Bittersweet Friends

I have problems with my face. I have noticed this most of my life, but never quite as much as I have since I started commuting on a daily basis. Since I was a little kid, I was asked constantly “What’s wrong?? Why are you always so grumpy?”. I’m generally not grumpy. As a matter of fact, I’m one of the cheerier people you might come across, but my face – my face decides that I should have a perpetual look of pissed-off-edness. So while riding public transit for 2.5 hours a day, in the most crushed, close confines one could imagine, apart from maybe falling down a well or trying to read a book in a mosh pit, I am forced to attempt to try to not look like I’m glaring directly at people, despite my face being about 8″ away from theirs. This is actually a harder feat to do than you might imagine. I always am amazed by those people who promptly fall asleep on the bus, their heads lolling to and fro with the abrupt jerks and stops of the bus. Don’t they get worried that someone is going to steal their bag? Or draw obscene words on their faces? Or that they might start simultaneously drooling and snoring and have the entire bus openly mock them? Clearly not, as I run into them day after day. Hey, I’m tired too, but I’m pretty sure I would need about 6 days of sleep deprivation before my body would relax enough for me to be comfortable sleeping in front of 58 random strangers.

Hard as I may try to make it otherwise, my face makes me look like I’m on the verge of lunging across the aisle, grabbing your baby and throwing it out the open bus doors. Or perhaps shank you when you were considering getting off at a stop to pick up some bananas. I KNOW this. But I can’t help it!  My normal “not-thinking-about-anything” face has a natural downturn that just makes me look pissed off. I am so painfully aware of this now, that I spend much of my time consciously trying to look convincingly like I’m not agro. This involves a lot of awkward half smiling and wide-eye opening. Which when written down like THAT makes me sound like I’m in dire need of some medication. But you know when you are thrust in front of a camera and ordered to smile – nine times out of ten, that smile looks forced and contrived (which is why I like to be on the OTHER SIDE of the camera). But I fear this is how I look all the time, unless I can scour my memory and try to recall things that have recently made me laugh (like me trying to act casual when falling up stairs, or seeing a pigeon eating a cinnamon donut) and in this case I’m able to actually smile my REAL smile – my dimpled, eye squinty, genuine, ridiculous smile. But on days when the rain won’t quit, and I’m feeling a bit lonely, this is hard to do. I have thought more than once that I wish I could wear a full face covering balaclava, or perhaps a brown bag on my head.  Neither of these options work well in aiding me to look more friendly and approachable, however…  more psychotic, yes – but at least my facial muscles wouldn’t ache from trying to appear cheery and helpful. Cheery and helpful – this is the look I’m going for. Unfortunately, pained and confused (and mildly constipated)  is likely more the look I’m pulling off. The whole thing is just so tiring – perhaps this is the same issue the sleeping people have had to deal with, and after 7 weeks of attempting to look like they enjoy being forced into the armpit of someone who hasn’t showered in five days, they are just so exhausted they can’t help it. Maybe this is their coping mechanism? I guess having my eyes closed and drooling slightly is  a better alternative than potentially getting my ass kicked because my mind has wandered off and I’ve been caught glaring at some gansta girl for the last 2 minutes, appearing to challenge her to a duel – Fight Club style – at the corner of Broadway and Granville. So if you should happen to see me out and about, and it looks like I’m about to haul off and shin kick the grandma in front of me, please know that inside I’m likely thinking about picking up yogurt at the store, or if I have enough quarters for laundry. I can’t help it. It’s just my face! (I need to get that put onto a shirt, I think).

Happy Halloween! It was supposed to rain today, but to my surprise and delight, the sun has been out all day. I took the opportunity to get outside as quickly as possible,  as my eyes have been turning mole-like from all the dreary darkness lately. I imagined that people watching today of all days, would be impressive – being Halloween and all. But there was nothing! Out of almost 3 hours spent out and about, I think I saw 3 costumes. And two of those were questionable as to whether or not they were actually costumes, or just merely just flamboyant hipsters sporting fedoras and striped prison pants. I was hoping for zombies, fake blood, eyepatches. There weren’t even any girls dressed up as slutty cops or nurses to chuckle at. Overall, pretty disappointing.

