Friday, April 30, 2004
Secret Hamburgers
Sometimes I wake up from sleep and instantly think of hamburgers. Then as I become more awake and think about what I am doing, really my plan is all about how soon I can go out and get a hamburger. I think about how will I get this done: "Like, ok, just woke up, still feel sleepy, gotta feed the cats, let the dog out, need to start some laundry, then I can drive over to Wendy's real quick, ya, that'll work..." It doesn't matter if it's 7am or 3 in the afternoon or RIGHT AFTER SUPPER. I want a tasty burger. It was worse when I lived near a Burger King in Parkdale. Oh yes, the nastiest burgers around, and I was eating like three junior whoppers with cheese a week. Then there's the Wendy's which is a reasonable distance away. A McDonald's on Pape I have been know to drive thru. Mr. Tasty at Queen and Parliament (if I've got the time). The Harvey's near my work, so convenient. The Square Boy on Danforth (exotic). Any and all Dairy Queens. No fries, no soda, JUST THE BURGER. Just give me the burger. I am pretty careful with the wrappers. I ditch them out the car window if I have to, but more commonly I bury them in the kitchen garbage, or just put them under some newspapers in the recycle box on my way into the house. It's a secret you see. A secret hamburger life that I live. Burgerpower.
Sometimes I wake up from sleep and instantly think of hamburgers. Then as I become more awake and think about what I am doing, really my plan is all about how soon I can go out and get a hamburger. I think about how will I get this done: "Like, ok, just woke up, still feel sleepy, gotta feed the cats, let the dog out, need to start some laundry, then I can drive over to Wendy's real quick, ya, that'll work..." It doesn't matter if it's 7am or 3 in the afternoon or RIGHT AFTER SUPPER. I want a tasty burger. It was worse when I lived near a Burger King in Parkdale. Oh yes, the nastiest burgers around, and I was eating like three junior whoppers with cheese a week. Then there's the Wendy's which is a reasonable distance away. A McDonald's on Pape I have been know to drive thru. Mr. Tasty at Queen and Parliament (if I've got the time). The Harvey's near my work, so convenient. The Square Boy on Danforth (exotic). Any and all Dairy Queens. No fries, no soda, JUST THE BURGER. Just give me the burger. I am pretty careful with the wrappers. I ditch them out the car window if I have to, but more commonly I bury them in the kitchen garbage, or just put them under some newspapers in the recycle box on my way into the house. It's a secret you see. A secret hamburger life that I live. Burgerpower.
Thursday, April 29, 2004
My Uncle Pat
When I got older we made a joke and called him "Planet Pat" because he is so smart, he's kind of on his own planet. When I was very very little he was training to be a priest, but then he got out of that. Then he brought his bride Carolyn to our house. She converted from being a Mennonite. Then came along Erin who had a little baby afro and just sort of did nothing in one of those dangerous circle-of-neglect deals on wheels ("baby walker"?), the kind that are off the market for a long long time now because babies could launch themselves down flights of stairs in those things... She was a quiet baby who liked to work her fat legs and move that thing around the light pine floor of the "new edition", our sunken living room off the big bright kitchen. Once during toilet training we were walking down Chatsworth Drive to the park and she suddenly stopped walking and it was obvious to Aunt Carolyn that Erin was taking a crap in her diaper and Aunt Carolyn started yelling and Erin started running and even at 2 and a bit she could outrun Aunt Carolyn! Then came along Andréa who was like all big brown eyes and black eyelashes as long as her nose and slinky and long like a worm. One time babysitting I sat Andréa on the little cement ledge off the sliding doors leading to our backyard. Andréa was wearing only a diaper. I don't know where everybody else was but we were definitely alone. Anyways, I guess Andréa couldn't sit up yet or was not expecting to have to be perched on that ledge because she fell face-forward onto the cement and got a big bloody scrape on her forehead but she hardly cried. I remember hastily picking her up and saying over and over "sorry baby, sorry baby, sorry baby" but she honestly didn't seem to mind. But later that day... Aunt Carolyn noticed and asked me about it but I lied. Where was Uncle Pat?
He always took his little gym bag up to the Y to do his "exercises" and he always baked crazy scary loaves and cakes containing primarily raisins and cranberries and apple sauce and they never seemed to get fully eaten. He made us endless blender batches of "special" which was a smoothie drink he made from fruit and homemade yogurt -- yes, they had a yogurt making machine on the kitchen counter. And he always made salads. And we had never eaten salads before Uncle Pat and family came to town.
And the girls were not allowed to eat candy and they could only watch TVO channel two. They later said they liked to come to our house to watch real TV stations and eat "bad food like white bread". Ah the 70's.
And Uncle Pat always permed his hair, which seems a little strange for such a natural guy. And he sang the loudest in the choir. After my Uncle Merv's funeral a few years ago, like, right after, on the front steps of the church as Uncle Merv was being rolled into the hearse, Uncle Pat tapped my elbow and said in my ear "Bethie what do you think of my suit? What do you think it cost?" And me assuming he went to Moores or something said "I dunno, like $150 bucks?" And he goes "Four dollars at Goodwill!" and then laughed his head off. It was a good looking suit too. I was surprised.
And when I was a little girl and sent to stay with them for a couple of weeks each summer in Arva to help with the girls I would examine every book in his office, floor to ceiling. They were mostly about child psychology and religion (Religion! Just like at our house!). And he was always working working working (or as he liked to say "thinking") on his next degree. His final degree was Doctor of Canon Law, obscure and important. Degree # 31.
And on my wedding day he left his daytimer in a chair and one of the groomsmen picked it up and put it in his pocket meaning to return it, except it didn't get returned. What started as a good deed by Kevin turned into a nightmare for my mom while we were away in the South of France. Repeated calls to Kevin's unsympathetic parents did not yield the daytimer. Apparently the daytimer is of utmost importance to Uncle Pat because without it he doesn't know his own postal code, fax machine #, etc., etc. But now after major holidays all my friends love to ask "How's Uncle Daytimer?" I still don't know what happened to that daytimer or how it got back into Uncle Pat's hands. I'd ask my mom but she died.
When I got older we made a joke and called him "Planet Pat" because he is so smart, he's kind of on his own planet. When I was very very little he was training to be a priest, but then he got out of that. Then he brought his bride Carolyn to our house. She converted from being a Mennonite. Then came along Erin who had a little baby afro and just sort of did nothing in one of those dangerous circle-of-neglect deals on wheels ("baby walker"?), the kind that are off the market for a long long time now because babies could launch themselves down flights of stairs in those things... She was a quiet baby who liked to work her fat legs and move that thing around the light pine floor of the "new edition", our sunken living room off the big bright kitchen. Once during toilet training we were walking down Chatsworth Drive to the park and she suddenly stopped walking and it was obvious to Aunt Carolyn that Erin was taking a crap in her diaper and Aunt Carolyn started yelling and Erin started running and even at 2 and a bit she could outrun Aunt Carolyn! Then came along Andréa who was like all big brown eyes and black eyelashes as long as her nose and slinky and long like a worm. One time babysitting I sat Andréa on the little cement ledge off the sliding doors leading to our backyard. Andréa was wearing only a diaper. I don't know where everybody else was but we were definitely alone. Anyways, I guess Andréa couldn't sit up yet or was not expecting to have to be perched on that ledge because she fell face-forward onto the cement and got a big bloody scrape on her forehead but she hardly cried. I remember hastily picking her up and saying over and over "sorry baby, sorry baby, sorry baby" but she honestly didn't seem to mind. But later that day... Aunt Carolyn noticed and asked me about it but I lied. Where was Uncle Pat?
He always took his little gym bag up to the Y to do his "exercises" and he always baked crazy scary loaves and cakes containing primarily raisins and cranberries and apple sauce and they never seemed to get fully eaten. He made us endless blender batches of "special" which was a smoothie drink he made from fruit and homemade yogurt -- yes, they had a yogurt making machine on the kitchen counter. And he always made salads. And we had never eaten salads before Uncle Pat and family came to town.
And the girls were not allowed to eat candy and they could only watch TVO channel two. They later said they liked to come to our house to watch real TV stations and eat "bad food like white bread". Ah the 70's.
And Uncle Pat always permed his hair, which seems a little strange for such a natural guy. And he sang the loudest in the choir. After my Uncle Merv's funeral a few years ago, like, right after, on the front steps of the church as Uncle Merv was being rolled into the hearse, Uncle Pat tapped my elbow and said in my ear "Bethie what do you think of my suit? What do you think it cost?" And me assuming he went to Moores or something said "I dunno, like $150 bucks?" And he goes "Four dollars at Goodwill!" and then laughed his head off. It was a good looking suit too. I was surprised.
And when I was a little girl and sent to stay with them for a couple of weeks each summer in Arva to help with the girls I would examine every book in his office, floor to ceiling. They were mostly about child psychology and religion (Religion! Just like at our house!). And he was always working working working (or as he liked to say "thinking") on his next degree. His final degree was Doctor of Canon Law, obscure and important. Degree # 31.
