I wish I could kick-off with a story about our anger cube, or the garage band across the lane playing “What I Like About You” 165 times, or the 1 am eggless baking fiasco, but what I feel I should lead with is this: it had been coming up on two years since Daniella and I had done something really daring and exciting, and we were beginning to feel like the grandparents from Charlie and the Chocolate factory, bound into our haggard bed by age and apathy; it was high time that that good-for-nothing pansy-ass Charles brought us home a fucking Golden Ticket.  And by god, did that goody-goody snot-nosed little pussy come through.

            At first, it was a jovial musing.  Our search for apartments began with the absurd: artist’s studio/lofts outside of Chinatown, exposed brick walls in Gastown—basically, we were dreaming.  But the search continued, and reality began to creep in, like slowly waking up to the Johnny and the Bear morning soft rock classics.  The whimsical gave way to the possible, and even the probable, and, soon thereafter, we found ourselves at a showing on Cambie and 21^st. 

            It was the one.  Doubtlessly.  A charming bachelor with a round front wall lined with windows, classic wood floors and space.  The flat was lit wondrously by the astounding amount of window, holding true to the Craigslist ad, which noted “VERY BRIGHT” —Danny and I imagined opening the door to a retina-scalding white light emanating from every surface, and us shrieking like banshees whilst clawing out our eyes—listed somewhere near the “refrudgerator” and the “fully furnished kitchen,” which we later discovered meant it had a sink.  It could not have been any more the one if it had a tea-nook—for which we had already scoped out a cozy little corner in the rounded living room/windowful viewing area.  The building was within eyeshot of the movie times on the marquis at The Park Theatre.  God had shown us here, surely.

            So, another couple got that place.  From what I got of the conversation Daniella had with the realtor, the flat was sold a day or two before we viewed it.  If you’re confused, well done.  We rode that same boat for a while.

            That was a short-lived disappointment.  Soon enough, we were standing in a rather amazing apartment building in Gastown.  One that we could afford, no less.  This was the dream, here in full costume.  Well, it was a form of the dream.  The apartment itself was something like a Hollister crew neck: aesthetically eye-catching on the outside, but somewhat cramped and itchy on the inside of things, and far away from work—that’s more to do with the living situation that the allusion to mid-level fashion.  Needless to say, we didn’t put to much effort into our application.

            It was a while before I heard anything from Daniella about our apartment hunt; I had left the searching mostly up to her and only dabbled in a few ads on Craigslist, myself.  She has somewhat of a knack for finding suitable answers to our needs on Craigslist.  I lost a little bit of my moving-out momentum, until, one sure day,  the surest day of them all, in fact, I got a call—or was it a text?—from her.  She and Agnes had found something.  And it wasn’t a recipe for broccoli salad they found on the street, like last time.

So, last year, in my Medievil Europe course, which I dropped like a tendancy that is not socially acceptable due to commonly accepted taboos, I had this ostentatious, frumpy old fucker who was so inept as a teacher, I actually slid onto the floor during one lecture and napped. For a time, I stopped going to that class, until one day a friend from the same course came into the archaeology class we also shared and asked if I was still enrolled in Medievil History. I paused and said, “let’s say yes.” He said, “Oh, okay. Well I was just wondering because the teacher had a stroke.” I remember letting the phrase, “…stroke of luck…” slip.

Another long bout of droughtiness. I seem to only be able to focus on one of my hobbies at a time. In that vein, if I’m not scribbling things here on Diii, then I’m madly posting photografeez over here. If there are any people (who aren’t the small selection of humans that have so daringly agreed to have direct contact with me) reading these, you’re welcome for one more way to be amazed by your Maharishi, me.

I’ve had an intensely difficult time trying to pry from the cold bosom of my sad, dull life some hilarity to bestow upon thee, but everytime I’ve begun to write down something I think might be especially ticklish, it ends with a phrase like, “so basically, I just want to rip out my spleen,” or “fffffftfffffffdddeefffffff,” which is the sound of my fingers trying to pull a hair out of my keyboard where the ‘r’ used to be†, instead of trying to think of something to write that doesn’t involve endless depression.

