I call him Pringle
I have a good friend that I love, who’s not very good at loving herself. Her lack of self-love is often evident in her choice of partners who seem to be purchased at a No Frills or a Wall mart when she has the sexual budget to shop at Holt’s. My friend is gorgeous, gorgeous and smart and kind. She is in her forties and has a kid and likes order but all of those things are manageable in the modern world of dating.
Her dating strategies seem similar to my teenage ones, meaning that if any boy seems to show some interest in you – date him. Don’t set up expectations, don’t plan for the future, just live in that thrilling moment of boy liking girl and girl liking being liked.
Some dating highlights from her past include a mime in his 60’s and a 45-year-old bagpipe player living with his mom. Model boyfriend material when compared to her most recent and seemingly permanent boyfriend Krill, called Plankton by some. I call him Pringle.
Pringle is a 21-year-old high school drop out. Sometimes he works in telemarketing, sometimes he says he works as a model, a great deal of the time he doesn’t work at all. I first met Pringle at my house. My friend had invited herself for dinner hoping to show off her newly found love. I didn’t know how old he was or anything about him until he showed up and started consuming all of the food in my house. Which of course is his prerogative being a growing boy. During dinner my husband and I sat slack jawed watching him eat, listening to him talk and protecting our own portions of food from his long reach. Growing boys seem to talk about the following: dirt bike riding, making indie films with friends, MBA degrees that they will soon be getting, archery and again dirt bike riding including details about falling and hurting your nuts…because the world really does need to know these things. The two lovebirds had actually met taking archery. She used to drive him home to his aunts afterwards. His horrible aunt that didn’t care about him at all, leading my friend to move him into her apartment so that she could care about him better.
Shortly after dinner was consumed but before the table was cleared, Pringle looked over at my friend and mentioned that he had eaten a lot of calories and it was time to do some burnin’. My husband and I could only watch as my friend gave Pringle permission to burn at which point he turned to us and asked if he could do some push-ups. Hostesses of the world would agree that it is very hard to refuse your guest anything they ask for short of sleeping with your husband. And even then some would oblige. Feeling that hosting etiquette gave me no outs, I gently agreed that of course he could do push-ups. Pringle walked to the front of the room next to a very old and lovely marble topped table. On top of the fragile heavy topped table rested a fish bowl. Inside the bowl was my beloved fighting fish named Bubbles. Bubbles was a lovely blue and purple fighting fish who was past his fighting days. His fins were thin and jagged, his gills a bit discoloured and he had this disconcerting habit of sinking to the bottom and lying sideways only to occasionally drift upwards like a zombie in some sort of gravitational pull. Bubbles was on his way out of our lives, but I loved that fish and worried greatly as Pringle, this big skinny mass of blond hair and pointy elbows headed towards Bubbles to begin his push-ups. I was right to worry about Bubbles. Bubbles and I both watched in horror as Pringle opted for the more challenging vertical form of a push up. I might have enjoyed a view of Pringles pubescent washboard abs more if I wasn’t so focused on his legs which were splayed out in a ‘y’ formation dangling threateningly over Bubbles. Bubbles usual sink to the bottom blasé had quickly shifted to a fight or flight response – which in Bubbles state meant that he floated inches above the bottom peering up at the dangling legs of doom. He died soon after, not that exact night but soon after.
Although Bubbles was not there to support me in further encounters with Pringle they went as follows – I’ve seen him once since that night. He came to a party at my house. He sat in the backyard and joyfully set fire to chips and cheesies. He spent the evening burning chips and cheesies for his own amusement as my friend lovingly, tolerantly, maternally looked on.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Monday, March 24, 2008
Barf & Beans
I see dead things. Where others see a pile of leaves, some flattened garbage - I see the truth. Little sticks become bones under my attentive gaze, fly away scraps of fabric become fluffy tails. While the rest of the world walks serenely down sidewalks and streets, through parks and by houses I walk through the world seeing every single dead squirrel, mouse or bird that has ever been run over, chewed on or pushed out of its nest.
