A.B.A. (for D.J.T.)

Between contractions, I sucked on ice chips and stared up at the ceiling tiles and thought about the child in my belly, working up the courage to leave the safety and protection of my body and face the world, such as it is.

Did she know going in how bad it would be, this world and all its horrors? Did her spark of consciousness see something in my spark of consciousness and decide that it was worth the risk? Does she dream, tucked away in the sensory deprivation tank of my womb? What does she dream of? Does she remember things that we forget when the cord is cut and we are suddenly alone and the world erupts into a chaos of violence and love?

Another contraction hit, different from the rest, those other ones were just practice, I could tell now.

Every muscle in my body clenched in effort. Yes, darling, yes, I want to meet you. And it was exactly as Patti Smith sang, it was dawn and the storm settled in my belly and the sky split and the planets hit, balls of jade dropped, and existence stopped, mine and hers together, for the briefest of moments before she burst through in a rush of blood. 

Chaos then as medical professionals swabbed and swaddled and placed her in my arms. I wondered if the third time would be the charm or if we would have to start all over again. 

She looked up at me as I held her tenderly and looked down into her eyes, deep brown, almost black. Again. I wanted blue. 

The obstetrician registered my dissatisfaction. Would you like an After Birth Abortion? he asked, and I nodded, regretfully. He took the baby from my arms, expertly broke her tiny neck, and tossed her into the bin.  

 

  

On Bad Nights

On some nights, the good nights, his snoring is a soft, regular rhythm, almost (almost) comforting. A slightly nasal intake of breath followed by a gentle puffing exhale. But those are the good nights, and good nights are rare. 

On bad nights, she wants to smother him in his sleep with his own pillow. (She is certain that she would be able to avoid jail time with an insanity plea.) On bad nights, the relaxed tissues of his tongue, soft palate, and airway vibrate like a goddamn subway train in the dark. Chugging, choking, snorting, snuffling, pitch rising rising rising until she can't take it anymore. 

Sometimes she stares through the darkness and thinks at him really hard shutupshutupshutupshutup, and sometimes, miraculously, he inhales one last wheezing breath that peters out into the regulated breathing of snoreless slumber. (Either they share some sort of psychic connection or he subconsciously senses her body tense in the dark, preparing for violence, and his body reacts to protect itself.)

Sometimes she reaches across the pillows and plugs his nose until he gasps and mumbles something unintelligible at her and changes position. Sometimes she puts a hand on his face. Sometimes she shoves him. Sometimes, as a last resort, after lying in the dark for what seems like (and sometimes are) hours, she resigns herself to the guest room in the basement, where she can still distantly hear him rattling through the floorboards. 

He takes great pleasure in waking her on those rare occasions (too much wine, a cold) when she becomes the snorer. You're snoring, he says happily, nudging her awake. Oh, pardon me. My sincerest apologies for the briefest of interruptions to your otherwise restful nights, she replies, completely insincerely.

Nasal strips were ineffective. They spent forty bucks on a snore guard that he refuses to wear because it's uncomfortable. (You won't be uncomfortable in death, she thinks.) She googles how to stop snoring and comes across medieval torture devices, snake oil, surgery. The only reliable cure appears to be murder. (They have investments. The house is paid for. She can live frugally. She'd be okay.)

She loves him, but, lying sleepless for the umpteenth night in a row as he rasps and rattles wetly beside her, she understands the darkness of the human heart. The snorer! The snorer!  

  

The Final Girl Updated for 2022

The weeks leading up to Halloween are, of course, spooky movie watching season. Truly terrifying horror movies are hard to come by (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre still tops my list because things just get totally fucking bananas for no reason), but I have been pleasantly surprised by a number of films lately. The last three movies I watched share a common theme: that we need to listen to women. We know when something's wrong (maybe a constant state of vigilance is part of our evolutionary DNA), so believe us.  

Chronologically, the first movie that got me thinking about this idea was Watcher. More psychological thriller than horror (unless you are a woman), the story follows a woman named Julia who becomes isolated socially and culturally when she and her husband move to Bucharest for his job. Julia becomes aware of someone watching her from an apartment across the street, and the rest of the movie is us wondering if this guy really is a serial killer or just an awkward creep. Despite a number of alarming signs, her husband doesn't believe her, the police don't believe her, and Julia is only vindicated at the end of the movie when the awkward creep (who is, of course, also a murderer) almost kills her. The final brilliant scene is the I-fucking-TOLD-you look she exchanges with her husband after she shoots the guy. The movie ends there, but I'm pretty sure a sequel would involve a divorce.

The next one I watched was Alex Garland's Men. I knew nothing about this movie going in, which is my favourite way of watching movies and probably the only way to watch this one. (I read a review of it afterwards that used the term "metaphorror," which I loved and am stealing.) In this film, Harper, like Julia, also finds herself in an unfamiliar setting, this time at an old house in the idyllic British countryside, which is apparently only populated by creepy dudes who all share an alarming physical resemblance. (As an aside, she should have turned around and driven home immediately after seeing the blood-red walls of the country house, because blood-red walls are never a good sign, but she didn't.) Harper has experienced some trauma and wants to escape for a while, but the men in this town (who become a metaphor for all shitty men throughout our patriarchal history, including religious figures and the police, of course, who don't do anything to help her) won't let that happen. There is a pretty bonkers scene near the end where the the pagan Green Man figure/exhibitionist pervert who has been stalking Harper gives a monstrously twisted version of birth to one of the other male characters, who in turn gives an even more monstrously twisted version of birth to another one, and another one, and another one, until Harper's dead husband is sitting next to her on the couch, blaming her for the abusive behaviour that ultimately resulted in his demise, accidental or not. We don't actually see Harper refusing to accept this blame and using the axe she holds in her lap on this fucker, but she is alive the next morning when her pregnant friend arrives, so chalk another one up for the ladies. We are nothing if not resilient. 

While the aforementioned last scene was pretty horrific and gruesome (and fun, if you're into that sort of thing, which I am), an earlier scene is the one that really haunts me. In this scene, Harper walks into town to grab a drink at the pub, which her landlord has assured her is pretty good. She is the only woman there, and, while nothing really happens besides the landlord trying to buy her a drink, which she refuses, there is a familiar sense of unease and tension that will likely resonate with most women, which is the understanding that something really, really bad could happen here because she is a woman, and alone. 

As an aside, I am, in general, a confident person. I am pretty good at handling being hit on, and I am comfortable with my sexuality. I like hanging out with guys, and I don't think they are all inherently misogynistic jerks. However, there were two occasions in my life when I felt distinctly uncomfortable and aware of my female powerlessness. The pub scene in Men reminded me of these occasions. 

On occasion the first, I was with a male friend (not my boyfriend) at another guy's apartment, a friend of my friend. (I think we were going to a rock show later, although I can't remember exactly.) So anyway, the vibe at this guy's apartment was heavily bro, and there were a lot of other guys there, drinking beer and playing cards. And the thing that made me uncomfortable, such a small thing, really, was the deck of cards they were playing with, which was a nudie deck. I don't have a problem with nudity or sexuality, but the fact that I was the only woman in an apartment full of strange men was unsettling when combined with the images of the 52 naked women being shuffled, commented on, and dealt across the table. Nothing bad happened, but it could have, and there would have been little I could have done about it. That sense of unease has stayed with me.