And on my wedding day he left his daytimer in a chair and one of the groomsmen picked it up and put it in his pocket meaning to return it, except it didn't get returned. What started as a good deed by Kevin turned into a nightmare for my mom while we were away in the South of France. Repeated calls to Kevin's unsympathetic parents did not yield the daytimer. Apparently the daytimer is of utmost importance to Uncle Pat because without it he doesn't know his own postal code, fax machine #, etc., etc. But now after major holidays all my friends love to ask "How's Uncle Daytimer?" I still don't know what happened to that daytimer or how it got back into Uncle Pat's hands. I'd ask my mom but she died.
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
What Really Happens at Rugby Practice
My sore sore self is writing a little post today, just to say hi, just to say here's mud in your eye. My rugby practices are madness. Yesterday afternoon, in -7 windchill, me and the 22 year olds started by doing 1 lap around the track. Now, I have been to 3 weeks' worth of practices. And that lap? Sucks ass. It half kills me everytime. It's like this. I start a little shuffling shambling "run" in one direction. I immediately start to huff asthmatically. My chest shoots with pain. My ankles (really, they're more like cankles) start to grind bone on bone, threatening to snap and crumble. My calves bawl for their mommies. My knees begin to bend the wrong way. My "quads" (i.e., what I think of as my mighty sequoia trunks of majestic solitude, covered with a soft layer of lard and dimpled sweetly with cellulite) rip like old flannel pyjamas being converted to rags on cleaning day. My ass yearns for the couch, the office chair, the toilet, ANYTHING but this. And that's after about 1 quarter of the track. After that... I kind of enter a waking dream where my mind goes blank and the pain of movement is like the soundtrack to that dream, and my stupid, wretched breathing is the tortured drums and the thumping of my size 9 soccer boots is the pathetic baseline. And somehow I make it round the track. Me and the seagulls and the Eritrean schoolgirls who play soccer there after school. We make it.
Then we stretch and loosen our necks, arms, waists, bums, legs and ankles. Everything that hurt from last time now hurts more.
Next we do a square. We run around pylons placed in a square doing things with the ball. We throw it across to one another, we pop it up and back, and we run, as in we sprint. No shambling allowed. It really sucks.
The next hour is devoted to practicing plays combined with tackles and scrums. An array of scenarios that are completely and utterly foreign to me. Everything seems backwards and counter-intuitive. Plus, your health is compromised! Oh goody!
Then we might finish with fitness drills to sharpen aspects of tackling / getting tackled, except we run in between and do sit-ups, push-ups and jumping jacks.
There is dog poo and garbage on the field. I keep forgetting to bring poo bags to pick it up. I am actually afraid of getting dog poo on my face when I'm tackled or lying there grunting through some sit-ups. I pick up the garbage though. I am also afraid of breaking my teeth, even though I have a mouthguard. I've had too much work done and my teeth are too nice not to worry about it. Oh well.
My sore sore self is writing a little post today, just to say hi, just to say here's mud in your eye. My rugby practices are madness. Yesterday afternoon, in -7 windchill, me and the 22 year olds started by doing 1 lap around the track. Now, I have been to 3 weeks' worth of practices. And that lap? Sucks ass. It half kills me everytime. It's like this. I start a little shuffling shambling "run" in one direction. I immediately start to huff asthmatically. My chest shoots with pain. My ankles (really, they're more like cankles) start to grind bone on bone, threatening to snap and crumble. My calves bawl for their mommies. My knees begin to bend the wrong way. My "quads" (i.e., what I think of as my mighty sequoia trunks of majestic solitude, covered with a soft layer of lard and dimpled sweetly with cellulite) rip like old flannel pyjamas being converted to rags on cleaning day. My ass yearns for the couch, the office chair, the toilet, ANYTHING but this. And that's after about 1 quarter of the track. After that... I kind of enter a waking dream where my mind goes blank and the pain of movement is like the soundtrack to that dream, and my stupid, wretched breathing is the tortured drums and the thumping of my size 9 soccer boots is the pathetic baseline. And somehow I make it round the track. Me and the seagulls and the Eritrean schoolgirls who play soccer there after school. We make it.
Then we stretch and loosen our necks, arms, waists, bums, legs and ankles. Everything that hurt from last time now hurts more.
Next we do a square. We run around pylons placed in a square doing things with the ball. We throw it across to one another, we pop it up and back, and we run, as in we sprint. No shambling allowed. It really sucks.
The next hour is devoted to practicing plays combined with tackles and scrums. An array of scenarios that are completely and utterly foreign to me. Everything seems backwards and counter-intuitive. Plus, your health is compromised! Oh goody!
Then we might finish with fitness drills to sharpen aspects of tackling / getting tackled, except we run in between and do sit-ups, push-ups and jumping jacks.
There is dog poo and garbage on the field. I keep forgetting to bring poo bags to pick it up. I am actually afraid of getting dog poo on my face when I'm tackled or lying there grunting through some sit-ups. I pick up the garbage though. I am also afraid of breaking my teeth, even though I have a mouthguard. I've had too much work done and my teeth are too nice not to worry about it. Oh well.
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
Warm Sheets From Mom
Here's another nice memory. My mom used to change our sheets on Saturdays after supper so that they would be warm for us right out of the dryer when we went to bed. I used to help her make all the beds, and the last bed we'd make would be mine, and after we finished I would get in and go to sleep.
Here's another nice memory. My mom used to change our sheets on Saturdays after supper so that they would be warm for us right out of the dryer when we went to bed. I used to help her make all the beds, and the last bed we'd make would be mine, and after we finished I would get in and go to sleep.
Monday, April 26, 2004
Ketchup Packs
Ketchup packs are actually waterbeds for mice.
Ketchup packs are actually waterbeds for mice.
Used Porn
On Sunday it poured rain and was so windy that shingles flew off the neighbours' roof into my front yard as they are wont to do when the wind reaches a certain velocity (I have quite a collection of them!). We had absolutely nothing to do so we went to Suspect to hopefully rent Kill Bill Vol. 1 but instead settled for Master and Commander. I noticed a box at the back of the store marked "Used Porn" which was indeed full of old porno tapes marked down and... Pay It Forward starring Helen Hunt. Tee hee hee. She's got the worst voice in the history of... voices (Simpsons: think back to Moe's girlfriend Renee, the one where he rings up his credit card), and she's been relegated to the used porn box. Twister indeed.
On Sunday it poured rain and was so windy that shingles flew off the neighbours' roof into my front yard as they are wont to do when the wind reaches a certain velocity (I have quite a collection of them!). We had absolutely nothing to do so we went to Suspect to hopefully rent Kill Bill Vol. 1 but instead settled for Master and Commander. I noticed a box at the back of the store marked "Used Porn" which was indeed full of old porno tapes marked down and... Pay It Forward starring Helen Hunt. Tee hee hee. She's got the worst voice in the history of... voices (Simpsons: think back to Moe's girlfriend Renee, the one where he rings up his credit card), and she's been relegated to the used porn box. Twister indeed.
Friday, April 23, 2004
I Am Lucky
I have so enjoyed writing my autobiography, but I may leave it at 1992 for a while. I loved remembering all that crazy stuff from childhood. I guess it comes off as slightly tragic, but that's really how it all falls together. Brutally sad shit happens and people die. Kids have to grow up fast because unhappy things happen to families. Why is it considered tragic? It is not so tragic to me. It is my story and my life and I am shaped by all that stuff and happy the way things are and happy with my life. We seem to have this cornerstone belief that somewhere out there someone else has it worse. We always *felt* lucky even though we were probably terribly luckless.
My dad was the big personality with legions of friends and connections. He was a big spender with amazing style. An opera singer who wore Stetsons and cowboy boots or felt hats and quadruple-ply cashmere sweaters. He could skate like Rocket Richard and ski like Jean-Claude Killy. He always drove the biggest Lincoln Towncar he could get his hands on. Next to him we were a bunch of talentless schlubs. But after he died we *still* felt lucky: lucky to have our mom, each other, food, clothes (no matter how ill-fitting), our house, our own lives. Until you're dead, you're lucky.
I have so enjoyed writing my autobiography, but I may leave it at 1992 for a while. I loved remembering all that crazy stuff from childhood. I guess it comes off as slightly tragic, but that's really how it all falls together. Brutally sad shit happens and people die. Kids have to grow up fast because unhappy things happen to families. Why is it considered tragic? It is not so tragic to me. It is my story and my life and I am shaped by all that stuff and happy the way things are and happy with my life. We seem to have this cornerstone belief that somewhere out there someone else has it worse. We always *felt* lucky even though we were probably terribly luckless.
