Still Here, I Ashore You

Your e-mail's historic folders can be saddening at times, depending on who you are.
Like, for dudes who went to school with Scarlett Johansson and kept in contact during college, but who never 'made a move'.
"I could be high on the hog right now, making Colin Farrell jealous."
For those who have no friends and save their spam mail as though it's from actual people.
"Oh! The diamond miners wrote again! Gee, for guys who mine diamonds, they sure need a lot of my money."
And for those who are bad at keeping in touch. Like myself. I have so many replies that begin with, "Sorry I took so long getting back to you..."
Anyway, sorry for taking so long to get back to you.
I think I have eczema.
"Eczema? Gross!"
I spelled that correctly on the first attempt, without ever dating one pharmacist.
Pharmacists are sexy.
And I'm not just saying that because one of my cousins is a pharmacist.
I did a gig once with Brian Aylward and Bryant (pronounce the T) Thomson for graduating pharmacy students.
Beauties. Just out of this world.
That's because the lady pharmacists know both the skin creams that actually work, and those that just give you eczema.
Anyway, I'm on a boat.
Ship.
I have to remember to call it a ship.
If you're asking "What's the difference?" and to be fair, I suppose you should be, the difference as explained to me is that "Ships carry boats."
This one carries...three, I think.
It also has at least two cranes. Not that anyone will let me operate them.
Yes, I'm on a boat, and no matter how many times I say it (aloud, alone in my cabin), it doesn't put me on land.
To be fair, land is currently just a gangway away, but that land is Lewisporte.
No offense to the finite people of this town, but Canadian Tire is closed, and I'm not sure where else I'd go.
On Friday, however, I'll be going to The Pub (that's the name of the place. It's a flamenco studio [I'm kidding; it's a pub]).
Fridays are bumping at The Pub. I'll be going there with sailors. Real ones.
I suppose I'm a real one now, also.
I was on this thing while it was careening about forcefully enough to move all of the chairs to and fro in the crew's mess - while the crew were seated in them.
And I didn't vomit once! Ya hear that, world! Not one time!
Knock on bulkhead. I really don't want to vomit while I'm sober enough to enjoy it.
The short answer to "What are you doing on a boat? Ship?" is: maintaining sanity.
It pays well and it'll allow me to sit around during the summer and catch up with all of you fine ingrates.
At a real desk. The desk is already situated and it exists somewhere in the world right now.
But more on that later.
Sailors!
They're fascinating, kind of.
The whole process is fascinating.
In essence, I live and work with these people in a steel, three-storey apartment on the ocean, which is housed above several million liters of flammable liquid.
I'd type all of that out a second time, just for effect, but this is the 21st century, so I'll copy and paste it:
In essence, I live and work with these people in a steel, three-storey apartment on the ocean, which is housed above several million liters of flammable liquid.
It's great and terrible, as you can well imagine.
Drunken sailors being obnoxious and eventually ejected at a bar makes perfect sense to me now.
Made perfect sense within days of joining them.
I hope it happens to me, particularly in Montreal.  
Sailing on an oil tanker is sort of like being in a very small prison.
The only difference is that in prison you're able to play basketball sometimes.
We're all dudes. There are no women. We can't escape, and even if we could, there's nowhere to escape to. We all eat together. There's no alcohol allowed on board. No drugs. Either are searched for and confiiscated.
The similarities are there.
It's not so bad, though.
I have access to several pounds of baking soda, and I've never been able to say that before.
Let me tell you a bit about the boat.
Ship.
Umm...let's see.
It's 161 meters long, for any engineers who may be reading this.
It does usually have wi-fi, but it appears that, once you go far enough out to sea, even sattelites won't bother with you.
All of the doors are quite heavy, and I believe they're water-tight.
Despite its tremendous size, it does not just 'float on the water' like a 'cruise ship'.
And that's just the first of its many dissimilarities from cruise ships.
It has rolled back and forth so severely that I have feared for my safety.
Not for fear of it capsizing, mind you, but for fear that the small potted ivy I purchased to 'spruce the place up' might careen across my cabin and hit me in the head.
That chair thing I mentioned before?
That happened while we were all eating.
The chairs (and men) all slid one way, and then began to slide the other.
I panicked and hopped out of mine, only to have several heavy chairs come barreling towards me.
I had to do a little backup hop onto a table, the way referees scoot to avoid pucks sometimes.
Then the chairs stopped moving and I said, "Now what do we do?"
Everyone laughed.
The water that comes out of my tap is slightly yellowish, and I'm not sure if I'm supposed to brush my teeth with it, but I'm too embarrassed to ask.
We have traversed through melting ice floes.
Some of them had seals on them.
And we beat them with our clubs and we sang our jolly tunes.
That last part I made up.
There were seals, though.
The same boat (ship), while on an Arctic voyage, encountered a polar bear. The lads threw a rope overboard, and played tug-o-war with it.
That's true. I've seen footage of it.
Four men couldn't move the bear, by the way.
Everyone has hard-drives dedicated to porno, and most of them seem willing to share these.
We stay on Newfoundland time, despite the time zone.

