Jackie Earle

Dove pinched himself. (Or tried. He’d lost an epic three ounces since the call.) “Loved your work in Bad News Bears,” he offered. Jackie Earle Haley seemed shy, his now-middle-aged old-soul eyes intent on the Little Children props guy.
     “Here’s the thing,” Jackie Earle was explaining, “That tinfoil swan? It’s cheap. Sheila’s always denting it in the car. The mood is gone.”
     The props guy shrugged. “I guess.”
     Chin up, Dove nodded earnestly. Weren’t Jackie Earle’s struggles, after all, his own? The props guy said, “Hold still,” stuck a straw into his beak, and took out a roll of tinfoil.


Image: bleacherreport.com
The sequel to this story is Kate Winslet and the Blooper Reel. 

Jumping Ropes

Jumping rope was what brought them together and cemented their friendship when they first met in grade two. Sandy noted Joan’s skills and knowledge of many rhymes for skipping games and actively pursued Joan as a friend. Being new in town Joan was glad to accept Sandy’s friendship because Sandy seemed to know everybody. After that the two of them dominated the playground at recess. Nobody could turn rope or jump double dutch like Joan and Sandy. Over the years the skipping fell away and other interests took over, but Joan and Sandy remained tied together by those jumping ropes.

The J Section

“Why doesn’t Jesus have to stay in this Section?” Julius Caesar asked Joan of Arc.

     “Because,” she began primly, “He sitteth at the right hand of—”
     “Yeah, yeah.”
     “It’s nice to see Judas so cheerful. Ever since he started seeing Jezebel he—”
     “He’s weak. Impressionable. Men like that flock to strong people.” Caesar eyed Joan. Not bad for a Gaul. When she looked up at the sky her eyes shone appealingly. “Besides, guys like pushy broads.”
     She was oblivious to flattery. Maybe he could transfer to C Section. Cleopatra was there, and Antony seemed happy enough in A.

Image: Joan of Arc by John Everitt Millais

(This post is about just one of the numerous afterlives I've imagined, the first of which is here. Another is here.)

I(pod) Claudius

I bought Rich a Nano for his birthday, along with a runner’s armband and a set of fancy ear buds. Now he won’t have to hum the theme to Last of the Mohicans whenever he’s out jogging. It’s also an attempt to drag ourselves out of antiquity and into our teenager’s technological world. I hope it will not go the way of our blu-ray player. Here we are lost, marooned on our couch until Daniel comes to our rescue. He presses the correct buttons on his controller, pats us on our heads and then leaves us to our Poirot mysteries.

Improvise

If you look closely, you might notice a bit of a gap in my alphabet scrapbook. Every week, my first grade teacher would announce a new letter, and we’d fill a page with pictures we brought from home. That particular week, for B, I found a handbag, a baby with a dog, a teddy bear, and a whole lot of other things I can’t recall, because the letter

that week was, in fact, P. I was inconsolable, until dear Miss Crawford taught me my first lesson in improvisation. The bag became “purse.” The dog became “pet.” And the bear became . . . ?

Itch

Joan was surprised to see Sandy at her door that first warm, spring day. The thing was that Sandy could not bear to sit in that classroom, knowing Joan had the day off because she was exempted from writing the exam. So Sandy ditched the exam. It was puzzling because Joan knew how much Sandy was itching to get out of town. How was she going to do that if she did not graduate high school? But another burning itch over-rode the drive for future plans – that was the itch for the drive along country roads with the windows down.

Indigenian: A Modest Proposal

Indians used to be “Indians” but that’s not acceptable among the politically correct, and its offensive to Ind—
     Whoops . . . What can we call those people? “Amerindian”, “native Canadian”, “native”, “aboriginal” – each alternative is objectionable to somebody, and “First Nation” is just plain unwieldy. Try fitting “member of the Kashechewan First Nation” into that blank on the census form. (Besides, “member” surely offends some women.)
     In order to move on to other weighty issues, I’ve invented an inoffensive variant on “indigenous”: Indigenian. Problem solved. Now, headlines like “Tainted! Boil-Water Advisory Continues on Indigenian Reserve!” can offend no one – white or Indigenian.

Happy?

Jüri had thought himself lucky. Fresh off the boat—as Americans like to say—and he’d already got a job at the Button Up novelty company. Tedious work, sure, but there was always new product coming in, and their “funky” style even helped a little with the English nobody taught you at school. December 1970, but by spring he’d already come nose to nose with the ugly yellow face of Capitalism, when they decided to turn all production over to the Happy Face, bucket after bucket, day after day. And only five short storeys to the pavement of West 46th.

Handmedowns

Hazel taught me to knit. She also showed me how to make popcorn over the stove. Mieka passed along her methods for line-drying clothes. These are now activities I consider integral life skills. Then there are the delicacies too delicious not to be enjoyed regularly: Anna’s pimento moida, Yvonne’s marinated broccoli, Marcel and Randy’s preserves. Without these morsels meals would be a recurrent dirge of chickpeas and spaghetti. And what of Jacquie and Mary’s navigations through the nooks and crannies of closeted cheese shops and trunk shows? One keeps the other in check, and both activities appropriated as my own.

Helping

The amphetamines weren’t helping, Dove had gained another ounce, and here Raven had stopped at a Timmy’s on the way home from some voicework.
     The phone in the yard jingled. “Don’t you want to get it?” asked Raven silkily. Everyone knew for the last forty days, Dove’s agent hadn’t returned one call. Let alone sent a Christmas card. Dove shook his head, mired as it was in the cherry-filled. Raven sashayed over to the phone.
     He came back salt and peppered with dander. Dove's amphetamine-laced heart skipped. “The set of Little Children,” Raven said. “I said yeah, you were resting.”

Image: www.talktocanada.com
The sequel to this story is Jackie Earle.

Harder

The engineers at my university held an annual “forty beers” contest, completion of which bestowed great prestige. The first few refreshing ales slid down easily. Nothing to it. The next few were a little harder. Then it became very challenging indeed. Don’t try it at home folks, it is not safe. The human body cannot accept such punishment. Alcohol aside, you can overdose and die from that much fluid.
     Which brings me to writing a hundred words a day. It’s harder than you’d think. If only they’d invent a Viagra for writers. But wait – they already have. It’s called “Readers”.

Halves

Even though Joan felt that Sandy pushed her into doing things she often thought better of, she knew it was not a one-sided relationship. It was that pushing that forced Joan to take risks that expanded her boundaries; and Joan’s innately reticent personality kept Sandy’s impetuous nature in check. The yin and yang of their friendship helped develop qualities in each other that encouraged them both grow. They were two halves that complimented each other almost perfectly. Without Sandy, Joan could have been too careful, cautious and conservative. Without Joan, Sandy could, quite possibly, not have survived to adulthood.

Gomorrah

“Prairie Dog Rapture” by Anthony Falbo

Colin and I look forward to tuning into CBC during lunch. Yesterday he suggested we listen to a podcast about the impending Rapture. The beginning of the end apparently starts on May 21, 2011, and like the garage sale at the corner of Sorauren and Wright, will continue on until October. Personally, I am waiting for enlightened aliens to take me to an alternative universe where beings are actually kind to one another. Until then, I will just go about my business unlike the American Atheists who will be hosting an anti-Apocalypse barbeque. I think that’s just asking for it.

