jennifer

[The following email exchange transpired yesterday, with the title above as the subject line.]

Megan
http://jezebel.com/5489959/corey-haim-dead-at-38?skyline=true&s=i

poor the corey who wasn't in stand by me.

Jennifer
Wow. So many 80s teen heartthrobs have just not had great futures. I'm glad that My Boyfriend Wil Wheaton was enough of a nerd to take care of himself.

Megan
John Cusack is holding the middle ground down very nicely. Still alive, not a basket case, but a slightly squandered talent.

Jennifer
It's true. But he's never married which, despite the fact that myself and most of the people I know have also never married, makes me wonder if he's in some way a bit off.

If only High Fidelity had been a better movie without such dismal casting. John would be in a much better position.

Megan
and also seems to have never assaulted an intimate partner. solid middle ground.

Jennifer
even steven

[a couple minutes later]

Jennifer
but where do we place Jerry O'Connell on the continuum?

Megan
hm.

towards wil wheaton: decent and varied career, seemingly happy marriage, extra points for twins.

towards the coreys: not doing nerdy podcasts. super fan of howard stern.

i think we must say of o'connell that he is close but no wil wheaton.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_O%27Connell, btw.)

Jennifer
What about the fact that he's married to a woman who was previously married to John Stamos? I think we need to deduct points for that.

Megan
Oh god, totally.

He's way behind John Cusack now.

Jennifer
Thank goodness for the internet. Otherwise we'd have to wait until we met in person to deal with these pressing issues.

Megan
i know! i'd be a ball of anxiety.

+++

Though what I would add today is that in my books Neil Patrick Harris totally wins because 1) the gay, 2) he likes magic, and 3) sequins. Which may actually be all the same thing, now that I think about it.

Two things totally cracked me up today.

+1+

Shelley is, thank god, back from her vacation. She was on the west coast, visiting a friend of hers. It’s beautiful out there, but obviously, flowers or no flowers, she belongs in Ottawa.

The following exchange happened while we were catching up on the way to Bridgehead. It made me bark with laughter in the barista’s face.

Megan
Oh no, it was an internet date. If it’d been an in-person date, you would have heard about it.

Shelley [with a lar lar grin]
Heard it all the way in Victoria!

Megan
Well, definitely by email, that’s for sure.

[our intrepid heroines enter the place of coffee]

Megan
It’s been a pretty quiet week though. What else. Huh. Um, I think I pulled something in shoulder stand during yoga this morning.

Shelley
That’s what you get for standing on your shoulders before breakfast.

==

Hm. I was worried about that. Without the perfect timing, the pause pause ZING, I feel like it falls a little flat.

My lack of humour-writing skills aside, it was the "before breakfast" part that got me, I think. Like if I’d just had some toast in there…

+2+

Jennifer wrote this to me today - I'll leave you to imagine the context.

"I can see why. You have some things in common with daschunds. You are skinny, cute, and shy in new situations."

Oh, I am feeling so giddy and inspired right now. J. is probably at home writing her own blog post, possibly about how I grabbed her arm on the way out of Whip It and shook her hard and said "It was so fucking good. That. Was so. Awesome."

I want to round up every teenage girl I can find and make them watch this. I want to say to them "See, look at how great it is to love something and get good at it. See how that totally cool looking guy is just some dweeb? And look at how she's not going to just listen to his flagrantly stupid excuses. Look at how she's found this awesome family of women who love her."

And the acting is good and the story is tight and everyone looks hot, but kind of normal hot, at least for movie stars, and they dressed the 17 year old in reasonably modest clothing, which I totally appreciated.

All in all, it gets my vote. I might even watch it again. Which, from someone who sees about 6 movies a year, is high praise indeed.

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.

In a month, my bare legs won't be such a shock.

For one, bare legs will be normal by mid-July whereas this chilly year, they are not so in mid-June. For two, mine won't still be pasty white, and thereby glowing in the gloaming.

But it is not mid-July, it is mid-June, and my bare legs garnered a fair bit of attention on my walk to the Imperial last night.* Some random looks, a "Hey;" whatever, none of it was anything to get your knickers in a twist about, so I just thought my thoughts and it wasn't hard to do the regular ol' subconscious Rapist Threat Assessment.

And then I crossed the street, Somerset Street at Bay, to cut through Dundonald over to Lyon. The two guys who'd been heading towards me were still ambling along, I clocked that they'd noted me, dismissed them as any kind of threat.

I got to the northwest corner of the park.

"How you doon?"

I heard this over my shoulder, from the white blob just passing out of my peripheral vision. Generally, when men call things out at me I pretend that they must be talking to someone else, even if there isn't anyone else around. Sometimes I want to crack wise back, but mostly I'd rather not engage with the kind of people who turn the word "doing" into one syllable.

Some reason, this time I couldn't do it. There was a slight hitch in my step and I felt all my back muscles twitch simultaneously. I kept going, but I knew they now knew I was ignoring them. Shit fuck. There was gonna be more.

