Sunday, April 13, 2008

How do Superheroes pee?

The other day I had an intense viewing of Batman, the 1989 movie: the one with Michael Keaton and the “clownishly homicidal Joker.” I saw it with a friend, Joshua, who is absolutely enthralled with the notion of superheroes. Not in a regular boy-like way, when they’re impressed by muscly airborne men lifting cars and crushing beer cans on their head. Instead he’s interested in them existentially.

Joshua gave me an interesting running commentary on the deeper layers of Batman. How good and evil are intertwined, how one cannot exist without the other: Joker created Batman, Batman created Joker, Darth Vader is Luke’s Father… I think I just grew a prostate.

“Hey did you know that Jack Nicholson has man boobs now?”

“What was that?” Joshua said looking at me nervously while I played with his mint condition action figures.

“I saw a picture of him on the beach in US Weekly. He got all chunky. I think he’s a B cup now,” I shrugged as I arranged Joker and Spiderman in an embarrassing position.

“Hmm, Joker as a middle-aged overweight man. That would slow down his evil plotting.”

“Penguin did fine. And he waddled,” I paused as I tried to fashion Batman’s felt cape as Superwoman’s scarf, “I don’t understand superhero outfits. Tights, a cape, really?”

“The get-up is a representation of their archetypes. They are the pure essence of human kind’s different sides. Batman is a bat, representing fear and darkness, Captain America is well… patriotic. It’s all very metaphoric.”

“What if they have to pee? Do they have to pull the entire thing off? Does Spiderman have a fly? Velcro maybe?” I asked while I examined his newest superhero action figure: Spider-Hulk. Essentially Hulk’s body in a Spiderman suit. Very surreal.

I don’t think I ever got superheroes. Maybe it was because I was bothered that nobody could tell that Clark Kent and Superman looked exactly alike or how he kept his cape so seamlessly tucked into his suit jacket.

Still, when I was a kid, I wanted to be one. I used to tie a blanket around my neck and run down the corridor which ended with two steps I’d jump off of, hoping I would take flight. I assumed the corridor was enough of a head start, and the blanket was as good as any superhero cape. When that didn’t work I hoped yelping “Sup-ermaaaaaaaaaaan” before my running start would activate my superpowers. No dice. So I tried “Sup-ergiiiiiiiiirl,” then “Sup-erkiiiiiiiid,” and then “Batman! Duh-na-na-na-na-na-na.” But Batman never actually flew. Neither did I; not even a little gliding. Maybe that’s when my disillusionment towards superheroes started.

Maybe it was because I was always upset that Superman would lie to Lois Lane, never telling her who he really was. Superheroes are all the same, so secretive.

Soon after the Wright Brothers incident, I started sympathising with villains. They were always upfront about who they were: they said what was on their mind. Besides, they were the ultimate underdog - they never got to win! So I’d root for them. I rooted for Lex Luther, even with his freakishly shiny egghead, I cheered for Penguin (I liked his cuddly penguin friends), and I’d do a special victory dance whenever it looked like the Joker was going to succeed in his elaborate, cleverly conceived plot.

But now the Joker has man boobs.

Ode to four girls and a city

Last week I went for lunch with my, nothing less than fabulous, friend Callaghan. We had a delightful Sunday lunch at Rueben’s where I gracefully ate twice my weight in smoked meat. Afterwards, we went to the near by shopping centre, since I promised Callaghan we would find him a jaw dropping dress shirt for his upcoming date. Just a little cotton courage for the road, or maybe a cotton and polyester blend.

On our way, we crossed the store window of a shoe store. The new fall line was in. So I did what any self-respecting woman would do: I squealed like a little girl and glued my nose to the window, not noticing the small circle of mist on the glass caused by my heavy breathing.

Callaghan looked on, beguiled, with a small smirk developing on his face, “Are you going to be ok? Should I be holding your hand?” he asked disturbing my perfectly good moment of awe.

“Shhhhhh, aren't they beautiful?”

I looked on as the new pretty shoes, each with its own personality and charming quirk rested on her individual decorative platform.

“I think you have a problem,” teased Callaghan.

