1984. I was 16. I had a crush on a kid three years my junior. He was strong, he was brave, he was determined. He was open-vested.
Atreyu. (sigh) Oh Atreyu. Screaming to save Artax - yanking on those frickin' reins. And then (SPOILER ALERT) the damn horse drowns and now, almost 30 years later, I still get a lump in my throat.
And then when Atreyu meets up with Rock Biter when he is washed up on shore... Only the soulless cannot be affected:
So what am I doing now? Ordering the book online, because in spite of having seen the movie at least a dozen times, I've never read the original text by Michael Ende. I may have to have box of tissues handy. Because of the tears you sick bastards - the kid is still 13, even after all these years!! And it was the purest kind of love.
We recently went to a wedding. At this wedding there were many young, beautiful couples - years, perhaps dozens of years, younger than us. We were seated with one of these couples. They were hip and happening and 'NOW.' But they sure as shit didn't know how to kiss.
I watched this beautifully coiffed and gowned young woman as she kissed her husband. She looked like a clown blowing up a balloon. Like a guppy sucking in air. Like an infant trying to latch onto a nipple. And he was digging it!
It was the least sexy kissing I've ever seen in my life. And I've seen some bad kissing. Pretty much every kiss that Colin Firth has given on film is a bad kiss. And before you nail me to the wall for dissing Mr. Darcy - I urge you to go back... Go back and watch videos of Mr. Firth's kiss at the end of Pride and Prejudice and Love Actually and Bridget Jones' Diary - those are not sexy kisses. Mr. Firth looks like he's worried that he's going to catch lip cooties from those gals. But those terrible kisses, were like from Lady Chatterly's Lover in comparison to the kisses I witnessed at the wedding.
If someone had caught my reaction on film it would have been something like this:
It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon. I was driving into Toronto to see a friend's show. I had Q107.1 on (the home of classic rock) - it was Psychedelic Sunday and a Beatles A-Z weekend. The tunes were stellar.
I made sure I checked the highway update signs all the way along my route. "Express and Collectors moving well after next transfer." That's what I like to hear. Singing along with the Beatles "Goooolden slumbers fill your eyyyyyyyes!" - anticipating a great show - happy to be alive.
I eased into the exit lane at the DVP and had a moment of stupification. It was CLOSED. The DVP was CLOSED. But a driver wouldn't know this until they actually exited and drove 100 m and saw that they couldn't travel south because there were big freaking road blocks there, and instead everyone was being re-routed north - towards Newmarket. The complete opposite direction of where I was supposed to be.
My best laid plans had gone to shit. And in that moment, I knew... I knew that if I ever was to murder anyone in my life, it would be one of those people in charge of the update signs on the highway.
I'd be introduced to a guy at a party 5 years from now and I'd ask, "What do you do?"
And he'd say, "I program the highway update signs on the 401."
And then I would stab him in the throat with the first thing I could get my hands on (a cocktail skewer) and when he fell to the ground I would jump on his testicles... a lot. And as he was crying and bleeding out and asking "Why? Why? Why?" I would say this:
"Because you ruined my Sunday!!! The trip that was supposed to take me 1 hour and 15 minutes mutated into a BILLION times longer! And I missed the thing that I drove all the way into the city for! I had to circumvent the gridlock on the 404 and when I finally got back on the highway I almost ran out of gas because I'd had to drive for so long out of my way, so I had to get off the highway and find a gas station - do you know how HARD it is to locate a gas station CLOSE to the 401 even with a GPS?!? And then I had to use the stupid Allen Expressway which took me 25 minutes to travel 2.5 km and then when I finally got to my destination and paid for parking, I couldn't have an alcoholic beverage because I had to drive home, and when I got back to the car, there was a FUCKINGPARKING TICKETon mywindshield!!!That is why!"
And then all of his highway update sign programmer friends would know. They would know how important it is to update those signs on the highway. He would be a lesson to them all.
