I used to see something or think of
something and couldn't wait to get home to blog about it.
That hasn't happened for a long time,
which explains my lacklustre performance on Procrastinitus
Interruptus since, oh, 2010. This year, few things excited me
enough to think of blogging about them, and fewer still made it
into an actual post. Here are some of my false starts:
1. Listening to
Frankenstein while driving to Sudbury with my
mother to attend an aunt's funeral.
I was surprised by how different the
story is from the Frankenstein movies. The book seems more of a
social commentary than a horror tale. Instead of a lumbering,
grunting killing machine with bolts in its neck, Dr. Frankenstein's
creation was a philosopher who yearned for a soulmate. He did do in a
few people, but that was because he was misunderstood and reviled;
think how you would have turned out if your parents never bothered to
give you a name and referred to you as “fiend” or “monster”
or “abomination” or “wretched creature” or “vile insect”
instead. (Only the parents in “The Metamorphosis” could be
forgiven for that last one.) Dr. Frankenstein was a thoroughly
unlikeable person who was prone to bloviating monologues replete with
bombastic pronouncements (although I'm hoping to use "he deranged the mechanism" in conversation soon). This
was likely a genetic trait: his mother, who gave a death speech at
some point in the story, went on and on and on and on at such length
that my mother, normally an exceedingly nice person, screeched, “Oh,
die already!”. The fiend/monster/abomination/wretched creature/vile
insect could have killed Dr. Frankenstein many times but didn't, for
reasons that were lost on my mother and me.
2. Being asked by a coworker,
who is from the United States, what Canadians think of Americans.
I
responded, in stereotypical tongue-in-cheek Canadian manner, “bible-thumping
gun-toting right-wing conservatives.” Of course, no Americans I
know fit this stereotype. This particular American coworker certainly
doesn't. What has made an impression is her unique way of viewing
things. She refers to eggs as a chicken having its period, rabbits as
furry rapists, and Frankenstein as a treatise on
disability issues. So my new and improved stereotyping of Americans is that
they are wonderfully creative thinkers, as evidenced by the ieverything,
Hollywood's treatment of Frankenstein, and toilet
landing lights.
3. A funny thing that happened
to me as I was rushing across Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto early
one Sunday morning in February on my way to get some breakfast before
taking the MegaBus back to Kingston. (I don't know why I
wanted to eat first; the previous afternoon I had taken the bus up
from Toronto; it was an incredibly windy day, the only seats left
were on the top deck—which swayed wildly —somebody was sick early on, and the smell of vomit was
pervasive throughout the three-hour trip.)
So, as I was rushing across the square,
the only other person crossing the square at that cold and early hour
slowed down and we looked at each other.
“Helen?” he asked, when we were
just at the point of crossing paths.
I stopped. I know my eyes had a blank
expression. He looked familiar,
but my brain wasn't really working at that point, partly because it
was low on caffeine and partly because my thoughts were on the return
trip and whether the bus was going to function as a vomitorium.
In fact, he looked
like the
friend I wrote about who disappeared without a
trace, except this man's hair was much whiter and he was walking with
a cane. But the height, build and face were similar. After a few
seconds of him looking at me expectantly and me looking at him
idiotically he said, “Philip. Philip Hébert.”
“Um, I'm sorry, I don't know a Philip
Hébert.” That isn't the name of the person I used to know, but he
is a Francophone and he does have a French-sounding name. The “Philip
Hébert” had now completely confused me.
“Helen Cornelius?” That isn't my last name.
“I'm sorry, I'm Helen —. I think
you have the wrong person.”
“Oh, sorry.” We gave each other a
last quizzical look, then went our separate ways. But the more I
thought about it, the more I was convinced that what I wrote in that
long-ago post had happened: one day the two of us would be in the same place
at the same time and we would both do a double-take, thinking that we
knew the other person, and then we would realize our mistake and turn
away.
Bridgett said endings are easy, but they aren't when
they slip silently away.
Which brings me to the stopping part of
the title: I think this is my last post.
The feeling's gone and I just can't get it back. Hopefully, with my energy no longer depleted by fretting about not blogging, I'll
have time to visit others' sites more frequently. See you there!
