Postmodern Sass

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.

Thanks For The Memory

2008-11-27T19:00:00.000-08:00

Now I know how the Jews feel at Christmas. Americans make a Friggin' Huge Deal about the Thanksgiving holiday, but to me it's just a day where I don't have to go to work, it's quieter than usual, and mildly annoying that everything is closed.

So I stayed in, and had a productive morning. I touched up my roots. I vacuumed. I reviewed the first pass proofs of the first two chapters of my textbook (due to be published in March). Then Monica called, and invited me over.

"I've been up since 6:00 this morning, cooking," she exclaimed into the phone, a claim I found puzzling, since Monica's idea of cooking is opening cans or packages and heating up their contents.

Nevertheless, I have a rule, and she knows what it is: any time anyone wants to prepare food for me, I am happy to consume it. So I headed downstairs.

"Jazz is coming, and I bought beer, but it's still in the trunk of my car," said Monica as she opened the door. Jazz is her Bible-thumping, drug-addicted sister, and the beer was undoubtedly Corona, but still I offered: "Give me your key and I'll go get it."

I waited fifteen minutes for the beer to chill in the freezer, then opened one and joined Monica and Jazz on the patio. They were in mid conversation about something so to amuse myself momentarily I replayed my visit to the parking lot, where I'd waved hello to Beauty.

"Monica, I think I may have forgotten to lock your car just now," I said. "Do you want me to go back down and make sure?"

"No, don't worry about it. It locks itself."

"Seriously? You mean it knows? How can it know?"

"It just does."

"I wish your car would talk to my car!" said Jazz. She's a crazy Christian Bible thumper, and frequently makes those around her want to tear off her head and punt it across the room, but in between those moments she's a hoot.

"I can't believe I've been up since six this morning cooking!" said Monica again. She appeared to be waiting for us to ooh and aah at her skill and dedication, but I for one was puzzled about what she'd been doing, lo those nine hours hence. She'd shown me the pre-cooked turkey breast she'd put in the oven to heat, along with a dish of something that looked like stuffing. On the counter were a few sweet potatoes and an onion, but no evidence that they'd been called into service. There was a store-bought pumpkin pie in a box on the counter, and mashed potatoes in a pot on the stove. As I watched her open the can of that cranberry goo that Americans seem to love so much, I wondered whether the nine hours had been spent, perhaps, peeling three or four potatoes, or whether the mash had also come from a box.

"Oh, I almost forgot!" moaned Monica, looking truly distressed. "I made appetizers!" Then she opened the fridge and pulled out a plate of deviled eggs. "I just love deviled eggs, don't you?"

"I sure do," I said, and I meant it. See rule, above.

I still wonder what she did for eight hours and fifteen minutes, before I arrived, though.

Guess My Heart Has A Mind Of Its Own

2008-11-08T17:00:00.000-08:00

I've been told more than once over the course of my life that I don't know when to give up. This can be a good thing. At my high school reunion I was voted most likely to lead the country to war, and when the movie Titanic came out, during the sequence where you see how all the different characters deal with their impending doom, my friend Harrison, who was watching it with me, said, "That would be you, barking orders at everyone to fill those lifeboats."

So as character flaws go, it's not such a bad one.

Jack used to say that he hated the word hope. He would, from time to time, encourage me to give up on him. To give up my hope that one day, we would ride off into the sunset together, metaphorically. I told him I would never give up, and that I didn't believe him, in any event, because I knew why he went to Doc G for all those years, and I knew what he meant when he said, "I'm working on it." I knew what the Very Bad Things were, and I never once doubted he would beat them. I never gave up on him, until I had to.

The working title of the novel I was writing, before I decided to write stories here as Postmodern Sass, was I, Hope. It had a happy ending. So does my screenplay. But I digress.

I think it's time for me to give up on California.

I don't want to, but these last few days I've been forcing myself to answer the question, "Why not?" and so far the only answer I've been able to give myself has been, "You're a fool if you don't."

"But my students need me!" I attempt to defend myself.

