Saturday Afternoon

Outside the tiniest of snowflakes float. Inside, sunlight from the window hits the dust motes hovering above the hot air vent. The furnace has kicked in, rumbling melodically from the basement. The fridge hums. The cat on my lap purrs. I flip a page in my book. I notice the soft sound of my rough fingertips moving over paper. I breathe in. I breathe out. A gust of wind outside now. The snow scatters—the last of the autumn leaves dance. The cat shifts her weight, resettling on me. I breathe in. I breathe out. I turn the next page.

Inspired by the afternoon. Photo by NetPix.

Close Enough

By the time I decided to shave off my first real beard, I’d pretty much forgotten how—mostly because I’d started growing it not long after I started shaving at all, and years after my father had left, taking with him any benefit I might’ve gained from his example of proper technique.

Without that, I attacked my face with an ignorance fed mostly by advertising that emphasized the importance of closeness, shaving this way and that, until all trace of stubble was gone, leaving me with a painful appreciation of how some things are better when they’re just close enough.

Inspired by Leda and the Pelican. Image by Gemini, proving that the AI doesn't know how human males shave any better than I did back then.

Leda and the Pelican

Some women have good legs. Others have nice hair. I have a beautiful décolletage. Despite a decade of sunny seasons as an archaeologist. Not a line nor wrinkle. I slather sunscreen and cosset it in silk scarves, serum it, and gua sha it. But here’s something: I've just been diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease. So now I take a pill every morning for the rest of my life. Because if my dead thyroid was left to moulder, it would be replaced by a goitre. A FUCKING GOITRE. I’m sure there’s a Greek or German cautionary tale about vanity in this somewhere.

Inspired by Let’s Not Talk. Image of my 63-year-old neck. No filter, no goitre.

Game Day Rituals

In pursuit of sporting greatness, I could not rely on talent, of which, the evidence demonstrated, I had little. Luck, then. To attract it, I employed intricately constructed stratagems. Example: I pulled my left skate on, then the right. Then I laced the left one up, then the right. 

      This never led to athletic stardom, but it did leave me with life-long rituals to follow during championship runs—like wearing the team jersey, t-shirt, and fan socks. And never laundering them during a win streak. These necessary measures have led to repeated tensions in the household at otherwise joyous moments. 

Inspired by an epic playoff and World Series run (thank you, Blue Jays). Image posted by the Toronto Blue Jays.

Whose Home Turf is it?

One drizzly March day, laden with shopping bags, I reached my street corner when I noticed a group of women gabbing on the sidewalk across from me—totally oblivious to anything around them including their dogs barking furiously and pulling on their leads. I vaguely wondered at this, then rounded the corner and saw the reason: a large stray—no, my mind registered—a coyote, looking wet, pissed off and bedraggled. I froze, but it took no notice of me. The light turned green. The cars stopped. And it sauntered across the intersection towards High Park and out of sight.

Inspired by Oooh, Ahhh. Photo by Harry Collins.

Ooooh, Ahhhh

At an intersection in the hood, people are mesmerized. Jaws are dropping. Arms straightened out, fingers pointing. They are halting their cars, scooters and strollers to get viral photos.
     Standing in the street in clusters, gazing and smiling, in wonderment and disbelief. A site for their eyes to behold.
     It’s not the moon, a glorious pink cloud sunset or the incredible rich colours of the changing leaves. No, it’s a giant inflatable pumpkin. A Costco limited-edition private stock. Engulfing a corner lot and causing a seemingly stirring of the soul.
     Wake up from brain rot. Forget 67. Join a luddite renaissance movement.

Inspired by this week’s events. Illustration by Ross Hendrick.

Midsommar

How lucky was she to have a boyfriend so cool and so confident that he didn’t care what the dullards around him might think, who had such a body that looked good in whatever he wore, and who wasn’t afraid to show it off now and then?

So, to hell with Shakespeare in the Park, and to hell with everyone staring as he picked his way down the crowded hillside. But most of all, to hell with her having to explain all the time why her boyfriend was wearing a skirt.
     “It’s not a skirt,” she sneered. “It’s a sarong.”

