borrowing from mick jagger...

in recent years, on many (many many many) occasions, i’ve found myself ruminating on the search for love and connection. more specifically, my own search and what often feels like its complete futility and consistent abject failure. there are times when i seriously wonder if i’m going to live my entire life alone, and i start to ponder how long i should hold out hope before officially resigning myself to that fact.

but then, every once in a while, the universe sends a gentle, subtle, unexpected elbow in the ribs. a little hug that says, “hey, sad clown, don’t give up.”

sometimes, literally.

yesterday was the day of my uncle’s funeral. it was a standard-issue affair, with a small number of family members and friends of my cousins (his daughters). my family and i drove north to keswick, ON, for the service, and then back into town for the burial. my mother had offered to hold the post-funeral reception at my parents’ home, so everyone (about 20 people, plus us) trekked over there for lunch afterwards.

while everybody lumbered into the kitchen and elbowed their way through the buffet-style spread - loading up on food and drink, and engaging in conversation in the living room - i decided to spend time with my four-year-old cousin, A.

A. is the daughter of one of my cousins, and my late uncle’s granddaughter. she’s a bright-eyed, blonde-haired little sprite, full of curiosity and energy and humour, and a boundless fascination with, of all things, kyle’s cat condo – which sits in my parents’ living room and which she decided would make for an excellent jungle-gym-come-drum-set. seriously, she is beyond adorable.

A. also has cerebral palsy. CP is a motor-control disorder that results in an inability to manage one’s muscles and movements, sometimes resulting in spasms and frequently causing impaired speech and difficulty with everyday tasks like walking. it doesn’t affect mental capacity, though, so someone with CP may not be able to move well or speak clearly, but will still have normal intelligence and a sharp mind underneath the lead apron of physical struggle.

yesterday was the first time i ever met A., but she took to me immediately. (i love kids and, generally, they seem to know they have a kindred spirit in me, so we tend to get along very well.) without a hint of hesitation or uncertainty, she instantly decided i was her friend and all she wanted to do was hold my hand. she’d just... take it. on her own, unprompted, and then just... hold on. she didn’t do that with anyone else, and sought me out if i left her for a bit. she’d pull me around the house, her unsteady legs leading the way through a tangle of grown-ups, and then she’d just stop to stare at something. sometimes, to gaze out the big back window into the yard; sometimes, to peer into the dark depths of my father’s cluttered office, at which she’d just point and then look at me with a “what the heck’s in THERE?” face.

her CP makes it tough for her to speak, so a lot of what A. says is delivered in short, staccato blips. “yah” and “no” are her most frequent words, but she tried valiantly numerous times to explain things to me as we wandered or played. doctors had told her mother that A. would never be able to walk, but there she was... clomping her way through the halls in her patent-leather “pretty shoes” and making her presence known. she may be slight, but her footsteps do pack a wallop.

keeping her entertained was very simple. she drummed on kyle’s condo (think: bongo) and played with the rattles hanging from its scratch posts, and she thought it was just amazing when i threw in a drumroll (think: snare), first on one of kyle's perches and then very gently atop her head. she sat quietly and made me breakfast at the toy kitchen my parents’ keep on hand for pint-sized visitors, and repeatedly tried to go up the stairs to the second floor even after her mother hoisted her off the steps and said, “no, no. that’s a nice idea but we’re not gonna do that, hon’.”

she thought it was hysterical when, after she’d climbed onto kyle’s condo stomach-first and successfully covered her black velvet dress with a thick layer of his residual cat hair, i took a sticky roller and rolled it up and down her front to clean off the fur. all in all, A. was basically happy and content to just kind of be there amid the action. my mom repeatedly thanked me for looking after her, since the rest of the grown-ups were otherwise occupied, and my cousin (A.’s mother) said at one point, “want to adopt a daughter? ‘cause she thinks you’re just swell!”

but, really, i was happy to do it and i had a lovely afternoon with this gentle, loving, goofy little person in the fancy footwear and hairy frock.