Geronimo!

“I fought them in life,” Geronimo said, adding a log to the heavenly campfire, “and now their warriors call my name as they jump through the air.”
     “Into the air?” Pontiac asked.
     “From the air. They jump from something called an airplane. Sitting Bull heard it from a new guy.”
     “Huhhm,” Pontiac grunted, unimpressed. “One of their war chiefs named something called a company after me. I never even fought this man. His name was General Motors.”
     Their companion poked the fire, a sour look on his face. “And you, Montezuma,” Geronimo said gruffly. “What did they name after you?”

(This post is about just one of the numerous afterlives I've imagined, the next of which is here.)

Gifted

The thing about Sandy was that she could sweet talk anybody, which made Joan feel like she was not the only big sap. Sandy had a way of looking you in the eye, leaning forward and seeming to be truly, earnestly interested in you. It made you feel special - and as though there was an instant bond between you and Sandy. So people did things for Sandy that they probably would not do for other people. Joan developed this gift by osmosis after years of observing her friend. But she could never really bring herself to use it so blatantly.

Ghost

The green-screen shoot took an eternity. “Think benevolent,” the director had insisted. Two hours later, “Amidst the cherubim. Not above.” Dove stuck his chin out and tried resentfully for pious. He wanted his lunch. “Chin down, dammit!”
     “The years have been unkind to Dove,” said one reviewer; another drew a downright mean comparison to William Shatner. One of the CGI artists called to commiserate. “We tried to make the cherubim plumper so you’d look...”
     At dinner, Raven pushed the largest millet pellets Dove’s way. Dove refused food. He was gonna get himself on amphetamines and become thin, like a ghost.

Image by Juan Simón Gutiérrez

The sequel to this story is Helping. 

Gerard

That’s the trouble with reunions, Gerard. Someone you remember won’t remember you.
     It has been almost forty years, after all, but you really can believe me this time: When Mary (whom I also can’t remember) just called you “Gerry,” I suddenly remembered that, when I was ten years old, I did indeed have a friend named “Jerry” who sort of looked like you. And, really, shouldn’t that count for something?
     But I’ll tell you what, I’ve got a handful of old memories I never could put a name to, and I bet at least one of is you. So, listen . . .

Fake Date

Sometime in Grade Six, Robert Riley and I took the subway to see The Sound of Music at the Eglinton theatre, but after opted for the long walk home, during which we concocted an elaborate story describing what we wanted our classmates to believe had really happened that afternoon.
     We were going to tell everybody we’d each taken a date, knowing this would drive our nemesis, Michael Doran, into a pre-pubescent rage. Michael was interested in the same girl as Robert, and although I can’t remember how my fake date fit in, I’m sure it made sense at the time.

Frugal

“You paid $54.00 for this!” Rich was incredulous. It’s hard enough to get him to take care of his skin, but now that he saw the price tag under my jar of moisturizer he’ll never go near it again. My man is still regretting the five dollars he spent on an economy tub of Jergens during a rare vanity moment at the Shoppers Drug Mart. Convincing him of the finer properties in Neal’s Yard Frankincense Nourishing Cream would be like trying to spray Jo Malone on a Sasquatch. Besides the price, I think the name puts him off. Too Jesusy.

The Fire

The furious forest fire fought, those flaming fires almost won, the fair of heart fast flung the art the faded fortress walls were hung – a festive frieze, four fripperies, a limpid fawn in furbelows, a scorched and sunburnt fenwood girl, her fenwood arrows and her bow. (“Fourteen Left Faint” fretted tin-type flyers furnishéd by dawn.) And hunted by the flatfoot guard, the fire-setter from Fife was torn between the fishponds of remorse and fiddleheaded stalks of hope, a farandole of fears he trod, a figure eighty-eight with tropes and fluteful hops of frolic cheer: His long-lost fenwood bride was near.

Image based on Diana Hunting by Guillaume Seignac.

Freedom

Joan fondly looked back on those long summer days with Sandy, hitchhiking with no particular destination in mind – just to get out of town and go. Ending up on a beach somewhere along the coast; enjoying a snack of chips and a milkshake at a tuck shop after a cooling dip in the lake. They always wore swimsuits under their clothes. Once they got rides on the backs of motorcycles with a gang wearing colours. Joan cringed to think how naive they were... and how lucky. Never again did she experience the all-out freedom of that time in her life.

Films versus Movies

Occasionally he used her arty proclivities against her. There’s this new French film, he’d say casually. Great reviews in Now. Oh, it’s got subtitles. He said the word like it meant free Swiss chocolate. That was how he got her to see La Femme Nikita, which had an amazing body count for a wussy European film. That was...too violent, she said, coming out. Well, he countered, if there’d been more violent films, maybe Hitler wouldn’t have had to invade Poland! But rather than concede the point, she just blinked rapidly. He had begun to suspect she had a nervous tick.

Editor

It’s times like these I wonder if, rather than being the guy who has to keep coming up with something fresh to read every day, I wouldn’t have made a better editor.
     The hours flow freely when I’m polishing up someone else’s work, curling their quotes and reformatting their paragraphs; but ask me for something new and watch each second stick. Instead, perhaps, I’ll just fix a few more typos, or maybe fiddle around with the punctuation. Or maybe I’ll be one of those editors, the scourge of authors everywhere, who dares rewrite their precious prose.
     Not that you’ve noticed.

Eatmore

During the 1950s Frank and Alice lived simply on their combined spoils of professional wrestling and moose hunting. But after Le Diable hung up his red cape money became tight so Alice went to work at Lowney’s. It put her off candy for the rest of her life. She’d tell us how after a run of higher quality chocolates the leavings were swept up by French Canadian Oompa Loompas and reused in other, cheaper confections. This was a woman who could gut a muskie with her eyeteeth but shake a box of Bridge Mixture within earshot and she’d go gippy.

Easier

Resisting Sandy took so much energy that Joan most often did not even bother trying. She saved her protestations only for truly dire scenarios. Like the time Sandy and her boyfriend wanted to break into that cottage and party. Joan just walked away from that one. But now here she was skipping school to drive Sandy to the County Seat, so she could visit her boyfriend in jail. It was easier to deal with the repercussions of that, than endure Sandy’s persistent whiny begging. However, Joan was enjoying a tiny bit of an ‘I told you so,’ factor as well.

Effortless

She was maybe twenty-one, a pretty girl in a tutu. The program said she would perform a piece by Balanchine. She posed like a figurine, arms extended, waiting for the music. And when it began she moved flawlessly, effortlessly; she floated across the stage, mezmerizing, a beam of purity. At the end she stood to acknowledge applause, and suddenly the audience saw her beneath the mask of her performance. Her chest heaved, the muscles of her neck were corded. Her smile was strained, and perspiration glowed upon her brow.
     The moment passed, she seized control, and was once again perfection.

Estuary

In your mouth, feel. Disturbing, voluptuous. First, sighing s, a consonant masked in vowel, the name Esmé you’d think somewhere wears sleeves of lace in Oscar Wilde — but nowhere does. The sumptuous, slow shift, your s sneering into a kiss of ch; Anne hears out loathed Gloucester, and though he has but freshly had her husband slain, he wins her. (Was ever woman in this humour woo’d?) Brownies follow a walnut-blue cheeseburger, rare, with silky onions winning over caramel. Airily, it’s over. Ta! We’re history. We’ve passed the river’s silt of moods. The ocean sways in subtle breeze.