My husband has started to call me the grim reaper. As if the very act of noticing the fluffy dead implies some sort of prior involvement in their demise. I believe that this title is part of a secret campaign he has begun. A campaign of typecasting that all husbands and wives engage in at one time or another. In the yin-yang of marriage and partnerships extreme opposites are required to maintain the appearance of balance in the universe. By assigning me the name grim reaper he automatically becomes an angel of mercy. I’m cynic to his clown, I’m spicy to his sweet, I’m darkness to his bright light, and I am a pessimist in the face of his eternal optimism. In my heart, I know I can be the sweet and cuddly one. I could break from type and play the clown. I could overcome my husband’s negative branding campaign of my persona and capture the rosy spotlight for myself. I could if it weren’t for the fact that I also seem to encounter an alarming amount of vomit…
My husband has yet to come up with an appropriate title to mock my backward super hero like ability to spot vomit on sidewalks, in bus shelters on grass and gravel. He uses the grim reaper as a catch-all term to encompass this special gift. We live in mid-town by some small pubs and bars, houses and apartments, nothing out of the ordinary and yet I often come across piles of vomit in my walks through the neighbourhood. I never fail to point them out to my husband so that he can share in my disgust in these multi-coloured, multi-textures piles of goop. He shares in my disgust while taking the opportunity to underscore what an aura of darkness I must have around me to put me in contact with all of this liquid human misery. Again it’s as if the very act of noticing the mess implies I had some sort of psychic hand in its creation. It doesn’t help that the fluffy dead and/or the piles of vomit seem to appear before me on days that I feel particularly blue or cynical which only serves to contribute to my husbands spin on my role as Darth Vader to his badly coiffed Luke.
One day my husband and I were on our way to see my father in the hospital where he was recovering from triple by-pass surgery. It was a both a blue day and a cynical day, it was a day where I had no hope or aspirations of breaking from my negative relationship typecasting. A day that I was just hoping to get through in one piece, a day that was destined, it seemed, to involve something dead or gross piled up at my feet. While walking down the street on the way to the hospital my super senses lead me to a particularly aggressive pile of vomit. Both my husband and I were horrified, although he was not so horrified that he couldn’t point to me and cry out that I am in fact some sort of purveyor of death doom and destruction. Evidently, in the husband and wife campaign for optimistic supremacy there are no days off.
As we continued to walk down the street, me under a grey cloud and him happily gliding along in a shaft of sunlight reserved for the optimists of this world, my husband stopped suddenly. Something on the miserable slush filled ground had caught his eye. In a happy high-pitched, let’s just call it girlish, voice my husband said ‘oh- look…Jellybeans!’ On a street full of brown half melted slush sat a pristine white pile of snow sprinkled with jellybeans. Jellybeans that were every colour of the rainbow, jellybeans that sparkled like jewels against the snow, jellybeans that had the perfectly scattered appearance of some magical seeds that had been sprinkled on the ground by tiny perfect fairies. As we stood together gazing at the lovely candy mosaic before us I realized that I had been beaten. In our mutual campaign to define ourselves in the best possible light and each other in lesser supporting roles my husband had triumphed. For now and forever more I will be reminded that as he and I walk through the world hand and hand all I see is barf while he sees shinny happy beans.
