Generally speaking, I would sooner give Ed Asner a tongue bath than sit through a movie musical, but each year around this time I make an exception for White Christmas. I just have to watch Bing and Danny and “the girls” sip martinis in “a drafty old club car” for the umpteenth time while they sing rapturously—and let’s admit it, goofily—about snow. Chalk it up to nostalgia.
Growing up, I learned just about everything about adult life from watching White Christmas. I learned that nightclubs were places where men showed up dressed in pastel suits with matching shoes and sat with elegant women (boy, girl, girl, boy) at tables with white tablecloths where they drank cocktails and flirted coyly and listened to brassy bands and danced expansively and “had a few laughs.” Even after I came of age and had visited my share of nightclubs—dank, shrieking dungeons where beer-soaked louts came on crudely to glassy-eyed women on sweaty, flesh-pit dance floors while grinding to an amplified bass line that could make your ears bleed—even after that, the defining image of a nightclub, in my mind, was a place where the waiters wore tuxedos and the Haynes Sisters performed two shows a night.
I learned that war was fun—kind of a summer camp where you met lifelong buddies and were governed by an avuncular general with a heart of gold. Sure, there was combat, too—that scene where Danny Kaye saves Bing from the falling papier-mache wall? Shades of Saving Private Ryan—but the battlegrounds were clearly defined and the enemy obligingly good about surrendering.
Most important, I learned that a short, jug-eared doofus can win the heart of the most stunningly beautiful woman if he knows how to sing persuasively about insomnia cures (just count your blessings instead of sheep).
The sad thing is the reality was much less glamorous, not just for me but for the actors in their remaining days, each of them with an off-screen tale of woe. There’s Bing, the emotionally distant, abusive father; Danny Kaye, who had the misfortune to be gay before it was fashionable; Vera-Ellen, one of the pioneers of anorexia nervosa, a condition probably brought on by the stress of having a hyphen for a middle name. And Rosemary Clooney—lovely, wistful, Rosemary “Love, You Didn’t Do Right By Me” Clooney, who was serially abandoned by both parents as a child and descended into madness in her middle years before enjoying a late, and all too brief, career revival.
So we watched it again last weekend. And once again, I have those dopey songs in my head for days afterward. Danny saves Bing from the falling wall again, the general gets misty again when he sees the old troops, Rosemary comes back again, the snow falls, and once more there is a white Christmas. Just like the ones I used to know.
Tuesday, December 23, 2003
Saturday, December 20, 2003
Dan Swings A Deal
Well, what’s a new desk without a new chair?
The new desk is taller than the old one, which meant either I would have to peer, Kilroy-style, at desktop level while working, or we would have to adjust our chair’s height. While attempting to manipulate the controls on our old chair (a penitentially uncomfortable, gruesomely stained, steno-pool affair that we picked up at a yard sale), Kim managed to sever whatever vertebrae were holding the back support in place, and the backrest collapsed to seat level and stayed there. Instant and irreversible paralysis.
And so we motored off to fetch a replacement. “There’s that place on Hastings Street,” I say to Kim, “that always has office furniture out on the sidewalk. I think they’re having a sale.” And indeed, when we pull up there is a clutch of swivel chairs outside the premises and a handwritten sign that says “Closing Sale” in large, irregular letters on the window. “All right, a closing sale. Maybe I can swing a deal,” I say. Kim rolls her eyes.
“Thirty bucks!” I say, “What a deal. You can’t do better than that.” I’m pointing out a sleek little number with burgundy upholstery and a satisfying array of adjustment levers that is sitting atop a desk. A weathered piece of cardboard pinned beneath its casters says it’s marked down from a hundred bucks. “Sold!” I shout in triumph. Kim rolls her eyes audibly.
The proprietor we meet inside is a swarthy man with greasy hair and a suspiciously indefinable accent. He’s standing in a floor space littered with office remnants in various states of decrepitude. The place has the eerie, defeated feel of an abandoned storefront campaign headquarters.
“That chair,” I say, pointing out the window. “Thirty bucks?” He looks at the chair, then at me.
“No, that chair fifty bucks.”
“Fifty bucks? There’s a sign that says thirty bucks. Which chairs are thirty bucks, then?”
“No chair. The desk.”
“The desk is thirty bucks?”
“Chair is fifty bucks. Good deal.” He guides me to the window and points out a handwritten sticker on the back of the chair. “You see. It was one hundred and forty. Now fifty bucks. Good deal.”
“Well, I suppose that is a good deal,” I say. Kim is rolling her eyes again, but she’s not as quick as I am in negotiating. It is clearly a one hundred and forty-dollar chair—it says so in indelible magic marker on the sticker—and we would now be saving ninety dollars instead of just seventy! Still, I don’t want him to think that I’m an easy mark, so I play it cool.
“Fifty bucks, eh?” I rub my chin thoughtfully. “Let me take another look.” He follows me out onto the sidewalk and begins demonstrating the many features of the chair. The seat goes up. The seat goes down. The armrests go up. The armrests go down. The backrest goes up. The backrest goes down. I ask him to show me how the seat moves once more, just so he knows that I’m savvy.
“Very good deal,” he says. “American made. Not Taiwan crap. The real thing.” He leans in conspiratorially and confides, “Chinese lady buys one earlier today.” He looks at me significantly. I have no idea what that is supposed to mean.
“OK,” I say. “Yeah. OK. I like it.”
“I let you have it,” he says. “For seventy bucks.”
“Seventy bucks?”
“Seventy bucks, tax included. I’m closing out. I give you a deal. Seventy bucks, no tax.” Well, I figure, it’s always a bonus when you’re able to evade the taxman’s grasping fingers. Can’t pass up that opportunity.
“Sold,” I say.
Back inside I explain to Kim how I have negotiated us a price of seventy dollars for the chair. “It’s a good deal,” I say, “half off the regular price.” Her eyes are rolling like pinwheels.
The greasy man notices us looking at the plastic floor mats that facilitate easy chair-rolling on carpeted surfaces. There a few of them scattered about, and they appear scuffed and obviously well-used. “I'll let you have one,” he says. “I give you one.”
“Well, thank you.” We start comparing them for size and condition.
“Yep. Just ten bucks.”
Kim and I confer briefly and decide that we really don’t need one. “Never mind,” I say, "just the chair.” I mean, really. Who does he think he’s dealing with?
The new desk is taller than the old one, which meant either I would have to peer, Kilroy-style, at desktop level while working, or we would have to adjust our chair’s height. While attempting to manipulate the controls on our old chair (a penitentially uncomfortable, gruesomely stained, steno-pool affair that we picked up at a yard sale), Kim managed to sever whatever vertebrae were holding the back support in place, and the backrest collapsed to seat level and stayed there. Instant and irreversible paralysis.
And so we motored off to fetch a replacement. “There’s that place on Hastings Street,” I say to Kim, “that always has office furniture out on the sidewalk. I think they’re having a sale.” And indeed, when we pull up there is a clutch of swivel chairs outside the premises and a handwritten sign that says “Closing Sale” in large, irregular letters on the window. “All right, a closing sale. Maybe I can swing a deal,” I say. Kim rolls her eyes.
“Thirty bucks!” I say, “What a deal. You can’t do better than that.” I’m pointing out a sleek little number with burgundy upholstery and a satisfying array of adjustment levers that is sitting atop a desk. A weathered piece of cardboard pinned beneath its casters says it’s marked down from a hundred bucks. “Sold!” I shout in triumph. Kim rolls her eyes audibly.
The proprietor we meet inside is a swarthy man with greasy hair and a suspiciously indefinable accent. He’s standing in a floor space littered with office remnants in various states of decrepitude. The place has the eerie, defeated feel of an abandoned storefront campaign headquarters.
“That chair,” I say, pointing out the window. “Thirty bucks?” He looks at the chair, then at me.
“No, that chair fifty bucks.”
“Fifty bucks? There’s a sign that says thirty bucks. Which chairs are thirty bucks, then?”
“No chair. The desk.”
“The desk is thirty bucks?”
“Chair is fifty bucks. Good deal.” He guides me to the window and points out a handwritten sticker on the back of the chair. “You see. It was one hundred and forty. Now fifty bucks. Good deal.”
“Well, I suppose that is a good deal,” I say. Kim is rolling her eyes again, but she’s not as quick as I am in negotiating. It is clearly a one hundred and forty-dollar chair—it says so in indelible magic marker on the sticker—and we would now be saving ninety dollars instead of just seventy! Still, I don’t want him to think that I’m an easy mark, so I play it cool.