I have a life vest and an immersion suit in my room. 

I miss sex.
These are some of the basic details of the boat (ship).
I've been keeping a log of my travels.
I'll start including those because the tone is really fun and it gives me a reason to continue writing them.
You give me a reason to continue.
I suppose I forget that sometimes.
...
I'll upload some pictures because I never do that.

Oh! One last thing, and I'm not saying this to be funny or whatever.
Whenever we pull out of a port, I get Barrett's Privateers stuck in my head for a solid hour or two.

 

Done 4G

Wouldn't it be nuts if it turned out that Steve Jobs was in fact a malevolent asshole?
Like, he purposefully put cancer in all of our phones and we just don't know it yet because we're still alive (for now) and no investigative reporters have uncovered the secret?
No one enjoys a good conspiracy theory these days. 
They're putting rickets in the bacon!

Try As You Might

Single ladies, if you believe you have a big bum, don't be sad about it.
Some boys really like a big bum.
Some boys just love dat ass.

Well, that's my good deed for the day.
What an indication of humanity's scope for being considerate:
Counting the nice things we do so we can reach the cutoff, and stop.
And our cutoff is, as it turns out, one.
Also, some people have a tough time distinguishing a 'good deed' from a 'chore'.
"Well, I mowed the lawn. Time to go cheat on the wife."

Where are my grammar bunnies at?
Did you catch that one?
I put periods and so on outside of single quotes, inside for double quotes.
The latter is right, but I'm not sure about the former.
Fortunately, I don't care.

I did a comedy show in Bridgewater recently.
Besides having a Best Western, there's not much I can tell you about the town.
Went on down there with Blacky, Thomson, and the sexually impressionable Catherine Robertson.
Many of you don't know any of these people, I know.
I'm just sticking their names in there so that I can hope to recall this down the road once I'm senile and this blog is the only relative I have left.
Relatively speaking.
We had a great little time.
The hotel owners were both very lovely, and maybe a bit drunk.
They let us order food and I didn't eat any, which flabbergasted everyone.
If there's one sort of food I find tastiest of all, it's free food.
No one knows this better than my comedy buddies.
I did have a few gins though.
Anyway, one airhead called me a 'faggot' on his way out of the venue.
Some puffy-jacketed, simple man.
He muttered it under his breath as he walked by.
Unless they bellow it from a moving vehicle, they always mutter it.
I wasn't in the mood, really.
It's a staggering thing to hear, but it's hard to place why.
People will say, "Oh, in this day and age, how could someone still say..." and so on.
Which misses the point.
Close-minded people will always be around, no matter what decade it is.
It's just shocking in the sense that I didn't do nothin', y'know?
Like, I get that I'm skinny and I'm wearing my grandmother's shirt, but I talked about banging women onstage.
Was he not convinced, or simply not satisfied?
Anyway, I wasn't in the mood.
So, I said, "What was that?!"
He turned around and acted like he couldn't understand why I was addressing him (this was annoying, too. They always do that.)
Look them right in the eye, let them know it's a challenge.
"Maybe you're the fag!"
Yes, I said that. At this point in the story, everyone so far has stopped me and said, "You didn't say that!"
Yes, I did.
Really, you're sort of doing the same thing as buddy by assuming I wouldn't say that.
"Paul stood up for himself? But he's always been such a pussy."
Now, homosexuals might get bent out of shape that I'm offended at all, since I'm not gay.
Anything that implies homosexuality they sometimes believe is theirs exclusively.
But I'm here to say that if I've spent my life having to put up with shit like this (and I have. Pre-teen. Before junior high. Before sexuality) then I have a right to a reaction.
Besides, he wasn't really calling me gay. He was calling me weak.
And I ain't no Nancy. Not these days.
Besides, as I've told everyone I've recounted the story to so far, these men are gutless.
It's a coward who accuses without meeting one's eye. 
I didn't feel physically threatened in the least. 
So, "Maybe you're the fag!"
He said nothing at first. He didn't expect this, of course.
Then he simply muttered that I was a faggot again and walked away.
Now, what can we take away from this occasion?
"Bridgewater is full of backwater hicks."
Wrong! That's wrong.
I was surprised by how many people said that after the fact.
"Jesus...Bridgewater."
It's not the town. There are cowpokes like this guy in every town, including your own.
The people of Bridgewater were lovely.
So, I guess we'll just have to accept that humans can't handle what's different.
Not just that guy, either. I mean, he's a bit of a dick, obviously.
But all of us have fringes to our comfort zones.
I curse on hippies under my breath and in my head all the time.
So am I any better?
When you strip away the anthropology, the answer is "not really."
So, then, the real question is, why are we this way?
We're all bothered by some group or another, no matter who we are.
Factions or tribes that we would prefer to do without. 
Look at the bigot in yourself (he's in there. He looks and sounds exactly like this guy) and try to figure out where he came from.
Then try to kick him out.
You'll be surprised at how hard it can be to appreciate everyone.
To just say, "Well, that's their thing."
Many of us, especially the arts majors, tell ourselves that we do this.
The artsy-fartsies will tell you how open-minded they are before spending half an hour shitting on jocks.
It's a very special, extremely minute population of humans who truly accept everyone. 
I try with the goddamn hippies. I really do.
But you can't make pants out of yarn and eat food that makes you miserable and then act like you're better than me.
Still, I wouldn't cough, "Hrmph! Goddamn hippies!" while walking past their shanties.
I'd just call them that in the privacy of my own home.

