Oh, oh, and you're Mary Tyler Moore

For the past couple of weeks my neighbour's son, Robbie, has been painting my townhouse, and in between helping me haul boxes and pick up furniture I've bought on Craigslist.

Last night we drove out to Scarborough to pick up a white Ikea Malm bed for the guest bedroom, and today, when he's finished painting the kitchen we're going to try to put it together. Ikea furniture, you may know, is always challenging to assemble, even when you have the instructions sheet, which I don't.

The other day I said to Robbie, "You know, what I really need is a lackey," and he replied, "I can lack!" And so he has been.

I just popped in to pick up something before running out on today's errands, and he's listening to The Pixies.

Cool kid.

I left him a note and signed it "Murphy Brown."

In the next story, Postmodern Sass gets back to business.

Do You Know The Way To San Jose? (encore)

I was in San Jose last weekend, apartment hunting — stories to follow in a few days, I promise — and guess what's around the corner from my soon-to-be new home?



Coming soon, the story of how Postmodern Sass found her apartment in San Jose. But first, she has to paint her townhouse and get rid of some baskets.

Do You Know The Way To San Jose?

Gentle Reader, please forgive me if storytelling is light for the next few weeks. You may remember, I am moving to California.

San Jose, California.

I'll tell you more about it as we go along...

Six months later, Sass wonders what the hell Dionne Warwick was thinking.

We Are Family

Lately, I've been dropping in to visit my mother-in-law once or twice a week, for a couple of reasons. First, because she called me a couple of months ago and told me where to find her. I hadn't known for two years, and the number I'd known for almost twenty had been disconnected.

You see, X gave strict orders to his friends and family not to fraternize with me. The friends listened, sadly. His sister and mother have opined, to me if not to him, that it's none of his business who they speak to. And all three of us agree that family is family, and family does not necessarily require a seven alleal DNA match.

Second, because I've got to clear my bathtub of the boxes full of X's stuff.

I know, I know, I should just dump it in the lake. After all, it's not fifty feet away. But I just can't bring myself to be that much of a petty bitch. Petty, maybe. A bitch, sometimes. But a petty bitch, no.

In the next story, Postmodern Sass gets back to business. Later, Sass's friend Ace asks about X, and can't believe the answer.

He's strong to the finish, 'cause he eats his spinach

Have I mentioned I'm keeping my condo when I move to California, and renting it out, furnished, and so I have to do a bit of fixing so it "shows well?" Real estate agent talk.

Today I'm hanging a towel bar in the upstairs bathroom, which I just finished painting. And I've just come from borrowing Boz's drill.

Go ahead. I know what you're thinking.

In the next story, Postmodern Sass visits her mother-in-law.

He drove a green Dodge Dart

It's because I've been sorting through my collection of file boxes, the contents of which are organized and indexed, that Genie started reading my stories. See, I came across a notebook from our grade six English class that was full of notes, not about A Separate Peace but about Rodney Sanford and Roger Larmon. When I emailed her to tell her what I'd found, she asked why I would keep such a thing for so long. I told her, it's because I write stories. I need these arcane artifacts to spur my memories, so I can spin a yarn.

The other thing I found was my old wallet, circa high school. And this is an inventory of its contents:

• two ticket stubs for a draw for a "Bouquet of Violets" hand embroidered quilt, the draw to be held Monday, December 8 at St. Alexanders Church Hall


• a map, drawn on a paper napkin, showing the way to Elaine Court in St. Catharines, where my friend Johnston Hall lived


• a receipt for a money order, payable to McGill University, for $114.00


• John D'Ambrosio's business card from United Motor & Collision Centre, 276 Merritt Street, St. Catharines — my first Volkswagen mechanic


• my membership card for the Official Blondie Fan Club


• a business card sized card that reads THIS ENTITLES THE BEARER TO ONE FREE HUG — PASS ON TO A FRIEND


• the VIA train schedule for Toronto-Hamilton-Niagara


• a no-name business card from my first part time job: LEST TEXTILES ITI INC./INTERNATIONAL TRADERS INC., Auite 1110, 140 Cremazie W., Montreal. Telex # 05-826549


• a 10% discount card for The Jeanery


• a black and white passport photo of me with a great deal of hair


• ticket stub for the Montreal Expos National League championship game no. 3


• ticket stub for the Moody Blues at the Montreal Forum


• ditto, Genesis


• ditto, AC-DC


• three ticket stubs for a performance of Camelot at the College of Education Theatre, Brock University


• a ticket stub from Hamilton Place for a Friday matinee. All I can make out on the half I have is "LLET"


• a ticket stub from a performance of The Merchant of Venice at Stratford


• ditto Romeo and Juliet


• a ticket stub from Exhibition Place, Section D, Row 22, Seat 13. Retain stub. Good only Monday Eve. Aug. 22.