“Fifty bucks, eh?” I rub my chin thoughtfully. “Let me take another look.” He follows me out onto the sidewalk and begins demonstrating the many features of the chair. The seat goes up. The seat goes down. The armrests go up. The armrests go down. The backrest goes up. The backrest goes down. I ask him to show me how the seat moves once more, just so he knows that I’m savvy.
“Very good deal,” he says. “American made. Not Taiwan crap. The real thing.” He leans in conspiratorially and confides, “Chinese lady buys one earlier today.” He looks at me significantly. I have no idea what that is supposed to mean.
“OK,” I say. “Yeah. OK. I like it.”
“I let you have it,” he says. “For seventy bucks.”
“Seventy bucks?”
“Seventy bucks, tax included. I’m closing out. I give you a deal. Seventy bucks, no tax.” Well, I figure, it’s always a bonus when you’re able to evade the taxman’s grasping fingers. Can’t pass up that opportunity.
“Sold,” I say.
Back inside I explain to Kim how I have negotiated us a price of seventy dollars for the chair. “It’s a good deal,” I say, “half off the regular price.” Her eyes are rolling like pinwheels.
The greasy man notices us looking at the plastic floor mats that facilitate easy chair-rolling on carpeted surfaces. There a few of them scattered about, and they appear scuffed and obviously well-used. “I'll let you have one,” he says. “I give you one.”
“Well, thank you.” We start comparing them for size and condition.
“Yep. Just ten bucks.”
Kim and I confer briefly and decide that we really don’t need one. “Never mind,” I say, "just the chair.” I mean, really. Who does he think he’s dealing with?
Tuesday, December 16, 2003
Dan Tries Out The New Desk
That last entry was sort of a test. I’ve got a new desk and have just finished re-arranging the furniture in my den, and I had to see what it felt like to write while facing West. I don’t know, it’s going to take some getting used to. There’s that, and also the fact that since firing up the computer in the new location everything on the monitor—icons, web pages, Word text—is all ridiculously jumbo-sized. It suddenly feels like I’m using a Fisher Price computer while wearing oven mitts.
* * *
I see from my jumbo-sized email that one of my devoted readers (the other one is on vacation) is down with the flu and her febrile mind has been speculating on what poor Saddam’s last days of “freedom” were like. “Was lying in the dirt-tube his day job?” Trudy, the self-proclaimed art-slut wonders. “Did he actually emerge from the hole at 5:30 after a hard day in the bunker and sleep in the hut?” Good question. And while we’re at it, here’s another one. They say that when Saddam was found he identified himself as the president of Iraq and said he wanted to negotiate. Now, I’m no insane deposed dictator but it seems to me when you’re cornered in a dirt-tube with only the lice and rats for company and you’re staring down the barrel of an armored brigade, your bargaining position is going to be kind of shaky. What was he going to do, swap his freedom for a can of Spam and a ball of earwax?
Hmm… maybe I’ll try facing Northeast…
* * *
I see from my jumbo-sized email that one of my devoted readers (the other one is on vacation) is down with the flu and her febrile mind has been speculating on what poor Saddam’s last days of “freedom” were like. “Was lying in the dirt-tube his day job?” Trudy, the self-proclaimed art-slut wonders. “Did he actually emerge from the hole at 5:30 after a hard day in the bunker and sleep in the hut?” Good question. And while we’re at it, here’s another one. They say that when Saddam was found he identified himself as the president of Iraq and said he wanted to negotiate. Now, I’m no insane deposed dictator but it seems to me when you’re cornered in a dirt-tube with only the lice and rats for company and you’re staring down the barrel of an armored brigade, your bargaining position is going to be kind of shaky. What was he going to do, swap his freedom for a can of Spam and a ball of earwax?
Hmm… maybe I’ll try facing Northeast…
If Today Is Your Birthday
You have the energy of a hyperactive, goal-oriented gerbil. You are loyal, kind, and have an unusually large, red tongue. When "Shirts" are playing against "Skins" you always contrive to be on the "Skins" side. You know that the people are represented by two separate and equally important groups, but you can never remember what they are. You are known for your clever wit, your stylish socks, and your tendency to mispronounce foliage. People secretly envy you for your neatly trimmed cuticles. Today, someone will say "Happy birthday" and you will foolishly reply, "You too!"
Your hobbies include navel-gazing and looking on the bright side.
Your favorite tire pressure is 35psi.
Your hobbies include navel-gazing and looking on the bright side.
Your favorite tire pressure is 35psi.
Sunday, December 14, 2003
Welcome Back, Saddam
While watching the coverage of Saddam Hussein’s capture this morning (and geez, he’s really let himself go, hasn’t he?) I realized that one of the things I’m thankful for is that I live in a country where we don’t celebrate momentous national events by spraying the streets with gunfire. Sure, it’s understandable, even commendable, that a good number of Iraqi citizens would greet the news with a measure of demonstrable ebullience, but couldn’t they convey that joy without bringing lethal ammunition into play? Most of these celebrants in the streets of Baghdad are displaying a sort of ballistic enthusiasm that makes Yosemite Sam look like Mahatma Gandhi.
We here in Canada had our own regime change last week, and we should all be proud that when Paul Martin was sworn in to replace Jean Chretien, Robson Street merchants didn’t burst from their stores with automatic weapons to perforate the skies with bullets. Color me paternalistic, but I think that, while we’re over there re-making the Middle East in our own image, we might want to start by gently prying the Uzi out of Habib’s hands and introducing him to a slide whistle.
***
And isn’t it graciously civil, not to mention fundamentally American, that the first thing US officials did upon seizing the arch-villain was to give him a comprehensive makeover? Sort of a Queer Eye For The Dictator Guy (“Saddam? Can I be honest here? This whole grizzled hobo beard thing just isn’t doing it for me.”) A shower, a haircut, a shave, and--from the looks of the endlessly-looped video footage—an examination of his tonsils were all included in the package. Who knows, perhaps Dr. Phil is being airlifted in to help him slim down for the upcoming tribunal. And just wait until Saddam finds out what the While You Were Out crew has done to his palaces.
We here in Canada had our own regime change last week, and we should all be proud that when Paul Martin was sworn in to replace Jean Chretien, Robson Street merchants didn’t burst from their stores with automatic weapons to perforate the skies with bullets. Color me paternalistic, but I think that, while we’re over there re-making the Middle East in our own image, we might want to start by gently prying the Uzi out of Habib’s hands and introducing him to a slide whistle.
***
And isn’t it graciously civil, not to mention fundamentally American, that the first thing US officials did upon seizing the arch-villain was to give him a comprehensive makeover? Sort of a Queer Eye For The Dictator Guy (“Saddam? Can I be honest here? This whole grizzled hobo beard thing just isn’t doing it for me.”) A shower, a haircut, a shave, and--from the looks of the endlessly-looped video footage—an examination of his tonsils were all included in the package. Who knows, perhaps Dr. Phil is being airlifted in to help him slim down for the upcoming tribunal. And just wait until Saddam finds out what the While You Were Out crew has done to his palaces.
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
Dan Tries to Order a Pizza When Kim is Not Home
“Hello, Pegasus Pizza.”
“Yes, hello. I’d like to order a small ham and onion pizza for delivery, please.”
“Yes, yes, ok. Pizza, yes. What you want on it?”
“Ham. And onion.”
“Yes, yes. Ham and olive pizza.”
“No, onion.”
“Yes, yes, no onion. Yes, yes.”
“No, no. I want onion.”
“Yes, yes, ok. I sorry. Ham and olive and onion.”
“No, no. No olive. Just onion.”
Yes, yes. Yes, yes, ok. Just onion pizza.”
“No, no. Ham and onion. Ham, too.”
“You want two pizza? Ok, yes, yes.”
“No, no. I want one. One pizza. With ham and onion.”
“Ok, yes, yes. One pizza. What size you want?
“Small.”
“Yes, yes. And what your address?”
“It’s 301 Afton Lane.”
“301 Asterlay Street?”
“No. Afton Lane. Not ‘Street,’ but ‘Lane’.”
“Butlay?”
“No, not ‘Butlay.’ Lane. Afton Lane.”
“Yes, yes ok.”
“Ok?”
“I sorry. What your address? 301…”
“Afton Lane.”
“Ashton Way.”
“No, Afton. A-F-T-O-N.”
“Yes, yes! Yes, yes! You spell!”
“A…”
“A.”
“F…”
“S.”
“No, no. Not S. It’s F as in Frank.”
“Yes, yes, ok. I sorry, Mr. Frank. You spell again, please.”
“A…”
“A.”
“F…”
“F”
“T…”
“T.”
