Third Quarter Prospectus

Holy... shit!

So I'm minding my own business, actually just finished business and the business of drinking for the evening. I had to pound that one extra Jäger just to cope with yet another chef with a blimp sized ego. What is that? You make food... that's *okay*, at best. Get over yourselves.

[ False sense of entitlement ]

So I get home around, I don't know, 3:00am (?) and I check my Lava account. It's habit.

I don't respond to smiley bits anymore. Sometimes I respond to IM's, but only if his initial contact goes beyond "hi". I always respond to emails, though. I figure if someone's spent the 6 credits and has created something thoughtful to say, it would be rude not to respond.

So I get this email. Subject line is :)

He sent his hidden pictures right away, which I never launch until I read the profile first.

Here's his profile:
I suppose people in bars just seem too busy getting drunk to be an option anymore. This is the alternative and it's almost like shopping? Well, here's a bit about me...I live in Toronto I'd like meet someone here and see where it goes. Chemistry is important, but leave your bunsen burner at home. That is to say, it really doesn't matter to me what kind of job you have or car you drive. I think Shania has a song about that.

Lets see...um...for fun I like movies,...Uh?..cooking...does getting drunk count?..er?..oh! I know! Occasionally foraging for nuts down by the brook or falling asleep in a leafy glade! Okay that's a lie, I don't think I have ever foraged for a nut in my life. I get them from the grocery store like everyone else. I also love music, if you play an instrument thats a big bonus for me. I suppose if you really enjoy yourself no matter what you're doing, then we might get along. I almost forgot, bargains and pirates are amoungst my favaorite things. Please don't be a pirate though, I ususally don't go for girls with eye patches. Umm, what else...I have traveled more than some but less than others. And finally, my new favorite book is "We", written by some cheery Russian guy. It's a dystopian novel which supposedly insipred Orwell's 1984. I know, I know, but it was either that or "Bunnicula".

If this at all sounds interesting, you know what to do.

Okay, so this is interesting. Good sense of humour. The only danger is the Shania reference. But he makes up for it in the "We" Orwellian predecessor book. And Bunnicula, in truth.

So I launch the pictures.

Holy... shit!

He's fucking G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S!

Here's his letter:
I am still smiling to myself after reading your profile. I don't know if I would use the word "delicious" to describe how I smell nor am I totally comfortable with asking my roommate how I smell in order to find out. I am sending over some pictures, if you like what you see, then check out my profile and maybe we can chat sometime.

by the way, I have great hair, but that's a whole other email ;)

P

So then I write back:
Hello P... if that's your *real* hair, I mean name!

Okay, confession: I read profiles before I launch pictures. I'm more interested in brains than I am in the rest of the stuff that more than likely fades, or we get used to. I write back to everyone who writes a letter. So, here I am writing.

Okay, real confession: You are singularly the best looking person crossing my Lava path... but we won't talk about your hair... if it is all yours.... And regarding your smell: Hey, you could smell like a bag of Doritos and you'd probably wear the scent well, too. Rat bastard!

Thank you for sending me bits of stuff and thinking I'm swell. I've been accused of "awesome" often... apparently. (Not that I'm selling myself)

... if I like what I see! That's funny. What am I blind?!

Best,

C
P.S. Oh, I guess you want to see mine (pictures). Warning: You have WAY better hair. (If I didn't like talking about it I'd now be spirally into a massive bout of self-flaggelation and excessive blaming of poor genetic coding on my parents. Thanks Mom! Thanks Dad!)

I've been thinking about how essential it is to have prospects. Whatever that means to the individual. They could be creative endeavours, romantic, friends. I think it's really necessarily to have someone or something to think about, who's maybe thinking about you or something you can't wait to get back to. It kind of gives me more reasons to get my cat off my head and get the hell out of bed.

aNd NOw THis fRoM tHe aNNaLs oF bRowSiNg

I was reading Death's blog and began browsing when I came upon a young lady from Maryland, USA. Nineteen years of age. Loves her boyfriend, I suppose, as she wrote this:

"I kNeW YoU WhEn I SaW YoU, I LoVe YoU aNd oNLy yOu. YoU MaDe Me FeeL ThAt I aM SpEcIaL. YoU GaVe me LoVe tHat I NeVer FeLt BeForE. YoUr LoVes MeAns a LoT for ME, EveN ThOugh ThAt U were FaR aWaY frOm me, I kNeW ThAt U wiLL alWaYs Be MINE..."

Under the Favorite Music category, she wrote:

"FuCK it (I doN't WaNt U bacK)"

Who the *fuck* is tainting the water supply? That's what I want to know.

People of Maryland: Demand the immediate return of the riotous, hellion, obnoxious, irreverent, rebellous brains that were obviously stolen from your offspring.

The fruit of your loins, citizens!

I implore you!

The New Physics: L = S D R

Some people are creatures of habit. I am not one of these. I'm more of a creature of phases. Cycles. I'll voraciously do something for a while, but eventually something happens and I suddenly stop. I, admittedly, get bored of things.

And people.

Alas.

I don't hang around a group of people; never have. I've blinked astonishingly at the concept of Friends, the series, because I cannot grasp how 6 people can just hang around each other all the time. Every single day. The same six people.

This is depressing to me.

We just hired a new busboy at work. Daniel. Awesome. What I like most about him is he works hard, he does his job, but he also genuinely likes people and likes talking to customers; not your run of the mill, distainful, "Who's having the steak?" variety. He's inquisitive and he talks about stuff. He admitted to me last night that as much as his job is menial and pays very little, he'll stand next to me as I'm ringing something into the computer, say, unaware that I'm saying [singing really], "Vagina, vagina, vagina", and he'll beamingly look at me and say, "I love my job." After introducing him to The Killers and making individual introductions to every single person down at my neighbourhood bar; discussing important matters such as who will be buying the next round and other hot topics, he confessed he'd been so bored with his life from just a week ago: hanging out with the same people, going to the same places, talking about the same stuff. After his fourth shift he gleefully announced:

I am his new best friend. Yay me!

I think that's what I like most about meeting new people: it's kind of like when you're a kid and every experience is a new one. Every game is made fresh with someone new that moved into the neighbourhood, from another neighbourhood that had slightly different rules for Hide 'n Seek, say. We, the established neighbourhood kids, would gather round this new "guru" awaiting new, exotic instructions on this game we felt we'd mastered. We learned very early no game is ever mastered.

I work with another fella named Matt who is a self-professed Human Fortress. Doesn't like change, inherently. He looks at new people as a threat. In the past he's put the old kibosh on me. Apparently I was über-threatening, and the sick efforts he took took such hold on me, as my shame mechanism is dangerously trigger-happy sometimes, that I quit my job back in the summer. When I returned in the fall, after a couple of weeks he finally started warming up to me. This had taken a year of careful, consistent actions on my part, and a great deal of forgiveness and understanding for when he finally, earnestly and shamefully apologised for his behaviour. For me, it was a great lesson in patience and understanding. We've surprisingly become very good friends of late and this has made me nearly jump up and down for pure joy. Hooray for that!
I've been thinking about this whole relationship thing. Being in one, that is. Not too long ago it was something I devoted many waking and, I'm sure, sleeping hours considering.

