The 31st of the month is not yet upon us, but I have already decided I don't like Halloween.
When I was little I used to dress up as a witch and just walk around the house in my get-up. There was nowhere to go, Halloween didn't really exist then in England.
Here people have had their homes decorated for weeks. I walked by one the other day and I thought lots of plastic bags had got stuck in the bushes but on closer inspection I saw that each plastic bag had a face and that they had been purposefully tied on to resemble ghosts swarming near to the house. I saw another very similar thing a few days later. I always liked the idea of pumpkin carving but as the inevitable draws closer I am finding it hard to work up any enthusiasm.
Maybe this is because I have agreed to dress as a fairy godmother. This is because it's the only outfit in the house that fits me. There are hordes of frightful dressing up things, but I fit into a 70s broderie anglaise dress and a towering sequinned princess hat, almost as if they were made for me. There is also the upsetting truth that in Walmart the week before last I bought a bumper bag of Halloween sweets and they haven't even lasted until Halloween. (A hundred packets of Rockets which are the Canadian version of Fizzers. )
My initial reaction was that Rockets are not as delicious as Fizzers but after 100 packets* of Rockets I can't remember what Fizzers taste like anymore.
* Sadly not an exaggeration
Sunday, October 24, 2010
The Best
I remembered! The absolute Best thing about Van is the public library system. My library on the North shore has the incredible bonus of being newly constructed with mostly glass walls so that if you go to the 3rd floor during the early evening you can watch the splendour of the sunset from the study section. This isn't just any sunset, it is the sunset over the ocean, from a pleasing height. It really is gorgeous.
This does not even have anything to do with the cerebral pleasures contained within the library's heaving shelves. Yes I can make the library sound sexy, because it is. (Especially the downtown library, which appears to concentrate on hiring nymph-like yet vaguely androgynous looking graduate students; the type that have Dewy decimal numbers tattooed on their wrists.)
I like to test the library, just to see if it is really as amazing as I like to think. I think of books I read long ago, books I only half recall the title of, then I look for them on the online catalogue and see if it true that this library could take all my crappiest thoughts on Neanderthalic North 'Cougar and flush them down the loo. This library just never fails. I found the wondrous works of the seemingly unheard of Elizabeth Knox, a book I recalled wanting to read that had Trieste in the title (Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere by Jan Morris) High Art on DVD, the whole of Veronica Mars, the legacy of John Marsden who scared me witless (delightful!) as a teenager....but then the best gift of all. The entire High School Comic Chronicles of Ariel Schrag.
Downtown I was awed to discover that the library not only carries another healthy selection of comics and graphic novels, but it has an entire section devoted to Zines. I had thought Zines were purley a mid-90s phenomena that sprung up solely to inform me of new bands and bad poetry that was being created across the country before the internet was even a figment of our collective imaginations. As it happens, they still exist. I shouldn't be surprised, since Book Art as a genre still exists. Book Art however, protects itself with the sparkling yet invisible cape of chic mystery bestowed upon anything with 'art' in the title. Zines are clearly made by people who do not believe in the value of the invisible cape, they think that what they scribbled on their wall last nigt at 3am is art and that computers and our reliance on them is the true embodiment of evil.
They are my people.
The reading room at the Regional Assembly of Text is another pure joy and it offers a selection of handmade books that wear the Book Art cape but have Zine-like sensibilities. I could live in there.
This does not even have anything to do with the cerebral pleasures contained within the library's heaving shelves. Yes I can make the library sound sexy, because it is. (Especially the downtown library, which appears to concentrate on hiring nymph-like yet vaguely androgynous looking graduate students; the type that have Dewy decimal numbers tattooed on their wrists.)
I like to test the library, just to see if it is really as amazing as I like to think. I think of books I read long ago, books I only half recall the title of, then I look for them on the online catalogue and see if it true that this library could take all my crappiest thoughts on Neanderthalic North 'Cougar and flush them down the loo. This library just never fails. I found the wondrous works of the seemingly unheard of Elizabeth Knox, a book I recalled wanting to read that had Trieste in the title (Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere by Jan Morris) High Art on DVD, the whole of Veronica Mars, the legacy of John Marsden who scared me witless (delightful!) as a teenager....but then the best gift of all. The entire High School Comic Chronicles of Ariel Schrag.