On occasion the second, I was shooting a promo video for some friends. My role in these videos was to provide cleavage and a sense of silly sexual raunch. I had done it before, and I trusted the guys. I let them objectify me, but I was in control, and I never felt pressured to do more than I was comfortable with. On this day, I met the gang at the Motorcourt Motel. The room had a red heart-shaped jacuzzi and porn was playing on the TV in the corner. I knew a few of the guys but not all (there were maybe seven or eight), and, again, as the only woman there, that sense of unease returned, heightened by the moaning and grunting coming from the TV screen. This particular group of boys was known for being sleazy (that was the whole point of my being there), so I felt uncomfortable asking them to maybe at least turn the sound off. Porn in the comfort of your own home is one thing, but walking in on a bunch of guys all watching together, in a room whose primary furnishings were a bed and a hot tub, was rather unnerving. (Plus, there was the video camera.) Again, the only bad thing that happened was my discomfort.

In neither of those instances did I feel entirely safe. I was on guard, even while I stood around in a bikini, aware that I had put myself in that position. And maybe, as a woman, that is the most terrifying feeling of all: the potential helplessness, the needing to be on guard. Because you just never know, do you?  

The final movie of the Believe Her trilogy is Barbarian. In this one, the most direct of the bunch but no less enjoyable or relevant for its bluntness, another young woman, Tess, finds herself in a strange part of town (Detroit this time) at an airbnb that has been double-booked. Tess is understandably wary of spending the night in a house with a man she doesn't know, but they eventually hit it off, even though things are already pretty fucking weird. Unpredictably, this guy is not a creepy murderer, although a creepy murderer does indeed exist in the subterranean tunnels beneath the house. Horror tropes abound (don't go into the basement!), but the way this film depicts the way the female character reacts to the discovery of a blood-stained mattress, a rusty bucket, and a video camera versus the way the male character does is both amusing and scary as hell. Of course the police disregard Tess when she escapes and tries to warn them, of course she goes back in to save a stranger who will later try to sacrifice her to save himself, and of course she will survive, but, sweet Jesus, the nightmare she goes through to do it. 

So I was thinking about the similarities between these movies and how they are different from the typical horror movie of yore. The final girl has always been victimized and abused and terrorized, but she is stronger and smarter than the men. Of course she is; she has had to be from the beginning of time in order to survive. But this latest crop of final girl films have added the message we have learned over these past few years with the Me Too movement, which is that when a woman tells you something is wrong, something is dangerous, something terrible is going on, she is right. So fucking listen to her.    

         

Death fucking sucks.

When somebody important to somebody close to you dies, you hope they can see the empathy in your eyes and feel the love in your hug despite the useless things you say. Because there is nothing to say besides death fucking sucks. 

Whether death comes suddenly or takes its time, we are left with the same surreal void: someone is, and then, inexplicably, impossibly, they are not. 

So we participate in the rituals, and we say the useless things, and we take that surreal void and we fill it up with stories, and with memories, and with love. 

And I don't know if it ever really works, but it's all we can do. 

Selfie

You mostly like your own face. You like looking at it in the mirror and wish that somehow you could capture the self you see in a photograph. You can't, of course, because to get that exact angle, the angle of eyes and nose and chin that you so admire when you accidentally (or deliberately) see it reflected, would mean the camera would be covering your face. You tilt your phone, hold it up awkwardly out of the frame, use the timer, to no avail.

Yours is not the most photogenic of faces. The points of the bow of your upper lip are uneven; from a certain angle, this gives you an unintentional pout or sneer. The placement of your eyes is not symmetrical. When you were younger, you wished your nose was smaller, thinner, although with age you have grown to rather like it. You are fond of your cheekbones, and your teeth. 

You believe (perhaps erroneously) that your face is more pleasing in person than in pictures. You do not know what you look like when you laugh or smile (an honest laugh or smile, in the moment, free of pose and guile), but you hope that it is as beautiful as the faces of people you know (or strangers, even) when they laugh or smile for you and not the camera.

You like your face best with a thin strip of black eyeliner, winged up slightly at the outside corners, and a coat of mascara. (Your eyelashes are naturally straight and pale, and somewhat sparse.) You are not an expert at make up, have never learned to contour cheekbones or blend multiple eye shadow shades (the most you do is two), but you are rather proud that it does not take much to make you feel pretty: the aforementioned eyeliner and mascara, a dab of concealer here and there, a swipe of blush, a hint of eyebrow pencil. (You have always admired the dramatically dark, perfectly penciled arcs of the eyebrows of other girls but feel they would look somehow out of place on your own face.) You own many lipsticks and glosses, but you like the natural colour of your own lips best. 

You are no longer young, a fact that is often hard to accept. But you see it sometimes when trying to take a selfie: the hollows and shadows, the creases and lines. You mostly like your own face, but sometimes you feel old and ugly. 

Never take a selfie from below. Or from too far above. Or straight on. Or with overhead lighting. Or when you have just woken up. Or when you have not gotten enough sleep. (Or before you have applied mascara, obviously.) 

There is a selfie sweet spot, taken from slightly above, your face turned slightly to the side, not full frontal, not in perfect profile. You realize that all of your latest selfies are the same (and if you have noticed, so have the people you want to impress with images of your face), so you try some new angles, chin tilted now slightly down, now slightly up. You feel silly, a vain, aging fool trying to capture the ideal vision of yourself that lives some magical where between your memory and the mirror. You delete them all and realize the only one you like is the same old selfie. Still, you mostly like your own face, so you post it. Ah well.    

Misanthropy: Part One

Misanthropy: Part One

It came easily, she found, the descent into misanthropy. Like slipping into an old denim jacket, frayed around the cuffs and collar, but familiar, comforting. Hello, darkness, my old friend. 

A slight prickle of irritation at the person in front of her in line at the grocery store who took too long packing her bags. An exasperated sigh at the driver who slowed to a crawl before making an unimpeded blinker-less right-hand turn.  

Why, it seemed to take no time at all for the minor ranklings to turn to full-blown rancor. 

People and inanimate objects alike became sources of violent rage. Jesus fucking Christ, just GO already!, she growled at the car in front of her as the advanced green turned to yellow. Suck it!, she snapped, as the left half of the top dishwasher rack collapsed for the umpteenth time. She pounded her fists, she swore, she rent her hair and gnashed her teeth.    

She found her empathy for the suffering of others draining away, slowly at first, but ever more swiftly, a dirty whirlpool in her breast swapping milk for gall. 

Her usual forgiveness of others’ foibles and weaknesses, understood and therefore pardoned, flickered and blinked out like a pilot light in a forty-eight-year-old furnace. People, with their ignorance and excuses, their whining and wallowing and incessant complaints. Misspelled comments on online news articles. Social media “stories,” which, to her dismay, weren’t stories at all, just an insidious feature designed to keep followers logging on for fear of missing something crucial. Facebook. Fucking Facebook.

I hate you all, she thought murderously.

She watched a lone moth cling desperately to the patio door, absorbing residual heat through the glass. You’ll be dead tomorrow, she thought at it. 

