Creampuff Revolution

Wild Creampuff Frontier

I’ve been reading a lot of books about pioneers lately and they’re really making me question my work ethic. I compared my typical day with that of the Ingalls family in Little House on the Prairie.

Ma Ingalls: Rises at dawn. Gets fully dressed. Goes outside, draws water from well to wash with. Washes face and hands. Builds fire. Makes cornbread from scratch. Fries salt pork and makes husband’s coffee. Wakes children. Feeds everyone.

Me: Rise practically at dawn to make Katr’s breakfast and lunch. Am still wearing pyjamas. So far so good.

Ma Ingalls: Draws more water from well, heats it over fire. Scrubs dishes in warm water, then hands to children to wipe and put away in dish box. Boils last of water to scald dishrag clean, then spreads it near the fire to dry.

Me: (scrubbing) “What . . . is . . . on . . . this . . . SPATULA??”

Pa Ingalls: “When he had hauled enough logs [to make the floor of their house], he began to split them. He split each log straight down the middle. Laura liked to sit on the woodpile and watch him.

First, with a mighty blow of his ax, he split the butt of the log. Into the crack, he slipped the thin edge of an iron wedge. Then he wrenched the ax out of the log and he drove the wedge deeper into the crack. The tough wood split a little further. All the way up the log, Pa fought that tough oak. He struck with his ax into the crack. He drove blocks of wood into it, and moved the iron wedge higher. Little by little, he followed the crack up the log.

He swung the ax high, and brought it down with a great swing and a grunt from his chest. “Ugh!” The ax whizzed and struck, plung! It always struck exactly where Pa wanted it to. At last, with a tearing, craching sound, the whole log split. Its two halves lay on the ground, showing the tree’s pale insides and the darker streak up its middle. Then Pa wiped the seat from his forehead, he took a fresh grip on the ax, and he tackled another log.”

Me: Write two lines of my play. Take a nap.

Ma Ingalls: Plucks a prairie chicken that Pa killed just by looking at it. Bakes a loaf of salt-rising bread, from scratch. Spreads bread with butter she made that day by churning. Takes dried berries that were plucked the summer before, and stews them for desert with maple sugar they made from actual trees. Does all of this holding a baby and wearing a corset.

Me: Call Swiss Chalet.

One thing I spend a lot of my day doing and haven’t read about in detail are the bathroom habits of the pioneers. I get the blow by blow of how Pa sat by the fire of a evening and made his own bullets by melting lead and pouring it into a mold, but when and where did he take a dump? I don’t recall reading “Pa slipped off his brown leather suspenders. Next, he unbuttoned his pants. His pants had six buttons. They were not ordinary bone buttons, but brass buttons, from town. Ma polished those buttons until they shone. Pa liked to show off the twinkle of his buttons. When his buttons were undone, Pa pulled his pants down by the hole he had dug near the creek bed. Pa squatted over the hole with a grunt from his chest. “Ugh!” said Pa. Pa took the biggest dumps in all of Kansas and Laura was proud.”

I must confess, I find the idea of the pioneer lifestyle attractive. Living off the earth. Spending hours and hours a day doing physical labour, engaging in the seemingly endless step-by-step rituals of cooking and other domestic tasks. But ultimately, I suspect that the drama of it appeals far more to me than the reality. My recent obsession with pioneering rather echoes my many other keen interests - being a physicist, a lawyer, a doctor, a marine biologist, a madam at the hottest cat house in town. All of these past obsessions came to naught for the same reason: I don’t want to BE a pioneer - I just want to play one on t.v.

Comments:

1. Holy bejeezus, that was funny. Roro, will you please write a book so I can give you to all my friends and family for xmas?

   Comment by Berin — Thursday, June 23, 2005 @ 6:42 pm

2. Berin, you are too kind. I don’t know that Ma Ingalls would approve of me writing a book - it would just feed my vanity and she knows that little pitchers with big heads get eaten by panthers.

   Comment by Rose — Thursday, June 23, 2005 @ 10:32 pm

3. Speaking of panthers (okay, leopards), did Barah send you this?

   Farmer Got Your Tongue?
   “A 73-year-old Kenyan farmer found himself at death’s door when a
   charging leopard sank its teeth into his wrist and mauled him with its
   claws. So Daniel M’Mburugu did what any self-respecting peasant farmer
   would do: He ripped the leopard’s tongue out with his bare hands. “A
   voice, which must have come from God, whispered to me to drop the panga
   (machete) and thrust my hand in its wide open mouth. I obeyed,” he said.
   M’Mburugu was tending to his potato and bean crops when the carnivorous
   cat leaped out of the long grass. When, at long last, he wrenched the
   leopard’s tongue from its mouth, the beast uttered a dastardly death
   rattle. “It let out a blood-curdling snarl that made the birds stop
   chirping,” he told the Daily Standard.”

