Shortbus and other bits

So, yes, we finally went last night to see Shortbus. A lot of the momentum has dissipated around it - it clings resolutely to the lineup of a lone theatre - but we both really felt we wanted to support it, not only for John C. Mitchell's sake, but also for the queer cause. My capsule review: "Less fun than Caligula." Yes, I was disappointed, but really could it have gone any other way? My expectation was huge after Hedwig, and this project has been germinating so long already in my awareness, that it was sort of doomed from the opening credits. However, having said that, I do think it was more than a failure of expectation. In a small part, I do think a few of the performances harmed it - it is clear that not everyone is trained to act, and it should be said that I don't fundamentally doubt the ability of untrained actors to perform well, because there were to be fair some very good performances from actors who were very likely here enjoying their debuts. But I think the bigger issue was the script, or at least the process that engendered it. Improvisation can be wonderful for a film (Mike Leigh anyone?), but it needs a firm hand, and I wonder how easy it would be to exert such control while also trying to create an environment of sexual liberty. Whateva...I'm no expert, I just know that it reeked of improv, and worse still, beginners improv workshop. The best scenes were definitely those that had nowhere to go, I mean no beats to hit, revelations to arrive at, and there were some really lovely ones - but in so many scenes the mechanics of story advancement or character exposition were downright clumsy. The question is: am I a prude? Not a sexual one, because the sex scenes were wonderfully unremarkable, peripheral to the people, as I think was JCM's intention, but a formalistic prude, requiring a certain cleanliness of intention, delivery, structure. Maybe JCM wanted to dispense with all that, in which case I'm the closed-minded fuddy-duddy. T loved it, found it daring and moving and clear - but I think he puts little stock in formalism, lets himself enter without appraising the building first. Anyway, blah blah...I'm sure you couldn't wait to hear my thoughts on the topic, well you can all relax now. Oh yes, one last thing: as I said, none of the sexual activity, including auto-fellatio, orgies and rim-jobs made me in the least uncomfortable; the finale, however, a bizarre cabaret number delivered with peculiar earnestness by a sort of MC proxy, capped off by a brass band and a sing-along, made me squirm with embarrassment and long for an act of coitus to avert my eyes to.

Other bits, or bit, I suppose: Made contact, sort of impetuously, with an old classmate whom I barely remember. Found his name online and had a vague recollection of our having been friends in my last two years of high school. This recollection is troubled by another of our having been openly hostile to one another at an earlier time. Not entirely sure which impression is the greater in his memory. Anyway, he wrote back very briefly, citing a pressing appointment and making a promise to write in greater detail at another time. What exactly is the point of reviving high school contacts, expecially in cases where the contact is only vaguely remembered? It's not as if any conscious affection exists. The point seems fairly clear: Time Regained. Taking stock of the past 18 years of my life in the hope of finding some sense of purpose, validation hidden in it.

One of the loveliest moments in Shortbus: an ex-hustler, now suicidal artist, sits in a closet and confesses tearfully to a dominatrix that when he now reads what he wrote aged 12, he finds he is still striving for exactly the same things all these years later.

Bloogle?

Imagining I would be ahead of the curve for once, I foolishly migrated my blog to the new Blogger Beta managed, it appears, by Google - despite the rather ominous warning during the migration that once performed, it could never be reversed - and now my blog is not recognizing some of my most faithful readers. DemonDoll, for some reason, is dismissed as "Anonymous" in all her comments! What have I done? Has anyone else trod this same wanton path? Will life ever be the same again??

A moment from my mouth

For your enjoyment - and perhaps also to serve as warning to those of you guilty of tooth-neglect - a snapshot from my recent tryst at the dentiste's, taken midway through the procedure:
Allow me to point out some of the more delightful features:

• The gently snaking hand of the dental clamp, ensuring that my tooth did not shatter during surgery;
• The flexible steel spikes - although only three are visible, there were in fact four - each inserted all the way down into one carefully hollowed-out canal of my root; and
• My favourite, the sort of fluid elegance of the adjacent tooth's root, curling back, recoiling as it were in horror.
• Not pictured: a blue rubber dental dam, stretched and pinned across my mouth, and perforated to allow access to the one offending tooth. I have to say after my first experience with a dental dam, they seem like a very inexact form of protection - don't you agree that lesbians deserve some improved technology after all these years?
  

Enough local anaesthetic flowed to fell a herd of after-Thanksgiving shoppers. My jaw still hurts today, two and a half days later, from being propped open for two hours. They did not, to answer DemonDoll, provide any of the lovely pills one comes to expect as reward for enduring such torment. Tylenol 3 with codeine was the best on offer (and indeed, would appear to be the wildest that most Canadians dream of - the sweet soothing waves of vicodin have yet to wash these shores), so I opted to stick with our impressive stash of leftovers at home: the one benefit in T's chronic back-woes.

Wednesday will see the completion of this phase of the ordeal: a permanent filling - although, a crown will ultimately have to go over the whole mess, but not until I've saved for it. In the meantime, soups, puddings and purees and no teeth-clenching activities...well, almost none.

Oh, yes, this puts me in mind of one final detail, the most unexpected and perhaps also the most mortifying. After my procedure, T came to fetch me (which was awfully nice of him, though the aftermath was thankfully nowhere near as traumatic as the last time), and we left at around 12:30 pm, as many of the employees were leaving for lunch. The office is located in the gay village area, and as we were walking towards the subway station, a dental employee, an amiable young man who had had, on a previous visit, commerce with my mouth, suddenly overtook us, walking swiftly and with purpose in his eye. He did not notice me, or if he did, did not acknowledge. A few feet ahead of us, he turned down an alleyway - not just any alleyway, but a rather notorious one, as it contains the entrance to one of the city's most popular "gentleman's clubs", and sure enough, as we passed the alleyway, we saw him go right in. It took awhile for this to sink in; I wasn't sure if I had in fact seen it, but T confirms its truth. Am I a prude, or is it rather horrifying to discover that one's dental professional has a thing for lunch-time raunch? Of course, he uses gloves in his work, so really what's the harm? And yet, I am suddenly not looking forward to my next visit.

