A General Indictment of the Romance "Genre"

Up until a month ago, I would have considered myself completely unqualified to attack the evil that is the romance novel, not having had any exposure to such "writing" since I outgrew Danielle Steel's turgid members and milky-white bosoms at the age of 11 (not that this would have stopped me). However, the universe colluded against me this past month, teasing me with a big sudsy bath and only Jean Chretien to keep me company.


Nothing against Prime Minister Poutine, but a political memoir is not exactly suitable material for relaxing with a glass of wine, some candlelight and bubbles up to my ears. So I raided my sister's supply in order to find a good "tub book" and lo and behold, her shelf boasted only books with glittery, pastel covers featuring such winning titles as Annie, Get Your Groom, and Code Name: Bikini.

Don't let the titles throw you off, though. There's only one romance book, and that one story is recycled over and over, occasionally renaming characters (Chase becomes Thatcher), or changing hair colours (strawberry blonde becomes dirty blonde). I hate to ruin it for you, but here's the way it goes: a guy with great pecs meets a girl with large breasts and at first they kind of hate each other because they're so damn different (like, she's really rich, and he's really really rich), but then they find each other undeniably attractive (his jaw is chiseled, and did I mention she has great tits?), and then there's about 100 pages of sexual tension and will-they-or-won't-they (even-though-they-always-do) and usually there's some kind of mini-crisis that makes us fear that they won't get together (hint: they do), then even though he's a bad boy who's not the marrying kind, by the end of the book the ache in his loins inspires him to make a lifelong commitment and crave babies and domesticity and soft kisses.


So I know all of this going in, I'm totally prepared for how incredibly and predictably bad these books are, and still I manage to find myself cringing in the bathtub when in the current year of 2007, the premise of my tub book is thus:

Man meets woman...on a train....like, a boxcar....cause, they're like, riding the rails. Illegally. They're hobos. And the girl hobo really brings out the protector in the boy hobo. Because she has a baby with her, and conveniently the boy hobo is recently a widower and grieving his kids, and is looking for a replacement family, and he's inspired to give up drinking. But then the girl hobo collapses and needs to be saved, so thankfully, the boy hobo is actually a multi-millionaire so he literally brings in a helicopter to whisk them all away.

I mean, even for a romance novel that's pretty improbable. They were hobos! Hobos! But sexy hobos. A boy hobo in need of a good woman to save him, and a girl hobo in need of money to save her back. So it all ends up nicely.


And this isn't even the worst offender. In my mother's household, there is a book that is passed around that is referred to only as "the smutty book." The smutty book doesn't even bother with the laughably implausible plot lines. If there are occasionally a few transitional paragraphs between the coupling of her tight, wet, hot... self, and his hard, needy, throbbing...self and the second, even more quiverful coupling of said genitals, I find that my sisters are simply flipping pages straight to the good stuff, as it were. If there's a literary equivalent to the money shot, they're fast forwarding to the main event.

Let's not kid ourselves. "Romance" is a nice way of saying "soft core porn for girls". But it's not just the soft coreness that makes me roll my eyes. It's the formula, the predictability. In fact, it cannot even be classified as a romance by the publisher if it doesn't have a happy\rosy\optimistic outcome. The insistence that some minuscule "obstacle" keeps them superficially apart, although they always grudgingly find each other desirable because only really hot people fall in love. I have no idea what ugly people do, or heck, even what ordinary people do, because no one has ever written about them. Well, ordinary people contract illnesses, or hitchhike across the country, or across the galaxy, or they work in coal mines or they keep bees, but they don't fall madly in love. Romances are only about people who have bodies that can be described as "rock hard" or "pneumatic".

Romances never involve stretch marks or receding hair lines or Honda Civics or guys named Roy. It makes me think that it must be a bunch of stringy-haired, badly-complected, knobby-kneed wallflowers who write these novels, and live vicariously through them. But you'll never catch me saying that out loud. Oh no. When I dared to voice my unfavourable opinion of science fiction, those sex-starved kiddies who call themselves fans got on their bikes and threw eggs at my neighbour's house (woops!). But then I called their moms, who threatened to start charging them rent on their basement lairs if they didn't come home right away, so I guess I didn't quite learn that lesson.

Maybe, for the good of fiction, we should take all those romance authors who just need a good lay, and pair them up with all the science fiction authors who've never seen a woman naked, and just see what happens.

Or maybe we could just take away all their pens instead?

Or maybe I should just stop reading this crap, or at least have the decency to pretend that I don't. Or learn to keep my trap shut.

Hah. Fat chance.
Damn I crack myself up.

Or maybe you should just visit the Quickie Book Review to read about what books I do like (surprising, I know, that something occasionally passes muster).