   Ewwwwwwwwwww.

   Comment by Berin — Friday, June 24, 2005 @ 12:55 am

4. And all this time I’ve been comparing my work ethic to Anne of Green Gables…I see what I’ve been doing wrong! Love the blog…

   Comment by Meridith — Friday, June 24, 2005 @ 10:54 am

5. James would be so proud of you for such an eloquent description of Pa’s dump. I’m proud of you too.

   Comment by Lady Marianna — Wednesday, June 29, 2005 @ 8:47 pm

6. Sense Memory and Typography
   After Roro’s recent binge on literature about the late 1800’s, I, too, have been re-reading the Little House books. For some reason, I didn’t retain the whole series from my childhood (I only had By The Shores of Silver Lake

   Trackback by My Name is Kate — Monday, July 11, 2005 @ 5:59 am

Cheap Creampuff

Pride is upon us, fellow Torontonians! Katr and I are hosting some Pride virgins this year and look forward to their ooo’s and aaah’s of wonder at the assless chaps, the pounding beats and the ubiquitous rainbow flag. I only hope our blender can handle all the fun.

For those of you with nothing to do Wednesday night (June 22nd) at 9 p.m., come on down to Buddies for the first night of Cheap Queers, “a three day celebration showcasing over fifty of the queerest, the brightest and the most irreverent Toronto has to offer.” Along with the queerest and the brightest, I will be performing my latest oeuvre, “Your Love Gives Me A Rash". Doors open at 8:15 p.m. and tickets are $4.62. There promises to be some funny shit, people. Funny, funny shit.

Speaking of funny shit, would the person who found my blog by Googling “fish tank tits” please stand up? Because I just . . . need to know.

Comments:

1. Thanks, I have not been a virgin for a very long time, so this is nice. My partner’s love has given me a rash so I was interested in your performance. Sorry I am going to miss it. Of course, it could be the poison I keep getting into. I would look it up online to figure out what it is, but I am afraid of the photos. I have been enjoying your blog a lot, but it was not me who googled the fish tits. Would those be Gordon’s or Mrs. Paul’s?

   Comment by Kristi Shupp-George — Monday, June 20, 2005 @ 7:08 am

2. Well, as Madonna noted in the ’80’s, it’s nice to FEEL like a virgin, even if you have a rash. Dude, keep away from the poison! Pride at our place is less fun when you spend most of it in the emergency room! Glad you’ve been enjoying the blog and thanks for taking your name off my list of “fish tank tits” possibilities. Gordon’s? Mrs. Paul’s? Perhaps I’ll have to have another look at that “Viscount of Knockers” who likes to post comments here from time to time . . .

   Comment by Rose — Monday, June 20, 2005 @ 3:46 pm

3. Fish Tank Tits? Bleh. Don’t pin that one on me. Even the Viscount has his limits of breast perversion.

   Comment by Non-Googler Mike — Monday, June 20, 2005 @ 8:39 pm

4. Hey - That rash has nothing to do with me! And, btw, to translate for non-central-Pennsylvanians, the “poison” to which she refers is poison ivy - courtesy of our forest-exploring dog.

   Oh, and we are *Toronto* Pride virgins, and Canada-virgins, but not over-all pride virgins. So, the assless chaps that will shock and surprise us will be the ones worn by Mounties.

   Looking forward to it!

   Comment by Beth Shupp-George — Monday, June 20, 2005 @ 11:42 pm

5. Can I have a copy of “Love Gives me a rash?” It sounds fabulous.

   Comment by Lady Marianna — Wednesday, June 29, 2005 @ 9:01 pm

Creampuff Infiltrates the Annual General Meeting

Some of you may recall a couple of my previous posts (Creampuff Gets Busted By The Man, Creampuff is a Peeping Tom) detailing the epic drama of the tinfoil on our bedroom windows. I am pleased to inform you that a man named James came here last week with some stuff in a bag and when he left - we had drapes! I haven’t seen natural light in our bedroom for a year and a half and it was quite a trip, let me tell you. I am also pleased to note that with the tinfoil off the windows, I have a whole other set of buildings to inspect in my capacity as the neighbourhood peeping tom. My friend Kifr lives in one of them and she likes to leave the air conditioning off and wander around in her underwear. I might give her Byle The “Straight” Drape Seller’s number . . . then again, I might not. Not just because I might catch her in her skivvys, but because it took, like, 2 months to get the darn drapes. And thank god we got them when we did, because if we’d still had the tinfoil up on our windows, there’s no way I could have shown my face at the annual general meeting of the condo corporation.

