I don’t know if you, like me, suffer from social anxiety and if yours, like mine, has gotten worse as you’ve gotten older. Things that I used to do without much stress are now sometimes quite daunting, and I’m constantly forcing myself, it seems, to do things that exacerbate it. For example, this week, I was asked to speak to a group of 45 high school students about being a writer and publisher. Remember, I was a high school teacher for over twenty-five years, so this shouldn’t have been a difficult task. But I’ve been OUT of the classroom for several years, and while I THOUGHT it would be fine, the night before I was wracked with nerves. To make it worse, the morning of the presentation, all the highways were closed due to an accident, and then I also had to worry about finding a way to this school, which was about 45 minutes from my house, and did I mention that I had VOLUNTEERED to do this?
I did make it to the school on time, and then I waited in the library, trying to set up my PowerPoint with the help of the school tech until the bell rang, and all these 16 year-olds came in to see me, and you can imagine how incredibly excited they were to hear all about writing and publishing from a 60 year-old woman. It was the usual suspects: a majority of the kids were fairly apathetic and looked bored for most of the time I was speaking, two boys spent the first half of the presentation giggling and whispering to each other until I laughed at them and told them they were being distracting, and the rest were polite enough not to be rude. And then there was a group of kids near the front, mostly girls and a couple of boys, who were engaged and seemed like they were enjoying my “journey as a writer, publisher, and radio host”, and it was very nice, especially at the end when I raffled off two of my books and the winners seemed genuinely happy about getting them and asked me to sign them. BUT. There was this one girl in particular, a girl who smiled and nodded encouragingly as I went through the presentation, who laughed at my dumb jokes with what seemed like sincere appreciation, and clapped heartily for me at the end, presenting me with a thank-you card on behalf of the group. And that one young woman—she made all the difference. I don’t know her name, or anything about her, except that I wish her all good things in her life, and I’m grateful to her.
And now, in other news, here is the best marketing strategy I’ve ever seen.
As you may remember, Ken and I recently took a trip out East. What was the purpose of the trip, you ask? To see the colours, of course. I’m not sure if people in other countries do this, but in Canada, we will literally drive hundreds of kilometres to see the fall colours and ooh and ahh over the reds, oranges, and yellows, where once it was only green. So I don’t know if it’s something peculiar to Canadians, but here, it’s considered completely normal to drive around all day taking pictures of trees in the fall. So that’s what Ken and I did a week and a half ago, having spent a lot of money to fly to another province and rent a car. Then immediately after we came back home, OUR colours had started to change, and we could see them for free. This of course means any time we go out, we have to plan a country route, and I drive so that Ken can take pictures like these:
In other news, I had to have an ultrasound guided needle biopsy on my swollen and painful collarbone joint. But I’m not going to talk about THAT as much as this:
Nurse: So I’ve just checked and these gloves and bandages are latex-free—oh my gosh, I love your boots! Me: Thanks! I just got them! Nurse: They’re adorable! Ultrasound technician (walks into the room): What’s adorable? Oh, those boots! They have embroidery on them! Me: I know! It’s the first time I’ve worn them!
And we all oohed and ahhed over my boots like they were the fall colours until the surgeon came in. He, on the other hand (or foot), was not impressed by my boots, if the way he stabbed me full of lidocaine was any indication.
In other other news, I’m currently doing a book event, sitting outside a book store with my books, smiling at people and hoping they buy one. And it would be so nice except I’m in a mall right across from a seating area, and there are these two old Muppets who’ve been there all morning and haven’t stopped loudly complaining to each other about anything and everything the entire time. Seriously, Statler and Waldorf—go the f*ck home, or at least buy a book! Maybe I should show THEM my new boots…
First of all, I’d like to take a moment to thank my wonderful publisher Jane Cornwell of Jane’s Studio Press for nominating me for a Pushcart Prize for my short story “Mr. Death Comes To Town.” It’s a real honour to be nominated, especially for a story about a character that is near and dear to my heart and has appeared not only in both my short story collections, Feasting Upon The Bones and Dark Nocturnes, but is also featured in my novel The Devil You Know. If you’d like to know more about Mr. Death, aka Mort Sterven, you can get either of my short story collections here:
And now, on with the show…in which I respond to spam comments on my website:
1) Buy Adderall online
I don’t need to. I am my own speed. Have you not met me?
