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!