Yeah, yeah, yeah, the entries have been infrequent lately. Ah, but if you check the intro, you’ll see I only ever promised six months of blogging on humour, beginning December 2006.
No matter. New blog, with new subject, coming up in mid to late January, after I get back from vacation. Much different idea, much different intention. Promise.
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Things that make me laugh about being a writer:
1. It’s imperative that I go to a coffee shop, where noisy people, bad music and highly overpriced drinks I don’t even like that much surround me, so that I can sit in a low-traffic corner, put in earplugs and fend off the urge to buy a second (or third) large mocha latte in order to concentrate on writing for a couple of hours.
2. It’s never on the back burner. I doubt very much that plumbers or dentists or luxury car salesmen drift off in the middle of conversations or bounce out of deep sleeps, with must-remember thoughts about drains or fillings or trade-in options.
3. The longer I fight with it, the less it hurts.
4. It’s never good enough.
5. It’s never short enough.
Everywhere else in the world, people are moaning in pain over the return of O.J. Simpson to the news. But their reasons are not as good as mine.
Yup, I’m sick of the circus, too. But what really rankles is how I have to listen to the kid newscaster on my favourite radio station mangle his name. Cause, ya see, this kiddie newsguy can’t pronounce “S” properly when he gets all excited. And boy, does he get excited by pulpy, non-news news. So all “S”s comes out with the sound “SH”. Last summer, during the Under-20 Soccer Cup in which Austria played numerous playoff bouts it was all “AuSHtria at the SHocker Cup” this and AuSHtria that.
So now I can look forward to to O.J. SHimpSHOn. Forget about “if it fits, you must acquit.” If he mangles you must SHtrangle.
They say that the truest definition of mental illness is doing the same thing over and over, the same way, with the same result.
So, I’m nuts. I save up all my grocery store visits to Sunday night, when the local joint is packed to the brim with university students who’ve run out of coffee and cereal and juice paks and bread and nacho chips and Coke, and who buy each of these items in batches of 10, but still line up at the 15 items or less line.
And I save all my cheque balancing for one beautiful weekend in September when I’ve finally said, yes, I’ll get to it NOW, and it turns out to be the most stunningly warm and sunny September weekend ever. And ditto for ironing and clearing out the old newspapers that need to be pored over assiduously, lest I miss a good story idea. And so on and so on.
Every time I do any/all of the above (which also includes bingeing on bad food right after a wickedly hard workout) I remind myself that I’ve been here before and really, really don’t want to be mentally ill. And yet, if the diagnosis fits…
It started because we lost our dog. Well, not lost. He died. After 14 years of licks (his) and loony dog-centric behaviour (ours) he’s gone. The house felt very, very empty for many, many months after that last week of last summer. And even though we could roar with laughter about how there was nothing now to do with the spare shavings of Parmesan cheese, and how unattended boxes of teriyaki chicken were not a cleaning disaster in the making anymore, there were still days during our first year without him that I could and would inexplicably burst into tears at the thought of his warm paw and smelly butt and ridiculously needy terrier personality.
I’m not sure what my husband thought of this, or whether he ever had to blink away tears, but regardless, in the spring he bought a bird feeder and a huge sack of no-name feed that cost about $2.99.
The first birds were a couple of sparrows and the female of the pair only had one leg. From our kitchen window we marvelled at her adept hopping to and fro and felt virtuous — if not for our feed, she might have starved and died, given her handicap.
A few migrating oddball birds flew in for sustenance and a dip in our bird bath on their way north or east or west in May. But it took a good two to three weeks before a second pair joined us. And then about a week before five others (maybe their babies, we surmised) hung out.
We hauled out binoculars and a bird book, and as I read on a lounger on the patio, I enjoyed the idea of birds in an urban oasis.