"They'll manage," I reply, cynically. "The one in a hundred that appreciates you will remember you, and stay in touch. The rest don't matter, and guess what? They won't miss you a whit."

"Ouch!"

"Sucks, doesn't it? You want another reality check?"

"No, thanks," I whimper.

"Tough shit. Listen up. You know all the work you've been doing on the curriculum committee for the last two years, trying to improve the program?"

"Of course. And we've done some really great things. The students have already noticed."

"Yeah, well, the students might think the program is better now, but that and $5 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Are you really blind to what the rest of the faculty thinks?"

"Apparently."

"They think, who are you to come into their School and dare to suggest that the way they've been doing things for twenty years needs improving? They think you're a heretic because you tell the students newspapers are dying and online is the way of the future. Who are you, to come to San Jose, the home of the Knight Ridder empire, and suggest such a thing? They're horrified that you tell your advertising students they should be taking marketing courses, because you're sending them to the Business School. They might like it better over there, and leave the College of Communications, which pays your bread and butter, missy. You'd better smarten up and keep pushing the mass comm curriculum, and by the way, stop telling the creatives that they should be minoring in graphic design. They can learn to be an art director in our program, by taking that one class we offer in Basic Layout. And how dare you suggest that advertising students don't need a full semester course on the First Ammendment? That's what they think, Clueless One. And then they shake their heads and say, oh well, she's Canadian. She just doesn't understand how things work here."

"You sure got that right. I don't understand why they seem perfectly happy to be working in what is clearly a third-rate School. They don't even seem to want to try to shoot for second-rate. I mean, I get that USJ isn't ever going to be Stanford, or Berkeley, but shouldn't we at least be trying?"

"What has trying gotten you so far?"

"You know! The student advertising agency! It's running right now, as a class, for the first time ever in the School's history. You know how hard I worked last spring, toiling through the layers of administration one has to pass in order to get a new course in the catalog. I wrote the syllabus, and presented the course proposal at the school, then the college, then the university level. You were there, don't you remember?"

"I remember. You used that business as a distraction, to keep yourself from worrying about what was going on with Jack's estate, his family, and Beauty. You didn't even go home last summer, you fool."

"Shut up, you know how Murphy's Law and all its corollaries work. If I had booked a ticket home, the day I left would have been the day Jack's father would have called to say they were coming."

"Yeah, and that worked out so well for you, didn't it?"

"Shut up."

"So, now what happened with the agency?"

"Well, because of all the state budget cuts, the axe has been falling in my department. You know we're tenure-track, so it's not like we're going to be cut, but my teaching assignment changed."

"To what?"

"From two sections of Intro to Advertising, one section of Consumer Advertising, and the Agency this semester; to two sections of Intro to Advertising and two sections of Consumer Advertising next semester."

"That's riduculous. There aren't enough students to support two sections of Consumer Advertising."

"I know."

"There's always only been one. There are 35 students, max. If it's broken into two sections, it'll be, like 20 in one and 18 or so in the other. How does that make any sense?"

"It doesn't. But you're missing the point. The Chair decided to cut the Agency faculty from three to two, and he cuts ME! I'm the one who did all the work to get it going! There wouldn't BE an Agency class if it weren't for me!"

"So, what are you going to do, give up on the School? Give up on California?"

"Wouldn't you?"

I Can't Drive 55

2008-11-02T11:00:00.000-08:00

"Do you like my new car?" I asked Rochester, in the chat window alongside our online Scrabble game. He doesn't know the saga of Jack and Beauty, but he'd noticed my latest Facebook profile picture (the same one I posted here), and the congratulatory comments that were pouring in from my RL friends.

"Couldn't find a Bricklin, eh?" he replied. One of the things I like about Rochester is that he knows a lot about Canada.

"Nice catch, showoff. But it's not like that's the only car ever built in Canada. Did you know that all the Toyota Corollas you see on the road here were built there? And the Matrix. And the Lexus RX330." I knew all this because I'd just finished working on chapter 8 of my Canadian marketing textbook.