Radix malorum

One of my teeth is dying, and its death-throes are putting me through hell. It began on Sunday (or so): a low aching in the jawbone that came and went in half-hour waves. It wasn't anything significant then, a minor annoyance, like the occasional nerve-twinges I suffer from (doesn't everyone?) but which go away after a few days. In this case, it did not go away. It has become a walloping pulsing crimson ball of agony. Until this morning, vicodin was keeping me human; I have since either developed an immunity, or the pain is seated at too deep a level for anything short of morphine to affect it. My dentist - she of the exquisite bones and strangely detached bedside manner - saw me on an emergency appointment yesterday. The verdict: root canal, pronto. She scheduled me for next Friday; I called this morning and apparently sounded close enough to an act of homicide to justify bumping me up to tomorrow. At 10:15 in the morning, she will drill into my tooth and scrape away all the dying roots and pulp that make my tooth a living thing, leaving behind little more than a skull. It will look like all the other teeth around it, with one exception: it will be empty, it will be dead.

I've had a root canal before - trust me, my dramatics are anything but amateur. The last one, administered in Glendale, California by a star graduate of the Josef Goebbels school of schadenfreude, left me literally screaming at the wheel of my car to offset the pain. Ten minutes later I was picking painkillers up off the carpet in a scene worthy of Neely O'Hara.

You'd think, with that as a template, I would be terrified about tomorrrow: I'm not. I'm quite excited. The thought of that needle slicing into my gum and delivering sweet numb oblivion is positively dreamy. Any fear is also mitigated somewhat by my sheer seething fury at the cost that this brief jaunt in the dentist's chair will incur to me. Thanks to my employer's sterling health benefits - yes, the ones that are supposed to justify and offset the sub-standard salaries we command - I will be paying for 50% of this debacle: $475, boys and girls. And that's not counting the crown that will eventually have to be applied. I could embark now on a rant about the futility of a middle-class existence, the endless cycle of reversals, the hateful, gall-churning toil of staying afloat, I could curse and wail with stirring rage - but I won't. My ibuprofen levels are dangerously high, and I suspect I would just return sober in a day or two and delete it all.

Shaken and stirred

Suddenly I care deeply about the franchise...

Signs of life

OK. This hasn't been my longest absence. I checked. Once, in August, I didn't post for thirteen days. Although, I suspect that won't stay the record forever. I get busy (imagine whining, overly-defensive tone, please)...writing even a paragraph sometimes seems like more than I can manage. Then there's the issue of content-judgement: Do I really have anything interesting to say? I think back to recent events, and nothing seems particularly blog-worthy, but you be the judge. What follows is an unordered list of items as they occur to me:

• Had psychiatric assessment at Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, shit you not. Long story: really just looking for a therapist, but the system dictates that one has to be assessed in this way in order to access free services. Seemed a little extreme to me, but WTF? As I suspected, I did not make the cut: not addicted (not dangerously, anyway) and not clinically unstable (not such that merits medication, that is). Actually, that ended up being the substance of his assessment: to prescribe or not to prescribe. Sort of creepy.
• Went to the boss' house for dinner last night. Sort of nervous for variety of reasons, but relieved at the last minute to discover T & I were not to be the only guests. I'd gotten it into my head that she was inviting us in order to gently sack me. Absurd, I know, but the inclusion of other guests calmed this fear. T had a workshop, a roll-on-the-floor all-day theatre-games thing, and intended to get home and shower and change before dinner. He did not. He rolled up on his bike in sweats and t-shirt five minutes before dinner. I am trying to choose my crises: I chose this one. But I was wrong. My boss didn't give a shit, and I should have known she wouldn't. Mostly laid-back New Yorker who spent 14 years in Rwanda, so not so big on ceremony. Anyway, it all went fine. Conversation mostly lively, helped up to a point by the flow of wine, and then steadily hindered by same substance. Don't expect the ax anytime soon.
• Attended a potluck for the Daddies and Pappas 2B and the Dykes Planning Tykes. Sort of intimidating being in a roomful of fertile lesbians who know nothing of the reproductive challenges of a male couple. The egg is really so much mightier than the sperm. But it was fun too. Met my first Persian lesbian. I think she wanted to take out a restraining order on me by the end of the evening. I glommed on and wouldn't let go. Didn't realize how much I crave the community of cultural/sexual allies. I like lesbians.
• Ali and Ali, shoesellers, who occupy the store beneath our apartment, are starting to get on my tits. Every weekend I have to go downstairs and ask them to turn down their music. To be fair, I don't think they are even blasting it, but I can hear it and it's right under my drafting table. T's work area is way in the back, so he doesn't hear it as much, and in general he is less of a freak about noise-intrusion than I am. When I ask them, they are always very agreeable about it, but for pity's sake, do we have to go through it every week?? I suspect my misanthropic tendencies are not helping my self-esteem issues much...
• ...so implies my therapist, who's actually my counsellor, not being a qualified therapist at all, but a social worker who is trained to give counselling, or some such nice distinction. He's really quite sweet, and I am finding the work fairly helpful. The only problem is it's a short-term program which I am almost halfway through, and it costs money though not a lot, hence item one above.
  
• Hey, it's 11:11 on 11/11/06!!
• Now it's 11:12...
• Just think when it's 2011! 11:11, 11/11/11!!
• Saw Borat...very funny, but confusing in its mixture of real life and staged life. Well, probably confusing only to me who needs to see the seams in order to appreciate something. There are definitely some moments that are staged and cast with actors who are in on the joke; there are also other moments that are not. I suspect some of the most disturbing are of the latter type. More than once I did not want to laugh, but scream.
• Want to see Death of a President this weekend, as I think its run is wrapping up to make way for new Nicole Kidman flick, Snur, I mean Fur. Heard it's amazing, DOAP not Fur. Fur will not get one of my red Canadian pennies. Nicole Kidman must be stopped and I intend to do my part.
• We're off to Montreal again in two weeks time...Thanksgiving in fact. Don't imagine we'll have too traditional a Thanksgiving experience there, perhaps a poutine fashioned into a turkey leg. Makes me think of Mark's stomach-chrurning tofurkey some years back...
• Should I keep going?
• Prime Suspect this weekend!! DI Jane Tennyson's last installment! I could soil myself with excitement. Sunday night, PBS, although the faithful probably already know that; the rest of you heathens, don't start on series seven, get yourself to a video store and watch series 1 through 6 first.
• OK, that's enough. Apologies for the tedium, but I did warn you.
  

Happy Halloween

Seems sort of sad that a pumpkin is one of my proudest achievements, but here it is...