Image: thumbnails.truveo.com

Dying

My mother tells me that Alva Pentecost is at the Royal Vic, dying in the same hospital in which I was born. Indeed, Alva always enjoyed reminding me that she was one of the first people I met there. My mother and Alva went to school together and have been friends now for more than 75 years. I’ve heard, too, that Pascal Sharpe—a friend of a friend of mine and one grade ahead—died last year at 49. The dead begin collecting slowly enough, I suppose, then faster, like the obituaries between the pages of my mother’s high-school yearbook.

Dove

“What’s my arc?” he kept asking the writers, who kept changing. He didn’t have any action sequences in the sequel either, though reviewers considered them his strong suit.
     Instead, he spent his time harnessed against a green-screen, with not even an olive twig to shred.
     “Too literal. You’re, like, an avatar of God,” he was told. What he felt like was an awkward girl at high school graduation before diplomas get handed out; like a queen without her purse.
     He didn’t say so around Raven, who’d bragged for years about being in some cancelled episode of a B-grade Aesop’s Fables.

Image: by Rubens.
The sequel to this story is Ghost.
Or, for God's view of Dove, see Good.

Deliverance

Every time we went canoeing someone would hum that tune. Not hum, exactly, but voice. Dah dah ding ding ding ding ding ding ding... We’d be headed for the boonies, self-contained, hardy, ready for any weather, and that tune would cause instant manic laughter. Rapids, bears, the prospect of hypothermia, of running short of hooch – all those hazards lay before us. Why, on the edge of the wilderness, did the idea of being violated by hillbillies seem hysterically funny? It was definitely a guy thing. Once, I went canoeing with a group of women, and they just didn’t get it.

DUI

Sandy considered drinking and driving to be a recreational activity. Most kids in town did, too. Joan did not give it much thought, either, until the accidents. Three that one winter. The wrecks would always be towed to the garage at the edge of town, and you could see them. It was closed casket for the funeral of the kid in grade nine Joan used to babysit. When Joan saw the wreck, she could see why. Then there was the near miss Joan herself experienced with Sandy, swerving at the last minute and ending up in the ditch, fortunately unhurt.

Dog Food

     Lucy’s eyes were as big as dinner plates, “Tell me more!”
     “Well,” began Nim “It just kept coming through the door.” She saw the hungry look in her sister’s eyes and warmed to her theme, “There were bags, and cans and those shiny shrink-wrapped packages . . . ”
     “Oooh . . . those are expensive!” said Lucy, who was always careful with her kibble. “But is it true? Did you bite Jude?”
     “Naw,” Nim worried her paw. “Just keeping it real.” She grew thoughtful. “And then, as quickly as it came, it all went away.”
     “Wow,” said Lucy, “that’s the saddest story I have ever heard.”

Carmen

Mike the vet told me I should get a cat, if for no other reason than it would be better for me to have something else moving around the apartment. I wanted a calico, and as luck would have it, John told me of his friends who were taking care of a calico cat named Carmen. Except that Carmen turned out to be a tortoise-shell, but for one paw that looked sort of calico, and so I focussed on that. Oh, and also it turned out her name was really Karma, although Carmen, unfortunately, ended up being the better fit.

Climate

Plenty of words start with C: carbon, climate, catastrophe, children. Conservative starts with C, too. A conservative, like a conservationist, ought to conserve. Conservativism does not mean the rejection of science or the denial of evidence with which you disagree. To be sure, not all conservatives are denialists, any more than they are all creationists. But some are; so what kind of government have Canadians elected? If its goal is to maintain traditional institutions and minimize change, will it consider the planet an institution and start to deal with the challenges we face? Courage begins with C. So does chaos.

Conservative

What does she looks like, this disembodied cheerleader gushing about Harper? Does she have rattan furniture on her deck and a little white dog? She tells Matt Galloway that she’s a teacher but she probably also volunteers at the AGO. That’s where she buys her chunky ethnic necklaces and bracelets made out of discarded telephone cable. They are fair trade and real conversation pieces. But this morning she’s speaking too quickly with excited, manic bursts claiming Canada has spoken! It’s an elated cadence that sounds like a jello salad but is really only a decibel away from a burning cross.

Sodden Celebration

The cake was sitting abandoned on the kitchen table, with the candles still virgin, waiting to be lit. “Oh, shit,” thought Joan. She knew her mother was excited about her eighteenth birthday but she assumed her party was going to be on the weekend when it would be more convenient for people coming from out of town. So she and Sandy headed to the hotel right after school for Joan’s first legal drink. There were friends there waiting to surprise her and the sodden celebration continued into the evening... or morning – Joan looked up at the clock and shuddered ruefully.

Christian

My sister nudged me and said Linda Halonen – the Pentecostal on the school bus – was right. We weren’t Christians.
     Sure, I knew I didn't believe in God soon as I got home from kindergarten the day of the dead bird and got my mother to explain what Laura meant about Jesus taking care of it in heaven. Recesses, I’d debate with Jeannette, the Jehovah's.  (Cool, she's brought me The Watchtower!)  Miss Neill, who'd come teach parables with a felt board, said I’d be going to hell. (She's so old.)
     Till Linda in high school, though, I never thought I wasn’t Christian.

Image: sitfu.com

Bus

When the city decided to remove the crosswalk from the corner of Charles and Balmuto, Barbara got angry enough to call them up. She explained how the surrounding apartments are full of children who every day cross there on their way to school. She reminded them of Lidia Dykun who on April 4, 1979, died on that corner, who was finishing her second year of medical school at the University of Toronto when she fell under that bus, and how because of Lidia, Greycoach changed their route, and the city finally installed the crosswalk.
     “But that was so long ago.”

Bin Laden

I remember where I was when Paul Henderson scored The Goal, when John Lennon was shot, when the Challenger went down. I even vaguely remember the day JFK was assassinated. I was on the kitchen floor, playing with blocks, yet old enough to recognize distress in the tinny radio voice. The morning of September 11, I was in a boardroom in the Caribbean, about to launch into yet another sales pitch. Another road trip, another pitch. The collapse of those twin towers changed everything. When they finally caught up with Bin Laden I was asleep, safe in my own bed.

Boy

At thirteen, he loomed over the rest of his class, this Wrong in the Head Gentle Giant. His classmates never let up and teased him constantly, but being kind hearted and dim, he returned their taunts with a smile. They laughed when he talked so he didn’t say much. His mother’s attempts to dress him in stylish clothes and a fashionable haircut allowed him a snapshot’s chance of blending in with his peers, if only his body could stay still. At recess he sat by himself or walked around, wildly flapping his arms hoping to sprout wings and fly away.

Barbie

Gainesville, 1999. She came in a red jersey, not white like Brandi Chastaine's. Not so red anymore. We’d been kneeling an hour on the edge of the deck with a pan of water. 

     “Soccer Barbie, your hair is sooooo dirty!” Ella would pronounce.
     We’d give her another swish through the muddy pan, then grind her head into the dirt again. “Oh, Soccer Barbie!”

