Have you always wanted to know? Well now you can. I made another dorky quiz. I insist that everyone take it - the only catch is, you MUST comment, with either your results or some sort of objection. Yeah.
(stolen from Jason's blog)
What year was it?
1999
What were your favorite bands?
Green Day, Korn (cringe), White Town, Gob, MXPX, various other punk bands.
What was your favorite outfit?
Jeans, ratty sweaters, and a vintage green leather jacket that swirled.
What was up with your hair?
It was gross. I finally got around to wearing it down, but the humidity made it a bit frizzy/wavy instead of curly. Lots of ponytails (as now).
Who were your best friends?
Lisa, Parker, Paul, Colin, Kelly, Keri, Katie, Kassandra (a lot of K's!).
What did you do after school?
I'd usually put in a good 3-4 hours in the theatre - rehearsing, writing scripts, fiddling with the video equipment. Often went to the downtown library, to write and observe the freaks. Sometimes went over to Lisa's and we would talk down about people and obsess over boys and the hotter male teachers.
Did you take the bus?
Yes. I had to transfer, cuz I came down from Silver Star Mountain. Sometimes Dad drove me half way.
Who did you have a crush on?
Everyone. But mostly, Jesse Crowe.
Did you fight with your parents?
With my mother, yes. We were both terribly unreasonable people, and shrill. My dad wound up mediating most of the time.
Who did you have a CELEBRITY crush on?
Elvis Stojko.
Did you smoke cigarettes?
Occasionally. Parker, my stage manager for most of the plays, would take me out to the football field and medicate me with cigarettes and weed if I became too tense.
Did you lug all of your books around in your backpack all day because you were too nervous to find your locker?
Meh?
Did you have a 'clique'?
No clique. I hung out with the theatre crowd, and aside from that I guess Lisa and I were a type of two-person clique, scornful of everyone else because she was going to be a great forensic psychologist, and I was going to be a great writer, and no one else's dreams mattered.
Did you have "The Max" like Zach, Kelly, and Slater?
The dark bowels of the theatre - no windows.
Who did you want to be just like?
I wanted to be Margaret Atwood. I didn't even know who she was yet, but I sensed a need to be brilliant, and to let my hair get curlier, and cultivate a dry wit.
What did you want to be when you grew up?
A writer and a theatre director.
Where did you think you'd be at the age you are now?
I had no idea. I just wanted to move away from Vernon: that's as far as my plans went.
What classes did you take?
Hm ... Psychology, Law, English, English Lit, History, Peer Tutoring, Theatre (or 'Dramatic Arts' I think it was called), Writing (in which I was the only student, so it was kind of an out-of-the-timetable thing). I think that's it. Gah! Strange years, those high school ones.
A quote of beauty and maturity:
“At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love.” - Che Guevara
Perhaps this is why he died so young? He'd figured it out, and there was no reason to stay?
And why can't I have quotes like that. Mine are like "Bread is for first-years!" and stuff-such. Also the bitchy Al and Jen Second Story dialogues (which I'm thinking of posting sometime). "The Giller prize doesn't even exist. It's just a myth they made up to give Carol Shields more air time."
Indeed:
- Don't email professors when you're drunk! There's always too many exclamation points.
- Don't order two no-ham union egg muffins for breakfast. Yes, you're hungry, but two is too many. You'll feel bloated halfway through the second one. You'll throw most of it out, and moan your loss of $1.75. And feel bloated.
- When Sambuca is insolent, quote Marxist rhetoric at her. Her superior eyes won't seem so superior anymore, and you can glory in the prestige of out-witting a cat.
- Say things like, "Don't get fresh with me!" more often. It will make you seem retro and sublime. And it will make the sex seem naughtier - although it's plenty naughty, of course, and retro, and sublime.
Doom, tragedy, the usual. But a new one: bafflement. Yes, it's the middle of the semester, and classes are fracturing: they're being dropped off penthouse balconies and they smash onto the pavement below ... Shards of ugly, but very expensive, jewels, while I, a glass of gin in my hand, shake my fist and go, "Woot! Woot!" and try to work out damage control strategies. Then I go inside and brood over old press releases of me in my more successful days, and complain about the penthouse, the doorman, the catered meals, even the maid, who is only 17 and speaks a weird mishmash of English and British: sometimes we have tea together, but usually she's eager to get away after her shift. I sit alone, staring into the artificial flames of the gas fireplace, and make a decision: I'm selling my pleasure boat. I'm selling my real estate. I'm selling my jewels. I'm going to hitch hike to Toronto and force my way into Margaret Atwood's house, and beg her to take me in - "I write real good," I'll say sincerely - and Marge will take me out to see the cows, and we'll chuckle at the way they leap over the fence: clumsy, fiercely proud ballerinas. "Remember this, Joy," she will say, "this is to have a profound effect on you." I know, I know. We make dinner together. She allows me to chop vegetables for the salad.
