Creampuff Revolution

While the Cat's Away, The Creampuff Is Too Scared to Watch 'Dexter'

It's been a long time since I was REALLY interested in a TV show and wanted to watch multiple episodes at once.

Battlestar Galactica, maybe?

LOST?

 We loved Downton Abbey, but could only do one episode at a time because shit gets real on that show and you need to process. We're waiting for Season 2 to come out on DVD so we can just buy it and savour it and weep on our own time.

Anyway, I noticed that Dexter was newly available on Netflix, I thought "Ein. Well...what the hell?"

And then I COULDN'T STOP WATCHING IT.

Dexter is one of the many shows I know that a lot of my friends watch - but as it turns out, a lot of my friends REALLY love shows that I seriously do not care for. 

I couldn't handle The Sopranos (too much violence).  I tried True Blood, but couldn't really get into it. I WANTED SO BAD to like Mad Men, but I just wanted to punch everyone on it (even Christina Hendricks, whom I've loved since Firefly). I tried The Wire, but even though there was that one lesbian cop, I felt it suffered from TMP (too much penis), causing me to NGAF (not give a fuck).

With all of the shows above, devotees kept saying things like "You need to give it a couple of episodes" or "It gets really good in the second season!". And hey - I get it! I say the same things about shows I like, like Buffy or Parks and Rec! But sometimes you just know that you're not going to give a shit about any of these characters no matter how long you watch the show.

With Dexter, I was hooked immediately - like, 10 minutes in, I was done for. What was it? Michael C. Hall's slight gay vibe left over from Six Feet Under? The fact that there was swearing? Twitchy Jennifer Carpenter's hooker ensemble? No idea.

I plowed through the first season of Dexter pretty quickly and was ecstatic to learn that Katr was going away on a business trip for two nights this week, leaving me time to WATCH DEXTER LIKE IT'S MY JOB get lots of work done. But what I forgot is that I can't watch crime shows when I'm alone at night. Because I am a pussy who is easily freaked out.

Katr left Monday and I was alone with the TV and my thoughts. My thoughts were mainly "If I watch Dexter while Katr is away, I won't be able to sleep. Or if I do sleep, I will dream only of being murdered during a home invasion. But I want to watch Dexter SO BAD!!"

I need to point out here that I also just finished Parable of the Sower, so I'm already on the edge of putting barbed wire up around the house.

I love having the house to myself. LOVE IT. I like eating stupid things and staying up late and leaving pizza boxes strewn about like drunks in the movies. In fact, this week was the very first time I'd been in this house by myself overnight. It should have been a magical, magical time for me to reconnect with my inner filthy loser. 

But because of stupid Dexter, I couldn't wait for it to be over so that I could watch more damn Dexter. I literally counted down the hours until Wednesday, when Katr would be returning. And then on Wednesday,  I...watched a lot of Dexter. So...much...Dexter. And then Katr came home and I slept like a fat rock.

I have only seen to the end of Season 2, so NO SPOILERS. Although I already know that something bad happens to Julie Benz at some point, because like all Buffy nerds, I keep up with what former Buffy actors are up to. But that's ALL I KNOW, so don't tell me anything else!! Okay, thank you.

Oh, also, Netflix only has up to Season 3, so get ready for me to come begging to those of you who might have it on DVD.

 

Academic Creampuff

As many of you know, I'm just not very bright and am still not sure that I even have my Bachelor of Fine Arts, because a) my university went on strike in my final year and b) I refuse to pay my totally bogus library fine to find out if I did indeed graduate.

Despite this complete lack of academic cred, my friend Dr. Jacks still asked me to be a speaker in her undergraduate social science class a couple of years ago - TWICE (the topic was: I'm Fat and Gay and I Don't Give a Shit What You Think - I paraphrase). So every now and then, when I'm feeling dumb, I'll bring it up in conversation, real casual-like.

Me: A similar question came up when I was a guest speaker at UBC.

Barista: Really? "Foam or no foam" came up at UBC? JESUS CHRIST, YOU PRETENTIOUS TWAT, HERE IS YOUR LATTE.

This month, I have another feather to add to my academic cap - my friend and dramaturge Moynan King was curating a volume of the Canadian Theatre Review about Queer Performance - Women and Trans Artists and she asked me to contribute an article about our collaboration on Anne Made Me Gay.

And that's how I ended up getting my name in this fancy academic journal along with a bunch of real academics and other super smart people with interesting things to say about queer performance. HAHAHAHAAA!! 

Please forgive the horrible photo. My hands were shaking with mirth.

My article is called Anne Made Me Gay: When Kindred Spirits Get Naked. Here's the article description:

2008 marked the 100th anniversary of the publication of L.M. Montgomery's classic Canadian novel, Anne of Green Gables. Celebrations for Anne fans were planned across the country, but one key demographic was not represented in the mainstream Anne celebrations: there were no events planned for the “I'm pretty sure Anne made me gay“ Anne fans. In Toronto, two lesbians decided to create a cabaret by and for queer lovers of Anne, to help us explore Anne's influence on our young gay selves and to celebrate the red-headed snippet who taught us to live passionately, speak eloquently and really dig on other girls. This is the story of that cabaret.