Pig of my Heart

Behold my beloved's pig. More than a little influenced by our having just enjoyed Helen Mirren as HRH QEII. As for the Jocelyn Wildenstein reference, search me. Please note also the absence of any tail. Let me assure those readers who bemoaned the absence of tail in their own drawings — and I can do this with categorical certainty — that there is little basis to the conclusion drawn...

And now for something completely different

Some comic relief, but not without illuminating somewhat the condition of humanness...

Draw a pig

Mom

Just got off the phone with Mom. Turns out she hadn't read the e-mail yet (see previous post). Conversation went something like this:

V: So, Mom, there's something I want to tell you that I mentioned in the e-mail I sent, something I've wanted to tell for a while.
M: Well, why don't we just leave it and I'll read the e-mail?
V: Well, no, I want to tell you in person.
M: But, aren't you at work? You probably can't talk right now.
V: I'm in my office; I can talk.
M: OK.

Explanation followed along with some reasons as outlined in previous post. Mom's first reaction to the news was:

M: In May??
V: Yes.
M: Can—you can do that?
V: Yes.
M: Well, as long as you are happy.
V: We are, very, and very excited about the possibility of becoming fathers too. And I know that you can't share in our day-to-day lives, but I really want you to know what's happening in them and hopefully be a part that way.
M: Well, what's important is that you are grown up, you're an adult, if you think you are making the right decisions with your life, you are responsible for your own soul (italics mine), and as your mother all I can do is support you.
V: Even if you disagree?
M: Even if I disagree.
V: Thanks.

Her voice had become very quiet and sort of shaky. My sister and her kids were over, so I'm glad she had someone to debrief with (my sister knew, by the way, further tangling this web). I am really grateful to Yatsu and Corn for your advice; I am glad I did this; I feel better about my part. And still there is that feeling of selfish recklessness that comes everytime I come out of a closet (and I've come out of some, closets built, to my amazement, within other closets), that sense not of empowerment and triumph but of having done a little damage by choosing truth over discretion.

Gay Tidings

I am feeling a creeping sort of dread, and I think I must discuss it: Yesterday I told my mother I got married in May. I did this in an e-mail. I didn't really think much of it at the time, but later when I told T about it, his first reaction was not the glowing smile of pride I expected, but the unguarded exclamation, "In an e-mail?!" My hunch that I may have stepped false has steadily grown since then.

This is complicated territory, and I feel I should present background in my defense. My mother is not of the inclination to rejoice at her son getting hitched to another bloke. She may make a strong effort to impersonate prideful maternalism, and I appreciate it, but it is an unconvincing performance. I feel I know the true nature of her feelings. Also, I had my own misgivings about marriage, for entirely different reasons — antiquated, patriarchal institution co-opted by religion and all that — but with help from T, I overcame them. However, it was not a time in which I felt prepared to have to defend our decision. I wanted only joy in return for joyful news. This was all compounded by the fact that the wedding itself was somewhat precipitate, done when it was for practical reasons. T and I agreed then and continue to feel that, while it was our official wedding, the spiritual event had yet to take place within the circle of our family, chosen and biological. Many of you reading this right now were not told till after the fact, and perhaps felt a twinge of resentment for it at the time, but I hope I pleaded our case well and that you understand the distinction we make between official and spiritual nuptials. In many ways, we felt conflicted about expecting people to get all excited twice over the same event (sort of like those people who insist on having multiple birthday parties in the same period and expect the enthusiasm to remain undiminished at each one), and whether rightly or not, I included my mother in this. If I had allowed that her joy may have been genuine and absolute, I still felt like I would have wanted to preserve that first response for the spiritual event, which she might personally attend, rather than have experienced it vicariously through a telephone line. Clever followers of reason will observe that my actions yesterday in informing her by e-mail would give the lie to this foregoing argument. But I didn't say any of this was logical or right, just that it happened and why.

So, why did I tell her now. A few reasons: it's been on my mind a lot. I had a sense of doing more harm by not telling than by telling. A good friend also called me on the possible fear aspects at work in my behaviour, and certainly that would explain the knee-jerk impulsiveness of my actions. And also I wanted to share the news about our adoption hopes, and it felt like an unusual omission to not mention that we were married. Anyway, it's now been 24 hours since I wrote, not long it must be admitted especially where Third World e-mail reliability is involved. But I cannot shake the picture of my mother shuffling broken-hearted about the house in her slippers and not having the strength to write back. As I say, I have a creeping sense of dread that I have behaved with a monstrous lack of filial feeling, and I'm not sure now how to fix it.

Sugar daddies

Last Tuesday saw our first meeting of the "Daddies and Pappas 2B" course. A weekly gathering of queer gentlemen couples occupies a second floor room at the downtown Y and dicusses the ups and downs, pits and falls of parenting. Queer lady couples meet simultaneously downstairs at the "Dykes & Tykes" class, and though T & I were disappointed not to be integrated with these Sapphic moms, we are both looking forward to the cross-class potluck in a few weeks. Our facilitator is a terribly sweet gentleman, not a parent himself but the product of queer parenting, although he has a facilitating voice that I find sometimes overly conscientious. We are joined in class by a pair of air stewards, two elderly couples, one of which has already parented the biological daughter of one of the members, an enormous refrigerator-like and suspiciously straight-behaving bloke whose partner was "busy", and us. Our first class entailed the screening of a video about queer parents in the San Francisco area. I fully expected to see P, that odd but delightful gentleman Yatsu and I know who adopted two feisty infants some years ago...and so I did, but only in a wordless wave-by. One of his sons was dangling off his arm and P was smiling indulgently down at him. There was another chap I recognized in the video, though I couldn't quite place him. Anyway, it was good to see queer men doing what we think we want to do, but it didn't even begin to answer any of the manifold logistical questions T & I have.

