One girl’s shimmy to the left

It’s just not fair when one girl (or one group of girls) gets all the attention. It’s especially unfair when there is a stockpile of attention to be had, and none is slated specifically for me. That’s par for the course, being close friends with burlesque performers. Such associations have their perks, though, and instead of nurturing jealousy I'm pleased to play cheerleader.

I have a straight job. I conduct myself in a respectable manner, usually. I buy fair trade goods and free-range chickens. They are still dead animals, I know, but for chickens, being dead just means slightly less cerebral activity than they're used to. Try to make me feel guilty. You can't. I recycle and reuse. I ride a bicycle. I do things by the book---I won't specify which. I am very open-minded and there is little you could say that would shock me. If you do shock me, I’ll ask you for more.

I’ve sown wild oats. I know what the birds and the bees are doing. I've spanked monkeys. But, I won’t jostle my A-cups or make my behind jiggle for a crowd of hundreds. If anything of the sort is to happen, it’s to happen in the privacy of my own home for a significantly smaller audience. (You know who you are.)

When talking “-vert”, I’m a healthy average mix of intro-, extro- and per-. My intro- side reigns when it comes to topless dancing, even if it is “arty” and legal, "political" and in support of the "burlesque movement"---even if it is “feminist” *. You won’t see me on stage, but I will be mingling in the dressing room before the show, complimenting women on homemade pasties, tacking fringe to underpants, and ultimately, at the front of the crowd cheering and bursting with pride for the performers, my friends. I am a burlesquer by association, in the same way that a window shopper is still a shopper---just not a consumer per se. I am a verifiable burlesque poseur.

In recent months, as a much anticipated burlesque event loomed near, I still hadn’t seen my friends practice their act. I did know that the chorus of their chosen song was: “Shake it, shake it, shake it, shake it!” And, in recent weeks, I've witnessed more shimmies than you can shake your stick at.

“Shimmy to the left..."

With all this shimmying, I knew I’d be hard pressed to eke out attention of my own at the event. I did my best, while trying not to seem too desperate. I was determined to beat the "pretty girl's friend" stigma. I refused to be the bookish companion.

I donned a long, sleek black skirt with subtle bows and Cuban stockings. I modified a halter top and stacked my hair atop my head. With one last glance in the mirror, I confirmed that I was wearing way too much eye makeup and my companion, a fellow poseur, looked like a harlot. Perfect!

We unleashed ourselves onto the city and hailed a taxi to the club. The venue was large and the line up was long. My poseur status enacted fully as I was whisked past the ticket booth, declaring, “I’m with the performers.” Inside, we mingled and waited and pranced.

Once inside, a gentleman acquaintance caught my eye and abruptly beelined to my side to make nervous conversation. I'd first met him a week earlier, during the season’s inaugural snowfall. Having just swallowed three pints of beer, I thought he was very handsome---tall, broad and brown. We chatted. I pretended to be interested in his analysis of electronica. That's apparently when I'd invited him to the burlesque show. When the bar closed, and following a playful, yet savage snow-battle among strangers in the street, Eastside vs. Westside, I left. I didn’t expect him to actually come to the show, and I certainly didn’t think he’d arrive alone.

Mr. Dull-dark-and-handsome chortled through the opening act. He didn’t even acknowledge the topless opera singer on the twelve-foot stage. I made an escape to the front of the crowd with my harlot by my side, and enjoyed the show, minus asinine chatter. During intermission, and at several other points, he engaged me in more witless wordage, all the while gazing at me with big, brown puppy-dog eyes. It was then that I recalled why I don’t like dogs.

As the night passed, the acts became more outrageous, ranging from raucous to raunchy. The shimmying was smooth and deliberate. Wonder Woman chugged beer she'd snatched from strangers' hands. Crinolines clogged the dressing room. Men revealed themselves to be women. Cancan! Tango! Milkshakes! Trampolines! Frilly underpants! Seventeen sets of pasties!

The show was a mad success. The performers and poseurs were having such a grand time together that we nearly forgot men were present at all. The night was memorable and fulfilling, and I'd succeeded in getting all the attention I never really wanted anyway.

*Don't ask me to define "feminist". I won't go there.

And all was well with the world...

As I know I have mentioned before, games play major bonding and educational roles in my family. And, as I have also already mentioned, so does gambling. These activities are equally important to my family’s culture - and so intertwined, so symbiotic, so complementary, that it’s hard to convince my family to do one that doesn’t involve the other.

