ask palinode: christmas wish edition
» Sunday, December 31, 2006

Every December, I take some time away from my standard Ask Palinode duties to review all the stray comments and requests that people have left on my site. These are off-the-cuff remarks and casual inquiries made with no expectation of a response. For the festive season, I make it my first priority to select one of these requests and give it the full Ask Palinode treatment. Think of it as the bonus material that you get on a DVD - and unlike the editor's commentary track over the deleted scenes from Beerfest, you stand a chance of enjoying this material.

As you can imagine, it is no small undertaking to sift through the massive amount of content and find the exact right question. I went through three tins of Portuguese sardines and two bottles of Everclear before I even started. And then I went with the one I'd decided to answer in the first place.

In a recent entry I employed my assistant, a rock hyrax, to answer a question about what it means when your leg nips. In response, Cahilla (my spy in Oslo) asked:

How delightfully educational on a Wednesday morning! Pray, do tell of the evolving friendship between you and your trusted assistant the rock hyrax.

Sure, her question gets all prolix on your ass, but they have extra words in Norway to throw around - something to do with their trade agreements. I hear they deployed 20,0000 adverbs to Iraq.

Cahilla, let's let the rock hyrax take this one.



Hi Cahilla. Thanks for asking about me! As you can guess, I am the only rock hyrax in the world who contributes content to the internet. I like to think that this is a pretty great achievement, especially when you think about how tough it is for me to type LOL. It is true that I am kidding about the typing because I use speech-to-text software, as I tire myself out quickly on a standard keyboard.

My story starts on a rocky bluff on the savannah in good old sub-Saharan Africa. My extended family and I spent our days basking in the sun and eating plants. We snoozed a lot. Ate grass. Bit hikers. It was a good life, especially for a rock hyrax, but not for the hikers LOL.

One evening, after a day of snoozing while keeping an eye out for leopards, I found myself surprisingly hungry. My family had already returned to their holes for warmth and sleep, but my hunger was too great to ignore. I scooted a few feet from the rock and started munching on a patch of grass that I'd been thinking of having the next day.

As I ate I saw a point of light on the horizon, a white spot that suddenly flashed out into a great shear of brightness, like the reflected flash from an enormous turning blade. The light began to climb up the side of the sky, strip by strip, until I realized that the light itself was an advancing wall that stretched from the plains to the moon. Before I could run back to my rock it was upon me, pouring into my eyes and infiltrating every cell in my brain and body. Inside the light I felt a voice speaking to me, a colour that was a word, a roaring that was speech, and in that moment I was granted the power of language and rational thought. Later I discovered that I had also picked up some elementary concepts of geometry and basic principles of accounting.

The next morning I left my rock and made it to the nearest city, where I took out a classified ad in the local daily: INTELLIGENT ROCK HYRAX looking for a change, seeks suitable employment. Good with other hyraxes. Moderate typing skills, excellent shorthand. Go on and challenge me! No leopards or civets please. Mr. Palinode was the first respondent.

OK, that's how I became Mr. Palinode's assistant, Cahilla. He doesn't pay much, but I've enjoyed wandering the palace grounds with him in the afternoons and spending time in the hedge maze. In the evenings we sit in front of the fire and talk about current events. I keep the books and type up his memoirs. It's more than I could have imagined for myself.


Chances are, you haven't yet asked Palinode a question. That's why your life is worth nothing and the children spit at your feet. Ask Palinode! askpalinode @ gmail . com.

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waiting in line
» Saturday, December 30, 2006

For at taste of proletarian living in the new millennium, try any popular coffee shop chain over the holidays.

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the tareyton tussle
» Thursday, December 21, 2006

From a 1964 ad for Tareyton cigarettes. I've cropped out the slogan - care to take a guess what it might be? No googling allowed.

Also, why does this ad bear a creepy resemblance to A Clockwork Orange, which appeared in theatres seven years later?

