dude where's my life?

An odd moment this morning, after a late night last night. No, not that kind of late night. I stayed in, catching up on my editing. (The new book is in page proofs, but there are still tons of mistakes and sore spots and creases that have to be rectified, soothed and ironed out. Not just commas, either. Last night I came across a reference to a character I killed off two years ago in an earlier draft. It was like meeting a ghost. Ahh! I said. What are you doing here? I had to perform an exorcistic document search.)

Anyway, I was up til 3:00 or so drinking way too much coffee and swearing at the screen, so when I got up an hour or so ago I was not feeling perky. No, not perky at all. Getting the garbage from the kitchen to the curb was a saga of spills, mis-steps, and more curse words. But at last the quest was fulfilled, and I stood back and looked around, breathing in the new day.

I noticed that the place next to mine is for rent again. (Poor Marv can't seem to keep his tenants for very long.) I noticed a strange teenager slinking out of the crack house across the street. (I am probably libelling the good folks who live there. It may not be a crack house. But no one seems to go to work, and the building is falling down, and many of their visitors seem jittery and anxious. And the cops drop by now and then. Just saying...) And then I noticed that my car was missing.

I didn't panic. I was still groggy from no sleep. And having four teenagers means that your car is often missing. But I remembered that I had been out yesterday evening, and hadn't lent the car after that. Hmmm. Like an idiot, I went right over to my empty driveway, and peered down at the familiar oil stains. (I don't know what I was expecting to find. A ransom note? That my car was there all along but invisible through some Stealth-type technology?) Whatever, the thing was gone without a trace.

First things first. I went inside for a cup of coffee, which cleared my brain sufficiently for me to work out my next steps. Check that I had the car keys. Yup. Pour more coffee. Yup. And now call the police.

Upstairs, phone in hand, I looked across at the crack house, the big-screen-TV-guy's house (giant colourful images flash out of his livingroom window and into the street, visible day and night, winter spring summer or fall -- I don't think I have known the set to be off for more than an hour or two at a time) , and the parking lot where businesses on King Street load and unload.
And there, in the middle of the lot, was a familiar gray sedan.

Police, how can I help you? said the voice in my ear. I hung up.

The good news is that I didn't panic and put the cops to a lot of unnecessary bother. The bad news is that I have NO IDEA how my car got across the street. It's like that character in my book -- popping up unexpectedly, leftover from an early draft of my life.

jung at heart

Ugh. Haven't been awake so early in years. 4:30 am. What the heck am I doing up now? Mind you, there was a time when this hour knew me well. Yes, 4:30 was part of my routine. Up with the alarm clock, dressed and shivering, run to the corner of Smith and Jarvis where the stack of newspapers is waiting for me. Take an armful into the nearest apartment and ....

Whoa! Wait a moment. Wait just a moment. That is not my memory. Sorry. I never did any of that stuff. I don't know where Smith and Jarvis is, or if the intersection even exists. Now that I am wider awake I can't remember getting up this early since my kids were little. Funny how real it all seemed, though. I could smell the dewy grass, feel the darkness wrap me like a pullover. I must have tapped into someone else's dreams. Enough to make you believe in the idea of a race memory, a collective unconscious wherein we all have a bully of a big brother, and a high school sweetheart, and an early morning paper route.

Speaking of bulllies reminds me of a funny scene yesterday afternoon. Driving through a mixed part of town -- houses for rent, small retail outlets, old folks home, rundown church -- I saw a street gang. A dozen guys and girls looking very provocative with their tattoos and cigarettes. They were hanging out in front of -- get this -- a store that does alterations. Yup, that's right. Forget the pool hall, the scummy bar, the parkette with the basketball court. Here was the disaffected youth of Cobourg, sitting astride their bicycles, dead-eyed cool, and the sign in the background said: PANTS HEMMED WHILE U WAIT. It was all just too darned cute. Almost as cute as the picture up there. I honked and waved as I went past. One of the kids looked over, a half-frown on his face as he searched his soul for a collective memory of whatever it is that I am.

where were you?

It sounded like a joke -- anything about Michael Jackson sounds like a joke -- so I didn't pay attention when my daughter told me that some of her friends had heard he was dead. Really, Dad, it said so on the internet, she told me. I gave her a hug and told her I was proud of her, and how pretty she looked in her new dress, and would she be late with the car, and all that typical post-graduation stuff.

