In That Holiday Spirit (of Twitchiness)

I don't know whether it's the fact that I'm a bit sick, or if it's the holiday blues, or maybe it's the 'nog, but I've been acting damn strange lately. 

The good thing is that I'll be visiting Ingleside over Christmas, so it's not like I'll stand out much in my weirdness.

All slagging of miniscule Ontario towns aside, I know it's not the 'nog. But more on that later. 

Until then, I actually went to see a movie! A real one, in a theater with tickets and everything!

Frost/Nixon Dramatizes the story behind the famous interviews by David Frost of Richard Nixon, which prised some honesty about Watergate from Nixon years after he resigned. That I could only write that sentence because I read movie reviews says something about one of the problems Frost/Nixon faces. Nixon is a generational figure, either as a sinner or as a joke. To me, he was firmly the latter, and the first things I learned about him were, in order, Watergate; the V for Victory fingers; "I am not a crook!"; and that he was the owner of a pair of magnificent jowls. The bitterness shown by some of the movie's characters over Cambodia, or over betraying the American people, is confusing when you're wondering if he's the same lovable old guy from Dick. Frank Langella's excellent performance as Nixon, and the pull of the underdog narrative, also make Frost's eventual triumph less than satisfying for anyone who was not a victim of the seventies. It becomes almost unwanted.

There is one other issue, the conceit of editing it as a partial documentary. Although the scenes set during the interviews act like narrative film, they are awkwardly broken up by documentary-style commentary by the major players, played by the same actors in aging make up. When people are reminiscing, they are already acting out their version of history, and by the time you have actors acting like they are acting, things are starting to get a little overcooked. I do feel like I am being a little picky, however. In spite of these two issues, Frost/Nixon is quick-moving, and interesting. You can barely feel the two-hour long running time. And, at least watch it as a historical document on insanely wide ties.

Praise YHWH!

As of 11:45, I have finished completely with Jewish History: 400-1000 CE. I feel like there are now two paths of celebration open to me:

1. Watch a Christmas movie

2. Order a bacon cheeseburger, and ask for shrimp on the side. To garnish with, at my will. 

I am so happy, and yet so sleepy, and all I can think of is Maimonides. The wind calls out his name, and yet smells of rendered pork fat. I am confused. 

Random Moment: An Ode to the Familiprix

Familiprix Classic: Direct From the 80s EconoWrap Christmas Paper. For My Familiprix Gifts.

I'm very fond of the Familiprix near my house. In my area of P.S.Chuck (Point St. Charles- I am trying to make this happen,) life is sustained by three places. There is the depanneur. Rather, there are several, but they are interchangeable in their quality of stocking everything but the one thing you went there to find. Even when that one thing is butter. Which they usually have, but not when you're halfway through a recipe, although you can content yourself with sandwiches in packages, green sugar, balloons, panty hose, cat litter, lentils, and a giant liter of green hair gel in a tub. And porn. If you're hungry, there's Centre Pizza, serving Crispy Delight chicken and ice cream. 

And when you need pills or something a little classier than the dep, there is the Familiprix. It is not a drugstore in the mode of Pharmaprix or Jean Coutu. Rather, it's what I imagine the old-timey drugstores of black and white movies would look like if they were allowed to order things from the present day. They carry one line of everything, and only one line of everything, and you learn to like that one line, because really it's your fault for forgetting to stop off at the Pharmaprix. Apparently Cover Girl won the battle for make-up supremacy, while those bug-eyed Russ creatures have a lock on the stuffed animal gift rack. I am letting you all know this, so you can figure out where your Christmas presents came from. 

It all sounds like I don't love the Familiprix, but I do! I do, because the lack of choice is liberating. I go there, and I am only confronted with one kind of chips, and one kind of pencil, and am not paralyzed by the agony of abundance that affects the privileged and the neurotic. Because, in Mother Familiprix, TAMPON CHOOSES YOU. 

And I like it that way. 

...

Sign Papers Have Rotted My Brain #836:
While walking home from the bus today, for no reason, I eagerly yelled out "TITLE TIME!!!!"
My paper, by the way, already had a title.

Stuff, AHOY!

I'm sorry. I had a traumatic presentation last Thursday, and to heal myself I went and secluded myself in a charmingly rustic New England inn. There, I met a handsome and troubled doctor, and we engaged in a tender but halting affair, that only ended when he went off to some place where the people are swarthy and the food flavoured with chili peppers. Unfortunately, there he was taken and decapitated by El Chupacabra. But I am a stronger woman for having loved.

Wait, no, that's the plot of the next Nicholas Sparks novel (in my head) Afternoons in Moca. I've just been holed up with tea and any one of the six papers I'm working on for the end of the month.

