new blog site, same old writer

Hey. To anyone who's still checking this thought scrapheap, I've moved. I am now at www.famouswriter.blogspot.com in the hopes that a change of scenery will inspire a new outpouring of thoughts and ideas that will land me a column in a local newspaper or magazine or something. I haven't written any new blogs at the time of this last posting, but there will be soon. Come find me.

fondest of memories,
stumblebee

a little rust around the edges.

(A quick, quiet confessional before it all goes down.)

Sometimes, meeting a new person is a chance to recreate yourself. They look at you with fresh eyes, and you could be anyone. You could be perfect. You could be everything they want. They don't know. There's just so much hope in the beginning, it's beautiful and simple and there are butterflies in stomachs and frogs in throats and clammy hands shoved into pockets and long, sideways glances. Some things never change.

But what if you meet someone when you aren't ready? When you can't be perfect?

Right now, there is a message on my answering machine, from a new fellow I'm hanging out with who lives just across the way. He wants to meet for breakfast. I have been conquering not only a compelling bout of depression and a painfully empty wallet, but have also been afflicted with some kind of stomach flu, and where earlier this morning, I was literally talking out of my ass, I am now sucking on plain crackers, trying to combat odd little ripples of naseau. I have a new pimple brewing in that delicate patch of skin under my cheekbone, you know the type of pimple, it throbs, it goes deep and threatens to undermine any whisper of self-esteem I can muster at this rather rough point in my life.

I'm not trying to sound pathetic (look how pathetic I am, isn't it just the stuff anecdotes are made of?) I'm merely trying to illustrate the fact that this is where I'm at right now, and the boy across the way has no idea. He probably wouldn't notice the pimple, nor would he care if he did. I can try to keep my depression a well-kept secret, he probably wouldn't be able to tell, what with all the questions I'm peppering him with, to deflect attention from my feeling-beaten self. And, while I don't wish to tell him the specifics about my sojourn on the toilet this morning, anyone can sympathise with a stomach bug.

I still want to hide all of this from him. I want to be clear-skinned, and bright-eyed. I want to be friendly and funny and lovely, all things I can be on better days. I want to have one of those magic days you dream of having with a near stranger you've only been out with twice, where you talk for hours and eat chocolate chip cookies and go to a movie and wonder if he's thinking about touching you in the dark. Where silences are, if not golden, at the very least, comfortable. I know he wants to see me, I know he is leaving soon, for parts unknown, for an undetermined amount of time. I could be anyone, could be reckless and free and fun, could unburden myself of my misery because of his obliviousness to it. What am I so scared of?

I guess all I can do is try. I can pick up the phone and call him back and tell him I want to see a movie and eat eggs. I can open my mouth and hope he doesn't hear the flutter of butterfly wings, or those frogs leaping all over my words and thoughts. I can hope all the wildlife in me just quiets down, and that whoever he is, he's not looking for something easy and perfect.

Because maybe, just maybe, he's looking for me.

freaks and leaks

This past week, my best friend, who was recently promoted at work(a round of applause for her, please) and I undertook the challenging task of finding an apartment for her. We first went for lunch at a local healthy food/vegan lifestyle type place. We never go to these sorts of restaurants, frankly, if it's a choice between an anti-cheese-anti-wheat-anti-fat food byproduct and plywood, I would rather eat the plywood. With rusted nails sticking out of it. But on this day, it seemed somehow fitting, a fresh start, a fresh culinary experience. We left half-full of sweet potato fries and optimism.
"We're going to find a place today, I can feel it!" I said
"Yes! Today is the day! I'm pumped!" This isn't exactly what she said, but sort of.
"Let's never get a tofu wrap again!" I said
"Yes! They are not filling and have very little flavour!" she said.

We promised ourselves chocolate chip cookies for later.