Much of this issue is about the grand tradition of the queer cabaret - so naturally, Moynan decided to celebrate the launch with - you guessed it - a queer cabaret!

Sadly, I will not be there but there are lots of other amazing queer artists performing at this thing and if you're in Toronto on February 26, you would do well to attend "Explain Yourself". Plus, if you're a top, or you bring a top with you, admission is cheaper! Apparently, this event will be a great place to meet tops.

If you don't know what that means, you probably aren't ready for this cabaret.

I'm not sure what's next for me, academically speaking - I suspect this may mark the zenith of my academic achievement. Then again, who's to say that nepotism won't strike again? This time next year, I could be accepting an honorary degree from Yale! Or, morely likely, Brigham Young University. Mustn't get ahead of myself.

Creampuffs at the Spa

As I fleetingly mentioned in my post about our trip to Mexico, Katr and I want to the spa on the very first day we were there.

Katr went because she LOVES the spa. She loves being exfoliated. She loves being wrapped in seaweed. She loves being rubbed for money. She doesn't care who sees what in the confines of the spa. She loves it.

I, on the other hand, don't really enjoy strangers touching me and want to throw up in my mouth a little when I think about experiencing the above-noted spa activities. I do not love the spa. But I do love Katr. And since it was her birthday and since we were in Mexico, I agreed to throw caution to the wind and join her in what the resort spa called the "Humanity Ceremony for Two".

Me and Katr at the spa, being human together. Oh, wait...yeah, this isn't us.

Here's what that means:

HUMANITY CEREMONY FOR TWO
Initiate your private ceremony with pu-erh tea for its detoxifying and calming effects and aura cleansing with sage. Next, enjoy a foot ritual with infused lavender flowers and essential oils followed by a private mud therapy bath for two where you will apply an aromatic exfoliation to each other, revitalizing the skin with cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, hazelnut, rice, sesame and bamboo. Your treatment continues with a warm bubbling and nutrient vanilla and orange bath while soothing hands massage the scalp. 

Now that your body and mind are renewed, prepare for a silk sybarite body wrap to restore energy and nurtures your skin. Conclude your Miilé spa indulge with an Excellence Massage treatment.

Basically, this was my worse nightmare. Listen - I am all about pants off at home. But not at home - PANTS ON.

USUALLY when Katr tempts me into the spa, I get a facial (pants on) or a pedicure (pants also on). But this was a full on, three hour pamper fest where, for at least part of it, my ass would be hanging out. Fortunately, we were at an all inclusive resort, so I did what any spa-phobic person would do before their spa appointment - I got a little drunk.

The spa treatment starts off with an hour long hydro-therapy circuit, which is, simply put, the shit. It was basically like a series of Last of the Mohicans-style waterfall scenes, intermixed with scenes you don't see in the film, like the "Dry Sauna of Death" scene, the "I'm rubbing handfuls of crushed ice in your private places" scene or the "Just when you think it's over, there's a drive-by massage, which you don't see coming because there's a lavender-scented towel covering your eyes" scene. Pretty intense, is what I'm saying.

After the hydro therapy circuit had really woken us up, we headed in for the main event.  I have to say that I'm sure the two spa technicians assigned to us were terrified when they saw that Godzilla and Mothra had arrived for their Humanity Ceremony, but they were very professional and lovely.

There was some delicious tea. There was the side-by-side foot ritual (the "ritual" was that they "rubbed" our "feet" with some kind of "oil".)

Then it was time for the "private mud therapy bath". This, I must admit, was the sole reason I'd agreed to do this thing - because I thought that rubbing mud all over each other in a steam room would be super hilarious and fun. 

As it turns out, it was indeed super hilarious - because the steam room was a very tight fit (even for average sized people it would have been wee) and also, the "mud therapy" was about two tablespoons of shizz per person. So basically, we squeezed into this steam closet and had enough "mud" to exfoliate one body part each. I chose my left elbow. It felt really great.

Then there was this part where you get into a jetted tub and they rub your head for like half an hour and you try to convey to the spa technician - through hand signals and constant giggling - that the intense farting sounds she's hearing are due to the tub jet friction against the bathing suit you refused to take off and not you just letting 'em rip one after an other after another.

Following the head-rub-tub was the silk wrap. This is where the shit got real. Pants were off and some kind of silk lotion was slathered on and then we were trussed up in plastic and covered with blankets and left alone on our tables with plinky plonky music playing. I expected to be panicking but instead, I fell asleep. Thank god for the 4 mimosas I'd had for breakfast.

I was awakened by my spa lady, Rosa, busting into my plastic tube and ushering me off to the shower. And then...came the massage.

It's been a long time since I had a massage. Like maybe 2006. And to be honest, I was kind of expecting a plinky plonky spa massage. But no. Tiny Rosa climbed on and gave 'er. She used her forearms, her elbows and all of her weight to work out whatever the hell was going on in my shoulders and back. I have never been in so much weirdly therapeutic pain. I had no choice but to breathe through it and offer it up to Jesus. And Jesus said "Yeeeeaaaaah...I'm good, thanks. You hang on to that."