After the latest round of calling people for interviews and having them reject me, I wept dramatic tears onto the phone book and shrieked at Matt, "Why do they say No? Why do they say No??" He said it's because I'm too polite - I shouldn't take No for an answer, and people would respect me for that. "You're too nice, Joy," he said.
Well, kiddies, I was FLUMMOXED!
"Too nice?" I said. "Too nice? Why am I total bitch in my personal life, and then I get 'too nice' when I need to get some work done?" (which is true)
"That's a good point," said Matt, clearly flummoxed as well, but in a more masculine, incredulous way. "Why can't you be as bitchy with total strangers as you are with me?"
"It isn't fair," I said.
Somehow, I have to harness the unreasonable rage I feel during minor arguements with Matt, and when there is no red juice at grocery stores, and when buses are late, and unleash that over the phone when I'm trying to trick people into talking to me.
Another blessed fluke on the short story. I feel like I've bought some more time.
Sometimes Sambuca looks at me like she's terrified of me, like I've been fattening her up all this time just to eat her. She twists her ears back in mistrust. I don't know who you are anymore, she says. I've never really known who you are. Why don't you feed me more salmon, you bitch.
Plan: Secure a paid position as a forest fire watcher on some obscure Albertan bluff. Smoke cigarettes and do jigsaw puzzles in my little cabin. Spend hours gazing at the valley and surrounding mountains, alert for a hint of smoke. Ween myself off alcohol, as a clear brain will be needed for this job. Write. Write, write. Learn to play my harmonica, and let the lonely notes echo across the hills. Scrawl letters home by candlelight. Do the dishes after every meal. Take pictures of wildlife. Listen to the radio nights. Think days. Not worry about money. Grow vegetables. Conserve my energy. Make 5, 10, and 20 year plans, scrawled in pencil on the backs of receipts. Follow through with them. Go crazy, but recognize that it's better to go crazy in windswept, pine tree scented solitude at the top of a mountain than the trimmed pseudo-vegetation of UVic, the artifical rows of packaged food at Wellburn's.
I'll bounce back in an hour or two, but for now, it's nice to daydream.
1937-2005
A glass of gin for Mr. Hunter S. Thompson. Words can't say.
The kitchen party at my place on Friday night was fun-fun-fun: a giant beach-ball was involved, and there was this scene where Jess-tron threw dimes on the floor to make some sort of point about capitalism, and I threw all the dimes in my pocket onto the floor, as well. They rolled under the fridge. A well-dressed woman asked another well-dressed woman if she thought she was "flaky," to which she responded "Yes," and then said that she was a flake, as well. (lies all LIES) I embarassed myself, and perhaps Steph's new man, by engaging in the following conversation:
ME: I'm Joy. We met briefly, when I was drunk. I accused you of being Jewish.
NEW MAN: I don't remember that.
ME: ARE you Jewish?
NEW MAN: No, no. I'm Italian.
ME: Ah, THAT explains it!
NEW MAN: Um, how?
ME: Well, you know. You have a big nose. [I KICK MYSELF IN THE ASS A MILLION TIMES BECAUSE STEPH WAS ANXIOUS THAT THE NEW MAN FEEL COMFORTABLE AT THIS PARTY. I AM SUCH A FUCKING LOSER. I TAKE ANOTHER GULP OF MY GIN/WINE/PEACH JUICE MIXTURE] I actually love big noses! I have a big nose myself. See? [I DON'T TELL HIM IT'S BIG BECAUSE IT WAS BROKEN BY MY IDIOT BROTHER WHEN I WAS 13]
NEW MAN: Huh.
ME: Yeah! I'm not Jewish either. Well. I might be. My grandmother was an alcoholic, you know. She lied about her lineage.