She wondered if everyone thought this way. Was everyone secretly seething with anger? Or were there people in the world for whom life really was all kitten memes and gluten-free vegan cupcakes and binging the latest Netflix series, their daily experience tarnished only by the occasional use of a cartoon representation of anger? Rage, but innocuous, inoffensive. Cute.   

What would such an existence be like? The classic conundrum of ignorant bliss versus knowledge and suffering. Look what happened to Adam and Eve, poor bastards. 

The Dr. Seuss Dilemma

Ah, the internet, where things that don't really matter seem to take on an enormous significance for a few days before fading away into the ether... In yesterday's news, the Dr. Seuss dilemma...

We are living in an interesting time: a time of re-examining the past and attempting to change things for the better. I think this is an undeniably good thing for the future. It is critical for people to examine their beliefs and attitudes and adjust them as necessary to make the experience of living together on this planet as not-terrible as possible for everyone. 

I don't know if the world is any less racist/sexist/classist/homophobic/etc. today than in days of yore (probably not), but people are certainly more aware of the damage their ignorance can cause and are (sometimes) being held accountable for their words and actions. This is a positive step forward.  

Conflicts arise when people forget that the world was a different place 100 or 50 or even 10 years ago, and apply the same rules or expectations to people and their attitudes and behaviour that we apply today. And by people, I mean artists. In this specific case, writers. In this even more specific case, writers of children's books.

Now, if an author of children's literature wrote a book today that depicted horrible racist caricatures of African monkey-men (If I Ran the Zoo), I would hope that particular book would not find a publisher. But in 1950, it did. Schools were still segregated in the U.S. until 1954. 

And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street, the book with the illustration of a "Chinaman who eats with sticks" (later edited to "Chinese man") and the suggestion that "Say, even Jane could think of that," was first published in 1937. Imagine the world of 1937! Women in Quebec weren't even allowed to vote until 1940. And five years after the publication of Dr. Seuss's book, midway through the second World War, the Canadian government rounded up Japanese-Canadians and threw them into internment camps.

Reading Oh, The Places You'll Go!, that perennial graduation gift favourite, today, I find myself uncomfortably aware of Seuss's use of "he" to refer to people in general, but that was published in 1990, in the early days of the implementation of gender-neutral language. As an aside, I was born in the 1970s, a time of policemen and mailmen and stewardesses. The patriarchal use of the masculine pronoun to refer to all human beings, and especially those human beings in positions of power, was a given. Even today, I find myself automatically thinking of animals as boys, a habit I am consciously trying to break, given that the likelihood of the creature having female genitalia is roughly 50/50. Sometimes I think that young people today don't understand how hard it often is to even identify, let alone break, lifelong belief systems. But then, they are products of their time, too. 

So anyway, my point is that Dr. Seuss was living in a different time, and while we should not condone his racist and sexist remarks, we should at least understand why he might not have seen anything wrong with them at the time. There seems to be a tendency these days to assume that every artist who created something that does not conform to our current expectations is somehow evil, or at least immoral, and therefore has nothing of value to offer.  

Literature provides two functions: entertainment and education. It can of course do both things simultaneously, and great, lasting literature always does, but it certainly doesn't have to. However, I do believe that the authors of children's books have a greater responsibility towards education than any other artist. By reading to our children (especially the young ones who enjoy a silly rhyme or two), we are shaping their minds and attitudes, and we should make a conscious effort to make these lessons as valuable as possible. Learning the importance of imagination and sharing and unconditional love and protecting the environment and treating people equally and that everybody poops are things all children should be taught. If a children's story does not have an important life lesson to impart, and if the words and/or pictures reinforce, either consciously or subconsciously, something that can actually harm that child's sense of self-worth, then I heartily support no longer publishing that story. There are other stories out there. 

The current uproar seems to be conflating no longer publishing said offensive works with censoring them (or cancelling them, in newspeak). As a previous bookstore employee, let me assure you that the offensive aspect of the books in question is likely a far less significant consideration than the fact that those books are no longer being purchased. The book business is a business. I spent many work hours locating and sending back books that had lingered for months on the shelf. If people ain't buying, the company ain't reprinting... So don't worry, nobody is "cancelling" Dr. Seuss. Nobody is coming for the beloved childhood copy of McElligot's Pool tucked away in your basement bookshelf. His books aren't being gathered and thrown into a pile in the town square and set ablaze.  

However, and this is where I find my hackles rising, I recently read someone describe Dr. Seuss books as "really brainless rhymes for children." While there are certainly some troubling aspects of some of his books, dismissing his entire catalogue as "brainless" is a pretty limited perspective, the kind of limited perspective we are trying so hard to eliminate from society. 

I can only believe that the author of that observation never read Green Eggs and Ham and learned that trying new things is good for you, or The Sneetches and learned the dangers of capitalism and realized that, despite the number of stars on our bellies, we are all the same. And, sure, One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish IS pretty brainless, I'll admit, but the silly rhymes and goofy pictures teach kids numbers and colours and that reading is fucking fun. By the way, Oh, The Places You'll Go, while encouraging young people to have hopes and dreams and goals, also reminds them that shitty stuff happens in life, so you better be prepared for that, too. 

I have been helping children and young adults with their English homework for over a decade now. Whenever I get a new student, one of the first questions I ask them is if they like to read. And I can state with authority that the children who like to read are more sensitive to the nuances and grey areas of characters and their actions than those who don't. They are more critical thinkers, quicker to pick up on symbolism and bias, more able to make big-world connections between the literature and their lives.

We can only engage with the world based on our own personal experiences. Reading broadens those experiences so that we are better able as individuals to consider other perspectives. That is what we do when we open a book: we live the life of someone else. What a miraculous thing to be able to do.

I will leave you with perhaps the good doctor's most famous lesson, ostensibly about Christmas, but perhaps also about what happens when you look beyond your own limited point of view:

"And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore.

Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before!

...

And what happened then? Well...in Whoville they say, 

That the Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day!"   

So if those "brainless rhymes" awaken in a child a lifelong love of reading, of thinking and questioning and engaging with the world, are they really so brainless?

Pandemic

It began as a whisper on the faraway wind, 

became a ripple, a wrinkle, a swell, 

traveled the world on airwaves, on ocean waves,

became a great wave itself: 

a first, a second, a tsunami.

The whisper became a cacophonous roar 

leaving destruction and debris

(broken friendships, broken plans, 

empty businesses and bank accounts, 

corpses without mourners)

in its wake. 

Dead Leaves and Onion Skins

I pick a small brown leaf off the tile floor, brought inside on the bottom of a shoe. A brown onion skin lies outside on the patio stone like a dead leaf, except that it's an onion skin. Important symbols, these: dead leaves and onion skins. 

The pandemic and politics are wearing on me. I don't want to talk about them anymore, except, of course, that there is nothing else to talk about.  

A friend who suffers from depression posted about how people who didn't understand depression before now understand depression. There was a sense of vindication in the post that depressed me.

The grocery store was almost completely out of chicken. The shelves were bare except for a couple packages of boneless skinless chicken thighs. Excuse me, I asked the guy behind the meat counter, are you out of chicken? Yeah, sorry, he said. No problem, thanks, I responded. Were chicken breasts the new toilet paper?, I wondered, grateful that I was at least secure in my TP supply (for now, anyway), and bought the thighs.

