Red Red Wine

I've decided to start drinking wine. Red wine, because it's winter, because I prefer it to white, and because it was one of the last things Jack tried to teach me: how to appreciate a Cabernet Sauvignon. He would pour it in a glass and swirl it, and talk about its legs. It was an inside joke. Jack was a leg man.

So I bought two bottles today, both from wineries in the homeland (a Merlot from Open, and a Cab from Peninsula Ridge). My homeland, that is. That strip of sandy soil on top of the Niagara Peninsula where, when I was a little girl, they used to grow Concord grapes and make them into pie fillings and jelly. When Free Trade came into effect in 1988 all the farmers ripped out their Concords and retired, and ten years later the carpet baggers moved in and opened dozens of chichi new wineries with designer labels. Even my home boys Dan Ackroyd and Wayne Gretzky did it.

The other thing I did today was go underwear shopping. It was on my list. It's a long list; longer than what I showed you, and I intend to work my way diligently through it this week while Gilbert, Mrs. Gilbert, Rex, and a couple of their friends are in Cuba at an all-inclusive resort. The all-inclusive includes all the golf you can golf, and they can have it. I'm having a vacation of my own, being alone while they're away.

Don't get me wrong, I love them all, I really do. Gilbert is my second-best friend, after Kay, and Rex is, well, Rex — I've seen him naked, so we're bonded for life — but I spend 90% of my time with them and I need a break. I live in Gilbert's house, and work for his company; and I live with Rex, drive to work with Rex, and work with Rex.

I really need a break.

Gilbert gave me no instructions, no responsibilities, while he's away. Astro is in charge, which is as it should be. Astro is Mrs. Gilbert's son; I've known him since he was a teenager, he's worked for Gilbert just as long, and the company would undoubtedly fall apart without him — still, I thought he, Gilbert, would have given me some responsibility. He didn't. I don't have a key to the office, so I can't stay late.

So I'm making a real effort to not work hard. It's hard for me to not work hard, having been taught by my father that if you're going to do anything, you must give it your all. But I'm trying.

I checked my personal email today, something I used to do all day every day, and something which, since I've been back home and working a real job in the real world, I sometimes go days without doing at all.

There was an email from Rex, sent two days ago (see?), a message from his mother that he forwarded. She wished him a happy new year, and she said "and the same to Sass," which was the first time she's acknowledged my existence since Rex and I were in grade 13.

So I emailed her. Yeah, I know, and this was before the wine.

You can see how this must look to her, can't you? Chronologically, I mean. I'll summarize, and if you want more detail you can read Rex's blog. Two years ago, I found Rex on Facebook. We chatted briefly, and I put him back in touch with Gilbert. Then he started working for Gilbert. Then last Christmas I went out with Rex and Gilbert. I told you about it here. (He wrote about it here.) It was the first time I'd seen Rex in more than 20 years.

In February this year — I mean last year — Rex left his wife and moved into Gilbert's house. And then in September I got kicked out of California, so I came home and moved into Gilbert's house.

With Rex.

You can see how this must look, can't you? To Rex's mother, I mean? And why the memory of her scares the crap out of me?

In the next story, Sass calls her best friend, Kay.

New Divide

The first thing I did when I got home after driving Rex to the airport this afternoon was to hang about a dozen pictures around the house. I hung my mother's mushroom trivet and mushroom clay disks in the kitchen. I hung the lion door knocker I brought back from China in 2002 — though not on the door. I hung the five framed Leo cards I've collected over the years on the wall in my bedroom, beside the bookshelf; a couple of small framed prints in the new powder room in the foyer, and the two little red Ikea mirrors above the toilet.

I pulled out all my framed family photos from their boxes, where they've been since I moved home from California four months ago, and I'll think about where to hang them next.

I'm not sure why the impulse to do all this now was so strong. Maybe because it's the first time I've been alone for any length of time since September; since that day everything in and about my life changed, literally overnight. I lived alone for three years in California. Now I live in my friend Gilbert's big old house in downtown Toronto, with my high school boyfriend, Rex.

It's not what you're thinking. We're roommates. We don't live together live together.

All afternoon I've been watching TV, the shows I like, not just the ones both Rex and I like: NCIS, Power Play, Traders, Gilmore Girls, and, yes, I'm not afraid to admit it, Cougar Town. And I've been making a list of things I want to do this week:

1. Buy some more hooks and hang some more things
2. Shop for new underwear (and a self-smack to the head for forgetting to stock up at Victoria's Secret before leaving America for good)
3. Get some potting soil & sand for the cactuses
4. Organize my shoe closet
5. Hang the curtains I bought three months ago
6. Spend the Christmas money my Daddy gave me

It's not that I can't do these things when Rex is here, it's just that I can't seem to actually do them. It's as if a sort of paralysis comes over me, and I just want to go home after work and turn my brain off and let the world go to pot around me. I haven't been very productive lately.

