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

They Died With Their Boots On, or, A Lady Takes a Chance: The Legend of Calamity Norton

From VANCOUVER, British Columbia

March 17th, 2011

First things first. Hello, oh loyal friends, and welcome to a whole new era of Tourist-ness. The Vancouver Era. This new and momentous era may only last until September or October, who knows, but I like the word “era”, okay? ERA! Era era era! There, it’s stopped even looking like a word. Now I’ve done it.

In an exciting milestone for you fans of punctuation out there (Josh?), I am pleased to point out that my last blague post featured a single sentence that contained five commas, three semi-colons, one pair of brackets, some choice capitalization, a hyphen and two sets of ellipses. No italics, oddly. But yes, a partridge in a pear tree.

And a warm welcome to some new fans – Ashley O'Connell, as lucky reader one trillion and five (give or take a trillion), you've won a Skeptical Tourist pantsuit! It's too small for you and, well, made of pipe cleaners, which doesn't make for the utmost in pantsuit comfort, but it IS rather dashing...and made in the official Skeptical Tourist Sweatshop, which is staffed entirely by grown men serving time for use of the phrase "lol". If any of them is heard referring to something as "epically random" or "randomly epic", his scant pay is confiscated for that week. They’ve tried to start a union on facebook but keep getting distracted by links to Failblog and “People of Walmart” and Lady Gaga videos. Men these days. (Enjoy your pantsuit, Ashley!)

To Vancouver! Firstly, yes, it’s true: I did, in fact, land the first thing I auditioned for here. Though for all I know it may be the last gig I ever book, that fact sure does sound good, and will contribute nicely, I believe, to The Legend Of Scarborough Lill (my Wild West name; they make you pick one when you move out here).

YUP. THAT’S ME NOW.

The job is a JK Rowling biopic, Magic Beyond Words, for the Lifetime Network. And thus begins my career as sassy friend. When you do a JK Rowling biopic, Access Hollywood shows up on set and gets copious shots of your butt and the back of your head to share with all of TV land. So you may have seen that and been impressed. I sure was.

The other thing that happens is, authorized or not, Rowling herself is so wracked with curiosity about the thing that she has to watch it. So THE JK Rowling herself will see my face.

She may immediately think "What a stupid face", but who cares, too late, she'll have seen it. Or she might think, "What a wonderful face; I think I'll write a book about it". Substitute "ripping" for "wonderful" and "fancy" for "think", of course. (She's from England.)

In fact, for all I know, JK Rowling (or, as we in the know call her, Jojo, or just “bird” or “mate”, is stalking me already, even before this thing airs, based on the knowledge that I've played her sassy friend. She and Beyoncé have rented the house across the street and spend hours in the dark front room, passing back and forth the binoculars and egg salad sandwiches. They're over there right now, hovering over a laptop (the one used to create the final Harry Potter book) reading this out loud, at the same time as you. Don't you feel a little famous, just knowing that?

“PUT ON YOUR CLOAK, B. THEN SHE CAN’T SEE US.”

For those of you (actors) out there feeling that ugly yet inevitable twinge of jealousy and That Bitch-ness, there’s this: My love life is the pits, I’m still eye-deep in debt, and I have a heart murmur.

Is all this true? Maybe! Take it if you need it.

I’ve also turned to prostitution, which may mitigate the envy even further for some of you who frown on that sort of thing, though I consider it a good move, with benefits both social and financial. Proactive is what I call it. Plus prostitution is nicer here because of the warmer climate.

Before the sassy actor cash and the hookering bucks came along to improve my situation, funds got awful low. It’s strange to be in a new town and broke...I kept thinking that I wasn’t just the Tourist but a tourist, and therefore felt like I should be able leap gaily from concert to play to martini sushi opium parlour…and then keep getting slapped in the face by my reality, which said, "Hey kid, you're not a special guest anymore: you live here. Maybe. Sort of. Now go home to your basement apartment and eat some toast.” (With organic peanut butter, mind.)

I’ve been living, since January, at the downstairs apartment at my friend Jenny Young’s brother and sister-in-law’s place. Jon and Kim happen to be founding members of Vancouver’s acclaimed Electric Company Theatre, and have been out of town a lot, allowing me the run of the place…so I’ve had plenty of time to tuck copies of my photo and resume in strategic locations all over the house. I’m particularly proud of the laminated headshot hanging in their shower. I think they’ll like it, too.

I also get to take advantage of that modern-day housesitting tradition, wherein you temporarily become the Borg and plunder every bit of your hosts’ technology (ask your Trekkie friend to explain that joke if you don’t get it or are pretending not to). I’ve ripped all of their CDs, which in this house has amounted to a major indie band windfall, as well as taking cellphone pictures of each page of all their books and photocopying their sheets. I spread the pages on my bed and use them as an extra set of bedding and pretend I’m someone else. It’s all so wonderful.

TAKE ME TO YOUR WINTERSLEEP

And yes, just like you, I do feel a little bad whenever I steal music – and, like you, I get over it and do it anyway. Though, I must say, I do pay for my online tunes – I’m only guilty of the friend Borg-ing. But that’s probably bad enough. Perhaps I should have to adopt an indie band as penance.

We could develop a whole system of free music reparation. For instance: Illegally download one song – the band gets to come to your house and make a sandwich. Two songs, you make the sandwiches. Steal a whole album, they get to fuck your kids. or something. These are just guidelines.

But hey, the deal here includes my feeding and changing the litter of the weird resident cat, Meow Meow. I doubt the Borg do that. Or maybe it’s in the deleted scenes. Meow Meow also tricks me by acting affectionate and then leaping on my face with her claws out, which is her cute feline way of protesting my abuse of copyright law.

Come April I’ll get to go and suck all the technology out of another home, as I’m moving into a sublet at 15th and Maple. The poor, unfortunate tenant, a beautiful flaxen-haired young writer, is being forced to go live at her rich lawyer boyfriend’s house on the coast of Spain and go for long walks and observe stunning sunsets while working on her novel. I feel for her, I really do.

If it weren’t for my sympathy for Beautiful Bevin and her difficult situation, I surely would be moving into Green Margaret’s place. It had everything going for it: great west end location, unobstructed view of Stanley Park’s Lost Lagoon, meticulous German tenant who had outfitted the place with a nice green and white carpet covering the hardwood floors, green blankets, green trinkets, green bedspread on the SINGLE green skirt-wearing bed…

Oddly, I didn’t notice all this at first (okay, I definitely noticed the single bed – that, coupled with the fact that Margaret kept insisting on “no overnight guests, ja?”, meant I had to fight the urge to run screaming into the street). As I was leaving (politely, not screaming even a bit), Margaret complimented me on my bright green bag. I thanked her and pointed out that it matched her shirt rather well, to which she replied, with the stoniest of faces, “Ja, I only vear green.” That’s when I noticed. You might want to reconsider hiring me as a detective.

Of course, I can roll my eyes at Green Margaret and her tiny bed and weird apartment all I like, but the truth is, she sent me an email a week after our meeting telling me she’d decided to rent to someone else. She’s probably writing on her blog about how weird I was, with my nonmatching clothes, and calling me Rainbow Lisa.

