Postmodern Sass

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2010-04-28T15:52:00.001-07:00

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Head Like A Hole

2010-01-19T17:00:00.000-08:00

Did you ever feel like you had been banging your head against the wall for, like, years, but you didn't realize it until you finally banged it so hard that you knocked yourself unconscious, and when you woke up you thought to yourself, yeah; I've got to stop doing that?

It's like that for me, working for Gilbert.

The offices of Gilbert's company, iWorks, are just this side of a disaster area about to be condemned by local government officials. Seriously, I would nominate the location for an episode of that reality show, Hoarders, but I think they only feature individuals in their home who collect junk for years until someone has to be called in to haul it all away for a fee.

You may think I exaggerate, and with cause since I've been known to do so, but just to give you an idea of the degree to which Gilbert hoards junk and forces us to live, work, and move among it, he recently bought an old moving truck, filled it with a small fraction of the decrepit, obsolete equipment cluttering the back room where the poor service technicians hang out, and parked it in the parking lot of the building, where it just sits.

The landlord is thrilled, I'm sure.

When I started working for the company last September, Gilbert took a moment to consider where to put me. Then he said, "Why don't you sit here for the time being," indicating the small meeting room with the very large table. He cleared off a corner of it for me to put my stuff. The rest of the table is piled high, and the room is full of upended furniture topped with banker's boxes full of files from the 1980s. There are a couple of old TVs, about 16 broken computers, some things that look like curtain rods, and a not inconsiderable amount of dust, and I've been sitting among them ever since.

Until last Friday, when Gilbert said, "You'll have to move temporarily; there's an auditor coming in and I'm going to put him in the meeting room to work. You can sit at Marge's desk." Then he helped me move all my stuff over there. Marge comes in twice a week for a couple of hours to help Mrs Gilbert with whatever it is she helps Mrs Gilbert with, and she has a small desk in the corner of the main office where Mrs Gilbert, the accounts receivable clerk, and Rex all sit.

Rex likes to sit in there; he says he likes to listen to the girls chatter all day. Me, I would go insane, but I figured it would be fine for a few days; maybe even better than fine since Marge's desk faces Rex's, and he and I are on the same level, hierarchy-wise, and often need to work together on projects. So yesterday I sat there, and it was pretty good. I asked Rex some questions about technical stuff and he was very helpful, and that, combined with the logistics of being out of Gilbert's line of sight and therefore line of fire, resulted in me having a very productive day.

So today I came in and went to my desk and before I even sat down Mrs Gilbert said, "We have to move you; Marge is coming in today." I tried to suggest that it might be less troublesome for everyone if instead of moving me again she moved Marge temporarily, but she was having none of that. Instead, she called Astro in and ordered him to move this printer and that filing cabinet and squeeze a small table in the corner so I could sit there. Rex started to help with the moving of things, and one of the service techs was also called in to help.

I shrugged and said, "Whatever you want," and left the room to go talk to the Web developers about a project we were working on.

By the time Gilbert arrived a half hour later there were three guys in the main office, moving stuff around under Mrs Gilbert's orders. I heard Gilbert say, "No, no! Put everything back!" Then he came into the room where I was, looking like the top of his head was about to blow off, and ordered me to come into his office and close the door.

Then he tore me a new one: the disruption, naturally, was all my fault.

And that's when I woke up from having banged my head to unconsciousness and said to myself, Self, you need to stop doing this. I love Gilbert, I really do. I've known him for more years than I'm willing to admit to you here, Gentle Reader, and by virtue of that alone I'm devoted to him as a friend. That's not even counting all the times he was there for me when I needed him to be, and there were lots.

But at work, he's an asshole, and I'm done.

I'll Be There For You

2010-01-12T13:35:00.000-08:00

That's what I told Rex when I drove him to the airport last week, so he could spend his vacation golfing in Cuba and I could have a staycation at Triller — that I would be there to pick him up at the aiport when he returned. I said this before I'd read the email with his flight details. Who knew they landed charter flights at 1:30 in the morning?

But it was worth it, totally worth it, to have had the week to myself and, as an added bonus, to have been driving Rex's bigass black SUV around town. It's a gas guzzler, all right, but what badass car isn't?

So you know that episode of Friends, the one with Ross's new girlfriend, where Rachel goes to the airport to meet Ross and when he gets off the plane he's got his arm around a new girl?

I have no idea why I thought of that just now.

I'm not saying it's like that with me and Rex, I'm just sayin'... he was in Cuba for a week, with Gilbert and Mrs. Gilbert and oh yeah, I guess I forgot to mention, there was this woman named Julie, a golfing buddy of the Gilberts, who was also on the trip, and who, for logistical reasons, was Rex's roommate.

In Cuba.

At an all-inclusive resort.

With a whole lot of booze flowing freely.

I'm just sayin'.

But hey, we're all grownups here, and it's not like I'm his wife; he's still got one of those in Scarborough. Neither am I aspiring to the position, I assure you, Gentle Reader.

I'm just sayin'.

You know how you always imagine, beyond reason and without wishing confirmation, that the first boy you loved is always out there somewhere, waiting for you?

I guess it's like that.

My feet on my table, and a Cuban cigar

2010-01-06T11:45:00.000-08:00

"Hi, it's Sass. Have you got a glass of wine and half an hour?"

It was after 9:00, my time, and it's an hour later in Bermuda, where my best friend Kay lives, but what are best friends for if you can't call them on the spur of the moment, even late at night? Or, say, at 2:00 in the morning, when you need help burying a body?

"Glass of wine is in hand, and yes, I can spare half an hour," Kay replied. "What's up?"

I got right to the point: "Gilbert's driving me crazy. I may have to kill him."

It seemed like such a good idea at the time, me moving back home and going to work for Gilbert's company, with Gilbert and Rex. They both really wanted me there. The three of us had been inseparable in high school; always imagining what we would do if we had the time and the money and, you know, weren't living with our parents. And now, here we were, doing exactly that.

It was great for the first few weeks, but then Work Gilbert, someone I wasn't familiar with, began to rear his ugly head. And Work Gilbert is Mr. Hyde to Friend Gilbert. Friend Gilbert is smart and clever and funny and spontaneous and creative and is both fair-weather and foul-weather friend; a rare combination.

Work Gilbert is argumentative and contrary, a bad listener, and, at his worst, condescending. It's like being interviewed by Stephen Colbert, but without the "Hey, that was great, thanks for letting me pretend to be an idiot while we were talking," that comes afterwards.

