Post Mortem of a Post Mortem

My aunt killed herself. And here I am, feeling irritated at having to get up super early on a Saturday go cry about it all over again at the funeral mass in Mississauga. It’s one of the first warm weekends of the spring. I’d much rather be on a patio drinking caesars with pals than reflecting on the dark cloud that’s going to be camped out over my family, over my uncle in particular. Maybe I’d be more willing to attend this Sad Extravaganza if she had at least left a note of apology/farewell. But no. She just left. A few days later she was found face-down in the river.

During her sister’s eulogy and her best friends’ bible readings, I imagined that her ghost was watching from the last pew. Would she be surprised at the high turnout, surprised by the tears in everyone’s eyes, surprised that we’re all taking it so hard? I hope she feels sheepish now that she’s seeing much we all loved her — not that it makes a difference at this point. The love of 200 friends and family members wasn’t enough to make her love herself.

Someone in this church has dropped the ball, I’m thinking. Someone didn’t take her seriously when she mentioned that she wanted to kill herself, even though there were clear signs of sincerity. She was trying to quit Prozac and she was sent home from work months ago for talking about suicide. Why wasn’t she taken to the hospital? Why was there no intervention? How is it that she walked to the ravine with a backpack full of pills and wine the day after she saw her psychiatrist?

I’m looking around the church for someone to blame. And that makes me feel guilty, especially since this is a place of God. I’m not religious, but it’s still ‘God’s house’ so I feel guilty out of respect, the same way you feel oafish for spilling wine on your host’s carpet at a dinner party.

I’m being unreasonable by resenting her and simultaneously resenting the fact that she wasn’t saved. Worse, I’m being a baby for feeling so inconvenienced by all of this. Getting dressed up in fussy clothes and planting myself in the midst of sadness on my day of rest is nothing compared to what my uncle must be going through.

Had I known she was in trouble, I would have had the opportunity to do something even as small as letting her know that I had always thought of her as an aunt even though she wasn’t technically married to my uncle. Maybe I could have helped. But I had no clue she battled depression. She had always acted so sweet and happy, her arms ready for a big hug. I’ll really miss those hugs and regret how I took them for granted.

I feel robbed on so many levels. The most bewildering colour in this emo rainbow is how her death has made me happier to be alive. She’s not here to appreciate the blooming trees, the birdsongs or even the tasty sandwiches they served at the wake — but I am! I’ve never been so acutely aware of the magnificence of life. I’m out of the fog of pain. She was engulfed in the fog, and couldn’t see the clear conditions beyond its boundaries. Even when things aren’t perfect for me, thank God — ACTUAL God who I might be prepared to ACTUALLY believe in — I am in the sweet, clear, daylight.

Six Short Poems

Lovely Spring Day

Slow snow
Falling up
Fall back to where you came from, bitch




The Loogie

That you snorted
then waited for me to walk on by
before you horked
made me believe in gentlemen again


The Pedestrian

As much as I dislike getting wet
— like a cat facing a bath
being splashed by a car speeding through a puddle
would compliment my misery splendidly


Identity Oopsy

I thought they were three men
Closer, I saw one was a dame
She just had skinny thighs
and a crackaddict face


Here’s How Strongly Worded Letters Get Started

I intend to inform management
that you let your dogs shit on your balcony
only cause your bitches yapped me awake for the trillionth time
so I’m too tired for forgiveness today


Glutton for Punishment

The more I play
The worse I get
at Jeopardy!
and euchre
and pool
But I just can’t quit you my darlings!
I’m relentless!
a masochist!
a fool!

Let it Be

Let it Be
by Lennon/McCartney

When the broken hearted people
Living in this world agree
There will be an answer
Let it be

My parents' house is like rehab for a broken heart. I’m the disoriented and defiant patient, my parents are the health professionals working around the clock to feed me spaghetti and snap me out of my self-pity. Like the properly wayward girl I am, I scoff at their methods. "Mom, your advice isn't the kind of support I need right now," I moan (I wanted a hug). But Moms, I hear, have this proactive tendency to hold the mirror up to your face and point out the destructive patterns you’ve had since you were a teenager and give you feasible advice as to how you can change. "Next time, get a guy with a career. And a car. That’s how you’ll know he’s ready to settle down. And why are you only happy when you have a boyfriend? Have you ever thought about learning to be happy by yourself? Is it because you’re an only child?" she says, like these questions haven’t already been tumbling around and around and around in my mind, to the point of sleeplessness and queasiness.

She’s right. I should get to the bottom of these questions and learn to make myself happier. It’s just easier said than done. I'm fully aware that I’m being a self-indulgent mope who should just pick myself up and decide to be over it. But lately my positive self-talk sounds as distant to me as the voice of god. Maybe it’s out there, echoing though the clouds, but I’ve no tangible evidence that anything was ever really said or heard.

