The Oilend Waye uv Loife.
Wednesday, December 22, 2004 , 6:34 AM
Where the hell am I? Today before work my brother went to a Rotary breakfast. Tonight’s big news on local television is the closing of Island bootleggers.
We have bootleggers? I thought those went out of vogue shortly after pirates. And the Rotary Club? Do the meetings happen in black and white?
I love these little touches of the past that are still part of people’s lives here. Okay, so maybe the bootleggers’ isn’t exactly the pinnacle of culture, but it’s certainly different from what I’m accustomed to.
Proof
, 1:14 AM
There are pictures from past RED cabarets here, along with you-know-who:
http://www.girlcancreate.com/RED-gallery/.
The two-man show Noah performed at RED is called “Our Times”. You can read more about it here:
http://www.zagadka.ca/. I always feel guilty not giving credit, so I’ll mention that the other puppeteer is named Mark Keetch, and he’s with “Zagadka Zoological Society”.
I’m spending a lot of time at my parents’ kitchen table writing e-mails and dreaming about possibilities…
Noah’s art.
Monday, December 20, 2004 , 6:39 AM
Dad’s watching football. I’m sitting at the kitchen table, looking out the window at a heavy grey afternoon. The bird feeders are unoccupied now. There’s a tiny little patch of feathers stuck to the kitchen window; this prompted Mom and Dad to ask me to make the black bristol board hawk silhouettes that are now on the kitchen and dining room windows. It’s nice to be handy.
Mom’s at church. She gets really busy this time of year, not because she’s particularly religious, but because she loves to sing, so she joins every choir she can, in addition to the barbershop group she usually participates in.
My brother, sister-in-law, and nephew are on their way here. Once they arrive, it’s the end of quiet and time to focus, so I want to get this written.
My writing guru Natalie Goldberg says that the best way to cut through to the living voice in your writing is to ask “What do I really want to write about?” I’ve got a lot of details I’d love to chronicle here — haggis supper with the boys, time with my beloved friends Lisa and Margaux, the particulars of what it’s like to be around The Strategic Coach workshops. But what do I really want to write about?
Noah Kenneally.
I made a terrible mistake on this trip: I fell in love. It wasn’t completely my fault: last summer, my editor and her brother’s fiancee Lisa both told me a number of times that I had to meet this fella, that we’d get along so well. I’ve had people say this a few times before, good friends, who I thought knew me well. But when I saw their choices for me, I had to question if they really knew me at all. So while this Noah guy was coming with good references — “He’s the nicest guy I know”, “He’s incredibly creative”, “He’s cute” — I took a “wait and see” attitude, figuring it was just as likely we’d never get a chance to meet.
(The birds are back. American finches in their brown winter livery.)
Wednesday night was Red: A Night of Live Performance. Lisa Pijuan, the aforementioned fiancee, regularly hosts this cabaret. Given the incredible puppet show I’d seen her in this summer, I had high hopes for this event.
It started with a bassoonist. Now, when I think of a bassoonist, I picture a skinny rich kid blurping out classical, staccato pitches in a symphony. Picture instead the Simpsons character who thought he was Michael Jackson: a large, black man who held this giant wooden instrument at an oblique and eased the happiest, smoothest, jazziest sounds out of it. Margaux had heard him before, and he fully lived up to her praise. We bought his CD after the show. It’s called “Black Santa”, which makes me giggle.
Fast forward through a dance number with three women and folding chairs — not because they weren’t good, but because I want you to see the next act.
The puppeteer fumbled his way onstage to join a big box. He called to the audience, asking us to sit on the floor in front of the stage. Surprisingly, everyone jumped up from their tables and did as he asked, forming a little grade school assembly.
The cardboard set was cut into the shape of an old theatre, and featured a shiny green curtain. You couldn’t tell how old the puppeteer was: he was five foot something just a bit short of average, and his movement and face were a little boy’s. But he also wore a goatee and a little black beanie-toque which suggested a culturally savvy urbanite Torontonian.
With the tug of an unseen cord, he raised the curtain and through the little cardboard proscenium we could see a little world: mountains, sky, then, as he added them, a village, and all the people of the village (who were cardboard cut-out drawings of chicken-people in old-world clothing). He told us an old Yiddish story about the people of Chelm.
