My people 45 x 365

The End

2007-02-20T10:24:00.001-08:00

A bit abrupt, but perhaps most endings are like that. I can only call myself a 125er. When The Big End comes, I expect I’ll have only accomplished one-third of what I had set out to do in life as well. Sigh…

My two left feet are shuffling over to Puff the Magic Dragon as part of the Dancing About Architecture project.

Ken

2007-02-08T09:35:00.001-08:00

He was a young bloodhound, being trained to sniff out parental infidelities. She once dragged him to his father’s house. Following her lead, he ran from closet to closet, up and down stairs, trying to catch the scent of “the other woman” and hunt her down.

Shiva Rea

2007-02-07T12:19:00.000-08:00

Blond and bronzed, one of her dreams is to wend her way to the centre of a giant field of sunflowers at dawn. There, along with the other faithful followers, her head will swivel slowly, slowly from east to west, tracking the path of her sungod.

Janet

2007-02-06T09:16:00.000-08:00

In Asia, Janet thought she should be given a 10-minute headstart on meals. Vas and Jenny had brought travel-forks, while I had invented the “chopstick diet” as a teenager to slow my gluttony (instead, I became a chopstick maven while my waist-and-other lines continued to expand).

Tom

2007-02-02T12:04:00.000-08:00

So many details have disappeared, but I do remember that evening--making our way back along the road at dusk, the insects finally quieted and the stillness almost eerie. You pulled out your harmonica and played the blues, as everything was drawn into the dark.

Alex

2007-01-31T09:44:00.000-08:00

Alex probably aced the “pacify-the-pugilist” exam for call centre employees. I’m sure he’s thinking “what a bitch” as I start throwing jabs about the Everestian incompetence of their billing department, but his voice never loses its soothing tone and my anger, lacking a sparring partner, concedes defeat.

The magnificent seven

2007-01-29T11:19:00.000-08:00

The party slowly separates into audience and performers. Using mandolin, guitars, harmonica, didgeridoo, jembe, they play John Prine, Fred Eaglesmith, Neil Young. The local librarian’s voice alone would cause countless banditos to renounce violence. A small group still remains at 3 am, marveling at this undiscovered talent.

Prince Charmings

2007-01-25T09:54:00.000-08:00

Five Prince Charmings, but they don’t recycle. With 9 bags of garbage – only 2 of which will be picked up – at night they distribute the remaining 7 amongst their neighbours. I wish someone’s kiss would turn them back into frogs; at least they’d be more green.

Alistair

2007-01-24T10:20:00.000-08:00

Wearing white shirt and gray pants, he pretended to be a pilot. He was only 19 but they were young too, so he had a high success rate. Maybe it’s not so unrealistic: if the policeman the other day had been driving his own car, the cops would probably have stopped him for being underage.

Alicia

2007-01-23T09:26:00.000-08:00

Dr. King is describing a research study. Alicia forcefully declares “That’s b.s.”. Dr. King looks taken aback, asks her why she thinks what he’s saying is b.s.
Afterwards we realize that she was actually pointing out an example of epidemiological bias in her lovely Spanish accent.

Deloney

2007-01-22T07:09:00.000-08:00

They're clucking over him anxiously, and hopefully they'll persuade him to describe that encounter with the double-edged sword of Tequila/Tallulah; predictably it went straight for the jugular, but nicked his larynx instead, severing all speech. But I’m hoping the pen will prove mightier than the sword…

John

2007-01-19T04:14:00.000-08:00

John--who has recently moved to the area--tends to lurk around places where children congregate, mingling with and chatting up the little kids. He’s not some sort of deviant; he’s trying to set up his two year old daughter with some nice boys and girls.

Jay

2007-01-18T11:56:00.000-08:00

Jay regrets having eaten dinner, saying that it impacted negatively on his meditation. He’d be happy not eating after noon. I’m more with Virginia Woolf on this one: “One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, (or meditate well) if one has not dined well. “

Nude hiker

2007-01-16T04:36:00.000-08:00

Picture a man approaching you on the trail who is wearing nothing but knee socks and hiking boots… I have nothing against male nudity, but I feel it should be an all or nothing undertaking. Would David with socks still be a masterpiece, or campy sculpture?

Lloyd

2007-01-15T12:20:00.000-08:00

A piece on the CBC about cluttering up your desk with inactive bananas got me thinking about Lloyd, who, living room filled with newspapers, could have used a militant declutterer. He invited us to sit down. But where? Atop a leaning tower of The Auckland Times?

