A Wiener Dog in Battle Gear, Fuzzy Strawberries, and Gord

The last message my friend Gord sent me was a picture of a wiener dog wearing battle gear.

He sent it a couple of weeks before he died, but I didn't open it then. I only opened it today, a week after finding out he was gone. I remember getting the notification that he'd sent me a message, and I'm pretty sure I know what happened after that. I imagine it went something like this: "I have a message, but I'm at work/driving/watching something on TV (Gord would be fine with that reason) so I'll check it when I'm done." That would have been followed by any number of events, which led to me forgetting my friend had sent me a message. He thought I'd like to see a wiener dog wearing battle gear (he was right) and I got too busy and distracted by whatever dumb thing was going on that I couldn't be bothered to open it.

There were comments and conversations on Facebook posts after that (because that's just the easiest way to be friends with our friends now) but I wasted what turned out to be my last chance to have what passes for a personal conversation with a friend these days. All I needed to do was type the words "Thank you!" or make a dumb little smile emoji, but I guess I couldn't be bothered that day. Or the day after that, etc., etc. Because why did I need to? It's not like Gord was going anywhere -- I'd have plenty of chances to talk to him again. (Spoiler alert: Nope.) Now, I have to make peace with the fact that my friend is gone, and that maybe I didn't do the friend-stuff well enough when I had the chance.

And I'm worried I'm not doing the friend-stuff right now, either. There are things I could be doing to remember him properly, and I can't get my ass in gear to get them done.

Gord had the kindest voice I've ever heard. This week, a friend sent me some audio files from when Gord was a reporter. I haven't been able to listen to them. It will be the first time I hear his voice, after the last time I really heard his voice. Whatever series of wires and circuits I have that passes for a brain isn't ready for that right now. So once again, I set my friend aside.

There are little bits and pieces of Gord, here and there in my house. There are things I know I have, things he gave me, that I can't find. And honestly, I haven't looked too hard for them yet. I'm not ready to sit and cry over a folder filled with the X-Files mish-mash he'd known I would fawn over, or the email he'd printed out back when I was first hired in Ottawa, announcing my impending arrival in the CFRA newsroom. Those things are all in a box, and I will take them out eventually, but for now.....they're just another wiener dog in battle gear that I'm not ready to look at.

I feel sad, but I don't want it to come out of me yet. Little bits sneak out at inconvenient times. When I'm at work. When I'm driving. When I'm trying to pick through boxes of strawberries at the grocery store, to find one that doesn't have a fuzzy berry in it. (It's a fact that they put one fuzzy strawberry in every box. Prove me wrong.) I want to miss my friend the right way......I just don't want to do it yet. So it stays in the inbox, and the notifications keep piling up. If there's a storage limit on the brain-version of Gmail, I'll be getting a notice from Google any day now to check my messages, and I guess then I'll finally get to it. That's probably going to be a bad day.

I hope he knew he mattered to me, even when I wasn't good at showing it by, for example, taking 30 seconds to open a fucking Facebook message that would end up being the last fucking Facebook message he ever sent me. I hope he knows that I kept everything he ever gave me, laughed at every funny picture he ever sent me...even if I waited until after he was gone to look at that last one. I hope he knew that for the rest of my life, I will laugh about the time we merry bunch of bastards in the newsroom crammed a Ralph Wiggum doll into a photocopier, and the time he described a never-to-be-revealed-by-me hero as "an asshole."

I hope I was as good a friend to Gord as he was to me, and I think that never knowing the answer to that question will always make me sad.

Why I Sometimes Wish I Hadn’t Gone to Auschwitz

I sometimes wonder what has happened, over the years and decades and centuries, in the very spot I happen to be. When I’m standing in my kitchen, washing coffee rings out of one of my seemingly endless supply of Doctor Who mugs, am I standing in the same spot where a mother stood 50 years ago, washing the dishes from her child’s breakfast? When I’m standing by the river, looking over at trees in Gatineau, am I standing where an Indigenous man stood to catch fish hundreds of years ago? When I’m stopped at a red light, is my car in the very spot where some prehistoric Mega~bear got into an epic fight with a giant Dino~cat? (My knowledge of prehistoric species isn’t awesome.) I’ll never know, but it’s neat to think about.