It also brought up a difficult issue for me, and one I sense will come up again in this class: socio-economics. I am my parents' child in this: money matters to me. I don't want to have a child if money is an issue. I want the house, I want the volvo, I want to be able to spend time with a child without being beholden to an employer. This is complicated territory for me: I'd like to think I want all these things for my child, but how much is this me wanting these things for myself? How much is this the drag of parenthood? I mean the outfit, the getup, the external trappings? I grew up very much aware of money; we were not poor, but we were far from wealthy, and yet my parents managed somehow - and by it seems to me a conscious effort - to project an image of wealth. We had the big house, the pool, the two cars, we went abroad once a year. We lived in a relatively upscale neighbourhood, and I went to a private school, so my friends were all boys from privileged homes, and by all appearances, I was one of them. The cost of this effort of impersonation was that my parents could often not afford their chosen lifestyle. They spoke constantly between themselves, and in our earshot, of their lack of resources. One of the most peristent messages I received in my childhood was that any day, any moment, the money could stop, completely dry out, and our life, our image would shatter. I lived in mortal fear of any of my friends discovering the truth. Today my relationship with money is seriously fucked up. It is usually my first and last consideration; I feel like money and I are negatively-charged magnets; when I have it, I pretend it's not there. It sits at the heart of so much of my regret. This is not a thing I want to give to a child. I want my child to have a healthy relationship with money, and whether this means having oodles of it or just being in a position to impart understanding and perspective on it. I mean, given all the above, I consider myself a fairly detached person materialistically, but I can only imagine what sort of monster I would be if I received that messaging in 2006 and in a north American context.

The upshot of all of this is the oldest excuse in the parenting book: I want to be ready. And the irrefutable argument is that while we have the freedom to plan our readiness, biology doesn't always wait, and many children have come into unprepared lives, and fared beautifully. We will be ready when we have to be; I have perfect faith in our combined abilities, if not in my individual pathologies. So, when this class is done, in ten weeks, will we be ready to have a child? No, but we are hoping we'll be closer to a decision.

Fall

Today is lovely and warm, one of those atypical fall days that feel like a happy oversight on the part of the weather gods. And yet there is enough of a bite in the air to remind one of where you are, and enough of that extraordinary golden-coloured light that only happens this time of year. I love it. Yes, I know, soon enough it will be colder than a witch's grommet (in the word's of my reluctant father-in-law) and I will be cursing the long blistering slog of months (see subsequent posts for unhinged rants on the topic), but for now it's perfection. I dream of a land of perpetual fall. Where leaves turn to colour and fall and give way to new leaves, without interruption. A land where the year-round uniform is a light sweater and a jaunty hat.

Where's Vajso?

Where is he, indeed? Sometimes I wonder. Until recently, he was in a car returning from an idyllic three-day cloistering in a cabin on a private lake 100 km west of Ottawa. He is currently to be found trying his damnedest not to slide into a total slump at the reality of being back in this loud, ugly, shit-coloured city...although, to be fair to said loud, ugly, shit-coloured city, I think I would be describing most cities if not all that way right now. I think I have the soul of a country dweller. I know: it's all lovely and serene for a few days, even a few weeks, but living there is quite another thing. Yes, this may be true...but how do I know? How can I know until I try? I've spent my entire adult life living in cities, and yes it's OK, but shouldn't I try the other too? I can't begin to tell you how spectacular this place was: a tiny cabin perched on the edge of Sugar Lake, a private dock with two chairs facing the water, a canoe and two oars for idle jaunts on the water, and everywhere you look, maples and birch trees and sassafras in an absolutely indescribable palette of autumn golds and reds and purples and limes. And quiet. Oh my god, so quiet. T and I sat on the dock listening, I shit you not, to the sound of birdwing 200 feet overhead! We came back to the sounds of streetcars and honking delivery trucks and a tethered dog yelping and the blaring radio of Ali and Ali, shoe-sellers, downstairs. I wanted to run all the way back to Lanark County. This is typical of me, though: this idealizing of vacation locales. I suppose I would go mad if left too long in the country; at the very least, I'd lose my tenuous hold on the social graces. This is a larger problem, I fear, than a simple yearning after arcadia; this goes to the heart of my dissatisfaction with wherever I live. I felt it in L.A., for what seemed to be justifiably mitigating reasons; I feel it here, the set of mitigating circumstances eliminated to make way for a different set. The common denominator is me. Well, me and a city...which leads me to believe in conclusion that maybe I have, after all, the soul of a country dweller. As Hamlet says when asked his thoughts while resting his head in Ophelia's lap: "Country matters."

OK, this is a bit strange: we were there for three dinners and three breakfasts, and we ate nothing but pork products. Hmm, and at Ramadan no less. Not like that should matter to us, but still, we didn't plan an all-pork holiday or anything, it just fell out that way. But did I mention we canoed on Sugar Lake? Well, we did. T did most of the work, I being preoccupied with sitting in such a way as not to capsize us. No, my balance settled itself after a bit, and I pitched in with the rowing. But mostly we just sat on the water, drifting through that perfect silence, watching the skeletons of old trees float by under us.

Hold the sausage

Our neighbourhood is predominantly Polish, and by extension, Catholic. Within spitting disatnce are to be found three churches and a Catholic credit union. The latter is less than 100 feet away and boasts a bronze sculpture of John Paul II beneficently welcoming the savings of the faithful. It is standard practice for earnest old biddies, out on a shopping trip, to spare a moment to kneel at Johnny's feet and offer up a prayer for the propserity of their zlotys. In our first days as residents, T and I hatched a midnight plan to swathe the statue in a boa and strap a dildo to his loins - but we thought better of it. No messing with Johnny in these parts - he's like, well, like the pope to them.

We have been bracing ourselves all week for the advent of this weekend's annual Polish festival which we are only just discovering takes place literally on our doorstep. The street from end to end is being blocked off as we speak, and tents are going up in every direction, the majority of them no doubt to accommodate purveyors of pierogis and other cabbage-enhanced lard products. T and I took a stroll last night and happened across a poster advertising the coming festivities. No less than thirteen hours (13!) are devoted to today's bacchanale, stretching from 10 a.m. (moments away as I write) to 11 p.m. Tomorrow is a more modest, even sacred affair, spanning a mere nine hours. The poster continued to promise a glorious array of performance events: Polish klezmer bands, Polish clog-dancers, Polish whirling dervishes (I can't confirm the accuracy of this last item), and to top it all, Polish dancing under the stars. And where should all this raucous, brain-deafening Polish merrymaking be scheduled to take place? At the Catholic credit union stage! Even in death, JPII hounds us.

Hedwig!