Or maybe you have a soft core hobo fetish, which I imagine is an itch that's hard to scratch, and therefore I can only counsel you to read away. Just don't say I didn't warn you.



P.S. The sex scene on page 214 is pretty hot, once they take care of the lice. You're welcome.

One Book-Orgasm After Another

When shopping for a new purse, I kid myself by measuring strap length, zipper durability, goes-with-clothesiness, ease of opening and closing, whether it will bump on my ass when perched on shoulder or give me uni-boob if wear the strap diagonally across my chest, etc, but in reality, only one thing truly matters: whether it is big enough to hold a book, and hopefully two.

Recently I have been living the life of a nomad (a nice smelling nomad, it goes without saying) so the bigness of my bag has been of even more importance than normal. Purse-packing really sets your priorities straight. I will take my chances and leave the umbrella at home in favour of a book. My god, I will leave behind my cell phone, my gum, and 3 out of 5 tubes of lipgloss to make room for whatever I'm reading. I'll even leave the tampons on the table - and girls, you know what kind of trouble you're asking for when you leave the house ill-prepared! But there are few places I'd really want to be book-less, and many places where I'd probably go nutty without one: just in the past 30 days I've taken 3-hour subway rides, waited in a walk-in clinic, stood in line to return stuff behind 25 or so other people waiting to do the same, been trapped in an elevator, spent a lunch hour indoors while it rained, and met a chronically-late friend for drinks at a pub. I suppose other people use this down-time to, oh, bite their nails or develop neuroses or whatever, but me, I prefer to expand my mind and enrich my thoughts and culture my intellect. It's just a thing I have.

And lately, this thing has been lucky. I have been buried under a veritable orgy of literate. My book-karma is through the roof. I mean, I'll be the first to admit that I am not a book critic. I read a book wanting to love it. If bibliophilia was a crime, I'd be locked away, which is a shame since what I've seen from prison movies, the reading selection consists mainly of condensed reader's digests and other depressing material. But the god of words smiles down upon me because I am free to lust after as many books as I please. Lately I have encountered so many incredibly good books, I've just wanted to hole myself up in my room and never leave until my eyes start bleeding, which I rather hope wouldn't be for a while, and certainly not before the climax. But keeping a good book to yourself is a rather selfish, masturbatory experience whereas I have always been a giver. I like to share my good fortune with as many people as possible, which is why I started my book review site six months ago. However, I continue to get emails asking me which books I'm currently reading, which leads me to believe that people are a lot sillier than they appear. Check my sidebar. See the Quickie Book Reviews? Click on any of the titles and it will magically tell you whether to love it or leave it.

I've recently read my 108th book this year, so there are lots of titles to choose from. If you'd like to recommend something, please do so. If you've already read something featured there, please comment and share! Don't make me moon over my author-crushes all alone!

I know I can't be the only one getting my rocks off on books. What's the last thing you read that gave you the shivers?

Why Science Fiction Sucks the Big One: An Expository Essay

Good lord I hate science fiction.

I tried to keep an open mind, I really did, but the first sentence that goes a little something like "and then we ate some freeze-dried meatloaf" or "you walk through this portal to get to the next planet" and my mind just slams firmly shut in a stunning display of superiority and snobbery.

I guess my main beef with stupid science fiction is that the authors' imaginations are always so limited. Space travel quickly becomes a bore: the aliens always look vaguely like humans, but maybe their skin is green, or their craniums are disproportionately large (as if all intelligent creatures are humanoid by default!); travel is quick, but somehow it's always done by a variation on the theme of rocket ship which is totally improbable (we move everything else virtually, or by fiber optics, but somehow for outer space, we like to travel by tin can); humans invariably start colonizing other planets, which are always conveniently similar to earth, even their atmospheres are amazingly not a problem for human lungs.

You can usually tell what decade a sci-fi story was written in. In the 70s, writers apparently believed that in the future, even centuries or millennia into the future, there would still be disco, but this disco would just have a lot more lasers and holograms to it, and the platform shoes would double as moon boots.

Lame!!!

But science-fiction writers appear to be even less able to imagine the future than the average cat. In the eighteenth century, science fiction consisted of: we travel to places quite quickly with our new hover-horses, and we wear hoop skirts with many pockets in them, convenient for storing our super-cool gadgets, like the combination garlic press\candle stick that comes in handy ever so often and we have no idea how people used to live without them, and a loaf of bread costs a whole 90 cents these days! Science fiction today is pretty much the same crap, with different hover crafts, and slightly different gadgets, but never different by much, and slightly different spellings, like putting a K where a C belonged.

Lame!!!!