Downtown I was awed to discover that the library not only carries another healthy selection of comics and graphic novels, but it has an entire section devoted to Zines. I had thought Zines were purley a mid-90s phenomena that sprung up solely to inform me of new bands and bad poetry that was being created across the country before the internet was even a figment of our collective imaginations. As it happens, they still exist. I shouldn't be surprised, since Book Art as a genre still exists. Book Art however, protects itself with the sparkling yet invisible cape of chic mystery bestowed upon anything with 'art' in the title. Zines are clearly made by people who do not believe in the value of the invisible cape, they think that what they scribbled on their wall last nigt at 3am is art and that computers and our reliance on them is the true embodiment of evil.
They are my people.
The reading room at the Regional Assembly of Text is another pure joy and it offers a selection of handmade books that wear the Book Art cape but have Zine-like sensibilities. I could live in there.
Grease the Wheels
The other day I was mentally composing what to write here as I felt I had discovered the ultimate Best and Worst things about Vancougar. I even wrote a note about it later on something I cut out of the Georgia Straight (my notice board is full of newspaper cuttings regarding obscure events I rarely end up going to).
I lost the note. I no longer have any idea what the Best thing about Van is, but I definitely remember the worst:
It is almost impossible to get drunk.
It's not even that I want to get drunk, just to enjoy some drinks, but it takes a tremendous amount of effort. You can't buy alcohol in Safeway or at the 7-Eleven. Nowhere but at a liquor store (an off-license to people at home) or a bar. At bars you are often encouraged to sit and be waited on. This takes away the brilliant opportunity to drunkenly make friends with other patrons while standing at the bar waiting for a drink or to flirt with the bar staff. And drinking here is expensive!
However, my Fellow European and I are intrepid in our such for fun and alcohol in this rainy yet strangely dry metropolis. This led to my great idea of attending the book launch for Inkstuds at Blim. Inkstuds is a book of interviews with comic book artists (made from a radio show) and Blim is an art workshop/gallery space in Chinatown. Oh, my poor, beleagured artist's hopes were high for a night full of drinking cheap book launch wine and chatting to nerdy looking comic-book reading dudes with glasses and tattoos and sultry art school drop-out girls. In other words; heaven. (If you're 15. Or me.)
Having once (5 years ago) co-thrown an opening-night-of-an-exhibition-do along with 7 artful friends, I feel qualified to assert that I know the ropes*; I know how these things should go down. Namely, alcohol should be thrust upon you as soon as you enter.
The theory behind this is that hopefully you will get tipsy enough to ask questions about the art work so the artist can revel in describing their artistic intentions or enjoy making up a load of bollocks on the spot. Also, people get emotionally attached to pieces of art when they feel emotional. In the sense that they may simply have to buy that seven foot tall paper mache and cigarette butt sculpture of David Beckham right now, no matter what.
I liked the feel of Blim, but it was too reticent an opening to inspire us to stay when cocktails were calling from Guilt & Co. down the road. We looked at the book (which looks interesting) and we chatted to a nice but wary guy behind the book table, but it was too much like hard work.
* Please note irony, or something else if that is not in fact irony, it's too cold for my brain to function at optimum capacity.
I lost the note. I no longer have any idea what the Best thing about Van is, but I definitely remember the worst:
It is almost impossible to get drunk.
It's not even that I want to get drunk, just to enjoy some drinks, but it takes a tremendous amount of effort. You can't buy alcohol in Safeway or at the 7-Eleven. Nowhere but at a liquor store (an off-license to people at home) or a bar. At bars you are often encouraged to sit and be waited on. This takes away the brilliant opportunity to drunkenly make friends with other patrons while standing at the bar waiting for a drink or to flirt with the bar staff. And drinking here is expensive!
However, my Fellow European and I are intrepid in our such for fun and alcohol in this rainy yet strangely dry metropolis. This led to my great idea of attending the book launch for Inkstuds at Blim. Inkstuds is a book of interviews with comic book artists (made from a radio show) and Blim is an art workshop/gallery space in Chinatown. Oh, my poor, beleagured artist's hopes were high for a night full of drinking cheap book launch wine and chatting to nerdy looking comic-book reading dudes with glasses and tattoos and sultry art school drop-out girls. In other words; heaven. (If you're 15. Or me.)
Having once (5 years ago) co-thrown an opening-night-of-an-exhibition-do along with 7 artful friends, I feel qualified to assert that I know the ropes*; I know how these things should go down. Namely, alcohol should be thrust upon you as soon as you enter.