I didn't need to explain any of that to Kay, though. After I said I may have to kill him, she didn't miss a beat: "Oh, I know, I would never work for Gilbert!" Kay exclaimed. "He's a nightmare!"

Back in the olden days, the three of us worked for a pre-Internet Internet company, but Gilbert quit a week after I arrived. "How closely did you work with him?" I asked.

"We were in the same department, though I never reported to him. I was close enough to observe how he operates, though. And to decide that I would never, ever, work for him."

I used to joke that my backup plan was to go back to waitressing. It's an awful job, but as I remember there were occasionally fun times, and there was always food. So there's that.

I suppose no one gets everything they want. I loved being a professor, but I hated the place I had to live in to be able to do it. Now I'm home, but not doing what I love. I'm not sure which is better.

In the next story, Rex returns from his vacation in Cuba, and Sass picks him up at the airport.

Red Red Wine

2010-01-04T17:48:00.001-08:00

I've decided to start drinking wine. Red wine, because it's winter, because I prefer it to white, and because it was one of the last things Jack tried to teach me: how to appreciate a Cabernet Sauvignon. He would pour it in a glass and swirl it, and talk about its legs. It was an inside joke. Jack was a leg man.

So I bought two bottles today, both from wineries in the homeland (a Merlot from Open, and a Cab from Peninsula Ridge). My homeland, that is. That strip of sandy soil on top of the Niagara Peninsula where, when I was a little girl, they used to grow Concord grapes and make them into pie fillings and jelly. When Free Trade came into effect in 1988 all the farmers ripped out their Concords and retired, and ten years later the carpet baggers moved in and opened dozens of chichi new wineries with designer labels. Even my home boys Dan Ackroyd and Wayne Gretzky did it.

The other thing I did today was go underwear shopping. It was on my list. It's a long list; longer than what I showed you, and I intend to work my way diligently through it this week while Gilbert, Mrs. Gilbert, Rex, and a couple of their friends are in Cuba at an all-inclusive resort. The all-inclusive includes all the golf you can golf, and they can have it. I'm having a vacation of my own, being alone while they're away.

Don't get me wrong, I love them all, I really do. Gilbert is my second-best friend, after Kay, and Rex is, well, Rex — I've seen him naked, so we're bonded for life — but I spend 90% of my time with them and I need a break. I live in Gilbert's house, and work for his company; and I live with Rex, drive to work with Rex, and work with Rex.

I really need a break.

Gilbert gave me no instructions, no responsibilities, while he's away. Astro is in charge, which is as it should be. Astro is Mrs. Gilbert's son; I've known him since he was a teenager, he's worked for Gilbert just as long, and the company would undoubtedly fall apart without him — still, I thought he, Gilbert, would have given me some responsibility. He didn't. I don't have a key to the office, so I can't stay late.

So I'm making a real effort to not work hard. It's hard for me to not work hard, having been taught by my father that if you're going to do anything, you must give it your all. But I'm trying.

I checked my personal email today, something I used to do all day every day, and something which, since I've been back home and working a real job in the real world, I sometimes go days without doing at all.

There was an email from Rex, sent two days ago (see?), a message from his mother that he forwarded. She wished him a happy new year, and she said "and the same to Sass," which was the first time she's acknowledged my existence since Rex and I were in grade 13.

So I emailed her. Yeah, I know, and this was before the wine.

You can see how this must look to her, can't you? Chronologically, I mean. I'll summarize, and if you want more detail you can read Rex's blog. Two years ago, I found Rex on Facebook. We chatted briefly, and I put him back in touch with Gilbert. Then he started working for Gilbert. Then last Christmas I went out with Rex and Gilbert. I told you about it here. (He wrote about it here.) It was the first time I'd seen Rex in more than 20 years.

In February this year — I mean last year — Rex left his wife and moved into Gilbert's house. And then in September I got kicked out of California, so I came home and moved into Gilbert's house.

With Rex.

You can see how this must look, can't you? To Rex's mother, I mean? And why the memory of her scares the crap out of me?

In the next story, Sass calls her best friend, Kay.

New Divide

2010-01-03T15:12:00.001-08:00

The first thing I did when I got home after driving Rex to the airport this afternoon was to hang about a dozen pictures around the house. I hung my mother's mushroom trivet and mushroom clay disks in the kitchen. I hung the lion door knocker I brought back from China in 2002 — though not on the door. I hung the five framed Leo cards I've collected over the years on the wall in my bedroom, beside the bookshelf; a couple of small framed prints in the new powder room in the foyer, and the two little red Ikea mirrors above the toilet.

I pulled out all my framed family photos from their boxes, where they've been since I moved home from California four months ago, and I'll think about where to hang them next.

I'm not sure why the impulse to do all this now was so strong. Maybe because it's the first time I've been alone for any length of time since September; since that day everything in and about my life changed, literally overnight. I lived alone for three years in California. Now I live in my friend Gilbert's big old house in downtown Toronto, with my high school boyfriend, Rex.

It's not what you're thinking. We're roommates. We don't live together live together.

All afternoon I've been watching TV, the shows I like, not just the ones both Rex and I like: NCIS, Power Play, Traders, Gilmore Girls, and, yes, I'm not afraid to admit it, Cougar Town. And I've been making a list of things I want to do this week:

1. Buy some more hooks and hang some more things
2. Shop for new underwear (and a self-smack to the head for forgetting to stock up at Victoria's Secret before leaving America for good)
3. Get some potting soil & sand for the cactuses
4. Organize my shoe closet
5. Hang the curtains I bought three months ago
6. Spend the Christmas money my Daddy gave me

It's not that I can't do these things when Rex is here, it's just that I can't seem to actually do them. It's as if a sort of paralysis comes over me, and I just want to go home after work and turn my brain off and let the world go to pot around me. I haven't been very productive lately.

So I'm going to try to do that thing that I used to do when I was angry, or upset, or embarrassed, or otherwise feeling like kicking myself. That writing thing. It's why I started this blog in the first place.

Give me reason to fill this hole, connect the space between.

In the next story, Sass goes underwear shopping and takes up drinking wine.