I had some great excuse to miss the AGM last year and poor Katr had to go solo. From her account, it was not the best party in town. There were the usual petty complaints ("The bike in rack 56 is dusty and in disrepair. It’s lowering the tone of the building.” or “The petunias in the east flower bed are consistently bedraggled. Can we post a security guard in that area to ensure the safety of the foliage?") but the real fight apparently erupted over the small, unheated outdoor rooftop pool and whether children in diapers should be allowed to swim in it. Obviously, some people were vehemently against it and some people - presumably the people with children - wanted to discuss it and it just went on forever and by the time Katr got home, she was livid. “It’s not like they’re just in diapers! They’re wearing plastic pants over the diapers! It’s not like you’re in the pool and some big turd floats by! Jesus Christ!”

This year, Katr had a great excuse to give the AGM a pass (I believe it went something like “I went LAST year."), so I went down there by myself, early, to score a spot on the couch. The room filled up quickly and I recognized the usual group of bitchy owners who show up for all of the open meetings - Angry Bearded Man, Receding Chin Guy and this other woman who I didn’t have funny name for before the meeting, but now I do and it’s FUBU Socks. Because in the middle of one of her racially-tinged diatribes about the “scary” people who hang out around our building, I looked down and noticed that this little old white lady is wearing FUBU socks and I was fascinated. Where did she get the FUBU socks? Her grandchildren? Winners? Where?

The meeting started out with the usual - approval of last year’s minutes, which no one had read, a review of the financial statements, which I had forgotten to bring and then we got down to the nitty gritty - window washing. A very small portion of our condo fees cover the washing of windows a couple of times a year - from the outside. But people who have balconies (something like 2 units per floor) don’t get their windows cleaned because the window cleaners won’t swing in and stand on your balcony to clean ‘em. It’s not safe. Besides, if you have a balcony, that means you can physically clean your own windows. This logic was lost on Unit 1202, Shorty McHairstyle, who was upset that her windows weren’t being cleaned. A condo board member patiently explained the difference between “accessible” and “inaccessible” windows and Shorty comes back with “Well, I’m 5′4 and I don’t have a ladder, and I had to pay $125 for someone to come in and clean my windows. Well . . . I had them do the mirrors too . . . and since I had to pay to have my own windows cleaned, I should get that money back from my condo fees.”

Pandemonium. EVERYONE starts talking at once and Shorty McHairstyle gets an earful. One guy at the back yells out “$125? I’d do it for $70!” “$50!” I should out, surprised at myself. FUBU Socks shoots me a look but everyone around me laughs. My first AGM and I’m KILLING!

After that, there was no stopping me. I grew more and more vocal, agreeing loudly with Angry Bearded Man when he complained about the key fob situation in the stairwell, clucking my tongue impatiently when FUBU Socks asked why the party room renovation wasn’t going ahead as scheduled ("Duuuh, we had to have the POOL redone, FUBU Socks! Do you want to drain the reserve fund just to spiff up this room no one uses? DO YOU, FUBU SOCKS?") and generally exchanged amused eye rolls with other owners when Receding Chin Guy demanded a more detailed breakdown of the cost of the new awning. Then, some guy at the back says “I would like to bring up the issue of people having inappropriate things in their windows. I mean, I think I saw some tinfoil on the north side of the building. I mean, come on, this isn’t [name of run-down Toronto area known for its plethora of tin-foiled windows]!” The woman next to me on the couch gasped. “Tinfoil?” she said to me, horrified. “Oh my god,” I said, “it was totally awful. I see it every day coming home from work. It’s like a TRAILER PARK up there!” FUBU Socks nodded along with me. “Awful,” she said. Our property manager, Bim, told the Tinfoil Inquirer that the issue had been dealt with and the meeting continued. And I smiled smugly, pleased that the other owners had bought my act as the same kind of finicky, upstanding, actual drapes-having property owners that they were.

When I returned to our unit afterwards, Katr was shocked by my apparent enjoyment of the meeting and has decided that henceforth, I should be in charge of attending them. I think she expected me to kick up a fuss, but I’m (not so) secretly pleased. I’m fascinated by these people who get so worked up over how drab the parking garage entrance looks. Who cares?? And WHERE did FUBU Socks get those socks?

