Freakshow

I never thought the day would come, at least not on the Gregorian calendar, when I'd learn a life lesson from Britney Spears, but that day is today.

Fortunately for me, I'm able to do it without actually having to listen to her music. I needed only to search for lyrics relevant to tell you the following story, and I found a reference to her latest album, Blackout, and a song titled Freakshow.

It would seem, Gentle Reader, that last night I became something of a Britneyesque Freakshow. I'm so embarrassed by what I vaguely remember doing, and even more by what I'm afraid I might have done, that I turned off my phone and may not turn it back on until ever.

I'm certain I drunk-dialled crazy Nadine. I think I even sat outside her door for a while. I think I may have done the same to Monica. See, she's the building manager, so she would be able to open my apartment, which I kinda needed her to do because I locked myself out. That's right, it was Hotel California all over again.

I probably called The Librarian, since it was he with whom I had been drinking. I don't remember where he went, or how I got home, but when I woke up this morning — and, by this morning, I mean 3:00 a.m. — he wasn't here. So that's something.

Oh god, I hope I didn't dial Jack's number. Please, Lord, if you're up there.

Last night's much too drunk drunk and this morning's resulting hangover is all The Librarian's fault, really it is. He's the one who suggested drinking bourbon after our third pint at O'Flaherty's. He's the one who always wants to go there, so now we're regulars and the bartender likes us and so, when we order a shot, he makes it a triple. So you can see, can't you, why The Librarian is to blame?

What did I learn from Brit Brit? That when you get drunk and behave like an idiot, you're, well, you're an idiot. As penance, and owing to the fact that I could do little else, I spent the afternoon watching the charming 1980 BBC production of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, grateful for the reminder that there is subtlety in literature, if no longer in society.

Next, Postmodern Sass explains her two month blog sabbatical.

Money don't get everything, it's true

You know what comes after that: What it don't get, I can't use, which isn't entirely true, in my estimation, because there's one very important thing that money do get. The most important thing, even: peace of mind.

I tried to explain my sudden, nail-biting stress to my colleague, Karen, over a pint at The Loft the other night. She was great — she listened, and she sympathized, but then she had to leave. So I called first Nadine, then Sparky, to see if they wanted to join me.

The Loft is my local, now, like The Banknote used to be. I've ordered another Stella Artois, a beer that in Canada is my despised last resort, but that here in California is often the only non-American, non-British beer available on draught, and until (and unless) either (or both) Nadine or Sparky arrive, I'll tell you about what happened, Gentle Reader.

You should know that last week I got an email from my agent in Toronto telling me she'd found a tenant for my condo. Not just any old short term tenant, mind you, but someone who, god bless them, wanted to take it for a year A WHOLE YEAR, beginning July 1, and who was willing to pay the full price, which means this: it's enough to cover the agent's monthly percentage; it's enough to cover all the utilities, even if they crank the A/C and open the windows in the middle of July; it's enough to cover the increase in my mortage payments that I'm going to be hit with next month; it's even enough to provide a few hundred dollars extra at the end of the year, in case I need to buy a new microwave, say, or get someone in to fix a loose curtain rod.

What it means, simply put, is peace of mind for a year.

So you can understand, I hope, why I was so relieved. Why I was positively celebratory. Why I had started to MAKE PLANS for the summer.

(For the last two months, every time someone asked me, "So, what are your plans for the summer?" I wanted to scream, I HAVE NO PLANS BECAUSE PLANS INVOLVE SPENDING MONEY AND I CAN'T SPEND ANY MONEY UNTIL I KNOW I DON'T NEED TO SAVE EVERY PENNY IN CASE I NEED TO CARRY MY CONDO FOR THE SUMMER SO FUCK OFF AND DON'T ASK ME THAT QUESTION!)

I planned to go home for the last week of June.

I planned to see my dad.

I planned to go to Kickass Karaoke.

I planned to plant flowers in the bare pots on my rooftop patio.

I planned to spend a week IN MY HOME, sleeping IN MY BED, for the last time for a year.

I planned to enjoy every minute of my time in the place I think of as Home, capital H. It would be the best vacation ever, and it would make having to spend the next twelve months in a foreign country, living with foreigners, where everything from the rules of the road to the peanut butter is, well, foreign, bearable.

So I booked my plane ticket, then switched to my email to collect my confirmation, and there it was, a message from my agent saying that the tenant had changed his mind and he wouldn't be taking my condo after all.

* * *
There's no happy ending to this story, at least not yet, so I'll give it a day or two before I tell you the rest.

Tales of a Librarian [part iv - fin]

Continued from part iii

On Monday morning a giant bouquet of flowers in a big, glass vase walked into my office and behind it was Margaret's frizzy-haired head. The flowers were mostly pink and white and the bouquet was replete with both colours of my favourite flower, lilies.

Kapp had been sure she wouldn't remember anything about Friday night. I'd called him as I was walking home from Margaret's at about 1:00 in the morning, after I'd half walked, half carried her a dozen blocks to the other side of downtown, never sure whether she was lucid enough to actually find her way home. She was expectorating every three minutes or so, and I didn't think it would be prudent to pour her into a cab. I didn't know where she lived but I couldn't just leave her on the sidewalk.

"You owe me, buster," I said when Kapp picked up the phone after the second ring.

Don't question the drunk logic of that statement, Gentle Reader. Margaret was his friend, I'd just met her, so that made me, I reasoned, the last person at the table who should have had to take her home. What Kapp didn't say, but could rightfully have said was, "You didn't have to stay until closing." Instead, he listened to me detail the night's drama and comedy, laughing at some places and offering encouraging and sympathetic comments at others.

"There was a moment on her front porch when I was sure she wouldn't be able to find her key, and I was prepared to just leave her there and deem it close enough," I told Kapp.

"This is California. It's not like she'd die of exposure," he replied.

"But then, just when I was about to prop her up in the corner and leave, she found her key and opened the door. And then I saw the stairs. Have you seen her place?"

"Yes. Long, narrow, winding staircase, right?"

"Right. Not enough room for me to negotiate it beside her. So I pushed her up and stayed behind in case she fell backwards. She made it all the way to the top, I could see her door. She reached for the keyhole and then she fell down on the landing and threw up again."

Kapp laughed.

"At this point I didn't care about the vomit anymore; I'd seen so much of it. She's such a tiny person, I figured there couldn't be much left, and in any event it wasn't my carpet and I had no intention of sticking around to clean up the mess."

"So, what, did you just leave her on the landing?"

"I was going to, but I worried that she might fall down the stairs, and then I started envisioning the whole Jimi Hendrix Bon Scott Keith Moon scenerio and felt too guilty. She had her key in her hand, so I opened the door and literally dragged her inside."

"And she was passed out this whole time?"

"No, she drifted in and out. Every time she'd come to she'd gush about how wonderful I was, and then she'd say something about you."

"About me?" Kapp sounded surprised.

"Yes. Mostly about some librarian you're boinking."

"Moira? I told you about her. And she's not a librarian, she's a library assistant."

"I know, and I told Margaret so. Look, the whole conversation all night long had me baffled. She kept bringing you up every few minutes. No pun intended."

Kapp laughed again.

"I think maybe she has a thing for me," Kapp suggested.

"My, aren't we full of ourselves? No offence, Lothario, but I didn't get that impression from her at all."

"So how did you leave her?"

"I peeled off her clothes and threw them in the shower, then dragged her over to her bed and sort of tossed her into it. She'll probably have some serious rug burn in the morning, but with any luck she won't be dead."

A year later, The Librarian turns out to be an asshole.

Tales of a Librarian [part iii]

Continued from part ii

I really liked Margaret. We gabbed away, and as the evening wore on, one by one the other librarians made their excuses and bid their goodnights, until there were only she and I left on the patio. The waiter passed by every so often, and when he did we'd order another round, because we'd long since left discretion behind.

Whenever the conversation had strayed for too long to other topics, she'd bring it back to her favourite subject, Kapp. She seemed in equal parts to be trying to set us up, trying to find out whether we'd slept together, and trying to keep us from doing so.

"I think he's probably terrified of you," Margaret opined after our second beer.

I laughed and said, "I have that effect on a lot of men, unfortunately."

"I know all the librarians he's had flings with, and they're all beneath him. You're the first woman I've seen him with who's actually his equal."

Now it was my turn to be surprised. Not that he'd slept with bimbos, but that there had, according to Margaret, been many. Kapp's not exactly the sort of guy anyone'd describe as a lady killer. Tall, dark, and handsome he isn't, and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be able to swing me around. But he's smart and funny and sarcastic, and he knows about music, and it's for all those reasons that I like him very much.

"We're just friends," I said.

"That's good, you should keep it that way." Margaret is a petite woman, and she'd been matching me Märzen for Märzen. She was visibly drunk, now. "He's a great guy, don't get me wrong, but he's not husband material. He's not reliable, and he never has any money."

"OK, then, I promise not to marry him," I joked. She wasn't telling me anything I hadn't already noted, and, besides, if I'm going to not marry someone the whole Internet already knows who that is.

"You could probably sleep with him, if you wanted to, though," offered Margaret, and then she hiccupped.

"Yeah, I know." I remember the Tod lesson.

Margaret had been hiccupping for two or three minutes. We both laughed about it at first, but then we both became accustomed to it. That's probably why I didn't realize right away when the hiccups turned to barfing.

To be concluded in part iv.

Tales of a Librarian [part ii]

Continued from part i

The librarians were gathered around two pushed-together tables on the patio at Gordon Biersch looking very much like, well, like librarians.

I've been out drinking with the science profs, and they all have a sort of earthy, outdoorsy look to them. Business school profs wear suits; computer science geeks look like geeks (and are some of my best friends), but I'd never been in close proximity to a pack of librarians before, and so hadn't learned the stereotype.

Now that I know what it is, I struggle to put it kindly.