“O…”
“O. Oh! Oh! Afton Lane! Afton Lane! Yes, yes, Mr. Frank, I know now! Yes, yes, I know. Afton Lane. Very good. I know now. Ok, yes, yes. It be 30 minutes. Ok?
“Ok, thank you.”
Seventy minutes later the pizza arrived. With olives.
“Yes, hello. I’d like to order a small ham and onion pizza for delivery, please.”
“Yes, yes, ok. Pizza, yes. What you want on it?”
“Ham. And onion.”
“Yes, yes. Ham and olive pizza.”
“No, onion.”
“Yes, yes, no onion. Yes, yes.”
“No, no. I want onion.”
“Yes, yes, ok. I sorry. Ham and olive and onion.”
“No, no. No olive. Just onion.”
Yes, yes. Yes, yes, ok. Just onion pizza.”
“No, no. Ham and onion. Ham, too.”
“You want two pizza? Ok, yes, yes.”
“No, no. I want one. One pizza. With ham and onion.”
“Ok, yes, yes. One pizza. What size you want?
“Small.”
“Yes, yes. And what your address?”
“It’s 301 Afton Lane.”
“301 Asterlay Street?”
“No. Afton Lane. Not ‘Street,’ but ‘Lane’.”
“Butlay?”
“No, not ‘Butlay.’ Lane. Afton Lane.”
“Yes, yes ok.”
“Ok?”
“I sorry. What your address? 301…”
“Afton Lane.”
“Ashton Way.”
“No, Afton. A-F-T-O-N.”
“Yes, yes! Yes, yes! You spell!”
“A…”
“A.”
“F…”
“S.”
“No, no. Not S. It’s F as in Frank.”
“Yes, yes, ok. I sorry, Mr. Frank. You spell again, please.”
“A…”
“A.”
“F…”
“F”
“T…”
“T.”
“O…”
“O. Oh! Oh! Afton Lane! Afton Lane! Yes, yes, Mr. Frank, I know now! Yes, yes, I know. Afton Lane. Very good. I know now. Ok, yes, yes. It be 30 minutes. Ok?
“Ok, thank you.”
Seventy minutes later the pizza arrived. With olives.
Sunday, December 07, 2003
Notes From A Lost Weekend, Part Three, Phase Two: Of Tittles and Dinkuses
I am always slightly, perversely, disappointed when I pass through a border checkpoint unmolested. That’s because I almost always pass through a border checkpoint unmolested.
I still have, even in my rapidly advancing middle age, an inescapable boyish quality—the sort of benign, unprepossessing bearing that inspires grandmothers to pinch my cheeks and border guards to give me a wink and a nod and send me on my way. It’s not that I really want to be subjected to the full Midnight Express, rubber-glove-cavity-search experience. But it would be nice if once, just once, I was regarded with a respectful wariness. It just doesn’t do much for my self image to know that U.S. Customs and Immigration officials, even in these post-9/11 days of hyper-vigilance, consider me about as threatening as a cocker spaniel.
So last Sunday, as we approach the Peace Arch border crossing booth, I make it a point to wear my sunglasses, along with what I hope is an inscrutable expression and an air of sullen insouciance. And indeed, the customs officer’s demand to see our papers arouses a satisfying frisson of apprehension, although, to be fair, it’s more of a genial, routine request for ID.
“Where you folks headed?” he says, giving my passport an idle, cursory glance.
“Bellingham.”
“How long you expect to be gone?”
“Few hours, maybe,” I answer vaguely, in what I imagine is a pugnaciously challenging tone.
He hands our documents back. “You have a good day, now,” he says, and sends me on my way with a wink and a nod. Damn.
* * *
Our destination is a specific district of Bellingham, a quaint town-within-a-town known as Old Fairhaven, the sort of aggressively nostalgic place that evokes images of Jimmy Stewart running a failing savings and loan. More specifically, we have come to visit a bookstore—what is, in my opinion, the quintessential small town independent bookstore, Village Books.
For sheer volume and ambition, Powell’s City of Books in Portland, Oregon remains the uber-bookstore, the destination of choice for the serious booklover. It consumes an entire city block, is stocked with thoughtfully-selected new and used volumes (new and used editions of the same title are offered side by side on the shelves—a counter-intuitive sales approach that nonetheless seems to work), and really does have the feel of a self-contained city. I remember collecting my store map on my first visit and wandering, blissfully discombobulated, for hours—up these stairs, down that corridor, through that passageway—consulting my map every once in awhile like an indoor orienteer. Kim and I met up eventually in the café and did a quick inventory of our selections. A rudimentary tally revealed that our total would exceed the gross national product of some emerging nations, and so we sat for the next hour, sipping coffee and plea-bargaining with each other until we had a more manageable assortment to bring to the cashier.
My, how I do digress.
Village Books lacks the grandeur of Powell’s but it makes up for it in character. First of all, it bears the charm of distance—not so far away (like Powell’s) that it involves extended travel plans, but remote enough to be beyond reach for everyday drop-ins. It’s in an historic two-story building, with warm lighting and wooden floors, and it’s staffed by career booksellers: slightly distracted, amiable sorts who tend toward cardigans and half-glasses on chains, and who are always ready with recommendations. Best of all, it is one of those bookstores where the frontlist titles go deeper than you’ll find at the chain megastores. The stock here isn’t maintained by computer-generated replenishment guidelines, that much is obvious. Not to get too sentimental about it, but you can just tell when you’re in the presence of a selection that has been painstakingly assembled by a real, live, impoverished, singularly obsessive bookseller. A good bookstore has an unmistakable personality, and Village Books is a good bookstore.
We spend and hour or so in the upper level, Kim and I taking turns minding Abby, who is once again being adorably patient. Of course, she is at the age now where her hobbies include making a fist, sucking on her collar, and staring at strangers, so she is able to amuse herself for extended periods.
* * *
Downstairs at Village Books is the Colophon Café, a pub-style eatery ensconced among the shelves in the low-ceilinged rooms that make up the lower floor. And let me tell you, if there is a better way to spend a mid-winter Sunday afternoon than thumbing through newspapers while enjoying a hot lunch and a cold Guinness in a cozy corner of a quietly bustling, pleasantly rustic bookshop, well I just haven’t found it. We languish there for a considerable time before we get up and, with hearty sighs, pat our bellies in satisfaction and meander off to investigate the rest of the store.
* * *
In the language section, I come across a book about the history of typewriter letters and characters, an irresistible little volume called “Quirky Qwerty,” which finds itself conveyed to the cash register in my hot little grip. It is chock full of diverting trivia with which I plan to amuse my friends and confound my enemies. For instance, did you know that the exclamation mark used to be known as a “bang” or “screamer” among printers? The dot above the “i”? I bet you’ve always referred to it as “the dot above the ‘i'.” Why, that’s a tittle, I’ll have you know. And here’s another little fact that is suspiciously close to being interesting: whenever a writer of meager abilities finds himself unable to sustain a narrative and breaks up the text with a series of asterisks, like this * * * he is using what is referred to as a dinkus—a crutch to indicate that he hasn’t the skill to construct a viable segue between one random and confused sputtering and another.
* * *
I am wandering among the bookstacks and glance down to find Abby has fallen asleep in my arms. Her rosy, round cheek is smooshed against my chest and I can feel her soft breath on my neck. Passing strangers look and smile. This is one of those arresting “daddy” moments, when I am suddenly overcome with a powerful, parental impulse to protect her from anything and everything bad, or even slightly unpleasant, that could ever happen to her at any time now or in the future, by any means whatsoever. Which is, of course, what daddies are for. You know going into it (parenthood, that is) that you will have this attachment to your child. But it is one thing to know it. It is something else again to really experience it. I remember when Abby was stung by an insect this summer, when she was only a few weeks old. She had cried before, of course, but this time it was different. This was a cry of real distress, and in those several, panic-stricken moments before we realized what was wrong—a small bite, easily salved and soon forgotten—in those moments when she cried with shocking force and genuine, palpable fear, I knew what it meant, for the first time, to have your whole being inextricably linked with another. It’s wonderful. And it’s frightening. I just hope it’s many years before Abby realizes that her well-being has been entrusted, in part, to a man who has a morbid fear of squirrels.
* * *
It’s dark and raining as we approach the Canada Customs border station on the way home. I have the receipts for our purchases at hand and I’m ready to submit to a strip search if necessary. The customs agent doesn’t ask to see the receipt, though. He just gives me a wink and a nod and sends me on my way.