Played hooky from work this afternoon to attend a panel discussion with John Cameron Mitchell and the cast of his new film, Shortbus, in the basement of a church, of all places. Wow. Tried mostly successfully to avoid throwing self prostrate at his feet. The audience was small and almost entirely queer, and JCM pretty much used it as an improvised standup set. Amazing to sit less than six feet away from this small, unassuming waif (looking, I must admit, rather more like a middle-aged lesbian than the fabulous castrated kraut) and to hear Hedwig's dry, hilarious voice coming out of him. I haven't seen the film yet, so seeing the cast didn't mean much to me, although I was excited to see the star, CBC presenter Sook-Yin Lee, who I recently learned was none other than the overzealous, slightly truculent Philipina in Hedwig's onetime backup band.

I have to say though, in criticism of the great one, he has gathered a rather white group of actors; and young; and pretty. JCM says he wanted people who were attractive, but not necessarily physically - more like attractive to themselves. He says he wanted to show real people having relationships, navigating sex and love and life. Obviously one can't represent everyone, but what about people of colour? Middle-aged people? People who don't find themselves attractive? As someone firmly in the first category, hurtling towards the second, and endlessly waltzing in and out of the third, I am interested to see if I relate personally to his film or not.

T asked a question; I did not. I feared a replay of the infamous "I-we-you-love" episode from my 1995 meeting with Emma Thompson. She still has me on restraining order.

Hollywood North

It's festival week in Toronto, and Torontonians are flushed with a sense of relevance. Brads and Angies and Judes and Toms have descended en masse. The Barenaked Ladies played outside the office window this morning. (My Executive Director was heard to express some surprise that they were men and not ladies.) Shop windows are festooned with film spools and director's chairs and any possible item that might inspire mortals to think the establishment is somehow connected to the proceedings. Lips and tits shine with the fresh squeaky gloss of collagen and silicone top-ups. Hummers and limos prowl the street like hungry prehistoric ghouls. I work in festival central, aka Yorkville, so it's barely a surprise that I'm having odd flashbacks to life in L.A., but even at home, in sleepy old Roncesvalles, often deemed too far from the downtown core for the hipsters to tarry, even there, lights and cameras stand poised to immortalize the frock-clad heft of John Travolta in Hairspray, the movie of the musical of the movie. My noblest posture, in the face of all this, is indignant irritation. "Who cares?" I ask of anyone who will/must listen. Movies are, in the vast majority, trash; their creators and purveyors for the most part overpaid hacks. "Restore my streetcar route! Give film back to the people!" I chant, pumping the air socialistically with fist. This, as I said, is my noblest posture. Careful observers will notice my least noble posture as I walk out at lunch to buy some food, my eyes swivelling greedily to catch one cherished glimpse of a famous face.

Misc.

Seems all I do is bloody apologize here! But I am sorry: one measly posting saying I will post again soon, and then silence. Pathetic, I know. Let's just move on, shall we?

So, the AIDS Conference. Pretty mad, I'll tell you. Hard not to consider the extent of the expense: if all the delegates, with all their airfares and all their hotel costs and all their lunches and dinners and breakfasts, and all the exorbitant registration fees, and all the useless bloody crap, buttons and stickers and posters and pamphlets, and the entire local host budget, if all of this was converted to cash and bundled off to Africa or South America or South Asia, would there have been anything at all to discuss? And then again, if there's one thing I learned, it's that money is only a part of the problem. Not a very big part, actually...which is, frankly, why the Bills (Gates & Clinton) leave me rather unimpressed. The amount of hoopla and reverence and sheer star-worship that attends them, and really, for what? For having money and being generous with it? When the one promotes sex-worker "rescue programs" in South Asia, promising productive, moral lives in Nike sweatshops, and the other gives nice words of support for the Bush-driven U.S. AIDS programs where abstinence is valued over prevention and developing country governments are quietly "encouraged" not to request generic drugs from other developed countries that are willing to deliver them? A little bitter, me. I confess, I've always harboured one of the more ignoble traits of the socialist-minded: the resentment of money, or rather, the resentment that the money's not mine. Sigh.

What else is going on in my world? Our friends Karen and Shim are coming to visit next weekend, which should be a lot of fun. Thom and I have designed a full roster of proposed events for them, though I suspect they will reject all in favour of city walks and drinking patios - fine by me! I realize suddenly that I have about four weeks of vacation/off time that I need to use I think by the end of October...although I should confirm this. Hopefully I can carry some over, as I don't much relish the idea of taking time off in order to sit at home for three weeks, making hourly postings to my blog (you lucky devils). You'd think we'd arrange a trip somewhere, a "vacation," such as I've heard people do. We'd both like to, I know; I just can't bring myself to justify putting us into the poorhouse for a few idyllic weeks away. Help! I need middle-class intervention, fast!

Babies, babies, babies.... Lololololola (I fear there is one too many lo's there) is "big with child," as I feel they might say in eighteenth-century Nova Scotian fishing villages. Too, too thrilling! It has sent my own biological clock - already an erratic timepiece - into deranged clanging. I look at Thom and think what an amazing father he would be, and I think I would be an OK one too, and I practically itch to do it. Yet, circumspection rules the day: we must, at my insistence, come at it practically, considering pros and cons, inflows and outflows, facts and figures, blah and blah. Many, many children arrive unplanned, with no attendant strategy, and they are fine and happy and their parents, I suspect, delightedly surprised to find that things find a way even without planning. Of course, others grow into serial killers...but that's all part of the gamble, isn't it?

Manifold kisses and pets and wonderments to you, Lo(etc.)lola! I am proud and happy and so excited for that little person's extraordinary future.

AIDS 2006

It's over. The most exhausting ten days of my life are behind me. Apologies to all readers and loved ones, and all inbetween, for my silence. Will continue to post captivating details of my ongoing life later....

This little piggy went to market

So, I needed some new shirts, see. I don't usually dress up for work: it's very casz (I suspect this is not the accepted spelling of this word, but what is? Please enlighten if you know) and, besides, my boss is a major clotheshorse (though I imagine he'd prefer "fashion-plate"), spending on clothes probably what amounts to as much as his rent, so why would I attempt to compete with that? However, there's this huge international conference coming up next week, and I have a full media-pass and will probably need to do a fair amount of schmoozing and pressing of flesh, you know, "face of the organization" and all that crap, so I figure, OK, Scrooge, you need to pony up for a few new shirts at least, this hopelessly outdated collection of Ross-specials won't cut it much longer. There was a time when I could get away with wearing just anything, whether I truly made it work or not, just with attitude. This attitude, I am discovering, had a best-by date and it is now starting to smell a little off. Time to upgrade the duds.

