Ready or Not...

Coming out of a funk-funk-funky depression then embarking into a relationship with extra significance with one of my best friends in the whole world is proving to be kind of wonky.

Looking at it now, and/or all the experiences that has led to the now, it makes absolute sense that I'm with Fatty. He's the only person I know that I am proud to walk into any room with. This has always been so. I don't have to worry about him socially. He doesn't say stupid things and if he does he's very aware of the environment, internally checking and rechecking the chances of his ass getting kicked for what might just be on the tip of his tongue hurtling into the astral plains. He's also the person I'm the most happiest to see by chance, though that never happens. I would just imagine it would be. Whenever I have seen him, planned, it's always been a kind of thrill.

I've never had this. I've never had a When Harry Met Sally (for lack of a better analogy) relationship. It's weird and wonderful at the same time.

Weird
The first time I kissed him. I'd never seen him closer than 2' away from my own face. And if I had it's been at pick-a-bar getting half sauced.
Because of the idiot kid relationship we'd shared, of the whipping inanimate objects at heads and playing practical jokes on each other ilk, there tends to spring spontaneous laughter at perhaps inappropriate moments.
He knows just about everything about me already.

Wonderful
We totally love each other.
Even when I'm spun, he has an amazing calming effect on me.
He is a wonderful friend to all he holds dear.
He and Ack, the ex-husband/ best friend, mutually adore and respect one another.
He has the most beautiful... nevermind.
He smells better sweaty than he does after he showers.
He knows just about everything about me already.


In the past few weeks I've gone from ready to not ready, okay maybe to holy-shit-no-way. What I've hated about having feelings for someone is I've tended to get really anxious in the past. Maybe it's been fear of them seeing who I really am. Sometimes I'm less brave. Sometimes I'm really scared. Sometimes I am impotent. Sometimes subsequently I drop off the face of the Earth.

And who's to say when we're ready or not? The funny thing is I think all the stars were aligned for this union. The timing is actually really interesting. Ack has also met someone. It's been so long for the poor boy. Did The Comrade ever gush on the phone over those details!

And Now With Spring...

Birds are flapping and clapping. Pigeons are fighting over scraps of crusts abandoned by big-eyed lunch eaters. 85% of the population has a smile on their face today. Normally I rail against the 85%. Today I joined the rank and file. Today I beamed from ear to ear. And though I've only had snatches of sleep which total maybe 2 hours, at the most optimistic estimation, I don't feel tired. My mind is incredibly alert. My happiness has grown abundant again.

It could be the sunlight. Yes. It could be that everyone is making an excuse to step outside of the cushy, familiar sarcophagi they've made for themselves over the last season, that ridiculously long season of discontent.

Could be.
Or there could have been aid.

A Fatty aid.

Now I'm tired. Tired with a smile on my face. With softened eyes. Maybe I'll snatch a couple of winks before we ride bikes later today.

Zzzzzzzz

The Equation: T + 2 (Monkeys)

What happens when you put two monkeys in a cage? A boy monkey and a girl monkey. The observer zookeeper gives them all the bananas they can eat, in this case junk food; all the nourishing liquids they can drink, Stoli vodka and Italian Peroni beer. They are kept properly entertained and cared for by way of board games and genuine professions of fraternal love. Just a couple of monkeys in a cage who have never touched each other beyond brief, almost embarrassed hugs at the end of a night. But one night, one monkey starts looking at the other monkey differently. One monkey starts picking all the mites and ticks off the other monkey.

"Well you have been spending a lot of time together," said Ack, the ex-husband/ best friend.
True, true.

This is a phenomena with me: I have a bunch of guy friends. We are not a circle of friends. I like to hang out with people one on one. Hm. Foreshadowing. Some have met others. The rest are legend.

We have pints while talking about bands, boys and girls, politics, life. Months, even years could pass and I still look at them, adoringly even, only as my friends, my buddies, my comrades.

And then...
they sometimes transform into men.

This happened with Cartman sounding Mike, my buddy at work whom I often hang out with during summer concerts. Mike usually wears what I like to refer to as late Prison Inmate wear. At work he's the new chef. Donning kitchen whites, he is nothing short of gorgeous. Jesus.

The Comrade: Dude... This is freaking me out; all of a sudden you're hot to me.

He's single.
I know all of his family secrets.
And still adore the lot of them.
I have a tiny crush on his dad who did something major during his medical career, not unlike Russell Crowe's character had in The Insider.
He is a gentleman through and through.
He is one of my best friends in the whole world.

Two monkeys in a cage
Who love playing together
Who love each other

Ah, crap...
This changes everything.

Fatty and I had a massive make-out session.
Now what?

The only other time I'd been intimate with a really good friend was with a girl. Jules. Hooley. Hulez. But it was only sex. It was only experimentation. I didn't know how I would react to the aftermath. In the morning she'd called. Just by hearing her voice she set things right. There was a lightness, a gaiety. There were no feelings attached. There was nothing really spoken during the act. But there was with Fatty.

Who's never met anyone like me.
Who thinks I'm utterly fabulous.
Whose mother would be very happy if I was in his life.
Who's never seen me at a loss for words until the next morning.

I hate that I listen to everything said.
I hate that I romanticise every single thing.
And if this relationship changes because of our stupid bodies, I don't know what I'll do.

The Sabbath Sabbatical

Lately I've had more of a pull to get the hell out of my apartment. It feels like if I don't get the hell out, and fast, I'm going to scream.

This has been the season of discontent for many. I am not exempt.

My Fatty's parents had been in Montreal for a week. They came home, debriefed over dinner; gave him a fruity tart which they shuttled back from the yum and good times capital of the country, where people can still respectably smoke indoors ( they are French, afterall). Fatty, too, had the build-up of scream just beyond nucleus level.

After a jaunty walk to Stratenger's, the bar that encourages smoking and doesn't discourage yelling from mezzanine level to orchestra pit, I found out from Fatty that it's only I or people I am acquainted with who do this. This yelling business. My darling friend Ian, the one who offered 14 bunches of daisies to a girl he really liked, only to receive the affronting reply of "Oh, not getting enough attention lately?" was upstairs. He wasn't yelling at me; he was yelling at James, the cerebral palsied bartender who was trying to ignore him. Ian whipped out his phone. He was going to call his order in. Any time I call for take out I always ask if there are any in-house promotions. There were no 2 for 1 specials that night. I brought up his single beer. Ian left with a random young lady whom I know he is using to quell any hurt feelings he garnered from the girl he really liked.

Just keep dancing a little longer... maybe the pain will go away.


I was talking to my excellent friend Tyrone the other day. Something similar had happened to him. There was a young lady who is in the same field as he, post production film, who he'd eyeballed for some time. They chatted on the phone. Ty's like a girlfriend that way. He's a prolific phone friend. During a rather lengthy call, the young lady had asked if Ty wanted to go out for a drink. They had several cocktails along with wonderful conversation, many laughs and a rather nice connection. She asked if she could go back to his place. In the morning they showered together then shared a cab to their respective places of employ. Leaving the cab Ty asked that she call him. The agreement was sealed with a kiss. Goodbye.

Days passed. Ty made several attempts at communication. Not a word from the young lady. Ty got worried. Worry turned into another phone call, this time to the florist's where an arrangement was sent over to her desk. Another day passed. A "Did you get the package I sent" follow-up call was placed. Nothing. Well, not nothing. Two months later she'd called. There was no mention of the time they'd shared nor the flowers that were sent. It was as if nothing had happened.

Being in the same field they eventually worked together on a project. A two week tenure. Because it was business Ty kept things civil. She was leading in this dance. He followed, barely stepping on any toes. He overheard a conversation between herself and another young lady who was convinced the solution to all her problems was a boyfriend.

She Who Received a Bouquet With No Mention: I'm looking! But I just can't seem to find a nice guy!


Ack, the ex-husband/ best friend, is calling this the M83 for lack of a better title. M83, the band, feels unrequited; says sorry that things didn't work out and I can't explain why. It leaves the listener hanging. By a noose.

Ack has had his head in his hands trying to figure it all out. Why did the Big Girl from upstairs, when everything was going really well, just leave? The only trace of his existence was individual wet incisor perforations where he tried to remove her jeans with his teeth. Ack's full name is Ackistan. He was christened the Stanopener. The Stanopener was gingerly placed back into the cutlery drawer where he shared company with crumb fragments and hardened encrusted egg yolk on fork tines. Jaws making masticating motions in air like a fish on its side on a park lawn.

Why, when there is opportunity to love, when there is a genuine connection, do people often unceremoniously bow out without a decent explanation? Of course this effects me personally because it happened to me. Last August.

Even though just looking at one another drove us mad with desire,
Even when there were deeply impacted hurts I'd helped pull out of him,
Even though we'd hear songs in our heads when we were together, the Boy with Kaleidescope Eyes still delivered, while heaving and sobbing, "I could never love you."

Meteorites large enough to create canyons often do less damage.


I'm 36 years old and I know nothing. Two days ago I felt I knew too much. I knew too much of the bad stuff and it was starting to permeate any of my inherent goodness. A few days prior I lashed out at the world, my forgiveness of human weakness in regards to the insensitivities they often demonstrate went on sabbatical.

But where does this all start? Not womb. Not just outside of womb. Mommies everywhere were teaching their Johnnies and Janies to share and be nice. I could lambaste corporate structures.

Here's a typical situation:
Person A is lower in ranks on the totem pole than Person B. Person B will often use his corporate clout to publically and privately berate Person A, who could have started life as the kind of person brimming with enthusiam, trust and real joy. Person B is a relentless suffocator, a bubble burster. Person A's dream is to move into middle management, so he sucks it up. He takes the berating, swallows the jokes at his own expense; shines Person B's shoes. Gives him a reach around. He demonstrates such selflessness (sycophancy) that he gets a promotion, finally, into the much coveted middle management role where Person A now finds himself with underlings. Eventually or immediately he feels it his right to do unto others as he has been hard done by. The spin cycle repeats. Person A melds into Person B. Their eyes register identically: nothing, nihilistic, numb. They are distinguishable only by the patterns on their ties on any given day. An outsider needs to be gifted at the game Concentration to be able to distinguish one from the other. Person B was no different than Person A when he first started out. Chances are. Chances are.

But should they be forgiven?

We've all been hard done by. Everyone has had very bad experiences. I think the measure of a human being has more to do with how one deals with poor circumstances.

This has been the season of my discontent. I'm not talking about being in a relationship, though certainly I'd love to have one very special creature in my life, but I don't right now. I realise it's not always going to be like it is now. And that's life. Life never stays the same. That's the stuff that keeps us going. It's not that I have a shortage of delightful people that share my life, though there is not a plethora either. It's a manageable number. This is the season of my discontent because I've seen inordinately bad behaviour around me.