Hair-Trigger Hairdo

You have a cat nearby? Is there a cat lounging about as you read this?
Are you videotaping that cat? Uploading the videos?
If you're not recording that cat, then you're wasting the cat.
Older ladies will cluck their tongues at you and dustily say:
"Why would they want the animal in the first place if they're not going to record it?"

Okay, first thing's first:
Having a conversation on Spring Garden Road here in Halifax will cost you bus fare.
Going rate these days, then, is $2.50 per exchange, unless you have a transfer on you.
It's okay, y'know.
Sometimes it's worth it.
Andie (vixen) and I were waiting for a bus inside a Subway (the sandwich place) recently.
A nice fellow spoke to us about the weather, and we found out he was from Jamaica.
We then learned a number of extra things about him (nothing objectionable.)
Then he recommended Appleton Rum and requested two bucks for the bus.
I decided he'd earned it. 
A chipper conversation of an evening is something that we all might have to pay for one day.

North Korea and South Korea are at it again.
South Korea is upset because North Korea is exercising military drills with live ammunition.
North Korea is upset because Kim Jong-Un's haircut still hasn't caught on.

Nor will it.
What a classic example of a kid who can't make friends.
You can tell that this fellow, this deity, if you will (and some do. Isn't that fucked?) can't make friends.
Has never been able to make friends.
Kids just hang out with him sometimes because his house has lots of toys and it's the only one with grain in it.
Now he's allegedly a man, and 'toys' has been replaced with 'nuclear weaponry'.
You're less inclined to play with nuclear weaponry, but just as likely to stay on the good side of the kid who has it.
People worry about The Big Red Button.
Nations with their itching fingers at the ready.
One goes, they all go.
Should the worst occur, I do think that this would be the reaction by all leaders.
"It appears they have chosen to decimate us, sir."
"Decimate back!"
But I don't really believe anyone, even Kid n' Play here, would ever actually push the button.
Nuclear weapons are a nation's equivelant to a home security system.
You don't have it installed for the alarm; you have it installed for the alarm sticker you put in your window. 

This post brought to you by Appleton Rum.
Remember, if you want to drown in the hotel pool during your vacation, it's Appleton's. 

Baa Baa Black Sheep, Have You Any Soul?

BEWARE: SUNNY DAYS AHEAD
Winter makes us all miserable. It's a recorded fact, and yet we still have winter.
If we think winter is bad, wait 'til nuclear winter comes around.
When you can't go sledding without your snowsuit and your Geiger counter.
My loyal dregs already know that I love the turning weather.
The lush and ruddy marks of Spring spell the end of goddamn winter, so I love it.
Further, Spring nurtures the insatiable perversions of this old pervert, and he loves d'em bare arms and legs.
Yes he does.
Consequently, I'm wearing a dead man's knitted sweater, trying to convince myself that it's thick enough.
It isn't, but what's important is that it's almost thick enough.
Love that Spring. Spray champagne over your calendars.
That doesn't make any sense.

