03

Jan. ’12

Resolution #2: Kick Porn

It’s not even a week into the new year and I’ve already broken my resolution.  Oh, and it’s not NOT Drinking, that is a thing called “Juiceless January” and it’s not a resolution, it’s a lifestyle.  But I also broke that, too, although I figure Juiceless January starts whenever you want because it’s not like you stop drinking when the clock strikes midnight… far from it.  At 4 in the morning, January 1rst, I was sitting in my neighbours’ backyard, making sure the party fire died so the house didn’t burn down, swilling on the last cleansing Corona after a night of sparkling wine.  Needless to say, I needed hair of the dog on the first AND the second….so Juiceless January starts today:  January 3rd.  I donated a pint of blood just to get it all started.  Out with the old crap, in with the fresh hemo-cleanse.

Now I don’t really believe all this “cleansing” because you need toxins flowing inside to keep from being too precious for this filthy world.  It’s the theory of homeopathy and vaccines where a bit of the poison that can kill you, will keep you protected.  I had a friend who told me she drank one glass of wine a day which is the perfect amount to get a little buzz and keep the demons at bay.  I was jealous of her self-restraint because I could never stop at one glass.  Once I went to her house while our kids had a play date.  She offered me a glass of wine and hello, of course I said yes.  The two glasses she hauled out of the cabinet, no joke, were those giant ones you get in Las Vegas for those massive margaritas.  I brought one back from the Frontier Hotel to keep fruit in…it holds a bunch of bananas and a box of tangerines.  She poured us each “a” glass, draining a liter and a half of Jackson Triggs.  I love people and their delusions.

Anyway, I broke my only new year’s resolution:  Don’t worry so fucking much, all the live long day and night, 24/7. Of course the minute I tell myself NOT to worry, I worry.  I pick my nails, I chew and pull my hair.  Then I need a cocktail or 4. I fall asleep easily but wake up in the middle of the night, only to ruminate about my worries.  It’s a vicious cycle and so the need to implement Juiceless January.  If I don’t drink, at least I won’t worry about drinking.

Now I just went to see “Young Adult” which is about a crazy bitch with a drinking problem.  I’m not here to review the movie *per se* because I am biased.  I have two girl movie star crushes where I would unapologetically watch whatever they are in no matter how crappy of a flop according to Rotten Tomatoes.  One is Cameron Diaz, and she is obviously the man in my lesbian fantasy. She is even more masculine than my butcher crush.  The other is Charlize Theron.  I even wanted to lick her as le monster.  In “Young Adult” I can see myself in her character which made me love this film:  a loner with a little dog, consumed by obsessive thoughts, deluded, hungover, and junk food crazed.  I even had a dented Mini Cooper at one point in my life. And Hello Kitty!

My friend, Erin, has a blog where she describes “Time Porn” on tv, like where the characters in “Friends” have all the time in the world to hang out at the coffee shop.  She went on to say “Northern Exposure” was “Geography Porn,” where the small town of Cicely, Alaska, is glorified by the charmingly whacky citizens and their antics.  In reality, nobody has that much time, and small towns are usually not very diverse and full of colourful characters who embrace each other’s foibles.  No, they’re usually a cloister of rednecks who will nail you to a tree if you look a little funny.

Anyway, “Young Adult” is definitely “Alcoholic Porn.” Mavis Gary (Charlize) is a hot mess.  Even when she wakes up in the morning, with smudged eyes and dry mouth, she manages to make it look glamorous.  Swilling hangover liquid from a 2 liter bottle of Diet Coke never looked so refreshing.  Matted hair and saggy-assed jeans were as chic as her tarted-up, man-hunter look.  A drunken rant at her ex-boyfriend’s baby shower got a “You go, girl!” response from me.  I said it out loud in the audience and other people seemed to agree:  “You said it, lady!” someone in the back row hollered.  The movie in the end, really makes you want to try the Star Wars bourbon and have some KFC.  But alas, not during Juiceless January, I’ll have to wait til February the 3rd.