Last night. Out with my good girlfriend, Dirty. We went to the Cheer's Equivalent, my current place of employ. I had just met a fellow by the name of Hiller. Hiller is in his 50's. Old school, ostentatious theatre type. Most likely a veteran stage actor. Embittered from the loss of his youth. Sitting with Hiller was a young lady to his right and Richard, a reserved actor/ writer who looked not unlike Pulp's Jarvis Cocker about 10 years ago. Richard and I had had a lovely 20 minute conversation. At one point, Hiller was talking brashly, loudly and accusatorily at Richard.

The Comrade: Hiller! Making friends and influencing people?
Hiller: [ picking up a pen and making 3 gestures to throw it at my face] I am practicing great restraint. Because this isn't my pen I'm not going to throw it at your head. If it was my pen, I would have.

I stared him down for 30 seconds. I burned his demeanor and every contour of his face permanently onto my brain. This was not my shift. I was a patron. Had this been my shift I would have thrown him out. I would have barred him from any return. I stared him down for 30 seconds while treating this as a social experiment. I looked at the company situated around the table. Not one had a response to his action. Richard, the fellow whom I had the 20 minute conversation with, only offered a roll of the eyes. This reminded me of another story.

There was an 18 year old young lady working the check-out line at one of the major grocery chains around town. She was meek in temperment; head down, a forced avoidance in eye contact; diligent in her work. I always make it a point to be kind in personal customer service interactions such as these.

The Comrade: How's your day going?
Check out Girl: Much better now.
The Comrade: Now? What happened?
Check out Girl: Well, it's really important to be as efficient as possible. I don't want to make anyone wait.
The Comrade: What happened?

She told me there was a glitch in her scanner earlier that day. An item wouldn't scan properly. After a duration, a man whom she was processing became frustrated. He was in a rush. Couldn't she see he was important and had places to go? Things to do. He picked up a head of lettuce and threw it at her head.

The Comrade: What?!

And then there was a scene where her manager had chastised her publically and the man got ushered to the special customer service kiosk where I'm certain his bad behaviour was rewarded with coupons or discounts or something of that ilk.

The Comrade: Were there other people in line behind this gentleman?
Check out Girl: Yes.
The Comrade: You understand that every single person who witnessed this interaction, this assault, is implicated. For them to have done nothing makes them as guilty as if they had each lobbed the entire produce aisle at you.

I wish I could be everywhere at all times. I wish I could multiply.

Historically I would rise with 10 fold civility, shake the hands of all the parties at the table and say, "It was nice to meet you," before launching into a calm statement of how I couldn't possibly stay for this reason or that. This time I said my peace before leaving, but I didn't shake the hand of a single person at that table. It wasn't nice to meet any of them.

I'm being tested. I know it. Every time situations like these arise, whether to me or someone else, I am looking at them more scientifically. I am neither Person A nor Person B. I believe ability should garner promotions. I believe kindness should be a given. And I believe those without honour should rue the day. My resolve is strengthened. Whenever I have been challenged to just ignore these vulgarities, I have usually retaliated with, "You see, if that was my friend and he was doing that to someone else, something would definitely be said or done." But the thing is I don't have friends like that. They are not vulgar. I would never have cause to say anything in that manner. Who I do have as friends are often those that don't say anything. They are often very civilised to people that are mean; kind and gracious to people that have historically done them, or someone they care for, wrong. But that's changing too. They see their impotence in their inaction mirrored back from my eyes. And they wear their guilt heavy around their neck.

And the more I think about it, the more I think maybe I'm not on sabbatical. Maybe I've returned. Maybe I know one thing.

Good Things That Come in Threes

First bike ride of the year. Well... it was just a run to the liquor store to buy wine for an evening with Dirty.



Who would have known that one of the most beautiful things I've seen today is steam rising from the roof visible from my apartment?



And the best, most beautiful thing is seeing a recovered beloved basking in the sunlight, just a trace of poopoo bottom on his wiping hand.

Confessions from a Recovering Addict

My name is The Comrade... and I am an addict.

I don't shoot up, though I do tequilla shooters. I don't snort unless it's during an uncontrollable laughing fit. After the last time I smoked pot, and I don't care what you say, Fatty, that shit was laced with something, I became incredibly paranoid. Stumbling home, thinking every passerby was going to kill me, I made the decision to no longer seek a herbal remedy.

I have strange addictions.

Like love.
Like Scrabble.
Like books on tape.

The books on tape thing isn't too destructive an addiction, mostly because I can do other things while I'm listening to a story. I'm beginning to eat regularly because of these types of books. I really like cooking, but cooking for one isn't as fun. Before the rediscovery of these books I would eat, but only when I was starving. It would usually be something that was quick and dirty to fix and throw down. With books on tape I can now manage to make rather elaborate cococtions. Mom always said that food tastes bland when eaten alone. I add it's even blander when made alone.

My house is also cleaner.

I was happy to come home the other night after work to find my apartment free of any new frothy splotches of cat blick or droplets of fecal matter. I had planted exactly 12 white hyacinths in a large tin window planter the other day. The blooms are full and their scent has spread throughout my home. It smells like white spring. Heady in the intoxicating way blind love leaves me. There was no longer any sick smell in here, like there was the other day. Though he is a bit slow arriving, my young man Chicken always comes to greet me at the door. He's still on Orange Alert.

At work on Monday I wore a shirt I'd never worn before. I think I paid $12 for it. It's new. From China. From my favourite clothing store that sells shirts that make no sense at all. My favourite shirt, purchased at this location, which I have rare occasions and bravery to wear touts WHEN THERE IS NO REASON TO LIVE in bold lettering across the front.

How I work is fairly commando in styling. Things are slammed. Very little time is wasted. I try to do as much as I can in one pass. I wear black clothing to work for a reason. Because there is draught beer that sometimes explosively sprays when the keg is nearly empty, because they like it if I rinse off dirty plates with the giant dishwasher's spray arm, because there are times that I instigate fights involving food or beverage, I get wet. And I often dry my hands on my shirts, simulaneously smoothing the fabric. I wear black at work because even when it's wet you can't see through it.

During one point of the evening, once I coerced half of the bar to go outside and smoke with me, I noticed my hands were black. The glass washer was acting up. There was a containment breach within the metal unit which caused scalding hot water to run into the basement. Apparently the internal heater was accidentally left on the night before. My other boss Kevin surmised that the metal had expanded to the point of losing its seal, sending both water and a gallon of chemical dishwashing liquid down into the already dank, now very slippery, basement.

Sometimes I think about the people who have jobs naming products. I don't know how some product names, which I imagine go through major committee meetings within an organisation, get approved. The name on the jug of the fallen chemical cleanser read: CONFIDENCE

We ran out of confidence.

When I got home and took off the $12 shirt, I realised why my hands were black. The dye was cheap, impregnating my pores. My belly and back looked like Tyson had a go at me. Thank God he didn't get at my ears.


I have a stalker in his late forties who comes in virtually every Monday night. He's a film editor working on a reality series about lawyers. Normally he's well behaved. On Monday night he was overtly and inappropriately caustic and sexual in our interactions. Normally I can tolerate this, volleying up some quip that immediately diffuses the situation. It wasn't working. The problem was he was in no frame of mind to listen to anything anyone else had to say. I am the consumate bartender; I listen and I am earnestly interested in what people have to say. I don't always agree. But I always offer my 2¢ worth. What I find intolerable is those occasions when people take advantage of that. When a human delivers a 20 minute monologue, not allowing anyone else any room to speak, I consider it blatant masturbatory behaviour warranting a summons, by me, to go home.

The Comrade: [after 5 unsuccessful attempts of contributing to a conversation] You do realise that you haven't allowed anyone else to speak. I have been very generous with my time and ears with you tonight. I'm not sure whether you left your home/office today to talk at people, but I'm not going to be party to this.


Then there was Abdul. Mid forties, salt and pepper hair, classic film-asshole glasses; lives in Oakville, a suburb west of the city. For the 95th time this week...

Abdul: So where are you from?
The Comrade: North York General. Wrapped in hospital issue swaddling pink. And you?
Abdul: I'm from Toronto, too.
The Comrade: No you're not.

I can usually tell. And I was right. Mississauga does not a Toronto make.


I also have fairly good accuracy whether someone is good or not so good within the first few bars of interaction, though I'm sometimes wrong. The wrong breaks my heart.

I found out more about Paula, the girl whom I adored on first sight. The one who said to me, "You had me at 'hello'." The one who received 14 bunches of daisies strewn in her foyer by my wonderful friend Ian. The last communication Ian had with her was scrawled on a piece of notepaper stating plainly that a personal response would be appreciated. Not just a passed message from her roommate stating that she "liked the flowers".

She text messaged him. I hate text messaging. I H8 lkng @ ths.

She accused him of being too much of an attention seeker.

If I ever see her again...
I cannot write what I will do as it may incriminate me.


There was a very nice table of 4 who came in for something to eat. 3 girls and 1 cute boy. They all had a lovely time. They all had a lovely meal. The young man wanted to pay the bill. I never usually look at how much someone leaves me as a tip. Normally I don't really care. For some reason I was compelled to.

$5 on a $66 bill.

I looked at the name on the card and approached Sheldon.

The Comrade: [smacking Sheldon's arm] Sheldon, can I talk to you for a second?
Sheldon: Sure.
The Comrade: You do realise you left me $5 on a $66 bill.
Sheldon: Yeah. You were great.
The Comrade: You're not from around these parts, are you?
Sheldon: No. I'm from Newfoundland.
The Comrade: Okay. See, this is how it's done over here.

And then I explain, even though tipping is optional, that 10% is offered if the service is fine. 15% when service is good. 20% if service is exemplary. And that I make $4/ hr.

Sheldon: Oh, I know. I just wanted to be non-conformist.

blink blink... blink blink...

Then...
A couple walks in. Again mid-forties. The woman sat alone as the man had gone to the washroom by the time I had come over.

Woman: Um... I'm fine. But could you bring him (gesturing at an empty seat) a Blue?

The place of my employ does not carry regular domestic beer. We don't believe in it. Anything beer we carry, made in Canada, is from microbreweries. There are plenty of places along the strip that carry regular domestics and usually they offer a dual role of unemployment cheque cashing services as well.

The Comrade: I'm sorry, we don't carry that beer. Should I wait until he gets back to offer him something else?
She agreed. After a few minutes he returned.

The Comrade: I'm afraid we don't have that beer.
Man: Well what have you got?

I tell him.

I look in his eyes. What I see is slight drunkenness, which is fine, but also sublevel rage and a twinge of sociopathic numbness was evident. I don't like what I see.

Man: I want a real beer.
The Comrade: Well, I'm afraid you're going to have to go down the street. I'm sorry, I can't help you.

And then I walk away.

By this time I'd already given my buddy Mike in the kitchen a head's up about this guy. Mike would be called in as back-up only in an emergency situation. Mike was itching for a fight that night. I'd rather diffuse the situation alone than cause a potentially ugly scene.
When I was taking care of cheap, non-conforming Sheldon's table, the Man loudly said, "Excuse me."
Which made myself and the other four turn around.

The Man: [looking at the other four] Not you!

I walk over to give the Man a let's keep this between you and me look.