Who is he?
When will he appear?
What will he look like?
Smell like?
Where the hell is he?!

I'd just had an epiphany yesterday as I was responding to a blog.

To preface, I've historically been a serial monogamist. I've been married twice and inbetween I've had rather long relationships. I've been single for several months now, the longest period in all of my adult years. This is the first time I've felt totally responsible for only myself. I no longer have a curfew. I don't have to rush home to share a meal with someone else. The mess I make at home is only my mess, not a collective. All bathroom business is conducted with the door open. I play my music when I want and however loud I want to... and when I'm done playing, it's shut off. Strange, but I'm so happy knowing no one will put a key in my door and come in.

I haven't felt L-O-N-E-L-Y for months!

Back to the epiphany: Weeks ago I wanted desperately to fall in love again. This was the number one reason I left my mostly sound marriage. I thought it would happen right away. I'd never really had difficulty finding love. I guess mostly because I freely give it out, the love stuff bred of comradery and friendship. It's endless and plentiful, but the romantic stuff... well, this time it's different. I'm harnessing it now. And so are others.

I think the vascular explosion, though only 3.2 on the Richter scale of heartbreak, back in July, informed me of a few things.
1. I'm not ready.
2. I don't know if I'll ever be ready.

I wrote to a young man about the friends we make, say, our best friends. We may have had them since birth. I can actually make that claim. That is 36 years of knowing someone, outside of one's immediate family. Do we speak everyday? No. Do we speak every year? We try to, but some years we don't get around to it. We're still friends though.

36 years. There are couples that stay together that long. Forever and ever, just like the fairy tales say.

Forever and Ever.

Forever sharing the same bed.
Forever sharing the bathroom.
Forever making plans, not without first consulting the other.
Forever taking vacations... together.
Forever sharing the same friends.
Forever looking into the same pair of eyes every single day.
Forever having sex with only one person for the rest of your life.

This depressed me.

Just about every married couple I know is miserable.

We change jobs every two years, sometimes full careers every five years.

This makes me feel liberated.

I was out with Ack, the ex-husband/best friend, today for lunch. He was telling me a story about a physics professor at Harvard. One of his students asked to see which of Einstein's formulae was inscribed on the back of his watch. The inscription read: L= SDR. The student never heard of this formula, so he asked.

Life= Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n Roll.

See, now THIS makes sense to me.

Conjugating Verbs

DO
MAKE
SAY
THINK

At the Phoenix Concert Theatre last night.

Wall of [ S O U N D ].
Epic and grande in structure.
Post-rock, or Space-rock, if you like.
Builds until you want to E-X-P-L-O-D-E.
It's like rock meets classical meets jazz meets God.

If I had to choose, I'd still pick Godspeed You Black Emperor! or Mogwai, but they weren't playing last night.

Boy, I love what some people can do with their instruments. Mr. Couke, you old fuddy-duddy, you never taught me how to do THOSE things with my bass... you BASTARD! I'd still be making music now! Crap!!

Have You Hugged a Drunk Today?

I work in a restaurant that gets pretty busy particularly on the weekends. It's not uncommon to have line-ups out the door and also not uncommon for people to be waiting for over 90 minutes. Personally, I wouldn't do it, but the food is really, really good and it's a fun environment, so I understand the appeal. Before working there it was my favourite restaurant.

I'd like to offer a tip, if I may be so bold. If you're going out for dinner, could you please call the restaurant and make a reservation either early (7pm) or late (9pm or later)? This ensures that two seatings can exist. If you come at 8:00 there can only, really, be one, which leaves a whack of people who are "starving" seething at the door. And we, the poor slobs that work at such establishments, have to deal with their outbursts. Couple an inordinately long wait with low blood sugar levels and high alcohol levels in the bloodstream and you get what happened on Saturday night.

When people wait they like to keep busy. Since we cut out the whole smoking thing in Toronto (cursed, cursed, cursed... nobody ever got my vote), unless one treks outside, huddling close to one another for warmth and companionship, there exists one less thing one can do in the Great Indoors. If you can, might I suggest eating at the bar. It's fun! I prefer to eat at the bar, rather than at a table, as you can share food better, maybe touch the thighs of people next to you and rub their backs (whether you know them or not). When it's packed at the bar and there's no room to eat, what some people think is really fun is performing the very bonding ritual of pounding shooters on an empty stomach.

Bad idea.

And shooters disappear rather quickly, and one still finds a need for a principal drink: Beer. Wine. 3oz Martini. Or all of the above, in succession.

Another bad idea.

And then once they're good and drunk there's always the possibility of not being a "Good Drunk". There are Good Drunks and there are Bad Drunks. Here are the basic characteristics:

Good Drunk
1. Laughs a lot, especially at her own jokes. (Okay, that's me)
2. Really generous and wants to buy everyone drinks, whether they know that person or not.
3. Keeps telling you how much they love you.
4. Thinks you're hot.
5. Is very sorry.
6. Says, "Okay" when you cut them off.
7. Tells amusing definitions as found on urbandictionary.com, such as The Harry Houdini

Bad Drunk
1. Loses hearing faculties and starts yelling everything they say.
2. Really "generous", buying people drinks but only so she doesn't drink alone and everyone thinks she's great.
3. Wants to show you how strong they are by either offering up an arm wrestle or a punch up.
4. Emphatically points... a lot.
5. Spits on you while trying to make a point that's been in the works for the last 20 minutes.
6. Is belligerent.
7. Forgets how to use her "words" and launches into a Tourettes-like profanity tyrade on how the world is unjust... just to her.
8. Starts shaking her neck.
9. Is never sorry, as it is YOUR fault.
10. ALWAYS ends up in tears (if it's a girl), or a punch-up (if it's a boy)

We had a little lady (4'6") come in who was waiting for over 90 minutes on Saturday night. Pretty blue eyes made slightly grotesque from the bulging induced by the hurling of obscenities and the lack of focused clarity which is fairly inherent with sobriety, but completely absent that evening. She was drunk and becoming more and more "Ghetto". Point #8 being a telltale sign in the Bad Drunk section. The little sprite turned troll.

The Caustic Elf was having difficulties because she invited guests, her clients, who had never been to our restaurant. It has received many fine reviews and is a fun little neighbourhood spot. The wait was a poor reflection on her and the poor little imp was losing it on every, to her, NBA player in the vincinity.

How to handle a Bad Drunk:
1. NEVER lose it. In this case, fire truly cannot fight fire.
2. If they are screaming, listen to them and tell them, in a very soothing tone, you truly understand what they're saying while gently rubbing their back. Touch therapy works. No slapping or patting of backs, just gently rubbing.
3. Let them know, still gently, if they're acting out of line, being rude or offensive. Drunks tap in very closely to their shame reflexes.
4. ALWAYS look them straight in the eye. It freaks them out and makes them sheepish.
5. Hug them. They love it! Who wouldn't? Though, fair warning, you may get groped.
6. Bring things to a close, similar to the end of a sales pitch, and let them know when it's time for them to leave.