The theory behind this is that hopefully you will get tipsy enough to ask questions about the art work so the artist can revel in describing their artistic intentions or enjoy making up a load of bollocks on the spot. Also, people get emotionally attached to pieces of art when they feel emotional. In the sense that they may simply have to buy that seven foot tall paper mache and cigarette butt sculpture of David Beckham right now, no matter what.
I liked the feel of Blim, but it was too reticent an opening to inspire us to stay when cocktails were calling from Guilt & Co. down the road. We looked at the book (which looks interesting) and we chatted to a nice but wary guy behind the book table, but it was too much like hard work.
* Please note irony, or something else if that is not in fact irony, it's too cold for my brain to function at optimum capacity.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
The trouble with love....
....is that it is akin to carrying a bucketful of water on each shoulder.
On one shoulder you have the bucket containing your love for a person, and on the other shoulder is the bucket containing their love for you. When it's weighted evenly like that you can't feel the pressure of it. You're content to carry it forever.
Only when the balance drops does the burden of carrying one bucket reveal itself. It weighs you down so low, whether someone has withdrawn their love from you, or you have withdrawn your love from them, you are left with one heavy bucket to carry and nothing to balance it with.
I don't know which bucket is heavier, when you're left with one full of your love for someone who has left; or when you're stuck with a bucket of love you can't accept from someone else.
Eventually though, carrying it around unevenly, sloshing it about like that, or due to a hole in the bucket itself, it slowly empties and the weight is lifted.
There was probably a hole in my love bucket for Linus even at the start of our relationship. It must have been tiny because I didn't notice it. Even when it became evident, I didn't care. I just wanted to stare at him and listen to him sing. (Are you noticing a pattern?)
I was left with the heaviest goddamn bucket of love for that boy that one woman ever tried to carry alone. It nearly broke my back. But it didn't, and I would like to announce to the world that with a little help from home and the people in it, from Robin's unwavering support (because blood might be thicker than water, but golden syrup is thicker than blood) and from the lilting French accent of a hot 18 year old intern, that bucket is now empty.
That's not to say all the love goes away, that it all spills over and out or leaks and leaves. There is a residual sheen, like an undercoat of paint. I don't regret a single moment I sat on the kitchen floor of a 1920s apartment, and stared at Linus, and listened to him sing. I just don't need to do it again.
On one shoulder you have the bucket containing your love for a person, and on the other shoulder is the bucket containing their love for you. When it's weighted evenly like that you can't feel the pressure of it. You're content to carry it forever.
Only when the balance drops does the burden of carrying one bucket reveal itself. It weighs you down so low, whether someone has withdrawn their love from you, or you have withdrawn your love from them, you are left with one heavy bucket to carry and nothing to balance it with.
I don't know which bucket is heavier, when you're left with one full of your love for someone who has left; or when you're stuck with a bucket of love you can't accept from someone else.
Eventually though, carrying it around unevenly, sloshing it about like that, or due to a hole in the bucket itself, it slowly empties and the weight is lifted.
There was probably a hole in my love bucket for Linus even at the start of our relationship. It must have been tiny because I didn't notice it. Even when it became evident, I didn't care. I just wanted to stare at him and listen to him sing. (Are you noticing a pattern?)
I was left with the heaviest goddamn bucket of love for that boy that one woman ever tried to carry alone. It nearly broke my back. But it didn't, and I would like to announce to the world that with a little help from home and the people in it, from Robin's unwavering support (because blood might be thicker than water, but golden syrup is thicker than blood) and from the lilting French accent of a hot 18 year old intern, that bucket is now empty.
That's not to say all the love goes away, that it all spills over and out or leaks and leaves. There is a residual sheen, like an undercoat of paint. I don't regret a single moment I sat on the kitchen floor of a 1920s apartment, and stared at Linus, and listened to him sing. I just don't need to do it again.
Shipping Forecast
I can hear the long low bellow of a ship's horn. The quay is a half hour walk away if you don't want to hurry.
At night, or early in the morning, you can be woken by the moan of the ships as they slowly move their hulking weight through the harbour. The noise sounds like the ache of a whale's belly.
I never use the word belly for humans, I think it sounds ugly; it sounds huge and distended. We have tummies. Whales, though, have bellies that are gigantic and fit to swallow you whole. The rumble a whale's belly would make if the whale felt hungry is the sound of the horn. Or the low tone of a whale when it is sad, a deep baleful call because it can't cry tears underwater.