My dad was the big personality with legions of friends and connections. He was a big spender with amazing style. An opera singer who wore Stetsons and cowboy boots or felt hats and quadruple-ply cashmere sweaters. He could skate like Rocket Richard and ski like Jean-Claude Killy. He always drove the biggest Lincoln Towncar he could get his hands on. Next to him we were a bunch of talentless schlubs. But after he died we *still* felt lucky: lucky to have our mom, each other, food, clothes (no matter how ill-fitting), our house, our own lives. Until you're dead, you're lucky.
Thursday, April 22, 2004
A Short Autobiography
Notes. This autobiography will not include details of love affairs, much about my siblings, family fights or stuff that is too personal or secret.
Childhood, 1968 - 1982
1968
Vietnam rages. The March massacre at My Lai. Martin Luther King Jr. is killed one month later. And then Bobby Kennedy is shot in the kitchen of that hotel, and later dies. Then, the summer of love. Hair opens on Broadway. And in theatres, 2001, A Space Odyssey. Ontario was in the throes of a brewers retail strike. My dad, in his travels with his heavy construction company, manages to bring my mom home a 2-4 of beer, probably from Quebec. The summer is brutally hot and all she can think about is cold beer. In her words, it was "too hot to smoke" (that would be her Du Maurier cigarettes). Her "mother's helper" is a young woman named Maureen who has a useless boyfriend. He comes over and finds the beer, which he drinks. My mom is so upset she cries over the beer. I am born, August 13.
1969
I am one. Woodstock. Nixon. I am a chubby content baby. Apparently I don't like to be cuddled, and just want to play and do my own thing. I will sit for a long time in a dirty diaper because I don't care. My dad is away so much with work I "make strange" whenever he comes home, like I want him to bud out! My brother and sister are about 5 and 10, respectively. Everyone mentions how blond and I am how I don't resemble my parents. I bear a strong resemblance to our mailman, Charlie, who is a towheaded hippy.
1970
I am two. I have memories of standing up in the crib waiting for my mom to come and get me at the end of my nap. Farting in the tub and making her laugh. Sitting in a high chair beside the blackboard in the kitchen listening to my Aunt Betty pontificate, watching my Uncle Dick watching her. Listening to my dad laugh. Everyone is smoking. I like corn. They give me half a cob to work on.
1971 - 1972
I am three. I love Sesame Street and we have a record that we play on the Hi-Fi but some of the songs sound different than on TV. Everything I wear is polyester. On Christmas morning after we unwrap gifts I give everyone bits and pieces of my used toys because I have caught on to the spirit of giving.
1972 - 1973
I am four -- I love being four! It rocks the house! I am supposed to start Junior Kindergarten but after a week I tell my mom that it's stupid and boring and that I know everything already. My mom keeps me home the whole year! We are best friends. My kid best friends are John Cape and Campbell Thompson who live on my street (but at different ends). Campbell is a destructive, violent little boy who can't concentrate on anything for too long. One time I pick up a toy car at his house and he screams until I put it down. Another time he throws a metal toy fire engine at my head, and I need 4 stitches on my eyebrow. I remember how the blood felt when it got in my eye (warm). One time we are wrestling at my house and he sits on my face. I can't breath and my neck hurts, like it's bending the wrong way... so I bite his ass. I bite as big a bite as I can, THROUGH the fabric of his shorts and I taste blood. He runs home screaming. I think that was the end of our friendship. John Cape and I go to playschool together at Glenview. All I ever want to do is make chains out of strips of construction paper... John Cape was not allowed to play with Campbell for obvious reasons... I take swimming lessons. When I turn 5 that summer I kept forgetting that I'm 5, and my siblings always have to tell me "no, you're five now." Because damn, I just figured out I was 4 and now I have to remember I'm 5.
1973 - 1974
Now that I'm 5 I have to attend Senior Kindergarten, which I hate. I hate how kids scream and pee their pants and cry. I can't recall the teacher. It is such a relief to get home at lunch, eat a cheese sandwich and watch Mr. Rogers, and then the soaps. We have a dog, a Golden Retriever named Brandy. Sometime in around here she is killed around the age of one when she is hit by a car. In those days people just let their dogs out the back door and said see ya, didn't pick up poo or let alone have their dogs spayed or neutered. My brother really cries when the dog is killed. It is the only time in my life that I see him cry. In the summer we stay in an encampment north of Scrieber to be near my dad's work. The only other people around are Indians. There is a tiny store nearby but the milk is ALWAYS sour and it drives my mom batshit. She hates the wilderness. My cousin Lornie is about 15 years old and stays with us and helps her look after us. He takes my brother fishing almost everyday. We eat a lot of fresh fish until I start to cry at the sight of a new fish hanging up by the sink. Me and some local kids see a rattlesnake asleep in the sun by the railroad tracks and we throw rocks at it.
1974 - 1975
I'm 6 and in grade one. My teacher thinks I am a troublemaker. She is right, I do seem to get into trouble a lot, but I don't know why; I don't know what I am doing wrong. I get a strong vibe of dislike from my teacher. She is young and pretty and I desperately want her to like me but it doesn't work out. There is a big push for fitness in all the schools in Canada. We have a school-wide chin-up competition and I win. I do more chin-ups than the biggest boy in grade 8, but I am tall for my age. I am aware of oil shortages, gas prices and trouble in Ireland. I have my "first confession". I get a pet hamster and I name him Bernie. We ski on every holiday and my dad picks up hitchhikers as we roll through Quebec, New York State, Vermont and New Hampshire. We say the rosary together in the truck and sing songs from The Sound of Music which is our family's favourite musical. We stay at the Von Trapp Family lodge in Vermont, and we sing with the two youngest Von Trapp children after supper one night. They are in their 40's or something. In the summer we stay near my dad's work in a lodge on the French River. We go into North Bay a lot and I eat pizza for the first time at Greco's. My Aunt Evelyn wears a lot of turquoise jewelry. She lives on the street named for my dad's family.
1975 - 1976
I am 7 and in grade 2. My bad reputation precedes me into this grade and my teacher makes it clear from the first day that she doesn't like me. I still don't understand why, but I do act out a lot. I guess it is cyclical. I think it is hard on a kid if someone in authority overtly dislikes you. Plus, I get blamed for ripping a pop-up book that I never touched. Then, I spend about 1/3 of the year standing in a closet or in a corner, or must sit and face a wall. Since I have advanced reading skills I read through all the readers in the school, up to grade 8. Then, I put pieces of crayons on the rads to see them melt. Also, I whip an orange against a wall to see what happens (it bursts open and makes a mess). Halfway through the year our teacher goes on mat leave and we get a sub who gives me extra work, which I love. Also, I must help the special needs kid, Stephen Gehtpart, which is a total nightmare. I spend part of each day showing him basic math and teach him how to read phonetically. It tires me out just to remember it. But then one day the sub's special pen goes missing and I get blamed even though I did not take the pen. I make my "first communion" and then I am expelled. I get to spend the spring at home again with mom. Yea! At the beginning of the summer I have a terrible accident on my bike and break my jaw. I am in surgery for 5 hours with a dental surgeon. I eat soup for weeks and weeks and take strong painkillers.
1976 - 1977
I think we spend the summer at home, and I am largely bored, except for the Montreal Olympics and Nadia Comeneci. I spend a lot of time in the library and I read adult novels. My brother and sister are away at camp all summer. My dad and I start to hang out regularly. He is between jobs, so my mom works the afternoon shift 3pm - 11pm as a private duty nurse. My dad and I eat ice cream every day at Hall's and go to a different restaurant every night. We listen to records on the new stereo. We drive to Muskoka every weekend to visit my brother and sister and the oil they use to keep the dust down on the dirt roads makes me carsick. At the end of the summer a new family moves in across the street with two sisters my age. My lifelong dream to have girl-friends on the street comes true! Susie (1 year younger) and Christine (1 year older) become my oldest friends. Then, suspicious things happen like my mom and I go shopping for a school uniform, and I get a new Hamill Camel haircut. Uh-oh, I have to go to a new school! It turns out to be very snooty and everybody is really smart. I start to behave. My teacher Mrs. Bell is bi-polar. She is kindly in one moment, and roaring at some poor girl in the next. Unbelievably, I miss my old school. At least we didn't have to curtsey there.