Science fiction writers seem to only be able to predict, say, the next 20 minutes or so. I just finished reading Snow Crash, for example, which was a pretty decent read, except the entire novel was discredited for me by its constant referral to videotape. I mean, this story was written in 1992, which means that videotape was obsolete about 46 days after publication. How can I possibly envision this future when I already know that tape is a relic of the past?

Lame!!!!

It's painful for me to read this crap. It's also painful that this stuff is labeled 'science fiction'. Better possible names for the genre:

stunted imaginations
unscientific-barely-educated-conjecture
laser-licious
nerd alert!
books that will make fools of their authors about 30 minutes after they're published

God I hate science fiction.

Although....one of my all-time favourite books is The Handmaid's Tale, which seems misplaced to me in the science fiction section, but there it is. What's the difference?

Well, for one thing, it doesn't emphasize silver parachute pants as the major fashion statement of the year 3287. Gadget talk is kept to a minimum. The usual trappings that only serve to stem and date an author are cast aside for what's really interesting about the future - I mean, who cares how much storage my computer will have 15 minutes from now? Instead, Margaret Atwood tells us of the human experience, the psychology of the future, the moral implications of living in an ever-changing world. I was much, much less in love with Oryx and Crake. It hurts me to say that my favourite author may have fallen prey to the sci-fi formula that I find so repulsive.

But as I think about it, I realize I have also read and enjoyed a lot of Isaac Asimov's work. Normally, the merest mention of 'robot' would have me running for the hills, but Asimov has more in common with Atwood than you might first think. While she writes about human morality (or lack thereof), he writes about machine morality (or lack thereof). These are equally compelling when done right, and equally appalling when done wrong, which it so, so often is.

Dan Simmons, I am sorry to say, you are a moron. Your "frightening alien" seemed more to me like the recycling of "swamp thing", only with sharper fingers.

Lame!!!!

Douglas Coupland, I am not sorry to say, I seriously doubt that the future consists solely of people getting gayer. Why are all the men of your future nerdy metrosexuals?

Lame!!!!

After you read a few of these books, you quickly get the impression that these guys live in mouldy basements with the same curling Star Wars posters on the wall, and tatty underwear in their drawers, and underused toothbrushes drying out by their sinks. Science Fiction is often paired with or synonymous with fantasy, which is ironic, isn't it? I mean, what kind of fantasy is pretty much like reality, except with slightly smaller cellphones with slightly better reception?

Dream bigger, boys!

I know, I know, I'm being awfully hard on science fiction novels here.
If it makes you feel any better, there is one thing I hate more than reading science fiction, and that's watching it. George Lucas, you'd better know you're on my shit list too. I'm coming for you, baby.

Dear Douglas Coupland

You are a self-referential (reverential) asshole.

No matter how many books you write, you will never succeed in convincing me that your Generation X is cool. You were born the same year as my mother, the woman who buys her jeans from walmart, and hems them 2 inches above the ankle, revealing socks decorated with cats batting around balls of yarn.

You try to trick the reader into thinking you're cool by peppering your stories with incoherent Simpsons references, when anyone with a half-decent cable package could tell you that Apu doesn't sell milkshakes, he sells Squishys.

And you've somehow managed to write a whole book about geeks without any reference to myspace, ipods, or Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Way to stay in touch.

You can jkissmyass.

Resolution.

I think new year's resolutions are silly. I mean, you're either going to do something, or you aren't. In this day in age, when any contract can be nullified, when handshakes and words mean nothing, when even the supposedly sacred vows of marriage are only semi-permanent at best, then the simple of act of making a resolution with oneself is quite pointless. And so, I've made one for Jason instead.

I have tallied up my book count for 2005, and Jason bows in awe to it. Oh, I've read some real stinkers this year, but have also read some real gems (some not for the first time). Jason, however, has managed to read 2 things this past year:

1. The directions on his chapstick.

2. The Kids' Almanac from 1987, which he rediscovered in a box of crap his Mom unloaded on us.

So I have given Jason a challenge for 2006, and that is to read 100 books. 100 books is a lot of books for anyone (well, except for me of course) but for Jason it will be quite a feat. Jason believes that the only reason he doesn't read is that he has no "time" to read - and yet, one must wonder that if his wife has time to read almost twice that amount, just what is he doing while she is thusly occupied? I suppose we're about to find out.

To encourage him, I told him to name his own prize. I told him to pick something big. He decided on Play Station 3. This thing is still being developed by Sony, but already Jason covets it. My ears begin spontaneously hemorrhaging at the thought of his PS2 sitting idly on the shelf, the very PS2 that I nearly died getting for him, not to mention nearly bankrupted myself for when it was hot off the press, just a few short years ago. Soon it will be a worthless piece of crap. Hooray.