But then an old guitar was all he could afford

2009-11-16T14:24:00.000-08:00

"Let's skip school go to Steve's," said Rex, as he passed me on the stairs this morning. I was going up, first coffee in hand, post shower, bathrobe and wet hair, on my way to finish getting ready for work. He was going down, pre shower, on his way to get his first coffee. You know how guys are. They can get ready in one third the time we require.

Oh, sure, we could be out the door in 20 minutes too, but then all day people would make comments like, "Gee, you look tired today," which is what happened the last time I left the house without wearing mascara.

But I digress.

Have I mentioned that Rex, who was all those decades ago my high school boyfriend, is now my roommate?

Yes, I know, I haven't, Gentle Reader, and I am very sorry; I have no legitimate excuse. I have an illegitimate one, though, and it goes like this: So damn much has been happening since I left California that I don't seem to know where to begin, and instead remain paralyzed, unable to write. Today I'm breaking that hold, and jumping right into the middle, to tell you a story. I'll fill in the other bits later, as I go along.

It will likely come as no surprise to you but in high school I was the kind of girl who scared most of the boys away. I was taller and smarter than most of them, and not exactly what anyone would refer to as a shrinking violet, and my mother being the kind of mother who was all about the women's liberation, and not at all about the finishing school manners, never instructed me in the ways to avoid bowling over men.

Rex didn't seem to be scared of me, and I'm not sure why. Wasn't sure then, still not sure now, because he actually is the shrinking violet type, man version. He had this way about him, though, when he walked down the halls at school, or into a classroom, that gave the impression that he didn't give a rat's ass what any of the other kids thought about him. Which, if you remember anything about high school, you know is no easy trick to pull off.

He didn't do it in a badass, don't-fuck-with-me sort of James Dean way, but in more of a Walter Mitty sort of way, which at first made me curious, then interested, and then the next thing I knew I was out of that dress.

Still not sure how that happened, exactly.

Anyway, the coolest thing about Rex was that he had a 1972 Rickenbacker bass, and oh, man, he knew how to use it. And it was badass. I had a somewhat less badass Ibanez electric guitar, which until then I had only played in my bedroom, plugged into my Toshiba stereo. (Blew the speakers playing Planet Claire.) So it was love at guitar sight, and we spent most of our grade 13 afternoons at his house, trying without much success to learn Rush and Saga songs, and when we tired of that, playing Smoke On The Water.

If you grew up in Ontario during the years when there was still grade 13 you probably remember that as soon as you turned 18 you could sign yourself out of school without your parents' permission. Our high school was in a one horse town called Beamsville; anything was more interesting than what was there, and Toronto, the big city an hour down the highway, was the most interesting of all. We used to skip school, drive to Toronto, and hang out all day at Steve's Music Store on Queen Street. We couldn't afford to buy anything other than Steve's guitar picks, and maybe some strings now and then, but it didn't matter. Just being there, in that place, in that city, was enough.

I still have some of those picks, but I sold the electric guitar and I'm still regretting it. I have an Ibanez acoustic, though, and last weekend Rex and I went to Steve's and I bought a little Roland amp and a pickup, and we've been playing every night since then.

Oh yeah, he's still got it. The Rickenbacker, I mean.

In the next story, Sass deals with a New Divide.

I'm Leaving On A Jet Plane

2009-09-16T19:55:00.000-07:00

I haven't yet told you about my friend Q, who was swell enough to drive me and Pinky to the airport for our final trip home. He picked me up at The Librarian's apartment, early, but not too early, and wanted to stop for coffee before we hit the 101. Whoops, I mean 101. Only Southern Californians say "the 101."

I got into Q's car, a Honda something, and noticed right away that it was a standard. A stick. That's even more rare in California than in most other places, I've been told by car guys, and it's rare in most other places. By which I mean it was unusual and noteworthy, and even more reason to like him.

Not that I didn't already like him, you understand. I liked him the first time I met him, about a year and a half or so ago, when a mutual friend at the bar introduced us. Q is a music critic; his job is to go to concerts and write about them. That was my dream job, once upon a time. He knows fascinating bits of stuff about a whole slew of bands. He even knows who The Fleshtones are, and listed them on his Facebook page as one of the bands he'd seen live.

So he was a guy that I saw around from time to time, usually at local music festivals or at a bar where The Careless Hearts were playing, and then one time we got to talking about The Killers and that they were coming to play in San Jose, and Q said that if he could get a second ticket that he would call me.

Which he did, a few weeks later, and we went to the show together. It was one of the best live shows I've ever seen, incidentally, but I was a little distracted, just a little, because I wasn't sure if I was on a date or not. I guess if you have to wonder you're not, and that was fine, but it would have been finer if I'd known for sure.

On the other hand, how do you know for sure?

In between songs he asked me, so what's up with you and The Librarian, because he always sees us together. Everybody always sees us together, and I've only just begun to realize that that's not a good thing. He's like my older brother, but everyone thinks we're a couple. I think maybe he scares the real men like Q off.

After The Killers show I asked if I could buy Q a drink, but he said he had to go write the review. He had a deadline. He asked for a raincheck, which I eventually gave him, but it was a long time before I saw him again, and then when I did, he was with a different girl every time. He's not a player, and he's not particularly tall or good looking, but he has a quality... I don't know what it is, but I like it. So do lots of other women.

Lately I've seen him around quite a bit, and we'd taken to texting each other to see if we'd be at the same show, and then it was a week before I was leaving and he offered to drive me to the airport. We sang Love Shack together at my farewell party — he's a really good singer — but all that and we're still just friends.

That's a terrible expression, isn't it? "Just" friends. Like it isn't a wonderful thing to have a swell guy like Q for a friend. Yeah, it is. But for the record, I totally would have gone there.

The Angels Wanna Wear My Red Shoes

2009-09-09T16:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I took my beautiful Mac G4, the one Jack gave me when I moved here, to the geniuses at the Apple Store. The Mac is for my music only, and sometimes for watching TV shows in bed on Hulu, but lately it's been acting cranky. Stopping, stuttering, stalling. You know, doing the sorts of things they say Macs don't do. It turns out they do.

"It can't be saved, I'm sorry," said the genius.

I miss my personal geek every day, but I don't think even he could have saved it. So I did what Jack would have done if he had been there. I bought a ridiculously expensive pair of shoes. I'm talking Michael Kors, at the fabulous Nordstrom's shoe department. They weren't even on sale. It was just like that day Jack bought me those beautiful pink shoes, except of course, he wasn't here to help me pick them out. Or to go get his shoes shined while he waited for me to browse.

