Adjusting the Volume to Real
I took the streetcar to meet my mother for lunch yesterday. Public school kids were invited to a dance recital at one of the universities downtown. They were just on their way home, catching the streetcar I was running late on. The car was already packed, but they rammed their little butts in anyway.
They noticed everything.
Noses pressed up against glass, drawing pictures from the steam of their nostrils, looking up at frozen construction workers made warmer by creating sparks 3 storeys high.
"Look at that guy!"
"Look how he's walking!"
"Ew!"
"Why haven't they changed that sign?"
"Get off my foot!"
"Ow!"
"Heeehehehhee"
The sound of a kid's laugh is one of the best sounds in the world.
Yesterday was spent with my Mom and Fatty. In that order. Not all together. Mom would like it if I didn't talk about any other man outside of Ack, the ex-husband/best friend. She's convinced we'll get back together one day. Everytime I see her she asks the same question, "Do you think, maybe after some time, you'll get back together?" She's always armed with an example of how it's worked in the past, in some remote friend pool, real or fictious, making for a good tale. Happily ever after. A tale of hope for a mother.
This is generally the answer I give, though the meaning's always the same, the syntax sometimes varies: "No, Mom... not gonna happen."
My mother's pretty old-school traditional. She was absolutely mortified the first time I announced I was getting a divorce 13 years ago.
Mom: What am I going to tell people when they ask where Stupid is? (Stupid = Husband #1)
The Comrade: I don't know, Ma... maybe you could say that finally too much sun, too much blow and too much booze finally got him. Tell 'em I was too vain to stay married to someone who'd inevitably end up looking like one of those hacking, pickled, iodine coloured Florida broads with the leather skin.
Always a bride, never a bridesmaid.
My second eldest brother has estranged himself from the family. He's completely incommunicato with all of us; flatly refuses to answer anyone's calls, emails, pleas. My mother worries about him all the time.
Mom: Hey, maybe we can go visit him!
The Comrade: Nope... not a good idea.
My brother, Walter and his wife, Linda split up a couple of years ago. Walter, at the age of 40, was chasing 20 year old tail. Snagged some. Shagged some. Got her pregnant and now he has a son, in addition to the marvellous creature I call my niece, Megan.
It's my father's 70th birthday next year. This is a very big deal in Chinese culture. Most just don't make it to 70, so there's this massive celebration in his honour being planned a year in advance. To me it's like a dark cloud looming overhead. I've already started conjuering up reasons not to go.
Mom: [panicked] I have to have invitations printed!
The Comrade: Yeah?
Mom: Well, all the spouses and children's names will be printed! Who's name am I supposed to put next to Walter's?
T.C. : Just put his name alone.
Mom: What will I say when people ask where the mother is?!
T.C. : Aliens, Ma. The aliens got her. Everyone will understand.
A dark expression has crossed her brow. Levity is not working. She goes to the bathroom. I am left to contemplate the cold just beyond a wall of glass. A cheesey fake flower arrangement trailing through a trellis left out on the rooftop patio looks gaudy, but I can't take my eyes off it.
Mom makes a beeline from the washroom to the bar, dips index finger and thumb into a glass and picks up exactly 4 unsheathed toothpicks. She walks her speedy gait back to the table, never once looking at me. She drops her prize on the white plastic tablecloth. She jams one into her mouth, shielding whatever may fly out with her opposite hand.
The Comrade: You know, those toothpicks are often picked up by people after they go to the washroom. Sometimes people don't wash their hands after... well... you know. Publically offered toothpicks and mints have the highest amount of fecal matter on them.
I am a shit disturber... dipped into a toothpick vessel.
My mother has learned not to pay attention to me. This is a mechanism she developed early on, near the conception of the Comrade. She gets me back in my relentless pursuit of all things that drive her crazy when I have moments of seriousness and want to discuss these matters with her: she's still not listening. She changes the topics to those that are completely unrelated to what I'm talking about.
Mom: Who are these people you're visiting in Chicago? Where did you meet them?
The Comrade: I met them on the internet.
Mom: WHAT??!!!
A very long diatribe of potential rape scenarios ensue. Drugs are part of the picture she's painting. The sale of individual body parts are already parsed out in her mind.
She launches into a story about my eldest brother's wife, Anita. Well... actually, her brother, Ernie.
Mom: Remember Ernie? Well, his wife met someone over the internet and she LEFT Ernie and their kids and moved in with this other guy.
The Comrade: Did he kill her?
Mom: No.