later, when everybody was putting on their shoes, gathering their purses and packing up to go, i looked down at A., who was holding her mother’s hand and already bundled up for the cold. i said goodbye, then said, "can i have a hug before you go?"

she said, "yah!", smiled and wobbled over to give me a big hug. i crouched down and she threw her arms around my neck. she gave me a good squeeze and then said, “bye.”

after everybody had their coats on and were heading out the door, she stopped, turned around and looked at me, smiled, and stumbled back over on her own to hug me again. this time, she just kind of fell into me with a giggle and wrapped her arms around my legs. then she took my hand and, in a serious (for her) tone said something i couldn't understand. it sounded like "take picture again," but her mother looked down and said, "yeah, you'll see vickie again."

i got a little lump in my throat. honestly, how sweet is that?

through the relative chaos of this otherwise sad occasion, i had a good time. and, in spending time with A., i was reminded of a number of things.

i was reminded that, despite my own fears and insecurities and bumbling awkwardness, i'm not actually as repellent as i sometimes feel when it comes to other people loving me. i was reminded that sometimes the right hug at the right moment can make all the difference in the world.

and, most importantly, i was reminded that, really, i have no business complaining about anything in my life. looking at A., who’s four, and seeing how hard she works and how determined she is to express herself, and knowing how immensely challenging her life will be on a number of levels, i'm reminded to get over myself and to be very thankful... to see what i have as opposed to focusing on what i don't have.

yes, i want love and need love and crave love – who doesn’t? – but maybe i need to pay better attention to its arrival on different planes, in what might not be the exact way i desire or contained within the specific context i imagine.

so, to borrow from mick jagger and the rolling stones, you can’t always get what you want... but, if you try, sometimes you just might find you get what you need.

sometimes, it's a reminder.

and, sometimes, that can be something as simple as a hug.

i do believe i called it

remember back in july, when i said i thought i might love overture films?

this is one of the films on deck for them, and i already feel like it’s my kind of movie:

please note: overture films is also responsible for the recent cinematic bomb called Righteous Kill, but i’m choosing to overlook that dud and blaming everything associated with it on temporary insanity on the part of a company whose clear strength is indie films not big-budget, stunt-cast junk. that is all.

lost

so, my uncle died on saturday morning.

he was my mother’s older brother, in his 70s, and had been in failing health for a while – with a recent, rather rapid decline – so news of his death didn’t really come as a shock to anyone. it wasn’t a matter of “if,” it was “when.”

we weren't close, and we had little interaction with him. my memories of him are random and fractional. we saw him more often as kids, when my sister and i would spend time with our cousins (his daughters), but those days ended long, long ago and, even then, our visits were maybe a couple of times a year. i think the last time i saw him was six years ago at my grandmother’s funeral, where he was thin and frail and looking much older than his years.

but this isn’t an entry about my uncle or his death. at least, not directly. it’s about what someone can take with them when they die. yes, we’ve all seen Ghost and know that you take love with you and all that... but, in my uncle’s case, he’s taking something more.

earlier today, i was talking with my mom on the phone. when i heard of my uncle’s death, i initially worried that she would take it very hard, since he was the last living member of her immediate family. but, surprisingly, she seems to be dealing with everything remarkably well. i think perhaps she knew his time was coming to an end, and had reconciled herself to the fact that he’d be much better off moving on than sticking around. she actually said to me, “i know he’s happier in heaven with (his late wife) and (his late daughter).”

but today, as we were chatting and going over the plans for a post-funeral reception, which will be held at my parents’ home and will no doubt involve my father behaving like an asshat at some point, she said something that i hadn’t ever considered.

between the discussion of chopping vegetables and picking up cold cuts and where we'd put kyle while guests were over so that he doesn't dart out the door or snack on the food, she said, “my childhood is gone.”

when i asked what she meant, she said that, with the death of her brother, she’s lost the only person left alive who knew her as a child.

and i found that profoundly sad.