In pursuit of these answers, I’m considering running for the board next year. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Comments:

1. Ok, I give. What the heck are FUBU socks?

   Comment by Xara — Friday, June 17, 2005 @ 12:45 am

2. Okay, your post was funny enough, but Xara’s comment made me spit water all over my desk.

   Vote for Roro!!

   Comment by Berin — Friday, June 17, 2005 @ 2:04 am

3. Oh, Xara - get with the TIMES, man! A short description:

   FUBU is an African-American-owned, New York-based urban sportswear empire started in 1992 by five childhood friends from Queens. (The ubiquitous “05″ on FUBU jerseys is a coded reference to these five founders.)

   Its name is an acronym for “For Us, By Us,” a slogan that expressed the founders’ purpose of creating a line of popular clothing designed for African-Americans, by African-Americans. At the time of FUBU’s inauguration, though numerous clothiers were targeting black consumers for their urban wear, none of these companies was black-owned or black-run.

   I like FUBU because they have a plus sized line and any company that makes velour track suits to fit my ass is okay by me. But the kind of bitchy old dame at the AGM wearing hip hop socks, possibly without her knowledge - that made my day.

   Comment by Rose — Friday, June 17, 2005 @ 4:09 pm

4. I thank you for that clarification – I’m vaguely *aware* of FUBU, but completely ignorant of it’s origins, and therefore the weird.

   However, in googling “fubu socks” – yeah, I know – I found out you can buy them at Safeway.

   Comment by Xara — Friday, June 17, 2005 @ 6:04 pm

5. I have to know what FUBU socks are. I suspect it will raise my social status like knowing what a blog is.

   Comment by Lady Marianna — Wednesday, June 29, 2005 @ 8:59 pm

Creampuff Calling

My girlfriend and I were up past 1:00 a.m. on a week night last week, as lovebirds sometimes are. Billing. Cooing. Whispering sweet nothings to each other. Or rather, beeping sweet nothings AT each other, because we were in the middle of activating our new cell phones.

Yes, that’s right - I have a cell phone. I honestly never thought it would happen and I’m sure that those of you who know me are shocked and surprised. “Don’t call me on your cell phone! I feel like I have to yell all the time! Are you calling from inside a cement mixer? Jesus!” When out and about, I routinely turned down offers to use a friend’s cellphone to make a call, opting instead to pay a quarter and use a payphone that was probably licked by someone only minutes before.

I trace my cellphone prejudice back to the early ’90s, when my mom, who was trying to start a business where clients might need to reach her at any time of the day or night, brought a cellphone into our home. The thing was the size of a brick and came with a handy leather strap and carrying caddy so that you could swing it from your wrist like a bracelet. A bracelet made of brick. The kind of bracelet the mob might attach to your feet before dropping your body off the pier. This type of phone made a memorable appearance in one of the later episodes of the X-Files. The episode was set in the late 80’s and Mulder nearly cripples himself running after the bad guy with one of these giant phones banging his ass with every step. Hilarious. Because it’s true.

I was painfully phone shy as a young person and didn’t like answering the phone - as most of you know, I still don’t. It’s not that I don’t want to talk to YOU - it’s just that I don’t want to talk at all and if I don’t feel like chatting, wouldn’t you rather I didn’t answer the phone? I thought so. My mom’s cellphone added a whole other dimension of angst to phone answering - if the monolith sputtered to life when no one was around, it was my job to pick it up. It often took several piercing rings for me to heft the brick up off the table and a few more to figure out which button to push to answer the phone and then there was the dread of who might be calling. My mom’s business at the time mainly involved people who were calling to plan their funerals, so I never knew if I was going to get someone who was chipper yet terminally ill and planning their funeral ahead of time, or someone whose loved one had just passed, or my mother calling to check that her phone was working. Often, it was just a wrong number, so I would hang up and have a little cry while I struggled to pop my shoulder back into its socket.

All of this begs the question - why did I even GET a cellphone? If I don’t like to talk on them or receive calls on them or turn them on, why even bother? And by the way, don’t I work at home? Well, guys, I don’t know what to tell you - I guess that in this case, desire outweighed logic. Katr was getting a cool new phone and, like my friend Amwe’s Strawberry Shortcake collection in grade school, I wanted one too. My new phone is sleek and stylish, with enough weight to it that I won’t put it in my pocket and forget about it, but not so heavy that I can use it to work out with. I can yell “Donut!” at it and it will dial Donut’s number. And the coolest thing about it - the absolute coolest - can be summed up in two little words: txt messaging.

I may never actually talk on the phone again.