However, this was Jason's choice. And truth be told, I wonder at the modesty of his prize. I mean, I did say pick anything. I probably would have opted for some sort of tropical vacation. Of course, I am a greedy little witch. Truth be told, Jason probably would have got his PS3 anyway, eventually. But now I will buy it for him as soon as his 100 books are logged for the year. Currently the PS3 is scheduled for release in the spring. If he has read 100 books by then, I have vowed to stand in line with the geeks for days in advance, if it comes to that.

If it comes to that (that's a pretty big if).

Will Jason really read 100 books? How badly does he want his prize? Pretty badly, he says. "I'll have so much fun playing video games, I'll probably never read books again!"

Oy. Already the point is lost on him.

No matter. The challenge is set. The bets are in. It's up to him now.

To his credit, he did start reading something recommended from my list - One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I cautioned him that this might not be the best to start off with. I even offered to lend him my copy of Superfudge, just to wet his toes a little before he jumps right in. But no, on January 2nd he tore into my 100 Years, zipped through the first 7 pages at lightning speed, and well...seems to have waffled there ever since.

Is there hope for him yet? Only time will tell.

Toronto Public Library, Unite!

When moving to a new city, my first real concern is: where is the library? Is it lame?

Of course, the answer to these questions vary by location. For example, the downtown location in Ottawa on Metcalfe is awesome. The Gloucester version sucks: they had no Nabokov. None whatsoever. What kind of library is that?

The Cornwall library is actually pretty good for Cornwall (of course, it's consolidated, so there's only one branch). Still, they had all of 1 work of Stephen Leacock's. You know, Stephen Leacock, Canadian comedic genius and author extraordinaire? How can any Canadian city library have only one volume of his work for all of its 50 000 residents to share? This my friends, is a tragedy of libraric proportions.

Now, at the time of my move I was in the middle of reading The Brothers Karamazov, which was as good as I had anticipated, having very much enjoyed The Idiot, even though I still believe that all the great authors of yesteryear, Dostoevsky included, would have greatly benefited from an editor. But I didn't quite finish it, and I had to send it down the chute before I left town.

For the past month, I have relied on the stockpile of store-bought books I gathered up before the move. However, the pile was running low. Finally, during the last half of A Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man, I began to sweat (and not just because I hate the Joyce). The last time I didn't have a book on the go was May 2001, and it didn't go well. Those 3 days were the worst days of my life; days I cared not to repeat.

But when I went through the awful process of sifting through Toronto's 99 branches to find the one closest to me, I made a disheartening discovery: my "local" branch not only keeps inconvenient hours and operates only 5 days a week, is actually closed for carpet cleaning for the next 3 weeks. Not good.

So we decided to try the Markham Public Library instead, so off we went to the closest branch, following signs marked 'library', into a building named 'library' and through a door labeled 'library', where we found...well, NOT a library. Just a room full of people, and not one book in sight. How did that happen?

Well, obviously we must have walked into a bus driver's symposium because the people were as friendly and helpful as all get-out (please note: extreme sarcasm was used during the making of the preceding sentence. I have found the bus drivers in this city to be extremely rude. In fact, rude does not quite cover the feelings I have toward them.)

Anyway, we finally tracked down a library that really was a library. And I finally got a copy of the Dostoevsky. And I finally remembered where I was at in the story when I left off (book 9, chapter 6). So all is well, except for one small thing: how will I ever remember where to return it?

Obey My Authority

Today I am sharing with you some stuff that I've enjoyed in the hopes that you will reciprocate. Don't worry about whether I'll like it, just tell me that you did, and that's enough. Just try to keep things somewhat off the beaten path (no Harry Potter, for example) and we'll all be happy.

What to Watch:

The Hour (plays in Canada on CBC Monday - Thursday, live at 8pm)

I'm really excited about this show, because it's not just reporting the news, it's talking about it. A newscast gives you the bare bones of a story; The Hour gives us the meat. It gives opinions, biases, points of view. It's a rare commodity, and it makes information seem way less tedious. Mr. George Stroumboulopoulos is at the helm, not just a hottie but an informed source, along with several contributors who make the show a rich, irreverent mosaic. Unlike the blank-faced, straight-laced deadpan feel of other news shows, this one is unafraid to run from somber to sarcastic. It's a show that anyone can watch, and everyone should watch. The Hour is changing the face of the news (thank God). Way to go CBC, I didn't know you had it in ya.

What to See:

The Third Wheel

This was one of those accidental rentals that turned out surprisingly well. I think it went direct to video a couple of years ago, but man, I laughed so hard. I don't even know what it was. It's just one of those ridiculous movies that make no overt sense, you just have to have a feel for it. It stars Luke Wilson (yay!), Ben Affleck, and Denise Richards. I would normally never willingly watch a Denise Richards movie, but she's subdued in this movie, and actually, it's more about Jay Lacopo, a dude you may not have heard of but who definitely deserves some props. You need to watch it to understand, so don't just stand there, bust a move.

