april 23, 2000.

"Take off that dress. I'm coming down."

- nick cave

Many years ago, I caught about 30 seconds of a soap opera. In that half minute, an elaborately made-up heroine told an equally elaborate hero how happy she was. "You've shown me the perfect day." Even a that age, I was suspicious. How could somebody have a perfect day? Would that mean no anger, no disappointment, no boredom? Or would it mean so much fun that you were completely consumed in the day?

I'm still not sure, but I think that if perfect days exist outside scriptwriters' imaginations, yesterday would've qualified.

First off, I saw the JTHM mural. Beautiful, beautiful work. I have no idea how long the city will permit a painting of bloody weapons, a nailed-up rabbit and a ghoulishly repainted Pillsbury Doughboy with the word FUCK across his chest. But while it lasts, it's all black & white & purple & red & gorgeous. As the day wore on, I found myself returning to the idea of Nny both in conversation and in physical re-visitation of the Wall. It was the homicidal & epistemological lynchpin of my day, I guess.

"This is just another room in the world. That wall over there, though...that's something else."
- conversation with tess

Fortunately, the Wall was just across from my next destination, the Tequila Bookworm. I met Cranly at noon. And we had a good 6 hours together. But of course, it wasn't that simple; we were there to discuss the 2 year silence and to pick at scabs that are best irritated in a good café, after waffles. So now I know. The reason he stopped talking to me then was very simple, once explained. See, Cranly was always a big fan of my diary efforts. He loved being quietly magnificent. He adored reading a tolerably well-written piece about an event he'd attended, like the time Fly & Casey got into a fight outside Ein.stein's. What he didn't like was being the bad guy, being the person who upset me.

And it was hard for him to deal with. He was in possession of knowledge that I hadn't given him in a direct fashion: he'd read of my displeasure but never heard it from me. What made it worse was that I had spent the whole year listening to friends and former loves give me shit for having expressed negative feelings, and I had developed a code of ethics around the writing of my diary. Which was this: You have a problem, well I'm not talking to you. Fuck you if you can't take a joke. He had no reason to expect any different treatment, except for one crucial thing.

Which is, these people didn't care about me being upset, they just wanted to bully me into shutting up. Wanting things to be right is a completely different thing altogether, and I think that we could've worked through the problem. Hell, I have to have the conversation with everybody at some time. Dirk objects to a slight bias that puts him in an inaccurately unflattering light. The Boy reads about one of our fights and sees himself doing things just a little bit different than he remembers. That's the kind of thing I just can't help. What we can do is make it right later.

Anyway, I reacted very well to the whole thing. Cranly told me about his feelings; I guessed about the indirect influence of Alexi. Everything was very reasonable and calm...until I suddenly started shouting. I only have so many social graces, you know. But I was only mad for 30 seconds, and I never actually overturned the table.

The next 5 hours were a lot of fun. I found myself in the unusual position of having an afternoon to spend with a friend that didn't know about all the cool places on Queen Street, so we explored. Cranly had a taste for junk shops, which led us into a couple of places that were new to me as well. In particular, we went to Odds & Ends, a store that is more or less a hallway filled with junk. For all I know, it could be an art installation...it's certainly not the most functional of businesses. I found myself compelled by the sheer volume of things in the tiny space, by the colours and textures and shapes of the "merchandise," by the insane pressure of living in a three dimensional space full of solid things. It was an ecstasy of materialism - not the kind of materialism that insists on kitchen supplies by Crate & Barrel, but the conviction that everything that can be touched and seen and held is of equal fascination and worth. It's like a crazy kind of Puritanism; instead of stripping away life to the essentials, everything is raised to essential status. Fortunately, it's not the kind of ecstasy that leads to purchase, so my bank balance is relatively intact. I did buy 200 envelopes, but they're for the wedding. Oh, and I bought Cranly a coffee. Hardly an example of Dionysian excess.

The best thing was simply being free to spend a lot of time in good conversation, wandering around a city that I love. The more time I spend in similar rambles, the easier it will be to leave. Maybe.

