Good For Her - yes and no

This evening, the world is too much with me. Old complaineypants here.

An hour ago, the police were at my door, after another altercation with the insane man up the street who regularly steals all the books from my Little Free Library. I saw him carrying off a stack of books, shouted for him to put them back, and will not tell you what he replied. The police can’t do anything – the books are free, so he’s not really stealing. But two handsome courteous cops came to listen to me. They said I could call the fire department because he’s got books everywhere in the rooming house, or else to take down the library, for now. Will probably have to do so. 

Before that, I came home to find the internet gone, spent the better part of an hour on the phone with Rogers running up and down turning modem and router on and off. It looks like the router just decided to die. WHY O LORD? she cried to the heavens.

Before that, I rode across town to the Fringe Festival. I’m interested to see how it works, because maybe one day I’ll consider taking my Beatles’ talk on the road. I saw Kander/Ebb, a young man who idolizes these Broadway writers in a fanboy show; he sang with chutzpah but a bit flat. After, in the same venue, BikeFace, a solo show about a young woman who has loved bikes all her life and eventually cycled across the country. I was hit with nostalgia - first because I myself had performed in the theatre, which is in an old church; Cruel Tears played there in 1977. And in the break between shows, I walked a block over to Markham Street and there found the house I lived in in 1973-74 – I rented the front room on the second floor, friends rented the other two bedrooms, and we shared the kitchen and bathroom. It was a joyful commune. British John made Guinness in a garbage can in the bathroom; if you went in there at night, you had to turn on the bathroom light and wait until the cockroaches ran away before entering.

Ah youth. I was sad to see what they’ve done to Mirvish Village up the street, rows of lovely old houses with shops, restaurants, bookstores and galleries – all being smashed for more condos. The city is a madhouse of construction, scores of massive skyscraping condos going up everywhere, noise, drilling, smashing, trucks. Hateful.

My aunt is still in hospital. It breaks my heart to talk to her every day, to know she’s stuck in there. I’m going in a few weeks but wish I lived closer. And children still stuck in a cave in Thailand, and in detention in the States - I can't bear to think about it. 

Okay, the positive – I stopped at Harbord Bakery on the way home for the first time in years – I used to come here regularly when I had a car. Everything everywhere is changing, but not this place – exactly the same for decades, with the same people running it and serving. Very reassuring. And nearby Good For Her, a sex shop for women; I popped in to take a look - so startling, it made me laugh, rows of different sizes of rubber penises in interesting colours. A unique experience. 

The terrible heat has broken – it’s much milder and breezy, beautiful. My son was over for a bit, my dear friend Isabel Huggan came for dinner, the little guys are coming tomorrow. All is well. I just need to let it go. Let it go. Kander and Ebb should write a song. 

Dad in his labcoat

Maybe 1954? Chased out of the States by McCarthy. Lucky Canada.

And another gift on this special day - a truly beautiful TED talk by Lidia Yuknavitch, a fabulous woman.
https://www.ted.com/talks/lidia_yuknavitch_the_beauty_of_being_a_misfit#t-766537

thinking of my father

We are back to glorious summer, fresh, clear, breezy - sweet soft scent. Heaven.

Today, July 6 2018, it is 30 years since my father died. July 6 1988, early in the morning, in his own bed in their beautiful home in Edmonton, my mother holding him in her arms as I held her in mine. As I've written, at the moment of his death, I felt his soul fly out the window, and I felt part of him return and enter me. I felt his spirit enter me.

I just wrote to my brother that if Dad were still alive today, what is going on in the world would kill him. This is a man who thought Richard Nixon was as vile a human being as it was possible to be, the worst president imaginable. What a surprise lay in store for the world.

I'll try to find a picture of him to post, at some point.

Ryerson only ended on Wednesday; now my summer really begins. Well, except for seeing editing clients, my garden writing workshop in a few weeks, and of course, my own writing work. And all the rest.

Because I've been feeling crabby and put upon, I'd like to share a few delightful photos with you. I give you John and Paul: the early days, juvenile delinquents in the making. For your summer pleasure. And, need I say, mine.

And here's my favourite teddy boy:

I guess we were all that young once.

Sigh.

old loves

Once upon a time, I was madly in love with this guy.

He was 16 and I was 15. I'd spent almost 4 years in a school with only girls when I walked into the classroom of the Halifax Grammar School, a private boys' school that had just gone co-ed, to find 16 16-year old boys and 2 other girls. It was mayhem. The boys were not happy to have girls in the class, and the teasing was brutal. As those of you who've read "All My Loving" can attest, I was a hot bath of hormones, ready to move on from Paul McCartney to a real boy, with 16 to choose from.

I chose him - tall, athletic, handsome, aggressively self-confident and macho, head of the students council and a hockey player - the least likely guy for me in the class. Later I understood - I was desperate to love but terrified of the reality of a relationship, so perhaps I chose the boy least likely to engage back. In any case, I spent that year adoring but also fighting with him about the Vietnam War, which he approved of. And then my family moved.

Many years later, my ex encountered him during a business venture in New York and knew exactly who he was - or had been, at 16 - from my stories. And then he read my book and encountered his young self and how I'd felt back then. He said he was floored, that he'd had no idea.

So last night, during what he said was a nostalgia trip to Canada, he and his wife took me out to dinner. I dug out our yearbook, which most of the class had signed for me, much of it juvenile and startlingly sexist - what we put up with in 1966! One guy wrote, "Roses are red, violets are blue, Beth's shoulders are blue, after I'm all through!" This guy wrote, "The people who criticize society are those who cannot get into it." My English teacher wrote, "Best wishes to one of the lights of my life." He opened the door to "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock" and was one of the lights of mine.

My friend and I had a grand catch-up, though it made me sorry to find out he has not moved on in his politics and unapologetically voted for Trump. ("I voted for Obama twice," he told me. "Big disappointment.") So we spent the evening arguing, just like the old days.

His wife, his third, is wonderful - kind, interesting, thoughtful. I was astounded to find out she dated the poet Billy Collins and went with him once to George Plimpton's house on the East Side. Now that's royalty! No idea how she voted. But my friend is very happily in love with this woman and she with him. And it's good to know people of different political stripes, especially ones that go back more than 50 years.

Speaking of old old love - the excitement is great already. Macca is coming to Canada in September! To Montreal! I've already booked my flight and I don't even have a concert ticket yet; they go on sale next week. He's 76; how much longer can he do this? It will be my beloved friend Lynn's last night in Montreal before she flies back to France, so she'll be there with me.

Old love, old friends, the music of the still-beating heart.

hope on Canada Day

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/29/arts/television/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-interview-stephen-colbert.html

Meet Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a fabulous young woman.

And then scroll down and watch Jon Stewart. My, I miss him.

More hope: my cousin Barbara and her husband Dan at the march yesterday in Washington against Trump's immigration policies. It's her fifth anti-Trump march, and she said there were more young people there than ever before. Her sign says, "Cruelty is NOT strength."

Another fabulous young woman on the march - my daughter went to a rally today in support of indigenous rights.

So - let's keep our spirits up.

I had a long talk with lots of laughter with a fabulous old woman, my 98-year old aunt Do, still in hospital. How can we get her out? And - my doorbell just rang. It was Megann Willson, who is running to represent this riding in the fall election. She's terrific and on the ball, and I'm throwing an event for her in September so my neighbours can meet her. I told her to check out Alexandria, above. We're on the move. May the forces of kindness and decency, at last, prevail.

Happy Canada Day to you all, Canadian or no. Our country has its flaws, but oh, how incredibly lucky we are to live here.