"I had a Mazda RX-7 for 18 years. Now I drive a Porsche that was made in Finland."

I gulped, silently. Not that Rochester could hear me at the other end of Facebook. "You have a Porsche?" I typed. Of course he had no way of knowing how that word, Porsche, affects me. Or how learning that he had a car — any car — for 18 years makes me feel. That he would understand about Beauty.

"Well, a Boxster," he replied.

"Remember the other day when I joked that you weren't necessarily cooler than JB? Well, I take that back," I said, then added, "and you get bonus points for modesty."

He played his tiles; COULISSE, 61 points, then wrote: "It's not an S, though. I test-drove that, and decided I could get enough speeding tickets without going 80 mph in second gear."

I pondered his Porsche, then wrote, "Triple bonus points if it's a stick."

"Do they make them without a stick?" he asked. Disingenuously, charmingly.

"Quadruple bonus points!"

Friday I'm In Love

2008-10-31T17:00:00.000-07:00

You can understand, can't you, Gentle Reader, why Jack loved Beauty?

Soon, I'll tell you the story about the license plate. I think you'll find it amusing. Jack would have loved it.

Do Wah Diddy Diddy

2008-10-24T11:53:00.000-07:00

Well I'm hers! (I'm hers)

She's mine! (she's mine)

Finally, Gentle Reader, Beauty is where she belongs. With her Auntie Sass, where Jack wanted her to be.

And all it took was nine weeks of sleepless nights, one private investigator, one skeezy auction house, two bartenders, two incompetent case investigators, one friendly landlady, one sympathetic neighbour, six incredible friends, $5,000 in cash, one lawyer, one awesome BMW broker, a really swell guy named Aaron (at the skeezy auction house), three understanding colleagues, one sympathetic sound designer (oddly enough), and a truckload of Internet karma — to defeat one evil bastard son of a bitch asshole brother.

At least now I understand why Jack moved so far away from his family, and why he never wanted me to get close to them.

Just look at the indignity they suffered upon his most prized and beloved possession.

It pains me to show you that photo, Gentle Reader, but I wanted you to understand what she's been through. But she's safe, now. Beauty is safe. She just arrived at her new car doctor's, in San Mateo. She'll need to spend a few days there, kind of like a visit to the spa. And when she's recovered, we're going to ride off into the empyrean sunset together, toward Half Moon Bay.

Karma karma karma karma... oh, you know the rest

2008-10-13T18:26:00.000-07:00

In case you were wondering, Gentle Reader, I am still here. I am still trying to get possession of Beauty. I still need your good karma. There is still no news. But you will know, as soon as there is, I promise.

Karma Chameleon

2008-09-22T20:11:00.001-07:00

I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin', but I've become a big believer in karma since Jack died, and this week I need all you can send me.

Last Kiss

2008-08-23T12:00:00.000-07:00

That song always made me cry when I was a little girl, and later, when I was a big girl, and I heard the Pearl Jam version, it made me cry again. I don't know why.

Well, where, oh, where can my baby be? The Lord took him away from me.

Or maybe I do. Epic love stories with tragic endings. A Star is Born (the original, with Judy Garland). Wuthering Heights. Tess of the d'Urbervilles, which I read five times because I kept hoping that this time, Angel wouldn't abandon her.

I knew I shouldn't have told anyone that Beauty was coming to live with me until she got here. It happens all the time, at least to me, or at least it seems like it always happens to me. The jinx. If you talk about something before it's in the past, you'll jinx it, and it won't happen.

I should have known better.

Jack's father promised I could have Beauty. He said it would be complicated, and I would have to buy her from the estate, and I said fine, and then thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you. I know it's what Jack would have wanted.

(The whole freakin' Internet knows it's what Jack would have wanted!)

He told me I could have Beauty when he called me from the cottage where he'd been for two weeks, and during our conversation he invited me to come up there some time, and told me how much Jack loved it, which I already knew, because I'd been hearing the stories for years. He said, think about it, see if you can find out what the car is worth, and send me an email. Then he asked me a lot of questions about Jack's apartment, and his possessions, and asked if I could tell him about any of Jack's friends who might like to have something of his.

