now, where was i?

done!

hotdocs has now ended and i went in peace. it was a very busy, very entertaining, occassionally emotionally draining but all-around lovely week. for all the details, check out the other blog. some random notes to get this blog running again:

* the TTC – toronto’s transit system – went on strike on friday night, crippling the city for...about a day and half.

* my parents are in florida, so i’m cat-sitting for the week. this means that kyle and i will have plenty of time to hang out and bond. it also means i’ll inevitably pass a whack of time chasing him with a camera and taking shots like this one:



* this year, no florida trip for me. airfares never dropped to an acceptable level (sorry, there’s no way i’m paying $800 to fly to tampa!), so i’m not going. alas.

* young beatrix bought some of that new Dove Energize soap. the one that, according to the packaging, is a combination of grapefruit and lemongrass. um...not so much. i tried it this morning and it smells nothing like grapefruit or lemongrass. it smells quite nice, but not at all like one would expect.

* i am, at present, without any writing assignments. i’m slightly worried, but hoping that it’s just a short break before the next onslaught of work. or maybe this is the universe telling me that i should work on a screenplay, or finish some other piece of fiction, or start a documentary.

* in related news, i’m thinking of buying a video camera. for now, though, it’s just a fleeting thought. of course, if i had one, shooting a documentary would be so much easier.

* i still haven’t watched Hallam Foe, but it’s on the to-do list for this week. perhaps kyle and i will sit down to watch it tomorrow...

i am docking hotly

HotDocs has begun. and i'm at it. you may follow my misadventures at the other blog, if you so choose. :-)

see? ask, and the universe will provide!

one week ago, i asked.

and today, i received.

a DVD screener of the film awaited me upon my arrival home tonight. :-D

she's a genius...just kidding, she's not...just kidding, she really is...

i ♥ kristen wiig.

what’s goin’ on...

bless me, readers, it’s been nearly a week since my last entry. here’s a quick recap of events since last we spoke...

i wrote an article on unusual pets and now know more about chinchillas and hedgehogs and the like than i ever thought possible. the piece will be out in september, but here’s an exciting preview: chinchillas eat a high-fibre diet and, as a result, poop constantly! degus’ tails will slough off (i.e., the skin comes right off) if you pick them up incorrectly! red-eared sliders (note to moob: NOT spiders, sliders) have salmonella in their stool! ferrets eat anything! and hedgehogs hate other hedgehogs! isn’t that fascinating? hey...wake up...i said ISN’T THAT FASCINATING?!

i’ve begun pondering a birthday vacation. initially, i’d thought about seattle...then a seattle/vancouver double bill...but both of those west-coast cities are VERY expensive in june. so i looked into chicago and discovered it’s even pricier there. yet, for some reason, san francisco is strangely affordable (comparatively speaking). i continue to research and mull.

young beatrix stayed over on friday night and a good time was had by all...until...

...saturday afternoon, shortly after she left, when some sort of alien creature invaded my intestines and caused no end of upset. seems i ate something that did not agree with me and my body wanted it expelled ASAP. this was super-fun.

YB and i also went to the National Home Show. she’d been given free tickets, and hopes to be a homeowner before the year is out, so we decided to check it out. it was underwhelming...but packed to the rafters. and, much to our surprise, there were countless vendors whose wares had little or nothing to do with homes. i mean, a T-shirt booth? toronto animal services? a sausage salesman? a candy store specializing in british imports? the best, though, was a cosmetic dentist who’d set up a giant space and was offering – no joke – on-site TEETH WHITENING. he had four or five dentist chairs in a semi-circle, various “technicians” in white lab coats, and a quartet of those Zoom™ laser machines. AND PEOPLE WERE HAVING IT DONE! at the home show. whaaaaaa...? is that *really* where you want to have any kind of dental procedure done? at a HOUSING EXPO???? apparently, some did. weird. nevermind that you’re on full display for all the passersby (like me) who look and point and wonder what kind of lengthy release form you had to sign before sitting down in that chair. yikes.