The Comrade: Okay... what can I do for you?
The Man: [in a tense forced calm] I'll have a Stella.
The Comrade: Well, this is the thing. I really don't feel comfortable serving you. I feel like you've had too much to drink.
The Man: No. We just came back from the theatre. Do you want to smell my breath?
The Comrade: [wrinkling her nose] No. Thank you. But no.
The Man: Just one beer. Please?

I don't like lying and I'm not good at it.

The Comrade: Well, this is the other thing. Last week we got busted for serving intoxicated people. My boss is in the kitchen now and I don't want to upset him. I'm really sorry, but I can't.

Like any good sales technique, one brings things to a close. I walk away again. And don't return back to the table.

After about 10 minutes the Man comes up to the corner of the bar and wants to talk to me. No... closer, he'd like. From behind the bar I moved all the objects which could be hurled at my head away from his arm's reach. I went closer.

The Man: You did the right thing. I'm from Liquor Control.
And he shook my hand.

I have been in this business for 20 years and I have never heard tale of anything like this happening before. Adrenaline was pumping for additional 20 minutes after the door closed behind him.


Outside for another smoke, I had mentioned I was married.
Abdul, the Oakvillian: [standing uncomfortably close to me] Myarried, myarried?
The Comrade: Yes, myarried, myarried. For 7 1/2 years.
Abdul: Wow.
The Comrade: Second marriage.
Abdul: Second?
The Comrade: I'm 36.
Abdul: I didn't ask how old you were.
The Comrade: [looking directly at him for 10 seconds] You know Abdul, I have to tell you, because I can't keep this kind of thing inside. It would feel like a cancer.... I don't like you.


I said to my good friend Craig Webster, who came in half drunk, half escaping his sick-for-2-weeks girlfriend, that I felt I was in a bit of a state that night. These days I'm having a harder time self-containing reprimands to the world. I don't know if I'm becoming a crotchety old girl or what.

I'm disappointed in a lot of people lately. Not on a whole, but certainly in more and more isolated cases. Where are you, the unabashedly fun? The righteous? The spirited? The sweet? Where did you hang yourself? Do you remember the last time you saw it? You? Can't you backtrack to get you back?

I wonder. I wonder where they lost their ability to interact with the world. Why did they trade their spirit for dead eyes? And with those eyes and calloused fingers, when did long letters turn to "succinct" email replies which then turned curt, going the way of rude?

My name is The Comrade and I am a recovering Scrabble Addict.

I had to trash my online version the other day. ... and lead us not into temptation. I felt that pull of addiction again. ... but deliver us from evil. When I was out, I couldn't wait to come home to play it. In my mind, tiles would rearrange themselves creating new words worth 50 points. In that process I withdrew from society. As much as I enjoy time alone, I don't want to have an insular life. I don't want to forget how to interact with the world. And I don't ever want to make concessions for them anymore. They're old enough. They should know better.

Mopping Up Evidence

Yesterday I went to the sister restaurant of my place of employ for brunch with my lovely friend Ryan. After a wonderful meal of truffled scrambled eggs and smoked salmon, washed down with several champagne mimosas, I felt a little tipsy and in the mood for a home floor scrubbing. The mundane tasks usually coupled with an apprehension and a western-style stare down with rabid dust bunnies, are now made a little more approachable with an accompaniment of my new addiction: Books on tape. Thank you Toronto Public Library! What a wonderful service! Currently I'm listening to Mystic River by Dennis Lehane. This man has loved in his life. And has had his heart severely broken. Or at least has an empath's saintly soul. Very good dialogue = believable. It's a very good listen. The plan was to clean my stinking apartment, then meet my friends Robert and Ian for a ruckus Sunday night supper.

I was greeted by a strange splotch on the cold stone floor by the front entrance. Frothy watery cat blick. Blick is the sound Chicken makes when he hurls. Frothy blick was in 12 separate locations throughout the apartment along with little reddish/ brown drying droplets.

Oh my God... Chicken

I looked everywhere for him. He was not on the bed, under the bed, in the bathtub, in a basket, on the couch, under the couch, in the linen closet, in any of the closets. I was fucking panicking.

Chicken! Chicken!
Where are you, my Sweetoo?

He was in the farthest reaches of my long closet in the bedroom. He never hangs out there. I picked him up. He was shaking as much as I was. He had lost 5 pounds in a day. He is not a big cat. He is a little guy who was now very, very sick and very, very dehydrated. His head was hot; he had a fever. He jumped out of my arms and headed alongside a wall where he painfully squatted.

In his 16 years I've seen Chicken take a crap 3-5 times. Each time I thought it was hilarious. All I wanted to do when I saw him squat this time, trying desperately to release whatever venom was inside him, was cry, wishing with everything to take away his suffering. His usual healthy, fluffy hair was greasy looking. When I looked at his backside, his hawk-like pants were matted with diarrhea. I've never seen this before.

I had to cancel my dinner plans with my friends so I could stay at home, make chicken soup for my little man, do web research on acute feline diarrhea and clean up the evidence of his illness. If he didn't see any of the matter that came flooding out of him, maybe both of us would think he was well again.

What the hell would I do without him?


As he's sleeping now, I'll write about something else. He'd want that.

Ack, the ex-husband/best friend and I had crashed a housewarming/birthday party hosted by Richard, one of Ack's old colleagues from Canada's media giant, ChumCity; specifically the interactive department which creates banner ads and the entire web presence of MuchMusic, Bravo, CityTV and all the other affiliates. Richard, after much coersion by everyone (family), including his longtime (years) co-habitating girlfriend, finally made an honest woman out of his Elana.

But fucked up.

Of all the days to go down on one knee, forever and ever, as long as they both shall live, Richard chose the day Elana had a fever of 104˚F, face a chartreuse green; hacking and hurling phlegm, bile and something resembling tahini dip.

Richard: [down on one knee] Elana...
Elana: NO RICHARD... NOT LIKE THIS!!!

She made him take it back, waiting for a more suitable moment in the near future.

Elana is one of those people who vehemently does not allow cigarette smoking in her house, but sparks spliffs like a Rastafari at a Hemp Aficionado convention. At social functions, she has a 1 out of 3 chance of becoming flagrantly drunk or high. I can't figure out her batting average because there are too many variables, but I'm sure it would be high. On one such occasion she pronounced, in front of at least 20 people: "Richard... our marriage is a sham."

I rememeber I used to feel strangely introverted at certain social functions. I was hyper aware of myself to the point of clamming up, yet simultaneously not listening; having the sensation that all of my organs were internally sweating; wanting to crawl out of my own skin; a strange sensation of a cloying desperation. And I'm considered social adept. Go figure. This happened again on Saturday night.

Ack and I arrived before the actual invitee, our mutual friend Death.

Death attained this name by a shortened version of Meredith, or Merry Death as we like to call her, but her name only receives full pronouncement when she has done something very, very bad like jump up on the counter and eaten the entire night's meal. For four.

Last summer she had access to her father's 1980's Mercedes which the 3 of us would occasionally pile into for short road trips involving ice cream or dim sum.

Death: Check the license plate!

WDOMKR

The Comrade: Widowmaker! Nice!
Ack: How come you don't see more vulgar plates out there?
Death: The Ministry of Transport doesn't allow it. Anytime you have vanity plates they ask specifically what it means.
The Comrade: Yeah, try explaining CUNT plate.

That's what Death and I call each other now. Sometimes when something extremely crude has been expressed, we call each other a stack of plates.

Both hosts of the party work in media. Nearly all of the invited guests were in the same field in some denomination: print, music, commercials, film. Walking in from the front door there was no foyer, it was direct to living room. About 20 sets of eyes hit both Ack and me in tandem. Each set of blank eyes stared at us in silence for 10 seconds, then resumed the conversations that had been cut off by our intrusion.

The Comrade: Oh, it's going to be like that. I don't want to stay.
Ack: We have to wait for Death.
The Comrade: Crap!

They all looked. Some smiled. Unless I had met them before, none engaged in any conversation. Even if I engaged them, they'd blink a couple of times, try to say something, but it came out more like a curt reply. I receded back into my shell, trying to shield my worked up boobs as much as possible.

Ack and I had gone shopping at H&M earlier that day. The difference between me and Ack is I will wear what I'd bought earlier that day. He will hang new purchases in his closet and forget they were there until I either ask him about that thing he bought 2 seasons ago, or he has no other clean item of clothing forcing him to venture further back into his darken clothes pit.

I am a prude at heart. I don't seem like one, but I am. I prefer full coverage, but on this one occasion I bought a couple of tarty little tops, one in which I decided to wear that evening. Tarty tops are fine for going to bars where dim lighting and other tarty topped women are. Where it is not fine is being part of a collection of dull media types in a new pre-fab home with cheap finishes and inhumanly small rooms where people are sandwiched so closely together (and not talking); the only place to rest a drink or a paper plate is on my rack.

Wearing Ack's sportcoat, a suitable boob shield, reaching for a broccoli spear, I caught the gaze of a young lady who had hair not unlike Sideshow Bob's. I smiled. She smiled back and then approached me.

The Comrade: So are you a friend of the bride or the groom?
I meant it to be cute, but she didn't really get cute out of it. I can't remember her response as she took a half hour explaining her life's story.

I found out she went to a rival high school of mine. My high school was mostly festooned with Ralph Lauren and Lacoste wearing white kids. Her school fell into 2 camps: Jews and Chinese.

I Can't Remember Her Name: And they're very similar, the Jews and the Chinese. Are you Chinese?
The Comrade: [sigh] Yes.
I Can't Remember Her Name: I really like Chinese people.

And other great hits like "some of my best friends are Chinese". Apparently the measure of popularity in her high school had to do with the labels worn. Tommy. Ralph. Prada. She told me she always loved going over to her Chinese friend's house on the weekends, eating moon cakes and watching Chinese action flicks. She liked going over there because they didn't care what labels she had on or didn't.

I care...

Right now I'm wearing a shirt from my favourite store on Spadina, U RIGHT! It has an illustration of a 12" little boy and twin girl. They're holding hands. On the front of the little boy is the letter "D". On the girl is a letter "O". Above their heads reads: GREEF CHILD

Together they make do.

Before what was on the collar or the breast of a shirt, I remember when character meant something.

At this party people passed by sometimes grazing, sometimes nudging. Not once did I hear an "excuse me" or "pardon me". While in conversation with someone I actually wanted to talk to, a friend of Death's new boyfriend, Paul, I was nudged by a 6'4" man.

The Comrade: [to tall boy] You know... this is the thing: A person stands here, and people pass. Sometimes they nudge or knock into people. And they just keep walking on by. No "excuse me". No "pardon me".
Tall Boy: That's incredibly rude.
The Comrade: I know!
Tall Boy: Ill mannered.

And then did it again.
Paul: And after what you'd just said.

It wasn't on purpose; he was just stupid. It was just another example of how people sometimes talked out of their asses, demonstrating zero civility.

Ack began holding his head after we had cleared passage for a young woman to come upstairs from the spliff smoky basement. She expressed no gratitude for our collective civility. It seemed it was expected.