     Heyden, north of the Soo, 1970-something. I'd had to agitate for my first. She’d come at Christmas too, in a homemade silver-and-cream brocade tube dress. I’d lopped her hair off, markered on navy eyeshadow, and forgotten her.  

Image: www.tvweek.com

B is for Booked

“Book ’em,” said the store detective, self importantly, and Joan had to suppress a guffaw. The woman obviously watched too many cop shows. But it was no laughing matter. The two police officers who had arrived began to question the Joan and Sandy. They would never believe her, Joan knew. It was Sandy who was doing the shoplifting, and shoving things into Joan’s bag against her protestations. But, much to Joan’s surprise, Sandy owned up. “It was all my idea, officer,” she insisted. “She can tell it to the judge,” he replied. And Joan slumped back into her chair.

A is for...

Assholes. That was what I thought when they said “we’re starting at the top of the alphabet. Just let the letter A inspire you.”
     The curser blinks teasingly. A. A. What should I write? I am completely bereft of inspiration. You’d think it’d be easy. It’s only a hundred words. I’ve already written fifty-four and you’re still reading. But the alphabetic theme... Others have tried it and failed miserably. A is for Aardvark ran on TV in 1954 (according to Wikipedia). It was going to cycle through the alphabet, each episode dedicated to a letter. It got cancelled at N.

Al Quaeda

After catching a glimpse of the news, my son drove his toy plane into the kitchen cupboards. At first he didn’t know why I was so upset, but once the situation was explained to him he understood. Those horrible looped images flickering in front of us were enough to get the point across, even to a kindergartener. But it was much more of a challenge to comprehend the evil behind 9/11. Even semi-obscured, the face of Bin Laden was beautiful. Big brown eyes, and an open mirthful face belying a soul like an acid rain filled lake, pristine but lifeless.

AAPL

Another year was coming to a close, Apple was trading at $14.00 a share, and Mary had a chunk of inheritance just sitting in the bank doing nothing. So I phoned up Chris—the only guy I know in the money business—to help me figure out the best way to fulfil my Apple fan-boy dreams, and the first thing he said to me is what guys in the money business have been trained to say from the days of Aesop on down: “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”
     So we only bought 58 shares.
     Fuck you, Aesop.

Falling Alphabetically

They do it alphabetically to be fair. Joan’s name was well down the list. All she had to do was to walk up those steps and across the stage to collect her diploma. She had watched many of the others trip on that last step, where the stair riser fell a little short of the necessary height. So far nobody had fallen, but Joan was already feeling nervous about walking in heels she did not usually wear. And with each subsequent tripper, she felt more and more agitation. It would just be so typical if she fell on her face.

Alimony

From nearly two years of one-sided conversations I knew Fiona's sister was on Xanax and married to a millionaire developer who said he'd hid his money offshore in case they ever split up. At my last cleaning, they were headed for a divorce and Fiona's sister was saying she'd call the IRS on him. But now it turns out he's threatening to call the American Dental Association about Fiona's father smoking pot.
     “Nurr-uh!” I say.
      Fiona's hands and her scraper pause inside my mouth. “So, Russ and me, we’ve been having problems too,” she says. 
     I rinse and I spit.

Feline Loyalty

The vet said Leona would be happy anywhere as long as she was with somebody she loved. I am sure it was a big adjustment for her, however, moving from a spacious country home to a basement apartment in downtown Toronto. Still, she seemed content even though there was now only a small backyard to which she had access through the small window over the stove in my tiny kitchen. Then one day as she got a paw caught in an element while jumping from the stove and broke her leg. She sulked for weeks in a corner, blaming me.

Leona moved with me several times while my parents were in Italy, adjusting to various circumstances with grace and tolerance. When my parents returned to Canada, she went back to them, happy to be with the other persons she loved. And they moved twice after that as well. The vet was right – cats are content to stay with their humans under any circumstances. Nobody can now tell me that cats are opportunists, seeking comfort and feeding from whomever comes along to provide it. I am glad, however, that Leona’s final place of abode was a spacious home in the country.

Michael and Me

Sure, it was fun while it lasted, but I go to bed early these days. I’ve got to get up in the morning—somebody does—but Mike doesn’t care, because he sleeps in all day. He pads into my bedroom and bounds on the bed, wanting food. Wanting out. Pounding his paws on the window at 3:00 a.m., and still he wonders why I’m even too tired to prowl on the weekends.
     “You’re such a drag since you started that job. Why can’t it be like it was?”
     “Shut up, Mike.”
     It’s never again going to be like it was.

Lady Day

Like scripture, Billie brayed away in the background, promising the difference of a new day. Given the last twenty-four little hours Roz had experienced, she was willing to try. Forget waking up and padding downstairs for coffee. It’d be excruciating. And lunch time? Still too raw. Maybe she’d feel better by dinner, or after her post-prandial run around the darkened streets. That’s it; the darkness would do it. She liked to run at night and imagine she was underwater. Those sections of sidewalk illuminated by the street lamps were the shoals. The dark spots required more trust, a sure foot.

Hello, It’s God Calling

Joan was sick of Elliot being stoned all the time and she called it quits. After that Elliot got even worse. One night, ripped on acid, he drove his car over a cliff. It was not a very high cliff and the car landed upright. Elliot was unharmed. Even so Elliot swore that God had saved him and told him he needed to clean up his act. He came back to Joan promising he was determined to stay straight. Her wanted her to marry him and move up north; dedicate their lives to God. Joan did not like that, either.

Joan was relieved when Elliot finally stopped bugging her to marry him. Apparently he had met a woman who was willing to follow him into the wilds, live off the land, and produce baby after baby for him. Joan kept waiting for them to leave, but they stayed around town doing the Jesus Freak thing; handing out Bible quotes and talking about being born again. After awhile it became obvious the woman was pregnant. She was in the hospital birthing their baby when Elliot came by and tried to hook up with Joan, again. He told her God wanted it.

Apus

“Look at them all,” cried Atalanta as birds spilled from the cliffs in a black, swirling mass, skimming the river and back to the sky.
     “What’s going on?” asked Hermes.
     “Well, it’s been said swallows hold the spirits of dead children and so can never stop flying, except to nest. Their legs have shrivelled to little hooks and their wings have grown so long they can’t beat them well enough to take off from the ground, and so they must throw themselves from the cliffs . . . and now you’ve got to tell me what kind of bird you would be.”

Eridanus

     “I don’t get it,” said Hermes. “Who would want to be a bird?”
     “Ask the guy who ploughed his father’s sports car through the guardrail up there and into the river—they got the car back, but never did find the boy—or his poor sisters who waited forever on the riverbank with the paramedics. Or ask his boyfriend,” said Atalanta, “who dove right in after hearing the news and searched all night until they had to drag him away. By then, they say, he really believed he’d turned into a swan.”
     “Must be a homo thing,” said Hermes.

Painting by Marina Moevs.