HotDocs starts on thursday! :-D

and, finally, give this a look for a little warming of the heart on a monday (i dare you not to get a little misty):

whennnnnnnnn is this coming out?!

sophia myles.

claire forlani.

jamie bell.

ciarán hinds.

ewen bremner.

all together in mister foe...a movie clearly cast with me in mind. (this is going straight to DVD in canada, i'm sure of it.)

golly, look how much has changed! NOTHING...

once again, rogers’ online billing system has proven to be a completely useless piece of technology.

almost one year to the day since my last rant about their craptacular website and online-billing process, i once again experienced the profound frustration of trying to use their easy, user-friendly portal.

let me just say that it was not easy, nor user-friendly. it was a big, fat pain in my ass.

and all i wanted to do was reset my user password. simple, right? WRONG.

first off, because i’m a terribly responsible consumer and keep track of such things, i knew that my annual cable bill should be coming in any day now. but, since i’d signed up for online billing and knew that rogers’ site bllllllows hard, i wasn’t sure if i’d get an email notifying me that my bill was ready...or whether the bill would just magically arrive in my account and then sit there, unmentioned and unannounced, until it went past due. i was determined not to miss it and to stay on top of its arrival.

but – once again because of my previous frustrations with the site – i hadn’t logged on to rogers.com since last spring...and, as such, i’d forgotten my password. so i hit the handy “forgot your password?” button, answered the security question and was told that a temporary password would be emailed to me within seconds. after that, i was to use it to sign in and reset my password to something new and fabulous. (i added that last part. rogers doesn’t care what i do and certainly has no interest in my password’s fabulousness.)

so.

i checked my email. lo and behold, there was a message from rogers with my temporary password. i followed the email’s instructions, returned to the login page of rogers.com, entered my username and temporary password and was welcomed to the “reset password” page, where the very first thing it asked me to do was...

“enter old password.”

um.

what?

dear morons on the rogers.com web team: if i knew my old password, i wouldn’t have clicked on the “forgot your password?” button in the first place. you are idiots. xoxo, vickie.

so, i thought i’d try entering the temporary password. “maybe that’s what it wants?” i thought. tap, tap, tap...no. that didn’t work. after i hit “submit,” it logged me out and told me my session had timed out.

okay. :::: gritting teeth :::::

i tried again.

this time, i guessed at what i thought my old password might have been...i hit enter...and was immediately told that i had entered the wrong password, and that i had two more tries before my account would be frozen.

WTF?

i repeated this process twice more using the temporary password in two different browsers (because i remembered that rogers.com doesn’t take kindly to safari), but the exact same thing happened.

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY do they even bother having a website?!?!?!

frustrated, i clicked on their “contact us” button to get their customer-service number. before the site would give me that info, it asked me to choose what kind of issue i was having. a drop-down menu appeared and i selected “questions about rogers.com” since it was the only one close to what i needed.

a screen appeared with a long list of FAQ about the site...the fourth or fifth of which was “how do i reset my password?” i clicked on that. a message appeared onscreen, telling me to dial a 1-877 number so that a customer-service rep could reset it for me. ah, human assistance! perhaps that’s what this whole endeavour needed all along!

so i dialed the number. the number that the website specifically GAVE ME in response to the resetting-of-a-password question. i then had to go through a series of touch-tone options to get to someone who would assist me with my “rogers online billing account.” again, despite the website giving me this specific 1-877 number in direct response to “how do i reset my password?”, there was no “reset password” option in any of the touch-tone option menus.

this was getting beyond ridiculous.

after wading through the options, an operator picked up and asked how she could help me.

“i’m trying to reset my online-billing password and the website keeps logging me off, so i’m wondering if someone there can help with that.”

she paused. “ohhhh, i’m sorry. i’m actually not the right department for that, and my computer is down...”

she’s joking, right?

YOUR COMPUTER IS DOWN????? at a call centre for a WEBSITE???? this is not inspiring confidence, lady.

“i’ll transfer you to the department you need. please hold!”

and off i went into the telecommunications abyss. another operator answered.

“hi, this is whateverhernamewas, thank you for calling rogers, how may i assist you today?”

i explained my problem again.