I still have, even in my rapidly advancing middle age, an inescapable boyish quality—the sort of benign, unprepossessing bearing that inspires grandmothers to pinch my cheeks and border guards to give me a wink and a nod and send me on my way. It’s not that I really want to be subjected to the full Midnight Express, rubber-glove-cavity-search experience. But it would be nice if once, just once, I was regarded with a respectful wariness. It just doesn’t do much for my self image to know that U.S. Customs and Immigration officials, even in these post-9/11 days of hyper-vigilance, consider me about as threatening as a cocker spaniel.
So last Sunday, as we approach the Peace Arch border crossing booth, I make it a point to wear my sunglasses, along with what I hope is an inscrutable expression and an air of sullen insouciance. And indeed, the customs officer’s demand to see our papers arouses a satisfying frisson of apprehension, although, to be fair, it’s more of a genial, routine request for ID.
“Where you folks headed?” he says, giving my passport an idle, cursory glance.
“Bellingham.”
“How long you expect to be gone?”
“Few hours, maybe,” I answer vaguely, in what I imagine is a pugnaciously challenging tone.
He hands our documents back. “You have a good day, now,” he says, and sends me on my way with a wink and a nod. Damn.
* * *
Our destination is a specific district of Bellingham, a quaint town-within-a-town known as Old Fairhaven, the sort of aggressively nostalgic place that evokes images of Jimmy Stewart running a failing savings and loan. More specifically, we have come to visit a bookstore—what is, in my opinion, the quintessential small town independent bookstore, Village Books.
For sheer volume and ambition, Powell’s City of Books in Portland, Oregon remains the uber-bookstore, the destination of choice for the serious booklover. It consumes an entire city block, is stocked with thoughtfully-selected new and used volumes (new and used editions of the same title are offered side by side on the shelves—a counter-intuitive sales approach that nonetheless seems to work), and really does have the feel of a self-contained city. I remember collecting my store map on my first visit and wandering, blissfully discombobulated, for hours—up these stairs, down that corridor, through that passageway—consulting my map every once in awhile like an indoor orienteer. Kim and I met up eventually in the café and did a quick inventory of our selections. A rudimentary tally revealed that our total would exceed the gross national product of some emerging nations, and so we sat for the next hour, sipping coffee and plea-bargaining with each other until we had a more manageable assortment to bring to the cashier.
My, how I do digress.
Village Books lacks the grandeur of Powell’s but it makes up for it in character. First of all, it bears the charm of distance—not so far away (like Powell’s) that it involves extended travel plans, but remote enough to be beyond reach for everyday drop-ins. It’s in an historic two-story building, with warm lighting and wooden floors, and it’s staffed by career booksellers: slightly distracted, amiable sorts who tend toward cardigans and half-glasses on chains, and who are always ready with recommendations. Best of all, it is one of those bookstores where the frontlist titles go deeper than you’ll find at the chain megastores. The stock here isn’t maintained by computer-generated replenishment guidelines, that much is obvious. Not to get too sentimental about it, but you can just tell when you’re in the presence of a selection that has been painstakingly assembled by a real, live, impoverished, singularly obsessive bookseller. A good bookstore has an unmistakable personality, and Village Books is a good bookstore.
We spend and hour or so in the upper level, Kim and I taking turns minding Abby, who is once again being adorably patient. Of course, she is at the age now where her hobbies include making a fist, sucking on her collar, and staring at strangers, so she is able to amuse herself for extended periods.
* * *
Downstairs at Village Books is the Colophon Café, a pub-style eatery ensconced among the shelves in the low-ceilinged rooms that make up the lower floor. And let me tell you, if there is a better way to spend a mid-winter Sunday afternoon than thumbing through newspapers while enjoying a hot lunch and a cold Guinness in a cozy corner of a quietly bustling, pleasantly rustic bookshop, well I just haven’t found it. We languish there for a considerable time before we get up and, with hearty sighs, pat our bellies in satisfaction and meander off to investigate the rest of the store.
* * *
In the language section, I come across a book about the history of typewriter letters and characters, an irresistible little volume called “Quirky Qwerty,” which finds itself conveyed to the cash register in my hot little grip. It is chock full of diverting trivia with which I plan to amuse my friends and confound my enemies. For instance, did you know that the exclamation mark used to be known as a “bang” or “screamer” among printers? The dot above the “i”? I bet you’ve always referred to it as “the dot above the ‘i'.” Why, that’s a tittle, I’ll have you know. And here’s another little fact that is suspiciously close to being interesting: whenever a writer of meager abilities finds himself unable to sustain a narrative and breaks up the text with a series of asterisks, like this * * * he is using what is referred to as a dinkus—a crutch to indicate that he hasn’t the skill to construct a viable segue between one random and confused sputtering and another.
* * *
I am wandering among the bookstacks and glance down to find Abby has fallen asleep in my arms. Her rosy, round cheek is smooshed against my chest and I can feel her soft breath on my neck. Passing strangers look and smile. This is one of those arresting “daddy” moments, when I am suddenly overcome with a powerful, parental impulse to protect her from anything and everything bad, or even slightly unpleasant, that could ever happen to her at any time now or in the future, by any means whatsoever. Which is, of course, what daddies are for. You know going into it (parenthood, that is) that you will have this attachment to your child. But it is one thing to know it. It is something else again to really experience it. I remember when Abby was stung by an insect this summer, when she was only a few weeks old. She had cried before, of course, but this time it was different. This was a cry of real distress, and in those several, panic-stricken moments before we realized what was wrong—a small bite, easily salved and soon forgotten—in those moments when she cried with shocking force and genuine, palpable fear, I knew what it meant, for the first time, to have your whole being inextricably linked with another. It’s wonderful. And it’s frightening. I just hope it’s many years before Abby realizes that her well-being has been entrusted, in part, to a man who has a morbid fear of squirrels.
* * *
It’s dark and raining as we approach the Canada Customs border station on the way home. I have the receipts for our purchases at hand and I’m ready to submit to a strip search if necessary. The customs agent doesn’t ask to see the receipt, though. He just gives me a wink and a nod and sends me on my way.
Thursday, December 04, 2003
Notes From A Lost Weekend, Part Three, Phase One: The Puck Stops Here
“Oh for god’s sake, make your move, already.”
Kim says this while drumming her fingers along the edge of the checkerboard and bouncing Abby—a little too vigorously—on her lap. She’s getting edgy.
We have moved on from the quay and found ourselves in Indigo Books in North Vancouver. We found ourselves there, as it happens, because we decided to go there when we gave up on the pretense of Christmas shopping. Kim and I met while working in a bookstore, you see, and it’s still sort of a default setting when we have a free afternoon. We don’t buy so much in bookstores anymore, though—I, especially, have become slavishly devoted to Amazon, where they dutifully record my predilections and entice me with personalized come-ons. (“Hello Daniel Weber,” their home page beckons coyly, “we have recommendations for you.” I bet you do, you saucy little book tart. I bet you do.) Anyway...
Near the café is a table outfitted with an oversized checkerboard and a scattering of hockey pucks to serve as checkers. I challenge Kim to a game. She declines.
“Why not?”
“Because, it will just be stressful.”
She’s right, of course. It’s not that we are too competitive, mind you, but rather that we are both so non-competitive that the very act of engaging in overt competition makes us both nervous to the point of becoming hyper-competitive. If that makes sense. No, of course it doesn’t.
Nevertheless, I persist. It will be fun, I say. I imagine us whiling away the afternoon like a couple of old men playing chess in a Parisian brasserie. We spend several moments figuring out how to set up the board and then launch into a game.
Things start well for me, and before long I have nimbly advanced several hockey pucks deep into enemy territory. I even manage to get a couple of pucks crowned, and I am beginning to feel giddy with power. Kim, for her part, is making moves swiftly and with an air of bored distraction.
Before long, predictably, tensions increase. I’m still leading, but I’m circling her pucks impotently (“circling her pucks impotently”—I don’t care how powerful your search engine is, you won’t find that phrase anywhere else) and I notice that she is making moves away from the fray. It’s just like her to be cunning and stealthy.
“Stop doing suspicious things!” I cry, panic rising in my voice.
Kim starts bouncing Abby with the rapidity of a paint mixer, anxious to be done with the whole affair. “Just go,” she says. She’s almost pleading.
By now we’re both in the grip of full blown dementia. I feel my vision narrowing. I can sense victory, and theoretically I have the manpower—or puckpower—to finish the job with dispatch, but Kim has just enough wherewithal to evade my clumsy endgame. My tongue starts sweating. I move. Kim moves away. I move. She once again eludes capture. I move back again.