What to Read:

Life of Pi, Yann Martel

If you haven't read it yet, just go get it. Don't read reviews, don't even read the blurb on the dust jacket. Just pick it up and start reading. The story itself is fascinating, purportedly "a story that will make you believe in God", but it's in the last few pages that I guarantee you your life will change. You have to worship a book that will do that for you.

What to Hear:

Ostensibly, Our Lady Peace (aka my favourite band ever, hands down, no doubt about it, so back the hell off) was coming out with a new much-anticipated (at my house anyway) album called "Vampires" in March. It didn't happen. The new release date seems to be July, so the bastards are making me wait. I can already guarantee that it will be worth the wait though, because these boys can do no wrong. In the meantime, try downloading Somewhere Out There or Innocent from their last album, Gravity. You'll fall in love. Incidentally, the band's lead singer Raine Maida reigns in all his rock star glory on a permanent spot on my 10 Hottest Men Ever list (I'm thinking of making George a place on the list, think I could swap out the gay guy?) and if you listen to that first song carefully, you'll hear a line dedicated to Moi: "I miss your purple hair, I miss the way you taste." Now, I'm not a girl to kiss and tell, but holy fuck yeah. Of course he's married now (to Chantal Kreviazuk) and so am I actually, but I'll always have that song. :)



Okay, so do your worst. What have you got for me?

WILL FUCK FOR BOOKS

To satiate my love-affair with words, I have often visited the whorehouse that is Chapters. All the pretty books display themselves in window cases, giving you a glimpse of the forbidden fruit that lies within the covers that can be yours for the right price. The overt display entices customers to come in and spend their money, be disloyal to the books sitting at home, waiting to be read, and bypass those they could have had for free just two blocks further at the library.

When the written word is your mistress, you WILL visit the whorehouse. You can choose which one you want to take home with you, which one you'll take to bed or share a bath with, which pages you'll finger tenderly, and because Chapters is the mac daddy of all pimps, you never leave without a date. There's always something available for whatever amount you're willing to pay for love.

But there is one alternative to the whorehouse - there's the friendly neighbourhood escort service, otherwise known as the little book shop around the corner. It may not have the same selection, but it gives the kind of personalized service that I cherish in a lover. Madam shop keeper greets me by name, and hooks me up with my favourite vices. I will gladly pay a little extra for this, because the scent is intoxicating (the smell of words is distinct, of paper and ink, and all those good things, compared to the sterile "clean" smell of Chapters), because when the shop opens her arms to me, it feels like home, and because sometimes an old seasoned pro turns the best tricks.



In that vein, I have been stuck by Low Level Rebel, and will attempt to answer the questions:

You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?

The Bible. I don't know a more controversial, inflammatory, sex-drenched, violence-sodden, scandalous read around.


Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Michael Corleone, The Godfather (Mario Puzo)

The last book you bought was:

The Iliad and The Odyssey (Homer)

The last book you read was?

Just finished Fall On Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald); thanks Anna.

What are you currently reading?

Love In The Time of Cholera (Gabriel Garcia Marquez). Surprisingly good. Also on my nightstand: Far From the Madding Crowd (Hardy), and I Claudius (Graves).

Five books you'd take to a deserted island?

Dear God: if you grant me only one thing, let it be that I never have to limit myself to just 5 books! But if I can only take 5, I'm going to make the most of them:

1. The Godfather, Mario Puzo. Hands down favourite book since I was 12.
2. Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood. Margaret Atwood is a goddess. Every word is a gem.
3. The Hotel New Hampshire, John Irving. His books are to die for.
4. Fifth Business, Robertson Davies (the whole Deptford Trilogy, if possible).
5. Beloved, Toni Morrison. Beautiful prose and superior story-telling.
5. Vinyl Cafe, Stuart McLean. Funny stuff.
5. Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt. Powerful, moving, agonizingly well-written.
5. some Jack Kerouac, D.H. Lawrence, Mordecai Richler, Shakespeare, Steinbeck, Judy Bloom, Nabokov, Angelou, etc, etc. I knew I would be bad at this!

Like, The Sun Also, Um, Rises, and Stuff

A little while back, Kelly mentioned a story I had written back in high school. She astounded me with her excellent memory. We were challenged by our writer's craft teacher to mimic Hemingway's style of writing in a story of our own, a "parody", if you will. I cannot profess to being a true Hemingway fan, I'd have to be way more forgiving of his sexist, macho ways than I am. But, I have read him, I do appreciate him, and according to that teacher (and Kelly) at least, I can mimic him fairly well. Or at least what Hemingway would have sounded like when he was in high school. I will resist the urge to tinker, and print it in its original, embarrassing form.

