Colleen’s Late Night Musings, Doubts, Conspiracy Theories

Those Swedish Junior hockey players sure have a knack for embellishing on ice.

European soccer-style rolls, dives…pseudo-death by angst.

Thank God for Canadian players.

They may break a neck.

Or, a leg.

But, they always finish their shift.  

~ 

“Open it.”

Fingernails snap tape, hurriedly tear through pink wrapping.

“It’s a cell phone! Happy Birthday, mom!”

“Whaaa? But, my darlings! Mommy doesn’t WANT to be reached. EVER.”

“What about that time your car broke down? You could have used a phone then, couldn’t you?!”

“Oh, my little sectarian sausages, mommy was ready to accept her fate, envisioning herself dramatically and romantically perishing like that ‘Into the Wild’ man in the Alaskan bus, subsisting solely on leaves from indigenous flora and relishing, abeit the pain, those few days of catwalk, heroin-chic, Kate Moss elfin-ness - just prior to death .”

“Except you were in a 7-Eleven parking lot.”

“Shush, my cherubic cretins. Besides, I like my Luddite existence. When I walk down the street, people point and say: ‘Hey! There goes that Amish girl!’ Sure, the bonnet itches, but that life suits me just fine. Have I told you my Amish drive-by-shooting joke?”

“Yes, mom. Six times. Waaaaaa, don’t you like our gift?!”

I am defeated.

I obligingly place Devil artillery in the car, where it sits neglected. Lo. Behold. I am driving when I realize I must call my son. One eye on Sisters of St. Francis walking club, the other on cell phone buttons… 6-0-4 …BAM. Holy! I have sideswiped a parked car! I’ve decapitated my side-view mirror! The other car’s mirror too! My God, I’ve become the cell-noshing, narcissistic driver I’ve always abhored.

After note is placed on car’s windshield providing phone number, childhood history, vulnerabilities, passions, fifth favourite song, first kiss details…I return home to await a call that , oddly, never comes.

I place Lucifer’s little lapdance on table. It begins to buzz, writhe, Patrick Swayze Dirty Dancing-like across my oak table.  My God! I just got this phone. Nobody knows the number. Who is calling me?! WHO? 

“Hello?”

Telemarketer. 

~

At the stroke,

I’ll write words in the sky, 

in whipping cream.

Eat ‘em. Vowels first. 

I’ll dance atop a mountain.

Gaze down. Then forward.

Happy 2009. 

~ 

The Snow that never drifts
The transient, fragrant snow
That comes a single time a Year
Is softly driving now

So thorough in the Tree
At night beneath the star
That it was February’s Foot
Experience would swear

Like Winter as a Face
We stern and former knew
Repaired of all but Loneliness
By Nature’s Alibit

Were every storm so spice
The Value could not be
We buy with contrast

Pang is good
As near as memory

Emily Dickinson

I am in a Yin Yoga class. ‘Yin’ is Tibetan for ‘nap’. I think. That’s what the people do. They lie on mats. Cocooned in blankets. Eyes closed.  Well, that’s what I saw the first time I popped my head in. I thought: “I can do this!” So, I registered.

The following week. I lie one with the mat. Wilco T-shirt. Tights. Big League Chew.  I am the only one not attired in organic, soy/hemp cotton. I am wearing Adidas. He’s a God. Roman. Latin. I have my own old-school, mystical allure goin’ on. I breathe in. Choke. Swallow gum.

But, WHAAAAT? What’s this? Sit up? I was unaware of the upright portion of the class. We stretch and bend ourselves into a variety of poses. I am Keanu in the Matrix. This hurts. There is Dragonfly, Sleeping Swan, Tadpole……Christopher Reeve, Glue Stick, Convicted Felon.

“Breathe,” the teacher urges.The woman beside me lets out big, earthy groans. Frankly, she sounds retarded. And, I don’t like it one bit. I finger my Tibetan prayer beads and fantasize about whipping into her eye sockets. I hear a persistent, rhythmic ‘ping, ‘ping, ping’. Is a Special Needs person playing the Triangle?

“Let peace and tranquility flood in.”We stretch our legs, loosen our hip joints. I glance at the woman in front. ‘Ha, ha, I’m waaay more flexible than she is. She’s like…almost a gimp. I mean, look how far I can move my legs. She sucks. I’m the best. I WIN!

“STILL the mind.”White cheesies vs orange cheesies. Cancer. La la la. Terrorism. Plastics. Guilt. Sundin. Fruit roll-ups. Gluten. Death Cab for Cutie. Marsha Brady.

After class, I tailgate an elderly driver home. ‘Get OFF the road, you incompetent, Driving Miss Daisy, sight-challenged MORON.’

I want my Big League Chew.

