Tourist of the Year

From TORONTO,
December 31st 2015


As the year twenty-fifteen draws to a close, look on in awe, Dear Reader, as I gaze into my crystal ball and make my predictions for the year to come. Dare you read on? Do you really want to know WHEN YOU'RE GOING TO DIE?? Oh, sorry. That's for another post, not due until next March or April. Shit. I'll stop now. 

SPOILER ALERT:

I WARNED YOU.

In 2016...

Some weird things will happen. Also a lot of perfectly normal things. Some may say too many. Some politicians will do some things that will drive us out of our minds. Rants will be ranted, petitions will be signed, six months later we'll try to remember what that was all about. I'll do some stuff. Make some funny voices for money. Hopefully put on some funny clothes (and if I'm lucky a wig or a moustache) and get to make up a fake person for a month or so. My dad and I will have another fight about snow tires and then we will say sorry. I'll get a bad cold and complain a lot and eventually it will go away. 

How are you doing so far? Is this blowing your mind?

In 2016, I will eat better. And then worse. And then better again for about a week. And then I'll be like, "What is with all this broccoli? Stupid." And eat nothing but sponge toffee for three weeks. And then my teeth will start to hurt, so I'll switch to all ice cream for a while, to eliminate chewing. And then I'll eat better again. Then worse. Private message me for more details on the Lisa Norton Meal Plan. It's pretty complicated but it works.

In 2016, no one will drive. Everyone will have flying cars and fly all over the place.

According to my auto-correct, everyone will also have flying cats. Pushing it a bit on the within-a-year technology if you ask me, but hey, this thing knows what it's talking about. I don't doubt it overheard some things at the Apple Store.  

The Stephen Harper sex tapes will finally be released to much scandal and media attention and precisely zero views.

Global warming will suddenly stop. Could be linked to Stephen Harper sex tapes, above.

In 2016, I will drink more in the daytime. It's three pm and I'm sipping on my second Jameson right now, and I gotta say it's working for me. I'm so Hemingway. Bring on the bulls.  (Phew. The clock was ticking on 2015 and I was worried I wouldn't come up with a resolution in time. Job well done, brain!)

In 2016 I will try to be less like this weird bee:

OR MAYBE 18

Because who wants to be a weird bee anyway? I'll be a completely human neurotic insomniac this year for once. I mean, I've been holding this in, but I am SO SICK of collecting pollen all day all the time and not even getting any recognition. Pollen pollen pollen! Gawd. Not even a Tim Horton's gift card at Christmas, and I was lead pollinator in my sector three months running. Spent my own money on a new pollen basket and didn't even get fully reimbursed even though I submitted the receipt and filled out the stupid form before the deadline. And Donna keeps on not properly cleaning her cells and I cover her ass, God knows why, even though it slows me down and then the Queen gives me shit, and pulls all that "I'm disappointed in you" stuff, surprise surprise. Meantime the guys are just hanging around being fertile while we do everything. Down with the monarchy! Bring on the bulls. 

In 2016, new media will continue to expand and present new opportunities, and  their attendant dilemmas, to artists. Who knew when I graduated from theatre school nineteen years ago that providing the movements and voices for video game characters would be a thing? Similarly, who could have predicted then that in February 2016 I would sign my first contract to provide such services for a line of lifelike, human-sized personal robots? Things are gonna get weird real quick. I'mma order one with my own voice and have some super freaky kinky times, oh yeahhhh. 

Why does my computer keep trying to make that into a mere "Oh yeah" with one h? Maybe this thing DOESN'T know what it's doing.

My life of romance and adventure will continue through 2016.  Many more long walks on the beach and through the forest, many more spontaneous road trips full of laughter and mayhem....many more jazz-soundtracked candlelit dinners....with my dog. 

I will only spend three sleepless nights in 2016 worrying about the above paragraph and whether it makes me look like a pathetic loser, and how many ex-boyfriends have read it. (Tonight, tomorrow and, oddly, June 18th.)

Speaking of the dog, this year I will admit to the situation at hand once and for all and start eating kibble in order to better afford a foie gras and caviar diet for Walter. I mean, it's already gotten to the point where if I run out of fancy canned food and try to give him straight kibble he looks at me like, "Woman, don't waste my time." And then I spend the whole rest of the day apologizing and giving dog shoulder rubs.  And that's after I do Donna's cleaning for her. GAWD!

In 2016 I will not totally totally forget that I took Montreal bagels home to Toronto in my carry-on and then find them a week later, all like, "Oh look. A bag of mould." 2016 had better be better than this shit, let me tell you.

Critics will rave about The Ammonia Solution, a four-and-a-half hour biopic about Harry R. Drackett, inventor of Windex and other less commercially successful chemical cleaning products. While not eligible for the 2016 Oscars, it will sweep the awards the following year, notably earning Billy Bob Thornton his first Academy Award for acting since 1997's Sling Blade as well as a win for director Tyler Perry, who will call it "The story I was born to tell".

DRACKETT: THE HERO AMERICA NEEDS

In 2016, I will spend just as much time on Wikipedia reading about things like bee life cycles and the history of Windex. All for you, dear reader, all for you.

Water, 2-Hexoxyethanol, Isopropanolamine, Sodium Dodecylbenzene Sulfonate, Lauramine Oxide, Ammonium Hydroxide, Fragrance, and Liquitint® Sky Blue Dye, to answer your question.

This year I will discover that it's not just a dream after all; I really can breathe underwater. And then I'll eat more vegetables for practically a week.

For now, there are six and a half hours left in 2015 and I've got more pre-drinking to do and some sponge toffee to eat. Also I'm pretty sure I've covered all the year's most crucial events.

In 2016, my friends,
Start with the man in the mirror. Make that change. Make that change.
And if the elevator tries to break you down....go crazy.

And now this. If you can make it through the whole four minutes and four seconds, good things will befall you in the year to come. Don't take any chances now.

For auld lang syne, and what the heck, that new syne too,

The Tourist

Norton World

From TORONTO,
October 19th, 2015

So this was going to be my "I just turned 40" issue. Complete with hair, makeup and workout tips for the rapidly wrinkling set! (See pic above.) Stayed up all night on birthday eve writing notes and everything. And then I got real busy. Lazy. (...Bulazy?) Now it's been a whole MONTH since my birthday.  (Remember the Ides of September, remember!) What to do??!

I've decided it still works. And now I can comment from this wiser and loftier perch (Queen and Roncey), having spent thirty-three whole days basking in the glory of my fifth live decade. Seriously, those still in their thirties and younger: this shit is crazy. Like Mason-Illuminati-Skull and Bones level stuff I'm not allowed to tell you about. Can I mention that Helen Mirren figures prominently in the organization and that Don King is this quarter's treasurer? No? Oh well. Still working on my Mature Discretion Badge. And they make me sell my share of the charity apples on the shittiest corner on the coldest days.... But man, I see this really paying off by fifty-seven, fifty-eight.