My husband has started to call me the grim reaper. As if the very act of noticing the fluffy dead implies some sort of prior involvement in their demise. I believe that this title is part of a secret campaign he has begun. A campaign of typecasting that all husbands and wives engage in at one time or another. In the yin-yang of marriage and partnerships extreme opposites are required to maintain the appearance of balance in the universe. By assigning me the name grim reaper he automatically becomes an angel of mercy. I’m cynic to his clown, I’m spicy to his sweet, I’m darkness to his bright light, and I am a pessimist in the face of his eternal optimism. In my heart, I know I can be the sweet and cuddly one. I could break from type and play the clown. I could overcome my husband’s negative branding campaign of my persona and capture the rosy spotlight for myself. I could if it weren’t for the fact that I also seem to encounter an alarming amount of vomit…
My husband has yet to come up with an appropriate title to mock my backward super hero like ability to spot vomit on sidewalks, in bus shelters on grass and gravel. He uses the grim reaper as a catch-all term to encompass this special gift. We live in mid-town by some small pubs and bars, houses and apartments, nothing out of the ordinary and yet I often come across piles of vomit in my walks through the neighbourhood. I never fail to point them out to my husband so that he can share in my disgust in these multi-coloured, multi-textures piles of goop. He shares in my disgust while taking the opportunity to underscore what an aura of darkness I must have around me to put me in contact with all of this liquid human misery. Again it’s as if the very act of noticing the mess implies I had some sort of psychic hand in its creation. It doesn’t help that the fluffy dead and/or the piles of vomit seem to appear before me on days that I feel particularly blue or cynical which only serves to contribute to my husbands spin on my role as Darth Vader to his badly coiffed Luke.
One day my husband and I were on our way to see my father in the hospital where he was recovering from triple by-pass surgery. It was a both a blue day and a cynical day, it was a day where I had no hope or aspirations of breaking from my negative relationship typecasting. A day that I was just hoping to get through in one piece, a day that was destined, it seemed, to involve something dead or gross piled up at my feet. While walking down the street on the way to the hospital my super senses lead me to a particularly aggressive pile of vomit. Both my husband and I were horrified, although he was not so horrified that he couldn’t point to me and cry out that I am in fact some sort of purveyor of death doom and destruction. Evidently, in the husband and wife campaign for optimistic supremacy there are no days off.
As we continued to walk down the street, me under a grey cloud and him happily gliding along in a shaft of sunlight reserved for the optimists of this world, my husband stopped suddenly. Something on the miserable slush filled ground had caught his eye. In a happy high-pitched, let’s just call it girlish, voice my husband said ‘oh- look…Jellybeans!’ On a street full of brown half melted slush sat a pristine white pile of snow sprinkled with jellybeans. Jellybeans that were every colour of the rainbow, jellybeans that sparkled like jewels against the snow, jellybeans that had the perfectly scattered appearance of some magical seeds that had been sprinkled on the ground by tiny perfect fairies. As we stood together gazing at the lovely candy mosaic before us I realized that I had been beaten. In our mutual campaign to define ourselves in the best possible light and each other in lesser supporting roles my husband had triumphed. For now and forever more I will be reminded that as he and I walk through the world hand and hand all I see is barf while he sees shinny happy beans.
Friday, February 8, 2008
Dinosaurs of My Youth
The dinosaurs are back at the museum. Last weekend the ROM was totally packed with people wanting to see the great big papier-mâché monsters. I moved through the crowds holding on to my nephew’s hands as my husband skipped away and back in his excitement and awe of the dinosaurs. Personally, I couldn’t help but feel somehow let down. These dinosaurs were all new and shinny set against white walls. You could walk around and view them from different angles. There were touch video screens that explained the names and fun facts about the creatures. It was everything a modern museum should be and… I hated it.
It wasn’t the museum of my youth and despite my tender young age, I’m 34, I longed for the museum of my childhood. When I was little the dinosaur exhibit was dark – really dark. All of the walls were painted blue-grey and if they weren’t blue-grey then they were bumpy and damp looking to mimic caves and caveman times. Each dinosaur was housed in it’s own badly lit area because the ROM only had about three or four of them. I remember coming into the room with the biggest one – maybe a T-Rex? You had to move around to see the head because in the vast darkness there was only one small pot light. The mystery and tension were breathtaking. You could see the head a little, but not the body at the same time. I think there was some little dino-armadillo way down by the T-Rex’s feet. Something from his time but small and beneath his notice. I’m pretty sure there was a leafy backdrop- or maybe I imagined one. You can imagine lots of things in the dark. In other rooms there were these cave man and woman mannequins. They were snugged up to the rooms with the dinosaurs because even though we all know as adults that cave men and dinosaurs didn’t hang out together, as kids it’s part of our Flintstone reality.
