racism, ageism, dudeism

Hey hey!  I lost this address and haven't been able to get to the blog for a couple weeks.  Just now, browsing around my computer looking for music, I found the missing address.  And I'm back.

Back from Florida, among other things.  Down there visiting my folks who are brown holy crap I did not know my own mom at first glance.  Generational views on tanning.  I dunno - Mom didn't look unhealthy so much as a different race.

Funny place, Florida - at least the part around Lauderdale which is the only part I know.  Nothing too horrible about it but there's nothing really great either.   Beaches, restaurants, highways, shops, buildings - everything scores a pretty good.  Can't help noticing that all the crappy jobs are held by non-whites, and that almost everyone on the beach is not non-white.

I guess that's kind of horrible.

Couple cliche moments on the road.  First, there's a lot of old people driving around.  I know I am not young but we are talking ooooooooold.  Like the guy in the picture.  One guy looked not just older than his Ford but older than the Ford motor company.  Was he travelling quickly?  No he was not.

Scariest was pulling out of my folks' parking lot on the way to the airport.  There was a big car tortoising towards us, and my taxi driver figured to beat it, but just as he pulled out, the tortoise put his foot down, and suddenly here was this grille  practically in my lap.

Dude! I shouted, as we skipped out of the way with centimeters to spare. And then I blushed all over at the idea that my last word on earth might have been, dude.

of mode and mackinaws

So I just got in from Saskatoon and my arms are -- well, they're cold, and so is the rest of me.  Sask is a pretty frosty province this time of year.  Nippy noodles, as Georgia Nicolson would say.

Doesn't seem to bother the natives, who go on biking and hiking and chatting even though it is minus a billion with the windchill.  Walking to the parking lot from the education building I thought my limbs would drop off.  My driver actually threw her head back and said, That's fresh, eh?  Much better than inside.  I thought I was going to bake in that conference hall.  I shared a glance with car mate and fellow author Glen Huser  (Stitches, Skinnybones and the Wrinkle Queen -- great books)  who as a Vancouverite is even wimpier than I.

This is not fresh,  he said.  Fresh is a jump in the pool on a hot day.  This is freezing.

When I got back I was still cold so I headed for my closet to don (I love blogging, since I can use words I would never allow myself in fiction writing, like don and doff) my mackinaw, but I could not find it.  I hunted high and low and side to side and I found a lot of things but not the sweater jacket.  I asked Ed if he had seen it.  
The red and black one?  I took that, he said.  I've had it for months.
Can I have it back?
No, he said.
There was a pause and then I asked, Why?  And this is what he told me.
You don't deserve it, he said.
What?
Well, Dad, see, that jacket is really cool, and you're ... 
Go on, I said
What I mean is, you don't know how cool it is.  It's the perfect weight and size.  Everyone's wearing stuff exactly like that one right now, and I just know I look better in it than you.  It would be wasted on you.
He was so earnest I had to work not to laugh.
So what you are saying is that the lame old guy never has a chance.  The one time he finds something that is actually cool, he can't wear it?  
Yes, said Ed.  That's it exactly.  He went up to his room and came back with my mackinaw, which is like the one pictured only somehow cooler--  at least it looked cool on Ed.   But darn it I was still cold.  Doff that!  I called.  Doff that right now!  But he didn't.

I stole a hoodie from him. I don't know if it's lame or not, and I don't really care. The part of youth that worries about what everyone is wearing is not wasted on the young.  They can have it.

not the humidity

Let's talk about hot sauce.  Every Christmas  there is one gift that dominates memory and conversation, provokes more comment and laughter than all the other gifts combined.  This year that gift was a kris kringle joke -- one kid to another -- the gift of hot sauce.

You don't think hot sauce can be exciting, do you.  Well, you are wrong.  Take a roomful of giggly Christmas teens and young twenties (sidebar:  what do we call these guys?  There should be a word for the years from, say, 18-24, especially if single and underemployed, more or less adult but essentially irresponsible.  Yadults? Adolts?  Groan ups?  Anyway...) and add a bottle of the world's spiciest product.  It's called Death Sauce and the bottle is covered in warnings.  Yeah, something like that one in the picture.  Sam put a drop on his finger, licked, and  immediately began to cough and hiccup. The spasms lasts fifteen minutes.

