Leave me alone, Vancouver

I am really tryin’ to give ‘er with the blogging, and I’d like to take this moment to self-congratulate: two posts in two weeks! I’m a veritable blog mastah! Anyway, right now I am pretty stoked because I booked a flight to Vancouver. I am looking to read there, and also to visit with old friends Jason Christie (http://www.edgewebsite.com/books/irobotpoetry/ir-sample.html), Emmett Hall (http://emmetthall.blogspot.com), and David Newberry(http://www.davidnewberry.ca/).

It’s funny how nowadays, you don’t need to describe anybody, you just need to post a link. I’m still going to do a little introduction, because, whatever, it’s rude to just sit you in a room with somebody you don’t know and expect you to make small talk. Jason is  a really great person I met at the Scream years ago, he’s a great writer, he shared his fries before he even knew me, you’ll get along great. Emmett Hall is a comedian and comic artist and animator, the first person I met at OCAD; again, great guy. And Dave is a close friend and future collaborator, a mean popamatic trouble player, and amazing musician,and an unboring activist. What a great party, eh? Too bad there’s no shrimp ring. Sigh.

Anyway,  Vancouver’s not really a destination people figure me for; my friends and relations have pegged me as decidedly more East Coast than West Coast (not in any gang sense, just in general flavour). People are all like “You? You’re going to Vancouver? Why?” I don’t really know what that means, and that probably means it’s racist. Racists, you know who you are.

Anyway, I am going to Vancouver because it is colder than here, I’ve never been there, some of my dearest pals are there, and there are cheap WestJet flights right now. If anyone wants to read with me while I am there, I would be down with a discount.

Disquiet and Home buyers

Well, hello there. These days, while not blogging, I’ve been doing a lot of traipsing about, buoyed on rapidly dwindling grant funds, sipping at stuff, being generally fabulous. A couple of good friends have bought their first house, which is just so neat, and so scary, and so in keeping with my interest in the impossiblity (maybe I’m wrong!) of all of my kind growing up after all, just like our moms and dads.

I’ve also been reading, which I didn’t do much of last year, and one book I like, that reminds me a lot of the whole growing up thing because it is such a book for grownups, about grownup sadnesses and things gone by, is Disquiet. I am in trouble from people about Disquiet, because a) it’s not written by any of my friends, b) it’s supposed to be sad and I spent the whole time laughing out loud, and c) my mom didn’t like it, and why do you really need more of a reason to dislike something? But really, it could be my most favourite book I’ve read in a long time.

To bring it back in clumsy theme, the house where the whole book takes place is a family homestead, which is interesting to me right now, given my whole personal messy EPIC fail experience with home ownership (too traumatic to detail here) and the strange hold a house can have. That’s a lot of H for one sentence, but wHatever. Anyway, the book has nothing to do with home ownership so back off! But what it does have to with dead babies, and sadness, and having suffered and being about to suffer, which is that terrible in between ness of still able-bodied, generic, more or less average (if terrifying and awful) adulthood.  4 stars for

XDead baby

XSwimming

XA hilarious couple of smart children

X Beautiful sparse prose, not just sparse cause the writer lost her thesaurus but sparse on purpose

Come out, come out, wherever you are!

I promise blogging will capture my interest soon, and that I will be able to face it as more than an unbearable chore. I’m supposed to like it, I guess, but it feels fake and forced and stilted, and it’s just not my thing. I’m not a journaler or a scrapbookers, or a thematically minded person; I never collected things as a kid. So this is not my medium. But thanks for reading anyway.

Speaking of reading, I should say a belated thanks to the Pilot Reading series people, who graciously hosted me and tons of other Toronto peeps at a recent reading in January. That was fun. Montreal is so pretty and freezing, and what an attentive, gentle audience.

Some shamelessness: I will be reading as part of the Vagabond Trust series, at Gallery 1313, on March 3rd at 7 pm. I hope you will come. It’ll be really neat, and I’ll be joined by a terrific gang of writers, including my good friend Angela Rawlings.

My collective, “GMP”, mounts a pretty amazing art show on the 13th of March, called “Eat”. I’ll list details and show pics at a later time, but it’ll be happening at Switch gallery, a cool new space on Roncesvalles at Dundas.

More soon.

Volunteer?

So, one of the things I deal with somewhat extensively in my book is fear, and most explicitly or perhaps more specifically, sexual fear. One of the special features – i love that term, special feature, with all of its dvd connotations-  of modern sexual fear is AIDS. 

I’ve been learning more about HIV and AIDS at my job, with the Canadian Foundation for AIDS research, or CANFAR. Right now, CANFAR is involved in its yearly HIV and AIDS awareness campaign, Have a Heart, and is in dire need of serious volunteer help. Please, if you live in Toronto and have a few hours free to help pack awareness materials for Canadian schools, contact us at the office and ask for Laura Bercuson, our volunteer coordinator. All funds raised go directly to research, and if you can donate your time you are helping to prevent the spread of a disease synonymous with fear.

