Neurotic Ramblings

We just had another neighborhood earthquake meeting. I am always poised between hysteria and neurosis when I start thinking about "the big one." Whenever I go somewhere new, I think about what it would be like to be in that spot when there is an earthquake. Like, what happens if I am in the basement of the Waldorf Hotel eating baba ganouj beneath bamboo and concrete and there is a quake? Tonight my neighbors were talking about how safe we'll be because we're on bedrock up here on "Mount Pleasant." Yeh, but what if you're not here, what if you're in the basement of the high-rise building downtown getting a crown on a tooth? What if that building is like 17 or more storeys high? What if you're in the lower level of a sky train tunnel in between stations? What if the ground just opens and swallows you up? See, this is why I hate thrillers.

I hate being without my family at those moments when I feel vulnerable because being separated from them in an earthquake is a horror I can't bear to think about. But one of the big themes at our meeting tonight is how we have to commit to take care of one another. I think learning to care for our neighbors is a really good goal--just on a daily basis. There is a man in our neighborhood who is blind and today I watched him carry a bucket around his yard. I think he was feeling the leaves of his plants to see how dry they were. I would love to meet him. My immediate response was to head over there and help him, but it would have been an insult really, as he is so self-contained and independent. Still, I would like to meet him, selfishly mostly for what he could teach me.

I am thinking about Terry Fox's mom today. She was an amazing woman. She knew how to care for people.

I have a bad taste in my mouth today after hearing people on the radio feeling sorry for the disenchanted young men who rioted downtown last week. Certainly, I don't think they should be lynched by social media, but feel sorry for them? "Young men just don't feel valued by society," one phone-in caller says. Uh what about all the young women, especially those who don't lash out at property and authority, but instead harm themselves. Give me a f-ing break. And what about the weird fetishizing of the hoarding that people have written messages on? What kind of vomit-tinted nostalgia fuels the impulse to save that graffiti in its hard copy form for posterity? Take a photo. Duh. All this typical Vancouver glossing over and airbrushing its image makes me tired and frustrated. Typical navel gazing waste of time. Let's move on and hear some real news now, like about people with real problems.

So M wanted to know what I performed in the cabaret. I don't know. The problem is cabaret doesn't read well off the page. I am thinking of doing some U-Tube adaptations of some pieces this summer, so stay tuned for that.

I have been doing hours of sewing and I really want to take this moment to thank my little old Singer machine for going the distance with me on this one. I may buy her chocolates--and eat them because she can't. The good thing about sewing is that I have been able to listen to hours of CBC radio in between chugging down seams. I have heard some great interviews. The one that stands out the most for me is Michael Enright's interview with and Australian novelist named Geraldine Brooks who was absolutely hilarious. She had me the first time she giggled. His interview with Amira Hass was also pure gold. Today Shelagh Rogers talked to another very funny author--Ann Patchett. Her adventures in the Amazon were well told. She is another writer who does well with an audience.

So I am almost ready to hang my piece, perform my persona on Sunday, but I do need to put on the finishing touches. It's not as well-rounded a piece as I'd hoped to create, but the extra layers will have to be added if I perform/install in another time. Sometimes you just have to call it a day. I will be fighting to use whatever creative energy I have left between now and then to tease/tear more depth out of it.