Today, Paris

Oh My Site, It Is A-Changin'

2009-04-20T22:12:00.002-06:00

Dear Friends,
I've decided to quit blogging. On this site. I'm switching from Blogger to WordPress, so please update your RSS feeds and favourites with the new URL:

blog.melaniejones.ca

Hope to see you there!

Love,
Me

Courage, Friends

2009-04-20T11:27:00.001-06:00

Thanks KB for sharing this. I can't think of anything better for today. Go get 'em, tigers. XO

Day 235: Back In The Stirrups Again

2009-04-20T00:51:00.004-06:00

The video's kinda quiet because I recorded it at 12:30 am and me blabbing on the Interweb about my CERVIX is not how people want to be roused from slumber. Trust me.

There's also a spot in the middle where it skips. That's the part where I tell you how the columnist misquoted me to the point where everyone in Southern Alberta thought I was dying of cervical cancer. I'm not dying of cervical cancer. And unless something went horribly wrong between now and three months ago, I don't HAVE cervical cancer. I have the thing that comes before it.

For those of you who are interested, here is the highlight reel:
The post that started it all.
The newspaper story – read it and tell me you don't think I'm dying tomorrow and unable to bear children. Gaa!
My surgery a.k.a. date rape by BBQ utensil.
And for the truly brave, the entire emotional rollercoaster in which I get really woo-woo and weird and eventually turn into a raw foodist for several months. Ech.

My test is at 3:30 pm MST if you wanna go ahead and send some good vibes my way. If I had an iPhone, I would go Lance Armstrong on all of you and Tweet while I'm in there, feet in the stirrups and staring at the ceiling. Got the visual on that one? Ha! Happy Monday.

Day 232: Hey, It's All Right.

2009-04-17T07:01:00.006-06:00

I'm heading off to the second and final day of shooting for the Depression Project. There's a ton left to do, but I'm also feeling really sappy and take-stock-y. Because this shoot has been three months of hard-ass work in the making. And in many ways fifteen or so YEARS of in the making.

I wouldn't be standing there in front of the camera for those kids if I hadn't been depressed. And I wouldn't have gotten depressed if I'd stood in front of the camera more in the first place...if I'd let my Big Dreams turn into my Big Life earlier.

So it's poignant for me that not only am I living my dream by performing, but my dream has come to include the darkest points of my life. And the capacity to help other people.

I think that's one of the coolest things about this Just One Year idea. Is that not only did it come at a low point in my life, but a low point in history. Who takes a year off just as we're heading into the worst economy of our lifetime?

I do!

But that's the beauty of it. The challenge. The impossible odds. The worst case scenario. Adversity gives it drama. It gives it power.

People are getting laid off left and right. Half of them are scrambling to find new jobs to fill in the blank their old jobs left. Half of them are relieved to be let go. They've embraced the sense of freedom and possibility and are happy to leave the life they SHOULD have liked but didn't. They're using the opportunity to create the life they LOVE.

"I'm EI-ing it and loving it...am I allowed to say that?" one of my friends wrote me.

There's no good time to break up with your shitty life and go find a great one. No perfect moment when you've got everything together and you've saved a bunch of money and have everything under control. That perfect moment will never come. Except for the fact that it could be right now.

I don't know why it all worked out the way it did for me. Why I got depressed and depressed again. Why I chose to take this risk when I did. How I ended up helping kids who are going through what I went through.

But I do know I don't need to be afraid. Being unemployed during the worst economic crisis of recent memory means you'll never be afraid of NOT having a job. This is the worst case scenario and, hey, it's all right. The worst time of my life is now being used to help other people. That's all right, too.

I guess what I'm saying is, yes, everything happens for a reason. But oftentimes we don't get to see the reason for a long, long time, so the best thing to do is always remember that there IS ONE. Whatever is happening right now has a purpose. Your job is not to reject it or try to "fix" it. It's to embrace it and dive right into it. Use it. Benefit from it.

My tenant is leaving my condo. She's quitting her PhD and moving back home to Vancouver. And I'm going to have to either find another tenant to pay my exorbitant mortgage or sell at the WORST point of the housing market. Worst case scenario, right?

Hey, it's all right.

Day 231: Coming Soon To A Sound-Stage Near You

2009-04-16T09:17:00.004-06:00

Hey, remember that jumping-out-of-my-skin day I had last week? The one where the idea to start a theatre company emerged out of nowhere? And how we were supposed to meet about that theatre company TODAY but both the other girls canceled? And remember how I got discouraged about that and wondered how I'm ever going to get my ass on a stage again as though one canceled meeting can determine the entire fate of my life?

Have no fear, friends.

Because two performance opportunities landed in my lap within days of each other. Mmm hmm. For real.

The first is a reading at a new recording studio this weekend. I'm performing along with a bunch of other spoken word people and musician types to celebrate their grand opening. Only I don't know the name of the business or if I'll be abducted and forced to join a polygamy cult because the girl who invited me only writes one-line emails. All I know is the address and that it starts at 6 pm on Saturday.

Maybe you should come...just in case.

You should also help me pick what to read. Currently, the options are:
Crotch Management, always a crowd-pleaser.
Celebrity Cervix, based on this post.
Better Known as Bacon Strip, a morality tale about stained underwear.
Or Who's Your Hammama? from my Parisian adventures with topless women.

Based on this list, it appears all I write about is boobs and boxes. I'm comfortable with that.

The second performance opp is with Mr. Laid Back & Under 30, Mark Hopkins – remember the Freak Show? He's baaaaack! That show will be sometime the week of April 28th. It's called Shhhh! I'm sure there will be many hilarious tales of unwritten scripts, beer-soaked rehearsals and last-minute panic attacks to come.

P.S. I would have written about yesterday's shoot for the Depression Project, but it went so smoothly, there's nothing to say! (Besides eavesdropping on the slumlord screaming match out back in the parking lot.) Hopefully something horribly humiliating will go down tomorrow. Fingers crossed...

Day 229: The Three Day Rule

2009-04-14T20:43:00.008-06:00

The really irritating thing about being a spiritual person is you can't get Just Mad anymore. You're always looking for The Lesson or The Message From The Universe and you can't just throw dishes and be done with it. Everything has to have "deeper meaning" or lead to "personal growth."

It's frickin' annoying.

So it really IRKED me when – after getting blindsided by the Depression People AGAIN at the ELEVENTH BLOODY HOUR – I descended into a blind rage the likes of which I've never experienced.

It was the kind of rage I can only describe as ALCOHOLIC – the rip-the-sink-off-the-wall, eat-a-plate-of-cocaine, drive-a-truck-off-a-bridge kind of fury reserved for addicts and outlaws. An out of control cocktail of self-destruction and homicidal mania.

This? Is not like me at all.

It scared the hell out of me. And I wondered how I'd let things get this far. I'd ignored the Three Day Rule for far too long.

I've learned the hard way that I've got three days without creative Me-Time before the time bomb starts to tick ominously. Before the jungle drums start beating and the air raid sirens start to howl. Before I start yelling for Boyfriend to TAKE COVER because goddamnit SHE'S GONNA BLOW!

It's strange, but it's true.

Creativity is as much a part of my self-care as getting eight hours of sleep at night. If I skip it, there are consequences. If I keep skipping it, things get ugly for those within a 30-foot radius. If I neglect it altogether, the rage goes inward I get suicidally depressed. This is how it works.

Three days to crazy.

But every once and awhile I, very mistakenly, try to get away with it and push my self-care to the bottom of the list.

I don't know how thought I could gut out a couple more weeks of balls-to-the-wall writing for the Depression Project, survive a four-day full-frontal-family weekend (where the only Me-Time I got involved a toilet and a wad of Charmin double-ply) and have enough gas in the tank for two days of shooting a hundred pages of script.

I was very, very wrong.

And I emerged from a molten white rage last night around midnight to find myself tearing a journal almost in two like some kind of steroid-addled Monster Trucker. Smashing all the car windshields on my street with a baseball bat also seemed like a very good idea. It was fucked.

But, since I knew from whence the white rage came, I chose against baseball bats and turned to Julia Cameron instead. I opened up Vein of Gold to a section entitled 'Voluntary Victims,' which goes a little something like: "Sooooo. You didn't give yourself the creative time or space you needed and said Yes to everything everybody asked you and now you're A CERTIFIABLE MENTAL CASE and what exactly did you THINK was going to happen? Hmm?"

I did one of her genius little exercises (in my ravaged journal) and felt better. But I wasn't done yet, so even though it was a quarter past late o'clock, I opened up a story I've been working on (pssst...one of the PARIS stories!).

I felt the train wreck of rage in my head clear away and the knot of barbed wire in my chest loosen. I was WRITING! For the first time since Paris and it was glorious.

I wrote until I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore and then slipped into bed beside Boyfriend. Who was still wearing his riot gear and clutching his pepper spray under his chin. Adorable.

Day 228: Insert Bloodcurdling Scream Here

2009-04-14T08:04:00.002-06:00

Dear Depression Project Team:

I have read over your changes to the Module 8 script. While I appreciate the new theme of Celebration, I have some serious concerns.

The first half isn't about celebration at all – it simply sums up the previous seven modules intercut with overly cheerful and content-lite wahoo music videos. The exercises, which we created for the original theme of Module 8, are now no longer relevant or related. What does a visualization about the road less traveled have to do with celebrating? I notice you've left the second half of the content as-is even though it was written for an entirely different theme and no longer makes any sense whatsoever. And the story for the story section was, I suspect, written by someone from the research team.

You sent me this new content at 6 pm on Monday night. Today is Tuesday, the day before the shoot where I, as an actor, need to deliver over 50 pages of script authentically and honestly. It will be a long day and an exhausting one – and I want to do my best for the production team. It is Day One of two days like this. In between the two shoot days, I need to prepare the next 50 some-odd pages of script I need to bring to life.

What you are asking me to do is completely rewrite and refocus the script of Module 8. This will take a full day of writing. A day we don't have in the current schedule.

So when you say you'd like to find a way to approach this without putting pressure on me, I'd say it's a little late for that. Once again, I feel the timely delivery of the product resting a little too firmly on my shoulders.

I am a human being. I have given a lot to this project and am just about to enter the most vulnerable phase of it. Baring my soul and history on paper is one thing, baring it in front of the camera is another. Asking me to shoehorn an entire day of reworking a desperately under-realized module into this week is not acceptable and it's not going to happen.

Melanie

P.S. You owe me money.

Day 223: Hittin' the Road

2009-04-09T11:58:00.004-06:00

We are driving to BC for some Easter fun with my parents and a chunk of Boyfriend's MAMMOTH-sized family.

But before leaving, there's the ORDEAL of Boyfriend's Getting Ready To Leave process. This entails washing every single piece of clothing he owns – even though we're going for only four days. It requires purging the fridge – even though there have been Tupperware containers with Biochemistry PhD projects brewing in there for MONTHS.

It also means cleaning the truck, kitchen, living room and bedroom from top to bottom just in case we die in a car crash and our loved ones judge us posthumously.

I am a big-picture cleaner. I feel that if I've put in the effort with a couple half-assed swipes to the dash with some ArmourAll or a quick smear of a cloth on a counter, that oughta do it. This makes it all kinds of No Fun to share cleaning duty with someone who is...um...what's a nicer word than COMPLETELYEFFINGANAL?

Anyhoo. Cleaning ANYTHING with Boyfriend usually means I do a shamelessly shoddy job, he chases after me re-cleaning and I get huffy and indignant.

WHAT BETTER WAY TO PREPARE FOR EIGHT HOURS IN A CAR TOGETHER?

Day 222: Because We Can

2009-04-08T06:58:00.007-06:00

I spent most of yesterday jumping out of my skin. I was working on the last module of the Depression Project and, being creatively tapped out, every sentence was like giving birth. I drank three giant cups of tea. I danced it the f*ck out. I made strange grunting noises in some misguided use of sound therapy.

But it wasn't the project making me antsy. It's my need to perform.

While in Paris, I had this idea to turn my stories into a performance of some kind: one woman show, storytelling, spoken word, something. And then I had the idea to turn it into a fundraising event: perform it, invite all of you, charge you money, feed you booze.

And then I freaked out.

Meanwhile, my need to perform has been sitting like a shaken-up pop can in my belly, waiting not-so-patiently for my attention.

And then yesterday, I visited a friend who has recently come out of the closet as a performer, too. And she says she's ALSO been waiting not-so-patiently for me to be finished this effing Depression Project.

"We're starting a theatre company," she says. "Just so you know." I stared at her. And laughed.

Because, come on. Like. You can't just START a THEATRE COMPANY.

*Snort*

Can you?

And then I visited with another friend and we went for a walk – my anti-skin-jumping solution. While we're walking she tells me she's finally admitted SHE'S a performer.

WTF.

And suddenly, these words come FLYING out of my mouth: "We're starting a theatre company."

I screamed a little and stopped walking.

And the words just hung there in the air. We both looked at them. The words didn't explode or catch fire or turn into murderous lightning bolts of nuclear energy. They just sat there. Staring back at us. Blinking placidly.

Because...the thing is...we COULD.

And really. None of these 'outings' are surprising. Friend #1 worked in theatre in New Freaking YORK before bailing on the whole idea when she came back to Canada. And Friend #2 is so good at writing dialogue it freaks me out. She has this genius play gathering dust in a drawer. And then there's me.

We kept walking and the words tagged along behind us like little balloons on little strings.

We talked about all those thoughts that air-pop popcorned into our heads seconds after we realized we are performers:

"I can't be a performer. They don't make any money."

"Actors are so over-dramatic and annoying."

"I'm a morning person...I can't work nights."

"Performing's all about the ego anyway."

All those weird beliefs that keep us from being who we are. As if we have any choice about it. As if working NIGHTS even matters. As if we're going suddenly going to become ANNOYING over night. We laughed our heads off and kept walking.

And those words? They're still with us. Little balloons on little strings. Our first meeting is next week.

Uncertainty...Unplugged

2009-04-06T11:16:00.003-06:00

Okay, so here's my first-ever attempt at a video for this blog. It's too long and I ramble and almost start crying at a couple points. Also note the wide-eyed look of shock and awe.

God. Sounds like a Monday.

Day 220: The Occupational Hazard Series

2009-04-06T09:17:00.006-06:00

Hazard #1208: Crushing Creative Drought
Hey, I know it's not sexy to blog about why you haven't been blogging, but I think enough creative-types read this that it's relevant:

I'VE GOT FRICKIN' NOTHING.

Banging out these effing Depression scripts for three weeks straight has completely tapped me out. And this is what happens when you exist in that middle space where you're working a job that you thought was Close Enough to your dream but you're still dying to do your own creative work. The effing job steals all your juice!

So instead of your crafty little Writer Brain perking up when your 95-year-old grandfather refers to Skype as 'Psych,' you just stare dully into space and pick at your hangnails. It's a travesty.

Hazard #491: Carpal Tunnel WTF Is Going On With My WRISTS
Or there's the times when you have an idea – like how wine menu descriptions could easily be human personality profiles – but your wrists have been on fire for four days and the idea of typing that story/blog post/whatever fills you with dread.

Last week there was some kind of horrific convergence of me typing for 10 hours a day and getting back into Ashtanga (50 Push-Ups A Class) yoga and my wrists are brutally sore. Because writing is my vocation and I have an incredibly active imagination, I let my crazy spin out into a world where I could no longer write for a living and lost all use of my hands and went slowly insane and ended up dying homeless and alone with coyotes gnawing on my face.

This is what happens in my head.

It's scary in there.

And then (after a few gins) Ross says: "Wash a couple Advil down with a large glass of Suck It Up and you'll be fine." Thanks, pal.

Hazard #902,035: Clutching, Sleep-Preventing Financial Panic Attacks
Hey remember that Artist For One Year thing I'm doing? Remember how SELLING MY CAR was a key factor in making in happen? Remember how that hasn't happened yet and how I took on a pro bono project where I'll have no way of generating income all freaking summer?

And then – omigod this is hilarious – remember that PERFECTLY timed cherry on top of the $500 water damage bill, $375 special assessment and a condo fee increase? And the fact I haven't done my taxes...for three years?

BAAAAHAHAHA!

*Sob*

Day 219: Read This Immediately If Not Sooner

2009-04-05T14:22:00.005-06:00

Thursday night we went to a Spoken Word Festival event at The Auburn. Evalyn Parry performed and when she read the poem below, I bawled my face off. A lot because I, too, feel passionately about outsiders and our great potential to make serious and awesome change in the world. And a lot because it was the first time I understood that Boyfriend (geek) and I (artist) are in the same category. More on that later.

I asked Evalyn if I could publish this and share it with you. She said yes. Love her. Now...read it and weep. And then please continue kicking ass and living like you effing mean it. This one is for you.

This one is for

the non-conformers and the system buckers
it’s for the girly men and the lady truckers
the organic farmers, the local food growers
the old-school, mechanical, push lawn mowers
the two wheel riders, the trouble makers
the public-transportation-takers

it’s for the girls who cut their hair, and the ladies who refuse to shave
it’s for everyone who has ever been brave
it’s for the time you didn’t behave

it’s for those who remain hopeful when hope seems lost
it’s for my first year women studies prof
hell, all my patient first year professors, my true hearts,
my midnight confessors, for all the dressers
I’ve ever found at the curbside
and all the things that have saved my backside

it’s for the Michigan Womyn’s Festival founding foremothers
my tranny sisters and brothers
the straight-but-not-narrow
all my ex-lovers
the crunchy granola hippies who dance
aviators, horse back riders, gals who wore pants
before pants were something a proper lady should wear
it’s for the bleeding hearts, and the ones who care
and the ones that march and the ones that fight
the people who bother to write
a letter to the editor, who stand up to their managers
the union organizers, the city counsellors
it’s for everyone that dares and everyone that speaks
for those who listen, for those who can’t sleep
and those who can’t rest
for those who are trying their best
for the freaks and the punks, the misfits and the nerds
for everyone who ever contributed words
and meanings
to the Oxford English Dictionary
for those who know they will never marry
for the rebels and the genderqueers and polyamorous
for my grade 11 boyfriend who drove a VW bus
for the outlaws, and the in-laws who got over their misgivings
and attended their first same sex wedding
for everything with wings

it’s for the radical thinkers and the babies in incubators
for second-chancers, and the morris dancers
for those whom, given the choice, always chose “other”
it’s for Stephen Lewis and all the grandmothers
for the fearful who took to the streets anyway
for the artists who keep going even though it might never pay
for those who light the way
for those who made it through another day without a drink
for all those who think
for anyone who chooses to get things done
for the catholic priests who are handing out condoms
for the improvisers, and the bathhouse raid committee organizers
and the war tax resisters and the brave fighters
for those who go to serve in anyway they can
for the ones who were shot down and for those ran
for those who defied their orders, for the doctors without borders
the single mothers, the sperm donors and the Henry Morgentalers
the crisis phone line callers
for those who refuse to give up and refuse to give in
who won’t shut up
who know it’s not about whether you win
or you lose
but about the scope of your dream and your right to chose
an opinion and your right to change your mind
for those who are kind
it’s for those who hold fast
and for those who are outcast
or downcast, for those who can’t move very fast
for the flags at half mast
for the tired organizers and the ones who outlast
and all those who have already past
this one is for you

this one is for you

wield.

Speaking of Genius...

2009-04-03T14:00:00.002-06:00

Watch this:

(Don't know who Elizabeth Gilbert is? She's the author of Eat, Pray, Love – a beautiful, hilarious, bestselling memoir that Oprah fell in love with. Which catapulted her to ridiculous, freakish, unwieldy success.)

Day 217: I Heart Steve's Mom

2009-04-03T10:35:00.003-06:00

My friend Steve is on a journey of self-transformation, but his mom is knocking on Enlightenment's door as far as I'm concerned. I need to meet the lady who wrote this list. (I'd also love a play-by-play of Steve's childhood.)

Some highlights:

2. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day.

3. When you wake up in the morning complete the following statement, “My purpose is to __________today.”

9. Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

14. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.

16. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.

18. Spend time with people over 70 and under 6.

20. Don’t forget to call your Mother, you will never get that unconditional love from anywhere else.

Day 216: When The Magic Got Lost

2009-04-02T14:07:00.006-06:00

My wrists are sore from writing. My brain is sluggish. My body fatigued. My creative well depleted and dry. My deadline...tomorrow.

For more than two weeks straight, the pace of the Depression Project has quickened and the intensity increased. We were like horses: hitting our stride and running full-tilt across the prairie, then fatiguing, straining, sweating and bleeding, gutting it out until we saw home.

I got to that point where I was done with the journey, but the journey wasn't done with me. And so I kept going. And past that point – that limit – I found something.

This project is amazing.

What we've made here is so incredibly powerful, the fact that only depressed teenagers get to see it is a crime. It's that good.

I wish I'd taken it when I was young – at that point where I started to second-guess myself and look outside for answers. The point where I started to let my childhood dreams die. Where there was no more Santa Claus and the magic started to fade.

This course we're making is a lesson in dreams and possibility and purpose and connection. It's like an arsenal of weapons against the tidal wave of bullshit a person has to wade through on the inelegant passage to adulthood. Those soul-sucking expectations that weigh down your wings and tarnish your shine. The choices that took you off your true path and onto the superhighway of Someone Else's Life.

How do you expect to make a living at that? Get a real job. Make money. Lose weight. Get married, have babies. Look out for Number 1. Find a hobby. Buy more, save more.

School Rules. The Cult Of Cool. How We've Always Done It.

Normal. Better. More.

The damage we spend our twenties undoing. The person we spend our thirties finding.

No wonder we got depressed. It's shocking more of us aren't. No wonder we're angry, confused and feel ripped off. No wonder.

I wish all of you could see this course. I wish all of you HAD seen it...when you were twelve or thirteen. Whenever the magic got lost for you. When you stopped believing in fairies and dragons. And resigned yourself to something more ordinary.

I miss it. The magic. Don't you?

Day 215: Go See This Movie...With Me

2009-04-01T09:10:00.004-06:00

Dudes. Seriously. Go see 'Letters from Litein' at The Globe on the weekend of April 24th. It's produced and directed by the film guys I'm working with on the Depression Project and YOU MUST SEE IT.

Not because it's a documentary made right here in YYC.

Not because it's about Africa and y'all better get used to hearing A LOT about Africa.

Not because it's about school children from Calgary traveling to Kenya to help orphans.

Not because Canadian independent filmmakers rilly, RILLY need bums in seats ON OPENING WEEKEND.

But because you're gonna watch this and fall madly and hopelessly in love:

Chills, no? Mistiness in the eyes? An intense desire to bring ten friends to opening weekend?

It opens on April 24th at The Globe Cinema in Calgary for two weeks. Go to the film's web site for more info. Or if you want to get in touch with Matt Palmer (producer/director) directly, email him at mattrix at telusplanet dot net.

ALSO! I'm totally going on April 24th. I want to rally a massive crew to show my support. If you want to be part of a bad-ass posse of cool kids, email the words PINK BANANA and your contact info to: blog at melaniejones dot ca.

Day 213: I Think I'm So Smrt

2009-03-30T09:25:00.004-06:00

Why does the Universe INSIST on reminding me who's boss? Seriously. I'm flowing, things are awesome, I'm going to frickin' Africa and then BOOM: I burn out, my computer crashes and I have to spend my Sunday afternoon chipping a 6-inch tall speed bump of ice so my tenant can get her car out of the parking lot of #426 Slum Street USA.

WTF.

I have this weird innate Doom Reflex that kicks in when things start going too good. When I got the Africa-India Water Project, every time I talked about it out loud, I kept expecting a bolt of lightning to streak down and fry my brains. Since I got home from Paris, I've been waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Me = SUCKER.

Because feeding all that energy into the doom-y feeling is like sending a very nice party invitation to Doom itself. Not that losing two files and chipping ice necessarily counts as Doom. It doesn't hold a candle to hurricanes and economic nuclear winter. But still.

That incredible flow I'd had in Paris – the one that turned into an out-of-control Raging Rapids theme park ride when I got home – has caused me to rethink my approach. This week is all about slowing down and tuning in. Turning the Crazyhorse River into a nice, manageable babbling brook.

I need to get this Depression Project finished. Need to. And in order to do that, I need to NOT do 4 million other things. Full stop. So despite the fact that I just signed up for Twitter and am tempted to tweet every passing random and slightly dirty thought that enters my mind...I'll just say, 'See you tomorrow Internet.'

Day 211: What Too Busy Looks Like

2009-03-28T08:03:00.007-06:00

it looks like losing
things you can't afford to lose at the moment you can't afford to waste
you should learn
you should learn
you should learn which you would if you weren't
so bizzy,
frizzy,
overwhelmed,
too hanging-on to see

anything
but that day off-off-off dangling, sun-warmed
off-off-off...if
you hadn't lost those files with those notes from that client
those phone-talk hours distilled
into capital letters
misspelled
and hasty

and now
too tired to remember
two documents to finish
that job
that leaves you drained dry and empty on the friday
when you forget to save

that snapping circle
and you think you're faster
faster more cunning
running
the next thing the next thing the next thing
runs the battery down

in so many ways

things switch off suddenly
and everything is gone
except consequences

Day 209: Water Project World Tour UPDATE

2009-03-26T17:16:00.010-06:00

Today I took a break from the grind of the Depression Project and spent the whole day on the Water Project. It began with a meeting with the woman from the NGO, where my questions included: Did I just agree to work for free for two years...and will I get shot while I'm doing it?