Finally, Kim can bear it no longer. She knocks the pucks askew. “ I concede, okay?” And with that, we get up, each of us in a lather of percolating anxiety, and head silently to the café where we will order sticky sweet buns and decaffeinated beverages, and allow our psychic equilibrium to resettle.
“That was fun,” I say.
* * *
Okay, I lied. The foreign soil part will have to wait.
Kim says this while drumming her fingers along the edge of the checkerboard and bouncing Abby—a little too vigorously—on her lap. She’s getting edgy.
We have moved on from the quay and found ourselves in Indigo Books in North Vancouver. We found ourselves there, as it happens, because we decided to go there when we gave up on the pretense of Christmas shopping. Kim and I met while working in a bookstore, you see, and it’s still sort of a default setting when we have a free afternoon. We don’t buy so much in bookstores anymore, though—I, especially, have become slavishly devoted to Amazon, where they dutifully record my predilections and entice me with personalized come-ons. (“Hello Daniel Weber,” their home page beckons coyly, “we have recommendations for you.” I bet you do, you saucy little book tart. I bet you do.) Anyway...
Near the café is a table outfitted with an oversized checkerboard and a scattering of hockey pucks to serve as checkers. I challenge Kim to a game. She declines.
“Why not?”
“Because, it will just be stressful.”
She’s right, of course. It’s not that we are too competitive, mind you, but rather that we are both so non-competitive that the very act of engaging in overt competition makes us both nervous to the point of becoming hyper-competitive. If that makes sense. No, of course it doesn’t.
Nevertheless, I persist. It will be fun, I say. I imagine us whiling away the afternoon like a couple of old men playing chess in a Parisian brasserie. We spend several moments figuring out how to set up the board and then launch into a game.
Things start well for me, and before long I have nimbly advanced several hockey pucks deep into enemy territory. I even manage to get a couple of pucks crowned, and I am beginning to feel giddy with power. Kim, for her part, is making moves swiftly and with an air of bored distraction.
Before long, predictably, tensions increase. I’m still leading, but I’m circling her pucks impotently (“circling her pucks impotently”—I don’t care how powerful your search engine is, you won’t find that phrase anywhere else) and I notice that she is making moves away from the fray. It’s just like her to be cunning and stealthy.
“Stop doing suspicious things!” I cry, panic rising in my voice.
Kim starts bouncing Abby with the rapidity of a paint mixer, anxious to be done with the whole affair. “Just go,” she says. She’s almost pleading.
By now we’re both in the grip of full blown dementia. I feel my vision narrowing. I can sense victory, and theoretically I have the manpower—or puckpower—to finish the job with dispatch, but Kim has just enough wherewithal to evade my clumsy endgame. My tongue starts sweating. I move. Kim moves away. I move. She once again eludes capture. I move back again.
Finally, Kim can bear it no longer. She knocks the pucks askew. “ I concede, okay?” And with that, we get up, each of us in a lather of percolating anxiety, and head silently to the café where we will order sticky sweet buns and decaffeinated beverages, and allow our psychic equilibrium to resettle.
“That was fun,” I say.
* * *
Okay, I lied. The foreign soil part will have to wait.
Tuesday, December 02, 2003
Notes From A Lost Weekend, Part Two: Slumming At The Quay
Freshly coifed and sufficiently caffeinated (yes, I’m picking up where I left off—stay with me now) we resolved to begin our Christmas shopping. Well, we resolved to go to a place where there were retail stores, anyway. Neither of us was really committed to the kind of single-minded focus that is required for seasonal shopping—it’s like writing, you need a pressing deadline to really get your head into it—but we were happy people with new haircuts, so we pointed the Kia toward the North Shore and the Lonsdale Quay.
What is it, fellow Vancouverites, about the North Shore? Is it just me, or do you feel when you cross the bridge to the North side that everything suddenly becomes charmingly exotic? Okay, maybe not exotic, but just different somehow. The air is cleaner. The belligerent SUVs are all Mercedes, and are driven by gold-spangled society matrons. I always imagine myself in some kind of alpine resort town, which is odd because I don’t ski and have never actually been to an alpine resort town. But you know what I mean.
In any case, I find shopping malls depressing, and the seaside quay on the North Shore is a nice compromise—quirky shops arranged in a sort of mall-like fashion, but with the pungent aroma of a fishmonger’s stall to spice things up. It’s interesting that, although both Kim and I know in our hearts we will not really be accomplishing anything approaching Christmas shopping on this visit, we both pretend that we will. Sam Kinison was right. Lies keep you together.
* * *
While eating our soup in a corner of the quay, we watch an engrossing demonstration. A group of new-age crackpots is offering to arrange the chakra, or energy fields, of innocent passersby. They have a card table set up with pamphlets (“Please take one”) and printouts from obscure new-age, namby-pamby, nut-bar “publications” describing the amazing “scientific” benefits of whatever the hell it is they’re doing.
I slurp my soup and bounce Abby on my knee and watch as one of the new-age freaks—a shaggy-haired woman of indeterminate age wearing loose, knitted garments and a lobotomized demeanor— performs her “service” on a bored-looking older woman. The “patient” is sitting in a folding chair facing away from the mystic, gazing off at the cheese merchant’s stand. The procedure consists of (I wish I was making this up) having the practitioner, who is seated behind her, wave her hands languidly in the airspace around the old woman. She flutters her hands above the simpleton’s head, then churns the air at her back. Then, for a considerable time, she waves at the woman’s ample bottom, as if trying to dispel a particularly noisome fart. Finally, she sits back with a beatific smile, before leaning in to gently advise the poor, stupid woman that her chakra is now in alignment.
Is this what we have come to? I mean, there used to be a time when snake oil salesmen had to at least have some oratorical performance skills, and they offered actual fake elixirs that you could take home. Now all they have to do is sit at a card table in a mall (sorry—quay) and wave their hands around a person’s aura? I’m sorry, but you’ve got to have the mental capacity of a wiffle ball to fall for this holistic hooey. But apparently people do. I ought to set up my own stand, where, for five bucks, I’ll blast you in the face with an aromatic aerosol “soul cleanser.” And if you buy two, I’ll even wax and polish your karma .
* * *
The quay now has a sex store—Love Connection, or some such thing, where they sell edible panties and dildos and other “erotic” merchandise (funny, my spell check doesn’t honor “dildos” or “dildoes”—they both get angry red underscores—but my American Heritage Dictionary graciously allows either). A sex shop among a clutch of trendy boutiques. But this is a safe, family-oriented smut shop, a cheerful festival of tacky middlebrow naughtiness. Sleaze has now gone mainstream. Which, it seems to me, kind of defeats the purpose.
Kim and I wander in and stop to ponder over a large bucket containing all the material you need to mold your own phallic substitute—in your own image, as it were. “But why would you want to?” we both ask rhetorically.
“It’s ideal for a going away gift,” a sprightly young clerk, a girl with color-streaked hair and stocking feet, offers helpfully. “Or you can use it to make a second one for…other orifices.” Okay, it’s great that they feel that sex is a wonderful, natural thing that should be discussed openly and freely blah blah blah. But come on, I don’t need advice on multi-priapic bedroom techniques from someone young enough to be my daughter. Especially when I’m actually holding my daughter in my arms. Kim and I murmur our appreciation and move away.
We look at the tasteless greeting cards, giggle at the tasteless toys, marvel at the tasteless…
“If you want to see a realistic-looking penis, check this out.”
It’s our friendly little smut peddler again, and she’s brandishing a spongy, gelatinous phallus the size of a riot cop’s truncheon. It does indeed appear lifelike (although ludicrously larger than life, if you ask me). She holds it under our noses, like it’s a Bundt cake or something. “Go ahead, feel it.” Kim gamely gives it a rub and even I take a tentative poke. She encourages us to fondle the “actual” testicles, but we’ve had enough.
We make our way out into the safety of the quay again, and I check to see if the new-age gurus are still there. I suddenly feel the need to get my chakra recalibrated.
* * *
In part three, Dan and Kim play checkers badly and invade foreign soil.
What is it, fellow Vancouverites, about the North Shore? Is it just me, or do you feel when you cross the bridge to the North side that everything suddenly becomes charmingly exotic? Okay, maybe not exotic, but just different somehow. The air is cleaner. The belligerent SUVs are all Mercedes, and are driven by gold-spangled society matrons. I always imagine myself in some kind of alpine resort town, which is odd because I don’t ski and have never actually been to an alpine resort town. But you know what I mean.
In any case, I find shopping malls depressing, and the seaside quay on the North Shore is a nice compromise—quirky shops arranged in a sort of mall-like fashion, but with the pungent aroma of a fishmonger’s stall to spice things up. It’s interesting that, although both Kim and I know in our hearts we will not really be accomplishing anything approaching Christmas shopping on this visit, we both pretend that we will. Sam Kinison was right. Lies keep you together.