I spent the rest of the week composing a long, detailed email message for Mr M. I said, I have a friend with a truck who has volunteered to come up and help move things, whatever you need, just call me. I thought of all the things of sentimental value to me, and told him a little story about each one. I braced him for the naughty pictures of me in the schoolgirl outfit that he was likely to find. I told him I'd like to have Jack's Zippo, because I had a Pavlovian response to the sound of it clicking. I sent him pictures of Jerry, and Joomzey, and Rudy, so that he would recognize Jack's friends.

I sent the message that Friday, and on Saturday Mr M replied and thanked me, and said they'd be arriving Tuesday afternoon. He asked me to contact Jack's friends and arrange for everyone to meet at the Black Horse on Friday night. He thanked me again for all my help, and said he'd call me when they were here.

On Monday, I began to make arrangements for Beauty's arrival. I negotiated a parking spot. I asked colleagues for recommendations for car insurance, called Allstate, and arranged for the policy to take effect as soon as the transfer was complete. I located the DMV office nearest to Jack's apartment.

And then I waited.

I didn't expect them to call on Tuesday night, what with the jet lag and time zone change. I turned up the volume of my phone on Tuesday night, though, and slept with it beside my head, just in case. On Wednesday evening I still hadn't heard from them, but my friend with the truck called and asked what was happening. He said he could help me on Wednesday or Thursday, but not on Friday. I called the hotel and left a message.

All day Thursday I held the phone in my hand, waiting. I even took it into the bathroom with me; something I never do. By the time I went to bed on Thursday night, I was just this side of crazy.

Hold me, darling, for a little while.

I love Jerry, I really do, and so I made a point of telling Jack's father all about him in the email. "They were so very funny together," I said. "Jack would make fun of Jerry, because he didn't have 'suit body,' and Jerry would laugh harder than anyone. I know it would mean a lot to Jerry to have something of Jack's. Perhaps a tie, or a set of cufflinks, would not only be appropriate, but funny, in a way that Jack would have appreciated."

I was the go-between: Jerry hadn't called or written Jack's family; he said it didn't feel right, by which he meant he was too shy. People react in many different ways when someone they love dies; you can't blame them for that. So I talked to Mr M, and to Jerry, and told one about the other, relayed messages. Jerry wanted to take them out for dinner at Jack's favourite restaurant while they were here.

So last Friday, late afternoon, after three full days of literally waiting by the phone, and three full days of hearing nothing from anyone, I called Jerry to ask if he would be going to the bar that night. Jack's favourite bar, his Cheers, where everybody knew his name, and the owner was one of his closest friends.

"I'm on my way home to Morgan Hill," he said. "I'm not going tonight. We all went out for dinner last night. Jack's mother gave me a tie, and a pair of cufflinks..."

I didn't know what to say; I had to muster the vocal cords, so as not to cry uncontrollably.

"You... you went out for dinner?"

"Oh yes, Scotty arranged it, and all the people from Big Ass were there..." and again he went on and on about how wonderful it had been, obviously oblivious to the fact that no one had thought to invite me.

And then he twisted the knife: "Ace was there." Ace, who I've known for as long as I've known Jack; Ace, who lives 32 miles away — I remember, because he Google-mapped it the time he drove here to hold my hand and talk about Jack during one of the Very Bad Times — Ace, who hasn't returned my calls since the funeral.

I found the love that I knew I would miss.

Things I know about Jack that no one else knows: That he wanted bagpipes at his funeral. That he loved ceremony, and wanted me to have the flag. That he had a kilt, and knew I was a sucker for them, but would not wear it for me, not yet. He said there were only three occasions for which he would put it on: the funeral of his mother, the funeral of his father, and his own wedding. That he loved Beauty as much as he loved me, and that that was okay. That the bagels were his way of punishing me for knowing him too well. That after Sara's wedding, we shopped for diamonds at Tiffany's. And exactly what he meant when he said, I'm working on it.