2) Buy weed online
I don’t need to. I live in Canada, dumbass. I can go to the strip mall and get all the weed I want. Also, my neighbour has two weed plants that rival my quince bush in size, which explains why I keep thinking I smell skunk in the backyard.
3) Buy African grey parrots for adoption
Why am I paying to adopt a parrot? Also, does it swear? If not, I have no interest…unless I can teach it to swear.
4) Great article
Thank you, ‘Benefits of CBD’. I didn’t reference CBD in my last post, but it’s nice to know that you’re following along.
5) i am a child who lacks knowledge but i always read your website. This website is very helpful in doing various homework that i do. i like your website.
Apparently your lack of knowledge resides in the realm of capitalization. Silly child.
6) Wonderful
Thank you, ‘RVs For Sale In Your Area’. I am.
7) On Monday, my sister and I went to the market to buy cakes and it would take 1 hour to travel from home to the market. During the trip, I watched content on this site which was very useful and entertaining.
You drove an hour to buy cake?! Is this some kind of weird math problem, like if my sister drove one hour to buy cake and I spent an hour watching a blog post, who wasted the most time? Also, how did you ‘watch’ my content? I literally just write what comes into my head. Wait…are you in my head? Do you have cake?
8) when I came home from school my uncle and I went to the city and would buy clothes at the biggest clothes shop in my city, from school to the mall selling clothes it would take 3 hours, while waiting for the trip I felt bored and finally I remembered this blog which can entertain me while traveling
Dude, you put the cake girl to shame. 3 hours?! No wonder you were bored. Tell your uncle to get a dvd player for his van or whatnot. Then you can watch my favourite movie Alien Vs. Predator. That one’s a banger.
9) 1 week ago I tried to go to a lake to clean it and let the fish live in peace and comfort, and that’s when I found this blog which helped me refresh my life.
That’s me—doing my best for the environment and refreshing all the fish.
10) 3 days ago I tried to find pleasure by going to the beach and feeling the sea breeze, but then I felt very comfortable because there are several things that make life more enjoyable, namely this blog to read.
Based on the number of you who are going to the beach to feel the sea breeze and then making your life more enjoyable by reading this blog (27 of you to be exact), I really think you should start a beach volleyball club and stop bothering me.
11) I went to a city 3 days ago with my partner and there I saw an inn that was exactly the same as the blog I read, and I finally read this blog again to make sure and it turned out to be true I was very happy.
My blog is an INN?! You need to hook up with that ‘Buy weed online’ dude—you’re smoking the wrong stuff.
12) Wow, it’s really amazing, finally I found information that presents unique news and is very interesting for me to read while drinking coffee.
How dare you?! If you know anything about me at all, you know I hate coffee. Blocked!
13) 7 days ago I went to a place to get various kinds of pleasure which started from seeing this special blog
I am NOT a porn site. Get your pleasure somewhere else, you pervert.
14) 1 week ago I tried to get some inspiration by fishing in the middle of the deep and wide ocean to get lots of valuable experience, and in the end I saw this blog which is very special for my entertainment.
So you were fishing in the middle of the ocean, and then you saw my blog? Dude, who’s your cellphone provider?! I need to get in on this—I can’t even get a signal on Township Road 2.
15) In the evening my friend and I decided to go hang out with my friends at a cafe and in the middle of that I opened my cellphone and started reading this very constructive blog.
Seriously? And when you looked up, had all of your friends left for a party because they knew you were more interested in your phone than hanging out with them? JFC, get a life.
There are literally THOUSANDS of comments like these that automatically get routed to my Trash folder on a daily basis. Most of them are from someone, or many someones, named ‘bokep’ and when I looked up what that meant, it’s Indonesian for PORN. So thank you, PORNBOTS for clogging up my comments with your weird families, friends, and outings to the beach, the mall, the village, the coffeshop, the lake, and all the other places you go to read my blog. What an incredible fanbase.
This past week, Ken and I went out to the East coast of Canada. Travelling within your own country is great—no worries about currency exchanges, border security, or paying exorbitant amounts for cell phone plans. We decided to rent a car, visit friends, and then drive the Cabot Trail. It’s the perfect time of year to do it because the fall colours are just stunning. And doing so much driving gave Ken and I a lot of opportunities to have very important conversations.