And then I heard the song Let it Be. It’s amazing the random things that get through to you. All the good advice in the world can fall on deaf ears, but somehow this song of surrender permeates my soul. (Maybe I should worship the Beatles?) Yeah, quit over-thinking it, I said to myself. It’s not ‘sweeping it under the rug’ if you can muster the courage to wash your hands and forgive yourself for having been dirty in the past. That’s exactly what I resolve to do.

When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.

Thanks Mom.

The Savages in my Neighbourhood

THEY SAID THIS AREA IS PEACEFUL. HA!

I hear a man screaming, “I shit my pants!” I go out to the balcony to find out where the noise is coming from. The man is staggering on the sidewalk while trying to smoke a cigarette.

Turns out I know this man. It’s my crazy neighbour, Dennis. Once a month I hear him shouting gibberish though our mutual wall. Sometimes he goes out on his balcony and yells at passers-by, or the moon, like a werewolf doing a Jerry Lewis impression.

The werewolf theory makes sense. Our daytime exchanges in the hallways and elevators have been nothing but pleasant. I’d pegged him as a tidy gay fellow I could borrow can openers and sugar from. Then, on any random night, transformed by some evil curse, he turns into this sloppy creature who now howls on the street.

I watch the top of his grey head sway in reverse directions from his body. He steps forward and bumps into the brick fence that encompasses the front yard of our building. More vulgar gibberish.

Something falls from the sky and explodes in the middle of Parliament Street, about four metres from Dennis. An egg. He staggers back and looks up. “What the fuuuuk?”
He catches me looking back at him. “I know youuu!” he fumes. I duck back into my apartment in a panic because now he thinks I’m the one throwing eggs at him.

I sit on the couch, get up, turn around, mute the TV, and go back onto the balcony. Fuck, I’m thinking. I should explain: I saw the egg come from way over there, Dennis! Jeez some real sick mutants live around here! I could say.

But when I go back onto my balcony, he’s gone. I tiptoe to my front door and look out the peephole. I hear the elevator door open, followed by carpety footsteps coming down the hall. I’m enormously concerned he’ll come pound on my door. I lock my back-up lock.

“How do I get in here?” Dennis asks himself. I hear the jingling of keys. Dropping of keys. Opening of door.

I stand in the middle of my apartment and listen to him thump around next door. It occurs to me he might try to peek into my apartment around our balcony partition, the way I’ve tried to peek into his. I close and lock my balcony door — but rather than doing it quietly as intended, I pull the door too hard and it slams.

“Hello? Hellooo?" He says.

Jesus Christ! I sit on the couch and pray this isn’t happening. Now he thinks I hate him. Now it will be awkward in the hallway and I’ll have to fucking move.

I spend an hour mock-watching TV before the howling and banging finally subsides. Not long after, I hear a new noise outside. I run to my bedroom window and look down to the street. A woman is chasing a uni-legged man in a wheelchair. She’s screaming, “That’s my money!” She bangs on the windows of a van parked on the street. He wheels away, as fast as he can. Is she a prostitute? Are they a bickering homeless couple? Is it pay day at the Money Mart? So many questions.

At the same time, this is par for the course around here. Every week I’ve got some new story about these freaks. Last week it was Mullet Man.


HE LOOKS LIKE THIS MAN

Mullet Man always wears black and always takes the stairs. He’s not what you’d call friendly but, aside from being slightly smelly, he hasn’t caused problems either.

Last Sunday, he passes me in the hallway, bleeding from the right eye. He’s covering his eye with one hand, and the other hand, covered in blood, dangles in front of him.

I’m walking beside my Dad at the time, so I’m uncharacteristically inquisitive towards Mullet Man. Dad should protect me from Mullet Man, is the idea.

“Hey man, you OK?” I say. Pause. “Need some help man?”

He doesn’t respond. Just goes into his apartment and leaves a smear of blood on the door frame. It is smeared there still.

There’s more! Other freaky run-ins have included:

— Being cornered by a teenager in the elevator. He asked me if I wanted to “party” and suggested I “get off on his floor.”

— A mutant took my period undies out of the dryer because I was ten minutes late in collecting them.

— The lady informed me of the “thriving society” of crack addicts living under the bridge who have allegedly been spotted getting high in the stairwells of my building. (She scolded me for laughing at her choice of word: ‘thriving’. Like, they're really SUCCEEDING under the bridge? Building empires and shit? “It’s not funny. It’s a very serious issue,” she said.)