Here’s a trailer from “Young Adult.”  By the way, it’s set in Mercury, Minnesota and I also think there is a thing called “Minnesota Porn” that has me wearing a Vikings hat this winter.  (I’m so susceptible to all the porn of the world, maybe I need to kick the habit):

Posted by . Categories: Do This Not That, go girl. Tags: , , , , . 1 Comment

29

Dec. ’11

Gretzky Twitter Family Photos

I can’t get enough of this!  The Gretzky Family Christmas card! It’s my screen saver.  It’s like Vanity Fair meets  Awkward Family Photos all riddled with the sub-text of dysfunctional family issues. No one is actually smiling, the mama is really just showing her teeth, the way mamas do when they are about to bark out an order. The glum little one in the middle is the star of the show, a world-weary 8 year-old whose expression seems to say:  “Beautiful people have problems, too.”  Lol.

Like most Canadians, I have an affinity to Wayne Gretzky.  I think of him as an older brother because he reminds me of my own. The Golden Child archetype who has to carry the all the hopes and dreams of the rest family in his shoulders. I could never have sibling rivalry with my brother, The Other Great One, as I am completely content living in a shadow. In fact, because I was born way behind the rest of the lot, I always felt like a pet which was awesome. More Milkbones for me!

Anyway, this photo was on the cover of the Toronto Star today with an actual article that went along with it. Paulina Gretzky, the oldest daughter, tweeted it out and then it got REMOVED FROM TWITTER!  Media brouhaha ensued! They are like the Khardashians!  A family of pimps and hos, exploiting themselves for fame and…more fame. And now that it is removed from The Twitter and the bottom-feeding bloggers are posting it, it is a news story. They accuse Paulina of being a Twitter slut. And I am in love with her. She has the untrammeled mojo of  a woman twice her age.  Imagine what she’ll be like when she’s in her cougar years. I bow to her to Greatness. I am following her Twitter and maybe I’ll learn a thing or two.  Buzzkill Wayne made her to close her account in November for a nano second so in case it happens again, luckily there is a gallery of her best Instagrams that you can click on here.

And aside from that, we are on Day Four of Orgy Week and I am hell-bent by this time next year, “#orgyweek” will be a hashtag on Twitter and part of the popular vernacular in general.  In case you are new to this blog, Orgy Week is the week between Christmas and New Years where you do what you want, not what you think you should do.  You would be surprised how much you learn about yourself when you let yourself “be.”  My revelations so far: I am a hermit!  I actually like cole slaw!

And speaking of dysfunction families, Evangeline and I went to see “The Descendants” which made me cry. I like crying, I’m always on the verge anyway.  All is not what it seems from the outside, as George Clooney says in the beginning:

“My friends think just because we live in Hawaii, we live in paradise.  We’re all just out here sipping Mai Tai’s, shaking our hips, and catching waves.  They say we are immune to life.  How could they possibly think our families are less screwed up…our heartaches less painful?”

Maybe it’s the same with the Gretzkys.  Maybe Paulina’s Twitter account is just a cry for help, that kind of hunger for attention is destined for doom. The need for validation is a bottomless pit when you are seeking it from outside yourself.  All that having to suck your stomach in to take a headless shot of yourself in a bikini in a mirror from a hotel room is really kind of pathetic….no, it’s awesome, who am I kidding? That’s just the Orgy Week Cheetos talking.

3 more sleeps and Orgy Week is over, thank God.  I think too much the rest of year and now I am over-thinking everything.  Also I need to put on some lipstick. Soon things will be normal, N*O*R*M*A*L!  Until then, here’s the trailer to ‘The Descendants,” go see it:

Draft
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27

Dec. ’11

7 Days of Orgy Week

I told you I did not make this up.  I’m not sure Whit Stlllman made it up either when making “Metropolitain” but I’m telling you, it exists:  The week between Christmas and New Year’s Day is called “Orgy Week” and it is _bar none_ the greatest week of the year.  Today is the day after Christmas, some of you are Boxing Day shopping, others are cleaning up while the rest of you are “going for a walk” just to get out of the house and sneak a cigarette.  Clearly you all need some help.