Yes, I'm working for free – they didn't budget for a writer when they got their massive grant from CIDA – but they are paying for flight/travel, accommodation, food, visas, vaccinations and insurance, including being airlifted by commandos on the off-chance I do get shot. Which I won't because that's not how I'm gonna go down.

Unless it involves a blaze of glory. In which case, I might consider it.

Anyhoo. Working for free. Or...getting to travel the world for free. Which is how I like to think of it. It's all good. I'm already plotting magazine articles and columns to pitch, book proposals, generating massive blog traffic (tell all your friends) and a Top Secret Fundraising Extravaganza you're all invited to if I can pull my wicked idea off. Stay tuned.

I also got some insight as to why NGO Lady decided to send an outside writer and not go herself as originally sort-of planned: she's PREGGO. The Universe works in mysterious ways...and with impeccable timing.

After that meeting, I jumped in my car and headed home for a Skype meeting with the photographer, where we started zeroing in on travel plans and creative concepts. So, the scoop as of today is something like:

Leave Calgary around July 10th and take a couple days to travel to Ndola, Zambia – just in time to celebrate my 33rd birthday. Meet our contact there, whose name is Blessed. For real. Stay in the guest house of the partner agency in Ndola and take satellite trips from there, connecting with families in several townships in the Copperbelt province. Possibly visit an internally displaced persons/refugee camp. Visit the chimp orphanage (I KNOW!) near Ndola.

View Larger Map

Then at the end of July, we take off for the Tamil Nadu province of southern India, where we'll spend most of August and where the plans are still vague because we haven't gotten that far yet.

View Larger Map

The creative concept is still forming and will be HUGELY shaped by what we see and who we meet when we're there, but we're both drawn to the women and children.

The big statistic for all water-focused development efforts is that of the 4,900 people dying every day from waterborne illnesses, 90% of them are children under 5. When you see a statistic like that, it doesn't tell you the story of how those losses impact the mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers. And what being healthy now means to these families.

I want to have some fun with the kids if I can – bring some sketchbooks and crayons, record them singing some songs or telling me stories. I'm hoping, perhaps naively, that being healthy means they actually get to be kids.

Day 208: And Now...More Depression!

2009-03-25T12:53:00.004-06:00

I've had a request for an update on The Depression Project. After the Parisian Panic Attack followed by the Great Boundary Setting of 2009, I haven't said boo. Inquiring minds want to know. So. Here's the scoop:

Two days before I returned from Paris, a meeting was scheduled for five minutes after my plane touched down at home. POUNCE. I, Grade-A Sucker, agreed to it largely because I want this godforsaken project out of my life as quickly as possible and if that means hauling my haggard, jet-lagged ass into a meeting the day after I get home, so freaking be it.

On my way home, I turned my cell phone on for a period of fourteen seconds in the Toronto airport. Just long enough to inform Boyfriend that my plane didn't go Oceanic Flight 815* over the Atlantic. During that microscopic window of time, who should call but...The Depression People.

EEEEEK!

It was good news though: "We've worked ahead on the scripts. All you have to do is tweak them." This means less work and gutwrenching hell for me. This makes me happy.

We get into the meeting and talk timelines and moving forward.

Then, Dr. Guru shows up. The man whose work in spirituality and depression forms the bedrock of this project. The man who cuts right to the effing chase: "Last week in Halifax, nine teenagers were rushed into the emergency room because of a suicide pact. One was dead by the time they arrived. Four are in ICU. The rest were treated and released. This is why we're here."

Oh.

Right.

For the next hour, Dr. Guru spins a mesmerizing web of personal stories, no-BS project management and super-clear communication about what HE needs to get his part of the project done. He, like me, is sick and tired of the zig-zagging, where's-my-mommy progression of this thing and he wants it the eff DONE.

"Tell me what you want," he says to the two ladies in charge of executing this thing.

My thoughts. His mouth.

Dr. Guru turns to me and asks how I'm feeling. I give a bullshit answer like, "Fine thanks, how are you?" But perhaps he sensed from the emanating waves of murderous rage that simply wasn't true.

And so, I started talking (God help us all):

"For two months, I've been shooting in the dark because all I hear is: 'We don't know what we want.' Well, you sure know what you don't want: EVERYTHING I GIVE YOU.

You want my voice and style, but not when it actually comes out in the writing. You want my sense of humour – which was what hauled me OUT of depression in the first place – but not around people who are depressed(?!). You want authentic, personal stories (VERY, VERY PERSONAL STORIES), but then rewrite them as though I am a MAN.

I am frustrated, isolated and defensive. The closer we get to being done, the farther I feel from the truth. If I'm not true and real, the kids are going to see right through me and I AM GOING TO LOSE THEM. In every sense of the word."

There was some silence in the room.

"But...we think you're the right person for the project," Lady #2 said, patting my arm.

As though I needed validation of my existence and not a CLEAR SOLUTION TO THIS PROBLEM. Teenagers are killing themselves...but you're a good person, Melanie. Thanks.

Other Film Guy, in charge of schedules, offered: "I think we had to go through all THAT to get where we are NOW."

YOU didn't go through anything, Mister. I did. Next?

Matt, the Original Film Guy, says it's a Test From The Universe. Personal growth in the form of the writing contract from hell.

Bizarrely, this made me feel better.

Somehow, there's a POINT to this gong show cluster f*ck and somehow I will benefit from it...eventually. I drove home, nursed a massive, full-body tension headache and went to bed early. Then, when I woke up the next morning? BOOM. Clarity.

I wrote an email:

Laughter was my way out of depression, but it's also a defense mechanism for me. It's coming out in my writing because I'm shooting in the dark. I'm GUESSING what you wanted the kids to get out of every section and it's making me (and my writing) tentative and nervous. Now I'm frustrated...so the stabs I take will likely get more wild and off the mark.

It's time to get grounded in the point of all this. On a segment by segment basis.

If I know what you want, I have the confidence to explore a range of emotional voices in order to communicate with the kids. But if I'm on my heels all you'll get is defensive jokes and people-pleasing B.S. Not authentic content written for the people we are trying to help.

It's not often I use the words "people-pleasing B.S." with my clients. There's a first time for everything.

Since then, I've been talking on the phone with The Ladies for an hour every day, going through each segment with a fine tooth comb and rewriting everything for the THIRD (and in the case of Module 1...SEVENTH) time.

(Can you say Contract Renegotiation?)

It's a grind and it's hellacious, but it's happening and we're moving. There's a point to every sentence and every story. And for the first time since the beginning, I feel like I'm not only speaking to depressed kids but actually helping them, too. Yesssss.

*A reference to the TV show Lost for those who don't watch it. Short form for 'Catastrophic Plane Crash Involving Lots Of Blood And Death And A Magic Island With Mysterious Hatches And The Occasional Touch Of Time Travel.'

Day 207: So I Think I Can Dance

2009-03-24T14:21:00.013-06:00

I got a 10-pass to a rec centre in hopes of finding the Calgary version of that glorious dance centre in Paris. There was a Monday evening class called Latin on the schedule and it sounded hot: aerobics with salsa moves and sweaty, sexy Latin beats. I could seriously get into that.

So I was more than a little confused when I walked into a roomful of 60-year-old Chinese ladies wearing panty hose and dancing shoes.

And when the chubby white guy teacher strode in, well, let's say Sexy was officially off the menu. "Sorry I'm late everyone," the teacher breathed. "We just got back from Vegas."

Of course we did.

"Let's warm up with rumba," he said, clapping his hands and starting the music. "And 5, 6, 7, 8." I followed along with a basic rumba box step, trying not to laugh at White Guy's flamboyantly swishing hips.

But I wasn't laughing four counts later when he yelled, "And turn. And turn. And switch. And back," while I flailed along in the back row. Apparently "warm up" means "perform this complicated seven-minute choreography."

Oh.

"So," he said, stopping the music to stare at those of us who sucked at rumba. "We have new people." He sighed and rubbed his forehead. And then he listed off all the medals he's won in Latin dance competitions all over the world. I wasn't clear on what I was to do with this information, except for maybe clap.

"Let's move on to the Paso," he called out before turning back to me and the other newbies. "Who has seen Paso Doble danced before?" A few of us put up our hands. "Oh," he said in a withering tone. "On TV, right? Dancing With The Stars?" He sighed and faced the mirror. Clearly, we were a waste of his time.

And so I learned the Paso Doble. There was a lot of stamping and stepping and flinging of nonexistent capes. "Let's try it with music," the teacher said and suddenly the speakers unleashed the most hilariously cheesy bullfighting song of all time. It was like a Disney cartoon bullfighting soundtrack.

"A 5, 6, 7, 8!" the teacher screamed and off we went, stamping and swinging scarves and hankies and sweatshirts over our heads.

Then he stopped the music and pointed at me. Oh God.

"You. What's your name? Melody. Nice cape work. Verrrry nice cape work. Everyone – watch Melody's caping this time." And then the roomful of little old Chinese ladies turned to stare at me...with unconcealed hatred.

We did the same passage over and over again. Then we stared at the teacher who was clearly losing his shit. He crumpled a piece of paper and muttered to himself.

"We can't move on until next week," he said, sighing and rubbing again. "I need to figure things out. I mean, this is Paso – it has to be on the music. IT JUST HAS TO. Or everything falls apart." He paced up and down mumbling while we all looked at our feet.

"I know we'll move into a Sneak Attack followed by a Grand Circle," he said searching the paper for some kind of existential validation or military strategy. "But there's a cymbal crash coming and I NEED TO KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH IT."

Clearly, Paso Doble is a huge responsibility. One I couldn't possibly understand.

Day 206: First World Problems

2009-03-23T16:25:00.005-06:00

As the honeymoon of 'OMG I'M GOING TO AFRICA!' wears off and the reality of 'OMG How Am I Going To Pay My Mortgage While Working For Free?' kicks in, my concerns strike me as a little tacky in light of people who DON'T HAVE HOMES in the first place.

Maybe I could take on some freelance work while I'm over there. Nothing says irony like writing about condo developments while living in a dirt hut in Zambia.

Also? I'm now obsessed with water. I am conscious of how much I use when I brush my teeth. Of taking showers and (God forbid) taking a bath. I look at SNOW differently, for God's sake.

I was flipping through a health magazine the other day and noticed the headline "Drinking Enough?" I snorted with laughter that here we WRITE ARTICLES about getting our 8-10 glasses per day and in the places I'll be traveling, people WALK ALL DAY to find enough to drink.

These are the things you start to think about when you take on a project like this.

I find myself swerving drunkenly between profound gratitude that I was born where I was, weird white-girl guilt for having SO much when others have so little and fear that I'll turn into one of those strident Save-The-World types screaming at passersby, "Yeah?! At least you have LEGS, you selfish bastard!"

Stressing about your summer plans really isn't as fun when people really are dying in Africa...you know?

Day 205: Until the Aircraft Comes to a Full, Abrupt Stop

2009-03-22T09:58:00.010-06:00

To no one's surprise, my plan to hit the ground running here in Calgary led quickly to hitting the WALL running.

The idea was to maintain a sort of momentum upon my return from Paris in hopes of avoiding Suburban Wasteland Culture Shock And Psychic Paralysis. A good idea...in theory.

Of course, I didn't anticipate racking up a spectacular sleep deficit and having to manage the convergence of an emceeing gig/all-day conference, two work deadlines and the sudden beginning of a massive, 2 to 3 year, possibly pro bono project involving leaving for Africa in FIVE MINUTES.

Meanwhile, there's still the idea of theatre school (and its $30 grand price tag) and a boyfriend who keeps saying mean things like, "But...I thought we were going cycling in France this summer."

It's all amazing and spectacular and TOTALLY OVERWHELMING. I feel like I got invited to the Oscars but forgot to wear any pants.

And when I woke up yesterday morning to find the house in complete and utter disarray and a good-looking man (target) walking around in blissful ignorance of my exhausted, jet-lagged, which-effing-way-is-up panic, well...

Any guesses what I chose to freak out about? The dishes, of course. At the very least you'd think I could get some new material.

Luckily, my month of 24-7 creative solitude served me well. Because as soon as Super-Bitch reared her head, I stopped talking (nagging) and got out my paints. And today, when SB stopped in for breakfast, I shut her down by baking banana muffins and listening to Bach.

I don't know much, but I know two things:

FACT #1:
Creativity is the antidote for bitchiness, misery, panic and possibly depression. Let me repeat this: CREATIVITY IS THE KEY. Playing around with paints, cooking, dancing, taking photos, whatever. It's the magic bullet for getting present and into a state of flow. Period.

(Feel free to forward this post to your PMSing wives and girlfriends.)

FACT #2:
Getting into a snit about having to take care of someone else is an excellent indication that I haven't been taking care of myself. This is a new realization for me. Brand new this morning. Late-breaking navel-gazing news. So now my biggest problem is Nap or Bubble Bath? Sigh. Life is hard.

Day 203: Emcee Emjay In The House

2009-03-20T07:07:00.005-06:00

Last night, as part of my Hit The Ground Running plan, I emceed an event for the Alberta Magazine Publisher's Association. Because performing in front of hundreds of people three days after I arrive is a GREAT way to combat the stress of transatlantic travel.

I was encouraged to hear that last year's emcee sucked balls, so the bar wasn't high to begin with. Yessss. Nothing like shooting low.

There was only one awkward moment. I returned to the mic after AMPA's vertically challenged executive director did her speech. This woman is short. Like REALLY short.

And as I moved the mic up toward my mouth, I muttered a poorly timed, "Whoa. Midget."

A statement which was then amplified and reverberated through the room.

Despite that, after the big show, the Cool Editors invited me for a drink. There is one rather sexy, sought-after publication in this province and getting invited out with them is like getting asked to sit with the popular girls in the lunchroom. So I went. Obviously.

We drive to a chic wine bar and sit down. We talk about this and that and somehow talk turns to People With Depression And How We Would Never Date Them EVER EVER EVER.

Apparently one of the cool girls dated a guy who struggled with depression and now it's a total dealbreaker. Only she doesn't just stop at the person she's dating – no one in the FAMILY can have it either. So I guess depression is a form of the black plague and their advice if you see someone INFECTED is to run screaming as though your head was on fire.

The conversation was interesting to me, not in the least because these editors KNOW about my struggles with depression based on the articles I've written FOR THEIR MAGAZINE. But clearly, they'd forgotten and having learned from my Anti-PC Microphone Moment Of The Week, I chose to keep my big mouth shut.

Seconds later, one of the cool girls says, "So, my Person gave me a new trick for my anxiety."
"Your...Person?" I ask.
"Yeah," she says. "I see a Person about my problems with anxiety."

Ah. Is that what they're calling them these days.

She then went on to describe some kind of strange finger tapping exercise where you tap each finger on a table one by one, naming off the fingers as you go: thumb, index finger, middle finger, etc.

"I just go through highland dancing moves in my head," piped up Cool Girl #2. "A leap is a form of elevation where you take off from the balls of two feet and land on the balls of one foot."

After this baffling bit of dialogue, Cool Girl #1 turned to me and said in that slightly embarrassed manner of people who see People, "I highly recommend having a Person."

I nodded and sipped my wine demurely.

"Can I ask you a personal question?" Cool Girl #1 then said to me apropos of nothing. "How does your boyfriend feel about you abandoning him and going to Paris?"

Hmm, Cool Girl #1. How do YOU feel about it?

Day 202: The How of Happiness

2009-03-19T07:45:00.001-06:00

In the Toronto airport, I passed a book shop and a book called 'The How of Happiness' caught my eye. I'm deep into 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' (ahem) so I didn't buy it, but the Table of Contents gave away the farm anyhow, so maybe I don't have to.

As I went through it, I thought it would be nice if I could offer you, my dear readers, something other than 'A Month In Paris' as a key to lasting happiness. Its basically a bullet list for a fabulous freaking life as far as I can tell:

Practicing Gratitude and Positive Thinking
No.1 Expressing Gratitude
No. 2 Cultivating Optimism
No. 3 Avoiding Overthinking and Social Comparison

Investing in Social Connections
No. 4 Practicing Acts of Kindness
No. 5 Nurturing Social Relationships

Managing Stress, Hardship and Trauma
No. 6 Developing Strategies for Coping
No. 7 Learning to Forgive

Living in the Present
No. 8 Increasing Flow Experiences
No. 9 Savoring Life's Joys

No. 10 (which warranted its own category) Committing to Your Goals

Taking Care of Body & Soul
No. 11 Practicing Religion and Spirituality
No. 12 Taking Care of Your Body (Meditation)
No. 13 Taking Care of Your Body (Exercise)
No. 14 Taking Care of Your Body (Acting like a happy person)

There's one glaring omission in this list (in my humble, completely biased opinion): CREATIVITY. But if you look again, you could easily apply creativity to most of these activities. Which is what I did in Paris. I coped with stress THROUGH creativity – dancing it the f*ck out (which is also exercise), drawing pictures, writing in my journal. I achieved flow experiences through creative play. The goals I set were purely creative. You see what I mean.

You could probably apply any kind of approach you wanted to this list. Mine's creativity in general, but maybe yours is Advanced Military Operations (random acts of bombing) or Erotic Scrapbooking (savoring your glue stick) or even Career Necking (developing strategies for groping).

Day 201: Major Concert Announcement

2009-03-18T14:31:00.004-06:00

There's a woo-woo personal growth theory that if you want to invite new opportunities into your life, clear out your closets. The idea is that if your life (and closet and garage) is so packed with old stuff, you don't HAVE ROOM for the new and exciting.

For the past several years, I've been working with the belief that a full bookshelf made me look smarter or more well-read. Maybe I'm smart, maybe I'm not, but my bookshelf was home to so many old ideas (literally) that it was time to trim the fat.

For example, my ex-husband gave me a lovely hardcover edition of Plato's Republic...IN TWELFTH GRADE. I still have it. WTF. Seriously.

It was high time for a purge. So, any book that wasn't fun or exciting or applicable to where my life is TODAY, I tossed. About halfway through, I felt a weight lifting. I'm not talking a metaphorical weight. I LITERALLY felt lighter. (Get it...literally? Ha!)

By the end of it, my shelf had half the books it did and a bunch of delicious wide-open spaces – magnets for new and exciting ideas.

Well. I didn't have to wait long.

Today, Paris. Tomorrow...ZAMBIA. As of this afternoon, you people need to ready yourself for the Melanie Jones World Freaking Tour. I'M GOING TO AFRICA. Then India. Then Haiti.

What the freaking hell, you ask?

Vancouver-based photographer Cate Cameron and I are documenting the impact of clean water on third world people on behalf of CAWST (Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology...least sexy NGO name ever). The resulting photo documentary and stories will be exhibited in several galleries across Canada. (And I really want to write a book.)

I met with Alison from CAWST about the project before I left for Paris, but have been biting my nails ever since.

Well, I got word today that I'm the chosen writer and it's GAME FREAKING ON, YO. We're heading to Zambia in the next couple of months. Boom. Just like that.

Can somebody please slap me? Seriously. I think I stopped breathing.

Day 200: Today, Tuscany Vista Crescent

2009-03-17T08:58:00.005-06:00

Dudes! Happy Day 200! I'm home!

Epic, EPIC travel day beginning with an accident on the Metro, forcing me to brave Parisian cabbies and Parisian TRAFFIC. Oh my God. Twenty minutes, two blocks. Are you kidding me? It took 40 minutes to get back to where I came from in the first place, which is at the edge of the city.

I don't deal well with gridlock. Especially gridlock that's seven cars thick and is all about HONKING every seven seconds. I briefly considered leaving my bags and running fast and far and free.

Finally we're ripping along the highway and I begin to have hope that I'm not, in fact, going to miss my flight. Then I see the exit to the airport flash by in a blur. Because the cabbie decides to take the "back way." (WHY do they do this? It never, ever works.)

We drive ten more minutes PAST the airport. He throws 0,80E in a toll booth only to find out the sneaky back road is closed to traffic. Of course. He swears, turns the car around, puts ANOTHER 0,80E in the toll basket and drives ten more minutes back to the right exit.

Meanwhile, I'm watching the meter wind itself up past 40 Euros (60 bucks), past 50 Euros (75-80 bucks) and into the 60s. I have an internal debate about how to handle this given my limited cash supply and my limited French insult supply and at one point the ever-climbing meter became like a thermostat for my inner rage. We pull into the terminal and I'm looking at a hundred dollars.

"I'm not paying 70 Euros," I tell him.
No, no, he says in French, it's only 68.
Thanks, buddy.
"But you went the wrong way," I whine, all the steam gone out of my argument at the slightest whisper of resistance on the cabbie's part.
He shakes his head.
"Je ne comprend pas," he says. I don't understand English.
"Ah," I say. "How convenient for you."

I sigh. I begin to weep softly and bitchily pay the full amount because I'm a Grade-A passive aggressive SUCKER. Gaa! The rest of my trip went super smoothly, though. All 20 hours of it.

I got home to a dozen roses, a bunch of bright yellow tulips, 64 brand-new Crayola markers (SIXTY FOUR!) and a giant sketchbook. Oh, and wine and hugs and a fire.

Somebody? Loves me.

Day 198: Opéra Means Goodbye

2009-03-15T13:20:00.009-06:00

Paris, Last Day. Been running around like crazy the past couple of days, soaking in my last moments in Paris. Dinner at Nancy's. Swing dance. African dance. Gospel show. Meeting with another of Philipe's students – this one from Calgary. Fielding calls from everyone I know here: I HAVE TO SEE YOU BEFORE YOU GO.

Today, I woke up to a schedule of dance class, lunch with Maud, more dancing with Nancy and a jazz club with Justine From Canada.

On the last day of Paris Part I, I ended up at Opera, taking melancholy photos of the gold-crusted facade and wondering if they'd let me live in the lobby or even a broom closet. I just didn't want to leave Paris. Yesterday, I found myself in the same state and the same place – staring at the building thinking, 'This is where I come to say goodbye.'

But this morning I woke up feeling so good, I didn't have time to be sad. The chill had cracked open and it was a beautiful day. The bird were singing like crazy. I still had the rhythm from African class in my head.

I canceled all my plans and decided to spend the day alone with Paris.

One of the great lessons of this trip has been about flow. It's been about opening up a channel in myself, my creativity and my life and saying YES to the crazy intuitions and opportunities that arise.

In that spirit, I decided to embrace the Opera – that place where Paris seems to end – and went to a matinee of the ballet.

There were no normal tickets left, unless I wanted to pay 100 Euros, so I bought a cheap rush seat they refer to as sans visibilité. Meaning you can't see. "Maybe we can hear the music," the woman beside me wondered.

I was tucked into the back of one of the side boxes – the ones where the fancy people used to see and be seen. And, if the play got boring, have relations with their mistresses in the vestibule near the door. (They still keep velvet chaises there...just in case.)

I could see fine, and when I couldn't, I just stood up and leaned a little. The ballet was boring as hell, but there was something delicious about standing-room-only dance.

It was the theatre itself that stole the show. A visual hallelujah of gold foil and sumptuous velvet. I feel the same way in a theatre as I do in a church. (Especially one where Louis XIV used to hang out.) High, high ceilings with lots of room for hope.

I'm going to be needing all the hope I can get these next few days. Coming back to Calgary is always a shock. And this precious, protected time will be harder to come by in the flurry of welcome home events, project deadlines and figuring out what the hell to do next.

I must remember what I've learned. Those tricks for connecting to joy: dancing, singing, drawing, play. I've gotta find me some markets – I don't care if they're selling CATTLE – and take my camera with me.

I need to build on the knowledge that if I do a little every day – of learning French, of writing, of asking for guidance – I'll get there. Wherever there is. I've got to protect that still, quiet place I found here. No matter what.

I found a long string of prayer beads the other day. I'm wearing them as a belt. I don't know why, but it feels good. Maybe they will be my private anchor, that magic golden thread that ties me to this precious, precious time I've spent in the place that feels like home.

Day 197: Dance It The F*ck Out

2009-03-14T03:31:00.004-06:00

Paris, Two Days Left. Aha. The Fear arrives. It's not that I've been waiting for it per se, but the feeling of 'Who do you think you are?' started niggling in my brain as soon as I posted about my balls-out-holy-effing-sheeeeeeet idea about coming here for a year to study. And today, with two days left and that horrible I-don't-wanna-go feeling filling my guts, The Fear is here.

Luckily, I have a magic bullet. It's called African dance class. And it's also called Buena Vista Social Club.

Because the thing I always forget is that fear isn't real. It feels real. Oh hell yes. But it isn't. There isn't ACTUALLY impending doom knocking on my door right now. Nah. Financial ruin is WEEKS away. Failure and embarrassment, at least a couple of months off yet. Dying cold and alone? Hell, that's not on deck for DECADES. We're good.

Yesterday, my Gospel friend Nancy told me about a swing dance accident she had a couple of years ago. Her husband lifted her in some crazy upside-down-over-his-head thing and she overshot it and pitched backwards behind him. She landed on her face, broke her nose and a vertebrae in her neck.

She told me that when she'd fallen, she lay there for a long moment, not moving and not wanting to move. She was aware of her husband and dance teacher freaking out around her, but she herself was perfectly calm.

There was good reason for their panic, of course. Nancy is four-foot-eight and over 50 years old.

But what struck me was her calm. Because this is exactly what happens when something goes horribly wrong. I remember this when I disassembled my right arm on a ski hill five years ago and three bones went three different directions. My arm was blown to shit, but I was calm, detached, observant.

I never snowboarded again.