And then I noticed some interesting plants growing in the nearby garden, attributed them to the bundles of seeds a friend had given me and forgot to watch the birds. Except the feeder was empty. So we filled it. And it went down to half in about a week. We filled it again. Now 3 out of 4 perches were filled simultaneously with birds, unless the lower bird could muscle one of the top birds off. How cute and human-child-like, we thought, they don’t like to sit on the lower bunks because a seed occasionally gets dropped on their head.
And then…the little plants grew thick and strong and my guy said, “They’re sunflowers,” and I said, “She wouldn’t have dared give me sunflowers, I detest them.” He smiled sagely. “They’re from the birds’ dropped seed.” Hrmphh, I thought, waiting to see what they grew up to be before blaming the little tweets.
And then…the feeder emptied in two days. And a class of 10 birds scooped up the dropped seeds while the four (yes four, now) perched above. And then…the feeder emptied in half a day and there were 16 birds on the ground, on the fence, in the sunflower leaves, and there were four on the feeder and six more circling and flapping them away and birds on the fence, in the ivy next door, and oh, there’s a chipmunk on the fence, maybe two, and there are more and more birds, and gee doesn’t anyone else on this street feed birds, and why do they like cheap seed?
So now we have a flock (or six) and my friend the gardener is warning me that if I leave the feeder up over winter they’ll spill into the snow and I’ll have rodents and varmits snacking in my backyard.
And I wonder, how do I wean them off? So we let the feeder stay at quarter full for a day, and the birds go away, but come back when it’s full. And then a magpie swoops down and eats a little bird one day when there are about 30 of them on the ground and I’m getting seriously stressed and my guy says he just wanted a few animals to watch and look after in lieu of the dog. And then we have a fight in the Safeway because he wants to buy more bags of $2.99 seed and I think it’s cruel, because if we don’t cut off the supply of heroin now, before it gets cold and autumn-like, the birds are going to suffer.
And I’m wondering if I should renege on my vow to not get another mutt any time soon because it’s too much responsibility.
Let’s start by establishing that I am not the kind of gal who shirks tricky tasks. (And if there were no men living in my house, yes, for your information, I would figure out a way to dispense with those spiders myself. But since there are, it’s not come up recently… ) Now, where was I?
I am not afraid of learning how to change a tire or light a barbecue. The fact that I haven’t actually needed to do either thing at any point in the past decade is beside the point and speaks to my excellent taste in roommates and husbands and stepsons. But if I have to, I will. Yet, this coiling the cord thing has been bedeviling me now for years. After every lawn mower event, every lawn watering date, after camping and boating and a pile of other fun times, I do have to do it. It’s much too exhausting figuring out how to avoid extension cords, hoses and long, long, pieces of rope. All of these are, I know, much easier to deal with if they aren’t tangled. And it preserves marriages if the next spouse doesn’t have to spend half an hour repairing a bad coil before doing an unpleasant thing like tying up errant piles of crud he’s taking to the dump.
Happily, somewhere, sometime, somebody figured out a way to coil long lengths that allows the rope to magically uncoil with one little tug, tangle-free. Less happily, they never put this skill on the curriculum in the schools I attended. Nor did my peer group fill in the knowledge gap. Nope. I was schooled in snappy writing in the former and in snarky comebacks in the latter. But rope coiling? Nada.
So, with the help of a tutor who has no other choice but to be kind (he married me), I really have tried to wrap (er, coil) this simple task around my brain. Intellectually, I get it. In practice, not so much. Drape under and over … ARGH. It’s tangled already. Or, if dealing with a hose, it’s happened after the first drape. And now there’s a kink, to boot.
My guy says it’s easy. Pay attention to where the bends in the rope are in the first place (Oh KAAAY…)
Then if things get squirrelly, he counsels gently, I just need to give it a little twist. Works for me. But then… the next drape is all bunged up, too, and it’s no where near conforming to the previous little bend.
This is where I start repeating to myself ‘You’re a univesity grad. And this isn’t capitalist economics.There are no barriers to you understanding this.’ And this is also generally where the hose, which I foolishly used to water the garden on my way to the garage to commence my drive to work, has pressed little black smudges on my clean clothes.