• a florist's card, handwritten by my boyfriend Josh, reading I never forget.

In the next story, Postmodern Sass gets drilled by her neighbour Boz.

He Blinded Me With Science

Last night Jack called me from his hotel room in Dallas and we talked while he ironed his shirt.

"I'm trying to remove the RFID tag," he explained.

I know what RFID is, and so I let him talk. I didn't know that there's a tag on each individual item; I thought it was only the cartons or cases, and the loaded skids, that were tagged. But OK.

When he said FPGA I knew it was not golf he was referring to, so I waited until the phrase field programmable gate array crept into the conversation, and then I listened as he explained what an FPGA is, and how it works. Lest you think, Gentle Reader, that this was a dull conversation I can assure you it was no such thing. Jack has a flair for rhetoric.

He's talking nerdy to me again, and in the Jack and Sass universe, that's a promising prognostic.

In the next story, Sass remembers an old boyfriend's car.

Life's like Sanskrit read to a pony

Now, I'm not calling my friend Genie a horse or anything but she's been reading my stories lately and believing them too much. She sent me an email today and told me that this one both amused and alarmed her. Amused, because she recognized the boys in question — she was there, you see, in grade five with me and Kay, and she had a crush on Roger Larmon too. I can tell you that now, because it was so long ago, and we're all grownups, and so if by some bizarre accident Roger reads this, neither Genie nor I will die of embarrassment.

Back then, though, we thought we might. When you're ten, and your bra strap peeks out from under your top, there's nothing anyone can say to make you disbelieve the end of the world is coming.

The story alarmed her, though, because she worried that Kay's boyfriend, the motorcycle boy, was killed, and why hadn't she heard about it and when, exactly, had it happened?

Well, Genie, the reason no one told you about it is because it didn't really happen. What you're reading here are stories, not an autobiography. Like most stories, they are based on events and people in the author's life, but there's a difference between based on, and really happened. Kay's boyfriend — yes, you know who I mean, Genie; the guy with the red hair and the great smile, who looked a little like Parker Stevenson — wasn't killed on his motorcycle. He did have a motorcycle, though, and so did all his friends. And it was one of them who was in-real-life killed. If you email Kay, she can tell you his name. I can't remember it.

Genie was my best friend, too. Before Kay. Genie and I go back to grade three. And all three of us are still close. Well, as close as we can be when we live in different cities, some of us in different countries. We have email.

There was me, Kay, Genie, and three other people I haven't told you about yet, but will one day soon. I've had a story in draft form for months about my friend Red. Genie, you know who I mean, don't you? Red and I were in grade two together. She's the oldest friend I have, and I still have her. The other two, I hadn't yet given names, so give me a moment.

OK, the girl who was in our circle of friends from grade three until the end of grade thirteen, when she moved to Calgary, is Kaya. She had black hair and dark eyes, and always told us she was part native. Cree, I think. And the only boy in our circle, the one who used to drive all five of us girls around in the back of his El Dorado convertible, with the top down and us sitting in a row along the back, just like in the movies; the one who was shorter than all of us and whom we all loved like a brother, except for Kaya, who loved him for real, I'm going to call Gilbert.

(That's his real middle name, Genie. Or his confirmation name. Or something like that.)

Next to Kay, I've always been closest to Gilbert, and he's closest to me now, both physically and emotionally. He lives not three miles from me, in Toronto, and we see each other about once a week.

So there you have it, Gentle Reader, a new cast of characters. I have so many stories to tell you about them...

And only Genie and Kay, because they both know who Postmodern Sass is, will know what's true and what's not.

In the next story, Jack talks nerdy to Sass.