But Nancy got right back out there. She didn't want the fall to be her last memory of acrobatic swing. And there's the lil' surfer girl who got her arm chomped off by a shark in Australia. She was back on her board in three weeks. Why? Because she loves to surf.

And hey, remember way back when I coined the MENTAL JUDO thing? How you take the energy of fear/anger/whatever and you kung fu that shit into something you can use?

Today, right now, that kung fu is dance. I stick on the Buena Vista Social Club CD and I salsa-fy it in the living room. Or I go to Le Marais, like I'm doing in fourteen seconds, and fill my boots with the most joy-filled dance form I know. I'm going to dance it the f*ck out and keep going because that's the kind of life I want to live and that's the person I want to be.

Day 196: Failure is Cool

2009-03-13T02:34:00.008-06:00

Paris, Day 25. I've been following Fail Blog for a while and I seem to have amassed a few fails myself. In no specific order, here they are:

Toothpaste Fail
I theorized at the tail end of Paris Part One that if I indeed committed to using a "pea-sized amount" from the travel-sized toothpaste tube, I'd make it to the end of the month. So, I merrily bought my teeny-tiny tube of Crest and have tolerated mediocre breath for the past 3.5 weeks in the interest of toothpaste conversation (and proving a point). Everything was going okay until an air bubble popped in the tube two days ago revealing that I AM SO NOT OKAY. That wasn't toothpaste Silly, that was Fresh Mint flavoured air! Now I'm shoving the bristles of my toothbrush INTO the tube opening hoping to scrape out three more days worth of minty fluoride love.

Fridge Fail
I don't know what it is about Parisian refrigerators, but they REEK. Something about the omnipresence of stinky cheese mixing with the seventeen kinds of mustards and pickles that appear to be obligatory in France makes for a positively eye-peeling odour. It got to the point last time that I was afraid to open the fridge. I'd have conversations with myself about how long milk could last sitting on the counter. This time, same deal. Only this time I have the feeling the stink is due to my poor chevre wrap job and not the bubbling, fermenting LIFE FORM formerly known as Grandma Producer's homemade Sicilian olives.

Flickr Fail
Boyfriend has been encouraging me to get myself a Flickr account. And by encouraging I mean asking me about it constantly until I finally submit. So, I get my technological shit together and sign up for a Flickr account. Then I get the gold-star by actually uploading my photos. Only all my photos are massively high-res for some reason and I ate through the entire 100 MB limit in a matter of minutes. So now there's no room for new photos until I get home and my Geek In Shining Armour bails me out. Don't even bother clicking this.

Garbage Fail
Dana's building has a locked garbage room. I have a fear of unfamiliar keys. It was traumatic enough getting into the flat when I first arrived, reefing on the lock for fifteen minutes before it released its grip, but this garbage room is Fort Knox. I cannot get in. I tried every couple of days for the first two weeks, but now I just walk it down the street, saying bonjour to passing neighbours and casually throwing bulging, dripping bags of personal trash into other people's garbage cans, lawns, flower pots, cars...

Classy Lady Fail
One of the gorgeous things about being in Paris is that no one ever calls or comes to the door. This level of peace and quiet lulls you into a false sense of security and so when the door buzzer went the other day, I freaked out. I ignored it. But it buzzed again and again and again until I opened the door. A young man was there to check the water meter. I was super-grubby-to-the-max in sweatpants, glasses and bed-head and Dana's bathroom is, in a word, bizarre. The walls are covered with chalk messages ("Dear Mike Hunt..."), weird magazine photos (naked chick, creep in a balaclava) and stickers ("This Is A Sex Ad"). Not to mention the pile of toilet paper rolls, plastic wrapping and (of course) tampon paraphernalia I've been meaning to get to.

Paris Day Fail
It's actually Day 27 today, not Day 25. I don't know how I've ended up in life counting two separate sets of days – Paris days and JOY Plan days – when I am so violently allergic to and terrible with numbers. Now, what the hell do I do? Go back and renumber where I went wrong? Skip ahead to the right day, leaving an unexplained gap? Abandon numbering altogether? Go back to high school and take Remedial Algebra? What?

Fail = Cool
One of my favourite shops in Paris is a little store in Le Marais called I Love My Blender. (How could you not love a store called I Love My Blender?) It's a mix of English books, French books, kids books, postcards, candles, journals and random stuff all falling in the Funny/Hipster/Cool category. I found this series of postcards with simple illustrations of children wearing t-shirts. On the shirts were written messages like: Save Me From What I Want, Failure Is Cool, Too Honest To Fake It, Look Out For Hope, Take No Shit. The kind of stuff I LOVE. Anti-mindless consumer. Pro-creative process. Pro-live it like you mean it. Glorious. I bought five. FOR NINE EUROS. 15 frickin' dollars for a couple of pieces of PAPER?! Aaaaa! I'm okay. It's art, right? I'm okay.

Day 195: Send In The Clowns

2009-03-12T14:35:00.007-06:00

Paris, Day 24. On Tuesday afternoon, I got on a train and headed south. I got off in a little town called Sceaux and became immediately lost.

I had a street address for where I was going, but when I got there, something seemed wrong. The sign read France Telecom, decidedly NOT the sort of operation I was looking for. I ran frantically up and down the street, asking several people if they knew of this place. No one did.

I went back to France Telecom and pressed my forehead to the door. I took a breath and looked up. There was a tiny silver button next to a tiny printed label: École Philipe Gaulier. I pressed the button and went inside.

Inside there was a big staircase and several unlabeled doors. I walked up and up and up wondering about the aversion to adequate signage. It felt like a secret society, and in many ways I think it is.

I heard a door creak on the top level. I was greeted by a small Asian man with bright eyes and crooked teeth. His name was Alvin, which seemed somehow appropriate. He's in his second year of studies and works at the school in order to pay for his classes.

He swooned when I asked him how he liked working with Philipe. "That man," he said, clutching his chest. "That man." He went on to describe how he got 'killed' in clowning class. How Philipe told him he was shit. How he thought he was funny when he arrived, but it turns out he's really not. All the while, his smile never faltered.

I started to get nervous. I steered the conversation to safer ground.

"What about the summer workshop?" I asked. "The three-week one?" Alvin shrugged and shook his head. "If you take the summer workshop, you'll end up staying for a year," he said. I swallowed and nodded.

"Why are you here?" Alvin asked, a good question. "I don't know," I said. "I was led here, I guess." He nodded. "You should join us," he said. "Start with Le Jeu." A shirtless man with a pregnant belly walked by. He was accompanied by another man in a tuxedo. "Bon soir," they said in unison.

A door opened and a mob of people ran noisily down the hallway. Their faces were glowing and as they disbursed, they revealed a lone figure ambling slowly down the hallway. He looked just like a clown – shortish and rounded, frizzy white hair spilling out from under a black beret, a bulbous nose balancing a cartoon-like pair of round red-framed glasses.

He looked up at me from under his bushy eyebrows. "Bon soir," he said and shook my hand. I followed him into his office. "You are canadienne?" he asked. I nodded.

"Philipe finds us Canadians boring," piped up an older woman who had tagged along. I told him I knew Karen Hines, another Canadian and a former student of his. He looked at Alvin. "Karen?" he shrugged. "We get a lot of Karens."

"How old are you?" he asked. I told him. "Ah, you are still young," he said and I felt the tears spring up immediately. Again, I grappled for safer ground: the summer workshop. "If you come to the workshop, you will understand," he said. "If you come for the year, you will transform. That is the difference."

He told me to join the other students in the café to find out what it's really like studying with him. "I like to say very nice things about myself. Ask them if you want the truth. Where is she?" he asked of the now-absent Canadian woman.

"She's changing," Alvin volunteered. Philipe raised his massive eyebrows and pursed his lips. "Is taking a long time, no? Maybe because she's so fat."

He moved toward the door. I pointed behind him.

"Your iPhone," I said.
"My phone?" he said.
"Yes, you left your iPhone...iTouch."
"You touch?" he said.
"No, your phone."
"You touch my phone?"

His eyes twinkled as ambled off to class.

I joined a group in the café. They all told me to come for the year. "Start with Le Jeu," they said. They said it again and again. Le Jeu. Le Jeu. The Game. The Game. They told me how they all got slaughtered in Clowning. How they get slaughtered almost daily and mostly what they do is "shit." But they love him. And they love the work.

They kept telling me to join them and I kept wondering why I'd come. Would I have gone all that way just to learn about a 3-week workshop? I doubt it. I mean, what's to know: you pay your fee, you do it, you go home.

I started to wonder if I really had been led there. By something larger than me and larger than what I had conceived of for myself. Something Larger said three weeks is not enough. You don't want to merely understand, Something Larger goaded. You want to transform.

Back in Paris, I got off the train in a daze. I stumbled into a café and ordered the biggest glass of wine they had. I pulled out the brochure, thinking it would be some advertising copywriter's gussied-up version of things. Instead, I saw photographs of children, crazily written stories, fictional interviews, randomness. There was a letter from Sacha Baron Cohen (he was shit, too) and one from Emma Thomson.

I saw a page about Le Jeu:

"An actor is beautiful when he doesn't hide his soul beneath the personality of his character. When he allows us to perceive, behind the character, the face he had when he was seven.

You can't revive the face of a child. You remove the layers of bad make-up piled on by adulthood, messily, by landing punches and tearing at them with your fingers."

I started to cry in recognition. That child of seven is someone I've been searching for since I felt my creative life start to slip through my fingers almost ten years ago. That child is the true artist. The brave, fearless creator who painted, drew, sang, danced, wrote and performed. She's the person I'm trying to get back to.

I had a glimpse of her on Monday – my day of colour and dance and play. I even dressed like a child that morning, putting on all the colourful clothing I brought, layer after layer of improbable combinations and clashing hues. I was like Drea's daughter whose favourite outfit includes a pink dress, purple pants, rubber boots and a tiara.

The next day I met a man whose life's work is recovering these hidden children. I do not believe this is coincidence.

I sat weeping in Café Coeur Couronne faced with the notion of coming to Paris for a year to study with a man who looks like a clown and who will tell me I'm shit and make me cry. Of uprooting my life at an age when most people I know are settling down and settling in. Of mobilizing one hell of a lot of money in one hell of a short amount of time. Of taking a sharp left instead of a gradual right. Of living in Paris for a year...of studying with a master...of finding my true voice...of living my true life. This wasn't what I signed up for, was it? Oh, yes. Yes, it was.

Day 194: The Qi Gong Show

2009-03-10T15:12:00.021-06:00

Paris, Day 23. Why is it that every time I am on my way to some Relaxation And Inner Peace Experience, like the spa or yoga class, I turn into a total spaz? Invariably, I end up rushing in late, panting, hair frizzed out, eyes wild...while the teacher looks kind of fearful and the rest of the class just stares in silent judgment, thinking: 'We are SOOOOOOO much closer to enlightenment than you.'

Why?

And while we're on the topic of Why, let's discuss why I thought it would be a good idea to take my first-ever Qi Gong class yesterday. In Paris. IN FRENCH.

It weren't easy.

Well, no, let me restate. It was very easy. I just sat there doing nothing because I didn't know what, in fact, I was supposed to be doing. Because it was all in French. And it's not like this kind of Asian energy work is the kind that comes with diagrams, flow charts, flashcards or, in the case of this particular Qi Gong class, any movement to follow along with.

There was a series of super-simple postures, like Yoga For Dummies (but you had to memorize this series, so I guess it was Yoga For Not-So-Dummies). And I had to breathe through both my mouth and nose at the same time.

About the breathing. I'm a fully-indoctrinated Ashtanga yoga girl (Thou shalt only breathe through your nose) who moonlights as a Pilates girl (Thou shalt breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth). But SERIOUSLY, how many ways are there to frickin' BREATHE anyhow?

It was fine. At least I understood the French for 'mouth' and 'nose.' I was hooped when we got to the 'energy meridian' part of the class.

We lay on our backs. The teacher started doing a whole lot of talking. And I started to get a whole lot lost. I heard something about breathing with my hands. Or maybe breathing with my skin. Breathing with the skin of my hands? I don't know.

What I DO know is that someone started to snore very loudly.

And then I happened to look at the clock. Which said Ten Minutes Past When Melanie Should Have Been On The Metro To Meet Her Friend For 2 pm. Because I thought it was an hour class, but clearly the teacher didn't. So, while I was supposed to be breathing with my hands, I started watching the minute hand and plotting my escape.

I considered getting up as quietly as I could and slipping out. Which is when I realized I had placed myself at the furthest point from the door.

In order to get out, I would have to tip-toe over all the dead bodies on ONE side of the room to get my stuff then tip-toe over the dead bodies on the OTHER side of the room to reach the door and AH OUI, I haven't PAID for this class yet and what a forking waste of 20 Euros THIS was because I only understood maybe a quarter of it and I'm probably supposed to be breathing with my knee or my elbow or God-knows-what right now but I wouldn't know because I'm not BREATHING any more or LISTENING any more or RELAXED any more because instead I'm stuck in the corner clock-watching and LOSING MY SHIT.

I was 20 minutes late meeting my friend who was totally laid back about it. I realize now the losing of the shit was totally pointless because as soon as I figured out I was trapped like a Qi Gong rat in a Qi Gong cage, I should have CHILLED THE QI GONG OUT. Sigh.

Day 193: An Explosion of Fruit Flavours

2009-03-10T03:14:00.011-06:00

Paris, Day 22. My super-sonically-introspective weekend detonated into a full-frontal celebration of a Monday. And I would like to live a life where that sentence is true every week.

9:30 Morning Pages and green tea
10:00 Bizarre intuition about gospel music followed by Googling “Gospel Paris”
10:10 Discover a gospel singing workshop that MEETS ON MONDAYS
11:00 Follow intuition about dance I’ve been having lately and discover the Danse Centre de Marais
11:05 Realize I don’t know how to say “drop-in classes” in French. Call them anyway and have a very pleasant but fruitless conversation with someone who speaks no English
11:07 Haul ass and get ready to go because I’ve decided that if my intuition has decided I’m taking a dance class today then I’m damn well gonna take a dance class and they’re gonna let me drop in even though the French find a way to be bureaucratic about everything, including their love affairs

11:40 Throw self on Metro Line 7 and head south
11:52 Begin to lose faith in the whole idea, thinking I am stupid for believing the whole world is just going to open up because I had some silly idea about dance...and gospel. Gospel?! WTF? What was I thinking...etc. Etc.
12:10 Explode off Metro at Chalelet, run down rue de Rivoli towards Le Marais, knowing full well that I have gotten AMAZINGLY lost every time I attempt to go to Le Marais, the most recent example being this weekend when I somehow got rebounded OUT of the district every time I tried to walk in. It was like rue du Temple was made of rubber balls. Weird.
12:12 Find rue du Temple and the Dance Centre with zero problems
12:15 Talk to very nice English-speaking woman at reception who says I can drop into anything I want and oh, there’s a super-rocking Boxing class starting in 15 minutes, why don’t you try that?

12:16 Walk into the Boxing studio. Change my clothes
12:20 Remember what a frickin’ DELICIOUS feeling being in a dance studio is
12:30 - 1:30 Get PUMMELED by the Polish Boxing Nazi who screams “Allez! Allez! Allez!” non-stop for an hour while techno music slams in the background. Achieve THE BEST endorphin high of the past six to eight months of my life. Resolve to try a DANCE class at the DANCE centre next time. Note that fake tanning among fitness professionals is not just a North American thing

1:40 Find a bead store. Buy bracelet-making supplies
2:00 Grab a coffee so I can make the bracelet. Get told by guy behind the bar to move to the other end of the bar. Obey. Get introduced to Sandra and Sandrine. Decide this is the FRIENDLIEST Parisian cafe I’ve ever been in – which is weird because Parisians are not friendly in public. Ever.
2:15 Get patted on the ass by Sandrine as she leaves the cafe
2:16 Realize I just got cruised in Le Marais (gay district)

3:00 Continue Operation Colour Saturation by stopping into H&M and Zara
4:00 Realize I have a mortal fear of floral patterns. Resolve to work on this in therapy upon returning home
5:00 Get on subway bursting with excitement about my new YELLOW shirt, a RED striped shirt and a PURPLE SPARKLY scarf
5:30 Rush to bathe in the non-shower-bath-thing in which I have to crouch or kneel in order to wash myself. Do this while boiling pasta water, chopping tomatoes and Skyping with my sister

6:18 Run out the door to gospel thing even though no one responded to my inquiry email or phone message
6:45 Decide that if my intuition (aka Higher Power, aka God) told me to go to gospel, then I’m GOING TO GOSPEL. Even though I don't know the building code and may have to lurk outside the door like a panhandling junkie until someone lets me in
6:56 Walk straight in with zero problem. Talk to the choir leader through a lovely woman named Nancy. Get permission to participate in warm-up and watch the rest of rehearsal

7:00 SING! SING! SING! For the first time since that high school vocal jazz audition where I didn’t get in and was TOTALLY CRUSHED (I hate you Brian Farrell!) and never, ever tried again even though singing has ALWAYS been a secret dream.
7:30 Sit and listen to the song they are working on. Feel heart crack wide, wide open and spill out. Cry.
8:00 Begin listening to choir leader’s performance notes as metaphors for life:
“We need everybody to make a song...a hundred voices make a song.”
“Sing beautifully, sing your best, every time.”
“God will still love you if you don’t hit that note, but I won’t.”

8:40 Get invited to dinner at Nancy’s house. “When?” “Right now.” Tell her I’m meeting a friend. Get invited to lunch and/or swing dancing later this week instead. Marvel at how much generosity can fit into one 4-foot-tall woman from Singapore

9:00 Meet Justine for a drink at a place full of crazy primary colours. Talk about dreams and authenticity and colour and dance and weird intuitions about gospel. (GOSPEL?!)Realize this has been the best day EVER.

Day 192: Hi, I'm Melanie. I'm a Colourexic.

2009-03-08T09:20:00.014-06:00

Paris, Day 21. Ventured north and west today to yet-another market in one of the rich Parisian suburbs called Neuilly-sur-Seine.

I go to a market almost every day when I'm in Paris. This week, I started to wonder what my obsession is about.

Because it's not like I buy stuff at all of them. I mean, I do if I need something, but mostly I just wander around, staring at everything and photographing tomatoes.

I figured it out today, though: COLOUR.

Markets are a mile-long orgy of colour. And shapes. And textures. And visually interesting displays.

There's a quote from Picasso about going to the park and 'gorging on green.' That's exactly how I feel at a market or a fabric store: I'm pigging out on red, green, orange, yellow, the springtime colours of the flower stall.

Apparently, I'm starving for colour in my life. This is good to know.

It also explains why I'm already starting to dread my return to the taupe-shaded energy suck of the suburbs. Who decided that 31 flavours of BROWN and GREY were good for people? Sure they're unobtrusive and comforting to a point, but Jesus...LIVE A LITTLE.

Not that the 'burbs are totally to blame for my colourexia. I've been wearing nothing but black since 11th grade. And in my 20s I got into this thing where I'd only buy "classic" clothing: black pants, white shirts, grey cardigans, navy pinstripe suits. Aaaa! Kill me. No wonder I got depressed.

I'm rummaging through my suitcase right now. I'm dying for a little pink or yellow. Please GOD...YELLOW! Okay, I have ONE turquoise scarf. It's on now and I feel better. But clearly, I have a problem.

Um, Boyfriend?

Please have fifty bunches of tulips waiting for me, all different colours, all over the house. And piles of Clementine oranges, lemons and strawberries.

And could you drape colourful scarves all over my office? Purple ones, turquoise ones and orange ones. Also? Please set my reddest lipstick out. I'll be needing that. Oh, and when you pick me up? Wear a hot pink tie.

Thanks.

Love,
Me.

P.S. Speaking of colour, I now have a Flickr account. Some of the pics you've already seen, but there's a new Architecture set and the Market one is all new shots from this morning in Neuilly.

Day 191: Finding Myself In Paris

2009-03-07T08:30:00.011-07:00

Paris, Day 20. I've been here just about three weeks now and it's coming clear to me how deeply important this time in Paris has been.

Without going into the surface-level details of what I've actually been DOING (making paper dolls, dancing spastically in my kitchen, listening to a weird mix of Bach, birdsong and banjo), what's been HAPPENING is a gut-level self-knowledge I didn't even know was possible.

I thought I knew myself pretty well until I got here.

It started as a kind of tinkering with scrap paper and Crayola markers. Lists of things I want to do, places I want to see, stuff I want to learn. Different colours, different styles of handwriting, little doodle drawings here and there.

I wrote pages of these multicoloured brainstorms. Gradually, they got more specific and more about the present. Things I Really Love: being near water, Motown music, my close friends. Then it became My Ideal Life. Which turned into an Action List containing scary things like: enroll in a drawing class and a French class, take a physical theatre workshop, start dancing again.

I started working through the Vein of Gold, doing things like writing out my entire life story in five-year chunks, a very revealing exercise.

I realized I've been searching for a home since I was 11 years old. I saw that the happiest periods of my life involved performing and being connected to my body. That I've been blessed at several points with amazingly creative and loving collaborative 'families.' That isolation doesn't serve me well, but solitude does.

I realized that 191 days ago, I took on an idea of what it meant to be an artist without really considering what that means for me. Six months in, I'm finally finding out.

I keep going deeper. And I keep learning more. I've never paid such close attention. It's like a new romance and I'm soaking up all there is to know about my lover.

Through this process of discovery, surface-level changes have started to emerge. A love for photography blossomed and took root. I bought a sketchbook and pens...and started using them. I've begun work on another one-woman show. I have plans to visit a famous bouffon (physical comedy/clowning) teacher next week. I've taken to wearing sparkly earrings and skirts.

Paris, it seems, is the place I find myself.

The first time I came to this city, I was on a tour bus with my mother. The outskirts of Paris are hideously ugly and looking out at the scummy graffiti-ruined housing projects, I started to regret coming.

But as we drove through the wall, the architecture began to transform, becoming more and more glorious the closer we got to the centre. I remember the bus reeling around a bronze statue backlit with waning daylight. That feeling deep in my body: I'm home.

I'm realizing that sense of home I've been searching for (and find when I'm in Paris) is not about where I live but how. In Paris, I inhabit myself. I make myself at home. I make myself a home, existing in a way that is completely, authentically me. Without the history, expectations and assumptions of my life in Canada. Without compromise.

Self-indulgent? You bet.

Parts of it are not sustainable – like the diet of bread, cheese and chocolate – or even desirable – the relentless urbanity leaves me cold. I'm not clinging to this city as some kind of life-raft for personal authenticity, but Paris allows me to exist as a purely creative being – without the demands of also being a girlfriend, co-worker, taxpayer, sister and friend.

And so, this gift comes with a challenge. How can I carry this sense of deep self-awareness and fidelity with me as I step back into the hubbub of so-called real life? How I evolve my 'life as creative act' and avoid sliding back into strangle-hold of habit? Where will this journey take me next?

The short answer is I don't know. Leaving Paris will be much like coming here in the first place – a giant, blind leap of faith.

Day 190: Trusting my Butt

2009-03-06T11:50:00.020-07:00

Paris, Day 19. At 8 pm last night, Ms. Burlesque launched forth into what she'd taken to calling the Anal Atelier. Sadly...I was not there.

The evening was scheduled to consist of a 2-hour class (all in French) on the finer aspects of butt plugs and God-knows-what-else followed by a housewarming party as Ms. Burlesque's. Party guests would include a group of people she calls The Queer Family and a famous queer writer from SF called Michelle Tea.

The last time Michelle Tea visited Paris, these folks welcomed her with a spontaneous sex party. "Hi! Welcome to Paris! Please remove your pants."

Although I'm sure they are really nice people and the conversation would have been spectacular, the whole thing freaked me out. In my head, disparate and disconnected details like anal sex workshops, silver sequin pasties and spontaneous sex parties all mushed together and become one gargantuan rabbit hole of weirdness.

Suddenly, I was breathing into a paper bag with images of me huddled in a corner wearing a KY-Jelly-splattered raincoat fending off the fallout of a BYODildo butt-tastic naked queerdo sex-fest and I COULDN'T EFFING DEAL WITH THAT OK?!

I popped a couple of Ativan and called my mommy.

Then I spent the evening with the Parisian equivalent of oil & gas engineers: people who attended business schools and military academies, who make polite conversation over glasses of Alsatian wine, and who wear dress pants and V-neck sweaters (none of which are made of pleather).

The part of my brain that was hungry (nay, ravenous) for a juicy story like a stripper sex-fest gnashed its teeth and wouldn't talk to me all night. But add three shots of herbed Polish vodka to any situation and you've got yourself a soirée, sister.

I used the opportunity to discuss my confusion over how a culture of people who never smile or make eye contact get around to these passionate affairs for which they're famous.

Julien, the host, was happy to enlighten me. "Ah," he said. "Here's how it works: You meet through friends and make conversation. You make a few colloquial jokes, but you never touch each other. Then you go to an exhibition or two, maybe a movie. Then another friend has a party where you get drunk and make out."

Oh.

So much for unbridled passion.

Then, inexplicably and at midnight, someone's mom showed up. She was a very friendly, diminutive redhead and she helped herself to a snack in the kitchen while we all tried not to swear too robustly. Then, she went to bed.

With her son. Julien's roommate and business partner.

Maybe THIS is why Parisian love affairs take so long to get going.

But I had other things on my mind because I'm the kind of girl who, if you're gonna feed her three shots of vodka in relatively rapid succession, you better be prepared to take her dancing.