Patiently taking the gazillionth rope/hose/extension cord from my hand with a look that says, ‘She’s makes up for the missing grey matter in other ways,'’ he says, “Another twist. The other way.” Well. How would I know that? When I’m muddled, why would it occur to me to twist things up even mo–… ”Calm down,” he says. “You twisted one way, now you have to twist the other. It’s just logic.”
Uh, huh. Come here and let me twist you. No logic required.
Sometimes you not only get what you want, you get what you need and it’s sooooo fine.
Take this morning. Fifteen years married to the same cool guy. Sky blue, temperature high, walking to work. White Stripes and Killers on the iPod. How can it get any better, huh? Huh?
Who’d a thunk? There I was across the High Level Bridge, bopping and singing. I checked for kamikaze bike traffic and leaned left along the bike path through the best part of my walk, the park with dogs being walked and trees that sit atop the staircase that me and my gal pals haul our tushes up every Saturday morning. The park where I feel so virtuous because I also do pushups and tricep pulls and lunges and all kind of tortuous things because it feels so much better than doing yet another set of stairs.
And there, falling (literally falling) at my feet (LITERALLY, I stress, literally) are about 30 young men wearing Fire Rescue T-shirts like some kind of trainee dream team. Sweat’s glistening and defenses are down because they have just run up those stairs that I know can kill even the fittest of the fit. But they’re alive. Gloriously so. And I have to walk right through their ranks. Trying my darndest not to smile from ear to ear. Now, after all these years, I understand what goes through the minds of construction workers who wolf whistle.
Oh yeah. Happy, happy, happy…
OK. I’m gonna test that viral marketing theory thingee. The one that promises all you have to do is compose the sentence, “I just posted a goofy, smutty video on YouTube you should definit–” and the world tilts on its axis and everyone suddenly pays attention to YOU.
Here goes: This is the way to make a left turn. It’s the same the whole world over, even if you’re in Britain. Uh, I think. Doesn’t matter. The principle. Keep your pea-brain rolling toward the principle.
Scootch over to the left turn lane. That would be the one near the arm that isn’t holding the cigarette but is probably holding the cellphone. When the light turns green, gently inch up into your part of the intersection. That would be the real estate to the right (No, no, scratch that) the, uh, area of pavement that’s not the lane holding my car, coming towards you doing a few clicks over the speed limit but armed with THE RIGHT OF WAY.
Huh? Er, um. The right of way. Yeah, yeah. Lesson two. Doesn’t matter now. Keep your eye on the principle.
Notice how, if you’re in a big city with extra big intersections, there might be cars on your right also nudging up to make their own left turns at the same time. Oddly enough, this makes it easier to focus on your own lane. But it does not make it safer if you haven’t mastered the little principle. So, let’s start with simple stuff. One left-hand turn lane, one of you, one freakin’ lane. That’s right. Just one. No!!! Not right. I DID NOT say right. I DID NOT SAY MOVE TO THE RIGHT.
You know… We’re just going to have to start all over again. Why? Cause you just screwed up a simple little principle. Stay left if you’re turning left. Do not assume all three lanes of the three lane thoroughfare were paved and painted with your freakin’ Hummer-laredo-vee-FX250 on the mind of city planners and construction workers.
Yeah, I KNOW you want to be in position for that emergency right you know you want to take about six blocks up. Or not. Right. NO!!! I did not say ‘right.’ It was a figure of speech leading into a sarcastic eye-roller about how you just like oozing around corners with the lope of a current fatboy, ex-fratboy who just downed 16 Buds in an effort to forget he once coulda excelled at something athletic.
OK. Listen. Again. Turn left. Stay left.
Why? So someone who is following you and has signalled her intention to pull into a right lane after she completes her LEFT LANE TURN, is not suddenly confronted with your Hummer-Laredo-inflated-number-and-consonant souped-up rear end in her face as soon as she completes her right hand shoulder check.