Inspired by Lifelong Pals. Image by Bing.

Lifelong Pals

A band of rogues, were they, everything a ribald brag or pun-ish diss. Fact or fiction, it mattered not. Lewd mockery and exaggeration were their tools of discourse. This, they would always be: lusty, with no time for foolish love. They’d never waste time on feelings.

       They married, divorced, retired. Eventually they did discuss feelings—in their knees, backs and hips, which hurt. Harkening back to carnal conquests, Mercutio deemed these “war wounds.” Over beers, they gabbed about their ailments, though never about ED or male pattern baldness. It went entirely unremarked that Benvolio had an impressive set of man-breasts.

Inspired by Let’s Not Talk. Image from Baz Lurhman’s 1996 film, Romeo + Juliet, Act 2 Scene 4.

Like, I’m Going To Tell You

Once, when I worked at a hospital Charitable Foundation drafting fundraising reports with impossible deadlines, I found in the break room a box of buttons left there by HR. It was an employee wellness initiative. On each button was a different mood statement: “Grateful,” “Grumpy,” “I need a hug.” We were to pin on a button to share how we felt that day. I laughed, eyeing the one that said “Overwhelmed.” No one wore any of the buttons and a month later when I asked to work remotely so I could take care of my ailing mother, they let me go.

Inspired by Let’s Not Talk. Image based on a blank button by PhotoStockImage.

Let’s Not Talk

My workplace wants to start a dialogue about menopause. Why? Purportedly because we need to de-stigmatize it. For fuck’s sake it’s not an EDI issue. I get it on one hand, but do I really want to talk about menopause and my vagina at work? Not particularly. Nor do I want my male colleagues evaluating my thermodynamics at the office or worse, thinking there is a cohort of us running around with brain fog unable to perform. Should we next talk about andropause and shrivelling penises? I can see the headline, TSE crashes in the wake of shrinking confidence.

Inspired by Pricks and Stones. Image by Marysol Ra.

Because it Might be his Nickname.

If you’ve even heard of Nelson Algren, it’s likely because of his Three Rules of Life: “Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom’s. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own.”

I can certainly understand—if not relate to—One and Three, but I’d like everyone to know that Mom’s Restaurant in Midland was one of the high points of my last visit to cottage country.
     Still, having invalidated Rule Two, allow me to humbly offer a replacement: “Never sit for a shave from a barber named Nick.”

Inspired by Pricks and Stones. Photo by the author.

Pricks and Stones

We all had nicknames growing up. Mine was Peanut Head, mercifully truncated to Peanut by about grade four. Through Rich I’ve realized that nobody does nicknames like the Brits. He went to Sir Montgomery of Alamein, an all-boys school, so you can imagine. His soubriquet was Liam, a Delphic reference to a particular left-legged play-hogging footballer. There was also a kid who had a plummy voice. He’d been christened John Simpson, but Monty’d Nom Nimnom. Apparently, he did not care as he was a popular chap. He was also the fastest runner at the school. Fortissimus Quisque Tantum Superstes, dear boy.

Inspired by Such Potential. Painting—Harrow School Football Field—by Thomas M. Henry, 1887.

Such Potential

Roger often thought about the band, and what they could have been, if creative differences hadn’t derailed them. They always argued over everything. Even their name. At the very beginning, Johnny inexplicably insisted on “The Cuddles,” but that sucked for a bad-boy thrash metal band. The other guys came up with some great ideas. One Eyed Snake. The Hairy Reems. Wank. The Wad. Spunk. Spunkwad. Peter and the Pud Pullers. But they just couldn’t decide. If only they’d settled on one, and got on with the music. They peaked one Saturday in ’84, playing air guitar down in Eric’s basement.

Inspired by Star Bright. Image by Virginia Turbett.