Someone I met once a long time ago is dying of cancer. We only hung out the one time, but I care about him and want him to live. He is a one-eyed black man with bowel cancer living in America; his life has not been easy. The prognosis is not good, though, and I worry that one day his facebook page will be the page of a dead man. 

Speaking of death, elderly parents and grandparents in retirement homes are dropping like the tiny flies that infested the plant I bought at the hardware store, which is now relegated to the garage in the hope that the cold will kill the hardy little bastards. Sadly, retirement home residents are not as resilient as those tiny flies.

Covid-January is a goddamn drag.  

Two holiday letters

My dude's aunt and uncle like to send a generic family update letter at Christmas. His mother always forwards it to us, as requested. I get a pretty big kick out of these letters but recognize that they probably aren't intended to be funny. As a result, I have redacted any identifying elements but included the letter otherwise intact so you can get an idea of the kind of information they deem important to inform us of during the holiday season. I have also followed the real letter up with my version of a holiday letter celebrating the events of the past year. 

Dear [redacted] and family, December 2020

Once again it is that time of the year when we remember the wonderful celebrations in years gone by and know that this year will not be the same. With Covid 19 still rampant in most of the world, we have all been asked to "mask up, isolate, keep our distance from others and no large gatherings,” when celebrating the season!

We will miss being “in-person” at all the church services, concerts, parties and gatherings with family and friends but will have to learn to celebrate in the NEW way without all the regular people, gifts and trimmings. But the "REASON for the SEASON" remains the same but will be celebrated while in the quietness of our homes in this unusually strange year.

There were highlights for us during this year, though few and far between, but here's what it was.

January: Lunches with many church friends after Sunday services.

February: Gender reveal party of our first great grandchild, scheduled to arrive in June, 2020.

March: Our first Zoom church service- actually very good!

April: We began our weekly Zoom meetings with our scattered family living in [foreign place names redacted].

May: Planting vegetables in the communal garden at the [name redacted] Heritage Farm.

June: Arrival of our great grandson, 8 lbs. 6 oz. 21 inch, [name redacted], born on [date redacted], 2020.

July: The garden is produced organically grown carrots, lettuce, etc. etc., and lovely raspberries - for jam on [name redacted]’s morning toast!

August: Flight to [place redacted. Also, what the fuck? You flew somewhere in August?] for delightful times with Club 56 and [family names redacted, but there were two of them] family gatherings.

September: [Wife's name redacted] tested positive for Covid 19 - [husband's name redacted] tested negative. [Maybe you shouldn't have flown somewhere and celebrated two family reunions during a pandemic. Just sayin'...] Solitary confinement for 14 days. So we co-authored and published the "Club 56" 65th anniversary book when we could do nothing else.

October: [4 people's names redacted] sold their respective homes and moved into new residences in [name of new neighbourhood redacted].

November: Three long-time members of our church family passed away- a sad time for us all.

December: We're making a "power point presentation" for our family - 65 years from our many pictures. [Can't wait.] We hope to celebrate Christmas “in person” but will have to wait for the latest recommendations.

We trust your life has been, at least, as “exciting” as ours. We wish you a very happy, joyous and a Covid 19- FREE 2021. God's richest blessings! Keep well and have a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!

And now for my version: 

Dear Who Even Cares Anymore, December 2020

Well, this year sure has been a shit show! I don't care about baby Jesus, like, at all, but I'm writing this holiday letter because what the hell else is there to do? I'm tired of reading. I'm tired of watching TV. I'm tired of Zoom calls. I'm tired of people telling other people to wear masks. I'm tired of wearing my mask. There has been literally nothing to celebrate, but here are the "highlights" of this last year anyway.

January - Jesus, what happened last January? Maybe it snowed? Last January is lost for all eternity in a covid-brain fog. 

February - Went to the last concert I would see for who knows how long, and it was a band I don't really even like that much. I only bought tickets because I thought some friends were going to go, but they didn't end up going. 

March - Had a dinner party mid-month right before the shit really hit the fan. Somehow managed to find some toilet paper. Bought an extra bottle of soy sauce. Dude's brother cut the tip of his finger off.

April - Stopped wearing deodorant. Embraced the concept of day pajamas.

May - Compulsively watched CBC and CNN and felt miserable.     

June -  Drank a lot of gin by the pool.

July - Drank a lot of gin by the pool. 

August - Drank a lot of gin by the pool.

September - Got a couple new scars from picking at my mask zits. 

October - Switched from gin to tequila. 

November - Finally opened the new bottle of soy sauce. Started watching The Sopranos. (It's good!) Took a selfie in a dress I never got to wear because we didn't go anywhere. 

December - Took pictures of rotting jack o' lanterns and hoped they made it to Christmas (results pending). 

That pretty much sums up 2020. I wish I could wish you a very merry Christmas, but we all know it's probably going to suck. I look forward to seeing pictures on social media of everyone's family gatherings and the resulting shaming that will inevitably follow if there are more than four people sitting around the turkey. 

Maybe 2021 will be better, but we still have to get through the rest of winter without dying or losing our goddamn minds any further. My demographic is last on the vaccine priority list, so I guess I better stock up on gin. Try not to die before I get to see you again, okay? 

Much love,
Holly

 

America

I woke up last night with words running through my head, as they are wont to do. Sentences and sentiments that rose unbidden in my brain and demanded to be let out. I was thinking, as so many of us are these days, about the chaos in the United States, and, as I lay there in the dark, I wondered why I, as a Canadian, care so much about what happens to my neighbour to the south. 

I thought about all the incredible American cities I have visited. Walking the Freedom Trail in Boston and hanging out with the Movies About Girls crew before we podcast-faded. Eating deep dish pizza and listening to the blues in Chicago. The incomparably cool vibe of New York City at night. The glitz of Las Vegas and the grandeur of the canyon in Arizona. Rock and roll road trips to stand in front of bands in Detroit. Red wine and hummingbirds in Napa and Sonoma, the glorious towering redwoods, the hills and rolling fog of San Francisco. 

I thought about all the amazing American artists whose work I have seen in galleries in the U.S. and around the world. Andy Warhol's celebrities and Jackson Pollock's splatter-drips and Georgia O'Keefe's skulls and flower labia. I have found joy in the whimsical sculptures of Jeff Koons and the comic book paintings of Roy Lichtenstein. I have gazed into Mark Rothko's colour abyss and marvelled at the intricacy and delicacy of Alexander Calder's mobiles. 

Thanks to Americans, we have electric light, photographs, record players, computers, and flight.  

Thanks to Americans, we have the blues and punk and motown and pop and rap and motherfucking rock 'n' roll, can I get a hallelujah, brothers and sisters! Johnny Thunders and Johnny Cash, the Ramones and the Stooges, Debbie Harry and Richard Hell, Bo Diddley and Bob Dylan, Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley, Bruce Springsteen and Dolly Parton and Tom Petty, Tina Turner and Whitney Houston, Sam Cooke and Snoop Dogg, N.W.A. and Nirvana, Pearl Jam and the Beastie Boys, The Velvet Underground, Prince, Madonna, and Michael Jackson. 