I was still thinking about the puppeteer through the next ‘act’, a dark film produced in a one-day shoot-and-cut film contest.
He helped Lisa set up her act, which was a beautiful story based on memories of her Spanish family. I won’t go into specifics, because the breathtakingly tender — yet everyday — details of the story are hers to tell.
A pair of women followed, reading from scripts, acting out two sides of a kidnapping story. Then Saidah Baba Talibah — daughter of singer Salome Bey — sang. My mouth hung open as she let sounds as textured and curling as cigarette smoke from her mouth, but much more healthy, soulful, and life-affirming. Just her and a crappy keyboard, making art as good as anything, right there on the air for us.
During the intermission, there was a puppet show in another room, with Noah and another man. To the tune of “Madeleine”, they acted out a day in the life of a man and woman, he in Toronto, her in Paris. As their days went on, the two puppeteers flipped panels on two small stages, folding a backdrop down, accordioning a room into being, then flipping again to change the scene all over. “Madeleine” speeds up with each verse, so the daily routines soon became an adept blur, yet somehow the puppeteers still managed to convey everything the little green man and little pink woman felt as they carried out their lives far apart but pined for each other.
Yeah, ironic. The universe has a great sense of humour.
Fast-forward again through improvised art, music, and dance, a brilliant comedy piece about family planning presented by Frida Kahlo’s doppelganger, machine-gun spoken word rap, and several lonesome songs (which all of us at my table laughed through, thinking their dread seriousness was a send-up; it turned out we were wrong).
Then the evening ended suddenly. I’d guzzled beer, and was ready to keep going, even though it was a school night. But that was it. In just minutes we were all out in the cold, heading our different ways. Noah’s set was bundled into a pram. We’d finally been introduced, Cath saw to that, and we both smiled because we both knew how much of a set-up it was. But there wasn’t time to hang out.
The next night, though, was Cath’s brother Dave’s birthday. Dave also works at The Coach, and became a good friend as we worked together on the Production team. (He’s a poet of a programmer.) Cath made a constant stream of staggeringly tasty Japanese food as guests arrived. Good friends from The Coach came, along with others Dave and Cath know. Everyone I’ve met through Cath has been unusually good-looking and talented.
We all ate and joked late into the night. Noah had arrived after a class, but we both spent most of the evening in conversation with others. The crowd thinned until there were just a few of us left, and Noah and I had a chance to talk in the kitchen.
If there’s an inverse of nausea, that’s what my stomach felt like.
Fast-forward, ’cause I hear a car in the driveway.
We split from the others on the sidewalk and headed off on our own. It was mightily cold; the ideas we shared were steam that quickly diffused. There was too much to get, and not enough time. He knew about everything I know.
We tiptoed through the house he shares with several others and went to his room. Every wall was covered in art he’d made — colourful prints, cut-out characters, sayings. The raw materials for creation covered every available surface.
You can fill this space with your imagination. But make it sweet and tender and unforgettable.
The morning came quickly. I looked at Noah’s calendar while he was in the bathroom: here was someone who’s not only creative but productive, too.
We walked through his neighbourhood to catch the streetcar. He knew one that looped around and took us right to King and Dufferin, where the office is. We went to a coffee shop nearby and sat on their deep old couch by the fire, talking until it was time for me to head in for the team meeting. I’d been funny with the birthday party group the night before, but now my mouth felt like a drawer that’d been put in upside-down, and my words fell out like socks. We held hands, and I didn’t care what anyone thought.
The team meeting was a great reminder — as if I needed one — of what a powerful, dynamic, successful, and caring organisation we’ve made. If nothing else, the money they splash out on us speaks volumes about where they place their values.
We finished early and I raced home. I had to get ready for the company party, which meant ironing a shirt and (*blush*) taking a pair of underwear in the shower with me to wash them then ironing them dry. (You know you’re grown up when you want underwear for Christmas.) I snuck a quick nap in there, too, to keep from falling over.