There's a kind of poetry in the timing of all this.

One Way Or Another

2009-09-06T20:55:00.000-07:00

So I was at The Blank Club with the Librarian and his new friend, Slade, last night. The two of them came to my place first, bringing beer with them as all good guests must do. I was in the bathroom, drying my hair, when they came in. I'd talked to Kapp on the phone earlier and said, just come on in when you get here, I'll probably be in the bathroom. He has a key because he looks after Pinky when I go away.

So I'm in the bathroom with the hair dryer going full blast, and Kapp opens the door — yes, I mean the bathroom door — and yells, "We're here!"

I came out a few minutes later, and Slade comes right up to me and sticks out his hand and says, "You must be Sass!" He said it with the exclamation point, all six foot five of him.

Kapp was in the kitchen, pouring beers for all of us. "You know, after three years, I've finally figured out our relationship," I said to him. "You're the annoying older brother I never knew I didn't want."

We went down to The Loft for a quick dinner, then headed to the club. The Careless Hearts, a popular and pretty darned good local band, were playing a double set. First as themselves, then as Iggy and the Stooges with special guest guitarist James Williamson. The club was full of old rockers. It was quite the event, Williamson coming out of retirement.

Between sets Kapp and I went outside for a while. People hang around on the sidewalk outside the club, smoking and just cooling down. It's really hot inside. So we're standing there and this guy who looks just like Clem Burke, black bangs and all, walks up to the door, then inside.

"Did you see that guy?" I asked Kapp. "He looked exactly like Clem Burke. It was freaky."

"I think that was Clem Burke," said the guy standing on the other side of Kapp.

Clem Burke came back outside. It was him, all right. I mean, he looked exactly like he does on the cover of Parallel Lines. I've been a Blondie fan for thirty years. They have always been my favourite band.

So of course I went over and talked to him. In my experience celebrities enjoy talking to real fans who don't act like idiots and who can say interesting and intelligent things. Like, "I was a card carrying member of the Blondie Fan Club in 1982," and "I actually met you briefly once before, in Toronto, during the No Exit tour. You and Chris Stein signed my copy of the first Blondie album."

After the show Kapp, Slade and I walked back to The Loft and made it for last call. And then, since we had been drinking all night and since there was no reason to stop now, it not being a school night, and there was still beer in my fridge from earlier, we went back to my place and listened to some tunes. Slade has thousands of records and CDs, mostly bootlegs, and he regaled us with tall tales and challenged us with music trivia. Who was the original singer for The Buzzcocks; what was Joy Division's name before they were Joy Division, and after.

Slade kept commenting on how tall I was, which was kinda funny since I was wearing flats. I told him I usually wear three inch heels. He seemed intrigued. Eventually it was time for them to leave. Slade was giving Kapp a ride home, so Kapp went on ahead. Slade closed the door behind him then said goodbye to me in that way that only very tall men can do. It involves a wall, is all I'm saying.

"I'm really sorry you're leaving," he said a while later.

"Me too," I replied, and I meant it.

Don't You Forget About Me

2009-09-04T17:49:00.000-07:00

When I woke up this morning, or rather, when I finally went to bed to sleep this morning, I wasn't alone. It's not what you think, though. I wasn't at Rochester's condo.

But boy, was it nice. Very stylish. Very big. Very masculine in its design which was, he says, done by an interior designer. It's the kind of place that, if you saw it and didn't know who lived there, there wouldn't be any doubt in your mind that it was a man. I lost count of the number of TV screens. There was a huge one over the fireplace in the livingroom, and another twice that size on the wall in the second bedroom which he referred to as the man cave. Seriously, I didn't know they made screens that big.

There was also a screen in the kitchen, and one in each bathroom, and in each bathroom there was also a big soaker tub.

The most interesting objects in his place were the lamps, made from found objects by an artist in Santa Cruz. The lamp beside his bed (hey, he was just giving me the tour, OK?) has a hood ornament pinned through the base. Another is made from a collection of rusty gears and what looks like a transmission. And a fantastic floor lamp is made from an antique camera tripod.

He mixed me a gin and tonic, gave me the tour, and then JB called. He'd been invited, too, and he needed help getting in. Rochester's building occupies an entire block and has numerous entrances. Once inside, it's like a maze.

The three of us drank and talked for a few hours. I told them the story of what had happened the last two weeks, and that the movers were coming on the 15th. They were sympathetic, and they cheered me up. So did the shot of I forget what it's called Latvian booze. Eventually, Rochester said he had to be on a plane early tomorrow morning, so JB and I left.

I went home but then I remembered hey, I don't have to get up tomorrow. I don't have a job. So I went back downstairs to The Loft. Bender was there, of course he was, talking to a couple of Twinkies, but not for long. We took our beers out to the patio and had a cig. He lit mine with his Zippo. Yes, he carries a Zippo. I know. Pangs of desire shot down by an inner scream of how can you be so disloyal?

Bender is the sound guy at the theatre. He's the other type that I love: the long haired earring wearing intellectual artsie. His voice would make any girl's knees weak, and obviously did because he wore a wedding ring until two months ago. He hangs out at The Loft between shows.

I never went to the bar just to see him, I didn't need to, we were both there for happy hour at least twice a week. He has a way of listening that he hears things you didn't necessarily say, or maybe were trying not to say, and telling them back to you, because you missed them. He was there for the saga of me trying to get Beauty last year, and on the day I brought her home I pulled over in front of the Loft and ran in, hoping he would be there so I could show her to him. He was.

Last night we closed the place, then stood out front for a while, watching the usual Thursday night commotion outside the bars on Second Street. I know his routine, so I said, "So, what are you going to do, go back to your office and crash on the couch?"

"Yeah."

"Got any booze?"

"No."

We stood a while longer and finally I said, "I do."

In the next story, Sass meets a new interesting man and a celebrity.

Time's Up

2009-09-03T14:40:00.001-07:00

Rochester's invited me over to his place tonight, for some "positive drinking," he says. He used to live two blocks from me, but then he moved into a new condo — across the street. We work in the same place, hang out in the same bars, and live in the same block, yet we only talk online. Remember I wrote once that we never really leave high school?

He's really inviting me over to say goodbye. I guess I have that effect on men, I have to leave town before they'll go out with me.

That's right, Gentle Reader, I'm leaving San Jose.