Anyway, some links that might entertain or amuse:

The history geek and comic book nerd that are married in my heart are enjoying this graphic novel in progress:
Family Man: Being the adventures of a young man with few answers but a big nose in 18th century Germany.
Also, if you have a store somewhere of juvenile stabs at literary greatness (I have an epic from 2nd grade called Chimp Saves the World) you'll enjoy this girl's attempt at ripping off Sweet Valley High.

1. BROKEN HEARTED: Emily has sworn off dating…forever! She can’t understand why people fall in and out of love or why people get married and then get divorced. Then she suddenly feels really different around her good friend David Morrison. Could this be the dreaded “L” word?

The sad thing is that they sound just like the real thing. Which reminds me: when I was in junior high, I found a volume from a Sweet Valley High rip-off series called Cheerleaders. It was titled Overboard! and the tag line was- I shit thee not- "Romance, AHOY!" Which is something I think of at the most inopportune moments, and giggle.

Hurligig

My one roommate is trying to bake an Obamacake in the kitchen right now, because God gave her a sign that if she baked it, he would win. We just had to mop up Cake We Can Believe In off of the kitchen floor though, so I feel like the signs have neutralized themselves at this point.

While she's at it, I am invaliding. Which means I am drinking tea with my cat and trying to ignore the mountain of readings I am not doing. And I think I am perfectly justified in my sloth because I spent my whole morning puking my guts out. Here's a handy video illustration of my morning, with just a touch more bigotry:

So, yeah, having to leave work because you're vomiting in the second floor washroom: not the sexiest thing ever. Also not sexy: cab drivers who don't know where Bourgeoys street is, and then won't listen when I try and give them directions. He just kept on going further and further away from my house, until I just started moaning "Take.... me to... Wellington... go left.... or just put me... out of my misery..."

He finally made it to Wellington. Where he started to make a right. Also, he was playing the theme from Schindler's List in the cab, so I don't know what any of that was about, but I didn't care, because I was home, home where no one could see me vomit and I could curse my body in peace. Home, where I could rest in between crawling to the bathroom by... watching some kind of marinade being poured over raw pork on the TV. Thanks, CBC. Or, once I crawled back to the couch and changed the channel, the View. I went back to the pork. I'm back on solids now, but I think I may have to go kosher from now on.

The (Fabulous!) Depression

Lange's Migrant Mother: So Hot Right Now?

Hey, remember the economy? It doesn't have glasses or speak in an Alaskan accent, and the last I recall hearing about it was that it had gone deep into FUBAR territory. As far as I could tell, currencies were all over the place, lenders were going bankrupt, and a whole country- Iceland- was about to go tits up, which would really throw the future production of Icelandic sweater patterns and sullen blondes into question. I couldn't tell much more. I started to regret dropping my economics from a major down to a minor. Maybe if I hadn't, I would have the code to understanding all of this, knowing whether it was worth buying while prices were low, or if I should just invest in canned food and a shot gun. Instead, I feel adrift, moved around by people who aren't speaking my language, while I flail around at analyzing navy recruitment ads in a postcolonial context.

The media took care of my fear by moving on to the presidential election and the World Series. Well, all of the media except for lifestyle media. Just check the New York times Style section. Restaurants across the land a feeling the pinch. Apparently, the situation is even so dire that a new portmanteau is required: "recessionista." If that doesn't make you barf, I'm sure they'll come up with an even more ralph-inducing term that uses "sexual" on the end. Destitutosexual, anyone? No one knows he's downgraded from Kiehl's to Suave! Gawker put up a photo album of the newly jobless. The weird thing is that it's all beginning to seem a little festive, like there's a kind of kitschy joy in the bathos of it all. It reminds me of when I used to read Little House on the Prairie and think "Wouldn't it be fun to live like this? Why, I could have salted pork, matching flannel nighties and my very own button jar!"

The thing is, life in pioneer times wasn't all that fun, and I'm just thinking of the dental care. The Great Depression wasn't that much better, although it did have toothpaste. And we couldn't even manage half as well as they did. They were used to thrift, used to having to work. If I ever have to go on the road to find decent work and food, I would probably eat a poisonous berry off of the side of the road after blowing all of my cash on Wendy's. You know what they did to stretch out food on the cheap? Use a lot of eggs and cheese. You know what's expensive now? Eggs and cheese! We would have to live off of margarine and the jars of cheap cocktail weenies at the Dollar Store, and that's a whole lot more intense and less fun than trading the Prada in for a knock off. I don't think this is going to be as bad as all of that, but just in case, I'll be pulling the Grapes of Wrath off of the bookshelf. Maybe there's a special section in there about cooking cheaply I've forgotten.