Ack: Did you see that?
The Comrade: Oh yeah. NOW can we go?

We went to Lot 16, the anti-Drake. The Drake is a multilevel, multifarious destination spot. It's a boutique hotel, live music venue, art gallery, restaurant, snack bar, pick up joint, roof top deck bar and home of the greatest pretension in the city. The first time I went, I was accompanied by my Aunt Mary.

Aunt Mary is actually Bob. Bob has been with his partner Mark for 25 years. When Bob went to visit Mark's family in New Zealand, Mark's father had introduced Bob to the local tradesman who was working on the family's kitchen.

Mark's Da: This is yer Uncle Bob.
Kiwi Tradesman: [giving Bob the up and down] Looks more like yer Aunt Mary.

Aunt Mary and Uncle Mark were Ack's and my landlords in our one time treefort apartment. This beautiful apartment was once the servant's quarters for the postmaster general. It's now a heritage home. A dingy alleyway across, past heroin needles and discounted blow jobs was the most disgusting place in the city to pick a fight. People still fought, though one needed to be very, very drunk to do so. The state of being drunk was the only way to make you forget the possibility of hitting the floor, just to stumble back up invariably sporting week old vomit reconstituted with piss. This once foul place had $6 million sunk into it and has become the hipster mecca of the city.

Aunt Mary had dared me to find out about a young man who was walking around with a 3/4 length fur coat, crimson red 1970's flapping collared button down shirt and pinstriped suit.

Do not dare me anything because I will do it.

I left Aunt Mary to go up to the bar, where the young cousin to Donny Brasco was holding court over sushi. He was new in town. A commercial director. He told me his clothes were made by a tailor because "you just can't find decent clothes on a rack". He told me his name was Daddy.

The Comrade: Danny?
Daddy: Daddy.
The Comrade: I'm sorry. I'm going to have to see some identification.

He produced his credit card. I couldn't read the surname as my eyes were affixed to the embossed caps of DADDY, member since 2003.



Lot 16 is a quaint place, a spitting distance away from the Drake. It's too small, not fabulous enough, and not scummy enough to be considered chic for the dead eyed Drakeculas. Every other Saturday Lot 16 plays host to Pop Noir. Check the musical line-up. The drinks are not too bad. A round of 4 was just over $18. Every song was a winner. When Death asked if I was going to dance I said the same thing I'd said when she first told me about Blogger: "Absolutely not." And then I started blogging. And then Pulp's Disco 2000 played. The Comrade shook her racks. Absolutely not has become absolutely more than likely. I sniff a new favourite spot.


I went to bed early. 9:30pm. I was scared tired from the whole Chicken ordeal. I was emotionally appeased enough to sleep when he didn't throw up or shit uncontrollably for 3 hours straight. He refused any water, which concerned me, but he did start cleaning his hawk pants, which was a very good sign. I woke up at 4:30 this morning to his chirpy greeting as he jumped up on our bed.

Chicken!

Even though I come from obessive/compulsive handwashing stock, I didn't care that he had shit all over his legs. I gently cradled him and kissed his little head. One of the vet sites said not to feed him solid food for 24 hours, but to give him plenty of water. I brought my glass of distilled water close for him to drink from. It's his preferred vessel. He drank a lot of it. He's got some replenishing to do.

He's back on my lap now. He's purring today. Things like small happy sounds emanating from a creature I'm in love with make me grateful. Being with him now is the only place I want to be. I worry so much about when he'll leave me. Everytime I think about it I am always inspired to search the house for him, pick him up and love him more. My little man with the poopy pants whose poo stink smells just fine to a nose who finds so many scents so often foul.

I did scrub the floors yesterday, but it seems I missed a few spots under the bed. Time to turn Mystic River back on, don a couple of canary rubber gloves, and with a bucket and a sponge, remove any trace of my loved one's mortality.

The Ten Course Meal

My astral name is Levity. This was discovered in the kitchen of an old tree fort apartment I lived in with Ack, the ex-husband/ best friend. On my birthday. It was 5:30am. Ack was in a trance. Ack can speak to the spirit world. Well, he channels more than speaks to them directly. They spoke to me through him. That night I discovered I have 3 guardian angels watching over me. Sometimes I feel them. Other times I don't.

SNIFF... sniffsniffsniffsniffsniff...

Spring? Is that you?

The snow is melting on my deck. It's actually receding more than it's melting. I suspect the family of raccoons, all 5 of them, have been receiving a Chinese water torture in their undisclosed locale. I know they're there, but I don't know exactly where. My landlord knows they're there too, but he's too lazy to board them out. I'm too in love with them to not provide them a home. And they really like Chicken. To him they're like The Jets from West Side Story, a dancing gang who can snap because of their opposable thumbs; living close enough to keep tabs on them, prowlingly ready to bitch slap them if they get out of line. The Chicken Don.

There is something different about spring light. It's hazier. There's a Cybil Shepherd Vaseline lens on highrise buildings, one generation removed from veritable Communist architecture. Sometimes when I look at the cluster of bricks and blocks that make up our downtown core, I think it's quite possibly the most beautiful thing I've seen in months. Sometimes, and this doesn't happen very often, in fact I can only count the occasions on one hand, I can step outside of my house, walk down the street and feel as if I am on vacation. Everything is of course familiar, but there is more of a magical quality. I suspect it's linked to light; general gaiety and the happiness made possibly explicable by the frequency that pupils contract. Well, anuses do that when things are going well. It happened just the other day. Not the anus bit, but the sensation that I was on a trip.

Last weekend, after Saturday night's last call, my dear Fatty invited me back to his family's home. Fatty and his brother Tristan have temporarily moved back in with their parents. The arrangement is mostly good, unless one counts those times when Fatty doesn't set the timer correctly on the oven and his mother's almond cake is ruined. Not quite ruined, just slightly underdone. It just needed another 7 minutes, his mother yelled. Damned new fangled machines! Somewhere between a 4am relatively tame food fight of chocolate mousse and underdone almond cake and a not so tepid, rather successful attempt at being held upside down by Fatissimo, with a Tristan guarding my head from knocking against severely angled African sculptural work, pulling the underwear out of his ass (as I had given him a patented Wedgie™), Fatty suggested we have a dinner party. I added we should do a tasting menu. An all night amuse bouche.

We decided on Thursday. St. Patrick's Day.

I had been out with Matty the night before. Matty my ex-work comrade whom I didn't see eye to eye with for the better part of a year, but who made himself more available to the world and thus to me. Matty who sketches out in plans he makes with friends, including this friend. Matty whom just over a week ago had the worst case of halitosis I've ever experienced, who coupled it with a near drippy case of clammy hands. Matty has been into way too much coke lately. Matty has one saving grace: Vanity. You wouldn't think that vanity could save people, but in this case it did. Someone told Matty that coke ages pretty young boys. It also makes them look like skinny raccoon eyed fallout victims. Matty can't live under my deck. There's no room in the inn. Chicken would bitch slap him. The family of raccoons would ostracise him.

I can usually handle quite a bit of alcohol. I'm not prone to getting messy. The day before my period comes, I have a great thirst for the stuff, but I handle it like a Catholic school girl's first time. Not that first time! The first time the parent's liquor cabinet is rifled through and a bilic concoction of cherry brandy, lemon gin and dark rum are not only introduced to each other by first name, they altogether converge in the belly for their first and last reunion, discovering they really don't like each other very much and would like to leave the same way they came in. Well, the hurling didn't happen, but it probably wouldn't have been a bad idea.

7am Thursday morning
Woken by the alarm alerting potential containment breach of the monthly hemorrhaging cycle
A successive smacking of the lips informed me that I was the host of synthetic cotton mouth
Bedroom was slightly skewed
Physical locale: moderate to epic hangover
Oooh... back to bed.


Fatty and I wanted to make the tasting menu an all day event. I needed to pop 2 Advils. For someone very hungover, I strangely felt fantastic. That quality of light surrounded us. It felt magical.

At Gate One was the St. Lawrence Market, a wonderful indoor extravaganza with dozens of permanent stalls vending just about everything sunlight is required to create. I heard somewhere it was dangerous and foolhardy to do any food shopping on an empty stomach. We were going to have buffalo burgers and beers, but it was late in the day. It would have had us abandoning the entire thought effort. We had chicken sandwiches instead, sticking with the original plan.

Competition is fierce yet friendly at the Market. In one pedestrian intersection there are 4 different fishmongers to choose from. Everyone who goes to the Market always has their favourite vendor for specifics. I couldn't tell you the name of the fish seller, but I could draw you a map. Going through the centre doors from Front Street, 3/4 of the way down the main aisle, it's the store on the SW side of the intersection. Ask for Andrew. He was in a car accident recently. He got forced into a guard rail going 110kms the other day. His back hurts, but he's still smiling, happy to be at work. He went to Catholic school but he couldn't remember why Patrick was a saint and why we should raise a glass to him. He did tell us the difference between a male and female lobster.

If you can do this, pick up a lobster from the top, just under its massive claws and inspect its underbelly. Try not to do this while hungover because it's a hard thing to look at. There are at least a dozen alien-looking mini legs that claw at air. The delicate legged creatures are female. The big assed ones, the ones that look like they could pierce eyes and box noses, belong to the males. Some say that female flesh is sweeter, but then you have to contend with the sack of eggs. Lurch. Andrew was concerned about my hangover. His remedy was fish tea. Head, bones and scraps of flesh boiled slightly in water. Sip. Gone. Apparently. I looked over at a small pile of large salmon heads and thought one of them winked at me. I hid behind Fatty, letting go a small yelp.

When I was a kid my mother would occasionally buy lobsters, cooking them at home on very special occasions. They were live, having what I had imagined as their last conversation in the refrigerator. I wondered if they were philosophical in nature. I could never wonder too long as I wasn't allowed to play with my food. My mostly sweet, docile mother had an alter ego that took care, precision and a bit of sadism which she sprinkled liberally on these creatures often called the cockroaches of the sea. Death came by jamming a swift chopstick into their nether regions. 4'11", she. After watching that a couple of times I could take or leave lobsters, really.

Andrew was telling us about a free service his operation offered: steaming. Well! This changed matters entirely. I did not want to do my own killing for dinner, but if someone else did it...

Fatty named our one course, our chosen 2 pounder: Frisky McFriskerson. Andrew also helped us choose Malpeque oysters. He could tell how good an oyster was just by shaking it. It's not a perfect science, but 11 out of 12 ain't bad.

There was a momentary concern when it came to buying a small piece of beef tenderloin from the butcher's. Whitehouse Meats, my meat vendor of choice, had pre-prepared bacon wrapped filet mignon ready for the barbeque. The plan was to bash the crap out of this meat to make it resemble uncooked beef paper, liberally seasoned with white truffle oil, Celtic sea salt and cracked black pepper. Having a strip of smoked bacon around it would cause a bit of gastric disagreement more upsetting than the bad mix of previously mentioned alcohols.

The Comrade: We need to eat this raw. Do you think you could you cut us off a fresh piece?