Confused woman with a yeast infection

2007-01-11T10:01:00.000-08:00

The woman starts describing her yeast infection. This is somewhat confusing, as I dispense stamps, not medical advice. (I should have asked “Would you like it mailed somewhere ma’am?”) I finally realize that she thinks I’m the nurse, who works out of the adjacent office.

Jim

2007-01-09T12:18:00.000-08:00

When asked by the Cardinal why he converted to Catholicism, Jim upholds the eighth commandment: “to increase my chances of getting a job.” Apparently, Catholic school boards in Ontario can reject non-Catholic applicants for teaching positions. Maybe this isn’t a sin, but doesn’t it violate the Constitution?

Janet, Tami and Me

2007-01-07T16:18:00.000-08:00

I found some old tapes the other night - Pat Benatar’s Painted Desert, Cold Chisel’s Flame Trees – and I’m transported back 20 years to part of our Dreamtime, the three of us racing through the Australian outback, our futures as vast as the lands surrounding Uluru.

Age(less?)

2007-01-04T13:00:00.000-08:00

They’re the same chronological age, but she’s so much older. She pores over her accounts and frets about the state of the cats’ litterboxes; he takes off for 6 months at a time, backpacks and stays in youth hostels, or if they’re full, sleeps under bridges.

The Grinch

2006-12-24T08:29:00.000-08:00

The grinch stole my heart years ago, which is probably how he managed to triple the size of his. Like the Abominable Snowman, he started off naughty and ended up nice. Which probably meant, according to some, he finished last. Cindy Lou Who begs to differ.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!

Chinese money changers

2006-12-15T12:18:00.000-08:00

They’re the uzis of the knitting world, middle-aged women strolling down the street, rapid-firing out row after row. I first think it’s a sort of mobile sweatshop system, but they’re actually money changers. They probably unravel their covers every night, start over again the following morning.

Nina

2006-12-13T04:35:00.000-08:00

Nina orders knees online from Arizona. When that source dries up, she finds a place in Ottawa that has them–but no information on who the knees once belonged to. She may soon have to resort to grave-robbing to procure body parts for her imaging studies.

The Athenian Masturbator

2006-12-12T05:11:00.000-08:00

He stands in the bushes, adjacent to the spot on the path where the Parthenon tours end, climaxing simultaneously with the group’s applause for their guide. He doesn’t take a bow, but appears pleased with his performance and the audience’s unknowing acknowledgment of such.

Biff

2006-12-05T04:56:00.000-08:00

It’s been said that people’s destinies are shaped by their names: e.g. people would probably be more likely to buy perfume from Jasmine than to have her do their taxes, etc. I can only imagine the hurdles Biff must have overcome to become a yoga teacher.

BC Home Growns

2006-11-28T12:38:00.000-08:00

BC home-growns are trippy. Guy attending UBC who lives in tree stump. Woman who annually retreats for 5 days to circle on mountain. Digs a toilet pit inside circle, but rarely uses it because she doesn’t eat or drink. Homeless guy who refuses sushi: he’s vegetarian.

Linda

2006-11-28T08:49:00.000-08:00

He e-diaried her demise--images of a face growing rounder and head balder--until she was unrecognizable. I was afraid to open his last attachment, fearing the face of death, but the image that lit-up the screen was the pre-cancer Linda we all wished to remember.

Randy

2006-11-20T10:59:00.000-08:00

I can’t remember his name so I’ll call him Randy, as this pretty much sums him up. Exploiting the fact that he was director of a phys ed school he adopted a minuscule speedo as his work outfit. I don’t think he ever used the pool.

Harriet

2006-11-17T08:47:00.000-08:00

A few glasses and Harriet’s uncorked. Stories bubble out of her, and soon we’re all toasting life’s zaniness. She’s the kind of effervescent spirit we all need in our lives, to remind us that amidst all the gloom and doom there is still room for laughter.

Derrick and Melanie

2006-11-13T11:59:00.000-08:00

They spent their first five years sailing from one life to another. What a great start to their stories; with sightlines unrestricted by buildings, hedges, convention, they must know that there are infinite horizons to head for, that they can choose to go anywhere, do anything.