“I think I've found my soul mate, you see, over there, that pretty blue one, with the exquisite heels. They'll probably warp my spine, but aren't they wonderful?” I whispered through the glass, “I shall call you Buttercup, and you shall be mine.”

As Callaghan giggled at my dialogue with my future shoe, he questioned my undying devotion to footwear.

“Blasphemy!” I whispered to not disrupt the shoes in their natural habitat. "They bring me joy and happiness. They define the emotion of the day, they can take me from a would be sweat-pants day to a sophisticated woman of the world day. They carry me through my day, literally, lifting me a couple of inches from the ground. With my height, proportionally, that's huge! They're really just a girl's best friend - they are all you need.”

“Hmmm… Have you ever thought that maybe you needed some human companionship? At this point I would even suggest any kind of human interaction, just to put your shoe dependency in perspective, of course.”

“People come and go, shoes will always be there. Let's go in, I'm adopting that blue pair.” I waved at the other shoes so they wouldn't feel left out and went inside to purchase a new friend.

And that night, on a would-be lonely Saturday night, I sat in my jammies, watching Law and Order with a tub of Rocky Road ice-cream. Except I was perfectly happy, sitting there on my bed wearing my shiny new shoes, feeling a full 3 inches taller.

Margueritas make me sleepy

“So blissfully unaware.”

“What?” asked Andy as she studied the umbrella in her girly green-ish drink.

“They all look so happy. Look at them. All ‘look at me, look at me shaking my groove thing,’ all happy and stuff and junk,” I said obviously un-entertained by my flaming cocktail. Seriously. I had to blow it out.

“I see you’re going to be your usually uplifting self.”

It was Friday night, I had dragged Andy out of her sweat pants because I decided we should be “people” and interact with other said “people.” … Ok I also wanted an opportunity to wear the new pretty tragically unaffordable shoes I had just purchased.

So we were in a dim lit club, with fancy white leather couches, elaborate wood architecture, as well as suspiciously attractive barmaids as far as the eye could see.

The crowd was largely made up of well dressed university students. And there lay my melancholy.

“So happy now. They have no idea middle age is gonna hit them like a punch in the face. It’s a tragedy really.”

I get worried about a lot of things. I worry about whether the guy in Polka Dot Door ever get to see Polkaroo, I worry about Pauly Shore and his complete lack of a career, and damn it, yah, I still worry about Jennifer Aniston’s happiness.

But right now, I’m thinking: who will that pretty boy go home with, that’s who I’m worry about. Not the man with the man boobs.

“Hey are you worried about the man with the man boobs?”

“Scuse me?”

“I read this short story once, about a guy who said he was worried about some relatively clean cut guy with man boobs.”

“Um gotta say no. Not worried.”

“Yah me neither. I’m worried about him”

I was looking at an unnaturally attractive guy leaning on an awkward modern structure, possibly holding the whole place together.

“Worried? You mean you’re lusting.”

“No I’m worried. Nobody ever worries about the pretty people.”

Andy wasn’t particularly impressed with my musing. Instead she was intrigued by a nice looking, well dressed guy who seemed like he was having a controlled seizure on the dance floor. Well the poor guy had caught her staring and was coming right towards her.”

“Hey how you doin’?” he said illustrating his speech by fake shooting his index fingers at Andy.

She was visibly annoyed. Well, she was visibly annoyed to me. I’ve known the girl since she thought that The Backstreet Boys were “like, omigod, so totally awesome.” When she’s annoyed, she actually looks earnestly concerned: less eye rolling, more eyebrow furrowing.

Andy took her marguerita and held it high, “You’re up here. You should be down here,” she said as she lowered her drink to her navel.”

“See, now that’s the kind of guy you should be worrying about.”

“Bah. Enough people do.”

“Let’s go home. Margueritas make me sleepy.”

If you were a cookie, what kind of cookie would you be?

So I’ve been feeling a little guilty. It could have been the two ginormous double chocolate muffin I decided to have for lunch, or maybe because I tried getting rid of my overly affectionate cat by throwing an imaginary paper ball into the distance… and succeeded. But lately I feel like I’ve been a little bit shallow, like I’ve lost the ability to have any sensitive, deep or meaningful thought.