Which he did. Luckily Fatty never named the piece of tenderloin. At the same time a woman meat vendor came over to invite us to the annual St. Lawrence Market customer appreciation party. All the vendors come together once a year supplying food and drink to people who love to eat. The sales pitch included free coffee and dancing. April 7th. Fatty's my date.

We made a small pitstop at the LCBO, the finest liquor retailer in the world, in my opinion. Trade sometimes astounds me. In one location I can buy vodka from Russia (the staple Stoli), taste free samples of wine from Chile (yummy Carmen chardonnay which we stuck in our basket), buy beer from England (Bombardier), Austria (Stiegl) and South Africa (Tusker) and drink the best prosecco from Italy. And I don't even need a passport!

As it was St. Patrick's Day, Fatty thought it appropriate to have a pint at one of our old haunts, C'est What. This is a sublevel bar which has a little smoking room for those who don't mind having a nicotine headache. Otherwise, there are plenty of tables to chat over decent pub food. Fatty and I know most of the staff that work there, which is a blessing and a curse. Blessings, friends. Curse when you have to make a 10 course tasting menu and the very sexy bartender has just poured us a second round on the house. Reinvigorating the kind of drunk I'd experienced the night before, I remembered I still had to drive home. Slow and easy wins the race.

We got back to my place around 6:30, organised our purchases and cracked a beer. And then another.

The plan was for each of us to create 4 or 5 separate "tastes". Some were preplanned, others were on the fly.

The Menu:


[Fatty worked very hard on this. Please click for an enlargement.]

Translation
1. An excuse to do a shooter that one can chew.
2. Beaten beef that I used a rubber mallet (with bits of imbedded drywall residue) to produce proper results with. Please try this at home.
3. The bread and cheese portion of the evening.
4. A recipe stolen from my buddy Mike at work.
5. Stuff I had around the kitchen, made cute because they were in little packages.
6. Fatty ripped this dish from his buddy Jeff. Pork is the closest flesh to humans. I don't tend to eat it, but I suffered the pork in this pasta.
7. Jesus... fresh figs, proscuitto (again with the pig's flesh!) and roquefort blue cheese. In your mouth at the same time. This is what life is all about.
8. Salad. More than likely out of guilt. But very tasty.
9. Our poor dead named lobster which revealed more casing than edible bits. Nobody wanted any of its brains.
10. Dessert.

There was so much food that we had to call in victims. Ack was on his way. He always likes to help.

Fatty: Do mind if I invite my buddy Jeff over?
The Comrade: No! [ripping the phone out of Fatty's hand] I'd love to meet the World's Greatest Dad.

This is what Fatty calls Jeff behind his back. The World's Greatest Dad just happens to be married to the World's Biggest Bitch. How does that happen?

The Comrade: Jeff? You seem like a helpful man. You want to help, right?
Jeff: Yes!
The Comrade: Well, we have all of this food and we can't possibly eat it all ourselves... so, you'll have to come over.


The entire affair of cooking and eating lasted 9 hours. It was painful, gaseous and glorious. Fatty had to crap 3 times to create more room. All of us at one time or another had called uncle. But we did it. All 10 courses were made and eaten. And it was such a good time that we've decided to make it a weekly event. Maybe not as extravagant next time. Maybe there would be a theme. Ack suggested foods that ketchup could nicely accompany. Figures. Fatty suggested everyone bring one ingredient to create a pasta. I liked that idea. Each person would bring one thing to put in a pot; all of us would contribute and be fed by it. More friends could be involved.

I have said quite often that light cannot exist without the dark. My whole life I've been light, or stayed in the light. Levity. Most of the past few weeks had been in willing darkness, admittedly. I looked around my open kitchen at 2 of my best friends and a new friend, smiling to myself. In that instant they were like my guardian angels, personified, brought together with earthly pleasures, holding our stomachs from too much food and just enough laughter... which is never too much.

The Daisy Chain

On a tiny street in North Toronto, exactly one city block long, where 3/4 of the block belonged to Metropolitan Toronto, 1/4 to North York, The Comrade was raised. The parsing out of the pre-amalgamated city and borough boundaries happened when the area was little more than dirt roads, small forests and green pastures. Hard to imagine for a girl who would often find the younger brother of her oldest friend Heathie, on hands and knees trying to scrape flavourless, abandoned gum off the sidewalk to chew.

Heathie and Jimmy weren't allowed to chew gum in their house. They didn't, like our neighbours across the road, the criminal lawyer's family, the fella who at one time defended Paul Bernardo, the small family from the U.S. who avoided the last great draft of 1969, yet still waved the stars and stripes every 4th of July, have stocks in Wrigley's gum.

It was a rather magical street to grow up on because there were so many children at any given time. Every five years or so an entirely new crop of kids would blossom out of this petri dish. The kids were mostly girls in my five year cycle. The occasional boy raised in our time would be subjected to playing our gimp dressed in rags and lipstick, given some dignity with a G.I. Joe figure as a mini representation of himself. G.I. Joe was small enough to act as a counter revolutionary trying to usurp the female amazons. Eventually both would be tied to sticks receiving public ridicule in the form of the girls eating grape flavoured Lolas within sight, but out of reach.

Exactly at the age of 12 I discovered my knees, which had been perpetually scraped and scabbed, were clear of any blemishes. At around the same time I noticed our willing victims had grown up and had become gorgeous. Payback.


Over the weekend I had a terrible itch to go out. The first person I called was Dirty.

Dirty and I met over 10 years ago while I was working at a downtown bar. I introduced her to Bloody Caesars which is still her drink of choice. She and I shared a love for design. Both of us are hands-on people who work with drills and sewing machines. Through drinking and talks of making stuff, I became the first real female friend she ever had. She never liked the company of women before that. She found them too catty. I thought women were great and powerful, if not a bit sadistic.

A few years ago, shortly after I'd married, I had taken a rather long sabbatical from the restaurant industry. I was tired of the business. A person can be so nice for only so long.

But...

Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in.
It wasn't that I was necessarily unwilling.

I missed it.
The Holy shit! We're so fucked and we'll never get out of this alive feeling that often accompanies any given weekend night at a decent place.
The comraderie.
The debriefs.
The ability to see everyone's true essence when being pushed to the brink.
The ability to see one's own.
The ruckus laughter.
The fact that mostly all of my friends were made behind, beside or in front of a bar.


Lately I've enjoyed the company of men more than women. This has been so for the past 5 years or so. I think the one most to blame is Ack, the ex-husband/ best friend. He helped me to rediscover that guys are so damned interesting. They don't focus on minutia. They don't tend to want to solve your problems; instead they shed insight; share experiences. They tell ridiculous jokes. They make me laugh. They forgive each other readily, harbouring no long term ill will. Their knowledge is individual and uniquely vast. And they love gossip.

When I last talked to Dirty, it came as a sort of surprise when she accused me of not having too many girlfriends right now. Other than her, of course. I don't have a lot of friends. Real friends. I know a shitload of people whom I say hello to on a regular basis, but as for real friends I can count them on two hands, which makes me pretty rich if I do say so myself. As for the percentages, right now, yes, the greater percentage is held by the masculine variety. It hasn't always been so.

I get crushes on people, both men and women. They're not sexual crushes, they feel more like a spark of overwhelming familiarity between two people. That's how all of my relationships had started with my friends.

With Ack there was real electricity. We needed a copper ground.
With Fatty it was like finding that perfect kid in the sandbox totally willing to share his Tonka truck and shovels with you.
With Faith she allowed a drunken 16 year old Comrade, sitting on her foreign lap, to puke between her legs. And yet she stayed. For that I'm grateful as Faith knows me better than anyone else in the world does.

I don't find them too often. When they appear it is like magic. I thought I had a glimmer of that the other week. The spark. The 5'0" Paula who came into my new place of employ, my one night a week improv routine.

Paula has no ON/OFF switch. It broke off at ON. She is charm, effervescence and quick wit personified. When I told her how great it was to have to met her, she replied with, "You had me at 'hello'." Though ripped from Hollywood dialogue, that was the single greatest line one sororal woman could have passed to another. I was delighted by her. When I get this delighted over another creature I immediately go into matchmaking mode.

The Comrade: Ian? Have you met Paula?
Ian: For the 16th time, yes.

Apparently I have a tendency to repeat myself.

Ian was just as smitten with her as I had been. He asked her out for dinner, which is a very big thing for my Ian. He has not considered the idea of getting to know a woman for a very long time. Sex, sure, but he's felt that if one gets to know someone there could be an emotional attachment. He couldn't risk that. He hadn't been ready. The right person hadn't presented herself of late. When he metaphorically sniffed Paula's butt, it smelled like honeyed roses. It seemed he was finally ready.

The dinner went really well. They had a very good rapport, both in public and private. They had both sweet and dirty intimate moments that were gratifying for everyone involved. He really liked her a lot. The first time in a long time. I was so happy for him. A bit of my happiness was a bit selfish, admittedly. Life is much better when one really likes the chosen partner of a close friend.

On my venture out on Saturday night, without Dirty as she seemed spent from a day with girls looking for bridesmaid dresses that wouldn't make them look too hippy, and simultaneously standing tall on her soapbox accusing me of not having enough female friends, I went in to visit Ian at his work. I have never gone to a bar and ordered dessert before.

Cutting into my tart with Grand Marnier macerated strawberries and homemade vanilla bean ice cream, Ian had pulled the bar stool next to me away enough to wedge his lithe little body into a newly created niche.

Ian: Have you seen Paula?
The Comrade: No! What's going on? I thought things were going really well.
Ian: I thought so too, but she hasn't called. I've called her a few times, but she hasn't returned any of them. Maybe she's sick.
The Comrade: Maybe.
Insert Pinter pause...
Ian: I did a really stupid thing.
The Comrade: I doubt that. What?
Ian: I overheard her saying that she really doesn't like flowers, but she likes daisies. I called the floral department at the grocer's and bought every daisy they had.
The Comrade: Oh, Ian! How many?
Ian: 14 bunches... She'd also left a pair of socks over at my place, which I washed. I thought it would be cute if I went over to her house and tied the clean socks to the front door knob. And then I spread the daisies all over her foyer.

Sigh.

Maybe she's working.
Maybe she's sick.
Maybe she's fallen and she can't get up.
Maybe...

I watched Ian and Fatty get really drunk later that night. Both were looking for a modicum of emotional support. Ian from his broken heart. Fatty was looking for a rescue from a sort of date with an ex-girlfriend who lived firmly in the past. Remember when...?

I went for brunch at Ian's restaurant, the sister restaurant of my place of employ. Any employee from either establishment receives deeply discounted prices on food and drink at either location. I went in for two reasons:

1. The raspberry pancakes which took up a 10" plate, loaded with Chantilly cream and maple syrup, farmer's sausage on the side (a little bit of Dijon mustard please).
2. Has she called yet?

I had singlehandedly drunk nearly a bottle's worth of champagne mimosas. Seated to my left was George, a writer and a local amiable drunk who refers to me as his future ex-wife. He forgoes the orange juice, opting straight for the purity of essential sparkling wine. His appetite was made smaller by the preceding night's bender.