The party was at The Liberty Grand, a fancy building (by Canadian standards) on the Exhibition grounds. Everyone was done up in sharp suits or evening gowns and fancy hair. I don’t know a lot of the team members now, but I’ve got some great friendships amongst the people I do know, and the new people had all heard of me. (It’s quite strange, this localised fame I seem to have at the company.)
Cath and Lisa giggled together about their handiwork, and word of Noah and I had spread with remarkable speed. Lisa gave me her Christmas gift: she called Noah, telling him that she’d arranged a taxi to pick him up, take him over to Perry’s (since they’re the same size), where he would pick out something dressy to wear.
I hugged lots of people, ate, and watched the surreal cruise-ship like entertainment someone or another booked for us to watch (several dance numbers, a woman doing a ribbon gymnastics routine, and another woman singing the theme to Titanic which the dancers interpreted). I suspect that won’t happen at next year’s party.
I went out to the lobby, and there he was, coming through the door. He was all rosy and cold, having biked over.
We danced with the others, and I showed him off (proud to be part of a company where I knew he’d be welcomed as a special guest; what mattered was his importance to me, not his gender). We looked dumbly at each other and smiled, again and again.
Dave, Lisa, Margaux, Cath, Nilan, Noah, and I went on to another party, then it got late and I said my goodbye-for-nows. Noah and I got into a cab and headed over to Donlands Avenue. Happily, it wasn’t terribly late, so Noah and I had some time together.
Cosgrove knocked in the morning, saying hi through the door on his way to the bathroom. On his way back, he opened the door. “Oh!” he said, then apologised and closed the door again. We had a laugh about it later, in the car.
Mark dropped Noah off near the Exhibition grounds. I got out of the car to say goodbye. I can picture Noah’s face so clearly in the morning light, those eyes so big and blue, and that smile that is a world unto itself. I hugged him, kissed him, and told him I loved him. He said the same. We’d said it before already. There was no hyperbole in it, no dramatic inflation. It was simple recognition. I know basically nothing about this guy, and yet it feels like we’ve done all our living until now in parallel, just happening not to meet.
On the plane I looked out at the clouds, thinking about how easy it would be to live in Canada again. No more learning new words for everything, awkwardly sticking them into my sentences, no more having my pay whittled down by exchange rates to a beginner’s wage, no more being acutely aware all the time of my otherness.
But then I showed my mother pictures of my trip to Paris, and I think about how much I love Europe, how much I know that’s what I want to explore. I want to travel and explore, now that I’ve got a taste for it. I love Edinburgh, and I have some good friends there. What if my book comes out there?
Yeah, I think, but what if suddenly I was allowed to just write stories about my own experience, without feeling the unworthiness of not knowing enough about the place, the language, or the culture I’m writing about?
But what about…? But…
I have no idea what to do.
Cosgrove, ever my best friend, gave me the best piece of advice: “Don’t try to make it work.” He’s right: no manipulating an outcome. I’m excited, I’m moved, I’m confused, and I know he’s absolutely right. I just have to trust that, like everything else in my life up until now, there’s a pattern under this, and that it’ll work out.
Dad’s made a seafood chowder (which is always great), and Mom’s home from singing. I’m hungry, too. So I’ll sign off here, where I’m nestled in my parents’ home, able to catch up on my sleep, and enjoy their company. Gotta admit, though, my focus is a bit split.
God, life is grand.
Monday at the office
Tuesday, December 14, 2004 , 11:42 PM
The workshop is on a break. Some very Starbucksy jazz is playing in the room, and the entrepreneurs are chatting amongst themselves.
Getting up this morning was a challenge. I slept in half an hour later, but still managed to get here at the same time. The TTC operates under different space-time laws than the rest of the universe.
I spent the latter part of Saturday afternoon hanging around the Eaton’s Centre with the boys. The place was packed with Christmas shoppers, but it wasn’t quite as mad yet as it will be.
In the evening, I went to my old friend JC’s place for a Hannukah party. A number of people walked through his front door who I’d forgot existed — people I like. I had a few good conversations. The best, though, was spending time with Jordan. He drove me up to JC’s, and we sat in the car talking, catching up. Then he drove me home after, and we talked some more. I can’t describe how much I love and admire him. He’s still got his cute giggle of a laugh, and is as playful as ever. What’s cool, though, is watching him grow in ability and confidence in his work, art directing television commercials.
