Breaking Bad

I went off my Vitamin D supplements this past week and that was a mistake. If this next observation seems too harsh, chalk it up to lack of sunshine, but

I defy you

I defy you, damnit!

I defy you

to watch the Christmas episodes of Modern Family and Happy Endings back-to-back and NOT begin to hate all of them and want to go Occupy something or volunteer at a homeless shelter. They make you despair for humanity, they make you hate Americalandia, they make you wish you had given blood the whole time you were watching those episodes, they make you hate yourself. I did also watch them immediately after our December dept meeting so that might have something to do with it but I'll go out on a limb and say that these two television episodes combined, 44 short minutes, can ruin the Season for anyone at anytime, Period.

It might also be that the day before I watched the MF/HE despair trap, I experienced what I think might have been the single best episode of a series EVAH. I don't even say that lightly because I LOVE television and there have been some massive series. Can anything ever touch The Wire? Can anything ever recapture Buffy? Or Battlestar Galactica? Or Six Feet Under? Or Dead Like Me? No, the answer is no.

But for one single episode of pure, pure perfection I nominate: Breaking Bad, Season 3, Episode 10, Fly. Seriously, seriously, seriously. Do you remember how awesome it was in The Wire when McNulty and Bunk figure out what happened at a crime scene but just saying "Fuck" back and forth to one another the entire time? It's that level of awesome, only for a whole episode. But here's the thing: you can't just watch the Fly episode and get it. You have to build up to it, you have to watch everything that came before it and then when that episode hits it's INCREDIBLE. The first two seasons are good but the series really becomes something transcendent in Season 3. I haven't watched Season 4 yet, mostly because I just want to hold onto Season 3 for a bit longer. I might watch it again before going on.

I also highly recommend buying an advent calendar, preferrably one with as much chocolate content as possible.

Update on my stairwell: yep, still smeared with the dog poop. But the poop is losing its potency so some Swiffer work might be a thinkable solution for later today.

Point, Universe

The ratio of dogs to humans in my neighborhood has to be about 1:2; there's no window between the hours of 7am and 11pm where one can take an antisocial pet such as Sir Montagu out for a quick tiptoe through the tulips dead Canadian grass without running into somebody's lab retriever cross of some kind. Monty flips out when he sees other dogs - it's not an attractive quality and we've been working on it for a while now (kind of like how I'm working on my "manuscript"). Though the meltdowns have simmered down to just 15 sec of uber-aggressive insanity, that's not really enough of a change to consider him even mildly okay with other dogs. This usually isn't a problem unless the other dog is off his or her leash (technically illegal in these parts) and then I have to pick up Monty while Other Dog passes. Montoya is about 15 lbs; labs are usually about 40+ lbs. The owners are forever saying, "Oh, it's okay, he won't bite." Ah, yeah, my dog's safety is not really what I'm worried about, gullible lab people. Montoya, regardless of his small size and cuteness, will seriously *fuck your dog up* - put it on a leash (like you're supposed to) or watch the fur fly. There's only been a couple of these incidents and none have occurred since Mister has come back to town, for the record. Thus, the occasional off-leash transgression is usually the only problem we have with such a heavily dog-populated area.

That was until yesterday afternoon. It seems there has been a spate of Unattended Poop incidents in the 'hood, lately, and, of course, the rental properties (ie/ my triplex) have been the hardest hit because everyone knows that only transients and perverts rent in Ottawa (see my previous posts) and so why bother to pick up your dog's poop if it happens on a rental property? Montoya and I came home from our walk to find a big steaming pile of neighborliness awaiting us in the middle of our building's front walk. Not on the grass, not on the side of the grass, exactly in the middle of front walk, a couple of steps in.

It couldn't have been more strategically placed.

Now, I'm a big fan of strategic placement on the whole. My favorite thing to do in MarioKart is drop bananas on ramps and just before or after question mark boxes so as to do the most damage.


