I mean here I was, trying NOT to think of the biological imperative to be violated six ways to (Sapphic) Sunday; admirably distracting myself with fine food, and prayer, and literature…and suddenly here’s this horny, moaning creature rolling around on my floor all day letting everyone in town know that love must be made, and here, and now.
I have needs too, Isabelle! And no more prospects than you have (although, admittedly, am allowed to leave the house)! Do you see me rolling around on my back moaning with my legs open? Not usually! Do you see me crawling around on the ground yowling, with my ass in the air? Not in at least a month, lady! So suck it up.
On the other hand, cats can’t masturbate. Which has gotta suck.
And don’t ANYONE write to me suggesting “the q-tip trick”. Some of you can look that up; some can just imagine. I, despite oft-misinterpreted musings in my last blague (sorry, Ashley), will not be doing that.
In any case, the frenzy has passed. And the Temporary Cat was already scheduled to go in for the big fix later this month, so she’ll be spared this agony in future.
As for me: I’m a monk! Honest! I can do this! It’ll be good for me!
All this reading I’m doing in preparation for this month of training in Banff and the show in Edmonton is proving a wonderful distraction. Who needs earthly carnal delights when entire worlds are at one’s virginal fingertips? In my current getaway, Nora has escaped her doll’s house and is in the heat of battle with her comrade Agamemnon by her side, beating the living shit out of Willy Loman. Exciting times.
In other news I should be proud of myself. Five days in and my 2013 new year’s resolution is standing strong. That’s right, folks: I have made my bed. Every single day. Previous resolutions to take the stairs and stop swallowing gum have carried on as well. Man I’m good at this.
I do always make a real, deep, secret resolution or two – never told and not long kept. Here’s one:
The first day of this new year, I woke (into a vicious hangover) out of a telling dream. I was at a backyard party, sitting and chatting with a tall man in a dark suit and a very tall hat. I was charming and hilarious and flirty; he laughed. We had a nice time. He was shy; I didn’t find out much about him. It was on waking that I realized the man had been Abraham Lincoln (as played by Daniel Day Lewis, of course). I thought, Oh great, well isn’t that just like you, Norton? You meet Abraham Lincoln at a party and do you learn one thing, hear one story, even catch his name?? No, even Honest Fucking Abe can’t get a word in edgewise, while you sit there rattling off dick jokes and complaining about the TTC.
Hence real, recurring resolution number one: shut the fuck up once in a while.
On the other hand, I must say, ol’ Abe could have been a little more forthcoming. He was being all shy and nervous on account of talking to a girl. Which is bullshit. Look, I’ve seen the movie; I know he had some long incoherent jokes to tell. But with me he just sits there smiling. Pshaw, I say.
GOOD ONE, ABE. WAY TO LIGHTEN UP A PARTY.
But you know, we are what we are. I mean, speaking of American presidents, whenever you see Clinton with the Obamas, don’t you get the idea that he’s either just proposed, or is about to propose, a threesome? He keeps asking and asking…and even though they almost always say no, it makes them smile. There’s something endearing about Bill just being Bill.
And on that, I go. More reading. And to listen to Big Boi’s song about his dad dying, which always cheers me up for some reason.
So, a happy Lucky ‘13, Dear Reader! May this year see you laid or spayed in short order.
Writhing on the floor with Biff and Masha and Odysseus,
The Tourist
