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

tourist. unplugged.

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Zombie Diarrhea Heart, or, On Surviving February (Working title. C’mon, like you can think of something better.)

Kitsilano, March 2012. Lisa Norton, last uninfected survivor of the Great Vancouver Zombie Plague, stands emaciated yet still alive in her darkened apartment, scanning her boarded-up windows for cracks of light, for signs of weakness. All seems secure. Supplies, however, are running low. And even if this weren’t her last eight dollar mulltigrain cracker from the local Capers Market (a proud subsidiary of Whole Foods®), even if she wasn’t down to licking the inside of the goat cheese package and actually eating those pickled beets at the back of the fridge, what hope would she have of survival? Very little - and perhaps it’s better that way; after all, what kind of existence is this? She’s out of wine, she’s running low on lip balm, and no one’s here to tell her how fabulously silky her hair is these days. Also she’s dying of starvation. The way she looks at it, there are three possible outcomes. One, she stays here and starves to death. Two, she ventures out in search of food, and the creatures tear her to pieces. Three, they come and get her.

Or…are there any other survivors out there?

Once again, she huddles under the blanket that obscures the glow of her computer screen and starts tapping out faint hopes of rescue, or if not that, at least of the comfort that will come from another human voice, across however many miles, saying, I am here. I am alive. They didn’t get me…

Granville Street, Stanley Industrial Alliance Theatre, two weeks earlier…

Our heroine is – okay, I am working on Calendar Girls for The Arts Club Theatre (my first Vancouver stage gig!), which comes with the rare and exciting perks of working in an airless, previously flooded basement of a (beautiful) haunted old theatre, with some of B.C.’s finest and most contagious.

Our cast has, over the past month, been hit by strep throat, bronchitis, PNEUMONIA (kudos to Kerry Sandomirsky for trooping through a two-show day after spending the night in a hospital oxygen tent), various aches pains and viruses, and a stomach flu.

From what I gather, the latter is a particularly fascinating challenge for a performer who has to take her clothes off onstage. Gives new meaning to hoping you don’t have a shitty show. Har har. (Don’t pretend you aren’t impressed with the sophistication and subtlety of my humour.) Alternately, if properly harnessed, loose bowels may give one a power unknown to the common, healthy stage performer, as in, for instance, “If this is a lousy audience, so help me God, I’ll poop on them.” I envy you, Shirley, you silver-haired diarrhoenian goddess. (Who didn’t actually utter the above phrase, but odds-on thought it once or twice at the height of her symptoms.)

An “Inside the Tourist’s Studio” GLIMPSE INTO THE PROCESS: The Skeptical Tourist tells us, “While writing the above paragraph, I briefly struggled to find the right adjective to describe my castmate and her arguably enviable affliction. After a brief visit to the diarrhea (alt. “diarrhoea”) Wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diarrhea) looking for a suitable turn of phrase, I decided that A: there was nothing there worth quoting, and thus was inspired to invent my own word; and B: that the alternate spelling – avec “o” - lent itself far more readily to images of Greek mythology. Hence ‘diarrhoenian’.” Hey, kids, this isn’t all fun and games over here you know. I mean it wasn’t, even before the zombie apocalypse.)

Back to the backstage: you know things are bad when looking on the bright side consists of saying, “Hey guys, at least that lice scare turned out to be nothing.” (True story.)

I have somehow, inexplicably, miraculously, knock-on-wood-ulously, avoided all of this, other from a slight case of (likely non-show related, totally treatable) chlamydia and a (possibly Polar Bear Swim-related) head cold that I started rehearsal with in January, that I SWEAR TO GOD didn’t start it all. We’ve designated the youngest member of the cast (and official union scapegoat) Patient Zero, and we haven’t yet murdered him and buried him in the yard only because he’s pretty okay in the show. We keep him in a cage and let him out for his scenes and then poke at him with sharp objects from time to time. He doesn’t seem to mind.

As for me, so far I’ve gotten through with vitamins, a neti pot (that fascinating, perverse little device whereby you shoot hot saltwater through your nose and watch your snot run out), hard liquor, and a prayer. This week though, I’ve decided to switch things up and go with the experimental cold-prevention method of insomnia and long walks in the pouring rain.

SEE? THIS GUY LOVES HIS NETI POT!

I have family in town, but don’t blame the six-hour walks on them: as a conscientious host, it’s entirely my idea and moral obligation to drag them around town on “scenic” walks even if it’s cold and rainy and the views are obscured by fog. “Okay, look. I know you were supposed to visit me here last July, and that I ended up borrowing money from you to fly to Toronto for some auditions instead, and that you changed those non-refundable tickets to now, only to arrive in the rainiest week of the year…but we are walking on the motherfucking beach! There are mountains over there, I’m telling you! Squint a little and you can sort of make them out. Okay, just close your eyes and I’ll describe them to you. Honest to God last week was SO nice.

“All right. That’s it…

“Kerry spent the night in an oxygen tent, you lazy bitches! Shirley has diarrhea, for God’s sake! DIARRHEA! DiarrhOea, even – with an O! Did you catch that? Just in case you, or anyone reading my blog, missed it…diarrhea!!! Check the Wikipedia page; that is not fun. Now stop shivering, Private. I mean….um, Mom. And if you get stuck in the mud again, I’m leaving you behind.”