Me: The other day, I got an Amazon delivery and I was about to throw away the box, but I didn’t.
Ken: Because it was a good box?
Me: Obviously. We’ve officially reached the age where we keep empty cardboard boxes because they’re good boxes, not because we actually need them.
Ken: They always end up coming in handy—that’s a guarantee.
And we realized that it’s not just boxes…
Gift bags: You know the ones I mean—not too big, not too small, holiday-neutral but fancy enough for any occasion. Even better if the gift tag hasn’t been written on.If you know anything about me at all, you’ll know I have the gift wrapping skills of a five -year-old (actually most five-year-olds can wrap a present better than I can) so gift bags and tissue paper are my go to. And anytime I get a nice one, someone else in the family gets it back.
Wood: Ken does a lot of woodworking and wood can be expensive so we have no issue grabbing a piece of wood off the side of the road to use later.
Me: Ooh, stop! There’s a lovely pallet at the end of that driveway there!
Ken: Nice! I see a coffee table in our future!
We actually did make a coffee table out of a wood pallet once which I sold it for $75 bucks pure profit. The one thing I never nagged Ken about cleaning up is his woodpile. Even if Ken has no plan for any of it at the moment, it’s still all good wood and might come in handy later. And you can scoff, but he’s almost finished the new little cabin he’s building me and he did it all with his late dad’s “good wood” as well as our own finds and offcuts. The other day, we went by a dumpster and found several pieces of good wood that I might do something with—or not, but at least I have the wood.
Bubble Wrap: Who in their right mind ever throws away a piece of bubble wrap? That stuff is like gold. If you don’t use it, you can pop it. It’s multi-purpose.
Envelopes: I don’t do it often, but I have been known to keep a good envelope. They go with the loose Christmas cards I have stored in the dining room closet. And there’s nothing like the satisfaction of matching an envelope with a card…
I’m finding it really hard to concentrate because I’m in the airport waiting at our gate and there’s a woman talking very loudly on her cell phone to someone and apparently she has 120 oat cakes in her carry-on and just got a tattoo in Halifax with “the best line work she’s ever seen” but she can’t show it to the person she’s Face-Timing with because it’s on the inside of her thigh. But we’ll be home soon, so it’s all good.Also, Happy Thanksgiving!
Before I start, I’d like to just express my eternal and deeply felt gratitude to the wonderful Susan Richardson of Flowering Ink’s Stories from the Edge of Blindness, and most importantly for today’s purpose, the podcast A Thousand Shades of Green. Many weeks ago, Susan undertook to feature my short story collection Dark Nocturnes on her podcast for Story Sessions. She has faithfully, tirelessly, and brilliantly read every story in the collection, all 32 of them, over the last few weeks, and I can’t tell you how much that means to me. She finished yesterday with the final story, Mr. Death Goes To Market, and like the rest of her readings, it was phenomenal. If you’d like to hear Susan basically turn my collection into a fantastic audiobook, you can hear her read each story by going here: https://athousandshadesofgreen.com/story-sessions/ And if you like what you hear, leave a comment or a review, or even buy Dark Nocturnes for yourself–here’s the link!:
And now on with the inanity. A couple of weeks ago, my car was making some awful noises so I took it to my mechanic. Turns out all the tie rods were worn out, which explained why my cute little Sonic was creaking and groaning like my joints in the morning, only I’m almost 60 and my car’s only 12. I got what amounted to basically a new front end “but,” my mechanic said, “you’ll need a wheel alignment and we don’t have the rack to do it here.”
So I asked around and got a recommendation for a place up the road. The afternoon before my appointment, I decided to go there and see A) where exactly it was and B) to see if I could drop off the car later that day instead of first thing the next morning, because I’m retired and I don’t go anywhere early if I can help it.
When I saw the sign for the business, I had an uncomfortable revelation—the long laneway led to a “community farm”, which was occupied by people, part of a religious cult, who live communally in large barrack-type buildings on several acres. And the mechanics were apparently part of the cult. I’d never been there, but let me tell you, it was incredibly eerie, and not because of all the zealots. No, the place was completely deserted—no adults, no children, even in the summertime–literally no one. I found out later that over time, most of them had left. Or died, based on the creepy cemetery they had on the property.