Thus, enlisting T on the promise that it would be a brief in-out sort of thing, we embarked for the mall. This was five hours ago. For further perspective, we only visited two stores. Two stores, five hours. Some more numbers: nine, being the number of shirts at one time or another under anguished consideration, each tried on at least nine times apiece, so maybe 81 is a more accurate number; two, being the number of shirts finally purchased; and fifty, being the amount I'd decided not to exceed for a single shirt, yet also being the price of each shirt I finally bought. A hundred dollars, you say, a bargain for two very nice shirts, which they are. Tell it to the purchase-guilt, my most finely-honed and frequently-used sense.

T was a complete doll, tolerating five gruelling hours in the armpit of the suburbs-invaded Eaton Centre, offering unflagging feedback to all my proposals, even declaring he would purchase them for me if money were my only obstacle (which it frequently was). And when the purchase-guilt kicked in (seconds away from checkout), he offered all sorts of encouraging reinforcement, including putting the tags in a safe place and assuring me that I can take them back at any time. The moment we walked in the door, however, he fell into a dead sleep, no doubt driven to the edge of his faculties.

The shirts? Oh, they're nice. One chocolate brown number with very thin eggshell pinstripes, the other one white (I think) with very pale pink, blue and yellow stripes. Both cotton, both nicely-tailored. Both from H&M, the IKEA of clothiers. That's all. Did I mention $100??!

My female readers (99% of my demographic, I suspect) are perhaps presently rolling eyes in mute exasperation. What constitutes the above-described guilt-worthy splurge must rate very low on the shop-o-meter. It is my endless struggle, however: the fear/guilt/loss of spending money on anything that I can't honestly do without. I need to work through this. I need tools to process purchases, I mean mental/emotional tools, to see value in things other than mere necessaries. Maybe I need a shopping therapist. Any referrals?

This flower wilts

The time is 7.10 PM and the temperature is 34.8 degrees Celsius. With humidex, it's almost 45 degrees. I don't know what this is in fahrenheit, but I do know earlier today, with humidity, it was around 117. This is entirely unreasonable. I demand a recount.

Poil-Mel

Question: Is a person too old for a faux-hawk if he has to taper it off into his bald spot? This was foremost in my mind this evening as I carefully crafted a landing-strip of my own. It is only the second time I've done this. The first time was on a birthday, my 33rd, I think, and it was clearly a dry-run at midlife crisis. It was effective, though, in making me feel different, if not necessarily younger, lifting me for a brief time out of a place into which I felt I was settling. The same is true of my present motives. I am hoping to disturb the state of affairs, hoping to cause a tiny jolt in the automatic movements of my life, force some surprises. I don't imagine it will last long; its effect or lack thereof will be made in a day or two, and it will become redundant. Truth is, I'm not sure how I feel walking around with my head looking like the mons of a mid-90s Playmate...

...which brings non-sequentially to mind the recent antics of that perennial charmer, Mel Gibson, whose recent tequila-fuelled joyride around Malibu ended in an anti-Semitic diatribe against a pair of arresting officers, one of whom, a female, Mel affectionately dubbed "sugar tits." Ah. Religion earns yet another glowing poster boy.

W--k

Work is out of bloody control. I am expected, for what amounts to a pittance, to put in hours that a Siberian salve-labourer would object to. Actually, I am not really expected to do so; I was just wisely hired by people who suspected I was the sort of person to do the job, whatever it takes. "Work ethic" is, I believe, the euphemism. Middle-class drone-mindedness is rather more accurate. Urgh. And yet, am I dissatisfied? Not truly, so deep runs my middle-class streak. My job is quite challenging, and in a not always expected way, fairly noble. Noble? Well, ethical. I mean, we do good things for vulnerable people. Is that noble? I am not convinced nobility is a characteristic to aspire to.

In other news, my bicycle already needs a tune-up. Canadian Tire, the purveyor of said vehicle, has been working on it since Sunday. Apparently this is still not sufficient time in which to check its gears. Chris, the youth to whom I delivered my faulty conveyance, had a certain not unattractive surliness which precluded excessive questioning. I meekly accepted his vague assurances that a day or two would yield results. The more fool me.

More extaordinarily, we, that is my spouse and I, seem to be playing reluctant host to at least one mouse. Yes, you read correctly. Never in my life have I encountered such a thing, and now, all of a moment, I am housemates with one. I say at least one, because, though I have yet to see it in the flesh, I have T's reports of multiple sightings, in one particular spleen-crimping case where the offending rodent ran in swift flight from our kitchen counter to disapear through one of the burners on our stove and take refuge in the innards of the oven. The prospect of finding a fully-cooked mouse perched on my next tofu-meatloaf causes some dismay. Yatsu, of course, is currently nodding his head in smug vindication, having heard suspicious rustlings on the final night of his stay chez nous. Yatsu, my apologies are manifold, should I have sniffed in wounded denial. T, embracing his heritage, has slipped into battle-mode, deploying a sonar device which emits an inaudible sound hated by mice, as well as glue-traps, diabolical inventions that lure the quarry to a pad of super-glue from which it can never escape, there to be scooped up and disposed of by the victor. These innovations T has adorned with tasty niblets of cracker and peanut-butter, and already one bait has successfully yielded prey. Fortunately, I was nowehere nearby to witness its disposal, however I can't honestly say I experience too much pity on its account. It now remains to see if it was the only offender, or if, in fact, its entrapment is followed by that of comrades. I am hoping not; one mouse is exceedingly less objectionable than a battalion thereof. I suspect - and hope - and will encourage all prospective visitors to join me in this inclination - that this represents the end of our pestilence. Updates will follow. (Is it only me, or do I detect a trend of myself waging war against the animal kingdom?)

I am to be found presently at my desk at work, sipping 12-year old scotch from a bottle of Glenfiddich I keep stashed in a drawer for after-hour solace....

Sites I like

The current issue of The New Yorker calls to mind two websites I like, and a third that has no affiliation whatsoever with the aforementioned self-important publication:

Wikipedia
http://wikipedia.org/
Yes, I know, no great revelation here. Wikipedia's about as commonplace as Google now...but still. I continue to be awed by this auto-didact's paradise of polygnostic pleasures. And in Polski, no less!

Jackson Pollock
http://jacksonpollock.org/
No great fan of his work, I nevertheless take frequent gleeful refuge in this site...perhaps because it slyly supports my theory that Pollock's geniuses were those of size, timing and willingness to waste paint.