So, at 12:30, three hours after I would normally be getting my jammies on for beddy-bye, we walked down boul. de Rochechouart to a club called Le Divan Japponais.

We crowded up to the door and had a rather disappointing conversation with the bouncer. Apparently, no one else had shown up either and the bar was cutting its losses for the evening and closing down. We walked across the street to La Fourmi, my writing cafe, which becomes a full-to-overflowing bar at night.

We got a table near the window and I ended up with the sucker's chair – the one sticking way out into the throng of drunk people staggering and crowding against the bar. I was jostled by every passing ass, which judging by how packed the place was, must have been in the hundreds.

All my pent-up vodka-induced dancing energy had no choice but to transform into Immature Shit Disturbing energy. It's simply how I roll and after getting jostled one too many times, I reached out and pinched one of the passing asses.

Well.

Little did I know this kind of behaviour bumps you WAY ahead in the codified System Of French Seduction(TM).

I found myself suddenly betrothed to someone named Guillaume.

I tried to pass the pinch off on Justine. But she was on the other side of the table, so Guillaume was having none of that. He pulled up a chair and sat down. As I gently tried to explain to him that, no, a June wedding would not work for me and that I was terribly sorry but four children was altogether too much given my age and career goals, I flashed HELP ME glances to my friends.

But they were too thoroughly entertained to help me out. I did the only thing I could think to do, a time-honoured method, which was to completely ignore him and strike up a conversation with someone else.

Poor Guillaume took the hint and retreated, heartbroken, to his friends. As far as I know, the wedding's off. Whew.

Day 189: Rubber Panties n' Paper Dolls

2009-03-05T16:24:00.000-07:00

Paris, Day 18. I'd planned to write you this really deep, introspective post about the profound personal effect the Cluny Museum has on me. But Ms. Burlesque called so all bets were off.

It was after 9 pm when she phoned, breathless, from the Metro. "I'm performing at a vernissage. It's like three stops away from you. You have to come."

Not one to be bossed around, I took a moment to consider my options:
a) Keep making the paper doll I'd been constructing (I'm serious),
b) Tuck in with a book and a baguette,
c) Go to an art opening and see some chick strip.

I put on shoes and ran the dog shit gauntlet to the subway. I got off at Porte de la Villette – one of the many portes or entrances through the peripheral wall containing Paris. It's a total shithole of bus stations, drunks and the pervasive odour of pee. But right in the middle of it all – of course, this is Paris – is a gallery/performance space called Glazart.

I wandered into the main space which looked more like a warehouse bar than a gallery. People crowded the stage and a band got up to play. I half-listened, half-stared at the motley mix of people gathered, half-wondered if I was missing Ms. Burlesque's performance somewhere and half-searched for the art that we were all supposedly here to see.

I know, that was four halves. It was a big night.

While the band played, I watched a creepy old man with a video camera. He appeared to be chasing several model-types around the space. The models looked bored and disdainful. But that's what models do.

There was also an 11-year-old child running around. And a healthy representation of people over fifty. This is one thing I adore about Paris: age really doesn't matter. You don't have to be 20 years old in order to be in a cool band and yes-you-can wear a tweed business suit to a rock show. The headlining band for the night was a pair of women deeeeep in their forties. They rocked the effing block.

Eventually, I spotted Ms. Burlesque. She was wearing a 40s-style cocktail dress, red satin opera gloves and shiny-shiny red heels. Glam-o-rama. She was hamming it up with some guy who was dramatically biting her arm while she dramatically screamed. There was a paparazzi-like mob of photographers crowded around.

I kept watching the creepy old guy videoing the models. One model slowly turned around, scanned the room sadly and dragged her hands down her face (careful not to mess up her eye makeup). Then another model, an escapee from Prom Night 1986, staggered through the scene, followed by a skinny rat-faced guy dressed as Gangster Least Likely To Kick Anyone's Ass.

Whatever kind of music video/experimental short film/video installation they were shooting, it looked terrible.

"Did you get lost?" the voice came from behind me. I turned around, just narrowly avoiding getting my eyes poked out by a pair of GIANT fake eyelashes. "I've been looking all over for you," Ms. Burlesque said, gazing over my shoulder.

The next band took the stage, featuring a seven-foot-tall Teutonic warrior woman who screamed through a bullhorn into the microphone. Because a bullhorn wasn't enough.

Ms. Burlesque, her friend Natalie and I retired to the bar. "What do you want to drink?" Natalie asked. I stared at the bottles and bottles of booze suspended above the bar. "I dunno...a beer?" I said. "We're having martinis," Burlesque explained, as though we all needed to show beverage solidarity or something.

"I'm fine with beer," I said while Natalie and Burlesque exchanged glances. "Of course...beer for the Canadian," Burlesque said rolling her eyes. I got the eye-roll a second time when I asked about catching the last Metro.

The last band finally came out and we crowded toward them. "Whoo! Living Dolls!" Burlesque called out, smiling at me. "I thought they were the Human Toys," I yelled over the din. "They are," she laughed. "But you've been calling them the Living Dolls all night. Hahaha! Including when you met Poupée the lead singer. Hahaha!"

Oh. Hahaha.

The Human Living Doll Toys took the stage. Poupée was clad in head-to-toe RUBBER. Rubber stockings held up by garters and rubber frilly panties with a big purple rubber bow. They launched into their first song and rocked the forking HOUSE.

That was Ms. Burlesque's cue. A massive tattoo-covered man lifted her onto the stage and she began vamping. She coyly removed one of her opera gloves, which was enough to cause all the men in the room to mob the stage. My drink went flying.

While the band cranked out serious hard-core shit, Burlesque flirted and pouted and steadily got nakeder. She stripped down to a bra, corset and panties and shook her long, black hair free. When she turned her back to unclasp her bra, I started giggling. I couldn't help it.

After a dramatic pause, she spun around to reveal a pointy set of silver sequined pasties.

I giggled uncontrollably. Poupée dropped to her back, shrieking into the mic. Burlesque took the opportunity to MOUNT Poupée and lick the entire length of her torso. She then lifted Poupée's leg and hauled her tongue along the rubber-clad length of it.

She stood up and shook it a bit, raising her arms above her head to expose surprisingly large patches of Yeti-quality arm pit hair.

The song ended and Burlesque adopted this wide-eyed 'Oh gracious! I appear to be naked!' look on her face and jumped down from the stage. Seconds later, she appeared beside me in the crowd. Still basically naked. Pasties. Bare ass. Right next to me.

We danced to the rest of the set, her naked, me wearing fourteen layers of clothing and feeling awkward. As I was dancing, my hand TOTALLY ACCIDENTALLY I SWEAR grazed her naked butt a couple of times.

After the show, I followed Burlesque backstage (yessss!) where the air was thick with smoke. Dozens of random people were sprawled out on grimy couches amid beer cans, garbage and cigarette butts. There was a big bowl of water with several now-empty bottles of champagne.

Burlesque flung herself over a sofa to get her bag – her bare ass splayed all over the room. No one batted an eye. Then the Velvet Underground Teutonic warrior lady stormed in, towering over everyone and brandishing a lit cigarette. "I need five minutes. Everybody...get out."

At the door, Burlesque pulled a hood over her head, shouldered her backpack. She turned to me and said (I shit you not), "The star goes incognito." She disappeared into the night.

Day 188: Keeping it Together

2009-03-04T09:07:00.018-07:00

Paris, Day 17. I discovered a love for photographing vintage buttons and beads at the flea market a couple of weeks ago. Since then, I had this idea for a series of photos called 'Keep It Together' or something of that ilk.

It would include buttons and snaps and clasps, as in 'keeping my pants (and therefore my dignity) together.' But also duct tape, control-top panty hose, prescription medication, to-do lists...all those trinkets and doo-dads we use to maintain our illusions of safety, security and control.

Although now that I think of it, it doesn't have to only be photos...it could be the actual objects styled into interesting installations. Hmm.

*Wheels Turning*

Regardless, I went to the textile district near the base on Montmartre to putter around in the fabric shops, which are essentially rooms full of rainbows as far as I'm concerned.

It was like visual dessert. Delicious colours and textures galore. Order. Disorder. Weird little mannequins with 'serving suggestions.' The sound of fabric ripping. Price tags with that specifically French style of handwriting. The smell of the leather shop. Swathed street displays that looked like crowds of Muslim women in full (and colourful) burkhas.

As The Co-Dependent World Turns

2009-03-03T10:58:00.004-07:00

Dudes. I don't know what happened, but I went ahead and wrote to the Depression People. Ack! I have boundaries...WHO FREAKING KNEW? I guess my time in Paris was the thing I wasn't willing to lose.

From the email:

I am more than willing to work on this until we get it right, but right now I'm in the position of having to choose between 'my' work (the creative project I'm here working on) and 'your' work. It's upsetting feeling like I'm either letting you down or letting myself down.

In order to feel like I'm not wasting precious Paris time, I need to choose my work. The project is a book set in Paris and I cannot do this research back home. I'm back in less than two weeks and will be able to give this my full attention then.

Day 187: Zounds! They Found My Secret Lair!

2009-03-03T09:16:00.004-07:00

Paris, Day 16. It's a horrible feeling to find yourself on the wrong side of the halfway point. And an even worse feeling to be on the downward slide to home time and have the Giant Ungainly Neverending Soul-Crushing Work Project that you hoped would be finished before you LEFT for Paris follow you TO Paris and threaten to poison the precious few days you have left.

The Depression Project returns.

The clients were three weeks late with their comments on my first drafts, but OF COURSE they've sent them to me now. Which means if this project is to stay on schedule, it's all up to me. In Paris.

This makes my personal issues flare up like teenage acne.

I spent all day yesterday grinding over the rewrites, which are more like primal therapy sessions than text edits. I tried desperately to remember this is about helping kids and not about clients completely overstepping their bounds and totally f*cking up my life. I tried to force the words 'complete waste of a day' out of my mind.

And in the end, none of that worked. I had two modules (out of SEVEN) rewritten and I felt like crying.

Why? Because it wasn't supposed to happen this way and I can't let that fact go.

Why? Because this project is an endless game of Melanie Pours Her Heart Out And 10 People Repeatedly Judge Her, Screaming 'DANCE MONKEY DANCE!'

Why? Because I'm in EFFING PARIS, yo, and would very much like to tell my clients to SUCK IT but am too much of a people-pleasing asshole to do it.

Can someone out there please Fed Ex me some boundaries? Or perhaps several pounds of Xanax?

Day 186: Bird Market (Yay!) Artist Market (Boo.)

2009-03-02T01:47:00.001-07:00

Paris, Day 15. Sunday, I ventured to a couple of the stranger Parisian market options: the bird market near Notre Dame and the artist market in Montparnasse.

The bird market was pretty much exactly as billed: a city block worth of tweeting, twittering birdies. Which (unless you have a mortal fear of birds) was quite a magical experience.

There were also other creatures for sale.
Like colourful goldfish, gerbils, chipmunks(!) and these fuzzy bunnies.

This fearsome attack dog was so riled up by the proximity of all these fluttering appetizers, he mistook my scarf for a budgie and tried to eat it.
Or maybe he was just going for my jugular...

This man, pictured here with a future chinchilla coat, was also selling a box full of rats. They were piled one on top of another and sleepily writhing with their pale, wormlike tails slithering behind them. I almost vomited.

Only the French could make birdseed look this good.

My favourite part of the bird market experience was the children. This little one flitted around the market like a blond Tinkerbell. She was so spectacularly excited by the presence of animals that she couldn't stay still. Until she met her match in this parrot.

After the bird market (BM?), I headed south to the Left Bank and Montparnasse where 100 or so artists gather every Sunday and display their wares. This area was made super famous by all the writers and artists that used to hang out here, which I guess is why they picked this location for the artist market. As far as I can tell, it's a desperate and misguided attempt to cling to Paris' past glory. Because Montparnasse is NOTHING like it was in the 1920s and the artist market SUUUUCKS.

Thrilling stalls of brilliant works of creative genius. Not.

Please note the bored-looking artist with the weird hat. Everyone looked that bored and wore weird hats. Even the customers.

The most exciting thing about modern-day Montparnasse, as far as I could see, was this delicious-looking carosel. It was gasping for breath in the concrete wasteland between the gare (train station) and the 1000-foot eyesore known as the Tour Montparnasse.

Right now? Henry Miller is puking in his grave.

Day 185: Bad Lighting, Radiant Widsom

2009-03-01T06:27:00.023-07:00

Paris, Day 14. After trying in vain to recreate and amplify several of my Paris Part 1 experiences, it was a serious gamble to venture back to visit the Harmonica Men. But really, is there a better way to spend a Saturday afternoon than to be surrounded by old farts with sweater vests and mouth harps? I don't think so.

I get there on time, only the Parisian concept of time is a little different. A l'heure can mean anything from ten minutes past the scheduled time or, in this case, an hour and a half. I tuck into their plat du jour, a very yellow chicken tajine and "enjoy" a glass of red wine from a box while I wait.

Le Petit Ney bills itself as a cafe litteraire, but really, old folks home cafeteria would be more to the point. The place is all white walls, Brylcreem and support hose. I am the youngest by 30 or 40 years with the exception of the bored-looking waitress and the couple sharing my table.

The wife of this couple leans across the table towards me as soon as I snap my first photo. I instinctively cringe – I'm always ready to be yelled at in this town. Especially while wielding my camera.

"Excusez-moi," she begins. "Can you please take a photo of that painting and email it to me?" Sure, I say. "It's a mother and two daughters...I have two daughters." I smile. It reminds me of my dad, who buys paintings based on the presence of three of something for the same reason.

She asks what I'm doing in Paris and I tell her. "It is very special," she says smiling. She pauses and then clutches her heart rapturously. "Ah! I love Paris. I'm a girl in Paris!"

Her name is Eliane and I love her immediately. She used to be singer and now works in an environmental agency "to put milk in the refrigerator." Working at an environmental agency doesn't stop her from wearing sweaters with purple fur on them, though.

I'm here to see some old dudes play harmonica, but suddenly they seem incidental.

The show begins. Jean, the president of the Harmonica Federation of France, takes the stage. He rocks out to a bluesy number and then asks the gloomy butler guy presiding over the background music CDs to do something fancy for his second number.

"I can't," the butler guy says. "The machine is old. Like YOU."

The crowd laughs and Jean launches into the next song. This man kicks ass on the mouth organ. No two ways about it. He bends and bobs. He squints and flicks his fingers for different effects. He makes sure I get his good side for my photos. He's a total freaking PRO.

His final song is Georgia On My Mind, and I'm not going to lie to you, I think he was flirting with me. I'm blushing when he hits his final note.

I go back to sit with Eliane, who has an espresso waiting for me, the doll. Her husband, another Jean, is talking to a THIRD Jean, if you can believe it. "Jean, Jean et Jean," I say to Eliane. "Un trio," she says laughing. "Un trio de comedie."

She leans in and nods toward Jean #3, a dashing fellow with a peach coloured shirt and a big, shiny St. Christopher. "Where is a man when he is alone?" she whispers with a sympathetic smile. "Women, we have our children. But a man, he must find something else, like music."

I ask her what she means. "Women make a new life. We cry, yes, but we move on for the sake of our children. But what do they do?" She shrugs. "Harmonica."

She's talking about men and women in general, but I can tell she speaks of very specific losses. Jean #3's and her own.

While the old men play, Eliane tells me that life as a woman is like a train with two tracks. "One is your husband, your children," she says. "The other is your life – you are an artist – it is the life you choose. The husband and children may go, they may come back, but through it all...you have your life. It must keep going."

Day 184: Je M'en Fou, Je Suis En Paris

2009-02-28T03:14:00.019-07:00

Paris, Day 13. The past week here in Paris has been all about people. Parties and lunches and meeting people at the airport. Playing all those ROLES you play when there are other humans involved: new girl, English girl, straight girl, helpful friend, third wheel, martyr, and frequently in my case, nosy and invasive writer.

This week, I’ve taken very few photos. I’ve skipped whole days my journal. I’ve lost sleep. The dishes have piled up and the low table where I’ve spread out all my drawings and ideas has gathered a whisper of dust.

My little Parisian life has gotten away from me.

My first week here, I came to the surprising conclusion that I was here, not to work on my book project necessarily, but to work on myself.

I did my writerly due diligence, of course, by taking notes and snapping pictures – all fodder for my second draft – but it didn’t FEEL like diligence. It felt like play. Evenings, rather than hit the town, I’d be huddled over sketchbooks with Crayola markers listening to Roberta Flack.

I filled pages with multicoloured scribbles and swirls. Plotting out my ideal life. Daydreaming about where I wanted to go and what I want to learn, see, do, experience. I spent hours in states of wide-open possibility and childlike imagination without worrying about what club I was going to hit or what Girl-Writer-In-Paris outfit I was going to wear.

My life stopped being about me being “an artist” or being “in Paris” and became simply about BEING.

I found Dana’s copy of The Vein of Gold – a book about digging down into yourself as a creative being. Finding out who you are and inhabiting your own authentic creative self. It felt like God himself had put that book under my nose, so I opened it up and stepped inside.

And then the phone started ringing. Dates and rendez-vous pulled me this way and that. I rushed out the door in the mornings and staggered home late at night. I got caught in the tractor beam of interpersonal drama and gossip. I stopped seeing the beauty in the city and only saw the shit and spit and grit. I wondered why I came and wished I could go home.

My calendar might be full, but I am emptied out.

And so today, after six days of lifting my skirt for every wayward friend-in-need, I am reclaiming my Paris experience. I’m doffing my Canadian politeness and people-pleasing availability and I’m turning the ringer off the phone.

My journal is open. My camera battery is full. The Crayola markers are beckoning and so are the spring tulips, glaring gargoyles and secret places I’ve yet to discover.

I’m not a chic party girl. I’m not the queer family’s second-cousin twice-removed. I’m not a map-toting tourist or a hard-nosed journalist. I’m someone who spends an afternoon arranging Sharon fruit for photographs. Who’d cross the street to fill her nose with the green smell of a flower shop.

Who could stare at a boat, any boat, for hours on end. Who presses her nose against patisserie windows and for whom the rainbow rolls of leather, fabric and yarn are more interesting than the clothing for which they’re intended.

My Paris is not cloud-scraping steeples or echoing cathedrals. It's not stylish, cultured people who all look fabulous and bored every moment of the day. Nor is it gilded frames around the masterworks of Western history.

It’s the faded dust-smell and polka-dot shuffle of bead bins and button cards. It's capturing mid-afternoon daylight not by F-stop but by feel. It's the tangy thrill of indecision over lemon tart or raspberry. The crush of the Wednesday market. Sudden silence down a tiny stone-walled street. An old lady in a fur hat. A new cheese. A quiet night.

This is my Paris. And I'm taking it back.

Day 183: Fraying at the Fringes

2009-02-27T09:40:00.005-07:00

Paris, Day 12. Yesterday was supposed to be Weird Anal Sex Workshop Day, but it has been postponed – I'll admit to some relief on that one – so Ms. Burlesque and I went to lunch instead.

Having only seen her once before, I had no idea what to expect. She arrived sans makeup, sans false eyelashes and practically in her pajamas. But that didn't mean she wasn't in character. We walked into the cafe and she immediately gushed a hello to the owner Marion, curtsied and spun and generally flitted about the establishment for ten minutes while I found a table and sat down.

When the human hummingbird finally came to rest, she told me she was SUPER excited. "About what?" I asked. "I'm FINALLY getting an apartment!" she squealed. I congratulated her and we ordered.

I've been dying of curiosity about the corner of the gay community she inhabits and couldn't wait to learn how it all works.

"So," I began, "how do you identify?"
"Well, I used to say I was bisexual," she said, "but since I discovered the word queer, I go with that."
"What does queer mean?"
"It's auto-defined."
"So it's different for everybody."
"Yeah!"
Great.

She told me if I wanted to get more savvy in the queer lexique, I should check out a new social networking site that just launched in Paris called French Queer Fries(?!). The registration page features an entrance exam worth of questions and checkboxes all about who you are, what you're into and the various shades of grey of your relationship status.

The "Me, Myself and I" section featured no less than FORTY different options including Queer, Trans (and all its variations), Butch, Fem, Futch(?), Grrrrl, Cyborg, Bear, Dandy, Genderqueer(?) and a whole schwack of letters including FtM, MtF, FtX/FtU and MtX/MtU. And at the end of this headspinning list was, of course, OTHER.

"It's very complicated to be the kind of gay I am which is attracted to masculine entities who are not biologically masculine," Ms. Burlesque said between bites of quiche.

Uh. YEAH.

"But I'm just SO excited," she continued. Oh? I said, looking up from my notes. "To pick up the key to my apartment on Sunday!" Oh, right. "Hey! Will you come help paint it?" Um, sure, I mumbled. "GREAT!"

Every word this woman said seemed to be punctuated with an exclamation mark. And that snippet of conversation – I'm so excited! About what? My apartment! – would be repeated approximately ONE HUNDRED TIMES during our time together.

Whenever there was a gap in conversation in which someone would possibly take a breath or swallow their food or, I don't know, just BE SILENT for one second, the mythical golden apartment would re-emerge as a shining (and extremely repetitive) mirage.

It was conversational Groundhog Day.

By the end of my time with Ms. Burlesque, I could no longer muster ONE MORE IOTA of feigned interest about that damned apartment or anything else for that matter. The corners of my mouth REFUSED to budge in the direction of a smile. They were just too tired.

Day 182: Making Paris A Mix-Tape

2009-02-26T02:27:00.009-07:00

Paris, Day 11. Have been thinking a lot about love these days. The strange Parisian laissez-faire approach to romance. The day-to-day grind of a relationship, a job, a life. The fact that being in Paris a second time feels like falling in love the second time: less intense, less consuming, less passionate.

Yesterday, I met a fellow Canadian at the airport. She's here to live a Parisian dream and she's filled with that OH MY GOD I'M IN PARIS excitement. The excitement that appears to have exited Stage Left in me.

While I waited for her to come through customs, I witnessed the single sexiest airport reunion of all time. He came through the sliding doors and enveloped his lover in an embrace. They held each other FOREVER and then kissed unashamedly passionately for ten minutes right in front of all of us waiting.

These people basically made love right there in Terminal 2B.

Eventually, they started walking toward their car or whatever, but then they stopped for another make-out break a few feet down the way. They were so into each other, nothing else mattered. Not even leaving the airport.

It was so awesome. So lovely and awesome and I WANT THAT.

Currently, my lover Paris and I are in a bit of a rut. We've settled into a pretty hum-drum routine where all I seem to notice is the dog shit, diseased pigeons and creeps selling contraband.

Don't get me wrong: I love her despite all her flaws. But we're deep in the Sweatpants Stage and, let's face it...I'm looking at other cities.

(I was on this porn site called Facebook where someone had posted all these nude photos of Barcelona. I was all over it and felt guilty afterward.)

But when I met up with Justine From Canada and she spent most of the Metro ride SWOONING over Paris and how this town is basically a menu of deliciousness and how she feels sexy and extraordinary just by BEING HERE...well. I was forced to confront my own apathy.

I got home and called Boyfriend. "I need to fall back in love with Paris," I said. "This trip has been all about gritty weirdness and counter-culture. I need to re-ignite the romance. I need to remember why I fell in love with this place. I need candlelight and flowers and..."

"You need to make Paris a mix-tape," he said.

YES, I said. I DO. Passion de Paris Make-Out Mix 2009? Here. I. Come.

Day 181: The English Girl In The Corner

2009-02-25T06:57:00.004-07:00

Paris, Day 10. Last night I ended up at a reprisal of the Belleville Bash somewhere in the boonies of Le Marais. A similar cast of characters was assembled, but the vibe was altogether different. Partly because I wasn't on a freight train to Boozetown.

Maybe that would have been smarter.

As it was, I sat in complete silence for more than four hours while everyone spoke French (and nothing but the French) all around me. You become invisible when you don't speak the language. It's interesting. And then it's frustrating. And then it's boring as all hell.

At one point Michelle explained to everyone that I was writing a memoir of all my experiences. "When she doesn't know what people are saying," she explained in French, "she will guess or make it up."

"Ah," said the crowd. Who promptly went back to ignoring me.

So I gouged my eyes out of my effing SKULL while I slowly contracted lung cancer from these French CHIMNEY creatures and their goddamn Marlboro obsession. I spent a full hour wondering how I could unobtrusively exit the scene when I had no clue where I was and how to get to the nearest Metro station.

Which is when someone said (in French): 'We should probably speak English for awhile.' Then, the group of them spend the next TWENTY MINUTES debating (IN FRENCH) what they/we should talk about.

The final decision?

TRUTH OR DARE.

Are. You. Kidding. Me.

Number 1: Truth or dare is for fifteen year olds or Madonna circa 1991.

Number 2: After four hours of feeling like a piece of the wallpaper, a simple CONVERSATION would have sufficed.

Number 3: I would have to be very, very drunk in order to play Truth or Dare at the age of thirty-mumble with a whole schwack of lesbians on the hunt for fresh meat.

(Don't flatter yourself Jones.)

(True. Strike that.)

Anyhoo. The fact of the matter is NO ONE was drunk enough to play this game (except for the hostess who was sloshed off her gourd) but no one had any better ideas. And I, quite frankly, was not in the mood to be the Canadian killjoy who said: HOW 'BOUT WE CUT THE CRAP AND GO HOME?

So most of us just avoided Dare like the plague and stuck to Truth. Which as a writer/undercover spy, I can actually USE. Only, the first question posed to me was in the So Obvious It Hurts category: Have you ever slept with a woman?