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vacation days
» Monday, December 18, 2006

Hey guys! Over the last week I've been watching Six Feet Under. My girlfriend left all her DVDs behind when she went on her overseas mission, so I've been catching up on the crazy stuff that everyone's watching these days. And while I don't think all that language is necessary, it got me to thinking about how the kids out there are talking about death. I mean, check this out from the NFB catalogue:


That kid isn't just talking about death, he (or maybe she, I can't tell) is talkin' about it. Heck, maybe the kids are out there crunkin' about death right now.

I've written a hip-hop song for the kids that tells them all about how uncool death is and how great it feels to be alive, by comparison. The beats are phat and they've got cowbell up the you-know. The point is, if my fresh jam stops even one kid from taking his or her life, like that Wilson-Phillips tune, then this website has paid for itself twenty times over.

Let's kick it live-style.

The dead don't wind no clocks
The dead don't darn no socks
And all the choked-out brokers
Hope the afterlife's got stocks

The dead don't do 1337-speak
'Cause d00d their game is weak
And when they turn their TVs on
It's always Dawson's Creek (P3WND!)

Their nightclubs all is dull!
They're Ottawa, we're Hull!
They've only got one Yuk-Yuks
And they just booked Martin Mull!

The dead don't eat no ce-re-al
'Cause they are too fu-ner-e-al
We muster like old Custer
All our soldiers and ma-te-ri-el

But one day we'll be there too
Sure as drivers turn a screw
We'll forget the ones who loved us
And that cat that smelled like poo

Yeah, that cat sure smelled like poo
And that homeless guy did too
From the purrin' to the urine
Life is beautiful and true

I'm also developing an instructional multimedia resource kit for classes up to grade 9. It's totally karoake, dudes! I mean d00dz. Whatever that shit is. You kids are like little freaking aliens, if you want my honest opinion.

Labels: useless

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big hairy one-act play challenge
» Friday, December 15, 2006

I have the next two weeks off work, from Monday Dec 18 all the way to January 1st. During that time I'd like to write a one-act play, but I have no idea as to setting, premise, characters, anything. My only rule is that they have to be able to speak - otherwise the possibilities for dialogue start evaporating. Scratch that - a bunch of mute characters might be interesting as well.

What I need from you folk is suggestions - give me the rules for the play I'm going to write. Starting Monday, I have two weeks to come up with a rough draft. I'll take the most workable and wacky ideas you've got and grind them all into a paste of high art.

I have some faithful commenters on this site and a whole lotta lurkers. De-lurk for me this one time for a collaborative effort at playwrightness. Remember that I am very fond of certain themes - time travel, zombies, robots, the Irish, the Aral Sea, and post-apocalyptic wastelands - but don't let that limit you. I look forward to your suggestions, from the idle to the inspired.

Go!

Labels: literature

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sharon and rod
» Thursday, December 14, 2006

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15 uses for post-it notes
» Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Here's a game to play for the slow hours in the office: write a story on post-it notes. Write carefully and deliberately, but do not stop, back up or edit. Grammatical errors? What a shame. Story turning out too stupid? Too bad. I've become so inured to writing on a computer screen that instantaneous, thoughtless editing has become a reflex. Writing on post-its is a way to think ahead as you write but give yourself the permission to make mistakes and do stupid shit.

Plus it looks incontrovertibly like work when people walk by your office door.
































And that's why I always edit.

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not so stories #1
» Monday, December 11, 2006

There’s a guy who’s always in the lunch room whenever I walk by. Sometimes he’s microwaving, sometimes he’s boiling water. Sometimes he’s standing there, hands in pockets and not much going on. He wears a knotted blue scarf around his neck. Old acne scars climb up his chin and cling to his cheeks. Every time I come in to get my lunch from the fridge, he smiles at me and wanders out. There’s a residue of his thoughts in the air, a murmur that runs I like, I like going through the fridge and looking at everyone’s lunches, I like to unwrap the cellophane around the cheese sandwiches, I like to pop the top on tupperwear containers and poke the tofu chunks within, oh yeah, gonna poke your tofu. Up top is the gourmet coffee, behind the toolbox and the toner, there’s good beans up there, gonna grind them when no one else is looking, gonna have some fiiiine coffee when the lights go out. Of course this is ridiculous – he usually leaves the office before I do – but now I hear his voice in my kitchen, and it frightens me a little.