The Comrade: [examining his 1/4 eaten sausage] Are you done with that?
George: Oh, God, yeah. Help yourself.
The Comrade: I don't mind if I do.

Brunch was like Thanksgiving. I couldn't help myself but to help myself.

She had not called.
It had been 24 hours.
Ian was wearing his very brave face.

Maybe...

Between myself and Marnie, a lovely co-comrade of Ian's, it was decided we were going to pay Paula a visit to quell anymore maybe's. Like any good drunk worth his salt, George offered us a ride.

The Comrade: Ah, yes! A drive-by!

Ian didn't like this idea.
Boo.
Hiss.


Ian, my darling Robert (also Ian's co-comrade) and myself were going to have dinner later that evening. I was stuffed past maximum capacity and needed to do 4 hours of either jumping jacks or Scrabble to try to work matter further south. When I arrived at 8:15, belly still protruding, Ian had news.

Ian: I couldn't help myself. I went over to her house. The not knowing was killing me.
The Comrade: Well, sure! What happened?
Ian: She wasn't home. Her roommate was. He said that she'd left just recently and that she really liked the flowers.
The Comrade: SHE SAID SHE REALLY LIKED THE FLOWERS?!
Ian: So I wrote her a note. Basically it said, "Paula, one way or the other, it doesn't matter. Courtesy with a call would be greatly appreciated at this time."

Still nothing.

I don't understand some things. I don't understand some people. Maybe my Ian was coming on too strong. Maybe she didn't feel it like he did. Maybe she's not brave enough to tell sincere truths to people who care about her. Maybe...

I don't know.

This is not meant as commentary for the condition of women or as a rationale of why I'd rather be spending my time with gentlemen. The truth is I'd rather be spending my time with gentle humans, regardless of sex, who allow their vulnerability to surface; who aren't afraid to do silly things that they look back on with more than a twinge of humiliation because things didn't work out the way they'd hoped. But they tried.

The very sad thing is Ian has gone back into his unfeeling shell again. He was devasted and embarrassed by all that had occurred. He is convinced this is divine karmic retribution for his past unfeeling responses to other women. I don't feel that. As much as there are those who don't like Ian for one reason or another, I love him for his awkward attempts, his great friendship, his highly protective nature and the moments when his shell cracks, leaving little points of light that blind me every now and then.

No Room For a Second Helping

I don't listen to music in the morning. As a rule. For some reason I felt compelled to crank The Faint while making coffee and the bed. It is a habit at my terminal to immediately check for any incoming mail. Pavlovian response. Bypassed iTunes for the email inbox. In the tray was a letter from the last lover. A cancelled wedding. Another whom I pushed away. I was going to crank some tunes, maybe dance around a bit while getting my day started.

Why can't I stop crying?

I miss him and I miss his words.


When I look at faces I sense such dissatisfaction. They wear a well practiced mask that I have laser vision against. Their mask is always within arm's reach, quickly grasped, attached with invisible string like the wool that joins two mittens through small sleeves. Mom made it. Sometimes when I look in the mirror that sentiment is reflected in me. I can't hide it anymore. My mask slipped recently down a sewer grate. I can't stand the stench of raw sewage. I'm reduced to naked.

I want but I don't want.

More and more I am choosing to cocoon myself in my own home. Friends often drag me out. My mother is worried. She thinks I'm depressed. I think it's a phase. I keep telling myself that. I had a good cry before going into work on Monday. It seemed to help.

I miss and I am amiss.


At Stratenger's, the 2 level ruckus bar where not only can you smoke your brains out legally, there is often bellowed conversations between mezzazine and orchestra pit. It's often a spectator sport. Like tennis.

Game
Set
Match
Why does Love = Zero?

I was with Fatty in the sunken seating area by the bar. Ack and our friend Zontar, who is too busy with work and family to read this blog anymore because "It's too dauntingly long" were in the upper level looking down. They eventually came down to join us for chicken wings and a modified food fight. Farmers and manufacturers of processed foodstuff need not weep from the misuse of their product. We were only hurling our soiled napkins at each other.

Ack relayed a story about a guest from Zontar's wedding.

Ack: Do you remember him? He was sitting at our table? The swimmer? He was with his really hot girlfriend. Really hot. Really.
The Comrade: Nope. I don't remember either.

Apparently Really Hot forced the tethered swimmer to continue his laboured strokes; lashes of her demands eventually exhausted him enough to give up and drown.

Ack: Basically the reason for the break-up was he didn't make enough money for her.

Mr. Lennon? Could you steal into the night, turn yourself into a moth and whisper into her ear that love is all you need. No? You're right. Your good words would be wasted.



I took myself out today. A forced take. I had to buy some espresso. I was out. For over a week I've been using my stove top espresso maker because one of the switches on my Baby Gaggia espresso machine was permanently depressed.

Depressed.

Like me.
Though not permanent.
Just for a day or so.
She hopes.

I learned, and this is a lesson that took 36 years to learn, to truly learn, to sink into this sometimes thick head, that even though I've said it, I haven't really known it until now: Nothing ever really, really bad ever lasts for very long.

Walking down the street, children were made at ease (soldier) by the end of school day's bell. Donning ski jackets in muted colours, little mini thugs with mommy-made mittens on a string, they screamed with voices that didn't match my own internal mood. It created a dissonance within. It was at that exact moment I realised why people sometimes don't like me. I have been those children so often. It was also at that time that I realised those children, as much as they were making so much sound, didn't all mean it. I have been all of those children.

I cried more than laughed today. I don't think I gave one earnest laugh all day. I didn't go to my regular café to buy my coffee. I went to an anonymous grocery store, though still ran into a couple of friends along the way. This time, instead of pretending I was alright, I allowed my true mood to come through.

"I need to go home now," I said on the corner to my old favourite work comrade, Josh.
Josh: Oh. Okay.

There was the old apologetic pull. The I'm sorry I'm not feeling myself. But it didn't overwhelm me, and I didn't fake it this time. I needed to go home. I needed to clean my kitchen and treat myself to a book on tape I'd rented from the library.

Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. The temperature in which books catch on fire.

It had been a long time since I'd heard a story read to me. I love stories. This is a very good one. If I close my eyes, I can still see the dial on the car stereo when I was 6 years old accompanying my father in his cab during a regular work day. Listening to afternoon storytime on the CBC. Fixed. It was staring through me as much as I was it. My young life reflected on it. I still reflect on it.

I bought a small arrangement of flowers from the grocery store. They included carnations. And roses. 2 types of flowers I'd learned to despise. Of what they represent.

Two things about carnations: old ladies like them. They like to bring them to funerals. I remember making carnations out of tissue paper and adhering them to a car for a wedding. They represented both death and marriage. Synonymous? Well... that's something to examine later.

I don't like roses because of Stupid, my first husband; a mistake. Specifically red roses. "Forgive me," he said, wielding a dozen, dripping long stems.

The third were daisies. And I thought of Al. She used to attach Daisy in front of my name. She was my best friend in high school. We don't talk anymore. Apparently I overshadowed her and she never felt she had a presence. Not even with her own father. I loved her father, mostly because he was patient, permissive and he believed in me. He once told my own father off. At his doorstep. I silently wished he was my real father. I was not alone in this wish. There were others. I was happy to share him. Al was not.



I wanted to get away from the noise along the street. I walked with my head down, sunglasses on, white hood up and shrouding. Still crying. It was cold and sunny.

Crying and somber
Cruel and slumber
Cradle and lumber

Sad was the only thing I was feeling. Sad is only good alone. I took a side street. There were still others. I took an alleyway. Empty, but not for long. I couldn't escape them. I didn't want to be seen today. I wanted only to get my provisions and go straight home, home, home.

In the grocery store there were several different packages of espresso for sale. Illy, an old favourite, something which we use at my new place of employ, and Lavazza. Illy was in a sleek tin, aesthetically pleasing fonts and minimalist styling. $15 for 1/2 lb. The other stuff was in a vacuum sealed brick of a slight garishness, the standard Italian flag of red, green and white. $3.99 for the same volume. I bought 2 bricks to build my wall.

The Christmas Vial had gone empty weeks ago. I must have travelled extensively. Some tokens were given to those without a required exact fare. Some were given to companions. Others were lone travellers off to destinations unknown to me. A silent wish for adventure was on my lips for them. I've since kept the vial, something I suspect I'll always use for that purpose.

I'll keep refilling it, Mom. Everytime I open it, I think of you.

I was blessed with a gracious driver today. I don't always get one. Some are surly. Others are silent. He was not jovial. He was almost reverent. I'd like to think he sensed my mood and acted appropriately. But that would be too narcissistic to consider. I am simply thankful his vibration level meshed with mine.

God, grant me goodness. Patience. Forgiveness.

My mother is worried I am spending too much time alone. How much is too much? What if I'm the only one I want to spend time with? What if I don't want to listen to others, especially when I feel they have nothing to say. Their mouths move. I listen, but they don't say anything.

Though some do.

There is a very nice lady whose family owns a well stocked convenience store down the street from me. She is a year or so younger than I. I like her because she's kind and she's honest. She serves neighbourhood people who are often on some sort of welfare scenario. They are often found buying lottery tickets. I watch her. I watch people. Each time a ticket with carefully chosen magical numbers spews out of the machine, she wishes the recipient an honest "good luck" with an equal smile. I don't know her name.

Nice Lady: Hi!
The Comrade: How are you?
Nice Lady: I'm good today. Yesterday I was sad. Today is much better. How are you?
The Comrade: Your yesterday is my today. I need to go home. And hopefully my tomorrow will be your today.

The Nice Lady offers me an empathic smile.


I'm nursing something. It's not quite a hangover, it's more a hanger-on. Something is being dredged up from my past but I can't put my finger on it. It's on the tip of my tongue, though. Maybe it's not time yet. Maybe too many things have been learned lately. Things take time to digest for there to be more room for a second helping.

My good friend Fatty told me a story about a fine Indian buffet he went to with his family. The food was delicious but like his namesake he'd eaten too much. He excused himself from the table to throw up, just to come back with a rinced mouth and washed hands which carried 2 new heaping plates.


The other day there was a 20˚C variance in temperature. I am tired of winter. I want it to end. Buds are starting to show. Promise. From one crack in my window I heard the sweet honks of our Canadian Geese. Everytime I hear them I have to close my eyes.

Our geese are coming home. A new day. A new season. Another example of how nothing bad ever lasts that long. It's just a season of discontent.

I don't want to throw anything up. I just need to chew slower.

Bruised and Accused

I got up rather early yesterday. 6 am. Sunday and 6 am are not synonymous. What roused me so early? Slight pangs of constipation. It's worrisome. And I hate not pooping properly.


Walking across my torso last night, Chicken, my better half, who will be celebrating his Sweet 16 this autumn, helped me to discover that one of my ribs was bruised. The discovery of even fresh corporeal discoloured apparitions can't always be explained. There are the few, however, that are permanently grafted to my longterm memory cache.