In the next story Sass continues to discover that the secret to attracting men is to leave town.

Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough

2009-06-26T19:10:00.000-07:00

Many years ago I had surgery, and you may know, if you've ever had it, that you're not supposed to eat for 12 hours before they cut into you. Something about throwing up in your gas mask, which I believe was the crux of the Paul Newman movie, The Verdict.

Anyway, when I woke up in the recovery room, it was a sudden, wide awake awakening, not at all like waking up in the morning when you're a little groggy and you hit the snooze button on your clock radio so you can, you know, snooze a little more. No, I was wider awake than I could ever remember being, and I was hungry!

"Can I have something to eat, please?" I asked the nurse who had, apparently, been checking on me every five minutes since the surgeon had stitched me up. By way of an answer, she brought me a glass of orange juice, and said that if that stayed down, she would bring me something more substantial.

I was puzzled, but she explained that many people experience nausea upon awakening from surgery. My insistence that I was not one of them fell on deaf ears.

So I drank the orange juice down, then tried to sit up, and that's when the pain hit me. No matter what kind of surgery you have, someone's just cut through your skin with a sharp knife, and if you've ever cut yourself with a sharp knife, or a piece of glass, in more of an unintentional matter, you know just how much that hurts. If you haven't, it's like a really bad paper cut, to the power of ten.

Or twenty.

"I was wondering when you'd notice that," said the nurse. She was prepared for the eventuality, a large syringe in her hand. At that moment my fear of needles didn't even register, the pain was so intense.

"Roll over," she said. And then she proceeded to stick me in a most undignified manner, in a most undignified portion of my body.

Almost immediately, a wave of euphoria spread through my body, its epicentre, the undignified point on my rear end. "Wow," I said, "What was that?"

"Demerol," replied the nurse. It's a painkiller, comes from the same thing they make heroin out of. Enjoy it, that's the only one you're getting."

I enjoyed it, all right. And I realized in that moment why people become addicted to heroin.

Today I heard on the news that Michael Jackson got a shot of Demerol every day, from his private doctor. It explains a lot.

* * *
I was never a big Michael Jackson fan, but I have fond memories of dancing to Don't Stop Til You Get Enough when I was in high school.

Hello

2009-06-14T14:18:00.000-07:00

Hello, Internet. It's been a while, I know. How have you been?

Me, I've been, well, fair to middlin', as someone I used to listen to used to say. Been around. Been gettin' by. Been trying to grow my hair. Nothing new there, really; I've been saying that for 20 years, but my hair defies all laws of physics and biology. Despite the regular recurrence of roots that demand touching up, my hair never seems to be able to break the shoulder barrier.

But I'm trying. I keep trying.

I just haven't had the heart to write, or even to read. And I've been watching much too much mindless television. I was channel flipping one day and came across The Real Housewives of Orange County, and became riveted, the way you become when you see, say, a parade of midgets and giants being led by a morbidly obese woman on a structurally reinforced bicycle on a street in your neighbourhood. I simply could not turn it off, and, worse luck, it was one of those weekend marathons that went on for hours, so I was able to really get to know Vicki (bitch), Jeana (tone down the cleavage, woman, you're not 25 anymore), and Gretchen (bubblehead). The use of the term housewives in the show title is clearly metaphorical, since half of them aren't married, and the half who are have certainly never cleaned a toilet or driven their kids to school or clipped coupons and done the grocery shopping.

Where was I? Oh, right. What I'm doing.

I'm busy writing, which is why I haven't had the time to write. I'm working on that dissertation, and will finish it this summer or die trying. Because that same person I just mentioned, to whom I used to listen, also said, you'll finish it, or I'll need to know the reason why.

So I just returned from the library where I dug out another batch of dusty old books for my research and, armed with them and a lime-raspberry smoothie, I'm getting down to work.

Good lord, I'm so out of it I published this without a title!

We don't get fooled again

2009-03-20T23:56:00.000-07:00

Here we are in Miami, me and my best friend since we were ten, Kay. It's spring break, and we have a strategic plan for avoiding the drunk kids and the girls gone wild. We're going to look for David Caruso instead.

What, don't they film CSI:Miami on location?

Seriously, though, if you watch the show, I'm dying to know something. When there's a scene showing them outside the building, the one where their lab is — is that a real building? Or is it CGI? There's something about it that always seems surreal.

But I digress. I'm in Miami, with my BFF, and because of the time zone change, and me coming from California, and her from Bermuda, she is fast asleep and I am writing to you and surfing late night television.

(To tell you the truth, we're not in Miami. We're in North Miami Beach. There's also Miami Shores, Miami Beach, Miami Lakes, West Miami... and, of course Miami proper.)

It took me most of the day to get here. Kay had arrived first, before noon, I think, so she picked up the car, checked into the hotel, and checked out the little huts on the beach, while waiting for me and my plane from Denver to get here. Everything that could be delayed was, so it was midnight by the time I saw her.

"Meet me at the Alamo," she said. They need to see your driver's license.

Then she filled me in on her day: "The hotel is nice. I went to the beach for a while, then took a nap. I only got home from work at 3:00 this morning, so I just packed and went to the airport. Now is not a good time to go on vacation. My boss tried to talk me out of it, but I said there was no way I wasn't going."

Kay is a banker in Bermuda. She has five clients, who, between them, have wealth equal to the GNP of a medium-size European country.

"So, you mean you have to do work while we're here? Please say yes!"

"Well, not exactly work, but I have to be available if my assistant calls. One of my clients is flying in tomorrow, and she's vexed that I won't be there."

I love that she uses vex in a sentence. That's my pal. I had been feeling guilty because I have a whack of work that needs doing in the next week, and I was worried she'd think I was a freak because I can't be separated from my computer for more than six hours.

Our hotel room is nice, but not so nice that we feel guilty about how much we're paying for it. It has the expected tropical flower print bedspread, and parrots on the wall. We don't have an ocean view, but who cares, we have THE OCEAN!

So here we are, or at least were, before she fell asleep; sitting on our two beds, Kay with a glass of wine, me with a beer, and both of us with our laptops. She shows me pictures of her son, and I show her Rochester's video of the frozen tundra of Iceland, where he's been for the last year. His commentary slays me.

She laughs at the same things I do, and that's what best friends are for.