In fact, currently all the rage in my parents’ homestead is: Horse Race. A homemade game that not only involves horses, but cards, dice and a money pot, as well. Combine that with the opportunity to lose the contents of your change purse in 30 minutes flat, and you’ve got a winner!

Anyway…

It took nearly a week of subtle hinting, and finally guilt-tripping to get these people to play my newest non-betting board game. It covers all the bases: charades, celebrity impersonations, drawing, sculpting, trivia and puzzles - oh, and sufficient opportunity for heckling between teams. We gathered around the table - my sisters, their two children, my mother and I. Players ranged in age from 10 to 58, one child per team.

We decided which tasks were “kid-worthy” and which weren’t, and assigned turns accordingly. For example, my mother, the eldest player, was required to hum Rod Stewart’s song “Do ya think I’m sexy?” While this game task was clearly inappropriate for the younger members of the team, after watching my mother act it out (even though that’s against the rules), well, it was clearly inappropriate for her as well.

The children got tired of us filtering their turns, though, and lobbied for us to allow them to read their own clue for the next set of charades. We told them that as long as they understood the word, they would have to act it out. If they had any trouble, however, they could consult our older uncle for help, since he saw no point in playing a non-betting game and opted to sit this one out.

Surely enough, the kids read the card and said they didn’t know what to do.

“Well”, said my niece, “I know what the word is, but, ummmmmm…”

And, since the golden rule of games in is “no mercy for persons over the age of five” - we all yelled in unison: “If you know the word, you have to act it out!”

“But…but…but,” stalled the children, their eyes widening in embarrassment already.

Our elderly uncle took the children to the adjacent room to confer. When they emerged, it was revealed that he didn’t know how to do it either.

“Just give it a try”, my sister told the children encouragingly, “It’s just a game.” And so, we turned the timer over and waited.

The children stood, their arms straight by their sides, staring ahead blankly - frozen.

“A statue?” I guessed. No, that wasn’t it.
“A Mountie?” my mother guessed. No, that wasn’t it.
“A tree?” my sister guessed. No, not it either.

“Why aren’t either of you moving?” we asked. “We can’t guess if you don’t act it out! Come on guys. Move around or something! Give us a hint!”

The children shifted nervously. Arms hanging straight, looking slightly terrified and very confused. Time was running out.

“Come on guys!”

At this point, the children were getting frustrated. My nephew’s eyes began rolling into the back of his head. His jaw was slack and I was certain my first guess - zombie - must have been right. He probably just didn’t hear me. I yelled it again.

“Zombie!”

The kids shook their heads “no”.

My mother and my sisters and I looked at each other, squinting, thoroughly confused as to what the kids were “acting out”. They were so unusually awkward. Standing more still than we even thought was possible at their age.

Much to the relief of the ten-year-olds, the last grain of sand dropped to the bottom of the timer - their eyes fixed on it - knowing that this would let them off the hook.

“What the heck was it?” we all yelled.

The kids - both of them - looked at us, the adults, as if we were stupid, and yelled:

“We were FLIRTING!!”

“Duuuuh!”

We - all the adults - laughed until we cried. We laughed because children are exposed to so much questionable media content - so much sex and violence and American Idol; because of the things they are exposed to at school - like sex and violence and underfunded education systems and junk food - and because of our fear that our children are just growing up too fast for anyone’s good. We laughed because we were relieved.

My niece and nephew are right at the stage ten-going-on-eleven-year-olds should be: Absolutely freakin’ clueless about dating.

Memoir of a son who wasn't ours

Having recently taken a CPR refresher course, my father diagnosed him with epilepsy. Junie claimed he had insulin 'fits', but it soon became clear that his condition was far more complicated than that. The whole of his simple life, spent in a plywood shack, was complicated.

Everyone called him Junie. Junie was short for Les Junior. He carried the namesake of his hardened relation, a man rumoured to be rough with his wife and kids. Junie lived alone with Charlie Pride, a kitten named after a man he respected, in a house barely large enough for its litter box. The plywood walls and floors were permeated with years of pipe puffing, and the fog inside the house was nearly as thick as the misty brine which blew in from the ocean.