Instead of wondering what kind of back-story the girl in the movie star sunglasses at the back of the bus has, I now wonder where she got her shoes and why she doesn’t use more conditioner. People really should deep condition more.

The other day I picked CSI Miami over The National. Then, when I finally caught the news on CNN (I know, shameful), I wasn’t paying attention to what Condoleezza Rice was saying, instead I was looking at her new tailored Chanel suit as well as her unflattering haircut.

Speaking of hair, I got an upsetting haircut a few weeks ago. Looking back, it wasn’t particularly horrendous, it was just the exact opposite of what I had asked for. Still, I had to consciously hold back tears. I just never thought I was that kind of person. Apparently my hair does define me, and my hairdresser is the devil.

I decided to take action. I needed to be at one with the people, get in touch with my inner-altruist. I thought maybe some random acts of kindness and a couple PBS specials would make me feel better.

So I started by opening doors for people, letting cars merge in front of me in traffic and attempted not to shake my fist in anger at misbehaved drivers. Even though my efforts were largely ignored, I persevered. I let my mother judge my clothing and thanked her for her constructive criticism. I think I died a little in the inside.

I never used to be so desperate to help people, at least not while I was a waitress. Until a little while ago, I worked at a local restaurant for almost three years. There, I tended to people hand and foot. Not only by bringing them food and drink, but by listening to their issues (subscriptions actually). Since they insisted on treating me as a short term therapist, I decided to play along. I asked them background question to help better diagnose their problem, whether it was about their food being cold, or why they had been stood up. Until one day, when I guess I was being over zealous in my questioning, this sweet little old lady fought back. She was curt and told me, a little ungraciously, to mind my own business. Awesome. So now I’m not a waitress anymore, and I carry around a little bit of bitterness baggage. Hateful granny.

At any rate, being nice is hard work, so I’m scaling things down a bit. I’ll be keeping my good deeds to day to day politeness, courtesy and snack foods. I’m going to start keeping a supply of cookies in my purse.

That seems to have been my most successful endeavour. It makes people happy and it throws me into deep reflection on what kind of cookie the stranger in the back of the bus might be. Chocolate chip? Double fudge? Biscotti? Well I think I’m a step up from worrying about people’s deep conditioning habits.

And that’s the way it crumbles, cookie-wise.

Ode to Andy

My dearest bestest friend in the whole wide world is leaving me. She’s recklessly abandoning me and my yet to be discussed future neurosis. She’s going to another province where she found a better job where she’ll get an office and a window. I’ve been traded in for a window.

So I guess she’s decided to grow up and be successful. Pffff. I threatened to hold my breath until she said she would stay. My diabolical plan was bound to work - except I got all dizzy.

I told her everything. Now who am I going to call when I’m looking for some advice on an embarrassing rash? I would have gone to Jeeves from the Ask Jeeves website, but the Ask people have terminated the charming butler, and frankly I don’t care to trust anyone else. Only my best friend and a cartoon butler.

Besides worrying all weekend about who would talk me off the ledge after I realise I just ate a quarter pound of expired cheese I thought was supposed to be blue, I got to help Andy pack. This meant sifting through a wardrobe big enough to clothe a small country. Clearly she could not bring it all so I helped her part with about two thirds of her dearest birthday suit wrappers.

“No! Not thooooose,” Andy whined.

“It’s an old t-shirt with arm pit stains. It’s so old I can see directly through it.”

I waddled past her in a pair of her old clogs and threw the monstrosity in a large heap in between a purple sock and a pair of bright blue leather pants, across from an unattractive blond wig.

Her wardrobe was a museum of her life. The sun dress she wore for her first day of high school, the oversized basketball shorts she wore at fifteen because she thought “they were da bomb, yo.” Then there was the sweater she met her current boyfriend in: I was there for both the purchase and the first encounter. Finally, I discovered a collection of local t-shirts of the “I heart NY” variety which act as a live travel log.

Yes, I could finish this story with a predictable ending. I could use her cleaning the closet as a metaphor for the transition of her growing up and starting a new life. That after boxing up her old clothes and bringing them to the Salvation Army, Andy told me how she felt about that new chapter of her life story had begun, and we all had a good cry. On that note, this is how it ends:

Clothes strewn about the room, half folded, mostly just piled up in various corners of the bedroom.