I know I’ve definitely stood where people suffered, and where people died.

On November 7th, our Prime Minister apologized for Canada turning away the MS St. Louis in 1939. Over 900 Jewish people from Germany were on the ship, trying to find somewhere where they would be safe. Canada wouldn’t take them. They were sent away. The captain wouldn’t take them back to Germany, because he knew they would die if he did. He took them to other parts of Europe, where he hoped they would be ok. Some of them were. Some of them ended up back in Germany. Some of them were murdered in Auschwitz. Which means I might have stood where they stood when they suffered. Maybe I stood where they fell when they died.

I went to Auschwitz a few years ago. I’d wanted to go for a long time. Since then, there have been times when I have violently wished that I’d never gone. It hurts so much to know that my feet have been in the same spot as someone who was scared in a way that few of us can comprehend. I have walked on pathways that were the last place someone walked. In all likelihood, I have stood where someone took their last breath. Knowing that makes me feel a pain that I cannot describe. 

When I watched video of the apology in the House of Commons, when I watched NDP MP Guy Caron say 254 people could have been saved if Canada had said “yes” in 1939, I cried so hard my chest hurt. And I kept crying, because I know there are people who would want that ship turned away if it showed up on our shores tomorrow.

Some of the people who get turned away now, in Canada and all over the world, will die. A hundred years from now, someone will stand where they died. I think this will probably repeat until the sun explodes and eats the Earth, because very little of what I’ve seen of human behaviour lately has convinced me we’re any better now than we were when we turned that ship away in 1939.

I Give Up HA HA JUST KIDDING NO I DON'T

Well, no. I kind of do give up, but in, like, a totally good way.

First, a little background. The Comedian has a teeny tiny little anger problem. Not the kind where I yell and scream and kick little woodland critters into brick walls. It's the kind where I become insanely angry about something, and then hold that anger in with so much force that if you plugged a toaster into my butt, I could make upwards of 15 pieces of toast before the power supply died. And then I'd get re-angry because you SHOVED A TOASTER PLUG INTO MY BUTT and the whole cycle would begin again. The world would just be full of toast and toaster plugs that smell like ass. No one wins.

The same thing happens when something makes me sad, and these days, lots of things make me sad. The list includes (but is not limited to):

- the engine light in my car
- Orange Politician
- we're killing the planet
- PEOPLE HUNT SCHOOL CHILDREN NOW
- being awful to humans with different melatonin levels is all the rage
- memes about how cool Doug Ford is, but with many of the words spelled wrong
- 'flossing' isn't a dance, guys
- my feet hurt
- everything seems kinda fucked

Several times a day, the words "I give up" fall out of my tooth-cave. I guess I never actually mean it, seeing as how I have yet to just fall over on the ground and wait for flowers to grow out of me, but there have been many times -- many many times -- when I have thought about getting in my car and driving away. However, if you refer to first item on the list above, you will see that is not a great option. No point running away if you'll probably only make it as far as the next area code. Also, I get a girl-salary, which means I can't afford very much gas. (Note to self - add 'girl-salaries' to the sadness list before you publish this blog post.)

So I can't run away. I can't fall over and die. I can't make people stop shooting children, or care that the Earth is being poisoned, or think twice about the poorly-spelled stupid thing their (I did that on purpose) about to share on Facebook, or stop taking giant old-man shits all over the place for the sake of proving he's the most stablest genius that ever done lived. I also can't fix car engines. I can't do shit.

And I can't be sad and angry all the time.

So, I will give up. But, as I said earlier, in a totally good way.

Orange Politican starts a trade war? Race war? Space war?  He might. Totally within the realm of possibility. I'll keep doin' what I do. Buying stuff I need, not hating people who don't look like me, not being in space. Easy enough. Me being sad or angry can't stop bad things from happening. Me buying something from a local store or smiling at someone who wears something different on her head than I do might improve someone's day. Me staying out of space saves me from going all Total Recall bug-eyes because I go outside and forget to bring my helmet.