______________________________________

His pace was quick, he licked his lips. He had never seen so many flavours at once. Adam's throat was dry. He inhaled deeply. Up and down the aisle he walked, his mind racing. The choice was just too much.

There was rocky road, french vanilla, butterscotch ripple and pecan. Adam's eyes darted from side to side, growing larger by the second. Rows of pink plastic spoons were ready and waiting nearby, like soldiers poised for battle. A sweat broke out on his brow. The server stood before him, scoop in hand, expectant. The barrels of ice cream were calling his name. Adam's stomach let out a low growl of anticipation.

A soft breeze from the air conditioning hit the backs of his knees. He gave it no thought. The server was expecting something from him; a nod, a raised eyebrow, any indication would do. Adam cleared his throat and sniffed a bit. The cool air always gave him a runny nose. He wished for one of the fancy blue paper napkins but his arms were like lead beside him. His instinct was to bolt from the little shoppe, but his feet remained planted firmly to the speckled tile. He was a grown man, and a decision had to be made.

The freezer was massive and metallic. In the corners, little icicles hung down in groups of three or four. The list of its contents went on forever: strawberry, chocolate delight, raspberry swirl, mint chocolate chip. He glanced at the frozen yogurt out of the corner of his eye and then quickly looked away. He would not even consider those today. Maybe one day he would be ready, but today was not that day.

Finally, he felt a burst of confidence. He looked up and managed a small nod. The server smiled and look relieved as he took a cone from the pyramid behind the counter. His apron crinkled as he moved behind the freezer, happy to have something to do and happy that his customer had finally made up his mind. Adam went up to the glass case and thrust his finger in the direction of his selection, neapolitan. It was his favourite. The silver scoop cut through the softness of the ice cream smoothly as it had done many times before. The man behind the counter grimaced with the effort. He packed the ice cream into the cone and put a nicely rounded scoop on top.

At the cash register, Adam traded some bills for the cold treat. He headed toward the door, squinting and frowning slightly at the cone in his hand. He stopped suddenly and took a lick. A sigh escaped his lips. By God, it was some good ice cream. It was the best ice cream he'd ever tasted.


_________________________________________________


So there it is. It makes me cringe to think one of the best pieces of writing I did in high school is one of the worst pieces I still have in my possession. I struggle through the poor point of view and my awkward shifts between tenses - how did I make it through high school without someone screaming at me "Hey, that ain't good English!" And even worse, I was at the head of my class. I received awards and scholarships based on this work.

High school is a strange place. What exactly did I learn there? I learned how to play euchre. I learned that there was a 'wrong' side of Lancaster. I dissected a sheep eye, and what I took away from that is that they're 'gross'. I learned that when a museum posts a sign saying not to touch the display, they really mean it. Maybe the point of high school is to learn life lessons, sometimes at the expense of things like reading and writing. It's a good thing I went to University to learn the good English, eh?


And just to clear something up: a few posts ago, a friend of mine made mention of "special classes" I took because I was smart, and Shane wanted to know what exactly was meant by that. When I was 8 or 9, we went through standardized testing, and I scored in the 'gifted' range. My mother didn't want me taken out of my school, so I went to 'enrichment' courses, which supposedly fostered independent thinking and would help prevent me from being so bored in the classroom (a lot of good that did). We worked on special projects, puzzles to expand the mind, and even put on plays. It was great to get out of normal class several times a week, but not exactly what I would call an enriching experience. But once a year, during education week, we boarded a bus and drove 100+km away to attend specialized classes at a University. The first time I went was when I was 13, and I took a week-long science course that opened my mind to all sorts of possibilities, mostly because I went to a small hick- school that had no science budget whatsoever. I'd never even heard of a beaker or a bunsen burner before. However, I don't put much stock into this test that gave me this label, for two reasons: 1- They tested us once in grade 4, and that score followed me throughout high school 2- Our enrichment teacher once had the bright idea of reading our scores out loud to us; she told me I was the only one she'd seen that had ever had a perfect score, but some people in the group scored quite a bit lower and still fell within the gifted range...and I can't help but feel that any test that allows a 9 year old girl to score perfectly just can't be all that good. Anyhow, that test has followed me throughout my career as a student. I also took University courses in creative writing, geology, and film. None of this prevented me from getting bored with what the rest of the class was doing, and some teachers recognized this and gave me papers to correct to keep me busy, and other teachers ignored it. Maybe it's why I stopped going to school, and maybe it's not. All I know is that I'm not done learning, not by far, but I am done being taught.

Exhaustion.

Still not sleeping right.