I couldn’t see anyone, and the garage looked deserted too, so I drove around the back—just in time to see an elderly man taking a piss against some bushes. Like, do religious cults not have BATHROOMS? He looked at me as if he couldn’t imagine why I was there. I explained, staying IN the car, and was told yes, I could drop the car off later. I wasn’t thrilled but Ken came with me after dinner to make sure there were no more urinary shenanigans.
Then, the next day we went to pick the car up. We walked into the office and there was a guy sitting there on the phone. Sitting on a shelf above him like some kind of weirdass trophy was a bright red “Make America Great Again” ball cap. And while this might be de rigeur in America, I live IN CANADA. So it was very f*cking off-putting, and why wasn’t I surprised that a business run by members of a religious cult would be displaying something like that? And then he had the nerve to tell me that they couldn’t get my wheels completely aligned because there might be something wrong with one of my tires. And I so badly wanted to say, “Then keep it and FIX it” but at that point, all I wanted to do was hightail it out of his Stephen King-esque MAGA Christ Cult Compound. Needless to say I won’t be going back there anytime soon. And I really hope they get their plumbing fixed.
As you may or may not know, I’ve been hosting a radio show once a month since March-ish. And while I love the idea of being a radio host, you also may remember that I find it extremely stressful. The studio is about 45 minutes away, in an old, run-down factory that is most definitely haunted, and I have to go there on a Sunday when no one else is around. This necessitates Ken accompanying me, when he could be building me a new garden house (his current project) or napping because he’s exhausted from being awake. And it’s a good job he comes with me, because the station is unstaffed, and every time I go, something has been unplugged or a button that’s supposed to be pushed isn’t, and I never know until the very second I start the show, when Ken will pop up behind the glass between the studio and the ‘green room’ (it’s green—that’s the only thing about it that resembles a Green Room) and frantically mouths “It’s just dead air!” Then it’s a mad dash to figure out what’s gone wrong THIS time.
But this month, due to a variety of reasons, none of my guests were able to make it to the studio for today’s episode of Reader’s Delight. Normally, when someone can’t come in, they just pre-record themselves doing a reading, but then I had a brainwave. Why couldn’t I interview these writers remotely via Zoom, and upload the audio to the station’s scheduled playlist? Never mind that I had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how to do any of that, but it was okay because the one thing I DO have, the most important thing, is a daughter who is a WHIZ at sh*t like this:
Me: Hey honey, do you know how to splice together three audio tracks into one and then convert the whole thing into an MP3 file? Katelyn: Sure. Me: I WILL GIVE YOU TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS IF YOU DO THIS FOR ME. Katelyn (laughs): Okay, Mother.
And that’s just what we did. I interviewed 2 people remotely (I already had one pre-recorded track because the author was in Europe) and then sent the files to Kate.
Me: Are you sure you know how to do this? Kate: What? It’s already done. Check your email.
And I was SO thrilled…until I listened to the whole thing through. It was terrific, the authors were engaging, the audio was edited so smoothly…the only problem was ME. Specifically right at the end. I don’t have professional Zoom, so I only had 40 minute sessions, and the last author and I had had a wonderful chat at the beginning, using up a lot of Zoom time, unbeknown to me. It wasn’t until she was in the middle of her reading that I got a pop-up that said, “You have 10 minutes remaining” so I started to panic. She finished with about 4 minutes to spare, but I was so flustered that, at the end of my outro, I said—and I’m not joking—“Until next time…uh, listen to me then.” And if that’s not the WORST tagline that a radio show host could have, I don’t know what is. So now I’m brainstorming for really punchy taglines. Maybe “Until next time, keep reading!”? “Until next time, keep adding to your TBR pile!”? I don’t know—if you have any ideas, PLEASE tell me! Because hopefully, I’ll be doing this remotely from now on, depending on what happens this afternoon at 2 pm when the show airs.Until next time…listen to me then (by streaming it on CKMS Radio Waterloo 102.7 FM).