“oh, i’m actually not the right person to talk to about that. let me transfer you to our online billing department and they can...”

i cut her off (nicely) and explained that the online billing department had JUST transferred me to her. she was very apologetic and very nice, and said that she was going to put me on hold and then find me an actual person who would help me with my problem. “i’m going to stay on the line with you until i make sure you’re connected with someone in the right department!”

very good. so i waited on hold. after a few minutes, she popped back on the line. “hi, i just wanted you to know that i haven’t forgotten about you. there’s a bit of a wait at the department, so i’m not going to transfer you until someone is ready to take your call.”

no problem, thanks.

after a couple more minutes, she returned, said the department was ready and conference-called me with a rather unfriendly fellow in whatever magical corner of the rogers call centre handled passwords.

very brusquely, in a tone that implied “okay, moron, you’re clearly too dumb to navigate the complexities of our amazing web portal so now i have to waste my time talking you through it,” he said:

“you need to go to www.new.rogers.com.” then there was silence on the line.

“do you want me to do that NOW?” i asked.

“yeah.”

would it have killed him to maybe ask me if i was actually online at the time? because i wasn’t. i was on the PHONE. so i got up, went to the computer, waited for it to connect, typed in the URL and saw a page that looked remarkably similar to the one from which i’d already been booted four times.

“okay, i’m there.”

“enter your temporary password, then just follow the instructions.”

“i did that last time, and it didn’t work. plus, why does it ask me for my old password when i obviously don’t remember what it is?”

“just enter the temporary password where it says `old password.’”

skeptical, i did it. and this time it actually worked. WHAAAAAAAAAAAT????

“wow! it worked this time!” i said, grateful that this mess was finally over.

as though he were reading (very unenthusiastically) from a script, and with the same tone of disdain mentioned above, he said, “has your issue been resolved?”

“yes, it has. thanks very much!”

“have a good day,” he said flatly and then hung up. somehow, i don’t feel he was being sincere. but whatever. i finally had a password and could view my account and could see that there was no invoice sitting within it, waiting to be paid. but i will be checking that account daily (now that i have that password tattooed on the inside of both eyelids) until it arrives.

then i will pay it.

then i will IMMEDIATELY opt out of this stupid-ass, endlessly frustrating and totally lame online billing system to go back to paper invoices sent through the mail like God intended.

it's sprung!

lou's stunning shot of an iris. (thanks, lou!)

today feels like the first real day of spring.

it's absolutely gorgeous outside -- cloudless blue sky, bright sunshine, a super-gentle breeze, temperatures expected to inch into the 50s. most of the snow has melted, and the grey, mucky clumps that remain should diminish in size considerably by the time the sun goes down later today. after weeks of on-again/off-again snow and rain and cold temperatures and warmer temperatures, today it feels like spring for real.

and with spring comes clear, ice-free sidewalks, amazing walking weather, the start of film-festival season (cinéfranco now, sprockets next week, hotdocs the week after, inside/out in may, and so on), maybe a trip back to the condo in florida, season finales...all good things.

so, on this lovely spring day, i'll turn the floor over to you to ask: what's your favourite thing about spring? and, to keep it balanced, your least favourite thing?

why?

this post-elimination interview does not make me like claire more. i've lost that loving feeling, apparently.

mirthful monday miscellany

it is gray and rainy here today. quite blah. the weather is mild, and much of the snow is melting (at last), which means the annual spring “is that rotting banana peels and dog poo i smell?” aromatic infusion will soon be wafting on the breeze. but it also means great walking weather is on the horizon. :-D

mom and i spent three days in buffalo, shopping and eating. i am dismayed to report that i woefully under-shopped and came back with a very tiny haul...made up mostly of chocolate and candy. seriously. i wanted shoes, a coat and some grown-up boots, but there were none to be had. i did get a $40 sweater for $5, and mom actually bought a pair of pants on clearance for 99¢. we ate well, too. well, “well” is relative, i suppose. we ate lots of crap, but it was good crap. krispy kreme donuts, auntie anne’s pretzels, target popcorn, cheesecake at the cheesecake factory, pepperidge farm milano cookies, assorted baked goods at panera. somewhere, lou is sobbing. i know.

young beatrix is, as i type this, preparing to put an offer in on a house. (OMG!) she and her beyond UH-MAY-ZING real-estate agent (who’d been referred to me, and whom i loved, and whom i’ve since referred to several other people) will present their offer – along with a sincere letter of interest – to the seller tonight at 6pm. it’s all very exciting and scary for YB...but the house is lovely. it needs some work (a new roof, structural repairs in the kitchen) but is a really charming, character-filled home. here’s a photo, obviously taken in summer. she’ll know later tonight whether she’s a new homeowner or whether the search for her first house will resume. fingers crossed!