In my memory, Junie wears the same outfit daily - and I did see him daily - in a white sleeveless undershirt and blue standard-issue workpants. I was almost eleven when he died, but I remember his suspenders as clearly as I remember the shape of his face - a small pumpkin carved into a smiling caricature of itself. His underarms are stained yellow and his hair shines with pomade, combed just so, deceiving me into thinking it was always freshly washed.

Jesus Christ, he would say. Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, God damn!

Usually my mother would request that people avoid cursing in my presence, but we all knew it was just his Tourette's talking. He jerked his head to the side with every proclamation. He always said it with a smile anyway.

Junie made people uncomfortable. You never knew when he would have a seizure, and they were always quite violent. Though they lasted less than a minute, he risked falling, breaking glassware and scaring the children. None of this discouraged my parents. They understood the signs, and would pry mugs of hot coffee, or his pipe from his hand to ensure he wouldn't hurt himself, or any of us. And, then we'd wait. Junie would eventually ask what had happened and my mother would get him a glass of water, knowing the fit was over. My parents also understood that what Junie needed was for people to cope with him, to gladly endure. Although my parents were only a decade his senoir, Junior began to call them "Mom" and "Dad".

Lacking any sort of formal education - probably due to his multiple conditions in an era, and in a region, that didn't lend itself to tolerance - this self-designated brother of mine read fewer words than I.

He rigged a bicycle with bells and horns and rode 1km every evening to my family's home.
Every. Single. Night.
We could always hear him coming before we could see him.

Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, God damn! Hee! Hee!

When the doctor told him he had gangrene, Junie's regular cursing lost its lilt. He returned from the hospital without his leg - I remember him crying. I remember when the doctor told him the other leg would have to go, too. He was in mourning, and my eyes alternately peered over the top of the table to observe his sadness, and peeked underneath to marvel at his stumps.

It was many months before we'd hear him round the bend again. He exchanged his bicycle for a 4-wheeled electric chariot. Instead of bells and horns, we'd hear the whir of chair's motor maxed out, and the comfortingly familiar: God damn! Hee! Hee! as he neared the driveway and rumbled over the lawn. He'd hop out of his wheelchair and walk on his hands to the front door, let himself in, climb onto his usual perch at the kitchen table and say, God damn! with a broad toothless smile.

Junie complained that he couldn't do anything in the absense of his legs, so my father taught him to carve wood. This is far more complicated than it sounds, because first, my father had to teach himself. In the early stages, Junie's crude carvings looked astoundingly similar to the original chunks of wood my father gave him for practice. Soon though - and no doubt because he had so much free time - he became a master. His likenesses of loons, mallards and piping plovers became so popular among locals and tourists that he had to take orders. He barely had any time for us anymore. Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, God damn! Hee! Hee!

Junie whittled away - physically smaller than when I'd first met him, but full to the brim with joyful profanities. Junie had found a family that suited him and realized his talent, which allowed for his independence. And he never stopped yelping, God damn! Hee! Hee!

Until, one day, suddenly, in his early thirties, he did.

But, God damn! still rings joyfully in our ears.

Writer's guil(t)

Believe it or not, my day job is 'wordsmithing'. Or rather, that's the term I like to use when I refer to my budding career in Public Relations.

I write all sorts of documents, for all sorts of organizations - none of which make me question my morals or social responsibility. I assure you.

My mentors, all confident, beautiful professional women, and have instilled in me a new writing-related value.You see, in the days of e-media, the art of writing has stepped aside to:

1) Save time
2) Save space

And, considering that a ridiculous percentage of the population is functionally illiterate, AND we are instructed to write at a Grade 6-level when appealing to the masses, it is the duty of the loyal few to stay true to rules of grammar, spelling and punctuation. Language evolves. Haven't we bastardized it enough?

As a Canadian writer, I have particular pride in preserving Canadian English, and resisting American-style. This is not elitism, but rather a silent plea to be recognized as a distinct nation.

We have no late nites in Canada. Nor do we add color or flavor to our prose. We avoid inappropriate behavior and never gossip about our neighbors. I am not saying this in self-defense.

What am I getting at? I am guilty of breaking these rules in this journal. And, I feel that guilt.

A meeting of Canadian English and American English does not frighten me as much, however, as the thought of the complete disintegration of the base language. I fear for the fate of English in both nations. After all, we don't have the best role models.

To think it has become the international language of trade. What have we done!?