Hmn. Let's see. The group of Kapp's co-workers I met at Gordon Biersch were... not exactly stylish. Not so much chic. They had, shall we say, some sartorial challenges. And a singular unkemptness in the hair department.

They were frumpy.

But they have good qualities, not the least of which is, they can drink. And not fruity girly drinks, either. The waiter was carrying an astonishing number of pint glasses on a tray, and when Kapp and I joined the party he took our beer orders and immediately returned with two more. Introductions were made and I learned that not all the librarians were librarians. Some were assistant librarians and some were reference librarians and some were library assistants and some were from the I.T. department and so weren't librarians at all. I realized that I understand the academic hierarchy only as it applies to professors, but I was given the impression, from the pack at the table, that Kapp was fairly high up on their library ladder.

Kapp introduced me as "My friend Sass, from Marketing," which wasn't entirely accurate but was close enough, and for a time they eyed me the way tourists eye an exotic giraffe at a zoo, but then judged me acceptable company because of my acquaintance with Kapp. Plus, I made them laugh by gently poking fun at him, which may have been the reason Margaret got the wrong idea about us.

We had two, or maybe it was three, rounds, and then Kapp asked me what time it was, because he never wears a watch, and when I told him 9:15 he said he was going to try to catch the 9:20 bus, even though the last one is at 11:00. I offered to buy him a beer if he stayed and when that didn't work I called him a girl but since he'd already been called that once tonight, that didn't work either, and so he left.

I said, oh well, and pulled my chair closer to the others, beside Margaret. I learned that she's been working at the library for almost ten years and that she's studying library science and is almost, but not quite, a real librarian. We were both drinking Märzen, which may have been another factor in the prodigious hangover that was to come. Margaret asked me where I was from, and made a joke about me saying eh, and then she said, "It really surprised me when Kapp left so suddenly."

What I was thinking was, he'll very likely miss that bus and then he'll be back, it's happened before, but what I said was, "Oh, he has that bus schedule memorized, and he knows exactly when he has to leave so he can catch it. Why did that surprise you?"

"That he left you here, I mean," she said.

"Oh! Oh no, no, we're just friends, we just hang out and drink beer."

"Mnm Hmn," Margaret hmned, unconvincingly.

We ordered another round.

"I really like you," gushed Margaret, "I'm going to invite you to my next girl party. We cook and eat and read Tarot cards. You should watch out for Kapp, though."

"Watch out?"

"He's a good guy. Really smart. I love him like a brother. But he sleeps around."

To be continued in part iii.

Tales of a Librarian [part i]

We started drinking too early last Friday night, which was part of the problem, I later realized, though it was only one factor contributing to the prodigious pounding in my head the next day. The other culprit was the sugary drinks at the tiki bar with Kapp and Sparky.

"What's the biggest, fruitiest, girliest drink you have?" Sparky asked the waitress, Tanya, after we'd settled into a thatched roof booth at the sunny end of the patio.

In response, Tanya described a frou-frou beverage called a Blue Mama, which Sparky deemed perfect for his needs. Kapp chose something banana-y while I scanned the cocktail menu for the least sweet concoction, and settled for a Mojito.

The drinks arrived a few minutes later: Sparky's, tall and blue and topped with a pink umbrella; Kapp's tall and pink and topped with a blue umbrella. A Mojito is made with clear rum and lime juice, and is topped with a mint leaf.

We raised our three glasses and I offered the toast: "Cheers, girls."

I love hanging out in bars with the boys.

It was my first Mojito, and it was excellent. Both Kapp and Sparky explained to me that it was a Cuban drink that had been popular years ago and was now trendy again, the way Cosmopolitans had been during Sex And The City. I was amused to learn that Americans would adopt the drink of a country they purport to hate.

"Have you been to Cuba?" I asked Sparky.

"No. Have you?"

"Yes, but only once, about three years ago when I needed a veg-out vacation and didn't have much money."

"You've been to Cuba?" Kapp exclaimed.

"Sure. Everyone in Canada has. Well, everyone in the eastern parts of the country, that is. Kinda like how everyone here in California goes to Hawaii. But it's way cheaper. You can get a week all-inclusive for about $600. We can buy Cuban cigars, too, and no one throws us in jail. Speaking of which, have I mentioned HOW BADLY I WANT A CIGARETTE RIGHT NOW?"

"How's the quitting smoking going?" asked Sparky.

"Better than I expected, actually. Except for RIGHT NOW!" The patio at the tiki bar was smoke friendly. I fervently hoped that someone would light up in the booth next to ours, and that I'd be downwind.

The sun went down, a duo of guitarists started playing lethargic Hawaiian music, Sparky announced he was going home after the next round, and Kapp suggested we head back to Gordon Biersch and meet up with his librarian buddies.

So that's where we went drinking next.

To be continued in part ii.

Bad America

Kapp was still recovering from his trip to the City over the weekend, where he saw Iggy Pop and had a run-in with the stairs at a MUNI station, so it was just me and Sparky at Trials for pub quiz night.

When all three of us are there we make a killer team. Kapp is an expert on music and pop culture, plus, being a librarian his head is full of all kinds of trivia; Sparky is an expert on musical theatre, movies, and "down east" (he's from Halifax); and I know a little about hockey, 80s new wave, Shakespeare, and postmodernism. One week épanouie joined us and aced all the science questions. But last night it was just me and Sparky.

We ordered a beer, waited for quiz time, and discussed our favourite topic, Americans. Sparky just moved here. He's been working for a Silicon Valley company for two years, flying back and forth and racking up the frequent flyer points while waiting for his visa. It finally came through, and now he's living in San Jose with me.

Er, not with me. You know what I mean.

I told him that, in the days after the Virginia Tech shootings I had some new visitors to an old story of mine called "My United States of Whatever," and a couple of new hate comments that had to be moderated. (If you're a first time reader and you feel the need to leave a comment telling me I have no right to my opinions about Americans and that I should go back to Canada, be forewarned: This is my blog. If you don't care for my writing, just go away. We'll both be much happier that way.)

"You know what kills me?" Sparky asked. "The headlines that screamed, Why did this have to happen, and How could this happen. Are they really that stupid?"

"Every time," I replied.

"They really don't get it? That people can buy guns? Why are they always so surprised when someone starts shooting?"

"Beats me. That, and NASCAR are only two of the many things that boggle me about this country."

I have nothing to say about what happened in Virginia last week. I have nothing to add to the whining and crying and renting of clothing and poseuring of the masses who had no connection to anyone at that school. The victims of this latest shooting are not heroes, they are victims, and out of respect for them, I will not watch the sensational entertainment magazine programs that turn America's murderer's into America's celebrities.

You want to keep fighting for the rights of your citizens to own guns? Fine, it's your country. Just stop acting shocked every time someone uses one. I can't abide the disingenuity.

Everybody knows that smokin' ain't allowed in school

Have I told you about the time I spent in Detention, in Portland?

No? Well.

Tequilacon, that ultra-serious blogger (ahem) conference (cough) organized by Jenny and the blogger formerly known as Brandon (What? Come on, people, we had lanyards!), was held in Portland, Oregon, a few weeks ago. You may remember. You may have been there. I may even have met you, but then again, there was a lot of drinking going on, and don't even get me started on the Tequila. Seriously, don't.

Where was I?

Oh yes, so, Tequilacon was held at this marvelous establishment called McMenamin's Kennedy School. I was told this was a bar that was in an actual school building. I was directed to the website. None of this prepared me for what the place actually looked like, though. I mean, there was a dance in the gym (we weren't invited).


But in this school, you could hang out in the halls and drink, and not get sent to the Principal's office.


I, however, was sent to Detention. It's the smokey cigar bar, and I would have had the party in there, had I been the one organizing it, rather than Brandon and Jenny, but it's just as well since it would only hold about six people at a time.


They had a fine single malt collection.


And retro ashtrays.


I was allowed out for recess with Dave and Jenny.


But not for long, because my new friend Sizzle kept getting me into trouble.


At the end of the school day, Dave led us in a seance.


Then we all lay down on the floor and oogled the cool lamps.


OK, so I'm fibbing about that part. Only the bit about lying on the floor, though, not about the lamps. I was totally in love with the lamps.


And with Portland.



This is probably the last Tequilacon story, but no promises. I already told you the story about the Jehovah's Witnesses, and how I no longer feel the need to be polite to them. And I told you about meeting Sophia (oh, and Neil, too), and all the other awesome bloggers.

Calendar Girl [part II - fin]

Continued from Part I.

Sophia was terrifying me again.

"I wasn't changing the subject, honestly. It's just that there really isn't much to tell," I offered, in reply to her question. This was the truth. Mostly.

"Didn't you have a good time?" asked Sophia.

"Oh yes! At least I did. We spent almost an entire day together, going to different bars, coffee shops, and for pizza. We walked all over San Francisco."

"I see," said Sophia.

"It's just that nothing blogworthy happened," I told her. And this, too, was the truth. Mostly.

I know that I told you, Gentle Reader, that I had a date, but it was largely for Jack's benefit that I used the D-word. OK, and, well, I also said that to my salon girl when she was doing my eyebrows the day before, but the point is, in my own mind, I didn't know whether it was a date or not. In this day and age when children go on play dates, how does a grown-up define a date?

Just going out alone with a man does not a Date make. I know, for example, that when Blundering American visited me in San Jose it was not a date because he said so here. With Norm it was not a date because he's married. Same with Tim Bray, whom I've gone out with many times over the years, despite the fact that the first time was very nearly a career limiting move.

On the other hand, the times I've gone out with Jack to formally arranged events, such as Sara's wedding, or dancing on my birthday, or even to Jerry's party, I would have considered dates, but he, clearly, did not.

I'd like to propose, for your consideration, that what makes a date a date is that, though the get-together may have been arranged in all casualness, there is a possibility of, shall we say, a non-platonic encounter at the end of the evening.