So I'm going to try to do that thing that I used to do when I was angry, or upset, or embarrassed, or otherwise feeling like kicking myself. That writing thing. It's why I started this blog in the first place.

Give me reason to fill this hole, connect the space between.

In the next story, Sass goes underwear shopping and takes up drinking wine.

But then an old guitar was all he could afford

"Let's skip school go to Steve's," said Rex, as he passed me on the stairs this morning. I was going up, first coffee in hand, post shower, bathrobe and wet hair, on my way to finish getting ready for work. He was going down, pre shower, on his way to get his first coffee. You know how guys are. They can get ready in one third the time we require.

Oh, sure, we could be out the door in 20 minutes too, but then all day people would make comments like, "Gee, you look tired today," which is what happened the last time I left the house without wearing mascara.

But I digress.

Have I mentioned that Rex, who was all those decades ago my high school boyfriend, is now my roommate?

Yes, I know, I haven't, Gentle Reader, and I am very sorry; I have no legitimate excuse. I have an illegitimate one, though, and it goes like this: So damn much has been happening since I left California that I don't seem to know where to begin, and instead remain paralyzed, unable to write. Today I'm breaking that hold, and jumping right into the middle, to tell you a story. I'll fill in the other bits later, as I go along.

It will likely come as no surprise to you but in high school I was the kind of girl who scared most of the boys away. I was taller and smarter than most of them, and not exactly what anyone would refer to as a shrinking violet, and my mother being the kind of mother who was all about the women's liberation, and not at all about the finishing school manners, never instructed me in the ways to avoid bowling over men.

Rex didn't seem to be scared of me, and I'm not sure why. Wasn't sure then, still not sure now, because he actually is the shrinking violet type, man version. He had this way about him, though, when he walked down the halls at school, or into a classroom, that gave the impression that he didn't give a rat's ass what any of the other kids thought about him. Which, if you remember anything about high school, you know is no easy trick to pull off.

He didn't do it in a badass, don't-fuck-with-me sort of James Dean way, but in more of a Walter Mitty sort of way, which at first made me curious, then interested, and then the next thing I knew I was out of that dress.

Still not sure how that happened, exactly.

Anyway, the coolest thing about Rex was that he had a 1972 Rickenbacker bass, and oh, man, he knew how to use it. And it was badass. I had a somewhat less badass Ibanez electric guitar, which until then I had only played in my bedroom, plugged into my Toshiba stereo. (Blew the speakers playing Planet Claire.) So it was love at guitar sight, and we spent most of our grade 13 afternoons at his house, trying without much success to learn Rush and Saga songs, and when we tired of that, playing Smoke On The Water.

If you grew up in Ontario during the years when there was still grade 13 you probably remember that as soon as you turned 18 you could sign yourself out of school without your parents' permission. Our high school was in a one horse town called Beamsville; anything was more interesting than what was there, and Toronto, the big city an hour down the highway, was the most interesting of all. We used to skip school, drive to Toronto, and hang out all day at Steve's Music Store on Queen Street. We couldn't afford to buy anything other than Steve's guitar picks, and maybe some strings now and then, but it didn't matter. Just being there, in that place, in that city, was enough.

I still have some of those picks, but I sold the electric guitar and I'm still regretting it. I have an Ibanez acoustic, though, and last weekend Rex and I went to Steve's and I bought a little Roland amp and a pickup, and we've been playing every night since then.

Oh yeah, he's still got it. The Rickenbacker, I mean.

In the next story, Sass deals with a New Divide.

Make 'em Laugh

I had only two boyfriends in my five years of high school, Josh, whom I haven't seen since his wedding in the 1980s, and Rex, whom I haven't seen since Monday when we met at the Kingsway Theatre. Our friend Gilbert bought it, reopened it, and is renovating it. In that order.

The three of us admired the theatre, and I inquired as to when the old popcorn machine might be operational. Then we walked down the street to a bar where we remained for the next ten hours.

When we were in high school the three of us spent most of our free time (and some of our scheduled class time) at a certain corner table in the library, out of sight of the librarian, where we talked about things that, in retrospect, pegged us as the nerdy pretentious clique that always thought they were smarter than everyone else. Thing is, we were. Gilbert became an engineer, then a computer scientist, and now runs his own high-tech company. And though they were good friends back then, Gilbert and Rex hadn't seen each other for over twenty years, until I hooked them up last spring. Now, Rex is Gilbert's right-hand man.

"What is it with guys?" I asked. "I mean, you two were best friends in grade thirteen, and then you both went to U of T. How could you have never spoken in all this time?"

"We did!" countered Gilbert. "We went out for pizza once."

"It was good," said Rex.

Gilbert's always been one of my closest friends; we've been through a lot together in the two decades between high school and the Kingsway, but I hadn't seen Rex since the New Year's Eve we broke up. We had a fight in his car, just before midnight. I don't remember what it was about, and have asked him not to remind me if he does, because I don't want to regret the stupid things I did when I was young any more than is absolutely necessary.