the weekend: reviewed and recapped for your pleasure

* on friday, i went to the International Festival of Authors for the first time ever. sounds fancy, no? it happens every year in toronto and features a litany of famous scribes sharing their work, but i’ve never really felt compelled to attend. (i know, i know. please leave your scolding and reprimands in the comments box by the door.) in the spirit of full disclosure: my inaugural visit to the IFOA also had nothing to do with a sudden literary epiphany or a yearning to better myself and my life through an infusion of more culture (though, the latter is a valid pursuit of mine at the moment). it was to cheer on b-dub, who was reading on behalf of a foreign writer. b-dub was wonderful, as usual – animated, engaging and not just reading the words, but performing them... a task made all the more delightful because he was reading a first-person (fiction) story told by an overweight young woman obsessed with TV, telenovelas and chocolate. so good! despite his winning over the crowd, and the evening’s inherent sophisticated atmosphere and word-loving vibe, we’d both kind of had our fill by the intermission, so we decided to split. between desserts and readings, we chose desserts. and i’m not sorry.

* on saturday, i stripped wallpaper. “but wait!” i hear you cry. “i thought you finished taking off all the wallpaper on thanksgiving! what gives?!” well, there was still the matter of YB's master bathroom... which she'd initially planned to ignore until its official reno, but which she decided should be stripped now instead, so that it could be painted along with the rest of the house in the next few weeks (new toilet and tub be damned). so, she rented my old friend, the steamer, and i was tasked with clearing those walls. unfortunately for me, the master bathroom proved to be the most difficult, infuriating room in the entire house – its gigantic frustration-induction level supremely disproportionate with its relatively small size. my mission was complicated by the fact that one or more of the house’s previous owners had hung wallpaper over paint over unprimed plaster OVER wallpaper. i’m not exaggerating when i say that the result of applying heat and steam to walls of this nature resulted in nothing short of having them decay right before my eyes. it is/was, in a word, a mess. (yes, i know that’s two words. sue me.)

* today, i went to another @ the Bravo! Concert Hall taping. the artist was molly johnson, a kick-ass canadian singer to whom i’ve listened since high school, but whose more recent works – jazz instead of rock – were kind of unfamiliar to me. but, as i’ve learned, just because you might be new to the music doesn’t mean you won’t have a fantastic time. this was no exception: it was great, and molly was awesome... and my guest and i were seated right in the front row, DEAD CENTRE. i was, literally, four feet in front of molly’s mic stand, and spent much of the taping looking at her as she looked back at me. at first, it was really weird and kind of unsettling – i mean, imagine being at a concert and having the person on stage singing directly TO you, only a few feet away. there's some degree of comfort in being an anonymous shadow lost in the darkness of a large crowd, listening to someone sing, rather than being right smack dab in the peripheral glow of the spotlights where the person onstage can see you. i also have some fourth-wall issues, and was nervous about molly (who was quite chatty and engaged the crowd in conversation multiple times) somehow addressing me or involving me in the proceedings. apparently, i was under the impression that she was a magician or improv artist who might drag an audience member onstage, given my groundless fear. thankfully, after a bit, i discovered this was an AMAZING way to see a show. i could practically count her eyelashes! who gets this kind of opportunity??? this afternoon, i did. (the show won’t air until january, but you can hear her here in the meantime!)

square one

* it’s extremely windy here today. yet, this morning at a nearby condo building, i passed a group of landscapers, who were trying to rake leaves (what?) and who were actually using a leaf blower (no, really, what???). i wondered if they were managing to make a speck of difference as their prey flew around them in tornadic swirls.

* tomorrow, i’m going to the passport office to get my passport renewed. i have to surrender my current passport when i do so, which means i’ll lose the sole international stamp (london, england) within it. i think i can request the old passport be returned to me, but then i wonder if maybe i should let that one (and its memory) go and plan for stamps in the new one instead.

* i was hypo. then i was fine. then i was hyper. then i was super-hyper. now i am hypo again. after four years, i’m back where i started. adjustments continue.

* my ENWP hasn’t really been touched since its first draft was completed a few weeks ago. in the interim, i’ve rethought and reimagined. i may keep the core theme and rewrite the entire thing from the beginning. in other writing news, i’ve just been given a sizable assignment that should take me to mid-december... which may postpone (or, at least, slow) the ENWP revisions.