I got home at 3AM, and didn’t manage to fall asleep until 5. I slept in Sunday morning, kinda. I still woke up at the usual time, but made myself go back to sleep repeatedly. In the end, I had the total number of hours of a full night’s sleep, but when I got up, I felt like someone had tried to suffocate me with a pillow.
Mark, Eric, and I went out to get some Christmas shopping done for them, going out to this bizarre bunch of box stores, colourful, blocky buildings like some kind of capitalist Red Square. The shops were full of every electronic thing going, all those technofetish objects — mobiles, computers, audio equipment — but all my geek appetites are fully sated, so I was safe.
The boys dropped me at a subway station, and I rode downtown, where I walked in the cold rain for three quarters of an hour trying to find Baldwin Street. My mental map of Toronto is eroded like a sand painting in a breeze. In the end, I took a cab what turned out to be one block, just so I could stop wandering around.
My destination was Bocca, a new restaurant opened by a friend of my editor Cath. Last night was the opening night, so we were invited to eat for free. (This keeps happening for me here!) The food was great, as was the company: Cath, her new beau Nilan, her brother Dave and his fiancee Lisa, another friend named Garvia (a beautiful and very funny woman who works at the CBC), and later Perry and his fling Cherry. (Yeah, we had a laugh about that.)
The conversation was quick, and we laughed a lot. I seem to be living in a space where funny conversation occurs, and I love it. Cath whispered to me at one point that she thought I was really on, that I was being very funny. I dunno what it is with me being funny here. I do enjoy it, though. I think that’s my highest ideal in group conversation: making everyone laugh together. When others join in, it’s even better.
Cath’s friend Lindy and his band joined us later. The main event for the evening was seeing him play at The Rivoli. Cath sent me his CD a while back and I really enjoyed it. (I can’t get the URL to his website at the moment ’cause I’m not connected, but do a search for “Lindy Vopnfjord”; I’m pretty sure he’s the only one.) I stood up and introduced myself, but it didn’t really register. Then he joined in our conversation for a second, and I skated over on a comic wave and made some comment about the upcoming avian flu that’s supposed to kill 100 million of us.
Yeah, he didn’t get it, either. I was feeling confident, so I was okay. But I must admit that I was hoping to make some connection with this guy who’s become such a good friend to Cath, and, okay, to be chummy with the guy who’d be onstage later.
About a half hour after, he leaned over — someone must have said my name — and he gave me a hug. He’s a very tall, blonde, Finnish guy, so this adding to the surprise. “Sorry, I didn’t hear your name before. It’s great to meet you. Cath speaks so highly of you.” So that was sweet.
Cath, Nilan, and I walked to The Rivoli and caught most of Lindy’s show. It wasn’t long, but it was very good. He had a fun presence onstage, bouncing around, pulling faces, smiling, but also delivering his songs with a lot of force. The first song we caught was a tender little ballad, and I found myself crying. It was much like seeing my friend Tim in his show: something about seeing someone doing what they love and being good at it, but also something about the simple sweetness of someone expressing a touching sentiment through that talent — it gets me. Other songs were manic, and he finished with a silly mock folk song about poo. It takes a certain something to pull that off. Lindy’s a cross between a rock star and a nice kid you knew in kindergarten.
I’m sitting here writing as the clients fill out a form designed to focus them for the next quarter. Kara, my former project manager, is the “Workshop Success Director” today. She cranked the jazz down a few points, ’cause it was getting a bit “Live at the Apollo” in here.
There’s a client in the workshop I know Patrick would fancy, and it makes me smile in a way I have to hide.
Tonight I’m going over to Lisa’s place. She insisted that I stay at hers at least one night.
I’m struck again and again by how fortunate I am, how blessed I am to have this work that I love, and to be surrounded by great people who listen to me like I’m this certain person — who happens to be exactly the man I’d dream of being.
Right. Must focus on the clients.
~
Now it’s Tuesday morning and I’m back in the office. I’ve not been able to send or receive e-mail; I haven’t had access to the ‘net, so I figured I’d just tack this entry onto the other one.