Planet quickly being poisoned to shit? We can't stop being assholes and try to do something to fix it? Fine. I give up trying to convince you you're wrong and that you suck. I'll continue walking or biking when I can, I'll keep taking my reusable cups to Starbucks and my reusable bags to the grocery store and I'll keep dragging my green bin out to the curb on Tuesdays even though I'm pretty sure a raccoon lives inside it now. I'll do what I do because it makes me feel better, even if it doesn't really help. And hey -- by the time the planet says SCREW YOU HUMANS, HERE'S SOME RAIN MADE OF POISON DARTS, I'll already have died of natural causes or possibly from tripping while holding a pencil. It could easily go either way.

Some people and some things are always going to be terrible, to varying degrees. Maybe you share dumb memes about how Justin Trudeau's hair makes him incapable of doing anything, ever (please tell me you know that's fucking idiotic) or maybe you think it's a GREAT IDEA to arm teachers instead of FUCKING DOING SOMETHING about guns, or maybe you think I should probably have my mechanic check out my car. I don't care what you think, and I'm not fighting with you over it anymore. I'm not getting angry about it anymore. I'm not going to fight back tears anymore while I'm reading a story about the latest horrible thing people did to other people. And I have a CAA membership, so bring it on, car. Bring. It. On.

I think some of those things might be easier typed than done. We shall see. Maybe I'll fail utterly, and the world will be filled with butt-toast. Or maybe I'll give up exactly the way I want to, and I'll spend the rest of what I hope will be a long life enjoying the people around me and the places I go and the things I see and do, unburdened by the worry and the anger and the sadness.

Or maybe tomorrow I'll trip while carrying a pencil. Whatever.

I Like Mustard and Also Have a Neat Scar: The Comedian Tries Dating on the Interwebs

Recently, The Comedian has decided to give Internet dating sites a try, since I find meeting "real people" to be "difficult" and "annoying" and also because I "hate everyone" and don't want to hear about your "hopes and dreams" while you're able to "look me in the face" because then you will be able to see me "vomit."

Those of you who have partaken in Internet dating are likely familiar with the awkwardness of it all, starting with selecting the perfect photo to show that you are fun and outgoing, while also not looking very much like something dead that has been sitting in the sun for three days. Some of us are also paranoid about putting a picture of our face out there for any Tom, Dick, or Stabby McKillerson to see. To that end, I have decided to use a photo that highlights some of my better qualities -- but doesn't show my face-area -- in the form of this fun collage!

Top: A scar on my thumb that looks like a long-horn bull skull
Bottom left: Some eggs I made (so potential suitors know I can cook)
Bottom right: A birthmark on my leg that looks like a Pac Man with his mouth closed


Now that I've got the picture nailed down, it's on to the questionnaire thingie.


The Comedian's Likes:

1. The feeling when you finally get to pee after a long car ride.

2. Mustard. There are different kinds, and my world really opened up after I found that out.

3. Listening to Christmas music with the 'mute' button on.


The Comedian's Dislikes:

1. How when right after you shave one leg, you're expected to shave the other one. Because it's really hard to stand on one leg in the shower, and sometimes after I do one leg, I'm too tired to do the other one. So if we're on a date and you want to touch one of my legs, ask first and I'll put the one I've shaved closest to your hand.

2. Your mom. And she won't like me, either. But you should absolutely stay in touch with her, because you'll need somewhere to live after we have that big fight about how I don't want to go camping or have your stupid kids, you hippie freak.

3. Explaining.


In The Comedian's Spare Time, She:

1. Builds miniature models of women posed like they pose for Instagram pictures

2. Builds miniature models of chiropractor clinics for the miniature Instagram women, because they all have severe spinal pain from standing around with their boobs shoved out like that.

3. Hates.



Does The Comedian Want Kids? If So, How Many?


No. It's not that I don't like kids, it's just that I'm pretty sure anything that might grow inside me would catch fire once sunlight touched it, and I don't have apartment insurance, so if my kid burst into flames and my TV and PlayStation got wrecked, I'd have to pay out of my own pocket to replace them.


Where Does The Comedian See Herself in Five Years?