Whenever I go anywhere, I like to take back country roads. But the more I do, the more there’s something I’ve noticed, something I’ve become painfully, jealously aware of:
Me: I want to move to the country. Ken: Why? Me: Because I want a camper and a boat. Ken: What? Me: Because when you move to the country, you automatically get a camper and a boat. Obviously. Apparently, it’s a rule. Ken: Whose rule? Me: The government, I assume. Like, it must be a government program or whatnot. When you move to the country, the government gives you a camper and a boat. It’s probably some kind of incentive—you know, to reduce congestion in the cities. Ken: You know that’s not true, right? Me: Not true? Look around, KEN. Every single place you drive by in the country has at least one of each. Bob has TWO campers—AND a horse! See, this is why I love socialism. Universal healthcare, social security, free campers and boats. It’s awesome. Ken: They’re NOT free! And you HATE camping. Me: I hate camping in a TENT. I’d totally go camping in our cool free government camper. Ken: And what about the boat? We aren’t anywhere near a lake. Me: No one EVER IS, KEN. But we have a trailer hitch. We can tow it places. Or, it just sits next to our barn. That’s what most people do with them, as far as I can tell. It’s ‘Farm Chic’. Ken: We’re not moving to the country. Me: You’re so mean! I want my boat and camper. It’s only fair—I pay my taxes! I want MY DUE! (starts scrolling through Realtor.ca for a cute country property) Ken: Sigh. Let me know if you find anything.
Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of a country property with a camper and a boat because the government doesn’t want people to know about it—it’s a state secret.
In other news, as an author and owner of DarkWinter Press and Literary Magazine, I often get asked what comes after the initial thrill of a book’s release. Here’s a fun little article I was asked to write by Women Writers, Women[s] Books about things you can do once your first book gets published to keep the momentum going! https://booksbywomen.org/so-your-first-novel-just-got-published-now-what/
One Saturday morning last fall, Ken said to me, “Hey, let’s go to the Christie Antique Show.” I did what I always do and immediately said, “Yes! Let’s do that.” Then I did the next thing I always do and immediately had second thoughts and regrets, especially after looking on the website which said that there were free shuttle buses from the parking lot to the show site. All I could think of was the line-up to get into the parking lot, the line-up to get on the bus, and the obvious huge crowds of people that would be there. So I said, “Maybe let’s not go after all,” but Ken was insistent, even when I was all sad and whiny and like, “I don’t wanna go to the antique show. Don’t make me go to the antique show,” but he made me go anyway on the grounds that “it will be fun.”
Before we left… Me: I’m taking my wristlet. I don’t want to lug a huge purse around with me. Five minutes later… Ken: I’m taking my camera. Me: You always take your camera. Why are you telling me this? Ken: Oh, I just thought we were announcing things to each other. Atlas (from outside): Here’s my annoucement. I’m taking a dump in the back yard! This is fun!
In the car… Ken: Why are you staring at me like that? Is there something wrong with my outfit? Me: I wasn’t staring at you. I was looking past you out the window. Ken: No, you were looking at me. Me: How would you even know that?! I’m wearing dark sunglasses. Besides, you look fine. You’re wearing your red plaid shirt and lime green T-shirt. What could possibly be wrong with that?
A moral dilemma…
Me: Did you see that video on Facebook about the job interview question? Ken: The one where you’re driving in a lightning storm and you see three people at the side of the road? Me: Right—“You see your best friend who once saved your life, a beautiful woman, and a sick elderly lady standing by the side of the road in a lightning storm, and you only have one seat. Who do you take?” It was easy. I solved it right away. Ken: What do you mean, “you solved it”? Did you watch the video to the end? Me: I didn’t need to watch it to the end. The old lady sits on my lap in the driver’s seat, my best friend sits in the other seat, and the beautiful woman sits on HIS lap. Ken: You’re not allowed to do that. You only have one extra seat. Me: I can do whatever the f*ck I want. It’s MY ethics. I’m the Kobayashi Maru. Ken: No, in this situation, you’re Kirk. But it doesn’t matter. That’s not the right answer. Why don’t you EVER watch videos to the end? The CORRECT answer is: You give your keys to your best friend because you trust him to take the old woman to the hospital and then come back for you. This leaves you alone with the beautiful woman. Then he comes back and— Me: This is starting to sound suspiciously like that logic problem where you have a rowboat and you have to take a bunch of animals across a river. It’s a MORAL DILEMMA, not a logic problem, Ken. Also, why do I want to be alone with the woman? Ken: So you can hit it off with her. Me: A) She’s not my type and B) That’s why my solution is more ethical. I put the woman on my best friend’s lap so that HE could hit it off with her. I’m self-sacrificial as f*ck. There. I win. ALL THE MORALS ARE MINE. Ken: Sigh. Me: Hey! What if my best friend, the beautiful woman, and the elderly sick woman are ALL THE SAME PERSON? Ken: I can see that. I mean, you’re MY best friend, you’re beautiful, elderly, and you were sneezing yesterday so you MIGHT be sick… Me: I’m ELDERLY? Your outfit sucks.