NO. Next?

Esmeralda to Dalia: "If you could sleep with anyone here, who would it be?"
Dalia: "Melanie."
Me: "I'm flattered, but I'd be a lousy lay."
Dalia: "Ah, but I would appear to be a master."

Someone asked Gilles what his favourite aspect of sex was. He said, "Le premier fois." (The first time.)

And that's when things got deep.

What do you love most in a woman?
"Sa fragilite." Their fragility.

What turns you on?
"Feeling totally confident with someone...which is very rare for me."

And then people stopped translating, so I sat there for another forty-five minutes dreading being forced to say "Dare" and thinking about jumping out the window or going to the bathroom and never coming back or quickly Googling "do-it-yourself home teleportation," but then it was my turn again.

"Okay, Melanie Jones, truth or dare?"

Both, actually. The TRUTH is I have stage 4 carci-fucking-noma and I DARE you to stop me from high-tailing it to the subway.

Day 180: Urbain...Suburbain

2009-02-24T09:10:00.004-07:00

Paris, Day 9. After my cuh-razy night in Belleville, I spent this afternoon on more familiar ground: chatting with a couple of hard-working parents from the suburbs. (Granted, I had to run the gauntlet of Pigalle strip joints to get there...)

I had lunch at Rouge Passion, a wine bar owned by a university friend of Drea's husband, Sebastien and his wife Anne. I sat at the bar and told Sebastien to bring me anything he thought I should try. "Ah," he said. "I like it."

I tucked into my charcuterie as another of their friends sat down beside me. Fathi (pronounced Fati, short for Fathima) and I started with small talk, but quickly got into more important matters. Like why everyone frowns on the Metro. And the fact that her father is Algerian.

I learned about the great influx of the early 60s after Algeria won their independence from colonial France. Fathi's dad felt more French than Algerian, having been raised entirely in French language and culture. But when he arrived in Paris he, along with most other immigrants, was shuttled into a poor suburb and treated like a second-class citizen. Suddenly, he was more Algerian than French. "He was judged by the colour of his skin, not what was in his heart."

Fathima and her brother, though, feel Parisian despite their olive skin and dark eyes. "My father, he protected us," she says. And she feels none of the struggle to belong that her father felt. Now she's the mother of two boys and a girl, living in the suburbs with her husband.

Sebastien and Anne live near her and they all deal with problems that sound all-too familiar. "If you have children, you can't live in Paris. It's too expensive. So you live out in the suburbs and take the Metro. It's very stressful. Everyone is tired."

Sebastien and Anne's restaurant is open six days a week and I can see the toll it's taking on them. It's the same stress I hear about every day with Drea and Gilles: How do we make enough money? How do we get enough time? How can we be good parents...let alone sane people?

They have dreams of traveling, opening a restaurant in Hawaii, maybe. Meanwhile, they struggle with the trials of any couple working and living together: "You have problems at home, you take them to work. You have problems at work, you take them home," Sebastien says.

I sip a red from Cotes du Ventoux and think about how I have one foot in both worlds. Sure, I live in the suburbs, but I am enviably free. I'm able to take off to Paris on a moment's notice. I don't have to lose sleep over whether my kid will resent me working so much or so hard. I may be broke, but there's only one mouth to feed.

I come here feeling like my life is small in Calgary and that Parisians are living the dream. Today, it feels like the opposite is true. But as I keep learning every day that I'm here: it's not one thing or another, it's both. We all have dreams, we all have struggles, and all of us are just...living.

Day 179: Le Hang Over

2009-02-23T06:42:00.014-07:00

Paris, Day 8. In France, everything is tiny. Little apartments. Little restaurant tables. Little cars. And teeny tiny wine glasses. As a woman of low alcohol tolerance, I have a system for my wine drinking in North America. It goes: One, Two, DONE. But that doesn't work here. Because the little wine glasses only fit about three sips to begin with and I can't count higher than ten.

So it's quite possible I had a hundred glasses of wine last night at Maud's open house.

"How many people are coming tonight?" I asked Maud when I arrived.

"Maybe ten, maybe fifteen," she said. "I put it out like a bottle in the sea."

Maud has a delicious way of speaking. Her accent is very thick and most of what she says is in metaphor.

She also sells secrets. Elegantly writing something she's never told anyone on a piece of paper, tying it with gold thread and selling it to a stranger. She says she might write a novel, just of secrets. "It's perfume from my life," she says.

I pull out my notebook and write down what she says. "You are a spy," she tells me. I don't contradict her.

When the others start arriving, the English stops completely. For an hour, I sit in silence letting the language and the cigarette smoke wash over me. I drink. And watch the people in the room.

Across from me sits Mélanie, an actress I met last time I was in Paris. Then, she had just broken up with a boyfriend and said she'd like to try a woman next. Now it appears she got her wish. She shares a seat with her lover, a stunning, older woman with a dragon tattoo winding down her arm. Mélanie is dressed like she just walked off the set of Flashdance.

Beside me is Esmeralda, the woman who spoke only John Wayne lines to me last time.

"Esmeralda is a bit of a dandy," a girl named Michelle would tell me later. "She has a persona...it's quite powerful. You should dance with her. Then you'll see."

Esmeralda is seldom seen without Gilles, a brooding straight man, who works for a poker magazine and travels to casinos all over the world. He sits in the corner, saying little for most of the night. He is the first to leave.

After he goes, the lights go off and the music gets louder. Mélanie and her girlfriend begin kissing passionately and then get up to leave. Someone bring out a riding crop and an S&M paddle and suddenly everyone is getting spanked.

I'm already drunk off the bad champagne and red wine when Michelle pours me a glass of thick, sweet white. The too-sweet wine mixes suddenly with five hours swimming through the blue haze of ten chain-smoking Parisians in a 200-square-foot apartment and sends me careening me over the edge. I say my goodbyes and stagger out into the piss-scented air of the street.

Day 178: Operation Squidlet

2009-02-22T06:57:00.014-07:00

Paris, Day 7. After being stared at by dead squid eyes for half an hour of food styling and photography yesterday, my appetite was nowhere to be found. But today, I couldn't avoid the lil' squidies. I mean, I BOUGHT the damn things, now I have to eat them.

Enter Google. Wherein I found a web page entitled How To Prepare Squid. I give you my illustrated version. (VEGETARIANS BEWARE.)

HOW TO PREPARE SQUID
By Melanie 'Squidlicious' Jones

STEP 1:
Rip the little buggers' heads off.
Pull out their (surprisingly silvery) guts and
the clear plastic-looking spine thing.
Place in Bowl Of Gore.

STEP 2:
Sever Sideshow Bob tentacles from googly eyes.
Encounter frightening spiny thing.
Consider aborting mission.

STEP 3:
Make squid water balloons by rinsing out the body pouch.
Dab rinsed squid bits with toilet paper because you have no paper towel.
Chop body pouch into cute little rings.
Avoid looking at Bowl Of Gore.

STEP 4:
Prepare back-up meal.
Select something that doesn't involve eyeballs.

STEP 5:
Gather silver bullet cooking ingredients that
could make fermented monkey brains taste good.

STEP 6:
Melt butter, sautee garlic, begin to pray.

STEP 7:
Moment of truth.
Put squid bits in frying pan.

STEP 8:
Deploy secret weapon.

STEP 9:
Put pink curly squidlets onto contrasting IKEA dishware.
Enjoy!

STEP 10:
Decide that the amount of horror involved in preparing this meal
was in no way proportional to the amount of enjoyment you got out of it.
Decide to become a vegetarian.
Pray those eyes don't haunt your dreams.

Brave Food World

2009-02-21T07:49:00.018-07:00

When I went to the market Wednesday, I came away disappointed in myself. There were vegetables and fruits I've never seen before, sea creatures I couldn't imagine eating and exotic foods that called out to me with their spicy smells. The place BEGGED a person to get experimental and I walked away, not with hairy root vegetables, ink-oozing cuttlefish or Middle Eastern delights, but with boring ol' oranges and tomatoes.

Fail.

So this afternoon, I went back with one rule and one rule only: IF IT FRIGHTENS YOU...BUY IT.

I brazenly elbowed my way to the front of the mob at the baker, the fish monger and the olive vendor. I pointed and palpated. I pretended I knew what I was doing. I came, I bought, I conquered. (But I STILL couldn't get up the nerve for the hairy things. What are those anyway?)

I hauled my prizes home and promptly staged a photo shoot that will have me doing dishes for the rest of the day. No matter. It was worth it. I give you my poor-man's version of food porn:

I am certainly not the first person to artfully photograph Sharon fruit. Nor will I be the last. The guy at the stand wouldn't let me buy just one or two. He pointed behind himself, shrugged apologetically and said, "Boss." I am now the proud owner of a CASE of these suckers.

The only bakery in the market is run by a cute Middle Eastern couple. These two treats looked so appealing with the dark swirl of fig and the teardrop shape, I could barely wait to eat them. The fig swirl one is glazed with rosewater.

And I didn't stop there. I got this flat, square date bar thing, which is actually nothing special and this delicious crepe-style unit stuffed with peppers, onions and spices. Greasy as all hell, but freaking delicious.

These are just turnips. They aren't scary, but I coveted the little white and purple ones when I was here last April, and totally chickened out on buying them. So I figured today was the day. Besides they're cute.

It's not that olives or roasted red peppers are frightening, it's that the olive stall is. There are dozens of kinds of olives, sauces, dips and colourful spices. It's the kind of place where you feel you need to have your shit together. You don't. You just have to point.

I'd never seen a melon like this and I wanted one. It's from Brazil and was very heavy to take home on the Metro. It's also not really that sweet. But it's juicy. Meh.

The ballsiest purchase: lil' wiggly squidlets. With eyeballs. Staring at me accusingly. The fish stand is by far the most gory place in the market with massive turbot, scary eels and giant squid covered in black ooze. I'll save those for next week.

Day 177: Les Puces in Pictures

2009-02-21T06:07:00.022-07:00

Paris, Day 6. I spent this morning at the city's most famous and most massive flea market, Les Puces de Saint-Ouen, known to most simply as Les Puces (The Fleas).

To get there, go to the end of Metro line 4, Porte de Clignacourt, and wade through stall after stall of young African men hawking cheesy sweatshirts, shiny denim and pirated rap CDs. Beyond all the crap is the buried treasure: miles and miles of delicious (and ridiculously overpriced) antiques.

Once again, I was yelled at for taking pictures, but I was nimble and unrepentant.

The Paris Plan Emergeth

2009-02-20T23:43:00.008-07:00

Supposedly I'm here to work on a book.

I've slowly started reading through the first draft of my manuscript, taking nips of brandy to steady myself as I go. I'm about two-thirds of the way through now and am convinced this colossal piece of crap is what led to Thursday's crisis of faith.

C'est la vie as we Parisians say. I could always toss myself in the Seine.

Regardless, a plan is forming itself around me:

Louise gets back next week and we'll begin work on her one-woman show. I've also decided to attend her workshop on anal lovin' – assuming it's not terribly hands-on – because as I learned from yesterday's hammam experience, there's nothing to fear but a room full of breasts.

You can quote me on that.

My other friend Maud has invited me to her home on Sunday for an aperitif with friends, which means a gloriously exhausting evening drowning in French language and French cigarette smoke. The last time I hung out with Maud, one of her friends shouted John Wayne lines into my face at varying intervals throughout the evening. It was the only English she knew. Or perhaps she believes all North Americans are cowboys. One of the two.

The Harmonica Federation dudes reconvene next Saturday and I'll be there with support hose on. This was one of the highlights of my last trip here. I arrived with images of an incense-filled, bohemian literary cafe dripping with turtleneck-wearing poets. It was more like an old folks home on bingo night. Two words: boxed wine.

Also on Saturday, I'll begin to explore the racial/immigrant experience of Paris from the perspective of a local. Dana once remarked that Paris is an Arab country and she's not wrong. You might think Parisians are all willowy model-types, but the hijabs (headscarves) and taqiyahs (skullcaps) outnumber the high heels and skinny jeans by far.

And other than that, my list of activities includes hanging out at La Fourmi, finding a way to surreptitiously observe the contraband cigarette trade at Barbes-Rochechouart and hitting the sex museum (ahem...Musee de l'Erotisme, excusez-moi) on boulevard de Clichy.

So I'm covering old ground, venturing into new territory and hoping to receive divine guidance about whether I should toss this book under the Metro and start from scratch.

Day 176: Who's Your Hammama?

2009-02-20T13:03:00.006-07:00

Paris, Day 5. I spent the past four hours surrounded by breasts. I'm talkin' boobies, man, EVERYWHERE. Naked ladies in Paris.

This sounds waaaaaay sexier than it was.

Inspired by friend Shea, I went to a hammam, a Middle Eastern bath house/spa type deal that I'd never heard of until she told me. She chickened out on going to one when she was in Paris and I don't blame her. Hanging out naked with a bunch of strangers is not exactly an average afternoon.

At the front desk, the lady took my money and rattled off the LONGEST set of instructions for taking a bath I've ever heard. I stared at her, took the giant pile of paraphernalia she thrust upon me and stripped down to my skivvies.

Most hammam goers wear bikini bottoms, but as if I brought a BIKINI to PARIS in FEBRUARY. I had to settle for Hanes Her Way. Suck it. I'm from Canada.

I put on my robe and walked fearfully down a curved staircase. Through a glass door, I could see dozens of topless woman lounging around on a marble platform. I didn't recall the front desk lady saying anything about a marble platform, so I ran back upstairs and asked her to repeat everything.

I ventured back downstairs, avoiding eye contact (and eye-to-other-people's-boobs contact) as much as possible. I put my stuff in a cubby and handed my number to a lady dressed like she was just about to do an Aquacize class. Then I took my little tub of weird-looking green jelly into the shower room.

In the corner of the shower room, a mud wrestling match was in progress.

A woman in a pink bikini slathered grey slop all over the line-up of women waiting. She grabbed handfuls of the stuff out of a plastic bucket, smearing it on their heads, legs, arms and bellies, chattering joyfully all the while. I looked at my little tub and couldn't imagine it would turn into mud by just adding water, but I took it over anyway. "Non," said Pink Bikini.

I learned I had to smear my jelly on myself and opened the lid. It STANK. This stuff reeked of something from a fetid swamp mixed with something from someone's butt. I gamely slimed it all over my body, trying not to gag.

Then I went into the actual hammam, a.k.a. the steam room. Naked ladies were splayed all over the place, their shapes barely visible through the thick steam. I sat awkwardly. Then laid down awkwardly. One of the hot-ass drips from the ceiling dripped into my eye and the stank soap got in it. I booked it out of the steam room.

I hit the sauna next, where a 50-something woman was lying on a lower bench. I climbed to a higher bench and...sat awkwardly. I couldn't lean back because the wood walls were effing MOLTEN. The 50-something kept lifting her legs up and lowering them down. I couldn't tell if she was minimizing contact with the fiery wood, exercising or just showing me her ass.

The heat was making my face throb, so I thought I'd chill on the marble platform thing. I sat down to discover it, too, was heated. No wonder the ladies had been basking on it like so many sealions. Topless sealions.

Okay, let's deal with this.

You know how in the movies (both X-rated and otherwise) all women look pretty much exactly the same from the neck down? It's like you get to Hollywood and they issue you your pair of regulation breasts, regulation legs and a regulation ass.

REAL LIFE ISN'T LIKE THAT.

When you get a crowd of naked female bodies in the same place you suddenly and unavoidably realize everyone is completely different. Big boobs, little boobs. Saggy boobs, perky boobs. All nipple, no boob. Boobs that seem emptied out. Boobs so full they overflow into back fat. There are so many combinations of body parts that you actually start to forget WHY one thing is supposed to be more attractive than another.

They're just...BODIES.

And they all seemed to be headed towards the Aquacize lady. I followed them. I watched as everyone's number got called except for mine and then I realized I probably screwed up somewhere along the line.

I sheepishly asked Pink Bikini about my number. "Oh," she said, raising her eyebrow. "Vous." She led me past a curtain and toward a sketchy-looking bed. "Couchez-vous." It took me a second to translate that in my head, but it was too long for Pink Bikini.

"English?" she asked almost incredulous. "Yes," I said. "Sorry."

"LIE DOWN," she yelled, as though English also meant deaf.

I obeyed, lying down on my stomach as she proceeded to flay me with a blue scrub mitt. "TURN," she yelled. I did. Then she flayed me some more.

This part of the hammam is called gommage, which to my mind translates as "gumming." This sounds very pervy and is not at all an accurate description of what was happening to me. I now believe it is more akin to gomme as in eraser.

Because clumped all over my body were the gross grey eraser bits of my exfoliated flesh.

"STAND," demanded Pink Bikini. I stood. She sprayed me down and I watched the majority of my epidermis float away along the tile floor. Then she handed me back my skin-covered flaying mitt and said, "GO TO THE POOL."

I did. It was freezing. But it also felt amazing and I got out of there feeling like a million dollars. I headed for my massage.

The massage ladies gathered at the front of the waiting room and chatted like sisters, giggling and patting each others' legs. One of them scanned the sign-up sheet with all our numbers, while us patrons sat up expectantly, wondering which would be "ours."

I have to admit, it reminded me of a brothel. The one looking at the numbers was the Madam and the rest of the girls waited around to get their 'assignment.' It didn't help they were all Russian.

I got the Madam, who led me to a room shared with two other people. I got on the table and she rubbed my back and chatted to her friends. It was the most half-assed massage of my life. But even a half-assed massage is better than no massage and I eavesdropped as she gossiped about the other girls' massage techniques. I tried to imagine the brothel equivalent, but didn't have time. "C'est tout," the Madam said abruptly.

Oh. Okay. Was it good for vous?

Day 175: The God in Small Things

2009-02-19T06:50:00.034-07:00

Paris, Day 4. So, I was just writing my friend an email about how weird it felt not having existential crises every five minutes and apparently that was like hand-painting a giant target on my back because BOOM I woke up this morning after three hours of sleep feeling like a cannon had blown a hole right through my faith in things.

I've been asking the kinds of questions that a person shouldn't be asking. The kinds of questions that have no answers, that can make the swirling rabbit hole of oblivion shriek open in front of you, that are all too common when surrounded by unfathomable amounts of history. Questions like: Who am I?

Questions of that ilk are for when you're teenager and lost, expecting some kind of pithy response to come down from the sky. Something like, "YOU ARE A POET LAUREATE WHO WEARS RED SHOES." As though a person can be summed up in a sentence. As though God has enough spare time to call you up and tell you that.

But for whatever reason, that was the question rattling around in my brain and hauling me from sleep at 3 am. WHO AM I? It's the kind of thing that can ruin your day, so the only sensible reaction is a very long walk.

When you are being tortured by epic questions, however, the last thing you need is epic architecture. Marble-crusted palaces or gratuitously gold-plated statues are really not going to help when you're already feeling small and slightly messed up. If anything Paris can alienate the shit out of you on a day like today.

So my strategy instead was to find little things that made me happy. And also water. Water calms me when not much else will. ("YOU ARE A PERSON WHO LIKES WATER.") I went to the Seine and on my way there, I started collecting these small things. Fresh peas. The kind you have to shell yourself. The funny round trees lining Jardin des Tuileries. The gentleman sleeping outside in the chair, head thrown back, mouth wide open.

The boats moored to the side of the river: one named Andrea. The little bathtub rowboat dangling off the side of the Zephyr, half full with water. The old woman limping along the top of the Jean Bart, wearing pale blue leggings, silver shoes and a mint green dress. Barges: Anna, Mutualiste, Mexicale, Mustang and Aubepine.

Her pink coat and matching pink nose. His white teeth and brown skin. Two teenage girls with identical frizzy hair, identical sunglasses and identical scowls. Seeing the Samaritaine department store sign just as I was beginning to feel stupid for giving the Kenyan guy money to "help out in Darfur."

The old man on the bicycle: grey trenchcoat streaming behind him. The Asian man with the long, black cape. A shop called Aux Paradis des Oiseaux (Paradise of the Birds) with tall bird cages, tiny bird houses and two open-mouthed alligators made of bronze.

Graffiti: Othershit, Hello My Name is Real.

Smells: macaroni near the Grand Palais, the lady's perfume by Jardin des Tuileries, the man with the moustache's cigar, the fresh green smell of the flower stores on rue Aube.

The cute old couple opening their stand near Pont Neuf. The garden stores along Quai de la Megisserie. The beautiful couple kissing near the Chatelet Metro.

The man walking through Notre Dame hand-in-hand with his young son, looking UTTERLY unimpressed. 'This is it?!' his face seemed to say. Sitting in the cathedral, looking up and feeling closer to something. The way the ceiling curves. A fresh crepe so hot I could barely eat it. The drunks fighting the park. The pigeons fighting in the park...or maybe mating, I wasn't sure which. Coming home. Talking to you.

The Burlesque Dancer Has Landed

2009-02-18T13:26:00.005-07:00

The phone-that-is-a-fax-machine rings. I answer. A small-sounding, tentative female voice says, "Um, hi? Is Dana there?"

I say no, Dana's out of town, can I take a message. She says, "Oh! No. Um. Is this? The girl? From Canada?" I say yes.

"Oh, hi. It's Dana's friend, Louise."

"Lessa?" I ask after a moment. She says yes and tells me she has hot food waiting for her and she'll call me back.

I hang up the phone and remember the first time I met Louise/Lessa in a lounge in Le Marais. I accidentally head-butted her in a Parisian kiss-kiss gone wrong and she yelled at me really, really loudly. And then she proceeded to napalm, carpet-bomb, atomic-hydrogen-Nagasaki ANNIHILATE my lil'-Canadian-girl-from-the-suburbs comfort zone into a pile of steaming rubble.

This is the woman who only dates non-biological men. The woman who teaches bondage workshops. The woman who, when she's not doing strange things with vacuum cleaners onstage, is a part-time dominatrix.

Only during that phone call, she sounded more like Minnie Mouse on downers. Weird.

I putter around the flat, making dinner and learning the hard way what Cru Bourgeois means. (Bad wine.) She calls again. I ask if she's performing anywhere while I'm here.

"Well, I'm in Dublin until Monday," she says. "Then on the 26th, I'm running a workshop on anal lovin' and...oh! On March 8th I have a performance."

Anal. Lovin'.

Now, THIS is the girl I came to see.

I tell her I hear she's doing a one-woman show. "Yeah, I'm working on the text now. It's a real departure for me...because I've been working in more visual mediums." Like porn shows in Berlin, says my Inside Voice.

I offer to help her with her show, which she accepts excitedly. We make plans to meet up next week when she returns from Dublin.

"One question," I ask her. "What should I call you?"

"When there's false eyelashes involved, call me Louise."

Day 174: Marche vs. Supermarche

2009-02-18T05:50:00.014-07:00

Paris, Day 3. Okay, so yesterday I copped out and hit the supermarket. If I was truly in the parisien spirit of things, I would have trundled around to the boulangerie for my baguette, the fromagerie for my cheese, and on and on until I'd been to seventeen shops.

This works well if you are shopping for one day or one meal, but when you're stocking up on essentials for the month, it's a little high maintenance. So, I supermarched it. Only I forgot the one rule of Parisian supermarkets: you weigh and price your own vegetables. I did not do this and was was scolded at the check-out before having my bananas, apples and tomatoes abruptly confiscated.

I never had to learn the supermarche vegetable lesson because when I was here last year, I lived next to the Barbes Metro station where the cheapest market in the city happens on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Today would be Wednesday.

I hit it Barbes style and walked the kilometre-long gauntlet of yelling, singing, yodeling vendors while getting body-checked by tiny African women with rolling carts. To call this experience sensory overload would be selling it short: the Barbes market takes years off your life. As most illicitly pleasurable experiences do.

The stalls line both sides of a cattle chute where hundreds of humans jostle and jockey for position while the Metro clatters overhead. It's a solid wall of people from about 7:30 am until 3 pm. Line-ups are thick at the cheese vendor and the fish monger, and if you're caught sleeping, you'll lose your spot at vegetable and fruit stands, too.

The produce is GLORIOUS, stacked high into pyramids and piles, propositioning you like street-walkers dressed in shiny orange, red, indigo and green, green, green. As you walk, you pass through scents of juicy clementine oranges, roasting meats, fresh cilantro and the dry tang of cumin wafting up from the spice seller's table – a pallette of cinnamon, chili, turmeric and pepper.

Dozens of chalkboards hang above each stall. Navet 1,80. Carrotte de Sable 1,00. Piment fort. Endive. Courgette. Haricot vert. You watch a vendor wipe his nose before cutting thick slices from a massive orange poitron (squash).

As you move along, the vendors calls ebb and flow in a throbbing crescendo: "Un euro, un euro, un euro. Oh lalalala loooooo! Deux pour les deux! Cinq, cinq, cinq. Yella yella YELLLLLAAAAA! Un kilo, cinquante! ALLEZ ALLEZ ALLEZ! Monsieur dame, just for you! Au choix, au choix. Madame! Madame! MADAAAAAME!" They flirt shamelessly. They sing. They dance. They whistle and plead and beg. They foist slices of oranges and melons on you. They goad each other's voices louder and louder in a form of tomato/zucchini/lettuce oneupmanship.

Someone tries to push a bottle of Chanel No.5 in your hand as you walk. Muslim ladies roll carts over your toes, playing bumper cars with their strollers and your shins. A man walks by carrying several sticks of lit and smoking incense.