It's one of those well kept secrets that seasoned apartment hunters share amongst only their closest friends that the only real way to find a place in this over-priced city is to walk around your desired neighbourhood, find 'for rent' signs and call them. So we started walking. The first street we walked down was in one of those areas where homes look like crumbling gingerbread houses painted candy colours, sprinklers ch-ch-ch-ing, elderly people sitting on their front porches, performing a seemingly unnecessary neighbourhood surveillance. A gentle breeze blew through the trees as birds chirped.

"Look, there's a sign!" I said. I pointed at it. 'Flat for rent. Furnished.'
"Ugh. Furnished. Why?" she said. I think she was picturing doilies and portraits of the Virgin Mary.

We went up the stairs and rang the bell. The door opened after a minute, and an old man appeared, smelling like mothballs.

"What are you selling?" He said, squinting at us.
"Hahahaha," we said, "we're here about the apartment for rent. "
"Oh. There's just one problem. You're girls."
We looked at each other. Was this guy for real? Really?
"What do you mean?" we asked
"I don't rent to girls. I've had nothing but trouble with them. We still have one living here we have to get rid of."
Um. Okay.
"Alright, well, good luck with that" I said, trying to sound snotty. As we walked away, my friend tossed one more salty remark his way. He then called us assholes and told us to go to hell. And I do believe, from the depths of his woman-hating soul, he meant it. Somewhere in the back of the house, I have little doubt his wife was washing his underwear by hand and wishing she had married someone else.

Now, previous to this, my friend had been looking at an online rental site, which gave pictures and descriptions of the places advertised. It was here that she discovered the true meaning of false advertising and white lying. The world of renting isn't like the real world. Here, cozy means claustrophobic. Bachelor means cooking next to your toilet. Quiet tenant means celibate hermit. Several places advertised large basement apartments, and then casually mentioned 6 foot ceilings. Apparently, there is an entire rental marketplace for hobbits and wood nymphs.

Then we met Roger.

"He's wearing a barrette," my friend said, as he approached the front door. Sure enough, his hair was pulled back into a ponytail by a barrette, like the kind we wore in the late eighties.
"I'm obsessed with quiet." he said."And no smoking. Don't say you're a non-smoker and then smoke. One cigarette a day counts as a smoker." He had penetrating eyes and a bitter grin, and I believed he was fully capable of obsessing. He radiated creepy.
"The water pressure isn't so good. We'll have to work out a schedule, or we'll call each other when we want to take showers to make sure no one is using the water simultaneously." Shudder. I immediately imagined Roger racing up to his peephole as soon as my friend called him to announce her bathtime. We didn't even bother with the polite banter you offer when you know you hate an apartment, like "This is a nice bathroom," or "Does the kitchen come with that spice rack?" We just said goodbye and left.

One of the last places we saw had advertised as a bright basement with five windows. But when we got there, one of the windows was actually a brick that had been removed from the wall and replaced with a clear tile. Sunlight shot through that clear tile like water through a burst dam, and I realized with sadness that this corner of the apartment, with it's desperate light and water-damaged walls was actually someone's sleeping quarters. That's one of the things about apartment hunting. You see just how poorly some people choose to, or are forced to live.

As we ate the giant chocolate chip cookies we'd treated ourselves to, we marvelled at how money seperated an allegedly classless society such as ours into distinct groups of have's and have-not's. Money changes a lot of people, damages their sense of fair play, heightens their standard of living while lowering someone elses, enables them to manipulate people with the basic human need for shelter. Things like windows and reasonable ceilings should be a given, because honestly, a hotplate and a prayer simply aren't enough for most of us. In the end, my friend found a lovely, cheerful place, (with a lovely, decent landlady) that she may or may not take, but that is definately worthy of her. And along the road of misogonysts and potential perverts, we met helpful, warm individuals who offered parental-like concern and infused a difficult day with much needed humour and humanity.That's the thing about this city. There's always a little magic to be found.

Just ask the hobbits.

