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Overwhelmed...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2333
Really, with my schedule and all it's a miracle I get anything done. And with the new addition of a social calendar I've been getting pretty much nothing done. Friend comes over for coffee, sees the same pile of tents, sleeping bags and prospecting equipment that's been piled up in the kitchen for the last 2 1/2 months, sees the desk and vacuum left splayed (unconvincingly) across the living room floor and tells me I'm deranged...she's not going to take off her boots.
...she's at the other extreme, her house, cleaned top to bottom twice a week, whether it needs it or not. Equally deranged in my books, I have the same rhythm, just yearly, and she caught me at the wrong end of the cycle. I've got to clean up, it's starting to oppress me, weigh upon my soul...
...I used to have a live in maid, gave her a room for free if she'd clean, only I wouldn't let her clean the bedroom or my desk and I refused to unpack all the boxes I had stacked in the kitchen and after a time she began to feel a bit overwhelmed herself and decided she'd prefer to pay rent and so moved out...
...and when I finish the cleaning there's the stack of paper notes by the computer, books to read, projects to complete, cleaning has always been at the low end of my priorities, and I realize that I'm starting to feel a little overwhelmed...
Falling
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2524
Her boyfriend and her, they've gotten good enough they can go it alone, I can practice my skating. I've got a long ways to go. It's funny, when you first learn to skate your preoccupation is with keeping your balance and not falling down. But there's an Ice Marshall here, petite cute Asian girl, she's obviously a figure skater and trying copy a few of her moves ...
...It's to be expected, it hurts only momentarily and all pride was lost when I tied on the skates. I'll need to buy elbow, knee-pads, I suspect acquiring these moves will involve a fair bit of falling, these aren't things that can be undertaken at low velocity, the pirouettes, flying leaps, backwards skating on a single foot, some things can only be learned at speed and with a great deal of accompanying failure. Never mind, it'll keep things interesting...
...meanwhile, the Italian Girl and her boyfriend are skating together, occasionally stumbling, tumbling, tripping into one another, regaining their balance, for them, it's all about not falling.
The Painting Cafe
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Reviews
- Hits: 2366
In our little adventures about the city together we discover a cafe that offers you paint and canvas and for a price you can sit and paint away to your hearts content. This is in itself of no interest to me, I can paint plenty badly enough on my own without anyone watching, but she's excited. And to be truthful I'm a little interested in the social component of it all, they have various themed nights you can take advantage of, and so one afternoon off when we're wandering we stop in and decide to paint a couple of small canvases...
...checking out the shop/cafe, bad canvases everywhere adorn the walls, they're none of them good, amateurish in that grade-eight sense, representational, recognizable, but by no means aesthetic or intellectually stimulating...
...the proprietor, she's chatting with us, explaining the shop, the "Concept" to us, I ask about the paintings on the walls, they're hers, I'm flabbergasted, stunned, it doesn't add up, thankfully for once in my life I've exercised some slight discretion and bit my tongue...
The proprietor, she's beautiful, articulate, yet somehow she doesn't get it...it's like she's never visited a gallery in her life, or saw a reasonably good painting...she paints, inane things, without judgement or censure, and judges each one a masterpiece, or if not a masterpiece certainly worthy of displaying...I almost want to ask if they're for sale, but that would be cruel, the ass-hole in me speaking, no need for that...
...she has no internal Monologue, and while that internal critic, it can be damning, sometimes, well, sometimes you might just want to listen to it. I'm almost jealous. I paint, badly, but I know it, and of those few paintings I've tried most are embarrassments to be laughed at and apologized for when visiting family members & friends...that said, not ALL were bad, just most...
...but that might not be her theory, what she wants to do is to inspire others to paint, the "If I can than so can you" mentality, she's baring it all, it's art as process, without judgement, focusing on the communal nature and enjoyable act of creation. And indeed most people will turn up similar results, and so by setting a low bar everyone that comes here will judge themselves kindly...
Van Gogh, believe it or not, painted a lot of shitty paintings before he became Van Gogh. An awful lot. But he knew. Those paintings don't survive, same with Picasso, every major artist, they had to put out the bad paintings before they got to the good ones. You imagine they knew, tried and tried again, they had to have known or they wouldn't have grown...
...her boyfriend, handsome, exceptionally well dressed with a bright red wankerchief in his breast pocket, it all works except for the kerchief, which screams "Wanker", the tell, as they say in Poker, comes in, they sit, we gather our paints and begin...
She needs to harmonize the colors of the paints. This grab whatever color you want, it's great for professionals, but for me, well, my inability to draw is trumped by my inability to mix and blend colors. A harmonized color palette - eg: Van Gogh (the colors he frequently used) would be useful for incompetents like me to get the results we want. Better results, anyways, the problem with the inner critic is it knows damned well how everything holds up and it's seldom kind...
The Italian Girl, she's excited, fills her paper plate with colors, tells me "I'm going to paint a butterfly!", she's kinda got that crazy look in her eyes, reminds me of when the daughter was around 4 years old she told me about the little man that lived in her head and told her things and for a long while I was afraid she might have a little too much of her mom in her, she didn't, it turned out, she later told me she was merely teasing me, winding me up, and I breathed a big sigh of relief, but the Italian Girl, she's not joking or winding me up, she's painting a butterfly...