I do however love the sudden splashes of orange that dot the landscape during October.  Last night I went to a small get-together with friends, where we drank wine and carved pumpkins while watching the original Nightmare on Elm Street. I don’t remember that movie being so ridiculous the first time I saw it. It borderlines more comedy than horror – although I must confess, it’s usage of 80’s synthesizer sound effects may have been the scariest thing I’ve witnessed in weeks.

I don’t really have Halloween plans tonight, which make me feel a little bummed out. What it is about the “fun” holidays that make being single feel extra lonely? Carving pumpkins, dying Easter eggs or beating pinatas senseless are just so much better when you have a sidekick. I’m trying not to dwell on it too much, but sometimes it still gets the better of me. This city makes it so difficult to meet people. I’m thoroughly convinced that there are 50 single girls to every one single boy. And that single boy is hiding under a rock right now, playing WOW in his mom’s basement. In all seriousness, though – how does a girl compete when there are so many attractive, talented, wonderful, intelligent single girls out there? It’s like being lost in a sea of  faces… the invisibility of it all so much worse than anything.  Today it’s made me feel pretty empty inside, and although I would rather be out in public enjoying the Halloween festivities, it’s making me feel more alone being around people then when I’m at home solo. I’m not entirely sure what I will feel like doing later tonight – maybe I will be inspired to venture downtown to the art gallery steps to check out the action, (sneaky wine-bottle concealed under my coat) but more likely than not I will just stay in and eat popcorn and Strongbow dinner, praying desperately for some horror-movie marathon on TV.

Speaking of horror movies, I’ve been fortunate enough to take in a few movies recently… both Where the Wild Things Are and Paranormal Activity in the last week. I had high hopes for Paranormal Activity, what with all the “THIS IS THE SCARIEST MOVE EVER MADE!!!!!!” hype on the internet and people mentioning “I had a friend who said he didn’t really need to sleep  for the next couple of weeks, anyway”. I could hardly turn down the opportunity to see a horror film THAT good – so I shelled out the $13 to see it in the theatre. My first mistake however, was going on a Friday night – to the Scotia theater downtown, arguably the busiest theater in all of Vancouver. In retrospect, I can’t believe I would have considered this as being a good idea, but I’m so accustomed to seeing movies alone, in cheap and crappy old theaters with decrepit balconies that usually contain only 5 other patrons, that I imagined it wouldn’t be that busy. But this movie was PACKED.
Full of teenagers.
Any sort of suspension of disbelief that could have happened during this movie was immediately quashed by the adolescent high-pitched screeching of girls throughout the audience, faces pressed tightly into the shoulders of their dates. Each time I found myself getting drawn into the heightened creepiness of the movie, the girl beside me would GASP and jump 1 foot out of her seat, squealing “OHMYGOD!!!” Seriously? This was during the scene that involved the understandably bone chilling and terrifying sequence of a door. OPENING… TWO INCHES. Yes, I said it – a door moved slightly open, and the audience of teenage girls went APESHIT. Which mostly just made me laugh out loud, destroying any feeling of dread that might have been building. I would imagine that if I was at home, in the dark, watching this movie with headphones on, it would have scared the living shit out of me. However, under these conditions, Johnny Depp’s hair from Nightmare on Elm Street was far more frightening than being in that theatre. Which is disappointing because unlike many horror movies, this film really is mostly scary in it’s frantic, inital unknown– and once you know what will happen, it’s unlikely that you will ever experience the same fright once you know what will happen. Curse you, teenage girls! But I imagine it was those very girls who gave it the headline of being the SCARIEST MOVIE EVER MADE… EVER. SERIOUSLY. Jesus, if a door opening has you peeing your pants I can only imagine what would happen if someone busted out a chainsaw…

… which reminds me – I also was fortunate enough to get to see Evil Dead the Musical recently! It was amazing, and hilarious. And there was copious amounts of blood. SPRAYING FROM THE CEILING! And singing! And sex! And self-arm-amputation! It was so great, I really can’t recommend it enough, despite it’s pricey ticket cost, it is really worth every penny.