At the corner of front and center

If Shakespeare will allow me to paraphrase him, I sometimes feel like we're all actors in an almost first-rate movie. No, let me revise that, we're actors in some drama academy, like in Fame or something. I've been forced into the class, and they keep making me do things they say are 'normal', and will help me master my art, like pretending I'm a strip of frying bacon. And all I want to be is the make-up artist. Or work at the craft table.

Is this analogy working? What I mean is that sometimes, I feel so terribly visible. I feel like I have an audience, whether it be people driving by in cars, or bored shop owners looking at me from their windows, or black-clad Portuguese nonas watching me as I walk past. It's something I've never been entirely at ease with. I know, this sounds egocentric, but I don't mean it to. I just never really realized, till this late in the game, that other people are interested in what I'm doing. In how I look. In what I have to say.

As a kid, I clearly remember(because you do not make these things up) auditioning with a friend for the school talent show, doing a lip-sync of Micheal Jackson's 'Thriller'. We were pretending to be zombies, and I didn't have a costume, so I borrowed my sister's puffy ski jacket, grey with pink clouds on it. Oh, there were countless dance routines, politely endured by my bemused parents, or occasional flirtations with singing and acting in school productions. I don't recall too much about feeling silly or so shy I couldn't do what was expected of me. And then it stopped. I'm sure there was some pivotal moment, but I don't remember it. That level of un-self-consciousness, one of the most sublime facets of childhood, died in me, and was replaced with intense self-awareness.

I couldn't speak in front of more than one person at a time. I couldn't order pizza over the phone. I was scared of men. I failed oral presentations at school becauseI couldn't stand in front of the class. My fear was accompanied by a host of symptoms-clammy hands, fiery guts, shortness of breath, and of course, my trademark blush, the betrayal of all calm and coolness. I felt like an alien, even if other people talked about nerves and jitters, I knew my experience was different. It's the worst paradox I've faced, fearing an audience so much that your body trembles out every spasm of nervous energy, making your fear so transparent. And being fearful of your response to fear.

Do we blame hormones?
Overly-critical peers, who teach us, just a little, about breaking hearts and making social gaffes?
How about the media? Aren't they somehow behind every unhinged, deranged impulse and disorder society suffers from?

It took a long time to make even small steps in overcoming my disorder. I still do battle with it, because even with years of therapy, I don't know how I got to be like this. I don't know why I think people are judging me, unfavourably or otherwise. I don't know why some people are shy and anxious, like me, and others are energized by the same stimuli. It doesn't seem fair.
I just want to be normal.

There are scads of things I feel socially anxious doing. For example:

Eating sushi in public. And pasta. And veggie burgers. Actually, I think this anxiety is more aptly titled "Eating in public". When I was little, and my parents would force me to eat meat, which I hated, I would chew it for hours and store it away in my cheeks. Gentle mocking ensued. This habit, I bashfully admit, has followed me into adulthood. I take a mouthful of food, and a few minutes later, that odd chipmunking behaviour occurs. I'm trying to tell myself it's cute. But I'm wary...

Purchasing necessities at Shopper's Drug Mart. There are a lot of items that fall into this category. For instance;
Tampons. I go out of my way to act like I don't care. I would walk around with the box on my head and a sandwich board saying "Menstrual and proud" if I thought it would offer credibility but inside, I'm thinking no one needs to know this about me, no matter how 'natural'.
Condoms. I feel like the person behind the counter is thinking,even for one split second 'hmm, this person is having sex'. And a judgement is being made, however slight. Because I used to work at Shopper's, and I can clearly remember thinking things like that about people buying condoms, more specifically 'That person is having sex, and I'm not. Go figure.' Again, another tidbit of highly personal information that a private person like myself feels a bit strange sharing with the general public.
Digestive Aids. I don't mean Pepto. Everyone buys Pepto. I mean things like Metamucil, you know, for when you can't go. Or Immodium, for when you can't stop. When you have to buy these things, when you're in a bad way, other people's empathy, while lovely and well-meaning, can seem a bit invasive.