1977 - 1978
My dad's work takes us to the Kooteneys in BC, where we live for four months (we all miss the last two months of school! Yea!). We fly first class to Vancouver and then my dad charters a seaplane to Cranbrooke. Then we drive to our new home -- the Hacienda Inn in tiny Creston, British Columbia. There is a pool in the centre of the motor court. The motel owners have a little girl my age and she has a chihuahua. We play together all summer and my mom smokes and drinks with the other construction wives by the pool. I beat my brother in a swimming race and he pushes me underwater until I start to drown, and then some man pulls him right out of the pool by his arm. I get out of the pool by myself. The weird part was my mom was there the whole time but not looking. The climate of Creston is like a desert -- there's cactus and tumbleweed rolling around. For a couple of weeks my mom and I visit my cousins in Washington State, near Spokane. I love being alone with my mom. John Lennon is killed... Imagine. I love the blue and red albums but I love Ringo's sad eyes and George's songs the best. We come back home to Toronto and all of us are spectacularly tanned. I start grade 4 and have to sit beside a new girl who can't read very well whose name is Vanessa. By the end of the day we are best friends! Mrs. Bell makes Vanessa's mom get Vanessa glasses. Vanessa is the first "child of divorce" I ever meet and we really truly are best friends. She calls me every night and we see a movie every weekend. Sometimes we see the same movie more than once. I love the movies. We go to the "multi-plex" at the Eaton Centre. Vanessa's mom takes us to see American Graffiti somewhere and I decide it is my favourite movie of all time. I like school and ace all subjects. Vanessa talks about summer camp the whole year. She can't wait to go. I listen politely. My dad's work takes him to Montreal where we visit every month, taking a high-speed train that no longer exists. Sometime during this year I get my period but my mom does not take the opportunity to explain it to me, so I just bleed and occasionally she gives me pads, but sometimes not! Isn't that weird? It passes and doesn't return for a couple of years.
1978 - 1979
Now I am 10 and in grade 5. I'm in the double digits! I am so glad to be out of Mrs. Bell's class (she had a split grade 3 - 4). We have a newly married teacher named Mrs. Stoddart who has a terrible bleach-job on a Dorothy Hamill Camel haircut that looks so wedgie it looks fake. Mrs. Stoddart's specialty is to make girls feel uncomfortable. She doesn't yell, but rather openly picks on girls whom she doesn't like. In the middle of the year on a Sunday night my dad has a stroke. Everyone is in bed reading and then I hear a commotion in my parents' room -- my mom is yelling to my dad "what's wrong?" I run to their room and I see his face contorting and nothing is ever the same again. My mom yells at me to get back to my room. Over the next couple of days he is diagnosed with cancer all through his body including his brain. My sister wants to come home from university to help but my mom yells at her saying don't be stupid, just stay at school. How cruel. My sister was always my dad's favourite. I am sure that hurt my sister the worst of all. After radiation my dad is still pretty stroke-y -- he can't talk or move that well. And my mom is working all the time now either 3pm - 11pm or 11pm - 7am. She's away either all afternoon or all night. It's like I never see for a whole year. Vanessa's sister takes us to see Grease, which I love. I have had the record since Christmas. Grease becomes my favourite movie. We also see Star Wars at a birthday sleep-over party and I stay awake all night thinking about it. Star Wars then becomes my favourite movie. We also see Kramer vs. Kramer at some point, but it is not my favourite -- however, I think Vanessa relates strongly to it, since her parents had a bad custody fight. I get sent to summer camp with Vanessa and I have my birthday away from home. On Visitors' Day my mom comes to visit me at camp with Susie, Christine and their mom and we do my laundry in town. I can't stop crying when they have to leave. I get a bit panicky, like I know what's coming, and my mom understands.
1979 - 1980
I finally have a nice teacher in grade 6. She is young and new to the school. Vanessa and I see mature movies like Little Darlings. Susie and Christine's dad buys them Breakfast In America and we try to figure out what all the lyrics mean. Elvis dies. I love camp and get to go for 5 weeks. My mom doesn't visit that summer because she is too busy working and looking after my dad who is getting sicker. My period becomes regular and even though he can barely talk my dad makes a snide comment about it because my sister is such a nightmare with her cramps and her mind-altering mood-swings. I vow not to be like her but am anyway.
1980 - 1981
I am 12 and in grade 7. I start watching The New Music religiously and I love new wave! I love Blondie! I love The Ramones! But somehow I also love REO Speedwagon. My mom gets breast cancer and so does her twin sister. They both get mastectomies. My grades are terrible but no one worries about it at all. My teacher, who is new, from England, and a total freakshow, barely acknowledges me. I get glasses for distance. I think I am actually almost failing out of school but I just can't wait to get away from my family and go to camp. I start to keep a diary. In the spring I make my "confirmation" and I go to my first dance. I look like an idiot in my baby blue bell-bottom Lee painter paints, wallabees, and ugly blouse with a giant collar. I am still wearing polyester for the most part. However, I do smoke. Everyone else is wearing Bass Weejuns, Levis button-fly boy jeans and Lacoste shirts, but I don't have that stuff since my mom is too sick and busy to take me cross-border shopping at the outlet malls in Buffalo.
1981 - 1982
I am 13 and in grade 8. I get my hair cut really short in a cute new wave way and use Sun-In liberally throughout the summer. Finally, I am cool. Also, I am the funniest person at my school. My grades are still terrible. I think that if I change to public school I will do better. I am sick of St. Clement's. I absolutely hate it. I am listening to CFNY at night and writing in my diary for hours and never studying. I go to more dances and drink mixed alcohol out of a jam jar. No boys like me. I am the class clown but I don't have any close friends at school. Finally, my dad dies in June on my brother's 18th birthday. My mom is still really sick. Then, her twin sister dies. There are so many funerals and visitations, all at once. I barely know what is happening, except that I have a big growth spurt and all my good clothes are suddenly ridiculously small and I need a bra but don't have one. I get sent to camp again, which, again, saves my life. I audition for, and get, the lead part in the camp musical every single year. In the fall I win tickets from a radio station to see the premiere of Blade Runner, and I take my friend Sarah. Ditto, tickets to see Peter Gabriel at Maple Leaf Gardens, where I smoke up for the very first time. Jeux sans frontiers!
The Middle Ages, 1982 - 1992
1982 - 1983
I have my wish and am attending the local public high school. I am 14 and in grade 9. It sucks. Everyone is clique-y from their middle schools so all the friendships and boundaries have been set. Unsurprisingly, I feel like a loner and an outsider. I borrow a little bit of fashion sense from every group, but belong to no group. More dances and drinking on weekends. My grades pick up because I have so few friends and there is not much to do besides study. It is actually a relief that my dad has died. My mom's health improves but she also starts to drink at night. A couple of other moms on our street lose their husbands, and we become a street of widows. A friend of my mom's invites her, me and my brother to their condo in Florida for March Break and we go. This lady seems to dislike me immediately but I don't know why. She seems to actually resent my personality -- like, how I am . Also, she wants to control us, including my mom, all the time, and doesn't like it when we kids attempt to join into conversations or express opinions. She only wants us to buy white penny loafers and skinny belts that do up with faux gold shell clasps. She makes us play tennis. We get home tanned but feeling bullied. This lady becomes my mom's best friend. My mom hates my short new wave hairdo and is always bugging me to grow it long. For some completely unknown reason she thinks I would look good with braids. I forgo the Pippi Longstocking look she desires, so she stops paying for my haircuts. I become a babysitting demon so that I can get hairdos and buy the clothes I want. I also work at Lick's, which is really, really hard work for a young teenager. I prefer babysitting and am in great demand. It's cool to meet my camp friends at Mr. Greenjeans downtown. I take my visiting cousin to see E.T. and she becomes hysterical in the theatre when E.T. dies. Later that night she wets the bed! Ew! Also, she's a year older than me! My English teacher tells me that I am going to be in advanced English in grade 10. The English Beat breakup and I feel sad.
1983 - 1984
I get mono and miss a lot of school but have fantastic grades. I hang out with my friend Mary in Ancaster a lot. We spend Christmas with the bully friend of my mom and I am burning with fever from mono, but later my mom accuses me of being dramatic. Shortly after our family doctor declares my liver dangerously enlarged and I am ordered to bed. At camp we go on a two week canoe trip, which I don't really enjoy but endure ok. My orthodontist, who was always crabby to my brother and me, yells at me about yet another broken bracket (which happened at camp). My sister takes matters into her own hands and chews out the orthodontist and threatens to call the cops on him (he really was a bastard, Dr. Spence, if you're still out there, which I doubt, because you were a fossil in 1984). I switch orthodontists and get my braces off after a few visits. I had them on for a total of 10 years, which makes no sense, but was probably my own fault, however, things were pretty messed up after my bike accident. My mom seems to be in a coma sometimes... she works nights now all the time, so I stay out all night with friends and do what I want.
1984 - 1985
Sweet 16, grade 11. I fail math and decide I have had enough of public school. The pope visits and we see him (from afar). I have a boyfriend but he's a total idiot. I see Tears For Fears with my friend Kelly. At camp I become a cousellor in training. I love boys. I fall in love with each and every one I meet. I start to become close to my mom again.