Anyway...birthday or no (NO, you idiot!), late or not, I wasn't going to scrap yet another blague post. There are far too many unfinished ones getting wormy in notebooks.

And as I begin writing, I realize this can double as a wedding gift for my pal Jeff Irving, who marries the lovely Kristi Frank this Monday (TODAY, as this rolls off the interpresses!), and is not only one of the remaining steadfast Tourist fans (a decidedly strange but resilient breed), but the most persistent and annoying of them all. (Don't worry, Nathan Carroll; you're annoying too.)

I don't know whether it's the puppy dog eyes or the pathetic tone of voice, but whenever Jeff asks after the Tourist I always feel like I'm having to explain to a little kid where his beloved goldfish went, or why his crack addict older sister didn't make it to his hockey game. Which makes me feel really dorky too, come to think of it, because at least if I were a crack addict I'd have a pretty exciting excuse for not writing. Or if I were a goldfish! Nobody razzes goldfish about not posting on their blogs: they're all like, "Wow, you're a goldfish and you can write! That's so amaaaazing!" "Hey, remember that time you were a dead goldfish and you wrote a blog for ten years? Like wow."
Yeah yeah. Ooh la frickin' la.

Anyway, here I am, out of....shall we not say "retirement"? -- retirement sounds so old and weird and final -- shall we say... hibernation? Shall we agree that I was, what's the word -- pupating: going from a nasty, sarcastic, hairy wormy thing, to a beautiful, elegant butterfly with gossamer stained-glass-patterned wings, who will write generous, loving odes to the universe and the miracle that is all the living creatures in it. Or, well, not. Let's be honest: a butterfly is still a wormy hairy creepy thing. With wings.

WITH WINGS.

YEAH. THAT TOO.

SOOO....This one's for you, Jeff. Now you'll have something to read on your honeymoon. 'Cause that's what people do on honeymoons, right? Gimme a break, I'm just a goldfish, whuddoo I know? Or -- crap! -- what animal was I?

On that: I have a whole new animal kingdom role model. (Up yours, raccoons! Yeah, I said it.) One I didn't know existed 'til my friend Lyon posted this article on Facebook last week.

             http://www.wired.com/2014/03/absurd-creature-week-water-bear/

YOU THINK YOU HAVE AN IDENTITY CRISIS? WHAT THE HELL AM I???!

                     
I don't know if you read the whole thing about those things but those things are some crazy-ass things. They can survive for ten days in space vacuum conditions! Be practically dead for ages AND THEN YOU SPRINKLE SOME WATER ON THEM AND THEY COME BACK TO LIFE! And they have weirdo crazy suction faces! (Every lady's dream!) People call them Water Bears, but their scientific name is "Tardigrade": their real name is weirder than their nickname! I want to be that strange and that resilient! Like Jeff Irving! Tardigrade life starts now!
(I don't like the video on that page though. One lonely drunk Water Bear, writhing around, looking for the Tardigrade party. Bet that one's embarrassed: "Man! I finally make YouTube, and it's this clip that makes me look like a loser. Thanks a LOT, scientists. Now Courtney will never sleep with me!")

Anyway, I'm feeling relatively Water Bearish these days, relatively strong. My insomnia has shifted from the Lying in Bed Enumerating all the Things I Suck at and the Ways in Which I Suck at Them variety, to the rather more fun manic sleeplessness of Why Haven't the Workers Arrived and Started Work on my Self-Themed Amusement Park, and should I position the waterslides and the Lisa Norton Statue Garden near the east or west gates?

Look, all I'm saying is, if there can be a Norton Anthology of World Literature....why not a Norton World®? Saves three whole words and everything.

THIS, OR A ROLLERCOASTER? BE HONEST.

The bulldozers have yet to start digging; in the meantime, I can just be all I that can be and stuff.
My career, for one, is making great strides:

GIRLFIGHTING THE SHIT OUT OF EVERYONE SINCE 1975

It's actually in all my contracts:
"Ms. Norton will only participate in stage fights:
1. As choreographed by a certified fight director
2. Featuring a lotta hot chicks
3. Wherein she ends downstage right having her hair pulled
4. In which she has her mouth open to its fullest extent for a minimum of eight seconds"

More evidence of creative progress:

"FUCK YOU, ASHLEY WRIGHT, I'MMA BASH YOU OVER THE HEAD WITH SOMETHING
AND THEN YOU'RE GONNA DIE IN THIS HERE FIRE I MAYBE STARTED" 

"FUCK YOU, LISA NORTON, NOW I GET TO BREAK YOUR STUPID NECK." 

See? I worked out some of that youthful aggression and matured into a victim, like all girls need to learn to do!
And yet more...

SQUARE-HAIRED MULLET MISERY, CIRCA 2012

Totally different from:

SQUARE-HAIRED MULLET MISERY, 1984

"LOOK HERE, NORTON, YOU THINK YOU CAN OUTRUN THE MULLET,
BUT I WILL FOLLOW YOU, EVEN ONTO THE TELEVISION."

"I'M CALLING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE."

Was I that (admittedly bad-assedly) miserable about the hair; about picture day in general, which was so sucky (i.e. for sucky babies); at Mrs Thielking, who held me for detention every day that year....or about the previous night's birthday Black Forest cake? Or was I still steaming because, during my weekend birthday party, at which my big sister had painstakingly put together a very cool backyard scavenger hunt for me and my friends, Kimberly Moonlight fell in the mud wearing my brand new argyle leg warmers, a gift I HAD JUST OPENED AND HADN'T EVEN WORN YET BUT LET HER PUT ON BEFORE ME??! Fell in the mud REACHING FOR A PRIZE THAT DIDN'T EVEN HAVE HER NAME ON IT! IT WAS ANITA YOON'S GOODY BAG, FOR CHRISSAKE!

I'll never trust again.

As for Black Forest cake. That weird kind from the Dominion cake counter -- with the radioactive goopy red stuff and the mounds of fake whipped cream and the plasticky cheap chocolate shavings and the maraschino cherries and some kind of rummy boozy flavour that we children didn't understand at all -- a huge one of which my mom never failed to present at my sis's and my birthdays with an enthusiastic, "Black Forest cake! Your favourite!" And we would kind of gag and politely eat a bite or two and she would have the rest.
"Whaaat? I thought it was your favourite! Whose favourite is it again?"
"Yours, mom! Yours!"
I found out years later that my Aunt Pat spent decades pulling this scam on her daughters too. Whole generations of Vieiras have spent their childhood birthdays bitterly weeping through mouthfuls of maraschino cherry, only to grow up and become their mothers, inexplicably beginning to love the stuff and forcing it on their offspring. But no more. We refuse to be made monsters. You wonder why you don't have grandchildren, ladies? The cycle of abuse ends here.