Is that language you can figure out? Do you want me to spell principle now?
I have to admire svelte and delicate dancer Paula Abdul for allowing her publicist to tell the truth — that she tripped over her dog and broke her nose.
Go ahead, laugh. Tripping and hurting, even by the most fit and agile people, happens all the time. To me, for instance. I wear flat shoes most days because even though I’m in no way stricken by poor balance, lousy co-ordination or matching limbs of different lengths, I’ve done my share of tripping and falling in the most slapstick of ways.
Falling off high heels? Amateur hour stuff. Happened all the time as a teen — usually while I was looking yearningly at some long-haired member of the opposite sex on a public street. Or dancing up a storm on a nightclub’s floor. Nah, I can beat that, and usually have.
I tripped one sunny lunch hour when I was pressed for time, had to get back to work downtown and yet was stealing a few minutes to walk my dog. I ended up in a newly poured concrete sidewalk at a busy intersection. The guys in the smoother-over machine, who had just barely poured and smoothed over the concrete and remained close enough to be simply admiring their handiwork, couldn’t believe their eyes. Neither could my dog. Or the gods who’d found me my brand new, very chic summer suit for a cute price.
Truth be told, I didn’t technically trip that time in False Creek, when I boldly cut a corner to the gangplank of the little commuter boat that shuttles people back and forth across from the sea walk to Granville Island. Nah, I just was too busy feeling cool in my $200 shades, listening too happily to music. I simply didn’t see that I was planting my sneaker-clad, happy feet confidently into water and not on plywood while grinning a gee-it’s-good-to-be-alive-in-Vancouver smile. Fairly entertaining that was for the lowlife, so-called mariner’s helper who didn’t even bend over to help me out of the drink. Just stood, glared and yelled he did, the way my father used to do when a glass of milk got spilled.
And I tripped and toppled head-over-glass-jug-over-open-door-to-our-dishwasher one evening, while purposefully marching towards the table from the fridge (are we sensing a pattern here?) Pas ma faute that someone who shall remain nameless but for the role of dearest significant other left the door down. Happily all that yoga suppleness training precluded a trip to the emerg.
I’m actually a bit proud of all that pratfalling and splatting. Apparenlty I’m not yet so decrepit that it does any major harm. Take that, Paula.
Oh where do you come from little non-threatening beetle that I startled when I whipped on the light in my second-floor bathroom in the middle of the night? How did you get up here? The window is shut tight because it’s cold and rainy outside. And it’s a brand new window with a perfectly impervious screen, so how could you have penetrated it anyway?
Where is your beetle family? Your mum and dad, sister or brother? How far away from here were you born? How long ago? Have you come up here because you made a wrong turn? Are you looking for the rest of the clan? Or are you desperately hungry and in search of food for everyone? What are doing for water?
These are things I think about when I almost step on you and I see that you are something of a sentient creature. You freeze in mid-scuttle in the light. You stay very still as I tromp around you. I know you can’t think, but you certainly give every impression of realizing something is very WRONG; you are alert and on guard.
And now, what should I do with you? I can’t squash you and flush you down the toilet. I’m sorry, I just can’t. I look around for a thin piece of cardboard and if I’m lucky enough to find one, I try to nudge you onto it. But like the spider from last week, and the ladybugs from last winter, you scurry in the other direction, frightened to death, fleeing from strange and scary upheaval of your entire physical world. I just want to get you captured for a few seconds on that flat plane, long enough to descend my stairs and walk you outside, where you might have a few good hours, or days before the natural order of things takes over.
But tonight I couldn’t find a piece of cardboard. And when I return from my search, you’re gone. Not behind the tub, or inside the drain or anywhere I can see. I think about you. Where have you hidden; what will become of you? Will you be starving to death tonight? What’s the kindest thing I could have done?
These aren’t funny thoughts to me. To others, yes. To me, they are close encounters of the mortal kind.