Labels: lies

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ask palinode: privilege edition
» Sunday, December 10, 2006

There was a time when I was known for my awesome traveling prowess. I spent a couple of years flying around the globe for work, going to places both beautiful beyond compare (south of France) and hideous to behold (Rapid City). Like everyone else who used to travel, I've become one of those people who kill conversations at the bar with statements like, "Hey, that reminds me of the time I saw a majestic snow hawk take flight from a eucalyptus branch and keep pace with us as we navigated down the muddy Adelaide River" and stuff like that. So I'm well-disposed towards questions such as these:

1. How much money does a backpacker need to get to and around eastern Europe, primarily Russia, for the summer?

2. What would be the best job for a recently-fired professional and returning college student? Barista? Retail sales? Reading books and getting unemployment? Best could be characterized by a balance of pay vs. the pain-in-the-ass factor.

Love, Margaret

Whooh-hoo! You see that sign-off? Margaret loves me! And she can't take it back because she said it with the internet.

Margaret, is this a veiled invitation on a budget trip to romantic Russia (and are you greaving/ over Goldengrove unleaving)? Because I'm married, and there's no way I could go on a trip without alerting my wife. After a few days she wouldn't buy my story about being waylaid by JW's on my way to Shopper's Drug Mart. She's a sharp one, she is. Go vote for her RIGHT NOW at the 2006 Weblog Awards. 'Milkmoney or Not, Here I Come' is up for Best Canadian Blog of 2006. And it is the best Canadian blog. Show the world the truth of that statement by voting for her.

As my cultural studies prof used to say, let's make up a bunch of bollocks and hit on grad students unpack these questions a little bit. First off, we can be sure that Margaret is not from Eastern Europe - otherwise she wouldn't asking about getting there. Second, she's probably not from anywhere in continental Europe - no self-respecting European says 'backpacking'. They call it Frischairspotbilligenrucksackfüssfahrengehen and they live off roots and local beer (Ja, das hat so viel Spass gemacht dass ich noch Durchfall habe). Which reminds me: the EU recently adopted a crabbed, half-remembered German as its official language. I am the principal proponent of this language (Arschlochdeutsch) and its most fluent native speaker. Ach na, das stimmt.

Margaret's also not Australian, because there's no indication that she's fending off platypuses in Cairns, running from eucalyptus fires in Gyppsland, or enjoying the sophisticated and energetic nightlife on offer in the King's Cross area of Sydney. And she's not from New Zealand either, because everyone knows that New Zealand is now completely overrun with orcs.

Downtown Christchurch
Truly it is a time of heroes.

I'm going to assume that Margaret is like me: a North American child of privilege, embedded by at least one generation in middle-class society, with a decent post-secondary degree and a kink for stuffies never mind. For folks like us, backpacking is another aspect of our education, a brief atavistic period in which we learn bedrock values like 'self-reliance' and 'casual sex'. From these experiences we grow as people and better learn how to behave ourselves in the office corridors and PTA meetings of our adult lives.

So what it does it cost to fuel our middle-class upbringing? According to the USDA, the cost of raising an American child born in 1999 to the age of eighteen will total $160,140 USD. Other calculators will return results of up to $300,000, depending on income range and regional distribution. Throw in college savings funds and the numbers keep ticking upward.

Whatever the actual figure may be, it’s certain that hundreds of thousands of dollars have gone in to your milk-strong bones and keratin hair, the lipids in your skin and the gas in your car. By the time you hit eighteen, you’re the incarnation of money. Given such advantages going in, do you really need to know the cheapest plane fare or the most reputable hostels?

For the children of privilege, I propose an alternative to backpacking, which I call bodypacking. This is not a euphemism for being a drug mule – although that’s an acceptable activity under my scheme. Your body is source and signal of your exalted place in the world, the vehicle of your will, and the most basic unit of currency. The use and destruction of countless bodies have been factored in to the shelter and succor of your own. Bodypacking is your chance to give something back.

