How Did You Meet Your Wife?
Topic: WC - Daily Practice
Thursday 22Mar07 8:47pm

I went out tonight with the gooseman for a couple Corona's and coconut shrimp. I figure if I say what kind of beer I drank I'll sound less like an alkie since I've gone out three nights in a row. Tuesday was Lolo taking me out to cheer me up, which she did. Last night was the almost weekly beer and a hug. And tonight was because the guys have suspected my pissed ness when they couldn't take me out for my birthday for drinks on the Wednesday before my birthday and have since gone out two Wednesday nights in a row. Yeah, I voiced my comments about being less important than an outing to the strip joint. But as usual, I digress.

Not really having much to say I asked the gooseman how long he and his wife knew each other before they started dating. He told me that he was in Saudi Arabia working and she was living in Canada. She was single and living with her sister whose husband also happened to be working in Saudi Arabia with the gooseman. In conversation he told the gooseman about this very picky single woman and set things up whereby the gooseman and her started exchanging letters. When ever any one was flying to the Philippines the gooseman would talk to her with music playing in the background on a cassette tape and send the tape to the Philippines where someone else would mail it to Canada from there.

They met a year later when they coordinated meeting face to face at the airport in Manila. They spent time together, his family met her family and brought a sweet treat as a token for the sweetness their union would become. They got married and he went back to Saudi Arabia and she went back to Canada. They continued their letters and the periodic cassette tapes. It was another two years between him finishing his work in Saudi Arabia and going back to the Philippines to wait until she was able to sponsor him in Canada. They knew each other through letters and tapes for three years before they lived like a married couple.

They've been married for 24 years. Well that's certainly a way to get together.

EY

Blank Slate and all
Topic: WC - Daily Practice
Thursday 22Mar07 6:56pm

So in keeping with Lolo going to Korea for at least a year on her working vacation I've been thinking about the thrill of going to a new country with a blank slate. Being able to arrive somewhere and re-invent yourself. She can be a woman of mystery and not discuss her origins. She can be an English intellectual smarter than her years. She could be a Rhodes Scholar (are there any women Rhodes scholars?). Or she could simply be a hot mama with sass all Josephine Baker like exuding a comfortable sexuality turning the Korean society upside down. In a Pisces girlfish's imagination you can be whoever you want. That was Matt Damon in the Talented Mr Ripley. He takes on someone else's life and becomes for the minute a rich witty guy instead of the geeky shy guy he started off as being.

And as always my focus is on doing something out of character. Jojay updated me this morning on his dog Murphy as he does every single morning. I looked at his face and something in his face hit me and I announced before it happened, "I'm getting emotional," then covered my face in my hands as the tears came pouring through. I apologized profusely for getting so emotional when that is the last thing he needed given everything he's been going through for the last three weeks. I complained later that I've become such a girl. What happened to the person I was that could keep a stiff upper lip and could control her emotions or at the very least save her tears until she got into the sanctuary and privacy of her own home? Working with all men too, you just can't be a cry baby... tell my uncontrollable tears that someone please.

I don't know what's wrong with me!

What does get a character to act out of character? Most probably it's stress related (good stress is as stressful as bad stress), it could be unacknowledged emotions, some sort of confusion. With a woman, it could usually be linked back to a man (God love em)... someone said to me today that men tend to be slower in the making the decision about women department than women are in the making the decision about men department. Is it really only that? Although it is big when you are a confessed unserious person and you see someone that you actually feel inclined to get to know and see about traversing the serious path with.

Which brings me to the first kiss which is also on my mind. So many shows I catch where the characters are about to experience that first kiss as the characters pause just before their lips make contact. Is it nervousness that causes the pause or is it a preparation or gauging that their lips actually meet? Has anyone ever had that first kiss where the man's lips are more on your nose and less on your lips? Yeah! That's delightful. And just damn humiliating.

Yeah, first kisses, you can never re do the first kiss like a first impression or your first sexual experience. Kali, my character must have a chance to re-invent herself, do something majorly out of character and experience the first kiss with the important one.

Dreamt last night that Picasso who has been fixed for over a dozen years gave birth to two kittens that looked like Zelda but with Picasso's colors. What the heck does that mean?

Okay dear readers, no more discussions about my tears okay? OKAY!