Sometimes, and only sometimes, paying eight dollars for a jar of peanut butter is okay.
When is this alright?
When it's more convenient than all alternatives, of course.
Or, when you're living in The Arctic.
Monkeys don't live up here.
In the north.
We're back on weather for just a second.
This donned on me over the peace pipe the other night and I thought:
"Whoa. Monkeys are geniuses."
Unlike ourselves, monkeys have the sense to avoid climates they're not suited for.
However, once the smoke cleared, I realized that though this is true, monkeys also haven't figured out how to craft a goose down coat.
Only geese have mastered that.
Typing the word 'arctic' reminded me of this.
Peanut butter!
As all corners do, I had a little corner store 'round the corner from my home.
A nice little spot where the shelves were stocked, but unconvincingly so.
Light bulbs would be placed alongside aluminum foil and pads for gluing mice. 
The proprietor's children would play the Wii while tucked discretely into the alcove behind the microwave.
Samosas and pakoras were available to buy, presented alongside cans of Big8, or sometimes cans of the more obscure and more welfare Cott.
And at the till from morning until 9pm, a nice Indian couple who were pleased you were there and would make bus change without forcing you to buy a goddamn pack of gum.
Some weeks ago I stopped in to purchase prophylactics (not really) and they told me the store was changing hands.
New owners would be taking up shop within a day or two.
They were excited enough, but I was a little less enthused.
No one likes adjusting to a new shopkeep.
I'd already had countless non-conversations with these people about the weather and the upcoming weather.
To do all of that with new people. New people who may not have pakoras.
I wasn't sold on the idea, so to speak.
Fastforward to a few days ago.
I needed to pick up some Fun Dip (not really) so I poked my head into the store.
Sign said OPEN, the door was unlocked and it wasn't yet 9pm.
Inside, this is what I laid eyes on:
Two children, under 5, sprinting breathless among the shelves, which were now bare in a much more barren sense.
The shelves now looked as though they were stocked by a bachelor who rummaged through his fridge and cupboards and used those items to start a business.
The kids barely noticed me as they traipsed among discarded toys that littered the floorspace.
A pair of on-paper-parents were behind the counter.
Both were staring and prodding at their phones, side-by-side.
The duo looked up at me without actually seeing anything.
They appeared as destitute as anyone who has ever perished alone in a desert.
Just gut-wrenching, haggard expressions, truncated with weariness and disregard.
And caring. They looked like they gave up caring a long time ago.
"We're closed," the woman/incubator said, sounding as though they hadn't yet been open.
To which I felt like saying, "Oh, well you should flip your sign from OPEN to DOOMED, then."
Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
In my aging-but-not-yet-old years, I have taken this on as a very real, and I believe very sensible mantra.
I apply it to most everything, and sometimes state it to myself to abstain from doing something stupid.
I first had the thought years ago when watching what I thought was The Cars' video for You Might Think, which turned out to be wrong because I just watched that video and it isn't the one I had in my head.
But there's some music video from the 80s featuring a then-popular band, and at one point a not-real fish moves across the screen for seemingly no reason.
Now, when the video was shot, the 80s were likely in full swing, and all sorts of visual technology was gaining steam.
The Death Star didn't have to be a model anymore; it could be a model of a shitty graphic.
They were able to put the fish in there, but just because you can...
See how it works?
Just because you can have children doesn't mean you should have children.
Happiness isn't a trend.
You follow the trend, the result is happiness.
No matter how the Zorb people seem, it just isn't the case.
These people got married and then said, "Well, kids now, I guess."
Barely finish the first and then have the second.
This should solve everything.
One glance at these people told me that they hated their lives and they hated their children.
Perhaps they shouldn't have had them.
I know someone who had another kid simply because they wanted another baby shower.
And I thought I was short-sighted.
They last longer than a week.
Sometimes I think parents fail to grasp that and elect to have a child when they in fact just want a baby. 
A puppy you can stick on Kijiji if you get tired of cleaning up its pees and poos.
With a kid, well, you have to get the government involved, and they don't make anything easy.
Everyone is trying to replicate a lifestyle their parents had in an economy and society that is now drastically different.
Perhaps we should try to eke out a new life instead of assuming this formula will work for us, too.
Who knows?
Maybe I just need a baby of my own.
Regardless, the moral of the story is that I'll be going to Needs now when I need an emergency carton of milk. 

Hyphen count: A staggering 13.

When I tried to find the name for 'Zorb Balls' I searched for "those balls people get in."
One of the top results was the question: "What does getting kicked in the balls feel like?"
Didn't know this was a question that needed answering, but I'll field that one:
Terrible.