1985 - 1986
Grade 12, 17 years old. I attend the same Catholic girls' school downtown my sister attended. No one remembers my sister because she does not have a big personality. I repeat math and do well. I finally, finally have consistently good grades and enjoy school. My mom works in the retirement residence for priests behind my school. We come in together every morning. Her shift starts at 7am, so while I wait for school to begin I sit in Zeev's, smoke, drink coffee, study, and write. Some of the priests at the residence have AIDS. Others aren't sick at all -- they are being "hidden" because they are pedophiles and they're not supposed to be around children or in a parish setting. It makes my mom really angry, but it's a good job so she keeps her mouth shut. She starts to specialize in AIDS. She deals almost exclusively with AIDS patients for the rest of her working life. That summer I become a camp counsellor. I have another idiot boyfriend who fools around with a camper each morning during "interest group" activities. Her little sister is my camper and thus this little girl is burdened with the uncomfortable knowledge that my boyfriend is cheating on me with her sister (who is a camper, which is strictly verboten). Yick. What an ass that guy was. Scott McIlroy. Later that summer me and my friends Cam, Mary and Gord get sent home because we are on a day-off in town when Gord got drunk. We spend the rest of the summer hanging out together at each other's houses. I don't tell my mom that I got thrown out of camp for several weeks. Instead, I live at Mary's house. Later that year, Challenger blows up. I am skipping school with Cam at the time.
1986 - 1987
18, grade 13 (which is extinct now). I work hard to get decent grades so I can get into a good university, although it's not as big a deal here as it is in the states. All the schools here are good, it just depends what you want to do. I am ambivalent about going away to school. I wish I didn't have to go to university but I don't have the guts not to bother. My mom tries to convince me to go to U of T, and says I can even stay in residence. I think she's worried I'll go really far away (which I do). I have a serious boyfriend and I love him, but I still cheat on him every opportunity I get. We have a lot of fun at my prom and I wear a beautiful custom-made dress. My Aunt Margaret, who lived with us when my parents were sick, attends. She is my favourite aunt and taught me how to play poker. I have to beg the camp director to let me have my job back even though I was not the one drinking during "the incident". I prevail and have a fun, incident-free summer.
1987 - 1988
I fly to Halifax and go to Dalhousie. I am 19. I live in a very old-fashioned women's residence. I hate most of my classes. Me and my new friends arrange blind dates for the semi-formal dance in the fall. By this time I have been caught smoking pot and am on probation and have been fined $700 for breaking the rules of residence. I have no money, maybe $25 to last the whole weekend of the dance. In the restaurant I ask my date to please only order a side salad (we all went Sadie Hawkins because no one asked us). At that point, instead of offering to pay for his owner dinner he just goes ahead and orders a side salad. This guy's name is John Stiles. You got that? Apparently he had less money than I did. The dance is awful but we go back to his room and make out, and it's fun. He's very tall and sweet (and cheap). Instead of getting dressed I just roll up my outfit into a ball and run home in the pouring fucking relentless Halifax rain in my overcoat. The door to rez is locked so I ring the bell and rouse the "security guard" who can see that I'm holding my clothes in a ball and not wearing much under my coat. I can't go into my room because my roomate Alison has snuck her boyfriend in for the night, so I sleep in my bra and panties and overcoat in the TV room. My across-the-hall neighbour is Mel, who drops out right before Christmas and I feel like somehow I've failed in something, but what? That year I gain so much weight people don't recognize me when I get back home. I lose most (but not all) of the weight that spring when I go to camp to work at getting the place ready for summer. I am later in charge of counsellors and all their campers.
1988 - 1989
In second year me and Karen, Cindy and Pam live off campus (way off campus) in a small three bedroom apartment. Cindy and I share a room. It's lots of fun. School still sucks. I am a shitty English major and it is sooooo boring. I have another serious b-f but he dumps me hard over reading week. I nearly lose it. I cut all my hair off (after finally growing it). My mom is very compassionate during this time even though she is likely very unhappy that I am breaking many catholic rules with this boyfriend. I work at camp again in the spring and summer, this time in charge of all girls' programming and all-camp programs. I work with a male counterpart named Roy, who is from N. Ireland.
1989 - 1990
In third year I am 21 and bored out of my mind. I think about going to law school, even though it is obvious to all that I hate school. I want to just finish up but I think a 3-year degree will look bad. We live in a really cool apartment near campus and have great parties. We get the local brewery to sponsor us and we get a literal truck-load of free beer. I work as an event marketing person in the spring / summer demo'ing Crystal Lite, which, to this day, disgusts me. At one of the malls I work at I witness an armed robbery. I have to give statements to police and I get in trouble later with my boss because I "abandoned my post" when he comes to visit. What a jerk! I feel conflicted because I'm close to my mom yet I hate living at home because she's often drunk at night and difficult to speak to at those times. My friend JR lives in my bedroom while he's at college in Toronto and he tells me that he finds my mom passed out on the toilet almost every night.
1990 - 1991
I do a fourth, ridiculous year of university for no reason other than I can think of nothing else to do. Shona and I decide to live in an upscale apartment building but our unit isn't ready until October so until then I live in a weird boarding-room situation on the outskirts of town. Half the people at the house are on "pogey", although one guy takes me surfing. He is nice but gets fired from every job. His resume is like, 7 pages long. The pogey people bring home kittens one time and then the house is overrun with fleas. I put on lots of weight this year and get up to a lot of crazy strange partying. At the end of the school year me and Shelagh have arranged to drive us and all our junk home in a U-Haul with a guy we know named Chris and a friend of his. The drive takes 3 days. The first night we pull into Fredericton or Moncton or some damn place to stay with Chris' cousin WHOM HE HAS NEVER MET. Shelagh and I giggle and freeze all night under musty quilts in some stranger's basement on a pullout couch. We leave the next day at dawn before anyone is up. We drive through the States and at one point hit L.L. Bean in the middle of the night. One night we stay in New Hampshire in a charming motel. Chris makes funny home movies of us. We eat 99 cent breakfasts. In New York state we hit a terrible patch of traffic on a two-lane country road. The girls are in the truck and the boys are in Chris' jeep. We follow the jeep as we pass all the cars and eventually get to the front of the traffic line. Then the boys take off and speed away. We have a "governor" on the truck's gas pedal but somehow manage to keep up. A state trooper passes us the other way and immediately turns on its cherries and siren. It tries to U-turn into the traffic and catch us but they can't catch up what with steady oncoming traffic, and amazingly, no cars will get out of the way of the trooper. We speed onward and outrun the trooper all the way upstate to the border at Cornwall. The chase lasts about half an hour. It is amazing that we got away and no backup was ever called. In the summer I do another event marketing thing, this time with Smartfood, which, to this day, makes me gaggy.
1991 - 1992
I start work as the office manager for a computer company of a guy whose kids I babysat their whole lives. I also do the books and do all the spinoff sales. I think this is where my life gets really boring. I call in sick a lot because although I like my work, I hate my job. My boss is only 32 and we both get angry and make mistakes and say stupid things. I end up leaving after two and a half years. In that time I move out and have a couple of different apartments, and meet my future husband.
Notes. This autobiography will not include details of love affairs, much about my siblings, family fights or stuff that is too personal or secret.
Childhood, 1968 - 1982
1968
Vietnam rages. The March massacre at My Lai. Martin Luther King Jr. is killed one month later. And then Bobby Kennedy is shot in the kitchen of that hotel, and later dies. Then, the summer of love. Hair opens on Broadway. And in theatres, 2001, A Space Odyssey. Ontario was in the throes of a brewers retail strike. My dad, in his travels with his heavy construction company, manages to bring my mom home a 2-4 of beer, probably from Quebec. The summer is brutally hot and all she can think about is cold beer. In her words, it was "too hot to smoke" (that would be her Du Maurier cigarettes). Her "mother's helper" is a young woman named Maureen who has a useless boyfriend. He comes over and finds the beer, which he drinks. My mom is so upset she cries over the beer. I am born, August 13.
1969
I am one. Woodstock. Nixon. I am a chubby content baby. Apparently I don't like to be cuddled, and just want to play and do my own thing. I will sit for a long time in a dirty diaper because I don't care. My dad is away so much with work I "make strange" whenever he comes home, like I want him to bud out! My brother and sister are about 5 and 10, respectively. Everyone mentions how blond and I am how I don't resemble my parents. I bear a strong resemblance to our mailman, Charlie, who is a towheaded hippy.
1970
I am two. I have memories of standing up in the crib waiting for my mom to come and get me at the end of my nap. Farting in the tub and making her laugh. Sitting in a high chair beside the blackboard in the kitchen listening to my Aunt Betty pontificate, watching my Uncle Dick watching her. Listening to my dad laugh. Everyone is smoking. I like corn. They give me half a cob to work on.
1971 - 1972
I am three. I love Sesame Street and we have a record that we play on the Hi-Fi but some of the songs sound different than on TV. Everything I wear is polyester. On Christmas morning after we unwrap gifts I give everyone bits and pieces of my used toys because I have caught on to the spirit of giving.