* as i type this, i’m watching oprah. today’s guest is a neuroanatomist, who had a massive stroke (at age 37) that completely disabled the left side of her brain. as a result, she lost her past and her identity, but slowly rebuilt her life alongside a whole new one. and she was one of TIME magazine’s most influential people of the year. it’s fascinating.

* the wallpaper is off the walls of trixie’s house. the ducts were cleaned out today. all the new appliances have been delivered. the electrical work will finally end in a day or so. the millions of holes in the walls have been filled and, shortly, will be sanded. then, this weekend, the priming begins. you can almost hear the whole house taking a deep breath as the promise of a fresh start looms.

i love autumn

i really do.

mornings at the movies: where’s my kleenex?

it’s been a busy week as far as screenings go. two have stood out as exceptional, and both of them pretty much had me in tears, for different reasons, from start to finish: The Secret Life of Bees, which opens tomorrow, and Trouble the Water, which has apparently already seen a limited release but may still screen at festivals and rep theatres in the weeks and months to come.

The Secret Life of Bees

and

Trouble the Water

i highly recommend them both.

life is like a box of stripped wallpaper shards...

throughout the process of removing wallpaper from the walls of young beatrix’s home, i’ve been struck by how many life lessons are contained within the seemingly simple act of stripping.

* when you strip wallpaper, you find yourself engaged in a task that is often slow and tedious, but one that can yield amazing results if you just stick with it through the more difficult stages. keep going.

* when you strip wallpaper, you can sometimes wind up daunted by the sheer size and scope of the project, even though you know it's worthwhile and important. keep going.

* when you strip wallpaper, you can peel back an entire layer and find more layers. sometimes, when you remove those layers, you discover something beautiful underneath... and sometimes, when you remove layers of ugliness, all you find underneath is more ugliness. you might not like what you discover. or you might love it. keep going.

* when you strip wallpaper, you really need patience to get through it without losing your mind. keep going.

* when you strip wallpaper, the apparent simplicity of the task (wallpaper: off!) can give way to the reality that it’s not as easy as it looks, and that what you thought would be a breeze will, in fact, take you longer, frustrate you more and move at a snail’s pace no matter how badly you wish the opposite were true. keep going.

* when you strip wallpaper, sometimes you need more than just yourself and your determination to get it done. sometimes you need to ask for help. or a steamer. keep going.

* when you strip wallpaper, especially someone else’s wallpaper, it becomes very easy to pass judgment based on appearance. check your attitude. keep going.

* when you strip wallpaper, you realize it's sometimes there to cover up flaws. to hide mistakes. to conceal the truth. accept their presence. figure out how you'll fix them. keep going.

* when you strip wallpaper, you also need to get off the glue that’s held that paper there for, possibly, decades. you need to scrape off the remnants that adhere to the wall like stubborn barnacles, refusing to come off with everything else, in order to move onto the next phase of development. keep going.

* when you strip wallpaper, it’s a good idea to wash the bare walls as a final sweep – no matter how empty they might appear, there might be tiny bits of guck lingering. clean them as best you can, but don't let yourself get caught up in making them 100% perfect. they've been covered in wallpaper, for crying out loud. you can't expect them to be 100% perfect, no matter how hard you scrub. know that you have to keep going.

* when you strip wallpaper, it’s about more than just taking off the paper. it’s about a fresh start, revealing the blank canvas of possibility that might lie beneath years of blanketing. it’s about making yours what might have belonged to someone else. it’s about change. keep going.

and

* when you strip wallpaper, sometimes you need a piece of cake when you’re finished. keep going... and grab another slice for good measure.

further adventures in home renovation

get some cake.

pop open some champagne.

prepare a giant platter of cherry passion tic tacs.

for today, YB and i stripped the last of the shiteous wallpaper off the walls of her house. (i'll wait while you applaud.)

that's right, we pulled off the last of it this afternoon and felt a gigantic sense of accomplishment. the sheer scope of that undertaking was enough to send folks running for the hills, but we did it. i’m fairly certain i heard a small chorus of angels when the last shard of wet, glue-y paper fell to the kitchen floor in a sticky clump. (it could have been trix and me sobbing out of sheer joy that we finally finished, i can't be certain.) it’s been a very long and tedious process and now, at long last, all* that wallpaper is gone.