CANFAR: 1-800-563-CURE

www.CANFAR.com

Facebook is homework

I don’t like to work. In fact, I hate it. I hate all kinds of work. The only kind of work I like is facebook work. 

Here is the last quiz I did on facebook. A lot of you want to understand me, so here you go:

1, What color is your toothbrush?
green and white, with attractive ridges

2, Name one person that made you smile today?
my coworker when she said that some guy’s name sounded like “rent your cooch”

3, What were you doing at 8 am this morning?
resetting my alarm for another 10 minutes

4, What were you doing 45 minutes ago?
thinking about freelance writing and how to become a millionaire at it

5, What is your favorite candy ?
big candy

6, Have you ever been to a strip club?
uhuh

7, What is the last thing you said aloud?
see you guys tomorrow

8, What is the best ice cream flavor?
butterscotch ripple (with nuts), dark chocolate

9, What was the last thing you had to drink?
water

10, What is the longest you have gone without sleeping?
highschool

11, Have you ever made a promise you’d die to keep?
yes

12, Have you bought any new clothing items this week?
nope, that’s for week one of the pay cycle

13, The last sporting event you watched?
raptors, out of the corner of my eye, at graeme and sarah’s

14, What is your favorite flavor of popcorn?
i only like real popcorn with real butter in a real movie theater for really too much money

15, Who is the last person you sent a message on facebook?
sarah beatty

16, Ever go camping?
i have

17, Do you take vitamins daily?
when i remember, i take a teaspoonful of molasses for iron and some B vitamins to avoid doing harm to myself or others

18, Do you go to church every Sunday?
that’s so sweet

19,Do you have a tan?
no

20, Do you like Chinese food over pizza?
alex’s answer stands: depends on the chinese food. depends on the pizza. i like both a lot. A LOT

21, Do you drink your soda with a straw?
if there’s a straw available, i guess

22, What did your last text message say?
um, no text messages on my landline

23, What are you doing tomorrow?
work, staff party

24, Where is your dad?
he’d better be where i left him

25, Look to your left, what do you see?
my kitchen table and cabinets and one of my cats

26, What color is your watch?
ain’t got one

27, What do you think of when you hear Australia?
that ain’t a knife, this is a knife (sorry, Australia)

28, What is your birthstone?
aquamarine, the giant bore of the birthstone world

29, Do you go in at a fast food place or just hit the drive thru?
neither

30, What is your favorite number?
1

31, Who’s the last person you talked to on the phone?
a school nurse in Calgary

32, Any plans today?
sure

33, How many provinces have you lived in?
1

34, Biggest annoyance in your life right now?
no time

35, Last song listened to?
“Get to the table on time” by M.WArd

36,Can you say the alphabet backwards?
if it were in front of me, for sure

37, Do you have a maid service clean your house?
hahahahhaaa

38, Favorite pair of shoes you wear all the time?
brown boots with fetching side clips

39, Are you jealous of anyone?
Totes

40, Is anyone jealous of you?
Of course, dahling.

41, Do you love anyone?
yes

42, Do any of your friends have children?
a few

43, What do you usually do during the day?
i set schools up with an HIV and AIDS awareness program, i try to write stuff, i lift packages out of trucks

44, Do you hate anyone right now?
yeah

45, Do you use the word ‘hello’ daily?
i like “hello” 

46, What colour is your car?
the colour of no car

47, Do you like cats?
miaow

49, Have you ever been to Six Flags?
that’s funny

50, How did you get your worst scar?
chicken pox, age 11

51, last cigarette?
just after highschool, cigarellos, jesse, katie (hope i didn’t blow anybody’s cover there)

52, last CD played?
in full? wow. i guess maybe johnny cash 

53, last BUBBLE bath?
ages ago, cause i don’t have a bathtub

54, last time you cried?
4 days ago

54, last meal?
40 minutes ago

55, have you ever dated someone twice?
yes

56, have you ever kissed someone & regretted it?:
resounding yes

57, have you ever fallen in love?
yes

58, you ever lost someone?
yes

59, have you ever slept until 1pm?
yes

60, Have you ever been drunk and threw up ?
yes

61, list FOUR people you can tell pretty much anything to –
sarah B, katie M, alex K, rebecca B,graeme S 

62, list THREE favorite colors —
dark grey, electric blue, white, crimson

63, Laughed until you cried:?
yes

64, Lied?
yes

65, Your last kiss?
yesterday

66, Gay Marriage?
yes please!!

67, Lowering the drinking age?
i think people shouldn’t be able to drink past a certain age

68, Straight, Gay, or Bi?
me? 