Here’s how it goes. Instead of planning for off-season hostel-hopping, get up from your computer right now and walk outside. You may take only what you are wearing at this instant. If you have your wallet on you, then you’re in luck – a supply of funds and identification makes bodypacking much easier (at least in the initial stages). If you’re unfortunate enough to be underdressed, then you’ll have to acquire clothes right away. Your best option is theft. You can also assume other people’s identities if you’re savvy enough. Make your way to a port city and stow away aboard a freighter bound for St. Petersburg or Vladivostock.

Congratulations! You’ve made it to Russia. With any luck, you’ve picked up some of the language or made some friends along the way. If you’re really smart, by now you have a gun. A bodypacking purist will go without such a blunt instrument, but I recommend it for the really rough spots.

From your port of arrival you must make your way through Russia and the former Soviets. Stay off the main roads. Travel by night. Rely on the kindness of strangers, and when their kindness seems in short supply, use force. Learn the pleasures of fleeting images and sensations: the moon passing slowly across the space of an empty window; steam from a rope of hog intestines; the calls of armed men tramping through fields as they look for your trail. Become a folk legend: an English-speaking cannibal spirit haunting the barns and back roads of eastern Europe.

I also recommend a small digital camera to document your trip. Make sure it’s small enough to fit comfortably in a body cavity. Once you return, you’ll have some remarkable stories to tell. Your friends will be amazed by your new can-do attitude and your ability to assemble a Kalashnikov and cook a rabbit in your sleep.

As for your second question, I suggest that you try out: adventure tour guide, mercenary, advice columnist, MBA impersonator.

Everybody needs fine advice for troubled times. Askpalinode @ gmail . com.

Labels: ask palinode, travel

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ugly
» Thursday, December 07, 2006

That's the worst moment of all: when it turns its head to look at you, just before it slips out of sight into the foliage.

Labels: photos, useless

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palinode's movie predictions
» Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Do you remember the opening moments of Plan 9 From Outer Space? That bit called “Criswell Predicts,” where Criswell predicts… nothing at all? He talks about the future, but then starts in on “secret testimony” and then asks us if we can handle the shocking facts of “grave robbers from outer space”? Remember? Okay, you can watch it then.



Ah, that does my heart good.

I’m going to go one better than Criswell here and make some predictions about Mel Gibson's new bloodfest Apocalypto, a movie that there is no way in hell I am going to see. So I’m going to make my predictions about the film based entirely on the trailer.



It’s clear even from the trailer that Mel Gibson believes. I don’t mean that he believes in the Resurrection, or in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (although these are bright stars in the constellation of Gibson’s faith) – he believes in spectacular cinema, the grand event, the historical epic and the salubrious power of violence. He also believes in simple stories: a peaceful man gets pushed too far by an evil government, takes his revenge, dies for his beliefs; a stranger shows up in town, gets into trouble with an evil government, dies for his beliefs. As stories go, it’s an oldie.

Given these elements, I’m going to take a stab at Apocalypto. Wherever my Apocalypto differs from Gibson’s Apocalypto, mine is the correct one. Because it’s imaginary, just like my assertions that I am better-looking, wealthier and more successful than Mel Gibson.

There’s a guy. He’s a nice guy. He wears a loincloth, lives in the jungle, shaves his teeth. Basically an ordinary Joe like you or me, just wanting to live his life. He’s also a really good hunter. No one hunts like Joe. And judging from the trailer, no one spends three hours running through the jungle like Joe.

Joe loves a girl. She’s a pretty girl, with nicer teeth than the rest of the women who sit around by the fire, picking plants and having babies. But she’s no ordinary Jane. She’s a high-class Jane with a heart of gold.

Jane belongs to an important family. Her father’s a priest. But not just any priest. This priest belongs to a special order that likes to pick out victims and, with a Molarum here and a Sularum there, pull out their beating hearts as an offering to the gods.

A word on the gods: lately they haven’t been so kind to the Mayans. The streets are plagued with disease and crops have been failing. Wars of conquest haven’t gone their way, and the mob is growing restless. The rulers don’t know why. The elite can’t figure it out. Father Molarum-Sularum comes up with an answer: well, we haven’t been sacrificing enough ordinary Joes. If we increase our human sacrifice quotas by 500%, the gods will be appeased and let us flourish again.