[*except for the master bathroom, where the (admittedly muted and inoffensive) wallpaper will remain until the impending Big Bathroom Reno of 2008 (or 2009) in a couple of months. but i’m not counting that. sue me.]

throughout this strip-a-thon, i’ve been making mental note of the wealth of metaphors that exist in the act of removing wallpaper, or cleaning someone else’s dirt, or just rewiring a house.

but i’ll write about those tomorrow. or maybe wednesday.

for now, i’m just going to bask in the glory of knowing i won’t have to hold a steamer in my hand anytime soon, and that the next time i use my scraper it’ll be to smooth drywall mud or poly-filla... because filling the hundreds of nail holes and random cracks and mysterious openings that pockmark the whole house will be phase two of development.

which starts later this week.

gainless literary paralysis

restless
sleepless
mindless
fruitless

pointless

clueless
directionless
hapless
hopeless

useless

anchorless
careless
purposeless
talentless

senseless

defenseless
speechless
helpless
powerless

endless

nameless
faceless
dateless
loveless

worthless

nonetheless

meaningless

regardless

relentless

© yepimawriter 2008

my life as a stripper

today is my day off.

my day off from working on young beatrix’s house.

my day off from trekking out to the suburbs.

my day off from sore hands and achy shoulders and lower-back pain.

today is my day off from stripping wallpaper. and, oh, there has been a lot of stripping.

at first, we mistakenly thought it would be a super-fast job – huge pieces of wallpaper just lifted right off the walls in a single yank and, in less than 24 hours, giant sections of bare wall that hadn’t seen the light of day since the early 1970s were gradually exposed.

and then we hit two rooms where the wallpaper seemed to be affixed to the walls with some kind of alien adhesive not unlike cement. that stuff was NOT coming off. we tried the technique that had worked so well everywhere else (namely: just pull), but to no avail, and then cursed the sudden halt to our progress.

enter the steamer, god’s gift to home renovators everywhere. yes, it’s slow going because you’re literally working eight inches at a time but the loud, patterned paper was no match for the hot, wet heat of a totally-worth-the-money home depot rental.

even with the steamer, it was extremely tedious work that could really only be done by two people, max. one to steam, one to scrape. on the weekend, i teamed with one of young beatrix’s pals (and, after she packed it in, with YB herself) to tackle the plaid room, so named because of its plaid wallpaper... under which was a layer of brown wallpaper... under which was a third layer of red wallpaper... under which – no joke – was a note written in pencil on the painted wall, that read: “this is the board in my room when i first moved in – 1969.” just below that note was a cute but ultimately creepy drawing of what looks like a vampire as realized by, say, a 10-year-old boy. we later washed it off because, you know, no one wants that kind of thing lingering on a wall. not even under a fresh coat of paint.

my personal everest was the second hard-to-strip room, which linda referred to as an “opium den” (right) because of its trippy, tree-filled, orange and brown asian-infused wallpaper. that room will be YB’s guest room, and it’s the room in which i have free decorating reign. a blank canvas just waiting for my design ideas. OMGsocool. but before any paint colours could be chosen or area rugs pondered, i had to actually do some blankening. (what? “blankening” could be a word.)

so, i attacked. for two days i attacked that room and its deafening walls. i tore and pulled and moistened and steamed and stripped and scraped. mom helped. and now? *sigh* now it’s empty. it’s beautifully bare. it’s clean. it’s miiiiiiiine. hooray!

but the stripping is not yet complete.

no, no. there’s more. because we still have the kitchen, and all of its awkward spaces and small nooks and difficult crannies and multiple layers of decades-old paper. there’s also a wall in the dining room, on which some previous owner had put up some kind of textured paper akin to burlap. and there remains the small side foyer (leading to the basement, the powder room and the side door of the house), which i expect will be a nightmare when we get there and try to manoeuvre ourselves and a steamer in that cramped area. the steamer itself had to go back to home depot last night because our rental period was up, but i expect we’ll have another one for another few days come saturday.