The Happy Chef

2006-11-09T12:22:00.000-08:00

The insurance company asks if my mother is running a grow-op out of her house. What!? My mother!? On the other hand, maybe the idea is not so far-fetched: perhaps she has become the happy chef, joyfully garnishing her Campbell’s soup based meals with marijuana.

Vincent Lam (who I don't know, but wish I did, for I'd like him to teach me some time-management skills)

2006-11-08T12:58:00.000-08:00

It sounds like a good plot for a short story: ER doctor working on cruise ship in Arctic meets Margaret Atwood on board. He asks her to read his short stories, she does, and yesterday he wins the Giller Prize for fiction. Not The End.

Kim

2006-11-03T13:02:00.000-08:00

She greets him at the door, clothed only in Saran wrap. When that fails, she dispenses with any draping, sashays back and forth. He asks her what she’s doing. She knows the date their son was conceived. She’s sure of it-- they’ve only had sex once.

Belinda

2006-11-02T08:44:00.000-08:00

We’ve been friends for a year when she asks if I’ve ever considered dating women. I respond, less directly but equally clearly, that I am not interested. Lately another car snuggles up to hers in the driveway some mornings, and our friendship lumbers out of hibernation.

Tim

2006-11-01T12:55:00.000-08:00

Tim goes the distance for love: to Brazil, where an Ayahuasca-induced trance “teaches him to walk again, to swim like a jaguar and to leave hell by his own devices.” I’m unsure whether these skills will lead to a successful relationship, but they do sound useful.

Joy

2006-10-31T10:52:00.000-08:00

Perhaps in retaliation for all those years her mother dragooned her into meeting so-and-so, who was sure to be her soulmate (or her mother’s idea of her soulmate, i.e. anyone who could claim Chinese heritage), Joy married a New York tango dancer 35 years her senior.

Caroline

2006-10-27T11:58:00.000-07:00

“You’re not having contractions.” He rolls over, goes back to sleep. When she screams that she has to get to the hospital, he decides to humour her. The obstetrician mysteriously waves his hand over her abdomen, pronounces her not in labour. She gives birth shortly thereafter.

Janine/Heather

2006-10-26T12:24:00.000-07:00

They held her up, and, blood pressure plummeting, Heather remembers thinking what a beautiful baby Janine was, and wondering whether she would live long enough to be able to hold her. The doctors finally managed to dislodge the recalcitrant placenta, and mother and baby were reunited.

Nickie

2006-10-24T12:58:00.000-07:00

It wasn’t love at first sight. Her first thought, lasting 36 hours, was that he resembled a skinned rabbit, and she felt contemptuous of his feeble attempts to locate her nipple. Only later did the maternal instinct kick in, but once established there was no evicting it.

Les

2006-10-19T10:19:00.000-07:00

Even Les’ wife says what a strange bird he is, but like a penguin, his oddities are endearing. I can’t even define what makes him odd, except that he’s an unlikely mix of politically conservative long-haired surfer-type musician who’s an expert on the Canadian shield.

Janice

2006-10-17T10:59:00.000-07:00

Janice remembers walking along the pink beach, legs and feet obscured by the life blossoming inside her, thinking her life was perfect. Her husband eventually yanked off her rose-tinted glasses and threw them to the ground, where they were crushed under his lover’s stiletto heels.

Carolyn

2006-10-13T12:01:00.000-07:00

The problem, Carolyn says, is that she is an all-season weekend hibernator, and may be missing out on life. Her sister worries about never seeing Carolyn after she retires, fearing that she will leave her burrow only to go to the grocery and liquor store.

Spencer

2006-10-11T12:59:00.000-07:00

He’s short, and has hair and eyebrows that have gone berserk. I don’t know how he hits the right notes when he plays – he reminds me of an over-caffeinated muppet as he swings his head wildly, fingers pounding the keyboard – but he always does.

My father's mother

2006-10-05T11:44:00.000-07:00

She addressed my grandfather as “Father”, which I found weird. And since he was diabetic, she would serve tasteless biscuits—even to us non-diabetics--for dessert. I’m sure there was so much more to my grandmother, but these are the things I remember most about her.

Pilates instructor

2006-10-04T11:48:00.000-07:00

Subjecting us to physical agony isn’t enough -- the pilates instructor adds shards of quasi-wisdom: “Time passes more and more quickly the older we get, but that’s good, because we lose our independence and sicken as we age, so it’s better that death comes faster.”