Rex is the deep, introspective type. He doesn't say much, but he's always thinking, and he notices and remembers everything. It's intimidating, but then, I'm not easily intimidated. When we were dating I told him my favourite movie was Singin' In The Rain, and for Christmas that year he bought me the soundtrack. It wasn't easy to find; it was a French import. I still have it. I think I still have everything he gave me. Even the letters.

It was those letters — in a box in my closet in San Jose, that I'd been looking through one day last spring, on a weekend when I needed to procrastinate; before my world fell apart — that led me to look up Rex on Facebook. "Is that you?" I pinged, though I never doubted it was.

"What's great about seeing someone you knew years ago, but haven't seen for a long time, is that you always see them the way they were then," mused Gilbert. He's not usually the deep one; more the let's poke this thing then pull it apart from the inside and examine it type. But he was right. I looked at Rex, sitting across the table from me looking all the world like Jack Donaghy, right down to the smirk, but what I saw was the boy with the long, dark brown hair and big brown eyes. The smirk hadn't changed a bit, though.

We went through two waitresses, lots of food and drink, and a hockey game, and then it was time to go. My car is at the garage (that's the next story), and Gilbert had picked me up on the way to the theatre, but Rex wanted to drive me home, even though he lived about a hundred miles in the opposite direction.

I was glad he wanted to, but I was a little scared, and so I talked all the way home, nearly forgetting to give him directions in time for him to follow them. We took a detour through the Exhibition, just for fun, and for a moment I was 18 again.

He pulled up in front of my condo building and I had to get out of the car, I mean, what else was there to do? I felt like I should say something deep, but then I realized it wasn't necessary. This wasn't a deathbed confessional, and it wasn't a chance meeting of two people who would never see each other again. It was a beginning. So I said, "I feel like you're back in my life, now. I hope that isn't presumptuous of me."

He replied, "No."

More Songs About Buildings And Food

I've just returned from a trip to one of my favourite buildings, the Loblaws Queen's Quay Market, with enough material for a dozen stories. This is what I saw:

In the produce section: A woman wearing what was either a slip dress circa 1996, or a nightgown. Neither of which would attract undue notice, were this a sweltering day in July, rather than a brisk Toronto April.

In the canned fish aisle: A man who, with one hand was turning the cans so he could bettter examine the labels, with the other was holding his cell phone, into which he was asking, "What's the difference between flaked tuna and chunked tuna?"

In the peanut butter aisle: A couple of hot guys who turned out to be a hot guy couple. One, who was crouching to reach the Kraft peanut butter (they keep it on the very bottom shelf because they know you'll work that hard to get it), was asking the other, "Which kind of peanut butter is it that we like, again?"

In the snack food aisle: A real hot guy. You know what I mean. Both age- and height-appropriate. For me, I mean. Note to self: dress better next time you go grocery shopping.

At the checkout: A woman with her hair in rollers. Note to woman with her hair in rollers: dress next time you go grocery shopping.

At the checkout: A cashier who looks exactly like Debi Mazar.

At the checkout: An older woman, my cashier, showing solicitude above and beyond the call of duty to the especially demanding customer ahead of me, who wasn't being outright rude, but who was babbling incessantly and in turns and in Chinese to her mother, then to her son, and who turned her attention to the cashier only to ask, breviloquently, to please not put that item in the same bag with this item, and give me a separate bag for the bean sprouts. She wasn't being rude, quite. Just terse. Just more demanding than perhaps most of us would consider necessary on a busy Saturday afternoon at a very large grocery store in a very large city.

As the Chinese woman left the cashier called to the next cashier, the one behind me, to please come and relieve her; she needed a break. She apologized to me for the short wait, and I made a point of smiling, and being extra nice to her. I'm trying to keep my New Year's resolution. And I thought about Jack.

Jack travels a lot for work, and he always travels with chocolate. He's diabetic, as I told you before. It's not for himself. When he's checking in, or boarding, he's frequently forced to observe the travellers ahead of him taking out their frustrations on the airline staff. Sometimes, by the time they get to him, they can barely contain their exasperation, and though they're attempting to be polite to him, he knows what they're really thinking is, "And what the fuck do you want?"

And so, instead of wanting anything, he asks, "Would you like some chocolate?"

Just to watch their faces light up.

Once, he was settling into his first class seat while the flight attendant was attempting to calm a particularly beligerent passenger in front of him. She did the best she could, then she turned to Jack, hoping for relief, and he had it.

"Would you like some chocolate?" he offered.

"Oh! You're that guy!" she exclaimed. "You're the chocolate guy! I'd heard about you, but I thought it was just an airline legend."

He sure can be that guy.
* * *
Her fridge full, Sass turns her attention to figuring out whether, and how, to use Picasa and/or Flickr, and, while doing so, a thought occurs to her...Later, Jack calls Sass. And then, she writes him a letter..