Though I'm tempted, I can't add a #7, as I did something I'd never done before. As The Caustic Elf was more than a foot shorter than I, and I felt I was making headway with my Guideposts, I *kissed* her on her forehead and I think I patted her on her bum to send her back to her party. When I was telling Ack about this he said that action was dangerously close to condescension. Let's not mince words, it was condescension. She was acting like a little girl and little girls should be treated like little girls and little girls sometimes get kissed on the forehead. She liked it. After dinner I hand-fed her cheesecake in the great mother's style of a choo-choo train and the infamous "airplane", which the latter, incidentally, her party had requested I do.

Don't get too upset with the drunk people in your life, or if you are the drunk person in other peoples lives. I understand. I have a special little soft spot for drunks. I think a lot of drunk people are that way because they feel so much of the world's responsibility resting on their shoulders. Real or imagined. The Little Imp really wanted to make a good impression on her clients and things weren't working out as she'd planned. I don't think any of my closest friends haven't been seriously hammered to the point of violently hurling until their eyeballs felt like they were going to pop out of their sockets. I know that's happened to me. [A word to the wise: Stay clear from Smirnoff Black Label Vodka]

Please, if you can, try to understand where they came from to understand why they are in the state they are in. Oh, and give 'em a big hug.

A Companion to The Complicated Compilation Conflagraton

I had two very thoughtful replies from my new friends in Arizona and California states yesterday that I wanted to respond to regarding my last post. I cannot express enough to anyone how delighted I am that there is Blogger and that I have these incredibly bright and thoughtful people actually reading what I've written (?!) and then having a thoughtful response (!). When I describe the experience to friends in my Real World, I always find myself saying, "...and I don't even KNOW these people!"

So here is my appeal, to some, or one, anyway:

My friend Death likes plenty of righteous tunes. She LOVES Joey Ramone. She loves Andrew W.K., The Raveonettes. These are very specific tempos. And it is kind of "happy" music for the slightly twisted. The tempo is very quick and dancable and says very little lyrically. She is old school, preferring punk, whereas my tastes lean towards post-punk. It's a little slower, with deeper bass.

I believe everyone has an internal vibration level. I don't believe that we were born with the tempo of house music coursing through our cells. Nor rap music. But that's just me. There are plenty of people that love those genres and try as I might, and sometimes I do get into the former, but only when I'm running around like myself, the chicken, with my head cut off, I don't get it. Again, personal histories inform.
Tempos, genres, key signatures, instrument preferences, vocal stylings, lyrics; these are all the things that are interesting things to explore in ourselves and in others. How does any or all of the above truly cotton onto to one person, but creates a flatline or serious dissonance in another? This is fascinating to me. Everything and everyone gets loved... eventually, by someone. But not by everyone.

We all need TIME to discover what we love.

That's the bit that makes us unique. That's the point I was trying to make.

I have joyfully burnt countless full album discs and compilations for friends. And will continue to do so. I am grateful anytime anyone has done this for me. This time, however, I was asked to create a Top 20, but with stipulations. When there are omission requests, it's as if you've lined up your family and someone has come up with a Glock and shot a couple of your favourite cousins, point blank, in the head.

To get to know others, it's essential that we get to know ourselves. I am not much different than anyone else, really, in the grand scheme of things. I believe we feel things universally. I feel shame. I feel vindicated. I feel love. I feel hate. I feel stupid... But I allow myself to fully feel everything. This allowance is a choice, could be viewed as a luxury. This also takes time.

I don't shroud myself with "keeping busy" anymore. I fight for my own time. I don't stay at functions that don't serve me in the end. I stopped making polite conversation years ago.

There is a wonderful essay in November 2004's Harper's magazine titled, Quitting the Paint Factory: On the Virtues of Idleness, by Mark Slouka. When it hits the stands, please, please get it. He drew his inspiration from Bertrand Russell's famous essay on the same topic. Check it!

When we're busy making money, climbing ladders (that anyone can knock us off, at any time, because there's always going to be someone above us with a size 12 shoe with a trigger-happy foot), making the big deal, working 12 (!) hours a day, we're too spent at the end of the day to do much of anything else... just for us. We've already relegated ourselves to being Bought-men and Bot-girls for the Man. All the brainspace we have left is to watch the TV who is watching us.

My flat refusal to burn a copy of my Top 20 for my friends, and this is political, is to force them into a place where they create time for themselves to find the beauty that was once a mandate. Before deadlines, before saving for an inflated condo, before pining for a flatscreen, before becoming the Yes Man to whomever, we all *made* the time in our teens. We wanted desperately to know ourselves. That was the thing that kept us remotely sane in all that insanity. The school administration has always tried to keep us busy, quashing the efforts of finding the things that would make us truly rounded as citizens, not fucking consumers. Merely a number. I had to do windsprints in middle school. This is running up and down grassed hills, on a 30 degree incline, for 45 minutes. I didn't even smoke then and I was horking up matter. I realised just recently that they were trying to stave off sexual urges. Didn't really work, though. We were all horny, but just really exhausted.

Back to my virtual friends. Understand one is a musician, or an aural artist, and the other is a visual artist. Maybe they have "real jobs" that actually pay for those nights that we want someone else to pour our beer, but that is inconsequential. One still plays in a band and one still makes visual art. These are choices they've made. These are things they do for themselves, and in doing these things it brings them closer to themselves. Creating the stuff we choose, or discovering new things, on our own terms, brings us all closer to ourselves. I'm talking about free will and the unequivicable need to find the beauty and the full expression that, in this case, music brings to the individual.

This young lady would like to share her list, prefacing first with the companion letter accompanying it:
When I was compiling this, my Top 20 List, I likened the process to being naked with someone for the first time. There’s this tremendous nervousness and wondering how the other person is going to react to our various imperfections which we magnify under our own scruntiny. “Oh, God; what is he going to think?”

The tremendous thing about being 35 is that one starts caring about what other people think less and less. That and we become more discerning. Hopefully our tastes grow and mature. The trouble with growing up is sometimes when we take a hard right turn that little person that used to be us gets thrown out the back passengerside door. So when we make a pitstop at a diner on the side of the highway, we realise that the kid’s not in the backseat. So we have to go back. The kid’s a little pissed off, feeling a bit abandoned, but willing to forgive. Thank God.

There are bands that I love so much it was difficult to choose which track. Sometimes I loved a particular song for a time but when I looked back at the time it was fraught with stuff that’s simply not applicable anymore. A pair of shoes that don’t fit, a crutch I no longer need. These ones didn’t make it in.