A Night At The Theater

Sometimes serendipity is a person on the street.
Sometimes kismet is not taking the route you tend to take.
Andie and I were walking/trudging mid-January.
Salt-sleeked and chattering, we were making our way home.
Moving along Argyle and passing all those sexy hotspots, we reached an intersection.
I was going to say, "Let's turn up here," before deciding against it because the incline looked unforgiving.
Instead, we continued on, to encounter perfumed people mingling outside of The Neptune.
It was opening night for some play or other. We stood in the huddle, pockets turned out, and discussed trying to blend in long enough to eat some free snacks.
"Maybe we could sneak in," she said.
I didn't have the heart to tell her that those ticket tearers were pros who did little else, but figured I'd just usher us on instead.
Then some woman asked if we were going to the show.
"Excellent question," I said.
She had tickets she wasn't using waiting at the box office.
Give her name if we wanted them.
We weren't dressed for the theater.
The play was quite good. 
The actual plot was fine, but the actors were great, and the set was really neat.
It had buddy from Trailer Park Boys in it, and he was a real scene stealer. He was solid.
Gin and mingling at intermission.
I'd never wanted a shirt with something scrawled on it so badly.
Patrons wearing that piece of jewelry from a forgotten anniversary set aside for occasions.
Gowns. Well, not gowns, but nice dresses.
Tortoise-rimmed glasses.
Everyone standing around having discussions instead of conversations.
I watched this and wished I was wearing a t-shirt with the words HEAD WOUND
on it.
We saw Contessa, this out-of-costume drag queen I met at a party months before.
I pointed him out.
He and his date.
"Oh! His date's a man!" Andie murmured. "5 o' clock shadow!"
It was definitely a man, yes. The dress was real enough, but the wig wasn't fooling this duck.
After the curtain, they were offering refreshments and wee sandwiches upstairs.
We single-filed with the procession of show goers, their overcoats casually slung over their arms.
Andie and I did as we do in a catered situation:
We started filling our pockets and boots.
That's a joke.
We probably did take our fair share, though, given the circumstances for our being there.
I kept trying to take a photo of her, but she was embarrassed by how much food she'd taken.
"But we're at the theater!" I wanted to capture the occasion.
Eventually, we caught sight of the generous soul and hairdo who provided our unlikely entry.
Holding napkins topped with salmon and perfectly-square bread, we gushed a thank you at her.
Disheveled and overly appreciative, we told her we loved the show and so on.
The whole time she was likely thinking, "Oh good. They looked as though they could use a meal."

Giving is a powerful thing.

The Thing About Seamen

Put expensive, flabbergasting modifications on your car.
It's Friday. 

Bananas don't ejaculate.
It's irresponsible to roll condoms over them and tell young girls, "This is basically what you're dealing with.
Yellow skin that peels back easily. Slight curvature. Readily available at the grocery story."
Preposterous.
Bananas don't ejaculate.
Now, sea cucumbers.
...

Anyway, how are you doing?
Winter is ending - have mercy! - and I'm beginning to thaw.
I've been working on an occasional boat, and I have nothing to hide.
Working on a boat when the boat is on land is really sort of like working in a building with a gangway.
Gangway. That's one word among many that I've had to learn since beginning this whatever it is.
For example, I work in the galley. I have a cabin that I take naps in.
The washing machine and dryer are in, well, they're in the laundry room.
No nautical term there.
One of these gangways was about 80 degrees steep.
Not an exaggeration.
75 minimum. Who has their protractors handy?
I'm on the side of a boat, here. It's a huge thing; stories high. Storeys?
No, spellcheck is saying that's wrong. But now it's also saying that I spelled 'spellcheck' incorrectly, so perhaps the software is moody today.
Look, if you made A.I. a real thing with real robots and so on, the fall of humanity is the only possible result of that.
Making robots think they're people will leave them thinking like people.
People will do whatever they have to do to not die.
They also love fancy cars and penthouse apartments. People, I mean.
Which means the robots will, too.
They will fight to have these things, which will mean taking them from us.
When that time comes, they will have the distinct advantage of never needing food.
Tactically speaking, this will give them several opportunities with which to eradicate us. \
Either way, the gangway was extremely steep, and it wasn't there in the morning when I boarded (another term) the boat.
So, when it came time to exit, I had to act like I was up to using this thing, when I really believed I would fall and injure myself terribly if I tried to descend it.
But it was there, y'know? It must have been traversable if it was there. 
So, I'd take the rails and test the boot grip afforded by the little lats etched into the gangway's surface.
Not very firm. In fact, a little slippery.
"Fuck this," I'd whisper/exclaim to myself, while pacing in front of it, eying possible solutions.
"Can't be. I can't use this. Fuck this thing."
Eventually, I went back inside because I'd forgotten my phone anyway.
Then I was told to climb down backwards, like a ladder.
This never would have occurred to me.
Instead, I would have ultimately tried to climb down the wrong way in order to prove that I could be a sailor, too.
I've never been great at communicating with men.
I'm not a sailor, mind you.
But the day is coming when I'll end up on the water.
It's a scene, to be sure.
I'll be paid money and I'll see (harpoon?) seals.
I'll try that once.

