False starts, and a true stop

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!

What the *(#&$(*@#&$(* is with this weather???

All climate change-deniers should be burned on a very large fossil fuel pyre.

Anthony's Wandering Weiner

How am I only now hearing about a sex scandal involving someone named Anthony Weiner?

Sun, sun, go away, come again some other day

I never wanted to live in Southern California. The idea of day after day after day after day of sun isn't appealing. In fact, it's creepy—like the dolls your grandmother had that looked like they could be extras in Bride of Chucky. Instead of those dolls' glacial blue eyes though, we're caught in the glare of a solar cyclops that is drying up wells, fissuring the land, and causing trees to weep shrivelled leaves.

Where's Deloney?

Is he out trying to weigh the wind? Or did he fall into a tar pit and become a living statue, sustained by Greeks who throw bits of souvlaki into his mouth as they bouzouki down the Danforth?

Kitchen renovation

Day 24 of learning cost to install extra outlet in kitchen is $1500, due to need to run wires through finished basement up to kitchen.
Day 24 of abandoning dream of installing extra outlet in kitchen and having convenient place to plug in kettle.
Day 14 of kitchen contents scattered around house.
Day 9 of life without kitchen sink.
Day 9 of feeling creepy that plumber who removed kitchen sink took magazine from stairway leading to bedroom into bathroom where said magazine was found in bathroom sink.
Day 8 of suspecting electrician is gay, mainly based on eye wear and fact he loves cats.
Day 8 of wondering whether contractor, a self-confessed redneck—which suspected all along based on appearance and fact he hates cats—suspects same, thus explaining seeming antagonism between the two.
Day 8 of epiphany: am massively prone to stereotyping.
Day 5 since insisted contractor vent range hood to outside. Contractor responded by cutting massive hole in masonry wall causing house's energy efficiency rating to plummet dramatically and replacing existing 2-inch diameter ABS pipe usually installed for plumbing lines but creatively employed as ducting for former range hood with 5 1/2” aluminium tubing that looks suitable for handling jet exhaust from Boeing 747.
Day 4 of awareness that have an attic space; knew about hatch at back of closet but never imagined it went anywhere. Suspect would never have discovered Narnia even if wardrobe had been in room for 10 years.
Day 4 of lamenting lack of imagination.
Day 4 of imagining will develop debilitating lung disease from inhaling crud that resides in attic space.
Day 3 of no hot water. Not part of kitchen renovation, but suspect casualty of electrical work done on Friday when electrician sent apprentice into cruddy attic space due to discovery that kitchen ceiling is insulated and potlights would have to be installed from above at great extra expense to me.
Day 2 of kitchen contractor's one-week golf holiday, leaving kitchen renovation in state of suspended animation.
Day 1 of pointing out to electrician that part forgotten when installing range hood. Vehemently denied, until faced with evidence. Suspect will throw out part when returns to supposedly install it.
Day 0 of idea for new business: inject homeowners whose houses are undergoing renovation with drug that puts them in state of suspended animation until renovation is complete.

Animal kingdom

My younger nephew accused me of "not really being a dog person." Here, I assure Millie the poodle this is not the case.



Later in private I assure Bo that dogs, unlike cats, are gullible chumps. This appears to placate him.

What I've been doing

Reading Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest. There are so many characters I couldn't keep them all straight, and the story goes into so much of the political and historical context around the three Everest expeditions in the 1920s I couldn't keep any of that straight either. All the descriptions of Tibet made me want to go trekking in that part of the world though, and after googling a bit I found this. Can we hold our first bloggers' get-together in Bhutan?

The book provided me with lots of conversational fodder for future cocktail parties, including the affair of the seven dancing lamas brought to London to promote a film about the 1924 expedition, which may have contributed to Tibet's later conquest by the Chinese (pages 561-564), and the Great Trignometrical Survey of India—undertaken to determine whether the earth is round or flattened at both poles—which took 40 years to complete and involved lugging instruments weighing 1000 pounds through jungles and up mountains and razing anything that obstructed the surveyors' sightlines, including villages and temples (pages 41-42). I also felt better about not loading the film correctly and therefore failing to get photos of a rare one-horned mother and baby rhino that were literally at my feet in Nepal (I was up a tree at the time) after reading that Mallory inserted the glass plates in his camera incorrectly and the reconnaissance photos he spent days taking during the 1921 expedition didn't turn out (pages 291-292). I further marvelled at how accomplished people were back then, with some speaking 27 languages fluently (page 103) and others having the consummate clothing and accessories for every occasion (page 57). I was overcome by the same feelings of inadequacy when I read Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything, in which he describes characters like Count von Rumford, who married a rich older woman, committed treason, escaped to Bavaria where he served as a military advisor to the government (for which he had the title of “Count” bestowed on him), designed some famous park, founded the Royal Institution in London to promote the science of chemistry, became the world's leading authority on thermodynamics, and invented the drip coffeemaker, long underwear, and the Rumford fireplace (pages 102-103).