The real reason the society is suffering has to do with the deforestation surrounding the urban areas. As the people cut down more and more trees for fuel and building material, they deplete their primary energy resource and destroy the layer of topsoil needed for agriculture. As crops fail, the rural population begins to migrate to the urban areas in search of work. The ranks of the army swell with the displaced children of farmers. The government cannot pay all the wages for the military, so it sends them out on missions of conquest to claim more resources and territory. More people migrate into the urban areas. Poverty, crowding, disease ensue. Clergy and government tighten their hold on the people. Eventually an armed coup deposes the ruling elite, who join the heap of bodies at the steps of the temple. By then it is too late, and the once-vibrant society dwindles away. The smart ones find somewhere else to live.

Whoah, wait? Was I implying that a culture’s material habits determine its fate? That groups of people will develop just enough technology to exploit existing resources to their fullest, but not enough technology to operate outside their resource envelope? That is probably our greatest quality and flaw in one – that we are so good at making do with what we have that we are capable of building unsustainable structures. But that won’t be a prominent theme in Apocalypto. The Mayans are going to fail because their ruling class is morally bankrupt and their society is sick and their gods are barbaric. And because they practice Unspeakable Jungle Rituals, out there in the humid jungles of the soul.

Okay. One day the Molarum-Sularum squad – the baddest of the bad, the sharpest-toothed motherfuckers in the pack - picks up Hunter Joe on a sacrifice sweep. Maybe it’s accidental. Maybe Joe’s hunting and running prowess has made him too popular with the masses, and the priest fears him. Maybe the priest is more than a little peeved at the way his daughter follows Hunter Joe around, all moon-eyed and such. Whatever the case may be (we always need a bit of ambiguity in a movie to keep us wondering), Hunter Joe is dragged before the long-nailed priest with his serpentine fingers and heart-extracting ways.

Jane finds out at the last moment and begs her father to show some mercy. Surely the gods are not so cruel as to kill off the best hunter/runner in the whole empire? Father Molarum-Sularum relents. He even agrees to let her marry him – that’s how kind he’s suddenly become. However, he must win a race and hunt down a black panther that has been plaguing people, attacking by leaping out of the underbrush directly at the camera.

Let’s not waste our sympathy on the priest. The race is rigged, the hunt is jigged, and the upshot is the downfall of Hunter Joe. Jane overhears her father’s evil schemes, so her father throws her in some kind of pit and even decrees that she be sacrificed, so hardened is his heart. Maybe he's possessed by one of his gods, who knows. They do that.

Before Jane is imprisoned, she gets word to Hunter Joe. He beats the Molarum-Sularum squad at their game and saves Jane. The priest, in a moment of great irony, is killed by the black panther as he pursues the couple through foliage. Joe and Jane get hitched and rule the empire wisely. No more Unspeakable Jungle Rituals. The end!

Let me offer this disclaimer, because I don’t want people who think they’re smart to tell me I’m wrong about Apocalypto. I know I’m wrong. This has been a joke. Gibson’s heroes are never so close to the source of power. And their triumph is invariably found in death, a spray of blood, breath and spirit into the atmosphere.

I never dealt with the weird little kid at the start of the trailer, did I? She shows up every so often to say "You are all doomed! Dooooomed!" etc.

And since we’re on a roll, here’s Criswell ushering us out. God help us all in the future.

Labels: film

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ask palinode: good breeding edition
» Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Ask Palinode alert: The ask palinode reserve supply has hit a crucial low. Political unrest has halted production at the mines, leaving Palinode with only a few questions left to answer. Without immediate shipments of questions to askpalinode @ gmail . com, critical underanswerment may ensue.

Greetings. Today's question is exactly as follows:

Whilst trekking in Nepal my brother was asked by one of the guides who was learning English - "What does it mean when your leg nips?" . "What indeed" was John's immediate rejoinder at the time but it has puzzled us for years - WHAT dear Palinode does it mean when you leg nips?

regards,
Georgia

That's da cool: Either the country of Georgia or the state of Georgia has a perplexion for me. It's inspiring when an entire state or nation-state can rise from misery and poverty to ask me a question. Did they hold a referendum? Was a board appointed? Did it result in a brutal war of attrition, with all sides sustaining horrible losses? I bet it waged for years, until only the strongest question survived. Georgia, I am honoured to provide the answer.