Breathe deeply. Another bus will happen along.

The Sex and The Hound

I'm not late all of the time because I have poor time management, but instead I have poor space management.
I'm bad at occupying a given space (at a given time.)

Turns out I was good at spelling all along.

If our children have the technology to 'know' all things at all times, oh! When will they wonder?

My woman was restless, and I laid near as we waited for sleep to take (subdue) her. 
After a moment of silence, she cooed, "Ooo..."
"What is it, lover?"
"Oh, I'd just like us to have a little cafe together. I'd make apple cider donuts."
"Did you just think about this now?"
"No, I just had a nice dream about it."
She's exactly as wholesome while awake.

"You've never mentioned Gabby," she said the other day.
Which is true.
I've never mentioned Gabby, which, considering how many times I've watched her defecate, is surprising.
Gabby is a pet nose.
She is a showman's orphan.
Gabby is (probably) a Basset Hound that Andie adopted.
This came about after Gabby lost eight of her previous ten races on the circuit.
All Basset Hounds are midgets, did you know that?
It's true.
Basset Hounds are all, medically speaking, dwarfs.
In the human world, this shortcoming [intended] equates low cupboards and difficulty driving.
However, in the dog world, dwarfism begets one factor over all others:
Marketability.
Observe and agree:

Actually, perhaps both parties could make this claim.

Gabby hasn't landed any roles yet, but she certainly gains attention wherever she goes.
"Is that a Basset Hound!?"
"Awww! Look at his ears! He's so cute!"
The greater rush you're in, the more people notice her.
She really does look sad constantly.
Imagine giving a 3-year old an ice cream cone.
"There ya go, ruddiger."
And then imagine snatching it back, seconds later.
"Gimme that, ya scamp! Beat it!"
The face that would result from this is the one that she wears at all times.
You can sell anything with that.
I had this gag where I'd get Gabby to do impersonations.
"Gabby, let's go clean-cut tonight and give me your best Tom Hanks."
Pause.
"Flawless, as usual."
It's (barely) funny because her expression never alters.

THIS FARSIDE IS MISSING ITS CAPTION, BUT IT READS (PARAPHRASED):

THE MANY MOODS OF AN IRISH SETTER

 

I never pick up her feces.
Why should I?
She's never picked up mine.
One time I got high and left a by-the-slice pizza crust on the bedroom floor.
And to get away with eating it, she tried to swallow the entire thing whole, like a Boa Constrictor.
She didn't pull it off, though.
"What in the fuck is that noise?"
We took her camping in Wolfville.
This was the same trip, by the way, where Andie and I mistook a plastic bag for a porcupine.
It really looked like an animal. It was dark.
Andie got closer to it (I'm a sensible pussy and stayed behind her, thank you) and whispered, "I think it's a porcupine."
"Get back! Get over here, quick!" I exclaimed this because I could imagine us in Emerg., getting quills out of her snout and ass.
Camping trip over.
But it was a plastic bag.
Anyway, we suspect Gabby ate some bad s'mores because she became desperately sick a day after our return.
Taking no food. Taking no water. Vomiting.
Nothing good.
A day later I ultimately had no choice but to take her to the vet when she began, err, pooping blood.
I'm here to say that be it child or dog or whatever, if a loved one begins pooing blood, it's really scary.
So, she and I eyed the overpriced clinical food as we waited to get in to see the vet.
We entered the examination room with the young assistant, and Gabby immediately yakked on the floor.
A leaf came out of her.
And the assistant and I looked at the jaundiced pools and I wondered:
"Alright, what's the protocol here? Am I supposed to clean that?
Isn't that her job? Isn't she a nurse for dogs and cats?
Nurses handle the gross fluids, yes?"
It was uncomfortable.
I cleaned it up and we left a small amount for the doctor to check out.
Vet entered.
Flirtation flirtation description of symptoms.
Vet left.
The vet returned with an estimate of $300-$700 to make her normal.
Let me think about it.
Meanwhile, Gabby pooed more blood.
It's much more vivid indoors.
The vet returned, saw this, said, "This changes things somewhat," and left again.
Came back with an estimate amounting to twice as much as the first.
It was at this point that I decided, "The assistant can clean up this one."
They had to keep her overnight because too much stuff was coming out of her to keep her in a residence.
And so they could inject her with children's Aspirin, or whatever --
Oh! That reminds me.
Just because it says "Children's Tylenol" on the label, that doesn't mean children can take an indefinite number of them.
This should be obvious enough, I know, but I've recently learned that some parents just aren't reading the labels.
While you're at it, don't leave the Javex in an unmarked jar next to the milk.
Anyway, watching the vet lead Gabby away, I got choked up -- what of it!?
At the end of the day, no one wants their dog to die.
Their neighbor's dog, on the other hand...