a couple of days ago, one of trix’s friends joked that i’m going to be stripping wallpaper for the rest of my life. and i kind of believe her. part of me thinks that wallpaper is actually regenerating itself at night when we leave. you know, like the story of the loaves and the fishes. (::: waving at ericanddan :::)

but maybe that’ll stop now that the cartoon vampire is history.

care packages are awesome

24 boxes of cherry passion tic tacs
from the best guys i know.

musical ignorance really can be bliss

last night, i went to another taping of At the Concert Hall (formerly Live at the Rehearsal Hall). it’s been a rather long stretch since the last one, so i was delighted to get the invite... even though i knew almost nothing about the scheduled performer: divine brown.

not the prostitute who struck hugh grant's fancy years ago, the canadian singer.

sure, i’d heard Old School Love, her hit from a few years back... but that was pretty much all i knew. and, really, i couldn’t have picked her out in a crowd.

but, whatever, an intimate, free concert is an intimate, free concert. so i went.

and... OMG... she was UH-MAY-ZING!!! it was a phenomenal show. brown was absolutely stellar and her music is an energizing blend of soul, funk, R&B and awesomeness. hosted by erica ehm (!!!), the taping's interview portions also revealed brown to be a funny, determined and engaging subject. i became a fan instantly, very much in the same way that i was unexpectedly won over by serena ryder at a previous taping.

if you go to her site (see below), you can listen to her current album. i highly recommend clicking on the link that follows and skipping to Meet Me at the Roxy, Boogie Slide or Bebe for the numbers that are show-stopping live. the ballads are just as good (try One More Chance on for size and try not to be wowed), and she ended the show with a christmas tune.

it was fantastic! the finished product airs on nov. 18th at 10pm ET on Bravo! (in canada).

listen to divine brown’s kick-ass tunes here.

adventures in home renovation

as many of you know, young beatrix has purchased her first house and, on monday this week, she finally took possession. first thing tuesday morning, we launched an offensive on the home... which was decorated sometime in the late 1970s and then never touched again.

YB has assorted reno plans – new flooring in some parts of the house, new master bath, gallons and gallons of paint where hideous wallpaper resided – but a huge amount of prep work has to be completed before any of the home makeover can get underway. the sheer scope of the project was daunting.

the house is very dirty, having been inhabited by a widower (and his very large dog) for the last few years. it smells. there’s ancient, filthy shag carpeting from wall to wall to wall.

and then... there are the toilets.

oh my.

knowing my penchant for cleaning, and the level of spotlessness that i demand, the toilets and bathrooms were left for me to tackle. (make no mistake: i was quite happy with this news.) so, gloved and ready, i set to work to rid the porcelain thrones of a rather revolting amount of “splatter” and nastiness.

no joke, it took me 45 minutes to clean ONE toilet.

45 minutes.

there was scrubbing and wiping and scouring and washing and disinfecting. in every disgusting hair-filled nook and pee-encrusted cranny. that’s right, i said “encrusted.”

but then... cue the heavenly chorus... it was Vickie Clean™. gloriously, beautifully, sparklingly Vickie Clean™. you can lick any surface in, on or around that toilet without fear. here it is, in all its immaculate glory:

yes, the toilet is teal. which is why YB wants to keep it.
see the bowl? it used to have a mysterious, caked-on, light-brown substance all over the bottom.
so revolting.

and speaking of fear, i was actually HORRIFIED that i had used those toilets the day before (when, admittedly, i put blinders on so i wouldn’t see what i knew in my soul was there). i repeated the process on the second toilet, which was even worse than the first. i have no idea how someone lets a toilet get that dirty, but the home’s previous owner did. ew.

anyhoo, we're only on day three of what promises to be a weeks-long process. there will be subsequent updates (what will we find when we pull up that carpet?!), i'm sure. stories, good and bad, about turning an eyesore into an awesome pad.

but the most important component is now complete, and we can all pee in peace now.