Let me tell you a story about a girl I know who held on by a bare thread while sick for a long and demanding week at work. She came home on Friday night at the ripe hour of 6:12 and, arms weighed down by things brought home after that long week of work, she stood staring at her door, fumbling to fit key in lock as she heard the phone begin to ring behind the number 10 staring her hard in the face on the frontside of that door.

Finally able to unlock the door, it springs open and she drops her meaningless crap to the ground and finds the phone amidst her crowded dining table. O-ho! A fine thing indeed! At the other end is a dear friend inviting her over to share a casserole.

“Funny that,” she thinks and tells the friend how the next plan of attack was actually a visit to the liquor store for some good but affordable merlot. They scheme, and with the 37 minutes of cooking remaining for the dish, she drops everything and heads in search of that affable red.

It’s some many minutes later and friend and she find themselves fork-deep in Noodle Caboodle and bargoon merlot. A fine Friday night to be had amongst friends.

Inevitably, she found herself in need of facilities, and upon her bold return, she kicked the crystal glass she’d previously sat upon the floor some three or four feet, shattering it underfoot of the pudgy-ass cat slinking about the hardwood floor. He then decided she was in no shape to travel road-side home and stated he’d walk her to the curb. “You’re walking,” he more or less decreed, and so she did, knowing he’d whale upon her ass should he leave for work at 4 a.m. and see her scooter missing from his curb.

So, it’s again many minutes later when we find her seated comfortably, if not a little breathless, upon her futon with An Inconvenient Truth playing in her DVD player and an unsettled beer settling before popping the top.

Who watches An Inconvenient Truth while drunk? Why, our trusty protagonist, she of impeccable standards and fizzy beer.

And the same she now realizes that while this might be well-written, it doesn’t necessarily seem to have a point.

Except perchance to say this… Hearing from friends on short notice, with generosity in the offing, and a bottle of drinkable red, followed by really taking some time to think about how incredibly fortunate and strangely blessed we all are to live on this oddly hospitable ball in space might just be a really terrific way to spend a week that’d been spent a little on the harsh side in the preceding days.

In other words, have a great weekend, y’all. Certainly in my plans. Now… is that beer settled? Is popping the top safe? Will good beer be wasted? Tune in next time as we answer those exciting questions, AND MORE, on Smut & Steff!

(ooh!)

Why, is this a Friday I see before me?

Ho! It is! It is!

FINALLY!

I’ve been sick all week and have held on by SHEER WILL, my friends. Finally my congestion is clearing up and for the first time in many years, it looks like I might just duck the bronchitis doozey I normally get any time a sniffle finds its way to me. YAY ME. YAY ROBITUSSIN DM!

I had to get a few things from GayBoy and because my home looks like Rustic American crack den coupled with the Kleenex-everywhere/shamelessly sick spread adopted by Meg Ryan at the end of You’ve Got Mail, we decided to meet at the pub at the end of my street, so I’ve had a couple beers, which I think I’ve completely earned this week.

Anyhow, the weather gods have deemed that we shall once again have Shit Weather this weekend, so you know what that means, people: I have a hot date with YOU. I’ll get some writing done this weekend.

Anything burning you have to ask? I totally forgot about some poor bastard’s question last month so I’ll go digging through email and drop him a line to see if he’s getting laid yet, and maybe I’ll report back to you on that. In the meantime, anything nifty I should tackle? Hmm? Hmm?

DO TELL. And happy weekend, Minions!

“Lightning kills five at funeral.”

You know the old ‘can’t take it with you when you’re dead’ saying? Yeah, well, if you play your weather cards right, you might just get to take a few out with you. Gee. Remind me to turn down more rainy-day funerals.

So, the moral of the story is, put away your beauty products when you’re done with them.

I’m sick with a nasty headcold this morning and can’t call in sick to work for a few reasons, so I’m being a trouper and heading in anyhow. There I was, getting my makeup ready to put on, but first I needed moisturizer. I’m out of my preferred brand, so I’m defaulting and using the Vitamin E cream that comes with a hair removal product.

I’ve had no coffee yet, so I’m muddling through my morning the best I can, planning to delve into a pot of French press java at work. Meanwhile, there I am, rubbing cream all over my hands and into my face. Even with my stuffy nose I noted “man, this stuff smells like shit… you’d think the cream would smell better than the hair removal stuff.”

And that’s when I noticed that I’d rubbed hair remover all over my face.

My pride’s down there in the puddle of water that’s left over from me freaking out and spraying water all over myself in record land-speed time.

Boy, do I love being sick.

I’m 33. Next month, I’ll be 34. I have a date-ish thing this afternoon with someone my age, but I found myself pondering last night whether the option of older men is something I’m thinking more towards these days or not. I’m as yet undecided. Of course, there’s the possibility I’ll hit it off with this fellow today, then I won’t bother continuing the pondering just now.