Today is St Patrick’s Day, so Green Margaret is on my mind. I’ve a feeling I’ll think of her on this day every year, wondering whether this is a divine day for her, a day where she looks around at her green-clad fellow man and feels a kinship, thinks, “Mein Gott, they’ve finally got it”. Or is it a day when she looks around and thinks, “You bunch of phonies. You don’t know green like I know green”?

I wonder if she adds food colouring to everything she eats and drinks, all year round. OH, GREEN MARGARET, GET OUT OF MY HEAD! You emerald temptress, you!

Anyway, my new place, which Bevin thought I was cool enough for (take that, fraulein!), is cute and nice and has a grown-up bed. It’s also conveniently located a stone’s throw from both the West Coast Tropical Bird Studio and The Spy Store, which, combined, may help me develop my weird Bond villain persona. Parrot on the shoulder, or budgies in my pockets? What to do? And can I still be Scarborough Lill?

From there I will enjoy jaunts to Kits Beach on my borrowed bicycle, continue enjoying BC’s beautiful surroundings and fine friendly folk, venture out to Spanish and kayaking classes (and Spanish kayaking classes – “Ay Ay Ay! Me he caído en el océano!”)...

I’ll also attend the occasional audition, thanks to my fancy new agent who is awfully handsome and has astounding teeth. I hang around the office on the flimsiest of pretenses (“Just making sure the building’s still where I thought it was”; ”Do you guys need some gum?”…) in hopes of catching the occasional glimpse of their gleam. Of course, my agent in T.O. does triathlons and has the most amazing arms I've ever seen, and my Toronto voice agent, even despite wearing stupid slippers around the office, looks like a hotter Faye Dunawaye, so this new guy had better step up his regimen if he wants to hold onto me, boy. My new voice agent here is a marathon runner who wears nice boots, so things are looking good.

I’m keeping in shape with semi-regular visits to the downtown Y, which are just as regularly sabotaged by the presence of the original Japa Dog cart within a block, where I can enjoy a tasty 9000 calorie snack before and after each workout. I’ve resigned, however, to eat less Korobuta Terimayo dogs, ever since the Japa Dog staff not only refused my gracious offer of a picture for their “celebrity customers” photo board, but seemed unduly angry when they noticed me pasting my head onto Ice Cube’s body. There may have been a scene.

COME ON NOW, JAPA DOG. WHAT’S THIS GUY GOT THAT I AIN’T GOT?

To your future benefit, I’ll continue to wander and observe…trying to figure out a town that can have given us Botox and a chain of stores called “Mantique”, and at the same time support the world’s highest per capita concentration of white girls with dreads. (Is it wrong to want to kick those girls? I really, really want to kick them. Can I kick them?)

I’d planned to do the Grouse Grind climb weekly on arrival but haven’t gone once yet. My excuses are as follows: It’s too cold. It’s been too rainy. My knee is buggered from running. My bed here is comfortable. And, best of all: Nature Shmature, that’s for tourists. Apparently my one trek up Grouse Mountain last year is more than any of my friends who were born and raised here have done. I will do it soon, I swear.

As for rainy days, yeah, there have been one or two of those.

But you know what, all you dry Toronto gloaters going on about how sad and soggy I must be? I’ve got two words for you: wind chill factor. That’s three words. I’m a rebel. Anyway, we don’t have that here. If it says seven degrees it is seven goddamn degrees. I know all too well the agony of those Ontario weather reports:

“It’s twelve degrees”

“Oh, that’s nice.”

“- but feels like minus forty with the windchill.”

“Then why don’t you just say minus forty, motherfuckers?!!”

I’ve embraced BC coffee culture, becoming one of those people laptopping at cafes. I even bought a mug from the lovely Our Town Cafe, to replace the ceramic Starbucks one I bought on tour, which, reflecting my state of mind at the time, cracked right down the middle. I almost got the green Our Town mug, glanced down at my green bag and my green-jacketed book (Alligator, by Lisa Moore), remembered Margaret, went with blue.

But truth is, I’ve eschewed the Cafe People and written much of this post at Budgies Burritos, which makes me feel less like a hipster and more like a romantic, struggling down-and-out writer, working away with a cheap taco hanging half out my mouth and refried beans smeared on my face. Except I only write a BLOG, for FREE, and what’s more hipster than that? Plus everything here is veggie or vegan, and there’s a squeaky-voiced customer at the counter telling the staff about her “kind of an art show”. But next to her there’s a construction worker and an old guy who keeps burping while he eats. Ah, B.C.

I do think there’s something in the idea that everyone should move to a new town once in a while. I’ve never done it before, except for gigs, and hell, it is invigorating. It can be a little lonely, not having your same old gang at hand, but it’s also exciting and challenging. I'm making new friends, it’s giving me a kick in the ass, career-wise, in that nobody knows who the hell I am and I’ve got something to prove all over again, and I’m stretching my brain into new shapes…and apparently becoming ridiculously earnest and prone to spewing smug inspirational bullshit. GOD! What the hell was THAT??? Somebody needs a green cider.

So that’s enough blarney outta me.

EXCEPT…

Consider, friends, what reading this blague has done for you today. And consider every other day you’ve enjoyed the wisdom of the Tourist AT NO COST WHATSOEVER. For some of you this has been going on for years, this free delivery of guffaws, chuckles, smiles, and insight. Think of the value. Yet while I may very well begin charging exorbitant amounts for entry (as well as a complicated sign-in process and a webcam video proving that you are wearing a silly hat and doing the required dance), THIS MONTH I ask that you instead donate that money to the relief effort in Japan. Let’s say five bucks per laugh. So if you laughed five times, a modest twenty-five bucks to the Red Cross or someone. And if you didn’t laugh at all? In that case, you are clearly a black hole of humour, a very scourge on humanity, so a big fat donation is the least you can do to start justifying your presence on Earth. I’ll tell you what, it needn’t even be made in my name.

http://www.cbc.ca/japanrelief/ has a great list of links to reputable charities’ donation pages. Please help. If nothing else, it will get you in my good books. You might even win a pantsuit.

Yours, soggy and true,

The Tourist

go west, young tourist

From TORONTO,

December 29th, 2010

It’s ridiculous that I haven’t written. I’m aware of this.

I’ve been to Iowa. I’ve been to West Virginia. I’ve been to Florida, Illinois, Indiana, and to Texas. North Carolina, too. I’ve been to Belleville. I survived two weeks in London, Ontario, a bout of food poisoning on a two-show day (still puking at seven a.m.; call time at twenty-past – don’t order the pesto shrimp from Boston Pizza…as if you ever would), eight-hour drives in a five-person-jammed pickup truck; lugging a set that weighed at least NINE THOUSAND POUNDS in and out of stage doors and schools, up steps and over snakepits; lived through spats with my tourmates about trivia games, luggage and generally being up at six in the morning…

Nobody loved me. Everybody hated me. I went out back and ate some worms.