Bill, I love you so, I always will

2009-03-15T10:45:00.000-07:00

I love Bill Maher. Not love as in I love peanut butter or I love that new sweater on you, and not love as in I've got a shrine to him in my basement and am about to be the basis of next week's Law & Order plot. Love as in I hang on his every word and, excuse the vulgarity because it's not usually my style, would happily fuck his brains out. It's full on, mad groupie love.

Maybe I'm delusional, and maybe I'm wrong about the Law & Order plot, but I think I have a shot with him, should we, you know, ever be in the same place at the same time. Don't you think he looks like the kind of guy who didn't get much before he became a celebrity, and who, even now that he is, probably doesn't?

On Bill Maher's official website there's a video of him appearing on a sitcom with Geena Davis. I know how tall she is, because I once asked her where she buys her pants, so I can tell you, he's short. Really short, for a man.

I would still do him. The height differential is a lot less noticeable when you're mostly horizontal. I would even leave the four inch heels on, because I think Bill Maher is the sexiest man in America. Brains are what make you sexy, people, don't you know that?

I like to think that's how Bill Maher feels, too, and that he's not the kind of guy who goes for 25 year old bimbos, like those morons on The Millionaire Matchmaker, which, incidentally, is my new favourite show.

Gentle On My Mind

2009-02-14T14:00:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I took Beauty, or, rather, she took me, to the City for the first time since we've been together. Jack's city, San Francisco, that is.

It's not that we haven't been together, Beauty and I, in and out of, and all over, San Francisco. It's just that I used to be in the passenger's seat. It still seems strange, sometimes, to be driving her without Jack. To remember that we'll be ending our trip in San Jose, instead of Pacific Heights. It feels wrong, but at the same time, it feels absolutely right. Jack wanted us to be together.

We both miss him awfully.

I was a little nervous about driving her in the City, because Beauty is a 5-speed, and, well, you may have heard about the insanely steep hills for which San Francisco is famous. I can drive a stick, don't worry. Before Beauty, all my cars were Volkswagens. I don't even know how to drive an automatic. It's the people who might be behind me at a red light that I'm concerned about. The people who pull up too close, never thinking that a German car might need a little rollback room!

My strategy, therefore, was to race up Van Ness, burning the first few yellow lights on the up side, so that I could make it to the peak without having anyone behind me. It worked, and we coasted over the top and down toward Union Street without incident.

We were going to The Black Horse. Jack's pub.

The charm of The Black Horse lies in the feeling that you're not so much in a public bar, but in a friend's home. You might be asked to run to the corner store for some ice, for example, or to wash a few glasses. If you're standing at the back by the storeroom, you probably already know that you'll be required to haul some beer to the bathtub, which serves as the fridge. Drink there frequently enough and you'll end up tending bar.

The Black Horse is the smallest bar in San Francisco. A dozen patrons make it crowded. This is also part of its charm; part of the reason why Jack loved it so, and why I loved going there with him. You can't help but meet everyone.

James, the regular bartender and owner of the pub, is another reason why I love it there. He's a charming Irishman with literary sensibilities, who posts pithy quotes on the tiny blackboard behind the bar for patrons to guess at. The first time I went to The Black Horse with Jack, on the way home, walking up the hill, he said to me, "You love him, don't you? James, I mean." And I had to admit it was true.

Last night, I asked if I might write on the board, and James allowed me to. This is what I wrote:

Death cannot stop true love. It can only delay it for a while.

Mirror In The Bathroom

2009-02-07T11:56:00.001-08:00

I promised myself that I'd spend this weekend working on my dissertation. I have to force myself; make deals with myself. Cajole myself. Bribe myself.

You'd think that cold, hard pragmatism would be sufficient. You'd be wrong. Even though there are carrots and sticks hanging over my head — the carrot: if I get my damned PhD done, I'll be hireable in Canada, and maybe, just maybe, if I'm very lucky, I can move back to Toronto (though I'd happily take Winnipeg or even Saskatoon at this point); the stick: if I don't show proof of the completion of my PhD before school starts next September, my contract at USJ will be terminated — still I procrastinate. I am the queen of procrastination. Oh, and, my visa expires in August.

So this morning I got up, made some coffee, and set right to work:

I cleaned the microwave.

Then I had a second cup, and cleaned the mirror in the bathroom. Yes, really. And yes, I always hear the English Beat in my head while I'm doing it.

I'm on my third cup now. With one eye, I'm considering what might be in critical need of vacuuming; with the other, I'm playing Scrabble on Facebook with Rochester. And, of course, blogging.

Hey, at least it's writing!

Constant Craving

2009-01-30T20:00:00.000-08:00

I promised you this story a while ago, Gentle Reader, the story of Beauty's license plate.

I ordered it from the DMV in San Mateo, because that was Beauty's home for years, and that's where her car doctor is. After I picked it up today, I dropped in for a visit, because I hadn't seen him since last summer's drama ended, the day I brought Beauty home.

I figured he missed me.

(He did.)

We went outside, where Beauty was waiting in the beautiful California sunshine, and smiled at her, and he said, "Wow, that's really a beautiful car. She doesn't look anything like the car I picked up for you at the auction house."

I blushed on behalf of Beauty, who can't. Then I told him how I'd visited Jack's father over the Christmas holidays, and how we'd agreed to blame the Awful Events on the incompetence of the administrators of Jack's estate, so that we could go on. I didn't tell him that, even though there was a great deal of incompetence on that front, I know in my heart that it was Jason, Jack's brother, who kept me from Beauty. But it's all in the past now, there was a happy ending, Beauty is with me, and I'm going to keep my promise to Jack, to look after her. Forever.

Besides, Jack's father let me play the storied Fender Stratocaster. And he let me put on Jack's old leather flight jacket.

When Jack bought Beauty, back in the homeland in 1996, her license plate was 105 YZT. That's how plates were doled out back then: three numbers, followed by three letters. It's different now. That was a long time ago.

When he moved to California in 1998 Jack flew, and Beauty took the train. Jack told me he planned to get the same license plate for her in California as she had at home. Just because he could.

Except he couldn't.

There was some sort of rule about choosing a vanity plate that was too similar to a regular, randomly assigned plate. It's a stupid rule, but such is the nature of bureaucracy. So he got 1O5YZTA instead.

The astute Gentle Reader who is also a Star Trek fan might take a moment to examine the plates in the two pictures above, and smile. For everyone else, I shall explain:

The registration number of the first starship Enterprise, the one we know from the original Star Trek series, was NCC-1701. That Enterprise is destroyed in the movie, The Search For Spock, and in subsequent movies the new Enterprise is NCC-1701A. Captain Picard's Enterprise is NCC-1701C.

