Not Long Enough

I was on this weekend with Gilson Lubin.
And Mike Nemiroff.

Mike's legs were incredibly skinny.

Both of them were hilarious.

Gilson and I were eventually offered medicinal marijuana by some guy.

I MC'd, which I don't normally do.

I lay down on the stage at one point on Saturday night.

Because it just felt like the thing that I should be doing at the time.

...

I still have the medicinal marijuana guy's number.

He offered it to us for free.

I expected Gilson to be more street saavy.

But instead he left it to me to ask, "You're not going to rob us, are you?"

The missus and I ate out many times.

We would order dinner, wait for it, and then marvel at how late in the evening it was.

We did this before Friday's show, and then again before Saturday's show.

At one point:

Me: Your hair looks longer today than any other day I've known you.

Her: My hair is longer than any other day you've known me.

Later I mentioned that if her hair was much longer she could use it to cover her breasts.
Like a Maxim photo shoot.

She countered that it wasn't long enough.

And that she'd have to use her hands instead.

Shim-Me and Shake

There are a number of things I would rather not do with my father.
My mother, for example.
Write essays.
He's sort of useless for writing essays.
I'd rather do other things than help him with computers.
Apply mercuracome to my own wounds, for example.
But the top of the ladder?
(Semi-literally in this case)
Stand on scaffolding.
Though it has little to do with my dad.
And much more to do with a ten-foot drop onto 50-year old rusty nails.
We installed a window last week.
It was terrifying.
We had to take turns lifting it up three lengths of scaffolds.
I put in the number of lengths for Peter's benifit.
Because he knows how high that is.
The higher we got, the more I wondered if you could return windows after dropping them.
The very same set collapsed before, you know.
Mr. Gordon Hopkins plummeted off of them some time ago.
Onto his head.
Which he cheerily described to me while sitting on them.

A Fine Wine

I may or may not have eaten eight-year old jam.
Just now.
More to follow.
Unless this causes me to die.
In which case, it has been a good run.
It really has.

You know how parents sometimes have to tell their children not to eat stupid things?
Say, a toddler will start to put a cigarette butt in their mouth.
And the mom, if she bothers to look up from her copy of O, will caution:
"No no, Jakob-Dylan. That's dirty."
I need someone around to do that for me at all times.

"Styrofoam Plates, Cafeteria Tables"

I was teaching all of last week.
This week I'm holding boards for Dad and carrying skill saws.
I'm not sure which job I enjoy more.
But I know which job is less predictable.
I had a kid interrupt me in a grade five class last Friday.
So that he could say:
"Devon says that I don't have any hairs on my armpits, but I do!"
I broke character.
I couldn't even act like this was a comment I could take in stride.
I was still laughing when I told them what page to turn to in their math books.

That's about all I've got.
I know this has been nearly a two-week absence.
And sure, the armpit story is cute, but still...
Oh! There's this.
I was published in The Compass.
The thought that people were going to see it and read it hadn't really crossed my mind.
I just wanted to get my picture taken.
The whole thing backfired on me when kids started swarming me during lunch duty.
Hugging me with their grubby little fingers.
Asking me to please call their mom sometime.
What a mess.
They asked me to sign their Styrofoam plates.
When a student requests something of you, ask yourself:
"Will this get on my nerves after doing it ten times?"
If the answer is, "yes," tell the kid to shove off.
I signed so many plates.
But, as I have always been an advocate for the children, I tried to write positive messages:
'Don't start fist fights.'
'Buy jewelry. Make friends.'
That sort of thing.
It wasn't until lunch was over that I realized the kids were taking unused plates from the cafeteria.
Because it also wouldn't occur to me to wonder where the kids were finding them.

Made of Money

When I was at Acadia, this dude named Scott Pike lived on my floor.
A real wiener from Bedford, Nova Scotia.
A town I would eventually familiarize myself with and copulate in.
We boys, in our towels in the showers, made fun of Pike endlessly.
Because his girlfriend, in neighboring Cutten (or, colloquially, Slutten Cutten) bought them walkie-talkies.
It was the most ludicrous thought to us.
At her endless beckon call.
No decisions for himself.
"Breaker, breaker, which sweater should I wear to dinner? Over."
And so on.
Now, with the advent of the Blackberry, all dudes are Scott Pike.
And they're in front of me in line at the coffee shop.
"No...they don't have any blueberry muffins.
...Well, they have carrot, and oatmeal chocolate chip, and..."
Not only is this a damning thing for men everywhere.
But cancer is also still winning.
Still.