okay, WHAT has happened to my beloved claire?!?! this past week’s episode of ANTM sucked much of my love for her right down the drain over the course of the hour, as she was the unfortunate recipient of the show’s trademark Bitch Edit™. the Bitch Edit™ is the annual episode where an otherwise lovely, sane, friendly, likeable contestant is suddenly revealed – via careful editing and storytelling – to be just as catty, juvenile and annoying as the more hateful hopefuls (whitney? fatima? i’m looking at you). whyyyyyyyyyy did they do this?! whyyyyyy did they have to destroy my image of the otherwise saintly and stunning claire? ugh, her behaviour in the apartment and, even worse, at panel – where she literally leapt for joy past a sobbing aimee when she learned she’d been spared from elimination – made me not like her anymore. boo! (you know...now that i think about it, i don’t think yoanna ever had the Bitch Edit™. she may have just reclaimed the #1 spot.) oh, and nevermind the fact that claire’s photo for the week blew hard. i mean, what kind of travesty is THIS?! i don’t know how and i don’t know why, but this is all tyra’s fault.

in related news, former ANTM winner – and another one of my all-time faves (who’s just regained the second-place standing in my heart now that claire’s dropped like a stone) – caridee english will be in toronto this coming weekend! caridee, the fabulous and funny and rebecca romijn-y girl who received a much milder Bitch Edit™ on her cycle (remember when she snarked at Nigel and was taken to task at panel?), will always have a place in my YouTube queue thanks to her now-classic attempt at hiding dizzily. gorgeous and goofy.

people can surprise you. in good ways. that is all.

[update at 8:48pm: young beatrix did not get the house. alas.]

leavin'....

my mom and i are taking off for a few days to shop (and eat) in the states, and i'm not bringing my laptop along this time, so the blog will be on hiatus until the weekend.

while i'm gone, perhaps you'd like to try your hand at this fun geography game. enjoy.

no, i have not fallen off the face of the earth...

...just in case anyone was worried that i had. i haven't been in a blogging frame of mind of late. pithy entries will resume at some point.

in the meantime, perhaps you'd like to buy the e.coli virus for someone you love.

she continues to rock

this week's claire photo.

from here, go elsewhere...

some interesting links on a friday night:

what i wouldn’t give to have been on this set on this day.

i didn’t really dig claire’s photo this week. but i still think she rawks.

thanks to eric, i saw this latest viral video. fred and sharon. keepin’ it real.

in certain areas of my life, i am trying very hard to practice this.

you know, even though he seemed needlessly wordy and florid, eckhart tolle wound up having some useful suggestions. more on him, and his suggestions, in a future post.

the most interesting this about this video? that park (actually called riverdale, not riverside, park) was about two blocks away from my old apartment at hell house. i miss that park.

and, finally, a quote i read this week that struck me: “that what the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over.” discuss.

consumer report of the day: cara cara oranges

OMG. have you heard of these? have you HAD these?

i discovered them today, completely by accident, when i headed out to buy fruit (per yesterday’s fruit-deficit lament). i was in the produce section and had a craving for citrus, and the store had the cara cara oranges (along with mineolas and tangelos) on sale. i figured they must be something special, given their sale comrades, but there was no description of what might be unusual about them. they looked just like navel oranges, and they were a product of the USA – meaning they weren’t imported from some remote, exotic locale where oranges have berries inside or something – so i decided to pick up three. if they were awful, i reasoned, i’d only have to deal with three of them. and, if they were fine, three would be enough with which to make quite a tasty fruit salad. i got home, took ‘em out and started slicing off the peel. imagine my surprise when that revealed a deep pink flesh inside! not blood-orange red, but a rich pink like that of a red grapefruit. cool! i started slicing the orange and sampled a section.

oh. my. god. SO delicious.

sweet, juicy and completely seedless! not to mention...really pretty! i chopped up all three oranges (no, not in the chopper), and then sliced up a couple of super-sweet fuji apples and presto! a kick-ass apples-and-oranges mélange that’s healthy AND totally yummy. in fact, it turns out that cara cara oranges are packed with all kinds of super-goodness.

fueled by a massive bowl of this fruity mixture, i decided to make crèpes for dinner. i stewed some fresh strawberries with a couple of teaspoons of seedless raspberry jam, and that’ll go on top.

i ate well today, i think.