69, Who are the best huggers that you know?
pass

70, Do you believe in love at first sight?
sort of

71, Is there something you want to tell someone?
no

72, What brand of shirt are you wearing?
i am wearing a wool dress

Cluster shucks

I have a whackload of readings coming up, and you should be at all of them. Why? For lots of different reasons. You should be at the first one because it’s also a show that features Dave and Sioux (my friends who are in an awesome band called “Newberry vs Newberry” which I’ve blogged about a lot (a lot for me: we all know how much I loathe blogging). Because it’s a Newberry show, it’ll be beautiful and alive and who doesn’t need the odd cynicism-smashing dose of the above? You should come to the second because it’s the ECW launch, meaning all of those other new ECW fall authors will be there and their new books are pretty freakin’ awesome. That one’s on the 25th, at Supermarket. And I’m also reading at the Pivot series at the Press Club, on the 26th. 

Come see me, yes?

Reading alert!

I’ve always wanted to say ___________ alert!, so here’s my chance i guess.

Guess what? I’m reading at the Free Times, as part of a great show with my friends Dave and Sioux.

Nov 20th! The Free Times is a little W of Spadina, on the North Side of College. We’re in the back room. There’s prolly a wee cover, since Dave and Sioux need to pay for gas on their whirlwind rockstar tour of canada.

What I think is that you should come!

My friends Dave and Sioux

are on tour and you ought to check them out. I suppose you can check out their site here if you don’t want to just take my word for it:

http://www.newberryvsnewberry.com/

Here are their dates:

October 28 – 2008 - Ottawa, ON
House Concert
With Dave Tough.

October 30 – 2008 - Sackville, NB
Bridge Street Cafe

October 31 – 2008 - Berwick, NS
Union Street Cafe Hallowe’en party open mic feature

November 1 – 2008 - Woodstock, NB
Fusion Cafe

November 3 – 2008 - Wolfville, NS
Paddy’s Pub – Featured Open Mic Performer

November 4 – 2008 - Halifax, NS
Gus’ Pub
With Go Slow Poke and Oh Dinah!.

November 7 – 2008 - Rothesay, NB
Sessions

November 8 – 2008 - Fredericton, NB
Cellar Pub at UNB

November 11 – 2008 - Halifax, NS
House Concert and feast with Oh Dinah! and friends

November 12 – 2008 - Woodstock, NB
Fusion Cafe, triumphant return

November 13 – 2008 - Perth, ON
O’Reillys

November 14 – 2008 - Peterborough, ON
HOMECOMING SHOW at the Spill
With Kay Pettigrew and James Burrows

November 15 – 2008 - Kitchener, ON
Victoria Park Boathouse

November 16 – 2008 - Guelph, ON
Cornerstone
With Violet Lyal

November 19 – 2008 - Toronto, ON
C’est What
With Donovan Woods and his band.

November 20 – 2008 - Toronto, ON
Free Times
with very special guests.

November 21 – 2008 - Burlington, ON
Blue Moon Lounge

November 23 – 2008 - London, ON
Alex P. Keaton
Afternoon Show.

November 24 – 2008 - Hamilton, ON
Pepperjack – Featured Open Mic Performers – 8pm

November 27 – 2008 - Picton, ON
Acoustic Bar and Grill

November 29 – 2008 - Newmarket, ON
Grey Goat

December 5 – 2008 - Toronto, ON
Mitzi’s Sister – with Canaray Mine - Newberry/Mine XMas Extravaganza Tour!

December 6 – 2008 - Kitchener, ON
Boathouse – with Canaray Mine - Newberry/Mine XMas Extravaganza Tour!

December 8 – 2008 - Guelph, ON
Songbird Cafe – Original music songwriter circle

Canaduped

Maybe Canada voted for Stephen Harper because Canadian Politics are too difficult to understand. I spent most of election night wondering at the number of companies who had been elected as individual Mps before it was gently pointed out to me that INC stands for incomplete (or inconclusive or something). That’s how Canada gets ya, by slipping in tricks like that, IQ dazzlers to throw you off and make you into a Conservative, riddle me this!

 

Canada also gets you by having a Right that for all of its evil undercurrents has the appearance of inclusiveness because of its overwhelming girth. The left splits into little hatebundles of  meanie, entitled conviction, and these content themselves to buzz and bite as more or less ineffectual tics and flies, further dividing and causing confusion, exposing scars and scabs on the underbelly of the blobby and repulsive right; a Right so united that it can now accommodate stuff like environmental economics under its heavy wings. Danger! No matter how small its representation, it gets to be one thing, of one mind, containing many.

I know it’s a tough time, which is why so many Canadians voted for a guy who doesn’t think gays should get married. Wait a minute. Oh right, it’s ’cause Harper has such a great plan. Oops.

Some if not all of this has to do with packaging. All these logo and colour changes have made it so much harder to default to how your mom and dad voted. If 30% of people buy books based on their covers, think of how many Canadians vote blue when they mean to vote red, and vice versa.

LAUNCH PICS!!!