carli m.i.a.

It's been so long since I have written anything (that I'd proudly or freely share), or blogged, or composed anything more than an e-mail or restaurant listing or a "10 Hot New Ways to (who the fuck cares)", or so it seems, at least. Abandoning a blog is like going a while without calling an old friend. The longer you go, the more there is to tell and ask, but having to rehash life over the absent days, weeks, or months will take time in itself. Time that I don't always have. So another day, or week, or sometimes (so horribly) a month will go past until I have the time. But by then, there is even more to tell and ask. It's exhausting, and off-putting, and probably makes me sound like a lousy friend. And by using the intended parallel, a lousy blogger.

I'm so bad at playing catch-up so lets skip the pretence, and move on. Let's act like it never happened, while everything was happening, and wake up tomorrow like yesterday didn't come. And I'll try to be a better friend. I promise. I'll blog about you everyday.

From now on. Starting tomorrow.

forget regrets

'People in the Annex are really serious about their houses,' I'm told today. Oh, ambiguous. It's one of those blanket statements that she'll sometimes make when she's only listening enough to know that I want advice - but not listening enough to give it.

Odd as it is, though, her non-advice is always the best.

I was running late for work, and walking (when I should have actually been running) with a leaf of paper flapping in my hand. A letter from a landlord that's not mine, presumably addressed to me: dear house-sitter.

The landlord pointed out, in hardly-legible script, that the trash is removed on Tuesday morning. It's Wednesday. And it's still here, like I will be - until Sunday. As it turns out, I forgot about garbage day, like I have been forgetting about many other things. Sarah has a theory on why this is, but I forget that too. Not really, but admitting omission is worse, right? (Oops?)

On Sunday, I forgot something more important than garbage pick-up. I've been feeling rotten about it ever since Monday, when I was reminded: dear friend. This time in an email, and not a note taped to someone else's front door. Without fingering blame, he offered me the benefit of the doubt, acknowledging that there 'must have been a reason' that I missed his big night.

Truth is, there wasn't. At least not a good one. Forgetting really only applies to the geriatric.

Today I see photos of what I missed. It just twists the knife, a bit. And, still, someone else is going to have to deal with this garbage. I'll need to make it up to you, and to you, 'not my' landlord.

hbd gmb

I remember standing, ankles crossed, knees bent, bouncing in the bathroom line at the Pyramid. It was a Thursday, a Mod Night, and the wait to get in was impossible. Once inside, the lines were much worse. As usual.

'I just need to use the mirror!'

And suddenly, a wing of blonde hair flutters by, moving past me into the bathroom. The place that I so longed to be. That bitch, I thought. I can see her leaning over the sink and correcting her lipgloss, which needed no correction at all, I'm sure. Her outfit was spot on, her heels were high, and her voice even higher.

My bladder, how it throbs. I vowed then and there to never cut in line for a pee, or a primp, and of course, to never offer even the slightest of smiles, not even a nod to the girl who surely was causing me kidney damage. Could have been principle, maybe just jealousy, but most likely a merger of both.

Two years later, in another city, in what feels like a different universe, and in a dark, crowded wrong(choice)bar, I wait in line. Equally as pained as the last time. There are about four people ahead of me, and two people in each stall. It might take a while. And I wait.

'We just need to use the mirror!'

And suddenly, I'm hand in hand with the blonde, passing the people one by one, until in front of the mirror I stand. Her lipgloss is still perfect, her heels much higher than mine, and her voice, well, perhaps you've heard mine and you know she wins there as well.

Had you told me three years ago, while still bound in a smalltown social web, so tangled and complex; a hierarchical community ruled by kilts versus street clothes, who-slept-with-whom's, and age before everything, I would have never believed you. As she grows one year older today, and we all grow up decades daily, I'm one friend richer, and so much happier. And I never wait in bathroom lines anymore. At all.

Happy birthday to you; my line-cutting, gloss-loving, heel-stomping, high pitched, 'bitch' and facebook bride.

Art mimics Life imitating Art mocking Life

Have you ever experienced a moment of intuitive clarity where you think you can see someone as they will look in twenty years? When the light catches them just right? Or they make a certain face? Sigh a certain sigh? When someone is standing in front of you, and for just one minute, you can imagine what they'll look like behind the wheel of a mini-van, carting their offspring off to hockey practice, or for those who will take offense to this liable generalization, sitting behind their mahogany topped CEO's desk in their executive office, without a man or children at home, wearing power heels and rimless glasses?

I had that moment on Saturday night, but instead of seeing her from a certain angle, I saw her through a pane of glass. No, not her, but a painted portrait of what I envision her to look like in fifteen-or-so-years. In a gallery west of Ossington, just after midnight, I walked past the well lit window front and halted a dead stop. The likeness was eerie, and beautiful – as beautiful as the subject on canvass, and the girl I compare her to.

I won't say who I think this is, or rather, who this will someday be, but I welcome guesses.

Hi ma. Hi pa.

my act...

… also known as my schtick (among my more yiddy associates): It's an all encompassing, definitive summary of who I am (or propose, or appear to be), based on the things I say, the way I dress, the places I go, the music I like, and my overall behaviour in relation to my surroundings. Everyone has one, apparently. I hesitate to say 'apparently' as I'm pretty sure I've always known this, but only recently have I been called out on my 'act', and conversely, asked to recognize the 'acts' of others.

