Actual Recent Conversation

This is why I love my friend Pablo so much.

While talking on the phone about death, just now.

Me: "I want to be cremated. But I totally don't want to be scattered in the ocean because I am a little scared of the ocean and all the fish and stuff. I don't want to be scattered in the forest either because I don't like bugs and the cold and all that outdoorsy stuff. Maybe I should be scattered in Holt Renfrew...Nah! I can't afford to shop there. I think the place I'd be most comfortable resting eternally is in a couch. So I have to find somebody who will scatter my ashes in their nice comfy couch. Or their mattress. Something cozy."

Pablo: "What about me? What should I do with my remains?"

Me: "Hey! I thought we agreed that I was supposed to throw myself on your casket at your funeral. Wearing a fabulous dress."

Pablo: "Yes, but then are you going to just leave me there to rot?"

Me: "No! What do you want me to do next?"

Pablo: "No wait! I know the perfect place to scatter your ashes. How about a cat cemetery?"

Me: "Perfect! That would be seriously purrrrfect!"

Pablo: "No wait, I totally know what I am going to do with you after you die. I'm going to have you taxidermied! I'll have you sitting on my couch with a cup of tea in a motorized hand. And your head will turn too. And when I have guests they will whisper to me that you are very quiet and I will say, 'Yes, she is.'"

Me: "Put a hinge on my head and store your spare change and keys there. Better yet, put a slit in my neck as a kleenex dispenser for when you are sad or have a cold."

Pablo: "How about I cryogenically freeze your head and then attach it to a garden nymph statue so you can play in the garden and weed it too."

Me: "NO WAIT! Attach my head to a Roomba and I'll vacuum your place for you. Maybe I'll do that with my mom. She likes to clean."

Pablo: "You're sick!"

Me: "NOW I'm sick?"

We finally decided that he will get me made into a diamond and I will have his body mummified and make a pyramid for him in Egypt to be worshipped for eternity.

Spooky

So I like to think I am a very enlightened, tolerant and open minded sort of gal. I have my own little quirky life filled with my own little quirky likes and dislikes and as such maintain a motto of, “Whatever melts your butter.” While I may not agree with or even remotely understand others and what they do in their lives I also don’t like to harsh on anyone’s mellow by being all judgmental and shit. Everybody has to do their own thing, right?

So along with being enlightened, tolerant and open minded I am also mentally about as mature as a teenaged boy. A very poorly brought up, over imaginative, and under stimulated adolescent male. Combine that with an uncontrollable reflex to joke about inappropriate things and I am exactly the wrong person to take to a funeral, bris, beat poet reading, truck and tractor pull, flaky art opening, or interpretive dance performance. While everybody is deadly serious, enraptured, entertained or sad I am cracking my own shit up and hoping to cause others to snicker at entirely the wrong moments with well timed snide remarks. In a caring and accepting way, of course.

I’ve been told this is a defense mechanism to avoid feeling and displaying strong emotions. I call it a cagey survival instinct. I mean, seriously? Have you seen the phlegm fly from a beat poet’s mouth or the strange and alarming bulges flaunted by unitard wearing dancers? I simply have no other recourse. It is either immaturity or complete brain strangulation.

Fortunately I am in good company. My best friend Pablo has made me promise, at his funeral, to throw myself weeping and screaming onto his casket wearing a fabulous red couture gown. Seriously, this is his wish. In the event that he outlives me I’ve asked him to discreetly pour my cremains into the shoes left outside the private dining booths at the local sushi restaurant.

Here is the thing. Next week there is to be a First Nations cleansing ritual performed on my apartment building. We have all been invited to attend. I’ve told you about the fire that broke out (was set?) in the suite above me. Since then we’ve had numerous false alarms and just a couple weeks ago another fire in a suite caused by a malfunctioning clothing dryer. There have been a few deaths of tenants (lots of elderly folks here) and issues with theft. Then throw in some wild water pipe bursts and rampant appliance failure for fun and you’ve got a decent picture of the last 18 months since the apartment building opened. Basically this place is like living in Yuppy Bagdad. I guess there has been speculation that the spirits might be pissed.

Can you see where I am going here? Intellectually I totally respect all religions and belief systems and actually quite identify with the idea of nature worship. The First Nations people were just that, Canada’s first nation. The actual land where I live was very likely the site of or very near an ancient village. Just around the corner is an honest to goddess Indian burial ground/tourist attraction thingy.

***MRTL Style Tangent-you have no idea the true implications of this post for epic personal irony and blistering schadenfreude. For YEARS my friend Pablo and I have joked whenever things go bad in our lives that we must be living on an ancient Indian burial ground. In laughing hysterics, we yell this conclusion to each other after we’ve ranted about the latest fucked up shit we’ve had fall on our respective heads. This concept is loosely based on the whole Poltergeist premise that weird things happen when your subdivision is built upon a defunct gravesite where the developers were too cheap to move the actual bodies. Our theory is that it is clearly only a matter of time before our TVs will swallow us whole and only after serious convincing will we be grudgingly ejected from our closets covered in Jell-O goo. Now factor in that it appears not only do I possibly live on a real motherfucking ancient first nation’s site but that I apparently need to kiss some spiritual ass. It truly doesn’t get any better than this, folks. A cosmic full-circle moment only achieved by the truly cursed. ***End of MRTL Style Tangent.

So this is what I am facing. I want to be supportive of my fellow tenants and help facilitate a positive and happy living situation for everyone. I am also very curious about what this ritual entails. Supposedly if I attend I will receive a personal cleansing package for my suite compliments of White Standing Buffalo, our Ghostbuster. With my health track record I could use all the help I can get. I do like the idea of a ‘house blessing’ and ‘spiritual housekeeping’ of sorts. But…

I truly do not know how I can possibly get through something like this, dignity intact and without offending pretty much everybody. You know the harder you try to contain the giggle the bigger and more uncontrollable the giggle gets? Please don’t make me have to hold anybody’s hands or drum or sing or oh-sweet-lord dance…

Dude. I’d better go clean my closet for when it vomits me out.

On Being Cool and Groovy

Me: So how was your day?
Mom: Nothing went right today. I didn't get much done. It was a total fustercluck.
Me: What? Wha...hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaa! *chokes on own spit* Do you mean clusterfuck?
Mom: OH! Um...yeah.
Me: I like your version better.
Mom: Me too.

So from now on 'fustercluck' is an official word to be used by 74 year olds when their day goes to H-E-Double Hockey Sticks.

Adventures in TV Watching

Found while perusing the online TV program schedule:


There are problems and then there are problems...

Viewers don't want to be encountering these kinds of problems on TV or in real life.

I gave it a miss and read a book.

Spooky

This has been cracking me up for weeks. It never gets old.