American authors and film makers and television show creators too numerous to mention have helped shape my world. Who would I be without Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Mulder and Scully? Without James Cameron's gutbusting alien or Tobe Hooper's chainsaw-wielding maniac or Steven Spielberg's translucent extra-terrestrial? Without the darkness of Stephen King or the bad taste of John Waters? The stories and philosophies of Steinbeck or Hemingway or Faulkner or Cormac McCarthy? The wisdom of Ray Bradbury, Judy Blume, or Beverly Cleary? 

I love you, America, for all the ways you have contributed to the person I am today. 

You have many, many faults. You are not often humble, and you frequently get involved in wars that are none of your business, to the detriment of everyone involved. I do not understand your fondness for automatic or even semi-automatic weapons, but I am frequently amused by your insistence on the right to bare [sic] arms. You still haven't really dealt with the impact of slavery. You are often under-educated and ill-informed about the world around you, and I will never comprehend your resistance to universal health care.

Over the last four years, I have watched your elected leader, a conman and a liar, encourage these faults. I have watched him strut and preen, incite violence and hatred and fear. I have watched him embolden people to embrace all the parts of humanity that we, as a global community, should be striving to eradicate. (I am not so naive to believe that this will ever truly be possible, but I am optimistic that we can move forward and maybe not be quite as shitty to each other.)  

I want better for you, America. I don't want you to be great. You don't need to be the best. I just so want you to be good.      

On Beauty

A 25-year-old who as a child rescued insects from the pool and asked for donations to the Humane Society instead of gifts for her 10th birthday is insecure about her yoga-toned body. This beautiful young woman, who gives the sweetest, most sincere handmade Christmas cards, is already considering a facelift. She is open-minded and progressive, goes topless at nude beaches with her friends but critiques the men there as having "micro-penises" and appears not to recognize the hypocrisy.  

A talented 30-something artist battling a physically and emotionally debilitating disease wears pants in 30 degree weather because she "doesn't like her legs." She has received considerable unwanted attention from men throughout her life, both strangers and not, as a result of her appearance (dark lipstick, pale skin, black hair, a modern-day Snow White). When she rebuffs their advances, they resort to petty commentary on the shape of her body, and she has internalized their criticisms so that now she is more comfortable hiding it than exposing it.  

An 80-year-old woman wears turtlenecks and long sleeves, pants and socks, to a pool party to avoid getting sun spots that no one will ever see. She teaches piano and plays Scrabble and watches CNN and looks things up on the internet and refuses to be one of those old ladies one sees hobbling around with walkers or canes, speaking only of their grandchildren. She got divorced as a young mother of two small children to get out of an abusive relationship and became the outcast of her strict Mennonite family. She used her good looks and charm and talent and made a life for herself. She has had a nose job, face lifts, botox injections. She counts out 7 almonds and weighs herself daily. 

It makes me sad when women who are otherwise strong, creative, resilient, generous, and kind are not comfortable in their bodies. It makes me sad, but I understand firsthand the way society, in the form of individuals and the media, informs our sense of worth as women, women who must be beautiful, a beauty that is defined by someone else. 

As a teenager, a boy I liked once called me "linebacker thighs" as we walked to the bus stop. Today I recognize that the size and shape of my thighs were none of his business (and later behaviour revealed him to be rather an asshole), but his comment wormed its insidious way into my psyche and lodged there for many years. Like the 30-something above, I avoided shorts, until one day I didn't. 

I bought a pair of black knee-length shorts and wore them out of the house. I bought denim cut-offs, which got shorter over the years. I looked at myself naked in the mirror, at the linebacker thighs that were in reality just thighs, not as long and slender and smooth as the thighs of models, certainly, but just thighs, curved, gently dimpled in places. The more often I looked at them, the more I liked them. The more often I looked at them and liked them, the less important they seemed. 

It is so hard to accept our bodies when so many sources bombard us with images of what beauty is and how it looks. (Sadly, this observation is nothing new.) But it excites me that the beauty industry (and it is crucial that we remember that it is an industry) is changing. Every ad campaign and runway show that includes women of different ethnicities and body shapes is a step forward. Every celebrity instagram feed showing a "before" and the extent of the image manipulation to get to the "after" is a step forward. (I worry that photo filters on cell phones are a step backward.) 

So I urge you to look at yourself in the mirror, naked. Look often. Look until the curves and folds and dimples (or whatever parts you are self-conscious about) look normal. Look longer at your own body than you look at the bodies of other people. Look until your physical form is no longer a stranger. Look until what you look like is not as important as what you have accomplished or overcome or are currently dealing with. Look to make sure you don't have mascara smudged under your eye or a booger hanging out of your nose, and then stop looking and start living and try to forget or ignore what other people say or think. (I know this is hard.) Because the people who make you feel less than beautiful, who judge you and criticize you for the way you look, always have ulterior motives, be they personal or commercial, subconscious or not.      

Unless we die young, we will grow old. Our bodies will revolt and begin the inescapable decay that is the precursor to death. We will get wrinkles and jowls, we will lose hair in some places and grow more of it in others, we will gain weight or lose it, succumb to cancer and heart disease and dementia, our bones will become brittle, our skin will sag. When you really think about it, bodies are a goddamn drag. 

Your beauty, your real beauty, is in your kindness, your generosity to others, your campaign to raise awareness for a cause, your confidence, your struggle, the art you create, the goals you meet, the relationships you build, your willingness to learn and grow and riot on. xo

 

   

We can never really know.

I lie in the shade beneath the umbrella on the patio sofa, hungover and slightly diarrhetic as a result of last night's overindulgence, feel the pull in my stomach muscles and calves as I stretch my arms above my head and flex my toes. I close my eyes, the summer breeze cool on my skin, and listen to the constant white noise hum of the air conditioner unit, the electric buzz of cicadas in the trees, the persistent piercing whistle of a mating call, the scifi movie sound effect of birdsong. 

Does everyone think in alliterative phrases? I suspect not, for not everyone is a writer. And if they don't, how exactly do they think? 

(The first time I became aware of this mind habit of mine, I was walking to school in Grade 4 or 5. She walked to school, taking her usual route... I was Lucy stepping through the wardrobe, Mary pulling weeds in an abandoned garden, Pippi lifting horses and finding treasure and outsmarting adults, I was myself walking to school.) 

I let a deerfly land on my finger and crush him, life snuffed out in an instant. I feel no remorse: deerflies have no redeeming qualities; they are the vampiric Republicans of the insect world, worse than mosquitoes. Deerflies use two pairs of mouthpart "blades" to get at your blood.  

Are the two tiny white butterflies flitting by playfully chasing each other, as I presume, or is this a silent struggle for garden territory, an epic battle gone un-understood by human observation?

A pair of dragonflies (they are always named Evinrude) hover above the pool, bright green and metallic blue, oblivious to the invisible threats of racism, sexual abuse, the novel coronavirus.

I think of a favourite Steinbeck quote: “No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.”

This is the crux of my frustration. Things that seem so obvious to me, so rational and true, are not obvious to others. The internet is full of people screaming, "You need to think like me! Why don't you think like me, act like me, believe what I believe?". I am guilty of this myself. I erroneously suppose that you are like me, forget that I can never really know you.