My back still hurts. My wrist is sore. And my liver is more than three parts booze. I drank enough one karaoke night in Alexandria, Louisiana that I, turning green and leaving early but disappointed to be going before my Bon Jovi tune had come up, had to be told that I had, in fact, already sung it. That’s where I left my jacket. I left my shoes in a hotel closet in Chicago, my Oil of Olay under a bed somewhere, and my heart in New Orleans. I left one adorable soul singer in Austin, Texas, standing in a bar with his heart on his sleeve, dreaming dreams of exotic Toronto, where all the girls have long black hair and ruby lips. And one sad, small second cousin twice-removed behind in Dallas, wondering why in God I’m not her mother and why she can’t leave Adrian and Jo in Texas once and for all and escape a fate of eating deep-fried butter and voting Bristol Palin 2024.

I left a sock in every town – “REMEMBER MEEEEEE, NORTH LIBERTYYYYY!!! I won’t remember yooooooouuuuu!”, most of the roaches (I hope) back in that dressing room in Texarkana, and indelible impressions on the minds of thousands of awestruck children and their teachers who had the pleasure of not only seeing me perform but hearing my sage words of long-winded wisdom in talk-backs afterwards. Will they ever again wonder How We Learn ALL THOSE LINES? I think not, dear readers, I think not.

I believe this picture just might say it all, tour-wise:

(This is Hallowe’en in Weston, West Virginia, incidentally. I am CLEARLY Amy Winehouse, but the locals, not knowing who that was, deducted I was “someone with a dildo for a head”. Close enough.)

Speaking of dildos…Rob Ford is the new motherfucking goddamn mayor of Toronto. (See the previous two blague posts for a sampling of my feelings about that.) I survive. Winter’s here…and still, I manage to go on. Christmas came and went and didn’t bother me a bit. I bought a tree and lugged it down the street. I baked ten billion cookies.

And yet I didn’t write.

It was all too much, My Puzzled Reader. As large and capable as my brain may be, it managed to get overfull, and not sure what to tell you, I told you nothing. I apologize.

But enough of the past two months. Instead let me tell you about…the Christina Aguilera movie.

Yes, Burlesque! Also starring Cher! And Stanley Tucci! What the fuck?!

I’ve been excited about this film ever since I was at the movies with Sarah Allen and we saw the poster of Christina and Cher’s big tall slutty faces and I peed myself. I didn’t know what it was and didn’t care. Christina was in it! It was called BURLESQUE! I tore off my now wet (first creamed, then pee-filled) jeans and ran a pantless bluestreak through the Scotiabank Theatre, screaming incoherent words of joy. Sarah managed to catch up with me and deal with management.

JUST LOOK AT ALL THOSE LIPS!!!

But it would be months - until tonight, in fact – before I would see it. Burlesque came out while we were on tour, and I did rope my other showgals, Emma and Krista, into seeing it with me. It was all we could handle intellectually at the time, and seemed a perfect way to celebrate our last week on the road. Plus we knew when we got home none of our friends there would want to see it.

Alas that was THE DAY OF THE SHRIMP PIZZA, and I stayed home (or, rather, hotel-bound) to lie in my own vomit – better than someone else’s, I suppose – while the intrepid ladies soldiered on without me.

I came home and fell into a deep deep sleep, the sleep of those just off a kids’ show tour, which means I didn’t even move for eighteen days (a rep from Actors’ Equity came by to hook me up to an I.V. – it’s in the union rules, go check it out) and by the time I emerged, Burlesque had closed.

However, this week it was playing at my neighbourhood rep cinema, The Revue. Of course it was, having just been nominated for a Best Musical/Comedy Golden Globe, and the Revue being a bastion of all things noble and artistic.

Now I had to go, and right away. I mean, what if ends up on the American Film Institute’s best movies of the decade list? I couldn’t even wait for the couple of friends/family members who may have actually gone with me. I was walking home from the gym and there it was!

And it was glorious…or maybe I was just flushed with endorphins from my workout.

I admit to being consistently distracted by Xtina’s new, enormous breasts. They actually looked normal enough, in a way, when she was all dolled up in push-up bustiers, but in the scenes where she was dressed casually, they were jarring. Especially when she’s supposed to be braless in PJs and has these sturdy rock-like things sticking straight out of her chest. At those moments her boobs had the look of an inappropriate accessory, like when you see someone wearing tons of eyeliner at the gym. And they didn’t even bounce when she jumped up and down. It was strange. I had to go straight home and watch some movies with properly bouncing breasts in them, just to make up for it.

But aside from that…it is “the greatest movie ever made”…says Sharin-Maizie Elliwand-Johannson of Arborg, Manitoba. Dolly32122 exclaims, “I was dancing all the way through the film in my seat paha”, while phatgurl509 calls it “so fun LOL” and male lead Cam Gigandet “off the hook for hotnesssss!!!!!!!!”

Christina’s acting is far less wooden than her immovable jugs. In fact – I’ll say it - I found her charming, though perhaps in a “Wow, she’s not half so horrible as I thought she would be” way. Her love interest had easily watchable pectorals and abs, heavily featured, Cher made you care just a little from time to time, and the dancing was sufficiently dancy.

And I was moved – yea, moved! - because that’s just the state of mind I’m in these days. I’m headed to Vancouver, you see, to try my luck in the little big city, and thus the story of a young starry-eyed girl headed to L.A. to strike it big was right up my proverbial alley. I’m going around with big new half-baked plans these days, involving being discovered in a soda shop, and I’m prone to saying things like “Wait’ll they get a load a’ me!” and “Look out world!” and “We’ll put the show on right here in the barn!”.

And it’s not just me. Today a friend – Jamie Wilson, whom I haven’t seen in years and who hasn’t heard my current schemes – happened to send me this clip on face&%*k, with the caption “This reminded me of you.”

See? That’s just the type of positive enthusiasm I’m putting out in the world right now, and Jamie must have sensed it from afar. Or maybe it was just Liza’s nose that he was thinking of. I’m hoping not her slightly wonky eye. Or her alcoholic mother shouting in the background. But hey, I’ll take it!

So yes, I’m off to be a huge voice star, start climbing mountains, achieve a black belt in Karate…and then the Coen Brothers will discover me. All this as I break into the elusive Vancouver Theatre Scene. OoooOOOOooooh.

OR…(in that Skeptical Spin you all so sickeningly crave) I come back in three months not triumphant but defeated; broken-backed and sobbing, “B.C. sucks! Nobody liked me! And I just missed                (insert your name here, Toronto resident) too much! I couldn’t bear it!”

For now, however, you will find me packing suitcases and singing this song:

(If, in a week or so, you should hear a story of a Vancouver-bound flight brought down for security reasons after a suspicious woman of ambiguous ethnicity wouldn’t stop belting a show tune at the top of her lungs, this will have been the one.)

I recently played this recording for a particularly handsome young man who happened to be sitting in my kitchen at the time, and was deeply disappointed that he didn’t seem to ‘get it’ like I did. I now realize that if a guy I was sharing pillow-space with did freak out over a Dionne Warwick recording of a show tune from a Natalie Wood movie, I might start to wonder. Or maybe I’d just take him to Burlesque and help him pick out panties. And then we’d do each other’s nails. To pass the time, you know, until the Coen Brothers happened by.