Pandora’s Jerk

“What a rotten drive.” Epimetheus removed his sandal and shook the confetti out of it.
     “It’s okay,” said Pandora, rubbing her knee where it barked against the chariot’s door. “We’re home now, and look, Epi, we still have Zeus’ wedding gift. That didn’t break.” She showed him a jar and attempted to open it, but it was stuck fast.
     “Here," he gestured impatiently but after several attempts gave up. “Fuck it, I’ll open it later.”
     Pandora picked it up. This time she felt the seal give way. “Oh,” she told her husband, “you must have loosened it for me.”

SLUT WALK

Tramps, strumpets, whores, sluts and SISTERS – we gathered at Queen’s Park this afternoon and marched to police headquarters to show our displeasure for a remark from a police officer who addressed a group of female students at York University. He told them that they would be safer from rape if they did not dress like sluts. The crowd of people who showed up for the ‘Slut Walk’ was amazing! It felt like the old days when we marched for women’s rights back in the seventies and eighties. We thought we won back then. Now we are fighting again.

I think Jane Doe was there at the march. A woman who said she had been raped in her bed gave a speech. I lived in that area where a rapist was stalking women in their own bedrooms, but it was kept silent; police hoping to lure the predator so they could catch him – Jane Doe being the final victim, unaware of the threat. Finally the news got out and an information session was held by police. We were told to keep our windows locked shut. Only sluts would keep their windows open in the middle of a sweltering summer.

Pegasus

     “Look at all this beer!” said Atalanta. “Why aren’t you drinking?”
     “My father drank,” said Nick.
     “Shit, I’m sorry.”
     “Don’t be,” said Nick. “It wasn’t the booze that killed him, it was the cigarettes; but when he got drunk, he got dumb, and I hate being dumb. Drunk he got bitter. Drunk he was full of stories about how my mom had bled him dry.”
     “He was a pilot, right?”
     “Just private,” said Nick. “But all that mattered was that plane of his, and that was all he asked for. Drunk he was dull, but sober he could fly.”

Equuleus

Dad loved flying the coastal route, but it pained him to see how quickly the shoreline was deteriorating. So, whenever he could, he’d set out to document all the damage himself, 1500 feet at a time, then back again to the beginning, like he was running out of time. When I was old enough, I got to sit right up in front of him and shoot out a hole he’d rigged in the port window. My job was to keep track of where we’d left off, call out the landmarks, and make sure all the photos were properly framed.

Musca

So, one day, in the middle of a particularly bad run, my dad throws the plane into a climb that’s way too fast and way higher than he’s supposed to go. But when we finally level off, I can see farther than I’ve ever seen—the land is green, the ocean blue, with nothing but a ragged silver thread holding the two together—and in that perfect moment, my cornball father says, “Some day, son, all this will be yours.”

     And maybe it could’ve, if not for the movie star who didn’t like us taking pictures of her beach.

Images excerpted from Flying Down by David Salle, © 2006.

Gypsies, Tramps and Beans

Today at the dog park Henry asked if I married above my station. Of course I did. It’s not as if I was born in the wagon of a travellin’ show, but really anyone who lived in a stationary house made out of bricks was a step up. If it takes three generations to make a fortune and three more to lose it, that would put Dan at the top of the line. How will he accomplish this? And with whom will he procreate to produce the useless heir who will begin the slide back to working at Green Giant?

Our son’s already remarked on how Rich and I are working all the time. This is true for Rich. When he’s not at the Fort he’s volunteering at the dojo, sweeping the floor or, given the Pontius Pilate complex he’s developed from sleeping with a Catholic, washing something. It’s not the same for me. My associate Colin does most of the work while I walk Nim. Perhaps I am the lazy third generation bent on squandering the family fortune. Will my fiscal turpitude leave Dan with only some useless RRSPs, a wool cupboard and a silver-plated Knights of Columbus sword?

Starting Fresh

They say it takes three generations for a family to become wealthy, and three more for everything to be squandered away. The theory is that the second generation after the riches have been won works a little less hard, and the generation after that is downright lazy and spoiled, with a sense of entitlement that drives them to spend on luxuries they believe they deserve. However, it seems that many in the generations after the wealth has gone still feel great pride in what their ancestors accomplished, as well as a vicarious thrill from any scandals committed by decadent generations.

For those who cannot claim past greatness in their bloodlines, there is the option of searching their past lives for anything juicy. For awhile it was fashionable to be regressed through previous reincarnations to discover the stuff of which we are made. Incredibly just about everybody who did it seemed to have once been an amazing person, or a least royalty. There seems to be a deep human need to have greatness in one’s past. Somehow it makes one feel more content to live an unremarkable life in which nothing significant is being achieved, other than surviving day to day.

Myself, I always look forward to moving ahead. My father, eager to bury any bitterness for the losses dealt him in the war, put his past behind him when he came to this country. His desire for a fresh start rubbed off on me, I guess, because I prefer to embrace the future, rather than dwell on the past. I love moving into a new house, a new city or a new job. It is an exciting adventure; meeting new people, occupying a new space – making it your own. It is too frustrating trying to hold onto an intangible past.

Kirby Misperton

For some time I’d felt I’d been born with all the snobbery of the rich, but none of their money. My mother would give me hints of wealthy ancestors and unspeakable scandals, of squandered fortunes and unscrupulous relations come to pick over the remains, but I could only wonder at how they’d spent it all so quickly and before I’d even had a chance to touch it. Near as I can tell, one day they all simply stopped doing the thing that had made them rich and settled into just being rich, until soon they weren’t rich any more.

My Great-Great-Great-Grandfather, Richard Harris Tindall, for instance, was the last manager of the Scarborough shipyard before the harbour silted up and they closed the place down. He had a house in town—a sizeable pile named Paradise House just down the hill from the Castle—where he could oversee the whole operation. Four generations of Tindalls had called it home, but by 1918, long before I could have any say in the matter, it was simply another asset to be liquidated. Now, it’s just flats, where for a mere £139,500 I could, if I wanted, reclaim two-bedrooms’ worth of my legacy.

My irresponsible ancestors also owned a sprawling estate consisting of eleven farms on 1,791 acres, including the manse—Kirby Misperton Hall—located among 50 acres of pleasure grounds, gardens, and lakes. This had once been the seat of the Rev. F. N. Blomberg, Chaplain to King George IV, prebendary at St. Paul’s, and rumoured son of George III; but by 1863, the Tindalls had moved in. My Great-Great-Great-Grandmother’s brother, Robert, was Lord of the Manor, as were his sons to follow, until 1903, when they basically had to sell the whole spread. Today it’s a theme park called Flamingo Land.

Photo by Discover Yorkshire Coast on Flickr. Scarborough Castle is on the top of the hill. Paradise House is the first white mansion on the left.

Old Homes

For her fortieth, May asked to visit her childhood home. The present owners demurred. How mean is this? A few years ago a lady who lived in our house in the 1970s asked to look around. Touring the rooms brought her to tears, so many ghosts for such a short amount of time. She was seven years old again. I often think about going back to my old home on Hickory Road. Sometimes at night when I can’t sleep I retrace each step, down to the basement, then on to the kitchen, and finally up to my green polka-dotted bedroom.

Laurette sewed my bedspread, curtains, dust ruffle and vanity skirt all from the same fabric: mint green polka dots on a white cotton background. I loved it and I remember how happy she was to do that for me. It just occurred to me last night why: Mom’s first real room, the first one she had all to herself, away from the poverty of her life in Tecumseh, was a bedsit in a private family home. More than once she told me about the beautiful white wicker furniture and the green bedspread. Zen-like peace before people talked of such things.