There were certain criteria that needed adhering. The reasons I chose each are for very unique reasons, though there is a through-line. Playing it like you mean it, like it was the only song they had to write/perform, where a person could satisfactorily say, “Okay, I did it; I can die in peace,” is chief among all. If it changed my little world it made it on here.

It could be a rhythm, maybe a hook, maybe the conclusion, maybe its epic scale, maybe, and this is most often the case, they are the crescendos. If it’s made me cry, be wistful or made me consider another point of view it’s on here. If its made me want to fight the good fight, it’s on here. If it’s made me want to fall in love, it’s here. If it’s changed me somehow, in a wonderful way, it’s on here.

There are kind of embarrassing ones. Included are the ones that are admittedly the least embarrassing. Omitted are Saturday Night, by the Bay City Rollers and something by Andy Gibb. They will secretly and silently get an honourable mention. There are those that have stood the test of time and there are some that are new. The ones I chose, I hope, reflect my authentic self. That’s the aim anyway.

To my new, dear friends: My Top 20, in no particular order; they just flowed best this way.
"THX" (the 30 second surround-sound wall that used to open movies)
"Concierto de Aranjuez", composer Joaquin Rodrigo, John Williams conducting
"Going The Distance", Rocky Soundtrack
"Do You Realize??" The Flaming Lips
"Something Changed", Pulp
"Waiting Like Mad", Ben Watt & Robert Wyatt
"Fake Plastic Trees", Radiohead
"Amie", Damien Rice
"Mad World", Donny Darko Soundtrack
"True", Spandau Ballet
"Lover's Spit", Broken Social Scene
"The Look Of Love", ABC
"Sweet Child O Mine", Guns N Roses
"This Is A Broadcast", The Dears
"Adagio for Strings, opus 11", Samuel Barber
"The Unforgettable Fire", U2
"Someone, Somewhere in Summertime", Simple Minds
"Section 13 (Diamonds/Devotion To Majesty),The Polyphonic Spree
"The Specialist", Interpol
"Still Life", Suede

I would love to hear yours.

Complicated Compilation Conflagration

I was IMing with my good friend, Death, the other day. She's in "luff", not quite love, not quite distain, but something distinctly inbetween. She was curious about my collection of music and was a little concerned that she wasn't keeping up with the stuff that is A) current and B) elicits an emotional response. Understand I am a highly emotional creature who is unwilling to ever take nullifying or remotely numbing drugs to stave off any of these emotions; feeling, or rather, intensely feeling things is kind of a strange mandate for me. Also understanding Music is my Boyfriend, she asked me to compile a Best of List as chosen by Sunshine (my nickname). She wanted me to compile a list because this music I listen to, am drawn towards, get introduced to regularly by the internet, friends, being in the right time at the right place, makes me utterly and completely *feel*.

Often it's cathartic; there's something bubbling just below the surface that wants desperately to come out, but has no real venue. Sometimes there is a succession of notes and bars that escalate, build, reward in such delicious ways that hope springs eternal, my heart resonates and tears stream down my face. Mogwai's Hunted by a Freak does that to me.

Sometimes it's a set of lyrics that seem so poignant at one particular moment of pathetic desperation, like Keane's She Has No Time:

You think your days are uneventful
And no one ever thinks about you
She goes her own way
She goes her own way

You think your days are ordinary
That no one thinks about you
But, we're all the same
But she can't hardly breathe without you...

And I'm trying, really trying not to have tears ruin what I've attempted to achieve with my mascara wand.

I really loved that Stevie Wonder had named that beautiful double album Songs in the Key of Life and that Dick Clark had appropriated pop music as the "Soundtrack of our Lives". But tastes are so individual. And the directions we go in, in our musical bents, are as individual as we are.

I'd read Dr. Phil's Relationship Rescue book a couple of years ago when I was trying to salvage my marriage. Great book, really. Did it help? Well... no, not really. In it, Phil had said this marvellous thing which will probably always stay with me. Talking about the interactions of men and women and how it was impossible to read the minds of the other person, he said, paraphrasing now, as I'd lent the book out to a friend who needed rescue with his own relationship: We don't share the same history, physiology, or sex as the other person... How are we to inherently understand one another?

But the not sharing the same history thing really stuck with me. That is what irrevocably makes us singular and unique. No one shares our same history. Something else I'd read somewhere, probably in a bathroom stall, was: We are changed by every person we meet, every movie we see, every book we read, essentially every new experience informs us and changes us... slightly.

Months ago I was asked to compile a Top 20 music list, which I did. I did so for a young man who was interested in getting to know me better. During the process I discovered I really got to know myself better. This was the Top 20 of All Time. Not just a current thing. I was incredibly tempted to put in The Bay City Rollers' Saturday Night, but chickened out, as it were.

Looking at it now, it seems, well... dated.

I was talking to Ack, sometimes referred to as Peenut, sometimes referred to as "her", the ex-husband/still best friend, about our friend David, who is with wife and 2 kids, who doesn't know about any new music right now. He stopped paying attention when he stopped working on music videos. Commerce again. He enjoys new music. He's often found pounding his palms against any remotely flat surface when something sweet is playing, which is often the case with both myself and Ack. David stopped caring about it, though. His life became something else. The experiences of both marriage and family informed him that certain luxuries like being alone with music were a bit too extravagent. That, and the only time he's actually alone occurs only when he's taking an extend-o-crap.

Then there's Dirty, one of my best girlfriends, who is too busy with work to find new music to listen to. She sometimes listens to... the radio. Not internet radio... just plain corporately structured, mass produced shit *they* want us to listen to. Buy. Consume. House music... the tempo of today for the people of today: frenetic mice on wheels.

All of these people, and more, have asked me to compile lists for them. Just about every one of them has placed a stipulation upon such a list. Omissions. "Don't put any Interpol on. No Polyphonic Spree hippy shit, thanks. Spandau Ballet? Are you nuts?" In essence, what it is is not wishing to see a through-line of where I'd been to lead me to where I am; a chronology, I guess. It struck me as more of the same of what's going on these days of people having less time and wanting more but reduced. Concentrated. With the empty promise of reconstitution later. No Pulp. Pulp was in the 90's.

So as I'm thinking now, what these people need is to create a little more time for themselves to explore new music. Maybe compile their own goddamned lists. One really can't explore much if it's heard at a party, with conversation. It takes away from the experience. We're always trying to do several things at the same time, to save time. But does it really save time? For what?

Compiling lists is fine. Personally, I'd love to hear my friends individual lists, not for any other reason than to try to understand them a bit more. And of course there'd be a new discovery along the way. I don't regret doing it back in the summer for my friend, because he honestly and earnestly wanted to know me better. That's a good reason. But to do it just so someone else can have the benefit of your own treasure hunt, to maybe elicit the same responses for themselves, which takes years and different histories, just for the reduction? The quick fix?

As LL Cool J once said, "No, I don't think so."