I’m stakin’ my claim. Remember my name…

The Tourist

own the odium*

From TORONTO,

March 23rd, 2010

So here I was, sprawled on the skeptical sofa, watching women's moguls through a veil of tears, and suddenly thought, I've gotta get outta here and own me some podium.

I know what you're thinking. Veil of tears??? Norton, our savvy old crony, surely when a relationship ends you just laugh, light a cigarette and call out “Next!”. You can't feel heartbreak like us mere mortals over here. Why, you're....you're....The Tourist! The skeptical one... Remember?

And the answer to that, my worried little friends, is that I don't feel heartbreak like anyone else. My heartbreak is HUGE. Thundering. Of epic proportions. The Tourist does heartbreak like no one does heartbreak.

I weep the most enormous tears, wail the biggest wails, yell at the neighbours, kick dogs. I don’t merely tear at my beautiful ebony hair; I set it all on fire - and grow it back within the hour. I fling things around my apartment, yelling, “Out of my way!” and “Shut up, you!” I wake to discover I’ve eaten three entire pillows out of madness and hunger for affection. I hurl all my pots and pans and the contents of my fridge out on the floor, because loud noises comfort me. I stare at one wall for hours on end, then cover it in feces and smears of dijon mustard.

I gnash my teeth, whatever that means.

It’s all either not a pretty sight, or intensely beautiful, depending what you’re into. I’m a weepy, snotty, angry whirling hurricane. Of love.

And on the seventh day, I walk into the Flight Centre, demanding to be flown somewhere.

In this case, Vancouver.

VANCOUVER, 2010

DAY ONE

I arrived in town with my Olympic gear (sweatshirt, t-shirt…alas, no coveted red mittens) and my excited Olympic grin secretly tucked away out of sight. Arriving from afar, I was expecting a grumbly, unenthusiastic Vancouver full of people who just didn’t approve. I thought I’d be conspicuous in my CANADA shirt. That only outsiders would be seen in such things.

I’d imagined the fans consisting of a few Japanese tourists ducking through as angry locals pelted them with organic yogurt and spelt (it’s a B.C. thing).

….Until I realized the gear (and the spirit) was EVERYWHERE. Who can hold onto boring old grumpy ideals when there are gold medals flying around? And when Alex Bilodeau and Jenn Heil are so darn cute?

I was staying with my buddy Christine Oakey, who was working for the Olympics (at VANOC headquarters, spending very long days saying, “Go here.” “Don’t go there.” “Stop picking your nose”). Mackenzie Muldoon (similarly bossing people around at the curling facility) was crashing on the couch. Except for that evening, Oakey and I would scarcely see or speak to one another at all until three days after the games, despite literally sharing a bed at night. It was a king size bed, and we didn’t even spoon. Perhaps we communicated telepathically, between the wee hours when I would crawl in and five a.m. when she would crawl out.

But that night, we went to the victory ceremony. Sadly, no canucks were receiving medals that night, but we yelled and whooped at Russians and Chinese and other types with great enthusiasm. It was “Newfoundland Night” at BC Place, which meant a whole lotta Sean Majumder, lots more fiddling, a song or two from Hey Rosetta among others, and a headlining performance by Great Big Sea.

That was fun, if made slightly trying by the presence of a very small, very drunk young diehard Great Big Sea fan standing right behind me, whose mouth was exactly at my ear-height, and who wailed along off-key to every word, even the singer’s impromptu riffing. I miraculously managed to hold onto my Olympic spirit and not wring her drunken little neck.

Oddly enough, I’d spent the previous evening at the C.R Avery concert at the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto, listening to songs all about Vancouver; now here I was in Vancouver, listening to a guy sing about Newfoundland.

After that we were deposited onto Robson street, where Oakey went one way (back to work) and I went the other: into the throngs celebrating the Canadian men’s hockey team’s defeat of Slovakia which moved them onto the final against the US.

It was fucking insane. Crowds of running, singing, high-fiving crazy people going absolutely wild. I remember thinking, It can’t get any crazier than this. What’s gonna happen if (when) we win the final? What will people do then? Blow themselves up? I guess this is ten and the knob goes to eleven.

It was a bit much to be alone in. After four thousand high fives and getting puked on once or twice, I started to feel infinitely lonely, and so slid into a coffee shop on Granville, to eat cheesecake and listen to an Irish guy play the guitar and wail about lost love. That was more my speed. As a backdrop to the music, you could still hear constant screaming in the streets outside; I started to play a game of pretending that everyone out there was being attacked by zombies as we sat in a café, waiting for the end to come.

DAY TWO

…Included a trip to Atlantic House on Granville Island, to see Nova Scotia’s own (excellent and rather dreamy) Matt Mays, though Oakey and her coworkers weren’t awake enough to last until he came on.

One of Oakey’s friends, an expat Brit, spent about an hour trying to figure out my accent – eventually bursting out with “I’ve got it! I know who you sound like: That scientist guy from the Simpsons!” (The guy who says “Glavin” all the time.) And then explained that it was just that I have “a very intellectual way of saying things”. Which may be the nicest way that I've been called a nerd.

When those assholes left, I got to spend the the rest of the evening with my real friends – a bunch of young yahoos from Coquitlam that I’d met in the lineup while waiting for Oakey and her gang. Perfectly friendly, gentlemanly yahoos, who couldn’t believe their luck in suddenly having a girl to hang out with, without pressing it. One of them, though, the most weavingly drunk one of the bunch, felt a constant need to grind my gears about being from Toronto. First he wanted to hassle me about being a Leafs fan; when I told him I didn’t really follow hockey, except during the Olympics, Go Canada, he switched to ridiculing people from Toronto for not even caring about hockey.

He asked if I followed lacrosse. I said no. He scoffed at that. I asked him “Do you play?” He told me he used to, before he decided to just go fuckin’ drinking every night. I eventually got to the root of his resentment: some lacrosse team from Toronto that was better than his lacrosse team had come out here and kicked his lacrosse team’s ass…and “they thought they were pretty fuckin’ great”. I pointed out that it was sports, not a tea party, and that if he had won, he would have thought he was pretty fuckin’ great, too. He almost conceded on that one, and was soon lifting me in the air during the Matt Mays show and nearly dropping me on people’s heads. Score one, snooty girl from the centre of the universe. Winning them over, five drunk boys from Coquitlam at a time.

DAY THREE

…And final day of the Olympics, I straggled over to my pal Mike Wasko’s house in Kitsilano for the game. Saw a sign for THE BEST CINNAMON BUNS IN THE WORLD as I stepped off the bus, so I had to take a detour, obviously, and was just coming out with my box of sticky goodness (insert…dirty joke here) when the bar next door erupted. First goal Canada! I ran the rest of the way to Mike’s place, leaving a trail of icing sugar and excitement in my wake, and got to watch the rest with a quality group of Wasko’s family, friends, a sandwich buffet and mimosas. (You got style, Wastich, my friend.) The buffet proved a valuable distraction; whenever the game got too tense, someone would declare, “I can’t take it anymore! I’m going to eat meat!” Except for Yurij, who kept threatening to walk around the block and was watching most of the proceedings from the next room, by the door, ready to flee….and whom everyone kept admonishing to stop being so goddamned Eastern European and have some faith.