EY

Mish Mash #19
Topic: WC - Daily Practice
Wednesday 5:04am 21Mar07

Got my lazy bum up and out of bed. Could have stayed in just a little longer since I couldn't get to sleep last night laughing from Lolo's comment that a friend of hers made, "What are we going to do Yabba dabba do all the way there?" You had to be there.

Turns out the bar was lucky for Lolo too. She took me for a beer and somehow managed to only have to pay 12 bucks for four beer and a couple shooters. It changed the energy of the week for me considering I started it in tears. Of course there was the hug surprise which is always good but a little bit sweeter when it's unexpected. Wednesday's are my favorite days but Tuesday's are sliding in as a cool second.

I have to keep picking up my glass of water to keep cat chins out of it. What is it about cats that insist that the only water they want is the water in my glass?

And what happened to Flow 93.5? All of a sudden it's become listenable. I loved it when it first started and it was commercial free and DJ free, that first two week period before it became the radio station. Then when the DJ's were all positioned it seemed like they were always playing rap that had so much swearing in it that they'd have to bleep out which was much annoying. Why play music that you can't really play? The variety was nonexistent, I felt and the mixes just got on my nerves. I gave it up for years. I refused to listen to it. But lately with my stereo refusing to get a clear signal for CHFI I was forced to flip around to find a morning station. FLOW hasn't been annoying. I'm kinda liking that Fergie song glamorous. I love Luda on it.

And they are throwing in some oldies that make me grin...
"How did you know, cuz I never told, you found out, I've got a crush on you."
How appropriate.

Dare I mention? Lolo will be leaving me 15Apr07! She is off on her next adventure this time to Korea to teach English. She has become my chosen running partner because everyone needs a good running partner, as my Aunt Faith told me a few years ago in Montreal when I was home sitting waiting for either one of my male best friends to get off work.

"Shelley, you need a good girl friend that you can run with and get in to trouble with and keep each other out of trouble..."
Lolo has been that running partner for the past year. Any one who knows me knows that I never take on new people that quickly. I can be one of the hardest people to get to know. But somehow Lolo's grinny self melted my normal reserve. She keeps saying that someone will appear just in the nick of time to fill the empty chasm she'll be leaving me with but we'll believe that when we see it... (we = me, myself and I). I'm just saying. I don't know how I'm going to deal with missing you!

At work yesterday I attended a surprise wedding shower for an old co worker. She told me that one of her wedding showers, the one that her husband to be's family threw for her, she was standing there holding the big basket bouquet that they gave her and was struck with, "Oh my God! I'm getting married!" Then she burst into tears. She had to go sit in a corner with her mother while she soundly had a nervous breakdown. ha ha!
She says, "There I am sitting in a corner with my mother while all these people are looking over at me and smiling and they're not even my family."

How absolutely cute! Nat'lie gets married this Saturday and my words of wisdom, remember to eat. She says that keeps running through her head because I am the only person to tell her that. Yeah cuz almost every woman I know that got married talks about how they had that sick hunger happening through the whole experience and all the women that I've mentioned those words of wisdom to have remarked that it was the best advice they could possibly be given. You need sustenance to make it through the day. Woman cannot live on love alone although we'd like to try.

So I end my mish mash entry with a request that everyone take a moment to wish Nat'lie taking the plunge a wunderbar day. You don't have to know her, the energy Gods know where to send the energy if you send it. Sweet little Nat'lie who calls me Do-Ming-Gu!

Oh and I say hello to the Boobsy Twins! I've decided to go with Boobsy instead of Bobsy. One of them asked me last night, "Are you still blogging about us?"
"Oh yes but I've changed the names to protect the innocent."
Of course I don't think I've ever met the innocent...

EY

Show Boat and the media circus
Topic: WC - Daily Practice
Tuesday 7:27pm 20March07

Apparently Spring begins around 8pm today. Yippee! Spring fever begins! Like I haven't been suffering from spring fever already.

Got to talking with my co worker today about being in the media eye and the negativity that can be written with no regard to the human being that its written about. I told the story of my Showboat days. When I was in my 2nd year in my child and youth work program at George Brown College I was working at the Showboat box office full time because it was a good gig to have while I was in school. I could get all my homework done at work and was still getting paid.