I try a portrait. Doesn't work, inner critic, good shape, bad colors, details, blame the subject. Her butterfly, it's fine, she's excited, she tells me: "Next time I paint a FISH!'" and I have to laugh, each of our paintings, they're lame, mine the worst of the two, hers, exactly what she wanted, she's enchanting in her simplicity...
She enjoys it, I'll stock up on Dollarama paint and canvases, there will be amusing afternoons sitting on the balcony painting, there's no excuse, really, for my hideous absence of talent, given the low cost of supplies, no need for the best of materials when you don't have the skills, it's a shitty workman that blames his tools...
In the meantime her butterfly hangs on my wall, she can't take it home, her boyfriend would chasten her for spending money at a painting cafe and so I have to live with it until she finds a way to smuggle it into her house, apt punishment for the inner critic...
Sunday Skate
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2543
Her boyfriend's bought a pair of skates, wants to come along, and so we get together on Sunday.
The arena, it's the busiest we've seen any of the arena's, the boyfriend's brought along another Italian couple, recent immigrants, they don't have skates, and so will just sit on the bleachers and coach him.
His skates, brand new, expensive hockey skates. Hers, used figure skates, $40 for the pair, mine, used mens vintage skates, $60, his, probably $250. You need to have the best when you're learning something new...
He rejects all offers to help him, insists upon holding onto the boards, circling the rink in small steps, "Finding his balance", she and I, we skate away, I'm helping her, raise her feet, skate backwards, he passes us on the boards, slips and falls, his pride is injured, she's to blame, she falls onto the boards and follows him around the rink...
***
Sunday, busy, everywhere the immigrant parents are launching their little children onto the ice from penalty boxes like little unbalanced missiles or projectiles that careen, spin, stumbling, falling, and occasionally finding their legs, perhaps 30 of them sprawled out upon the ice, veering madly past you, it's an obstacle course at 15 and 20 miles an hour, bundled up in coats, helmets, pads, the senior skaters swerve and dodge around them with grace, with me it's all luck...her boyfriend, he's cursing every little one, "They should do something about this...", he grumbles, like every new driver on the road everyone else is to blame, his friends, in the bleachers, they're cheering him on with waves and thumbs-up...it's a miracle the ice isn't stained with the dismembered entrails and fingers of the little novices,...
There's another one, Kevin Spacey, my age, looks like Kevin Spacey, but better looking, way better than me, I'd thought I was doing all right, but watching him I realize he's about as far above me as I'm above the Italian Girl, a full order of magnitude, he's skating around the rink, dodging me, backwards, crossover steps, stops, he's good. He swerves to avoid me and smiles, that knowing smile, the forgiveness of idiots, he's got it all, I gotta like him...he's upped my game...
***
The boyfriend, after an hour and a half, we're all done. With the other Italian couple they charge me with the task of finding dinner. I inquire about price, her boyfriend, he waves expansively, price is no object, he only wants value...he's happy to pay for value, big portions, that's his idea of value, or truffles, and I suppress my urge to suggest that value can be found in atmosphere, service, and company, don't want to appear rude...
...we start at Farm. she's been, she likes, they look at the menu, hum and haw, decide against, they don't want to sit at the bar...
...from her to Model Milk, she's never been, she likes, they *(her boyfriend and guests) look at the menu and hum and haw, they don't like the set menu...
We walk down 17th Avenue, looking at menu's all the way, at "The Living Room" we stop, I haven't been in a while, it's still good I hear, they don't like the prices, it's expensive for sure...he begins again to tell me about value...quality...he's not cheap, he just wants bang for his buck...
That's not it. She'd told me earlier that he'd forbidden her from attending a half day workshop, something that interested her, $30, "Too Expensive", he's cheap, a miser, and this cheapness strongly suggests a poverty of spirit and imagination. Still, he's her boyfriend, I have to be kind...
Onward, until finally we stop at the Ship and Anchor...
Here we settle. A round of drinks, him, talking to his guests, me to her, until we order and the food arrives.
The other Italian Couple, I don't know their names, don't remember, she asked for no onion on her burger, it's fine in the salad, only she doesn't like in her burger...when she inspects her burger she discovers onion, flags the waiter, sends it back...
...the replacement burger, served with the waiter uttering the "No Onion", has onion as well, she flags the waiter and sends it back, with a large piece of her mind to accompany the burger...
...it's absurd, she doesn't like onion, could just pluck it off the burger and eat it, but instead sends it back every time, ...I'm annoyed...
I step outside for a cigarette, the standard smokers, one, a native, selling his artwork, the other a street "Magician" showing off his tricks. They're pretty bad, I give him $5 nonetheless to go away, another patron of the Ship shows up to give him $20 to show him how it was done, I'm not that drunk yet...
They've seen me, outside chatting, ask what's up, I explain, offer the boyfriend a cigarette so he can go out and see for himself, he refuses, explains he can't smoke...when he was a child...his mother...smoked...cigarettes...butts...in a little room...my eyes are rolling back in my head, it's far more traumatic listening to his retelling of it than his childhood could ever have been...
...sneak up to the bar, pay the bill, apologize profusely to the waiter, excuse myself and leave, disappear, the skating thing, it's probably better if it's just me and her, by the end of the week my patience for Italians is worn too thin...
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