Yes it was mildly funny, and that might have been it -- a smile, a shrug, and a lesson learned.  But for some reason we (I was in on this too) couldn't quite believe that the stuff was as hot as Sam was making out.  Could a single drop could be that potent?  One drop?  And so, like gustatory lemmings, only stupider because we did it one by one, we sampled.  And one by one we succumbed to our own case of coughs and wheezes and hiccups as the stuff burned its way around our mouths and down our gullets.  Was it that hot?  Yes it was.  Yes it was.  Yes  it was. Yes it was. Yes. It. Was. Each time was funnier because more of us were in on the self joke.  

And then  ... you remember building up a static electric charge by rubbing your feet on the carpet and then touching the door?  And it hurt, but you did it again and again and again?  For the next hour or so we tried putting the hot sauce into things.  Was the sweet potato soup spicier with Death Sauce?  Ouch!  Yes it was.  Okay, how about a Bloody Ceasar -- was it too spicy?  Ouch!  Yes. My lips are burning!  What about salad dressing?  Gravy?  Shortbread cookies?  Ouch! Ouch!  (Ok not Gramma's shortbread.)

No prizes for guessing the sex of the hot sauce experimenters.  Imo suggested a card cutting lottery with the loser drinking a shot of Jose Cuervo and Death Sauce, but when Sam held the deck out for her to pick (we all had our cards -- mine, sadly, the two of diamonds), she laughed and shook her head.  That stuff is way too hot for me, she said.

Is she on her way out of adolthood and into adulthood?  Maybe not yet. When I was gagging and gasping from my Lava Tequila, Imo laughed so hard she fell out of her chair.

stay what you are

If I were a Rob Ford supporter (now there is an unlikely sentence-opener ... reminds me of a conversation I had a while back where I caught myself saying, The good thing about Nickelback ... and started to cough because I was laughing so hard) I might be able to respond to his ouster by saying that he was being railroaded for being true to himself. Mountains out of molehills, I would say. We elected him because he seemed like a regular football-loving guy who didn't care about politics, didn't mind what he wore, hated the artsies and the gays, wanted to save money and look after the suburbs.  

All that is still true.  He may have bent a few rules but, hey, who doesn't?  (Do you tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth on your income tax?  You do?   Good for you.  So do I, in case anyone from Revenue Canada is reading this.  Those trips to Vegas were all research! Fascinating place, Vegas.  My next book may be set there.)   Ford has not changed in the couple of years he has been mayor.  We liked him then - why not now?

Comparing the response to the Ford news to Obama's re-election is interesting. The same kinds of people are smiling because the "good guys" have won.  In the Obama case the smiles are from relief.  In the Ford case the smiles are tinged with this sense of wonder.   

Now, the thing about Nickelback is that ...

 ... well, come to think of it it's the same as the thing about Ford.  They are what they are.  When you walk into a strip joint (I am going to have to work on my sentence-openers) and hear Nickelback playing, you know where you are.  The world makes sense.  The time to worry, to check over your shoulder, to maybe run like hell, is when your strip joint is playing Justin Bieber ....

packaging

So I was at the Packaging Your Imagination conference in Toronto yesterday -- me and a couple of hundred other writers for children.  And you know what I remember most vividly about the day?  Lunch.  It's not that I didn't have a great time hanging out with old friends and making new ones;  it's not that I didn't learn stuff at the master classes, and get a kick out of prancing around on stage (yes, sadly, that is me in the photo) and making myself and others laugh.  But lunch marked a real change for me.  Not the meal itself, which was sandwichy salady straightforward.  It was the venue.

The conference took place at a college on the University of Toronto campus.  Lunch was in the dining hall, and there was a High Table and I -- this is where my eyes widened and my breath quickened slightly -- I was instructed in no uncertain terms to sit myself there.  

Are you sure?  I said.  
Yes, said the bossy lady with the bundle of sticks, standing in the doorway.
I've never eaten at High Table before, I said.  Are there rules?  Do I have to talk to the person on my left first?  Can I swear?  Do I have to finish my meal before I can get a dessert? 

She frowned, gestured, and I took my plate in my trembling hands, made my way up (yes up -- High Table is actually two steps above the level of the floor) to my place.  I sat between two people who were so at ease that they were clearly used to High Tables.  They were not a bit snobbish, and answered my questions very naturally. By the end of the meal I was able to make a small joke -- one of those zen master and a rabbi  and a necrophiliac jokes -- and the polite laughter all round the table told me I had hit the right note.  Then we dispersed to our afternoon sessions.  It took my blood pressure some time to come down.