There was.

"Legs that long, you could walk to Europe!"

This time I had my proper ignoring walk on so I just kept going. But the more blocks I walked, the weirder it seemed to me. Anyone could walk to Europe. Or not, you know, since it's across the ocean.

When I got to the Imperial, I nearly collapsed when I hoisted myself up onto the chair across the table from Jennifer.

"What?" she said. "Europe? Europe?!"

"I know," I responded. "Halfway through the park I wanted to turn around and be like, 'Dude, c'mon, they're not webbed. But thanks.'"

We really did collapse then.

*They also garnered a fair bit of attention from the person for whom they'd been prepared. A good story and lots of invited attention! A banner night.

This has been a very full week. I've had something fun planned for every night. Last night, as Jennifer so nicely described, was the Found reading at Raw Sugar.

Though if you have the choice of sitting on an organ bench to watch an hour plus long reading, I suggest you don't. At the Moon Room for a post-reading drink, it took D.Jack (aka the Guybrarian) and I several minutes to describe the many almost-back-saving coping strategies we'd developed.

I've only been to the Moon Room twice now, but it's a great little spot. Small, cozy, good beer, good wine, good food, lovely wait staff. A very good place for a date, if you're in the market for one of those.

Though I think it may be Little Italy's Manx, so if you don't want to have a very awkward internal moment of "Should we sit with our friends? Or should we tell them we're on a date? Or wait, is it a date? I mean, I think it's a date, I shaved my legs, but I dunno, maybe he doesn't think it's a date. Though he did Facebook flirt with me. No, it must be a date. It would be really rude to say no? And then how weird would it be to be sitting like, one table ov- Christ, Butcher. Shut it." magnified into an even more awkward external moment when all you can say in answer to the question is "Don't make me answer that question," because your brain is giving you not no answers to the question but both.

Don't say I didn't warn you. About something. I think.

Tomorrow night is Rock and Roll Friday with Jennifer and Megan: New Hair Edition. I totally copied J. and booked a hair appointment for just a few hours after hers, so we'll both be perfectly styled with radically new heads. We don't really know much about the bands, except that I think we might both like the last one, and one of the other ones I think I might be able to tolerate and I think she will hate, but ach. If that's the case, we'll go powder our noses and compliment our hairdresser behind her back.

Last night, the third installment of Rock and Roll Friday, Jennifer and I headed over to the Legion for a little punk rock.

Though first we followed the balloons and went to someone's birthday party in the basement by mistake. Note to self: don't follow the balloons.

One second after we walked in the door of the right party, the table that the door guy was sitting on collapsed, flat on the floor, its legs splayed out like a tired puppy. It made an explosive noise in the empty hallway and then a moment's stunned silence before we all started moving again.

J and I eventually got in and made a beeline for the bar line. There's a window there at the legion, like you're going to get a movie ticket, but instead, it's cheap booze, and a frazzled man wqho will give you your gin and soda and then proffer you a bag from which you may choose your own lime. Until he runs out of limes.

I rush ahead, however.

In line, we were chatting, I don't even know about what, just the random stuff that we always amuse ourselves with. I didn't notice anyone behind us until the guy there dropped a loonie. It landed smack clang on the laminate floor.

He bent over, reaching for it, just touching it, and stumbled forward a step. Shoulder-first into J's ass - not hard enough to knock her over, not hard enough to move her even, but enough to be firmly pressing a part of his body into a part of her body he had no business pressing.

There was more stumbling, but he finally got himself upright, swaying only a little. He stuck a meaty paw between us, mumbled a name, slurred "Yers?" We gamely shook his hand, said our names and turned our backs on him.

Or tried to.

He kept moving closer to us, closer like bumping into us, ship on the dock bump drift bump, gentle-like, then we'd move and he'd move closer, bump drift bump. We got uncomfortably close to the people in front of us. Bump bump.

He tried to talk to us again, but with the slurring and the loud music, we couldn't hear him. I just smiled a tight smile in his direction and looked over his right shoulder, which is my defense mechanism when I'm being offended or annoyed but feel I can't leave.

He turned to Jennifer and mumbled what seemed like a direct question.

"I'm sorry," she said. "It's loud and you're quiet. I can't hear you." He mumbled something else, and she raised her eyebrows helplessly and turned away from him.

He looked at me with wide eyes, drawing a finger across your throat. He said the only clear sentence I heard from him that night. "Your friend doesn't like me."

I hate that shit.

Because what I'm supposed to say in that situation, what the script calls for, is "Oh no, no. It's not that she doesn't like you! She's just, uh, having a bad day."

Fuck that.

Improvising a new script: "Well, you've been standing really close and bumping into us. So. That's probably why."

I did try to use a civil and even tone of voice. But his mouth gaped and he held up his hands in a hands-up fashion - caught! - and took an exaggerated step back.