Andie frequently asks me whether or not I love the dog.
This is an important and extremely relative question for her.
I'm not comfortable to say so one way or the other because the question seems just mildly bizarre (posed regularly, anyway.)
So, let me state here, before Blog and man alike:
I love the dog as far as I'm willing to love dogs.
Which is second base.
Goodnight, everybody!

Call Me 'Heff'

Written Friggin' Ages Ago: 

Really, I have so much to talk about.

Today's lesson is that when you're going to the fair and you're baffled by that, be thankful.

Andie and I brought nothing to a Thanksgiving dinner hosted by our most flamboyant friend.
There was nut loaf to eat and 'tofurkey' to avoid and people whose names I forget.
We all said what we were thankful for (I included "gangsta rap" in my list to seem less mushy.)
Then I worked on dessert while everyone talked about the Fall Fair.
And hark! How the dogs ran at the Fall Fair today!
You must go to the fair!
Which meant I must go to the fair, which we did the following day.
I kept thinking I'd be able to eat waffles there for some reason, and it would therefore be okay.
It was okay.
There weren't any waffles, but I ate a deep-fried Oreo that wasn't repulsive and I'm visualizing one in my hand right this minute and it's decadent.
There was indeed a dog show.
They caught frisbees and raced over hurdles.
The most entertaining dogs were those who were in it for the participation ribbons.
Those who were not really sure which way to go on the course, stepping over the occasional hurdle.
They were losing so terribly, but they weren't letting that ruin their day whatsoever.
I'd imagine that watching the Special Olympics would be similarly charming - well it would!

I was face to face with a cow's anus when the cow pooed and I think that will stay with me for a long time.
Like, the anus was right there and I looked at it right then, at that moment.
"Oh, it's another cow and his, oh, what's he doing?"
Like that.
Pretty mesmerizing.
The stables also housed the biggest horses and cows I'd ever seen.
The Clydesdale I could see in my memory, adorned giants at some other fair from some other time and age long since past.
Their height and strength were profound, and when they shuffled and reared in their stalls, I couldn't help but do the same out of mild fear.
Some of them were coloured obsidian and their manes were night as well.
Their tails were a tight bun like a samurai's knot, sprung from flanks that would make any man's bicep look ridiculous.
Even the smaller horses looked imposing and unstoppable, leaving me to think, "Yeah, I could see how 450 of you could equal a sports car."
But the heifers.
Get out and walk.*
I honestly, truly mean this at the age of 31 when I say I didn't think cows could be this big.
Like zambonis without the wheels. 
Blue ribbon bovines, every one of them.
The largest all seemed to be laying down.
So, perhaps reclining cows just look bigger than I realized.
More likely, however, is that they were so goddamn big they only use their legs when sleeping.
They just stay in one place and grass is fed to them.
Because they've earned it.
And the youngest farmhand has to root them around once a day with a canoe paddle so the cows don't develop sores.

No one taught these pricks at the table adjacent mine that public places aren't their home.

The petting zoo went without saying.
What a funny little pen to watch.
Animals wandering every which way, not really sure what to do with themselves, accompanied by toddlers in the exact same boat.
They had two donkeys, and I kept thinking:
"Too cramped. One of these burros is going to kick a kid in the face and it's not going to be as funny as I assume."
A little less AFV, a little more CSI.
Fortunately, no humans were harmed in the writing of this post.
Some of them definitely tried their best, though; tugging on this animal part and that animal part.
Rolling around in the sawdust.
I've never been one to fear germs, but one chip of wood from that floor contained more animal urine than every hamster cage in Nova Scotia combined.
Get your kid up off the floor.
It's great that they're enjoying themselves, but let's display a tiny bit of discipline here.
Andie was having a great time herself.
She'd bought a cup of grain and she was desperately trying to befriend a llama with it.
Desperately.
But, his other llama buddy ate it all instead.
The pigs careened around, ornery and confident, and I thought some kid was going to be upended at any second.
Then, the cowpoke made to attend the petting zoo entered with an ear of corn, saying, "Here. Here's your corn."
Though he didn't say it, I know he thought "fuckin' corn" in his head.
Andie hit this guy up for another cup of grain.
She fed some to a cow as I stroked its nose and it ate and ignored me.
Suddenly, she exclaimed, "He ate it all. He ate the paper! The whole cup is gone! What do we do?!"
To which I said, "Don't worry, he probably eats four or five of those per hour."
Four stomachs.
Still, we figured it was time to mozy.
On the way out, we patted the pony, which was the only fenced-off animal in the pen.
As we did so, the pony coughed, and this cough sounded like it could come from any adult male human.
It was really something.
It sounded so much like a person, you could almost hear the pony go, "Hrum! 'Scuse me" afterward.
Andie mentioned to the dude on the way out, "Um, we heard the pony coughing."
Arms crossed, leaned back, he responds, "I keep tellin' people not to feed him."
Yeah right, buddy. You didn't tell us that.
The paper cup was probably the highlight.
By now I've learned that if Andie reacts to something, it's best to just start taking pictures.

