man beats deer

This morning a deer was spotted downtown. Oh no, cried the city. A deer downtown! (Well, actually a doe, not a deer, a female deer...) So all the king's horses and all the kings's men went downtown to take care of the deer. Surely, Bambi's best interests were considered while they drugged and tasered her to the ground - in front of a billion cameras.

Here is a photo of the 'gentle' take-down.

man bites dog

Talk about a slow news day. Walking in this morning, five minutes early, as usual (athankyou), I’m met by a bit of chaos. A lot of standing, some fast talking. Something's cooking. I get a half-nod from across the way. Good morning to me.

I hear something about getting 'a camera down there'... Down where?

Down to the deer. The deer downtown. It was first spotted by Lakeshore. Perhaps it came in on the GO. Got out at Union. Wanted to see the big city before transit prices went up. Yes, there is a deer downtown and the press must be there. Not just the press. Half a dozen lit cruisers, a collection of able cops, the Toronto Emergency Task force and every news station in the GTA.

If someone doesn’t get shot today, tonight’s top story might be ‘Squirrel Gets Mashed By Car’.

is this it?

This morning, while exfoliating my face, I thought about New Years Eve. I’m not sure what made me think of it. But I did. Perhaps it was the remarkably sharp walnut scrub rasping against my bare, delicate skin. Either way. Once I patted dry, toned and moisturized, I sent a text homeward.

You know those people who somehow know the business and whereabouts of everyone, all the time, in the most inconspicuous of ways? A know-it-all who’s not the least bit meddlesome? A nosy parker in the most pleasant regard? Rare, but they do exist. And he’s one of them.

So, what’s the word?

“Ahhh. Good question,” he types back. “I have no idea. Whatever it is I’m sure it will be some crazy big deal, then turn out to be a big waste of time…”

I’d have sent the ‘shocked’ emoticon if I knew' how. This previously positive peg-city-party-enthusiast ("I'm sure it will be fun as long as we're all together!") had set sad sites set on the pending countdown celebration. Hearing him give up on New Years, a night filled with ridiculous plan making, limo rides, inevitable break-ups, elicit drugs and subsequent scandal (to discus over breakfast at Stella's) is like hearing Ghandi give up on world peace.

New Years is like a child that only a mother could love. Up until this morning, my texting partner was that mother. Every year we say it will be our last. The last time we spend $40.00 on a ticket. The last time we buy a new dress only to have it spilled on – or worse. The last time we’ll trek out in the thigh-high snow only to see that this party is not unlike every other party at any other time of year, just ten times more crowded. Every year we say it’s our last, and every new year we do it again.

But there was something in his tone (see: text formatting, selected spacing, drawn out punctuation etc.) that made me shiver in my bathrobe. Could this year truly be the year when the last year was actually our last? Could this really, finally, be it?

Secretly, or maybe not so secretly now that I've crafted an entire post about it, I'll admit that I truly, deeply, honestly hope not.

pretty ugly stuff

Here we are, lonely, lumpy, vainglorious members of a society so polluted with misconceptions about beauty. Love yourself as you are. You’re perfect as God made you. Sit here, young thing, and watch this Dove commercial. Bloom from within. Bloom, bloom!

I don't know, but this all smells like a big, buoyant turd to me.

Let me tell you, huge fake tits don't exist 'within the eye of the beholder'. They're found nestled in halters tops, bobbing along the Lakeshore and drinking vodka/sodas at Levack Block. Personally, I don't think pastic is all that appealing - but I bet I can head over to Gretsky's and find a few people who don't share my same position. That's not acumen either, I didn't read it on the back of a Starbucks cup. That, right there, is ice cold common sense. Sure, we can all embrace our stretch marks, but you can't continue to feed your loved ones spoonfuls of clichéd wisdom about that beholder's bloody eye.

You can, however, show them this. Or, if they can't read, this.

There is no one in the world who thinks their body's a perfect body, and I'd challenge any person who says that they do (brrring on the anonymous comments). From where I stand, the myth of perfection is most often bought into by the people who least represent it. If you need a change - get a haircut, start eating bran buds. Don't pump gelatinous viles of Peruvian gang victims into your browline.