Janet

2006-10-03T11:52:00.000-07:00

Her highly developed sense of smell would have served her well as a master perfumist, but detracted from her travels in Southeast Asia. Molecules from the open sewers would send her olfactory receptors into ecstatic quivers, her brain responding with a less than enthusiastic “oh shit”.

Jane

2006-09-29T11:48:00.000-07:00

Interior decorator was an interesting career choice for Jane. Believing her living room wall demanded a rectangular shape with the long edge on the horizontal, she hung a painting sideways, so that the matador appeared to be fighting an imaginary bull on the ceiling.

An artist friend

2006-09-29T09:24:00.000-07:00

I’m glad she speaks in a more down-to-earth manner than she writes: “An aesthetically charged musing on habitation where childhood ideals of fluid, fulsome domesticity are translated into the virtual realm, a seductive dystopia of fleeting presences processed in accordance with unrelenting and incomprehensible rules.”

Tasha

2006-09-22T11:23:00.000-07:00

Dave, an Australian Adonis, saw her silhouetted against a Balinese sunset and declared her the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Their travels ended in the blazing mystery of an African dusk. Leonard was the chosen one in the debate over practicality versus poetry.

Sheila

2006-09-21T10:34:00.000-07:00

My cousin Sheila hoards family heirlooms, making her either a sentimentalist or very business savvy. Four large buffets make navigating the house a challenge. Banging her shin for the umpteenth time, Sheila’s mother screams in frustration: “Why can’t you collect something less intrusive, like stamps?”

Uncle Bob

2006-09-18T09:48:00.000-07:00

Uncle Bob is not one to forgive and forget. Twenty some-odd years ago, while in Oaxaca, he got food poisoning. When I visited him in Arizona last year he ignored my pleas and whizzed by all the Mexican restaurants, making a beeline for Denny’s instead.

Ralph and his short shorts

2006-09-15T12:08:00.000-07:00

The answer to “Who wears short shorts?” is a resounding “Ralph!” I’m not sure I would have enjoyed the sight even if Ralph had been, say, Liam Neeson. The shorts were too short, too white, too tight, too obscene. Craig’s socks were far more alluring.

My mom's mother (well, actually my mom's mother's pantry)

2006-09-14T13:02:00.000-07:00

I loved those long-ago summers when we visited my grandmother’s place. Closeted in her walk-in pantry, almost the size of a small bedroom and smelling of wood and cookies, I explored shelves full of preserves and other goods that appeared so exotic to suburban eyes.

Craig

2006-09-11T15:53:00.000-07:00

Viewed from eye level he dresses rather conservatively, until one’s eyes hone in (this doesn’t take very long) on pink, purple or yellow knee sock(it to me baby)s. Perhaps he imagines these give him a reproductive advantage, similar to the bright plumage of birds.

Bethany

2006-09-07T13:29:00.000-07:00

Bethany attended a self-esteem workshop, where everyone had to disrobe, walk over to someone, and say what part of that person’s body they found unattractive. My self-esteem would crumple under this therapy, but Bethany said hearing that her stomach resembled a swollen watermelon really helped.

Why didn't I become a vet?

2006-09-06T09:31:00.000-07:00

For 2 years I’ve been lugging my cat to the vet for the same problem. Each time the “consultation” involves me reminding the vet of the cat’s medical history. He then suggests more tests, and charges me $80. He probably owns a villa in Tuscany.

Paula

2006-08-25T10:55:00.000-07:00

She asked my mother if she could have some of my dad’s remains. When my mother refused, she inquired of her brother, a veterinarian, if any dogs had died recently and been cremated. This is an unanticipated complication of bigamy: both wives wanting your ashes.

Wanda

2006-08-25T10:54:00.000-07:00

Whoever wallpapered the bathroom left a message for Wanda underneath. I can’t make out the punctuation mark at the end, so the message is ambiguous. Was the motivation anger (Fuck you Wanda!) or a somewhat unromantic but straightforward invitation to sensual delights (Fuck you Wanda?)?

A hippie friend

2006-08-23T13:07:00.000-07:00

Living off the land sounded so romantic, although the basement became a landfill, the births of your children were permanently etched in blood on the mattress, and Canadian winters necessitated participation in the cash economy to avoid dining on turnips for much of the year.

Tim

2006-08-22T13:22:00.000-07:00

Was it the rocking, the anticipation of destinations unknown, or the train-going-through-the-tunnel imagery that created the romance? You said you would marry me in an instant if we could spend our lives on a train, but we kept coming to the end of the line.