At night, or early in the morning, you can be woken by the moan of the ships as they slowly move their hulking weight through the harbour. The noise sounds like the ache of a whale's belly.
I never use the word belly for humans, I think it sounds ugly; it sounds huge and distended. We have tummies. Whales, though, have bellies that are gigantic and fit to swallow you whole. The rumble a whale's belly would make if the whale felt hungry is the sound of the horn. Or the low tone of a whale when it is sad, a deep baleful call because it can't cry tears underwater.
Wino Forever
As mentioned in the previous post, my lengthy Kevin Costner fantasy was replaced when Jordan Catalano came into my life when I was 13, the exact age that he leaned his way into Angela Chase's life in perhaps the best celluloid interpretation of teenage angst ever: My So-Called Life.
Jordan was replaced by Winona Ryder. I had forgotten about Winona. I thought of her just the other day as I was vacuuming the hall floor. I have forgotten a lot of things, a lot of early influences, which is why I am re-hashing them now. It occurrs to me that who you once were is not irrelevant to who you are now. Like the first time you realise that the reason you keep getting your heart wrecked is because of the people you choose to sail it with. It's just the same person, again and again, in different incarnations.
See this post for an introduction to this topic, but lately I have been playing an ongoing game with myself called 'How gay am I really?' It's a very intresting game. Try it yourself! I know I fit between the two big categories of hetero and homo which is why this game interests me - I'm just like everyone else, pushing myself to see if I can swing it over one way and pick a side. Wouldn't that be easier for everyone? Most of all for me. I'm kidding. To be honest, I'm just curious. And surprised.
I was once told by my very lesbionic friend 'You are the gayest person ever' and it just so happened that the majority of my cultural leanings, thoughts and influences were, upon closer inspection, really very gay indeed. I read Stella Duffy and Carol Ann Duffy avidly. I listened to Sleater Kinney and Bikini Kill. I watched every movie Winona had been in, and when her portrayal of Jo in Little Women made me believe nothing could make me love her more, I wrote to her to tell her so. I don't actually remember anything I said in the letter. I blocked out that I wrote a love letter to a woman when I was 14 (14!) and didn't think there was anything remotely gay about it.
I went to a girls' high school and never once noticed any of the girls in it. I was never in the closet; I lived in Narnia. I was so deeply entrenched in my own world (where I never once questioned my sexuality - why does that word sound like a disease?) that I wasn't even aware a closet existed.
Of course Winona had to move over for River Phoenix who in turn (once reading not one but two of his biographies had influenced me enough to turn me into a vegetarian for the next 10 years) had to make room in my adolescent heart for Dave Grohl (awesomely talented and bearded frontman of the Foo Fighters who had been the lanky, long-haired drummer in Nirvana when I fell for him).
Now Dave was the real deal. I spent hours comtemplating our future together, how I would meet him at The Laundry Room in LA, (his recording studio) how we would sit in a diner and he'd sing 'Big Me' from the Foo's first album (which I had borrowed from the library, ha!) and most of all I worried about how much he smoked and whether I'd be able to get him to stop. These were my real concerns. I never imagined kissing him even though I was sure we would be married. I just wanted to stare at him and listen to him sing. Eventually I had a boyfriend who was incredibly cool (he still is! and he's getting married, but that's a whole other post) and he took me to see Dave play live. I wore my favourite dress, a little black number with an empire waist (adds boobs) a mesh overlay and adjustable spaghetti straps. I bought it with my first ever wages/paycheck (bar what my brother paid me for picking raspberries for him at his summer job and the five quid I earned for forging his signature dozens of times on his personalised business cards in his Ferris Bueller days). When I saw Dave on stage I actually cried a bit.
I was 20!
Ha! Just a year later I was confounded when during a flirty conversation with my not-yet first girlfriend, she declared I would have to fight her for Dave, whom she adored. I didn't understand; she was a giant homosexual, she had said so herself. Surely the rights to Dave would be all mine. Even then I knew I liked her so much I would allow her to encroach on my long held Dave Grohl fantasies. On the street where the bus stopped nearest her house, there was a shop I always wanted to go in to. It was a cute, adorable looking little boutique in Stoke Newington in North London. I saw it every time I got off the bus to go to see her, and I never went in. Going in would have meant reaching her later. Even if I just went in for a minute, it would mean I would reach her a minute later. I couldn't do it. I literally walked as fast as my legs would carry me.