I managed 3 hours yesterday, but they were in the middle of the day, 3-6pm. Actually, make that more like 3 1/2 hours, because apparently I was a little resistant to getting up at 6 when Jason tried to wake me. I don't even remember him coming in, which is not surprising since I've been walking around here like I expect to be crowned Miss Zombie 2005 for the past week, and 3 little hours just don't cut it. Logically, I should have just hoarded all the sleep I could get, but I keep thinking that if I deprive myself during the day, I'll have to sleep at night. Uh, no. Not happening.

On the upside, (and this will only mean anything to Anners), I have been reading a lot of those books you sent over. However, Memoirs of a Geisha probably set be back in sleep because I have been since obsessed with the thought that a man's eel will spit in his favourite dark, warm cave to mark his territory. Gross. So I was thinking, what kind of book will put me to sleep? And then I remembered (can't believe I didn't think of this before!) that there is one kind of book that never failed to put me to sleep - textbooks! I broke my nose like 8 times while I was in University....when you fall asleep holding a 30 000 page hard-covered tome, that's a lot of dead weight smashing into your face when your grip gives way to sleep! So for old time's sake, I got out an old favourite, Death and Dying. Perfect bedtime reading, right? Wrong. Still no luck.

So I got up, but I have this persistent condition that I like to call "Vaseline eyes", and I think you can imagine what that's all about. The world is one big smudge when I'm tired. I'm a bit of a hazard. And my neck is on strike. This morning, it just got fed up and decided that it wasn't going to support my head anymore, so my face went for a swim in the cereal. Perfect. My arms just do not have the strength to shampoo cornflakes out of my hair right now.

So to try to gather enough oomph to be somewhat productive, even for a few hours, I turned on some really invigorating music - Jesus Christ Superstar. I mean, who doesn't like to Windex to all those Hosannas? Except I don't actually have that soundtrack, so I have to sing every verse myself. And believe me, that's not normally a problem. I seem to know a lot of words to religious show tunes for some reason. And I'm a singer for sure, especially while I'm cleaning. But my heart just wasn't in it today. That's how I know this is serious. I mean, for cripe's sake!

I was making out a grocery list, which is one of my most favourite things to do. I love making lists, and I love grocery shopping, and I love love love to cook, so normally when Jason thinks I need a cheer-up, he gets out my grocery list stationary, my meal plan, and any nano-lists that I've got going. But after half-heartedly jotting down a few items, I spaced out, lost 20 minutes that I can't account for, and finally just declared that all I needed was rice. So, I sent Jason out for rice. And Pepsi. When I'm tired I develop an irrational fear of running out of Pepsi (even though all I drink is water, because my stomach can't decide if it's morning, noon, or night). I end up sending Jason out a lot when I'm tired because if he's here, he's snoring. It's like being on a diet and hanging out at a hot-dog eating contest all day long: torture!

Meanwhile, I've been blubbering like a baby at the drop of a hat! Try dropping a hat, it's sadder than you'd think. You'd think that Jason would want to take care of poor me (okay, you may also be thinking that Jason should be kicking me to the curb, but for shit's sake, let's go with the first one), but he doesn't. Yesterday he said to me that I should lie down, we could watch Garden State, and he would brush my hair, which I love. Halfway through the movie, when I was feeling nice and sleepy, he took advantage of me. He gathered up all the blue hairs in the brush, made a big hair ball, and dropped it on my face. I should have realized he was far too quiet, but I didn't. I'm out of it. My reaction time is slow, so I couldn't even swat it away. It got right in my eye and freaked me the hell out. Long story short, 40 minutes later, the EMT guy said my heart rate and bp were slowly returning to normal, and that I should "try and get some rest." Gee thanks.

Another thing about being tired is that it always seems like a good time to drink. And then Wham comes on, puts the boom-boom into my heart, and there's no turning back. Before I know it, I'm waking Jason up at 4 am so we can go get me a milkshake, and he uses the Harry Carey voice at the drive-thru and tells me that McDonalds workers are required to hand you the bag with the big M facing you. I'm easily amused in this state. When I'm not crying, that is.

And of course I'm grumpy as hell. I was in my email yesterday, and saw that the maroon g-mail giveaways was finally gone. Good. Except then I noticed a new box on the lefthand side of the screen: g-mail invites: 50 left. 50! WTF!* So between my 2 accounts, I have 100 invites. Fabulous. The thing is, back when we only had 6, they were trying to make it seem like an exclusive club. Lame. But trying to get me to sign up 100 new members? I don't think so, Google. Do your own dirty work, or else put me on the pay roll. I was so mad, I almost called Jason on the emergency line at his work. I only stopped myself because I thought in telling him about it, I might start to cry again, and I had just ended my 20-minute crying jag from the last time Kristie Alley called me chubby. I mean, lay off, okay? It's really hard to do cardio when you're tired all the time. Gawd.



* Note, WTF will henceforth represent What the Flip?!?