Last month my excitement revolved around the two tanned and petite student-types (strippers?) who moved down the hall with their yappy dogs. I couldn’t help myself from telling them about the cockroaches, hot on the heels of my neighbourly ‘welcome to the building’ speech. Their eyes widened with agony.

“Roaches. Eww,” said the blonde.
“Oh my god, but you haven’t seen MICE have you?” asked the brunette.

“No. No mice YET. But I have a cat, so maybe that’s why I don’t see them.” Their furrowed brows indicated that I was being a killjoy.

“But don’t worry,” I said, “between your dogs and my cat, we’ll be the pest-fighting team!”

My sudden switch to peppiness seemed to throw them off. They giggled politely and continued down the hall to their door.

Telling them about the giant rats I saw nosing through the trashpile by the condemned houses down the street would have been too cruel/fun.

In conclusion, it seems I am exposing myself as the crazy one. I’m a peeping Tina. I’ve used cups as inter-wall eavesdropping devices. I obsess about all the things that will come get me and my precious, precious cat. I run to the door or the balcony, or wherever the noise is coming from, like some snoopy Neighbourhood Watch of one. I try to corrupt the minds of innocent young tenants and their dogs. I’m just as vile as these other St. Jamestown savages!

Happy Birthday Jules

If I ever become one of those sour pusses who wail and moan on their birthday, please ensure I don’t live to see my next one.

What’s the point of being sour to the fact that you’ve made it as far as you have? Even though your career or your love life or whatever might not be as developed as you thought it would be by this age, be grateful for the fact that you made it here at all. It’s a luxury to be able to celebrate yourself. Getting down on yourself for having experienced another year is like trading a diamond for a lump of coal.

Me, I’m extra lucky. Yesterday (my birthday) started like any other day of the year. I went to work and felt the usual mid-afternoon stress-fatigue. But then I left the Hall and went to Heather’s where I was wined and dined and showered with gifts. My belly full of cheese, fruits, nuts, paté and bacon-wrapped fillet mignon, I left Heather’s feeling grateful for her friendship and awestruck by the pink, foggy sunset that draped the city like a gift from god.

Back at work, I was further spoiled by my coworkers. I was given free catering food, a box of chocolates, a surprise gift in my locker, an other gift on the change room, a dozen hugs AND it was even suggested that I quit wiping the tables cause ‘it’s my birthday…I shouldn’t have to do anything’!

After our shift, a bunch of us went to the Rivoli where, unfortunately, the birthday gods didn’t make me any better at pool. But I loved having my peeps together, including a special man who came to celebrate my birthday regardless of his job interview the next day.

The phone calls and Facebook messages made me feel truly loved. And it doesn’t stop there! My special day continues throughout next week. A dinner party with my girls tomorrow, dinner with Mom and Dad Sunday, and another dinner Thursday.

Not everyone is this lucky. I’m proud for being clever enough to acknowledge it. Maybe it’s a cleverness that can only come with age. Now 27, I’m more self-actualized and calm than I was ten years ago when I was supposedly going through my “carefree” teens. I sweat and cried buckets back then cause I just didn’t know how to deal with anything! But now I know what I like and what kind of person I want to be. I can identify what makes me happy and what doesn’t. Number one on the list of things that make me happy is true connections with people who love me. Yet again this year, my birthday brought out that love. Thanks everyone!

An Illustrated List of 5 Interesting Men I Encountered in the Last 24 Hours

Last night, a man engaged me in a pleasant conversation about how difficult it is these days to smoke weed in concert venues. He looked like this:


"STEVE VAI CAN PLAY SOME MEAN GUITAR," SAID THE MAN


This afternoon, I had an inspiring chat about the Oxford dictionary with a funny man from London, England. Although John works in Upper Canada College’s communications department, he’s the sort of guy who doesn’t like wearing ties and minding his Ps and Qs for the benefit of rich boys. I imagine this is how he looked when he was 12:


BOLLOCKS HARRY! I DON'T WANT TO REPAIR REPUTATIONS OF PRIVVY SCHOOLS!


On my way home, two young Mormons said, “hi how y’all doin’ today?” to me and another confused pedestrian as we all walked past the boarded-up houses. I’m like, no luck knocking on those doors huh boys? Maybe time to go back to Utah?