The Comrade: Is she still with him?
Mom: Yes.
The Comrade: So... the internet made her... happy?
My internal grandstanding is distracted by a woman with a massive cranium who has just dug her fist into the toothpick receptical and is walking, with huge gaping mouth, throughout the restaurant extracting matter from her deepest wisdom tooth. There was no shield up.
Mom: Are there going to be men there?
The Comrade: [lying through her teeth, imagining Jason and Worker with breasts] No!
Mom: They're all going to be women?
The Comrade: Yes!
Mom: Okay... women are safe.
She changes the subject.
Thank God, as I was starting to sweat and display 16 of the 21 signs of lying.
On my way home, taking the streetcar, I sat in my preferred station: one of the single seats along the driver's side. I like to sit there. I don't really like sitting next to people in that realm. In cabs I always sit in the back passenger side. I'm not alone on this, as that seat is usually fairly deeply imprinted with previous asses of rather epic proportions.
I don't wear a musical device: Walkman, iPod or the like. I own a cell phone, but I never use it. It collects dust near my entry way.
I prefer to listen.
Every city has a sound. No two cities sound alike. New York sounds vastly different than San Francisco, which sounds vastly different from Vancouver, which sounds completely alien compared to Toronto. I love the sound of everything. I love the sound of this city and its inhabitants.
I eavesdrop.
Not intentionally, not pointedly, I just like to listen to things.
There was a woman sitting behind me who fielded a call on her cell phone. It was her lover. Her tone was even throughout. Her rising passive aggression was a slapping hard reminder of how I do not want to have a boyfriend... more than likely ever again. My heart was slightly broken for her when the last statement she made, full of disappointment, was, "Why did you have to say that? Fine. Don't ever call me again." Click. Sigh. Sniff.
Fatty came over last night. He's just moved back home with his parents. He's trying to save up some dough to go on an extended trip to Africa. He'd been there with his family before and loved it so much he was planning his next trip while being there the first time. Being 27 and moving back home, even for a short duration, was making him a bit crazy. He'd also just quit smoking 10 days ago, but came over to smoke some pot.
Smoking fatties with Fatty.
I have had a little tiny bag of weed since last year. I just discovered it last week. I hadn't smoked it yet because I didn't have any rolling papers. I live right across the street from a place that sells them, but I'm one of those people that is quite friendly with shop owners and truthfully I don't want them to think I'm a drug addict. So the aged pot just sat there keeping my cell phone company.
The Comrade: Fatty.... could you buy me some papers, please?
Fatty was going to bring his secret pot stash over, but was having a rather slapstick episode alone of heightened Attention Deficit Disorder where he kept forgetting things up in his room while preparing to leave the house. He had gone up and down 3 flights of stairs, 6 times, remembering new things each time. He had placed himself in a cab and was halfway en route to my place when he realised he wasn't packing any herb.
Luckily I had the very dried up buds from the year past. I didn't know how potent it would be. A year is a long time. Still, Fatty was into smoking anything.
Another cool thing about Fatty: He's the best joint roller I've ever met thus far. Very professional.
It took us 3-4 intervals to smoke this thing.
And we got FUCKED.
This was very intense pot. I liked it initially as I got that lovely sensation reminiscent of having little duvets wrapped around my eyes. Soooo soooothing.
Like Fatty, I have A.D.D also. Since I gave up television 9 months ago, I've felt the symptoms dissipate. I'd never noticed this as pronounced before, but last night the two of us couldn't keep any conversations remotely tangible. I would have a major point, lobbing up a huge preface. Midway through the introduction, I completely forgot what my original point was. This kept happening to both of us. Frustration on every level.
I think I resigned myself to not doing pot for a while, not regularly anyway. I like it, but I just don't feel as much when I'm on it. Nothing's heightened other than that *stoned* feeling. I like my natural states of feeling.
I love experimenting with altered universes. An iPod does that, I think. Your landscape becomes altered by a soundtrack. I don't do this habitually. It's more of an occasional occurance. One's potential interface with the world becomes exclusionary because one of the senses is completely cut off from reality. Or an induced reality seeps in. It's isolating, headphones. Sound others can't fathom.
I'll always remember an epic solo bike ride I had in high school. My Walkman on. Simple Minds blaring through my own simple mind. It was magical. But I don't do it anymore. Most times I prefer to live in this world, a world outside of my control.
They noticed everything.
Noses pressed up against glass, drawing pictures from the steam of their nostrils, looking up at frozen construction workers made warmer by creating sparks 3 storeys high.