Comments:

1. I don’t really know about the joys of text messaging. One time I got a text message in the middle of the night and I panicked because my phone was making weird noises and I woke up dreaming that I was on a heart monitor and everyone was mocking me for my freakish arrhythmia, while I was DYING. I hear most people have a good time with it, but a word of caution which may be grounded in fact or may be an urban legend: I’ve heard there are people who develop tendonitis in their thumbs from excessive texting.

   But I understand and say cheers to not picking up when you’re not feeling like it. These days, largely due to work, I loathe the sound of the phone ringing to the point where I regularly change the ring on my cell phone to try to trick my brain into not cringing when it goes off. Don’t get me wrong. I like talking on the phone to people. On my home phone. If I know who’s calling (yay for caller ID). And I’m in the mood. And it’s not my job, or a financial institution to which I owe money. (E.g., the student loan service centre calling for the 48th time in a week, I guess hoping to catch me “off guard” to rail at me for the 57 cents that I’m allegedly short after they cheat me on the exchange rage for my student loan repayments. Well, there was this one time I found myself wishing I answered the phone more often because the flunkie who drew my number for the evening, when asked how it was possible for the bank to have “lost” my checks for a month during which I was harassed daily by my phone ringing (not that I answered it, because yay for caller ID), told me: “Umm, well, because of terrorism? Sometimes they hold up envelopes now, eh? At the border? In Customs. Especially if they have checks in them.” Which gave me a good hearty laugh. Because terrorists are well known to fund their evil enterprises by masquerading as banks and student loan repayment centres in Saskatchewan.)

   Anyway, here’s a good site for you if you want to text more with less effort: http://www.webopedia.com/quick_ref/textmessageabbreviations.asp

   L8R. MTFBWU.*

   P.S. I didn’t just add the “eh” for requisite Canadian prairie colour in the anecdote about the student loan centre flunkie. He totally said it. And it was probably for the best, because it made me less mad that he was blaming terrorism for the misplacement of my checks.

   *may the force be with you

   Comment by Chezza — Tuesday, June 14, 2005 @ 1:40 am

2. Hey you! Roro! When do us peons get the new cell number to harass you with text messages?

   Actually, don’t expect much from me on that end. Babeed sent me a text message every day while I was away at musicfest, and I maybe replied to the kind soul twice. I’m mean that way.

   PS Can we please hang out soon? I promise not to play Whitesnake.

   Comment by E-dawg — Tuesday, June 14, 2005 @ 8:30 am

3. All in good time, E-Dawg, all in good time. I need to spend some quality time on that texting abbreviation site first and then download a Whitesnake ringtone.

   Comment by Rose — Tuesday, June 14, 2005 @ 4:05 pm

4. What’s your number?

   Comment by Lady Marianna — Wednesday, June 29, 2005 @ 8:55 pm

Cruel Creampuff Summer

Growing up in Alberta, the winters were arctic and the summers were . . . pleasant. Sunny, dry, mainly in the low 20s C - that’s low 70s F, for my American readers - gorgeous. Obviously, Mother Nature has a tantrum there from time to time, but overall, it was a good place for a creampuff to spend the summer.

I’ve always really hated the heat. I mean, really hated it. And when it’s hot, I hate the heat AND other people with me while I’m in the heat. I consider myself lucky that I didn’t grow up somewhere like Dallas, where it’s hot AND you can get ammo at the 7-11, ‘cause I’d probably be in the poky with a girlfriend who calls herself Jack and seems tough on the outside, but only because she never learned to love.

Toronto summers - I find them nasty. Sunny, sure, but also humid, smoggy . . . not creampuff friendly. So I think (and many of you will agree) that I must have been on crack two years ago when I moved from an air-conditioned, laundry included, 1 roommate situation to a non-air-conditioned, no laundry, 4 roommate 1 bathroom situation in the middle of a Toronto summer. I believe that the living conditions at the “hippie flophouse", as I referred to it, were instrumental in cementing my “U-Haul lesbian” status, when, 6 weeks after meeting my lady love, a mere 8 weeks after I moved INTO the flophouse, she and I bought property together. Where there was air conditioning.

Before I met Katr, though - before she whisked me off to a life of air conditioned splendour and bookshelves that weren’t made of milk crates - I had developed another intimate relationship with a special lady. This romance had been on again off again for several years, pretty much since my first Toronto summer in 1998. She shared my bed in the summer months and made sleeping almost bearable. She was sleek, heavy and, above all else, cold. I am referring, of course, to Bertha - my big bottle of ice.