At the age of six, I achieved something for which my mom had waited twenty-two years: a space of my own, rendered secure by people who loved me. We all want the ability to give our children something that eluded us, or to spare them the grief we encountered along the way. They don’t ask for this. That’s something we have to remember, catching ourselves mid-sentence in the parental harangue of back in the day we didn’t get things handed to us. I’m sure our grandparents heard the same speech as they prepared to walk the ten miles to school.

Inhabited By Spirits

“That’s where my uncle’s house used to stand,” declares my mother, every time we pass that hillside on the way to Hamilton. “I remember coming out to visit the cousins.” Apparently the home was located in the optimum path for the new highway, and was expropriated and torn down to make way for it. Funny how a shelter of various building materials can become so much a part of oneself just because you have lived part of your life within it. It must feel peculiar to see an expanse of asphalt obliterating vivid memories of childhood you hold dear.

I am not one hundred percent sure, but I think every place I have lived still stands. About ten of those places are in the city of Toronto, and I pass by them every once in awhile. A good friend has a condo across from one my old apartments. When I sit out on her balcony I look across to what was once my balcony. Memories of the times when I lived there, those many years ago, come alive in my mind; they become a little more concrete just because I am near the physical presence of a past abode.

You can feel the spirits of others who have lived in a home, too, even though you never knew them. When I go to visit the old farmhouse in the Ottawa Valley that was the homestead of Steve’s ancestors, their ghosts close in around me. It is not a bad feeling, but they are definitely there. They walk the land around the farm, too, haunting the barns and the well-worn paths that lead along the river. It is fortunate to be able to hold onto places your spirit has inhabited. I, myself, have been forced to let many go.

Our Hour

This year, Earth Hour dropped right in the middle of our big night out. We read our menus by candlelight, picked through our meals in the dark, and for all of our careful planning, arrived at the theatre to learn that the second show would be starting twenty minutes later that night. Certainly the restaurants had stocked up on the candles, and we caught the neighbourhood candle parade moving south, but I really have to wonder, given that the city’s power usage dropped a mere 5% this year, if all those candles contributed more to global warming than we saved.

Even with the fate of the planet hanging in the balance, we didn’t think it smart to leave our children alone in a house full of candles, let alone tell them to turn off the computer and make their own fun. So, for this year’s Earth Hour, we gave them a pass and left on our date with the intention of at least keeping our carbon footprint as small as we could, for what little that did to offset the inconvenient truth of Rowan turning on every light in the house to scare off the drunks from down the street.

Photo by transp.

Greed and other Hobbies

Forget calling the Got Junk people. The fastest way to clear a room of its contents is to have a death in the family and call in the relatives to come and choose an item as a keepsake. We went through this with dad, but it wasn’t relatives, it was his neighbours. It’s amazing how quickly seemingly incapacitated seniors can move when a pull-out couch and a synthetic-wool blend throw rug is involved. When my own meme died my aunties reenacted the battle of Sparta just to get their mitts on a pair of china birds and some crochet needles.

It’s easy for me to scoff at the corpse-still-warm greed that sometimes possesses family members at the death of a loved one- I’m an only child and so is my son. I think it’s just a human failing to be greedy. We all have it in us. It might not be things, either. We’re piggy about food, booze, attention, free time. And as Canadians we’ve hidden behind this “Ah shucks, have a donut” hosery that belies our collective greed for land. Walk over the beautiful rolling hills along the Grand River and you’ll see why Mohawks are so pissed off.

Sure I’ve entertained all seven deadly sins: anger, greed, lust, gluttony, envy, eating animals and wearing braids after forty. And because of this, I now have a stupid hydro pole in my front lawn. Like stepping in dog shit after making a nasty remark about someone, my karma pole chides me. I’m incapable of consistently thinking pure thoughts ergo, I now have this ridiculous green, plastic phallus in the middle of my front lawn. Behold my gossiping, petulant, ego-driven albatross. It’s causing me a great deal of dukha, and the bullies at Ontario Power Generation don’t give a flying fig.

Family Ties

Barbara retired to the family cottage on the shore of Lake Huron, where she had spent her childhood summers. Her mother always kept it just so, and Barbara dedicated her time to maintaining its quaint perfection, each and every heirloom properly cleaned and dusted, and in its place. A tribute to her family’s illustrious history. When Mom visited Barbara spoke fondly of her nephew; her brother’s child who would carry on the family name. She hoped he would visit, but he had not been there since he was a child, when he came with his parents to escape the city.

By the time it was diagnosed, the cancer had spread too far. Barbara only had a few months left to enjoy her peaceful retreat. Mom stopped by regularly and made sure she had a reliable nurse to care for her. Barbara still held up hope that her nephew would come to visit. She died with that hope unfulfilled. When the nurse called to let Mom know, Mom called the nephew. He did not show up to help arrange the funeral or the memorial, but a truck showed up the next day to empty the cottage of all the precious heirlooms.

Thomas James Burley

I don’t pretend to understand how things once worked among the Yorkshire gentry, but I’d like to think that all this began at a party, perhaps thrown to honour the accomplished vocalist Thomas James Burley who appeared there in Scarborough in 1872. He’d trained in Italy and sung at La Scala, but his eyes settled that evening on the lovely Priscilla Harris Tindall, heiress to the Tindall shipbuilding fortune, and by June they were married. Two of their children died prematurely, but the third would survive to become my great-grandfather, thus ensuring my children would have music on both sides.

The last I’d looked at my family tree was back in school when we all had to do it for our grade-nine history class. One girl discovered J. M. Barrie, the novelist, among her relations; and another found Mackenzie King, the tenth Prime Minister of Canada, who had actually mentioned seeing her mother as an infant in his famous diaries. I was desperate for a story worth telling, but while my mother and grandmother whispered together of a scandalous divorce long ago among the Tindalls, they’d only tell me those bits of the family history they had first carefully pruned.

It took the great-great-grandson of Thomas Burley’s brother (my fourth cousin, according to those who track such things) to blow the lid off our big family secret. My great-great-grandfather, the opera singer, was a wife-beating drunk, who carried on affairs with the servants, and drove my great-great-grandmother to the exceptional step in 1879 of divorcing the bastard, paying him off, and reclaiming her family name . . . which really could’ve been an empowering story to hear as a teenager were it not clear from the record that I am in fact descended from a long line of unfaithful husbands and failed marriages.

Photo of Thomas James Burley (AKA Senor Burleigh Tesseman)
from A Souvenir of Musical Toronto, 1898. You can read the sad end to his story here.

ESFP

In 2003, when SARS made headlines, it was all I could do to keep Rich from licking the handrails at Spadina station. The ramifications of this act, he wagered, might allow him to take part in self-imposed exile. He would go to that extent to avoid people. I am the opposite. As any good Myers-Briggs corporate consultant will tell you, I get my energy from being near the people I love. Even those people that I only like a little bit will do in a pinch. Unless there’s a cat or a dog around. Then I’d rather talk to them.