Going to see live music alone. This one kills me, because music means everything to me. I love a good live show, but more often than not, I have trouble finding people to come with me. I've been to a show by myself, and it wasn't so bad, only I had actually lost the person I was supposed to meet there, so I knew the whole time she was there somewhere, which doesn't really count as going alone. In theory, it makes perfect sense to go alone, because once the music starts, you don't really talk much(unless you are those manner-challenged Torontonians who go to shows only to be seen and gossip loudly infront of me from your lofty five feet and eleven inches-why are you always so tall? why are you at every show?) But in between sets, what do you do with yourself? Do you read? It's so dark! Do you stand by the bar and drink your beer? Do you just stand there, wondering what to do with your hands once the beer is done? I'd love to be one of those loners you see standing against a wall, unaffected by their solitude. Or one of those crazy-haired older dudes, who rock out to a completely different tempo than the one being played, completely oblivious to the rest of the crowd, just feeling the music. Those guys, I respect.

There's more. But I really feel like if I go into more detail, you will stop reading my blogs. You will think 'Man, this girl has issues', and you will dismiss me, but you shouldn't be so dismissive because I'm just quirky. (That's what I call my social anxiety now. Quirky. Idiosyncratic.) Look, I know no one is thinking this much about what I do with my everyday life. I am not the center of anyone else's universe.

I keep trying to tell you other actors that I'm not a piece of frying bacon either, that I'm not like you, but you know what? I am. Like everyone else, I graduated from childhood, and now I'm in charge, directing, producing and starring in my own movie. I do my own make-up. There are plenty of outtakes and bloopers. A couple of gratuitous love scenes. And it's low budget at the best of times.

But the soundtrack is awesome.

deja voodoo

It's been a while. I don't even know if I still have a readership anymore, so this may very well be a party of one. A diary entry. Egads.

Will my voice be the same?
Will I sound harsher than before?
Can I blame it on the heat?

I am obsessed with fresh starts. I have devised my very own witness protection program, where I move houses and talk big about leaving this elephant of a three-year job that has plagued me with its insignificance and the importance placed upon it by people frightened to death of their own insignificance. I can't seem to leave behind who I am, though. Shy, awkward, a little bit hidden. That seems to follow me around.

But I have moved into a beautiful house with my sister, and we are currently experiencing the re-tiling of the bathroom floor, and our toilet sits pathetically misplaced in our hallway, and we try in vain to not drink too much water in this stifling heat wave so we don't have to run to the library down the street to pee(where toilet paper is scarce)too, too often. And on my way to the library toilet, I notice my bike has fallen, sadly, lonesome-like, on its side, away from the pole I manacled it to, and it looks at me bleakly and meekly, begging for my sympathy, and I walk past it and look down on it and pretend I don't know it. I feel my own cruelty coursing through me. I blame it on the stored-up pee and the heat. Poor, innocent bicycle.

I'm at my parents' house now, in North York, enjoying a brand of hospitality only parents can dole out. My father has just offered me a banana split, and I have, prior to this blog, been sauntering around the house with a large gin and tonic, feeling like a saucy alcoholic, like Sue Ellen from Dallas, perhaps the best television alcoholic ever to clink two icecubes together. I've been finishing a book that I fear I am copying in style and content mentally-have I mentioned I'm mentally writing a book now? It's going to be fantastic, all magic and tragic.

I'm revisiting the territory of risk. A few tumbleweeds have blown by, it's arid and desolate here, but I'm back, because my heart and my head demand some gratification of sorts, and I, too weary to fight them, must grant a reprieve from the misery guts I have become of late. I like a boy. A guy. A man. He is probably a bit of all of these. And I've liked him for a while now, and have liked liking him because it's been entertaining and unreal, but today, I made it a bit more real, and thus, a bit scary.