You take a big bottle, like a 1.5 or 2 litre and you fill it 3/4 full of water. The 3/4 part is important, because, as my brother used to say “Water freezes big.” Then, you stick this bottle in your freezer all day until it’s solid ice. Then, right before you go to bed, you get Bertha (or Justine - whatever you wanted to call her), wrap her in a t-shirt and pull her to your chest like a long-lost lover. She may make a loud cracking sound as the heat from your body starts to melt her icy heart, but her resistance soon subsides and she snuggles into you, working her magic on your core body temperature. The ice melts over night - the t-shirt stops the bottle from sweating all over your bed - and in the morning, you just put the bottle back into the freezer again and she’s ready for you at bedtime.

You probably met Bertha if you came to visit me any time between 1998 and 2003. I had a little 1 litre travel version named Barbara that I would bring with me when I visited my dear friend Padu in Stratford, where I would displace the club packs of meat in his freezer ("You’ll eat these 12 pork chops in the next couple of days, right?") so that I could have a good night’s sleep. I would also keep a back-up bottle in my own freezer, in case the night was SO hot that Bertha melted in the wee hours and I had to two-time her with her sister, Petunia. Those girls saw me through alot of rough nights and probably count among the best 5 ideas I’ve ever had in my entire life.

I briefly thought about patenting this idea and making a bundle off of hot, cranky creampuffs everywhere but karmically, that seemed wrong. Creampuffs should help each other in these hot, muggy, gritty times. And so, free of charge, I pass Bertha’s cooling, soothing secrets on to you. Use her wisely, friends. And try not to catch pneumonia.

Comments:

1. well, i’m late to the party cause we just got over having it 94 degrees with nothing but humidity in nyc. coulda used bertha, bad. next time though. thx for the ‘cool, soothing’.

   Comment by Janine — Friday, June 17, 2005 @ 8:49 am   

2. Oh, man, 94? Just thinking about that makes me want to tuck ice behind my knees. Brutal! As you say, next time - Bertha will make it all alright.

   Comment by Rose — Friday, June 17, 2005 @ 4:20 pm

Creampuff Tries to Remember the Freakier Books of Her Childhood

I think that someone needs to devote a website to helping nostalgic adults find the songs, books and movies which they now remember only vaguely, due to age and/or drug use.

I think I have a pretty good memory for titles and details and such (Space Camp! The oeuvre of Monica Hughes! The names of all of Anne of Green Gables‘ children and how they occupied themselves during WWI!) but there are some things that escape even me. For instance, there were these two books I loved to read in junior high. I would always read them IN THE LIBRARY and never took them home. I don’t think I ever knew the titles or the authors of these two books - I would locate the books by where they were on the shelf and what their spines looked like.

I suspect they were both written in the 60’s. One was set somewhere in Europe, possibly Eastern Europe and it was about a long limbed teenage dancer who, SOMEHOW, gets her foot - ONLY her foot - run over by a train. There’s a line drawing in the book of this babe splayed out by the train tracks, unconscious, with her toes kinda chewed off. Of course she nearly dies of grief over her lost dancing career, but then some kindly carpenter (the Jesus figure, perhaps? Was it a religious book?) builds her a wooden foot prosthetic - and she can dance again!!! Yaaaay!

I must have read that book a dozen times. All I remember are the toes and Jesus.

The other book I was obsessed with involved a younger girl (I keep thinking her name was Trixie . . . oo, oo, CHRISTIE! CHRISTIE! IT WAS CHRISTIE!!) who is in some kind of accident where a piece of metal gets poked through her cheek and when it heals, after much suffering in the hospital, her face is twisted a little on that side, so she looks like she’s always smiling. I don’t remember the point of the story, or what happens after Christie and her poor, twisted smile get sprung from the hospital, but I DO remember the long descriptions of painful medical procedures she had to endure before her face healed. And that she wore pigtails.

The third book that I lump into this “fascination with maiming” trifecta is Save Queen of Sheba

I remember this book being very tense - this kid named King David (for real) gets half-scalped by Sioux Indians when his family’s wagon train is attacked. He’s in the middle of nowhere and then has to get his spoiled little sister, Queen of Sheba, to safety at some fort. This book gave me quite a thrill when I was young, particularly how King David has to deal with the hole in his head caused by the partial scalping, but perhaps, in retrospect, it was not so hot. Here is my favourite review of the book from Amazon.ca:

Reviewer: An 11-year old reader
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be bored out of your mind. Well read this book and find out. At the starting it sounds pretty exciting towards the middle you suffer SBD (severe boredom disease). At the ending the author find a cheap way to end the book before the editor’s deadline.

I tell you - kids today . . . so hard to please.