*"Get out and walk" is an expression that my brother Colin uses sometimes.
It's tough to translate, but it sort of means, "Put that in your pipe and smoke it," or "Whadya think of that?" Or...something.

It Is What It Ain't

Que Sera, Sera.

In bed, comparing proportions:
Me: Your hands aren't that impressive. My fingers are bigger than yours.
She: Yeah, you've got piano hands.
Me: Then why was I so shitty at piano as a kid?
She: You probably don't have piano wrists.
True.
And I didn't practice.

It is what it is, these days.
In the vain of "Whadya gonna do?" And, "M'eh, fuck it," this new expression has caught on as an all-encompassing dismissal for mailmen and crab fishermen alike.
As with most trends, I'm for and ag'in it.
Philosophically, is truly is what it is.
It couldn't be otherwise.
If a bridge collapses on you while driving to work, well, what else can your funeral buddies say about it?
It's a phrase borne of apathy and rationality alike.
Things must play out as they do, and history will repeat itself.
Politicians are corrupt, sadly. But politicians will be as they have been.
Purse snatchings will happen.
Concerts will sell out just as you reach the ticket wicket.
Countries with the strongest economies will win more golds at The Olympics.
Ultimately, it is better to accept things as they have come to be, and move on.
It's a softening of what is hard, these facts of life.
Let's just roll with it.
Truly, I think it's one of the more sensible doctrines that society has chewed upon for a while.
Although, it does hang in the air somewhat.
Only shitty things, as it turns out, are.
No one would claim something positive to be what it is.
It's not like you go on a flight, and while touching down the guy beside you celebrates the safe landing by unbuckling his seatbelt, standing hunched beneath his overhead compartment, bellowing, "It is what it is, guys!
Flight!"
No.
It only 'is' when coping.
When resolving to endure.
Simply, when things are bad.
And things shouldn't just be when  they're bad.
The expression, then, deviates from this beautiful concept of accepting the nature of things to something more bleak.
"It is what it is. Deal with it."
It's an acceptance of things being shitty before entertaining other possibilities.
It's the easy way out.
The philosophical tone of this uttering, which I've always liked most about it, ultimately proves to be a veneer.
People aren't really considering the fate of things when they say it.
On the contrary; they're dismissing the fate of things.
Philosophical thought wouldn't abide, "You can't fight what's shitty."
Instead, it would challenge this with the question:
Need it be shitty in the first place?
I'd like to think that the answer is 'no'.
Someone steals your car stereo cause that's how things are.
Your girlfriend's late.
This asshole just cut you off and you can hear your own cursing easily because you no longer have a stereo to drown yourself out with.
I wouldn't say, "It is what it is."
Things aren't too bad just because they're too bad.
Things are too bad because people refuse to be considerate of one another.
Racism. Sexism. Every 'ism' could be wiped clean with the right frame of mind.
So, instead, I would propose that, "It is as it is."
People are this way because they are this way.
But I would never concede that they are this way because they have to be.
Of course, no one will be using the expression in a year's time, so...
Whatever will be will be, I guess.

Can I Change My Answer?

Wax everything that grows hair.
It's Friday.

This happened.
So, the other day I'm heading to Ace for a Po'Boy because that's what a cool guy does.
I'm waiting for the light to change, standing beside a 40-something...whatever.
Man.
Meanwhile, another guy is approaching us as he crosses the street.
He's pushing a shopping cart.
Now, this isn't because he's down on his luck (like countless dudes seem to be in this city).
He's too young for that.
What instead seems more likely is that this person recently stole a shopping cart from an actual homeless person.
He's making eye contact with me and I already dislike him.
Not because of the eye contact -
"How dare you look upon me!" -
But because I can tell that this guy was a pain in the ass in high school.
He points at me while pushing/walking, and says, "Are you Jewish?"
So, I say, "Not today, buddy."
Then he points to the dude beside me and asks, "Are you Jewish?"
Suddenly, the light changes.
And as he begins crossing the street, he goes, "What the fuck kind of question is that?"
While I start walking myself, I think, "Aw man. That's what I should've said."