It's a strange categorical phenomenon. It's like having a type. I'm not sure if I have a type, but if all of the character variables and physical features are compared between relations past and present, I'm sure a 'type' could be discerned. I digress.

What's my act? I'm growing to understand that an 'act' is both important and superfluous. Important, because everyone weighs on them; superfluous, because they're indefinite. Charles Cooley penned the term Looking Glass Self, which sounds painfully vain, but it's more, uhh, sad and true? The whole theory is rooted in the idea that we see ourselves as we feel others see us (...and he thought of this before Lookbook.nu, talk about prophetic). My 'act', although it's my own, is completely out of my hands. You determine my 'act', and I can act however I like, even if I'm not really acting, and there is nothing I can do to control your assessment. So, however you evaluate me, that's who I am to you, and maybe even to myself, eventually.

Sitting in my mother's bathtub today, biding time on a (sadly) frigid Manitoba afternoon, I tried my best to imagine what my 'act' is from someone else's perspective. Only a few nights ago, I wore a short sleeved, white, men's shirt and a cream coloured blazer. Very Ben Gurion. I was told this outfit was part of my 'act'. I'm still trying desperately to understand what this means. My mom stands over a pile of magazines and clothes on the coffee table and says, 'Carli, you've only been home for three days and you're already starting your schtick…' My 'schtick', in this case, is leaving clutter and making messes. The funny thing is that back in Toronto, I keep my schtick in good order. I've got the cleanest schtick around. It's so clean, you could eat off my schtick. At a formal event on Tuesday, every pantsuit wearing Bubbie and Zaida in town approached me to pinch my cheeks and ask me about my present 'shpeal' (see: act, schtick)

Presently? Well, I dress in men's clothing, leave clutter wherever I go, and blog from the bathtub while I should be doing real work...

Although the term 'act' is a new one for me, the concept is anything but novel. Today, I'm told that I should start writing about 'the act', as it's a "great term" and everyone's got one. So, now, I can add something to my former character précis:

Presently? Well, I dress in men's clothing, leave clutter wherever I go, blog from the bathtub while I should be doing real work, and take simple text messages and turn them into longwinded, self-reflective web manifestos. So, that's my act. At present...

Like it or leave it.

a 30-45 minute wait

You can talk a million times a day, but it isn't until you actually sit down, just the two of you, and really talk, that you comprehend just how long it's actually been. In a room too crowded to care, we shout above everyone else - and we know no ones listening. She's been without phone, and I time. She's been away, and I've been busy, and it feels like neither of us has eaten in days – when really, it's only been hours. We share stories, and a pizza, and a bottle of wine – and decide not to share a cab at the end of the night. She goes west, and I go east, and I go to bed satisfied from dinner, starving for sleep, and dreaming of a summer filled with (more) cream-filling and two forks to match.

nevermind the twit(ter)

Growing up, I was both fiercely and frequently reminded that to be a follower was to fall behind.

"No one likes a follower," my mother informed me as I stomped my foot over a hooded Roxy sweatshirt that would never be mine. Apparently, Fruit of The Loom was somehow much more indicative of freethinking, and it was in a basic white crew-neck that I learned to embrace individuality. Ironic, I know.

Today, the first day at a new job. Wearing a new (old) blazer, in a new neighbourhood, I was asked to try and see 'following' in, yes, a new light.

"You've gotta just follow more people," I'm told. Pouring over a much heavier, much slower laptop than the rest of them, I quickly, nervously agree to follow as many people as my mouseless hand can click at. Of course, I am speaking of Twitter: the be-all-end-all of social media networking, and the death of normative interaction.

Twitpic, Twibes, Tags, RSS, Technorati, and then suddenly I’m 'Digging' for something. (Perhaps meaning?) A cyclone of cyber jargon whips around the beautiful room. The only thing blowing harder is the air conditioner. And still, I'm sweating, cross-legged on a gorgeous suede chair, wearing my glasses. I wore my glasses all day at my new job, as if to say ‘Yeah, I love the internet’, and heels, as if to say ‘Ok, maybe I just like to blog...’

My task is a little less html-intensive than the rest of the gang. A semi-sigh of relief. Occasionally, though, I must twit...tweet...? So, I sit. And I tap away at my keys, composing and erasing, trying to think of something that I can say, and also something someone else might care to read. The curser blinks.

I type. I am sitting here, in a room, wearing a new blazer, and my glasses, drinking a diet coke, trying to...twat? Backspace.

I don't really get it. Twitter is to me, as dancing is to the town's people in Footloose (1984). Nevermind.

Eventually this will all make more sense. Right? I'm sure of it. Sort of. Good Expensive education. Moderate to considerable confidence (on most days). Eager to learn. Happy to write. Then why do I feel so, I don’t know, out of touch? Inadequate?

I hear no one uses ICQ anymore. 'Uh Oh!'

feel so good

"Today could be a wonderful day for many reasons:
We might get mail from the postman, or, we might just get a song from Mase..."