fun things

The book in which Woodsy has a photo is out!

There's an excerpt online, a schmancy interactive excerpt, even.

We Feel Fine: An Almanac of Human Emotion

Not only that, but Woodsy's lovely picture of my smiling gob and my shiny binderclip got picked for the excerpt.

Pretty exciting stuff.*

A disclaimer, however: I did not write the phrase you see emblazoned across my eyes. "Someone" is not me. Do I look not excited in that photo? Come on! A pretty wood nymph, while not coming on to me,*** is taking my picture! I've got a binder clip in my hair! Look at that glitter on my lips! Not excited, forsooth.

*Which you will realize is a play on words if you read the excerpt.**
**Confidential to Adam H.: Don't read the excerpt, because I might actually be punning there. I'm not sure, truthfully, but just in case. It would be sad for me if my blog made you light your hate candles.
***I hadn't had so much to drink I wouldn't remember that, I can guarantee you.

My problem is that I am long winded. Writing a short blog post is hard for me, and feels a bit unsatisfying. Because also my problem is that I like details. I live for details. I live through them. Details take a long time to write down.

Let's just say that this weekend, I managed not to get so drunk I had to lie down on my kitchen floor in the middle of a date. Let's say that I loved sharing a bag of popcorn with J. and giggling through Julie and Julia. Shall we say that I loved too a green-whipped ride along Scott Street one way and then the other, with Mars having risen higher between them. Let us dwell for a moment on the look of pleased surprise on D.Jack's face when I made myself an Unexpected Megan.

Let's say that I had a great time in Kingston at a wonderful brilliant art show. Let us add that I loved drinking beer outside as part of a faggot sidewalk party. Let us commend the homophobe Kingstoners who shouted that at us for their obviously perceptive nature.

To paraphrase -
Meghan: Do you think you have a thing for musicians?
Megan: I've dated about 3 non-musicians since I was 16.

Maybe too let's say that I tried very hard not to be a pill about my travelling arrangements, but that I only half succeeded. We'll say that I learned a few things about how I need to travel if I'm going to a place where the trains and buses run infrequently out of a station that is inexplicably way the fuck up Chebucto. Let us repeat these four words: Chill The Fuck Out.

Let us also ponder Mae's loveliness, the Mae who said "Okay, you should take the train because we probably won't leave for noon and then you'll be stressed and we'll be rushing. And this way you don't have to make small talk."

Finally, let us say that there are beautiful things, and here is a morning that is a string of them: waking up in a gigantor bed with your best friend, with the craziest bedhead after spending a muggy night tossing and turning. Being in a house with a perfect circle iron grate in the upstairs floor that you can press your eye against to spy on the main floor. Making coffee and eating breakfast with special-bought soy milk and more friendly friends and a nice dog and a cat you buried your face in deliciously even though doing so made you sneeze three times. And let us say that the coffee was good coffee and that the windows were opened onto the densely-leaved backyard.

And we will say that string is sparkling.

I like old things. Not really old things, like things from two centuries ago, but mostly things that are about as old as I am, or maybe about 10 years older, and maybe even some things that are 10 years younger. So. Not really very old at all, just "retro."

Two other categories of things I like: things that you put other things in (tins, boxes, jars, etc.); things that measure things.

Many years ago now, I bought the Cuistotmetric, or was perhaps given it. I still have the box, because it is a beautiful thing that you put other things into, but I do not display the box, I keep it in the basement and sometimes remember that I have this beautiful thing that you put other things into.

The Cuistotmetric itself, I put up. At first, it was kind of a joke. It was in my hallway, because who would ever use such a thing. It is a relic. But it is a relic that I use on a semi-regular basis. If you need to know how many grammes is 10 ounces, you should call me.

Everybody loves my Cuistotmetric.

It is a curiosity. And the dials are very satisfying to dial.

Last week, the garage saling was not all humiliation and heartbreak. I also found the Temperature Compensator of my dreams.

It has a dial too. Do you know, is this for me to make the weather do my bidding?

Not long after I took this picture, I turned it from "Dry" to "Change," just in case.

I had an amazing experience tonight at Stimulating the Senses.

We met in the lobby of the NGC, and made our way slowly upstairs. When we got to the upper gallery, outside the room that held The Gas Station, I took my glasses off and put them on the cart.

I put on the blindfold. I could still see some light. I shut my eyes.

The guide gave me her arm, and we walked into the room: three blind people, two blindfolded sighted people, one sighted person wearing their regular glasses, the guide and her assistant.

Being suddenly sightless is highly disconcerting. I know, it's obvious. But I don't think you get it until it's gone. I didn't, at any rate.