Last night after work, I went to Lisa’s place. Both of us were knackered, her from driving out to Saint Catherine’s to her theatre gig, and me from getting up for work and doing social things at night. So she made us a very nice supper, with basic food to offset the restaurant food she imagined I must be full of (though, truth be told, I’ve actually been having very good restaurant food, and the caterers at work are very good now — not like our previous one who hadn’t quite mastered the Western palate, and liked to make dishes like spaghetti with tomato mint sauce, and poisoned some of the staff and clients on a few occasions — oopsie!). We had a spinach salad with cooked onion, mushroom, and peppers, then a rice, chick pea, curry, and black olive dish that was really tasty.
We talked endlessly to each other, catching up (in a way you can’t in a group), and sounding out each others’ advice on our various issues. On the surface she’s this playful pixie, but inside she’s an old monk. She’s done a lot of work on herself, and as a result has her feet planted firmly on the ground. It’s not that things don’t come up: she’s an emotional person, and very sensitive. But now she owns it, and knows very well how to be her. I have endless patience for someone who has ups and downs but also takes responsibility for them all. Then it’s possible to be as crazy as you want, but make it okay for others, and have compassion for yourself, too. I like that.
After setting the world to rights, we plopped ourselves on her couch and didn’t move until bedtime. Well, except for when Lisa got up to make popcorn (further endearing her to me). We watched the Gemini Awards, a showcase of what’s going on in Canadian television. I can’t articulate what it is, but there’s a specific ethos to the things produced here, and that show was a great example of it.
After the Geminis, we watched “The National,” the CBC’s nightly news show. Again, it was such a different take than, say, US news, and different even from the BBC’s news.
Workshop’s starting. Must go.
Slumming in *$s
Saturday, December 11, 2004 , 11:09 PM
I’m sitting in the Starbucks on Church Street in Toronto. This is a conflict for two reasons: first because it’s That Big Coffee Chain, and second because I’m surrounded by gay people *really* doing the “gay” thing. But I’m here for nostalgia’s sake. I wrote big chunks of my first and second books here.
On the wall are several plastic mannequin chests, alternating between male and female, painted in black, white, silver, and rainbow stripes. This is gay art. Gay art deserves to fail and disappear.
Last night after work, I had a nap so profound it was like sinking into the black depths of Lake Ontario. I desperately needed it, and it was delicious. I was awakened by Mark, then Eric, jumping on the bed like dobermans to tell me it was time to get up.
The boys and I (meaning Cosgrove, Eric, and Heipel) went for supper in the gay ghetto, then went for drinks. Again, it was nice to visit Woody’s for nostalgic reasons, but I had no interest whatsoever in doing the scene thing. Tiredness and busy-ness have supplanted my libido, and someone from the past has resurfaced in my Edinburgh life; even the possibility of someone specific displaces thoughts of anyone else. This fella is bad news, or has been, but there’s something there. I’m willing to step into the “maybe”, knowing that I’m old and wise enough to handle whatever occurs.
Ha! My best mate just walked in. Of course! This community is huge, but very small.
Anyone want to marry me?
Friday, December 10, 2004 , 11:55 PM
The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that same-sex marriages are protected by the constitution. Civilisation is here. Okay, the issue of finding someone to marry remains unchanged, but what an important step! Canada is looking very good these days, particularly while standing next to its deranged brother, the embarrassment in the human family. This is being reflected in the strength of the Canadian dollar, at a high not reached for decades. Unfortunately, this is actually hurtingbusinesses, like Toronto’s film production industry.
~
I’m up early again. Yesterday, I compensated by eating every sweet thing available in the workshop room — muffins, butter tarts, fruit juice, and even some bubbly black sugar-water. In the afternoon, I literally got dizzy.
Happily, I’m getting a lot out of being in the workshops. It’s one thing to write about these Strategic Coach ideas on a theoretical level, but it’s something completely other to speak with people whose business and personal lives are transformed by the work we do. This was a good plan, my coming here to recharge my work batteries every six months.