When it comes to “Orgy Week,” if you are at a loss as to what to do, just think of what it is you want to do.  Most of you are probably thinking:  WWCD? (What Would Caligula Do?)  But don’t fret, you don’t have to run to salon and get waxed, that is extreme orgy.  Personally, on Day One (Boxing Day) while some of you were trolling the aisles of the malls, all sweaty in your winter coats, carrying bags of crap, praying for a meteor to hit, I was in my pyjamas.  All day!  I shopped on-line!  I don’t care what anyone says, it’s cheaper to shop on-line because you focus on what you want, not the extra crap that catches your eye when you are at the check-out.  All the stores have on-line shopping and you don’t even have to travel to other cities to get there.  Simons, the coveted department store in Montreal, has on-line shopping and Boxing Day sales, check it out here.  I spent the morning perusing, while drinking mimomas.  And then I watched my Boxing Day traditional movie, Metropolitian, while drinking straight champagne. GIF prooof:

Then I ate a box of crackers. And a wedge of gorgonzola. And some chocolate.

Freddy, also in his pyjamas, ate two McCains Delissio Rising Crust pizzas. Caligula in training.

I couldn’t even finish writing this post yesterday, I sugar-crashed mid-afternoon.  Somewhere in the haze, I watched Jane Eyre with Evangeline which actually gave me nightmares last night.  I was Rochester’s crazy wife, locked up in a room without tv or interwebs.  And I woke up with the intense urge to go to Walmart and stock up on toilet paper and toothpaste.  It is orgy week after all, 6 more days to go!

I’m going to check in with you later this week and see how y’all are managing.  Right now I’m going to get some proper air. I will leave you with this, my favourite YouTube video of the year.  If Tim the Tambourine Man doesn’t make you happy, no one will:

 

 

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20

Dec. ’11

Cheap and Cheerful Christmas Tips For The Lazy and Gluttonous

It’s so funny to listen to a bunch of ladies talk in the locker room the week before Christmas. Somebody needs to make a Shit Locas Say viral video:

“Are you ready for Christmas?”

“Liam is bringing his girlfriend from Waterloo. We sold his bunk bed on Craigslist…”

“…real eggnog has raw eggs so I get the one Loblaws, they have a low-fat version, but what the heck, it’s only once a year…”

“Rum! Don’t get me started!”

“…I’m allergic to wool. Except cashmere. I can wear it even without a body slimmer.”

“New Year’s in Whistler, although Jeff’s mother is in Boca so we might fly down for a couple of days if Sharon and Mike are at their time-share in St. Barts…”

“Do these black hose make me look like an Italian widow?”

The other day, one of these ladies actually asked me if I was “ready for Christmas.” Aside from stretching out my stomach by eating an entire wreath made out of nuts and caramel and drinking a half a bottle of Gibson’s Finest Sterling Whisky to beef up my alcohol tolerance, I could say I have done Sweet F-All to prepare for the big day. To placate her, I told her I have “organized my thoughts” and she laughed: “Well that’s a good start!”

What the hell is she talking about? Why does everyone get all in a frenzy about Christmas? It’s supposed happy and fun. Don’t get me wrong, shopping is a huge stress especially if you are on a budget but my strategy is to create diversions, aka. cheaper alternatives that will make your Christmas special. I have some ideas that I will share AS MY GIFT TO YOU:

Christmas cards are expensive and so is postage. I have only received two this year, one from Rona (with a 10 percent off gift card on my next purchases for my next installation project over $3,000. Thanks, Rona, for the conditional good wishes), and my accountant’s office which is sweet. They have seen me cry. And so has my divorce lawyer but so far no card yet…if you’re reading this Ms C, let’s go for a holiday drink over orgy week! For the rest of us not drumming up business and who have not had the where-with-all to get the cards, find a pen, find a pen that works, write in the cards, find your address book, write the addresses on the envelopes, shlep to the post office, buy stamps, put the stamps on the cards, and mail them out (and we wonder why we are fatter than ever), why not make a custom e-card? Make your own meme, like the “Bitch,Please” one of Betty above. Click here and get creative. Oh, and I know it’s 2011 and still 80% percent of you don’t know what a meme is…I just can’t explain it without going on about how funny LOL Cats are, click here for the definition.

The meme’s slutty sister, the Gif, would also make an awesome e-card. Here is mine:

THERE’S NO PREZZIES UNDER THE TREE!