80s Videos
http://www.thebestlegaladvice.com/
Cognoscenti, rejoice! I could barely believe my luck when I stumbled on this one. Guilty pleasure finds a home in this collection of 1,500 (were there ever so many?) of your favourite videos from the 80s. Have a fast connection or it will soon get tedious. After overcoming my initial horror at seeing only one Flock of Seagulls number (and not their undisputed chef d'oeuvre), I wallowed in the particular pleasures of Barbra Streisand's "Woman in love" (a production so impartial, the diva herself couldn't be bothered to turn up for it), and the post-Magritte art-school hokiness of ABC's "Look of Love." Tell me your faves...

The Heat Is On

Remember that song? I don't know if it was actually called "The Heat is On," but that line certainly composed a significant part of its message, repeated ad infinitum to the accompaniment of synthesizers and the inevitable stray saxophone. It was some sort of theme song, I think, to a movie or TV show, or perhaps to a particularly ignoble episode of my early-mid teens, when I was determined to be a fashion designer, and spent hours seated importantly at my desk, perfecting fussy little doodles of Dynasty-inspired gowns, which invariably sported inflated shoulder-pads and frothy immense headgear that would make even Cecil Beaton demur. I remember I created a moniker for myself, convinced that I could never enjoy success in my destined field without an acccent and a hyphen somehwere in my name, and hence was born "Vasz-Don" (sadly the anglocentric limitations of Blogger forbid the critical flourish, the accent grave perched languidly over the "a", but pray imagine it), and it was this thrilling foreign-sounding signature (as if my name needed any help at all in that department!) that adorned in a flamboyant swoosh the cover of my "portfolio" - a weak assemblage of eight or ten derivative "creations" - stapled together into a folder and held at the ready for proud display to any unsuspecting dinner-guest who foolhardily engaged me in conversation. My poor parents. I think they actually attempted an evincing of pride at my endeavours, but could they really not have been quaking in the pits of their puritan souls for the eternal jeopardy of mine? Needless to say, the career of Vasz-Don was brief and unmemorable, failing to blaze any streaks at all across the Parisian springtime night.

The foregoing was an unplanned tangent to the somewhat less personal declaration that the heat is on: summer has started with a slowly-building vengeance. Cold showers yield immediately to clammy sheeny sweat. Everyone, everywhere looks moist, all the time. Humidity, like rain, is one of the flaws in the cosmic design. One of those last-minute oversights, unavoidable glitches that every major project must endure and learn to work around.

The Table

Did I mention I bought a drafting table? No? Well, I did. From a perfectly delightful lesbian, with exquisite tats up and down her forearms and warm green eyes. She was moving out of her partner's home, not really splitting up, just taking space, and needed to get rid of the table. Why? Long story: change of creative focus from plastic to electronic. Drafting tables don't lend themselves to desktop editing systems, blah, blah. What does she have to do with this posting? Nothing really. A diversion so I don't have to admit the truth that one can stumble on the most beautiful of tables - and it really is a beaut, with its old-style tilting wheels and real wood surfaces textured already with the act of art - but no amount of money or lucky timing will turn up inspiration. Yep. Dry as bone. I sit at this lovely thing and wait. Still, I'm not particularly worried. I suppose it will come if it must. Why shouldn't I be barren for a year or more? There's no rule that says otherwise. Expectations are fairly unsettling. T occasionally mentions how he's waiting for my artwork to make us millionaires. He's sort of joking, I know - but just sort of. The minute you identify yourself as an artist - of any kind - expectations arise. And judgements. I hesitated to describe myself as an actor when I was one; I hesitated to describe myself as a writer when I was fiddling with that; I hesitate to describe myself as an artist now. (What's that? Hesitation has been the only constant in my creative life? Yes, you make a good point.) Why bring it up at all then, if I'm so conflicted? I just wanted to tell you about my beautiful new drafting table, that's all....

Google Earth

Have you seen Google Earth yet?

Oh. My. God. Pure cyber-crack, folks. My employers need to start worrying about this. My loved ones need to start planning intervention.

Developments...

A brief summary of recent developments:

• Bought owl (see previous post, Winged Vermin); with much delicate engineering, rigged item to end of wooden dowel suspended out of bathroom window. There swings menacingly. Pigeons non-plussed. Continue as if fearsome bird of prey were poorly-painted plastic knock-off...which it is. Actually witnessed pigeon landing on end of dowel to contemplate putative mortal enemy at close quarters. Bedroom window will now remain shut overnight. Airflow unsatisfactory, but slept past 9:30 two mornings in a row. Had forgotten how lovely such a thing can be.... If such sleeps are once again possible, gladly concede defeat...
• Bought bicycle. Close acquaintances, please take moment to pick selves off floor. Bike-riding endemic in these parts; flat city, relatively compact downtown area. No end of encouragements from locals to procure one of own and discover joys of Toronto-living. Thom bought last weekend; purchase-envy gnawed at soul all week. Actual purchase day (Friday) fraught with misadventure. Not worthy of repetition; suffice to say, nearly held bicycle aloft as offering to appease gods. Went on fairly long date-ride yesterday with Thom. Riding in traffic somewhat blood-curdling; need practice; meantime, careening down sidewalks must do, pedestrian imprecations in wake. Must admit, Toronto much nicer from seat of bike. Went down by lakeshore and then up trail along Humber River. Quite delightful; lush, green, peaceful; helped immensely by shirtlessness of other gentleman riders. Bottom somewhat tender this morning...nothing to do with gentleman riders...
• Took Thom to oysters last night. Lovely to watch him enjoy them, analyze their flavours... Not me; though raw fish in sushi/caviar form delights, something about salty, phlegm-like nature of oysters repels. Had fish and chips, lovely crunchy batter: sound of diet collapsing...
• Saw Devil Wears Prada. Enjoyable froth, though La Streep and Stanley Tucci elevate proceedings. La Streep in particular; no histrionics, no scenery-chewing; finely-calibrated, lethal performance. Like watching deadly snake sunning itself on rocks. Oscah smiles.... Mr Tucci as refreshingly real gay-man-in-fashion; flamboyant, but not swish. Toothy ingenue serviceable as clothes-hanger. Clothes mostly uninspiring. Granted, have little sense of couture...but still. Thought a lot about Davida...
• Sunday today...all day. Thought I would go to work for couple of hours...then thought better of it.