At 5 I met up with Dav & Stacy for decadent dessert at Kalendar. Cranly stayed for awhile, and I was happy how well we all talked together. It was kind of funny: all day I'd been mentioning Dav to Cranly, and every time I did, he'd add the coda "I hate that guy." This was, of course, my fault: last fall I had grown rather frustrated with Dirk, because every time I said something about Dav, he'd assume that I meant Cranly (they have the same real first name). Horrifyingly enough, I've recently discovered that Dirk actually made a few mistaken conversational gambits to Cranly about stuff I'd done with Dav. So when I finally introduced Dirk & Dav, I'd stressed that he wasn't Cranly...and Dav, being the King of the Brats, had immediately claimed the identity of Cranly for his own. Cranly, of course, can't let anyone else poach on his identity, so every time I'd mention Dav, I'd pause so that Cranly could mutter "I hate that guy."

This, we determined, is merely a facet of a larger behavior known as Stupid Bluster or SB. Most of my friends in university indulge in SB, although Paris is particularly good at it. What it describes is the tendency to take one small thing and magnify it for our own amusement. If we eat one bad meal, we hate the restaurant, the music that was playing, and occasionally the people we were eating with. Run Lola Run is a perfect example of my tendency towards SB: I had a bad experience the night I was to see it, so I'll always yell about my beef with Lola. And the thing with Cranly and Dav was very obviously SB: Cranly seemed to have a good time talking to Dav, yet he may still proclaim his "hatred" at every opportunity. That's Stupid Bluster for you.

But dramatics aside, the social transition was very seamless. Dav & Stacy & I spoke mostly of comics: Dav has been writing some amazing scripts lately and we're all giddy with the idea that one of our own may be on the cusp of comic stardom. It would have to be Dav, of course, and Dav's too brilliant to be mad at. I've pretty much resigned myself to a life of amateur writing at this point, but something still twinges when I rub up against the crazy creativity of my friends. Luckily, I keep myself amused with ideas about modern art installations. I've got this idea about goldfish and gumball machines that Dav is convinced would get me written up in both of Toronto's culture rags. It was at that point that I realized that I actually wanted to be written up in Eye and Now. Shameful.

"Uh...I don't feel so good." - right after the bag of candy

So after about 3 hours of food and comics and goofy chatter, Dav left to work and I followed Stacy home to rest. I love being in the Loft, but it has a significant sophoric effect on me: after an hour of Scott's hilarious Taco Hell teenager stories I was just about ready to go home to bed. But we rallied, tarted up & went to the place that we go when we can't figure out where to go. It was a very busy night at the Inevitable Savage Garden: Kerry & Disco Stu & Jen & Phil were there, along with Dav & Dirk & Stacy & a guy from the Aftermath city that (to my shame) I only knew as Mr. Caitiff. I managed to amuse the group by posing the eternal philosophical question:

What would be more fun: a can of women, a drunken greased monkey or a pig that could do magic tricks?

(Before you hit that email link, let me run down the established answers to the most common objections: 1. The women are of no fixed height, it's whatever size works for you visually. My standard answer is "small women, big can." 2. Not greasy, greased. 3. The pig is physically similar to normal pigs: hoofs, height, etc. Stage patter consists of grunting and we figure he does most things with his mouth. Think David Copperfield meets Babe.)

When I wasn't listening to Disco working out the thinking of the monkey, I was dancing up a fine lather. God, I felt so good on that dance floor: sexy & strong & happy, like there was no rhythm that I couldn't handle. Maybe it was because I was wearing the Boy's clubbing pants. As I said to everyone who asked about him, "he's off watching the hockey game, but he's here in spirit: these are his pants." In any case, the music went deep, my grin was un-faked, and the end of the night came too soon. Well, I admit that I was on the point of collapse: I'd done a lot of walking and dancing and laughing that day and on less sleep than usual. But be that as it may, I felt the rhythm all the way to this morning. We went to church on 5 hours of sleep and I couldn't get Rammstein out of my head until the Call to Worship.

"Nein!"

Today, of course, I'm exhausted. I don't care; I'd sign up for complete collapse if it meant more days like yesterday.

"B told me that the only reason she writes me is so that she'll appear in your diary more often."
"That's so sweet."

I was honestly touched, but Dav took it as sarcastic sympathy. That's me: the ultimate dispenser of multi-meaning phrases. Everybody wins when I open my mouth. No, wait, that's somebody else. Never mind.