When Beauty finally came to me, her plates had been removed. My first impulse, because I knew the meaning of the plates Jack assigned to her, was to get hers back. But then I got a better idea.

I got 1O5YZTB.

Do you remember the episode of Lost when Desmond gets stuck in a time warp, and Daniel Faraday tells him he needs to find a constant, something that was important to him in the past, and the present, and Desmond chooses Penelope?

Well, Beauty was Jack's constant. And now she's mine.

There must be some word today, from my boyfriend so far away

2009-01-16T09:00:00.000-08:00

Even as I watch, in another application window, the messages from Jack continue to arrive. More than 200, so far, and Thunderbird alerts me to the fact that several thousand more emails are being downloaded. They arrive in the inbox with the sender's name bolded, just as they do when a new, real-time message arrives. I think that's what's freaking me out the most, to see his name pop up like that, over and over, as though he'd just pressed the send button.

When I moved to California two and a half years ago I didn't take my computer because it was old, and I knew Jack was setting up his Mac G4 laptop for me. He'd only had it for six months, but he was giving it to me. So I backed up everything on my old computer onto a pack of CDs, and left the CPU in the corner of a friend's apartment, you know, just in case.

Just in case someone I loved died, and I'd need to scour the machine for every last scrap of his existence.

The other day, after my visit to Jack's homeland, where Peter and I took a flask of Scotch and two glasses to the cemetery, I decided it was time. Time to crank up the old box and give it one last forensic exam. I didn't care about the hundreds of megs of TV commercials or the years of Powerpoint presentations from all the classes I'd ever taught. I cared about the email messages in my Thunderbird client.

First, I read all the messages to and from Jack. It was easy, because they'd all be gathered into their own folder years ago. Then I deleted all the messages that weren't from him, emptied the trash, and tried to figure out how to move the messages off the old box and onto my laptop.

It occurred to me a good place to start might be to install Thunderbird on the laptop. I hadn't used it for years, not since I discovered Gmail. I thought I'd install it but not activate it. Use it just as a viewer for the old Jack messages. But as I began the installation, it wouldn't let me proceed without entering a POP and SMTP server address. One of the options it gave me was "use Gmail," so I did that. What the heck, I figured, it didn't really matter what I entered, I wasn't planning to use the Thunderbird email client anyway.

So I typed my Gmail password into the required field, pressed the finish button, and the client opened.

And then it started downloading messages. They poured into my new inbox like water rushing over Niagara Falls, and I don't use the metaphor lightly; I grew up there.

I didn't understand what was happening at first. What, exactly, was it downloading? The date stamps on the messages were years old, so I scrolled up to the first one, and saw that it was the welcome message from Gmail, dated February 24, 2005.

It was downloading every Gmail message I'd ever sent or received. SENT or RECEIVED. Four years' worth of email!

They're still arriving. It seems to have limits and works in batches; it downloads a thousand or so, and then I have to delete, open, or otherwise address them before it will continue. Most of the biggest messages are between me and my publisher, with large file attachments. They are easy to group together and delete.

And the messages from Jack continue to pour into my email inbox. They are, for the most part, short and to the point. Dates and times and flight information for every trip we took together. The occasional sharing of a link to something the other would find amusing. A few pictures. A poem, or a song. And a great many apologies, from each to the other, but most from him to me, and most, I think, unwarranted. It breaks my heart to read them again.

This one made me laugh out loud, though the irony wasn't lost on me, either. Describing his day of checkups at the hospital, Jack reported, "The endocrinologist didn't like my approach to medication. As far as I'm concerned she can take her approach, fold it five ways, and shove it where the moon don't shine."

They're still arriving, the messages from Jack. Hundreds of tiny text missives. Oh, how I wish that this same sort of magic could be conjured with Bell or AT&T.

In the meantime, Gentle Readers who are tech savvy, since my personal geek is gone can one of you tell me where the mail files are in Thunderbird, and whether it's possible to copy and move them to my laptop?

Make 'em Laugh

2009-01-08T09:27:00.000-08:00

I had only two boyfriends in my five years of high school, Josh, whom I haven't seen since his wedding in the 1980s, and Rex, whom I haven't seen since Monday when we met at the Kingsway Theatre. Our friend Gilbert bought it, reopened it, and is renovating it. In that order.

The three of us admired the theatre, and I inquired as to when the old popcorn machine might be operational. Then we walked down the street to a bar where we remained for the next ten hours.

When we were in high school the three of us spent most of our free time (and some of our scheduled class time) at a certain corner table in the library, out of sight of the librarian, where we talked about things that, in retrospect, pegged us as the nerdy pretentious clique that always thought they were smarter than everyone else. Thing is, we were. Gilbert became an engineer, then a computer scientist, and now runs his own high-tech company. And though they were good friends back then, Gilbert and Rex hadn't seen each other for over twenty years, until I hooked them up last spring. Now, Rex is Gilbert's right-hand man.

"What is it with guys?" I asked. "I mean, you two were best friends in grade thirteen, and then you both went to U of T. How could you have never spoken in all this time?"

"We did!" countered Gilbert. "We went out for pizza once."

"It was good," said Rex.

Gilbert's always been one of my closest friends; we've been through a lot together in the two decades between high school and the Kingsway, but I hadn't seen Rex since the New Year's Eve we broke up. We had a fight in his car, just before midnight. I don't remember what it was about, and have asked him not to remind me if he does, because I don't want to regret the stupid things I did when I was young any more than is absolutely necessary.

Rex is the deep, introspective type. He doesn't say much, but he's always thinking, and he notices and remembers everything. It's intimidating, but then, I'm not easily intimidated. When we were dating I told him my favourite movie was Singin' In The Rain, and for Christmas that year he bought me the soundtrack. It wasn't easy to find; it was a French import. I still have it. I think I still have everything he gave me. Even the letters.

It was those letters — in a box in my closet in San Jose, that I'd been looking through one day last spring, on a weekend when I needed to procrastinate; before my world fell apart — that led me to look up Rex on Facebook. "Is that you?" I pinged, though I never doubted it was.