Everyone knows that introverts are cooler than extraverts. But a decent gathering needs its share of the latter. Just not too many at once. Like its own fire code, the number of extraverts present in one room at any given time should be limited. And the bigger the personalities, the fewer per room. For example, perhaps one jaded television actor for three social workers or two real estate agents for each Clean Air Coalition/La Leche advocate/Nia instructor. You can invite as many musicians and movie producers as you like. They don’t talk much. But keep an eye on your booze.

Survival Strategy

I have never understood those women who insist their partners come straight home from work to be with them. My friends think I am good to let Steve ramble about. Actually I am being selfish. Probably the only way I could survive any relationship is for my partner to be absent a lot. I need time to myself. I get up extra early so I can have it. I love that precious time when the sun is coming up, and I am coming to life. I am out of there before anyone else in the family is out of bed.

The Quiet Left Behind

I’ve set myself up to be last out of bed, so whenever I make the mistake of waking early, there’s little choice but to lie still and listen to the morning unfurl. Tension builds as Rowan begins his hall-thumping kitchen-rattling routine, while I wait for the screams from his sister; and there’s certainly no hope of getting back to sleep until Mary’s finished working through each dresser drawer and returned two or three times to the closet.
     God love them all, but there are times I wonder if I wouldn’t miss them so much as the quiet they leave behind.

Photo by Moyan Brenn

Old Shoes

On his first day of daycare Dan waved, “Bye Mum, don’t forget to write!” So in one respect, it’s been easy letting go. Rich, because he’s never given me a moment’s hesitation, could go away for a year and I wouldn’t worry. And Nimoosh didn’t miss me at all when I was in Montreal. So at least one side is covered. It’ll be nearly a month before I have to travel so the barking, the snoring, the whining, the yelping and the chewing can collectively work my nerves for the next few weeks before I start missing them all again.

Cruel Mother Nature

At first I thought it was a grey, dead leaf blowing along the sidewalk. Then it righted itself and I realized it was a baby bird, struggling to stay on its feet against the wind. It offered no resistance when I picked it up; it actually snuggled into my cupped, gloved hands. It was still covered in fuzz, feathers not fully formed. I put it in a box nestled in paper towel and drove it across town to the Humane Society. There they told me it was a fledgling and needed to be returned to the place it was found.

As I neared my destination an adult starling buzzed back and forth above me. Just as the vet had assured me, the baby bird’s parents would be watching over it. All the same, I was not convinced of the little thing’s safety. How could the parents possibly protect it against a prowling cat or a speeding car? It yanked at my heart when the baby did not seem to want to leave the warmth of my hands, as I tried to put it down in a sheltered spot. It was the right thing to do, the Humane Society told me.

Close Encounters of the Bird Kind

There’s a tiny enclave of houses just west of Ellis Avenue, where a few lucky homeowners get to wake every morning downtown to their own little piece of a postcard-perfect pond: the last of the winter ice edged with water, a pair of swans white against a background of faded reeds, and a middle-aged man in a bright yellow jacket beating them off with a stick, protecting the smaller swan he’s found them attacking, the poor thing sodden with filth, desperately trying to mount the low concrete bank that protects this paradise, its wings too wet to catch the wind.

I hadn’t known much about swans when I’d set out on my walk and certainly hadn’t anticipated spending a couple of hours that afternoon keeping one company at the fag end of that fetid pond while we waited together for Animal Services to arrive. Until then I would have never hit a bird nor wished one harm, but I ended my vigil hating the relentless pair that had tormented my new friend, feeling for the immature outsider who hadn’t known better than to wander into their territory, at first unable and finally unwilling to leave him alone to be found.

Photo by Paul Friel. Some rights reserved.

Wall Flowers and Door Mats

In my awkward chubby youth, I was painfully aware of each occasion I was Odd Man Out: Sitting alongside my girlfriend at a screening of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, while she and her boyfriend chewed on each other’s retainers. Or at a food court, me inordinately focused on my onion rings as another friend fed her date from a plastic fork. The brutal bus rides and bike rides home. Every afternoon around 2:45, the kids from Parkdale Collegiate walk past my office window and my heart breaks for all those third wheels in this post-pubescent Tour de France.

     “Morrissey is asexual” I reminded Rich.
     “Oh, sure he is.” Such a cynic, he didn’t even look up from his paper.
     “And Stephen Fry…”
     “Not anymore.”
     Before Rich, I experienced a variation of the same gamut most people run in their search for true love: The Possessive and Crazy First. The Disinterested Rebound. The Starter Fiancé. The Clock-Stoppingly-Ugly-Brain Fling. Plus all those that fizzled out at the imagination stage. I’d have become a much better artist had I been asexual. What I could have accomplished in my youth if half of it hadn’t been wasted agonizing over some doofus.

A Good Excuse

Joan did not want to be one of those women who stops hanging with her friends because a guy has come into her life. So Sandy often tagged along on dates with Elliott. Elliott did not seem to mind at first, and Joan thought it made dates more fun because it was always a laugh to have Sandy along. After a few months, however, Elliott started to balk at Sandy’s constant presence. Joan realized then that she was getting tired of Elliott. In fact, the next time Elliott objected, she used it as an excuse to break off with him.

Summer of ’82

Good for Dean for getting a girlfriend before me.
     Really.
     I’m happy for him, or at least I used to be, before he started bringing her along to everything, before they got in the habit of kissing in front of me whenever the conversation starts to flag, in the line-up for a movie, on the subway platform going home, slowly nibbling away with nothing for me to do but just stand there and wait for the train to come.
     Sometimes he’ll invite another friend along—who knows why—and we can at least amuse each other with our colour commentary.

Steven Slater is a Hero

Returning home from Montreal we were treated to the usual VIA 1 seat sale floorshow. A Terri Clark man-woman in a sleeveless denim bolero immediately picked a fight with a fellow passenger over storage space. She then settled in to eat her dinner with the fingers of her left hand, freeing her right for online poker. The Bonobos in front, apparently aroused beyond sensibility by the ceaseless cell phone murmurings of Ironic Plaid Trucker Hat, snogged from Dorval to Guildwood. What must it be like for the crew? Why be bilingual when simian grunts and opposable booze-pouring thumbs are enough?

Garbage In Garbage Out

I would like to see the giant patches of floating garbage that have formed in the North Pacific. It must be a truly majestic site – proof of how much humans love their planet. If it was not for the fact that air travel is so utterly damaging to our atmosphere, I would require all the inhabitants of ‘developed’ countries to be flown over these patches and witness what our culture of consumption and waste has created. I read in the paper today that, even in remote sections of the ocean, fish are being found with plastic pellets in their stomachs.

I do not like fish and I am constantly told ‘but they are so healthy for you!’ These days, when I hear about all the filth in our lakes and oceans, I wonder how anybody could still believe that. I would think, given that oceans are the final repository for everything that washes off the land, down our rivers, and out of our skies, that fish would be the last thing on the earth that anybody would want to eat. But it seems that people will keep on pulling them out of the ocean until they are fished into extinction.

It’s Not Easy Being Green

Like most Torontonians, I have an ambivalent relationship with my trash. Sure, I’d like to believe the department of Solid Waste Management is processing it all as best they can, but mostly I’m just happy to find the bin empty when I come home on garbage day. The alternative is to wonder what really happens after the truck pulls away from the curb, a suspicion that goes back to the days, not long ago, when the authorities insisted we carefully separate all the paper from our other recyclables and then forced us to watch as they mixed it together again.