That being said. I did manage to have a lovely warm apple cider with my friends. After I'd missed the show.
Lesley has chicks. Baby chicken-type chicks. In her house. Four adorable balls of feathery fluff. I can barely contain my "squeeeee" of joy within the confines of my head. I have picked them all up - pressed them against my cheek. They are fluffy yellow examples of the perfection of our universe.
I just found out that these chicks are 'eating chicks.' By that, they are meant for eating. Not, as Rissa and David supposed when I explained this to them, cannibal chicks who are eating other chicks. Lesley will be slaughtering these chicks after they become full-grown chickens, and then, she will eat them. These baby chicks whom I pressed to my cheek.
And I'm going to help her do that. Because I think I need to know how to do this. You know, when Armageddon comes, we'll all be living on homesteads in the remaining wilds of Canada raising our own food, and I'm going to need to know how to slaughter chickens and whatever else that can be food, including humans. 'Cause ME turning into a cannibal?? After Armageddon, that's gonna be an eventuality. I know human is supposed to taste like chicken and all that, but say you've spent the last several months/years with George the cobbler, or ferrier or whatever in post-Armageddon times George does... I don't know if I'm going to be able to eat George on account of the fact that we'd have had a relationship of sorts, you know because he makes my shoes or puts shoes on my horse - which is all we'll have left for transport, because it's after Armageddon and we'll all be riding horse or elk or reindeer - and then when the regular food runs out we're going to have eat the Georges of this world and I want to be prepared for that eventuality. So I'm starting with chicks.
I had a good week last week, I really did. I was a good girl. I limited my intake of all the bad-for-me stuff. I did. I didn't eat after 7:00 p.m. I had club soda with lime instead of the Rusty Nails and Chocolate Martinis that called to me.
Until Saturday night. That night it all went to hell. After a sensible dinner of pork tenderloin salad, where did David and I go? No Frills. What did we buy? Bags of gluten-free brownies, and rice chips and a tray of Nanaimo Bars. We went out for eggs. If I really think about the calories I ingested, I might have to commit Hara-kiri.
Food rehab may be my only option. If I went to food rehab, I could maybe sweat out the addiction to chocolate, sugar and salt. This once-a-week bingeing is going to kill me. I know that I'm an emotional eater. I know that. So when I'm feeling low because of my freaking ridiculous health issues, that's when I should just go to bed. Even if it's 7:30 p.m. I should NOT have two bowlfuls of cut up miniature gluten-free brownies with added chocolate chips, topped with a dollop of sour cream, followed by an ENTIRE FUCKING bag of dill pickle flavoured rice chips. That is stupid. I know that it will make me all dopey and stoned on the sugars and that I'll then feel like crap. So why do I do it? Why can I not eat healthfully? Why can I not ignore these stupid-ass cravings?
Although honestly? After I ate the two bowls of miniature gluten-free brownies with added chocolate chips, topped
with a dollop of sour cream, followed by an ENTIRE FUCKING bag of dill
pickle flavoured rice chips, I didn't feel all that bad. I thought I'd have the urge to purge, but... no. It was all good, except for the all-consuming guilt, of which I wanted to rid myself immediately. My strategy will now be this: eat ALL the remaining gluten-free brownies to get them out of the house. In one sitting if I have to.
'Cause my body can't take this. This health issue roller-coaster is sucking the big one. I exercise every fucking day of the week for at least 60 minutes - I shouldn't have to worry about weight gain! This shit is actually making me contemplate bulimia. I contemplate heading to the basement with a bowl into which I could blow chunks so that David and Rissa wouldn't hear me hurling my guts out in either one of the bathrooms. Although, if I turned the fan ON in the upstairs bathroom... NO!! This is NOT healthy behaviour! Plus, I'm sure that I'd still get caught, noise really has a way of travelling in our house what with the extra staircases. The echo of my retching into a stainless bowl would probably resonate through the entire house. Plus, if you're woofing your cookies from self-induced retching? You give yourself a headache and burst those wee little vessels around your eyes. That is not a good look.