Back to aging, because it's late and I'm falling asleep but Jeff needs his stupid blague post goddammit! A few thoughts:

Is it only natural that I've developed a new phobia of slipping and falling in the shower? Is that just a proper self-preservation instinct as my hipbones begin their inevitable transformation into sand? Should I stop tempting fate by using coconut oil, thus making my tub into a Slip'N Slide?

Is it a fact that, were Bob Marley and John Lennon alive today, they would be collaborating on soundtracks for animated Disney princess movies? Would I snap along?

If I modify the resolution "don't eat brownies with every meal" to "stick a baby carrot in every brownie you eat", that constitutes a "healthy lifestyle choice", am I right?

Will I vote Conservative some day?

I finally threw away my last crop top and it felt great.

Does anyone my age remember how to do long division? Or know the combos to all these Dudley locks I seem to have all over the place? Why have I lost the ability to write in cursive? Why did I just use the word "cursive"?

I'm old and tired. Can I go to bed now?

....Ask the Water Bear. The Water Bear knows.

“Whhhhhyyyyyy?” and Other Answers

From TORONTO

January 18th, 2014

A WARNING: Today’s edition of The Tourist may make zero sense particularly to those new to this blague, and/or in general, to anyone, ever. What else is new.

What the fuck, you guys! I’ve been lost in West Ed Mall for the last eleven months - why didn't you send help? Some blog readers you are. What, did Gwyneth Paltrow post some vegan pie recipes or something? So much for loyalty.

Okay, okay, I can't lie to you, not when you're looking at me with those big puppy dog eyes that I can totally see through your webcam with this nifty new malware I downloaded....oh now you reach for the duct tape! Great! Like The Fifth Estate didn't warn you of this stuff months ago. I hate you guys! (No, Norton, no. Stop it. 2014 will be a year of love. Deep breath. Blame yourself. [Man, what a shitty resolution. Note to self: look into that.] Now get out of all these parentheses for God’s sake, before it’s too late.)

I have been remiss. Ant-e-social. (Get it? Oh yeah - I’m back!) AWOL. Absent. Inexcusably keeping all my own thoughts inside my own head instead of farting them all over the internet. (Farting from my head? Mixed metaphor? Pure gibberish? Fine with me. Like I said, I’m back.) But it’s not like I didn’t have you in mind, Dear Reader – proof can be found in the indecipherable blague notes all over the place: on my phone, on my computer desktop, on real paper in and on my real desktop, in the pages of my giant procrastination, er, crossword puzzle book, on the walls. It looks like A Beautiful Mind over here, guys, and makes even less sense in the light of day. For instance, what is Russell Crowe doing on my couch? Is that MY underwear?

I have the more-than-skeleton of an entire sports issue somewhere in this computer – the theme of which was, mainly, how I don’t give a damn about sports…so I guess case closed on that one.  

Most of my notes begin with long-windedly hilarious explanations of why I hadn’t written. Lord, what a liar I am. Stupid! Stupid! Useless! Ugly! (Resolution continues well.) 

Having gotten a pet dog recently, I thought maybe I could go all Lauren Hill in Dave Chapelle’s Block Party, when she held up her baby boy on the concert stage and said “You want to know where I’ve been? This is where I’ve been. This is what I’ve been doing”. Three people gave a semi-enthusiastic “whoo” and the rest of the crowd said “Meh. Cute kid, but he’s no Miseducation of Lauren Hill”. Yes. IN UNISON. They all said that. Don’t question me; I have it on Blu-ray. Also, I’ve been to Brooklyn. TWICE.

However. I don’t want you to think of my pooch, Walter, as my Yoko Ono (aside: I’ve been listening to Double Fantasy a lot; is it wrong that I like Yoko’s side of the album so very very much these days?), or as my Lauren Hill’s Stinky-ass Kid. Plus I haven’t had Walter long enough for that excuse to fly anyway; not unless you believe I actually gestated and birthed this dog, in which case, boy have I got a story for you! Warning: it’s super gross.

OH, LIKE YOU WOULDN’T LEAVE THE BEATLES FOR THIS GUY.

To be clear, I don’t in any way liken myself to the creative genius that is Lauren Hill.

…I think of it more as if Michelangelo had quit sculpting and painting in his prime, suddenly going “Guys, I like making art and all, but did you know there’s a mah jongg app for your phone? It’s got, like eighty-nine levels.” (Oh shit, not ready to unveil this “phone” technology I’ve secretly invented.) “I mean, um…chess. Playing a LOT of chess. IRL. Say what? You know – In Real Life. Oh yes, of course real life, what else could I mean, ha ha. Stop looking at me.”

Yes, Michelangelo said “say what?” all the time. Shut up. I have him on Blu-ray.

Whatever my reasons (Soul-crushing depression, anyone? Debilitating creative doubt? No, trust me – order the fish), I lost my writey-mojo for a while and didn’t feel like telling nobody nothing. Maybe I was frittering away all my good material ranting on Facebook. (Go ahead and piece together a special triple-issue from my posts there, Superfans. Sell it at the next convention.) Maybe, facing my approaching TENTH ANNIVERSARY as the Skeptical Tourist, I subconsciously thought not writing for a year could allow me to deny the absurd reality of how old that makes me. Maybe the longer I didn’t write, the more petrified I became by the enormous uber-blague that I imagined I owed you. Maybe my thoughts seemed small and petty and ugly, and I was trying to find my nobler self, which I thought must be in there somewhere: 

I remember when doctor Tarek Loubani and filmmaker John Greyson were being detained in Cairo, all I kept thinking was how I just knew that if I were Greyson’s boyfriend here at home during the crisis, I'd be all like "Oh great, John - you just had to be taken hostage with a gorgeous doctor/professor/humanitarian? You couldn't find some ugly loser to be taken hostage with like the rest of us? ONLY YOU, JOHN, ONLY YOU!” …Striving desperately to say supportive things for the media, while getting too deeply into the pinot home alone at night (“Well, might as well finish the bottle now”) and scratching out Tarek’s eyes in the Toronto Star; taking the “Free Tarek and John” button Sarah Polley gives me at the TIFF press conference and sharpie-ing in “FUCK Tarek and John” angrily in the bathroom stall after everyone else leaves for a big premiere to which I’m not invited. “Rachel McAdams, you cunt! Who needs you!” …Sobbing as quietly as I can on the cold tiled floor and all I can think about is what a great six-pack that doctor must be getting as the hunger strike stretches on, while my hairline recedes further and further and my eczema acts up. “What about ME, Sarah Polley? What about MEEEE?”

I KNOW YOU’RE IN SEPARATE PHOTOS AND EVERYTHING 
BUT MUST YOU LOOK AT HIM LIKE THAT?
AND ARE THOSE HAZEL EYES? FUCK RIGHT OFF.