Let me speak frankly. I have been on my own for a long time now. And the truth of the matter is, I am astonishingly capable at it. I am fantastic on my own. There has been no ache of an empty bed. My hands have not needed to be held. There've been no fights due to moodiness, because I get it, I am moody, and I accept that about myself. There have been many times where I've chuckled at my own jokes, shaken my head at my own stupidities, even rubbed my own sore back. I've cut out the unnecessary people, the ones who talk good intentions, but are really just big phonies.(thanks Holden, for putting such depth in that word)I sound really well-adjusted on paper, don't I?

But the fact is, I've also become a little too adept at making excuses for my well-insulated self.

So today, after a lovely evening the night before with one of my dearest friends,I, in a shirt speckled with both strawberry and soy sauce stains, with sweat glueing my hair to my forehead, with that general glaze of heatsmoghumiditygrossness, ran into him on the street.

He looked good.

Really good.

we stopped on a street corner and chatted. And I had that odd out-of-body thing where my head is doing a running commentary of what is coming out of my mouth; "utter nonsense!where did that come from?" "Ohh, that was a good one though, good work kiddo", that sort of thing. And at the end of it, I needed to punctuate our chat with an invitation, and so I said:
"If you ever want to hang out, you should call me."

Oh, I felt so brave. Full of self-heroics. Because as we were talking, and I could feel the invitation bubbling up inside me, I was remembering the last time I was so honest, and while it had been refreshing and bold, like a Gauloise Blonde, it was also flat-out turned down. And I lived to tell the tale without bitterness or alteration of the general sort of sweetness I try to inhabit, but it's made me scared. Because I told him he could call me and the ball is in his court, and all I want to do it leave this thing alone, let it grow or die on its own and not make a big production out of it, just keep it lovely and fresh and full of maybe's, not act like he's suddenly the only fellow left in the world who could possibly hold my hand or inhabit my funny world with some sense of understanding, or like a no from him would smash my hope like a pumpkin.

So I'm trying not to over-think it.(by writing about it?!?) The thing of it is, I really need something good and gentle to happen, because it's been a tough go of it lately. Is it wrong to hope for a person? Is it too much to put on someone, not to be your saving grace, but to be something to look forward to? I don't know.

I hope I will find out...

gone fishin'

I'll be back, just taking some time to get fresh again...don't give up on Ponyboy!!!

Phil and Ope

I've been thinking a lot these days about hard luck and dumb luck and lack of luck. I've been thinking about God, and how I sometimes wished I believed in one, because I think God could make sense out of most of the pain and hard luck we find ourselves fused to. Ask anyone, or just trust me, unemployment/lack of money, caring for an ill relative, battling yet another round of depression and having difficulty finding any sense of direction in life really incurs a bit of wear and tear on the old heart. It scuffs your sanity a little.

Lately, I've been a tangle of endless tears and raw, exposed nerves. I've become the most overly emotional person I could dream up. I am moved, sometimes deeply, watching Oprah, her generosity touches me(go, sister.) I get angry, really grindingly angry at the guests on Dr. Phil who provoke his no-nonsense commentary, I find myself inwardly cheering when he calls someone arrogant or selfish to their face(such honesty! such integrity! such bluntness!) I get weepy listening to one of my favourite bands, Explosions in the Sky, so much so that sometimes, I have to turn them off because the words of the book I'm reading start swimming and blurring and I can't warm the shivers on my arms.

And I fall in love, harder and faster than anyone I know.

It don't take much to warm me to you. Look me in the eyes and ask me how my day's going. Blush or stammer a bit(show me there are more of us out there.) Make me laugh, it only takes one good laugh, I know, I'm easy that way. Love dogs better than cats. Love music more than talking academic about music. Have beautiful hands. Look like you're keeping a really good secret. Be just a little sweet, no matter how many hard edges you've accumulated.