We sat around a table covered in objects, and because I'd relied on my eyes to tell me who was who, I couldn't tell who was where, even though I'd been introduced to them not 15 minutes before. I couldn't tell how far away from me people were, at least until they spoke, which is a bit of a challenge for someone who likes her personal space.

I felt sea-sick and off kilter if I weren't touching the table in front of me.

We each had an object on the table in front of us, and we took turns describing them. Size, shape, texture, smell. People would ask questions, our guide would prod us a little or talk about colours.

After we finished that we walked the length of the 20 foot installation, the guide explaining what we were looking at, some people asking questions as we went, or offering anecdotes or their own explanation.

I stayed quiet, my arm tucked safely into the guide's armpit. Being sightless made me hesitant to speak, as if my mouth were somehow more viscerally connected to my eyes. I was hesitant to ask questions or offer my opinion. There were no visual clues to tell me when to chime in. I didn't know how to interact with a group without being able to gauge where people were or their mood.

As the guide was describing the art, I kept adding more to the picture in my head. White wooden window frame here, cans stacked there, oh, glass in the window frames, this stark white figure here, that colour black the background. As she talked, I felt a growing frustration - growing towards anxiety - that what was in my head wasn't right.

I desperately wanted to take the blindfold off. I noticed that I did and let it go. Just my body's reaction to having its normal touchpoints removed so quickly.

Anything that helps me give up on needing to Get It Right is something I should do more often.

The guide invited those of us who were blindfolded to take them off if we wanted, and, if we did, to talk about how what we saw differed from what was in our head.

You'd think I would have jumped at the chance. But I didn't say anything, just shook my head slightly and stayed in the dark.

Afterwards, when the blindfold was off, we all went back to a seminar room and had tea and cookies, talked about what we'd seen. Experienced. The other sighted person and I talked a bit about how disconcerting the whole thing was.

I hadn't really wanted to go there, because I felt like it might seem childish to them, naive. Like we were horning in on one of the few bits of programming that was actually meant for them. Like, "Fucking hell, blah blah blah. Easy for you to be all shocked and full of wonder, when you don't have to live with it." But the two women particularly seemed happy to talk.

"You use it," the woman on the left said. "Every last bit of sight you have. If you only have 3 or 4 per cent, you pick something up and hold it next to your face, right under your eyes. You hold on to seeing as long as you can."

Somehow, that was comforting.

At the end of the night, I said I'd like to go back and see the installation. But I don't know. The link up top takes you to a thumbnail of the piece, and when the tiny picture popped up on the screen, I automatically turned mt head. I still didn't want to see it.

Like reading a good book, a book that's become special to you, opened you up in ways you'd wanted opening, and you don't want the movie to fuck up what's in your head.

For years, I hated my birthday. It's a sad story I don't feel like telling in its entirety, but I didn't celebrate the day for about 5 or 6 years, starting when I was 21. I'd have dinner with my family, but that's it. I didn't even tell anyone who didn't already know. After that, I started again slowly, with, I believe, a birthday dinner with Chris in 1999. Sometimes I do more than have dinner with one other person, but not always. I'm happy to be older, and I'm happy I was born, but I don't generally want a lot of hooha around that fact.

Last year, while my birthday certainly wasn't terrible, it was also not so much fun. I'd just come off of a few 10-13 hour work days in Edmonton and was bone tired. It had just hit me that things with Eric might probably be on the downswing. Shelley and Eric threw me a party, which was lovely of them, but my mom was there. And that was fine, she's a very nice person, but I spent 90% of my birthday party worrying whether she were having a good time. This lead to not a good time for me.

If I gushed in my last post, I think it's that the fun and loveliness of this year was thrown into relief by the sterum-tightening memories of last year. Because really, this year was the birthday of birthdays.

You already know all the great things that happened on Splendid Friday. While all this niceness was happening, I kept thinking, "You know, the only thing that would make this birthday better is one of my mom's peach pies. I mean, I like cake, who doesn't like cake, but really, I would like a pie for my birthday. A peach pie. Maybe I can get mom to give me one next summer and I can keep in the freezer until my birthday because really a birthday is a little less of a birthday without a nice piece of pie."

After dinner, we went back to the back house for drinks. I noticed something was baking, but didn't really pay attention. Then Shelley opened the oven door, and there it was: Rodenhizer and F. had made me a beautiful peach pie, a very emphatic M carved into the top crust.

I believe I clapped my hands and hopped in place.

++

You wanna know the suckiest part of throwing an event? The two hours beforehand, when pretty much everything you can do is done. You're in limbo, only waiting, hoping that people come, then worrying that even if they do, they'll have a bad time.