In that prison in China (or wherever) that Bruce Wayne was in in the movie Batman Begins, so I can be broken out by Liam Neeson, who will teach me how to exact my vengeance on the guy who parks in the spot next to me and never leaves me enough room to open my car door all the way. But then it will turn out that Liam Neeson wanted that guy dead ANYWAY, and also everyone else, and was just trying to use me to do his dirty work. So I'll kill him with a train. Sorry -- I won't KILL him, I just won't have to SAVE him, blah blah blah I like Batman and pizza and videos games so you should probably date me or whatever.

Give several shits, get several shits in return

I'm not necessarily the smartest thing that ever happened.


I can't do math to save my life.

I think the capital city of every east coast province is "Where Anne of Green Gables is From."

I thought Gatineau was the French word for 'cake.'


But there's one thing I have managed to piece together with my mathematically, geographically, and cake-challenged brain: Most people don't give a shit about you as much as you give a shit about them.


Now before we ----


Holy shit. The Trivago guy is hot. Sorry. I hadn't seen that commercial yet. WOW.


Right. So, before we send emergency personnel to my house to see if I'm about to take a bath with my toaster, I'm not. I don't even have a toaster. Bet you feel pretty stupid now, eh?

I don't mean that in a whiny, woe-is-me, please-just-be-my-friend way. I mean it in that factual way that facts are meant. But if you're just going to sit there calling me a mopey bitch, then I guess I'll have to explain it. Even though it's not my fault you're dumb.


Everybody cares about people. Maybe you care about 50 people. Or ten people. Or one people. However many isn't important. Who they are isn't important. Could be your husband or wife or friend or the guy who sits at the next desk at work or the chick at the gas station who seems to notice that a human person is trying to pay her for something or I guess one of your kids or something. Not the nose-picking one. The other one. The point is, you care about those people. You probably think about them once a day or whatever. You wonder how they're doing, what they're up to, if they ever got that weird tooth fixed.

Here's the thing, though -- there's a good chance they're not wondering that same stuff about you. They likely don't give a shit if your tooth is still crooked (mine still are, by the way) or what you watched on TV today or if you did something interesting. They're probably not going to send you a text message asking if you're doing alright when something sucky happens, or come to your house when your boyfriend leaves you because you don't like camping. That actually happened to me, and I was really lucky -- someone came to my house to make sure I was ok. And that moves us along nicely to the next paragraph.

Because, you see, every once in a while something really wonderful happens. You find yourself giving a shit about another person even when they're not around, and it turns out they give a shit about you when you're not around, too. It won't happen often -- and sometimes you'll think it happened, then you'll find out it didn't -- but it will happen.

Over the last six months or so, I've been unlucky enough to find out I'd been wrong a bunch of times when I'd thought it happened. But I also found out that it had happened and I didn't even know it. I've even been kinda mad at myself a few times, because I didn't realize there were people out there wondering about me. I was too busy being all butthurt about the people who didn't wonder about me at all.

If I'd just stepped away from all that "wah wah no one likes me wah wah" bullshit, I would have realized that I have a friend who I can message with for hours about video games who is also very good at cheering me up by giving me ideas of ways I can torture people through the postal system for my own amusement.

I would have realized there's a guy I know who not only gives me endless joy with his smart, funny Facebook posts, but can also say really nice, insightful things that always make me feel better when I'm sad. And who has introduced me to a totally cute, super-smart chick who helped me identify some mushrooms, which was incredibly important to me at the time. (Don't worry -- I didn't eat them. Yet.)

I would have (and now will) made more of an effort to drive a frigging hour (seriously -- it's not that far for Christ's sake) to hang out with someone who literally makes me laugh til I puke a little with some of the most insane, offensive, hilarious text messages I've ever seen.

I would have (and now will) try to spend more time with The Admiral. I mean, how can I seriously hope to fight the oncoming Cylon war without him? He's obviously the brains of the operation, and I'll fly into any battle he tells me to.

Also -- Bingo. Bingo-Dude, we need to Bingo again soon. (That is not a euphemism. I'm just un-cool enough to get excited about Bingo.)

I've been lucky to have some incredibly amazing friends. From those two blonde ones in the suburbs with the hilarious kids to my hetero-lifemate and her wonderful husband headed out to the west coast, I've won some sort of friend lottery. I just wish I'd realized sooner that there were other people I was thinking about who were thinking about me, too.

