Friday, January 27, 2006

what feelings? So. Today I worked, because that's a good thing to do on a Friday, and Catherine got a much-needed day off to organize her life and relax a bit. I had a semi-stressful day, but coming home to a thoughtful and cheery Catherine was just what I needed. Then we decided to go out for a bite to eat and a drive -- you know, a nice way to spend a Friday night. We left former roommate Kristy using an odd little program to design bridesmaid dresses online ("Look! This one is green and red!") and headed out into the dark and misty evening. When we got to the restaurant of our choice, we had trouble finding parking. We drove to California and back before a spot appeared, right outside of Petaluma. No, no... it was at the edge of the parking lot. We took our seats at a nice little booth about the size of a postage stamp and sat down to check out the garishly coloured menus. In the midst of choosing our entrees, we noticed that the restaurant was having a contest. A free cruise -- a second honeymoon, at that! -- for any couple that could submit a touching tale of their love to the establishment's website. Well. Catherine and I are about as hetero as (at this point, we're trying to think of really hetero things. Catherine suggests Regis Philbin. This brings about five minutes of silence. We choose instead to go with...) Utah. We like boys, and on occasion, smart boys like us. But. It's a cruise. We try to come up with some sort of convincing love story to get us on the ship, but this plan is abandoned shortly after the waiter arrives. We order our meal and sit sipping our beverages and decompressing from the week. Now, I am known at points like these for asking dumb questions. Today's dumb question was, "What are your feelings right now, in two words or less?" What I was really asking is "How are you?" But that would be too damn simple. So, I practically have to pull out a Rorshach test and ask my friend if she sees a butterfly or... something else. Catherine, being Catherine and not full of B.S. like me, says, "What feelings? Oh, wait -- those weren't my two words!" I don't know if I ever actually got the two words out of her before our dinners came. We ate and felt overstuffed like eggplants. (We just laughed at the word eggplant for quite a while.) After the cheque was paid, we headed out to do one of our favourite things: go for a drive and look at the pretty, pretty houses on the slope in West Vancouver (an obnoxiously wealthy community next door to ours.) We go to Starbucks on the way to pick up some coffee for the road. As we stand in line, Catherine has a hard time making up her mind. One of the new menu items is called a Cinnamon Dolce latte. You know, like La Dolce Vita! Woohoo! It's an exciting drink. However, when the awkward young barista boy goes to suggest potential beverages, he calls it a "Cinnamon DOLSSSSS Latte." Catherine, being helpful, decides to order the drink just to show him the correct way to pronounce 'dolce' (DOL-CHAY.) But right before he goes to put the marked-up cup on the bar, she remembers that she hates lukewarm coffee. So, as is her usual habit, she asks that it be extra hot. Or that's what she meant to say. What she actually said was "extra horny." It didn't come out all the way, though -- she realized what she was saying, and thus ended up muttering something more like "extra hornnnn...." The girl waiting to make the drink chose NOT to ignore this little verbal error and said (in a volume somewhat akin to having a fighter jet in the shower with you), "DID YOU SAY EXTRA HORNY???" No, honey. She said 'extra hornnnn.' Geez. (Catherine actually turned a lovely cinnamon colour.) We got our drinks, hopped in the car, and headed for the hills. (Now, as I type this story, I am sitting on Catherine's bed. She just turned to me, sniffed my arm, and said, "Hey. You smell really good." I ain't going on the damn cruise with you, sister.) These houses are huge, for the record -- the ones we were peering at through the rain-dappled windows of Catherine's Toyota chariot -- and we love to appreciate or mock the architecture of said homes accordingly. (The only thing that actually would have made our drive better is heated seats. But apparently, they only have those in California. Because, heaven knows, they need more hot asses there.) After a good run up and down narrow, slightly slippery roads (we only hit one man with a hook for a hand, and we made sure he was dead), we headed for home. (Catherine wants me to mention that we kept the parrot.) Now we're here, coffee in our bellies, chillin' in our apartment, and we figured we'd give you a taste of our glamourous lives -- just like a special on VH-1! To summarize: Catherine's drink didn't "work." Regis is HOT (Catherine is protesting, but it's no accident he was the first name off her lips...) There are a lot of ugly homes in West Vancouver. Catherine would like to state that her two words are: extra hornnnnnnn! (She is protesting this as well...) I would like to state that my two feeling words are: "DOL CHAY!" I would also like to state that I am very very lucky to have a friend to spend my Friday night with like Catherine. Few people are this lucky. But I still ain't going on the cruise. 