We can rant and swear and meme in an attempt to force conformity, and maybe this works to change some people's attitudes and behaviours, but I suspect (and I believe that my suspicion is true because it is mine) that ranting and swearing and meming only force people farther away from each other.

So how do we know about other human beings? I am a writer and a reader, so my obvious answer to this question is through our stories. Tell me what happened to you to make you who you are. Do not assume I know. All I can know about you is what you tell me. 

(A single strand of spider web shimmers in the sun. She shifts her position on the sofa to stay in the shade.)

When we share our stories, we will inevitably discover moments of identification and solidarity in our individual moments of tragedy and triumph. Such is the human experience. We can never really know about other human beings, but we can, and should, try. 

  

 

 

 

Elements

I take the delicate stem of a clover leaf between thumb and forefinger, follow it down to the tangle of roots hidden just below the surface, and rip gently but firmly upwards, following the root like a woman following the rope in the dark that will lead her home, tearing stem and root and flower from earth. Ant bites on my ankles and dirt beneath my fingernails. 

In the distance, the unmistakable crack of a slice or a hook. Children search through the tall grass along the fenceline for a lost golf ball, a great treasure. Two young helmeted boys hover futuristically on segways down the path, making me irrationally angry and sad. Just use your fucking legs, I think. Two more helmeted boys ride by on bicycles, thigh and calf muscles expanding and contracting to get their bodies and their bicycles up the gently-sloping incline, and balance is restored.   

Last night I dreamt that I was popping blackheads on my nose but what emerged was not pus but the black antenna of a gypsy moth caterpillar. Wildfires and the coronavirus and police brutality and racism and ignorance and lies and manipulation and propaganda and judgment and fear and a gypsy moth infestation. Destruction and death. And death, and death.  

I think of the coals of last night's fire glowing red in the dark, hint of hell. I woke up this morning with the smell of smoke in my hair.    

The summer breeze in the towering twin trees in the park, glinting sun and whispering wind and quivering silver (quilvering?) leaves. The military drone of an airplane in the distance, the chirping and cheeping and twittering of birds. Cottony cumulus clouds break up the blue, hawks drift lazily overhead. I wave my arms at them: I'm still alive. 

My body is weightless, suspended. I push myself, muscles expanding and contracting, through hydrogen and oxygen, which simultaneously resist and submit to my efforts. My thoughts drift like the hawks overhead.  

The Protest Rally

There is something very powerful about being in the same space as thousands of other people who believe in something as strongly as you do. There is a sense of camaraderie and connectedness that is impossible to replicate in any other forum. It's why the encores at stadium rock shows are such a rush, and why public protest rallies exist. Being part of a crowd reinforces your humanity, your awareness of being part of a society rather than just an individual.

Close to 10 000 people attended the Black Lives Matter rally in my sleepy Canadian city this afternoon. It was the perfect day for a protest, warm but not sweltering, with a pleasant early summer breeze. The crowd was diverse: racially, from the darkest black to the palest white, and generationally, from the small children being pulled in wagons to the seasoned protesters like my 68-year-old mother, who could not take a knee because of her arthritis (she did try). 

Together, we raised our fists in silent solidarity, raised our signs (scribbled on cardboard or stenciled on bristol board, mis-spelled or grammatically correct, quotes and slogans and lists of the dead) and our voices (albeit muffled because of our masks). We stopped traffic as we walked down the middle of the downtown streets. (It is always a thrill to be out in such pedestrian numbers that motor vehicles are forced to yield.) Some motorists rolled their windows down and honked along to "2-4-6-8! Stop the violence, stop the hate!", while some were obviously caught unaware. We rewarded the horn honkers with cheers and ignored the others. 

I felt it was important for me to add my white, female, middle-class body to the event to prove that injustice matters, not just to the five young black women who organized the event, not just to George Floyd and the other murdered black men in America who have inspired this most recent movement, but to every human being on the planet, and I am glad I went.        

But I am uncomfortable at protest rallies, and I think I have figured out why. The very nature of a public protest means the message can get convoluted. Everyone has their own agenda and motivation. Plus, when it comes to human rights, there is no single cause. People were protesting against discrimination, police violence, racial profiling, and a certain demagogic world leader. They were suggesting defunding the police and dismantling the prison system, stressing the importance of education and justice system reform and indigenous rights. One man had a sign demonizing the prime minister (he also carried a Canadian flag and had the mouth and nose portions of his mask cut out).  

After much deliberation, I had made two signs, one stating, "COLOUR IS NOT A CRIME," and one advocating "UNITY JUSTICE EQUALITY." Despite the Black Lives Matter purpose, it was important to me to protest racial discrimination in general, as I work with mostly Asian youth and one of my closest friends is Iranian. I also didn't want to promote the ACAB argument, because I cannot morally make such absolute statements, but I do want to see violent police officers punished.  Was I perverting the intent of the protest? 

For some reason, it makes me uncomfortable to repeat someone else's words, even if those words are important and true. And I instinctively resist doing what everyone else is doing; I am not, by nature, a follower of trends or a joiner of clubs. So it was hard for me to raise my fist, hard to chant along, although I sometimes did. It was easy for me to raise my sign, because those were my chosen words. 

But maybe that's the point of doing what everyone else is doing, or at least of doing what people who are not you are doing, especially at a protest rally: to force you into a different way of speaking and acting, to force you to lose your individuality, with all its unique experiences and inherent prejudices, and recognize your role as a part of society, a critical part with the responsibility to change those parts of society that subjugate others, whomever those others may be.

Don't be afraid of being uncomfortable. And please don't stop learning and listening and helping make the world better for us all. Thanks for reading. And, as always, riot on.       

May 2020

Shells of police vehicles, burned and blackened. Killer KKKops in graffiti on a brick wall. Fuck Trump scrawled in spray paint across another.

A bunch of men rock a white van, which stubbornly refuses to topple, a metaphor for the establishment. They give up and smash its windows instead, with baseball bats and tire irons and crowbars.

Broken glass glitters on asphalt. Spent canisters of tear gas and plastic water bottles litter the streets, projectiles that reinforce the inequality at the heart of this conflict.

A uniform and a civilian grapple on the ground. Before his fellow officers can arrive to assist, the crowd attacks the pair, succeeds in rescuing the man from the law. I cheer. Fucker, I say out loud, through tears. 

What do you think, I wonder, standing there silently in your riot gear, as civilians shout their anger and frustration into your face, phones at the ready to capture violence. (The cell phone camera, the most powerful weapon we have.)

Do you hate them? Do you see the enemy? Or do you understand the pain and grief? Do you see human beings who have no other recourse when everything is against them and they are murdered, over and over again, because you are afraid of dark pigment and poverty? Because you abuse your power, over and over again, and get off with a pension and a slap on the wrist while black men already in handcuffs die in the streets of a baton blow, a gun shot, a taser shock, a choke hold, a knee on the neck?

Stand there and take it. It is the very least you can do. I don't hate you, I don't believe all cops are bastards, but all of you need to suffer. You protect your own before you protect the innocent, and for that, even the noblest among you is culpable.