1972 - 1973
I am four -- I love being four! It rocks the house! I am supposed to start Junior Kindergarten but after a week I tell my mom that it's stupid and boring and that I know everything already. My mom keeps me home the whole year! We are best friends. My kid best friends are John Cape and Campbell Thompson who live on my street (but at different ends). Campbell is a destructive, violent little boy who can't concentrate on anything for too long. One time I pick up a toy car at his house and he screams until I put it down. Another time he throws a metal toy fire engine at my head, and I need 4 stitches on my eyebrow. I remember how the blood felt when it got in my eye (warm). One time we are wrestling at my house and he sits on my face. I can't breath and my neck hurts, like it's bending the wrong way... so I bite his ass. I bite as big a bite as I can, THROUGH the fabric of his shorts and I taste blood. He runs home screaming. I think that was the end of our friendship. John Cape and I go to playschool together at Glenview. All I ever want to do is make chains out of strips of construction paper... John Cape was not allowed to play with Campbell for obvious reasons... I take swimming lessons. When I turn 5 that summer I kept forgetting that I'm 5, and my siblings always have to tell me "no, you're five now." Because damn, I just figured out I was 4 and now I have to remember I'm 5.
1973 - 1974
Now that I'm 5 I have to attend Senior Kindergarten, which I hate. I hate how kids scream and pee their pants and cry. I can't recall the teacher. It is such a relief to get home at lunch, eat a cheese sandwich and watch Mr. Rogers, and then the soaps. We have a dog, a Golden Retriever named Brandy. Sometime in around here she is killed around the age of one when she is hit by a car. In those days people just let their dogs out the back door and said see ya, didn't pick up poo or let alone have their dogs spayed or neutered. My brother really cries when the dog is killed. It is the only time in my life that I see him cry. In the summer we stay in an encampment north of Scrieber to be near my dad's work. The only other people around are Indians. There is a tiny store nearby but the milk is ALWAYS sour and it drives my mom batshit. She hates the wilderness. My cousin Lornie is about 15 years old and stays with us and helps her look after us. He takes my brother fishing almost everyday. We eat a lot of fresh fish until I start to cry at the sight of a new fish hanging up by the sink. Me and some local kids see a rattlesnake asleep in the sun by the railroad tracks and we throw rocks at it.
1974 - 1975
I'm 6 and in grade one. My teacher thinks I am a troublemaker. She is right, I do seem to get into trouble a lot, but I don't know why; I don't know what I am doing wrong. I get a strong vibe of dislike from my teacher. She is young and pretty and I desperately want her to like me but it doesn't work out. There is a big push for fitness in all the schools in Canada. We have a school-wide chin-up competition and I win. I do more chin-ups than the biggest boy in grade 8, but I am tall for my age. I am aware of oil shortages, gas prices and trouble in Ireland. I have my "first confession". I get a pet hamster and I name him Bernie. We ski on every holiday and my dad picks up hitchhikers as we roll through Quebec, New York State, Vermont and New Hampshire. We say the rosary together in the truck and sing songs from The Sound of Music which is our family's favourite musical. We stay at the Von Trapp Family lodge in Vermont, and we sing with the two youngest Von Trapp children after supper one night. They are in their 40's or something. In the summer we stay near my dad's work in a lodge on the French River. We go into North Bay a lot and I eat pizza for the first time at Greco's. My Aunt Evelyn wears a lot of turquoise jewelry. She lives on the street named for my dad's family.
1975 - 1976
I am 7 and in grade 2. My bad reputation precedes me into this grade and my teacher makes it clear from the first day that she doesn't like me. I still don't understand why, but I do act out a lot. I guess it is cyclical. I think it is hard on a kid if someone in authority overtly dislikes you. Plus, I get blamed for ripping a pop-up book that I never touched. Then, I spend about 1/3 of the year standing in a closet or in a corner, or must sit and face a wall. Since I have advanced reading skills I read through all the readers in the school, up to grade 8. Then, I put pieces of crayons on the rads to see them melt. Also, I whip an orange against a wall to see what happens (it bursts open and makes a mess). Halfway through the year our teacher goes on mat leave and we get a sub who gives me extra work, which I love. Also, I must help the special needs kid, Stephen Gehtpart, which is a total nightmare. I spend part of each day showing him basic math and teach him how to read phonetically. It tires me out just to remember it. But then one day the sub's special pen goes missing and I get blamed even though I did not take the pen. I make my "first communion" and then I am expelled. I get to spend the spring at home again with mom. Yea! At the beginning of the summer I have a terrible accident on my bike and break my jaw. I am in surgery for 5 hours with a dental surgeon. I eat soup for weeks and weeks and take strong painkillers.
1976 - 1977
I think we spend the summer at home, and I am largely bored, except for the Montreal Olympics and Nadia Comeneci. I spend a lot of time in the library and I read adult novels. My brother and sister are away at camp all summer. My dad and I start to hang out regularly. He is between jobs, so my mom works the afternoon shift 3pm - 11pm as a private duty nurse. My dad and I eat ice cream every day at Hall's and go to a different restaurant every night. We listen to records on the new stereo. We drive to Muskoka every weekend to visit my brother and sister and the oil they use to keep the dust down on the dirt roads makes me carsick. At the end of the summer a new family moves in across the street with two sisters my age. My lifelong dream to have girl-friends on the street comes true! Susie (1 year younger) and Christine (1 year older) become my oldest friends. Then, suspicious things happen like my mom and I go shopping for a school uniform, and I get a new Hamill Camel haircut. Uh-oh, I have to go to a new school! It turns out to be very snooty and everybody is really smart. I start to behave. My teacher Mrs. Bell is bi-polar. She is kindly in one moment, and roaring at some poor girl in the next. Unbelievably, I miss my old school. At least we didn't have to curtsey there.
1977 - 1978
My dad's work takes us to the Kooteneys in BC, where we live for four months (we all miss the last two months of school! Yea!). We fly first class to Vancouver and then my dad charters a seaplane to Cranbrooke. Then we drive to our new home -- the Hacienda Inn in tiny Creston, British Columbia. There is a pool in the centre of the motor court. The motel owners have a little girl my age and she has a chihuahua. We play together all summer and my mom smokes and drinks with the other construction wives by the pool. I beat my brother in a swimming race and he pushes me underwater until I start to drown, and then some man pulls him right out of the pool by his arm. I get out of the pool by myself. The weird part was my mom was there the whole time but not looking. The climate of Creston is like a desert -- there's cactus and tumbleweed rolling around. For a couple of weeks my mom and I visit my cousins in Washington State, near Spokane. I love being alone with my mom. John Lennon is killed... Imagine. I love the blue and red albums but I love Ringo's sad eyes and George's songs the best. We come back home to Toronto and all of us are spectacularly tanned. I start grade 4 and have to sit beside a new girl who can't read very well whose name is Vanessa. By the end of the day we are best friends! Mrs. Bell makes Vanessa's mom get Vanessa glasses. Vanessa is the first "child of divorce" I ever meet and we really truly are best friends. She calls me every night and we see a movie every weekend. Sometimes we see the same movie more than once. I love the movies. We go to the "multi-plex" at the Eaton Centre. Vanessa's mom takes us to see American Graffiti somewhere and I decide it is my favourite movie of all time. I like school and ace all subjects. Vanessa talks about summer camp the whole year. She can't wait to go. I listen politely. My dad's work takes him to Montreal where we visit every month, taking a high-speed train that no longer exists. Sometime during this year I get my period but my mom does not take the opportunity to explain it to me, so I just bleed and occasionally she gives me pads, but sometimes not! Isn't that weird? It passes and doesn't return for a couple of years.
1978 - 1979
Now I am 10 and in grade 5. I'm in the double digits! I am so glad to be out of Mrs. Bell's class (she had a split grade 3 - 4). We have a newly married teacher named Mrs. Stoddart who has a terrible bleach-job on a Dorothy Hamill Camel haircut that looks so wedgie it looks fake. Mrs. Stoddart's specialty is to make girls feel uncomfortable. She doesn't yell, but rather openly picks on girls whom she doesn't like. In the middle of the year on a Sunday night my dad has a stroke. Everyone is in bed reading and then I hear a commotion in my parents' room -- my mom is yelling to my dad "what's wrong?" I run to their room and I see his face contorting and nothing is ever the same again. My mom yells at me to get back to my room. Over the next couple of days he is diagnosed with cancer all through his body including his brain. My sister wants to come home from university to help but my mom yells at her saying don't be stupid, just stay at school. How cruel. My sister was always my dad's favourite. I am sure that hurt my sister the worst of all. After radiation my dad is still pretty stroke-y -- he can't talk or move that well. And my mom is working all the time now either 3pm - 11pm or 11pm - 7am. She's away either all afternoon or all night. It's like I never see for a whole year. Vanessa's sister takes us to see Grease, which I love. I have had the record since Christmas. Grease becomes my favourite movie. We also see Star Wars at a birthday sleep-over party and I stay awake all night thinking about it. Star Wars then becomes my favourite movie. We also see Kramer vs. Kramer at some point, but it is not my favourite -- however, I think Vanessa relates strongly to it, since her parents had a bad custody fight. I get sent to summer camp with Vanessa and I have my birthday away from home. On Visitors' Day my mom comes to visit me at camp with Susie, Christine and their mom and we do my laundry in town. I can't stop crying when they have to leave. I get a bit panicky, like I know what's coming, and my mom understands.