* * *
While eating our soup in a corner of the quay, we watch an engrossing demonstration. A group of new-age crackpots is offering to arrange the chakra, or energy fields, of innocent passersby. They have a card table set up with pamphlets (“Please take one”) and printouts from obscure new-age, namby-pamby, nut-bar “publications” describing the amazing “scientific” benefits of whatever the hell it is they’re doing.
I slurp my soup and bounce Abby on my knee and watch as one of the new-age freaks—a shaggy-haired woman of indeterminate age wearing loose, knitted garments and a lobotomized demeanor— performs her “service” on a bored-looking older woman. The “patient” is sitting in a folding chair facing away from the mystic, gazing off at the cheese merchant’s stand. The procedure consists of (I wish I was making this up) having the practitioner, who is seated behind her, wave her hands languidly in the airspace around the old woman. She flutters her hands above the simpleton’s head, then churns the air at her back. Then, for a considerable time, she waves at the woman’s ample bottom, as if trying to dispel a particularly noisome fart. Finally, she sits back with a beatific smile, before leaning in to gently advise the poor, stupid woman that her chakra is now in alignment.
Is this what we have come to? I mean, there used to be a time when snake oil salesmen had to at least have some oratorical performance skills, and they offered actual fake elixirs that you could take home. Now all they have to do is sit at a card table in a mall (sorry—quay) and wave their hands around a person’s aura? I’m sorry, but you’ve got to have the mental capacity of a wiffle ball to fall for this holistic hooey. But apparently people do. I ought to set up my own stand, where, for five bucks, I’ll blast you in the face with an aromatic aerosol “soul cleanser.” And if you buy two, I’ll even wax and polish your karma .
* * *
The quay now has a sex store—Love Connection, or some such thing, where they sell edible panties and dildos and other “erotic” merchandise (funny, my spell check doesn’t honor “dildos” or “dildoes”—they both get angry red underscores—but my American Heritage Dictionary graciously allows either). A sex shop among a clutch of trendy boutiques. But this is a safe, family-oriented smut shop, a cheerful festival of tacky middlebrow naughtiness. Sleaze has now gone mainstream. Which, it seems to me, kind of defeats the purpose.
Kim and I wander in and stop to ponder over a large bucket containing all the material you need to mold your own phallic substitute—in your own image, as it were. “But why would you want to?” we both ask rhetorically.
“It’s ideal for a going away gift,” a sprightly young clerk, a girl with color-streaked hair and stocking feet, offers helpfully. “Or you can use it to make a second one for…other orifices.” Okay, it’s great that they feel that sex is a wonderful, natural thing that should be discussed openly and freely blah blah blah. But come on, I don’t need advice on multi-priapic bedroom techniques from someone young enough to be my daughter. Especially when I’m actually holding my daughter in my arms. Kim and I murmur our appreciation and move away.
We look at the tasteless greeting cards, giggle at the tasteless toys, marvel at the tasteless…
“If you want to see a realistic-looking penis, check this out.”
It’s our friendly little smut peddler again, and she’s brandishing a spongy, gelatinous phallus the size of a riot cop’s truncheon. It does indeed appear lifelike (although ludicrously larger than life, if you ask me). She holds it under our noses, like it’s a Bundt cake or something. “Go ahead, feel it.” Kim gamely gives it a rub and even I take a tentative poke. She encourages us to fondle the “actual” testicles, but we’ve had enough.
We make our way out into the safety of the quay again, and I check to see if the new-age gurus are still there. I suddenly feel the need to get my chakra recalibrated.
* * *
In part three, Dan and Kim play checkers badly and invade foreign soil.
Monday, December 01, 2003
Notes From A Lost Weekend, Part One: Dan Learns How To Shoplift a Haircut
Saturday began more frenetically than usual. The normal weekend routine sees me getting up early and providing breakfast for the family. “Early” means in time to catch the finale of “Win Ben Stein’s Money,” which starts at 8:30. “Providing breakfast” means a bleary-eyed trip to the local McDonald’s drive-thru. And “family” means the two snoring lumps I’ve left behind in bed. I return triumphant, bearing caffeine and starchy comestibles, and Kim and I vicariously duel with Ben Stein (and each other) between munches on McMuffins while Abby, with quiet determination and surprisingly advanced motor skills, begins to shred the newspaper sections that I intend to read later.
This Saturday, though, we had early appointments for haircuts and we were running late. No McMuffins. No Ben Stein. We showered and dressed quickly amid murmured recriminations. (“We’re late.” “I know we’re late.” “Aren’t you ready yet?”), stuffed Abby into her clothes as if stuffing laundry in a bag, and wheeled out of the driveway in an uncaffeinated, pissy funk.
Sylvain, our stylist, does me first. It’s reaching, I have to admit, to call him a stylist in regards to what he does to my hair. No slight to him, it’s just that there’s not much to work with in my case. I have cancer of the hair. What I have (which isn’t that much) is reedy and flat, except in the spots where the swirls and cowlicks add comical little flourishes. There used to be a time when each visit to a hair stylist brought with it earnest hopes that I would emerge with an actual hairstyle, but not anymore. Now I just eat the complimentary cookies and let Sylvain make elaborate hairstyling gestures while he offers the latest French-accented poop on what his clientele has been up to. Then he massages my scalp with fruity-smelling unguents, prods thoughtfully at my frontal cowlick for a good couple of minutes, and releases me with a theatrical spin of the chair. We both make appreciative noises and pretend that what he has just done is worth thirty bucks. It is a charade I have actually come to enjoy.
(You would think that, since there is not much that can be done with my hair, it would make sense to just go to a discount haircutter. You would be wrong. I tried that once. I ducked into an old-style barber shop—I’ll get a classic cut, I thought, why didn’t I think of this before?—and was roughly serviced by a thuggish Italian with extravagant tattoos and twitchy shears. Ten dollars for ten minutes and I came out looking like Billy Bob Thornton in “Sling Blade.”)
Sylvain tells me about an incident that happened in the salon this week. Two young ladies, around twenty or so, came in for lavish two hundred-dollar color treatments. After about 40 minutes of work, while waiting for their color to set (or whatever it is that color has to do), they stepped outside for a cigarette. And never returned. One of them had left her purse behind (with wallet clearly visible) at her chair, so it was some time before staff become concerned. Eventually they looked in the purse and found that the wallet—and the rest of the purse—was empty. They had been had. Thelma and Louise were never captured.
This got me thinking about what other services one might be able to boost in such a fashion. Bolting away from a massage table, maybe (after all, you’d feel good and limber). Perhaps using the washroom ruse (“Ill be right back”) to abscond with some free therapy from a psychiatrist. The mind boggles. At least mine is boggling.
Oh dear, I seem to have digressed my way into a rambling narrative that cannot be contained in a single entry. Sloppy blogging. I’ll have to resume this later.
In the next installment, Kim and Dan go Christmas shopping and end up fondling a penis. No kidding.
This Saturday, though, we had early appointments for haircuts and we were running late. No McMuffins. No Ben Stein. We showered and dressed quickly amid murmured recriminations. (“We’re late.” “I know we’re late.” “Aren’t you ready yet?”), stuffed Abby into her clothes as if stuffing laundry in a bag, and wheeled out of the driveway in an uncaffeinated, pissy funk.
Sylvain, our stylist, does me first. It’s reaching, I have to admit, to call him a stylist in regards to what he does to my hair. No slight to him, it’s just that there’s not much to work with in my case. I have cancer of the hair. What I have (which isn’t that much) is reedy and flat, except in the spots where the swirls and cowlicks add comical little flourishes. There used to be a time when each visit to a hair stylist brought with it earnest hopes that I would emerge with an actual hairstyle, but not anymore. Now I just eat the complimentary cookies and let Sylvain make elaborate hairstyling gestures while he offers the latest French-accented poop on what his clientele has been up to. Then he massages my scalp with fruity-smelling unguents, prods thoughtfully at my frontal cowlick for a good couple of minutes, and releases me with a theatrical spin of the chair. We both make appreciative noises and pretend that what he has just done is worth thirty bucks. It is a charade I have actually come to enjoy.
(You would think that, since there is not much that can be done with my hair, it would make sense to just go to a discount haircutter. You would be wrong. I tried that once. I ducked into an old-style barber shop—I’ll get a classic cut, I thought, why didn’t I think of this before?—and was roughly serviced by a thuggish Italian with extravagant tattoos and twitchy shears. Ten dollars for ten minutes and I came out looking like Billy Bob Thornton in “Sling Blade.”)