I don't revel in violence, but I, too, want to see it all burn. Burn the police stations, burn the courthouses, burn the White House to the goddamn ground. Fuck the police, fuck the unfair laws that keep people imprisoned, literally and figuratively, fuck the rich white men in power whose only motivators are fear and greed. Make them listen.

And when our immediate violence and anger have been spent (as they must, since violence and anger are not our natural emotional state), don't let it burn down into hopelessness. Make them listen in a different way, with an X on a ballot, your name on a petition, your voice at a rally, your kindness and compassion in the face of oppression and fear. And riot on.     

Self-Isolation Day 45

Today is Day 45 of my self-isolation.

The world has not yet exploded into green, and the upcoming weekend is supposed to drop below zero again, but the latent beauty of spring buds is visible on the ends of the dull brown branches. Every year I have that moment of almost giddy happiness when I realize that everything is suddenly in bloom. The sight of magnolias, flushed and feminine, never fails to bring tears to my eyes. The glory of southern Ontario in spring can't come soon enough.

My sleep schedule is erratic. I go to bed anywhere between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. Some days I'll sleep until noon, some days I'm up early enough to watch the light creep into the sky. (I am not a morning person, but I do enjoy the peacefulness of dawn.) Almost everyone I know is suffering from insomnia in varying degrees, so at least I'm not alone. The last time I took a sleeping pill I peed the bed, so I've been avoiding that thus far. Sometimes I'll pop a melatonin tablet under my tongue and hope for the best.

I've learned over the past few weeks that nobody can sing happy birthday on a zoom call with any degree of proficiency. Everyone is always self-consciously looking at their own face instead of focusing on the song, so it sounds like a 45 played at 33. I suppose it's good to be able to see how others see you in case you aren't wearing pants or there is something inappropriate in the background (a sinkful of dishes or a stack of porn or a pile of dirty laundry), but if this feature could be removed, video conversations would be much more natural, as we can't see our own faces in real life interactions for good reason. We're all such narcissists.

On Sunday I went for a drive alone down county highways, the Sonny Vincent tribute record blasting on the stereo, the window rolled down, the sun and the wind warm on my bare skin. I sunburned my left arm, but it was worth it to forget confinement for a couple of hours. Just a girl and a car and the open road. Fucking freedom, man. 

It's easy to forget that the world's gone mad when you're reading or fucking or picking weeds in the backyard or driving alone down an almost empty highway on a warm spring day, but the bliss of forgetfulness is ephemeral and, as soon as you turn on the TV or the computer, reality suckerpunches you in the face in the form of a restaurant delivery commercial. 

I no longer compulsively watch the news. Headlines are enough. I don't want to watch any more feel-good stories about how people are coping. I don't want to watch any more balcony singers or read any more historical comparisons. I don't want to watch musicians performing live from their living rooms. I don't want to hear "PPE" or "flatten the curve" or "frontline workers" or "contact tracing" or "we're all in the same boat" or "stay safe," even though I frequently use that last one myself in written correspondence. I don't want to be reminded of the stages of grief and assured that I am fine at whatever stage I am in. I just want someone to tell me when it's over.

My dad sent me a photograph of himself in sunglasses and mask on a moped on a street in Thailand, giving a thumbs-up. I had no idea sobs were lurking so close to the surface of my otherwise rock-solid facade of cool until they burst unceremoniously forth when I opened that particular email.

The beauty of spring, a good night's sleep, birthday celebrations instead of death notices, a Sunday drive, a photograph of one's estranged father: there is reason to hope. Riot on. xo

Self-Isolation Day 32 (mostly a rant, so read on at your own discretion)

Before shit really hit the fan, people were telling us not to wear masks. For god's sake, DON'T wear a mask, they said. In a facebook post, I commented to one of my nurse friends who advised me not to, "Don't worry, I won't wear one of those stupid masks." Now we can't go out in public without one. For god's sake, WEAR A MASK, they say. Why is it imperative that I wear a mask now, but imperative that I not wear a mask a month ago? It just makes sense, then and now, to wear a mask if you are going to potentially cough or sneeze or breathe or speak moistly around others when dealing with a respiratory virus. 

If grocery store cashiers washed their hands between every customer, their hands would fall off. Well, maybe not fall off, but they would develop cracks so painful they would have to take time off from work. (I know this from my magazine experience. I washed my hands so often dealing with all that printed matter that the tips of my fingers split open. Cracked, bloody fingertips probably aren't overly hygienic; plus, they fucking hurt.) Also, I don't understand how you think this would be feasible. Should they run off to the bathroom between customers? Or bring in those foot-pump hand wash stations they use at outdoor concerts? Wearing gloves, even if they never take them off, means they probably aren't sticking their fingers in their eyes or noses or mouths and then rubbing their COVID all over your tomatoes. Wash your own damn shit when you get home.

I don't entirely understand why making a racket has become a sign of appreciation. I mean, I personally can't think of anything lovelier than the sound of a bunch of people screaming and banging pots and pans together, but maybe you could play on recorders or triangles instead? Maybe rattle some windchimes? And if I was a doctor and I suddenly heard a thousand sirens blaring outside the hospital walls, I wouldn't think, "Ah, they love me. They really love me!", I would think, "Jesus fucking Christ, what now? Was there a 40-car pile-up or a tornado or something?" How about we all sing "For you are jolly good fellows" instead? (Lyrics slightly altered for inclusivity.)

Hmm, what else?

If you are an adult who had a full-time job before the shutdown, quit complaining that government assistance isn't happening on YOUR timeline. If you are of able body and mind, it's YOUR responsibility to take care of yourself and at least make sure that you have enough money in the bank to support yourself for a couple of months in case something bad happens to you. If you had money to spend on beer and clothes and makeup and Starbucks and bobblehead toys and a new cell phone and now find yourself struggling, you get no sympathy from me. (Obviously people making minimum wage, single parents, people with disabilities, etc. are exempt from my scorn.) We are lucky we live in a country that is pulling billions of dollars from god-knows-where to help people who really need the help. And if you meet the requirements for the money but don't really need it, don't take it, okay?

Finally, cut the post office workers some slack already. Think of the increase in package volume they are suddenly dealing with as everyone orders things they would ordinarily have gone to the mall for. Will you die if you don't get your Amazon order in 2-7 days, or will you be slightly inconvenienced and have to reread some old books or rewatch a movie you already own? Maybe think about how much you really need those things and wait until this is over before ordering anything to help lessen the load on those workers. And if you must order something (I do appreciate the benefits of retail therapy), please don't bitch about how long it takes to arrive at your door.

This is a tough time. Everything is frustrating. The isolation, the helplessness, the time to do nothing but sit around and wait (if you aren't working), being overworked and underappreciated (if you are working), the contradictory information, the conspiracy theorists (I'm going to save this nugget for another blog), the people jeopardizing the lives of others because they want to uphold their god-given right to go recreational fishing, pandemic be damned.

Maybe it's time to relearn the fine art of patience.

Self-Isolation Day 30

The weather has turned cold again.

Every day, a single male mallard splashes down into the pool, paddles about in the murk of thawed snow and dead leaves, shits on the deck, flies away.