I know that the museum of my childhood would be mocked by modern man and their offspring as lacking style and electronic stimulants. As an artist who has visited and loved art galleries and museums both here and abroad I should probably celebrate the change, the new, the shinny, the dinosaur in the round, but I don’t, I guess it’s the emotional equivalent of a foodie who sneaks corn dogs late on Sunday nights when no one is looking.
It wasn’t the museum of my youth and despite my tender young age, I’m 34, I longed for the museum of my childhood. When I was little the dinosaur exhibit was dark – really dark. All of the walls were painted blue-grey and if they weren’t blue-grey then they were bumpy and damp looking to mimic caves and caveman times. Each dinosaur was housed in it’s own badly lit area because the ROM only had about three or four of them. I remember coming into the room with the biggest one – maybe a T-Rex? You had to move around to see the head because in the vast darkness there was only one small pot light. The mystery and tension were breathtaking. You could see the head a little, but not the body at the same time. I think there was some little dino-armadillo way down by the T-Rex’s feet. Something from his time but small and beneath his notice. I’m pretty sure there was a leafy backdrop- or maybe I imagined one. You can imagine lots of things in the dark. In other rooms there were these cave man and woman mannequins. They were snugged up to the rooms with the dinosaurs because even though we all know as adults that cave men and dinosaurs didn’t hang out together, as kids it’s part of our Flintstone reality.
I know that the museum of my childhood would be mocked by modern man and their offspring as lacking style and electronic stimulants. As an artist who has visited and loved art galleries and museums both here and abroad I should probably celebrate the change, the new, the shinny, the dinosaur in the round, but I don’t, I guess it’s the emotional equivalent of a foodie who sneaks corn dogs late on Sunday nights when no one is looking.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Jews for Jesus are like vegetarians for pork
Growing up in the Jewish faith, I often find some Christian traditions to be a bit foreign and strange. Take Easter, for example it’s a holy day to celebrate the Resurrection of Christ but than there are all of these rampant bunnies and drag queen coloured eggs and chocolate products to make the story seem more complex and uncertain. After studying art history and the Christian faith through various images I came across this one painting that showed Christ after the Resurrection on a bit of an incline and at the base of the incline there were some little bunnies. Now people can say what they want about Pagan symbols of fertility, but I would like to believe that the bunnies actually found Christ in the cave before Mary M., maybe they woke him up with bunny kisses, maybe they brought chocolate eggs to share or real eggs to colour, bedazzle and display.
Being married to a Christian, I get to experience Christianity through the filter of people that have kept the symbols- the eggs, the Christmas trees and the holy chocolate bunnies without actually having to commit to the faith part or the praying part or any part that doesn’t involve food and drinking and gifts.
The problem I’ve found can often be in the gifts. My in-laws have a family tradition of giving their adult children massive stockings (think hockey duffle bags) for Christmas filled with magazines and bath products and other odds and sods. Enough stuff so that you don’t have to go to the drugstore for basic household items for two months following Christmas. In the spirit of Christmas and generosity I began receiving my own stocking long before I got married. Year after year I looked forward to receiving the gift of bath oils and skin creams and prophylactics otherwise known as rubbers, sometimes called beetle skins in John Irving novels in other words I received condoms for Christmas. For many Christmases, over many years. Condoms that couldn’t be used over Christmas because despite the fact I lived with their son, I certainly didn’t sleep in the same bed with him under their roof. Condoms that went unused because maybe they weren’t our brand of choice because we did, in fact, have a brand of choice. Condoms that went unused because the image of my future mother-in-law lurked within every little square foil container. It was like some brilliant Oedipal survival strategy to effectively interfere with our sex life. We were in possession of these mother-haunted condoms that we couldn’t use and we couldn’t give away. The condoms didn’t stop coming until we got married, at which point I guess the battle had been lost and it was finally time for my husband’s mother to break from her yearly contraceptive buying tradition.