Worked over, lotioned up and exhausted, Katr and I staggered out of the treatment room to the recovery gazebo, where we drank some juice that tasted way too good to be made of actual fruit. And then, we tipped. A LOT.

Katr was very appreciative of my participation in the Humanity Ceremony for Two and as you know, I live to please her.  So you'd think I'd be off the hook for spa fun for at least a year or two.

But then again, a certain Katr got a gift certificate for this place at Solstice. And she keeps whispering things like "Steam cave!" and "Glacial waterfall!" in my ear when she thinks I'm sleeping. I think we all know where this is going. It's going to be Last of the Mohicans alllll over again.

 

Creampuff Gets the Shift

My former roommate, Jesk, had a friend in law school who we'll call Joba. Joba was a perfectly nice fellow - very smart and also, tall. It was obvious to everyone, including Jesk, that Joba had a sizeable crush on her. And while she enjoyed his company as a friend, she was not in any way romantically interested in him. 

Unfortunately, Joba, for whatever reason, felt unable to declare his love outright - and therefore, Jesk was unable to let him down gently. Instead, Joba would just hang around near Jesk, acting like her boyfriend and cockblocking her endlessly at parties and the like.

This went on for YEARS and frustrated Jesk to no end. FINALLY, Joba asked her to go to a movie (but still in ambiguous, non-romantic terms). Jesk fell on this opportunity like a starving dog and said she'd love to go to the movie AS FRIENDS, RIGHT? BECAUSE I LIKE YOU HAS A FRIEND, ONLY A FRIEND.

Joba responded "Of course only as friends, don't flatter yourself" [I paraphrase] and basically acted like she had suggested he was asking her to shit in his mouth.

While his complete denial of his crush on Jesk was still annoying to her (and me, because I had to hear about it endlessly), he did back off after that, which was nice. Don't feel badly for him - his mad dating skillz clearly improved after this incident. I see from stalking him just now on Facebook that he just married a really good looking young lady. Kudos, Joba. Kudos.

Anyway, I was thinking about this story of failing to declare intentions and the anger that results the other day when Emmy Lou and I were enjoying a walk on a rare sunny day in our neighbourhood.

As we drew near the JJ Bean, I noticed a fellow across from the coffee shop looking shifty. Kind of noodling around like he was talking to himself, nothing particularly weird. But because Emmy likes to stop and sniff regardless of my proximity to shifty people, I decided to cross the street so as to not get involved with whatever was happening.

A few minutes later, we reached a park and lo and behold, Shifty Guy was there, walking up to towards us on the path! "Ah well", I thought, "It's a lovely day and shifty guys enjoy the outdoors too." We walked a little farther and then headed down a different path. A few seconds later, I noticed that SG had changed his trajectory and was now headed over to our side of the park.

Huh.

Since my passive aggressive avoidance techniques hadn't worked, I decided to just wait for SG to come over and make his move. He did come over...and then, standing about five feet away from us, he pretended like he was looking for something behind a park bench.

"Okay," I thought, "fine. You had your chance to...whatever your plan was. Now screw off."

Emmy and I slowly made our way back across the park and SG stayed on his bench. Then, he moved to a bench closer to us. And then, he moved to an even closer bench. And then, as we headed back into the neighbourhood, I saw SG get up off his bench and start to follow us.

By this time, I was annoyed and also, a little creeped out. What the hell was going on here? 

We came around the corner onto Commercial again and I made Emmy Lou's day by allowing her to sniff a garbage can while I stood there, facing the corner SG would be rounding shortly. He did come around the corner and we made eye contact. I just stood there and stared at him. Emmy tried to eat a gum wrapper and choked a little. He saw me, blinked away and then, as he walked by me, he actually TURNED HIS HEAD all the way to the other side of the sidewalk, like he was pretending I wasn't there staring at him.

Then Emmy and I started following him.

SG kept walking to the end of the block and then went around the corner across from the JJ Bean, where I'd first seen him. 

Then, because I was nervous SG would follow us home, I took a fairly circuitous route back to the homestead, stopping frequently to make sure no one was following us.

Emmy didn't know what she'd done to merit so many random sniff stops, but she took full advantage of it.

It's been a few days and I'm still annoyed by a) how menaced I felt in broad daylight in my own neighbourhood and b) how because SG, like Joba, didn't declare his intentions, I didn't get the opportunity to end things on my terms.

Also, I still can't decide what his motivation was. Did SG want to:

• Talk to me about Jesus
• Ask me for money
• Suggest we get it on
• Check to see if I was someone he'd previously gotten it on with (hint: no)
• Take money from me without my consent
• Teach me a lesson about avoiding shifty guys by following me around
• Practice his suspect tailing techniques for the police academy (Grade: F)
• Pet my dog
• Ask me for money for Jesus 

 I'd say "History will decide" but the reality is that I'll probably just punch this guy in the nads if I see him again.