But in the meantime, here’s something a friend on Facebook posted, and I quite liked. Personally, I’m a fan of Andy Rooney, even if he’s 107 and constantly putting his foot in his mouth. He’s still as honest as they come, and that’s important criteria in my world (given I’m constantly putting my foot in my mouth and am as honest as the day is long, heh).

So, Mr. Rooney’s thoughts on women over 30:

As I grow in age, I value women who are over 30 most of all. Here are just a few reasons why:

A woman over 30 will never wake you in the middle of the night to ask,”What are you thinking?” She doesn’t care what you think.

If a woman over 30 doesn’t want to watch the game, she doesn’t sit around whining about it. She does something she wants to do. And, it’s usually something more interesting.

A woman over 30 knows herself well enough to be assured in who she is, what she is, what she wants and from whom. Few women past the age of 30 give a damn what you might think about her or what she’s doing.

Women over 30 are dignified. They seldom have a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant. Of course, if you deserve it, they won’t hesitate to shoot you, if they think they can get away with it.

Older women are generous with praise, often undeserved. They know what it’s like to be unappreciated.

A woman over 30 has the self-assurance to introduce you to her women friends. A younger woman with a man will often ignore even her best friend because she doesn’t trust the guy with other women.

Women over 30 couldn’t care less if you’re attracted to her friends because she knows her friends won’t betray her.

Women get psychic as they age. You never have to confess your sins to a woman over 30. They always know.

A woman over 30 looks good wearing bright red lipstick. This is not true of younger women or drag queens.

Once you get past a wrinkle or two, a woman over 30 is far sexier than her younger counterpart.

Older women are forthright and honest. They’ll tell you right off that you are a jerk if you are acting like one. You don’t ever have to wonder where you stand with her.

Yes, we praise women over 30 for a multitude of reasons.

Unfortunately, it’s not reciprocal. For every stunning, smart, well-coiffed, hot woman of 30+, there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some 22-year-old waitress.

Ladies, I apologize.

After work tonight I wandered to the local market to search out the Asian bitsies I needed to pull off making a stir-fry dinner for a friend. There, I spotted a fellow I know from my neighbourhood liquor store (here in BC we have a government branch that sells us booze in their strictly-booze shops… makes you go hmm, hmm?) and nodded the perfunctory “I sorta know ya, so hi” nod. He reciprocated with a like nod and carried on, hefting his huge sack of rice onto the checkstand conveyor.
This guy stands out for me in more ways than one, but the most important being how much he seems like he’s breathing because it’s expected of him. You know, barely alive, completely uninterested, the kind of person who seems to have missed the memo that life is filled with experiences and wonder. There are many kinds of tragedy in life, but those who just don’t get the wonder of life strike me as the most senseless sort of tragedy there is.
Shortly thereafter, I made my slow-assed way home on my sad little wounded scooter, happy to be breaking the speed limit by a lofty 5 kilometres per hour. Chugging contentedly along, I approached, then passed, a wine-coloured minivan, going slow enough to assure me it had to be a government employee driving.
Sure enough, the driver was my barely-there, bored to tears local booze-hockin’ liquor store clerk.
That got me pondering. It had me wondering just how unsatisfying one’s homelife must be to take that long, slow, almost hesitant drive home.
Or does it even have to be unsatisfying? Perhaps it just has to be demanding. Maybe demands are just as punitive as an unfulfilling life can be. Perhaps it really doesn’t take much at all.
It’s pretty easy to forget that a world exists beyond the mundanity of the 9-5 and routines we all fall into, the older we get. I refuse to believe that I’m the only one who has the periods of just coasting through life. Sometimes getting by is an accomplishment enough, you know?
I had one of those moments this morning where I realized I was acting like one of the faceless drones that inspire so much sympathy and query in me. Something in me snapped back like a rubber band and I slowed my scooter to a stop at an intersection, gave my head a shake (literally), took a moment, opened my eyes and looked around. Amazing how easy it is to adjust one’s attitude sometimes.
My day then got off to a better start. Everything shifted. Something tells me this guy’s gonna unwittingly remind me to be grateful for everything that comes my way every time I go and buy a bottle of red wine at his counter. And is that really a bad thing?

I have this disconcerting feeling that my television set has somehow become connected to the cosmos. Lately, often, when I’m watching something, some dramatic and terrifying moment will be ensuing and I’ll suddenly hear sirens blasting past my place.

Like a couple nights ago, I was watching Chris Haddock’s gritty Intelligence as the camera pans over this bullet-riddled corpse splayed across the street. Insert dramatic orchestral strings and cue sirens.

Just now, the not-supposed-to-be-that-big space shuttle starts misfiring as it’s hurtled towards space, and Superman steps out of the bar, thumping chase-scene dramatic music begins to swell and cue sirens.