I enjoyed respite from getting festive rubbers for exactly one Christmas season at which point the urge to again participate somehow in our love lives took possession of my mother-in-law. This year for Christmas I unwrapped one of the many gifts from my oversized Christmas stocking to find a special dress-up outfit. As I sat there in the glow of the Christmas tree staring at this pre-package porny outfit I could hear my mother in-law loudly proclaiming, ‘it comes with a pussy purse!’ ‘It comes with a pussy purse!’ When I started to read the label, after my eyes slowly moved beyond the picture of the young double D endowed blond modeling the outfit, I saw that it did in fact come with a pussy purse. A special little black purse trimmed in fuzzy pink marabou sporting a picture of a pink cat and the delicately written words, ‘Sexy Pussy.’ Perhaps it could be used for handcuffs, maybe a small sex toy? It was definitely the right size for the condoms of Christmas past. The pussy purse was only part of a 5 piece set that included: a stretch fishnet TEDDY with TAIL (I’m staying true to the capitalization used by the manufacturers here), a sheer net APRON, “SEXY PUSSY” BAG, EARS and a COLLAR. As my husband’s family sat around grinning and awaiting my response to this fabulous gift, I dryly stated that I just don’t feel comfortable in the bedroom without some kind of accessories purchased for me by my mother-in-law. Sadly for my husband, my mother in-laws involvement in it’s purchase forever puts a stain on the Sexy Pussy 5 pc set, yes even the pussy purse.
Being married to a Christian, I get to experience Christianity through the filter of people that have kept the symbols- the eggs, the Christmas trees and the holy chocolate bunnies without actually having to commit to the faith part or the praying part or any part that doesn’t involve food and drinking and gifts.
The problem I’ve found can often be in the gifts. My in-laws have a family tradition of giving their adult children massive stockings (think hockey duffle bags) for Christmas filled with magazines and bath products and other odds and sods. Enough stuff so that you don’t have to go to the drugstore for basic household items for two months following Christmas. In the spirit of Christmas and generosity I began receiving my own stocking long before I got married. Year after year I looked forward to receiving the gift of bath oils and skin creams and prophylactics otherwise known as rubbers, sometimes called beetle skins in John Irving novels in other words I received condoms for Christmas. For many Christmases, over many years. Condoms that couldn’t be used over Christmas because despite the fact I lived with their son, I certainly didn’t sleep in the same bed with him under their roof. Condoms that went unused because maybe they weren’t our brand of choice because we did, in fact, have a brand of choice. Condoms that went unused because the image of my future mother-in-law lurked within every little square foil container. It was like some brilliant Oedipal survival strategy to effectively interfere with our sex life. We were in possession of these mother-haunted condoms that we couldn’t use and we couldn’t give away. The condoms didn’t stop coming until we got married, at which point I guess the battle had been lost and it was finally time for my husband’s mother to break from her yearly contraceptive buying tradition.
I enjoyed respite from getting festive rubbers for exactly one Christmas season at which point the urge to again participate somehow in our love lives took possession of my mother-in-law. This year for Christmas I unwrapped one of the many gifts from my oversized Christmas stocking to find a special dress-up outfit. As I sat there in the glow of the Christmas tree staring at this pre-package porny outfit I could hear my mother in-law loudly proclaiming, ‘it comes with a pussy purse!’ ‘It comes with a pussy purse!’ When I started to read the label, after my eyes slowly moved beyond the picture of the young double D endowed blond modeling the outfit, I saw that it did in fact come with a pussy purse. A special little black purse trimmed in fuzzy pink marabou sporting a picture of a pink cat and the delicately written words, ‘Sexy Pussy.’ Perhaps it could be used for handcuffs, maybe a small sex toy? It was definitely the right size for the condoms of Christmas past. The pussy purse was only part of a 5 piece set that included: a stretch fishnet TEDDY with TAIL (I’m staying true to the capitalization used by the manufacturers here), a sheer net APRON, “SEXY PUSSY” BAG, EARS and a COLLAR. As my husband’s family sat around grinning and awaiting my response to this fabulous gift, I dryly stated that I just don’t feel comfortable in the bedroom without some kind of accessories purchased for me by my mother-in-law. Sadly for my husband, my mother in-laws involvement in it’s purchase forever puts a stain on the Sexy Pussy 5 pc set, yes even the pussy purse.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Crazy Cabbie
I had a crazy cab driver last night. So crazy that by the end of the ride I was actually looking for a hidden camera and waiting for him to present me with a release form to sign for some low budget Canadian reality-show. Let’s start with a visual - he looked like Mr. Miyagi from the karate kid but crazy with big coke bottle glasses, crooked teeth and his hair flying every which way.