Katrina

2006-08-21T13:48:00.000-07:00

Katrina doesn’t merely nurse a grudge, she hooks it up to life support in the ICU. When she rants and raves about settling the score one is appalled yet entertained by a plot that resembles a Coen Brothers remake of The Godfather.

Smugglers infiltrate the cross-border shopping crowd

2006-08-11T12:18:00.000-07:00

I’m in one of the stalls, an earwitness to smugglers describing their latest exploit. One woman returned on a bus wearing 3 bras, 5 sweaters, and a pair of designer jeans underneath sweatpants, ready to plead eccentricity should a border guard challenge her fashion sense.

Lenny (65/261)

2006-06-13T15:05:00.000-07:00

They nicknamed Lenny “Lump”, and at lunchtime would play a game called “Stump the Lump”. Would you expect anything different from a group of men who play bum darts at weddings and baby showers? Fortunately Lenny was no lump at this game, having extraordinary bull’s-eye-to-bull’s-eye marksmanship.

A family in Kinshasa (64/261)

2006-06-12T10:23:00.000-07:00

A man and 4 children live in 1 room. His wife died in childbirth. His 8-year-old daughter has to look after the kids. One son is disabled, and the family is being evicted because people think he’s possessed by evil spirits. Let’s kill some cultural traditions.

Mr. Nero (63/261)

2006-06-09T12:48:00.000-07:00

Mr. Nero transplanted the family farm to suburbia, where he brewed a vintage dandelion wine and raised rabbits- which I naively assumed were pets-in his garage. That assumption died at the same time one of the rabbits did, when Mr. Nero slit its throat.

Bierta (62/261)

2006-06-06T12:41:00.000-07:00

He jumped from behind the bathroom door and grabbed Bierta’s ample bosom. She shouted the first word women learn in Japan: “chikan”. The station attendants caught the perpetrator, forcing him to bow in apology. He did, but the giant grin on his face signaled unrepentance.

John (61/261)

2006-05-30T10:31:00.000-07:00

John goes to Sears’ portrait studio every month and has the staff indulge in some creative photography. His latest portrait, inspired by Anne Geddes, shows John’s face peering from the centre of a white lily, while the rest of him squats among the lily pads.

Victims of a dating service run by a women with an odd sense of humour, or a brain tumour (60/261)

2006-05-25T13:37:00.000-07:00

Flat-chested dark-haired Mary answered the door. The man took one look, said “uh-uh”, and walked away. Mary ran after him, demanding an explanation. He had requested a buxom blonde. The previous week Mary, expecting a non-denominational Anglo-Saxon, had been set up with an East Indian Muslim.

Marion (59/261)

2006-05-24T13:52:00.000-07:00

In the antique store Marion was trying on a Russian looking hat, admiring the way it brought out her Slavic cheekbones. The shopkeeper, meanwhile, appeared to have inhaled some nitrous oxide. She wondered why, until she looked down and noticed the “Ukranian tea cozies” sign.

Ok (58/261)

2006-05-15T13:38:00.000-07:00

Ok’s mother died when she was 14, leaving her to care for 3 younger siblings and an abusive father. Despite this less-than-fertile environment, Ok created a bountiful life for herself. Her name is self-prophesying; no matter what happens, I know she’ll always be OK.

Brenda (57/261)

2006-05-12T13:05:00.000-07:00

Brenda’s physics doppelganger is the atom: she’s tiny and normally goes about her business quietly but efficiently, yet she also contains the potential to produce an energetic explosion of unprecedented magnitude. Fortunately it gets harnessed for good causes, like staging elaborate weekend retreats for friends.

Various people who have been cured in strange ways (56/261)

2006-05-09T13:21:00.001-07:00

They used to cure syphilis with malaria. Chris’ allergies vanished after open-heart surgery. Heather’s sister’s stinky feet were transformed into heavenly smelling soles after she gave birth. Pregnancy also cured Moira’s pernicious petiteness. Move over Lourdes: religion doesn’t have a monopoly on inexplicable cures.

Arwin (55/261)

2006-05-09T13:21:00.000-07:00

Arwin makes her daily rounds to visit the neighbourhood cats. This morning she is pulling a wagon behind her, which has been transformed into a garden gnome’s chariot. She introduces him to the cats, but they find him a bit too standoffish for their liking.