Then we got to the antique show, and it wasn’t as bad as I thought. We had no problem getting parked, got a bus right away, and made it into the showgrounds less than 5 minutes after arriving. But then we realized that there were 100s of dealers and we needed a system, which was basically to wander down one row and back up another, saying, “Have we been down this aisle before? Oh yeah, I remember the giant elephant statue.” We have a friend who had a booth, and we finally found him. He said he was having a pretty good day, selling quite a bit and whatnot, when Ken pointed to a large box of bones at the front of his tent. They were priced at $5 each. When we asked about it, he said that last month, a guy came into his store with this big box of bones, wondering if he’d buy them. He was skeptical at first, but they sold like hotcakes (if hotcakes were all dirty and decomposed). So when the guy came back with another box, he bought that too, and brought them to sell at the show.
Friend: People are going nuts for them. I’ve already sold most of them. Quite a few people have been teachers, you know—want to use them in their classrooms. Ken: What kind of bones are they? Friend: Cow bones. I think. Me: Cow bones? Friend: Probably.
I don’t know if I want my child in a classroom where the teacher is like, “Hey kids, check this out! It LOOKS like a human femur, but the guy told me it’s probably just a cow bone.” And the weirdest thing was, he wasn’t the ONLY dealer selling bones. There were so many of them that we lost count. There were skulls, antlers, jaw bones, full skeletons of small rodents, you name it. We walked past a booth where a guy was showing a woman a skull that was on top of a log with a branch going through the skull’s eye socket. He was actually saying this: “Sometimes when animals die in the forest, they do it on top of logs and such, and then they go into rigor mortis there. So I’ve arranged the skull and log like this—kind of like a nature scene.”
And while this may seem like a one-off, at the antique market where I currently work, there’s a dealer who has glass vials full of chicken bones, and they also sell like crazy. Go figure.I guess I should have kept last year’s Christmas turkey carcass–I could have made a fortune.
It’ll be a quick one today—I’m up to my eyeballs in things to do and of course, today is radio show day. Last month was better, and I’m hoping I make it through the whole show without any glitches—I’ll keep you posted. And of course, I just got back from an overnight stay at a hotel, because Ken and I were at the wedding of our lovely neighbours. I do love a good wedding and I always say, “Meh. I won’t cry.” And then the bride comes walking down the aisle, and the groom lights up, and my eyes fill with tears every time. My favourite part of the ceremony, aside from the joy in the eyes of our neighbours as they tied the knot, was the officiant, who was pretty laid back. She had a microphone that kept cutting out a bit, but at the point where the rings were brought out, she very clearly said, “Ooh, nice box!” And it WAS nice, being velvet and all. Then there was the reception at a local winery. The groom’s uncles were the MCs and they were hilarious, as was the best man—it was a fantastic comedy show, and I don’t think I’ve ever laughed that much at a wedding reception—not even my own.