But I'm pressed for time today, so I'm going to pass your question over to my assistant, a rock hyrax. I understand that this one is quite learned.


Hello Georgia. I am a rock hyrax but that is OK. If you don't mind, I'm going to quote from my deleted wikipedia entry:

"What does it mean when your leg nips? It’s likely that your leg nips when it feels threatened, or when its territory is encroached on. Over time the leg has been bred for its qualities of loyalty and obedience, but along with these traits comes a territorial instinct that only grows sharper as its senses dull with age. Sometimes the leg will take an irrational dislike towards strangers, neighbours, or even family members, but most often it will find its nemesis in the other leg, which has been traditionally been favoured for its long loping stride at the expense of aggression.

"Usually in these cases the result is no more than an occasional nip or bite delivered by one leg to the other, especially in crowded, noisy places where the legs are pressed together. In some instances, though, the leg will fixate on its partner and attack repeatedly, mauling with singular intent and great ferocity, until the owner is left with one angry leg and one stump. When the unthinkable happens there is generally no choice but to take offender and victim out back and shoot them both – and we all know how traumatic that can be, especially when the poor owner is a young child who has developed a sentimental attachment to his legs. It is always advisable to acquaint a child early with a wheelchair, for this very contingency. And that is what it means when your leg nips".

OK Georgia, that was my answer. I'd like to thank the Palinode for giving me the opportunity to speak to my area of expertise. As a rock hyrax, it's tough to get a start out there, esp. with those Wikipedia bastards editing your content LOL. Peace out.


Got a question? Want an answer, even if it's from a rock hyrax with a chunk taken out of its ear? Email: askpalinode @ gmail . com.

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the worst party of my life, part 3
» Sunday, December 03, 2006

This is the third and last part of the story of a party I attended in my early twenties. In Parts One and Two, I leave home, decide to keep an open mind to new experiences, and accept an invitation to a party from Lindsay, a manic-depressive alcoholic prone to psychotic breaks. Catch up with the action in Part Three: The Worst Party Ever, or How I Got My First Camera.

My first camera

By the time I hit my early twenties I'd seen the inside of a lot of crappy apartments. Cheap berber shag patterned with cigarette burns, peeling lino in the kitchen, cracks spidering across walls, a smell of rotten milk hovering around the fridge. I expected nothing less from Lindsay's place – he was, after all, living on assistance and certifiably nuts, a binge drinker who dressed in clothes picked from Goodwill bins.

Lindsay's apartment turned out to be a weird mix of boho chic, grandparents' garage and library map room. Metal file cabinets lined the living room wall, each containing folder after folder of documents and photos. A spare room was taken up with bankers' boxes and map cabinets, which held everything that had ever carried Lindsay's byline, pressed carefully flat and slipped into plastic sleeves. The furniture was Salvation Army stuff, faded patterns and soft-but-lumpy cushions. Propped up in corners rested framed prints, mostly amusing kitsch: reproductions of pulp novel covers, all bullet bras and square jaws. If Lindsay had been younger and hipper, plus not crazy, he would have decorated his walls with tin cutouts of old cowboys and neon signs salvaged from garage sales.

Plopped into the middle of this mess was Sheila.

She was perched on the end of an upholstered chair, bent over a crowded ashtray, her weight thrown forward onto the balls of her feet. She looked like she could spring up, run out the door and be gone from our lives in two seconds flat. Her back straightened when I walked in the room. Her eyes, pale blue pupils set in yellowed corneas, roamed back and forth between us. She seemed to blink at a fractionally slower rate than other human beings. I couldn't tell how old Sheila was, but it was obvious that decades of psychosis and medications had shrunk her personality to the point that there was little more than a poised shell.

Aidan, said Lindsay, almost skipping around the coffee table in his excitement, this is Sheila.