Sylvain tells me about an incident that happened in the salon this week. Two young ladies, around twenty or so, came in for lavish two hundred-dollar color treatments. After about 40 minutes of work, while waiting for their color to set (or whatever it is that color has to do), they stepped outside for a cigarette. And never returned. One of them had left her purse behind (with wallet clearly visible) at her chair, so it was some time before staff become concerned. Eventually they looked in the purse and found that the wallet—and the rest of the purse—was empty. They had been had. Thelma and Louise were never captured.
This got me thinking about what other services one might be able to boost in such a fashion. Bolting away from a massage table, maybe (after all, you’d feel good and limber). Perhaps using the washroom ruse (“Ill be right back”) to abscond with some free therapy from a psychiatrist. The mind boggles. At least mine is boggling.
Oh dear, I seem to have digressed my way into a rambling narrative that cannot be contained in a single entry. Sloppy blogging. I’ll have to resume this later.
In the next installment, Kim and Dan go Christmas shopping and end up fondling a penis. No kidding.
Wednesday, November 26, 2003
When Celebrities Attack
“Do you know who I am?” a shit-faced Glen Campbell is reported to have challenged his jailers this week, who were locking him up for driving under the influence. “Extreme” drunk driving, they were calling it—which kind of made it sound like a new yuppie sport. He then kneed an officer in the thigh and demanded to speak to the chief of police. Later (I love this part), he was heard warbling “Rhinestone Cowboy” in his cell.
You’ve got to admire his chutzpah. “Do you know who I am?” is really not the kind of question that should be asked by a celebrity whose career is in such an advanced state of decomposition. But you can’t blame him for trying. This is, after all, a culture that tends to hand out “get out of jail free” cards to anyone who has felt the warm glow of the spotlight. That's the whole point of being famous, isn’t it? To be able to play by a different set of rules.
Witness Michael Jackson. I mean, imagine there is a man in your neighborhood, a man in his forties, a postal worker, say, or a steamfitter (whatever that is) who lives down the block. Now imagine that this steamfitter (whatever that is) has become friendly with all the little boys in the neighborhood. He has built a magical wonderland on his property and entices all the kiddies to come over. He invites his favorite little boys to stay for sleep-overs in his bedroom and--well, it’s just too creepy to go on. How long do you think it would take for the neighborhood parents to a grab a length of rope and form a posse? How long before this steamfitter (whatever that is) is fitting steam in prison (whatever that means)?
But never mind that Michael Jackson has publicly acknowledged his fondness for perverted pajama parties. His supporters know he is innocent. How do they know he’s innocent? Simple: because they like his music. One meatball in China is organizing a “prayer for Michael,” whom he called “a gentleman—and we trust him.” Another defender quoted in a wire service story said that Jackson made him understand that “in life there is always someone, somewhere, thinking of you.” That’s right, Sparky—and in this case he’s thinking of you in your underpants. A Jacko fan in France beseeches us to “listen less to the rumors and more to the music.” Sure thing, Pierre. And the next time the Germans come goose-stepping over your borders, listen less to the marching and more to the accordions.
Meanwhile, in Washington, infamous sniper John Allen Muhammed has been summarily sentenced to death—a verdict almost universally endorsed by an unsympathetic populace. Now I’m not saying that this confessed serial killer deserves a prayer vigil or plate of cookies. But I can’t help wondering if he might have been spared the death row bunk if he had had the good sense to have recorded a hit album, or thrown a few spectacular touchdown passes, or at least been in a syndicated sitcom. In the end, Muhammed’s greatest failing may be not so much that he is a murderous sociopath, but that he is a murderous sociopath who is unable to carry a tune.
You’ve got to admire his chutzpah. “Do you know who I am?” is really not the kind of question that should be asked by a celebrity whose career is in such an advanced state of decomposition. But you can’t blame him for trying. This is, after all, a culture that tends to hand out “get out of jail free” cards to anyone who has felt the warm glow of the spotlight. That's the whole point of being famous, isn’t it? To be able to play by a different set of rules.
Witness Michael Jackson. I mean, imagine there is a man in your neighborhood, a man in his forties, a postal worker, say, or a steamfitter (whatever that is) who lives down the block. Now imagine that this steamfitter (whatever that is) has become friendly with all the little boys in the neighborhood. He has built a magical wonderland on his property and entices all the kiddies to come over. He invites his favorite little boys to stay for sleep-overs in his bedroom and--well, it’s just too creepy to go on. How long do you think it would take for the neighborhood parents to a grab a length of rope and form a posse? How long before this steamfitter (whatever that is) is fitting steam in prison (whatever that means)?
But never mind that Michael Jackson has publicly acknowledged his fondness for perverted pajama parties. His supporters know he is innocent. How do they know he’s innocent? Simple: because they like his music. One meatball in China is organizing a “prayer for Michael,” whom he called “a gentleman—and we trust him.” Another defender quoted in a wire service story said that Jackson made him understand that “in life there is always someone, somewhere, thinking of you.” That’s right, Sparky—and in this case he’s thinking of you in your underpants. A Jacko fan in France beseeches us to “listen less to the rumors and more to the music.” Sure thing, Pierre. And the next time the Germans come goose-stepping over your borders, listen less to the marching and more to the accordions.
Meanwhile, in Washington, infamous sniper John Allen Muhammed has been summarily sentenced to death—a verdict almost universally endorsed by an unsympathetic populace. Now I’m not saying that this confessed serial killer deserves a prayer vigil or plate of cookies. But I can’t help wondering if he might have been spared the death row bunk if he had had the good sense to have recorded a hit album, or thrown a few spectacular touchdown passes, or at least been in a syndicated sitcom. In the end, Muhammed’s greatest failing may be not so much that he is a murderous sociopath, but that he is a murderous sociopath who is unable to carry a tune.
Monday, November 24, 2003
The Day the Chinese Lady in the Mall Freaked Out
As much as I complain about the drab quotidian aspects of my workaday world (and believe me, I do) there is a certain reassuring comfort that comes from establishing—and depending on—a routine.
I leave the house for the office around the same time every morning. I stop for coffee at Starbucks, where I order a “short” coffee of the day. (You might say that this is the only variable in my morning routine, except that I have never been able to distinguish one coffee of the day from another; for all I know it’s all Folger’s Crystals.) I know where to expect the traffic back-ups along the way, and am pathetically happy if I manage to beat a logjam. I know that if the sports guy on the radio is giving his report and I have yet to merge onto the highway, I’m running late.
I consult three websites for news and comment each day—Salon, Slate, and www.aldaily.com. Always those sites, and always in that order. If it’s Monday, I’ll get a sneak preview of the New Yorker, too (we Canadians don’t get it on newsstands until Tuesday).
And then there’s lunch. Our office complex is across the street from a dreary suburban shopping mall, which houses your standard mall food court. Every day—most days anyway—I go to the same Thai food outlet there and have precisely the same meal. The woman behind the counter, a demure, middle-aged Chinese lady, knows my order.
Usually she will acknowledge me with a smile and—curiously—a shy sort of giggle, as if there is something inherently funny about my appearing each day at her counter. Come to think of it, maybe there is. Then she will deftly and wordlessly compile on a styrofoam plate my standard fare: assorted veggies, green beans, black pepper chicken, and a slab of salmon. If I arrive a little late, closer to the lunch rush, she might have someone helping her behind the counter. But when she sees me she will usually direct her helper to another customer, give me the shy giggle and begin filling my plate. I think she takes comfort in the routine, too.
We never speak, except for a few well-rehearsed words. She will always announce the price ($5.34), and I will always thank her for the change. She concludes the transaction by noting, “Nice day.” Not “have a nice day.” Just “nice day”—as if it were more of an observation. I love that.
Then I take my lunch and my book (currently Into the Silent Land by Paul Broks—a fantastic book on neurology that out-Sackses Oliver Sacks, if that’s possible) and take a spot in the same corner of the food court. It doesn’t have to be the same seat, though. That would be boring.
Today, everything changed.
I arrived a little earlier than usual, grabbed a red plastic tray from the stack and slid it onto the counter. She wasn’t there, my demure Chinese lady, but I could see her in the kitchen, through the kind of window sill arrangement that diners have, the slot where waitresses yell orders to the kitchen staff. She was talking with the cook. I waited. Then she was talking loudly with the cook, in Chinese. Then she was yelling at the cook. Before long she was screaming, showering the man in spittle and vituperative blasts of harsh Chinese consonants. Her arms flailed, she stamped her feet, she cried and shrieked—real ear-splitting blasts that echoed through the food court right across to the Orange Julius franchise. I had no idea what she was screaming, of course, but judging from the intensity of her harangue and from the way the man in the paper hat was cowering, it was something along the lines of: “MARRIED TEN YEARS AND I COME BACK HERE TO FIND YOU FORNICATING WITH A GOAT!” Or so I imagined.