The women among you will vouch for this, I'm sure, and may even wish to discuss the matching underwear question. The men among you, well, you can tell me whether Tod was right or not.

"Are you going to go out with him again?" Sophia was asking me now.

"Well, I'm not sure," I replied. "You see, I sort of ran out on him at the end of the night. We'd been walking from place to place, and were nowhere near the train station at 10:00, so I missed that train, and the last one is at midnight. So we wandered down to the Embarcadero and spent an hour at this wonderful little bar. It's right on the water, practically right underneath the Bay Bridge..."

"What do you mean you ran out on him?" Sophia asked.

"It kind of happened by accident. Suddenly it was 11:45, and the train station was a fifteen minute walk... and so as The Italian called for the check I said I'd run outside and try to find a cab, and that he should please forgive me if I was gone by the time he came out..."

"And you were?"

"Not exactly. It gets worse. I stood in the middle of the Embarcadero for what felt like ten minutes, and didn't see a cab, and then he came out and we started walking really fast, and he said he lived a block away and he would run and get his car, and I said OK but as a plan B I'll walk up to that corner and try to find a cab, so if I'm not there when you come back, you'll know it's because I found a cab and OH MY GOD I'M SO SORRY TO DO THIS TO YOU I'M SUCH A TERRIBLE PERSON!"

Did I mention he's Italian?

I suppose there are simpler ways to ensure you'll never be asked on a second date. Mist 1 carries a wedding dress in the trunk of her car for this exact reason.

The photo is of Sophia, Hilly, and Sizzle, at Tequilacon in Portland. Notice the looks of abject terror in their faces. There's one more Tequilacon story, but in the meantime, Postmodern Sass smokes out Canadians.

Iko Iko [part iii]

Continued from part ii.

There's no commonsensical reason whatever that I should, at my age, be struck with teenage shyness at the prospect of telephoning a boy, and so I only hesitated a nanosecond before calling Kapp. He's lived in San Jose for six years. Surely if we're to expect rioting on Tuesday night, he would know, and would not have made plans to walk a mile across downtown with only a tall redhead for protection.

The phone rang twice and the answering machine picked up. I heard the opening chords of Public Image and the gravelly voice of John Lydon singing "Hello, hello," and then Kapp picked up the phone and said, "Hello?"

"Is Keith Levene there?" I asked.

Kapp burst out laughing. "You're only the second person ever to get that," he said.

"Clearly you don't have enough musical snobs for friends," I said, and I wished he could meet Ken Clean-Air System. "So, I'm here at my neighbour's, and I mentioned to her that I was planning to go to the Poor House on Tuesday, and she kinda freaked out on me. She seems to believe that there will be a riot and that my life will be in danger if I venture out into the streets."

"Aw, I was hoping to surprise you," Kapp said.

"You mean it's true?" I asked.

"Well, I wouldn't use the word riot, but yes, it's true," he admitted.

"This is San Jose, right? Big suburb that has delusions of being a city? Inferiority complex because there's a real city just up the road? California cuisine, whatever the fuck that means, taquerias, Mexicans, and flip-flop wearing blondes? Did I miss an exit somewhere? We're talking about Mardi Gras, not Cinquo de Mayo!" Kapp grew up in Michigan and spent most of his adult years in Austin, Texas, so it's OK for me to make fun of Californians with him.

"It's like this," Kapp explained, "About four years ago a bunch of the bars on Second Street got together and advertised a Mardi Gras party. It was very successful. Too successful. It got a little out of hand, so they never did it again, but for whatever reason the gang bangers have adopted it as hoodlums night out, and the city has been trying ever since to stop it, but they can't."

"Gosh I'm so happy I moved here," I said. "So do you still want to go out on Tuesday?"

"Oh yeah, it'll be fun!" Kapp said. "Don't worry, we'll go early and I'll have you home by nine."

"I'm sure my neighbour is comforted by the knowledge that I'll be protected by a libarian," I said, more to Nadine, who was listening to the conversation, than to Kapp. I'm not easily frightened, and I had no intention of backing out of our non-date, but I could tell by the pallor of Nadine's face that she thought I was insane.

On Tuesday morning I cut through the library on my way to the university, and nearly tripped over an enormous sign standing in the middle of the foyer, announcing that the parking garage would be closing at 9:00 that night. When I arrived in my office there was an email from Kapp suggesting we meet at 5:00. I replied see you then, and I'll be wearing my biker jacket, just in case.

As we walked along San Fernando in the direction of the Poor House later that afternoon, the police were already out in full force, and just beginning to set up barricades on the cross-streets. Nadine had told me to be sure to get home early, and to carry my I.D., because the police won't let people through on the roads, even if they live there. I've known her for two months now and she still doesn't remember that I don't have a car here. There was no sign of hoodlums.

"They don't show up until about 11:00," said Kapp. "And they come straight down here to Second Street. They don't even know about the Poor House, so we're not likely to run into any trouble."

"And if we do? You're packing, right?"

Kapp is about an inch shorter than me. Not what I'd call short, man-wise, being freakishly tall myself, but he's not an especially big guy. He's Scandinavian blond, with floppy hair in need of a trim, and he's wearing khakis and a non-descript light jacket. Mild-mannered in appearance, like, well, like the librarian that he is. But he's armed with sharp wit, so if we do run into any hooligans I'm quite sure he'll have them crying for their mommies in a few sentences.

If they don't kill us first, that is.

The Poor House Bistro was jam-packed and bopping with authentic Mardi Grasers. We lucked into the last high table near the bar, and the band was about ready to start. The singer was a hep cat with a short, pointy beard, wearing a beret who reminded me of a character in that episode of The Flintstones where Fred becomes a pop star named Hi-Fye.

There were beads galore, and I added to my collection from the bartender's stash. He liked the fact that Kapp and I ordered the New Orleans beer (called voodoo-something) and that we ordered it in quantity. I believe in the when-in-Rome philosophy of eating, drinking, and partying and one of the reasons I like Kapp is that he does, too. Several of the patrons that night were wearing the kind of beads you can only get in New Orleans; the ones that light up, and are the size of Christmas tree ornaments. At the table next to us were three middle-aged couples, the women all wearing feather masks and full-length sequined gowns in peacock blue, purple, and emerald green.

It was a great party.

At 9:00 on the dot Kapp said, "It's time to go." The streets near the Poor House were quiet, but as we approached Second Street we could hear, then see, roving packs of drunken, loud teenagers in hip-hop gear straight from the 'hood.

"They don't even know what Mardi Gras is, do they?" I asked.

"They don't have a fucking clue," Kapp confirmed. Then he said, "The next bus isn't for about twenty minutes. We've got time for one more beer at The Loft."

I like the way he thinks, but when we arrived at The Loft it was closed. Six big guys stood in a row in front of the windows, with their arms crossed. "We had our windows broken last year," one of them explained to us.

I did a quick mental calculation of the cost to replace the windows, weighed that against the cost of lost business on a night when the place would have been full, and marvelled again at the city that I now call home. I've never missed Toronto more.

"I've got a couple of beers at my place," I said. I led Kapp back the way we'd come to South Street, and the back entrance of my apartment building. He admired the courtyard which was, thankfully, deserted.

Upstairs, I opened my last two Beck's and offered one to Kapp. He was crouched on the floor, rubbing Pinky's head.

"What a great cat," Kapp said.

"I know. He really is," I agreed. "These are my last two beers. If you miss the bus all I've got after this is single malt."

"I should make it," Kapp said. "I've been riding that bus for years now; I know how to catch the one that I need. And there's one more after this, at 10:30, but it's the last one for the night."

We drank our beers and played with the cat. Kapp admired the built-in entertainment centre in my livingroom, the cabinets that house my record collection, and I knew that as a fellow music aficionado he'd want to look at them, but there wasn't time. In a few minutes he said, "I'd better get going."

I walked him to the elevator and pointed him to the front entrance, which would put him closer to Park Street and his bus, said goodnight, then walked back to my apartment door.

I stepped inside and there was Pinky, sniffing Kapp's bag, which sat on the floor.

To be concluded in part iv.

Iko Iko [part ii]

Continued from part i.

When Kapp first introduced me to the Poor House Bistro, the first time we went out on a non-date, I'd been surprised, though delighted, at the idea of a New Orleans style restaurant in San Jose. I adore New Orleans, I've been there several times (the last time was particularly noteworthy), but the cognitive dissonance of visualizing Louisiana Cajun culture in a part of the world that was Mexico not so long ago was giving me some trouble.

Still, if I can't have a decent hockey bar, I find catfish and jazz an agreeable alternative, so when Kapp called to suggest we go to the Poor House on Mardi Gras, I said, "I'll be there with beads on!"

The Sunday before Mardi Gras I was over at my neighbour Nadine's. We were having a smoke break on her balcony, watching the Grammys through the window, and drinking heavily, when I mentioned my plans for Tuesday evening.

"Oh my god," she exclaimed, "Don't go out on Fat Tuesday. It's dangerous."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Last year there was all sorts of trouble downtown. The gang bangers all came in from the East Bay, and roamed around in these huge packs of guys, all drunk off their faces. If they see a woman they scream at her to show her tits. There was all sorts of damage downtown — broken windows, rolled cars. The police were all over the place; there were even helicopters with search lights sweeping our courtyard, because people jump the gate and hide in here. It was really bad."

Talk about your cognitive dissonance. I was so puzzled by what she was saying, I didn't know where to begin with a question. This is San Jose, for fuck's sake. What the hell does it have to do with Mardi Gras celebrations?

"Are you sure it was because it was Mardi Gras?" I asked. "I mean, what you're describing is basically a riot. Are you sure there wasn't something else going on that caused all the trouble, and it was just coincidence that it was Mardi Gras?"