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And today, disaster. A dog bit me. I'm 23 and have never been bitten by a dog; I pride myself on my realtionship with dogs, my ability to separate the aggressive ones from the well-trained ones. At least half a dozen times, I've been charged by aggressive dogs, and calmed them down in an instant. This time I made a mistake. A homeless man on Cook St. asked me for a light, and because he had a gorgeous black lab puppy, I said Yes. I gave him the light, and saw a rumpled copy of Lord of the Flies on his blanket. "Do you like that book?" I asked, and unconciously drifted my hand toward the dog's head for a pat. So, so stupid of me. I never pet a strange dog unless I look in its eyes and stretch my hand out palm-out, so it will think there is food in it and not bite. I forgot this time. I was BITTEN. I was so shocked I started to cry. It didn't draw blood, because it was a smart dog, and the bite was meant as a warning: leave my master alone. I won't hurt you, but don't get too close. The homeless guy started to cry as well, and apologize. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he muttered. I glared coolly at him. His dog might be smart enough to not draw blood, but the owner didn't give a damn about basic training. Then I'm like, Of course he doesn't, he can't afford it. Sorrow for the second time this week. Then the writer instinct: How can I manipulate this for my dog care feature? I am such a vulture.
______________________________________________________
It is exactly 837 steps from the beer and wine store to my house.
A wild Jess-tron day yesterday!
I picked her up at work, a bottle of rose wine in my backpack. We shelled out 25 cents each for take-out cups from the coffee place, then hiked a half hour or so to Arbutus Beach. We'd taken a wrong turn at one point and hiked up a hill for no reason - both of us are smokers, and we were bitter about this, and pleased to finally get to the rocks. We sat down facing the Pacific Ocean, amid a slew of dead crabs, and I grandly pulled the bottle of wine from my backpack.
No corkscrew.
Rarely do I think of my actions as pathetic, but .... We were like apes. We dug at the cork with our keys. We bashed it with rocks. We tried pushing it down, pulling it up. We contemplated burning it. I managed to break part of the bottle, but no wine came out. I got glass in my mouth. We smoked. Nearly twenty minutes, this. Then defeat, and we hiked back to Felicita's, satisfied that we'd gotten at least two month's worth of exercise out of the deal. Much high-calorie beer followed. I made a bit of an ass of myself, and the problem with making an ass out of yourself in the same complex you work in is that the next day people cackle at you and make jokes as you try to maintain a professional demeanor cuz, you're working. Gah. But fabulous! It's been ages since Jess and I hung out, and every moment was extraordinary - even falling randomly down on Ring Road while our popcorn spilled everywhere and there was sorrow. But the kind of sorrow you can laugh at. It was only popcorn.
Marvelous things have been happening! Marvelous ones!
Matt took me for a stunningly romantic date on Valentine's: sushi, then live Bossanova at Hermann's jazz club - such a high class, sophisticated scene that at one point we had to sneak out to the alley for smokes and nips from M's flask. At home, tea candles everywhere, a love nest set up in the living room, etc.
My lucky red scarf made its way back into my life yet again! Retrieved it from Blenz this afternoon. It is like an emerald ring - always makes its way back home.
Bought not one but TWO pairs of jeans today! !!!!!!!!!! I haven't been able to wipe the grin off my face. I'm anxiously awaiting the moment when I take them out of the dryer at 5pm and cut the inches and inches of extra length off the bottoms. Only when I am wearing them again will it seem real.
Totally surreal day -
Spent an hour with the gourmet doggy treats chef. She let me help bake some cookies! I got to poke them with forks and brush them with a sugar-water glaze. Was terrified I'd make a mistake, but it all seemed to go well. The woman I interviewed was super-super nice - only 20, but so intelligent and friendly and quirky. (I hate the word quirky but it seems the only word to describe a lot of cool things in my life.) She's a cool person and I know I have to make my article OBJECTIVE, but it's obviously going to be a glowing, positive one.
Then an invigorating hike from downtown to Oak Bay, where I spent an hour skating with E, Steph, and Matt at Oak Bay Rec. I haven't been skating in nearly two years, and haven't trained in eight. Felt utterly bizzare to be back on skates, and to realize that being on skates was my whole life, at one point. Suffered the trauma of not being as good as I used to be, but loved the afternoon - the smell of the zamboni fumes, which I've always loved; the skate guards stacked on the top of the boards; sweat on my back when the temperature is near freezing. I'll be going again.
After that: ALPHAVILLE. Good Lord, good Lord. I adore Goddard, and the movie was quite good, but I'll never be quite the same. I'm going to steal Matt's quote and say it was "arthouse meets Vice City." Spoiler - at one point the lead character SHOOTS A COP, and then lies his corpse on the pavement and carefully, yet French-ly, drives over his head WITH HIS OWN SQUAD CAR! Then starts quoting poetry to this gorgeous little thang in a velveteen dress while they question the meaning of "conscience" and breakfast together in a lavish hotel. Cripes.