My endless high-minded optimism doesn’t stop there, Dear Reader, oh no. On reading of a certain recent fiery car crash involving a fiery movie star and his friend, I couldn’t help the places my mind went as to the cause:

Was it a hand job? Or a blow job? In my mind’s twisted eye, the aftermath goes like this: 
Ejected from car, movie star’s body burnt to bits; movie star’s penis, severed at the base but otherwise intact in his secret lover’s dying mouth. Movie star’s intact member kept and preserved in jar of formaldehyde, unknown to anyone, by the Medical Examiner, who keeps it on her bedside table at night with a special light trained on it which she flicks on, to stare and stare, unblinking, when she can’t sleep at night. “What about MEEEE, Sarah Polley?” she cries, “What about meeeee?”  

Anyway.

Now I realize that stuff is all hilarious, and not disturbing AT ALL. (While simultaneously realizing that my perhaps veering on unhealthy obsession with handsome-man gay sex might bear looking into.) And anyway, I haven’t mentioned names, so absolutely no one could have any idea what real-life idiot drag-racing movie star and his stupid friend I’m talking about. (Disclosure: I actually debated back and forth with myself about whether to delete this whole sordid and insensitive bit, but ultimately, come on - grown men? With children? Drag racing? Morons. Save your flowers, people.)   

The thing is, and I’m not sure if this is heartening or incredibly the opposite, this is the kind of shit that everyone out there is ever thinking all the time. Right??

I mean, what goes on in the heads of all those mild ordinary people you encounter every day? WEIRD THINGS are happening behind the glasses of that librarian over there. (And why jump to librarians as the go-to icon for nerd-dom, Lisa? How lazy - and just plain wrong, when you know full well that librarians are enjoying a resurgence as some hip new breed with lots of degrees and rockabilly hairdos who spend their days inventing hilarious Ryan Gosling memes.) Anyway, can we just agree that we’re all obsessed with severed celebrity penises? Thank you.

LET US NOW TAKE A MOMENT TO APPRECIATE THE RARE 
POLLEY-McADAMS-GOSLING BLOG HAT TRICK.
THANK YOU. AS YOU WERE.

Well here I am, knowing all that. My thoughts on severed penises are as worthy as the next guy’s. And I finally thought I’d better get back on here before people starting referring to me as Defunct Blogger Lisa Norton. Or more accurately as “…Who?” (Always thinking about that obituary. If I don’t blague enough for The Tourist to even be mentioned, how is my immeasurable wit ever to be discovered posthumously? How will anyone know the pain of John Greyson’s poor nameless boyfriend? Hmmm, SARAH POLLEY?)

 HELP ME, MUSLIM HAZMAT SARAH POLLEY. YOU’RE MY ONLY HOPE.

But nobody can make a lady feel like writing. Fact is, I finally got that “I’m going to suffer from insomnia and gut pain and constant pooping until I write everything I’m dying to write” feeling. And hey, if I was gonna be awake with diarrhea all week, I might as well be awake with diarrhea WITH YOU. Awwww, sweet, I know. Plus, when I do sleep of late, I’ve having dreams in which I write big brillant things. For instance, a recent dream hit novel of mine that I ought to wake up and bring to fruition: Kill The Dead. Zombie book? Jumped the shark? Who knows. But try and tell me that’s not a brilliant title and I’ll beat you with a baseball bat. So them creative juices are aflow and try and stop me now.

Jesus. I just Googled it to be sure and Kill the Dead is already a novel. I give up.

Until next year, 

The Tourist

laid, spayed or made in the shade: a skeptical new year

 

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

what a feeling

From TORONTO

October 10th, 2012

As I lie in bed at night listening to the backyard cats yowling and screaming and making illicit cross-species love with the raccoons, don't think I'm not remembering you, Dear Reader. Indeed, the ten percent of my brain that's not busy wishing I were a feral cat or raccoon - they also don't pay rent or taxes, you do realize that- and fantasizing about the possibilities of furry critter life, is firmly focussed on your needs. For instance, I'll think: Would my legions be interested in, say, a confession that I want to be screwed by violent fellow marsupials outdoors on rooftops or in between garbage cans; sleep under a house all day and rule the town by night, living dangerously off of the fetid remnants found in green bins and black plastic bags; giving a furry middle finger to convention and etiquette and increasingly complex garbage bin latches (nice try, Toronto); ripping off house pet ears; frightening the occasional lone nocturnal human.... Would my dear readers like to hear all those things?‏

Perhaps.

I’ve been wondering why I don’t spend more time reading and thinking about people I like, rather than people I hate. Why, for one, am I so entirely obsessed with Mitt Romney when I’m not even American…and when I can be reasonably sure that my fantasy of meeting him and taking him by the shoulders and shaking him for an hour, taking breaks to slap him across the face and shout “snap out of it!” will never come true? As for Rob Ford, It’s gotten to the point where if anyone within a six hundred mile radius is writing or saying anything about him I can sense it. It’s like I have a Mayor Ford Google alert IN MY BRAIN. I’m disgusting.

Which is why, when I die, in my next life I’ll actually come back as a slug, not as a raccoon. Come to think of it, that would be okay. Raccoons have got it hard. Between the fucking there’s so much foraging and fighting to be done. At least they never sit by the phone waiting for their agents to call. Raccoons hardly even care about auditions. I mean, they don’t even bother to do their hair or get off-book.

THIS, BY THE WAY, IS A CLOSE-UP OF A RACCOON PAW. DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS??? BAD-ASS AND TERRIFYING. AND WE WONDER HOW THEY GET THE GREEN BIN OPEN? HOLY SHIT, WE SHOULD JUST BE GLAD THEY DON’T BREAK INTO OUR HOMES AND MURDER US.

This cat I’m taking care of for the next few months has got it all figured out. Fed, watered, warm, loved. When she wants affection she just comes over and asks for it. Just rubs against you, you pet her and play with her for a while, then when she’s done with it she runs away and eats or sleeps happily in a corner for the rest of the day. I wish I could be more like that. Well I guess I kind of was, back in my twenties.

Oh shit. Now it sounds like I’ve been molesting the cat. That context thing again… (But is it really molesting, if she’s a grown cat and into it and stuff? I jest, I jest.) ASHLEY. I AM NOT HAVING SEX WITH YOUR CAT. I realize that when you said looking after Isabelle might provide interesting fodder for my blague, that is not what you had in mind. Unless… You sick fuck. (NOTE TO SELF: DO NOT INCLUDE BLOG LINK IN APPLICATIONS FOR NANNYING JOBS.)

I’ve been thinking that, the odds of my waking up as a cat or raccoon one day being relatively slim – although, hey, all those body-switching comedies: Freaky Friday, Thirteen Going on Thirty, the one with Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds peeing on one another or whatever, the Judge Reinhold/Fred Savage classic Vice Versa (see “Proof I’m Not Crazy”, below)…okay, which of those would not be improved by one of the involved parties being a raccoon? Oh, Hollywood, why are you not listening to me?

PROOF I’M NOT CRAZY. BUT BOY, THAT JUDGE REINHOLD SURE WAS! HOOO-WHEEE!