That seems like madness now. Much later, when she was gone and all my longing belonged to another girl who seemed to give me an electrical charge every time we were in the same room, I went back to that neighbourhood. I visited that little boutique and spent an entire week's salary on an Orla Kiely handbag. (It was in the sale even then.)
Now of course, I understand it all completely differently. Probably no one is completely blinded to the attractiveness possibilities in each gender. Kind of like, I can see that Jude Law is attractive, but that's as far as I'd take it. My crush on Dave did not inherently have more value in it that my crush on Winona, merely because he's the opposite sex. My attachment to a man is not superior to an attachment to a woman. This is true for me, and and that is all I can say. I know it's not true for the world.
And so now, even though I will continue to defend the many hideous hairstyles Lee Min Ho deigns to wear in his Korean TV performances, Min Ho must move aside, for my current celebrity crush has a face that lights up like no one else. She also has a pony tail.
The reason I am boing your arses off with a post practically idenitical to one I wrote recently is that I can't keep this stupid smile from spreading across my face every time I think about this. It's like I've been set free. My to-ing and fro-ing over WK, and all the date-ish non-dates I had over the last year with perfectly fine gentlemen (where I kept hoping they wouldn't kiss me) left me feeling as if there was a hole in my heart space that was never going to fill up again, not quite to the brim.
I was wrong. The space isn't empty after all. I've just been barking up the wrong tree.
Jordan was replaced by Winona Ryder. I had forgotten about Winona. I thought of her just the other day as I was vacuuming the hall floor. I have forgotten a lot of things, a lot of early influences, which is why I am re-hashing them now. It occurrs to me that who you once were is not irrelevant to who you are now. Like the first time you realise that the reason you keep getting your heart wrecked is because of the people you choose to sail it with. It's just the same person, again and again, in different incarnations.
See this post for an introduction to this topic, but lately I have been playing an ongoing game with myself called 'How gay am I really?' It's a very intresting game. Try it yourself! I know I fit between the two big categories of hetero and homo which is why this game interests me - I'm just like everyone else, pushing myself to see if I can swing it over one way and pick a side. Wouldn't that be easier for everyone? Most of all for me. I'm kidding. To be honest, I'm just curious. And surprised.
I was once told by my very lesbionic friend 'You are the gayest person ever' and it just so happened that the majority of my cultural leanings, thoughts and influences were, upon closer inspection, really very gay indeed. I read Stella Duffy and Carol Ann Duffy avidly. I listened to Sleater Kinney and Bikini Kill. I watched every movie Winona had been in, and when her portrayal of Jo in Little Women made me believe nothing could make me love her more, I wrote to her to tell her so. I don't actually remember anything I said in the letter. I blocked out that I wrote a love letter to a woman when I was 14 (14!) and didn't think there was anything remotely gay about it.
I went to a girls' high school and never once noticed any of the girls in it. I was never in the closet; I lived in Narnia. I was so deeply entrenched in my own world (where I never once questioned my sexuality - why does that word sound like a disease?) that I wasn't even aware a closet existed.
Of course Winona had to move over for River Phoenix who in turn (once reading not one but two of his biographies had influenced me enough to turn me into a vegetarian for the next 10 years) had to make room in my adolescent heart for Dave Grohl (awesomely talented and bearded frontman of the Foo Fighters who had been the lanky, long-haired drummer in Nirvana when I fell for him).
Now Dave was the real deal. I spent hours comtemplating our future together, how I would meet him at The Laundry Room in LA, (his recording studio) how we would sit in a diner and he'd sing 'Big Me' from the Foo's first album (which I had borrowed from the library, ha!) and most of all I worried about how much he smoked and whether I'd be able to get him to stop. These were my real concerns. I never imagined kissing him even though I was sure we would be married. I just wanted to stare at him and listen to him sing. Eventually I had a boyfriend who was incredibly cool (he still is! and he's getting married, but that's a whole other post) and he took me to see Dave play live. I wore my favourite dress, a little black number with an empire waist (adds boobs) a mesh overlay and adjustable spaghetti straps. I bought it with my first ever wages/paycheck (bar what my brother paid me for picking raspberries for him at his summer job and the five quid I earned for forging his signature dozens of times on his personalised business cards in his Ferris Bueller days). When I saw Dave on stage I actually cried a bit.
I was 20!