Off to an interview in about an hour, with a woman who bakes gourmet dog treats. Then skating at Oak Bay Rec - I am anxious, anxious, anxious! What if I can't get my ice-legs back and stagger around the rink clutching at the boards and gouging huge holes in the ice with my toe-pick?? But I'm looking forward to it immensely.
I've been on an alarming Mary Higgins Clark kick - 3 novels since Friday. Enough is enough! Time to shelve that addiction at least until the summer - eats up too much of my time.
Colours: grey, dark blue, grey, with occasional splashes of bright purple and sunshine-yellow. The trick is to hang onto the bright colours for longer, and appreciate them instead of deconstructing them.
OH MY GOD THE MISERY THAT IS MY LIFE!
The story is in shambles. Shambles, darling. Emma and Bernie have been reduced to flinging insults at one another and then laughing it off, only to begin again. Oddly, I sort of dig this terror I'm experiencing. It's one of the reasons I enjoy writing fiction - there's always the chance I can pull something out of the gutter at the last second - I feel like someone who bets on horses. You know? Sometimes you lose, sometimes you win, whatever - but when you win right after you THINK you're going to lose, well, that's the payoff.
I saw a picture of Tonya Harding today. She is a boxer now, and extremely overweight yet also well-muscled, and wears this large belt around her girth that reads TONYA. In other news, Johnny Depp is on the front cover of Rolling Stone this week. Put me in rather a good mood.
I just wrapped up a wonderful writing thing with Matt, Ben, and suprise guest star EMILY! Fabulous to see her again. She is neck-high in things like cat enemas and Ted Hughes, and had stopped by to invite me for a random drink at the George and Dragon before being lured up to the kitchen to rage over a notebook. Will I ever grow out of this? I hope not.
My new story is going cautiously well. In my attempt to avoid the pop-culture thing I have somehow reinvented Jane Austen as the chick-lit guru of the 1820's, and she is haunting this modern-day woman who thinks she actually IS a chick-lit novel, complete with a pink cover - her name is Emma, subtely enough - and there's this gay greengrocer turned amateur psychologist who dreams of summers in Barga with a long-lost lover named Christoph. The term "cellar door" has a duel with "old maid." The pretension drips from every punctuation mark, but I like it, and I'm pleased that I'm finally facing my fear of dialogue.
An astronomically fun day at work! I don't know what made it so cool, but I was laughing the whole time over things like ridiculous last names, and my own stupidity. For example: two of our customers now think I am racist. Me! It was only a joke. Here is what happened:
ME: Blue pen, blue pen! Where the fuck are all the blue pens?
JESS: There's a pen right there, dumb-ass.
ME: That's not a blue pen.
JESS: Yuh-huh, it's still a pen though.
ME: But it's a BLACK pen. And we both know how I feel about BLACK things.
Perhaps you had to be there? Both the customers were shocked.
Spent one of my breaks on the Felicita's patio smoking and reading aloud from this week's Us Weekly, as Bridget tried to write an essay verbally and Matt cut heads out of The Globe and Mail and made them say shocking things. How's this for shocking: It's like the FOURTH week in a row Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt have been on the front cover of Us. Enough already! I want them to start focusing on Britney again.
Ben's coming in a few minutes to pick me up for the writing thing. I'm rambling. I had two gins but it doesn't feel like enough. Perhaps I should smuggle some to Serious Coffee? Or would that be too SERIOUS an infraction. Ha ha.
Yesterday Sambuca SNORED! It was the most adorable thing ever. What could be even more adorable: a double-date between Matt and I and Steph and her new prospect (sorry if that's too strong a word S you know what I mean) at the SKATING RINK! It would be so teen special. Please Matt, say you'll come - I can hold your hand while we do laps and then we can trip children, or something.
I can't resist re-displaying some online journal entries I wrote when I was 18. In all their glory:
This friend of my uncle's thought I was eleven. ELEVEN! He tried to give me an electronic pencil.
I was trying to kiss this horrible stuck-up cat belonging to my aunt. It literally pressed its paws against my cheek to keep me at arms length! I exclaimed, 'No one's ever pushed me away in my LIFE.' To which Fiona replied, 'You're young yet.'