Mama, ooooh, didn't mean to make you cry

Dear Mom,

Do you remember that little wooden bookshelf you bought at Birdcage Antiques on Highway 8 in Vineland when I was a little girl? The one I had in my room until we moved to the farm, and then you bought me that big teak wall unit, and you put the little oak bookcase in your den, remember?

And then when you left Daddy and I had to go clean all my stuff out of the house and take it to my own house, I took that bookshelf, and my Nancy Drew and Donna Parker books, and the beautiful hardcover set of all the Little Women books, and The Wizard of Oz and The Swiss Family Robinson and Black Beauty and all my German storybooks, and I've had them with me ever since.



Can you see the pile of Dr. Seuss books there on the bottom shelf? Do you recognize the one that's on top? That was always my favourite.

Well, Mom, I don't have the little oak bookshelf anymore. I sold it. I've been selling, throwing away, and giving away, a lot of things lately. "Simplifying my life," is what you told me when you did it, a few years back. And I thank you for that, because it only took me two months to clean out your house. It could have taken much longer, had it been necessary in the 1980s.

I'm not simplifying my life; I'm complicating it. I have some big news, and I hope you approve. I'm moving to California.

There: said it out loud.

I never had the chance to tell you that X left me; you died two weeks later. Just as well, I suppose; you never knew about the darkest days and how I thought the sun would never again shine.

Oh, Mom, I have to tell you about what happened the other day. There are these two little girls that live in my building, Aramia and Persephone. Aramia is four, and Persephone is two, and I gave them all my Dr. Seuss books, even Put Me In The Zoo.



(Can you see my new faucet in the background of that photo? I installed that myself, using most of the tools in the toolbox you gave me for a housewarming present when I moved into my first apartment.)

Oh, Mom, you should have seen how excited they were about those books. Little girls, too little to be able to read them yet, but they were as excited as if I'd given them... well, I don't know what it is that little kids these days want; I was afraid they might all be zooed out on computer games. But books, mom; books. They were thrilled. They said, "Mommy, mommy, can you read this one to us tonight?" And their mother — I don't even know her name — was so appreciative. She kept saying, "Are you sure you want to give them all away?"

Well, no, I wasn't sure. At least I hadn't been, until I saw how happy my books made those two little girls. And then I was sure.

I haven't decided what to do with my Nancy Drew books. For now, I'm keeping them. See, I love all my books, but, like a bad parent, I love some more than others. My criteria for getting rid of a book is this: it's not worth reading twice. Although I did give Cinderella my copy of Tess of the D'Urbervilles) when she was here a couple of weeks ago. I've read that one about four times, but it's a paperback and she said she'd never read it. That book, I've read at least three times. I kept re-reading it because I was hoping it would end differently. That Angel wouldn't leave her.

Don't worry, I'm not getting rid of all my books. I'll be taking about 300 to California with me. Stephen King, Margaret Atwood, Michael Chabon, T.C. Boyle, Mona Simpson, Charles Bukowski, Jane Smiley, Mordecai Richeler, and Steinbeck, Maugham, and Fitzgerald.

You know what else? I still have a bunch of your old books from the 1960s: Island in the Sun, Up the Down Staircase, Please Don't Eat The Daisies, and a book by Bob Hope called I Owe Russia $1200. Did you ever actually read that one?



This one will make you laugh: Do you remember Artie the Smartie?



You taught me to love books, Mom. Oh, how I loved my Donna Parker books. So much so, that I've carried them with me through twelve moves and five cities. But today, I'm taking them to my friends' daughter, Ana. She's ten.



Something else you taught me is to treat magazines the same way you treat books, but I'm going to have to stop that. See, I have ten years' worth of Harper's, and several boxes full of magazines such as Saturday Night, The Atlantic Monthly, The North American Review of Fiction, Writer's Digest, and Books in Canada. Because I used to write short stories. I got rid of all of them except the Harper's, and a New Yorker from February 15, 1993, which contains a short story called "Filthy With Things" by T. Coraghessan Boyle, one of my favourite authors. I'm afraid to read that story again, though.

All this cleaning and organizing has been making room on my bookshelf. This is my loyal companion, Pinky, Mom. You never met him, but you remember Mokie? He died last September.



Happy what would have been your 66th birthday, Mom. I miss you.


-Your daughter