Anyway, so . . . maiming. That sucks. Why was I obsessed with it as a young person? Am I alone in my interest? Obviously not, as clearly someone ELSE thought enough of these stories to actually publish them. Hmmm . . .

I was talking to my clinical psychologist mom on the phone this morning about my sudden remembrance of, and interest in finding, these books. She said to me:

“You know, often the stories that really stick with us from our childhood offer a lot of insight into our various patterns and behaviours as adults.”

There was a pause. A tumbleweed blew by. I heard it over the phone.

“So . . . uh . . . what do you think your . . . interest in these stories of . . . maiming has to say about . . . you?”

Good question, Mom. Gooooood question. I’ll . . . I’ll have to get back to you.

So hey! If anyone out there remembers either of the mystery books I’m talking about, please feel free to drop me a line and let me know! And if YOU are having trouble remembering some freaky books from YOUR childhood, please . . . feel free to drop me a line. And let me know. That I’m not alone.

Comments:

1. Alright, totally not a book, but at some point in my childhood I watched a movie (possibly in my grandparents basement) about a little girl during the depression who gets run over by a train. And her mom had some sort of side-business making dolls or toys (that the little girl never got to play with) and had been squirrling money away in the lining of this old coat she always wore, and then I VIVIDLY remember a scene where the doctors are standing over a stretcher carrying the remains of her daughter (in case you missed it earlier - WHO HAD BEEN RUN OVER BY A TRAIN) telling her that there’s nothing else they can do and she starts screaming and dumping all of this money from her coat on the stretcher. And I believe the doctors take it, even though they can’t actually do anything.

   Okay, actually I sort of hope I never do remember the title of that movie.

   Now that I’m thinking about books - Rembember “Bridge to Terabithia". No maiming, but definitely with the doom/gloom/death. I was also quite enamored of the ‘one month to live’-type books where the teenaged, female protagonists had all been recently diagnosed with terminal diseases. Leukemia featured heavily.

   Comment by Berin — Tuesday, June 7, 2005 @ 1:01 am 

2. Yikes! And they want to keep kids from reading “Catcher in the Rye"? No wonder the suicide rate is going up with these lovely gems to choose from

   Comment by Kristi Shupp-George — Wednesday, June 8, 2005 @ 6:25 am 

3. “Bridge to Terabithia” is one of my all-time fav books. It makes me so angry yet I am so in love w/ both the little girl and
   the art teacher. Sigh.

   Speaking of weird movie flashbacks .. I have this one where a little girl is playing in the woods (autumn) behind her house with her
   Raggedy Anne (or some such) doll. She puts it down for a sec, wanders away, comes back, and the doll has this giant red spot in the
   middle of its forehead. And you see a couple of dark figures lurking in the shadows. Talk about creepy!!

   Oh … favourite book maime scene – well, she’s already maimed … Klara in the first Heidi book. There was this great black and white
   line drawing of her in the book I had, looking all pathetic. Disturbingly, it was very romantic.

   Comment by Queen Katicus — Thursday, June 9, 2005 @ 5:30 pm

Creampuff Has a Queer Feeling

“Sooooo. That new girl in your office. Cute.”

“Indeed. Unfortunately, I think she’s straight.”

“Oh, honey - that’s what mai tais are for.”

A few years ago, an old friend of mine got me a subscription to Chatelaine Magazine as gift, because she had my address and thought it would be funny. I had the subscription for a couple of years, partly because it was free and also because my roommate at the time enjoyed it while on the john. Maja’s mai tai joke reminded of an article in Chatelaine, one of two articles in the same issue which prompted me to cancel my subscription. The first article went something like “Big hips? If you can’t stomach killing yourself, at least dress to cover your imperfections with these clothes from our sponsors!” I paraphrase, but you get the idea.

The second article was about girl on girl action. Most of the women interviewed for the article reported going through a “phase” of liking women exclusively, or actively being bisexual, before they eventually settled down with a dude.

For the record, I’d like to think I’m pretty cool about these things. I don’t embrace the binary model of sexuality OR gender; if you dig chicks AND dicks or chicks WITH dicks, I say good on ya! Just because I know what I like doesn’t mean I think you should limit yourself to just one or the other. My friend Sura, as is her right, refuses to date bisexual gals for she is terribly threatened by the idea that her girlfriend will leave her for a man. Me, I just think “Hey. Obviously, you leaving me at ALL would totally suck, but if you leave me for man-breath and farting at the dinner table, that’s not about me.”