Well, you know what happened, obviously, and obviously it was glorious.

There at Mike’s place, a contingent of us leapt into Sarah Cobb’s car and headed downtown where, indeed, the knob had been turned to eleven.

We wandered around, soaking it in and grinning ‘til our faces hurt. At least my snooty Toronto face did - I’m not used to that kind of thing.

(That second one is Cobb, almost passing for me.)

I must say, I do appreciate the ferocious return of the high five; it indicates people forgetting that they're too cool for such things. The sun is shining, we are the champions - what's not to high five about?

The cops stood in the middle of it all, grinning and receiving high fives themselves, looking proud as anything. A few of them , though, were just a-twitchin’, waiting for something to go wrong. One sports bar had imported some snow, the only snow in town, and had it piled out front. Some dude scooped up a handful, threw it at someone…and was immediately tackled by police! When I lobbed my modest snowball (gently, friendli-ly, at Nick Wasko’s feet), handsome, tall, grey-haired Officer Doom was instantly in my face, letting his presence be known.

“Haya doin’?”

“Great, officer! How about you?”

“I’m worried. Remember ‘94.” (When the Canucks lost the cup and downtown erupted in riots.)

“Yeah, but everybody’s happy this time!”

“Well they started off happy then, too.” (????)

“I’m sure it’ll be fine. Everybody’s celebrating!”

“….You’re not from around here, are you?”

Maybe he was just trying to pick me up.

I'd love to know the numbers on how many people called in sick the next day (or just didn't show up for work).

We headed back to Mike’s place after an hour or two, to watch and ridicule the closing ceremony. It was so stinky (though I actually didn’t mind the Buble-and-the-beavers bit; it was every other stinky thing)….but valuable for this: it made me realize how lucky it was that the opening was so good. Thank God they saved the shite for when no one was watching.

DAYS FOUR THROUGH ELEVEN

The 2010 games over and life returning to normal, suddenly everyone was talking about something that any theatre professional instantly recognized as post-show depression. It was getting news time even, Brian Williams referring to the sadness and sense of loss spreading across Vancouver, and VANOC offering counselling to staff to deal with it all being over. My theatre friends working at the Olympics were used to this kind of thing: closing a show, saying goodbye to friends made and moving on…but for poor Joe Volunteer, having just participated in two weeks of the greatest show on earth, the feeling was new and devastating. Like a little kid leaving summer camp and bawling as her parents drag her away from her pals (unless she went to smelly Brownie camp). PSD for everyone!

People on the Skytrain looked wistfully around, wondering if anyone would high five them today. Someone in line at Shoppers Drug Mart saw someone else buying a half price Quatchi (Olympic mascot) keychain and sighed, “Wasn’t it awesome?” “Yeah…where were you for the game?” “I can’t believe how quiet it is now,” people kept saying.

Perhaps the saddest thing I saw was a city bus with its sign scrolling, “GO CANADA GO! SORRY…OUT OF SERVICE”. Okay, it seemed really poignant at the time.

As for me, I was feeling mostly okay, if occasionally blindsided by some stupid thought such as, That's it. Where am I ever gonna find another man who doesn't snore?

I was looking good, which added some spring to my step. As is always the case in such climates, my skin was all dewy; my hair had acquired a wave.

My postgames consisted of a lot of sightseeing, some visiting with friends (Hi there, Nadia! Good to see you, Challenor!), surprise Oscar night in Victoria with my stepmom Liisa and her family, and some good old fashioned B.C…exercise. See, you thought I was gonna say “bud”, didn’t you? Okay, that too. But mostly exercise.

And walking through Stanley Park one day, I felt really good. Like breakthrough good.

There you are, face to face with the mountains and trees, the ocean and sky…and you can’t help but think: Look at how small I am. How paltry are my problems. And look how beautiful the world is. There are worse things to be than alone. And, thinking these wonderful positive thoughts, you turn around and nearly smack right into this:

And then you cry for eighteen minutes.

I soon realized it was a marker for a path and, while certainly a kick in the shins from God, not only that. I decided to bravely follow the path, imagining it could still include me, one who, while not technically a “lover”, not right now, not in the classic sense of the word, was still a lover of nature, of life, of the mountains and sky….et cetera. The sun was falling rapidly as I ventured deep into the woods, hoping I would get to the other side before getting lost in blackness. And then industrious local rapists started jumping out from behind the trees, one after the other….so there was romance to be found in lovers lane after all! How sweet!

(Romantic post-ravagement idyll)

A day or two later, I did the “Grouse Grind”, a trek to the top of Grouse Mountain in North Van that I proudly finished in an hour and a half instead of taking the other option of giving up halfway through and rolling back down to my death. Oakey had heard it was “just a bunch of stairs", to which I answer, “Sure, Oakey...maybe if you're, say, Lance Armstrong or a mountain goat.”

In case you doubt me, here’s a word from Wikipedia, which never, ever lies: “(The Grind) is an extremely steep and mountainous trail that climbs 853 m (2,799 ft) over a distance of 2.9 km (2 mi), with an average grade of 30 degrees. The trail, nicknamed "Mother Nature's Stairmaster", is notoriously gruelling due to its steepness and mountainous terrain. - Total Stairs: 2,830.” So there.

Thank God for signs like this to let me know I was actually getting somewhere:

And ones like this, that made me feel dangerous and cool:

At the top, before lunch and hard-earned cider at the restaurant, I trekked around some more, and found myself walking down a grassy ski hill as skiiers slid down next to me. That was weird:

DAY THE LAST

While arriving at the airport drunk isn't exactly what I’d call a plan…it seemed to work for me. Wasko and I'd spent the evening previous at an improv show, and later in his kitchen, consuming whiskey and shouting at each other over topics far and wide. (Even though we agreed on almost everything, we still managed to get all hopped up and wave our arms around.) After hours of this, Mike finally squinted at the clock and said, "Hey what time's your flight?" I shouted, "AAAARGH!" and ran. I had two hours to cab home, pack my bags, wash dishes, and get to the airport to be scanned and prodded for a seven am departure.

The drunkenness allowed me a remarkable level of humour through the usual ordeal. I giggled my shoes off and barely stopped myself from saying, "Most action I've seen in weeks" as security was groping me for drugs. I swaggered though the terminal with that all-knowing, drunk girl leer we know so well, then flirted with my cute young seatmate, Eric, until falling into a satisfyingly deep sleep most of the way across the country. This could be the beginning of a bad habit or even a series of arrests, but it's what I'm doing from here on in.

THE NOW

And then I got home and the hurt hit me double. I was done running around and back on home turf, where the memories lived. Back to the couch, still carrying that broken heart, and now with a lot less cash to keep it warm.

There was the Paralympics to watch, but while CTV had coverage, it mostly played highlights, and rather silently, without anyone to provide context or tell you what the hell was going on. I’m not actually enough into sports to dig that.

I need colour commentary. I need juicy tidbits to keep me interested. Like, “Michael Such-and-such is a role model to many, having overcome his blindness AND cerebral palsy to become a world-class skier…but it’s a little-known fact that he murdered six people last year”…..or “Curler Helen So-and-so is a big one-legged slut who left her husband for her coach this month”…Stuff like that.