Yup, I was at Imo's grad when I heard about MJ. I won't go into too much detail about the evening at St Mary's High School, Cobourg Ontario, since it was -- I bet -- pretty much the same as any other grad anywhere in North America. Certainly it was the same as Sam and Thea's a couple of years ago. That is to say: long, hot, charming, repetitive, long, sentimental, predictable, sweet, and long. Of course I had a mind full of memories of Imo as a newborn, toddler, camper, scrambler and little girl, all of which helped to pass the time. And of course, as Becket says, it would have passed anyway. But the evening was a long one.

Imo won a prize or two, as did almost everyone else in her graduating year. I have to say, I approve of the practice of making everyone's grad special. Hats off to the various do-gooding organizations of the town -- Rotarians, Oddfellows, Lions, Tigers and Bears -- for donating scholarships and bursaries and awards to make sure that there is an extra something to say after almost every name on the graduating list. It puts a little money in kids' hands, and a little self-esteem in their hearts, and what's wrong with that? And it gives parents something to gush about to other parents. Of course it makes the kids who did not win anything look like big losers. I made a point of clapping extra hard when they walked across the stage to accept a handshake and scroll. Life is full of hard lessons, and I suspect that this was not the first such lesson for any of these kids.

So, anyway, Imo dropped me home and kept the car and I went upstairs and there was the news on the TV. Where was I when I heard about Elvis? Can't tell you. Hendrix, Strummer, Cobain, Harrison? Can't tell you. Sid Vicious? Can't tell you. But Jacko, maybe the biggest combo of talent and weirdness in rock (lots of competition there, and the bar is set pretty high), is forever linked in my mind with my little girl's graduation.

autobots rule!

It was great to get another insight into the teen boy mindset today. Ed and a bunch of his friends went to see, and I quote, Oh my God, one of the three greatest movies of all time. It was, he told me, so good. Oh my God. So good. We were in the car at this point, bright sunshine and a highway unrolling in front of us, and he gestured mutely at the windshield, shaking his head, unable to express the depth of his feeling.
He was talking, of course, about Transformers 2. For those of you who are not teenaged boys, this movie (like its predecessor) pits one kind of gigantic transforming machine against another kind in a battle to save the world. There is human interaction as well -- a pleasant male actor and a luscious female actor. (What's her role? I asked Ed. She spends a lot of time running across the screen in slow motion, he replied.) The real point of the movie is not sex, but action -- lots of chasing, fights, explosions, and, well, and then more of the same. What I loved was listening to Ed tell me how great it was. His description of the plot was detailed and systematic, but when he went on to discuss the fight scenes his voice became supercharged. He was re-experiencing a kind of epiphany. I actually shouted at the screen! he said. When Optimus Prime is fighting the three Decepticons in the forest, I was, like, shouting. Oh, my God!
What about your friends? I said. They were doing it too, he said. A whole row of us, shouting at the screen! It was so intense. And when Optimus Prime

CAUTION ... SPOILER ALERT ... SKIP THIS NEXT BIT IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS
dies, the whole theater said, No!!! together.
OKAY. READ ON.

Wow, I said.
When we left the theater we were all so excited we were jumping around, he said. I was like, I have to watch that again! I was envying the people in line to see the next show.
I asked Ed is there were many girls in the theater.
A few, he said. But they were with their boyfriends. And they weren't screaming at the screen.
I smiled at the idea of these generous girls, very possibly bored out of their skulls after two hours of mechanized mayhem, but putting up with it for the sake of their men. (The shoe will be on the other foot later this year when the next Twilight movie comes out.)
I may have to see Transformers 2 myself. If I do, though, I want to watch it with Ed.

just missed

I nearly saw the scariest thing this evening. Out walking the dog (not mine -- watching him for a friend) I was on Spring Street heading south when two cars and two kids on bikes went past. The cars were travelling in opposite directions, the bikes both heading towards me up the street.

The first biker was maybe ten years old, kind of tough looking - one of those street kids with a perpetually dissatisfied expression. He scooted safely past me, kicking at the dog as he went by because, well, because he's that kind of kid. A casual meanie. The kind you should feel sorry for, but don't.His brother followed him. Same square face, dark hair and eyebrows, big chin -- but a lot younger. No more than five or six, and just learning to ride a bike. He was proud of himself, and excited, pedalling like mad to keep up with his big brother. His eyes flicked over me and the dog, and his expression softened briefly before he re-focussed on the task at hand.

Funny how one second, one gesture, can be enough to establish character. I liked the little brother as quickly and as easily as I'd disliked the big one.

The two cars met just behind the smaller bike. An SUV and a compact. They were the only vehicles on the street, and there was just enough room for them both. They swerved out of each others' path. The SUV headed off. But now the compact was way over at the side of the road, aiming directly at the little kid.