Then of course, we had to stay overnight at a hotel because it was a bit of a distance from our house. It was an interesting hotel, and by interesting I mean, I will not stay there again, because our room was on the main floor and it had a floor to ceiling window with only a thin window blind separating us from the restaurant patio where several many people were drinking to loud music—I could have stepped out of the window right onto the dancefloor. It was freezing in the room but we couldn’t open the window because of THE PEOPLE RIGHT OUTSIDE IT. But the music shut off around 10:30 and I actually had a decent night’s sleep. In the morning, I got out of bed and the room was still freezing despite the fact that I had turned the A/C completely off. So Ken pulled up the large blind and I opened the window to get some warm air in, and literally 10 seconds later, this old guy yells, “Hey Emma!! Is that you?” And I’m standing there in the window, wearing a shortie nightie, my hair all frizzled from the humidity, bare legs, boobs hanging out, and this old guy is WALKING TOWARDS MY OPEN FLOOR TO CEILING WINDOW. He’s like five feet away from me and staring at me and again, he yells, “Emma!! Is that you?” I yell, “NO, IT’S NOT!!” and slam down the blind.It was like that scene in Life of Brian where he gets up, completely naked, throws open the curtains, yawns and stretches, then a whole crowd screams his name. But instead of thinking I was the messiah, this guy just thought I was his friend.
And I ask you—if you have a friend staying at a hotel, why would you EVER assume that the one person standing in the window of one of over 60 rooms MUST be your friend? All I can hope is that when he DID find Emma, she was fully clothed. Here’s a little earworm for your Sunday: (That’s Not My Name by The Ting Tings in case it doesn’t show up for you)
Why is it, whenever things finally seem to be going well, that your car breaks down or needs a major repair? It’s like Murphy’s Law or something, if Murphy was a mechanic. I was already due to get my winter tires swapped out, an appointment I made this past week for 2 weeks from now because everybody and his brother are doing the same thing, even though there’s a chance that we’re still stuck in false spring, the season right before second winter. At the time, it felt like my brakes on my 12 year old Sonic were a little shaky, but not squealing or anything, so I said to the guy at the tire place, “While you have the tires off, can you check the brakes?” “Sure thing,” he said. Everything was fine until a couple of days ago. I was driving into another town after work. It had been a wonderful morning—someone had bought a copy of MY book AND asked me to sign it. Then I picked up this cute outfit from someone on Facebook Marketplace, and when I said, “It’s $35, right?” she said, “Oh, just give me $20,” and I was feeling so lucky and upbeat. But on the way home, my car started to shudder. The faster I went, the worse it got. I was freaking out so I did what any normal person would do—I called Ken:
Me: There’s something really wrong with my car! Ken: Pull over. Me: But I’m right in the middle of town in heavy traffic. Ken: I’m googling “What would cause my car to shake?” Says it could be a problem with a lugnut. Are you missing any? Me: How would I know if one of my lugnuts is missing?! I’m driving!
I finally found a gas station and pulled in to check. Sure enough, my right front tire was sans one lugnut. How the hell that happened, I have no idea. Ken called our neighbour, who is also an excellent mechanic but who doesn’t do tire swaps, and he said to take a lugnut from our daughter’s car to get me home. I was finally able to pull over on a side road out in the country after white-knuckling it for several minutes, and sat there waiting for Ken. He got there pretty quickly and checked out the tire:
Ken: You’re not missing a lugnut. The cap is off but the lugnut is still there. Me: So I never have to type the word lugnut again? Ken: Not if you don’t want to. Me: What a relief.
Then he started hoiking on my tires, reaching in and rocking them and whatnot, and sending me into full-blown “what if my tire snaps off and the car falls on his arms and dismembers him?” panic attack. The only thing to do at that point was to attempt the drive home with him following me, going 30 shaky kilometres an hour, which is like a little over 18 miles an hour, with our hazard lights on, and people honking at us. It took over 45 minutes. And since it seems like the situation is way more complicated that just “having a look when my tires are off”, our mechanic neighbour is going to take it to his shop tomorrow. (Update: he looked at it in the driveway and immediately realized that my brake calliper had seized).
So like I said, every time things seem like they’re going well, and I finally feel a little ahead financially, one of the cars breaks down. But at least I have a new cool swear word to use: “Aw, lugnut.”
Ivory Towers is one of Canada’s leading drag queens. With over 18 years experience she has won many titles including Miss Gay Toronto, Crews and Tangos drag race and many more. She has been featured in commercials with Sephora, Visa debit, Molson Canadian and Ikea.
Living life with a chronic illness is definitely not easy. But I do my best to push through all the barriers this illness puts in front of me! In my heart and mind, I believe maintaining a positive outlook on all situations in life will carry us through to much better times! I hope you find the information that I provide both helpful and inspirational!
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