Moving on: The best part of Christmas is the eating and the drinking. Please ignore any advice you see on tv or the newspaper on how to keep from gaining weight over the holidays. Fuck that. People hate you when you are “dieting” and y’all know it. They don’t put on a spread and sweat over how much booze to buy just so you can twirl around their living room with your belt all buckled in non-stretch jeans while you suck on a celery stalk, you sanctimonious bitch. Just shut up about how fat you might get and eat. Here’s a little tip to if you’re going to be all calorie-phobic: Leave your car at home and walk everywhere. My friend lives across a hilly cemetery and on top of a cliff and I run though (scared of ghosts!) and climb to get there in order to enjoy the delicious meals she makes, and nobody makes a better roast beef feast. Sometimes I feel like vomiting after my trek but I don’t, that would be cheating. Fattening food is part and parcel of the season. You don’t even need a car. Food is fuel, like you know how when you go to people’s homes over the holidays and they serve those balls of Boursin cheese? A few little smears of that on a cracker and you have enough gastric explosives that you get home by using your colon as a rocket pack. Those potent little cheese balls put the arse in arsenal. Stuff that in your pipe and smoke it, North Korea.

Which brings me to this idea: Why not create a culinary diversion this year by making your own cheese? It’s not that hard. I am so into this. And the fact that you made it yourself will make you look like the lovechild of Jesus and Martha Stewart. Here is how:

By poor planning and laziness, I ended up getting a tree way too late. Instead of getting the usual stream-lined Frasier Fir that takes up minimal space, I wound up with a monstrous, furry Scotch Pine that takes up the entire fitness area of the living room. You know what I mean when I say “fitness area,” it’s the only space in the entire house where you can lay down flat on your back with your yoga mat and practise “plow” aka. Queefing Manatee in private. This tree puts Vegas back into Christmas even with those shitty LED lights. It is gorgeous. I am in love with this tree. Although it makes me sneeze like crazy, it adds to its breathtaking and sensory beauty. I’m never going to get a tiny tree again. Talk about a diversion, nobody will notice if there are no presents and that half of your decorations are actually from Halloween. Go big or go home….ACHOOOO (6 times)…is all I have to say about that.

And finally, don’t forget to treat yourself! I had the pleasure of going to a small Christmas party where the husband of the hostess invited a reflexologist to give us all 15 minute foot massages as a gift. It was the first time I’ve had reflexology and I am a fan. I even like it better than massage, you don’t have to get naked and lay face down on a bed and worry if your tits are flying out of your armpits and then have that greasy walk of shame to put your bra back on. No nudity, it’s feet only! I’ve got myself booked for an entire hour!

And I leave you with the second episode of Shit Girls Say and a wish for a very Happy Holiday and an awesome orgy week (call me!):

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13

Dec. ’11

SANTA!!!! I WANT THESE 5 THINGS

Today I found myself prowling on Bloor Street, smack dab in the fancy section, known as something like the Golden 1/8 of a Kilometre.  Let’s not kid ourselves, it’s no Golden Mile like Chicago, and it barely stretches two blocks.  There’s Prada and Gucci but there’s also some other mall type stores like Club Monaco and the Gap, so you never really do feel out of place as you valet park your Scion XB at Holt Renfrew.  I used to work at Holt Renfrew, by the way, my favourite job ever.  But I spent more than I made because I was a material girl:  Fendi!  Hermes! Donna Karan!  I had to quit to pay off my credit card.  And then I had kids and projected my materialism upon them, especially at Christmas.  There were early years that we documented with Bratz dolls and Hot Wheels, and then on to electric guitars and gaming systems.  The other day, Freddy said last year was the best Christmas that we ever had.

“What are you talking about?  That was our poorest haul ever!  You got a tube of Chapstick in your stocking and a pair of Nikes.  You could have gotten shoes in September when school started but I had to save them for under the tree!  And how lame was that tree? All the lightbulbs were burned out and we only had one strand lighting up the bottom.  And on Christmas Eve, when we usually have lobster, we had canned salmon!  Yes, it came out of a can!”

“I don’t remember that.  I loved it because we watched “It’s A Wonderful Life” by the fire in our new pyjamas,” he said.

Sometimes he says cute things.  But mostly he mumbles.  He is probably always high.