I almost give up on this 1500-piece puzzle of teddy bears having a picnic. All the pieces look the same, and there are so many of them. After seriously contemplating tearing it apart, which is entirely unlike me (I like to finish what I start), I instead leave it alone for a while and then attack with renewed vigor and a sense of purpose for this stupid, superfluous task. I will conquer this fucker. I will. 

I apply lipstick. It looks clownish on my otherwise unmade-up face but it makes me briefly happy.

I have a headache for three days. Shaking acetaminophen into my palm, I realize how easy it would be to overdose. If two doesn't work, maybe four will. Maybe six. Maybe eight. I take two; they do nothing. I try one acetaminophen and one ibuprofen, despite the warnings; they do nothing, either. I drink a Coke. I take some Anacin. The next day I try an oxycodone left over from a surgery. It gives me a not-entirely-unpleasant buzz but still does nothing for my headache. I sleep all afternoon, though, and then I go back to bed after first dinner. The following morning, I feel the headache lurking like a shadow in my brain, but the pain is gone. 

I finish reading A Prayer for Owen Meany. I finish A Boy in Winter. They are both about death and hope and sacrifice, which seems about right.

I play Madonna's second and third records. I don't need to think about these songs; they are a part of me. I get up again, over and over, she sings. I tear up during "Love Makes the World Go Round," which is ridiculous.

There are things I want to do, small, easily achievable things, but I also don't want to do anything. It is a disconcerting feeling, this simultaneous desire to do and not do. I lie down on the couch and hide under a blanket until the feeling goes away.

I play online poker and sing happy birthday during a zoom call and video chat with my girlfriends and drink a glass of wine and watch a DJ friend play records on facebook instead of shuffling cards and eating cake and going for lunch and drinking and dancing. I want to go to the mall, and I hate the mall.

I am tired of updates. Tired of politicians and predictions and other people's impatience. Tired of tirades.

But I am so, so grateful that I have money in the bank and food in the pantry and a dude who makes me laugh and books to read and CDs to listen to and a strong internet connection and friends who humour me and wear lipstick for our zoom call and a couch to nap on and a government that is trying and a pool for ducks to shit in and a cat who doesn't know that anything is wrong and still purrs and demands to be let out and then let in again and I'm even grateful for that impossible puzzle of teddy bears having a picnic.

I am grateful to have words as a way to help make sense of my thoughts and emotions and experiences, even if they don't mean anything to anyone else. And I am grateful to you for reading, always. It's comforting to know you are out there, probably feeling simultaneously shitty and grateful, too. xo

Self-Isolation Day 23: How to Do a Jigsaw Puzzle During COVID-19

Step 1: Choose a puzzle from the stack your mom gave you the last time you went to see her. Feel a little guilty because you probably shouldn't have seen her at all, but you have to balance emotional support with physical precautions right now. It's a delicate balance, but neither of you is showing symptoms, you are both cautious in the outside world, and your town has very low numbers so far, so you should be okay.

Step 2: If the box has been previously unopened, slit the edges very carefully with a knife or pair of scissors. Now is not the time for an emergency trip to the hospital! Remove the lid and start to get a little excited about all the tiny coloured bits contained therein.

Step 3: In all likelihood, the pieces are contained in a clear plastic bag. Follow the instructions above re: opening the bag. Make sure you get every piece out, remembering that time you were missing a piece and it ended up still being in the plastic bag in the garbage can. When dude reminds you to check the bag, scoff at him because what kind of dingdong are you that you don't learn from your mistakes? Miss a single piece anyway.

Step 4: Separate the edge pieces from the rest of the puzzle pieces. This means physically touching each of the 1000 pieces (or, if you are lucky, 1500, because, let's face it, 1000-piece puzzles are no match for your superior puzzling skills). This process is an effective introduction to the kind of pieces you will be dealing with. Are they regularly shaped pieces with the kind of edges that line up? Or are they "bits and pieces," the kind with fucked up little shapes that don't look like they should go together at all? Is this the kind of puzzle with pieces that have straight lines that look like they could be border pieces but aren't? Shit's getting exciting!

Step 5: Put together the border. Depending on the puzzle, separate the edge pieces by shape (pieces with innies on both ends, pieces with outies on both ends, and pieces with one innie and one outie) or colour, whatever makes it easiest to accomplish this task. You will inevitably have missed identifying at least one border piece while completing Step 4. Make no mistake, this is a moral failure on your part. You had one fucking job, find the border pieces, and you couldn't even do that properly. Jesus Christ.

Step 6: Allow the border to remain incomplete. Someone will find that piece eventually (unless it's still in the plastic bag, now buried under banana peels and moldy bread crusts in the garbage can).

Step 7: Start with the easy parts, words and small uniquely-coloured sections. Dude will probably get to these before you can, because he's like that. Accept this fact and start hoarding pieces for larger uniquely-coloured sections before he can get to them. Anything that runs the length of the puzzle is another good place to start (the top of a mountain range, a fence, a roofline, the water's edge). Although more challenging than the small parts, a similar sense of accomplishment can be achieved by connecting pieces from one end to the other.

Step 8: Once the fun parts are done, do the rest of the goddamn puzzle. Unless this puzzle is of the pick-it-and-stick-it* variety, completing the remainder of the puzzle is more of a chore than entertainment. 

*The kind of puzzle where you pick up a random piece, find its placement using the picture on the box, and stick it where it belongs. This kind of puzzle takes, like, 4 hours max. Although certainly less fun, non-pick-it-and-stick-its (landscapes with lots of trees and an inordinate amount of sky with few clouds, possibly some reflections, or puzzles in only black and white) will take significantly longer to complete, and isn't that why you're doing jigsaw puzzles in the first place, as a way to kill time until you can meet your friends for lunch again? Alternating a pick-it-and-stick-it with a non-pick-it-and-stick-it is a good strategy to maintain your sanity during this difficult puzzling (both senses) time.

Step 9: You will eventually run into the crap part of the puzzle where the most effective strategy is to arrange the pieces by shape. So what are you waiting for? Arrange those pieces by shape already. (Honestly, you love this part. Your house is so organized already that this process brings you great joy. Creating order from chaos is infinitely rewarding, even if it is only puzzle pieces.) Once you do this, you will have to systematically try each piece of a certain shape into each remaining hole in the puzzle. This is admittedly kind of a drag, but the feeling of joy when you find one is unrivalled.

Step 10: When you are down to the last remaining piece (assuming it isn't still in the plastic bag or somewhere on the floor, in which case see Step 10B), put a single finger on it. Get dude to also place a single finger on the piece. Together, gently slide the piece into place, thereby completing the tableau.

Step 10B: Find the missing piece. It's probably still in the bag, because you are an overly confident dingdong.

Step 11: High five.

Step 12. Take a photograph as evidence of all the time you've wasted when you could have been doing something more valuable for the world, but then remember that this is doing something valuable for the world because you aren't outside spreading COVID-19.

Step 13. Leave the finished puzzle on the table for a couple of days. Relish your accomplishment. Fondly remember finding the piece with the cat's face (although dude probably found it before you).

Step 14: Grudgingly take the puzzle apart, making a half-assed effort to separate the pieces for the person who does it after you.

Step 15: Repeat Steps 1 through 14.

Step 16: Stay safe, and riot on.