Have a terrifyingly awesome Halloween, everyone! Watch out for the eardrum rupturing shrieking teenage girls who have desended upon the city… let’s just hope they have been considerate enough to do it while wearing costumes. And remember, the tiny nature of those little chocolate bars makes any caloric intake virtually nil, so feel free to eat at least 36 of them in a sitting.

As an adult, it’s tough to make new friends. It’s not as though one can just sidle up to someone on the bus and ask what they’re doing. Or pull up next to someone and see if they want to go ride bikes together. Well, I suppose you COULD, but no one ever does that. Or rather, I never do that, as I’m afraid that people will back anxiously away like I have the swine flu. Or as if I licked the safety glass beside the bus bench.

Until last night. I was having a rather lonely Saturday evening, as plans had fallen through, and I decided that rather than hang out solo in my apartment I would head on down to Main Street and sit in the window at JJ Bean and people watch while writing in my journal. I love JJ Bean. While there is really no shortage of decent places to grab coffee in my neighborhood, JJ Bean on Main St. just has this vibrancy to it. There are always a ton of people wandering around, and the ordinary americano ends up being several hours of observing hipsters in their natural environment. The concentration of skinny jeans and 80’s resurgence off-the-shoulder dresses and ray ban sunglasses is unbelievable. Every other time I’ve gone there during the day or weekday evening it is PACKED. The night I was hoping it was packed it was relatively dead, unfortunately…

Except for this 6 year old kid that dragged a stool over to mine in the deserted windowfront.
“Hi” he said.
“Hi” I smiled.
“My name is Kyle”
“Hi Kyle, my name is Chrissy”.

This turned into the most epic, thrilling conversation I’ve had in ages. He was showing me his meteorite (read: rock) and his fossilized dinosaur tooth (read: rock) and then his pocketful of vampire bat jewels (read: plethora of rocks). He was telling me about this symbol that was burned into the skin of his upper arm that when the moon summoned him he would turn into a vicious dragon. Not a fire breathing dragon I found out through extensive questioning, but instead a dragon that shoots fire AND ice AND lava. Lava! Then he proceeded to pull up the sleeve on his shirt to show me his muscles and challenge me to an arm wrestling match. This entire time I wondered where his parents were? He had been sitting beside me for a good 20 minutes by this time.  He didn’t appear disheveled or unkept – just very articulate and imaginative.

Did his parents want their child arm wrestling with a strange woman in the front window of JJ Bean? I could see no one around, but reasoned there was no other time I really got the opportunity to arm wrestle a 6 year old kid. So we did. And being the chivalrous girl that I am, I let him win (read: barely) twice! Then he challenged me to a thumb wrestling match. AND I KICKED THAT KID’S ASS! You can’t let them build up too much false confidence, right? If you do they turn into cocky, self indulgent teenagers (read: as I have learned through my own personal experience, sob).

So yeah, my lonely night was made slightly less so by the company of a 6 year old. This was both really entertaining and absolutely depressing at the same time. I can just see it now on Monday morning:

“Hey, what did you do this weekend?”
“I  had a heated discussion with a 6 year old in a coffee shop about vampire bats being immune to dragon’s lava fire breath because they have hoards of secret buried jewels back at their caves… then I thumb wrestled him and TOTALLY WON – how about you?”
Blank stare.

He was a super great kid, and after my attempt at trying to keep the conversation quiet and politely answering his questions as not to encourage him (so sad that we feel strange talking to other people’s kids these days), but then after awhile I realized our conversation must have been echoing throughout the entire place. I was arguing with him full volume about werewolves, and bats, and jewel heists. I was arguing with this kid as though debating politics and religion and Tim Hortons coffee. And then he told me about all his girlfriends, and said that if I wanted to, I could be in his secret dragon club.

I think this means that I now have a 6 year old boyfriend.

Progress on the dating front? I haven’t lost my feminine charms yet, apparently.