I stood there rather foolishly for a moment with my empty red plastic tray. Then I silently slipped it back and slunk away. I’m pretty sure she didn’t see me. I had lunch from some curry stand a couple of windows down, the screams of the no-longer-demure Chinese lady still fogging the air behind me. The food was overpriced and overcooked, and the server did not notify me that it was a nice day. I sat in a different part of the food court, where I could surreptitiously watch for the Chinese lady.
Eventually, she came out and began serving the brave customers who stood waiting for service. Her face was flushed and her eyes were a little puffy, but she gathered herself and began doling out food with a rueful smile.
I suppose I could have waited there, too. I really didn’t want to have to go somewhere else for lunch. But if I had waited, if she had emerged from her screaming fit to see me standing there, something would have changed between us.
And I couldn’t have that.
I leave the house for the office around the same time every morning. I stop for coffee at Starbucks, where I order a “short” coffee of the day. (You might say that this is the only variable in my morning routine, except that I have never been able to distinguish one coffee of the day from another; for all I know it’s all Folger’s Crystals.) I know where to expect the traffic back-ups along the way, and am pathetically happy if I manage to beat a logjam. I know that if the sports guy on the radio is giving his report and I have yet to merge onto the highway, I’m running late.
I consult three websites for news and comment each day—Salon, Slate, and www.aldaily.com. Always those sites, and always in that order. If it’s Monday, I’ll get a sneak preview of the New Yorker, too (we Canadians don’t get it on newsstands until Tuesday).
And then there’s lunch. Our office complex is across the street from a dreary suburban shopping mall, which houses your standard mall food court. Every day—most days anyway—I go to the same Thai food outlet there and have precisely the same meal. The woman behind the counter, a demure, middle-aged Chinese lady, knows my order.
Usually she will acknowledge me with a smile and—curiously—a shy sort of giggle, as if there is something inherently funny about my appearing each day at her counter. Come to think of it, maybe there is. Then she will deftly and wordlessly compile on a styrofoam plate my standard fare: assorted veggies, green beans, black pepper chicken, and a slab of salmon. If I arrive a little late, closer to the lunch rush, she might have someone helping her behind the counter. But when she sees me she will usually direct her helper to another customer, give me the shy giggle and begin filling my plate. I think she takes comfort in the routine, too.
We never speak, except for a few well-rehearsed words. She will always announce the price ($5.34), and I will always thank her for the change. She concludes the transaction by noting, “Nice day.” Not “have a nice day.” Just “nice day”—as if it were more of an observation. I love that.
Then I take my lunch and my book (currently Into the Silent Land by Paul Broks—a fantastic book on neurology that out-Sackses Oliver Sacks, if that’s possible) and take a spot in the same corner of the food court. It doesn’t have to be the same seat, though. That would be boring.
Today, everything changed.
I arrived a little earlier than usual, grabbed a red plastic tray from the stack and slid it onto the counter. She wasn’t there, my demure Chinese lady, but I could see her in the kitchen, through the kind of window sill arrangement that diners have, the slot where waitresses yell orders to the kitchen staff. She was talking with the cook. I waited. Then she was talking loudly with the cook, in Chinese. Then she was yelling at the cook. Before long she was screaming, showering the man in spittle and vituperative blasts of harsh Chinese consonants. Her arms flailed, she stamped her feet, she cried and shrieked—real ear-splitting blasts that echoed through the food court right across to the Orange Julius franchise. I had no idea what she was screaming, of course, but judging from the intensity of her harangue and from the way the man in the paper hat was cowering, it was something along the lines of: “MARRIED TEN YEARS AND I COME BACK HERE TO FIND YOU FORNICATING WITH A GOAT!” Or so I imagined.
I stood there rather foolishly for a moment with my empty red plastic tray. Then I silently slipped it back and slunk away. I’m pretty sure she didn’t see me. I had lunch from some curry stand a couple of windows down, the screams of the no-longer-demure Chinese lady still fogging the air behind me. The food was overpriced and overcooked, and the server did not notify me that it was a nice day. I sat in a different part of the food court, where I could surreptitiously watch for the Chinese lady.
Eventually, she came out and began serving the brave customers who stood waiting for service. Her face was flushed and her eyes were a little puffy, but she gathered herself and began doling out food with a rueful smile.
I suppose I could have waited there, too. I really didn’t want to have to go somewhere else for lunch. But if I had waited, if she had emerged from her screaming fit to see me standing there, something would have changed between us.
And I couldn’t have that.
Sunday, November 23, 2003
My Inaugural Address
“No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.”
--Samuel Johnson
Make way for another blockhead.
I realize the world needs another online journal like it needs another quasi-celebrity porn video, and so I present...another online journal. I also realize that the phrase “online journal” is hopelessly quaint—like referring to “denim trousers” or “marijuana cigarettes”—but “blog” is a neologism I just haven’t been able to embrace. I don’t know, it just sounds so…vulgar. So a journal it is.
I’m not “journaling,” mind you—I’m not an earnest teenage girl or a morose, turtlenecked coffee house intellectual. I’m not trying to “work through issues” or “achieve closure.” And my “personal demons” can stay right where they are, thank you very much. I’m just a middle-aged white guy who’s much too fond of ironic quotation marks—a humble little man of no fixed opinions who decided to launch a cyber scratch pad upon which to scribble his humble little musings.
I will now open the floor to questions. Yes, you there in the front row.
Who the hell are you?
NAME: Daniel Weber.
CHILDREN: One daughter, Abigail, born March 22, 2003, cute as the dickens
MARITAL STATUS: One wife, Kim, born sometime in October, I think it’s the 15th. Yep, it’s the 15th.
OCCUPATION: Writer of presentations, articles, brochures, websites, and cocktail napkins. Some freelance (ask about our special winter rates!), but I’ve managed to finagle a full-time paycheck out of it, too.
TURN-ONS: Light switches, radios, high beams
TURN-OFFS: People who indiscriminately use impact as a verb.
Why are you writing this blog?
It’s not a blog. It’s an online journal.
Whatever.
I am writing it because, in the words of an immortal dead guy (William Makepeace Thackeray—and if he’s so immortal, why is he dead?), “There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up his pen to write.”
Well, we’ll see, won’t we? Like most commercial word sluts, I occasionally harbor the suspicion that I have something more to say than what comes through in my work. (Who among us, let’s be honest, grows up with a secret desire to publish the world’s most poignant paint catalogue?) So this will be my place to play around with random thoughts and idle musings.
Will you be jotting down random thoughts and idle musings?
Excellent question. Yes, this “online journal” (as it has come to be known) will contain generous helpings of thoughts and musings, together with some roasted nuggets of wisdom, served with a light whimsy sauce on a bed of mixed metaphors.
Will it be any good?
Oh heavens, no. I give myself permission to be lousy.
There are couple of reasons I haven’t done much writing outside of my regular work (oh, a few magazine and newspaper pieces, thanks for asking.) One is that the idea of writing for the sake of writing always seemed quite pointless (see blockhead quotation, above). The other is that I am exceptionally lazy.
People who draw or paint will draw or paint any time they can; they can find relaxation in it. People who are passionate about playing the tuba will find the time to play the tuba, bless their silly hearts. But nobody with an ounce of sense actually enjoys the process of trying to make words come out right. It’s work. And I am a resolute leisure-aholic.
But there is also that nagging feeling—that feeling that has launched a million blogs (and countless bad poems by earnest teenage girls and turtlenecked coffee house intellectuals): “I should be writing this shit down.” So I will. Sometimes. I’ll do it because that obsessive-compulsive part of me wants to jot things down. I’ll do it because this “personal corner of cyberspace” idea is kind of a neat little toy. But I give myself permission to be lousy.
You say “sometimes.” Just how lazy do you intend to be when it comes to maintaining your “online journal”?
A reasonable expectation would be for me to make entries, no matter how small, every day. But I have made a life out of not living up to reasonable expectations. So who knows? Every couple of days? Once a week? Every time Ben Affleck and J Lo announce their engagement? I don’t know. I do promise to have a swimsuit edition every summer, though.
Is there any reason anybody but you should read it?
Not that I can think of.
Isn’t it true you were once arrested for hav--
That’s all the time we have for questions.
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