The Postal Service

Confession: I have this horrible inability to hear lyrics within a song until the fifth listen, at the very earliest. When my Robert was over for wine and kielbasa the other night we were listening to Postal Service and he got misty. All I heard was a cascade of Bontempi robotosounds. He said, "Listen to them".

And I did.

From their debut album, Give Up, Postal Service's Brand New Colony:

I'll be the grapes fermented,
Bottled and served with the table set in my finest suit
Like a perfect gentleman
I'll be the fire escape that's bolted to the ancient brick
Where you will sit and contemplate your day

I'll be the waterwings that save you if you start drowning
In an open tab when your judgement's on the brink
I'll be the phonograph that plays your favourite
Albums back as you're lying there drifting off to sleep...
I'll be the platform shoes and undo what heredity's done to you...
You won't have to strain to look into my eyes
I'll be your winter coat buttoned and zipped straight to the throat
With the collar up so you won't catch a cold

I want to take you far from the cynics in this town
And kiss you on the mouth
We'll cut out bodies free from the tethers of this scene,
Start a brand new colony
Where everything will change,
We'll give ourselves new names (identities erased)
The sun will heat the grounds
Under our bare feet in this brand new colony
Everything will change...

And that, my friends, is why I dig boys in their twenties.

And Now For Something (Not So) Completely Different...

Today's question is:

How does one delicately remove someone off her Instant Messenger list, without hurting the other person's feelings?

Hrm.

His name is Pete. He's very nice, in a very BORING way and we talk about VERY boring things... at length. He was really trying in the beginning with a desperate stab at finding beauty in things, all things really. I liked that but he didn't expand on the topic. Since the beauty shot he's resorted to topics which include scotch whiskey, Noam Chomsky, HTML coding and the origins of Quebecois French....

So, I'm back to wanting to kill myself.

Swearing off boys, I swear...

Out of Africa

Understanding I am prone to a tiny bit of hyperbole and like to create extra bits of drama where my little mind obviously lacks Gaultier designed costumes and Greenaway opulence, I offer this. To preface, my letter to Ghana, "cutting him off at the knees":

Dear, dear Inkoom,

I like your nickname very much! Does it mean something in your native language?

Just so you don't misunderstand, I know my interest on this website stated I was interested in love, but love to me means so many things. I can only offer the love of friendship and comraderie. I am thrilled to be able to correspond to someone as thoughtful as you and who has lived and is living in such exotic places to me. I hope it's fine that we will be friends and only friends. I would be very honoured to be your friend.

As for me, I was born in Toronto on September 1, 1968, so I am a little bit older than you. In my parent's culture if anyone is even a day older than you are, you must give that person a higher regard and respect simply because of age. I don't think this way. I think that people deserve respect if they are respectful people.

I have 3 siblings. My eldest brother is named Vincent, the second eldest is Walter and my sister is named
Eunice. They are 6, 7, and 8 years older than I. Everyone but Walter lives in Toronto with me, along with both of my parents.

My mother is from Hong Kong and my father is from theGuangdong province. They came to Canada to give us a better life than they had over there. I am very pleased they made that decision.

I work in a restaurant serving Italian food to hungry, and mostly nice people. In my spare time I like reading fiction, taking photographs, laughing with friends and riding my bicycle anywhere.

Unlike you, who seems like a very nice person, I do like to drink and I do like to smoke. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, I like these things a lot.

Are you building residential homes or commercial properties? Was it a difficult transition from Ghana to Hong Kong. Wow! It seems like such cultural confusion!

So good to hear from you!

And he replied:

Hello My Dear,
I am very sorry for the delayance of your reply. I went to China and over there the english language is a big problem. I found it difficult to locate where i can get a net bar to reply you. I am in Hong Kong now, I am very happy that u have replied my e-mail. I am doing well by the grace of Almighty God. And i am very optimistic that you are also in the same cetegory.

You are friendly and very kind lady. I am very proud of you. I was so excited when i read your mail. God richly bless you and i belive that all your dream wil come to pass. Anything you need in your life will be acomplished. I would be very greatfull if our friendship can remain for a very long time.

As i said earlir, I will be going to Europe and i will proceed further to America. I have a friend in America and there will be my final destination. I have received an invite from my friend and i am working on my visa. I was a contructor and i have been a contructor for about 10 yrs now. The company belongs to my father, I was a forman in the company. We were building for the salvation Army in Ghana.I will oneday give you my friend who is in the State Columbus-Ohio's number.

I want to end here with much greetings, and love to you.

In blogs past I stated that people weren't 9 years old anymore and no one wanted to be just penpals. I'm sure I gave a rather large, heaving sigh as I wrote that statement, but there are days that I am proven wrong, so delightfully wrong. Today was one of those days.

"Somewhere in my youth, or childhood... I must have done something good."
---------- Rogers and Hammerstein

The 2,800

My new friend Ryan was musing that he didn't believe in the One. In this world of billions and billions served, he believes that there are 2,800 potential Ones from all over the globe, designed for our specific pleasure, that could hold our attention and make us gleefully happy. Forever and ever? No. Hence the 2,800.

What would it be like if there was one day when you happened to go into a theatre or concert facility or the airport, some place that could hold 2,800 people,

AND
ALL
OF
THEM
WERE
THERE?

The most anticipated show this year.
Played the worst encore set I've ever heard in my life.
Still the demi-gods maintained the title.
Was dancing next to a very cute boy, who called me Love... repeatedly.
(He had the glorious combination of blue eyes and brown hair... yum)
Went to The Dance Cave in hopes to shake my ass... and maybe see cute boy again.
The bassist from Interpol was DJing.
!


Met the singer and the guitarist.
Shook the hand and kissed the cheek of the former, tried not to horrify the latter (painfully shy, he)

Was strangely disappointed, mostly by meeting them.
They have been demi-gods for some time and after meeting them they became so real.
I didn't like it.

Some things should just stay in our minds, because locked in there they're perfect.

More Productive

My friend PJ sent me over an article from today's NY Times. It goes like this:

9 Die in Japan Suicides Tied to Web
By James Brooke
Published: October 13, 2004

TOKYO, Oct. 12 - Nine people were found dead on Tuesday in two rented cars with the windows sealed and charcoal burners at their feet in pacts that the police said were facilitated by Internet suicide sites.

The police said that in the first car, a minivan that had been rented for the day, they found seven bodies, including teenagers and a 33-year-old woman who had left a note for her children. Parked on a mountain road in a Tokyo suburb, the gray van had been wrapped in blue plastic sheets with the windows taped closed. Inside, the woman's body was in the driver's seat, and there were three bodies on each of the van bench seats. All were believed to have died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

"Mother is going to die, but I was happy that I could give birth to you," said a note found next to the driver, according to Kyodo News. An empty package of sleeping pills was found near the van.

The group may have come together through a suicide message board on the Internet, Japanese news media quoted the police as saying. Japan has a suicide rate about twice the rate of the United States, and there are Web sites where people discuss suicide and suicide techniques. Some Web sites even sell kits offering "painless" suicide.