Knitting World

She was in love with the wool—not so much the knitting. Or maybe it was the idea of crafting something into life. She didn’t delve too deep. She just bought: canary yellow merino, blue sky mohair, Aran creamsicle prints—colours and textures you could sink into piled high. Imagine the cozy afghan for the couch in her mountainside cottage; the chunky sweater she would make for him; the tiny baby booties; the striped scarf for her daughter-to-be. It was worth learning the patterns for that—no matter how many times she has to unravel her stitches and start again.

Inspired by Star Bright. Photo by Delpixel.

Star Bright

Confidence is abundant without awareness of self. This is what propelled me into auditioning for a play in Grade 9. I had no talent, and was blissfully oblivious. Even my dad’s shaming raised eyebrows deterred me not.
     I rehearsed my dance routine to Lucky Star for weeks under the direction of my then 11-year-old sister. I didn’t get the part. But there was so much joy in creating the choreography and endless singing to Madonna; we still laugh about it today. By Grade 10, my ego enveloped me like an Alien from the Body Snatchers. I never auditioned again.

Inspired by Sibilance. Image By Dzmitry Habrus.

Sibilance

Grade 8 music, 1974, and Miss Matthews has just introduced us to Roberta Flack. We are hers for the next 40 minutes, and she’s determined to teach this captive choir to sing Killing Me Softly with His Song. She plays our first attempt back at us from a big reel-to-reel she’s hooked up to the music room’s sound system, so that we can hear for ourselves how harsh all the s-words sound. The trick she tells us it to sing them as if they start with the letter Z, and so by the second take we’re already zinging with ztyle.

Inspired by Wrapped Up Like a Douche. Image by Atlantic Records.

Wrapped Up Like a Douche

Malapropping through the Eighties, everyone sang She’s So Popular instead of Jeu Sans Frontières. But since I was a kid, I’ve excelled at getting lyrics wrong. At six, instead of sending our Queen victorious, I wished her “Fletcher’s Castoria, Happy and Gloria.” Younger still, I warbled to the Singing Nun, “Domma-nick-a-nick-a-nick, une After Eight c’est all I want . . .”

But I loved to sing, and still do. I think I sound like Carole King. Dan says I bray like a donkey. A high-school teacher once called me Joanie. I thought Joni Mitchell. He meant Joan Baez. It was probably the moustache.

Inspired by Ron’s take on Games Without Frontiers. Photo by 20th Century Fox.

The Art of the Bluff

He took another peek. A 7-2 offsuit, a really raw deal. He’d have to bluff on it. He glanced around the table. Emannuel looked smug, but he always did. He was weak. Keir looked like that Muppet, Beaker—he’d cave for sure. So would the Dutchman next to him. The kraut, he wasn’t sure about. His eyes shifted onto Giorgia, who was unfathomable; he’d like to get her alone sometime. “Raise,” he said, pushing his memecoin stack forward. He finally looked across at Volodymyr. 

      “Donald, you haven’t got the cards,” Volodymyr said. “Too bad there's no trump in this game.”

Inspired by Poker Game and this week's gathering of international leaders. Image based on a photo by Elina Manninen, modified by Copilot.

Poker Game

Mary Ann was charming and funny, but she lacked a “stop” button. Take the infamous strip poker game at the back of the school bus where the six graders sat. Among a crowd of boys teetering on puberty, Mary Ann, past teetering, made the most of that 30-minute ride. When her opponent lost a round, she took off one of her many rings, which she wore just for the occasion. When Mary Ann lost, she went right for her shirt, and then her jeans. Her eyes were ablaze, chasing the attention, looking for the self-worth, she could not find elsewhere.

Inspired by Jordy. Photo by Stephen Rees.

Jordy

Jordan was his name. Jordy for short. He had it in for me and I never knew why. I think he literally hated me. It wasn’t any kind of secret crush as I was called a bone rack back then. Too skinny. Too awkward.  One afternoon, he raced by me on his bike and launched a rotten tomato at my head.

It caught the side of my face and exploded. I tried to pretend I wasn’t phased as tomato juice saturated my hair. But I felt shame and it stuck for years. I’ve always wondered what happened to that prick.

Inspired by Jerry Maybee. Photo by aquaArts studio.