Relishing.ca
working on the re-write…
Launch
The 100 Strangers gallery show runs from April 29 to June 3rd at Irene’s Pub, 885 Bank Street. The party is on May 9th, 7 – 9. But you can purchase a book, e-book or print anytime.
I want to…
…come to the party.
…buy a book (softcover and e-book available).
…buy a print.
…hear more about this project.
…hear more about the cause.
…contact Kym.
Thanks, Ottawa. You’re so rad.
The odds
I am not genetically inclined towards clefting, I just happen to be exceptional. (This, I learned only recently.) Premeditated or not (is that you, God, because not funny, man) cleft lip and palate is one of those things a rational adult could probably contextualize at a certain level, only that it happens to babies, who then grow up into adults who cannot rationalize it, because, man. It totally sucked.
But here I am! The better for it, etc. etc. It is not uncommon that we, the privileged, cannot actually understand how pathetic we are in our own self-pity, but I am not so common, as you’ll recall. Disaffected, wealth-like and totally into expensive shoes, mos def. Unrepentant about it also. But the second I lose touch of the honour and cosmic luck we enjoy for having been born here, now, I send myself straight back to Africa, India, Asia. To the 95 percent beyond our borders who, in absence of bad luck, wouldn’t have any at all.
And that’s where these kids are. Born, wailing and without upper lips. Unable to suckle and therefore eat. Without the handy coverall of wealth and health care, and the moral magnitude of rich, cold nations who merely pony up when something goes wrong, rather than turn away. Or turn the victim away. Or worse.
So that’s why.
Come to Irene’s on May 9th at 7:00. And give me a hand helping those kids smile.
I made another poster to make this point subtly. Meaning fewer italics.
Coloured
It’s Holi! Next to the Carnival of Venice, Holi has got to be my most coveted festival experience. It is profoundly reassuring to me that we still retain an awareness of the beauty around us, and most especially of change. And we’re not immune here in Canada, you northern naysayers. Check out the sunset sometime this week, and tell me it isn’t just a might bit prettier all of a sudden.
Were I to tangent, it’d be towards some northern lights; they’re prime right now because of a solar flare, and honestly, it is so cool that we live in a science fiction novel. But if by now you’re still counting on me to point out the dead obvious and heartbreaking grace of this earthly plane, to say NOTHING of its similitude with just about everything Douglas Adams ever wrote, then my friend, we just can’t carry on like this. Take your towel and leave.
If you were looking for a second opinion, however (Holi, not aurora), then you ought to watch Outsourced, a charming movie not related to the awful television show with one epic Holi colour fight, and a nice take on the importance of the occasional destruction. Brought to you by religions that aren’t mine.
Next topic: This woman is talking about yours truly. What’s that? You don’t think I’m an introvert? EXACTLY. Now excuse me while I go pursue one of my many totally autonomous and largely personal creative hobbies that distance me from inane human interactions that make me cringe. SEE?
(You can watch the talk here.)
As evidence to the contrary: I somehow signed up for this. I’m told I have to climb a rope, and it’s all I can bring myself to learn about it.
This post will end in shoes.
If, then
I have the best of intentions. Waking suddenly to a locked-away and decidedly awful memory becomes a quiet thrill of self-aggrandizement. A great masterpiece, I think, half-dead and mostly asleep again. Tragedy is the stuff of great blog posts.
Hamartia: the fatal flaw. Mine? That I set the bar so beyond realistic that, even attained it feels empty. So I stop putting bars up, or this is what I tell myself, until I look back at the breakage and it is not inconsequential, not surprising that I should imagine myself the commander of a doomed vessel I, and only I, can become martyr of. Except that the ship doesn’t sink. Not yet. (It is a younger me that refuses my present.)
And oh, the sickly saccharine sooth-sayers, the chattering masses, who weigh down their prows with butchered Bronte, and seize the day (from whom, exactly?). I despise the ludic yearning heroine, high on her own self-help, adamant that if, (the clause) will surely mean then (the fantastical outcome.) They disbelieve in me, because I do not conform, do not agree that loving myself all over the latest social network is the same as love. Or anything at all like it.
If I wear/think/write/pretend, then. dotdotdot
Do not trust then. That ship is sinking.
***
Seriously. There are moments from my adolescence that make me cringe to this day.
***
Is it too soon to have another keg party? What’s reasonable, in adult-terms?