jumble-aya

for starters, given my aversion to most seafood, i fear i wouldn’t actually partake of jumbalaya. sorry.

the weird energy in my building is starting to evaporate as things slowly...very slowly...return to normal. i found out today (from another tenant) that mr. super was cremated the day after his death and that there was a memorial service (in spanish) last thursday. mrs. super is here, trying to put her life together. still, many people in the building have no idea that he died. i feel like the property management company should have issued *some* kind of notice, if for no other reason than the fact that several long-term residents might have liked to have paid their last respects.

in related news, my oven is still broken. no sign of repair on the horizon, either.

my mom bought me a chopper for christmas this past december. it’s not really a food processor, but it serves the same basic purpose: to chop big things into smaller things. i have yet to open the box. it remains unused. i’m not sure what to chop. nuts? but for what? chocolate? again, for what? vegetables? i suppose i’d actually have to have some first in order to chop them. i feel like the chopper is not fulfilling its purpose in life as long as it sits on my shelf. suggestions welcome.

this morning i went to a screening of Horton Hears a Who. it was very cute.

i think claire may have stepped into the #1 spot on my Favourite ANTM Contestants of All-Time list. maybe. probably.

much to my own chagrin, because i hate bandwagon-jumping and tend to actively avoid flavour-of-the-minute trends, i’m reading A New Earth, the eckhart tolle book that oprah is pushing hard lately. i dunno. so far, i am underwhelmed. the book should be a relatively quick read given its length, but i’m finding his writing to be needlessly convoluted, repetitive and laden with froofy doublespeak. his central point is fairly clear – let go of the ego – but, man, does it ever take him lots and lots and lots of words to say it. i’ve just entered the second half of the book, where he begins to address how to fix what ails you, but i’m losing interest. he’s no deepak chopra.

young beatrix and i are desperate for a long-weekend jaunt to buffalo, but mother nature has had other ideas of late. namely: SNOW. given the massive amounts of lake-effect snow that fall in the niagara region, we’d only venture to the states in winter if the forecast for the entire area were close-to-perfect. so, the past two weekends – when we were both free and eager to go – mother nature has dumped copious amounts of snow. this coming weekend, though, the weather is (as of right now) supposed to be ideal. sunny and mild on friday, saturday and sunday. but guess what? young beatrix can’t go because she has long-standing plans. dammit! panera bread co., ted’s hot dogs, target, Cash Cab on discovery, bath & body works, krispy kreme, the cheesecake factory, wegman’s and the sample store will have to wait. rats.

i am hooked on Project Runway and i want to eat cupcakes with tim gunn. canada is about three episodes behind the states...but i’m no fool and i already know who eventually wins. still, it’s a terrific exhibition of talent week in and week out.

i am not eating nearly enough fruit. and my fridge is woefully understocked. i feel like a trip to the grocery store is in the cards for tomorrow.

tonight, given the kaput oven, i am going to attempt to bake a piece of fish (don’t get too excited, it’s multigrain-crusted tilapia from captain highliner) in my toaster oven. this causes me a tiny bit of concern because the electrical wiring in the building is kind of old, and every time i have my toaster oven on for an extended period of time the plug (at the outlet) gets very warm. the fish needs half an hour...so, fingers crossed. no room for potatoes in the little oven, though, so it’ll be seasoned rice as a side dish.

just a short while ago, i had a small epiphany not unlike that which i had around new year’s eve. in an email to a friend of mine, amid a discussion of good and bad, i outlined all the positive things that have happened to me in the past year...and, in the process, i realized (or, perhaps, was reminded): there have been a lot of positive things that have happened to me in the past year. yes, they might have come as a result of negative situations, but they came nonetheless. it was a lovely little “be thankful” reminder, and one that suddenly made me feel quite nice.