Having just started my endless desert of forty hour weeks, I can hardly complain. Well, I mean, I should hardly complain. I can complain with the skill of a child assassin. But the near-future I’m embarking on has been the life way of one of my besties (typed “beasties” on my iPod,) for some time, and I feel that any further exploration into the cavern of my displeasure would just be wanton self-. She has been lovingly devoted to her Mistress of Coffee through days of bus-plus-train(x 60min) to school, then train-plus-bus(x 30min) to work on her break, and that was a round trip affair. Thank God for my sexy, sexy car.

After only a (6-day) week of this 8 hours a day bari{life}sta{yle}, café existence of all kinds is becoming this tragic and painful monotony that I am wanting to be a part of less and less. It’s not so bad at some of the unchained cafés in Vancouver, but the smug population who make up the majority of customers at my shackled chain is not one of which I wish to be a part. I wish I could be a customer on just one occasion of these conceited grubs whining about the non-fatedness of their decaf tall skim no-foam no fun latte so that I could tell this bleater to step-the-mocha-fudger-off, because I’m growing oh-so-weary of having to resort to sycophantic mollification to appease these beings of pure evil. Too far?

Maybe. And yet, not quite far enough.

And there’s our time.

† Looking at my keyboard, one gets the same feeling that bubbles up when one is faced with the jarring smile of a pack-per-day-for-60-years smoker with a missing tooth from that time he tried to jump off the roof of his trailer and landed on his ATV, bicuspid first. (Thank you, No-Name Amer’can relative.)

Biology: Concepts and Connections, 6th ed., Fig. 5.2

Before I get to out-and-out ridicule, I feel the need to point out that this is a perfect illustration of something that the average student in a non-science major Human Biology class will certainly not need illustrated, as opposed to, say, something like this:

“…plasmodesmata (singular, plasmodesma), channels between adjacent plant cells, form a circulatory and communication system connecting the cells in plant tissues.”

(Biology: Concepts and Connections, 6th ed., P.68 )

for which there is no illustration, and I could sure do with a small expository doodle. Add that to my list of things that I wish I could explain by drawing them, along side the phrase, “in and of itself.”
This lovely, colourful box is not, infact, a severed, jaundiced limb or a banana in the sky, it is meant to demonstrate how—AT ONE AND THE SAME TIME—water can exist on two sides of something, in this case, the bilayer of phospholipids composing a cellular membrane, and not a foamy finger for summer fun, poolside. The text beneath and around image5.1 doesn’t actually explain it’s relevance/make any reference to it, but I have come to accept that it may have something to do with the way membranes like these react to water. Of course, this does not make this drawing any more relevant/pleasing, nor does it pardon its mollifying nature.

In a magnificent turn of luck, teachers—strangely, the very people “writing” some of these texts—are able to speak, inflect, explain, emote and do all sorts of wonderful things that make me understand why the drivelous drawing is important, or why it isn’t and how to go about ridiculing it.
I should really inject a MOST somewhere in there, be it between “luck,” and “teachers,” or “are” and “able.” Of course, the latter would necessitate the adjectiving of the word, but I’m really only saying this to cover my ass. I trust in the grammatical capabilities of others.
A for-instance on the subject of teachers explaining their way around the holes of a text book:
The scene is a Classical Studies classroom

Me: *hand slides half-heartedly into the air*
Ms.Louis: Yes?
Me: If the Greeks were constantly fighting with each other, and thus moving around quite a bit, why didn’t they ever move into the interior of…Thorace. The book’s a bit mum on that…
Ms.Louis: Oh no. Oh no. They never went into the interior.
Me: Why? There’s all that land—
Ms.Louis: Because there are thoracians there.
Me: …
Ms.Louis: And they’re scary.