ANYWAY - the Chatelaine article went on to say that experimentation was normal and that you should go ahead and do some, but at the end of the article, it warned that if you’re just experimenting with girl on girl action, you should probably STAY AWAY FROM ACTUAL LESBIANS, who are sensitive and will be hurt if you reject them later. Because we can’t tell the difference between someone who’s in it for a good story and someone who’s genuinely diggin’ the ladies. Thanks, Chatelaine, defender of lesbians everywhere. I will miss your boring pork roast with chutney recipes more than I can say.

I bring this whole “flirting with straight girls” issue up because I ran into a friend recently who is cute, vivacious, talented and nearly always has a new guy on the go. Every time we’ve met, over the last 7 years, she’s on her way from, or to, meeting her latest beau. She’s one of those people who harmlessly flirts with everyone and it’s charming. So the other day, when she coyly, yet determinedly peppered our conversation with allusions to her “girlfriend", I totally assumed that she was talking about some girl who was her friend, the way my boss Doma used to talk about her shopping partners. Imagine my shock and surprise when, minutes later, she introduced me to her new girlfriend and then made out with her on the street.

Again, I like to think I’m cool, but clearly I’m not, ‘cause I was a little freaked out. Normally when I discover that a longtime friend has joined the team, in ANY capacity, I rejoice and make jokes about who gets the toaster oven but with this babe, I was just . . . oddly and unreasonably suspicious. I felt like I should consult our mutual friends for an explanation. I vacillated between strange “has she paid her queer dues” bitterness like - Has she ALWAYS been queer or is this a new thing? How long has this been going on? and professional competitiveness in the form of: Damn! This means that now she can apply for all the same grants as me!

My ridiculous disgruntlement is obviously . . . ridiculous. The friend in question says she’s over the moon in love and that’s beautiful. Who am I to shit on that? What is my problem? How is this even any of my business? Why do we have to be “straight” or “gay", “real lesbians” or “Anne Heche"? Why can’t we just be ONE PEOPLE? As my straight friend Subr, after seeing our friend Mipa with a particularly rockin’ androgynous haircut, once exclaimed, “Maybe I’m NOT a Kinsey 1!”

What was my point? That I’m kind of a hypocrite? I guess so. Perhaps this has just driven home the fact that even if we “don’t believe in labels", some of us - the less cool ones - okay, me - we might still get a little freaked out when people climb out of the box we’ve unwittingly put them in.

Or, you know . . . the closet.

Comments:

1. Loved your piece, especially your honesty. I appreciate the way you challenge the dualistic, hierarchical, farcical ways we humans sometimes use to try to make sense of our experience. Can I say you’re both brilliant and funny without appearing to fawn?

   Comment by Lady Marianna — Thursday, June 2, 2005 @ 8:56 pm 

2. Of course you can, Lady Marianna! I’m sure no one thinks you biased in ANY WAY.

   Comment by Rose — Thursday, June 2, 2005 @ 9:57 pm 

3. Well, that hurt. I thought times had changed but I guess they haven’t. The lesbian community (at least your section of it) is still as righteously prejudiced against bisexuals as ever.

   It’s amazing to me when people who should know so much about bigotry, turn around and practice it themselves.

   Comment by Janine — Saturday, June 4, 2005 @ 9:37 pm 

4. Well, Janine - I DID get a little righteous thinking that you’d TOTALLY missed my point, ("I’m not prejudiced! Some of my best friends are bisexual!” etc.) but reading that post over again, you didn’t really. I guess I thought that if I called MYSELF a hypocrite first, then no one else would! Hahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaa! Thank you for proving me wrong. But I wouldn’t say that, in this case, my prejudice is righteous at all. I was trying to convey that, in fact, my prejudice was ridiculous and unworthy of me - because it IS - and that I should get over it. Because . . . as I said . . . it’s ridiculous.

   Comment by Rose — Sunday, June 5, 2005 @ 3:24 am 

5. Looks like I got oversensitive right before I got righteous. Misread your ‘PICK ONE’ etc. I think my eyes were glazed over from there on out and totally missed when you put Chatelaine down.

   Glad to be wrong cause I like what I see of you in your blog and it was pissing me off that I was going to have to write a whole rant in response and wouldn’t be reading your witty shit prose anymore. Whew.

   Where’s the ::embarrassed:: smiley?

   Comment by Janine — Sunday, June 5, 2005 @ 4:01 am 

6. Janine - no worries! My girlfriend said she found that part really confusing too and had to read it a few times. I’m sorry! I’ll have to be clearer next time I try to get all philosophical and shit stuff. And thanks for the compliments!

   Comment by Rose — Sunday, June 5, 2005 @ 5:03 am