1979 - 1980
I finally have a nice teacher in grade 6. She is young and new to the school. Vanessa and I see mature movies like Little Darlings. Susie and Christine's dad buys them Breakfast In America and we try to figure out what all the lyrics mean. Elvis dies. I love camp and get to go for 5 weeks. My mom doesn't visit that summer because she is too busy working and looking after my dad who is getting sicker. My period becomes regular and even though he can barely talk my dad makes a snide comment about it because my sister is such a nightmare with her cramps and her mind-altering mood-swings. I vow not to be like her but am anyway.
1980 - 1981
I am 12 and in grade 7. I start watching The New Music religiously and I love new wave! I love Blondie! I love The Ramones! But somehow I also love REO Speedwagon. My mom gets breast cancer and so does her twin sister. They both get mastectomies. My grades are terrible but no one worries about it at all. My teacher, who is new, from England, and a total freakshow, barely acknowledges me. I get glasses for distance. I think I am actually almost failing out of school but I just can't wait to get away from my family and go to camp. I start to keep a diary. In the spring I make my "confirmation" and I go to my first dance. I look like an idiot in my baby blue bell-bottom Lee painter paints, wallabees, and ugly blouse with a giant collar. I am still wearing polyester for the most part. However, I do smoke. Everyone else is wearing Bass Weejuns, Levis button-fly boy jeans and Lacoste shirts, but I don't have that stuff since my mom is too sick and busy to take me cross-border shopping at the outlet malls in Buffalo.
1981 - 1982
I am 13 and in grade 8. I get my hair cut really short in a cute new wave way and use Sun-In liberally throughout the summer. Finally, I am cool. Also, I am the funniest person at my school. My grades are still terrible. I think that if I change to public school I will do better. I am sick of St. Clement's. I absolutely hate it. I am listening to CFNY at night and writing in my diary for hours and never studying. I go to more dances and drink mixed alcohol out of a jam jar. No boys like me. I am the class clown but I don't have any close friends at school. Finally, my dad dies in June on my brother's 18th birthday. My mom is still really sick. Then, her twin sister dies. There are so many funerals and visitations, all at once. I barely know what is happening, except that I have a big growth spurt and all my good clothes are suddenly ridiculously small and I need a bra but don't have one. I get sent to camp again, which, again, saves my life. I audition for, and get, the lead part in the camp musical every single year. In the fall I win tickets from a radio station to see the premiere of Blade Runner, and I take my friend Sarah. Ditto, tickets to see Peter Gabriel at Maple Leaf Gardens, where I smoke up for the very first time. Jeux sans frontiers!
The Middle Ages, 1982 - 1992
1982 - 1983
I have my wish and am attending the local public high school. I am 14 and in grade 9. It sucks. Everyone is clique-y from their middle schools so all the friendships and boundaries have been set. Unsurprisingly, I feel like a loner and an outsider. I borrow a little bit of fashion sense from every group, but belong to no group. More dances and drinking on weekends. My grades pick up because I have so few friends and there is not much to do besides study. It is actually a relief that my dad has died. My mom's health improves but she also starts to drink at night. A couple of other moms on our street lose their husbands, and we become a street of widows. A friend of my mom's invites her, me and my brother to their condo in Florida for March Break and we go. This lady seems to dislike me immediately but I don't know why. She seems to actually resent my personality -- like, how I am . Also, she wants to control us, including my mom, all the time, and doesn't like it when we kids attempt to join into conversations or express opinions. She only wants us to buy white penny loafers and skinny belts that do up with faux gold shell clasps. She makes us play tennis. We get home tanned but feeling bullied. This lady becomes my mom's best friend. My mom hates my short new wave hairdo and is always bugging me to grow it long. For some completely unknown reason she thinks I would look good with braids. I forgo the Pippi Longstocking look she desires, so she stops paying for my haircuts. I become a babysitting demon so that I can get hairdos and buy the clothes I want. I also work at Lick's, which is really, really hard work for a young teenager. I prefer babysitting and am in great demand. It's cool to meet my camp friends at Mr. Greenjeans downtown. I take my visiting cousin to see E.T. and she becomes hysterical in the theatre when E.T. dies. Later that night she wets the bed! Ew! Also, she's a year older than me! My English teacher tells me that I am going to be in advanced English in grade 10. The English Beat breakup and I feel sad.
1983 - 1984
I get mono and miss a lot of school but have fantastic grades. I hang out with my friend Mary in Ancaster a lot. We spend Christmas with the bully friend of my mom and I am burning with fever from mono, but later my mom accuses me of being dramatic. Shortly after our family doctor declares my liver dangerously enlarged and I am ordered to bed. At camp we go on a two week canoe trip, which I don't really enjoy but endure ok. My orthodontist, who was always crabby to my brother and me, yells at me about yet another broken bracket (which happened at camp). My sister takes matters into her own hands and chews out the orthodontist and threatens to call the cops on him (he really was a bastard, Dr. Spence, if you're still out there, which I doubt, because you were a fossil in 1984). I switch orthodontists and get my braces off after a few visits. I had them on for a total of 10 years, which makes no sense, but was probably my own fault, however, things were pretty messed up after my bike accident. My mom seems to be in a coma sometimes... she works nights now all the time, so I stay out all night with friends and do what I want.
1984 - 1985
Sweet 16, grade 11. I fail math and decide I have had enough of public school. The pope visits and we see him (from afar). I have a boyfriend but he's a total idiot. I see Tears For Fears with my friend Kelly. At camp I become a cousellor in training. I love boys. I fall in love with each and every one I meet. I start to become close to my mom again.
1985 - 1986
Grade 12, 17 years old. I attend the same Catholic girls' school downtown my sister attended. No one remembers my sister because she does not have a big personality. I repeat math and do well. I finally, finally have consistently good grades and enjoy school. My mom works in the retirement residence for priests behind my school. We come in together every morning. Her shift starts at 7am, so while I wait for school to begin I sit in Zeev's, smoke, drink coffee, study, and write. Some of the priests at the residence have AIDS. Others aren't sick at all -- they are being "hidden" because they are pedophiles and they're not supposed to be around children or in a parish setting. It makes my mom really angry, but it's a good job so she keeps her mouth shut. She starts to specialize in AIDS. She deals almost exclusively with AIDS patients for the rest of her working life. That summer I become a camp counsellor. I have another idiot boyfriend who fools around with a camper each morning during "interest group" activities. Her little sister is my camper and thus this little girl is burdened with the uncomfortable knowledge that my boyfriend is cheating on me with her sister (who is a camper, which is strictly verboten). Yick. What an ass that guy was. Scott McIlroy. Later that summer me and my friends Cam, Mary and Gord get sent home because we are on a day-off in town when Gord got drunk. We spend the rest of the summer hanging out together at each other's houses. I don't tell my mom that I got thrown out of camp for several weeks. Instead, I live at Mary's house. Later that year, Challenger blows up. I am skipping school with Cam at the time.
1986 - 1987
18, grade 13 (which is extinct now). I work hard to get decent grades so I can get into a good university, although it's not as big a deal here as it is in the states. All the schools here are good, it just depends what you want to do. I am ambivalent about going away to school. I wish I didn't have to go to university but I don't have the guts not to bother. My mom tries to convince me to go to U of T, and says I can even stay in residence. I think she's worried I'll go really far away (which I do). I have a serious boyfriend and I love him, but I still cheat on him every opportunity I get. We have a lot of fun at my prom and I wear a beautiful custom-made dress. My Aunt Margaret, who lived with us when my parents were sick, attends. She is my favourite aunt and taught me how to play poker. I have to beg the camp director to let me have my job back even though I was not the one drinking during "the incident". I prevail and have a fun, incident-free summer.
1987 - 1988
I fly to Halifax and go to Dalhousie. I am 19. I live in a very old-fashioned women's residence. I hate most of my classes. Me and my new friends arrange blind dates for the semi-formal dance in the fall. By this time I have been caught smoking pot and am on probation and have been fined $700 for breaking the rules of residence. I have no money, maybe $25 to last the whole weekend of the dance. In the restaurant I ask my date to please only order a side salad (we all went Sadie Hawkins because no one asked us). At that point, instead of offering to pay for his owner dinner he just goes ahead and orders a side salad. This guy's name is John Stiles. You got that? Apparently he had less money than I did. The dance is awful but we go back to his room and make out, and it's fun. He's very tall and sweet (and cheap). Instead of getting dressed I just roll up my outfit into a ball and run home in the pouring fucking relentless Halifax rain in my overcoat. The door to rez is locked so I ring the bell and rouse the "security guard" who can see that I'm holding my clothes in a ball and not wearing much under my coat. I can't go into my room because my roomate Alison has snuck her boyfriend in for the night, so I sleep in my bra and panties and overcoat in the TV room. My across-the-hall neighbour is Mel, who drops out right before Christmas and I feel like somehow I've failed in something, but what? That year I gain so much weight people don't recognize me when I get back home. I lose most (but not all) of the weight that spring when I go to camp to work at getting the place ready for summer. I am later in charge of counsellors and all their campers.