"What's great about seeing someone you knew years ago, but haven't seen for a long time, is that you always see them the way they were then," mused Gilbert. He's not usually the deep one; more the let's poke this thing then pull it apart from the inside and examine it type. But he was right. I looked at Rex, sitting across the table from me looking all the world like Jack Donaghy, right down to the smirk, but what I saw was the boy with the long, dark brown hair and big brown eyes. The smirk hadn't changed a bit, though.

We went through two waitresses, lots of food and drink, and a hockey game, and then it was time to go. My car is at the garage (that's the next story), and Gilbert had picked me up on the way to the theatre, but Rex wanted to drive me home, even though he lived about a hundred miles in the opposite direction.

I was glad he wanted to, but I was a little scared, and so I talked all the way home, nearly forgetting to give him directions in time for him to follow them. We took a detour through the Exhibition, just for fun, and for a moment I was 18 again.

He pulled up in front of my condo building and I had to get out of the car, I mean, what else was there to do? I felt like I should say something deep, but then I realized it wasn't necessary. This wasn't a deathbed confessional, and it wasn't a chance meeting of two people who would never see each other again. It was a beginning. So I said, "I feel like you're back in my life, now. I hope that isn't presumptuous of me."

He replied, "No."

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

2008-12-14T11:00:00.000-08:00

This is my home, and I miss it like crazy, every day.

It used to amuse me, but now it makes me want to strangle people here in California, when I tell them I'm going home to "Canada" for Christmas, and they get this horrified look on their face and say something like, "But it so cold there!"

I used to laugh because when people speak in clichés I find it funny, but after the hundredth time or so, it starts to wear. It makes me wonder, do you people have no concept of home? Whatever place you call home, is it really the weather that evokes nostalgia?

Or could it be (wondered the Grinch) if home means just a little bit more...

Home is where your heart is. That's a cliché, too, and anyway, I left my heart in San Francisco. Home is where the people you love, and who love you, are, and I don't have any of those here, so I'm going home.

I'm going home for a whole month, and I'm taking Pinky with me.

I have a return ticket, but a whole lot can happen in a month.

Someone Left the Cake Out in the Rain

2008-12-10T08:58:00.000-08:00

The other day I posted on Facebook that I was baking muffins, and immediately my high school boyfriend, Rex, commented, "You're being metaphorical, right?"

He knows me well, even still, and though I enjoy the reputation I have among my friends as a non-cook, because that way they feed me, if truth be told (not that it need be, here) I can cook. And bake.

I recently started baking muffins on a regular basis, because I've given up trying to find real muffins in this land sans Tim Hortons. Chocolate chips, lemon goo, raisins (I hate raisins!)... if they're crammed with sweet stuff they're not muffins, they're cupcakes! So I make huge batches of batter filled with bran, and oats, and anything else grainy I can find at Trader Joes, and I bake me three dozen or so muffins and eat them for breakfast for two weeks.

I only set off the fire alarm once.

They Storm the Crease Like Bumble Bees

2008-12-06T10:00:00.000-08:00

I was at the Leafs game at the Shark Tank last Tuesday night when, seconds after the first Sharks goal, I felt my pocket vibrate. It was a text message from Rochester. He'd gotten the tickets for me, really good ones, at the end where the Leafs would be shooting two of the three periods.

"So how's that working out for you?" it read.

I texted back: "Fuck off :)"

"Hey, I took time out of my class to inquire...some people got no gratitude!" he texted back right away. I love how he capitalized and punctuated his text messages. I mean the fact that he did, not the manner in which he did.

I texted back: "Fuck off :)"

I thought that would be all I'd hear from him until later that night, when I'd get back to our Facebook Scrabble game. I mean, he was in a class, an evening class, and they usually run from 6:00 until 9:00. It was the reason he wasn't at the game himself. But the text messages kept coming.

After the third goal: "Ouch, eh?"

And after the shorthanded goal: "Ooh, a shorty! (That's what she said...)"

There's a rule in comedy that it is the persistence of the inappropriate behaviour that makes it funny. It's why we laugh at Wile E. Coyote. Kevin Smith, being interviewed about the success of his movie, Clerks, said, "Three times is funny." In the middle of the movie an old man who comes into the convenience store and asks to use the bathroom. Then goes away, comes back and asks for toilet paper, the soft kind. Then goes away, comes back a third time and asks for a magazine. A porno mag, that is.

So I texted Rochester for the third time: "Fuck off. :-)"

Oh, and yes, that's Molson Canadian on tap. They brought it in special, and it was only available in a couple of places in the stadium. The funniest thing about it, though, was that they called it a "premium beer" and charged a premium for it.

I went back three times.

One Night In Bankok

2008-12-01T22:22:00.000-08:00

Is about all my Director spent over there, before embarking on his hike into the mountains, and by hike I mean the kind you need a Sherpa for. Somewhere over there in Tibet, or wherever the Himalayans are; I don't know the geography so well; don't care.

I'm just bitter because he chose the middle of the semester, in the middle of a budget crisis, to take this month-long vacation to find his zen. Whatever that is. Before he decamped to the monastery, though, he was able to communicate via his Blackberry to the office, to direct the cuts. The ones I told you about here.

He came back last week, finally, and just before Thanksgiving sent us all this email. Brace yourself, you might barf. I sure did:

"Colleagues: It's good to be back at my desk after an exceptional trip. Being tangentially a part of the coronation of the King of Bhutan is a once in a (reincarnated) lifetime experience. But even in a Himalayan monastery I was still thinking about you. I read about the budget cuts on the front page of the International Herald Tribune while eating breakfast in Bangkok. So it's big news. Fortunately I was able to communicate back here enough to monitor the situation and continue wrestling with these tough decisions.

Today I finally received some preliminary budget numbers. It does nothing to offset the dire situation, but our numbers should allow some schedule corrections and the possible reinstatement of a few of the recent cuts. Shortly after the holiday, I should also find out about some anticipated one-time money rewarding us for growth, probably for the last time.

As for the future, it's a whole new paradigm in California higher education, but with Thanksgiving on the other side of today's rain, I'd like to express a few things I'm grateful for:

For faculty and staff that care very deeply about this School and what's best for our students. I've been touched by your understanding and selflessness. For great students, as evidenced by the graduate presentations Monday evening. For the comforts and security of living here, despite the sour economy. For my soon-to-be-born grandson, coming into the world at a time when a new day dawns in American history. For the impermanence of everything negative.

Happy Thanksgiving."

End quote. Begin barfing.