The theatre that was still being built was to show Showboat as the opening show in the mainstage theatre. It had been announced several months ahead of time. Out of the blue, it seemed a school board trustee decided to protest the show. It started off slow and built steam when more protesters from the black community joined the band wagon saying that they didn't want the show to be performed. They started protesting outside the box office that I worked in.

I minded my own black business and stayed in the box office neither ogling nor spying on the protesters. It was an opinion and I didn't want to be a part of it. One Saturday one of the protesters wrote racist on one of the building signs and management decided to put up video cams to video tape the protesters in future. Like clock work the following weekend one of the protesters came to the front door and peered in and of course saw me behind the box office desk. He walked back down the ramp to the school board trustee and whispered in her ear and she got up and walked into the box office. My boss came running into the front desk area and stood behind me prepared for whatever was going to happen.

The school board trustee walks up to my window leans forward and says, "I can't believe you need money this bad to work for these people."
I look back at my boss and say, "Can I say anything?"
He says, "No"
And I say, "Okay". And turn back around and smile at the School Board Trustee.

She leaves with her entourage and my boss tells me how proud he is of me that I didn't say anything knowing my personality and how I have to speak up at all times. I'm a little pissed because I wanted to say something. Nothing nasty just that she should be happy that I did indeed have a job instead of being that bad stereotype of black woman that lives on welfare.

Once all quiets down and everyone else is gone, I sit in the box office and write a letter to the School board trustee. I expressed that I was just a girl working a job that gave me the opportunity to go back to school. I told her that she should be ashamed of herself for protesting a show when instead, as a school board trustee, she could be guiding the producers into creating a great black history program to coincide with the show. Since the company, Livent had educational programs for the other shows that they produced such as The Phantom of the Opera. It was a fairly lengthy letter that I wrote to burn off steam because that's what I do, I write to burn off steam.

When I reread the letter I read it to my co worker to ask her what she thought of it. She said it was damn good. Because I'd signed a confidentiality agreement when I started working for Livent I faxed a copy to Garth Drabinsky asking his permission to send it to the Toronto Star as a letter to the editor. I didn't want to be totally silent about this slight. Garth was out of town when I sent the fax and by the time he got back I was out of town camping as part of a practicum for my Child and Youth Work program. I went camping with aggressive behaviour children. It was a trip and a half but worth the hours that would be subtracted from my practicum.

When I got back to town, I had about 30 messages on my answering machine saying call me, get the paper, where are you, etc.

While I was away there was another school board meeting and the executives from Livent were to be in attendance. They had called me to ask me to first read the letter at the meeting and finally if they could read the letter at the meeting. They got the female vice president to read it figuring that since I'd addressed it to the school board trustee that I wouldn't mind if it was read at a meeting that she would be at. The female vice president read it and when the school board trustee was asked by the media whether she'd been in and harassed a black employee she said, "I'd never step into that wooden boat." The box office was a makeshift boat.

Of course there was video footage saying otherwise and that tape was retrieved and sent off to the media.

Then the media circus started. I was interviewed by The Toronto Star, City TV news, CFRB radio and Eye Magazine. The guy that interviewed me from the star asked me dumb questions like what is Garth's next move? Buddy, I'm a ticket seller, Garth isn't telling me what his plans are, just so you know. Lance Chilton from City TV news was the kindest and really listened to what I said, that I was a simple person that liked to write but was going back to school because I'd promised myself that I would work with kids to give back. Andy Barry with CFRB was very interested in me as a writer and asked me if I'd give him a call when I had some writing because he'd love to hear about it. And buddy from Eye magazine didn't believe that I wrote the letter. He believed that I was a pawn strategically placed in the box office to kill the black queen.

The Toronto Sun had a big piece about me, as if someone had interviewed me when they hadn't and they spelled my name wrong. The black weeklies tore strips upon strips out of me. They called me an Uncle Tom Nigger that became the house nigger skinning and grinning with whitey. Happy to be accepted by the massa's. In one editorial they called me an uneducated ignorant nigger happy to be the little puppet sitting on the white man's lap. That I was too happy to take credit for writing a letter that I so clearly couldn't have written. In another editorial they berated me for calling myself a girl and not a woman, when my implication of calling myself a girl was a comment on how the school board trustee had treated me.