~
Last night I zombied my way home on the TTC, ate some leftover pizza, then went with Mark to the Hargrave, a pub on the Danforth, to meet our friend Bert. It was strange to be in the Canadian cognate of a British pub, but seeing Bert was a joy. He’s the editor of Toronto’s eye magazine, and one of the most challenging minds I’ve encountered. His public persona is as something of a thorn in the side of sexual conservatism. He likes to shock, though his purpose and social function in doing so is to remind people to think fresh thoughts all the time, not to rest on received or unquestioned attitudes. Underneath that persona, though, is someone who’s actually sweet and caring. But that cat is tied very firmly into a bag of superior reason. He lets it out around me though, and I’m grateful.
Then there’s Mark. How do you describe someone you’ve known for a decade, someone who shares the other half of your brain? He and I sat across from Bert in the booth at the pub, both a bit quicker than your average schlub, but running to keep up with Bert’s allusions to this book we’d not read, or that line of thinking. (He’d just sent out a memo that day to the staffers at eye, correcting them for using the logical premise “begging the question” incorrectly. It doesn’t, he pointed out, mean making you ask a question, but rather posing a question that contains a predetermined answer. cf: the all-girl punk song Cosgrove laughed out loud at just before bed called “Michael Jackson”, which contained the words “Show me on the doll where the bad man touched you”. I would say that this is an example of “begging the question” — as well as leading the witness.)
Still, Cosgrove could take any thought balloon that landed on the table, get it completely, then inhale its contents and say something new in a funny voice. I love him (but not that way).
Eric, his partner, is quieter, but he has his moments of brilliance, too. Witness his comic classic put-down “You scratch through the surface, and — Oh look! More surface.” (My corollary, only possible because of his original, is “All bottle, no message”.)
Right. Workshop time.
P.S. Yay! My invoices have been filled (turns out one fell between the cracks). Life is easier with money, and even moreso whilst travelling.
Skint
, 4:48 AM
I’m in the cafe again. It’s 7:52AM, and I was up at 6. I’m enjoying being here, but I’m glad I’ll have a good stretch of time at my folks’ after this, where I can have a lie-in every day if I like.
Okay, quick recap:
Lisa had a little Xmas party Tuesday. The guests were mostly from her acting and catering worlds, people I’ve known for years and usually only see at her parties. These folk are so funny and quick. They also make me feel like a comic genius, too.
I’m not so big on going out clubbing. I don’t show up very well there. But situations in which everyone’s joking back and forth, but also feels the freedom to jump right into their deepest philosophical thoughts or dilemmas in life — I love it. And this was that. Lisa seems to draw people like that to her, as, I suppose, do I. It’s just one of the many things I appreciate about her.
I called Cosgrove from her place at midnight because I realised I didn’t have a house-key for his and Eric’s place. Of course, he was asleep. I’m being an accidental arse, just because it’s awkward trying to balance all these important relationships (though this trip is coming together much more spontaneously and naturally than the last). It’s also happening because I’m utterly, utterly broke. I say this without having checked my bank account today. I’m waiting for an invoice from the Coach to go through, a fairly hefty one, but the timing’s a bit off, so the whole time I’ve been here I’ve been running on empty. The credit card has helped, but I hate using it. I do appreciate, though, how lucky I am that this is a temporary situation for me.
Strangely, I’ve also been getting stuff for free. Yes, others have been picking up the tab (which I always feel bad about), but it’s happened in other ways, too. Yesterday I worked with my editor Cath at her place, and we had lunch with her cool friend Perry at a restaurant called Fresh. They have great food and fresh juices, and I figured I’d put the bill on plastic. But the bok choy in Cath’s dish was full of mud. It wasn’t just unwashed, it was muddy. When she pointed this out to the waitress, they comped our whole meal. Sweet! Shame Cath had to eat mud, but hey, whatever. I must remember that: bring a bag of dirt to restaurants. I think that’ll work out much better than my cockroach solution, which can go all wrong so easily.
I also accidentally “fare-scoffed” on the TTC today (the Toronto Transit Commission). The ticket-seller in the booth kept talking to me about the previous customer in a thick accent, and he had one constantly-blinking eye. It was distracting enough that I walked through the turnstile with all of my tickets in hand, including the one I should have put in the box.