So it probably came off kind of rude, but then again, so is pressing your shoulder into a stranger's ass without asking them first.

At the Hartmans today, Jennifer needed some sauces and I needed some mushrooms, of both the fresh and dried variety. Shiitake, for the dried, which I thought might be in "ethnic foods," which we all know is code for sauces soy and curry, and taco shells.

I am here to tell you that dried mushrooms have no ethnicity.

The next sensible place to look, J. surmised, was in the "health section" which we all know is code word for "delicate flower" (DF).

"And on the way," I said. "If we see someone, we can ask them."

It's good to ask for what you want.

We hit the DF section before we saw an employee, scanned the shelves, saw no shiitakes. We were about to leave, when I realized that we had just passed an employee who was reading the back of a box of DF mac'n'cheese. I thought maybe he was on break to be doing such a thing, but then thought "Well, he's wearing his uniform and name tag. Fair game." I doubled back.

"Excuse me," I said.

He didn't look up.

"Excuse me," I repeated. "Do you have any dried mushrooms?"

That got me his attention, and a closed-up wary look to boot.

On break I thought. But there was no going back.

"Do you have any dried mushrooms?"

I could see him trying to formulate an answer, and jumped in with what I thought might be helpful information.

"I'm looking for shiitakes, and thought they might be in with the health foods."

He spoke then, "Oh. I don't know. They'd be in produce."

I thanked him. He went back to the DF M'N'C, we went off towards produce. Just out of earshot, I leaned over a bit to Jennifer and said "I think he thought I was asking *him* if he had mushrooms."

"Yeah, I got that feeling too. He was very confused."

"I guess so, I mean, where would he have them, in his pants? Because I do not want to know if he has mushrooms in his pants. Why would some strange girl be asking him about his pants fungus?"

Jennifer snorted and leaned her forehead on my shoulder a moment as we both collapsed into a fit of giggles. "Why," she said, "are we unable to grocery shop together without something hilarious happening?"

Hard to tell if it's the Hartman's, or whether we're hilarious, or whether that poor man really did have mushrooms stuffed in his crotch and was afraid I'd found him out.

I've been wanting to make a lentil loaf for several months now, for reasons, well, the short version is that I played the lentil loaf trump card in a spontaneous game of "Who's the Deepest Lez?" and won pretty handily.

At the time I was joking. I've never eaten lentil loaf in my life, only laughed at its existence.

But there it was, lodged in my brain like a dried legume. I found what I thought might be a decent recipe, gathered the ingredients. Tonight was the night.

It had been in the oven for 10 or so mintues by the time Jennifer arrived. I cleaned, she knit, we chatted about our days, and dates, and girls, and boys, and apartments. We ate salad.

When I took the loaf out of the oven at 35 minutes to spread the remaining tomato paste over it, the top layer kept coming up. I allowed as how we might be in trouble.

Indeed. 10 more mintues in the oven did not make my loaf more moist. Jennifer was entirely kind, ate her slice all up, and suggested that mushroom gravy does wonders for just about anything.

Halfway through our dinner, M-C came downstairs.

"Hey M-C," I said, which is how I start 90% of my conversations with her. "There's some lentil loaf on the stove if you want some."

"Lesbo loaf! Really? You made it!?"

"Help yourself."

"Well. I dunno. Nah." She paused by the counter, almond milk in hand. "Well, maybe a little. Though I'm not sure I know what to do with it."

"You put it in your mouth, M-C."

"Riiiiight, right. Thanks for the tip."

She cut herself off a wee slice, put it in a bowl.

"I should warn you though," I said. "It's a little dry."

Well, there goes NaBloPoMo. So close! I was so close.

It was a full night, though, so I've got my excuses.

I got home from work, had a shower to wash off the yoga sweat. The Born Ruffian dropped by just as I was finishing - a man with impeccable timing - to pick me up to go to Jennifer's. We all went coat shopping, and I now have an actual winter coat instead of several layers of non-winter wear. We came back to Jennifer's and ate a delicious dinner (squash! tahini! parsley!) and talked graphic novels and music and lists and dogs. It made me want Shelley and Steve to get a dog sooner rather than later. We laughed, a fuck of a lot. We did the dishes.

After dinner, I invited myself over to the Born Ruffian's house for tea and a state of the union chat. Part way through, I realized that I was out much later than I expected to be. Quite frankly, I was expecting our chat to last about 10 minutes and go something like "Well, sure, you're nice. But." and then I'd chug the dregs of my tea, go home and blog. When I realized that that wasn't going to happen, I honestly thought "Today's blog! Ack! I'm going to miss it! I need to- wait, this is important. More important than blogging?"

That all whipped through my head in about a nanosecond and the answer was really pretty obvious. I figured I probably should have skipped the shower to blog. About 20 minutes later, though, I figured it was a pretty good thing I hadn't.