[update: who knew? the toaster oven did a fine job! the plug started to get warm at the outset, but then actually cooled right down to normal after a few minutes. so, yay!.]

this is why i watch ANTM...

claire had a makeover. she is absolutely stunning.

energized....or: the funk, brothers...

everybody has their own unique energy.

it doesn’t matter whether you’re aware of it, either in yourself or in other people. it’s there. it radiates off of you and, on some kind of subconscious level, is recognized by the people with whom you come in contact....and vice versa. the vibrations you or i give off are specific to ourselves, and their frequency can turn on a dime depending on a whole whack of factors. these energies – yours and/or someone else’s – can fill you with joy, or mess with your emotional well-being and, sometimes, your physical health. (there’s a ton of literature out there on the subject -- deepak chopra and eckhart tolle’s books for starters, some tenets of buddhism and other spiritual beliefs, etc. -- so i’ll spare you an extended essay on how we’re all connected and how each of us is a strand in the same cosmic thread, blah blah blah. especially if you’re already rolling your eyes at the notion of anybody giving off anything other than B.O.)

i tend to be sensitive to these energies, good and bad. the vibrations given off by someone who’s hostile or nervous or agitated are very different than those of someone who’s calm and relaxed, and those differences are usually lit up like a marquee for me without anyone having to say anything. (and then sometimes i’m totally wrong, and what i perceive as one thing is, in fact, something else entirely.)

nonetheless, these energies are fascinatingly weird.

to that end, i need to get out of my apartment for a while. at the moment, there is such profound grief in the building (over the sudden death of mr. super) that it is actually affecting me without me ever setting foot outside my door. there is a distinct, palpable shift in energy here, and it’s permeating the entire complex. mr. super’s death has affected not only his wife and children, who are all devastated, but more than a few long-term tenants who regarded him as a member of their family.

and all that sadness and heartbreak and mourning is filling the air to such a degree that i can feel it like a big cloud of sorrow. i can’t explain it, but it’s like i’m walking through leaden fog, and it’s starting to screw with my own energy. for lack of a better description: it’s seriously bumming me out. i tried escaping it yesterday by going for a long walk and then meeting young beatrix for dinner, and that worked just fine...until i returned home later in the evening and once again ran face first into that heaviness.

so, i’m heading to my parents’ house to spend the night tonight. i’m hoping that a little break, a big dinner and some ANTM later (ah, claire...i hope they do not destroy you with a crappy makeover!), will help remedy the funk...at least in me. because i don't enjoy it, brother.

laugh, and the world laughs with you...or at you...

given the previous, rather introspective post, i thought something a little lighter in tone might be in order. and i know how squirrelly people get whenever i write about anything serious, so allow me to return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

today’s topic: laughs. laughter. laughing. bringing the funny.

who or what always makes you laugh*, guaranteed?

and...

who is your favourite person (or people) to make laugh?

[*please note: i’m talking about really laughing, not just smiling contentedly or thinking to yourself, “my, my! that was indeed funny!” (that’s right, i know that’s what your collective interior monologues sound like.)]

for me, people i’m with can usually make me laugh harder than something i see on TV or in a movie. ericanddan, young beatrix and denette are very good at it. so is chris l. i love smart, dry, deadpan humour, too, so laura h. is also skilled in that regard. and, though it’s usually in writing since we live in different countries, moob’s emails – especially the ones that mock me outright – rank highly.

entertainment-wise, no matter how often it happens, sarah chalke’s manic, infuriated “frickity-frick-frick” network-friendly “swearing” on Scrubs gets me every single time. i still laugh at Friends. don’t judge me. david alan grier makes me laugh. so does andy samberg. i kneel at the altar of carol burnett and tracey ullman and french & saunders. and anytime jimmy kimmel does segments with kids, i’m usually in tears. speaking of tears, the movie Twisted actually had me crying because i was laughing so hard. (i should point out that it’s supposed to be a crime-thriller.)

as for my favourite audiences, i like a challenge. easy laughs are great, but it’s the tougher nuts to crack that i especially enjoy. if i can really get denette going, i’m quite proud of myself. i think it might have only happened once or twice (if that), but the same can be said for laura h. (you are my everest!). i like making greg laugh. and jaimie. and ericanddan, while technically easy laughs, are fun, too, because our collective laughter feeds on itself and grows to disturbing proportions.

okay, your turn. go!

life and death...and time...and stuff...and things...

tonight, i came home to my apartment building to see a police car parked out front. instantly, memories of hell house came flooding back and i wondered if someone would soon be led out in handcuffs, screaming obscenities and writhing like a crazy person.

thankfully, that did not happen. though, under the circumstances, i think i might have preferred if it had.

i went inside and waited for the elevator with an older woman who’d also just come in. we both saw a couple of men standing outside the super’s apartment talking quietly, and we exchanged concerned looks. (i should point out that you almost never see anyone anywhere in this building. sometimes it feels like the whole place is deserted, there’s that little foot traffic in the hallways...and certainly never people hanging out, chatting.)

she leaned towards me and said solemnly in a near whisper, “did you hear the sad news?”