At the fish stand one of the vendors, an old man in an apron, stands outside the stall arranging pink shrimp with one hand. His other hand hangs dead and limp beside him clad in a blue rubber glove, slick with fish juice, woodenly clutching a smoldering cigarette.

My camera incites screams from the men behind the stalls. Half of them hate me, the other half use it to boost their sales pitch to even higher intensity. One hands me a piece of the sweetest orange I've ever tasted. "Je veux un photo," he says. I want a picture. I photograph him and buy a kilo of the oranges.

After an hour, I'm freezing. Clouds of breath billowing out and my hands too stiff to count out my change. These men have been here since 6 am and will stay another four hours after I leave. Most look grim, their energetic calls coming from stony faces – faces that don't hide their frustration as you walk away with only two dollars worth of food. The old timers: the spice man, the olive vendor, the stooped man selling radishes and lettuce near the end of the line, they stand silent and watching, unmoved by the maelstrom around them. I climb the stairs and wait for the familiar rumble of the Number 2 line barreling down the track.

Sometimes I'm Afraid To Leave The House

2009-02-17T06:17:00.010-07:00

Okay, let me be perfectly honest with you. Paris is a very intimidating city. It's like the prettiest girl in school who really doesn't really REQUIRE your EXISTENCE and therefore is highly unlikely to be nice to you or tell you where the Science room is or play tether ball with you. It's not that she's mean. She's just busy, important and extraordinarily beautiful.

Yesterday with Angry Metro Lady was a perfect example. This Metro lady sits in a tiny Plexiglas box all day. No one talks to her. While that is actually a very miserable sounding experience, she makes it work for her and, at the end of the day, she doesn't WANT people to talk to her. Because invariably that will mean "putting in some effort" which someone who lives in a box should not have to do.

So stupid Canadian women who cannot speak French and therefore will take up A LOT of Life Energy Tokens by forcing her to explain, demonstrate, re-demonstrate and explain one more time how the Metro pass works...are beyond the pale.

Adding insult to injury, this particular Canadian woman will try to squeeze her massive suitcase through the Metro turnstiles instead of going through the gate thing. The result of this is total suitcase sausage machine entrapment, forcing the customer who has been waiting not-so-patiently-or-quietly for the Metro lady's attention to yank the suitcase free and haul its 45 pounds up and over the turnstile, swearing all the way.

FYI? Paris, as a city and as a people, does not CARE if you have traveled 4,500 miles in one day just to see her. She has bigger problems.

So because of that and because I have an intense fear of STARTING anything – relationships, writing projects, conversations, jobs, the exploration of foreign cities with 5,691 baffling cultural RULES all of which are learned by the French People Yelling At You method – I am sometimes afraid to leave the house. Or answer the phone.

THIS IS NOT AGORAPHOBIA.

I don't think.

And so, today's To-Do list was modest, but terrifying in its own right:

Figure out how to work my hard-won Metro pass
Go to La Fourmi (my cafe from before) for dirt-cheap lunch and possible tranny sightings
Get groceries at cute little supermarket across from La Fourmi
Call burlesque dancer
Maybe – if very, very brave – look at first draft of book

It's just before 6 p.m. and I've accomplished all but the last. I also read two graphic sort-of-novels, journalled, Skyped x 3, drew a fun Stuff I Want To Do In My Life thing (pictured), questioned the water quality in Paris, remembered that article which chided: "Why does everyone ask about the drinking water in Paris?!" and took a nap.

I also totally screwed up at the grocery store, but I will have to save that for another post because it's a quarter past cocktail hour.

Day 173: Jet Lag 1, Me 0

2009-02-16T20:27:00.005-07:00

Paris, Day 2. I was wide awake at 2:30 a.m. It's 4:30 now and there is a bird singing outside. I also just heard some poor sucker's alarm clock go off.

Even though I will likely be comatose by this afternoon, I do love this aspect of jet lag. I am wide awake and fully functional by four in the morning. From a productivity perspective, this kicks serious ass.

Only "being productive" is a habit I'm kinda trying to kick, so instead I'm just padding around the studio, taking it all in.

This photo is the first of my Taxidermied Animal Series. I shall call him Cecil Lucius "Brutus" von Balthazar III. Although he's now employed as a bearskin rug, he was once one of Southern Bohemia's most famous silent film directors. He is lovingly (if a little boredly) watched over by this massive photo of a trust fund kid turned model.

This installation is located in the atelier part of Dana's studio, an airplane hangar type deal with 20-foot ceilings and, currently, a house made of cardboard which I am considering napping in later.

Day 172? Paris Part Deux

2009-02-16T06:52:00.004-07:00

Well, I made it, folks. I sit at this moment somewhere north of the wall: exhausted, starving, not functioning well mentally, but in Paris once again.

I am clunkily deciphering this French keyboard. I cannot find the apostrophe. I will need that. Otherwise the blog will sound oddly formal for the whole month. It took me 45 minutes to figure out the @. It took me 2 minutes to realize I should have brought my wireless router so I could use my own damn machine.

But these are the ONLY complications so far in my journey.

Last time I traveled here, everything that could go wrong DID. This time (except for the Metro lady who got very angry with me) everything was like buttah. Maybe THIS is the benefit of going in without expectations - which is my new word for PLANNING.

Day 171.5: I Have No Freaking Clue

2009-02-15T17:02:00.003-07:00

On the way to the airport this morning, Boyfriend asked if I'd brought the mini Lonely Planet travel guide he'd bought me the last time I went to Paris. I said no and stared at him blankly. And then it dawned on me: I have no effing clue what I'm doing.

I haven't looked at a map. I haven't opened a book. I haven't Googled a damn thing. I spent more time thinking about what I'll be WEARING in Paris than what I'm actually DOING in Paris.

This? Makes me hyperventilate.

(It also makes me stylish.)

The last time I went to Paris, I made a Google map and dotted it with more than 20 stupid placeholders of places to go and things to see. I had a folder FULL of bookmarked web sites and reference pages. I had a book about writing in Paris. Not just BEING in Paris, WRITING there. I can't remember a thing about it...was it a how-to manual? I have no idea.

This time, I have an address where I pick up my keys. That's it.

Total. Barking. Uncertainty.

"This is good for you," Drea said when I called her in a panic from gate A15. "You usually plan EVERYTHING and then your expectations make you all weird."

She's right.

But, I'd credit most of the comedy in my book to off-the-charts expectations meeting the pimp-slap-in-the-face of reality.

Maybe this time the funny bits will be due to a shocking lack of planning meeting the big pimp-slap. Here's hoping...

TGIM #7

2009-02-15T17:01:00.000-07:00

Lucky seven y'all! This week's TGIM is my friend Steve, recent recipient of an ungracious pink slip and master of making a totally crappy situation work in his favour. Also, he's dating my friend Clare. So we love him.

Name: Steve LePan
Age: 31
Occupation: Urban Buddha

Sadly, Steve's taken down the blog where he came up with this occupation. It was part of a series of posts called 9 Lives in which every day he imagined various fantasy occupations including Full-Time Amateur Athlete. I think it was Day 4 or 5, he came up with Urban Buddha...and then made it happen, beginning with a 12-week self-transformation. Here's the moment the idea took shape:

"I've been kicking around the idea of opening a studio/gym/wellness centre for some time. What better way to live a healthy life than to make it your career? My vision is a balanced approach. An East meets West type of thing seeing as that is really a mirror of myself. Part Urban - part Buddha. I love yoga, but I also love barbeques and beer. I appreciate a good sunset and I also appreciate a crisp 100-dollar bill. Anyway, you get the point."

Things You Can't Tell By Looking At Him:

He grills a mean steak and used to be a raw foodist.
He keeps two hockey trophies on the top shelf in his living room for 'Top Goalie" Men's League Weeknight Division II.
Two years ago he spent a month in ICU on life support for some random freak throat infection.

What are you grateful for?
My health. I can now say I truly appreciate life. My girlfriend. She rocks. My friends. We have more memories than most.

What is the most awesome thing in your life right now?
The freedom. The unpredictability. The challenge. The adventure.

Day 171: While I'm Eating Bad Airline Food

2009-02-14T10:01:00.000-07:00

You get eye candy! When I uploaded photos from my Five Dolla Date with Robert, I realized I had around 20 photos from Paris left on my memory card. It was like Christmas morning! They were all from my last full day in the city and I must have been too distraught to upload them when I got home.

Psst. Dudes...when you see me next, I'll BE THERE.

On her last day in Paris, Girl Writer got very emotionally
attached to things like big pillars with eagles on them.

She walked south towards the Paris Opera and wondered
why she didn't get her sh*t together enough to see a show there.

She thought about all the famous people who had
sweated and screamed on that stage.

She fell more and more in love with the building.
It was like they were meant to be but the building didn't realize it.

Ultimately...
like all love stories...
security escorted her off the premises.

She kept walking south and passed the cafe where, about a week
into her stay, she had a weird 'We Are The World' epiphany
during the Paris Marathon. Marathons do that to a girl.

She flirted with a churchy cathedral, but it didn't say much.

She photographed a fountain at a jaunty, tipsy angle
reeking of the desperation she felt.

She went to some contemporary galleries with a strange
Italian woman whom she neglected to photograph and
whose wedding she now has a standing invitation to...
Should it ever occur.

Eventually she couldn't deny the truth any longer.
Heartbroken, Girl Writer got on a plane and went home.

Day 168: The List, The Sequel

2009-02-12T07:00:00.000-07:00

Annnnnd we're back. I totally, shamelessly BAILED on the idea of cramming my stuff into a carry-on. It's a LOVELY idea, but it's not gonna happen. And so, filling out a much larger (but still manageable) suitcase is What I'm Taking To Paris.

Guys. Men. Male readers. Again, I'm sorry. I promise things will get more interesting soon. For example, Valentine's Day is coming up. The day where I am expecting a dress made of diamonds and romantic surprises from morning 'til night. Bet you can't WAIT for that, huh?

Anyhoo. My list (including way-too detailed descriptions of my clothing):

PANTS
Jacob dressy jeans
Wide leg jeans
Tight-ass tuck-into-boots jeans
Ben Sherman casual jeans
OMG ALL I WEAR IS JEANS
Black pants

SKIRT (that I will not wear)
Black frayed casual

T-SHIRTS
Black rocker x 2
Long navy + white tank
Striped ribbon fancy
Camisole tank
Green button

LONG SLEEVED
Brown/white striped
Black/Blue striped turtleneck
Black turtleneck
Navy/cream striped 3/4

FANCY TOPS (that I doubt I'll wear)
Black Victorian
Teal cowl neck
Dk. green Asian

SWEATERS
Black sweater vest
Black shawl sweater
Black cardigan fancy
Brown cardigan
Green cardigan
Grey hoodie

DRESS
(that I might actually end up wearing)
Little Black Dress

SLEEP
Sleep shirt
Yoga pants

SHOES
Black shiny boots
Brown Walk-All-Day boots
Black heels
Runners

WORKOUT
Running tights
2 Tops: merino wool and grey light
Sports bra, socks
Lulu toque, black gloves
Wind/rain jacket

JACKETS
Black long
Striped blazer
Roxy vest

MISC
Thick black wrap shawl
New pair of tights
6 undies, 6 socks, 2 bras
Black & turquoise scarves

OTHER
Revolutionary Road book
Journal
iPod + cords
Laptop + cords + Mac adapter dealio
Camer + cords + battery charger
Electrical adapter
Hair dryer/Curling iron
Euro $$$
Passport
Glasses
Makeup, toothbrush, etc.
Beret!

Day 167: The List

2009-02-11T12:52:00.005-07:00

Okay, I don't know how to make this post look good, but the information is GOLD, so forgive the completely ungainly extendo-list format. This is The List: exactly what to pack for any trip a week or longer. The List is from my friend Renee whose partner works for an airline and therefore travels all over the world all the time.

What? A weekend in Mendoza? Sure!

This is her life.

Renee has the added challenge of having to pack everything in a carry-on because they fly stand-by wherever they go. So, THEORETICALLY everything you see below fits into one of those little rolly suitcases. How she does that is a miracle of physics I have not yet unlocked. I took a first crack at it, but with the seventeen sweaters I have yet to pare down, my stuff may fill the entire cargo hold of the plane.

This version is specific to a hot holiday – she just left on a cruise yesterday. And it is obviously specific to a WOMAN. Guys...you are S.O.L. Sorry. My list will also be specific to a woman – albeit one who hates dresses and skirts – and also specific to frozen-ass Paris in February. I'll post it as soon as I deal with The Sweater Issue.

PANTS
Trouser jeans*
Black dressy
Jean capris

SHORTS
3 Pairs casual
Swim shorts

SKIRTS
1 Casual
1 Dressy

SHIRTS
5 Casual tees
1 Tank top
1 Fancy tee*
3 Long sleeved
3 Fancy tops

SWEATERS
1 Casual
1 Fancy*
2 Others

DRESSES
Bathing suit cover up
2 Casual
1 Fancy

SHOES
2 Pair flip flops
1 Pair casual
1 Pair high heels*
Runners

WORKOUT
Pants
2 Tops
Bra
Socks

JACKETS
1 Overcoat
1 Blazer

MISC
Black cover up shawl*
Nylons, nylon socks
6 undies, 6 socks, 2 bras

OTHER
Book
Journal
Ipod
Camera
Computer
Chargers
US/Euro $$
Passport
Waterproof watch

For my list, I would also add:
Glasses
Electrical adapter

* What she wears on the plane. Because they are representing the airline when they fly, Renee and her guy need to look nice. I've always fantasized about looking like Elle MacPherson when I get off a plane – all Evian-fresh and stylish. Instead, I tend to look like Courtney Love on a bad day in rehab. Maybe The List will help me overcome my transatlantic schlubbiness.

Day 166: 25 Things

2009-02-10T11:45:00.000-07:00

On Facebook, there's this thing going around called 25 Things. It's 25 random facts about a person and in order to do it, you have to get tagged by someone else. Like a chain letter or Red Rover. I've been waiting and waiting to get tagged and NUTHIN'. So I'm taking it upon myself to give you my 25 Things...whether you want 'em or not.

I was born in Montreal and so it has become my answer to the question 'Where are you from?' But I was born while my parents were in the process of packing up the yellow Camaro to move to Ontario. So I don't think I'm actually "from" Montreal. It just sounds cooler than "a variety of shit towns in Northern Ontario."
My guilty musical pleasure is Kelly Clarkson.
I constantly check to see if I have anything hanging out of my nose. I am nasally paranoid and obsessed.
My eyeliner smears every single day.
For the past five years, my favourite chocolate bar has been Kit Kat. Now I've fallen out of love and I don't know why.
I stole some jokes from my ex. I use them regularly to this day and never credit him.
I cry a lot and I'm sort of comfortable with that.
I laugh a lot and I'm very comfortable with that.
When I was a kid, I found several diamond rings on the floor in Sears. The store had been robbed and the thief had dropped some of his booty on the way out. I gave the manager the rings I'd found, but he barely thanked me. The lesson there was: doing the right thing gets you NOTHING.
I lived in Rochester, Minnesota for three years when I was small. Those were the best years of my life. Mostly because they involved tornados, garter snakes and creepy attics.
I was a tomboy when I was 12. I wore nothing but Calgary Flames sweat suits for a whole year.
I am actually very shy.
Unless I have a microphone in my hand.
I love early mornings...all peaceful, unspoiled silence and untapped potential.
But I also love my snooze button. I press it at least five times every morning.
I don't like televised sports. But sometimes I get compelled by the drama of man-against-man or man-against-himself. During these circumstances I've been known to get incredibly emotional, nervous and weepy.
I've run five marathons and completed one Ironman triathlon. Before that I was always known as the non-athletic one in my family.
The dating advice segments I did for CityTV and the dating column I wrote for Avenue was my version of 'making lemonade' after my divorce. But now dating as a topic bores me to tears.
I want to believe in magic and faeries, but find it hard to keep this stuff alive without going all weird and Wicca. Maybe I need more children in my life.
I am totally a starter – all fired up and excited at the beginning of a project, but severely lacking in follow-through.
I got my nose pierced during the Rebellious Teenage Tears. I still have a little scar.
I was a contemporary dancer for seven years. I loved it and miss it terribly.
Patient is not a word I would use to describe myself.
I am a cold-blooded killer of plants.
The ability to be extremely silly is necessary to be part of my life. All the members of my 'inner circle' are deliciously dorky and childlike and I value this beyond measure. (If you are applying for a position in the inner circle, keep this in mind.)

TGIM #6

2009-02-10T09:31:00.004-07:00

Maybe not a dollar short, but definitely a day late. Please meet Matt Palmer, the 'film guy' I refer to during my periodic rants about the depression project.

I ran into him yesterday at the coffee shop and we were talking about one of my depression scripts where I go all tough-love about not playing the victim. Matt said something about how he learned the victim lesson the hard way. I said I had too. We high-fived. That's the kind of dude he is.

Name: Matt Palmer
Age: Unknown, but old enough to have had two kids and a mid-career crisis
Occupation: Producer/Director of Asante Sana Films (Asante Sana means 'Thank you very much' in Swahili, I think it is. Appropriate, no?)

Things You Can't Tell By Looking At Him: Hangs out at Caffe Beano with all the other cool film guys, is a graduate of UCLA's screenwriting program, would win Man Most In Touch With His Emotions Award if such a thing existed, is training for his first marathon, has a new blog about things beginning with 'Fuh.'

What are you grateful for?
I used to spend money on a lot of dumb stuff that I thought would make me happy. So I ended up with a lot of stuff and, you got it, The Big D, depression. It's been a long road to finding balance in my life, and setting intentions and manifesting good things in my life. Now, every night when I get into bed, I close my eyes and I feel gratitude for all the abundance in my life. I feel gratitude for my wife, my sons, our wonderful home, tremendous wealth and success, and for my Quadrinity (my body, intellect, emotion, and my spiritual self).

What's the most awesomest thing in your life right now?
There are two awesome things in my life right now. Sorry, can't do just one. The first is my family. My wife and I have so much fun watching our two boys develop and grow. There are not enough words to describe how awesome that is. The second awesome thing is the coming release of my feature documentary "Letters From Litein." We beat the odds with this film. It was done with little money, and despite a long search, we finally got a Canadian distributor (Kinosmith) who was willing to give us a show at releasing the film theatrically in Alberta. We are just waiting for our dates which should be in April.

Day 165: Plan Your Work, Work Your Plan...NOT

2009-02-09T16:40:00.004-07:00

Last time I went to Paris to write, I kind of did it wrong. I got all obsessed with deadlines (who me?) – with finishing the screenplay and justifying my existence through constant action. And although I got some great work done and had creative epiphanies every second day, I really didn't need to push that hard.

In fact, I'd go way out on a limb to say NOT writing in Paris is more valuable than writing.

Think about it: EXPERIENCE is my source material. Hammering at my keyboard all day is not.

So, as much as I'm going to Paris to work on my second draft, I have a feeling much of the 'work' won't be writing. It will be wandering and staring at people. Eavesdropping. It will be going to strange burlesque shows and cabarets. It will be taking copious notes about being body-checked in the customs line and getting snubbed at the patisserie (which won't actually happen this time because I KNOW THE RULES NOW).

Maybe I'll even get brave enough to ask Surly Manager at La Fourmi what her freaking PROBLEM is.

Last time, I thought the writing was the core of my Parisian experience. Now I know the reverse is true: the experience is the core of the writing.

And YOU dear readers are going to benefit from this fact. Get ready for a daily account of Gay Paree as it really is.

Well...as it is from perspective of a girl who knows no one but lesbians and dominatrixes (dominatrices?). Who refuses to stand in line at anything resembling an Eiffel Tower or a Louvre. Who will be the only Caucasian living in a certain government-subsidized housing block across the street from the cemetery – in a studio full of taxidermied animals and 1960s nostalgia. And for whom a successful day is one where I get invited to a drag show or transsexual coming out party.

Oh, DAHLINGS...it's gonna be a trip.

Day 164: T-Minus Seven Days

2009-02-08T11:29:00.005-07:00

Pardon me, but do you people realize I leave for Paris Part Deux in seven sleeps?! Are you kidding me? I've been so blender-drinked by this depression project that I haven't had one second to let this fact sink in. Which is probably a good thing because Paris? Brings out the crazy.

The jungle drums have been beating loud in my head for the past two days. Basically, everything I look upon – my house, my car, my clothes, my lifestyle, my shoe options, my hair cut – is now foreign, questionable and altogether NOT GOOD ENOUGH. Poor Boyfriend...he's subject to my withering gaze, too.

Not Parisian enough. Not sexy enough. Not adventurous and romantic and Calgon-take-me-away enough.

And I'm thinking: 'You leave for Paris in seven days...all things adventurous are coming. So why don't you take a frickin' POWDER Jones and relax?'

Sorry. When the jungle drums kick in, logic and reason are OUT.

I emailed Shea, who is a new friend and therefore not sick to death of my constant overanalysis and questioning.

Here was her reply: "OF COURSE it makes you crazy. It's totally supposed to. If I were running off to Paris for a month, I would seriously be questioning everything in MY life, too. Dude. You'd have to be some kind of MACHINE to avoid this. We're talking Paris, dude. City of Light. City of Romance. The whole reason to go to Paris is to change your life."

Shea has this new business where she is your wing woman as you ride the swells of insanity that creative process or dream-living entails. I did not fully understand the depths of her talent until this morning. I predict ridiculous amounts of success for her.

And I already feel better knowing my insanity isn't the STRANGE kind of insanity, just NORMAL kind. Whew.

Day 162.7: To The Victor Go The Abs

2009-02-06T17:01:00.002-07:00

Being freelance for the last year and a half – and 'unemployed and crazy' for the past six months – has really decreased the thrill of a good, old fashioned Friday night. But tonight? I FEEL IT.

Because I did it. I got them all done.

If I wasn't so thoroughly exhausted I'd be grabbin' a six pack and hittin' 'er hard. But I'm an old broad and that would make me sleepy. And really, I hate beer in a can. Which is what I think when I think 'six pack.' Unless the context of the conversation includes Erik Dane. *Shudders with pleasure*

ADHD sidebar: FOX News runs a story (last August) on who has the best abs in Hollywood (David Beckham). But they show me NO ABS in the article. A picture of Becks' FACE?! I don't want to see his face. Help me help you FOX News. Gawd. I mean granted, the story was about a story from In Touch Weekly. *Blinks* On second thought, FOX News, you can't be helped.

Back to the brownies. Which is my version of a six pack.

Wait. I bet you're wondering where the FOX News diatribe came from. Well, when I thought about Erik Dane, I spontaneously Googled 'best abs in hollywood' and that's what came up.

So what if I'm shallow?! I've been thinking about depression for two weeks straight. A girl needs to CUT LOOSE.

Brownies and Becks. That's what I call cutting loose.

Oh hey, cool. Look what happens when you Google 'david beckham abs':

Um. Waitaminute. I'm not looking at his abs.

Are you looking at his abs?

Day 162: What I Think When I Write About You

2009-02-06T07:00:00.000-07:00

I think very, very hard before I write about someone in this blog. Before I name names or blab about what Boyfriend did last Wednesday. Because, as you might understand, I actually have to LIVE with these people.

These aren't random strangers who pop out of nowhere and provide funny material for me to use. These are people I love who have feelings and who have to walk around knowing that the Internet knows about that thing on their face or how their feet smell.

These are the hazards of loving a writer. And these are the hazards of being one.

There are certain people I won't write about. I am, for example, terrified to write about my father. Even though his over-grim demeanor, aversion to uncertainty and ghastly toenails would provide pages of hilarity.

I'm just not there yet.

(Because he's still alive.)

I can write about my mother more easily. I don't know if this is because she rarely reads my blog or that she's more open to it than Pop. But I feel bad poking fun at her because she's also the type who takes it to heart. The mole hair thing comes up in conversation every second week. I don't know how much more she could take.

Drea I rarely worry about, but that's mostly because it's almost impossible to say something bad about someone that thoroughly good. Damn her. Other friends and family I deal with on a case by case basis, knowing I should mostly err on the side of shutting the hell up.

Boyfriend is a tough one, partly because I literally have to live with him and partly because I respect the man's intense need for privacy. The other side of that coin is his refusal to censor me or limit my expression in any way. He lets me be me on the page and in the world and suffers the consequences of that more than he'd like, I'm sure.

I've come to the conclusion with myself that I write out of love. I write about people from a loving place, even if it does involve fever dreams or mole hairs, and that's the best I can do. I can't NOT write and I can't NOT write about people because THIS is my style. I've not been called to write obituaries or Harlequin romance. My task is to use my experiences to entertain and, perhaps, enlighten. To speak the truth as I see it and try to make life feel a little bit lighter. So, be ye warned all those who cross my path. But be ye flattered, too.

Day 161: Spin Around Three Times and Tug Your Right Ear

2009-02-05T14:05:00.006-07:00

So I wrote that big group-hug of a post about the Crazy Train, but I never actually TOLD you what kind of crazy I was dealing with. But that's because I would have cried if I did. I'm better now.

Here goes. 'Member that depression project? 'Member the seven scripts I needed to write? 'Member how I killed myself all last week writing them and forgoing things like dinner and sleep in order to stay one step ahead of the barking, ravenous dogs at my heels?

(You probably didn't know about the dogs.)

Well. Turns out most of the work I did last week was for NOTHING because we (meaning me) were on the COMPLETELY WRONG TRACK. So I spend 30-something hours writing stuff that I will now be deleting. I'm starting from scratch.

And it's all due Friday.

Which would be tomorrow.