It was a wild ride reading the letters that were for or against me based on the media coverage they read. It was surprising that some media outlets could write pieces as if they'd interviewed me. It was shocking that some interviewers had already picked a side and didn't want to listen to me no matter what I said. It was hard to see that in my own community, I wasn't allowed to have my own opinion on a subject and that they couldn't be bothered to notice that some of my ideas were actually valid. For my 15 minutes of fame, I was recognized on the street when I was out with my friend Dillon which he got much amusement from. People, black people came to visit me at the box office telling me to keep a stiff upper lip and that they were proud of me.

It's been more than ten years and I figure it's about time I comment a on it for better or for worse. I wonder how much worse it is to be in the media today, if you're a celebrity or if you're going through a hard time or if you have a flash fire of attention on you for that fifteen minutes. Something to think about...

Oh and because it always pops up whenever I google my name, here is the Eye Weekly article from that guy who made up his mind before he walked into the Livent offices... Twirling the Show Boat Spin Doctor

By the way, Showboat was one of my favorite shows that Livent ever produced. I got to befriend so many beautiful talented black performers and got to know Lonette Mckee and Mic Bell on a first name basis. I would run through the halls of the building to sneak into the house to catch the montage every night that I worked. I met Quincy Jones on opening night and got a kiss from him and had a quick conversation butting in front of the line up of cast waiting to meet him. Oh and I was recognized from the executives when ever they came in the building and always treated with respect. That's all anyone can ever ask at any job, joe job or otherwise.

EY

The floodgates have opened
Topic: WC - Daily Practice
Monday 1:16pm 19March07

I couldn't bring myself to go to work today. I haven't stopped crying for very long. I want to avoid discussing these feelings because they are the hard ones, the pained ones. A writer is supposed to delve into the hard things too but let's face it, it's easier to delve when you're far removed from the pain.

I'm bombarded by my thoughts. I wonder what my life would be like if my mom was still around which of course is moot. I wonder if/when I'll meet someone that I'll want to commit to. I feel ready to find someone for the first real time in my life. I've done the alone time and value it but I feel ready to share my life, myself, my affection.

I think about Fredo's hugs and I start to cry. I think about a woman I used to work with who I started to hug regularly because she said she missed the human contact, being a single woman herself. She said, "I feel so needy for the affection." And I guess that's it too. A needyness. A need to love and touch and share and feel and work through the hardships with someone else.

I feel like I've done nothing spectacular to make my mother proud to have given birth to me. That never helps the emotions of course.

It's weird, this past weekend. I went to the Sufi Mysticism meeting and participated in a zhikr which is a form of praying. I found that I had a headache at the front of my head by the end of it. I found it powerful and emotional, it made me laugh and yet I never felt self-conscious. I gave myself to this form of prayer. The only thing I was hesitant with at first was saying Allah. Not because I don't believe in God but I had to get around all the negative connotations that North Americans are fed through the media about Muslims. Saying there is no God but one God and calling the source Allah takes some getting used to. But it was different people...black, white, asian, indian, jews etc. That made me visualize that when calling Allah we were calling God, whatever that means to us as individuals.

My crying last night brought me an identical headache at the front of my head. I'm crying for my mom and for my life and I have that headache. I'm at a prayer meeting and I have that headache. There is some kind of connection.

I think about Fredo's hugs and I start to cry because I realize that I can never really remember the contact. I remember bits and pieces but where were his hands or what did he say? Then I realize that it's because I always hold back. I don't want to scare anyone away with my intensity and because of it I'm not being myself. I ask myself what holds me back. What is the worst thing that can happen by being my true self. How can I open myself up in a way that is true to me?

My only answers to any of this is to once again call God's name. Give myself up to God and ask for help. I don't want to be doing all this crying but maybe it's the only way to release the strategies I built to use in order to survive. There are those techniques we take on when we come from an environment of pain and violence. They help us to survive those times but we keep using them when we're no longer in those environments. Holding back and not being my true self served me well back in those days. Building a hard shell cocoon for my emotions was smart then. It's just not working for me anymore.

And so maybe now I'm melting the hard cocoon with my tears. Who really knows anything about life and why we're here and why we feel what we feel. I need to give it meaning and I need to save it for my writing.

EY