"They call it Fat Tuesday here," replied Nadine, in her typical not answering the question manner.

"That's what Mardi Gras means. Tuesday is Mardi in French, and gras means fat."

"Oh, okay," said Nadine, in a tone that implied she didn't believe me. I wondered what she thought I had meant when I said Mardi Gras. If she doesn't understand that Mardi Gras and Fat Tuesday are the same thing, I was going to give little credence to her claims that there had been a riot in downtown San Jose because of the holiday. I went inside to get another beer.

"Monica's staying in a hotel Tuesday night," said Nadine as she reached over my shoulder for the bottle of vodka in the freezer. "She asked me if I wanted to come with her."

Monica is the resident building manager, and is, unlike Nadine, one of the most level-headed women I've ever met.

"You mean to tell me that she's expecting trouble that night, so she plans to not be here?" I exclaimed. "If she really believes something bad is going to happen, shouldn't she be doing something to protect the building? Like hire a security guard?"

"They can't do that, because security guards aren't allowed to carry guns."

Cognitive dissonance again.

"They could post a guard at the gate to keep people from jumping the fence, couldn't they?"

"But the guard wouldn't have a gun, and the gang bangers do, and if the guard were to get shot the building would be sued."

Fuck, if I live here the rest of my life I will never understand how Americans think.

To be continued in part iii.

My Imagination

Continued from Girls who are boys.

We walked from the library, Kapp and I, because neither one of us has a car. This was only the second of many personal details it turns out we have in common. I learned quite a bit about him over the course of the evening, and such facts as I did not learn, I simply made up. It's more fun that way.

The Poor House Bistro is within cat-swinging distance of the train station; I'm surprised I hadn't noticed it before. I've become quite familiar with the public transit routes to the City, and I go up there as often as I'm invited. Yes, I know, Gentle Reader, it's a big city and I don't need to be invited to visit it, but I do, anyway. I'm going there tomorrow, as a matter of fact, but that's another story.

Then again, it looks like a little house.

The Poor House Bistro, I mean, not San Francisco.

"Those biologists really know how to party," Kapp was saying. We were meeting a baker's dozen of other professors there, most of them members of his freshman year cohort, which had been four years earlier. I was looking forward to meeting them. It's hard to meet people when you work at a university.

I know that must sound strange, and it's not entirely accurate. I meet lots of people there, it's just that they're either 20-somethings, or they're in their sixties and married. The former may know how to party, but you won't find me partying with them, and the latter are too busy running home to go to sleep.

Kapp claimed us the big table right in front of where the band was setting up. He'd come mainly because he was a fan of this blues guitarist. He took off his jacket and hung it on the seat beside him, to save it for the others. I put my purse on the chair at the end of the table.

"No one messes with a woman's purse," I said.

Kapp went to the bar to get us a couple of beers. He drinks beer, not wine, and he's not even Canadian. I was liking him more and more.

We ordered po'boys and chatted between bites and drips of mayonnaise and pickle juice. Kapp was telling me about a TV program, and asked whether I'd seen it, and I had to make a confession:

"I don't have a TV," I confessed.

"Oh yeah? Well, I don't have a cell phone!" Kapp smiled.

"Oh yeah? Well, I don't have a home phone, I only have a cell phone. Trump!"

"I don't have a car."

"Me neither. We've covered that already."

"Tie?"

"Cheers."

"To clarify, lest you think I'm one of those weirdo fanatics who insists they don't watch TV, I fully intend to have one, and I hope it's soon. It's just that when I moved here I didn't bring much besides my books and clothes. And my records."

"How many records do you have?" Kapp asked.

"About this many," I replied, holding my hands three feet apart, "Times two shelves."

"I've got about ten times that many," said Kapp. "It's such a pain to move them, I've been avoiding moving."

"I know what you mean. It was so much easier when we could use milk cases and our friends all helped us move in exchange for beer and pizza."

The band was getting ready to begin. The trumpet player stood right at the end of our table, tuning up my favourite instrument. I believe I was conceived to Herb Alpert, and the emotional attachment to the trumpet has never left me.

Kapp got us another round and we settled in to watch. Sitting this close to the stage, you can't talk, and that suited us both fine.

The other professors arrived during the first set, and we spoke in sign language to each other: they indicated they were going to the back, because it was too loud up here, and we replied that we wanted to be up front, and would come back to visit with them after the set.

The singer was singing "My Imagination," and we really did have to use ours to remind ourselves where we were. Downtown San Jose. In a New Orleans style bar. And dancing on the seven square inches of floor in front of the band were a middle aged woman with a bad dye job, and an enormous man in a Stetson. Dancing badly, I might add, and dancing inappropriately. That is, they were trying to do the jitterbug, and they had all the rhythm of a pair of hippopotamuses sunning themselves along the muddy banks of the Nile. Or wherever it is that hippopotamuses sun themselves.

"That's just wrong on so many levels," I said to Kapp. And then I admitted to him that I would be going outside for a cigarette. He can think less of me if he likes; we're not on a date.

I'd been outside for only a minute when Bad Hair and Stetson came out onto the sidewalk, and joined a small group of their friends, all of whom looked like they just came from a country and western bar.

"Hey, it's Mardi Gras next week," one of them said, and another replied, "Even better, it's NASCAR!"

I was doubled over trying not to laugh at them, and so I didn't notice that Kapp was standing beside me, with his beer in one hand and mine in the other.

Next, Postmodern Sass's imagination comes in handy when she takes the train to San Francisco to meet a man for what may (or may not) be a blind date. And no amount of imagination could have prepared her for Mardi Gras in San Jose.

Come On-A My House

I first got to know Norm when he advised me via email on the meaning and use of stemware. This was back when I was shopping for a wedding gift for my friend Sara.

A couple of weeks ago I met the analog Norm, when he was in San Jose on business, and you'll never guess where we went.

OK, well, maybe you will.

It's become something of an inside joke that Friends of Sass who come to San Jose must either (1) take her grocery shopping or (b) help her put together a piece of furniture. Or, if you're really lucky, both.

The tradition was inaugurated by Jack, who picked me up at the airport on the day my alien ship landed from Canada, bought me the Aerobed, then took me to Safeway and even filled out the application for a Safeway club card for me. Next came Tim Bray, who consulted on the arrangement of my stereo, particularly the placement of my huge speakers which I dragged here from Toronto, but who, instead of taking me to Safeway took me to Gordon Biersch for dinner.

Then Blundering American flew all the way from the other sunshine coast, Florida, just to help me put my desk together. And to take me to Safeway.

Kay was here for two weeks in September, during which time we shopped for furniture at Ikea, which she then helped me put together, and from which experience we learned it's best to hold off on the cork-popping until you've figured out how to attach those cupboard doors. Then we went to Safeway.

Norm and I had a wonderful time bar-hopping around downtown San Jose, and, had there been any furniture left in need of putting together, I have no doubt he would have complied with tradition, however, my new sofa arrived only after he'd left, and Pinky was able to help me put it together:


Tonight there's no furniture that needs putting together, and my fridge is full, but since Wendy and Joey are in San Jose for the weekend, maybe I'll take one of my bookshelves apart so they don't feel left out.

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

It's 10:40 p.m. Thursday night, one week before American Thanksgiving, and I'm sitting at Gordon Biersch with a pint of Märzen, giving it a five percent chance that Neil Gaiman will call me.

I'm also giving it a five percent chance — another five percent, that is, making it ten percent altogether — that he might simply show up here. Not necessarily because I invited him, though I did, but because after his long reading, and what I imagine is a still ongoing book signing, he'll be wanting a pint. Bad. He's a writer, after all.

And if I were English — which he is — and if I were staying at The Fairmont, which is just around the corner from Gordon Biersch — which he just might be — this is where I would come in search of that pint.

Besides, I told him this is where I would be, on the note I passed him. The one that had my cell phone number on it.

Shut up. Like you've never done that, Gentle Reader.

Besides, it's not what you think. No, really, it's not. I mean, I know he's married. I read his blog. He has an adorable daughter, and I'm no homewrecker. It's just that we have a relationship.

Now don't go all squirrelly on me over that word. What are you, Jack? I mean only that we've met, virtually speaking. I wrote about him on my blog, and I told him so, through a form on his blog, and we had a brief email conversation. That's right, Neil Gaiman fans (and I know many of you are), I know the man's email address. And maybe that's not quite as scandalous as Paris Hilton having Gavin Newsom's phone number, but hey, I do what I can to amuse you.

(And please don't ask me whether I'd rather have Neil Gaiman's email address or Gavin Newsom's phone number. Let's not go there right now. There's plenty of time for that. I'm working on my New Year's resolution, and you'll hear about it soon enough.)

So Neil and I — I hope you don't mind if I address him by his first name — had had a couple of email conversations in the weeks leading up to tonight, and I found him to be just as witty and engaging in email as he is in his books, and he found me to be, well, I have no idea what he found me to be but he found me, because he emailed me first. So that's something.

Apparently, Neil wrote a biography of Duran Duran. It says so on the Wikipedia, so it must be true. Just another of the ever increasing number of reasons why I believe that, were we, Neil Gaiman and I, to have the opportunity to share a pint, we would become friends, even if he doesn't karaoke. Do not scoff at me, Gentle Reader; Neil became friends with Tori Amos in much the same fashion. Of course, she's famous, but let us not pick nits.

* * *
Where was I?

Oh yes. I'm sitting in "the alley" at Gordon Biersch, because the tent is up over the patio for the winter, so I can't smoke out there anymore. In the alley, I can keep an eye on the main entrance and I can smoke.

I cannot, however, get a beer.

See, the waiters and waitresses use this area — "the alley," they call it — to chat with the kitchen staff who are on break, and as a pass-through to the tent patio proper. They don't make eye contact with me, deliberately, I think, and I don't like to yell to get their attention. It's a Canadian thing.