Things Jack knew about me that no one else knows: That despite everything, I love my Daddy, and he loves me. That the reason I didn't want to elope to the Bellagio was because I wanted my Daddy to dance with me at my wedding. That I wish I had said yes ten years ago when Jack asked me to move to California with him. That I loved Beauty as much as I loved him, and that that was okay. My ring size. That if he asked, this time I would say yes, and that I'd want it to be here.

He's gone to Heaven so I got to be good, so I can see my baby when I leave this world.

* * *

Jack's Evil Brother has no idea who he's dealing with. I'm eight million times smarter than he is, and I will fight to the death for Beauty. We're going to have the happy ending that was stolen from me and Jack, no matter what it takes.

And Venus was her name

2008-08-15T13:00:00.000-07:00

She's got it, ooh baby, she's got it. She's so beautiful, that's why Jack named her Black Beauty, or Beauty for short. She was always his best girl, and I was his second, and the three of us, well, we had quite a ride these last thirteen years.

Next week, she'll be coming to live with her Auntie Sass in San Jose. And one day, we'll go home together, for good.

Little did Postmodern Sass realize that Jack's Evil Brother was hatching an evil plan to break her heart all over again.

They say it's your birthday

2008-08-05T03:30:00.000-07:00

It is, at exactly 3:30 this morning, and I have the best friends in the world, I really do. They've been all over my Facebook page for the last couple of days, already — I love Facebook, and that's one of the reasons, it alerts you to when your friends' birthdays are looming. And when you enter yours, you have the option of not displaying the year.

I started lying about my age when I turned 31, so I'm really good at it by now. Mostly, I just don't say, and let people assume what they will. Call me vain. I really don't care.

I've been dreading the day for weeks, and wasn't planning to do anything other than stay in bed all day, under the covers, but then JB called a few days ago and said, "What do you want to do on your birthday?"

Now, JB is motivated this summer to party all out because he's an impending father, and he knows his life as a party boy is about to come to an end. But that's OK, I'm fine being his enabler.

I want to go to this place, I replied. Karaoke.

I miss my karaoke buddies terribly. Carson, Mo, The Viking, Operaman, Wendy and Joey, Lana, Fudge, Jet Run, and most of all, Sparky. I miss my real old friends: Gilbert, Rex, Genie, Maria, Donny, Lulu, and Zee.

I miss Toronto.

When I go to Jack's city without him it's six parts sadness, one part happy, and three parts nostalgia, and I think that's just about right. He never missed my birthday in 12 years, and he's not going to miss it today. He'll always be with me.

It's not much of a story, I know, Gentle Reader, but it's all I've got.

Dye my eyes and call me pretty

2008-07-31T20:36:00.001-07:00

This is a very difficult week for me, for several reasons, all of them having to do with Jack. It's my birthday next week, and he hasn't missed it since 1995, and he knows that there's only one thing I ever wanted on my birthday, because it's the same thing he always wanted: another one. He didn't get his wish this year, and I probably will, and I'm feeling guilty about that, as well as 48 other things I'm not going to enumerate to you, Gentle Reader.

Sorry.

So here's what I did this week, to keep from crying all the time, to keep from going crazy: I went tattoo shopping, and I went therapist shopping. I've done both of these things before: therapist shopping, and tattoo shopping.

Jack had a therapist, Doc G, he called him. I always had his number, in case of emergencies, but when the emergency happened, well, it was too late, and I thought maybe it wouldn't be appropriate for me to call him. I struggled with it for weeks. And then one day, I picked up the phone and left him a message. I thanked him, for what he had done for Jack for all those years. I said, I'm not sure if you know who I am... and I left my number.

He called me back within the hour, and invited me to come see him, in the City. And I did. And the first thing he said to me was, of course I know who you are! Jack told me all about you. He loved you, you know, and I said I know, but no one else does, and then I cried more than I'd cried any time since Jack died.