I liked the Paralympic closing ceremony, but when it came to the Sochi stuff, it begged the same question: The Russian anthem is about twenty-seven minutes long – are they gonna do something about that before 2014?

It also kind of made me laugh that one of the musicians featured sang a tune the refrain of which was, “You may think you’ve got it all, but it could be a pebble that makes you fall”. I imagined one of the athletes having a sudden flashback and freaking out: “It WAS a pebble that made me fall! That's how I got my spinal cord injury!”

So now it’s all over folks, nothing to see.

I could try to mitigate the sadness by jumping in bed with the next supermodel who happens by…but then, whoever gets to touch this body inevitably grows addicted and wants it 24 hours a day. And I'm not ready for that kind of schedule yet. (Not that my people aren't reviewing applications.... Operators are standing by.)

But hey, back when Mister Miyagi had me paint his fence, I did learn a thing or two about patience. Sometimes you just gotta wait this shit out.
And I really am getting better and better every day. (Except when I'm not.)

Wax on, wax off,

The Tourist

___________________________________________________________

*odium

n.

1. The state or quality of being odious.
2. Strong dislike, contempt, or aversion.
3. A state of disgrace resulting from hateful or detestable conduct.

BONUS SHOT:

Darth Fiddler, downtown Victoria

the skeptical tourist vs. santa claus

From TORONTO,
DECEMBER 31st, 2006

My dear smushy sweet wonderful people......I have so much useless information for you, it boggles the mind. Where could one possibly begin? By giving you each an electronic holiday hug? By sending on Joy and Peace and crap like that? By telling you all about New York.....or the rest of the run of the show.....or my peaceful yet weird and unpredictable life of the moment? By absolving those of you who only ever get this far into one of my emails and then give up and go pick your noses and watch reruns of The Simpsons? By cursing those people who never even open them and just say "Oh, fucking Norton again."? Yeah. Let's start there. Screw those people. They suck anyway. I hope their 2007 is GARBAGE.

As for you.....well, enough about you. I mean, who am I kidding? As for ME, it all began in a shady New Orleans neighbourhood, where as a child I went from house to house selling coal to prostitutes in the red light district. Oh wait, that's Louis Armstrong. Sometimes I get us confused. (Useless Norton fact number one: I'm on part nine of Ken Burns' Jazz Miniseries. If I start talking about my gigs at Birdland and my heroin addiction - okay, well that part's true.) Who knows what lies I might tell you tonight? The other day I was so worn out from Christmas shopping and lack of sleep that I very nearly told the cashier at National Sports that I needed artichokes, Kalamata olives and a chicken. If only life were that easy.

Last we communed across the web of the wide world, I was telling you all about my (first ever) trip to Vancouver. I ran out of time, and energy, and the will to live in general - hey, it happens - and left you with a month-long cliffhanger. Stop salivating already. Cease the letter campaign. Leave my agents alone. Here, at long last, is the eagerly awaited sequel.

I came back to the T dot O dot et cetera dot in mid-October, and promptly began the run of Of Mice and Men at Canstage's prestigious yet perhaps-seen-better-days Bluma Appel theatre. (Sorry, Bluma: the 80s chandeliers are not lookin' so state o' the art these days.) One or two days of tech and the rehearsing in of a new dog and we were ready to go.

This, of course, would be our fourth official dog on the production. Dog number one, who so convincingly captured the energy of the old, sick, blind animal Steinbeck describes in the novel - wait for it - dropped dead before rehearsals even began. The Calgary Herald, which had shown an almost freakish obsession with our dog casting from the beginning, ran a front-page obit in which the dog's owners said that his ashes would reside next to the family hamster's cage so that the two animals could "talk to one another". Hm.

In a clear backlash against that experience, the replacement dog was Pookie, a spry, happy young thing who, in his scant two previews, was every bit as excited to meet the audience as they were to see him. Thank you Pookie, we have your resume on file.

Our third dog, Maggie, who apparently wowed 'em on the casting couch, was slow, partially deaf, had cataracts and a bad hip, and weighed at least two hundred pounds completely dry. I loved her. She had to be coaxed onto the stage and was just gonna sit wherever she was gonna sit. She might make it all the way to her mark.....or she might barely get onstage and decide it was time for a nap. By the end of the run, though, she knew her cues better than some of the human actors and, according to her owner, was showing signs of a new lease on life. Having a job had given her a sense of purpose, and approaching show-time, even on the day off, she would go out to the car, wagging her tail and eager to go perform. I fear old Maggie didn't deal too well with the closing. Following a brief appearance in Nunsense 3 at Stagewest, she found it hard to get acting work. She's now flipping burgers at a Calgary McDonalds and drinking heavily. But we've all been there, Mags. I mean, at least to buy a Happy Meal or something.

That brings us to Watson, our Toronto dog.....who was one of those hardcore method acting dogs who thought it necessary to live every detail of his character, particularly his oft-mentioned deathly stink, completely fully. I'm not sure how he did it, but MAN did that dog smell. I stopped petting him when I realized it was affecting my social life. Talk about taking "the method" too far! I mean, I may have given the occasional handjob in my dressing room to get inside the mind of a character that everyone calls a tramp.....but I was getting paid extra for that! Jeez.

Dogstink aside, the Toronto run went well. Our entire time at the Bluma coincided exactly with the construction of a three thousand story condo tower on the adjoining property, but by all accounts, the constant bone-rattling pounding of jackhammers only served to add to the growing sense of unease in the play. It certainly added something.....every performance, as my character's inevitable demise approached, all I could think was "kill me now." Of course, we only had to put up with the construction during matinees - three times a week. And the screaming and innapropriate laughter of the student audiences was almost enough to drown out the pounding.....especially on Special Scarborough Matinees, when there would be a curtain speech welcoming and thanking members of the Future Residents of the Don Jail Club. Only six shootings the entire run - a Club record!

WARNING: ANGRY PARAGRAPH APPROACHING

I made the mistake of once again reading the reviews. I always do; I'm too nosey not to. In my particular case, the critics were split a pretty even fifty-fifty. Depending on whom you read, I was either the weakest link or one of the strongest. Which is so confusing! How am I supposed to know what to think of myself?! Oh well....guess I'll just go back to my default opinion that I AM FUCKING AWESOME. Some dickhead in the Sun, I think it was, said that the design was flawless and then in his paragraph-long diatribe against me, blamed me for the shoes I wore, of which he didn't approve. How did he know that they had made the actors stay up nights in Calgary, designing and cobbling our own shoes? Weird. The reviews that were harshest on the production were tempered by the fact that John Steinbeck himself didn't even escape the bile. Kamal Al SuckMyAss, of the Globe and Mail, said that while the novel is a beautiful and enduring classic, the play is a sentimental old chestnut that doesn't bear remounting. Strange, considering Steinbeck wrote them both and that they're almost word for word the same. Anyway, I felt in good company indeed.