But I know that now. I know now that they give a shit, and when it comes to friends, it doesn't matter how many you have -- it only matters how hard you give a shit. And I give a shit THE HARDEST.

~~~~~

I'm Going to Puke on Kristi's Shoes

Sometimes there are stories in the news about ridiculously old people who have been married for, like, 40 decades or whatever. And everyone is all "Oh my god! That's so awesome! Those geezers are so lucky!!!!!"

I have literally never thought anything even remotely like that. I don't wish them any ill will, I just don't have the frame of reference to properly appreciate decades and decades of Geezer-Love. I assume that since they've been together since before spoken language was a thing, then they clearly must love each other. Or they're both just too lazy to kill each other or split up all their shit and go live somewhere else. So they can have their party and let their kids put pointy hats on their heads and blow those paper spit sacks that make a noise that sounds a really wet fart on a leather couch and live happily ever after. Yay for everyone.

When I picture my future, I don't see me sitting on a bench with my old fart of a husband, feeding my dentures to ducks in the park. (That's what old people do, right? Feed teeth to ducks? Because they're senile? And they can take their teeth out? And they like ducks? I don't know much about old people.)

I picture me sitting on a bench with my old fart of a best friend, whipping our dentures at the ducks' heads and saying that technically, we are biting the ducks. And calling the ducks assholes. And laughing because 'duck' rhymes with 'fuck.' And then teaching the word 'fuck' to little kids and telling them to say it around their parents A LOT.

I guess I might not get to do that. But I also might. Who knows? Maybe someday we'll live in the same place again. Soon we won't, though. And I'm not sure what I'm suppose to say about that.

Actually, I know exactly what I want to say, but I can't say it using words when she can see me, because I don't want that thing to happen when water comes out of my eye-holes. I don't care for that. Also -- and I cannot stress this enough, even if I used some sort of super-bold font that would cause permanent damage to your vision -- I really really REALLY don't ever want to make her feel bad.

I want her to have fun in her new home. I want her to meet new people and do new things and see new stuff and just have a really awesome, fantastic time. Climb mountains and smoke weed for breakfast and get rained on all the time or whatever it is people do in B.C. (I know as much about B.C. as I do about the duck-feeding habits of old people, apparently.)

I never want her to think I don't want her to have a good time, and that I'm not happy that she gets to do this exciting, new thing.

And that's why I can't tell her how sad I am that she's leaving. That I'm not sure what I'll do when she's gone. There won't be anyone here anymore who will take me to Costco so I can get Snappeas or who will sit on a couch with me for six hours playing video games or who will come to my house in the middle of the night to check on me like she did that time my useless tit of an ex-boyfriend left.

We're not going to be able to drive to Ogdensburg to buy the junk food that Americans get but we don't. (THANKS, Obama.) No more trips to Wild Wings to try to burn our faces off with chicken arms doused in gasoline and petrified hot pepper dust. We're never going to walk back to her place from Comiccon again.

So how do I tell her that I don't want her to go, but that I also want her to go because it's going to be amazing for her? How do I tell her that I'm so happy that she gets to see new things and do new stuff, but that the thought of her not being a short drive away sucks more than the suckiest thing that ever sucked?

The obvious answer is to give her an awesome present as she's leaving, then cry so hard I puke on her shoes.

I think she'd like that.

SMDC.

What The Comedian Has Learned About Being Unemployed

Sleeping in stops being great after about a week. 
After a few years getting up at WHAT THE FUCK TIME IS THIS EVEN??????, I thought a silver lining from losing my job would be finally getting to sleep in. And it was amazing. For roughly a week. Now, if I sleep past eight o'clock, I feel like a disgusting pigperson coated in slime. My hair looks like someone put a cherry bomb in a bird's nest, and the inside of my mouth tastes like the outside of a turd. And probably also the inside of a turd. I can't imagine the taste of a turd changes much from one layer to the next.


TV is 95% crap