~

Good morning, Vancouver.

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They say he’s a ’self-made man’.

I can only assume,

he didn’t have parents.

.

This Friday:

Me, performing in Vancouver’s newest comedy room ‘ Cameo’ alongside the beaten down, comedic angst of Kevin Foxx.  He cuts like a knife. I like it.

But, FIRST:

A corporate show, Friday mid-day, for 100 tennis players (hmm, racquet metaphors? Court-side lingo in silly rhyme? Sampras sex scandal references?).

Meh.

I’ll do 30 minutes on AIDS, poverty, and homelessness.

That should liven things up.

I’ve been invited to see Robin Williams tonight.

It’s not the understated, cerebral, one-liner, New Yorker style I normally gravitate to.

Which is exactly why I need to go.

Seatbelt. Crash helmet. Water.

Ready.

Set.

Go.

~

I’ve just been diagnosed with Celiac Disease. The detective work…the endless medical sleuthing is FINALLY over. Frankly, I’ll miss the trench coat. The sleazy hotel rooms. The film noir internal dialogue (hmm, that may persist).

You see, for the past year doctors have been trying to figure out what was wrong with me (physically). This was the symptom: “Waaaa, I can’t get out of bed. I’m so bloody exhausted - EXHAUSTED - do you hear me? No, it’s not because I had six ciders and told a slew of knock knock jokes at the Legion the night before. My surroundings are a muddy, boggy haze - a blur of beige and blah.” (Or, something like that).

So, check - they did: For Diabetes, Leukemia, Multiple Sclerosis, Brain Tumours, Crazy Straw addiction…all the serious stuff.

Finally, a diagnosis: Celiac Disease. I am in the doctor’s office. She announces the verdict. I leap from my chair. Pump my fist in the air. “YEEEAAAH. I KNEW there was something wrong.” The search is over. NOW, I can begin to get better. I want to get better. Now. Now. NOW!” I stomp my foot.

It’s not that easy. It’s going to take a few months. Celiac is an auto-immune disease.  What causes it? Don’t know. They DO know the disease can be turned ‘on’ by any number of factors: A virus, surgery, giving birth, an Albert Brooks movie, physical trauma, or even severe and sudden emotional stress. Whatever it was… in the past year, my stomach wall began attacking itself everytime I ate gluten (found in wheat products).  Eventually, the intestines became so damaged, I was no longer absorbing nutrients. Nothing. Nada. The exhaustion was due to malnutrition. I was malnourished! This will continue, unless I abstain from gluten.

So, no more cakes, muffins, cookies, pancakes, bread, pasta…or happiness. But, wait, THERE’S MORE! Gluten is also in sauces and dressings, and soups…oh my. It seems like it’s floating in the feral environment, because everytime I want to eat something, I discover it contains gluten. My saving grace - it’s NOT in penny candy and wine. There IS a God,

But, now I’m one of those picky, detailed-obsessed restaurant patrons inquiring about ingredients. THIS from the girl who used to scarf down an entire platter of fudge…or greasy fries…or carton of ice cream. In fact, I’ve always had a huge Type A impatience for any slow, detailed, methodical behaviour. The sort found in people who, when opening presents, slide their hand underneath the wrapping paper seam to avoid rips, slowly unwrapping and folding afterwards for RE-USE. I feel like shouting: “OH MY GOD! Just RIP IT! TEAR IT! Who the Hell do you think you are making us watch your painfully, achingly, SLOW attempt at re-using and recycling. WE’VE GOT A LIFE. WE’VE GOT THINGS TO DO!!” (Which is when I’m usually escorted from the party). Now, I’ve become one of them in the form of that irritating restaurant patron.

They say Celiac is derived from Irish ancestry. Oh great. I’ve got a disease that targets a group of people whose sole energies comprise writing poetry and drinking liquor. What kind of advances is this group going to make in pushing for research? If I was carrier of - say -an affliction commonly found in Jewish Americans, things would get DONE. There would be lobby groups, meetings with Congress for funding, ongoing research, a celebrity spokesperson, an annual telethon, and an International Research Facility for Celiac Disease conducting trial studies on the foreskins of endangered, newborn pandas.

But, no. My ancestral people are more inclined to gather ’round the local pub. “Now, our task is to come up with a list of liquors that DO contain gluten, and a list of those that DON’T. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph…what am I thinking?! We don’t even need the DON’T list if we have the DO! That cuts our work in half, right there, doesn’t it!”

“Seamus, what rhymes with gluten?”

And, finally, unlike my father and his French background…there is my mother in all her blunt Irish-ness.

“Oh sure, it runs in the family. Your second cousin, Mary, in County Kerry was diagnosed too.”

Really mom? How is she?

“Dead.”

~