As writers, albeit online, we have a responsibility to carry the torch. I am forced to disagree with the (I can't bring myself to capitalize his 'p') president of the United States, when he says:

"Quite frankly, teachers are the only profession that teach our children."
- George W. Bush

Teaching our children proper English is everyone's responsibility.Well, except the president's, because he's clearly incapable.

The cosmic power of suggestion

Long ago in Gotham, during a personal experimental growth period, I arranged to visit a new age Healer---a well-off, middle-aged transient woman who would be in the city for only a few weeks, but would find time to help cleanse New Yorkers' muddy auras.

Hours before the meeting, I'd intended to call and cancel our session. I, of course, had no idea what a session involved, and for $300 I was willing to invest in the concept of time healing all wounds instead.

She beat me to the phone and trumped my card. Apparently, she is a seer as well as a healer. She called my sublet home - located on the charming, but dirty edge of Williamsburg - and said in her charming yet authoritative voice: "What are you afraid of? Aren't you ready to face your future? Can't you deal with your issues?"

It wasn't that I really had any pressing issues to manage. I was happy. I was having an adventure in the city that never sleeps - except on the subway. My real issue was that I could think of more fruitful functions for my green American moolah.

She gambled on my personality, and challenged me. It was a dare - and I fell for it. She pulled me in with her cosmic mind powers of manipulation. I was no match for her.

In my own defence, I thought this woman was legendary. I thought her mysterious Swiss abilities were known everywhere the L train rumbled. A documentary was to be made of this woman's incredible will to survive and overcome all obstacles! This was a woman who ousted malignant tumours from her own abdomen with cosmic mindpower! Don't tell me you wouldn't find that inspiring!

Just don't. Please.

Surely, $300 would seem insignificant once I'd been healed! Or, maybe I would just walk away with an empty wallet and a tepid tale.

I do believe in mind over matter, though. I admit it beacuse I am not the first to admit it. When my grandfather passed away, I inherited a leaning, dog-eared tower of his book collection. Among titles like: Geometry and Nature, Natural Dyes and Edible Plants of the Northeast two other texts mingled with the arts and sciences: Cosmic Mind Power Explained and, even more intriguing: Secrets of Cosmic Mind Power.

I arrived for my appointment with an open mind and fat wallet.

She welcomed me, explained the process and brought me into the bedroom where a massage table awaited my damaged aura. Without touching me, she began examining fluctuations in my energies. Her hands hovered barely above my fully-clothed body.

Her talent was not limited to seeing auras, but also to decode them. She would blurt out random words, and interpret my ethereal reaction. I was fascinated. Although I was laying face down, with my eyes closed, I could sense the location of her hands at all times. My skin rose toward her in goosebumps. I was enjoying the cosmic voyage. I casually drifted into a space that allowed me to believe that this was something other than a hoax.

She blurted out that I was a writer. I would write six books. To accomplish this, I would have to oust the word, "want" from my mind, like she ousted tumours from from her belly.

You either do it or you don't. Regardless of what "it" is, she had a point. Saying that you will do anything in the future is a waste of breath. Who knows if you'll do it? Who knows if you'll be hit by an SUV instead. You are or your aren't. You do or you don't. This cozy in between place where we like to dwell is the quicksand of progress and achievement. Stop talking. Start doing. It was quite a lecture, really.

She doesn't believe in predicting the future. She looks at your path, and then tells you what you are capable of doing if you get off your fat ass and scrub your dirty aura free of cosmic scum. My mom could have done the same. But, I don't trust her. She told me I was pretty when I was ten. I've seen the pictures. That woman is capable of deceit.

Any of my friends could have advised me as well. But, there is something intrinsic in the exchange of $300 that makes you want to believe you're getting your money's worth. I really wanted to believe - but, it was struggle.

Then, she found my pain.

A combination of poor posture and computer work had resulted in a jabbing discomfort in my back. It had been there for months and it was affecting my life, and my moods. She found it. That was where I had been storing my negativity, and without physically touching me, she located it and repaired it - by drawing the cosmic goo of stress and doubt from me.

I was going to have to have a shower when I got home, she explained, to wash all that crap off my aura. I was exhausted. I was dehydrated. I was spooked.

I followed her instructions, drank some water and fell asleep.

For the first time in months, my back wasn't throbbing. I was amazed! Astounded! I was healed! I felt it was my cosmic responsibility to begin writing for a broader audience than my diary. I had to take this cosmic gospel and fly with it. Wait. Fly where?