I saw the future in a flash. It looked awful. There was nothing I could do. The kid was going to get run over. I didn't even have time to close my eyes. I shouted. Time slowed down, and the scene got very clear, as if seen through crystal. The compact driver stood on her brakes, and the car skidded up onto the sidewalk ahead of me. The dog barked. The kid rode past me, oblivious to everything except his precarious balance and the movement of his feet. And the moment was past.

Time speeded up again. The compact driver and I stared at each other through her windshield for a few seconds. Then she threw the car into reverse, backed off the sidewalk, and headed slowly -- very slowly -- up the road. And the dog and I continued our walk.

a life in a list

Found a piece of paper in my shopping cart yesterday. Torn from a school exercise notebook, sloppy handwriting. Being nosy, I started to read it ... and found myself unable to stop. I read the whole page twice, put the scrap of paper in my pocket, thought about it all through my shopping trip (I was so preoccupied I forgot to get a watermelon), and came back to it repeatedly through the evening. No, it was not a love letter or a suicide note. It was not a poem or a plan to rob a Brinks truck. There was no excitement, no emotional content at all. It was a list -- a series of things to buy and do. Straightforward, incredibly everyday things ... and yet not. Taken together the list can be seen to represent, well, a life. Reading it again now I am amused, sympathetic, moved -- totally fascinated. Here it is. I've kept the spelling but changed the names.
At the top are a few circled grocery items: Tide, Kleenx, air freshener, apple cider. (I guess you start with the essentials.) Then the to-do part begins.
- Get hair fixed
- hole punch shoes
- Penningtons - 3 shirts (present for MOM)
Then there's a boxed off area, a sort of side-bar. These are the must-do things:
- mark 100 on calendar for Dad
- put in ww fluid
- p/u Sue @ noon
- put in flowers 8 am
- cut dad's hair 11 am.
The list resumes:
- go out with Kathy 6 pm
- call Dougal after 10 on SUN
- order nasel spray
(That last is my favorite.)
Some more grocery items are scribbled off to one side: coffee, rice, fruit, soup, nachos, pasta, real fruit cookies, mac & cheese, water bottle, Equate, deoderent, toilet chain.
Maybe toilet chain is more hardware than grocery, but it's on the list.
The final entries seem to be more serious. They are double spaced.
- Sue - try nails
- check map account online
- Do SIN application
- sign and return Dance form - Sue
- find present for mom
- Book Dr app for me

Truth is in the details. Put enough small bits of truth together and you have a whole truth. In this case, a character. I do not know her name or address, or the colour of her skin or hair. I don't know why she is hole punching her shoes. I can only speculate as to the significance of 100 for her dad. But I get a very strong sense of her. I like her a lot, and wish her well. Her parents and friends are lucky.

stereotypes

Driving into Toronto I found myself behind a van with a seriously ethnic look to it. Green in colour, and covered in bumperstickers lauding all things Irish, from Notre Dame and the blarney stone to a variety of Celtic crosses and other related doodads: harps, shamrocks, Guinness logos, erin go braghs and such like. (We were on the Don Valley Parkway, moving at the speed of government reform, so there was plenty of time to take all this in.) I was admiring the consistency of the vision when the van pulled off to the side of the road so the driver could take a phone call. (So safety conscious! My Irish driving stereotype was shattered.) As I passed slowly, I took in his collar, long dark beard, and hat. Very ethnic -- but not Irish. I laughed so hard I nearly spilt my coffee. Talk about prejudging. I'd been expecting some kind of leprechaun or faerie mayden, and here was a guy looking almost exactly like that picture of Yusuf Islam, Cat Stevens as he was.

My window was open, and so was his. Did I hear the strains of Enya or Danny Boy wafting into the morning rush hour, further evidence of this guy's love affair with the Emerald Isle? No. It was a (to my stereotyping ears) generic piece of Arabic music -- an oboe type instrument working in a musical scale or mode I didn't recognize.

So I wondered how he came to be driving that van? Did he just buy it off of his good friend Paddy O'Flaherty or Biddy Connolly? (Still with the stereotypes. Except that real Irish folks would be more likely to have a rude bumpersticker and listen to Biggie Smalls.) Perhaps the van was borrowed, and my man changed all the radio settings. Poor Paddy will be so upset.

Just before I got off at my exit, a beat-up muscle car pulled past me and cut in. There was just enough room for it after I braked. The driver flipped me the pre-emptive bird before I had a chance to honk. Then she gunned the engine and took off.

Probably a Canadian.