Tis the season of camping. Heading out to the forest or beach, setting up a tent, building a gigantic bonfire and roasting marshmallows. The smell of the crackling wood, watching the stars come out, and for a couple of days not having to deal with phones, or computers, or real life. A friend and I were discussing the phenomenon of going to bed at 10 p.m. when you are camping (after you consume beer all day long, once the darkness hits you are pretty much done for the day!). At night there isn’t much to do but sit around and chat. Watch the fire and listen to the quiet of the forest. I miss that very much. As much as I love it, I haven’t been camping in years. I don’t have a tent myself – for good reason, being that it’s unlikely I could set up a tent without spending several hours swearing, poking myself with tent poles and ending up with 3 random left-over pieces… and figuring out at 2 a.m. exactly what the purpose of those pieces is when the tent collapses in the pitch black. Ahh, the outdoors. But the marshmallows!

Being that I don’t own a cell phone myself, I find these excursions into the middle of nowhere not as hard to adjust to as some of my more tech-savvy counterparts. I sort of relish the fact that you’ve dropped off the face of the planet for a little while. Nothing is pressing, things slow down and you can just breathe.

The majority of friends I have wouldn’t set foot near the forest unless taken hostage by angry militants. The thought of dirt and sleeping on the ground and peeing in the woods doesn’t appeal to them. God knows why? But a few people I know have been camping lately quite a lot. Unfortunately I have not been a part of those trips, but I’m hoping a bit later in the summer to get out. Do some canoeing, play some drunken poker, eat marshmallow dinner, and go swimming in the lake. If it weren’t for the lack of car, tent, general sense of direction, and inability to read both a map and a compass, I would be out there in a minute. Just those few details. (Why oh why wasn’t I a girl scout? Damn you, flute lessons!). So I will wait patiently until I can find a camping buddy and then… well, at least I’ll bring the marshmallows.

Sometimes when I’m feeling a bit small in this huge planet we live in, I wait until 1 a.m, open the windows in my living room, turn on Fleet Foxes and just blow bubbles. The street is absolutely quiet (unless of course I decide to do it on a weekend, in which case drunken people stumble down the road and are both perplexed and delighted by the bubbles). But I don’t like people to see me. It’s more just for me – a secret activity I like to do all alone. When I lived in the building 2 doors down, it had a lovely huge roof deck that I took advantage of regularly. I bought a bubble machine and sat slightly back from the front edge and just turned it on during rush hour. I figured that it would brighten up people’s day who were just stuck in the monotony of a routine. I think that I went through about 7 litres of bubble solution over a summer. That sucker pumped out about 500 bubbles a minute that would just drift out on the wind. It was pretty awesome. I miss that building for that one reason.

Everything about this apartment now brings me joy – but I do miss my rooftop bubbles. I suppose I could get another bubble machine – I’m just always worried that people will be upset if the bubbles hit the cars… some people are sensitive about that sort of thing. Which is another reason why I relish the darkened street, it’s a bit more sneaky and incognito that way The bubbles don’t show up quite as vividly as they would in the sun, but when the moon is out they still sparkle, just in a different way. At any given time you can see about 3-4 bottles of bubble solution on my windowsill. Currently I have strawberry, banana and chocolate chip scented ones, and one standby old-school kind too, for those times I just want to get ‘er done.

I’m trying to take baby steps to bringing some good new things into my life. I keep thinking if each day I do a few things to improve my circumstances – whether that be swimming, sending out resumes, working on new Bittersweets, or trying something new entirely, eventually things will just start falling into place.

This Buddha used to be in a Chinese restaurant back in the 40’s or 50’s I think. My mom got it in an antique store, but decided after a couple of years (and much begging, pleading and coercion from me) that he just didn’t go with her decor anymore. So I very willingly adopted him. I think she believes that I’m merely storing him here until she decides she wants him back. She will have to pry him out of my cold dead hands, as he and I have become quite the team. Anytime I need a bit of luck I rub his shiny little head, or put found-on-the-street coins in the little dishes by his feet. It’s a bit like throwing pennies into fountains, except I’m throwing them at an inanimate jolly fat man instead who looks like he’s trying to impersonate a candy apple. An ECSTATIC candy apple.  He used to have a fan in his hand, but I thought it far more appropriate if he held onto a lollipop instead. Everyone can use a little bit more sweetness in their lives, right?