“I brought two spoons,” Andy said as she settled next to me leaning on one of three piles of miscellaneous garments.

“Awesome,” I said as I dug into the tub of Rocky Road ice-cream.

We got lazy, lied in old clothes, and watched some predictable tv comedy. And that is why I’m sad Andy is leaving.

For the love of a good ramble

Life is a crazy place. It’s ridiculously, deliciously nonsensical. We live by an arbitrary set of social rules, scurrying around, like ants, towards a societally determined goal of what is a good life: career, money, children, family. Which isn’t such a bad thing, if you do get there. If you’re lucky on the way to those things you will accidentally stumble upon what life really is. Like when you’re ease dropping on a fascinating conversation about people you don’t know about. It’s headline news in a crowded elevator. That familiar stranger you tip your hat to at the bus stop you visit every morning. That time, when you had too much to drink and you told somebody you really didn’t like their shoes. Yes, also those cheesy cliché moments I refuse to not mention: helping that old lady across the street, catching a whiff off a lilac tree on a warm spring win, those late summer evenings quietly sucking on a popsicle while the sun sets. And god yes, walking in the rain. They’re clichés for a reason. But there is so much more: that time you seriously considered crying when you realized that you set the VCR wrong and you are now missing the second part of a vitally important cliffhanger. That time, you shrunk your favorite sweater, that time the cashier gave you the wrong change - she ended up paying you. That time you partook in a giant sing-along in a shady bar, the time you where you had to shovel out your car from under 20 feet of snow one morning the day of a test where you are already late for. These unimportant, non-essential moments are those that matter. Those moments are unbiased, impartial life moments. They just happen to you, at you, for you. That’s life, it happens. So take it by the balls.

Free the garden gnomes!

I’m looking for a little excitement. Maybe it’s because the school semester is wearing me a little thin. But it’s probably because I realised that the most dramatic thing that happened to me this week was that I seriously considered crying when I realized that I set the VCR wrong and missed the second part of a vitally important cliff-hanger. I guess I’m just feeling like the universe is on vacation and we’ve all been left to play with our toes.

My stomach is too weak to do anything particularly risk taking, like bungee jumping, line dancing, or driving above the speed limit. I need something more low key, something more stimulating than terror inducing. Something a little more Russian spy than trapeze artist.

So I followed someone. Suddenly, randomly, for no particular reason.

I was walking around Chinatown, slurping a slurpee when this older man inspecting an elaborate display in a store window, caught my eye. He was wearing a cream trench coat and a grey fedora hat. The man was a walking film noir stereotype - he demanded to be followed.

While I very unsubtly stared at him while he looked through the glass, he suddenly turned around and walked decisively away.

So I followed him. He walked past a fruit stand, I walked past a fruit stand. He turned left, I turned left, all the while pretending to know where I was going. I tried keeping my distance, staying on the other side of the street, but if I ever got too close, I’d childishly pretend to look into a store. And like any good Russian spy, I never let him out of my sight.

Suddenly he stopped in the middle of the street and took out a cigarette. He just stood there, taking it in. I kept walking and sat on a nearby stone stool in a tiny Asian courtyard to watch him. And so I watched.

Then, he picked up and started walking. This sudden retreat had taken me by surprise: when I got up I walked into someone. After about an eternity of clumsy apologies, I looked up, but couldn’t find him. I scanned the crowd and finally I saw the walking hat. The crowd parted like the proverbial Red Sea. I took two steps, and as quickly and silently as the crowd had parted, it swallowed my ongoing secret agent operation.

Having failed at my first mission as a spy, I thought I’d be more successful in some kind of covert resistance movement. So I almost stole a gnome, but I wussed out. In case you are one of the many uninformed, garden gnomes are currently being held captive across the country in cold dangerous gardens, exposed to the elements and forced to live solely on water and miracle grow. Gnome enslavement is an important issue with far too little coverage. Still, gnome liberation groups around the world are working together to free gnomes from oppressive gardeners and return them to their natural habitat. I, on the other hand, apparently am not brave enough to help out. I also think I’m a little ill-equipped for gnome saving. I’m 5’1” and don’t think I can stealthily conceal a pointy hat chalk statuette under my coat. Next time I try to participate in the gnome liberation movement, I should seriously consider calling in for reinforcements.