Janet (54/261)

2006-05-09T13:20:00.000-07:00

Janet has to take self-defense lessons before starting work at the library. “Why? Do people get violent when a book they’ve borrowed is overdue?” Apparently they do; one man, when told he owed a fine, jumped over the counter and tried to kill the messenger.

The Neighbour's Sex Trailer (53/261)

2006-05-05T09:52:00.000-07:00

At 3 am the sounds of “I can’t get no satisfaction” and giggling would waft from the neighbour’s overpopulated sex trailer. I constantly complained about lack of sleep, but the day the sex trailer was towed away I mourned the loss of a neighbourhood landmark.

Cousin (52/261)

2006-05-03T09:37:00.000-07:00

I remember
your long beautiful hair
I would have killed for –
a brown velvet curtain
drawn, blocking visions
of other lovers dying to run
their fingers through that hair;
then parted, too late
to save your family from
a half-life-or-death decision
that ended in so much
dying.

Terry (51/261)

2006-05-03T09:34:00.000-07:00

We always said your theme song should have been “You’re so lucky.” But then your DNA staged a coup and overthrew your luck. You accepted defeat with grace, and I wonder now if it was that grace that lent the appearance of a charmed life.

All's well that ends well: Part 2 (50/261)

2006-05-03T09:28:00.000-07:00

Bill once told me that Alice was his soulmate, a temporary designation. When they moved to California he launched a new career and an affair, while his marriage crashed and burned. Alicia eventually exchanged vows with her new soulmate, while the Pacific roared its approval.

All's well that ends well: Part 1 (49/261)

2006-05-03T09:16:00.000-07:00

He stood on the doorstep. “Can you believe this?!” he exclaimed. “Believe what?” That was when Mike realized that Wanda didn’t know that her husband was having an affair with Mike’s wife. With so much in common, Mike and Wanda are now happily married.

Janice (48/261)

2006-04-27T13:17:00.000-07:00

With her soothing voice and endlessly calm demeanour, Janice is the ideal yoga teacher. She’s also the person who I want sitting next to me if I’m ever in a plane that is about to crash, or a giant asteroid is hurtling towards the earth.

Mona (47/261)

2006-04-26T12:08:00.000-07:00

Mona’s art seems happier than she is. Her pieces are full of children cartwheeling through sunny skies, whereas Mona often appears to be struggling with a complex grief. This is perplexing, given that her outward circumstances also appear to be turning cartwheels through sunny skies.

Carolyn (46/261)

2006-04-24T12:47:00.000-07:00

She’s a crochety old hippie of the activist (versus the “hey man” giggling) sort, rambling around the country in her Volkswagon van, yelling at those indulging in too much free love; not because of any sexual inhibitions, but because of its potential contribution to overpopulation.

Alice (45/261)

2006-04-13T06:27:00.001-07:00

Alice’s art schooling was funded by a nun, whose vow of poverty precluded her from retaining a sizeable inheritance. The driver who picked her up at the side of the road contributed to the costs of her massage training*. Alice is also generous to perfection.

* (Here I go with the footnotes too...) NO, this is not what you’re thinking!

Jan (44/261)

2006-04-13T06:27:00.000-07:00

Glamour swirls around Jan’s life. Studious until the hour of 11 pm, she then shelves the books, and dons her second wind and a pair of glass slippers that numerous Prince Charmings have fitted to her feet. The ball lasts until 2 or 3 am.

Wilma (43/261)

2006-04-13T06:25:00.000-07:00

Wilma, like her brother Dan, also skips the crawling stage in most undertakings. Her latest venture involved stopping the slaughter of 122 deer, arranging short-term room and board, corralling them for TB testing, and transporting them to a bucolic retirement home on a nature reserve.

The face of poverty (42/261)

2006-04-12T13:56:00.000-07:00

So many oozed desperation that we didn’t see you. Instead, we discussed the foreign aid that transmogrified into a fleet of private jets for the king, and agreed that enormous social change was needed. I’m sure you would have been grateful for a band-aid though.

Richard (41/261)

2006-04-11T09:56:00.000-07:00

Saviours don’t seem to have much balance in their lives. Did Gandhi read Dr. Suess to his kids? Does Mother Teresa ever go to the movies? Richard dispenses remedies to alleviate depression, pain, migraines, other societal ills; does he have one for workaholism, I wonder?

