- Doctor, with swab in hand: If you’re going to faint, faint backwards, not on me. I had a 250 pound football player almost kill me once.
- Me, holding down my pants: FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
Monthly Archives: February 2010
Art For Haiti Night
I spent a great deal of time looking for Heather G’s blond bob among the sea of dark hair.
I stood by her print, titled “Upper Pisang”, to hear what people were saying about it. An hoary old woman and her effeminate nephew (to whom she was sure to introduce me) enjoyed the colours and the glimmer. She decided to make a bid on it, and I took this shot.
Letters to Girls Mothers
I’ve been trying to write a letter to her mother. Something like this:
I was going to stop by on my last trip to Toronto, but part of me realized it may have made things complicated, since it’d be the first time since we stopped talking to each other. Not that I was scared you would take a side, but because I didn’t want you to think I was forcing that decision on you.
All I want to say is that I miss all of you terribly, she was special, and it’s a pity things didn’t work out. But it was much beyond our control. I don’t know if either of us will ever grow out of these differences that hold us back.
The last time I came to visit, it was almost 2pm on a Tuesday and you were both at work. I scratched a note on the back of a notepad to let you know I stopped by, and she told me you liked me so much, you stuck it on your fridge. That always meant a lot.
Thanks for everything.
But all of it comes out sounding defensive. I wish I could explain how I’m not angry but sad, which is a testament to how great they were. I can’t figure out how to put the ball in their court, to let them know that if they’re okay with it, and she’s okay with it, we can still be friends. I really don’t know how appropriate that would be anyway.
Sometimes, the hardest part of giving up the girls is giving up their parents too.
Super Bowl Sunday
We cover a lot of ground on the drive, stuff I wouldn’t admit to just anyone. It’s good to have a set amount of time for some one on one. We see each other at parties, but it’s never time by ourselves.
We get there a few hours early because it isn’t so much about the game as hanging out with the two friends I don’t see enough. There’s a cooler full of snow and beer, and the food is coming in protein; pigs-in-blankets, ground beef nachos, chicken fingers, crab dip, meat balls.
For a night, I’m with guys who punch arms, exchange verbal jabs, and laugh at blue collar jokes. Two little girls run around, and no one ever lets that change them. Now they’re fathers, but they’ll always be real men.
She does this for a living
It’s a voice that slays us, her tone dark and mysterious, her vibrato delicate and succinct. Yet snide. Flippant, even, cause fuckers, she’s not going anywhere.
This is what pulls our hearts out of our chests.