SAVING THE WORLD, ESPECIALLY THAT PESKY ST. JAMESTOWN


In my building, three black contractors with gold teeth talked to me in the elevator about the warm weather. We agreed we aught not complain as the frost is on its way. One of them resembled this fellow:


NEVA CUMPLAIN BOUT DA SUN


At home, I got a voice mail from a man I met randomly last week. I liked him but he seemed like the sort of guy who would be too busy sunbathing off the southern coast of St. Bart's with spider monkeys for the past two weeks, tripping on acid. Naturally, here’s what he looked like:


JULES GOTTA QUIT GOIN AFTER RICK SPRINGFIELD LOOKALIKES

Nothing like some gonzo journalism on a Saturday night

I found myself surrounded by hedonists squirming like snakes on the dance floor. An hour earlier I was ashamed of my shitty dancing and wanted to escape to a pub for a quiet game of pool. But after a few drinks, I was suddenly content to plant myself in the middle of the hive and judge these godless, cold-blooded, creatures as they writhed around. I pretended I was one of them so I’d have something to blog about in the morning.

Then one of them began to grind me. “I just want to dance. Just dance.” He screamed into my ear over the house music. Hot on the heels of the previous night’s swing dancing lesson, I spun out of his grasp and sang, “no no no.” (This is me trying to be nice. It was too loud to properly chastise him. Try articulating a thoughtful explanation as to how inappropriate it is for a man to presume he can rub his bits and pieces on your unsuspecting ass over a Killers/Jay Z mashup. Best just twirl away.)

This is me at the Century Room, a club on King Street between Spadina and Bathurst. Heather’s hair stylist, Dustin, put her and ‘a friend’ on the guest list. That didn’t spare us having to wait in line, however, and I still had to pay $10 cover (reduced from $20) but I’m trying real hard not to hate this place already.

This is me trying new things. This is me being 26 and, having identified who I am and what I like to do, backing up and realizing maybe I was too quick to solidify. Maybe I should try dancing again. Maybe I’ll love it this time? Maybe this time I won’t fail and feel like a tool? So I went swing dancing at the Reservoir Lounge on Friday and on Saturday I am permeating the club scene.

Finally the lady with the clipboard unhooks the velvet rope and we’re allowed in. We approach the bar and buy drinks. Bottles of Keiths are $7 each. Plus tip—which is expected cause you have to seem loaded in a place like this. The bartenders don’t even bother being nice—they’re bringing in fivers by joylessly pouring sets of vodka red bulls that GTA guys are throwing down their gullets. And the bathroom attendant is scoring toonies for…standing there watching chicks fiddle with their lipstick?

Not like I’m cheap. I’m just not used to such pointless affluence. Shut up Jules, try to have fun. Look on the bright side. It’s an adventure. You’ll get to blog about it.

I breathe and observe the scene. There are tables surrounding the dance floor. I’d love to sit down cause my very best John Fluevog shoes are killing me, but we can’t sit there cause those tables are reserved for parties who’ve requested bottle service. A group of 8 sits down. It’s probably someone’s birthday. They stare into space and don’t talk to each other on account of the loud music.

I say into Heather’s ear, “People DO this? People MEET here? How? Why?”
She shakes her head. Mentions maybe they’re not drunk enough to have fun yet.


Next I observe the clientele on the dance floor. The guys have short hair and collared shirts worn open to expose waxed chests. Big arms. Over-plucked eyebrows. The girls have dyed hair and shirts worn low-cut to expose cleavage. Deep tans. Fake nails. Over-plucked eyebrows.

I immediately pick out the bitch I hate most. At first I thought she was grinding up against my back cause she liked me, but turns out she was just shimmying me so I’d feel uncomfortable and get out of her way. Then she flipped her mass of curls into my face.

So THIS is why there’s high police presence in the entertainment district, I reflect. Cause people like me want to smash their beer necks against tables and ram them into the throats of their adversaries. Or pull out a switchblade, stab her thigh, and put an end to her dancing days.

Instead, I got out of her way. Heather and I spotted Dustin. He approves of Heather’s hair, he says. He also says something about MDMA and blow, which makes sense considering he’s acting like a rat in a mirror maze. Then he flies off again.

Heather and I do a shot of vodka and get an other round of beers. The music seems better, the club is fuller, and I’m actually inspired to dance. I put my purse and pashmina in a puddle of something and get my groove on to some remixed classic rock songs. I long for something by Snoop Dogg.

That’s when it happens. I become one of them. I accidentally have FUN. I WORK UP A SWEAT.

Near the end of the evening, I encourage Heather to go talk to a hot black guy who’s looking at her. She does. We leave him and his buddies at the club, which is emptying out now that it’s past 2am and the bar’s closed. We try to get into the Drake Hotel cause it’s open til 4am but there’s a half-hour wait. So I take off my shoes and walk the five minutes in my bare feet to Heather’s place.

The black guy texts to invite us to a hotel. Even though it was so classy of him to treat us like prostitutes, we neglect to reply to his message.

I finally get it. THIS is how people meet in clubs! THIS is what they do! It’s something I might even do again if I feel like reminding myself why I’m happy being a pub girl who plays sleepy games of pool and indie rock on the juke box.