So with that Skinter than Skint Christmas under the belt, as I strolled along the Bloor strip, I realized, I don’t really want anything here.  If I had to make a list, none of this crap would be on it.  Okay, I’m totally lying.  Of course I want everything at Sephora, the entire second floor of Holts, and the list goes on like a Talking Heads song, that one I always have in my head when I’m trying to placate myself while being overstimulated by retail eye candy.  I will post it for you, but first I am going to make my Christmas wish list, so you get can have some ideas for your own LOCA in your life:

1. World Peace. Or Piece.  I forget which one.  Or maybe just Love.  Or a piece of World Star Hip Hop that posted the best video of the year where the couple got having sex on the Spadina subway platform.  This it here all NSFW.  This should happen more often.  If everyone did this, we wouldn’t be so hateful, nor would we have to bother on-line dating. I may just buy a TTC pass. It is awesome.

2. A goat.  Seriously, check it out here.  You can buy a goat for a hun. And let someone else have it so you don’t have to deal with it.  That is my kind of gift. And it keeps on giving.

3. Underwear.  I don’t know why mine keep wearing out? I like the ones from American Eagle (aka. Aerie).  I’m serious about this, they are so comfy it’s like you are wearing a teddy bear on your bum. And you can pee-pee leak a bit when you sneeze or put your key in the door and it’s no big deal.  Here is what they look like:

4. A food processor.  Not to be confused with a blender!  Do you know the holy trinity of Italian cooking includes celery, carrots, and onions?  Using a Slap Chop to make ragu alla bolognese is like an excercise in frustration. The hunks of veg keep getting stuck in the grooves of the metal! You have to stop the chop, then fish them out with a knife, which you might as well just use if it weren’t so blunt. As far as screaming and throwing things across the room, I would rather shop for auto insurance or call Rogers Cable to make an enquiry!

5. Louis CK.  My obsession/crush (see previous post as my favourite ginger) had me already go out and get his DVD’s including the first season of “Lucky Louie” so I don’t really know really know what form I can have him in at this point.  Maybe in real life? Sometimes when you let your needs be known the universe will throw you a bone, so says The Secret. So I’m just sending it out there.  SANTA!!!!!! (said with the same plaintive wail as “Stella!”)

And that’s about it on my list, and as promised, I leave you with my shopping song,  “Born under Punches” performed live in Rome in 1980.  See it all come back again, my daughter loves this band.  She thinks Tina Weymouth is the coolest chick ever.  Thank the Gods of Retail for vintage-loving teenage girls:

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09

Dec. ’11

10 Hot Ginger Men

Tonight is the cookie exchange party!  Last night I made 7 dozen chocolate ginger cookies from the Martha Stewart Cookie Book (the ones on the cover).  They are sublime.  They were also labour intensive.  I had to chop chunks of chocolate and grate fresh ginger. As I grated the ginger, I wondered, why are redheaded people called “ginger” when ginger is actually off-white?  Ginger cookies are reddish because of the molasses!  And then I mused about ginger men and how they are coming back in style.  My daughter wants to marry a ginger, or specifically, Rupert Grint or Robert Pattinson, who is technically a brunette but can be filed under “tinge of ginge.”  When I was a nubile 19 year old, I fell hopelessly in love with an older Jewish guy who looked like Starsky from the tv show (not Ben Stiller from the movie…please). He had brown hair but when he forgot to shave, his beard would come in red. He was a moody fucker and would spend days in his apartment, growing this ginger beard that would collect food and toilet paper lint.  For some reason I thought it was hot. I loved him so much, I would have carved his initials on my ass (this was before tattoos were mainstream). He ended up dumping me for someone his own age although he told me I was the best sex he ever had. My youth embarassed him! Bet he regrets that now. Lol.

Since then, I haven’t really given red headed men, or tinge of ginges, much credit.  I like a tall, dark, handsome man like every other ho in T.O. but as y’all know, I have sub-categories:  Indian men, men that look like Jesus, men with dark moustaches that resemble outlaws from the 1930s, men who herd sheep, and the list goes on.  But since I’ve unleashed my mojo, why not expand my horizons?  Re-think the gingers! They are not all like Danny Bona-douche or Carrot Top.  So as I baked, I comprised a Top Ten list, saving my fave for last.  here we go:

1.  JESUS!

Not Willem Dafoe as Jesus in the Last Tempation of Christ, but Jesus in general.  Yes, Jesus was likely a ginger, or a ginge tinge, based upon the tribe of his maternal lineage according to my research on Google and central casting according to Martin Scorsese.  Jesus was a carpenter and I do like men who work with their hands.  Lose the entourage though, don’t have time to do you all.