At work the other day a mother was trying to teach her child about life. "Root beer!" she said, pointing. "Onion rings!" she said, pointing again. Then, a big one, pointing at ME, "Employee!" This was a long one, so the kid said, "What's employee mean?" The mom, unused to feedback of any kind, sort of stuttered and said, "Uhh ... Well .. They work for a boss, all day, and the boss makes them do work." "So she's a SLAVE," said the kid. "Oh, NO!" the mom, gasped, horrified. Lillian and I just laughed. We've toughened up pretty good by now. "She's right," is all we said.
Found out yesterday that eating bacon is a bad thing, as most pigs have venereal diseases.
Spent an entire bus ride today staring at a man's goatee, wanting to rip it off.
Back in Vic .. I've been on an alarming drug and alcohol binge, supplemented by reading Sylvia Plath. I don't think this is good! Today's my 19th birthday.
Today went as follows:
- Brunch with the crew (Ben, Caroline, Michael, Matt, the other Matt, etc.) at Floyd's, where I drank 7 cups of coffee and tried to deconstruct the reasons Hugh Grant decided to cheat on Elizabeth Hurley with a hooker. That happened some time ago, but I can't stop wrestling with the logistics. Had a half-order of the vegi hash.
- Went to the clinic for a Depo shot and a pregnancy test. Negative. Hurrah! Was told by the doctor I had a large aorta. "What does that mean?" I asked, panicked. He said it was no big deal.
- Went jeans shopping. Asked stylish metrosexual salesman if there were any jeans available that were neither stretchy nor pre-faded. Felt like an old woman screaming about sugar being in paper packets, about not knowing what sweet n low is - felt aged, felt pathetic, as though I were clinging to some jean-mythology of the past. Grow up, I thought. Accept it. Do not date yourself. But I will never wear stretchy jeans. Good God the world is insane.
- Read another Mary Higgins Clark book. I read things too fast. A book should last more than an afternoon, in my view. Here, I'm sounding old again. "Stuff was better back in my day!" etc.
- Made another potato salad. The trick to potato salad is including finely chopped radishes, and pickle juice. Yes!
- Should I call my mother? It's been a while.
- I'm supposed to be working on my short story tonight, which is due on Wednesday morning. No ideas. I've got to stop writing about alienation from pop culture. I've got to!
I'm totally stoked about Matt Bulford's show tonight at Lucky. His band is Combat Furniture, and the cover of his latest album looks wicked. It's rumoured he'll sing a TLC cover. Is it arrogant of me to revel in having talented friends? No. In other news, I'm trying to hook up an interview with a pet cremator tomorrow. The results will be tear-inducing, I'm sure, but worth it. Maybe.
The pressing desire right now is to have a clam bake. A clam bake! I don't even know what one is, but I want one.
This is a direct result of my guilty pleasure - reading Mary Higgins Clark. The shame. But all of her books are set in Cape Cod, and the people always have clam bakes, or reminisce about these great clam bakes they've had in the past. I want one.
The beautiful thing about Victoria is that you never know what season it is. You'll be walking down the street and see flower buds and think that it is spring, and then you'll round a corner and see crunchy brown leaves that have drifted onto the grass, and think that it's autumn. It's cold, so you think it's winter. But it's sunny, brilliantly so, and you think it might be summer, after all.
In the past women were chained to men for economic reasons, and in the present-day it seems to have shifted to a sort of emotional security. Quite frankly, I'm sick of it. Thank God I don't have to depend on a man (or anyone else) to pay my rent or buy my food, but having my mood, my emotional state, depend on the whims of someone else has become quite draining. Obviously I'm a weak person and shouldn't let inconsistency bother me, but it does, and all I fucking want is a Thursday night where I can enjoy myself, the whole night - I'm tired of this schizophrenic medley of blissful highs and tearful lows. Fuck it dude - let's go bowling.
Glorious sunshine! It's reduced my mood-swingery in a big way.
Tonight Ben and Steph's film will premiere at Lucky Bar, and I hope-hope-hope I can go. I just got back from a brief interview with the owner of The Barking Lot - such a cool place, by the way! a dozen dogs milling and shouting and jumping up and down in a sort of play-gym area - and if I can get the 1600-word feature done by 7, I'm going.
Michael's birthday dinner was at Hime Sushi last night, and there was quite the turnout, which proves both his commercial and popular success. Mood-swingery occured on my behalf, but the company was great and the sushi was TO DIE FOR! TO DIE FOR, MON! I had a California roll with tempura and miso soup, plus a giant jug of beer shared with Steph. Thus ends my one-day haitus from booze.