…Where was I? Oh yeah - odds being slim I’ll live out my raccoon love life, I’ve been thinking maybe I’ll do something about my actual human one.

Step one: stop turning down everyone who asks me out ever, and then complaining that no one ever asks me out. (Actually not many people do – not once I start emitting the “don’t ask me out” laser beams from my eyes. Old habits die hard. As do laser beams.)

Step two: Stop talking about laser beams.

Step three: Start dating men my own age. Older even. (I have a lot to say about step three. This blague will address no further steps.)

I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with younger guys. It’s just, well, without planning it, they’ve become kind of a Thing I’m Trying (I’ll explain in a paragraph or two), and I thought I’d try The Other Thing. At one point a few years ago I actually tried Both Things simultaneously, finding myself dating two guys (all above-board, not sneak-around-ily) who were almost twenty years apart in age. And I could relate equally to both of them…and to how good they both looked in their underwear…

Ahhh…relating.

Among other things, while it’s definitely not everything, there is a certain comfort in getting one another’s readymade pop culture references…

Not long ago I found myself driving along with a young man I’d been fooling around with (See? Even that phrase shows my age), and two of his friends. We’re driving them home after a play before going to my place to, you know, do the horizontal Charleston - as we used to say in my day - when, in the course of conversation, one of them makes mention of a friend of theirs named Irene Karras, or Eileen Cara or something… So OF COURSE I make the inevitable – and hilarious – joke about her great work on the Flashdance theme song…and get nothin’. (I’m telling you, it was funny.) From both front and back seats: silence. Dead air. Remove hand from drivers knee. Get out of the car, you old pervert, says the voice inside my head.

Not that they were being mean…they just had no idea what I could possibly be talking about.

So, since all relationships should be built on a solid foundation of trust and Flashdance jokes, I’ve resolved to date guys my own age from now on. This resolution seems familiar from the last time I made it. (Look, it’s not that I seek out younger guys, it’s just that A: Of attractive, interesting men, they are generally the ones who are single. B: Thanks to my cursedly good genes, they think I’m one of them. (A young person, not a man. Most days.) C: I’m a terrible judge of age and think they are one of me…until it’s too late. “You’re WHAT age?? Okay, I know we met on a school playground…but I thought you were one of the teachers. Here, put on your pants. (Callmethatwasfun.)”

My new strategy has another name, one that points out it might be a long haul plan: it’s called, as my friend Tracy and I once realized over a very necessary bottle of wine, Waiting For All the Good Ones To Get Divorced. And everybody’s doing it!
Maybe this will be the year I finally make a date with the Sexy Cheese man (formerly of Sexy Cheese Man and Hot Cheese Lady, before they broke up and she left him to run the fancy cheese store), instead of just buying copious amounts of dairy and expensive spreads as an excuse to moon about trying to flirt across the brie.

“THE GROSS TRUTH”, BY NATALIE DEE. SHHHH…DON’T TELL THE CHEESE MAN.

It’s a dangerous game, buying a steady enough stream of cheese to keep giving one’s self excuses to see the Sexy Cheese Man…while not overdoing it and eating enough of the stuff as to render oneself puffy and stinky and constipated, and thus no longer Sexy Cheese Man-worthy. The sidewalks of Roncesvalles are strewn with women who tipped the delicate balance.

So far, I’m working the system. I drop in just enough that I and the Cheese Man are on a first-name basis…yet seldom enough that I remain unpredictable and mysterious. My only miscalculations being when I’m already inside the shop when I realize that SCM has given himself the day off and left the place in the hands of the (younger and far less attractive) Cheese Boy…and then feel obligated to buy a chunk of Eastern Townships camembert just to avoid giving myself away. 

Side note: If I should ever date the Cheese Man you must promise not to tell him about my temporary favourite midnight snack: Kraft Cheese slices dipped in flax seeds. Don’t ask me how I discovered this; I’m not sure myself. I had a fever, okay? I got a craving.

Of course, at some point I’m bound to learn he’s only twenty-eight or something, a mere cheeseboy himself. But a cheeseboy with his own business. A cheeseboy with responsibilities.

Speaking of the R-Word, Shauna Black and I were talking recently about the other reality of dating grown-ups: a lot of them have offspring.

Now, I feel no particular need to immortalize myself through childbearing: For one, I shall forever live on in two particularly terrible episodes of Degrassi: the Next Generation. Also, now that my friends the Wasko-Patersons are expecting a child, my lifelong campaign to get some friends to name their son “Norton” after me may finally bear fruit. If anyone will do it, they will. (Don’t let me down, guys. EVERYTHING DEPENDS ON THIS. EVERYTHING.) 

Anyway, Shauna and I got to realizing that, for people like us who love kids but don’t care to own one, stepmothering is one of the best rackets around: you get plenty of kid time, but when they get whiney or start to smell a little off you can send them back to their mother. It’s like the opposite of being a single mom.

Just as I’m formulating my plan and considering hitting up the games room at the Copernicus Lodge (the seniors’ home conveniently across the street), I receive an invite to Eddie Belanger and Cyndi Carleton’s wedding (from my friend Andy Bunker, whose lovely wife Tia is in Halifax, leaving him in need a skirt-wearing substitute date). I don’t have my hopes up for sexy prospects, since every wedding I’ve been to lately is all couples, all the time, and/or the best-looking people there are the ones related to me… 

But skip to several hours later that night, as I’m being spun around the dance floor by a roguishly handsome, slightly older, unattached wedding guest. I’m thinking, Exactly. This is the kinda stuff I could get used to. Here’s a man who knows how to dance a slow dance (see, older men know how to lead because they all took ballroom dancing with their ex-wives)…he looks at home in a suit…I’ll bet he even knows how to introduce himself – and other people – properly! Have you noticed that? How the simple courtesy of a proper introduction is lost on the young these days? It’s gone the way of cursive writing. They just let their unacquainted friends stand there, staring at each other (or having a whole conversation) and never bother. 

Maybe names are passé. I mean, like hey, don’t define me, old man. Or maybe it’s because they’re the first generation to have smoked weed with their breakfast cereal from the age of eight and simply can’t remember names. AND they won’t get off my lawn with their baggy pants and their nintendopads and their hippity hoppity music! Whatever their names are!

…Back to the dance floor, where, mid-spin, there suddenly appears at both our elbows a ten-year-old child saying, “Dad, I don’t feel so good.” (Hint: he wasn’t talking to me.)

It was so many things, that moment.

On the surface, yes: it was the ultimate, unimpeachable cock block. I mean, what are you gonna do? “Look kid, I’m trying to have it off with your dad here, wouldja be a pal and go puke in the corner? Walk it off, guy, walk it off.”

But on a deeper level? It was the needle scratching off the record of the sexy groovy music that was the internal soundtrack to my rocking the power of the red dress and the long black hair and not only feeling pretty hot but like THE MOST INTERESTING WOMAN IN THE WORLD…suddenly to be replaced by the sound of a booming voice saying “Welcome to your Carlsberg years”. What? I’m in a whole other beer campaign than the one that I thought I was in? …At least I didn’t fancy myself a Bud girl. (Though I did PLAY one once…on the radio. True story.)