Thought I'd be clever and wear the sexy green dress that I wore to the wedding in Vancouver to Canstage Opening Night. After all, it had gotten great reviews in Vancouver - strangers on the street calling out "Where did you get that dress?", gorgeous, fat burlesque dancers climbing all over me at the reception...... Who wouldn't want to repeat that? And besides, no one in Toronto had seen it. But then some stupid Ontario friends who went to the wedding just had to come to opening in Toronto, and be all supportive and stuff. Courtenay Stephens is now under the impression that I own one dress. You can't know, dear readers, how hard that is for me. ME, of all people! I actually have the biggest evening gown grow-op in Ontario. The smell of taffeta in the hallway is starting to make my neighbours suspicious.

It was a little sad to see the ol' Steinbeck go, though we had a good long run at it. Just a great gang, both on and off stage. Too bad I've forgotten all of their names. I was hoping what's his name might hire me for something some time. Oh well.

To hold the unemployment demons (albeit not the bill collectors) at bay, my mom, the lovely Lolita, suggested a mini-vacation to New York just after closing.

I think I ought to travel more in general. First of all, I love being away and broadening my horizons, if only so that I will have new and more numerous things to make fun of. And that's important. Secondly, I'm having a lot of fun, in this era of hyper-security, in seeing how much I can get away with at airports. At first, I would honestly forget I'd packed a nail clipper or a pair of tweezers or something. At the Calgary airport, I accidentally went through the scanny beepy thing (yes, that IS the technical term) with a pocket full of change - and no scanny beepiness! On my most recent flight I got through U.S. security with two lighters, several packs of matches and a dazzling assortment of undeclared liquids and gels. Next time I'm bringing a hunting knife, with which, after boarding the plane, I will pick my teeth while staring at fellow passengers in a menacing way. I'm not quite sure if there's a non menacing way to pick one's teeth with a knife while on an airplane..... If there is, I'll avoid it.

We also quite enjoyed the airport staff. Except for one dink at the Montreal airport (where we had a stopover en route to NY) who made fun of my French the second I opened my mouth and said it was "worser dan" his English, and then called me a "pretty lass"......everyone was great. A security chick at Pearson actually handed me back my I.D. saying "You're awesome". Chubby, nerdy U.S. customs officer Dansby happily chatted with us, taught us some interesting trivia, and called out "Ciao, Bella" when we walked away.

And what can I say about New York, really? First of all, I have no idea what to say because I can't remember it. It was so long ago now that I've forgotten all the details, and this as much a lesson in how old and senile I'm getting as anything else. Vague memories of tall buildings.... aggressive drivers...noise...Jon Voigt lookin' stupid...Diane Keaton in a shirt and tie...Dustin Hoffman in a dress.... Pretty good celebrity spottings, huh?

Speaking of celebrity spottings, we probably had the lamest ones of all time. We saw, not necessarily in order of unimportance: 1) The guy who plays Larry's agent, Jeff, on Curb Your Enthusiasm. Maybe. I only saw the back of his head. 2) Some celebrity chef from some assy chef show in which he shouts at people on TV. Mom recognized him but couldn't remember his name, and if she had any feeling about him, it was a mild desire to kick him in the shins. And 3) Some Guy sitting near us in a pizzeria who I thought might be on a reality show or something but maybe not maybe he just looks like someone I knew once in school or something.

The most important person we met was probably this round and funny teenaged rapper who chatted us up and tried to get us to buy his homemade CD (after leaping out at us from behind and yelling in my ear, making me jump seven feet into the air). He said he was related to some "famous" hip hop artist I'd never heard of, and promised us he would make it big soon, too. Someday I'll see his big fat face on MTV and I'll regret not having had my picture taken with him. Or just going to bed with him, which was his other, very generous offer. He actually used the line "Once you go black you'll never go back." Look, I've had back-and-forth privileges since high-school, baby. Don't tell me where I can't go.

We did see Jon Stewart, but he wasn't within hugging - or shin-kicking - range. Mom and I are both huge fans, and this being her belated birthday vacation, I thought I'd surprise her by booking tickets to a taping of the Daily Show. Yes, free tickets, big spender that I am.....but we all know it's not about the money - or didn't you watch your Christmas specials this season, boys and girls? Of course, you can't just book tickets and show up; they routinely overbook the show by half, so you have to get there early to ensure a seat. An odd birthday present, really: Surprise! You get to sit on urine-smelling pavement for three hours waiting to see something we could have watched on TV later tonight! But we did get to see Jon in person. And he comes out between the warmup dude and the taping to field questions from the audience. I sat there petrified with fear that either Lolita would say something mortifying, or that I would be unable to stop myself from blurting out the only question I could think of, which was "WILL YOU EVER LOVE ME AS MUCH AS I LOVE YOU?!" Not cool.

After the Daily Show we went for a fantastic dinner at a very good Ethiopian place, the name of which I of course don't remember. (See? Old.) New York - or I should say Manhattan, which was all we had time for - was a pretty great gourmet-on-a-reasonable-budget experience. Between wandering around and trusting serendipity to do its bit, which it always seems to, and an emailed Cheap Eats guide courtesy of Derrick Chua, we just went around happily stuffing our faces for four days straight. At first when deciding, we'd say, "Oh look, this place is Zagat rated"....until we noticed that every fricking restaurant in the city is in the Zagat Survey. The street meat vendors have been reviewed for God's sake. Breast-feeding babies get shoved aside by food critics: "Move it, kid; we haven't reviewed these boobs yet." "What do you have to do to get a good table at this rack?" "We gave her crotch a great rating last year - you'd think she'd be grateful for all the business we've gotten her."

My favourite may have been an adorable and delicious joint on 10th Ave called Empanada Mama. Great food, cool decor and a cute waitress with a funny accent. We thought at first of limiting our trip to Matriarchal experiences, like Don't Tell Mama piano bar, the MOMA, Empanada Mama, Mamma Mia, etc. Fortunately, we're not morons. One fun meal was at Mara's Homemade (almost a Mama name) in the East Village, a personal recommendation from Derrick, who drops in whenever he's in town. It's a Cajun/southern comfort food place, run by a cool chick from Texas who you'd swear was a born-and-raised New York Jew. We feasted on oysters and barbeque ribs and catfish and collard greens and crawfish etoufee and sucked back hurricanes all night.

When Mama Lo was in the washroom having her wash, I secretly ordered a chocolate souffle, and when it came, I, timid Canadian, coaxed a bunch of New Yorkers into singing her Happy Birthday. Dessert was warm and gorgeous and gooey, and I was feeling the same way at this point, so I decided then to be all generous and make this a Big Birthday Meal On Me. Of course, I was doing the math through a haze of rum and chocolate......so it didn't turn out quite as smooth and cool as intended. "Happy Birthday! Um.....do you have a twenty on you?" And then we walked out into a crazy wind and rainstorm. Hey, better than the pee-covered sidewalk.

Our hotel was The Paramount on 46th Street, a block from Times Square and right across from the half-price ticket booth. It's a pretty groovy boutique hotel where everything is designed by Philippe Starck, and where they pay good looking people to hang about the lobby being cool. Shaun Smyth later told me there's a line in Patrick Marber's play Closer about the Paramount Hotel being staffed entirely by hookers. So you can get a little more than a mint on your pillow if you know what I mean. If only I'd known. Come on, people, you need to give me useful travel tips before I go somewhere.