While I presently have many love interests(with such slight criterium, how could I not have an army of infatuations?), my latest love is a first for me. I've fallen for someone famous. This doesn't happen to me. I consider myself immune to the carefully manufactured and groomed charms of celebrity types. I'm fairly pragmatic when it comes to love, I don't usually allow myself much time to moon over some poor sod who doesn't appreciate me, or who is wrong, wrong, wrong for me in any relevant way. I like believing there's a perpetual supply of gentle, real men to keep company with. What's the point of wanting someone who you only want to change? Or wanting someone you'll never meet? And yet, there's a big, slobbery romantic in me, wanting to squash all my boring logic like a bug.

I met my current love, David Gordon Green, on the dvd commentary of one of his movies(hahaha it's like we were on a date or something!) I liked his voice right off the bat. He's a writer/director, and has this lovely and slight southern drawl. Even more delightful are those sharp bursts of prose issued in that slight drawl, a man who speaks like he writes or writes like he speaks. And what he speaks and writes and sees is the fragility and resilience of human beings and the environments they occupy. He sees beauty in things decrepit, rusted and worn down. He sees the reason in slowing down a moment, way, way down, and taking it in before you blink it into another moment. I proceeded to rent all his movies, and listen to all the commentaries, and in the span of a week and a half, I felt like I had an idea about what maybe 1/100th of this fellow was about.(even within my grandest delusions, I know what I know and what I don't know) And that fraction was enough to throw myself into a series of make-believe scenarios that alternate between being excruciatingly embarrassing and thoroughly enjoyable.

"So, tell me," Oprah asks, "how did you meet?" David and I are sitting on one of her plush couches, a studio full of breath-holding women(and a few captive men) awaiting what is inevitably going to be some kind of romantic response;
"Well," I start, and David jumps in"She wrote this screenplay and sent it to me. My agent was like, 'David, you have to read this.' And I fell in love with her words. I had to meet her." The way he says it, with such sincerity, makes it sound like he had no choice. I am blushing and trembling a little, there is a collective murmur among the audience. We're holding hands. I pipe up; "I just knew, Oprah, from the first time I heard him speak on the dvd, that I'd found something, someone real." Oprah looks at the audience. "Can y'all believe this? It's like the movies!" We all have a good laugh at this. Her teeth are very white.

"Listen," Dr. Phil says, "you have to stop feeding these unhealthy fantasies. They're inhibiting your ability to create real ideas about relationships." Tears are welling in my eyes, damnit, I've put on liquid eyeliner for the show, which will run in ugly, black streams if I don't steady my wobbly chin. Focus on the moustache. Look for crumbs in the moustache. "But Dr. Phil, I don't want to abandon hope. It's all I've got." He looks at the audience and back at me. "You have to realize life isn't like it is in the movies. This isn't a movie, and you have to stop enabling yourself to live with a poorly planned life map. C'mon now. You have to get real." Everyone nods solemnly at me.

I know. I know!

I know already that I have to find a job, that I have to find some way to keep myself from falling away at the seams, that life isn't fair. I know there's a Second and Third World who are hungrier than I'll ever be, that good people get sick just like not-so-good people. That places like Guantanamo Bay exist, as does child porn, spousal abuse, drug addiction. Sometimes birds just fall out of their nests. And I don't know why. I don't have a God to explain it, and luck is just too arbitrary to base a faith on.

So maybe my current state of hyper-emoting is a coping mechanism, a way of dealing with the senselessness that pervades daily life. My being touched, angry, weepy, is a release. And my love of being in love with love, (Hollywood style, on an indie budget) is a relic of childhood that I'm holding on to like a ratty toy, to remind me of more innocent days. Whatever it is, is it so bad? Is it unhealthy to feel everything so vividly, to hope so ferociously, to play pretend so boundlessly? Because I need to right now, to support and distract me from the storm cloud that follows me like a shadow overhead, threatening eruption. I'm entering new and scary territory in my life right now. I've become a person who knows better, but doesn't really care. And I tell myself that as long as I've got friends who get me, music to sound out my moods, and the hope of David Gordon Green, I'll muddle my way through lofty pipedreams and harder days to come.

It doesn't get more real than this.