So I've been sitting here for ten minutes when finally, a waiter passes near enough to me that I can angle my boot out to trip him.

"Excuse me, can I get a drink from you?"

"Well, no, I don't serve in this area."

"Can you send me someone who does, then? You see, I think the problem is, everyone's ignoring me because of that drink sitting there," I indicate the large plastic cup on my table. It's filled to the brim with amber liquid and ice cubes.

"That's not yours?" the waiter asks.

"No. It's been there since I sat down."

"Oh," he says, and he looks interested, then from side to side. "I'll take it," he says.

And he does.

Where I'm sitting is neither the alley proper, nor the tent proper; it's underneath the tent entrance, and so, technically, I shouldn't be smoking here, but right beside the spot where the untouched drink had been sitting moments earlier, there is an ashtray, also full to the brim. And beside that, a small container of salsa.

(You heard me. Do you think I would make something like that up?)

I am disappointed. I'd lit a cigarette in the hopes that a waiter would stop to tell me I shouldn't, and that I'd have an opening to request a beer.

* * *
His name is pronounced to rhyme with layman, not with hymen, by the way. This I learned when he referred to himself in the third person during the reading. I'm so glad to know it, because it will prevent further conversations of this sort, at least five of which I'd had in the weeks leading up to Neil's appearance in San Jose:

"Are you going to see Neil Gaiman?"

"No, where's he playing?"

"Downtown, at the Center for Literary Arts, in November."

"Neil Guyman is playing here in town?" is what I hear.

"You know who he is? Neil Gaiman?" I'd reply, continuing to pronounce his name incorrectly. "The fantasy author? The Sandman? Comic books, and all that?

"Oh! I thought you said Neil Diamond!"

I'd mistakenly thought that his name couldn't possibly be pronounced gay-man. Not when he'd written a book called Anansi Boys, about two boys whose last name was Nancy, thereby making them nancy boys. It was all just too Monty Python to be taken seriously.

* * *
Tomorrow on Postmoderne Sprachspielen: Find out whether Sass meets Neil Gaiman in person in For life is quite absurd.

Oh, Give Me A Home

"Where do the buffalo roam? I asked Duncan, the bartender at The Bow and Arrow pub on Yonge Street.

I was perusing the menu, waiting for my buddy Darp. This is his local, and sometimes we meet here, instead of at The Banknote. Especially when I need a favour of him, which I do today. So the least I can do is buy him a couple of pints.

I'm borrowing his digital camera, so I can take pictures of some furniture I want to sell, and shop them around the antique markets on Queen Street. Earlier this afternoon I'd stopped in at the Dufferin Mall, on my way back from picking up my car, to see whether I wanted to buy a digital camera for myself. Thing is, I have two real cameras, and no real desire to own a digital unless it's a 35mm Canon EOS body that I can use my lenses on, but I don't have $1,200 to spare, especially not today, because my car blew up on Spadina Avenue yesterday and I just paid $800 to have it fixed.

At least Hans always returns it detailed.

"You know, that's a good question," replied Duncan, "I think it comes from buffalo farms."

The Bow and Arrow pub is famous for its bison dishes—bison is buffalo, for those of you, Gentle Readers, who live in countries where they didn't roam—including the Woodsman Pizza, which I'm planning to order tonight; Bison Maple Chili, made with ground bison meat and maple syrup; and Bison Chili Nachos. Oh, and, all the burgers on the menu offer your choice of beef, chicken, vegetarian, or, you guessed it, bison.

So Duncan understood that what I was asking was, where do you get your bison meat. I've heard of ostrich farms in Ontario; I've even seen a couple on drives out in the country, but I've never seen buffalo roaming in a field. And the thing about buffalo is, they're big animals, and they need roaming and grazing land, just like cattle. Cows, I see all the time. Buffalo, not so much.

Chicken wings are also on the menu.

"You should call them 'bison wings,'" I suggest. "You know, instead of buffalo wings?"

Duncan likes that one, and pours me a Moosehead.

Buffalo wings are named after the city of Buffalo, not the large furry animal. They're battered, fried chicken wings served with a hot red sauce, and are common fare at bars across Canada these days, but when I first moved to Montreal, to go to university, I was routinely made fun of for being from Ontario, "Where they eat the garbage we throw out: chicken wings and potato skins." I grew up right near Buffalo, as I told you here.

My Oma used to make the best chicken wings. They weren't like Buffalo wings, though. She cut up the wings into the mini-drumstick part and the flat part—the teeny tiny tips went to the dog—and roll them in flour spiced with salt and pepper, and sometimes garlic; then line them up side by side like soldiers on a cookie sheet, and bake them at pizza degree heat.

I miss my Oma's cooking. She's 91 now, and hasn't been her old self for the last year. Her mental quickness is gone; she can't follow our conversations. Cinderella was shocked when she saw her last week. "I'd take the finger pointing criticism any day," she said, which is something, because Oma used to make Cinderella cry.

The furniture I want to sell, for which I'm borrowing Darp's digital camera, is an antique mahogany dresser that my Oma and Opa bought in the 1950s, when they first came to Canada, from an old lady on the Smiths' farm that died. It was in my aunts' bedroom when they were little girls; my mother had it in her bedroom when I was a little girl, and I've had it for the last fifteen years or so, since my daddy sold our farm.

I don't know yet whether I'll be moving to California, but just the possibility has gotten me doing a spring cleaning to end all spring cleaning. I no longer need the Habs photo in my bathroom, and I don't know why I ever needed 57 coffee mugs. I've already taken four boxes of dishes and miscellaneous junk to Goodwill, and tomorrow Liz, my postie, is picking up another four boxes to take to a women's shelter she works at.

And whether I go, or don't go, it's time for the dresser to go.



In the next story, Sass and Maria play sprachspiele.

Crush With Eyeliner

Sunday was The Viking's birthday, and in keeping with the philosophy that life's not fair, there was no Kickass Karaoke at The Rivoli that night. There is no more loyal KAK devotee, and nearly no better singer, than The Viking (seriously: The White Stripes. Cream. Radiohead), and it's such a shame that we couldn't all sing together that night, me and my karaoke buddies. Last year The Viking accepted karaoke challenges on his birthday. I got him to sing REM's "It's The End Of The World As We Know It" then. This year, I was going to have him sing "One Way Or Another," my signature song, because I know he can do it, and because he's told me that he thinks that a guy singing that song would sound like a stalker and he's right, and so because he doesn't want to do it is exactly why I want him to do it.

So instead I went to The Banknote with Maria.

I got there before her, and Martin, the bartender, says to me, "You're all dressed up tonight, what's up?"

I was wearing black jeans and a sweater, but I'd washed and combed my hair, and was wearing mascara. Lesson learned.

I tell him my date for the evening is Maria, the chicken wing girl who's recently lost her mitten. She promised to bring The Mitten along, so he could have a beer with us.

Martin asks about Maria, and I tell him she's the one who was here with me a couple of weeks ago, who reviewed the chicken wings. I tell him about her blog. He tells me he doesn't do that Internet thing much. I tell him a little bit about blogs, and how Maria writes about knitting, and chicken wings, and lost mittens. He says,

"She must have a lot of time on her hands."

I say, "Most bloggers have real jobs, and only write online as a hobby."

He asks what she does. I tell him she has a degree from the London School of Economics and works for a market research firm.

He seems to have difficulty parsing this information.

"What do you do?" he asks.

"I write about The Banknote, mostly," I tell him.

"No, I mean, in real life."

"I teach marketing."

"Where do you teach?" he asks, so I tell him about the university I work at now, and the one I worked at before that, and about the first one I taught at, right after I left the real world of marketing, in New Brunswick.

"In Nova Scotia?" he asks. "Halifax?"

"No," I say, "St. John. New Brunswick."

A minute later tonight's Murphy Brown waitress is at my side. "Did you ever teach in Nova Scotia?" she asks.

"No, only in New Brunswick. St. John."

"But are you from there?"

"Oh, no. I'm an Ontario girl, through and through." I reply. "My four months out east were a culture shock. They almost stoned me when I told them I'd never heard of Great Big Sea."

"You look really familar," she says.

"Maybe because I'm here all the time."

"Tonight's my first night."

And probably your last, sweetheart. Did you not watch Murphy Brown?

Yeah, I'm three miles of bad road tonight, and Maria's s'mitten.

* * *
Next, Sass gets a chain letter from her friend Angela. Friday, it's another chorus of "Working for the Weekend".

Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

I meet the most interesting people in bars.

Take Phil, for example. He's a graphic artist for the Chicago Sun-Times, and has an Academy Award — for best educational film of 1989. He tells me about his latest project, constructing a 3D model of the new Wrigley Field.

I wait for him to say "da Bears" in a sentence, and when he does, it sounds just like John Goodman in the Saturday Night Live sketch.

(That's sketch, not Scotch.)

And then, later in his paragraph, as he's describing his attendance at a recent football game, Phil says, "I never bin an the field before."

Oh, how I love Chicago.

A good bar doesn't have a clock on the wall; only neon beer signs. And Warsteiner on tap, not Budweiser. A good bar has an entertaining bartender. And chairs that spin around. And french fries. And of course the very very best bars are the ones that have karaoke.

Resi's Bierstube has the first three of these, and the bartender's a doozie. His name is Seiser. Dared by the patrons, Seiser tends bar for several minutes with his pants around his ankles. (Thank god for boxer shorts.) This is no mean feat, make no mistake; the bar at Resi's is about 30 feet long, and he is the only one behind it. That's a lot of waddling back and forth.

I get the impression he's done it before.

A good bar has bar clutter. Bierdeckeln and cheesy plates on the wall. Entertainment for your eyes. I like clutter, and I miss it when it's gone.