If I were an alcoholic, this is where I would now call my sponsor.
I have hallucinations during the night. The hallucinations generally centre around the ceiling fan in our bedroom. The fan turns into a starfish, an alien life-form or a hobbled octopus missing three legs. The other night it was a Robotic Spider. Matrix-like in its design, with cameras in its abdomen - massive eyes, whirring noise, looking down on me as I slept. I had the presence of mind to be aware that I was buck naked and pulled sheets up to cover my ta-tas in case the robotic spiders were broadcasting video of me sleeping to the world at large.
I was telling David about it over breakfast.
"Erotic Spiders?" he asks.
"No, not EROTIC spiders. ROBOTIC spiders!"
"Earn more sessions by sleeving?"*
I took in what he'd originally said. "EROTIC spiders? Are spiders a fetish thing now? 'Cause... EEEEEWWWW! Oh, and, you and your daughter both have bad ears."
"Bat ears?"
I roll my eyes at him. "Cute."
* ps. From Roxanne
C.D. Bales:
[shouting through the front door]
Ten more seconds and I'm leaving! Roxanne Kowalski:
[opening the door]
What did you say? C.D. Bales:
I said, ten more seconds and I'm leaving! Wait a second! What did you think I said? Roxanne Kowalski:
I thought you said, "Earn more sessions by sleeving." C.D. Bales:
Well, what the hell does that mean? Roxanne Kowalski:
I don't know. That's why I came out.
You know how some people don't want to go to the doctor because they just know it's going to be bad news? We don't want to put our extension ladder up to the roof for the same reason. In spite of the fact that our good neighbour Neil was pretty sure he saw a family of raccoons shinnying up our drain pipe and then entering our roof. AGAIN.
Last night, as I was typing this, I heard bigger-than-squirrel noises coming from our eaves. Which means we're going to have to grab that extension ladder and go up and take a look. And I just know that we're not going to like what we're going to see.
Raccoons with switch blades, dealing crack.
That's what we're going to find. And holes in our roof. Ginormous-freaking holes that will have to be repaired.
This spring, I was focused on combatting dandelions - not varmints. I was planning that kind of attack. Now we have to evict a raccoon colony from our roof. Can we use Indiegogo or Kickstarter to raise funds for this? I know! I could turn it into performance art! I'll film it in B&W and use subtitles.
We totally would have had the funds to do the roof this year if we hadn't had to pay if I weren't so freaking honest and demanded that David claim all the income he made from self-employment this year, thereby owing a nauseau-inducing tax amount to the CRA. Damn me and my wanting to support better education and healthcare in our country! What the hell is wrong with me? Why couldn't I just LIElike everyone else?
We headed to bed, but the party above us was so loud that David decided that he'd to take a look. Naked. In the dark. He wanted to suss out the situation and see if he could spy the raccoons out the back window, you know, surreptitious-like. Instead, he found himself in the middle of the dark attic, hearing close-up raccoon noises that made it sound as if he were surrounded. Naked. In the dark. By raccoons with switch blades dealing crack. Then, as I lay in the room below all this, David lost his mind.
A Stomp-esque musical number from my vantage point. It went on for a good 7 minutes. I'm surprised that Rissa didn't wake from the pandemonium. Eventually, David returned to bed.
"Are they gone now," I asked.
"No." There was a pout in his voice.
"Still in the roof?"
"They are partying over-top of the light fixture. I'd bang and then they'd skitter away, but then they'd come right back. Taunting me... Banging back... 'Oh yeah!?! You're going to bang at us? How about this!?!' "
He put his head on my chest. "We're going to have to go up with the ladder, aren't we?"
"Yep."
ps. So we got the ladder out. It became immediately apparent that the raccoons had eaten their way AROUND the boards that we had placed over their old entry points. Note to self: find extra money to put sheet metal on the eaves when we fix the roof.