Using a cellphone, one of the seven in the van e-mailed a friend in northern Japan on Monday evening, giving the approximate location of the van, a police spokesman for Saitama, a Tokyo suburb, told Agence France-Presse. All the van's occupants were dead by the time the police arrived, just after dawn.

At almost the same time Tuesday morning, outside a temple in Yokusuka, about 75 miles to the south, the police found a rented car containing the bodies of two women, ages 21 and 27. They apparently had also asphyxiated themselves by burning charcoal in two stoves in the car. The police told Kyodo News that the two lived about 25 miles apart and had also apparently met through the Internet.

"This is not murder,'' read a message found in the women's car, according to Agence France-Presse. "We planned this." The police have asked Internet service providers to report information about chat group participants who post suicide plans on the Web, but the directive is believed to be largely ignored.

Last year, Japan reported a record 34,427 cases of suicide, a slight increase over previous years. From January 2003 to June 2004, 45 people committed suicide in groups after meeting through the Internet, according to the National Police Agency. In one case last month, four young people were found dead after burning charcoal in a car parked three miles from where the van was found Tuesday.

PJ sent this over to show me what's going on around the world with the aid of new technology. Chat rooms were designed for likeminded people to have a venue in which to share ideas, thoughts, opinions. No help, just commiserating; the latest techniques of sucking air out of a car, extinguishes life without too much pain. They'd suffered enough in life. Make the last remaining breath on earth the most painless.

I'd asked Ack months ago about the feelings I feel and how much I feel them. When I'm down I don't say I'm depressed. It's a very dark place, but not one where I'd consider leaving. Sometimes I forget I'll emerge out the other side. Those are particularly dark days. He said most people find it too much to bear, so they're immersed in therapy, given prescriptions to fill that don't allow them to feel too much. Instead of peaks and valleys they are given a more level feeling field. Numb.

"Fitter, happier, more productive, comfortable
Not drinking too much
Regular exercise at the gym, 3 days a week
Getting on better with your associate, employee,
Contemporaries, at ease
Eating well, no more microwave dinners and saturated fats
A patient better driver, a safer car, baby smiling in back seat
Sleeping well, no bad dreams, no paranoia
Careful to all animals, never washing spiders down the plughole
Keep in contact with old friends, enjoy a drink now and then
Will frequently check credit at moral bank, hole in wall
Favors for favors, fond but not in love
Charity, standing orders on Sundays
Ring, road, supermarket
No killing moths or putting boiling water on the ants
Car wash, also on Sundays
No longer afraid of the dark or midday shadows
Nothing so ridiculously teenage and desperate
Nothing so childish
At a better pace, slower and more calculated
No chance of escape
Now self-employed, concerned, but powerless
An empowered and informed member of society
Pragmatism not idealism
Will not cry in public, less chance of illness
Tires that grip in the wet
Shot of baby strapped in back seat, a good memory
Still cries at a good film
Still kisses with saliva, no longer empty and frantic
Like a cat tied to a stick that's driven into frozen winter shit
The ability to laugh at weakness
Calm fitter, healthier and more productive
A pig in a cage on antibiotics"

[ radiohead ]

This nation with all its technology, and its Hello Kitty's, Anime, Totoro... They provide the cutest exports. Media depicts them as smiling, laughing, bowing, soft tender voices, sheepish giggles behind opened hands, business cards, meek, yielding, healthy diets, slim builds, the lowest cancer rates, such high suicide rates.

Why?

Merely competition? Where does this seed come from? No one is looked at as an individual. They are numbers and numbers grow exponentially or get divided. It's not good enough to be happy. There is no happy, just the practiced look of happy. Goodbye Kitty... Mother is going to die.

Where? The Opera House.
Toronto.
$50 scalped ticket. The last one available.
One ditched friend. Robert. Drunk, abandoned, but happy enough. He'd just popped shrooms.
One heavily shaken ass. Mine!
One very happy girl. Me!
Okay, so they're fluffy, sometimes insubstantial, but man do they have some hooks.
This fish... she likes... ROCK!

I Wish I Could Dream Like Dr. King

Sigh. [This was more exasperated sigh than anything else]
[Followed by the inevitable] What the fuck is wrong with me?

THE PROBLEM:
I like a boy, who likes me. We've never met, but have communicated extensively online and through the marvellous Skype app that allows people to make free phone calls all over the world... apparently. I haven't sussed it out thoroughly yet. Since Toulouse and Ghana were effectively downsized, I don't think I'll be using it all that much. And since this new boy is the only person on my contact list thus far, and he has a local area code, I doubly doubt I'll be using it much. I do appreciate the introduction, though.

Oh, and he's got a nice voice. I mean... niiice.

Back to the problem...
I'm the kind of person who looks for meaning in her life in all the contacts she makes. This includes, but is not limited to, grocery store clerks in the check out line, bartenders, chefs, people hanging out in bars, someone stooping to pick up their dog's shit, or worse, not picking it up, people running their engines, people that call, people online. So... anyone really.

So I meet this guy, or rather he sends me one of those patented Interest Indicators online and I read his profile and he sounds... well... great. Smart, funny... not hideous. I return Interest Indicator. We begin to have a dialogue. And it's good.

He says things like:
"Your profile is rife with conversation starters. All these doors, which one to go in? I feel like Alice in Wonderland. Testing.... If I don't get to hear from you, I will definitely be sending an email. Your profile was a well crafted piece of art." Okay, so now my attention is grabbed. A) He's not stupid B) "...well crafted piece of art"

So then I say:
"Stop it or I'll fall in love with you... Alice.

Dialogue continues with him trying to dazzle me with his gorgeous brain, which is effective and taking hold.
Then he says this:
"So here's the deal, we go out once some time, we have fun, we do it again. If we don't then I write a wistful poem and drink a bottle of merlot screaming your name. I then throw the empty bottle into the lake, pee on the rocks, and fall asleep on a park bench."

At which point I think he's perfect.

Later he is trying to loosely quote Pink Floyd:
"All ships looking for a harbour," he writes. I ask if I'm the harbour in this context. Things I feel are going well. I'm feeling rather coquettish and a bit brazen and terribly taken in a potentially romantic moment. He says we're both ships looking for something to keep us warm at night. Tiny bit crushed. I say I'd rather be the harbour; that ships feel lost. No navigation. I don't... feel lost, that is. And the moon affects my tide, so I'm spreading all over the place. He says the harbour is a metaphor for the repository of our dreams. What are mine?

What are mine?

I told him "dreams morph.
Dreams get get quashed.
Eventually she stopped wishing". And a tear fell as I wrote that.

I want so much to make this connection with this man that has shown me the most beauty I've seen in a very long time. The length is an eight year span, where the greatest beauty I'd ever been shown was with my now current ex-husband when we first met.

Dreams morph. Dreams get quashed. Eventually she stopped wishing...