"Look at that guy!"
"Look how he's walking!"
"Ew!"
"Why haven't they changed that sign?"
"Get off my foot!"
"Ow!"
"Heeehehehhee"
The sound of a kid's laugh is one of the best sounds in the world.
Yesterday was spent with my Mom and Fatty. In that order. Not all together. Mom would like it if I didn't talk about any other man outside of Ack, the ex-husband/best friend. She's convinced we'll get back together one day. Everytime I see her she asks the same question, "Do you think, maybe after some time, you'll get back together?" She's always armed with an example of how it's worked in the past, in some remote friend pool, real or fictious, making for a good tale. Happily ever after. A tale of hope for a mother.
This is generally the answer I give, though the meaning's always the same, the syntax sometimes varies: "No, Mom... not gonna happen."
My mother's pretty old-school traditional. She was absolutely mortified the first time I announced I was getting a divorce 13 years ago.
Mom: What am I going to tell people when they ask where Stupid is? (Stupid = Husband #1)
The Comrade: I don't know, Ma... maybe you could say that finally too much sun, too much blow and too much booze finally got him. Tell 'em I was too vain to stay married to someone who'd inevitably end up looking like one of those hacking, pickled, iodine coloured Florida broads with the leather skin.
Always a bride, never a bridesmaid.
My second eldest brother has estranged himself from the family. He's completely incommunicato with all of us; flatly refuses to answer anyone's calls, emails, pleas. My mother worries about him all the time.
Mom: Hey, maybe we can go visit him!
The Comrade: Nope... not a good idea.
My brother, Walter and his wife, Linda split up a couple of years ago. Walter, at the age of 40, was chasing 20 year old tail. Snagged some. Shagged some. Got her pregnant and now he has a son, in addition to the marvellous creature I call my niece, Megan.
It's my father's 70th birthday next year. This is a very big deal in Chinese culture. Most just don't make it to 70, so there's this massive celebration in his honour being planned a year in advance. To me it's like a dark cloud looming overhead. I've already started conjuering up reasons not to go.
Mom: [panicked] I have to have invitations printed!
The Comrade: Yeah?
Mom: Well, all the spouses and children's names will be printed! Who's name am I supposed to put next to Walter's?
T.C. : Just put his name alone.
Mom: What will I say when people ask where the mother is?!
T.C. : Aliens, Ma. The aliens got her. Everyone will understand.
A dark expression has crossed her brow. Levity is not working. She goes to the bathroom. I am left to contemplate the cold just beyond a wall of glass. A cheesey fake flower arrangement trailing through a trellis left out on the rooftop patio looks gaudy, but I can't take my eyes off it.
Mom makes a beeline from the washroom to the bar, dips index finger and thumb into a glass and picks up exactly 4 unsheathed toothpicks. She walks her speedy gait back to the table, never once looking at me. She drops her prize on the white plastic tablecloth. She jams one into her mouth, shielding whatever may fly out with her opposite hand.
The Comrade: You know, those toothpicks are often picked up by people after they go to the washroom. Sometimes people don't wash their hands after... well... you know. Publically offered toothpicks and mints have the highest amount of fecal matter on them.
I am a shit disturber... dipped into a toothpick vessel.
My mother has learned not to pay attention to me. This is a mechanism she developed early on, near the conception of the Comrade. She gets me back in my relentless pursuit of all things that drive her crazy when I have moments of seriousness and want to discuss these matters with her: she's still not listening. She changes the topics to those that are completely unrelated to what I'm talking about.
Mom: Who are these people you're visiting in Chicago? Where did you meet them?
The Comrade: I met them on the internet.
Mom: WHAT??!!!
A very long diatribe of potential rape scenarios ensue. Drugs are part of the picture she's painting. The sale of individual body parts are already parsed out in her mind.
She launches into a story about my eldest brother's wife, Anita. Well... actually, her brother, Ernie.
Mom: Remember Ernie? Well, his wife met someone over the internet and she LEFT Ernie and their kids and moved in with this other guy.
The Comrade: Did he kill her?
Mom: No.
The Comrade: Is she still with him?
Mom: Yes.
The Comrade: So... the internet made her... happy?
My internal grandstanding is distracted by a woman with a massive cranium who has just dug her fist into the toothpick receptical and is walking, with huge gaping mouth, throughout the restaurant extracting matter from her deepest wisdom tooth. There was no shield up.
Mom: Are there going to be men there?