À bientôt.

Joys of Soccer

Pursuant to my comments in previous posting re absurdity of World Cup fervour: by pure circumstantial accident, found myself witness to the climax of the recent England-Portugal game, witness to the exultant victors peeling off sweat-drenched t-shirts, witness to their exquisite torsos in moist, delirious embrace, further witness to the losers crumpled, weeping, breathtakingly tragic, comforting one another with hands placed against cheeks, gentle gazes, foreheads pressed together in virtual kissing-distance and tender wiping away of tears. Think circuit party meets E.M. Forster novella. So why the forlorn faces of the English spectators, devastated, dumbstruck, betrayed, bereft of hope? Is that all really necessary? Seen from my perspective, we're all winners, so long as someone takes off his shirt.

Canada Day

Today is Canada Day, my second ever and the country's 127th, although it was known as Dominion Day until 1982. The following conversation took place in my earshot between a Canadian and an American:

American woman: What is Canada Day?
Canadian man: It's like our Independence Day.
American woman: But you're not independent.

Not sure what I think about all this. For the first time in my life, I am poised to potentially feel a sense of belonging in a country, not simply geographical but social and political too, and even, dare I say it, pride. And yet, it is still a mere abstraction, an abstraction of an abstraction. I find nationalism in most forms absurd. What others see as nationalistic pride, I see as geographical accident. Perhaps this is the refugee's perspective.

Based on the above conversation, I have some thoughts: Can it be dismissed as quirky Canadian contrariness that the Queen's face still adorns the currency and her regent still holds office? Can any society claim egalitarianism with a straight face while maintaining monarchical ties? As for the American, I think she places too much value on her country's independence from a colonizing force whose sway has long since diminished, and pays not enough attention to her country's dependence on foreign economics and internal moral imperialism. The hard-fought Constitution that sits at the heart of American pride is under daily attack from the very politicians that run her country. Arguably the same can be said of many other countries, too, Canada included, whose own Charter of Human Rights sits now in the cross-hairs of Prime Minister Harper's beady aim.

(I think I may be confusing "country" with "government" - again, perhaps unavoidable for someone for whom geography has always been politicized - so please forgive me if my questioning seems oblique.)

So, what do we celebrate when we celebrate national pride? All this World Cup nonsense, people waving flags, losers weeping, territorialism, ascendancy, feudalism, on and bloody on? I'm really asking here. Tell me, if you know. Are we proud in the sense of somehow participating, even peripherally, in a successful venture? Are we giving props to those who made sacrifices to make the venture successful? Or are we simply expressing gratitude that we live in relatively free, harmless societies?

Here's my last thought: I think the genius of certain governments is to have co-opted basic human rights, like health, dignity, freedom. They have branded these things, turned them into products which only they can dispense. But they are rights, not benefits. We wouldn't have to fight for them if they weren't withheld in the first place. And who's doing the withholding?

Winged Vermin

Not by nature a violent soul, I am being pushed of late to extremes of cruelty, if only in my imaginings. The objects of my warlike sentiments: the pigeons that perch outside our bedroom window every g-d-m morning and do what I believe is referred to as cooing, though I demand that lexicologists devise another term for this sound. Doves coo, and best of all, at some remove from my bedroom window. Pigeons "broan", or "brind" in a manner to suggest a cross between a stalling car-engine and the dry-heaves of a food-poisoned troll. Until recently the pigeons would make their presence heard at about 6 or 6:30. The past few days, however, I have woken at 5:45 AM in anticipation of them, my whole body clenched for the first sawings of their gullets. Once they start in, so do my visions. In one, I catch the offending beast, and while gazing in its eyes, ever so gently snap its neck. In another, I stand outside my bedroom window with a shotgun, creating little puffs of feather. (Even the soul of pacifism, Thom, muttered something about soaking breadcrumbs in DDT the other day, though I think he has since become inured to the sound.) I cannot say whether the pigeons are aware of the fact that they are at war, though I suspect their leader, a plump beady-eyed rodent with a lecherous swagger, has noticed a breakdown in diplomatic relations. My attempts thus far at detente have included setting up a fan in the window for white-noise purposes, and while a short, sharp "shush!" out the window usually takes them by surprise, it is never very long before they regroup for a second skirmish. This must stop. It is time for the big guns. This weekend I buy a plastic, yet remarkably lifelike painted owl I have for some time coveted in the local dollar store window. Birdman MacArthur, your "grompelling" days are numbered!

Die + T

Yes, I am on a diet. No, I'm not crazy. Yes, it's nothing that a more regular exercise program wouldn't solve. Yes, I do have serious body-image issues verging on the pathological. Any other questions? Good. Let's move on. I know I'm not fat. I also know I am not as thin as I once was. Is this age or chocolate? Likely the combined effects of both. I would like to be able to exercise more, but how exactly does one balance a full-time job with a relationship and still make time for creative pursuits (no, I'm not actually pursuing anything creatively at the moment, but that's the topic of another post), all while scheduling 90 minutes of brainless exercise three to four times a week? Truth be told, I'm not sure exercise actually works. At least the way I do it. I have belonged to a gym pretty consistently over the course of the past 10 years, and at one time, could be found diligently lifting dumbells at 6:00 AM, five times a week, to be followed by a breakfast of egg whites and power bar and a lunch and dinner of chicken breasts (two) and steamed broccoli. I looked like a million bucks. Well, a million yen, maybe. And yet, throughout that time, and the subsequent years up to this very day, I can't shake the nagging feeling that no matter how confident my pose, or how appropriate my gymwear, no matter how determined and masculine my self-gaze, or how convincingly expressed my grunts, that I in fact have no idea whatsoever what I am doing, let alone believe that it will have any positive effect at all. Exercise requires blind exertion; diet simply requires self-denial. This is an approach that has stood me in good stead.

A topic to enlarge on

Have for some reason become the recent target of a veritable onslaught of penile enlargement e-mails, at work no less, where my uses of the internet are unimpeachably pure. Where do they come from? Why do they come to me? Should I really trust the money-back guarantees they promulgate? If my casual gleanings of these missives are to be believed, technology has advanced to the point of extracting deposits of fat from various overfed regions of one's body and injecting them, yes, injecting said deposits into the diminutive appendage in question. I fail to see how this can assist in weight loss.