Ha! Just a year later I was confounded when during a flirty conversation with my not-yet first girlfriend, she declared I would have to fight her for Dave, whom she adored. I didn't understand; she was a giant homosexual, she had said so herself. Surely the rights to Dave would be all mine. Even then I knew I liked her so much I would allow her to encroach on my long held Dave Grohl fantasies. On the street where the bus stopped nearest her house, there was a shop I always wanted to go in to. It was a cute, adorable looking little boutique in Stoke Newington in North London. I saw it every time I got off the bus to go to see her, and I never went in. Going in would have meant reaching her later. Even if I just went in for a minute, it would mean I would reach her a minute later. I couldn't do it. I literally walked as fast as my legs would carry me.
That seems like madness now. Much later, when she was gone and all my longing belonged to another girl who seemed to give me an electrical charge every time we were in the same room, I went back to that neighbourhood. I visited that little boutique and spent an entire week's salary on an Orla Kiely handbag. (It was in the sale even then.)
Now of course, I understand it all completely differently. Probably no one is completely blinded to the attractiveness possibilities in each gender. Kind of like, I can see that Jude Law is attractive, but that's as far as I'd take it. My crush on Dave did not inherently have more value in it that my crush on Winona, merely because he's the opposite sex. My attachment to a man is not superior to an attachment to a woman. This is true for me, and and that is all I can say. I know it's not true for the world.
And so now, even though I will continue to defend the many hideous hairstyles Lee Min Ho deigns to wear in his Korean TV performances, Min Ho must move aside, for my current celebrity crush has a face that lights up like no one else. She also has a pony tail.
The reason I am boing your arses off with a post practically idenitical to one I wrote recently is that I can't keep this stupid smile from spreading across my face every time I think about this. It's like I've been set free. My to-ing and fro-ing over WK, and all the date-ish non-dates I had over the last year with perfectly fine gentlemen (where I kept hoping they wouldn't kiss me) left me feeling as if there was a hole in my heart space that was never going to fill up again, not quite to the brim.
I was wrong. The space isn't empty after all. I've just been barking up the wrong tree.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Bodyguard
As well as chief cook and bottle-washer, another of my roles in this job is 'bodyguard'. This does not involve singing that song where each word has about ten syllables, and I almost never think about Kevin Costner anymore (although I had a long, involved fantasy about him after he appeared in Dances With Wolves, which came out when I was 9, and lasted until Jordan Catalano came into my life 4 years later).
I have to take the dog with me when I do the school run. And the ipod, otherwise I would be at risk of enjoying the silence of nature. Then I wait on a patch of grass while the dog rolls around slobbering. After a while (about four or five songs) the Little One comes up the steps from school accompanied by her rather worldly classmate. I put the ipod away, greet the girls and they tell me little bits about their day at school. Then we proceed to walk home. I walk behind with the dog, and the two girls walk in front of me chatting about their substitute teacher, the boy who has a foster mum, whether they like Amanda (usually), how much candy they won during class for answering questions correctly (yes, really!) and possibly a trillion other inanities of school life. I don't know any more because by the time we have reached the pedestrian crossing I am fully immersed in my role as bodyguard and start wondering why I left my mirrored shades at home.
The classmate would be walking home alone, if it wasn't for me being provided as courtesy escort. So every day I get the overwhelming feeling, as I follow these two giggling pre-teens, that I am nothing more than a bodyguard. One who walks at a discreet distance while trying to keep up, having to stop to pick up poop once in a while.
Having to take the dog really ruins my image.
I have to take the dog with me when I do the school run. And the ipod, otherwise I would be at risk of enjoying the silence of nature. Then I wait on a patch of grass while the dog rolls around slobbering. After a while (about four or five songs) the Little One comes up the steps from school accompanied by her rather worldly classmate. I put the ipod away, greet the girls and they tell me little bits about their day at school. Then we proceed to walk home. I walk behind with the dog, and the two girls walk in front of me chatting about their substitute teacher, the boy who has a foster mum, whether they like Amanda (usually), how much candy they won during class for answering questions correctly (yes, really!) and possibly a trillion other inanities of school life. I don't know any more because by the time we have reached the pedestrian crossing I am fully immersed in my role as bodyguard and start wondering why I left my mirrored shades at home.
The classmate would be walking home alone, if it wasn't for me being provided as courtesy escort. So every day I get the overwhelming feeling, as I follow these two giggling pre-teens, that I am nothing more than a bodyguard. One who walks at a discreet distance while trying to keep up, having to stop to pick up poop once in a while.
Having to take the dog really ruins my image.
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