Memorable Bruise #1
Inflicted by a certifiable nutcase I used to work with. Though a Born Again Christian I'm pretty sure, but not positive, that God had little to nothing to do with it. Admittedly I had given her a near atomic wedgy. I suppose there are ways to surrender in this game of delight for one. Her fight or flight procedure was as follows:
Ass to the ground
Turning of the head
Biting of my arm

Some may say I deserved this retributive act, but her g-string remained a tacky yet unmarred flossing utility; her privates were left unscathed... by me anyway. For 3 weeks I had a blackened bruise in the perfect shape of a scream on my right bicep.

Bruising generally occurs through wrestling, mock fights, drunken hard leanings into intersecting walls, falling up stairs. With company, those are the most embarrassing.

Memorable Bruise #2
When I was about 15 I was walking with my brother Walter to a restaurant. It was a fairly chilly autumn day. My hands were shoved deep into my jacket's pockets. I was going up a small set of stairs when I tripped. I fell face first with the unfortunate inability to catch myself as my pockets were acting as hand prisons. Good news: All my teeth remained.

Oh, right... back to the pooping.

Years ago I was on the set of an immemorable movie. What oftens happens to people when they are in close proximity of others in the same boat, for a prolonged period of time, is they end up talking about bodily functions. One of the performers was telling me about the Salt Water Cleanse. Cleansing suggests something clean and fresh. Spring. This is a rather disgusting process.

Booming Voiced TV Announcer: Are feeling rather bunged up? Stress or an altered schedule creating turmoil in your body?

Here's the recipe:
2 tsps of sea salt dissolved in
4 cups of lukewarm water

Choke this savoury cocktail down as quickly as possible, ignoring the fact that you want desperately to vomit.

This fella told me that within 10 minutes of ingestion, I'd be on the toilet for 1/2 hour.

The Comrade's First Attempt
Elapsed time: 10 minutes...
I made myself a coffee, arranged a stack of magazines, cigarettes...

Nothing.

Elapsed time: 25 minutes...
Waiting. Waiting.

Nothing.

Elapsed time: 45 minutes...
Screw this!

I began to apply make-up. As soon as I touched mascara wand to my first eyelash there was a red panic button pushed. ALARM!

10 seconds to containment breach!
She's going to blow!

Luckily I made it.


My wonderful friend Dirty stopped by for an impromptu visit yesterday. Her presence effectively diffused a situation between my mother and me.

Mom and I were discussing a separate conversation I had with my eldest brother Vince the other day. Last Sunday, most of my immediate and extended family had gathered at a reception for a newly created association. Having been a resident of a tiny village in China was the only requirement for membership to this association. Other invited curiousities were the offspring of these explorers. I bowed out.

Ah crap! Everytime I write a line I have to go to the bathroom.

Vince had left me a message saying that at the gathering he had met someone I knew. Nice. This is what was going through my mind:
Oh, it must be so and so; someone I met while straining blue martinis. Someone I ribbed once. Someone male.

Wrong on all accounts.

The person who claimed to know me was a young woman, older than me by a few years. She was the youngest and thinnest child of a family of 3 children. Her two elder brothers were little Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum-like roly poly fat boys. Her parents have operated a fish and chip store longer than I have been alive. It's still in operation. There has been not one variance in altered decoration since its inception. The walls are ever a light minty green. There are the original faded and fake gild framed 1960's Pepsi Cola ads placed on an angle in their storefront's window which occasionally receive a dusting. It is a fast food museum. Both the decoration and the inhabitants grow more faded and aged. As much as I like fish and chips, I never go in there. They are proud people who would never accept my money.

The last time I recall visiting this family was approximately when I was 10 years old. The two things I remember were:
1. The shock and horror that children could be that fat.
2. It was the first time I'd ever seen food wrapped in newspaper. I thought that was the best thing ever.

The rest of it was a blur. I remember no interaction with anyone, save the parents. The boys kept to themselves and each other. The girl was silent.

Vince: So do you remember her?
The Comrade: No. Not really. I remember her existence, but aside from that there is no real memory of her.
Vince: Well she remembers you.
The Comrade: Oh?
Vince: Do you want to know what she said?
The Comrade: Yes.
Vince: She remembers you as an angry child.
The Comrade: What?!

First high maintenance and now this. This is the second accusation I'd received in less than a week that I've never been accused of before.

In 1968, during a memorable year of universal political revolutions and change, The Comrade was birthed. Since that day, head ridiculously full of untamable hair, she did nothing but laugh, coo and be delighted by things like tabloid wrapped food.

Prone to bursts of anger eruption, sure.
But angry?

The Comrade: Are you sure she was thinking about me?
Vince: That's what she said. She said you were the youngest.
The Comrade: Yeah, but who the fuck is this person?
Vince: Well she seemed to remember you clearly. And she seemed very willing to talk to you about this. So maybe you can call her to clear the air. It would be nice to reignite an old friendship.
The Comrade: Okay, A) There is no air to clear because she's wrong. B) There is a lot of consideration with whom I spend time with. And C) Don't you have to at least remember someone in order for that person to be considered friend?

It was at that moment I realised my voice had pitched an octave higher than normal. My juggular was knotted in a 1" bas relief. I had to do an internal check. I didn't want to seem angry.

The Comrade: [calmly] Well, my brother Vince, seeing as you did grow up with me, what do you think? Was I an angry child?
Vince: I didn't sense real anger until you were in mid-adolescence.
The Comrade: And that anger was directed at one person.

Papa can you hear me?

The Comrade: Eunice was the angry child.
Vince: Maybe she was confused and got the sisters wrong.


Anyone I tell this story to says the same thing: Why are you letting this bother you? I think if it were an isolated case, if this hadn't happened to me often, I'd let it go, thinking it was merely mistaken identity. Perhaps I would goodnaturedly suggest she check her age 10 facts. But it isn't an isolated case. Throughout my life, there has been a barrage of fictions created about me. I'm sick of being wrongfully accused.

My brother Vince didn't remember this girl. She was a virtual stranger to him. She accused me of something that anyone who grew up with me would know was absolutely untrue. But he didn't say anything. He never said that at 5 years old, even when I was sick, I'd never want to leave a party; how I would go around dispensing wedgies even then. When I was 2 years old, with a sticky-outy belly, which visually broke up the scratchy ill fitting dusty pink bikini I wouldn't take off for an entire season, I would often be found in the backyard, mouth permanently fixed in a delight gape, waving well wishes to friends and neighbours with a newly planted apple tree's branch. I used to wave to Vince a lot. Are you making so much money now that you forgot? How much is enough? How my mother would often use adult fist-sized torn chunks of Italian loaf to shove in my mouth to keep me from yammering on and on. I had so many questions. How every single photo taken of a mini Comrade simultaneously captured small eyes and huge laughter. And yet he said nothing. He was quick to believe a stranger even though he was my big brother. Someone I thought knew me. So to the vomitorium list, I add a gross lack of familial defense of my honour.

I was talking to my great friend Fatty about it the other night.
Fatty: Angry? You have got to be the most passionate person I've ever met.

I'd never have to ask, but I knew Fatty would always defend my honour. And he knows I'd kick anyone's ass for him.

I come from a family who has aired its dirty laundry in front of others, parading it like the headlining act during a fiesta. Full on yelling and threatening matches between father and pick-a-child had habitually occurred in the middle of our sleepy one block street. My father would wear his rather old world authoritarian parenting like a Purple Heart. Because 3 of his children "turned out well", "well" being a marker of status and wealth in this society, he figured his tour of duty warranted this honour.

He used to say to me:
3 out of 4 ain't bad.
It's your fault.
You are not my daughter.
You're stupid and ugly and will never amount to anything.
You're a loser.

He used to say to others:
I have 3 children. She doesn't count.
She's a loser.
It's not my fault.!

These I overheard. I'm sure there were more. I see the eyes cast on me when I am persuaded to go to these family functions. They are eyes of judgement. As my very wise mother has always said, "Nobody remembers any good thing you do. And true or not, they never forget the bad."

But it's the not true that I have great difficulty with.

"You're going to take HER word over MINE," he shrieked. Over dinner I recounted the story of how he instigated a fistfight over a $2 discrepancy in a long distance phone bill. He didn't want his elder sister to know the truth. Or maybe he suppressed it. Maybe it's how he lives with himself.

My mother fell down in a grocery chain's parking lot a few weeks ago. She never told me. Not until yesterday. My parents were on their way to Cuba days after the accident. Luckily she didn't break anything. She was swollen and badly bruised on her stomach.

Dear old Dad: Well if you're not going I'll take someone else.

Her lovely face was unmarred. Her passport. Had she a bruise on her face she wouldn't have travelled to their annual destination. She didn't opt for the delight she usually garners from swimming, though.



Dirty has asked me on two occasions how I've become the type of person I am. She notes my strength, my honour and my ease with other humans.
The Comrade: Home. That's where it comes from, Dirty.

Dirty and I were talking about fathers in line for the Father of the Year Award™. As wonderful as my dear old dad has been, I think Dirty's daddy really deserves this honour.

We were sitting facing each other on my sofa, my good friend and I. Embracing sunbeams streamed through the large windows creating the extra heat women often love. We were drinking mimosas, toasting and talking for 8 hours straight like only great girlfriends do.

I sat fixed listening to her as she told me how unpopular she was growing up. She spoke of the ill-fitting mismatched clothes. All the forced labour she was made to do around the house. How one day she and her sister Doris had picked up the phone to call the Children's Aid Society to report how they were repeatedly being raped by their father. How this organisation had stripped both the sisters down and sprayed them with a delousing agent. In front of a panel. More humiliation. Just like prison. How the girls were shuttled to half-way homes populated with violent, young female criminals; their slumber party inmates. They were all treated the same. Like criminals.

Two weeks later the girls received a phone call from their father's attorney. Through lies, threats and gentle, cloying persuation, the kind that born legal emissaries receive directly from the antichrist, this professional, whoring for hundreds of dollars per hour, convinced these young, very scared ladies to sign an affidavit.

Here ye, here ye.

This didn't happen.
Our father never did this to us.

Okay, please sign here.

The taste of bile cleaved its way past the champagne cocktail.
I can't tell this story without crying.

Dirty is one of the most appropriate, considerate, ever laughing, lovely and loving people I know. It is an honour to be her friend.

And fucking right I get angry.

The Earth's Banquet

"But have you tasted the whole of the Earth's banquet?"

I was reading Iain Banks's A Cold Stone on the sofa last night. Ack, the ex-husband/ best friend, called during the narrator's accidental spill of freshly killed finches; a proposed feast during a politically tumultuous time.

ring ring

The image of those yellow and dripping red, broken winged creatures, falling like waterfall, was bright in my mind.

Ack wanted to go to Stratenger's, the riotous place that allows fumez bien until one's lung collapses.

There was a threesome sitting in the booth behind ours. 2 young men and a lady. Mean age 28. The girl was pleasantly plump. Engorged breasts. Matching frame. A strange fear and desperation in her eyes. She had fine, stringy hair with a gradient pattern dye job that went, from from root to tip, a spurious sunlight to an oxidised corrosion.