Speaking of clutter, Dave wasn't exaggerating about the clutter in his apartment. Two people, two sets of furniture, two complete collections of books, CDs, DVDs, and video tapes, neatly labelled, of every episode of Star Trek TNG and the X-Files. On her way out the door on Friday morning Dave's roommate Bess picked up her keys, didn't notice that her magnetic clip-on sunglasses were stuck to them, and accidentally flung them across the room. She was still searching for them when I left on Sunday.

I tell Phil that Dave and I went to the Art Institute earlier that day. I don't tell him that I think the practise of hanging a Christmas wreath around the lions' necks is, well, disrespectful. To the lions.

Phil tells me that his mother went to art school with Andy Warhol, and that she has his box of pastels — used, and with his name written inside the lid. Phil says he's asked his mother to leave it to him in her will.

(I say, eBay!)

I like Andy Warhol's cats.

The Andy Warhol Museum is in Pittsburgh. That's also where Keppel is from. Keppel is sitting kitty-corner across from me at the bar, talking to Carrie. Dave tells him I'm Canadian.

"You're Canadian?" he asks, and I detect more than a little note of snarkiness in the question.

So I answer, "Yes. Eh."

"Pronounce 'against'," he says.

"Against."

"Say, 'Sorry'," he says.

"You mean as in, 'excuse me' don't you?" I clarify. "Like, What did you say? Sorry?"

He grins what can only be described as a Grinchy grin.

"Hey, do you hear that?" asks Phil.

He means the music being played on the bar's stereo system, as chosen by Seiser. I'd noticed Interpol earlier, and was impressed, but then became distracted by Mountie games with Keppel.

"It's The Buzzcocks," said Phil, answering his own question. "Noise Annoys. From Singles Going Steady."

"One of my favourite albums," I say, making sure to pronounce the word favourite with the U. "If it'd been Ever Fallen In Love, I would have noticed it right away."

Carrie was lamenting her lack of cleavage: "I was getting ready to come here tonight when I discovered my dog had chewed my bra! I had to resort to the sports bra. I didn't even bother to shower. I mean, what's the point of being clean when you don't even have a decent bra to wear, you know?"

"Don't you have any other bras?"

"No! I threw all the old ones away when I got the new one. It was my new one the little bugger chewed. So I had to decide whether to wear the sports bra or just boggle around. And now I have no tits!"

"What are you, Hunter S. Fuckin' Metcalfe?"

"Ever hear of a band called Naked Ragon?" asks Phil.

"No. How do you know so much about music?" I ask him.

"My mother was a singer. A famous singer. Well, small F famous. She was in a group called the Sweet Adelines — they once toured with Kenny Loggins. And she sang at the governor's mansion. Governor Clinton's mansion."

Someone mentions The Arcade Fire and I can't help myself; I go on my rant about how such overproduced, self-important, pretentious crap could only have come out of a bunch of guys from Montreal, the musical Bedrock of Canada, where young musicians grow up listening to Men Without Fucking Hats and are still listening to Yes and Genesis and Rush on CHOM-FM.

(I'm entitled to this opinion. I lived in Montreal for eight years during which time I never heard CHOM-FM play a song that was recorded later than 1979. I also managed a band, partied with Ivan from Men Without Hats, and learned to recognize the havoc they wreaked.)

"What do you mean, The Arcade Fire is Canadian?" says Keppel. He's offended that I should suggest such a thing.

I was beginning to recognize Keppel, too. As the resident wannabe recondite music critic.

"You didn't know?" I ask. "I'm not surprised; we walk among you unrecognized all the time."

(So long as we can keep from saying 'eh' after each sentence.)

Keppel practically spits his retort: "They're not Canadian. I happen to know for a fact that one of the guys in the band is from Texas."

"Keep telling yourself that," I say.

A girl at the far end of the bar who's been trying unsuccessfully to get Seiser's attention for some time now, finally does. She orders a glass of water. He brings her a giant glass mug full; it must have held one litre.

"You know those signs they have at pools?" Seiser is asking the patrons at the other end of the bar, now. "The ones that say, we don't swim in your toilet so don't pee in our pool? What if I wanted to swim in your toilet? What then?"

"You can get dyes that'll let you know if someone pees in your pool," offers Keppel.

"I don't like the pee pee discussion," says Carrie.

Dave is scanning the other side of the room, where a row of padded benches runs against the wall.

"Whenever I see a couch I want to lie down on it and take a nap," he says. "I can't help myself."

Dave's apartment has two entrances and lots of doors, many that I'm convinced lead nowhere, except perhaps to Narnia. Each of the two roommates' bedrooms has two doors. It struck me as surreal.

I like surreal.

The Art Institute of Chicago is home to the painting American Gothic, made famous by Bugs Bunny and a host of other comedians. There's always a big crowd around it. Those are the people who want to go back to their hometown of Buttfuck, Iowa, and say they saw a famous painting. They have no sense of irony.

I couldn't care less about American Gothic. I get the joke, and it's an ugly painting. Too, I am unmoved by most realist, naturalist, and impressionist paintings, uninterested in exhibits of pottery and ancient coins, embarassed on behalf of the abstract artists who are too stoned to be embarassed themselves for the great fraud they perpetrate on museum patrons, and I am drawn to the surrealists.

The Art Institute has a few Dalís, including A Chemist Lifting with Extreme Precaution the Cuticle of a Grand Piano (1936). I love his titles, and I prefer his earlier work.

Except for this one, which is from 1967.


I see it every morning when I step outside my bedroom door. I fell in love with Dalí when I saw the original in the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg. It's four meters high by three metres wide. I stared at it for half an hour.

Several other Dalís and a couple of Magritte prints are framed and hanging in my home. Dave's favourite Magritte is Time Transfixed. This is mine.

This trip, I discovered a new artist: Gerhard Richter. At the Art Institue there were four of his canvases. His style is somewhat Jackson Pollacky; layers of paint, globs of paint, then some of it scraped away. It's supposed to be abstract, but close up I swear I saw snowy mountains with tiny brightly coloured skiers on one, and brightly coloured tropical fish on another.

I should have asked Bess about him — she was an art history major. Dave's roommate, Bess, is a delightful, curly-haired Star Trek nerd who knits but doesn't blog. And boy, does she knit. On New Year's Eve she declined to attend Jaime and Jamie's party, opting to stay home with an order of sushi, a bottle of champagne, and her knitting needles. When Dave and I returned from the party I counted six new scarves, two hats, and a cardigan on the dining room table.

Someone down the other end of the bar says, "I once saw the band Chicago play live."

"Does anybody know what time it is?" asks Phil.

"Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to go home," announces Seiser.

"What the heck does 25 or 6-2-4 mean, anyway?"

"The bar is closed, get out!"

In the next story, Postmodern Sass has an update on Andrew the bartender.

Don't Leave Me This Way

"She'll laugh," I heard Lulu exclaim, before I'd even had a chance to take off my coat and settle into my usual bar stool at The Banknote. She was talking to a shortish, long-haired man wearing a CTV logoed vest and drinking a Guinness. He had the look of a regular about him, yet I didn't recognize him as a Banknote regular.

The CTV guy turned toward me. It was clear that whatever story Lulu'd been telling before I came in, he hadn't laughed. This fact alone spoke volumes about him. If you'd ever met Lulu, you'd know it's hard not to laugh when she tells a story. The story doesn't even have to be funny; it's all in the way she tells it. Lulu is a pixieish woman with dark hair and eyes, and a dimple the size of a meteor that crinkles when she smiles—and she's always smiling. In telling her stories she imitates facial expressions, puts on voices, pretends to be chewing gum with all the daintiness of a horse chewing its oats, snorts and clicks her tongue for sound effects, and all the while wildly gesticulating for emphasis. The untutored patron who sits beside her, or passes too closely behind, is at no inconsiderable personal risk.

"Sass will laugh at this story," says Lulu to the CTV guy. Then, to me, "You'll laugh, I know it."

Then she tells the following story:

"So I'm waiting for the elevator after work, and it stops and there's a guy in it already, not anyone I know; he must work for one of the other companies up on one of the higher floors; so I get in and I've just put on my coat—you know my big puffy coat?"

Before I can offer a reply as to the state of my knowledge of her wardrobe, she continues:

"This one!" she squeals, realizing it's hanging on the chair behind her. She lifts up one of the sleeves to show me. It is indeed a puffy coat. Down filled.

"So I've got the coat on and I get into the elevator and I reach into my pockets to pull out my gloves—you know how you keep your gloves in your coat pockets?— and I pull out my glove from the one pocket and my pocket explodes!"

Lulu reenacts the elevator scene. A woman passing behind her chair ducks.

"It just exploded—feathers everywhere! And I looked up at the guy in the elevator and I said, 'Look, my pocket exploded,' and he says to me, without missing a beat, 'Good thing it's not duck season!'"

I laugh. The CTV guy does not. But Lulu's not done yet:

"And I burst out laughing, I mean that's funny, right? Duck season! And I said something like, yeah, good thing, ha ha, and then it's only later, when I'm on the streetcar on my way here that I'm peeing my pants laughing because I realize what I should have said. You know what the streetcar's like at 5:00, everyone's by themselves, on their way home, so nobody's talking; I mean nobody talks to anyone, and there I am, laughing so hard I'm just about peeing my pants, and they're all looking at me like I'm a retard, but I can't help it because it's so funny—duck season!—and then I realize what I should have said to the guy in the elevator."

Martin is bartending tonight, though it's Andrew's night, and that's why I come here on Monday nights—it's not just the $6.95 pasta pescatore special, it's because of Andrew. It's why all of us do. So when he's not here on his usual night it's hard not to feel...disappointed. Nothing against Martin, not at all; in fact, he's my second favourite bartender ever since he lent Dave his skates a few weeks ago, but he's too shy and quiet to make a great bartender, and, let's face it, there are plenty of places in this city where we could go for a pint. Like I tell my students, smart marketers know that it's not about the beer— or the coffee, or the haircut, or the screwdriver, or whatever it is that you're buying—it's about the experience. And Andrew is key to The Banknote experience.