Simple words, simple concepts, and yet, I could easily deduce what she meant merci à the common knowledge of wit and humour. By “scary,” I knew—in my GREAT, AMPLE mind—that she meant threatening. Simple. But when my text ( These were the Greeks; H.D. Amos, A.G.P. Lang ) tries to explain that same fact with three hundred pages of evading the whole concept of the surroundings the Greeks were placed in, I find it impossible to comprehend this world. The Persians didn’t even exist until they entered the tiny periphery of the map of the Aegean. When their little blip appeared somewhere on the right, I wondered how such a modest community could even consider attempting the conquer of Greece. OKAY, I didn’t really wonder that, but someone else might have, were they not to have already known of the splendorous enormosity of the Persian Empire. I think it’s a simple enough philosophy for you glob-lurkers (I remain hopeful) to grasp that to know the extent of a thing’s environment is surely a small/largely important aid in knowing the thing itself. Perhaps if the artist who rendered the spaghetti squash in a pond were to pull back their perspective, slap on the wide-angle lens, one might be able to discern {cell stuff} from a head-on macro shot of a dead toenail.
If only we could broaden our perspectives on life so easily.

Img.5: In and Of Itself

]]> http://deceptioninindiaink.wordpress.com/2008/09/16/teach-me-to-be-taut/feed/ 1 menanddevils Concepts and Connections, 6th ed., Fig. 5.2 elephant-in/of&itself http://deceptioninindiaink.wordpress.com/2008/07/13/sticky-fingers/ http://deceptioninindiaink.wordpress.com/2008/07/13/sticky-fingers/#comments Sun, 13 Jul 2008 01:43:21 +0000 menanddevils http://deceptioninindiaink.wordpress.com/?p=17 ]]> It is a perspective commonly held by my friends that I do not possess the capacity to worry, upheld by my constant ability to eat things that have touched the bare hands of others and my passive disregard of cars and polyunsaturated trans-fats.

When one of my coworkers at The Cheese went to put a dish tray in the rack above my head, noting, blandly, “Heads!” I ducked, attempting to continue my dish sorting. It seemed, however, that my duck was not enough and we both stood, static in time and space, save for our relative movement to the Universe and its many spheres and, if we’ve any luck, more compellingly shaped masses.
After an eternity encapsulated in three or four seconds, I continued sorting my dishes.
“Hey, look out,” he breathed, into my eye.

“I’m looking. I’m out.”

“There’s sticky stuff on it still.”

He was referring to a small piece of machine-blanched strawberry.

“That’s okay.”

“But hey, IT MIGHT GET ON YOUR HEAD,” he said, throwing a little wide-eyed action my disregarding way.

“Oh God, I hadn’t even THOUGHT of that! Go ahead and put it away.”

“You’re not worried about getting stuff on your head?”

Confusion set in.

“Nope, that’s alright.”

“I wouldn’t want to get sticky stuff on MY head.”

As I pinned a medal to his heart, I began to explain a little about myself.
“See, I don’t really have the ability to worry about things like that, or even big things, for that matter. It’s not in my nature to fret about something that, in the end, won’t make much difference to my life.”

“But what about CANCER?”

“I know that cancer would suck, but it would be ridiculous of me to worry about it, seeing as that would accomplish nothing. Even further, worrying about the uncontrollable in life will spoil most of it. So, even though I know cancer could happen, I choose not to ruin a perfectly good day worrying about it, and in that same vein, I worry even less about getting something sticky on my head.”

So, it was all looking to be a regular night at the Cheese, when all of a start, I noticed a very broadbacked bird sitting at the back-rather, the front, if you’re not an employee-table. As I was doing my bus, I found myself at the back-front-and as I picked up the plate of milk (?) and strawberry coulee, I began to feel a very hefty, ambisexual presence and, turning to my left-or right, if you’re not an employee-I saw two pairs of thick, THICK glasses staring at me, along with the glaring presence of strong chins, bulbous noses, and of course long, flowing blonde hair.