2.  Sterling Hayden

In university, I took a film course on Stanley Kubrick.  Sterling Hayden was in The Killing which was one of those heist-gone-wrong films that I looooove.  And he was hooooootttt!!!!  And then he was in Dr. Strangelove and he was craaaaazzzy.  I love a nut job.

3. Vincent Van Gogh

Speaking of crazy, I love that he cut off his ear.  That is so awesome.  Men don’t do that anymore, they don’t even cut their own toenails.  They get pedicures and have their balls waxed at a salon!  Pussies.

4. Eric Stoltz

Remember him?  He was hot during the Brat Pack era but didn’t get the fame.  Because he was a redhead! Look how cute he is, he is like a male Jodie Foster. I like Jodie Foster a lot, I remember when she was a child star, I wanted her to be my friend.  She was in the original Freaky Friday!

5. Boris Becker

I know, what’s up with this?  I’m picking this tennis playah because he is a perfect example of a blonde with a ginge tinge.  This works well if you style yourself like a Scandanavian hipster or a fisherman.

6. David Caruso

Ugly-sexy!  And the voice!  All he has to do is talk and you forget worrying about what level SPF he has to use in Miami.

7. Kevin McKidd

Another actor from that show Grey’s Anatomy which jumped the shark after season 3 when the plots turned into something from General Hospital.  What McHorseshit.  But this guy is worth a channel surf.

8. I don’t know who this is

When I googled ‘hot ginger” so many fetish websites came up, who knew?  Check out this site, it’s perfectly wholesome, so many more to fuel your fetish.  I think this dude would make a perfectly good son-in-law.

9. Prince Harry

I’m putting him on my list because you like him and I need a higher google rating.  Sweet!

10.  Louis CK!  

I know I’m late to the party but I am madly in love with Louis CK.  I want to marry him.  I don’t even think I need to tell you why, just watch:

Posted by . Categories: This Charming Man. Tags: , , , , , . 13 Comments

07

Dec. ’11

Tale of a Christmas Ho

I think it’s politically okay to celebrate Christmas in public again.  Remember when we couldn’t even say the word and the kids had “Holiday” pageants and had to sing “Woot Woot Kwanzaa” sung to the tune of he Fifth Dimension’s “Stoned Soul Picnic?”  In class, they made dreidels out of polymer clay with wire hooks so we could hang them on the tree as an ornament, killing the J-bird and the C-bird with one stone. Smart hockey, teacher, keep everyone happy. Just make no mention of the sweet baby Jesus, Virgin Mary, mangers, wise men (they don’t really exist anyway), and from now on Santa has no denomination. But sitting on his lap and giving him your list of wants and desires while he drunkenly calls you a “ho ho ho” has never really gone out of style, thank Gods (plural).

I love Christmas and I will say it loud and proud.  It’s all about the build up:  The lights, the decorations, the shortbread, the Brie wheels, the booze, and best of all the bombardment of made-for-tv movies on the W Network.  There’s a bunch of them, all filmed in Toronto, all starring Hollywood D-list “ageing” actresses with Can-con leading men, that they replay over and over again.  A typical plot:  A woman, once married to an evil rat bastard who leaves her for his sex-atary, becomes homeless.  She gets a job at a diner and starts baking cookies that sell like hotcakes. The man (whose name is always Nick) that runs the diner is a nice but seemingly hapless hunk that she is sexually attracted to but she has no time for because she has to get back on her feet for the sake of her hipster daughter who is away at college and doesn’t yet know she is broke. The story-line arcs when there is a misunderstanding involving false pride (hers) and blue balls (his) and she falls into the depth of despair. But! It turns out he is actually super wealthy. Her cookies become a multi-million dollar industry and she and Nick fall in love just in time for Christmas and her daughter comes home to her happy mom and new daddy and a house full of prezzies. The end.

And speaking of baking cookies, I gave that chore up for Lent 4 years ago and never really got back to it.  I used to get invited to various “cookie exchange” parties…I know, right?  Bake a dozen million cookies, put them in a trunkload of cookie tins and take them to covenant of estrogen-based ho-bags and sit around and drink wine and talk.  That’s not really party *per se,*  Not without bone and mistletoe! Bitch, please. What is with all these grown women wanting to go out on “girls’ night?”  A couple of weeks ago, one of my friends e-mailed me: “We’re going out on a girls’ night, want to come?”  I e-mailed:  “Can I bring my nephew?”  To which the reply:  “Ladies only!”  Ugh, to that!  Seriously, I can’t handle being in a mass of women, or a “snatch of beavers,” plural form. I need man energy to drive me to take the next breath. This is why I don’t mind when my teenage son has a room full of boys sleep over in the tv room.  The sweat and Axe Body Spray all condense in one spot over night so that when you open the door in the early afternoon to see if they are still alive, you are bombarded with a pheromone bomb so potent, you have to wear panty liners for a week.