From The Files of Minor Annoyances

There are many things about the world that confuse me. Fundamentalist Christianity. The economy. Personal relationships. The Burger King burger that comes with mashed potatoes and fried onions as garnishes.

And another thing: girl versions of sports team merchandise. In other words, is there no team logo safe from be-pinkening? I wanted a birthday present for a friend, a simple Canadiens shirt, and what did I find? Rhinestones. Rhinestones, and hunter green, and black, and pink, and then more pink, and then a shirt that had multiple Habs logos scattered over the shirt with a big tattoo rose in the middle that said "Montreal Canadiens." Does Quebec have an equivalent to Chavs? If so, here's a FrancoChav costume for Halloween: bleached hair, tight acid wash jeans, and that shirt. Note how sneaky that crafty NHL is:
Oh, what a cute ringer shirt... you might think. However, on closer inspection:
Rhinestones! Unnecessary rhinestones!

I will not stand for this. Well, not until they pay me great big wodgers of cash for my distressed fuchsia on rose Detroit Red Wings design, complete with matching glitter logo pin.

VIA Strikes Again

I have my… issues with transportation. I have been screwed over on a plane, in a bus, on a boat, and in a train. Oh God, how I have ever been screwed over on a train. If you’re not Canadian, and if you have never experienced, you probably have never experienced the joy of a VIA trip, you poor thing. The limitless joy of watching a seven hour trip stretch out to twelve, the exquisite beauty of sitting on a broken-down train in the middle of Ontario’s armpit, and the wonder of the four dollar chips are all part of the VIA experience.

I would go on the bus, but the bus experience has involved staring at a grease patch, with one single white hair smack dab in the center, a former seat tenant had left until Toronto. Which, really. I can forgive the grease patch, but the perfectly placed, thick, white hair just seems premeditated.

So I go by train, to limited degrees of success. I’m actually writing this on my way home from Guelph for Thanksgiving, on the train. This trip has gone, all things considered, reasonably well. We are a mere ten minutes late, and I got to sit next to my roommate for most of the trip. However. I needed glorious Internet access for a school project, which Via conveniently offers on most of its trains, if you pay nine bucks for a full 24 hours first. Rather inconveniently, this service is apparently a fickle beast that doesn’t like the Toronto-Montreal corridor. Yep, right after I had cited (in appropriate MLA style) my last source, I switched trains, but apparently left Internet access behind. I had hoped it was a temporary measure, but temporary is now going on five hours, so I guess VIA got me again.

Their welcome e-mail wished me a “productive day.” Now they’re just being mean. 

(Posted after I got home to functional Internet and the cats.)

My Future Beckons, And I Think It Has an STD

My roommate and I have made a pact- by the end of the week, we'll have some kind of rough idea of what we're doing with our lives. WHICH IS WHY I'M CURRENTLY HYPERVENTILATING INTO A BAG. We're not talking a detailed narrative here- who knows what the ETA on the house in the suburbs and the one kid in Montessori will be- but at least a general plan for the next year. OH GOD I AM OLD. I'm currently vacillating between grad school and a year off teaching abroad, but important details, like which grad program, where, what country I want to teach English in, and so on, are still blank.

Katie is doing much better, and has actually narrowed down her schools to a shortlist. While she's been doing that, I've watched the Celine Dion made for tv movie. I might have some catching up to do, particularly now that I'm traumatized by what turned out to be, to quote Iris, "soft porn about their relationship." "Their" meaning Celine and Rene, or rather Celine and a creepy older Quebecois man who managed her since she was twelve. Played by an Anglo actor in a bad wig.

My procrastination isn't because I'm scared of growing up- that's a fate I've accepted with stoic resignation- but of getting letters of recommendation. I hate writing CVs, and I hate harassing people to lie and write something about how original and engaging I am. BUT I DO NOT WANT TO BE A FAILURE. If they were all more honest about this, mine would read something like "Protagitron does her work semi-competently, and even spells her name correctly sometimes. She will probably not make any major or minor contributions to her field, but she will pay her tuition on time, and generally smells inoffensive."

Come to think of it though, I don't know if I could even get that far. Most of them don't know who I am, and if they do, they know they hate me. I was keeping one professor in reserve, the ever-delightful Professor Mole, but ruined it all by talking to him outside of class a few days ago. Here's how that conversation went:
Protag: Hello, Professor!
Mole: Protagitron, how are you doing?
P: ... I'm... here. That's, uh, half the battle, right?
Mole:... Yes. Yes it is.
P: ...
Mole: ...
P: Have a nice day?
... and scurry. At this rate, even my application to CDI College isn't going to be processed.