Last night, I met Mark and Eric at one of the remote spaceport ends of the TTC, and we drove to our friend Robert’s restaurant in Milton. We sat in a cozy back room and had an amazing meal. He’s such a gracious, wonderful man. I won’t have a chance to talk to him one-on-one, which is a different dynamic, but it was still nice to reconnect with him.
Right. Time to go to the workshop room.
From the Coach Cafe
Wednesday, December 08, 2004 , 6:20 AM
Soft jazz is playing overhead. I’m sipping an herbal tea. Around me are prints of old French adverts from the turn of the last century, along with ferns doing calisthenics, small round tables, and soft lighting.
No, I’m not in Starbucks. I’m in the cafe at The Strategic Coach, the company in Toronto for whom I write freelance.
…Okay, now I’m in the workshop room. The Coach conducts workshops for successful entrepreneurs. It’s fun to be here, because I get this outsized gushing burst of love from the team. There’s so much mutual respect here, and a real sense of fun behind what we’re doing. It works, what we do, and we’re very successful for it, and that feels good to be a part of. I’ve also benefitted a lot from it, personally. So it’s all good. I’m aware that I’ve floated up into a stratum of thin air where I experience the company at its most theoretical level, and that in practice there are probably some gaps where bureaucracy slips in. But I have the good fortune of being able to exist blissfully unaware of them.
Workshop’s starting. Must go.
The window to my left looks out on a parking lot, which is full of…
Snow.
Damnable snow.
~
(Break in the workshop.)
Things are pretty non-stop when I visit here. I’m working full-time, but I’ve also got a lot of people to visit. I’ve taken it easy this trip and not booked time with people; I’m just taking it as it comes. It’s more spontaneous, and I don’t feel so stressed out as last time. The flipside, though, is that there are a lot of people I’ll miss this time. I’ve given myself permission to do that, though, ’cause I’m going to be back and forth here every six months now.
What have I been up to so far? Here’s a quick recap:
Saturday:
Spent twelve hours taking a seven-hour flight. Airlines are the nonpareil of corporate timewasting. I used to love flying, but now it’s a necessary evil, all the sitting around, all the lineups and discomforts. I like travel, though, so this is the price.
I broke a personal rule and spoke to the passenger next to me on the plane. She was trying to take a pill, and, having ordered the vegetarian meal, I’d already been served and had a spare cup of water (in one of those ‘designed to burb its contents on you’ foil-topped plastic cups). I had a big bottle of water, so I offered my cup to her. That started a conversation, and by the time we’d both taken our suitcases from the carousel, we were buddies.
Cosgrove, Eric, and Heipel fetched me from the airport, and I went back to chez Cosgrove-Yung, where we talked for a bit and I soon crashed.
Sunday:
We went to the Pacific Mall, a shopping centre on the fringes of Toronto that’s been torn from Hong Kong and dropped there. You can find technological gadgets there that just plain don’t exist in the West. I did some shopping there for my family, as most of us have slid down the slope into the pool of geekness.
The buds and I shopped hard. I dropped a bunch of cash, but I got things there for a fraction of their UK price. We had lunch at a dim sum restaurant called The Graceful Vegetarian (as opposed to The Raging, Venegeful Vegetarian). And later we drank bubble tea. Okay, I didn’t. I had a coconut milkshake, ’cause I don’t want to suck black tapioca beads through a straw.
Sunday night I went with Mark and Eric to my ex’s place. Of course, being an art director for commercials, or rather being a person with impeccable taste and style who’s chosen that career as a form of self-expression, Jordan’shome is a beautiful, welcoming space. Actually, the only thing wrong with it is that leaves you feeling like your home is inferior. (Especially in my case, as I’ve no talent for DIY or space design, so my granny flat is pretty much exactly as I found it: dumpy.)
It was kind of a Hannukah party, but Jord said it was really for me, which was sweet. There was a big crowd there, with lots of faces I’d not seen in years, since we’d been together.
I had to leave fairly early with the boys, as we all had to get up early. I was committed to being fresh and present for Monday, and I was grateful yesterday when I got up in the dark and took the subway to the office. But I still have such powerful feelings for Jordan. He’s so cute, and so talented and capable. We’ve resolved the question of our being together, but I will always, always love and admire him.