What else was that moment, you ask? It was God himself - in the majestic form of a small pukey-stomached child - coming down from the heavens to ask, “Okay, Leese, this is the demographic you’re moving into here…this is the kind of stuff you’ll be signing up for.  Y’all ready for this?” (God likes to say “y’all”. It’s folksy.)

I mean, even in the stepmom biz, it’s not all awesome Iron Man Hallowe’en costumes and pedicure slumber parties. There will be vomit. (Great movie by the way. Good work, Daniel Day.)

So am I ready to go straight from the young guys with commitment issues to the ones with divorce baggage and spare tires and alimony payments? Wheeeee!

Why not? Like that other thing was working so well for me. Maybe we could hold off on the beer guts and comb-overs for a bit, though, huh God? I mean come ON – look at me.

My date test will be as follows: I will sing a potential suitor the line “First when there’s nuthin…but a cold glowing dre-ea-eam…” and if he can’t sing back the next line…well, then that actually would probably just indicate that he’s likely not gay. So still a good test. For the age thing, I guess I’ll just ask for I.D.

Okay, I lied. There is a step four: disregard all other steps and from now on only date Jennifer Beals. You watch that video and tell me that could possibly be a bad idea. I know, I know, she didn’t do her own dancing…but that smile is all her, baby.

…She’s still got that, right?

MORE Meek No More: TIFF Party Tips (Part Two)

Bonus Issue Bonanza! Part two of the totally serious, infinitely helpful piece I wrote for the Alliance Films TIFF blog on how to impress at festival parties:


In part one, we taught you how to make an impression with just a few blinking, flashing,towering, shiny, noisy fashion pieces.

In today's edition of Meek No More, you'll learn how to be the walking, talking equivalent of your hot new look, and go from shy to schmoozetastic with a few simple tips!

As Marvin Gaye sang in his tragic song about debilitating social phobia, "Got to Give it Up":
"I used to go out to parties
And stand around
'Cause I was too nervous
To really get down"
But we know, friends, what happened just one short verse later: Ol' Marv got himself together, baby, and had him a ball!

I know that can be easier than it sounds. It's not always east to get up offa that thang. But next time you walk into a TIFF party and feel that bashfulness start to take hold, just keep repeating this confidence-building mantra to yourself (preferably out loud, at high volume): "I am just as interesting a human being as anyone else here. I deserve attention! I WILL BE LOVED!"

Now that you've got the attention of everyone in the room, capitalize on it.

If you see any celebrities nearby, never be shy or worry you'll have nothing to say. Simply march up confidently and tell them their own names. They love that.

"You're Keira Knightly."
"That's right."
"Cool."

Then simply stand and stare.

Bonus if you can remember the film the star's premiering at TIFF, thus engaging him/her on a professional level:

"You're Keira Knightly."
"That's right."
"Cool.... You're in that historical thing. You play that chick—the one in the dress. Annie Kanooonina?"
"Uh...Anna Karenina. Yes."
"You were great in Attack of the Clones."

She walks away, dazzled by your charm.  Mission, as they say,  accomplished.

Smile. Never stop smiling. Unless you're chatting up someone single and attractive, in which case: pout. Never stop pouting. Randomly flex a bicep now and then. Ohhh yeah.

When meeting  new people, politics might provide a useful topic of conversation. Not from here and want to ingratiate yourself with artsy Toronto types? Wear a large "I LOVE ROB FORD" button: the locals will be sure to tell you exactly what they think about it. Canadian and want to chat with American film folks? Tell them repeatedly how swell you think Romney and Ryan are. Chat with a chair when everyone walks away.

Keep a Sharpie handy at all times. No, not so you can get celebrity autographs - how gauche! No, so that you can scrawl your contact information on the arms of influential people you meet. So much kickier and more distinctive than handing out some boring old business card. It's one way to guarantee that Bradley Cooper will be thinking about you in the shower later....as he scrubs madly at the almost-indelible ink you've left on his flexor carpi radialis. Ooooh...Cooper flexor carpi radialis....Where was I?

Follow these tips—and send in more of your own, readers!—and any party you attend will prove not only special and memorable for you, but for anyone else lucky enough to be there.

One last thing: as security is dragging you out kicking and screaming, be sure one of the things you shout is your full name. The name of your employer and/or agent if you have one would be useful, too. Then, later that night, curled up in your bed or on the cold floor of your holding cell, you can sleep soundly in the knowledge that you grasped the moment, made it yours....and truly made an impression.

Meek No More: TIFF Party Tips (Part One)

Bonus Issue, you lucky bastards! This post and the following one were first - ahem - published on the Alliance Films 2012 Toronto International Film Festival website. (http://www.alliancelive.ca/category/festival-360/) God bless their cold corporate hearts for letting me write whatever I pleased. In return I kept out the sex and swearsies.

WARNING: Not actual advice. Or maybe it is. I just don’t know anymore. Shut up.

MEEK NO MORE: HOW TO STAND OUT AT A TIFF PARTY (PART ONE)

So it's TIFF party season, you're feeling shy, don't have a thing to wear, and are wondering the best ways to make friends and influence people. Look no further, friends, for the simple fashion and social tips that will take you from wallflower to talk of the town....maybe even the front of the newspaper. Or subject of your very own Toronto Police Service report or restraining order!

Here, in part one, we talk fabulous TIFF party fashion.

First of all, this Festival, why not take a cue from the Royals and sport a fascinator or a very large hat? This is a simple addition to your look that will instantly garner attention. If you're clever and wear it all day long, it's guaranteed that you will be popular the moment you arrive at any party or event, surrounded as you'll be by people who sat behind you at screenings earlier, now eager to chat with you about how you blocked their goddamn view through the entire goddamn movie. Well, aren't they jealous! I smell a trend for next year.... But remember, you started it, here, in 2012, you fashion renegade, you!

As for what to wear from the neck down....now is not the time for the subdued navy blue dress or the grey pinstripe suit. It's a TIFF party; now is the time to unleash your inner rock star! Try something bold, like wearing your bra outside your shirt (yes, gentlemen, I'm talking to you). And wear eye-catching materials, as many as you can find. Neon is very in right now: pair a neon orange shirt with a silver sequined mini -- and throw in some leopard print wherever you can, maybe in the form of tights or a poncho. Then why not wrap yourself in that reflective safety tape for kids at Halloween - and those shoes that the little ones have with lights that flash when they walk: do they make those for grown ups ? Well they should: the Nike Air Cineaste. It could have a little screen on the tongue showing clips from your favourite films. (You're welcome, Nike.) All this flashing and reflective clothing will also be handy if you're cycling home or back to the hotel later on your bike or rented Bixi, where, this being Toronto, you may just run into a Feist or a Gosling in the bike lane. Hopefully not literally.