I'd like to say we're all beautiful in our own little ways, but I would be lying. The truth? Well, it hurts. It always has. But probably not as much as a cutaneous infection caused by microbactrium avium after an elective abdominoplasty. Not that I'd know.

cowards anonymous

Typically, I hate to sound like a broken record. But, please allow me to sk, sk, skip for a moment. Anonymous nay-sayers are so tremendously annoying. I have tried everything: disabling my anonymous commenting… retorting… ignoring… therapy… The truth is, there is nothing that can be done. To disable is to turtle, to retort is to act a child and to ignore is against my nature. So today, I will confront.

Yesterday, a grammatical wizard posted this in my comments:

You forgot about Winnipeg? It is a dump, but to think you actually forgot your roots makes me feel so bad for you. Did you actually need to drive through some small bumpkin town to remember the city you grew up in? hHve the bright, blinking big city lights honestly made you forget your childhood? Have all your skinny fashion friends made you forget your real friends back home? Thats sad. I will never forget where I came from. No matter how "chic" my shoulder pads are. Youre blog is too shallow to look at & your city doesnt want you back anyway.

Let us dissect: This is a full-bodied blend of bullshit. Mmm. Robust. I taste notes of personalization, with just the slightest hints of spite and resentment. Fair to assume that I know this person. Fair too assume that I’ve pissed in their cornflakes. I’d like to say that our beloved anon is a ‘pegger, and that the ‘dump’ reference was meant to throw me off their scent. D&G Light Blue, perhaps? Regarding my ‘skinny fashion friends’, I do believe Russless cracked that chestnut when he stated that most of the best dressed are Winnipeg-born. It’s also a fair conjecture that this person has Toronto and Las Vegas confused, or has watched too many Minnelli movies. ‘Bright, blinking city lights’? Please, save us the harebrained platitudes. Who are you? R.L. Stine?

I say to you, Anon, whatever I have done to offend you was certainly unintentional. I love Winnipeg. In fact, I feel like this entire blog is laden with positive, amorous peg city references. Perhaps you just can’t understand them. My friends, no matter where they live, Winnipeg, Toronto, London, Ottawa, San Diego, Arizona, they’re always special to me, if not one of my most valued treasures in life. I wouldn’t trade my childhood for anything, and to forget where it is that I came from would be an utter impossibility. If what I’ve written bamboozles you, and it has if you think I'm forgetful, or worse, ungrateful for the people who have shaped me, then perhaps you should try reading picture books, or Archies, or something with a less layered appeal, and much shorter words. (And believe me, I’m not that deep). So, finally, let me do you a favor because I’ve always taken pride in helping those less fortunate than I. ‘You’re’ is an abbreviated form for you-are, and not a possessive. As in you’re a bloody idiot, and not your mother must be proud.

places we've been

I used to start the countdown much earlier, but now there’s just too much counting to be done that it’s hard to keep up. Hard to keep track. Countdown to lunch. Countdown to deadline. Countdown to air time. Countdown to bedtime. Countdown to morning. Countdown to Friday. So many shrinking numbers that the countdown to Winnipeg, to home sweet home, to holidays, to dog parks, to 204, and 874, to Mom etc., to hearty dinners and relics of heartache, to everything that has ever warranted counting, has been completely discounted. But never forgotten.

This weekend, on the way to the water, still 93 km (and counting), we drove through his hometown. The kind of hometown that can actually be called a town. The kind of hometown with street names like Meadow Grove and Ash Tree Way. The kind of hometown where you can go for blocks without encountering a traffic light or the blast of a city horn. The kind of hometown where the yellows on the roads are just dried leaves, not drawn lanes. The kind of hometown where the girl walking her dog was his first girlfriend, and where the schoolyard, that very one, is where he smoked his first cigarettes, where he played tag. That kind of hometown.

He points out the TCBY where he used to get samples, and dates with older women, and before that, along the four lane stretch of downtown, we pass the place where his mother’s candy shop once stood, and the pet store that employed him when his only reference was his paper route.

My mother was an accountant, and I rarely played tag, and never while I was smoking. I never smoked. So many differences between his hometown and mine. His childhood and mine. Still so much the same that I'm sick for home. Never before sicker. The car pulls past all the places that I’ve never been, but have been many times, in my own way, in my own un-townlike hometown, and then away from his nostalgia and closer to mine.

I count how long it takes to get back on the highway. Four minutes. That's no record, it seems. And then my own countdown begins. Twenty-two down. Twenty-one to go.

we've all got it:

xmas envy.