But I’m looking forward to this cookie party. My friend who invited me has called this the “rebel cookie exchange where anything goes!”  I asked:  “Do you mean there will be man-whores and bourbon?”  “Oh, goodness, no,” she laughed, “You can actually bring squares, before they were sticky about that rule and it was cookies only.  Lindsay is making fudge!”  Fudge!  I love fudge.  And cookies. Nothing says Christmas more than a chunk of extra ass-flab made out of butter.  Ho ho ho!

And with that I leave you with some Can-con, my mother’s favourite Christmas carol, Little Drummer Boy, done by Sean Quigley of Winnipeg. This is cool and love his teenage ‘stache:

Posted by . Categories: go girl, Hanging Around, LOCAs gone wild. Tags: , , , . Leave a comment

05

Dec. ’11

Little Room Got Bigger

I just got a laptop last month as some of y’all know which means I’m not typing all hunched over from my “ugly room.”  My PC is still there, in the space off the kitchen where the washer and dryer hold hands tightly while the spiders in the Ikea shelving make a 5 story web condo. Check out the view, Charlotte: Soup cans and vacuum bags. We have a third story shelf with Mac n Cheese, if you want a unit, they’re going fast. Mice are taking over! The entire second floor with the Kikkomen noodles are sold old but there’s space behind the George Foreman grill on the bottom shelf, so hurry!

With the AirMac, I can blog anywhere and every where. In a box.  With Green Eggs and Ham.  Like a child, I am in awe and wonder what I find each day on the tip of my fingers. I know it’s nothing new to you pervs, and I, too, have I’ve been fingering my phone for years but now it’s all blown up ALL THE TIME.

Which is awesome but!  A chained up PC computer in an ugly room has a purpose.  A lap top Air Mac is a whore with a whole other agenda.  In one single month I have logged on so many miles on random tangent fuckery that I am afraid that my brain has been compromised by too much imagery of LOL Cats, porn, funnies, “Before and After” pictures of the Khardashians, et cetera, that my own voice has been compromised.

And not that my voice is a big bag of chips, but it is my little squeak and it came from the ugly room that is my private sanctuary.  Condensed and restrained, I could collect my thoughts and then spew like the food processor on the fifth shelf.  That stool I hunched over was one from my childhood that my dad reupholstered in vinyl snakeskin with which he sent me off to university.  Sometimes people come over to my house and I have to show them something on the computer and when they sit on the stool, inevitably they will say:  “What the fuck? How do you fucking sit on this fucking thing and fucking type?”

I say, watch your expletives.

This was my spot.  I could tap on my kepyboard while I did laundry and gaze out the window and watch the clouds and the birds. And sometimes see the neighbour walk his dog in the park and think to myself:  “What in the name of God’s jizz nuggets are you doing with that woman you’re married to…hello, is it me you’re looking for?” And then go on YouTube and cry a little bit.

Now I can tap shit out anywhere. At Starbucks. Your mother’s house. Wherever WiFi bleeds out a vein, I got access.

I am not so sure how to harness this new-found energy.

I am just saying so you know and that you stay with me because I think it’s going to be a fun ride. I hope! Because otherwise I have nothing, and with that I leave you with this:

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02

Dec. ’11

Maple Leaf Gardens Loblaws: Smart Hockey

Yesterday the new Loblaws in Maple Leaf Gardens building had their grand opening. There were massive lineups when I drove by in the afternoon so I decided to save my trip for today.  Smart hockey, as my friend, Michelle, would say. Everything that you do that is strategically advantageous is “smart hockey.”  It was smart hockey for her to go to teachers’ college and smart hockey to buy that amazing couch from Biltmore that will last forever and go with any decor. I hardly ever pull a smart hockey move as my timing is always off.  My life is a series of mis-steps, misguided decisions, and poor planning.  Which is why I get so many parking tickets.  I have a totally different life in a parallel universe where I am a successful cartoonist slash animal rescue foster parent, and wife of Vince Vaughn.  The smartest hockey trick I have pulled in recent years was wearing a Tena pad to the beer festival last summer. And again today, that was totally smart hockey move to avoid the opening day frenzy and go mid-morning so I actually got a parking spot in the lower level.  Free parking when you spend $18 or more!