All right, maybe I am making this a bigger deal than it was.  But I was not comfy up there.  I had a moment thinking, I am not a High Table guy.  There's nothing special about the way I eat lunch -- nothing to mark me out from the other lunchers.  If I ran the Packaging conference --- well, it would be a complete failure  because I would forget to book the venue or get the date wrong or something --  there wouldn't be a High Table.  Or, better yet, there'd be High Tables for everyone.  And no fascists telling us where to sit.

I ran into a very energetic forward-planning lady at the after party.  She is already thinking about next year.  She asked if  I had any suggestions.  Packaging Your Imagination is perfect, I said, except for one thing.  I turned to get my drink and when I turned back she was gone.  Oh well.  I wonder if she reads my blog?

me and soap

Been a while, eh?  My apologies, but I have been busy travelling, talking, writing, going to school, and ignoring my kids.  This all takes energy.  I have also been practicing my tweeting -- something my publishers are keeen on.  Not that I am making them happy, since their goal is to PROMOTE MY PRODUCT AND BRAND (they actually talk like this) THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA and my goal is TO AMUSE MYSELF AND A FEW OTHERS AND NOT LOOK LIKE A DOUCHE BY SAYING LOOKIT ME LOOKIT ME LOOKIT ME NOW!  AREN'T I GREAT? (this is how I talk) THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA.  

So today's blog is about dish soap.  I have run out, and have to buy a new bottle.  And I glot to thinking about that, and realized that the last time I had to buy some dish soap I was in the middle of writing a book and wondering where I was going to live and listening to Ed drum for hours in the basement of the house in Cobourg and dashing around in my 2-door putt-putting car.  And now, 1 bottle of dish soap later, I am living in the big city with a bike and a book tour and a car with only 1 door.  (Long story involving a too-tight turn and a gentle crunching sound.  The net result is that when my kids join me in the car these days I roll down the passenger side window and they do a General Lee entrance -- see pic below.) 

My point is that time can be measured in numbers -- hours and months and decades -- and also in regular actions and purchases, and these vary as do chronometric units.  To say to someone, I'll see you in a couple of milk cartons would indicate a different time span than, I'll see you in a couple of dentist appointments or In a couple of major home renovations or, going the other way, In a couple of toilet flushes.   For me, dish soap is somewhere in between cereal boxes and bay leaves. 


Now do you understand why my publishers shake their heads at me?  I'm sure I could find something more career-related to talk about, but I don't want to.  I would rather measure out my life in dish soap than tell you about my upcoming book launch. 

happiness for now

How long do we get to be happy? What I mean is, having wished for something and got it, how long are we allowed to simply appreciate the thing we now have before either beginning to resent it or to wish for something else? 

And the answer is:  two weeks.  At least that's the answer for me, in the case of the Toronto apartment where I am now living after more than a decade in a small town.  Two weeks and counting, that is.  I still get a kick out of walking downstairs and seeing Riverdale spread out before me like a deboned pork roast unrolled on a butcher block (probably the wrong image, since the area seems to have more than its share of vegans).  I still enjoy hopping on my bike to head downtown, or wandering over to a coffee shop with a view of the Don Valley and skyline  -- that's it in the picture there.  I still marvel at how few kilometres I have put on my car in two weeks (like, 25).   

My apartment, though not perhaps hot, is still a nice girl -- the mild romance has not gone out of our relationship. (In fact with the pictures up she looks kind of dashing.)  I have less space for things than I did in the house in Cobourg, but then I have fewer things.  And with space at a premium I can ask myself if I really need something and if the answer is no I can throw it out. 

I am not right in the heart of the happening downtown, but I am about 100 kilometres closer to it than I was two weeks ago.  There is not a fantastic bar right around the corner, but that may be just as well.  When I think about all the ways life is not working out  -- from global warming to impending war to embarrassing local political leaders -- I am doing okay.  Nothing much to complain of.

Oooh, except those bastards at the Cobourg cable company.   Would you believe they are trying to bill me for my old TV box and modem even though I already mailed them back????

 I know, eh?  Cogeco, you are getting a piece of my mind on Monday, I can tell you.