Day 270
My day started at noon. Until three p.m. I ate processed cheese slices and watched Father of the Bride while cleaning out my desk drawer. This is the type of thing that writers do to avoid writing. I don't even like Father of the Bride. The thing is though, I was filling away all the copies of my own stories that I had written over the course of last semester. So really I was my own plot device. Each copy reminded me that I am capable of producing work, albeit, mostly shitty work, but work nonetheless. The best part though is when I pulled out papers that my high school kids had written during the free write time we give them--the time when we say, "Write! Go!" I read the beginning of a kick ass story that one of my kids had written and thought to myself, it is as easy as that, "Write! Go!" And then I thought, "Shit, he's like 10 years younger than me and kicking my ass on the page."
So I took a walk to get away from Steve Martin (I've always hated that guy) and think about my show. I noticed that I had a missed call from my dad, which is peculiar. I honestly had no idea he even knew how to operate his cellphone. I called him back and my mother answered, pretending to be my father. They love this game. And I love playing along, saying things that they will think are funny just so they can say them to each other and laugh. After a few minutes of this my mother and I were talking over each other, competing for hilarity and relaying the stories of our days when she played her routine. My mother is a woman of many comedy routines. She has two favorites:
1. The one where she pretends to be a telemarketer trying to sell National Geographic magazines from the 1960s. This routine can be quite hilarious as she will usually say that if you purchase a hundred copies she will send you potato salad. This routine can also be quite tedious as some days are not as funny as others and those routines carry on for upwards of 10 minutes.
2. The other routine she has (the one she pulled today) is that if you talk at the same time while on the phone with her she will purposely talk when you start talking again and again. Then she will start yelling, "Shut up!" every time you say anything or breathe. This can also be quite hilarious or annoying, but today it was hilarious. Today she finally got me to shut up and all she had to say was, "I hate you." Which in translation means I love you. I was so inspired by her fiery-ness that after I hung up I immediately had an idea for my thesis and sat down in front of some forgotten Science Building on wet cement steps and started writing. All I have to say is, "Thank you, Mom. I hate you, too."
Since I was pretty much in my room all day going to dinner was an adventure. Though, I must say living in a rez dinner usually turns out to be an adventure, just most days you are not in the mood for it. The adventure today came in two parts:
1. On the way into dinner I saw a black spot on the wall next to the dining hall. Being habitually curious I went up to it. Turns out it was a bat. The guy I was walking into dinner with had a look at it too. Then another guy at my rez came out to see what we were looking at. There was something to this second guy looking at the bat but I didn't quite know what it was. It wasn't until after I had dinner that I realized I just looked at a bat with the only guy I have ever given a rubber bat to as a present. Weird.
2. At dinner they served lima beans. Before I even realized what I was doing I started to ask people around me if I could have their lima beans. The only person who obliged was the big American guy next to me whose response was, "You can have them all." I made a joke to him about how you can always tell the fat girl in the room because she is eating off of other peoples plates. After I gobbled up a mitful of carrots, and speared 12 pieces of radish into my mouth, and ate all of his green beans, peas, and lima beans I realized that this is not the case of the fat girl, this is the case of the vegetable junkie. The good news is, is that vegetables are a cheap and widely available drug and I won't have to become a whore. The bad news is, if I keep eating carrots at this rate I will turn into an Oompa Loompa that is if eating lima beans turns your hair green.
After dinner I went to visit a friend who has just returned from a trip to my glorious country. She was telling about the states that she visited and I was catching her up on gossip when our mutual friend entered and presented her with a tiny box. I was excited, thinking that he was giving her jewelry as a present. Turns out though, the box was really a coffin with a dead fish inside. While my friend was discovering the Wild West our mutual friend was discovering that her fish had died just days before her return. Luckily, I was around to officiate the ceremony of the burial (I had spoons to dig with). We buried the fish outside my friends window and made a very nice memorial with pine cones and kind words.
After the funeral we held the reception. The reception turned out to be us going around the side of the building looking into our friends windows. The first window we looked in was one of a couples room. The male of the couple was sitting in one window and the next window, with a wall dividing them, was the female of the couple. The male of the couple made a heart with his hands and pointed to where his girlfriend would be sitting on the other side of the wall. She had no idea he was making a heart, she was yelling down to us asking what we were doing. The next window we went to I threw a rock at, seeing as the blinds were down but the window was open. Then a few seconds passed, and just as I was about to throw the next rock, our friend emerged yelling at me not to throw rocks at her window. Guess she wasn't very excited to see us. I was about to throw something at the final window, when I realized there were no rocks around, I yelled up. This friend emerged in the window next door to the window we were yelling at. She was more friendly. She just laughed at the fact we were bombarding the wrong window. All in all, despite there not being any ham sandwiches or church ladies and weak coffee, this funeral reception was the best one I have been to yet.
Tonight I watched the movie Valentine's Day. Okay, so I watched it under the guise of wanting to see it due to my loyalty to Garry Marshall (one of the greatest TV writer/creators of all-time) but let's get real. Confession: As much as I puff myself up and pretend to be a hardass and, as much as I literally try to believe that's who I am, I still believe that there is a possibility for my prince charming to show up and totally understand who I am and bring ,me chrysanthemums with googly eyes attached to them because I think that is hilarious and he'll magically know it. And some nights I will lay in bed thinking about moments in movies that made my heart tickle or moments that I wish would happen with people that are ohh so wrong for me except in the moments I manufacture in my head. Garry Marshall-I love you, and I love and hate you for making me into a weepy wishy washy romance chaser (thank you).
Tip of the Day: If saying what you want to say is corny say it anyway, who doesn't love corn?
-Canadian Castaway
No comments:
Post a Comment