Now, if you disregard all the rest and there's only one fashion tip you implement from all this (though I can't imagine why that would be), let it be this eminently practical one: be sure to remember your Ziploc purse. Don't have a Ziploc purse/manly Ziploc messenger bag? In three simple steps you can make your own out of a large freezer bag, a few safety pins and some old pantyhose legs (colour of your choice!) for straps. Be the very soul of chic as you stand by the buffet table or chase down servers with hors d'oeuvres trays, shovelling tasty tidbits into your handy and durable new bag!

No more Beige Betty or Boring Bill for you! Try these tips - and send in your own, dear readers! - and not only will you not blend in, but you'll be sure to be remembered, talked about and photographed wherever you go.

In the next edition, I'll share the social tips that will help you live up to your fab new look and be the you that you had no idea you were capable of being (and it never would have occurred to you to be) in your very wildest dreams! Stay tuned...and enjoy the party!

The Skeptic’s Inquisition, or, Open Letters to Everyone Everywhere Ever, or, OH GOD PLEASE HELP ME AM I GETTING WEIRDER

From TORONTO,
July 6th, 2012
Dear Citizens of Toronto…
I just walked home on garbage night. A reasonable West End garbage night, at a positively balmy twenty-three degrees Celsius. And yet. My God. Truth is, Toronto, I’ve not spent a lot of summers here of late. I apologize for, during the civic workers’ strike (AKA Great Garbage Strike) of 2009, having been possibly smug and at least flippant, from my safe distance in sweet-smelling Gananoque, about what you were going through. There’s a word for it: hell. You all survived hell. Or not; perhaps you’re all actually dead. In which case, WHY CAN I SEE YOU??? Man, this is raising more questions than that Higgs-Boson thing. I’d better move on, before I get too confused. We’ve got a lot to cover here.
Dear Jilted Ex-Lovers,
All right, fess up. Which one of you thought it would be funny to go and publish my phone number in an online adult-personals ad? Hm? Okay, ALL of you, fair enough - but who actually did it?
You might think it’s hilarious now, all these hooker-seeking phone calls I'm getting in the middle of the night- but how clever are you gonna feel when I'm riding high as the richest accidental escort in town?
It's likely just a typo. And I haven’t yet succumbed. But I'm saving those incoming phone numbers for when funds get low… Or I get bored. Just watch me. (For a fee.)
Dear Conscience. Dear Comedic Instincts. Can you ever happily coexist? Will you always live in strife, or cancel one another out?
I ask, because, well, case in point: face-eating jokes. A month ago it was too early to make a good face-eating joke. I mean, I didn’t even WANT to. (Put me in mind of when, the very day of the Challenger Space Shuttle Disaster, someone in my grade five class made a “How many astronauts does it take” joke, and I, in typical sensitive-violent Scarborough-child mode, indignant tears in my eyes, threatened to punch his head right off. (If you knew me in grade five, you’ll know this threat was not idle. The streets of Malvern are littered yet with the victims of my comedic judgement.) Too soon, clearly. Within two weeks though, of the infamous bath salts (or as it turns out, perhaps not) attacks, a friend posts on face*&%k that, in the wake of the LA Kings win, he’s going to head into downtown Los Angeles and get crazy…and I find myself typing, without hesitation, “When someone eats your face don’t come crying to us.” Suddenly, having observed a respectful two week face-eating joke moratorium, I just can't stop:
It's all fun and games until someone eats your face.
The early bird gets the face.
A face in the mouth is worth two in the bush.
Why buy the cow when you can eat the face for free?
ET CETERA.
But guess what? Another few weeks have passed, and all that shit is old school. Old hat, even. Passé.
There’s about eight seconds between too soon and too late these days. By the time you get to the Catskills, they’re gone. “I’ll be here all week folks, try the face! …What? Too soon? …No? Oh. You’ve heard that one already.”

Dear Mister T. Sometimes I lie awake at night worrying about you. (I’m an insomniac, don’t be too flattered; it doesn’t take much.) Do you like having a mohawk? Do you desperately want to grow it out but fear that that will be the de facto end of your career? Do you start to let your hair grow in and then your agent gives you hell? Do you dread not being recognized in the grocery store (“Say ‘I pity the fool’,” says the aggressive guy in aisle three, “Say it!…Ha ha ha, he said it…”) or is anonymity what you dream of? Are you a little self-conscious about the term “Mohawk”, when applied to your haircut, being culturally insensitive to our First Nations brothers and sisters? You are not your mohawk, Mister T. And you have a whole name, even. I’m not nearly industrious enough to check what it is, but you do. Oh, Mister T. I do hope you’re okay.

Dear Late Nineteenth Century… when it was you, did girls say to each other, “OMG, I can't believe he broke up with you by telegram”?

 
Dear armchair and/or real psychologists (hey, professionals have armchairs too)… the other day on the streetcar, I heard the guy directly in front of me answer his phone by saying “Jeff speaking”. After he hung up I was nearly overcome with the urge – which I battled until he got off – to whisper “Jeffff” every couple of minutes, so faintly that he couldn’t quite tell whether he was imagining it. Is that crazy? If so, crazy in a charming way, like “That sounds like a cute quirky thing Zooey Deschanel would do in a movie” crazy…or “Let’s never speak of this again, delete it from your blog this instant and never sit behind me anywhere” crazy? Oh, did I mention I also really wanted to eat his face? I know, so June 15th, I know.

Dear Local Buddhist Monks: When did you all become fashion icons and start wearing wicked cool sneakers in burgundy and gold that match your robes so perfectly? Is that, like, okay, or against your order and stuff? Is it wrong that it makes me want to be a monk? You just look so comfy – and like you’d be hella good breakdancers. Tell me I’m wrong. I know you’re bustin’ out those prayer mats for headspins late at night.
Man, y’all monks is cool.

Dear Sarah Allen… I have a confession. You may have noticed that, when you first so rudely abandoned me to live in Los Angeles with your hunky TV-vampire boyfriend, seeking fortune and fame, all I did was whine at you to come back. More recently you may have noticed my harassment, mailing of maple syrup samplers (and anthrax envelopes, hoping you’ll need to return for the health care) etc has stopped. Truth is, I came up with a whole new, secret life plan – which is to pin it all on you. You’re just so darn good-looking and charismatic and talented, my friend, and might yourself play a vampire on TV or a whore in a big movie any day now. I should have been honest about this, Sarah – but don’t let me down. It’s a good plan, no? Then you can fly me to Belize and I can be part of your entourage and “help you keep it real”, as you’ll tell Entertainment Tonight . I can be like Nicole Kidman’s brunette sister and stand with you on red carpets when you get divorces. "What do you mean you wouldn't take your top off? Sure it's not Shakespeare, but who are you, Judi Dench?!"

Dear Readers, you may by now realize that this blague post has elements of what in the past would have been called a “Random Crap Issue”. That term is now defunct.