1988 - 1989
In second year me and Karen, Cindy and Pam live off campus (way off campus) in a small three bedroom apartment. Cindy and I share a room. It's lots of fun. School still sucks. I am a shitty English major and it is sooooo boring. I have another serious b-f but he dumps me hard over reading week. I nearly lose it. I cut all my hair off (after finally growing it). My mom is very compassionate during this time even though she is likely very unhappy that I am breaking many catholic rules with this boyfriend. I work at camp again in the spring and summer, this time in charge of all girls' programming and all-camp programs. I work with a male counterpart named Roy, who is from N. Ireland.
1989 - 1990
In third year I am 21 and bored out of my mind. I think about going to law school, even though it is obvious to all that I hate school. I want to just finish up but I think a 3-year degree will look bad. We live in a really cool apartment near campus and have great parties. We get the local brewery to sponsor us and we get a literal truck-load of free beer. I work as an event marketing person in the spring / summer demo'ing Crystal Lite, which, to this day, disgusts me. At one of the malls I work at I witness an armed robbery. I have to give statements to police and I get in trouble later with my boss because I "abandoned my post" when he comes to visit. What a jerk! I feel conflicted because I'm close to my mom yet I hate living at home because she's often drunk at night and difficult to speak to at those times. My friend JR lives in my bedroom while he's at college in Toronto and he tells me that he finds my mom passed out on the toilet almost every night.
1990 - 1991
I do a fourth, ridiculous year of university for no reason other than I can think of nothing else to do. Shona and I decide to live in an upscale apartment building but our unit isn't ready until October so until then I live in a weird boarding-room situation on the outskirts of town. Half the people at the house are on "pogey", although one guy takes me surfing. He is nice but gets fired from every job. His resume is like, 7 pages long. The pogey people bring home kittens one time and then the house is overrun with fleas. I put on lots of weight this year and get up to a lot of crazy strange partying. At the end of the school year me and Shelagh have arranged to drive us and all our junk home in a U-Haul with a guy we know named Chris and a friend of his. The drive takes 3 days. The first night we pull into Fredericton or Moncton or some damn place to stay with Chris' cousin WHOM HE HAS NEVER MET. Shelagh and I giggle and freeze all night under musty quilts in some stranger's basement on a pullout couch. We leave the next day at dawn before anyone is up. We drive through the States and at one point hit L.L. Bean in the middle of the night. One night we stay in New Hampshire in a charming motel. Chris makes funny home movies of us. We eat 99 cent breakfasts. In New York state we hit a terrible patch of traffic on a two-lane country road. The girls are in the truck and the boys are in Chris' jeep. We follow the jeep as we pass all the cars and eventually get to the front of the traffic line. Then the boys take off and speed away. We have a "governor" on the truck's gas pedal but somehow manage to keep up. A state trooper passes us the other way and immediately turns on its cherries and siren. It tries to U-turn into the traffic and catch us but they can't catch up what with steady oncoming traffic, and amazingly, no cars will get out of the way of the trooper. We speed onward and outrun the trooper all the way upstate to the border at Cornwall. The chase lasts about half an hour. It is amazing that we got away and no backup was ever called. In the summer I do another event marketing thing, this time with Smartfood, which, to this day, makes me gaggy.
1991 - 1992
I start work as the office manager for a computer company of a guy whose kids I babysat their whole lives. I also do the books and do all the spinoff sales. I think this is where my life gets really boring. I call in sick a lot because although I like my work, I hate my job. My boss is only 32 and we both get angry and make mistakes and say stupid things. I end up leaving after two and a half years. In that time I move out and have a couple of different apartments, and meet my future husband.
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
Rugby So Far
Oh man, I think I have injured myself. I have attended 3 rugby practices so far and even though all the running around and crap is getting easier, my right leg feels slightly injured , as opposed to the usual sore-and-stiff-as-hell. And another thought: there seem to be different girls out every time, and every one of them is younger than me, although not all are smaller . My biggest fears are 1) breaking teeth (although I have now modified my mouthguard so that it no longer feels like a blowjob gone horribly wrong), 2) getting another concussion (have had 2 in my lifetime, but not from sports), 3) being prone on the field and getting dog poo in face or hair. Yes, the field has poo on it, so for next time I urged all the 20-somethings to bring bags so we could pick it up before the practice. The poo is, frankly, making me gaggy.
Winter Hockey Finals
And furthermore, I have a weekend of hockey "finals" to look forward to. How I HATE tournaments and faux-tournaments (what this is). It's all the sitting around, the stinking of sweat all day, the having to poo but being suited up, thus having to wait and induce constipation, the disgusting washrooms that smell of 1 million periods, the boredom, the eating of every meal at East Side Marios (ok, I like that part). I have made the decision to only play for one team (Ragtime) as opposed to both teams (The Delics + Ragtime). That means I only have to play 5 or 6 games as opposed to 12. It's really more realistic. I'd love to play for both, but frankly, I can't. I'd just suck and be so wound up by Saturday afternoon, plus the fact that some games are back to back, and if the first one is running late, that would mean an empty net starting for the next game. Gah. Way too much stress and worry for me. I guess what I hate most about tournaments is that it eats up your whole weekend and it's like going to work for 14 days straight.
Book Club Controversy
The book club controversy seems to have died down somewhat... We have a founding member who has decided she does not want to come to the meetings for books that she doesn't like. That was Oryx and Crake . And the current book is The Magnificent Ambersons . I am enjoying it, although worried about the sentimental references to the "darkies" and "negroes" who laugh and make merry all day long in the service alleys behind the grand mansions... I know we have to take it in historical context, but it may be contentious to some... Like in Gone With The Wind . Margaret Mitchell romanticizes the slaves of the O'Hara family and their relationship to the white masters, etc. I recently had my consciousness raised when I saw a documentary on blacks in film / black film-makers. Most people interviewed said they find that aspect of the film "disgusting" and hate the fact that people still love the book, love the movie, and that both are held in high regard. Historically, these things happened and we can't deny it, but there are those who oppose the "glamorization" of these issues in film and literature. I think it happens a bit at the beginning of The Magnificent Ambersons . I think this might bug one of the book club members -- maybe to the point that she bows out again. We'll see in June.
Oh man, I think I have injured myself. I have attended 3 rugby practices so far and even though all the running around and crap is getting easier, my right leg feels slightly injured , as opposed to the usual sore-and-stiff-as-hell. And another thought: there seem to be different girls out every time, and every one of them is younger than me, although not all are smaller . My biggest fears are 1) breaking teeth (although I have now modified my mouthguard so that it no longer feels like a blowjob gone horribly wrong), 2) getting another concussion (have had 2 in my lifetime, but not from sports), 3) being prone on the field and getting dog poo in face or hair. Yes, the field has poo on it, so for next time I urged all the 20-somethings to bring bags so we could pick it up before the practice. The poo is, frankly, making me gaggy.
Winter Hockey Finals
And furthermore, I have a weekend of hockey "finals" to look forward to. How I HATE tournaments and faux-tournaments (what this is). It's all the sitting around, the stinking of sweat all day, the having to poo but being suited up, thus having to wait and induce constipation, the disgusting washrooms that smell of 1 million periods, the boredom, the eating of every meal at East Side Marios (ok, I like that part). I have made the decision to only play for one team (Ragtime) as opposed to both teams (The Delics + Ragtime). That means I only have to play 5 or 6 games as opposed to 12. It's really more realistic. I'd love to play for both, but frankly, I can't. I'd just suck and be so wound up by Saturday afternoon, plus the fact that some games are back to back, and if the first one is running late, that would mean an empty net starting for the next game. Gah. Way too much stress and worry for me. I guess what I hate most about tournaments is that it eats up your whole weekend and it's like going to work for 14 days straight.
Book Club Controversy
The book club controversy seems to have died down somewhat... We have a founding member who has decided she does not want to come to the meetings for books that she doesn't like. That was Oryx and Crake . And the current book is The Magnificent Ambersons . I am enjoying it, although worried about the sentimental references to the "darkies" and "negroes" who laugh and make merry all day long in the service alleys behind the grand mansions... I know we have to take it in historical context, but it may be contentious to some... Like in Gone With The Wind . Margaret Mitchell romanticizes the slaves of the O'Hara family and their relationship to the white masters, etc. I recently had my consciousness raised when I saw a documentary on blacks in film / black film-makers. Most people interviewed said they find that aspect of the film "disgusting" and hate the fact that people still love the book, love the movie, and that both are held in high regard. Historically, these things happened and we can't deny it, but there are those who oppose the "glamorization" of these issues in film and literature. I think it happens a bit at the beginning of The Magnificent Ambersons . I think this might bug one of the book club members -- maybe to the point that she bows out again. We'll see in June.