So. Much. Crap. I swear to god, there was more on TV when I was a kid and we had three channels and none of them would come in at the same time, so if we wanted to watch something else, we had to go outside and turn a giant frigging antenna that was on a two-storey-high post driven into the ground beside the house. BY HAND. And if it froze in the winter, you had to hit it with a hammer. WHEN I WAS A CHILD, CHANGING THE CHANNEL ON THE TV SOMETIMES INVOLVED A HAMMER. And yet, there was more on TV then than there is now.


Laundry is a pretty easy thing to forget
Now that I don't have to get dressed and leave my house every day, I have much less laundry to do. You'd think this would be a good thing. Wrong, shithead. Turns out that hardly ever having to do laundry has more or less deleted that particular chore from my brain. I have un-learned that doing laundry is a thing. Mostly I had been wearing pyjamas, and then forgot to wash all those pyjamas, so right now I mainly wear towels. I have lots of towels, so this should work for a few more weeks. Then I guess I'll have to start making sure the blinds are always closed.


College is stupid
Let me clarify: getting an education is not stupid. Getting an education that basically limits you to one job is kind of stupid. Getting an education that basically limits you to one job that is on the verge of going extinct is the educational equivalent of putting something that's on fire in your eyeholes: you shouldn't. You shouldn't do that.


Being good at something doesn't mean shit
So, you're pretty good at burping the alphabet? Awesome! You should do that for a living!

Uh-oh -- someone just bought the alphabet. But they're a big company, so they probably have lots of money backing them, and they can make the alphabet even BIGGER and BETTER! And they've been working in alphabet-related stuff for a while, so they must know what they're doing. You're going to burp the alphabet for a long time and will be ever so successful!

Doublefuck -- an even BIGGER company just bought the alphabet. But don't worry -- you'll be fine. I mean, yeah.....they didn't really own many alphabets before, but surely they made the buy because they appreciate what alphabets can do. And they will definitely appreciate your talent at alphabet-burping. Because you're good at it. Everyone tells you so. And being good at something matters.

It really doesn't.


You think you know how angry you are capable of getting. You are wrong.
It has been brought to my attention in the past that my ability to express the range of human emotions is as follows:

Level One: "Everything's fine, nothing to get excited about, it's all good."

Level Two: "I HATE EVERYTHING EVEN PURPLE BABY MINIATURE UNICORNS AND CHOCOLATE."

Turns out there is a third level. I call that level IUHIEUXFH&^$%)(&YJW(*RKIWH.

IUHIEUXFH&^$%)(&YJW(*RKIWH happens when words completely go away. It's exactly like when you're mad and stomping around and making random noises, but with 87% more rage, and the complete loss of any ability to think in words. IUHIEUXFH&^$%)(&YJW(*RKIWH can last for up to three days, and can make you kick stuff that you have to really go out of your way to kick. Things that are nowhere near foot-level. During one bout of IUHIEUXFH&^$%)(&YJW(*RKIWH, I kicked a plant. I had to take it down off a shelf and put it on the floor to do it, but I kicked that fucking plant. I kicked it right in the head. AND NOW THAT PLANT KNOWS WHO IS THE BOSS.

Over the last couple of months, bouts of IUHIEUXFH&^$%)(&YJW(*RKIWH have been brought on by the following, in no particular order:

- my dog staring at me
- some snow that got inside my shoe
- a mascara commercial
- the existence of that Australian country singer Nicole Kidman is married to
- not enough water being in my coffee maker
- my list of People Who Need to be Punched, with absolutely none of the names crossed off yet
- ants

Most of the time I am relatively un-mad. I've managed to stay closer to the "Everything's fine, nothing to get excited about, it's all good" state of being since losing my job, with the occasional trip to "I HATE EVERYTHING EVEN PURPLE BABY MINIATURE UNICORNS AND CHOCOLATE" territory. But every once in a while, I get struck with a good dose of IUHIEUXFH&^$%)(&YJW(*RKIWH. And apparently then I have to kick the shit out of a plant.


Some people are very awesome. Other people are the human equivalent of that time you stepped in shit and couldn't get all the shit out of the tread of your shoe even if you dug at it with a stick and blasted it with a power-washer.
Then you're always stuck with a bit of shit-smell whenever you wear those shoes in your car and turn the heat on near your feet. But then you drive to see one of the awesome people, and you forget about the shit smell for a while.

Then you get a better job, and buy some new shoes.


~~~