With Love and Squalor

During which the author dabbles in the mystic arts:

JAKE:
After around 10 years of post-high school education, Jake will become a critic for some fairly well known newspaper. He will have a lot of money but still wear jeans and a baseball cap all the time. He'll get married in his late 30s to someone who is a lot like him (the taste for douchebags will dissipate) and live in the an upper class neighbourhood, adopt two kids, go to all of their baseball games, and still watch I'll Be Home For Christmas every year. He'll be pretty fucking normal, actually. Except richer. And friends with Eric.

ERIC:
Eric is going to develop a cult following after writing the Tao of Dude. He will travel the world spreading wordplay, bring beards and pipes back into the mainstream, and become the post-post modern Mark Twain. In classic writer fashion he will become world famous and bed a lot of mediocre looking ladies with really trendy haircuts.

JOSH:
After a few relationship disappointments, Josh will flee to Asia. His curly hair and Fabio-shirts will make him unbearably attractive in Japan, which is where he’ll contract several STIs and also meet his future wife. After coming back to Canada they will spend 4 years married before she leaves him for a woman. Back in the dating scene, he will use his sculpture studio to re-create the Ghost love scene many a time before meeting a decently attractive fellow artist he will date until death, though never live with or fully commit to

MIKE:
Mike will marry an extremely attractive, really, really brilliant girl with a social conscience and a really cute cat. Despite the fact that he will always complain about her driving and cooking, they will have like, 10 babies (Eric being the godfather to all of them) and live in a big old house in the country. Mike will earn a lot of money being an opportunist and then spend it all on computer screens and VW Golfs.

 

    So, the truth is I read a lot. Too much. Last week I forwent 2 days of meals and had Zadie Smith instead. I rarely have under 4 novels on the go and all of my favorite people are fellow bibliophiles. Anyhow, if Eric is going to start using me as a book referral service, I might as well embrace it.




I read this book in 3 days, is the first thing. The second thing is, it was one of those books you start with really high hopes: I was convinced I was going to love it. Which is a terrible, TERRIBLE way to start off a relationship with pages. It always ends badly. However, having finished it, I can confidently say this time it was not so. I reeeeally liked it. It has fairly unique characters, it's about something I found pretty interesting (Art school, specifically Design, in the 1950's), and it's terribly clever and biting. 


Excerpt:
This bit is a bit risquee, so apologies, but not really.
(For scene setting purposes: main characters walking around their school campus, encounter some evangelist students)
   
    'A chunky girl in a red plaid skirt who appeared to be completely normal casually walked up to Himillsy and asked, just a little too loudly, "Did you know that Jesus loves you?" She handed us a pamphlet with a cartoon drawing on the front of the crucified Savior, bleeding like new dungarees in the wash. He looked ecstatic, as if he'd just won the lottery. Hims took it and used it to fan herself, even though it was just below freezing.
    "Of course dear, and we're just dying to get married, but Mummy is dead set against it." Hims leaned into her, very conspirational, "He's N.O.K.D. and if we elope she'll cut us off." 
    Our little Merry Magdalene didn't seem to understand. She turned to me, on to her next mission, and said, now a tad unsure of herself, "God loves you too."
    "Obviously," I said, "I'm white, I have a penis, and fabulous taste."
    Himillsy's surprise had just the right note of archness. "Darling! A penis? Really! Why didnt you tell me? Whose is it?"
    "Not sure. I havent opened it yet."
    "Oh come, let's do!" she said, taking my arm. "You must really rate! All I got was a slash that smells like carp and leaks blood every month!" She winked at the girl- whose face was as blank as her checks to the Church."'

Do read it if: you're bored, are feeling a bit (or a lot) cynical, wish you knew more clever people, hate art, haven't read anything worthwhile lately, and you KINDA like Palahniuk but think hes sort of a hack that lacks substance.

Don't read it if: the above offended you, you're naive, you are looking for some feel goodery or something inspirational. Or if you hate the 50s.
   

Okay, I love kids. People who know me, know that. I am going to have like 14 babies. At the same time. But I am NOT going to do so in the city! Not because city kids are that bad, it's pretty adorable watching them maneuver the subways system professionally or talk about knifing each other on the street car. Adorable! But it's the city MOMS I truly despise. I don't want to join those ranks.

Things that are annoying no matter how cute your kid is:
-Allowing your child to touch, drool on, sit on, or even speak to other people on the TTC (except for this one kid that sang me some song about farting. He was cool)
-Singing The Wheels on the Bus to your 1year old in a really crowded streetcar
-Discussing your daycare options with random strangers who sit beside you and don't care/think you're crazy.

Teach your kids to shut up, not make eye contact, and keep their hands to themselves. Like the rest of us. Or move to the country where social retardation is approapriate. I dont like lollipops stuck to my paperbacks.

:END RANT

Further List of Odd Things I've Seen/Experienced Since Moving To Toronto:
-A man (in a suit) petting a squirrell. We warned the man that this behaviour (allowing itself to be pet by a man in a suit) clearly indicated signs of rabies. The man protested, he said "he loves it!"

-Toronto Star Headline -- "Kim Jong-Il, Crazy.. like a fox" Isn't that a Simpsons reference? Is this quality reporting?

-A tiny asian man in a tiny asian car drove right up the Spadina St. sidewalk. We were trying to expose our small town friends to a bit of city culture, and they got walloped with a sweet city stereo type.