Sharon (40/261)

2006-04-07T08:35:00.000-07:00

She’s a steamroller covered in marshmallows. At the last meeting she smiled, joked, waved away personal health information from the agenda as if it were an irritating fly, set a new trajectory for the project and decided that the impossible August 31 deadline was nonnegotiable.

Dan (39/261)

2006-04-07T07:24:00.000-07:00

Dan doesn’t believe in mild-mannered half-measures. He paid off his mortgage in 8 years by becoming a shivering hermit, foregoing the pleasures of heat and entertainment. When his boat capsized he swam to the nearest island and torched someone’s cottage, creating a gigantic smoke signal.

The Other Woman, who I finally get to meet 10 years later (38/261)

2006-04-04T11:51:00.000-07:00

She’s warm, appreciative, likeable. During the massage, she mentions that she trained as a nurse, used to live in Peterborough and studied epidemiology. WAIT A MINUTE... wasn’t the woman Lorne dumped me for 10 years ago a nurse living in Peterborough, with an epi degree?

Tony (37/261)

2006-03-31T09:44:00.000-08:00

I’m having a bad hair day. Tony is having a bad all-round day. “That bloody lawyer! Charging me $20,000 for nothing!” he bellows, brandishing the scissors over my head. I try to make my hair look as nonconfrontational as possible, afraid of a stylish homicide.

Patricia (36/261)

2006-03-31T09:32:00.000-08:00

She was insulted when I said that she looked like a cross between Audrey Hepburn and Rowan Atkinson. An unlikely and unpedigreed breed to be sure, but one that resulted in a very beautiful (the Audrey gene) and very expressive (the Rowan gene) funny face.

Joe (35/261)

2006-03-30T09:21:00.000-08:00

Joe persuaded even the most disparate of workers to unite. He eavesdropped on phone conversations, bellowing at the unfortunate sod who stumbled over the script. Repeat offenders were brought before a firing squad that issued the parting shot: “it’s about time that you fucked off.”

The Fuck Family (34/261)

2006-03-29T13:35:00.000-08:00

My neighbours the Fuck Family were spartan yet creative linguists, using the same word to express each of the eight major parts of speech: noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction and interjection. They even managed to employ it as an occasional term of endearment.

Alan (33/261)

2006-03-28T13:31:00.000-08:00

He preferred the end of the movie, where Harry and Sally sealed their friendship with a kiss. I liked the middle, where Harry and Sally were friends without any gonadal interference. We ended at the beginning, where Harry decided men and women can’t be friends.

Paige (32/261)

2006-03-24T12:54:00.000-08:00

Mystery #1: Did her hair go to obedience school? It heeled perfectly, even through gym class. Mystery #2: How many pieces of clothing did she own? She wore the same outfit EVERY day. Mystery #3: How could someone so predictable be so full of mystery?

Benjamin (31/261)

2006-03-24T12:08:00.000-08:00

If I had had a son, I would have wanted him to be just like Benjamin. Three months after the family dog died, he cried all night when his mother suggested they get a new one. His love was way, way beyond the puppy stage.

Mikey (30/261)

2006-03-23T10:28:00.000-08:00

One needs a finely tuned ear to distinguish a cry for help from a cry for attention, and the demands of your baby sister probably rendered your parents tone deaf. I wonder if they have ever shed their double breasted cloaks of guilt and grief?

Guy who always falls asleep at the end of yoga class (29/261)

2006-03-23T08:14:00.000-08:00

Limbs stretch to infinity, skin slides away, bones dissolve. I sink into bliss. Suddenly, across the room, a crescendo of pigs unearths the mother lode of truffles. Suffused with venom I slither back to my body, vowing eternal damnation on the snorers of this world.

Thekchen (28/261)

2006-03-21T09:53:00.000-08:00

They perched high on a cliff, sipping rum and watching the fiery remains of the day. A steel band serenaded sun, sea and seers. “Aah, paradise” sighed his mother. “You can’t eat it” remarked his father. Only their Buddhist son remained equanimous in the aftermath.

Cameron (27/261)

2006-03-21T09:42:00.000-08:00

Like Forsyth and Parkhurst Whitney, who sent a buffalo, 2 raccoons, 2 bears, a dog and a goose over Niagara Falls in a schooner in 1827, Cameron tortured animals as a form of entertainment. May his soul be wrested to pieces by an avenging pitbull.