Are you feeling the crazy? I'm feeling the crazy.

So after that super-fun conversation with my client, I had a wee cry. And then I made a massive cup of tea and went back to the drawing board.

My mom contributed a thought, which I used not only in the script but to get me through this desperate holy-crap-I'm-screwed moment: "Sometimes the big picture is too scary. Just look at one corner."

I worked through the script moment by moment and I started to feel that weird kind of efficient flow people get when they have to plan funerals for their loved ones and you think how the hell are they STANDING let alone ordering flowers and printing invitations and shaking my hand?

I sent it off and I huddled in front of the fire, rocking back and forth and drooling.

The next morning, I got the email. They loved it. Like LOOOOOOOVED. I had to read the email seven times to believe it, but it's true. I effing NAILED it.

Which is great...only I wrote it in that weird adrenaline fugue where mothers lift cars off their infant children. I mean, come on, they are not actually that strong and obviously that first script was a FLUKE. I can't possibly deliver six more just like it. Clearly that was a coincidence and I can never, ever, ever recreate the mysterious ju-ju that inspired it.

Maybe I can get Boyfriend to fire a gun at me a few times and get me all freaked out and panicky. Maybe I'll hire a pack of rabid dogs to chase me around the block or maybe, please God, they'll just put me out of my misery and FIRE me.

For delivering a script they are salivating over? Oh God. I'm screwed.

Day 160: All Aboard the Crazy Train

2009-02-04T16:39:00.006-07:00

When I worked at WHERE Magazine, at least once every production cycle either Dulcy or I would end up crying. We called it the Crazy Train. Well, she coined it. I jumped on board.

When life is swirling so fast you can't possibly survive the Mach 10 insanity. When you're yelling at the carny to stop the ride only he can't hear you because he bailed out five miles back. When you're punch-drunk from all the shit hitting the fan. That's the Crazy Train.

At WHERE it was always that point in the process when we couldn't see how making a magazine was humanly possible because so many things had gone wrong and so many people were assholes. Sales closed late. Nothing was ready. And no one seemed to see the disaster looming except one of us.

Usually, I'd get an email from Dulce about how she didn't sleep the night before and was trapped on the express route to Crazytown. I'd dial her extension and say, 'Get over here.' And we'd hang out until both of us were laughing.

My Crazy Train journeys frequently had to do with my divorce. Dulce was there when it happened and was like oxygen to me during the worst of it. She was the one who held me up on days I didn't think I could fake it for another second.

Later, after we both left the magazine and everything changed, I'd get an email every once and awhile with a subtext of: HANG ON. Sometimes, I'd feel a ripple in the fabric of space-time and I'd send a similar note. These emails were always right on time. Just when the swirl of black oblivion had opened up and whispered, "Jump!"

It's encouraging to have someone well-tuned to my insanity.

It's also nice not to have to explain what's going on or why it's turned you into a clawing, shrieking jungle cat. You just say Crazy Train and that's enough. It's shorthand for, "I'm drowning, now throw a fucking rope."

I could wish our friendship was something different. And she might wish that, too. Maybe that we were soul mates for things like cupcake cravings or the deep need to watch Meg Ryan movies in our jammies. But that ain't us.

We're dark and sticky with railroad tar. Our hair is messy and we smell a little burnt. We're bonded by the Crazy Train. It isn't pretty sometimes, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Day 158: You Give Me Fevah

2009-02-02T17:18:00.004-07:00

Saturday morning I had a little cough. I didn't think much of it, but when Drea heard me barking over the phone, she said, "Uh-oh. You better watch that. Sounds like croup. It can turn into pneumonia, y'know." I didn't think much of that either. She's a mother – she's supposed to worry.

Within two hours, I was racked with fever, chills and bones so achy I considered surgically removing them myself. Damn her for being right.

The timing of this freight train fever was a little awkward, however, because I was the guest of honour at a bon voyage dinner party that night. I had to go. Like HAD to. I put on six sweaters and got in my car.

At the party, I walked around getting hugs from everybody because I was in that pre-sick state where all you really want is your mommy and someone to rub your back for awhile. Most of the party guests obliged me. I might have pissed off some wives. Whatever.

The next morning, the fever was still there, but I'd promised to drive Boyfriend to the annual festival of binge drinking known as the Superbowl Party. I was miserable and sick. He was toting forties of tequila, Baja Rosa and Jagermeister.

For the rest of the day, I duked it out with the fever that wouldn't quit, waiting for Drunken Boyfriend to call for a ride. The words "take a frickin' cab" were ever-present in my mind, of course, but luckily, some other sucker's girlfriend agreed to take my sucker home.

She was pissed off. I don't blame her because she, like me, probably believes that men who are over thirty should:
a) not be doing anything that involves Baja Rosa,
b) not be binge drinking their faces off on a Sunday evening and
c) the previous two points being ignored, not be asking for rides home from smart people who chose not to do four hundred shooters in an afternoon.

Boyfriend arrived home, sloshed and enjoying the beginnings of the Fever Freight Train that had been kicking my ass for 24 hours.

He stood shaking in the shower until the hot water ran out. Then he ran a bath and swore at it for being cold. Finally he descended into the kind of fever dream peyote trip that would make Jim Morrison jealous.

"We can break it," he mumbled in the dark. "We can break it." He thrashed and pounded on his side of the bed, while I tried to get some sleep. I don't know who sold him that line of bunk about throwing a bowling ball on one side of the pillow-top mattress and the other side not feeling a thing. It's not bloody true.

"Quit it," I growled irrationally through the fever haze. "West by northeast," he replied. I followed that strange compass bearing...all the way to the spare room.

TGIM #5

2009-02-02T15:35:00.005-07:00

Today's TGIM star is my mama. I have four thousand photos of her, but none of them digital. Except for this too-dark-but-still-gorgeous one of her and Pop in Fiji. Although you can barely see their faces, I've never seen my parents this happy. But, hey, I hear a week in Fiji followed by six months in Australia does that to people.

So here's my mom's TGIM contribution. Short n' sweet...just like her.

Name: Charlotte Jones
Age: Looks 40-something. Is 50-something.

Occupation: The woman has so many letters behind her name she needs two business cards. She has a PhD in biochemistry and she's an endocrinologist (means doctor) who specializes in community-based health research.

Things You Can't Tell By Looking At Her: Ran her first marathon at age 50, spent a year in Australia when she was a kid (and her house burned down!), started med school at age 36, is capable of eating her body weight in salad in one sitting.

What are you grateful for?
I'm grateful for having special people in my life who love me back. It's soppy but it's true.

What's the most awesomest thing in your life right now?
It's awesome to be here in New Zealand and loving it, and at the same time, missing and loving my beautiful home.

Day 156: Doug the Shark

2009-01-31T11:52:00.006-07:00

Spent the afternoon with Gramps yesterday in his seniors' residence. The one where there's six dudes to probably 200 ladies. Gramps likes those odds. He takes full advantage. Around his granddaughters, he's a proper gent. But get him around Joy, the 60-something blonde firecracker and watch out. He gets his flirt on like nobody's business.

Gramps plays pool with Joy a few times a week. I suggested he teach me to play, thinking maybe Joy would join us and I could watch him in action. But Joy's a busy woman. "I wish I could stay and play," she said brightly, turning on the Enrique Inglesias CD for us before she left. "Oh, I bet you would," Gramps growled back at her, squeezing her arm. Joy giggled and squirmed like a school girl.

This man is NINETY-FIVE.

And even though I'd imagined my first billiards experience to be more Coyote Ugly and less Tuesdays With Morrie, Gramps and I had a lot of fun just the two of us. As long as I had the ambulance on speed-dial, that is.

He may be a walking Viagra commercial, but there were points when I thought it was game over for dear old Douglas. Every once and awhile, he'd lean over and appear to be gasping silently for breath. I'd start lunging for my cell phone, but then he'd straighten up and say, "Yellow. Corner pocket," like nothing was wrong.

The man is a shark.

And mostly blind.

I'm baffled how someone who can't see past his nose can manage to get a 3-inch ball into a tiny hole eight feet away. Does he guess? Is it a fluke? Or it some kind of Obi Wan Kenobi Jedi Master trick?

Don't get me wrong: he wasn't perfect. He's totally colourblind, so half the time he'd call pink and shoot yellow. And he just avoided the dark-coloured balls altogether because he can't decipher green to save his life and refuses to admit it.

And if I was ever searching for the roots of my perfectionism, I think I've found it in Gramps. "That just burns me up," he'd grumble after botching a shot that required him to hoist his bony century-old ass up onto the table and from shoot behind his back. "There's something fundamentally wrong with my aim."

He's lying about his age. I'm sure of it.

Day 154: Breakdown, Breakthrough, Break Dance

2009-01-29T17:17:00.006-07:00

I joke about depression a lot, dropping one-liners and innuendos, calling myself a mood swinger, calling myself crazy. I joke about it because a relapse of depression is my greatest fear. It’s with me almost every single day and the jokes help me make it seem smaller than it is.

The really scary thing about depression is there is no bottom. The black hole just keeps on going, so falling back into it is about the worst thing I can imagine. Think about what it would feel like to plunge down a hole that never ended – that constant loose-guts feeling of free-fall. If there’s a hell, that’s what it would be for me.

I was on medication for six years, starting a drug called Celexa one week before my husband left. I started feeling better immediately, and I’ll never know if it was the meds or him leaving that helped me come out of four years of almost-constant horror and pain.

Whatever it was took that free-fall feeling away. I could function. I could feel happy. I could focus and move forward in my life – get a job, get a boyfriend, set goals like marathons and Ironman and actually have the capacity to complete them. But I always that niggling, uncomfortable feeling that I had to take happy pills to get through a day.

In the six years I was on meds, I tried to get off them several times. Each time, I would gradually decrease the dose until I was down to half a pill every few days. If I took one on Monday, by Wednesday, I’d start to feel lightheaded and a little woozy. By Thursday, I’d feel like I was going to pass out and by Friday, I’d be nauseous, dizzy and barely able to stand. This pass-out brain-damaged feeling was not depression. It was withdrawal symptoms from a medication that my body was addicted to. They don’t tell you this when you start antidepressants.

But beyond the withdrawal, there was a more subtle feeling. The feeling of jumping without a parachute. Or tightrope walking without a safety net. The feeling you could fall at any time. That feeling kept me from going off meds for many years.

Finally, last spring after returning from Paris, I weaned myself down to a quarter of a pill every few days. Then one day, I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I took the meds and I guessed that meant I was off them.

The funny thing was, as I was going off my meds, I was slipping into a depression. Common sense would say I should have stayed on them. But I was done. I was through not knowing what was actually happening in my body. Through medicating an illness that I now felt was linked to me not living an authentic life.

Because what Paris did is it told me I am an artist. It told me that living this fake parallel life – where ‘creative’ meant writing hardwood floor ads – was not enough. Living a fake version of your life seemed to be a good way to make yourself depressed, so I tried an experiment. I put the pill bottle away and committed to my creative work. I started writing a memoir of my trip to Paris, a book about being authentic and realizing your dreams.

It was tough going. It seemed like every couple of days I had some kind of panic attack or micro-breakdown. I questioned everything in my life, including my boyfriend who I put through the wringer on a daily basis. He was the only person who saw me every day and who knew what was going on – as much as anyone can know another person’s experience – but every day I considered ending our relationship.

People kept telling me it was the writing – that the creative process is tough and tumultuous. Some blamed my boyfriend for stifling my creativity. Some suggested I should do something else, date someone else, move somewhere else. But I ignored everyone and kept going, enduring bad day after bad day after bad day. Sometimes, I’d cry all day. I’d pull out that pill bottle and stare at it for a very long time. But I never took one.

I was operating on faith. I had no rational reason to believe things would work out – I’d never heard of a clinical study saying creative work increases seratonin levels. But deep in my gut, I had this feeling that if I kept going, kept writing, everything would work out.

In December, I started feeling better. I finished the first draft of my book and I celebrated a feeling of possibility for the first time in months. I also realized I had four months of blog posts about my daily mental breakdown and a two-month period where I very publicly debated breaking up with my boyfriend. I was embarrassed and ashamed. I felt terrible for having dragged him through hell for half a year and documenting the whole process on the Internet.

In mid-January, I spent a couple of days in the mountains with a friend of mine. It was there I realized I’d been off my medication for six months. That, for the first time, I was living my real life as my true self. That I’d freed myself from depression and medication, that I was living my dream of being an artist.

And also that I’d been holding myself to a standard of perfection the whole time.

I had struggled like hell for six months and the whole time, I’d beat myself up for not being perfect. For not being instantly cured and instantly happy. For taking five months to write a first draft instead of two. For not calling people back.

I’m not sure what the lesson is here, to be perfectly honest. Whether it’s about the power of living your dreams or some sad fucking parable about the perils of perfectionism. But here I am. And here it is.

Right now I’m working on a course to help teenagers with depression. It’s rewarding work, but it’s bringing up all kinds of feelings I’ve been packing down and hiding from for years. It’s making me see my own denial – I’ve been studiously ignoring my depression since I took that first pill six and a half years ago.

Writing about it makes it all REAL again. It’s scary and it’s hard and I feel like I’m passing through a kind of portal. Like on the other side of this difficult but necessary work, there is a whole new world waiting for me.

I’m removing a huge heavy coat that I’ve been carrying for ten years and I don’t know what to do once this weight is off me. I feel like I’m fumbling with the buttons, not sure if I even want to take it off. That if I take off this weight, anything is possible, and that wide-open Anything is terrifying. I don’t know why I feel this, but I do. I guess I’m operating on faith...again and still. I guess it’s all I know how to do.

Day 153: TEQUILA!

2009-01-28T14:35:00.004-07:00

My friend Crystal is from Saskatchewan and she likes to party. I worked with her at TAG Advertising last year. Every couple of months or so, the TAG crew gets together at the Ship & Anchor for burgers and fries. (Boogers and flies, as I like to call them.) And EVERY TIME, Crystal secretly orders a round of tequila shots. Every. Time.

What also happens every time is that I go into a deep state of tequila denial. Deep down, I reject the notion that she will force me to knock back a shooter at 1 pm on a Wednesday and so, I order a beer. Because burgers and beers go together so nicely. So I've got a pint of beer in me by the time the tequila shows up and I am scuh-REWED for the rest of the day.

You'd think you could Just Say No to Crystal's uncanny manipulative powers. But you're wrong. You're drinking that tequila whether you like it or not. Peer pressure: not just for teenagers any more.

But, part of TAG's mystique is an ethos of dogged hard work and grotesque amounts of overtime. So our lunches barely last an hour. Wham, bam, thank you ma'am – I'm drunk as a lord and they're back at their desks. I don't know how they function. And I can't exactly sit there in a scuzzy pub booth by myself for two hours until I can see straight.

So this time, I went easy on the beer, drinking so slowly, I ended up leaving half the pint on the table. (Some people call this alcohol abuse.) And then I did the sneaky trick I worked out after one too many drunken afternoon naps in the TAG bathroom. This trick is called 'Pour Tequila On My Salad.'

While everyone else's head is tossed back in full shooter glory, I dump half my booze into my salad bowl. Then I make a big show of groaning in tequila-gunshot-wound agony and sucking on the lime. Works every time.

And for those who must know, the answer is YES it's worth paying $5 for a shooter I didn't shoot. Crystal scares me.

Day 152: Bad Girlfriend Rides Again

2009-01-27T19:45:00.008-07:00

Boyfriend hates when I write about him. I don't blame him. Living with someone who may or may not put everything you say and do on the Interweb was SO not what he signed up for. But, I like to think he doesn't mind it if I end up being the villain. This is what I tell myself.

I've been to see three theatre shows in the past few days. Boyfriend was present at none of them. He comes to MY shows and that's about it. He'd rather watch hockey than men in makeup. I get it. Normally, it's no big deal to go out on my own, but Monday's outing led to what I like to call A Fight.

First off, we don't really fight, Boyfriend and me. Well, I fight. He doesn't. He just calmly tells me I have completely fucked up and he moves on. Me? I kick and scream and drag us through hell for reasons that, right at the moment, elude me. Usually, it has something to do with watching too many romantic comedies during my Divorce Recovery phase.

So Monday night, a night where Boyfriend thought we were having a Date Night, I went to the theatre. Why did he think we were having a Date Night? Because I suggested it. Why did I go to the theatre? Because I totally forgot about ever suggesting a date night and I told my friend Chris I'd go see his show in June and I didn't and then I said I'd go see his show in January and oh-shit Monday was the last night.

So I go to the theatre BAFFLED as to why Boyfriend is giving me attitude.

I watch Chris' show and then have a beer with Mark Hopkins (Captain Laid Back & Under 30) and Hopkins says he can get me into ANOTHER show at 9:30 for FREE, so I say HELL YES and we go to that.

Now. In between all these shows and unbridled spontenaeity, I do not call Boyfriend. I do not text him. I do not send him smoke signals. In no way do I communicate what the hell I'm doing or why.

Because I'm a wild and crazy artist and I do what I want. The thing is, my need to do whatever the hell I want doesn't mesh so well with Boyfriend's need for me not to be at the bottom of a seven-car pileup...or a seven-man orgy for that matter. 'Specially on our special night.

You know when you're the partner that's sitting at home? And you think, 'Ok a show at 7, she'll be back by 9...still sort of date night.' And then 10 o'clock happens and you start to imagine horrible things. And 11 o'clock happens and you start to get MAD. And the mad mixes with the worry and the scenarios in your head start to involve red leather handcuffs and then midnight happens and she comes home and you're actually a little DISAPPOINTED she wasn't in a twisted metal serial killer sandwich with the area cordoned off by police tape and the need for dental records?

That was Boyfriend's Monday night. MY Monday night was music, dancing girls, laughing and good conversation. SOMEONE sure got the shaft on that one.

Day 151: I Got Nothing Either

2009-01-27T08:36:00.006-07:00

So I sit down this morning, internally freaking out about the seven half-hour video scripts I have to write in the next four days and thinking, "OMG! Does anyone else smell Impending Doom?" And I try to write a blog post because it's been three or four days since I've done that which is lame and....I got nothin'. My brain is so far beyond empty it's frightening.

I cast about for a bit, watching the Internal Freak-Out-O-Meter tip into the red zone and I end up on Shea's blog. Apropos because her blog's called The Daily Freak Out and even MORE apropos because today's post is called: "Sometimes, I Got Nothing."

God love her.

I TOTALLY got nuthin' today. Which is kind of weird because I've seen three really cool theatre shows in the past four days and therefore SHOULD have something interesting to say about them. But all I keep writing is versions of: I saw some really cool theatre. You woulda liked it.

This blank-brain is completely and utterly due to the fact that I've been swallowed by this depression project. So, my apologies. I'm giving all my energy to the depressed kids right now. But, if all goes really well, something HILARIOUS will happen between right now and tomorrow morning.

TGIM #4

2009-01-26T06:52:00.007-07:00

Today's TGIM poster child is...me. Mostly because my planned TGIMer, who is seven years old, wanted to play Uno instead and was way too tired anyway and got sent to bed before we could talk.

Name: Melanie Jones
Age: 32
Occupation: Writer, performer, (mood) swinger

Things You Can't Tell By Looking At Me (Or By Reading This Blog): Very little. I'm an open book, but not too many people know I own a button-thing that plays a bit of 'Don't Worry Be Happy' by Bobby McFerrin when you press it. That's not really a secret, though. That's a 'you haven't rummaged around in my drawers much, have you?' The real secret is that I DO press it and it DOES make me be happy. Also, I always know where my passport is. And two of my secret dreams are to be a cabaret singer and to learn to draw.

What are you grateful for?
I am grateful for this giant cup of hot tea I'm sipping. I'm grateful for all the people in my life who love and support me. I'm grateful to know there is a path of bread crumbs for me to follow. I'm grateful for creativity, espresso and the truth.

What is the most awesomest thing in your life right now?
One awesome thing is that I've realized (once again) that I'm supposed to perform. I may be a writer, but down to my DNA, I'm a performer, too. I don't know why I resist this fact because it's true in the sense that oxygen is true. Or gravity.

But THE most awesomest thing is that I leave for Paris in two weeks and six days. That's 20 sleeps until delicious cheese, super-smelly Metro stations and a city so full of stories it makes my head spin.

Day 147: Oh God, Now I Hafta DO It

2009-01-23T17:04:00.006-07:00

It's the morning after agreeing to work my bony butt off for the next three weeks. Annnnnnnd I'm terrified. This is typical of my "process" – the great build up to scoring a fabulous project, the celebration of getting it and now, the abject horror of actually having to follow through.

This is the part where I wonder why the hell I put myself out there in the first place and couldn't have been happy to sit around reading novels and watching my bank balance retreat faster than Bill Zane's hairline.

Why do I always dooooooo this? I ask myself, in a really whiny inner-head voice. Why do I always say yesssssss? [See Freak Show for further details.]

Sometimes I go to Boyfriend, pouting like a three-year-old, and he tells me something like: You do this because you love it and you might be scared right now, but that will fuel you.

Then I say something like: But I don't wannnnnaaaaaa! And then he sends me up to the bath (a.k.a. hydro-psycho-therapy). And later I think how lucky I am to have my very own personal computer programmer psychiatrist nanny.

But today, I did something different. I looked at my newly revised JOY Plan list for January and worked on a delicious portfolio of writing samples for the Haiti/India/Zambia photo documentary project.

In other words, oops, I'm about to do it again.

Pitching a new creative project has become like dating used to be. The thrill! The anticipation! Do they like me? Could they love me? You tell me the difference between a project proposal and the first three dates. Go on. Try.

The only trouble with the proposal (and proposals of any kind, I might add) is that afterwards? You gotta freaking commit.

Day 146: Awkward Professional Moment of the Week

2009-01-22T13:35:00.006-07:00

So, I meet with the depression project people and the film dudes they have on board and finally after six weeks of total and utter vagueness, this project begins to take shape. It looks like I've been chosen as the writer...although no one has officially told me as such, which is a tad on the weird side but I'm rolling with it.

Regardless. We go through the structure of each 'course module' which is basically ten or so video segments. We chat through what the host will say and blah blah video stuff blah. And as we talk, I realize two things.

One is that spending all that time (as in THREE DAYS STRAIGHT) writing them a proposal was, in fact, pointless. Because what they actually want is drastically different than what they said they want which was, 'We don't know what we want.'

Moving on.

The other thing I glean is that not only am I the writer of this project, but I am the on-camera host, relating personal stories of my experience with depression and about my own spiritual practice.

In the timeless word of Keanu Reeves: whoa.

Turns out, I'm a three-for-one special on this gig. I have TV hosting experience, I'm a writer and I was once coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs. I knew my mental illness would pay off one day!

So this leaves my to-do-before-leaving-for-Paris list looking like this:
1. Bust out 8 video scripts with 10 segments each, including a total of 30 or 40 personal stories and anecdotes related to depression and spirituality. Because we all have a big pile of those lying around.
2. Get the scripts approved by a committee of researchers who took forever to maybe-possibly hire me and by a not-yet-formed focus group of teenagers
3. Expose myself (emotionally) in front of a camera for three very long shooting days
4. File three years of taxes
5. Pack

It's fine.

What's not so fine is that I left the meeting elated but with no idea how much I'm being paid. So, halfway out the door, I decide to go back in and clarify this important lil' detail. I poke my head around the corner to find my two clients whispering with each other.

One looks up at me. She's clearly mid-rant and is CRYING. She gives me a black look that says something like, "Well, isn't this fucking great."

I apologize profusely and begin to back away, only to be stopped in my tracks by the other client-lady who decides it's a good time for small talk. She tells me that she's only working part-time and blah blah something about her cell phone.

Meanwhile, Crying Client and I are standing there humiliated and wishing we were never born. I decide I'd rather work for free than stand there any longer, but the cell phone thing is still happening and WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME THIS and then finally, finally it's over and I shrink out the door.

Day 145: Writing Your Day

2009-01-21T17:01:00.004-07:00

My new internet soulmate, Shea, asked me to be a part of a new feature on her blog, a conversation with a creative person called WHIP (Wonderful. Horrible. Intermittent. Progress). Love it. Love her.

She emailed me the questions and I wrote about my expectations (lofty) vs. my reality (humbling). About my process (spastic), fake nicknames (The Closer) and how my sweater smells (milky).

Near the end was the seemingly innocuous question: What's on your to-do list for tomorrow? At first, I wrote things like 'finishing the depression project proposal' and 'watching the Lost premiere with friends.'

Then Writer Me looked at the list and thought, 'That's a boring story.' So I got a bit creative. I added some sensual details like "while sipping a delicious coffee" and "drinking pregnant Carly's portion of the wine." I added more whooping and high fiving. I balanced out my day and made it a little yummier.

I wrote my day before it happened and this morning, I became a character in a story that began to unfold as soon as I opened my eyes. I'll never look at to-do lists the same again.

Would I have exercised if I hadn't written it in? Nope. Would I have read more of Dan Pink's awesome book about right-brainers ruling the future? Doubt it. Would I have made today even HALF as delicious? Uh uh.

My day probably would have been just a day. A blah, featureless to-do list that I moved through unconsciously. But today was different. Today was a creation.

Day 144: JOY Plan, the Remix

2009-01-21T07:00:00.000-07:00

So, it's been, like, five-ish months since I started my JOY (Just One Year) Plan – 365 days of living the life of an artist. In the original plan, I was to write a book in six weeks and be finished on September 15th. Yeah, didn't happen. And then I was going to get an agent and a contract by, oh, NOW. WTF?