Personally, I’m not attached to Maple Leaf Gardens as a hockey temple since the only time I have been inside was for a Midnight Oil concert back in 1989.  Torontonians find that odd but I’m not from here!  I have been inside the Montreal Forum, also an ex-temple of hockey to The Habs.  Okay, I have never been to a hockey game.  I have seen the Beach Boys and David Bowie.  But I have paid my hockey dues sitting in local civic centre arenas all around the province of Quebec, watching my older brother play Pee Wee, Bantam and Midget or however long it went on before he broke his leg and discovered girls.  Whenever I smell Thrills gum, I think of hockey arenas.  And when I think of hockey arenas, I think of one of the moms on my brother’s team that used to sit in the stands, with her bouffant black beehive, smoking a cigarette, yelling with her booming, raspy voice every expletive known to mankind.  She taught me half my vocabulary. My mentor.

I can’t think of a better way to preserve the memory of the Gardens than to build a giant supermarket where people can go every day and breathe new life in that great building. I think Loblaws did an amazing job setting this up. There is a giant installation of the actual seats on the side wall by the escalators and a mural by the carts.  There are little areas for specialty items, and place for eating, and then the regular aisles.  I always wondered where people who lived downtown went to get groceries.  Did they go to Rabba or Mac’s for Fruit Loops and milk and then have to trot down the street to Shoppers Drug Mart for Axe Body Spray?  How tedious.  Now the auto-less central urbanites can shop in one spot and go to the LCBO upstairs. Because of the layout, it still feels like a bunch of different shops so it doesn’t seem so Big Box-y. Gay villagers, the target consumer, don’t like box. Smart hockey, Loblaws, smart hockey indeed.

And with that, I leave you with my only Maple Leaf Gardens memory, Midnight Oil…did I really like this band?  _That_ I don’t recall, here they are anyway:

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30

Nov. ’11

Catholic Trollops #Winning

In yesterday’s slow news day, the brouhaha was whether or not to ban the kilt in the Durham Catholic school board.  Apparently some of the school boards, like Toronto, have already banned them because the girls have been rolling down the waistbands to pull the skirts up.  “The uniform represents the students when they’re in the community as well. So if they’re in the community, and people only remember that girls wear short skirts when they go to that school, is that the image we want to convey?” said trustee Chris Leahy. The girls like wearing the kilts and raised a stink that only girls can do so Leahy lost his battle. What a buzz-kilt.

And what exactly is he saying anyway?  He didn’t exactly say the “s” word, or imply that the above kilt-wearer will graduate into this after Grade 12:

Isn’t the image of a Catholic school girl as a trollop tease so classic that it negates itself and becomes wholesome?  I think if you’re raised with guilt and oppression, you are going to naturally become defiant.  Tarting up the uniform gives the girls a sense of empowerment and identity.  You can take the girl out of the uniform, but you can never take the Catholic out of the girl, even on the tennis court:

Live and let live, is my motto for raising the modern teenager.  I don’t ban anything, and my daughter morphed into my mother.  In fact, she thinks those kilts are too short.  Which means they probably are and so reverse psychology is in order.  In my day (decades ago!), there was a private school that had a uniform that was so short, you could see the edge of the underpants.  This was so the nuns knew you were wearing clean ones.  It was not uncommon for traffic accidents to occur when the girls walked in packs down the street.  The uniform also required knee socks so the legs were bare and hence, winters were unbearable.  The girls would defy the “no slacks” policy and wear jeans underneath the skirt.  This angered the nuns which made the girls even more defiant which caused the opposite brouhaha of the Durham school board and so a smart trouser became optional.  Fogeys, did we learn nothing from Footloose?

And on that note, I will leave you with my son, Freddy’s, latest YouTube short which was filmed in the regular school board, Rosedale School of the Arts, where pants are optional, as is everything else.  Enjoy:

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