Supposedly, though, the waste management system in Toronto has been improving, slowly, to the point where I once heard the recycling program had actually been too successful, that together we had diverted so much waste from the landfill sites, there simply wasn’t a large enough market to absorb it all, and that they had decided to store it—temporarily, we were assured—in a dump. And so I imagined myself desperately pushing through the crowded streets, like Charlton Heston at the end of Soylent Green, sharing my horror with anyone who’d listen: “Our garbage! The city’s just throwing it away!”

Green Achers

It was only after he saw the mess in the kitchen, a spectacular Jackson Pollock of a shit and his dog in the middle of it when he remembered his ex-wife didn’t use paper towels. Or anything more serious than baking soda and Tom’s Tooth Paste. He still had the keys to the flat and only dropped in to get Chippers for his weekend custody visit. But now he had to spend the next half hour cleaning the place up with only a tea towel and a tiny squirt bottle filled with organic cider vinegar and tea tree oil. Sonofabitch.

Is this why she left him? Because of his ridiculous green proclivities? In the depths of her despair, somewhere between soaking chickpeas and attending bike rallies, she thought, give me a man who knows where the Vim is kept. Someone who can scrub out a sink with bleach, eat Cheez Whiz and slap on drug-store brand deodorant without a crisis of conscience. Sure the stainless steel water flasks and the Hessian shopping bags held a certain caché, but the washed-out milk bags? The reusable sanitary napkins? Just too much work. Sometimes she just wanted a banana that wasn’t Demeter certified.

Sudden Popularity

It embittered her to see websites getting thousands of hits per day that consisted of nothing more than a webcam pointed into some tiresome adolescent’s bedroom. How could people find that so interesting and not the wonderfully useful tips on green living that she posted daily – seemingly into the void? There appeared to be nobody checking out the sage advice she provided in her blog. The world was just full of ignoramuses she decided, but continued to doggedly maintain her cherished website, full of suggestions for reducing power consumption and properly recycle waste. Maybe someday people would learn.


She added a section on crafts one could create from all that excess packaging that is so hard to avoid, even when shopping carefully. Plastic bags could be twisted and woven into doormats, perhaps a little lumpy, but perfectly serviceable. Tin cans became shiny wind chimes. She looked around her little bungalow, now pleasingly adorned with all her ideas for re-using waste. “Reduce Re-use Recycle,” she intoned. Her twenty or so cats, in particular, had benefited from her ingenuity. They had no shortage of play-toys. Now people were responding, but she thought maybe they were laughing at her.

How the Raspberry Got Its Name

Most every morning on our walk into school, I’d pass the same old car parked along Fern. Street spaces there are catch-as-catch-can, so some days it might be close to the corner, sometimes further on, and on rare occasions away on some mysterious errand. It was an old Dodge Dart, an ugly dull green, with a suction-cup, speech-bubble sign in the backseat window that said “I’d hit you, but shit splatters.” One ugly car among many, with an owner perhaps more vulgar than most, and hardly worth my attention save for the most sublime vanity plate I’d ever seen: THBTHTTT.

And so, whereas most people decide they’re going to create a cool website and then try to come up with the perfect domain, I decided that THBTHTTT was already the perfect domain, and I was going to build a site to live up to its obvious greatness. And while I was busy not doing that, and because I fancy myself a bit of a marketing guy, it just sort of became the brand for everything else I’ve been doing for the past ten years.
     That’s right, the marketing guy has a brand no one can spell and dare not pronounce.

A Boy Named Sue

When most middle-aged men are still in bed or glued to Setanta the two Richards get up early each Saturday and go to the dojo to teach tiny children karate. My Richard’s done it for seven years, the other Richard for many more. And like elementary school teachers or prison guards they can measure the length of their tenure by the naming trends of their charges. Mine can say he started with the Jacobs, Kaylas and Tylers, but the other Rich, who was there when our own son started, has experienced enough little Brandons, Ryans and Brittanys for a lifetime.

Mine is not an original name, and it is very much of its time. Like the Tracey’s and the Stacey’s, the Roberts and the Scotts. Except that it was intended to be pronounced Laurianne, in French, rather than Laurie-ANNE, as it tended to be. I shared this indignity with my cousins, especially the beloved Marie-Frances, dubbed Mary FRAN and Therèse, aka TER-EEASE-sa. So I became simply Laurie, Marie-Frances, chose the unimpeachable Mary. The Italian kids did the same thing.
Together we assumed our places among the JOHN-Marks, Danny-YELLS, ANN-thon-EEs and MOAN-Neeks of an anglicized, yet still Roman Catholic school system.

Avoiding Cliché

There is something satisfying about seeing your name in print on a novelty item. Obviously, because such things are popular in souvenir shops everywhere. I imagine people with names like Sue become jaded about it, but as a child I searched those racks in vain for a mug or a giant pencil on which Mary Jo was printed. I cursed my parents for choosing that name. But at least it is eccentric enough that it was never been turned into a cliché and I need not deal with vulgar double entendres like the Johns, Jacks and Dicks of the world.

Did I really just say “kids these days?!?”

There was a time when you could walk into a toy store and purchase a spiffy little vanity plate for your bike. And maybe you still can, but the last time I saw anything like it, I had to wonder what self-respecting child would spend his allowance on something that had so obviously given up even trying to look like the real thing. Maybe kids these days just expect all their toys to be plastic and gaudy and generic, but the only license plate I ever wanted was actually pressed out of metal and painted a dull New Jersey beige.

Patel to the Metal

Our neighbour had a vanity plate on his blue Safari that read “VINU”. As this is Ontario, the entire plate lured us with ‘VINU, Yours to Discover’. Perhaps because neither Richard nor I accepted the offer we all got along. His was a great old van perfect for carting dozens of offspring and cousins and aunties and uncles. It schlepped saris and Punjabi pantsuits and hundreds of Swiss Chalet dinners. On weekends it drove to Burlington where it nestled next to another mini van that beckoned, ‘PRADESH, Yours to Discover.’ It brought me to Emergency when I went into labour.

Misplaced Hopes

Several times I was approached by people wanting to buy my automobile licence plate, thinking it would bring them luck. Stupidly I hoped it might eventually bring ME luck -- 649 JJB -- could be interpreted as ‘Lotto 649 Jackpot Jackpot Bonus.’ Probably the best luck I could have gotten from it would have been if I HAD sold it. I wonder how much I could have gotten for it? I am willing to bet that it would have been more than all of the Lotto 649 winnings I have reaped over the year – those would amount to about $40 or so.

Actually, I Bought Five

My dentist fixed four fillings today—actually five—but said he wouldn’t charge for the fifth, because . . . I can’t remember why, because in the 25 years I’ve been under his care, I don’t recall him giving me anything more than a toothbrush.
     My second shock came with the bill: $649.
     “You should buy a lottery ticket,” said Barbara. “The 6/49 draw is tonight.”
     And so, wondering if the responsibility for booking appointments mightn’t give her some heightened sense of future events, I decided to try my luck. One in 13,983,816, precisely a fart’s chance in a windstorm.