It’s just weird. Weird, weird, weird. And I just put new batteries in my remote, too. Dude, those are some Duracells!

You know, I don’t usually repost that forwarded spam email that your family and all those people who think they’re such witty judges of humour send to you. Why? Because they usually suck.

But when you take into consideration that my 71-year-old aunt sent me this and I yam who I yam and all, and then this one’s pretty darned cute. So, humour me and read it anyways.

***

This is the fairy tale that should have been read to us when we were little:

Once upon a time, in a land far away, a beautiful, independent, self-assured princess happened upon a frog as she sat contemplating ecological issues on the shores of an unpolluted pond in a verdant meadow near her castle.

The frog hopped into the princess’ lap and said: ” Elegant Lady, I was once a handsome prince, until an evil witch cast a spell upon me.

One kiss from you, however, and I will turn back into the dapper, young prince that I am and then, my sweet, we can marry and set up housekeeping in your castle with my mother, where you can prepare my meals, clean my clothes, bear my children, and forever feel grateful and happy doing so.

That night, as the princess dined sumptuously on lightly sautéed frog legs seasoned in a white wine and onion cream sauce, she chuckled and thought to herself: I don’t fuckin think so.

I’ve decided it’s that time again, time to post a reasonably articulate ad on Craigslist seeking some reasonably articulate man. So, yesterday I posted one. 16 hours pass and not a single response, despite my publishing it. Went back to check, and lookie! No ad!

So it seems even the ever-popular Craigslist fucks up sometimes. I’ve deleted it and will have to repost tomorrow.

In the meantime, here’s one of the many keepers found there this morning:

The headline: Need a Slut, 22
Hey im a 22 year old guy. I enjoy getting drunk and having fun.
If you want to get drunk with me and maybe give me some ass let me know

Ooh. Sexy.

I just started the new Harry Potter about 100 minutes ago. I’m 134 pages in and the second act has just started with a bang.

It is safe to say I will be buried in my book for the remainder of my Saturday. I took my nephew and brother to the midnight release party with some 4,000 or so Pottermaniacs at Vancouver’s Van Dusen Gardens last night. It was nice to mark the beginning of the end with a ceremony of likeminded freaks.

The kid and kin only took their leave shortly afore 1 this afternoon, so I’m a little late delving into the deeds of Potter and his “lot”. I’m on it like Oprah on a ham, though.

In 1998 I was a bookseller who read an advance reader’s copy of the little book called Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone about two weeks before the book arrived to our shelves. Without being able to explain it, I fell in love with the little wizard boy. I was sad that it’d be a half decade before my nephew would appreciate the story, as I knew we’d enjoy living the adventures of the boy wizard, and I tried to convince my friends it was a book they’d all be smitten with. To no avail, of course.

Finally, after two more books were released, I’d convinced all my friends that my taste, as always, was superb. Even my nephew required convincing, though. At 10 years old, just over a year ago, he dismissed the books by saying the movies had to be better. I used the “but there’s more in the books” argument, which didn’t hold water.

As stubborn as I am, though, I didn’t relent. I sat by the obnoxious kid’s side and read the first Potter book aloud to him while he played World of Warcraft on the computer. I am, I assure you, a highly dramatic reader when it comes to just such a book.

A couple hours later and I hit page 110, and as the pages and moments passed, I noticed the game volume had gradually been lowered and lowered until it was turned completely off. His gameplaying slowed to a crawl, with “pause” repeatedly being put into use. It seems I had finally convinced him that the books could hold their own. He was rapt.

Three weeks later, a message on my answering machine. “Wow, auntie. Book four is so cool! I’m going to finish it tomorrow! When can I borrow book five?”

My nephew, faced with rain and a dreary night after a long day, tried to beg off the book release party last night at about 8:30. “We can get it tomorrow,” he said.

I argued the only argument I really believe applied — that Harry Potter hype, while apparently over some seemingly insignificant little wizard boy in a cutesy make-belief world existing within our own, wasn’t just about that. He, or rather the franchise, is something that, for this short month filled with a movie release and now the last book — the single most anticipated novel of all time — inexplicably bonds a majority of people together. For once in a very long while, a good many of us have this in common. It’s a moment of commonality, community, and shared excitement in a world that is becoming increasingly less communal, thanks to the invention of personal stereos, cellphones, laptops, and millions of other gadgets that are designed to distract us from ourselves and ultimately from communing with others. With the arrival of things like Facebook we have the illusion of being connected to others, but therein lies the illusion. We’re still seated on our ownsome in front of a screen.

But, today, a good many of us are one thing — Potter fans. Readers hoping for the ultimate triumph of good over evil.

It’s too bad it’s the end of an era. It was great while it lasted. And, ironically, we all finally enjoy the Potter series finale’s phenomena all on our ownsome. Funny how it all works.

It’s 3:00. I can justify a glass of wine in my bath with my book!