He was very hyper from the start - he asked if I was excited for Christmas because it was only 34 days away. He went on to talk about how slippery and dangerous the roads where but not to worry, he said with his thickly accented voice, he grew up in Timmons so he can handle the weather. He than put on some of what he called his fast driving music, some trippy music about rockets and planes and such. The music was accompanied by some hand clapping and one armed flying gestures intended to mimic a plane in flight or some sort of spastic bird. His ADHD or drug addled ness was so bad that he kept changing the CD’s before any song had a chance to end quickly flipping from one tune to the next. My personal favourite was when he put on the Carpenters and started singing 'We've only just begun’...in a high-pitched attempt at a feminine voice. Within moments successfully hijacking the memory of riding around with my mom in her wood-paneled station wagon that hearing the Carpenters usually provokes.
He sang and clapped and drove and talked. He talked about how the hill we were on was like a ski hill or something because it was solid ice. Sometimes despite the cold he would unroll his window to see better. Sometimes he would try to talk to people outside. One time he asked have you been to San Francisco, the words shifting into singing as he flipped on a tune with the lyrics, ‘are you going to San Francisco?’ At one point he burped a few times without apology or remorse. Just before the ride ended there was that magical moment when he was so inspired by his music and singing that he picked up the tambourine lying next to him on the passenger seat and started hitting his thigh and the steering wheel with it.
Crazy people are drawn to me at all times...it is my gift...it is my curse.
He was very hyper from the start - he asked if I was excited for Christmas because it was only 34 days away. He went on to talk about how slippery and dangerous the roads where but not to worry, he said with his thickly accented voice, he grew up in Timmons so he can handle the weather. He than put on some of what he called his fast driving music, some trippy music about rockets and planes and such. The music was accompanied by some hand clapping and one armed flying gestures intended to mimic a plane in flight or some sort of spastic bird. His ADHD or drug addled ness was so bad that he kept changing the CD’s before any song had a chance to end quickly flipping from one tune to the next. My personal favourite was when he put on the Carpenters and started singing 'We've only just begun’...in a high-pitched attempt at a feminine voice. Within moments successfully hijacking the memory of riding around with my mom in her wood-paneled station wagon that hearing the Carpenters usually provokes.
He sang and clapped and drove and talked. He talked about how the hill we were on was like a ski hill or something because it was solid ice. Sometimes despite the cold he would unroll his window to see better. Sometimes he would try to talk to people outside. One time he asked have you been to San Francisco, the words shifting into singing as he flipped on a tune with the lyrics, ‘are you going to San Francisco?’ At one point he burped a few times without apology or remorse. Just before the ride ended there was that magical moment when he was so inspired by his music and singing that he picked up the tambourine lying next to him on the passenger seat and started hitting his thigh and the steering wheel with it.
Crazy people are drawn to me at all times...it is my gift...it is my curse.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Bread & Circus
This is not a blog about politics, Rome or men covered in baby oil fighting lions in badly hemmed dresses. I came across the term Bread and Circus years ago when I was in Rome. It inspired me to create silly works of art displaying circus freaks and featuring flying carbs. A dear friend of mine suggested I use the term for my blog. Thanks Sasha.
Lately I've had the urge to write about my life but a diary would be too personal and really and truly they are never private. Diaries and dildos - at the end of the day, someone is always going to come across them and you can't control who that someone is.
Lately I've had the urge to write about my life but a diary would be too personal and really and truly they are never private. Diaries and dildos - at the end of the day, someone is always going to come across them and you can't control who that someone is.
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