11:36:52 PM    well, yes, but...  [] tonight's profound irony. Today, James Frey went on Oprah. She lit into him for an hour about the much ballyhooed fabrications in his 'memoir', A Million Little Pieces. I'm quite sure that it became apparent to her that her reputation would suffer if she didn't bring him on to deal with the controversy, and so -- with all the savvy I have come to both grudgingly respect and openly loathe in her -- she dealt with the situation. Publicly.  As if there were another way. Frey took it well, given that she'd probably threatened to remove the coveted O sticker from his cover if he did anything less. And then it was done. Oprah fans were relieved, James Frey probably sold a few more books based on the publicity, and I received no less than ten emails asking me if I felt vindicated by this latest development in the whole fiasco. My feelings about James Frey are here, here, and here. And they were here, too, since I'd written a long entry summarizing my feelings about the debacle and the minor epiphany I'd had about my own character in the midst of watching the literary carnage on CNN this evening: I have a horrible temper. Not to mention a tendency towards self-righteousness. And a tendency to be harsh and unrelenting in argument and debate. And a tendency to push past passion into stridency. And a tendency to transform conviction into fury. I am this way, even when what I'm angry about doesn't have a damn thing to do with me. I am this way, even when a more thoughtful approach might draw me closer to the truth. I wrote all this, and then, in a flash, Firefox crashed, and I was left with the slate gray desktop of my iBook, bleak, blank and empty. Entry gone. And now Radio Userland has gone madly glitchy on me, too. Apparently, I am choosing brevity tonight, by default. The funny thing is, this is usually the kind of moment in which I'd feel compelled to rant. How unfair is it that I developed a whole piece, a whole explanation, a whole somethingorother to deal with my own reactions and responses to indignation, and it would just disappear in an instant? Without any explanation? I'd taken time for it! It's late! I have to get up early! But all I can do is laugh at myself. I've spent my whole life flailing and fussing and pushing and pulling and thinking that a head of steam is going to get me somewhere. And I've rarely been led to believe I was wrong. When I was planning to go to law school, my friends would assure me that my capacity for vitriol would serve me well in crafting a blunt-force argument for the prosecution. When men have actually been interested in me, they've seen my ferocity as alluring, as though it were evidence of a greater dose of vitality in my veins. And when I've taken up a cause, people have often come alongside me to walk my path across the burning coals. But somehow, in the midst of living life like this, I've lost some of my capacity for grace. I've forgotten what it is to be quiet and wait for wise words. I've let clenched fists replace open eyes. I could make dozens of excuses for why I am the way I am, but just as quickly as I write them, they might evaporate in the midst of a browser crash -- or perhaps just a wave of reason. I can get royally furious at James Frey, and then suddenly see the agony in his face. And then wonder, incredulously, why I feel so consumed with berating this stranger, regardless of the mistakes he's made. I've sent my share of rude emails and made my share of frustrated phone calls. I've bludgeoned my share of debates and made points until they were sharp as knives. I've done the temper thing until I was cherry-red in the face. I've been damn proud of it, too. But at 31, I fear that I've gone too far. For all my talk of holding on to all the love and truth in the world, I've become small and cold in ways that could easily freeze my soul if I let them. And then what will I have? The perfect rebuttal? Or just the toxic ability to reach for my anger before I reach for my heart? I am not saying we are wrong to enter into conflict sometimes. I am saying that sometimes our arguments are based on being right instead of being true. And often, it's just not the same thing. Not to mention that sometimes we just want a fight. Like James Frey, I'm going to stop pretending to be so tough. And that's all I have to say about that. 12:37:54 AM    well, yes, but...  []

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