But tomorrow is Tuesday; I'll come by after my evening class. Tuesday is Andrew's night, too. So's Wednesday, when it's half price appetizers until 10:00.

Lulu is about to tell me what she should have retorted to the man on the elevator:

"So it's only when I get on the streetcar and I'm halfway here that I think of what I should have said to the guy in the elevator, and you know what the streetcar's like at this time of the afternoon; it's rush hour, everyone's by themselves, on their way home, so nobody's talking, and there I am, laughing so hard I'm seriously peeing my pants, and they're all looking at me like I'm a retard, but I can't help it because that's when I realize what I should have said to the guy in the elevator:"

I wait.

"No—it's wabbit season!" she explodes.

I laugh.

"See, I told you she'd laugh!" says Lulu to CTV Guy.

I've managed to consume almost half of my Beck's while Lulu's been telling the wabbit story, and I haven't been drinking quickly. Like I said, it's all in the way she tells 'em.

Martin's got the cable radio on channel 73, the throbbing disco channel. Since I've been sitting here I've heard Thelma Houston, Alicia Bridges, and a weird one hit disco wonder from a zillion years ago called "I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper."

"I don't suppose you'd maybe want to put the radio on channel 33?" I ask Martin, trying not to give him the impression that I wish Andrew were here, even though that's exactly what I'm wishing. "It's the Frank Sinatra station."

"Sorry, I can't," Martin replies, and he does seem sorry, "We've switched it about six times already tonight; I've got to leave it on this for a while."

Vince, one of the owners, is in the bar, and it's his favourite station.

"So where's that good for nothing Andrew tonight?" I ask, Martin, jokingly. "Too hungover from his other job as a bouncer at the gay strip club to drag his sorry ass in here?"

I like to think I'm The Banknote's resident quidnunc. Then again, like I've said before, I like to think I'm 29. But I like to know what's going on, and I think that I do. Oh, Lulu's the mayor of the place—she'll get to know the new people and make everyone feel at home; entertain them with her stories. But I watch. I observe.

I write stories.

"Andrew's gone," says Martin simply.

* * *
The next story is more about Angela and Boz. There will be more about Andrew the bartender in Don't Leave Me This Way [redux].

New Orleans Is Sinking [part I]

When the phone rang in my room at the Imperial Palace in Biloxi just after midnight on Tuesday night, I knew it was Jack. I had just turned off David Letterman and the bedside lamp, and had given up on him — for the night, I mean. Jack seems to have a sixth sense about this; for knowing the exact moment at which I give up. Because that's when he calls.

He knew my schedule and I knew he wouldn't call on Monday night, because I was to land in New Orleans after 11:00 and it's at least an hour's drive to Biloxi. It was 1:30 by the time I checked in and made my way down to the casino.

Time means nothing in a casino, which is why I like to hang out in them. Sometimes. Not too frequently, and not for too long. But it's been a year and a half since I was last here. On that trip I had flown into Mobile, stayed in Biloxi, driven up to Meridian, then over to D'Iberville, then to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. The thing about Mississippi is, you can't fly there on Air Canada, and you have to drive anyway, once you're there, so you might as well fly into someplace interesting like New Orleans or Memphis.

It took me longer than I'd expected to drive here from the New Orleans airport. It had been thundering at the car rental office, and not long after I got out on the I-10 it opened up and poured rain of such biblical proportions I feared I'd be swept into the Tchoutacabouffa River. I had to slow down to 70 mph, the speed limit in Louisiana, which no one drives when the weather is clear. See, the roads are smooth as glass in the deep south, because there's no snow or ice to crack them up. The lanes on the highways are lined with tiny reflectors. It's mesmerizing. Easy to drive 85 and not feel like you're going too fast.

But back to Monday night: I'm sitting at a bar called Kanpai, in the casino at the Imperial Palace. Of the seven or eight bars in the casino I chose this one, bypassing the Geisha bar, the Mai Tai Lounge, and the Saki bar, because I was curious about the name. I asked Darnell, the bartender, what it means.

"It's Japanese," he says, then adds, "Or Chinese."

"I figured it was Japanese," I reply with a smile, keeping every drop of sarcasm out of my voice, because he meant well. "But what does it mean, do you know?"

"It's like a theme, the Imperial Palace. You know, it's all Japanese or Chinese or something. Asian."

Or something. I despaired of dwelling on this descant with Darnell.

I hadn't, in fact, yet made the connection between the name of the hotel and the names of the bars. The hotel itself is in no way reminiscent of Japan. Not outside, where the building is trimmed with pale blue neon piping, nor inside, where it is nondescript in every way. This is Biloxi, not Las Vegas. They don't seem to try very hard on their theme hotels. Not even the waitresses' outfits are Japanese in style.

It's a small bar. There are no draught taps, only oxymoronic Miller Genuine Draft in a bottle. I inquire of Darnell whether he has any German beer.

"Just Heineken," he says.

Though for many years I followed Tim's advice, to always drink the beer that's brewed closest to where you're sitting, there are places in the world, and Mississippi is one of them, where that's not going to be the best beer to drink and it just might be the worst. Besides, I had decided a few years ago that life is too short to drink American beer.

"Then that's what I'll have," I tell Darnell.

It had been a long flight — two, actually, through O'Hare — and a very bumpy landing. The pilot announced we were descending, gave the usual speech to the flight attendants about preparing the cabin for landing, which they began, lethargically, to do. Then, less than a minute later, the captain's voice clicked on again and barked, "Flight attendants, take your seats!"

Boy, did they. We headed in on what I like to think was a 45° angle.

After the landing the purcer — that's what she called herself — thanked us "on behalf of the San Francisco-based crew." I supressed the urge to ask her whether she'd ever encountered the chocolate guy.

A long flight, a bumpy landing, a rainy drive, and, finally, a lonely hotel. You can see why I needed a beer after that.

I'm the only person at the bar not playing the built-in video poker games. You know, Gentle Reader, what I'm doing instead, but what you don't know is that I'm doing it with Darnell's pen. Poor man, I'm sure he senses no tip from me, but he'll be wrong about that.

I have nothing against gambling, it's just that I'm not any good at it. Neither with slot machines, nor with stock options. I might risk $50 at roulette when I'm in Las Vegas, but not here, not this trip. Despite its name, there is no glamour in the Imperial Palace casino. There are no tourists, and I'm certain I'm the only business traveller.

At the check-in counter I had encountered a woman of about 45, dragging a very small girl by the hand. "Do you have any rooms for tonight?" she inquired, not politely, of the desk clerk, never letting go of the girl's hand.

As the woman leaned over the counter to fill out the registration form, the little girl leaned over and vomitted on the sparkling marble floor.

"You'll have to call someone to clean that up," the woman said to the desk clerk, as he handed her her room key.

There are few things sadder than a Mississippi casino at 2:00 in the morning.

* * *
I had just dozed off when the phone rang.

"Hey, you," Jack said.

"Hi," I replied, sleepily.

"Oh, I've woken you up! Go back to sleep, I'll call you tomorrow night."

"No, I'm glad you called."

"I thought you might be lonely," said Jack.

"I'm always lonely."

"More so than usual, then, without your kitties."

"Yes."

Then I told Jack about the drive up to Meridian, my presentation at MSU, and the girl at the gas station convenience store in De Soto, who taught me how to open a beer.

And I'll tell you, Gentle Reader, about them too, very soon.

* * *
After reading this Udge post I considered turning on comments today, then decided against it again, for the same reasons I explained here. I always enjoy hearing from my readers, but I prefer to receive and respond to your comments via email. I don't buy the argument that clicking on an email link is more difficult than filling out a comments form — in fact, it's simpler, but email is a private conversation where the commenter is identified to the commentee, which perhaps is why some readers shy away from it. It's also exactly the reason I prefer it.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do [part III - fin]

Continued from part II

"Did you see the final episode of Sex And The City?" Zee is asking. We're still at The Banknote, drinking, where we've been since part I. I've lost count of the pints, and it's a damned good thing we walked here.

"Yes, but only recently, in reruns," I reply. "What made you think of that?"

I have to be honest with you, Gentle Reader, I despise that show — but I watch it sometimes. I think all the women are self-centred, superficial, neurotic bitches. Yes, even Miranda. I only watch the episodes that feature Mr. Big, because Chris Noth is the celebrity man of my dreams. And even so, I'd much rather watch him as Detective Logan in a rerun of Law & Order. Tall, dark, and sarcastic; that's how I like 'em.

"I don't know; just thinking about relationships, I guess. I love that show. I'm so glad Carrie and Big got together in the end."

"Everybody loves a Cinderella story," I say.

Me, I just love Mr. Big.

"Girls do, at least," says Zee. "Do you remember the first episode? Where they keep bumping into each other, accidentally, until finally they decide to go out?"

"Love at first sight is a key component of the Cinderella story," I reply, by way of answering her question.

Sorry, I'm an English Lit major, I can't help myself. When I was at McGill I had Hugh MacLennan as a professor, and I remember him telling us there are only 12 stories.

"Also key to the Cinderella story are the Forces That Conspire To Keep Them Apart — evil stepmothers, lost shoes, what have you. That's why Carrie and Big spend the entire six years of the show getting together, then breaking up, then being just friends, then not speaking at all, and then he moves to California..."

Doesn't sound like anybody I know, that's for sure.

"Doesn't sound like anybody I know, that's for sure," says Zee. "Although, I can kind of identify with Carrie. Maybe that's just because, of the four of them, she's the one that I look most like."

"Be glad you don't look like Charlotte."

"Why?"

"I always thought she looks like Milton Berle."