The second thing Doc G said to me was, Jack wanted you to have his car. Doc G is the only other person on Earth who understands what Jack's car meant to him. That Beauty is more than just a car. That not only did he want me to have her, to look after her for him, but that I owe that to Jack. I owe it to him to take care of her for the rest of her life, and I will, if I am allowed to. But it's not up to me.

She's sitting there, still, in the basement of his building in Pacific Heights.

I sat in Doc G's office for an hour, in the same chair that Jack had sat in for all those years. We looked out the window, and there was Jack's building, you could see the roof, where the owls are. Where Jack and I stood, and watched the fog roll in.

Talking with Doc G, I felt closer to Jack, that here was another soul who really, truly, understood him, and who knew about the bad shit. I love Jack's father, I really do, and he knows me, and I think he likes me just fine, and not just because of the bottle of single malt Scotch I carried throughout the wake, but he doesn't know about the... um, complications, of my relationship with his son. He doesn't know, because his son kept me a secret. From everyone except Doc G. He's the one person, the only person on the entire planet, who knows what I know, who really, truly, understands. The one person I don't have to pretend with.

And I can't see him anymore, Doc G, I mean. Because he belonged to Jack, not to me, and we both agreed that it wouldn't be right, wouldn't be proper; would be, somehow, disloyal, if we were to have a doctor-patient relationship. There's no other kind of relationship we could have, I mean, it's not like we're going to go out for a beer together, that would be too weird; it's never going to happen.

So I have to find another therapist. Someone I can talk to about Jack. Someone who I can cry in front of, because I can't cry in front of my friends anymore. If there's one thing I've learned in my life, it's that friends, no matter how great they are — and I have some really great friends, I do — they want you to hurry up and get over the sadness, and get back to you being your regular self, and if you cry in front of them for too long, it scares them away, and they don't want to be around you anymore, because you bring them down.

What's it all About, Alfie?

2008-07-05T13:00:00.000-07:00

Yes, Gentle Reader, I'll get back to this story soon, but it's still very hard for me to write about Jack now that he's gone, so allow me to distract both of us with a different tale.

If you know what "what does this mean" means, you must be a Lutheran, and just like only Newfies can make Newfie jokes and really really get them, only Lutherans can make catechism jokes and really get them. For example, that picture is Martin Luther doing the Chicken Dance. Come on, that kills!

On the other hand, if, unlike Newfie jokes no one else even thinks they're funny, the whole politically correct issue is deftly avoided.

Where was I? Oh yes, so, when Rochester Facebooked this video the other day, it not only had me in stitches but it impressed me that in addition to being a Sloan fan and knowing to say hockey, never ice hockey, he was one of mein people.

I know what you're wondering, Gentle Reader: We thought Postmodern Sass was an Existentialist? I am, now, but if you know anything at all about Germans you know that you can't ever un-become what you were born into. California is not exactly what you'd call a land of diversity in culture, so discovering that Rochester is Lutheran was rather like spying a Canadian flag on someone's knapsack in a rural Chinese village.

He's a friend of a friend of the Librarian's, and I first met him about a year ago when the Librarian's friend, JB, took me to his apartment. Rochester's apartment, I mean.

That sounded so much better in my head.

See, the Librarian and I had been out at one of our favourite pubs, O'Flaherty's, and JB's wife had let him out for the night so he called — my cell phone, because the Librarian doesn't have one — to find out where we were. The thing I like about JB is that when he goes out, he goes out hard, so even though the Librarian checked himself out around 10:00, JB was still rarin' to go.

I like going out with married men because you always know where you stand.

"I'm going to call my friend Rochester," said JB. "He lives downtown, and is usually amenable to the idea of beer." I liked him already. More so, when we arrived at his place a few minutes later and he handed me a Molson.

I've seen him two or three times since then, and last weekend we went to see Get Smart together, though it was definitely not a date, which suits me just fine because I don't want to date anyone right now, maybe not ever again, but it's nice to have a smart, interesting man to talk to.

Even if he's not married.