Never trust anything that bleeds for 5 days and doesn't die

Some musings from the past few days:

-I am currently reading A Tale of Two Cities, you know, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." and I am realizing how everyone knows those first 12 words and not much else about it. So I asked Jason what two cities he even thought were involved, and without missing a beat, he guessed Seattle and France. First of all, this book takes place in 1775, which means Seattle did not exist (not until 1869, in fact) and secondly, France is a country, not a city. So the bottom line, friends: don't trust Jason on anything literary or common sensical.

-Nanny and Pa just got back from an exhilarating 3-day trip to Niagara Falls. They packed beers for the bus, enjoyed gambling at yet another casino, and ate a good meal in the revolving restaurant. Their favourite part of the trip seems to be the piece of roast beef Pa ordered for dinner at this restaurant, because they both had to show me the yay by yay by yay dimensions of this slab of beef, which according to its length, width, and height, was about the size of a platform shoe, and frankly, all 3 of us are surprised that Pa is still able to walk around.

-The other day when Jason and I were on Pitt St, we saw a truck that said "Oh les phoques" on the back. Now, I am not a fan of any stenciling of any sort on cars...in Cornwall, there is an abundance of little boys either peeing or giving the finger, and I wonder when we started giving 8 year olds the right to drive. It's about as trailer trash as you can get, and you just know whoever gets out of said car will have a mullet and buck teeth and will barely speak the good English. But this les phoques truck takes the cake, as I'm sure you agree. If you don't know, a phoque is the French word for seal...but you know very well this guy is not just enthusiastic about seals. Apparently it is funny to him to have a French word that sounds like a dirty English word on his truck...which I can totally understand, because I remember going through that phase myself in grade 2. But my mom wouldn't let me spray-paint it on my Blue Angel bike, and I got over it quickly. Yeah.

-Jason started on his new team at work, and after a grim first day, he had only this to say: "No one else on my team is under 60 or under 400 lbs." It's just a bunch of old ladies with hacking coughs who are quite pleased to have such a nice young man join their ranks...they even invited him to their weekly trip to the 5th Wheel for some chain-smoking and gossip on Tuesday night. Jason passed on that one. His second day was maybe a bit worse, because of the persimmons. You see, strolling through the produce section on Saturday inspired us to pick up 2 persimmons (for 98 cents) to try them out. Jason took one to work with him yesterday, and a few hours later I found this urgent message from him in my email: "Do not eat that persimmon!!!" Apparently it was much like eating a sponge, because it sucked all the saliva right out of his mouth, and didn't taste much better than a sponge either. Then he had to work the rest of his shift with no spit, which apparently is a lot harder than it sounds. Let's hope day 3 goes a little better.

-Last night when we were going to bed, I was trying to align the coffee table, and Jason accused me of having O.C.D. (obsessive-compulsive disorder). Let me explain: our coffee table sits in between 2 couches that are at a right angle to each other, so it's a tricky thing to make the coffee table line up with both of them, so I'm often nudging it one way or another, stepping back for a better view, and trying again. But I do not have O.C.D. and you'd think my husband would be a little more appreciate of the aesthetically pleasing lines of the house I keep for him. But no, he just diagnoses me (I knew I would regret asking him to help me study!). So when I denied having even a touch of O.C.D., he then pronounced that I had some B.I.T.C.H.Y. How do you like that? Raise your hand if you think Jason slept on the couch last night.

"Quit putting that ball sack on my head!"

Okay, so that may or may not sound like a funny thing to say to you, and before we go any further, let me just say that it wasn't me who said it. It was Jason. I was rubbing it all over him, and he just is not into it as I am. Of course, I am referring to the great piece of literature Old Goriot by Balzac, as I'm sure you've already deduced. For the past year and a half-ish, I have been methodically attacking a list of "classic" literature that I want to read, and since I just finished Gogol's Dead Souls yesterday, this is the random next selection (by the way, Gogol never really finished Dead Souls, the book literally ends in the middle of a sentence, and has many unfinished sentences throughout because the manuscript was torn or whatever....anyway, I think if he was too lazy to finish it, then why did I bother to read it? Man, that really cheeses me off. Anyhoo, I can't say I recommend it, unless of course you have a real taste for Russian crap, because this was a supreme example of Russian crap).

I could be reading Balzac right now, except my nose is stuffed up, and when my nose is stuffed, my eyes water, and so I cannot read. I can't really see the computer screen either, so I am just typing blindly here. I have sifted through many many "great" books in the last little while, and I have to say, MAN DO I MISS MY E.B. WHITE. I mean, stories about orphans and 19th century England are great (and by that I mean boring and wordy....hello, thank god we have editors now!) but nothing beats a story about a talking pig, know what I mean?