Such was early Saturday evening, before our housewarming party started. Shelley had a headache, I desperately needed a nap, Steve was feeling flu-ish. But thanks to Beer and Good Company, we all rallied - until the wee hours of the morning, no less. Lots of people came, most of whom we knew, and everyone seemed to have a good time. Both Jennifer and I were amused by the number of times we heard the phrases "So THIS is the Man of Science!" and "Oh! The pergola! It was totally worth it!" and "Sooooo, is the Born Ruffian here tonight?"

It must be admitted that the evening got blurry for me. You might think that was the fault of Beer, but you would be wrong. I had so many nice conversations about so many different things with so many people I like that the next day they all kind of blended together. I blame Good Company.

What with so much sadness and kvetching lately, I thought I should let you all know that I am having a splendid day.

Though my splendid day did, in fact, start last night.

Yesterday afternoon, I got home around 3:30 and started cooking. I made stew, a whole big vat of stew. I'd invited Shelley, M-C, Steve and the Born Ruffian to help me eat it. Steve couldn't make it, so the four of us hung out and drank wine and ate my very tasty stew and dumplings. I would feign modesty, but really, it was frickin good. M-C and S had to be off early to the Radical Drag show, so the BR and I cleaned up a bit, which is only partially a euphemism.

While I was drying and rearranging the dishes, I checked the message that had come during dinner.

It was from my brother's number, and I got all worried, listening to the prompts and punching in my numbers. "They never call. We email. I hope nothing's wrong. Maybe this is about that life insurance thing I haven't gotten back to him about yet. I hope nothing happened to the kids."

I trailed off because by then, my 3 year old niece was singing happy birthday.

That, I can tell you, is a very good way to start your birthday.

Then the BR and I hied ourselves off as well, and Chad vanGaalen was so good I was disappointed he only played for an hour; and then there was some delicious making out; and then a good sleep with Freya curled up purring by my head; and then this morning my mom singing on my voice mail; and then the emails and phone calls and skype chats from a whole whack of people I'm insanely happy to have in my life.

Tonight I'm having dinner with a small group of the friendliest friends around, then drinks with same, and then a video date with CT.

Honestly, 34 is shaping up to be one banner fucking year.

Thanks to Janey Emm for pointing me in the right direction. This site is the dessert version of Go Fug Yourself:

Cake Wrecks

and especially

Naked Mohawk-Baby Carrot Jockeys

I cannot even describe to you how excited I am about the Queer Spelling Bee tonight. Even though I now know I am a terrible out loud speller.

When I saw the facebook note about the Bee, I emailed Don at the Shanghai right quick to get my name on the list.

Who wants to spell? I-D-O.
Who likes The Gay? T-H-A-T-S-M-E.
And China Doll said, let there be space.

Now, I am generally not a competitive person. I hate board games. I hate races. I especially hate team sports. When forced to compete, my response is generally "Okay, you win." Because I guess it's nice to win, but it's not worth the stress of worrying about winning.

What is it about spelling? Dunno. 'Cause I got my name on the list and thought "I am going to fucking clean this up. Oh, I'm being cocky. I am going KICK SOME WORDY ASS! Oh, the hubris. Victory! Before the fall, Butcher. It's mine! Oh dear."

So when I took my sex word thesauri over to the Smokin Hot Girl's house for her to help me bone up on my words,* I was shocked and dismayed when I got most of them wrong.

Not just a couple. Most. Like 90% of them. If I tried to rush the spelling, I'd inevitably forget something important. If I tried to go slow, the syllables would get all loopy in my head and I'd get bogged down, stuck in the middle of whatever dirty word I kept asking her to repeat.

It was a good lesson, and though I wasn't pleased that I was a bad out-loud speller,** I was mighty glad my bubble got burst in front of a lovely young lady and not a crowd of people expecting the librarian to rock the Queer Bee house.

Even though I am not likely to clean up tonight, I don't care, because I'm going to be in a room full of people who are either spelling or cheering on the people who are spelling. That's a lot of word love and that's alright by me.

Queer Spelling Bee
Shanghai Restaurant, 9 pm
$5, proceeds to the Village Initiative

*Yes, it was that hot.
**On paper, I rock. Spell check, pfft.

Next weekend, there is an art opening that you all should go to. Eric's sister Karen will be having a vernissage for her first ever solo show. And it's at venus envy, so this event is comprised of many things that I enjoy very much.

Body Language
works by Karen Espig
Saturday, November 3, 2007
7:30pm - 9:30pm
Venus Envy
320 Lisgar (at Bank)