Sight Unseen

I took a leap of faith. It was really a reconnaissance mission; to boldly go where most sane people stay far, far away. I went out, on a date (during the day, mind), with a man... sight unseen. No picture, just a resume. This is how it read:

"I'm a relaxed, friendly guy who enjoy sports, movies, and meeting new people. I have a great job and great friends.

a bit about me:
magazines: the economist, harpers, new yorker, wallpaper
books: the art of war, concrete
places: a cafe on college, a bar on queen, a dance floor on queen, an underground space on queen
pictures: Cindy Sherman, Jeff Wall
summer: rocks, trees, water, sand, sun
winter: fire
looks: the consensus is that I'm good-looking
vanity: none

a bit about you:
chow is not ciao
you get excited about the things that interest you, and when you talk, the excitement shows
you can wear two hundred dollars worth of clothes, the scarf cost one hundred, and you look good
vanity: none
My idea of a fun date: seeing a live band, wandering the city, a night of dancing
I like to talk about: anything but the meaning of life, my friends, movies
My friends would describe me as: down-to-earth, a good listener, independent
Personal Details
Gender: Male
Age: 43
Height: 5'10"
Body Type: fit
Ethnic Background: white
Smoking Habits: occasionally
Drinking Habits: socially"

The Meeting:
We were to meet on a picnic table across from that lovely Balzac cafe in The Distillery District. I was there on time, circling the area on my bicycle, ready at any moment to ride out of there like a bat out of hell. There was a man sitting on the assigned picnic table that looked 10 years older than the 43 year old assertion. Upon closer inspection, as he was not craning nor straining his neck looking for someone hot, or otherwise, he was casually chatting on his cell phone, I deduced it was not him. All those Nancy Drew books have paid for themselves.

There were good looking passersby with friendly smiles and cameras in hand. The area had become one of the photogenic destinations in Toronto. None of them were him.

Then a man came along...

He was wearing rectangular sunglasses. He had sandy blonde hair that looked like he himself had cut with a pair of gardening shears. The occasional smoker was smoking furiously. He had on a black T-shirt, a white, billowing, unbuttoned button-down shirt; an overcoat with smeared dust on its back, and a pair of once black denim jeans, washed in hot water a couple of times, with an unusual stain on the upper right thigh that resembled a cross between jis and glue. He had the gait of a high school goth; slow, long, spritely stride. He looked like an aged version of a southern U.S. state high school student, weapon concealed, just about to take out the entire lunchroom.

And he was wearing a silk scarf that was more than likely originally retailed at $100.

The "You" in this context was a projection of himself. He was his own dream girl.

I waved.

Late and unapologetic, he approached with a sly smile. With his ever nearing steps I muttered under my breath, trying not to make my lips move too much, "Oh... good... fucking... Lord!" But I am human and humans love the whole idea of a car crash scenario. He sat in the sun with all his glorious faded black and began baking and sweating profusely. I shook his hand and told him it was nice to meet him. Apparently he really needed a latte. I watched him walk away. He sensed me watching him watch him walk away. I was devising scenarios of how he might have gotten those dusty smears on his back when I believe he began to swagger.

When he came back he was still sashaying, black silk paisley print scarf every now and then flicking his face, tasting his coffee. He sat back down beside me, maybe 2' away. I had on my prescription sunglasses. All the better to see you, my pretty. When I talk to people I look directly into their eyes. When I have my sunglasses on, I feel I have free license to wander, to explore the entire face.

He had what looked like two thick paint brushes peering out of each nostril. And as he was recovering from a bout of the sniffles, he kept tugging at the end of his nose. Could he not feel the thatches? I had to move my eyes. Diversion! Diversion! I moved to his cheek, glistening in the sunlight. He had no sideburns! It looked alien. He seemed at that moment to be a worshipper of Veeger. Diversion! Diversion! I moved to his ear. Wisps of fine, blonde hair, spider-like in its delicacy protruding one inch.

"looks: the consensus is that I'm good-looking"
Mother's statements do not count.

I felt if I looked at him for too long I'd be cast in stone. Though I'd had nothing to eat yet I felt swoony. Information overload. So... many... bad... aesthetic... decisions!

Fight or flight?

I raised my fists, remembered the context, lowered them.

"I'm starving", I said and chose the restaurant.

Looking at him directly wasn't so bad, especially once I took my glasses off. He gained a certain Cybil Shepard Vaseline-lensed glow. Also, and this may explain why all things thatch-related went unnoticed, he had downcast nostrils. Pragmatically, this would be very convenient if there were heavy rains falling and he was without an umbrella. Thatcher would not drown.

I have a theory that if an initial date is going well, if all parties express interest, the parties choose light meal options. Salad, usually for girls. Butterflies in the tummy don't make for great appetite inducers. He ordered a Caesar salad. I ordered the seared calves liver smothered with onions and bacon. And 2 pints of Stella. If I was going to have lunch with Thatcher, I was going to keep myself properly sated and amusing to myself.

Had he been merely unattractive, excessively cranially hirsute, but interesting, that would have been one thing. Thatcher was a painful bore.

"you get excited about the things that interest you, and when you talk, the excitement shows"

Yes, of course he'd like that because in addition to his boring, he was also blessed with a voice that is not only monotone, but also sounds like he is gargling with a mouthful of marbles.

During the course of the meal, this man drank four lattes. Four. The excessive caffeine coursing through his body refused to raise his externalized output levels, though the pulling on the thatches became ever more vigorous and intense.

Throughout lunch I was talking about a young man, whom I'm still afraid to write about, but who is currently tugging at my heartstrings. Thatcher understood. I thanked him for a very nice lunch and for pulling me outdoors on such a lovely day. He, in turn, thanked me also. Wished me well. Shook my hand, the one he'd been yanking the thatches with...

After a moment, out of eyeshot, I promptly scrubbed.

Open Faced Sandwich

This is how my profile reads, as I have obviously no shame:

[In bold] My gay, albeit, neutered cat is looking for some cheap male thigh... God I feel so cheap!

WARNING: Laughs louder than most, and sometimes louder than most are comfortable with.

I'd like to think I'm a righteous person, in a social/political and fun way (or is that riotous?); a woman of action, though rarely at a loss for words; cool and collected in a 911 scenario; defender of all things small and not so small; highly opinionated; hilarious to myself and sometimes to others.

I believe in people and all of their beautiful "flaws", though sometimes I make fun of these. I mock because I care. I believe in living. I believe in falling down. I am skeptical of this engine, but understand its merits. I'm upset when justice is not served. I seek truth; am painfully honest, though have lied about one tiny little thing on this page. Age. Truthfully, I'm tired of only entertaining the notion of having one of my father's friends take me out. But there are manually adjustable parameters for looking for The One. I'm really 36 who looks 28, who acts like an 18 year old boy. Asian genes account for looks only.

Admittedly, don't like plastic people and talking about their hair, my hair, or your hair.

If you are hot, younger than me (real or fictious), a real smarty-pants, have a spirit of non-conformity, smell delicious, think that European Pilsners are quite possibly the *best* in the world, don't want to change a girl just because she likes smoking Dunhills, enjoy a good thumb wrestle, and don't get too upset because I like giving wedgies (bad habit since I was 8)
... well, then who knows?