The rooms, according to the Paramount website, feature "the now legendary gilt-framed headboards, most depicting images from famous Vermeer paintings". Ours were blank. Blank canvasses. Legendary my ass. Mama Lolita suggested we fill them in with our sharpies. I was thinking feces. You know, I like to live on the edge. Plus I like to mention poo in my emails whenever possible.

Speaking of legendary art/poo (check this segueway, people!), we spent most of one day at the MOMA, which was fantastic. Had the classic "I could have made that" vs. "Yeah but you didn't" argument, which is unresolvable but fun.

Did Central Park, too, of course. I'd convinced La Lolita to add one pair of non-pointy, un-high-heely shoes to her collection - and that was a struggle; we kept the staff at Discount Shoe Warehouse up waaay past their bedtimes, while she tried on every shoe in the place....including all the pointy black leather high-heeled boots. Anyway, I had to teach her how to walk in flat shoes, and she did crawl a lot of the way, but we had a lovely time, and Central Park was amazingly beautiful and still autumnal, by which I mean lots of purty leaves on the trees.

Have I mentioned the weather? Aside from that windy rainstorm - which was a lot of fun to walk in, actually, and strangely pretty in its spectacle of abandoned broken umbrellas everywhere like the corpses of crows - the weather was amazing. Mostly grey, but so beautifully warm that we were walking around in T-shirts half the time. We're talking mid-November here. We'd walk out of our hotel, take off our coats....and Al Gore would come running across the street with a blanket, crying "Cover yourselves up for Chrissake! Don't encourage it!" Poor Al. If only he could learn to love Global Warming, like the rest of us.

We only hit one play while in town. I figure we watch so much theatre at home that we didn't need to spend our entire vacation sitting inside in the dark. I mean it's not like we're from Moosenee and only get to see the local seniors put on Dreamgirls once a year. Our pick was The Drowsy Chaperone, good little Canadians that we are. I had seen the Toronto Fringe production in '99, and it was great to see it all expanded and so successful.

Our only other dark theatre experience was seeing Babel at the fifty-something screen Empire Theater on 42nd Street, and we only did that because some passerby, hearing us discuss whether we were too tired for it, fairly forced us to go inside. The man felt so strongly about us seeing this movie, I thought he'd cry if we chose not to. I now suspect he works there. When we left, he was in tears telling some tourists how moved he was by Jackass 2.

All in all, New York was fucking fantastic. I found myself, while looking down from a revolving restaurant high above the city, thinking "How do I get to live here?" And wondering how long it would take until I did. This was on my very first day. People who know me even a little have always told me I would love New York. They were definitely not wrong.

Since coming home, I've been living the unemployed life, catching up with friends and my apartment, celebrating Christmas with my family, doing the occasional audition. Don't think life is all just one big lazefest for me, though: I've decided to devote myself quite seriously to the art of masturbation. I mean, there are just too many armchair masturbators out there who do it as a hobby, and not enough people really putting in the time and dedication it takes to further it as an art form. I proudly consider myself a professional. For tips on how to join our ranks, go to www.wanking/whyjustahobby.ca .

Another industrious move is my taking baby steps toward getting my driver's license at long last. I'm doing Young Drivers of Canada, and my Dad's joke that I should be at Middle-aged Drivers was confirmed when I walked into a YD classroom full of sixteen year-olds. The in-class portion of the training was all this week at Bloor and Islington, with a bunch of rich Etobicoke kids who can't wait to get their hands on Daddy's SUV. I mean, teenagers have always wanted Hummers, but that used to mean something different. Something much more innocent.

At first I was disheartened by how reticent these kids were. They were so concerned with being cool, so worried about looking stupid, that they wouldn't answer anything, let alone ask any questions. For instance, there were the Sarahs, two blond high school hotties and obvious BFFs (that's Best Frendz 4Evah, oldie). The Sarahs sat at the back and didn't talk to anyone except each other and their cell phones. If the instructor asked one of them a question, they'd look at one another and giggle and say "I dun-noOOoo". If anyone else spoke to them, you'd hear a faint beeping and a tiny voice calling "Intruder Alert. Intruder alert. Outsider attempting entry to Sarahtown." Yeah. It was weird. Lucky for you, if they ever manage to get licensed they will outfit their matching Escalades with vanity plates that say I'MDUM and YAY. Wow... Should I have put an anger warning on this paragragh, too? You'd think cute blond girls were mean to me in high school. When in fact it was the Chinese.

Over the week, a few of the students did come out of the cool shell, which is nice. My favourite was The Doomsayer, who seemed to have a morbid example for everything the instructor brought up. Like "Yeah, you have to be careful? Cuz my cousin was driving, right? And this guy threw down a bucket of acid from an overpass? And it like burned through her windshield and melted her face." Or "I read in the paper one time about how with hatchbacks, sometimes all four tires just, like, fly of off all of a sudden. And then you get raped."

The holidays have been great except for the complete lack of snow. For those of you not in Toronto, we didn't have a single flake of snow for Christmas. Well, there was one......but he looked around, said "What the hell....I thought there was supposed to be a party down here tonight," and went straight back up. Al Gore ran after him, screaming "Come back!!! Come back!!!! Bring your friends! Pleeeeeeeaaaase!!!!!"

Tonight is New Year's Eve and I'm exhausted, since Tracy Dawson and I went out last night determined to go dancing the night before New Years Eve, and I was up till five. I hate going out on the 31st and being surrounded by drunken assholes. I'm drunken asshole enough for me, thank you very much. I don't need any other morons stealing my thunder. Shortly I shall rent some stupid movies and head over to Bunker's to hang about and try to feel the year change.

I do encourage you all to make at least one New Year's Resolution, the Lisa Norton way, which is......pick something easy! Really....choose one or more totally attainable goals and don't worry about the big ones like "Quit Smoking" and "Stop the Killing Spree". You will never win with those. A couple of years ago, I chose "Take the Stairs", and I have scarcely ridden an escalator since. Last year? Stop complaining about the weather. And my great big resolution this year: Don't Swallow Your Gum. This one I started early, and it's proving SO DAMN EASY that I may have to add another. Of course I have been swallowing gum for twenty years or more, so I may have a relapse at some point. If I show up at your house at three a.m. begging for Hubba Bubba, well.... give me some. But FOR THE LOVE OF GOD make sure I throw it out when I'm done. Anyway, regarding my next resolution, I'm open to suggestions. As long as you take mine. You shall begin by wearing less underwear. And drinking eight to ten glasses of brine per day. Nothing like it for the kidneys. Send ideas to: http://www.youhavetoomuchtimeonyourhandsnortonyouidiot@loser.net/

Stay tuned for tips on how to live like a tourist in your own hometown, a fool-proof method for making your children behave, and instructions for building an eight foot christmas tree out of pipe cleaners and icing sugar. Oh, who am I fooling? I already told you that all I do is play with myself.

Keep hope alive (unless it signed something saying it didn't want to be on life support),

Your coolest friend,

Lisa