I have lost loved ones to The Big C, just like everyone else.
As a society cancer is tough for us.
But humanity just couldn't stand to make its popcorn on the stove top anymore.
Humanity couldn't hear:
"He's in the shower, call back later," anymore.
Business deals need to be made.
Talk and shower at the same time.
So everyone gets cancer now.
I don't want to seem insensitive, but haven't we given cancer enough money?
How much money has been raised?
How many hikes and walks do we have to go on?
How many chocolate-covered almonds do we have to sell?
Cancer research has received gagillions of dollars.
It's time for results.
Okay, there's chemotherapy.
Results that don't require wigs.

You(')r(e) Excuse(d)

Shave near and around your genitals.
It's Friday.

I learned yesterday what is easier than being the substitute music teacher:
Being the substitute art teacher.
I went to the wrong place for homeroom, and the kids had to help me do attendance.
I couldn't use the internet in the room with all of the easels, so I had to just sort of sit there.
And occasionally permit people to use the washroom.
Not unlike a prison guard.
Or hostage-taker.
High school is quite different from other grades.
Though this was hardly the case when I was in high school, most of these people have finger-banged someone.
They've performed a handjob.
At the very least.
If this is the case, they shouldn't have to ask me to go to the bathroom.
They can make the decision on their own.
If they want to go to their locker.
They have to see the guidance counselor.
Whatever.
No matter what they ask me, I generally say, "Go for it."
I barely even pay attention to the request.
You can't do that with junior high kids.
Because they ask for stupid things.
"Can I go call my mom?"
"Why?"
"I have to tell her that I'll be a few minutes late meeting her for dinner because of this reason."
"Won't she figure that out when you see her at lunch time?"
"Yeah, but..."
And so on.
No matter what the student asks, and no matter the grade, the question is the same:
"Can I leave the room and walk around for a few minutes?"
Which I will always say 'yes' to.
If the student is creative enough.
If they're in my class, they're going to at least learn to lie properly.

One of the art kids asked if I was okay.
Because I wasn't okay.
So, I explained that I felt awful because I ate too many Doritos the night before.
She seemed mildly put off by this.
Then I realized that perhaps I shouldn't have told her the truth.
Me: It's tough to figure out what you should and should not say to them sometimes.
Avril: You're 28 and you got sick from eating too many Doritos!
I then agreed with her that that was rather despicable.
Especially since I did the same thing with cheezies a couple of weeks earlier.

Pride Before the Fall

WARNING:

SHOULD NOT BE READ BY PREGNANT WOMEN OR OLD PEOPLE

Side note:

Have any of you had to show your genitals to a doctor?

Huh?

Wussthat?

Oh. Nothing.
Just curious. That's all.

You see those newlywed couples who get the pregnancy pictures taken?

Not photos of the baby.

Not photos of the baby being conceived.

Just photos of the woman in her third trimester.

He's in the photo, too.

In the background somewhere.

With a nice sweater on.

They're typically done in black and white.

First of all:

This is the most concrete example of a man relinquishing his dignity that I have seen so far.

Holding her purse while she tries on shoes isn't even in the same universe as this is.

If she made the man ingest the purse in the shoe store it still wouldn't be in the same league.

But I got to thinking...

Would they get miscarriage photos done as well?

Just have the two of them pose next to some nice birch trees.

With sad faces.
Their pockets turned inside out.

This is all Anne Geddes' fault.
If I was a millionaire, y'know what I'd do?

I'd rob an old folks' home.

Load thirty, forty elderly people into a truck.

Then I'd dress them up as daffodils and watermelons and bumblebees.

And then I'd set them loose on Anne Geddes' property.

She drugs all of those babies, by the way.
For those photos.
She tranquilizes all of them.

Anywhere but Here

It has been getting around today, but in case you haven't seen it, this is great.
Bay Roberts has been officially deemed as shitty as we found it to be in our youth.
Like these people know what they're talking about.
There's no way they have actually been to Bay Roberts.
I'd like to see them follow up on their research.
That way they'd realize that Shearstown or Spaniard's Bay are equally plausible candidates.
At least we have a McDonald's.
If you skim through the article you'll see that Port Alberni, B.C. is also listed.
For anyone else who has fallen for Turpin's succubus-like charm knows:
She once lived in Port Alberni.
Coincidence?
I couldn't say.
Let's ask the MoneySense people.