My eyes were stuck. Not only could I not look away, I couldn’t cause my eyes to wane even a little from the size of saucepans, nor could I undo the stroke-like fashion my lips were drooping. It didn’t help that they were fairly slutty, or that they put in mind the song, “I’m a Lumberjack.” Without even wiping away the globs of whipping cream left on the table, (that, incidentally, look very much like crumpled up napkins,) I picked up my tub and started briskly off to the front-back- of the restaurant.

As I passed the counter, I heard a few giggles, but passed them by and continued straight to the kitchen-or the bathroom waiting room/loud cellphone conversation area/smoking pit if you’re not an employee. I set my bus tub down on the counter, and attempted to catch my breath, though it would seem my breath was more evasive than normal. I tried to forget about them, but while I was putting away the teacup and glasses in the kitchen-to-bar window, I spied a small group of Cheesies whispering near the fridge, and walked over, only to affirm my presumption.

“Did you see the amazons in the corner?” said Ziggy with a smirk, and a hitchhiker’s point.
As we all stood there, laughing quite flagrantly and flamboyantly now, the two FLuhs, one of the ladies (try to figure out if that’s the plural of ‘lady’ or ‘lad’) walked by, headed to that bathroom. Not too long afterwards, the other strolled by, and as the women’s washroom was occupied, she waited just outside.

Now, there is a usual protocol for this sort of situation; if the men’s is free and the women’s is occupied, and there is a women waiting to use the bathroom, we would usually inform them of the men’s commode’s homogeneity with the women’s.
So when our manager, who had spent the entire night in the adjoining restaurant, came in, he noticed the nice lady waiting for the washroom. He noticed the open men’s washroom. He noticed these things, and said,
“You can use the men’s OR the women’s washroom.”
And the whole world screamed, “NO!”

Working, as I do, under the starry-eyed Siren of a small chain of cafes, I happen upon many sad souls simply longing for attention—and just like our beeping, screaming infant-of-a-safe, I do not give them the time of day. For instance, a few days ago, a post middle-aged man with a similarly octoberian wife came in and were greeted with a pre-stressed “HE-llo!” and a Green Apron Certified smile. He ordered for the two of them, a pair of milky espressos, and handed me his gift card. At this point, he looked down at the wallet in his hands, and—having already been tediously quiet—bubbled some words in Yiddish or some alien tongue, seemingly to a mouse he was keeping in his billfold.
I, having barely heard a noise over the timers, taps and grinders all screaming at me, tried to make heads or tails of what the customer had asked. Politely.

“Sorry, did you say you wanted whip on that?”

Woops. Without even a moment for my question to settle into existence, them man boomed, “WE’LL – SEE – IF – THAT – WORKS” in capital letters.

This was so sudden and uncalled for that my heart failed, and my lungs had to fan it with my carotid artery. I made a comeback, though, after some short-term palliative recuperation.

“Uh, ri—oh, ugh, this compu— so, maybe? Ye—starbu/cardie.”

Smoothly dealing away another excessively satisfied customer. I just can’t understand why this man was so on edge, and I won’t presume to say that he couldn’t possibly have had a reason, but it seems to me that if I was that ready to yell, I wouldn’t make a b-line for the nearest Caffeine Synagogue. I think he was a little embarrassed of snapping at me though, or perhaps just embarrassed for the sputtering pup on the other end of the transaction, because he was suddenly exceedingly jovial.
The unhappiness continued. Just after telling Danny this story—on our way to a Cosmic Café of a certain governess— and after a lovely meal of a bear’s allotment of food, I went up to the counter to pay the piper, and upon laying down the stack of notes and a small pile of no more than five coins, and declaring cheerily to the waitress, “this is for you!” she looked at it and said, “Yikes,” as if I had just pelted her with a cannonade of nickels and tipped her with a running garborator.
“Yikes?” I said, “this is your tip, lady.”
As she scoffed a mighty scoff and trod off behind the counter, I marveled at the fact that even giving people money won’t put them in a good enough mood for some good-natured sarcasm.