The Comrade: [lying through her teeth, imagining Jason and Worker with breasts] No!
Mom: They're all going to be women?
The Comrade: Yes!
Mom: Okay... women are safe.
She changes the subject.
Thank God, as I was starting to sweat and display 16 of the 21 signs of lying.
On my way home, taking the streetcar, I sat in my preferred station: one of the single seats along the driver's side. I like to sit there. I don't really like sitting next to people in that realm. In cabs I always sit in the back passenger side. I'm not alone on this, as that seat is usually fairly deeply imprinted with previous asses of rather epic proportions.
I don't wear a musical device: Walkman, iPod or the like. I own a cell phone, but I never use it. It collects dust near my entry way.
I prefer to listen.
Every city has a sound. No two cities sound alike. New York sounds vastly different than San Francisco, which sounds vastly different from Vancouver, which sounds completely alien compared to Toronto. I love the sound of everything. I love the sound of this city and its inhabitants.
I eavesdrop.
Not intentionally, not pointedly, I just like to listen to things.
There was a woman sitting behind me who fielded a call on her cell phone. It was her lover. Her tone was even throughout. Her rising passive aggression was a slapping hard reminder of how I do not want to have a boyfriend... more than likely ever again. My heart was slightly broken for her when the last statement she made, full of disappointment, was, "Why did you have to say that? Fine. Don't ever call me again." Click. Sigh. Sniff.
Fatty came over last night. He's just moved back home with his parents. He's trying to save up some dough to go on an extended trip to Africa. He'd been there with his family before and loved it so much he was planning his next trip while being there the first time. Being 27 and moving back home, even for a short duration, was making him a bit crazy. He'd also just quit smoking 10 days ago, but came over to smoke some pot.
Smoking fatties with Fatty.
I have had a little tiny bag of weed since last year. I just discovered it last week. I hadn't smoked it yet because I didn't have any rolling papers. I live right across the street from a place that sells them, but I'm one of those people that is quite friendly with shop owners and truthfully I don't want them to think I'm a drug addict. So the aged pot just sat there keeping my cell phone company.
The Comrade: Fatty.... could you buy me some papers, please?
Fatty was going to bring his secret pot stash over, but was having a rather slapstick episode alone of heightened Attention Deficit Disorder where he kept forgetting things up in his room while preparing to leave the house. He had gone up and down 3 flights of stairs, 6 times, remembering new things each time. He had placed himself in a cab and was halfway en route to my place when he realised he wasn't packing any herb.
Luckily I had the very dried up buds from the year past. I didn't know how potent it would be. A year is a long time. Still, Fatty was into smoking anything.
Another cool thing about Fatty: He's the best joint roller I've ever met thus far. Very professional.
It took us 3-4 intervals to smoke this thing.
And we got FUCKED.
This was very intense pot. I liked it initially as I got that lovely sensation reminiscent of having little duvets wrapped around my eyes. Soooo soooothing.
Like Fatty, I have A.D.D also. Since I gave up television 9 months ago, I've felt the symptoms dissipate. I'd never noticed this as pronounced before, but last night the two of us couldn't keep any conversations remotely tangible. I would have a major point, lobbing up a huge preface. Midway through the introduction, I completely forgot what my original point was. This kept happening to both of us. Frustration on every level.
I think I resigned myself to not doing pot for a while, not regularly anyway. I like it, but I just don't feel as much when I'm on it. Nothing's heightened other than that *stoned* feeling. I like my natural states of feeling.
I love experimenting with altered universes. An iPod does that, I think. Your landscape becomes altered by a soundtrack. I don't do this habitually. It's more of an occasional occurance. One's potential interface with the world becomes exclusionary because one of the senses is completely cut off from reality. Or an induced reality seeps in. It's isolating, headphones. Sound others can't fathom.
I'll always remember an epic solo bike ride I had in high school. My Walkman on. Simple Minds blaring through my own simple mind. It was magical. But I don't do it anymore. Most times I prefer to live in this world, a world outside of my control.
posted by Comrade Chicken at
3:01 p.m.
2 Comments:
speaking of chicago, i'm buying my plane ticket today. i already told my parents and friends, and really nobody gives a shit, interestingly enough. though i don't mean that in a bad way. i think crazy adventures up to this point in my life have broken everyone in already.
By
whatever, at 12:05 p.m.
also, i love having a soundtrack during my day. it's interesting especially if there is a stark contrast between my surroundings and my mood, because my mood is what usually dictates my music choices.
By
whatever, at 12:06 p.m.
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