At any rate, if I ever want to make it as a professional undercover agent, I should seriously consider investing in a black jumpsuit as well as a conspicuous looking duffle bag. That, and change my name to Svetlana.

Columbo’s Glass Eye

“I have a problem.”

“Yes, I’m sure you do. This time go chronologically, alphabetically gives me indigestion,” replied Andy in one even unimpressed breath over her Cantonese Chow Mein.

“I’m serious – well more than usual, this could be medical, or worst: psychological!” I wheezed my last words. More because I thought that it could be plausible rather than the fact that I was distracted by the last dumpling I had bit into and was presently choking on. It seems it did not want to take the path of previous soldiers before him: ultimately turn into poo. Rather, it wanted to join his presently uneaten family, or maybe it hoped to escape and live its remaining days in the place where he was born (in the back of this tiny, sketchy restaurant in the lost alleys of Chinatown where the waiters are rude and don’t speak English.

It’s snowing now, on this graying February afternoon, and I’m sitting across my longest friend Andy, as I clutch the table attempting to gracefully get through a slight coughing fit. She knows all and too much about me. If I wasn’t sure she’d keep my paranoid babbling to herself, I’d have to shoot her.

“I think we’ve already established that most of your problems are psychological. Statistically, this should be one too,” Andy said as she sympathetically handed me a full glass of water to wash the dumpling down to its death.

“I can’t sleep.”

“Count sheep.”

“Seriously, I haven’t slept in two days! Not one wink, not one hour, nothing, I go to bed tired, I close my eyes and nothing. I’ve just spent two nights on my back counting how many seconds I’ve been awake,” I cried as I eyed my second dumpling victim, assuring it internally that its fate would be quick and painless.

“Well that’s your problem right there. You probably spent the night thinking about how you couldn’t sleep, creating some kind of twisted neurotic escalating snowball of rapidly increasing thoughts, ergo keeping you awake. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy really.”

“Really?” I said wryly, assuming Andy would use any excuse to be able to call me a neurotic nut (whether or not there is any truth to that)…. (and there isn’t)…. (really).

“Really. So all you have to do is stop thinking. Be at one. Be zen. Find your inner self and ‘ohm it up.’”

“Ohm it up?”

“Ohm it up. You know, like the monks: oooooooohhhhmmmmmm. You know, meditate. Did you know that Buddhists and Ascetic Hindus’ ultimate goal is to separate themselves from their constant inner chatter? They want to dissociate themselves from both their mind and their body, to transcend this chaotic, meaningless, unpleasant world. When they manage to do that they attain Nirvana, a higher plane of energy where mind and body don’t exist, you simply meld in with the universe. And that’s what you have to do to sleep. You have to find inner peace.”

“But I don’t want to dissociate myself from mind and body, I like being neurotic - not in a nutty way, in a cute, charming way. I like over-thinking every situation: I like to try to figure out which of Columbo’s eyes is the glass one. I like to analyze whether the guy behind the counter at Starbucks thinks I’m cute by dissecting the way he asks which size coffee I want.”

“But you’ll never gain inner peace that way,” menaced Andy knowingly, as she sipped her green tea. I saw her then as a nagging mother who you know knows what’s best, but wish she didn’t.

I wouldn’t sleep that night, nor the next. Instead I lay awake calmly, and happily thinking about incoherent, unimportant daily meanderings. Whether Joey really did the right thing by choosing Pacey. I tried to figure out why Titanic’s Jack Dawson wouldn’t climb on the raft with Rose, and why Anna Nicole Smith has lost all her motor skills. It’s ok that I didn’t sleep for another two nights. I was happy, lost in thought, lost in what makes meaningless life events bearable: the running cynical commentary in my head. I like my mind and body as one; I don’t want to not exist. If that means I’ll never attain a higher level of spiritual being, so be it. At least I “be.” Three nights after that, I finally fell asleep, I was watching some late night A&E when I dozed off as I hopelessly tried to figure out which of Columbo’s eyes were glass.

So five years later, I know a nauseatingly useless amount of information on Eritrea. However, thankfully enough, I have not become a bag lady.

So now you know.