So anyway, it's time for a revised, remixed and realistic re-write of the JOY Plan. Here's how it's gone down so far and where I'm headed for the second half.

AUGUST 2008 (Prologue)
Work on first draft of Paris dreams memoir
Have daily panic attacks about jumping off the creative cliff

SEPTEMBER 2008 (Official start)
Banff Centre residency
Keep working on memoir
Avoid selling car because renting condo was so exhausting
Watch market crash and realize everybody's lost their Subaru-buying money
Kick self, cry a little

OCTOBER 2008
Work on memoir
Begin to go slightly crazy
Decide not to go to Paris (because I'm crazy)

NOVEMBER 2008
Still working on memoir
Still crazy

DECEMBER 2008
Write every day for 30 days
Finish first draft of memoir
Become suddenly less crazy
Wonder how I'll ever make it through this year with the economy in the shitter and no one buying my car/soon-to-be home

JANUARY 2009
Remember this plan was supposed to be about JOY
Decide to get open to possibility, play and fun
Perform at the High Performance Rodeo
Get offered a free month in Paris
Start work on teen depression project
Send in portfolio of writing samples to Haiti, India, Zambia clean water project

FEBRUARY 2009
Leave for Paris
Collect stories and experiences
Wish that I'd started studying French when I said I would (September)
Eat frightening quantities of cheese
Work on second draft of memoir

MARCH 2009
Return from Paris
Finish depression project
Open letter from Canada Council for the Arts telling me I got a big, juicy grant
Pass out near mailbox
Keep working on second draft of memoir
Begin planning for grant-funded essay collection

APRIL/MAY/JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2009
Work on memoir until, by the grace of God, it's ready to send to agents
Write essays so funny they hurt
Stay open to adventure, possibility and mojitos
Travel to Haiti, India and Zambia if I get the clean water project

SEPTEMBER 1st, 2009
Celebrate living as an artist for one year
Instantly become rich, famous and better-looking
Turn down invitations from celebrities because I can
Bathe in champagne
Keep on writing...

Day 143: Neuroses A Go-Go

2009-01-20T08:34:00.004-07:00

I am neurotic. I think we can all agree on that. I've already settled on my personal product tagline, which is: Making It Harder Since 1976.

Get your mind out of the gutter.

Anyhoo, I booked my ticket to Paris this morning. It's easy to book a ticket. Frighteningly easy, actually. Just plug in a few details on an online form and POOF...you are outta here. Makes you wonder why you stay in any one place.

But, getting to the point where you pull the trigger with your VISA number? That's a different story.

The universe (care of my friend Dana) served up a Parisian studio. The universe (care of my parents and points) served up a plane ticket. I had a month in Paris delivered on a silver platter. I was spectacularly, jaw-droppingly grateful. And then I began to screw things up.

Hey, I said to Boyfriend, maybe you should come.

(Cue doom music.)

Hey, I said to myself, maybe I should stay longer.

(Cue thunder.)

Hey, I said to anyone who would listen, maybe I should now suddenly question everything in my life.

(Cue lightning and the Hand of God.)

Paris makes me nutty. Or maybe it's more like Paris is a catalyst for all my weird beliefs to rally and throw a freak-out party just to remind me they're there.

Here's one fun belief: the people who so-called love me are really out to get me. They don't actually want me to go to Paris or live my dreams – they just want me to quit rocking the boat.

So I go ahead and get my claws out. I get preemptively defensive because, hell yes, this is the hill I'll die on. Meanwhile, the (slightly baffled) people who love me continue to say what they've always said: We're thrilled for you. Do what's best for you. We'll work around whatever comes up.

Hello, Paranoia.

I've spent the last week, not celebrating a month in Paris, but writhing under the pressure of people's imagined expectations. And now, after spinning in circles for several days, I'm right back where I started: with the precious, precious gift of a month to write in Paris.

My ticket is booked. I'm on my way. My neuroses are, thanks to President Obama's inauguration speech, sitting quietly in the corner. Because, seriously, what's important here? Be grateful for what you have. Live the moments of your life. Love well, live your dreams. And, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, get out of your own way.

TGIM #3

2009-01-19T07:00:00.001-07:00

I have shy friends. Friends who, when you bring out a camera with the friendly suggestion that they pose for a TGIM photo, scream and run away. Clearly, they are not grateful for my digital camera.

Anyhoo, today's TGIM is not just one shy person, but three of them. Four if you count Boyfriend who needs three days to think before answering my questions. These three friends came over on Sunday morning for an hour and a half basement bike ride followed by a delicious brunch. My butt hurts.

Name: Colette Hubner. Also known as Nicole, Michelle or Colleen by the people who can't remember her name.
Age: Old. (Her words, not mine.)
Occupation: Runs Wallace Galleries downtown with her mom.
Things You Can't Tell By Looking At Her: Has an earless cat, is a kick-ass climber, is the one person in my life who truly 'works to live' by traveling and adventuring all over the world at every chance she gets.
What are you grateful for?
My friends.
What is the most awesomest thing in your life right now?
The fact that I get to plan and organize a fundraising event for Peace Mexico. We're raising money for kids, cats and dogs. (And then she whipped off her sweatshirt to show us a t-shirt which had the words Spay On! on the back.)

Name: Lisa Stirling
Age: 29
Occupation: Post-grad super-smartie exercise scientist doing research for Adidas by making her friends run for long periods on treadmills while covered in electrodes. (We got free shoes!)
Things You Can't Tell By Looking At Her: Is the fastest, most bad-ass female cyclist I know, said 'Screw a Masters' and jumped from a BSc straight to a PhD.
What are you grateful for?
I'm grateful for this moment in my life where I feel settled. After my dad and PhD and stuff. I have a job, I got married – I'm in a period where I'm reaping the rewards of all the things I struggled with. (Her father was in a horrific motorcycle accident in 2005. When I say horrific, I mean three years of rehabilitation horrific.)
What's the most awesomest thing in your life right now?
Feeling like I belong somewhere.

Name: Ross Stirling
Age: I'm 3 times 3 times 3 plus 3 plus 3 plus 3. (Means he's 33.)
Things You Can't Tell By Looking At Him: Is a four or five time Ironman (I lost count), was my triathlon coach, loves superheroes and is my one non-writer friend who actually DOES have a novel in him...although he many not know it.
What are you grateful for?
Underdogs that beat the odds, high fives and the breakfast special. (Which breakfast special?) THE breakfast special. (Oh.)
What's the most awesomest thing in your life right now?
That I have the power to put my creative ideas into practice. I'm making it possible for people to invent things I haven't thought of. (Ross works for Garmin and designs crazy athletic testing devices.)

Name: Boyfriend
What are you grateful for?
I'll tell you later.
What are you grateful for?
I'll tell you later.
What are you grateful for?
I'll tell you later.
Sigh.

Day 140: Memoirs of a Totally Catastrophic Occurrence

2009-01-17T15:16:00.003-07:00

My two favourite sections of the bookstore are Humour and Biography, although both are riddled with literary landmines. If you can call a "bathroom reader" literary, that is. I will admit to some embarrassment standing in front of a shelf that includes 'Porn for Mommies' – a book filled with glossy photos of men changing diapers and smiling.

The Biography section is no less cringe-worthy. Beween the Winston Churchill epics and the rock star rehab sagas, are hundreds and hundreds of triumph over tragedy memoirs. Your choices in this section are: beating cancer, conquering addiction and/or abuse or escaping the Taliban/Hutus/Polygamists.

As a person who writes personal narrative, I used to get down about the fact that I wasn't adopted by wolves or gang raped by nuns like all the other memoirists. Seriously: trauma sells. I mean, my lowest point wasn't selling crack out of my living room; it was grad school.

While I was writing my book, I considered taking up gas huffing to make myself (and my memoir) a little more interesting. I scoured the want ads for polygamists and distributed my resume to several local pimps. And even though I came close, I didn't even actually get cancer. Damn it.

So I wrote my story the way it was: unique in my own non-traumatic, non-carcinogenic way. And in the process, I learned to accept myself just a little bit more.

Now when I browse the My-Life-Without-Legs stories, I don't envy the poor saps who write them. If anything, I'm a bit bored. That kind of story is becoming cliche. We're an ambulance-chasing culture, only we've seen so many splatterific seven car pileups we're desensitized.

It's time for a new kind of story methinks. One that breaks through our obsession with catastrophe and destruction and looks at personal narrative in a new, surprising way. That is less about what happened to us and more about who we've become. And acknowledges that telling the truth is a creative act...which may or may not involve midgets.

Day 139: Creepy Penis Dream and Other Stories

2009-01-16T19:09:00.004-07:00

The other night, I had a dream I was acting in a movie. It wasn't a porn, but for some reason my character had to have sex with three different men. I don't know what kind of low-budget crapfest would make their actors actually have sex on screen, but this was one such crapfest.

Guh-ross.

So, the Dream Me high-tails it to the Associate Producer and tells her that under no circumstances am I cool with boffing three random dudes no matter what my contract says. She doesn't see the problem. I draw her a diagram with a pink felt pen (which could be yet-another phallic symbol, now that I think of it). She goes uh-huh, that's great, YOU'RE FIRED.

I walk off, upset and then wake up to a morning full of Dream Hangover Creep so intense it pretty much ruins my day.

My favourite cheesy dream interpretation site tells me that sex in dreams refers to psychological completion and the integration of contrasting aspects of the Self.

Uh. Wha?

Drea, my go-to dream decoder, says it's something about whoring myself out for my creative work. This kind of resonates because I'm feeling a teeeeeny bit guilty about dropping everything I promised to do between Feb 15 and March 15 and pissing off to Paris.

So there's subconscious integration, there's metaphorical prostitution and then there's the WTF dildo rocking chair scene from Burn After Reading – which I watched night before last. You be the judge.

Day 138: Maintenance Required

2009-01-15T12:39:00.004-07:00

A little while ago a light went on in my parents' car that read MAINT REQ'D. I was not very happy to see that light. Especially after the window got smashed and one of the tires went completely flat as a pancake on Christmas Day. Two days after I got TWO flats on my Subaru. In minus-30 weather. Late at night.

So that light, the one that reads MAINT REQ'D, is the last thing I need. And the way it stares at me, bright and expectant, every time I turn the car on? It's like a metaphor or something. Maintenance required, man. For everything. Taxes, bills, laundry, dishes, cars, condos, relationships. Everything in life requires maintenance and, right now, it effin' bugs me.

Because right now seems to be one of those bizarre periods of total convergence when everything that could possibly need maintenance needs maintenance RIGHT THIS SECOND. My parents' car is one thing...three things if you count the tire, the window and that godforsaken light. Plus the Subaru.

Then there's the bounced rent cheque I have to chase down from my parents' tenant. The leaking something in my condo, which has led to water damage. The broken fireplace in Canmore that's taken two months (so far) to get fixed. The library books. The fact that I'm three years behind on taxes and really need to renegotiate my cell phone plan. The mountain of laundry that refuses to wash itself. The soap scum in the shower hardening into sedimentary rock as I write. My office that gets scarier and scarier every day with murderous dust bunnies and teetering piles of paper. The sister that's not talking to me. The 95-year-old grandfather waiting for my call.

WTF? Where's the off-switch. The parachute? The escape hatch onto the deserted island?

Look. I know you have all this stuff, too. Except for maybe the taxes. I know that's life. I also know I'm taking care of my parents' life as well as my own so instead of one life's worth of maintenance there's two or three. But maybe this is just foreshadowing. I mean, what about the people with three kids and aging parents? How the hell do they get everything done?

This is the kind of stuff Some People are awesome at. They have their taxes filed on January 2nd and are never late with their Blockbuster videos. Their sweaters never have stains on them and their cars are annoyingly clean. I hate Some People.

And if MAINT REQ'D is a metaphor, maybe this is one of those Big Lessons I have to learn in life, along with my people-pleasing problem and tendency towards negativity. Maybe this will galvanize me to become rich ASAP so I can get a personal assistant and dump all this crap on them. Or maybe I'd like to cancel my Entropy account with the Bank of the Universe. But right now, right at this moment when the phone won't stop ringing and – oh, now I'm in charge of booking doctor's appointments for Gramps, which reminds me I haven't been to the dentist in a dog's age – I just really wish I was Victoria Beckham.

Day 136: What's Next?

2009-01-13T22:42:00.005-07:00

Dudes. I can't tell you how many emails I've received in the last two days with the subject line 'What's Next.' Clearly, I've hit on something. I like it.

One of the emails included a link to the best job in the world. $150 grand to sit on the beach in Australia and write about it. Sounds dreamy, yes? Although, really, what if you got bored? "Drank another six mai tais today. The lime is giving me mouth sores. More bikini-clad women walked by. Sigh. I'm actually tired of cleavage. Oh well, I guess I'll take a nap." Gawd. Lamest job in the world more like it.

(I don't need to tell you I'm joking, right? We're past that.)

I've been reflecting on the What's Next phenomenon and I realized something. It wasn't ME asking MYSELF what's next. It was other people doing the asking. Maybe someone asking me put me in a state of imagination, openness and possibility. Maybe they asked the question I should have been asking myself. Maybe I forgot that my life is a big, multimedia creative project and I am the artist.

Have you ever noticed that other people have grander images of your life than you have for your own? People will tell you, 'Oh, you're gonna be famous.' Or, 'Your business will be super-successful, don't worry.' And while they say these nice things, you have that little voice that says, 'Don't be so sure about that.'

I know I do it. And people do it to me. If my friends get their way, I'm going to be rich, famous, a New York Times best-seller and on Oprah. Watch for it.

Mid-last week, Boyfriend's mom gave me this cute, little sparkly silver ornament in the shape of the Eiffel Tower. On the back she had written: Paris Or Bust! I hung it in my car and as I looked at it, I got this weird feeling in my stomach. It was like, 'Wait a minute. This is possible. It's all possible.' Like I'd forgotten and the ornament reminded me.

It took me ten years to get the balls to go to Paris. I put this big dream on a pedestal and put off going so many times, eventually I forgot it was an actual, tangible option. It became a mythical thing, a metaphor, a unicorn.

But once I'd decided to go – with the help of a friend who showed me it was possible – it was a snowball. Everything came together so perfectly and smoothly, it was like the universe had it planned all along. And now, it's the same thing.

There's something about believing that it's possible – whatever that delicious, dreamy thing is for you. And maybe you don't know it until someone asks you what's next or reminds you that other people make a living directing movies, so why not you. And then you feel that thing in your belly. That YES feeling in your guts that lets you know you're on the right track.

Then maybe you ask it again: what's next? And then an answer comes in some way – some door opens, an email, a phone call, an idea – and then you say yes to that thing, too. And that's maybe how you move through life: inchworming between the What's Nexts and the Yeses. What's next? Yes. What's next? Yes. Like that. All the way to Paris.

Day 135: The Most Magical Question of Life

2009-01-12T18:00:00.006-07:00

It is entirely possible that when the homeless person smashed in my car window Saturday night, he/she also opened the window to a way for me to get myself to Gay Paree. Because he left a one-way, first-class Lufthansa plane ticket on the seat. No. Not at all. He left a crapload of broken glass on the seat – NOT easy to clean up, by the way.

But the next morning, I got an email from Dana the Artist. She's leaving town for a month and offered me her studio. She leaves soon. Soon soon. Like, in less than a month there is an excellent possibility I could be in Paris. OUI. MERCI.

Before this, I could see no solution to what I'd begun to think of as The Paris Problem. The Paris Problem included having no clue about anything related in any way to how or when or if I was ever getting my ass back to Paris. Absolutely NOTHING was clear to me. Where the money was coming from. When I would go. Whether I should book a ticket now or wait. Where I'd stay. How long I'd stay. If me going back to Paris was just me clinging to some dried crust of a misspent dream. If I should go somewhere else like Haiti or Hamilton, Ontario. I'm telling you: clueless.

Now, I don't want to get too woo-woo on you here, but every time I ask the question, "What's next?" CRAZY stuff happens. What's next? BOOM – I'm acting on a roof. What's next? BOOM – massive studio in Paris. This question packs a serious punch. An exciting punch. A totally-unexpected-yet-not-sucker-punch.

A friend of mine got laid-off last week and he's basking in this weird mix of abject fear and delicious possibility. He told me that he has no idea what he wants to do with his life. May I make a small suggestion? Say the words "What's next" and then WATCH THE F*CK OUT.

TGIM #2

2009-01-12T08:57:00.006-07:00

This week's Thank-Gord-It's-Monday poster hottie is my new friend Shea. Once again, I didn't take the photo. But she lives in SF, so sue me. We met on the internet when she found my blog and I found out that she loves Pilot Fineliners as much as I do. Best. Pens. Ever.

Name: Shea McGuier
Age: 37 (38 in two weeks)
Location: San Francisco Bay Area

Occupation: She makes her dollars in marketing and corporate communications but just started a business where she helps people get their creative work done. She's the person that won't let your creative projects fall to the bottom of the priority pile. And she has a blog called The Daily Freak Out. Me likey.

Things you can't tell by looking at her: Formerly the title-holder for Biggest Tight-Ass On The Planet, she got divorced and bought a Subaru (just like me). Then she took some very good advice from a chain-smoking, sailor-mouthed shaman in an alpaca sweater vest (so NOT like me) and now she's all better.

What are you grateful for?
Cash flow, warm sweaters, scrambled eggs, toast with butter, and time to sit around with my friends, talking about all the cool projects they're working on.

What is the most awesomest thing in your life right now?
You know those great moments when everything in your life and your mind starts to gel? When everything you are learning, reading, and doing starts to feel, instead, like ONE thing that is all mysteriously and perfectly related? That's how my life feels right now.

Did you know that one of the most fundamental forces in nature is the move toward order and synchronization? According to Steven Strogatz, mathematician at Harvard, it's right up there with entropy... or nature's natural tendency to move from order to DISorder. The urge to swarm/synchronize exists all the way down at a cellular and sub-atomic level. Basically, it's way deep down in there. In birds and fish, we see them doing this crazy synchronized flight & swimming patterns. And we think, how do they do that? Who is calling the shots? How do they know what do to? Why they hell are they doing it?

It turns out that swarming is a great way to avoid predators (stick with the crowd, follow the leader, don't stick out to far or you'll get eaten by a baracuda). Likewise, in the creative process, you have to be willing to override the fear associated with breaking from the pack, because way deep down, there's a little bit of self protect/fear of certain death mixed in there. We're wired to protect ourselves, and yet, there's the other urge, the urge for disorder, which calls, and calls, and calls. This is awesome.

Day 134: Highlights and Lowlights

2009-01-09T14:29:00.006-07:00

The Freak Show is over. Nine shows, three days. A theatrical whirlwind that has left me with vocal cords resembling ground beef, a dozen bruises and a smashed car window.

The vocal cord burger and bruises are from the show which, as those of you who attended know, involved me ranting and raving at high volumes and then dying spectacularly on the snow-covered rooftop patio of the Epcor Centre.

The shattered car window was from the break-in I experienced late Saturday night. At three in the morning, I left the closing night party to find a gaping hole where my passenger-side window used to be. This is MY PARENTS' CAR. There was glass and car-contents everywhere, but there was no cash in the car, so they didn't take anything. Not even my brand new cross-country skis. Which, I suppose, would have probably been difficult to trade for meth anyway. Whoever broke in left me a couple things, though. One of them was that horrible rotten-jeans-piss smell that homeless folks have. And the other was the frozen-solid water bottle they used to smash my window.

I made $80 off the acting gig and a new window will likely cost me at least $200. Thanks, friend.

However, while my car was being violated, I was hanging out with famous people who wouldn't stop complimenting me. For real. One of my favourite Canadian actresses, Karen Hines, Kristine Nutting from Cowgirl Opera and big-shot writer/director of One Yellow Rabbit, Blake Brooker. They kept saying I was great and hilarious and they loved my physical comedy. "What's next for you?" they kept asking. I sat there stunned, thinking I should be complimenting them for, I don't know, being alive.

Speaking of famous people, Scott Thompson from Kids In The Hall was also in the audience for our last performance. I don't know how much he enjoyed it though because a very drunk person kept sticking a camera in his face and taking his photo.

That's the thing with doing three shows a night: the audiences get progressively more sloshed as the night goes on. Which means the 8 o'clock house is too sober to laugh, the 9 o'clock house is perfectly tipsy and responsive and the 10 o'clock house is full of belligerent f*cks who talk through the entire performance and take pictures of Scott Thompson.

5 Dolla Date #1

2009-01-09T10:22:00.016-07:00

The Concept: A 5 Dolla Date is exactly what it sounds like. Two people. Five bucks. This, like TGIM is part of my New Year's Resolution to spend more time with humans, but unlike the 'We Are The World' feeling of TGIM, 5 Dolla is an exercise in creativity. And I'm sure there's anti-consumerist subtext in there somewhere, but that's a little heavy-handed for a Friday.

The Meeting Place: Caffe Beano, uber-cool coffeeshop off 17th Avenue. Rob is one of The Regulars, a group of intimidating film guys, theatre guys and one dude who sells firecrackers for a living. I arrived before Rob and sat observing this weird young raver-kokapelli guy playing a small flute. Inexplicably, Raver Guy closed his eyes and got a Buddha smile on his face. Seconds, later, a cute blonde ran over and kissed him so deeply, I blushed. I tried the same meditation, but no cute blondes materialized for me.

The Human: Robert Hilton, film producer, logistics wizard and location master. I met Rob during the brief and bizarre period of my life when I was a personal trainer and posture analyst. (What would you do with a Dance degree?!) Rob is 6' 6" and is one of the kindest and most generous people I know. Until yesterday, I hadn't seen him in five years. I can't remember why we lost touch, but he's one of those people when you meet up again, all that time doesn't matter. (*Photo stolen off Rob's Facebook. All the ones I took were crap.)

The Fiver: The inaugural 5 Dollas is from my jeans. It was change from buying the post-dress-rehearsal beers after Wil offered to buy me a beer and then the place only took cash and he looked all sheepish. Only Robert demanded we use his fiver (I'm telling you: generous). He ran next door to the fancy cheese shop and came back with my favourite brie from Quebec, Riopelle. I unwraped it and asked if it was five dollars worth. Rob said, "No. They wouldn't cut five dollars worth." Oh. It's a really fancy cheese shop.

The Date: Our two-hour experience began with us sitting down with coffees and me saying, "Okay. Five years: go." And then Rob told me all about a brutal ski accident that left his tibia shattered into a million pieces and how three weeks later, while he was still on crutches and sleeping in a hospital bed, his fiancee broke up with him. "I hate her," I said. "Don't hate her. She's a beautiful woman. You two would be best friends," Rob said. He's crazy.

But then he told me about his new job with Certain Films and the documentary they made about the Alberta oil sands: Downstream. Check this out: IT'S BEEN SHORTLISTED FOR THE ACADEMY AWARDS. Are you kidding me? And then Rob's boss Randy Bradshaw, the big man from Certain Films, walks by. I see where this 5 Dolla Date is headed...

The film hasn't been released yet, so I can neither confirm nor deny that Rob and I had a cheese picnic in Beano while watching the film. It is unclear whether or not the film rocked my world and left me a blubbering mess before my opening night. I can, however, assure you that the doc is a must-see.

Day 131: Meet You At The Freak Show

2009-01-08T09:13:00.002-07:00

M'kay, people are asking for show details beyond the friendly link I posted the other day. Here we go. But I'm warning you, this journey will take some courage and some mental toughness. Are you ready? Let's do it.

First off, the meeting place is in the Epcor Centre for the Arts. The address is: 205 - 8 Avenue SE, Calgary AB. Here is a Google Map:

View Larger Map

THIS MAP WILL NOT HELP YOU.

The Epcor Centre is half a block wide and an entire block long. It contains four million theatres. This is where the mental toughness comes in. The theatre you are looking for is One Yellow Rabbit. You will find it on the North-East portion of the building. I recommend walking east along the 8th Avenue side, where you will pass entrances to the Jack Singer Hall and Alberta Theatre Projects. Keep going. There is a door near the Baraka coffeeshop. Go in that one. If you pass the falafel place, you've gone too far. (However, if you are heading west, that falafel place is your beacon of hope.)

Once inside, you will see a staircase. Go up. Once on the second floor, you will be confronted by a wild carnival atmosphere and weird people galore. Welcome to Midway – the hub of the High Performance Rodeo festival. Do not be distracted by the painted ladies, fortune tellers and fetishists. Stay focused.

Near the staircase you just climbed, on the right, there is a large cut-out of a cartoon guy called Ten-Foot Henry. He's pinkish and has a bulbous head. Next to Henry is the Freak Show box office. There will be a sign that reads 'Freak Show' and a man happy to take your money.

Pull a ten-dollar bill out of your wallet. I'm taking paper money, here. CASH. Give it to the nice man and tell him you want to see TABOO & TITILLATION. That's the name of my tour on the Freak Show. He will give you further instructions from there.

For those who are completely baffled by the concept in general:
Freak Show is a traveling theatre experience. There are two tours, each consisting of 5 pieces in various locations around the Arts Centre. Tour guides will lead you, so the mental toughness ends once you find the box office. One tour departs on the half hour at 7:30, 8:30 and 9:30. It is called Mouth of Madness. The second tour, my tour, departs on the hour at 8, 9 and 10. It is called Taboo & Titillation. (Or Taboo & Tits. Or just Tits, if you prefer.) Each tour takes about 50 minutes. We open tonight and also run Friday and Saturday.

Good luck and I'll see you at the Freak Show.