This one is purely an attack on GB College's admittance policy:
-The directors of my program at school decided to test all of the students' Emotional IQ, very trendy term in the social services these days, so we had to trek down to the computer lab and answer questions like "I get angry: Never Rarely Sometimes Often" and the girl beside me waved a teacher over to ask about this question: "I see things that other people cannot see" and inquired about it. This worried me, what is she seeing? But someone reassured me that maybe she just fancies herself a very keen observer? No. In class months later she confirmed my suspicions by asking what a person should do if they keep seeing Jesus in their every day lives. I dont talk to her anymore.

I also saw a First Nations guy punch someone right in the FAYCE on Queen St.
Wickeddddd.

P.S. We went back for my mom's coffee; they gave it to us. We went for a splendid drive; we looked at antiques.

More adventures of Danica is a magnet to people she'd just as soon not know existed:

So on the street car we are humming along as they will, and the street car driver who is NOT a monkey, and who also, frankly, is not a DRIVER as all he does is ease up on the gas occasionally and honk at cars, stops. We are not at a street car stop. This is when I notice an aged blind woman making her way towards the front of the car, with huge black sunglasses and one of those blind people cow prods. And she was swinging the thing. NOT in an on-the-ground, curious blindy kind of way, she was WAVING it like a police baton at a Native uprising. It was violent, and high in the air. Also, every time she came to another hold-on-post  (scientific name) she would grab on to it with both hands and SHAKE the damn thing, to make sure it was stable, I guess? Because I've often hung on to fault street car poles and fallen to my demise. 

Anyhow, she EVENTUALLY made it to the front (lets remember we are stopped mid-street here) to where the driver is, and he is telling her that he has taken her to the exact building she wants to go to, so all she has to do is walk STRAIGHT out, keep going STRAIGHT, and then she'll be RIGHT at the entrance doors. So she goes down the steps, evolution-slow, and once shes out on the road she goes straight about two steps and does a complete 180 before heading right into traffic. So, the "driver" mutters "for fuck's sake" and follows her into traffic, taking her arm and leading her to the place she so desired to end up.

The moral of that story is that street car drivers are heroes.

BUT, speaking of Blind People... My mom and I were in the Tim Hortons drive-thru on Thanksgiving weekend. We were getting cappucinos and then going for a splendid mother-daughter drive in the country. But before I could feel sufficiently like I'd entered an F Scott Fitzgerald novel this blind man of about 30 walked by the drive-thru with too many bags from Giant Tiger. He couldn't hold them all in one hand and hold his seeing-eye-dogs leash at the same time, and he kept having to stop. So mom says "ask him if he wants help" and we argue for a bunch of seconds about who should be the one to call out to him but eventually due to my career path and my situation in the passenger seat we decided it was me. So I call out to him and yes he does want help so we tell him where we are and we pull up beside him (forgetting my moms coffee by the way). So before I get out mom says quietly "tell him before you touch him" and i say "oh right, they startle easily" (which I'm not sure is facetious or not). So he gets in the passenger seat and myself and Maria, who is a beautiful and well-natured yellow lab, sit in the back. Me in a baby seat. Because that is my life. So we drove him home and talked about the dog and then we unloaded him and his groceries. He carried them to the apartment himself, but in order to orient himself when he got out of the van he asked that I point him in the direction of "the dumpster". I spotted the dumpster and then literally pointed, forgetting that was a useless direction. Then I put one hand on his shoulder and pointed with my other hand, as though he'd be able to tell by osmosis which way to go? I dont know. Anyhow, we eventually worked it out. He was a very nice man and said thank you and Happy Thanksgiving and didnt have a violent cane.

Moral of this story: My mom is a heroine.

 

Okay so the front is that mostly I am doing this (5 years too late) so that I can make actual posts on Eric's livejournal. Perhaps I'll also log the unusual TTC happenings I encounter as I seem to be a freak magnet. Ie:

Transgender person enters streetcar. Danica, feeling incredibly PC after just leaving Human Rights class where in fact this specific demographic was discussed, smiles at said person. S/he seems normal but obvious brain malfunctions soon become apparent.
S/he: WHAT TIME IS IT?!?! (to no one in particular).
Someone answers, not me. No timepiece.
*Weird delay where we all try to digest the suddent outburst.
S/he (to MOI): WHERE CAN I FIND A MONEY MART?!?!?!!
Danica: (shrug)
*More weird delay.
S/he (to me again): Well if YOU don't know where a MONEY MART is, how am I supposed to get to AJAX for SEVEN THIRTY?????
Danica: (shrug)
*Someone suggests she ask the driver. She does. Driver doesn't know, either.
S/he (to the driver): Well then WHY are you driving the STREETCAR if you dont know SIMPLE BUSINESSES?
*WEIRDER delay where everyone holds their breath and prays we soon pass a Money Mart
S/he (to me, while waving a doughy white hand in my face): YOO HOO, MISS?? You know what I think?? I think they should hire MONKEYS to drive the street car. (Pauses, to gauge my reaction, which is to stare out the window) Because if you ask them a SIMPLE question, and they can't give you a VIABLE RESPONSE, it might as well be a MONKEY up there!!!
Danica: (Trying really hard to not encourage her to keep talking, or offend her with my obvious disagreement. )
My stop came DIRECTLY after this, which was relieving. I thanked the driver extra-loud.


Sidenote: I told this story to my mom, and her response was "I see her point."