Because I Can…

This item has been posted over at Sweet Release, but I love it so much, I thought I’d leave a picture here. Tell your friends!

How to Make Me Twitch

Repeatedly explain to your customers that the glass pendants you’re selling are not handcrafted by you. You wish you could tell people you made them, but you wouldn’t be able to sleep at night. Then, tell your customers they’re imported from South East Asia and be completely oblivious that your pendants are “so affordable” is becuase young children got paid less than a penny to “hand-craft them”. Sweet dreams, moron.

Also, have you LITERALLY sold thousands of them? As opposed to what? Metaphorically selling thousands?

And P.S. Six rings on a man is too many rings.

SOS

Today, as I was delivering some cakes into Toronto to have their pictures taken, I noticed a sign on the East end of the Bloor Viaduct. It said “Distressed? There is someone who will listen”. And then they gave a toll-free phone number. For those of you not familiar with the massive structure, the bridge spans the entire Don River Valley, including the Don Valley Expressway that winds north out of downtown Toronto. The viaduct is the setting for Michael Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion. Perhaps most famously though, it ranked as the second most fatal standing structure in the world (after the Golden Gate Bridge). Four hundred some odd suicides prompted the construction of a large barrier of sorts and since it’s completion there hasn’t been a single suicide.

So today, when I drove across the Viaduct and saw that sign, all I could think of was this:

“Hello? Bloor Viaduct Distress line? My major source of distress today comes from the fact that I am trying to throw myself on to the DonValley Parkway and you’ve gone and constructed a giant art piece that is preventing me from doing so… if you could just tell me the best way to bypass it? I was thinking vaulting over… no? Hmmm. Okay sure, squeezing in between the steel rods might work had I not binged on KFC last night. Right well, I figured if it was my last meal saturated fats wouldn’t really be important… hmmmm… I see…”

If I Die Before I Wake, Get Out the Chocolate – It’s Time to Bake!

The other day I got to thinking about funerals. Such morbid occasions. I have seen aunts and other people, so full of happiness and crazy with life, laid to rest under a shroud of sadness and doom. And while it’s true that a certain level of respect must be paid to the dead, I often think that, if it were possible, the corpse would have disapproved of the dreary proceedings.

So I started imagining what I would like to have happen in the event of my death, sudden or otherwise. I have been accused in this life of being a control freak, and I suppose this now means that the same will be said of me in death. You might ask, who died and left you in charge? And the answer? I did.

Food is the critical issue I think. I’d like people to be chowing down in the actual funeral home, but something tells me there are several issues here, not the least of which is how to get a keg of Drunken Monkey Stout past the mortician. But for the after-party (That’s right, it’s not a wake. A wake could go either way. Call it a party and it’s guaranteed to be a good time.) only chocolate should be served. This is by no means restricted to one type of chocolate. Feel free to mix it up – chocolate cookies, chocolate cake, chocolate bars. My mother, should she outlive me, will fight you on this one. She’ll try to convince you to add in some lemon pound cake or coconut squares. Be brave, she’s not as tough as she looks. DM, who hasn’t waited for me to keel over before taking my mother’s side, has pointed out that all that chocolate might make people ill. I conceded that point to him and have decided to allow deep fried items for balance. Also, it’s my funeral – no guilt! If I hear anyone (Cough. Katie.) saying anything about our awareness of the amount of fat in any given food item, I’ll reach an icy hand out from beyond the grave and slap you.

Another important element is music. I love a good hymn as much as the next stiff, but if anything is going to bring people to tears it will be the music from the United Church hymn book. What I have in mind, in most cases, is not so, can we say, churchy? Here’s a list of some songs to consider when loading up the playlist:

Paul Simon – You’re the One Cat Stevens – Morning Has Broken

Wide Mouth Mason – Companion Bruce Cockburn – One Day I Walk

Jane Siberry – The Valley Sarah Harmer – I Am Aglow

Sloan – Japanese Navy Blues

Now at this point someone should read some Leonard Cohen. Probably not Ali; she won’t make it through without criticizing the poor man and breaking into an awful impression that involves monotones. I’m not too fussy about the actual selection – maybe Hey That’s No Way to Say Goodbye, or If It Be Your Will but probably not Chelsea Hotel No. 2. And then, what I’d really like is to have a little open mic night. Y’all can sign up and tell funny stories about really hair-brained things I have done. Need help? May I make a suggestion? Washing every article of clothing I own in the bathtub of my residence room… at the same time. That’s a good start. You likely won’t have to think too hard.

And finally, I have tonnes of photographs. I’m giving you permission right here and right now to raid my stash and find some good ones. Maybe the ones of us on that Merry Creebo night (I’m dead, my mom can’t yell at me). The one of you and me and the guy from Wide Mouth Mason? The lovely black and whites on the Spruce Street balcony. Making faces with my sister? That good one of us by the lighthouse in Tobermory. Go crazy. Print ‘em. Frame ‘em and have them around at the funeral, and then, in your life. Two rules though: No nudity, and you can’t look better than me. Okay, one rule: you can’t look better than me.