After these *slight* adjustments to my Lavic profile, I have been receiving interest indication from:

HOT
YOUNG
MEN
AND/OR
ARE
SMARTY PANTS
AND
CUTE!

Yay for me!

I swear, two weeks ago I was getting nothing but geezers. (Sorry P.J). The average age is 28 and my, oh my, they are fine.

Of course this is for practice.

For when the real One comes.

I feel kind of close, though. Though I have a date lined up with a 43 year old, whom I suspect is a designer, or in some design realm, or maybe just a professional shopper, I'm not sure, I don't think there will be anything there. Mostly because I met Ryan.

Please Buy This Album... It Will Make You a Nicer Person

I was walking into HMV the other day to pick up Interpol's new Antics release. Long awaited. An example of my not being a cheap bitch and actually supporting the band, knowing full well that maybe 1 red penny actually goes to the boys who are like demi-gods to me.

I walked in through the center doors and was hit was this epic, melancholic yet hope, poppy, lyrical and theatrical music. Bypassed 50 Cent and All Things Brittney and headed straight for Information Central. I asked, "Who is playing right now?"

The Arcade Fire. Montreal band. Album's titled Funeral.



THEY
WILL
BE

HUGE!

Do yourself a favour: Run, don't walk and buy this album.
Thank me later.

Franz Ferdinand + The 5 Golden Rules

Went to the concert @ The Docks Friday night.

OH
MY
GOD

It was good.


The 5 Rules for Concert Go-ers, as assigned by The Comrade:
1. Eat a little before going. Best to have a little bit of fat in the content as well. It absorbs the alcohol and reduces the urge to purge less.
2. Do NOT bring your girlfriend or boyfriend. Go ONLY with great friends. Concerts are for dancing, singing, screaming, comraderie, not loving embraces in the middle of wonderful madness.
3. Do NOT eat food that you are obviously intolerant towards. Also save beans for another occasion. People are often packed sardine style at these gatherings. I wish not to inhale toxic sulphuric gaseous matter expelled from your ass or anyone else's for that matter.
4. Drink plenty of liquids, non caffeinated and non alcoholic. You'll get dehydrated and swoony otherwise. No one wants a stretcher in the middle of the crowd.
5. Stop pushing. Everyone wants to see.

(Oh, and if you want to talk, go out for coffee)

Rock on!

Come Fly With Me

I am quite a proponent of the sauce. The drink. A little nip 'o something. Booze. Hooch. I do think it can be used as a gateway for what we are *really* feeling. There are bad drunks, sure, but I think they're this way because in their daily lives they don't feel the power they really want to. Aggression seeps forth once imbibing. Sometimes it is a necessary evil. And aggression can take many forms and it's not always bad.

My friend Death is quite loving and demonstrative when not teetotalling. Okay, she turns into a whore! My friend Kissy is quite amorous to anyone or anything with a pulse. She can be seen trying to make out with some poor, unsuspecting cocker spaniel tied up to a tree. Poor beast has no chance of escape. When the owner comes and tries to pull her off the dog, she'd more than likely jump the owner. She's done it to me. And I don't even have a dog. Hence the moniker. Then there are the ones normally quiet that just can't seem to shut up. Ack's like this, the ex-husband/current best friend. Blah, blah, blah *epiphany*. Blah, blah, blah *we're all aliens from Mars and we need to go home*. Sometimes there really is something that hits home to the drunk person speaking, like it did to this one Blonde Chick, who looks like she went to school with me in North Toronto. I like to note where a person hails from because it does sort of create the driveway for life to come. Paved asphalt, lined with dogwood bushes, in this case. When you have gone to Lawrence Park Collegiate, chances are you end up either on Bay Street, practicing law, or you're a 2D Chartered Accountant. The name of the game is "Let's Make Money and Lots of It".

So the Blonde Chick had just come back from Italy, no doubt on one of those pre-packaged tours, perfectly sterile with a 100% money back guarantee if you didn't have at least one good moment there. She says to my boss and his wife, both of whom hail from the Abruzzo area, "I love 'those' people." At the moment she said it, she reminded me of this one woman I encountered on the bus, in Costa Rica, that both natives and tourists travelled on to get to the public beach. This woman, in her 60's was from Oregon, travelling with her husband of 35 years. She was sitting next to a local fisherman, tired from a very long stint on the oceans looking for Mahi Mahi. They were having, to her, a fruitful, to him, fruitless and annoying conversation. He was very bright and quite educated. She, like the typical xenophobic, nationalistic American, was asking whether he knew or had been to Oregon. He hadn't, but was expressing how close it was to British Columbia and how he loved Vancouver and Canadians in general. It was a dig. She was non-plussed. She took a sip of water out of her plastic bottle, turned the label towards herself and said, "Akwah... Akwah!... We say... WAAA-TER". Now, my Spanish isn't that hot, but I expressly heard "stupid" and "American" muttered under his breath.

The Blonde Chick did end up redeeming herself when she said *they*, meaning them *Eyetalians*, really know how to live. And it's true. They eat, they drink, they hang out with family. Here, we don't eat because it creates a poor body image. We're retiscent about drinking too much because we don't want to be labelled alcoholics, and we can't do it and drive home in that car we sweat our, whether we have them or not, bags off just to get. Of course we're all in therapy because of the cruel and unusual torture our parents and siblings put us through, so that pretty much strikes out Family Fun Day on a regular basis.

She said we don't know how to live and on the most part she is right.

I still fought with her over the issue. To me the idea of European values, the values of family and time are all within us. It's our choice who we want to be and how we want to live. We have to make choices pretty much every moment we're alive. So I asked her, "Do you need all that stuff? You know what I'm talking about." What I was talking about was the all the stuff that everyone else has, that one feels one must have too. The giant plasma screen TV, the Nintendo, the car(s), the honkin' house or cool loft, the clothes, the spa days, the wine collection, the art collection, the shit that accumulates dust.

Time and family and eating and all the wonderful things we do when we're travelling like wandering around aimlessly, letting our hearts and guts lead us down alleys, through courtyards, throughs forests that we can truly imagine being the first ones to explore, though we know we weren't. The illusion's there. While travelling we can be whoever we want. We tend to try things we never had before, talk to people we probably never would because there was no occasion. We wander into churches, museums, galleries, concerts. We have espresso... for the 8th time that day. We work our way up to 6 courses during an evening's meal.

We are happy.

So I gave this Drunken Blonde Chick a suggestion. I asked her to remember who she was while she was travelling. I asked her to remember all the things that she did and all the secret plans and promises that she made to herself. It's her decision if she wants to live or to be slave to this strange, speedy world we live in where one often has to make *appointments* with friends 3 weeks in advance, just to have dinner with them. And when I was suggesting this to her, I was mostly reminding myself. As is the case most often...