Dear Professional Torturers:

If I ever become a political prisoner (and I MAY), and the state wants to offer me some kind of personalized torture experience, it will consist of you locking me in a room and forcing me to describe things as “random” and use the word “fail” as a noun. “NOOOOO, I won’t do it!” Shockkkk-k-k-k! “Say it! Say ‘epic fail’ !” “NEVER!!!” VBBBBBZZZZT!!! “What do you have to say now?” “Fail…is…a….verb…” WHACK! CRACK! CRUNCH! “Aaaargggggh!” “What’s the matter, Prisoner 8752? Feeling epically RANDOM??” “Kill me! Kill me now!”

Dear Sarah Harmer’s husband…

Will you please cheat on your wife or give her syphilis or something, so she’ll stop singing about birds and rivers and go back to her shitty-basement-apartment-I’m-wasting-my-life period, which may have sucked for her but was far more interesting for us? Thank you.

(Dear World… have I really sunk so low? Am I that full of hate? Or so starved for entertainment? Hungry for other people’s misery? Am I a terrible person? Is my glass half empty - or just full of angry, frothing backwash? Will you go to the prom with me? I like you. I mean, like you like you. Do you like me too? Check here [  ] for yes.)

I’m thinking maybe there’s a balance. I may be getting old and curmudgeonly – and filled with judgement and bile – in some respects, but then maybe for everything I start to despise, there’s something I begin to love. Perhaps my glass just sloshes around, some stuff spills out, and then fate tops me up with something new and tasty, keeping the contents of my glass refreshing and level. Perpetually half full.

For instance. Dear Mangoes….what I lost in Sarah Harmer I gained in you.

I used to hate you, mangoes. As a kid, I regularly witnessed my mother’s side of the family descending on a plate of you like a pack of hyenas: drooling, snarling, shoving each other aside, making obscene sounds of enjoyment as they sucked your skins and pits dry…

It was not only the wanton and uncivilized display that put me off; I just didn’t like you. I found your smell overripe and fetid. There was something about you that made me think of mouldy basements and humid unwashed crotch. My sister, mother, aunts and uncles, after realizing that there was one direction from which their precious haul was not under attack, would stop the carnage for a moment and stare at me in disbelief: the vulture who didn’t "get the whole carrion thing”. They would declare that I was “CRAZY!” and “UNNATURAL!” and “no child of mine” and “probably switched at the hospital”, before someone would inevitably declare, through yellow-flesh-strewn teeth, “Oh well - all the more for us”, and they would get gleefully back to it.

But now I love you, mangoes. There’s still something of the ripe and musty crotch about you, but my taste for that must have developed. These days, if anyone dares try to take a piece of mango from me I will make my mama proud and MURDER them. Or at least EAT their FACE. But only if it smells of mango.

Dear Tea Party… I think I understand you. Are you just, like me, afraid to do your taxes? Is that why you hate them so much? I know a guy.

Dear Prince Harry, how old are you anyway, and do you think we should get married? It could be a strange art project, like Lady Gaga.

Dear Current and/or Future Rock Stars. When are you going to fall in love with me and write a me-themed song? Even if it's called "You Bitch You're Such a Bitch", I won't care, it'll be great. Although now I’ve put it out there it’s already too late isn’t it? Like when you're a kid and try to give yourself a cool nickname..."Yeah, you guys can just call me Edge, that's what they all called me at camp". “Nah, we're gonna call you Poopface. How's that?”

Dear Justin Bieber Singing Toothbrush… Why do you exist?
Dear Battery-Operated Candles… You’re even worse. Has human existence outlived its usefulness in every single way? Oh wait, you can’t answer that – YOU’RE A BATTERY OPERATED CANDLE. Excuse me while I kill myself for a minute.

Dear Supposed Grown-ups…Am I the only one who can’t manage to walk by any sign outside a fitness club, or rep cinema or the like exhorting people to "become a member", without giggling like a naughty eight-year-old? “Member”. Tee hee. THE SIGN WANTS YOU TO BE A PENIS. IN CASE YOU DIDN’T GET THAT. 

I’m sure I’m not the only one in this instance, but I’m Justin Trudeau's “friend” on facebook, and while I don’t normally exhibit strong stalker impulses, I just feel like sending him things, or making vaguely inappropriate comments. Nothing gross or sexual, just like, you know, “Heyyyyy… lookin’ good! Dyno-miiiiite” in response to a serious diatribe about Bill C-38. I fight daily urges to send him old disco songs and instructional gardening videos. And this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uoqzettCoI

Dear Other Justin Trudeau Facebook Fans, what do you think?

I’m pretty sure he’d like it.

(As far as my actual political correspondence, I’m too lazy to write the involved, detailed letters to my MPs and MPPs which I’d like to and often even mean to…and who has time to click “like” on all those online petitions…so I’ve scaled things back to a reasonable level, whereby I still get to be involved in the democratic process but with minimal impact on my complicated napping/crossword puzzle schedule: I communicate with my federal representative, prominent NDP member Peggy Nash, through a series of emoticons based on how I’m feeling about the news of the day. If she receives, for instance, a sad face, she need only think back on the past few days, any articles in which she may have been quoted, anything she may have said during Question Period, any releases on her website, and interpret the sad face accordingly. In a good week she’ll get some winks and happy faces.  Sometimes this:  , which might just mean a lot happened that week.

Once I sent her this one , and now some nice fellows from the RCMP visit from time to time. 

Even I don’t know what to make of that last one, but I send it to Peggy all the time anyway. Hey -- do you suppose she’d like the video I just sent to Justin?

Then there’s this one:

…which, on the eve of the Toronto City Council vote on the plastic bag tax, I sent to my councillor, Gord Perks. The next day, reading the morning paper, I learned of my influence on that decision:

“One councillor handed around a flyer from Seattle on that city's bag ban... Another played a mock nature documentary, narrated by no less than Jeremy Irons, on the long life of the ‘majestic plastic bag’. A few speeches followed and then, boom, a vote.
“There was an audible gasp when the motion went through, stating council's determination to prohibit all City of Toronto retail stores from providing customers with single-use plastic carry-out bags, including those advertised as compostable, biodegradable, photo-degradable or similar effective January 1, 2013.” (Globe and Mail)

The gasp, I have it on inside authority, actually occurred when those sitting behind Councillor Perks caught a fleeting glance of my stunning profile picture on his Macbook screen. They didn’t actually hear the voting results; reporters had to fill them in.

So: Dear Anyone who – like me, in fact – questions the all-out ban (or at least the rashness of the sudden decision), I offer my apologies for being so patently irresistible and inadvertently influential. As I always say, with great power comes great…FACE-EATIN’! Mm Mmm YUM!

Sorry.

All this power gives me pause. I need to go to bed and recharge and consider my next move. And all these questions. Oh, Mister T. Sigh…

Yours, in a constant tornado of doubt and confusion – and FUN!

The Tourist