"Are you talking about Sid behind his back again?" asks Andrew, as he places another round in front of us. Andrew is the sort of bartender who starts pouring as soon as he sees you come through the door, and keeps 'em coming all night until you tell him to stop. And you'd better tell him no more before you're halfway through your last, or it'll be too late.

Sid is the other bartender at The Banknote. He works weekends. He hasn't appeared in this story, yet, but he will if we don't go home soon.

"I think Carrie's the most real of all the characters," says Zee. "She's cute and fun, but can be insecure."

"Mr. Big is her Prince Charming: tall and handsome."

"She is sometimes fabulous, sometimes a clueless dork."

We've all been there...

"He is sophisticated, but distant."

"She's a writer."

"He's rich."

"She doesn't love him for his money, though."

"She has way too many shoes."

"He's in the driver's seat in their relationship."

"She loves him like crazy, and all she wants is for him to love her."

"He loves her, but he doesn't realize it."

In the final episode of Sex And The City, Mr. Big goes to Paris to find Carrie; to finally tell her that he loves her. There are a few near misses: he drives by her on the street, in his limo, without seeing her; he enters a building just as she's leaving it. Finally, he bursts into the lobby of the hotel where she's staying just as the elevator doors open and she emerges... she sees him... and all she can say is...

"Hey, you."



You'd have to be crazy to believe in fairytales, right?

* * *
In the next story, Postmodern Sass has an I-can-die-happy-now moment at, of all places, a karaoke bar. Then, much later, she discovers that Mr. Big also karaokes. In August, Sass meets her own Mr. Big at The Banknote.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do [part II]

Continued from part I

"So does Zee edit lesbian porn too?" asks Andrew, when Zee has gone to the ladies room.

"No, she sells drugs," I tell him.

"Coke? Heroin?"

"Viagra."

Zee knows a little about Jack. She knows about my Cinderella birthday present last summer. She knows he's tall and handsome — she's seen the picture of us taken at Sara's wedding. I felt bad, showing it to her now, when she's having relationship problems. It felt like I was rubbing it in. Not that my relationship, such as it is, is so perfect, but it sure is a swell photo, don't you think?

Zee has returned from the ladies room.

"So?" she asks again,"What do you think I should do?"

"Have another drink."

Zee also knows about what happened in September. She'd seen the fabulous pink dress, and had been admiring it, and all the smashing accessories I'd collected for it, all from eBay: the pink satin silver trimmed clutch, the pink rhinestone barrette, the pink rhinestone cocktail ring that exactly matched the buttons on the coat, and the shoes; oh, the shoes! When I told her that I hadn't yet been able to find earrings, she said, "Wait a minute," ran to her place, and was back in ten minutes with them. The absolutely perfect pair of pink rhinestone earrings.

Andrew sets another gin and tonic down in front of Zee, and another pint of Moosehead in front of me. He is grinning.

"Viagra, eh?"

"Forget it," I say to him. "She's heard all the jokes." Then, to Zee, "I don't understand men."

"You're looking to the wrong person for clarification on that," she says.

"I mean about the Viagra. Correct me if I'm wrong — you're the expert — but isn't Viagra a medication for men who have a problem? So why do they all want it? You'd think they'd be embarassed."

"Oh, they're not embarassed. They flash it around like a badge of honour; like teenagers carrying a condom for the first time. The worst are my customers, the doctors and the pharmacists. I doubt the samples I give them ever make it to the patients."

When I went to San Francisco for my birthday last August, Zee made me promise to take lots of pictures. She wanted to see the guy that I hadn't been able to shut up about. So I promised I would, but I broke that promise. It was the most fantastic, romantic, fairy tale weekend of my life, and I didn't want to share it with anyone other than Jack. So I didn't take any pictures.

"Darryl was always bugging me to try it," says Zee.

"The Viagra?"

"Yeah. But I wouldn't let him. His problem isn't physical, it's emotional. He needs a therapist, not a pharmacist."

When Jack didn't come for Carly and Simon's wedding, I avoided Zee for a week, but eventually I had to give the earrings back; I had to tell her what had happened. But after New York, I went to her place straight from the airport to tell her that this time, he had come.

The Star is still lying beside me, on the bar. I ask Andrew for the scissors and snip some headlines. I lay them out on the bar for him to choose from.

In the auto section there's a big red headline, part of a car dealer's ad. I can't resist: IT KEEPS GETTING HARDER. Andrew tapes it to the front of his shirt.

"Any lawyers here?" I ask Andrew. From a headline reading something about rumours dim advocates' hopes, I snip DIM ADVOCATE.

I cut a word from another car dealer ad: HUMMER. Jason, the architect, who has been sitting on my other side, watching, says, "How'd you know that one?"

"I teach twenty year olds," I answer.

"I'm the best thing that's ever happened to him, and he knows it," Zee told me on Sunday night, after she had confronted Darryl about his weekend. "His brother, his sister-in-law, his father, they've all told me, Darryl's a different person. What have you done to him? You two are perfect for each other. I would do anything for him. I would take a bullet for him. Well, maybe not today, I wouldn't. Today I want to put one in him.

Zee was saying, "I should have my head examined for putting up with him, shouldn't I? I mean, if he doesn't realize how great we are together, how much I love him... why don't I just give up? You must think I'm crazy."

"You know I don't."

Zee doesn't know that "Crazy" is my other theme song.

Zee lets out an exasperated sigh. "Men. Argh. Why are they like that?"

"Have you ever seen that poster?"

"Which one?"

"This one:"



"Don't give up on him," I tell her, finally.

To be concluded tomorrow.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do [part I]

I've just come from my friend and neighbour Zee's place. She looks just awful, and that's tough for her to do. She's a mess because she just broke up with her boyfriend again. She also broke up with him on Sunday, and had tried to on Friday night. So I'm going to walk her up to The Banknote and get her drunk.

This is what women do. What men do in these situations, I do not know.

The last time I got dumped Magda did the same for me, and a few weeks later it looked like I was about to be called upon to return the favour, but it turned out not to be necessary.

It's definitely necessary for Zee, though, even though she was the dumper, not the dumpee. Breaking up is hard to do no matter how it's done, and so alcohol is required to dull the pain and open the vents.

Zee and I are just going to change out of our work clothes, and then we're going.

Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name
And they're always glad you came
You wanna be where you can see
Our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows your name.

* * *
Andrew, my dragon-slaying bartender whom I told you about here, is engaged at the other end of the bar with a pair of scissors. I know what this means, but Zee isn't a regular here, so she doesn't suspect a thing when Andrew comes around to our side of the bar, greets me, introduces himself to Zee, and touches us lightly on our backs.

Zee left a message in my voice mailbox on Friday afternoon: "Hey, it's me. I was hoping you'd be able to take Gracie out at suppertime. I'm in Mississauga, on my way to Darryl's to end it once and for all."

Gracie is Zee's dog. A Weimaraner.

Darryl is Zee's boyfriend. A whiner.

"Is he the one you were telling me about?" asks Zee, indicating Andrew.

"Yeah. He's married, though, and just had a baby boy last fall."

"Damn."

"Yeah, I know."

I turn away from her for a moment, so she can see my back.

"Hey, you've got something stuck to your back!" Zee exclaims. "It looks like a newspaper headline."

"What does it say?"

"SASS IS IN."

"Must have come from the fashion section. Turn around, let's see what yours says."

She turns. Hers says MUST DO BETTER.

"Welcome to The Banknote."

"Every time I get too close, he pushes me away," Zee told me, later on Friday night. Darryl wasn't home when she got there. She let herself into his place, called his cell and left a message, but she couldn't find him so she came home. "This has been our problem all along. He doesn't want to take a risk. In anything. His whole life has been very structured; he was raised to believe that for every effect there's a cause. We've been together over a year and, you know, it's time to move forward, but he's afraid because he doesn't know if I'm the one. He says he needs to know, for sure, that I am. He needs a guarantee.

Andrew's gone out for a smoke break. I take the scissors to the front page of the Toronto Star



and prepare to tape TERRIFIED PATRONS FLEE to his back when he returns.

"Darryl's mother died when he was 11, and it was never talked about. To this day, he doesn't know what she died of. Cancer, that's all he knows."

"He never asked? Not even when he got older?"

"No. No one in their family ever talks about it. His father remarried the wicked witch. His brother and sister are more fucked up than he is. Everyone he knows who's married has had an affair. Either the husband or the wife. Even his older brother, married for twenty years to his highschool sweetheart."

"Sounds like he's never been happy, so now, with you, he doesn't know how to be."

Dimestore psychology, to be sure, but that's what you go to a bar for, isn't it?

"Everyone he's ever loved has abandoned him, starting with his mother, so he's afraid that everyone he loves will eventually abandon him. And so it's easier for him to push me away; to make me angry; to give me a damn good reason to break up with him, so he can say to himself, well, there you go, I behaved like an asshole so she dumped me, and I deserve it. That's easier for him to deal with."

What he did, by way of giving her a damn good reason to break up with him, was spend the weekend with another girl. That's why Zee couldn't find him on Friday night.

Mridul, the Air Canada pilot, has come in and taken his usual seat in front of the taps. He's not wearing his uniform tonight. Andrew pours him a Guinness and tapes a headline to the glass: FLIGHT OF FANCY.

Lulu is sitting directly across from us, along the other side of the bar. I peel my headline off my back and tape it to my glass, then hold it up for her to see. She laughs. Hers says MIRED IN SCANDAL. Lulu is a securities trader by day, and a bartender at the after-hours joint up on Dundas by night.

"I like this place," says Zee. She moves her headline to her glass. She's drinking gin and tonic, in an Old Fashioned glass. Her headline, snipped from the front page of the business section, is in 80-point type, making it difficult for her to handle the glass.

She bends her head down to the glass and takes a sip through the straw.

"What would you do if you were me?" she asks.

To be continued tomorrow.