I feel like such a schlump. I blame television and the internet for how little I've achieved in life.

Spending New Year's Eve with my mother watching Price and Prejudice (featuring Colin Firth, the only human fit to play Darcy; what were they thinking when they cast that limp codpiece Matthew Macfadyen in the role?) and relearning how to knit. My mother kept up a running commentary (no mean feat, considering this version of Price and Prejudice is about six hours long) on how the grass around Pemberley looked fake because it was too green, how skinny the men's ankles were (not Colin Firth's: he has manly ankles), how she didn't think Jane was good-looking, how they really didn't do much except sit around in those days (I guess there were schlumps back then too; they probably frittered away their time on needlepoint and whist), etc.

I was inspired to take up knitting again because my ex-sister-in-law gave me a hand-knit scarf for Christmas. I haven't knit for about 20 years, and still have four sweaters in various stages of completion at the back of the closet. I pulled one out that was part of a kit given to me in 1989 for Christmas. All that had been done was a little bit of one sleeve. It seemed too difficult to figure out where in the pattern to start from, so I took the sleeve apart to start afresh but could no longer remember how to cast on. I finally managed to decipher the complicated instructions for the “easy cast-on method" but then had second thoughts about proceeding with the sweater, which is a Fair Isle pattern that requires lots of yarn changes. So I pulled out a different semi-finished sweater, one where both sleeves have been knit and half the front, there is only one colour of wool to work with, and I still have the sheet where I jotted down the completed rows so it was easy to pick up the pattern again. I discovered I can't knit and watch the screen at the same time, but since the grass was too green, most men's ankles too skinny, and Jane too unattractive, I don't think I missed out on too much.

Learning about sneaky fat cells. They pretend to be lazy schlumps but secretly they function like organs, secreting hormones that have a major impact on our physiological and psychological well-being. They're also sneaky in another way, but I can't remember the details: my fat cells are probably secreting a mind-altering chemical that's impairing my memory.

Gaining weight. Holy adipose tissue, I've gained six pounds since I last weighed myself! That kind of snuck up on me; I haven't had to worry about my weight for years. Of course, there were warning signs. For example, when I got new orthopedic inserts (yes, I knit on New Year's eve AND wear orthopedic inserts) and remarked that my old ones didn't seem to be too worn down, the person fitting the new ones replied, “Well, you're not really heavy.” For days afterwards, that bothered me. Where had she put the emphasis: was it on not or on really?

Writing some creative nonfiction. It's about a few summers my family spent in the Eastern Townships when I was young. More interesting than the story is the discordance between the hazy impression I had of idyllic summers spent there with my best friend and the specific memories that came up when I thought back to that time: domestic violence, rumours of an alligator that was released in the lake because it got too big for someone's bathtub, leeches, a horrendous water skiing accident, and a drowning. When Eve was older, did she still think of Eden as a paradise? Or did she mostly remember the rampant weeds, the full-body sunburns that left her with an unattractive patchwork epidermis, and the worms in the fruit?

Attending holiday parties. The most enjoyable gathering was with a small group of friends. We know each other well, which meant we didn't have to engage in superficial cocktail party chit-chat about the affair of the seven dancing lamas or the Great Trignometrical Survey of India. Instead, J informed us that she's trying to get pregnant again, but for whatever reason has little interest in sex. So she and D went shopping for a porn movie to get her in the mood. J also brought her 14-month-old, and the staff adamantly refused to let the baby in the store. J found this odd, although I would find it a trifle disconcerting to see people walking around with children in a sex shop. D found a movie that she thought would be effective, although J complained about the lack of foreplay. “Hello, I'm the plumber,” clothes summarily dispensed with, [J mimicking thrusting hips], was how she described the narrative arc. Despite the lack of plot and character development, the movie apparently did the trick. (Do the Academy Awards include a category for best porn film? If not, they should add one.)

We did a gift grab following dinner. Someone got a loofah sponge that had not, the label informed us, been tested on animals.

Watching Columbo. Seasons 1 through 7 plus the movie specials in December. Which explains why I haven't had time to invent sexy flannelette lingerie or a virtual reality device that allows people to try on clothes and footwear when shopping online.

2012 RESOLUTIONS: Shed schlump image. Invent something. Knit everyone a pickle ornament for their Christmas tree. Outwit sneaky fat cells. Try to stop worrying about climate change, reversal of the earth's magnetic field, and Canada becoming a libertarian's Eden.