We're just a million little gods turning every good thing to rust. [The Arcade Fire]

The boys had matching frames and complementing outfits. Late military. Both had the same walk; high school goth (very bouncy). Both were clear over 6'. Individual asses measured 1 1/2 axe handles across. Axe handles are the standard form of posterior measurement in certain circles of mine. Chiefly when I'm in the company of Ack. We here in Toronto are still in the midst of the dead of winter. In certain areas there are created snowbanks which stand higher than my 5'9" frame. And it's cold.

One of these lads was wearing a tank top.

This was not a standard issue wife-beater, if I may use this none too politically correct term. It is a term wildly used here in Toronto. This young man was wearing a loose, 1980's sweatsuit-grey tank top which looked not only like it was from that era, but had been washed repeatedly, and worn regularly and ardently since that time. The material had become thin. The Tanktopper moved around a lot, which at times created a peek-a-boo effect of the male mammaries.

Ack has this thing about where he likes to be positioned when he's out in public. He does not like his back exposed to main pedestrian thoroughfares. Just in case the shit hits the fan. Last night I vehemently did not want to sit on the exposing side either, so after a mock Thai fight, our new method of settling a dispute, he succumbed. With petulance. He was swayed only by my last statement on the issue.

The Comrade: Dude, if there is an emergency situation, I will be quicker to act.
Ack: Are you nuts, bitch? I'll be giving them the elbow so fast they won't know what...
The Comrade: Your elbow will only be used to open the door while you get your own skank ass out of here. Alone.
Ack: You don't even know me.
The Comrade: I know you far too well.

Where he was situated, on the exposé side, he was in full view of our neighbouring militia fashionistas and their one supporter. Every now and then he would pull a face as if someone had just fed him mice droppings covered in chocolate sauce.

The Comrade: What?
Ack: [curling his lip] They're making out.

Ack's lonely. He misses fervent kissing.

Martin Fry, the singer for ABC, a band whom I adored when I was 13, sang Poison Arrow. A lyrical excerpt is stuck in my mind right now:
"... so lower your sights. Yeah, but raise your aim. Raise your aim."

I couldn't tell, but there may have been some caressing going on under the loose fitting tank top.

I have a very small nose. Let that not fool you. I have a particularly annoying quality of having an acute sense of smell. This works out rather well when pleasure is derived from a pleasant fragrance. However, when an odour is foul enough it can make me gag and sometimes vomit. One of the gentlemen in non-parading fatigues had a definite smell of old person.

Ack had accused a lone, trivia playing young man, someone situated at the bar, of carrying this displaced scent.

Ack: It's that guy... the one with the lumberjack jacket on. Those things are notorious for carrying a mouldy scent.
The Comrade: That is not mould. Mould smells like basement. This has a decidedly sweet undertone.
Ack: Like embalming fluid!
The Comrade: Do you think that it's embalming fluid? Or do we associate the smell of old and death with that substance?
Ack: Hm... looks like a prime fieldtrip proposal.
The Comrade: I'm in.

Although...

While employed for the corporate restaurant The Courthouse, I worked with a co-comrade named Michael. Older gentleman. Very gay. Smart as a whip. He had a sense of humour which lay somewhere in the misty realm between rural Ontario and the pretentious urban elite. There was once a luncheon we'd worked together where a tourbus load of elderly folk were filing in to fill their reservation.

Michael: Do you smell that?
The Comrade: Yeah, it smells like old people.
Michael: [coyly smiling] Do you know what that smell is?
The Comrae: No. Is it a fragrance they choose?
Michael: No... It's a combination of 2 things: Depends undergarments. And decay.
The Comrade: Oh... God...



Back at Stratenger's, the satellite fed soundsystem is playing derivative cock rock. Successive hoarse voiced, screaming men full of manicured angst replete with heavy chugging guitars and decent rhythms. Of the 20 or so songs we sit through only 2 are worthy of rotation... in my humble opinion:

Interpol's Narc
The White Stripe's I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself

We talk about musical throughlines. Bents that lead one from one band and genre to the next. I recalled a discussion at work the other night.

I was talking to my buddy Mike, the Cartman sounding chef, at my new place of employ; also present was Yau See, the part owner/ part-time sous chef who married a woman from China, not for love, but for a sum of $30,000. Cartman-sounding Mike is a music snob. He believes that everything he likes is precious gold, whereas the tastes of others is questionable, at best. Mike and I have many tastes that run parellel, but both of us veer off-road following musical curves that make little sense to the other.

We were listening to Cursive, a band who is on the fine Saddle Creek label. This label is made fine by having The Faint, Azure Ray, Bright Eyes and Son, Ambulance on their roster. Cursive is decidedly cock rock.

Cartman-sounding Mike: And I suppose you like Keane?
The Comrade: Actually, I do.
He leaves, shaking his head, holding his stomach, turning back once with a look of disgust in his eye.

Cartman-sounding Mike was ripping into Yau See about his "lack of musical taste".

Cartman-sounding Mike: How many Ashanti albums do you have?
Yau See: None.
C-SM: Yeah, but you know all the words!
YS: So do you!
The Comrade: Who's Ashanti?

Mike and I were talking about the process of discovering music, which we actively sought out in our youth, that helped define us; that helped us express the things we felt, but hadn't yet developed the acumen to articulate. Yau See didn't know what we were talking about. He merely listened to whatever any of his friends were playing in their cars or bedrooms.

The Comrade: But don't you think it's an issue of broadening one's taste?
Yau See: No. I don't really care about it.
The Comrade: [shuddering] ... don't... care? Well, what about really great wine... or Illy espresso? Foie gras? You can exist on cheap plunk or Tim Horton's or chicken liver påté, but once you taste these things, the really good things, one tends to develop a well honed palate, no?
Yau See: I can't tell the difference between an $8 or $200 bottle of wine. And the other stuff just doesn't matter to me.
The Comrade: Oh.

He ate everything on his plate; not for pleasure, merely for sustanance.

Ack was recounting a memory of a recent trip to Prague. He had entered a beautiful bar. The room was tiny but well appointed. On a makeshift stage was a single man with an amplified guitar; no amplification for his accompaning voice was required. He had the perfect combination of decent pitch, a resonant timbre, a massive vibrating cranium, and a well exercised diaphragm. In Czech, the young man sang the blues. From seeing this performance, something that was reported to be quite moving, a renewed love for this musical genre was reignited in Ack.

Throughline: The Whites Stripes.

I've tended to operate purely on a gut response throughout my life. It has served me well approximately 80% of the time. I am fully wrong 20%. And I do admit it when it happens.

I never used to like The Whites Stripes. I've never liked the blues. It's simply the kind of repetition that doesn't cotton well to my inherent cell structure. Kind of like hip hop. Something that took a long time to like was Led Zepplin; their roots are steeped in blues. I was forced to listen to Jack White further, upon Ack's insistence. The more I listened, the more it attached itself. Not like a probucus. More like a gently cloying, persistent lover. Earnest. Begging.

I'm reminded of a lesson I learned in grade 8. During assembly, Ms. Caplan had told the class that tastebuds change every 8 weeks. "If you don't like something, try again in time. Eventually you might grow to love it."

One word: Cilantro.



It snowed quite a lot over the last few days. My outdoor patio furniture looks like soft furnishings for an arctic cousin of Fred Flintstone. The first night the snow began was Monday. Slow and steady it fell for hours straight. Huge, luminous bits of crystallised precipitation that adhered, bouncing on eyelashes; that burst around the edges of boots like bombed desert explosions upon every laboured step.

Monday was also my first introduction to Mark, Adjudicator #8 from my preceding post.
He answered all of my questions correctly and smoothly.
His approach was not unlike my repeal of Jack White's appeal, as Mark was like a gently cloying, persistent suitor. Also earnest. Ever begging.

Mark: Please let me walk you home, he asked for the 4th time that evening.
The Comrade: [repeating herself] I don't think that's a very good idea, Mark.
Mark: I think it's a very good idea.

After some time, he indicates with his right hand a 2" gap between thumb and index finger.

Mark: Do you realise that life is only this short?
The Comrade: Yes, Mark. I do.
Mark: [unrelentingly for the 5th time] May I walk you home?
The Comrade: [after much deliberation] Yes, Mark. You may.

Leaving the building I noticed that Militia Man, my boss Kim's boyfriend, had removed the 6" of snow that accumulated on her little 4x4. I thought that was a very kind gesture. As I've said, Militia Man is gruff by nature with a concurrent heart of gold.

Mark is delighted by the gentle snowfall.
Mark: All of this snow... Walking in it. It's rather romantic, isn't it?
I look at him dubiously. Warily.

Mark: Let me look at your face.
The Comrade looks at him briefly, adding: There's nothing to see here.
Mark: No, of course not.

Militia Man has joined our promenade. Along our route, his is the first stop. Mark has forgotten his wallet, his phone and now is considering the misplacement of his keys.

The Comrade: What do you mean you don't have your keys?
Mark: It's okay. Don't worry. If I don't my keys I'll sleep in the Eaton Centre.
The Comrade: You're not sleeping in the Eaton Centre. You'll go home with Militia Man.

Mark found his keys.

My nervousness increased with Militia Man's departure. I didn't know where to look. My eyes remained cast down. Hood shrouding any expression. By the time I looked up I was directly across the street from my apartment.

The Comrade: Okay, well... this is my stop.
Mark: You live there?
The Comrade: Yes.
Mark: Do you think I could cross the road with you?
The Comrade: Mark.
Mark: Because I will only cross if you allow it.
The Comrade: You may cross the road with me.

With tempest swirls of snow herding us closer like an act of ordained sheparding, we cross the wide street for me to bid him a good evening.

Mark: Well, I guess this is goodnight, then.
The Comrade: Yes. Goodnight, Mark. It was very good meeting you.

We kiss at the corner of our mouths. Mouths closed. I walk the remaining 20' of duned snow to my front door, pressing the code to enter. Mark calls out.

Mark: [indicating with his thumb and index finger again] Understanding that life is only this short, may I kiss you once more?
The Comrade: [after some deliberation] Okay. Once more.

Mark trudged the 20' to reach my place at the threshold. He took his right hand tucking it inside my white down-filled hood while cradling the right side of my face; kissing me deep, wet and full of passion. It was a Top 10 Hollywood kiss. Jeremy Irons would have approved. It left me a little weak in the knees.

I cut it short. Bid a final "goodnight" and shut the door.


The Comrade: Kissing is great.
Ack: I know, you filthy bitch! But I'm picky! I want to be able to taste the whole of the Earth's banquet.
The Comrade: Yeah, but you're assuming that banquet has to be filled with nothing but culinary delights.
Ack: Yes!
The Comrade: Just because it says banquet hall on its exterior, does not mean that everything they serve will be gourmet. Sometimes it is. Sometimes... wow... it's not. It's a banquet.

[Indicating with her thumb and index finger] Life is only this short. Raise your aim. Taste it all.