She put out her small dry hand for me to shake. Hello Aidan, she said, gravely allowing me to shake her arm a bit before retracting it back into her lap. It's nice to meet you.

Where's Doug? I said.

Oh, said Lindsay, waving a hand, he's coming.

Have you met Doug? I asked Sheila.

Excuse me, Sheila said. She sprung up and marched efficiently into the bathroom.

She seems okay, I ventured.

Oh, Lindsay said, she's a firecracker.

So far this wasn't much of a party, but I was more than happy not to meet any more of Lindsay's friends. We sat and talked and drank beer. Lindsay reminisced about the many characters that populated his past. Then he brought up the CIA and the Hell's Angels. Lindsay seemed to believe that both organizations were watching him, for reasons that he wouldn't divulge. Whenever I asked for specifics, he would shake his head and say, Oh, they know my name, they do.

After a bit Lindsay pulled out some of his photos, portrait shots of beautiful young men and women. There was a girl named Susan and a boy named Robbie, and I started figuring out that these subjects had once been his lovers – or so he implied, elbowing me gently and shaking his head as a new face would crop up: Now this one, wow... Sheila kept getting up and going to the bathroom, returning to smoke another DuMaurier Special Mild and have a few sips of beer.

Somewhere around our third beer and the fourth or fifth ex-lover, Sheila went to the bathroom and didn't come back. It took a few minutes for Lindsay's forced jauntiness to turn into low-grade panic. He started knocking on the bathroom door. Hello? Sheila? Hello? I'm coming in okay? I'm coming in, Sheila.

He went in and shut the door.

That was the exact moment that I should have stood up and left quietly and let those two lunatics alone with their evening. Instead I rolled a cigarette and tried to listen to what was going on inside the bathroom.

Low murmuring. Then shouting. Then Lindsay exploding out the door, all limbs and bugged-out eyes, with Sheila following behind and brushing strands of blonde hair from her eyes.

We have to call the hospital! Lindsay shouted. We have to call an ambulance right now!

Sheila sat down and selected another cigarette from her pack. She gave me a friendly smile as Lindsay ran around the living room.

Are you okay? I asked. She smiled again. I'm fine, she said. I took a bottle of sleeping pills earlier, but I think it's all out of my system now.

It seemed that Sheila, who had been committed in the past for spontaneous suicide attempts, had spontaneously attempted suicide and then changed her mind. At some point during the, um, party.

Lindsay had decided to call Sheila's father instead of an ambulance.

Hello, he began, Mr. Mackenzie? This is Lindsay Whelan. I'm here with your daughter.

That was about as far as he got before the person on the other end seemed to explode. I could hear a thin screaming that seemed to go on and on.

Sheila leaned in close. I saw the earnest, searching look in her eyes and the fine wrinkles on her face, and I realized I was looking at a ten year old girl in the body of a forty year old woman.

He shouldn't have called my father, she whispered. He's violating the restraining order.

Lindsay slammed down the phone. We have to get Sheila out of here, he announced. The cops are on their way.

I should have left at that point too. But the insanity of the situation, the sheer speed of its escalation, had pinned me to the couch. Craziness, I had discovered, possessed its own crushing force. Everything had slowed down under its pressure, time dilating like a drug trip. It would have taken me hours just to tie my shoes.

Lindsay wanted to get a cab for Sheila before the cops arrived, but none of us had any money. Sheila refused to go to the hospital. Lindsay refused to leave the apartment, for some reason. And then she gathered up her cigarettes and left. She was going to walk the rest of the drugs out of her system, she explained.

She shook my hand again. It was nice meeting you, Aidan.

As soon as the door closed I perceived that I was stuck in an apartment with a crazy man. Doug had still not arrived, and by this point I knew that he had not been invited. Doug had been, in Lindsay's mind at least, an enticement to get me into the apartment with him and Sheila. Suddenly things seemed even worse than they had moments before, when the cops had speeding to the apartment, sirens blazing, to rescue a whacked-out walking suicide from a bipolar bisexual drunk.

Lindsay crashed down on the couch, suddenly unconcerned with the prospect of the police.