A strange side note: When I cancelled that afore-mentioned July visit to head off auditioning, it led, in a round-about way, to my landing the plum supporting role of Edith on Bomb Girls, the WWII show I shot that’s just been okayed for another season. But making that trip was not an easy call for our usually decisive Tourist: it was another long-shot that led me there, I was dead broke and trying to get catering shifts, and had just booked a radio spot for 7-11 which I would have to turn down. Plus, yes, I’d have to make that fun “Um, maybe don’t come visit…P.S. Can I borrow plane fare?” phone call, and take a trip that possibly led to absolute zero.

If that story in itself isn’t wildly fascinating and inspirational enough to make you puke…I recently came across the copy for the 7-11 ad I turned down and realized that the role I’d auditioned for and booked was EDITH THE CHICKEN. I’d out-clucked the competition, booked the gig, turned it down, agonized over it…and eventually traded Edith the chicken for Edith the Bomb Girl. Now is that weird or what? Or do I just look and sound like an obvious Edith? Okay by me.

Also on the recently-survived list: Valentine’s Day. Although I only say “survived” cause that’s how everyone else puts it, when referring to hideous single lepers such as myself. In reality, I don’t mind Valentine’s Day. I really hated it when I was in a relationship, truth be told, and discovered its true nature: Let’s Compare Our Boyfriends Day. “Sooooo…..what did your sweetie get you for Vaaaalentiiiine’s?”, they’d say, just itching to tell me what stupid thing their guy had gotten them, and I’d mutter something about us not really believing in it or making a big deal about it, that maybe we'd go to dinner or something but how he did nice things for me all the time (which was always at least mostly true with a slim majority of the men that I’ve been with) and they would manage a smile and say, yeah you’re right, it’s a Hallmark holiday anyway… and after the thought bubble appeared over their heads, clearly reading “Boy, is Lisa’s boyfriend ever a jerk, I give it a month”, they’d turn to each other and say, “Well MARK got me a diamond ring!” “Oh yeah? That’s sweet. MIKE got ME a live panda and taught it to dance my favourite ballet. Oh, and it’s wearing a diamond ring. AND he’s taking me to the Dominican. I love unicorns!”

Man, bitches is whack.

And when I have tried to play along it turned out I was doing it wrong, I guess ‘cause when I have exchanged gifts or done stuff with boyfriends for Valentine’s it’s always been of a more, uh, private nature. “Soooo, what did you and your sweetie do for Vaaalen-tiiiine’s?” “Oh. Well, first I got down on my hands and knees, and he put his –” And then they either didn’t want to hear any more, or seemed a little too interested. Perverts.

SO, now that I’m single, Valentine’s Day just slides off me like water off a duck’s back. For about half the day. And then everyone starts saying “Hey, Duck, how’s that water treating you, huh?” “Sorry about all that water all over you, duck, this must be really hard for you, being a poor lonely single duck and all.” And then I start to wonder…oh my god, maybe I AM upset. I thought I was okay, but maybe this Valentine’s is actually the hardest day OF MY LIFE. Maybe I’m the saddest, wettest duck that ever floated solo on the love canal.

I mean, duck metaphor aside, here’s my February 14th. Just past midnight, a friend in L.A. posts something on facef&*%k along the lines of “All right, who wants to shoot down that flying, arrow-shooting midget bastard, douse him in Jack Daniels, set him on fire and end this once and for all?” And I, swear to God, am so out of touch with Valentine’s Day that I think, wow, Los Angeles. Dave sure has some crazy-ass neighbours. Honestly: has it moved into weird denial territory when you mistake a Cupid reference for a description of an obnoxious midget living next door who likes to have loud archery parties? And can FLY, for some reason? I was, like, DAVE MAN, Peter Dinklage is a dwarf, not a midget. And how can you afford the house next to his?!

Later, I’m listening to CBC Radio 2 and ol’ Tom and Rich are playing lots of love songs and such (and being anti-love songs because you’re single would be like being offended by Christmas and living in the bible belt; you’d go insane), and you know, dedicating some to all the lovers out there, and that’s all good. But then in deference and sensitivity to their unattached listeners, they keep playing anti love songs and mentioning how much we must hate all this, and letting us know that that’s okay, too.

And just as I’m pondering that, looking deep within my duck soul (I just like the duck thing, all right?), AM I okay?, the weather comes on, and of all the regions of BC, the weather reporter is only interested in talking about frickin’ Victoria. And after a moment I’m just hearing “Lower than usual temperatures in that place where that guy lives, you know, the one you used to like so much?” and “Three centimetres of rainfall all over his gorgeous head but I bet he’s very sweet and cheerful about it and that his hair looks really nice anyway, and his eyes always were extra blue on rainy days” and “Winds up to two hundred kilometres an hour through the LONELY UNINHABITED CAVERN THAT IS YOUR HEART.”

And then one more minute of “moron moron/nice guy/moron” running through my head, before I got over it, made some banana bread and went off to my job of being adored and applauded by throngs of appreciative fans.

And diarrhea.

Poor duck.

Yadda yadda, funny stuff, zombie reference to wrap it all up. Also must add more pictures so the sole image in this issue is not of a dude pouring snot through his nose. Screw it. I’m tired. I believe 3:04 am is a late enough bedtime to stop me getting the plague.

Oh no not I, I will Survive,


The Tourist