Monday:
Dan, the co-owner (with his wife) of The Strategic Coach, arrived in his limousine, and we immediately fell into deep conversation. A lot of his ideas are a real challenge, coming from such a different place and sounding so contradictory to my own. But their foundation is visionary and humanistic. But he challenges some of our usual concepts, like “equality” — a word he hates. “People aren’t equal,” he said in the workshop yesterday. “They’re all different.” At The Coach, we have this notion of “Unique Ability” (fairly self-explanatory), and that’s what we’re always getting the entrepreneurs to focus on, both in themselves and others. Dan’s commitment to freeing people to live unmanipulated lives based on their Unique Ability is really inspiring. I also enjoy having real conversations with him, rather than just carefully relating to “my boss”, and I know he appreciates this difference. We have a nice working relationship, and something of a friendship, which I value.
Of course, I also got to see my friends here in the company, people I love and admire. I’m very fortunate to be surrounded by lots of people with these qualities. It was great to see Margaux, who’d visited me in Edinburgh, Ross, Julia, and Gaynor, whom I’d travelled through Paris with, and of course my editor Cath, who’s become such a valued friend as well as an essential part of my career here. My gift, I’ve learned, is in expressing — ideas, moments, things. Cath, though, gives me the whatI describe for the company. We’re a great team together.
After the workshop, I went shopping. I feel nauseous about how much I’ve used my credit card lately (since I’ve been waiting on an invoice being filled; I’m here travelling but I’m skint — it’s a bit awkward). But I finished my Xmas shopping, and I got some trousers, ’cause my clothes were all shabby — fine when I work at home, not so fine when I’m sitting across from a millionaire entrepreneur trying to talk to them as an equal. I’m grateful that I’ve grown from being a kinda funny-looking, awkward child into someone who people seem to respond well to. I like plain clothes that present me well; I don’t care about labels. Unfortunately, this led me to that store, where I got some very nice trousers on sale, and I know they’re going to last me for years. The mental picture of Indonesian children locked in a dark warehouse, sewing their fingers into the table makes me feel just a little guilty.
I should be focused on the workshop. Must go.
The long hols.
Friday, December 03, 2004 , 1:02 PM
This is my fridge as it looked yesterday. Now there’snothing in it. It’s that time again: I’m off to Canada for the rest of the month, back just in time for Hogmanay.
Apologies for keeping my thoughts in my head lately instead of sharing them here. If you want a glimpse of what it’s like to be inside my head, go see I [Heart] Huckabees. A lot of critics are hating it, but my new friend Geoff and I went to see it the other night, and laughed throughout the whole movie. It was the same kind of “laughter of recognition” that all those pathetic women let out at the Bridget Jones movie, except intead of angst over boys or being fat, the concern here is with ontology, hermeneutics, existentialism, or any of those other ideas we drive ourselves nuts with in our quest to “get it”.
~
When I self-published doubleZero back in 1999, I found myself thrust into the indie publishing community in Toronto, a vibrant little world of photocopied and stapled ‘zines, hand-made chapbooks, and comics. Most people hadn’t considered trying to appeal to mainstream publishers, or had already gone that route and were frustrated by the focus on bureaucracy rather than creativity. A lot of the work was scruffy and self-indulgent, but there were some real gems in there, too, full of clever insights into everyday life as a postmodern that the mainstream media tend to miss.
The highlight for me was attending Canzine and speaking on a panel there. I loved how everything was about what it was about, rather than presenting one thing (e.g. art) and being about another (e.g. money).
In that self-same spirit, I’ve got together with some writers and photographers here in Edinburgh, and we’re working on a ‘zine called Dunderheid! The first issue will be out early next year. We’re taking it really gently, using it as a good excuse to create work, rather than stressing ourselves with deadlines.
It really is time, though, to keep putting work out on the market, like Robert Heinlein says in his Five Rules for Writers. And, hey, you can’t argue with the man who’s said to have made a bet in a bar with L. Ron Hubbard that resulted in the creation of Scientology.
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