Oh my God, he wheezed. She is just something, isn't she?

He explained that Sheila had decided to kill herself earlier that day, but for the sake of politeness had decided to throw up repeatedly and kill herself after the party. He laughed and shook his head, as if to say Oh That Crazy Kid. Then he gave me a camera.

It was a Canon AE-1 with a full set of lenses. I told him I couldn't accept such a gift, but Lindsay waved off my refusals, placing the camera around my neck and stuffing the lenses into my backpack. When I continued to refuse, he began to panic. The camera, he suddenly said, belonged to a Hell's Angel. I had trouble following his logic, but it appeared that a gang of bikers wanted to get him, and that they were after this specific camera, but it would be safe with me.

Then he asked me to stay the night.

I told him that I had to be getting home, that I had to go to work the next morning, that I had laundry to do. Some part of my brain kept screaming at me, Just fucking go, but I continued to stammer out excuses.

I have something I want to show you, he said, and abruptly walked into another room. I sat for a moment, considering my options. Slowly the sensible part of my brain took control of my motor functions, putting my shoes on, getting my jacket from the hook in the hallway.

Aidan? Come in here for a sec.

I ducked into the room. Lindsay had arranged himself artfully on the bed in a classic Burt Reynolds Playgirl pose, propping himself up on one elbow and gazing coquettishly at me. You never want to see a toothless grey-skinned man with heavy metal hair in that pose. Ever.

Sometimes, Lindsay said, I get really lonely and I need someone.

This was where the evening had been driving. The photos of past lovers, the bizarre beard that was Sheila, the camera that was still hanging around my neck - the whole thing had been the most whacked-out attempt at seduction I had ever witnessed. Somewhere inside that panicky knowledge, I felt briefly flattered.

Lindsay, I said, thank you so much for the party.

I left. And kept the camera.

The Hell's Angels never came after me, but several years later I sold the camera to a woman who drove a moped.

Labels: autobio

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the day off
» Friday, December 01, 2006

If you pay close attention to the title of this entry, you won't be surprised when I tell you that this is my day off. Oh how was your day off, then, P'node? Was it manly? No, it was the least manly day off I've had in months. Short of putting on a dress and skipping down the street and flipping my long locks vigorously over my shoulders, it doesn't get less manly than what I did today.

Usually my days off come packed with plans. The key to putting those plans in motion is getting out of bed. If I don't perform that key action, you can bet on a day of solitary brooding and surly postponement of plans, all done in my blue bathrobe. Today I got all proactive about getting out of bed because I really felt like a nice cup of tea. That is not a manly start to the day.

After tea, I watched classic BBC drama on DVD, then went out banking, lunching and shopping. I bought a present for my mother, a teapot, some wrapping paper, and I found myself sorely tempted by stemless crystal wine glasses and a nice jar of tapenade. Clearly I'm turning into a middle-class British woman. At one point I thought to myself "I really must learn how to make paella" and then ended up in a discussion about the merits of Moleskine notebooks with a charming young man who runs a paper boutique. I'm a complete metrosexual, like David Beckham without the talent or the tone.

Maddox would hate me. I'm going to go drink flagons of mead tonight to restore my manliness. Wait, that just sounds goofy.

In the meantime, here's a page from my notebook. Warning: this is raw Palinode, so concentrated that just a few drops can sustain a weblog for six months and still feed a family of four. If you don't have the energy to puzzle out my scrawl, the first part of the page is devoted to a pretentious ponce who was talking about musicians playing "in their truth". Is this a widely accepted term in some circles? Because I felt sorry for the people at his table who had to take that phrase seriously. The second bit is a little rumination on makeup. I know absolutely nothing about makeup, but this is a weblog, where uninformed opinions build their nests and lay their terrible eggs. You will have to take my word for it that the spelling is correct, because my handwriting sucks so very terribly much. Click to enlarge.

Note that I was trying to draw a picture of a three year old boy, but it went wrong so quickly and so badly that I made a save by turning the boy into a round-face woman with flyaway hair, then drew a quick variation to make it look like I'd planned it that way all along. Always a handy fix.

Labels: autobio

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