“what? no. what happened?”

as we got on the elevator, she filled me in. it seems that on friday night, just after 11:30, the super’s husband went out to clear the snow, had a heart attack and died. outside. in the snow. (she guessed that the police car was here tonight just to follow up with the super and make sure things were okay.) i remember hearing fire-engine sirens late on friday night, looking out my window to see the flashing lights reflected in the windows of the nearby houses, and wondering if maybe the trucks were stopped outside my building because one of the other tenants had an accident.

it turns out they’d been there for mr. super.

i was surprised, but not entirely shocked, i suppose. mr. super was kind of a walking contradiction. he was sturdy and strong, but frail. depending on the day, he looked like he was in his late 60s or early 80s. just the other day i remarked to my mom that i was impressed he was still handling all the odd jobs around the building. he was skilled enough that he could fix just about anything, but it seemed like he probably shouldn’t be doing a lot of the manual labour he was still performing.

mr. super didn’t speak much english (mostly spanish), but he and i always exchanged pleasantries and smiles whenever our paths crossed. he had a full head of thick, white hair that was always perfectly coifed. he always wore dress shirts and pants, and always smelled like nice aftershave...as though he was making sure to be properly dressed for work. and i know how much his wife, the super, loved him – watching them work together, literally side by side, was exceptionally sweet. they’ve run this building together for more than 20 years, and were married much longer than that. i can only imagine her profound heartbreak right now.

the last time i saw mr. super was on friday afternoon, as we nearly collided outside the laundry room and laughed about the hurry i was in to add the fabric softener. later, i waved to him through the laundry room window as he and mrs. super passed outside, leaving for an appointment. and earlier last week, he spent a little more than an hour in my kitchen trying (unsuccessfully) to fix my ailing oven and showing me how to fashion a strange-but-invaluable hook-like tool out of an old hanger. he was sort of grandfatherly all around and, even though i didn’t really know him well, i’m sad that he’s gone.

so tonight, i’m sitting here in a somewhat mellow, slightly melancholy mood, having been reminded once again that life is almost always too short, and often over too soon. it’s nothing new, that thought. at least not for me; i’ve known it since i was little and, unlike most of the world, i’ve never lived with an attitude of “that’ll never happen to me.” just the opposite, actually. i know we only get a finite amount of time on earth, and sometimes our number comes up unexpectedly. suddenly. even if it’s not so sudden, no amount of preparation can really prepare you when it happens.

as a result, i’ve found that i often live with a mild sense of urgency. or, perhaps, simply an awareness that the circus doesn’t stay in town forever. i’d rather do it or say it now, than to wake up tomorrow to realize it’s too late and desperately wish that i had. i try to put out more good than bad, and to give without asking to get. i figure if i’m only going to be here for a limited engagement, i might as well do my bit to make sure my show is a nice one that leaves people happy. that’s not to say i think i’m living my best life; far from it. but i am acutely aware of time most of the time.

to that end, sometimes i wonder if i would choose to know if someone offered me the chance to find out when i’ll die. would i want that kind of information? would knowing exactly how much time i had left help me or hinder me? would i surge forward or be paralyzed? (and, yes, i realize some of you are thinking, “hey! i’ve had this talk with vickie before!”) i do enjoy deadlines, but would i really want this kind of deadline?

whenever i think about the subjects of life and death, these questions come up. after i sit around ruminating on what the universe might be trying to teach me when i get news like that of mr. super, i often wonder why i’m not just choosing to surge ahead in all areas of my life, regardless of how much time i might or might not have left on the clock? am i taking enough risks? getting what i want done done? or am i just biding my time...that time on which i *think* i have such a keen eye trained?

should i really be waiting for someone to stamp an expiration date on my forehead before i get on with things already?

anyway...

i apologize for the sloppy structure and meandering content of this post. i wasn’t sure what i wanted to write about, and i seem to have wound up mashing it all together in a manner that’s only moderately coherent. so, instead of rambling on further, i’ll pose the question to you and let you ramble:

if you could find out when you’ll die, would you want to know? why or why not? and do you think knowing would improve your life or ruin it?