Mister and I saw the offensive pile. While he was enraptured, I thought to myself, "I should pick this up. Someone will step on this." Then I didn't do anything and went inside my building.

Why didn't I do anything???? Oh cruel, cruel regret.

Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O, I have ta'en
Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,
And show the heavens more just.
King Lear Act 3, scene 4, 28–36

I made a mental note to never, ever use the front walk again. Then I took delight (oh, rue!) in the thought of my downstairs neighbour (whom I dislike, she's probably a transient or pervert) perhaps stepping in the poop. Then I went to bed.

Of course, I forgot all about said incident.

Until next day when I opened my front door to the most foul, horrible, acrid smell in the world wafting through my entire building. My *upstairs* neighbour must have come home in the middle of the night and stepped directly into the massive poop and then proceeded to come into the building, check his or her mailbox, come up the first landing, walk by my door, and proceed up the steps to his or her apartment, somehow unknowingly smearing fresh, fresh dogshit everywhere along the way.

Rue! Rue!!! I should have acted when I had the chance because now I don't even want to think about what must happen to make this all okay. Rue. Epic human decency PLUS foresight fail on my part, goddamnit.

The first day . . .

And so begins the first day of the rest of my life! The last lecture has been given, the last seminar sat, though of course the term papers are still streaming in alongside an avalanche of doctor's notes and descriptions of melting computers. The movie equivalent of my semester would be this:



That might be a slight exaggeration but also I'm not looking to shake hands with anybody anytime soon. I can tell you the exact week of instruction that I started to drink my own piss, if you want.

Okay, it wasn't that bad but I'm very happy to have it all behind me and am looking forward to pulling my head out of my own ass sometime soon. I will return phonecalls! I will send out Christmas cards (maybe)! I will clean and cook and return emails and update blogs and embrace winter and not grimace every time I see a fb update by my sister about love and harmony and being one with the world. Instead I will wish her well and be proud of her accomplishments. I will be thankful for the weekly emails from my former Grade 5 teacher wherein she gives me advice on how to teach (make sure you have your grading done before you go home each day!, be sure to keep Saturday free so you can do things for yourself!) and tells me about her cross-stitching projects and her love of history and King Arthur.

re: the Gr. 5 teacher. It has gotten to the point in our correspondence where it has become apparent that she is not going away. This means that we should probably have a Coming Out Moment sometime soon and this will either 1) ensure that she DOES go away which might not be a bad thing though it will make me feel crappy if it goes that way or 2) mean that this is some kind of signal to her that we can Talk About It in levels of detail that would be wayyyy TMI if it were a straight person and then we can be BFFs forever (do not want). The third path, the path where it is just another piece of information in a list of other things about me and we can note it and move on seems unlikely in this case though I would like to state for the record that this is my favorite way. If you don't have to expend any mental energy deciding whether or not to talk about your partner with students/colleagues/Grade 5 teachers/highschool fucktards on facebook/etc, then congratulations to you. I'm not quite there yet. I know that this Coming Out isn't necessarily a straight-gay thing and pertains to anyone not in The Usual kind of relationship (ie/ uncontroversially married to someone of similar age, skin color, religion, background, whatever as you) so, it's kind of a widespread phenomenon but again - mental energy, folks. Like an uninsulated window in the winter time, this is a source of mental energy leakage.

Monty's back! In early November, E and I hatched a plan to both drive to Syracuse (she in a rental car w/ Montoya coming up from Balto, me in my trusty Honda from the 'twa), meet at a hotel near the airport within a certain time window, she ditch the rental, we all pile into the Honda to drive back to the 'twa, enjoy US Thanksgiving and E's birthday for a few days, then she fly back to Balto, leaving the Monster to brave the Ottawa winter with me and count the days until E's return for full-on Winter break (she'll be here for almost 6 weeks!). Here's what's amazing: the ridiculously elaborate plan actually worked!!! We both actually arrived in Syracuse at about the same time, after hours and hours of driving; we were NOT stopped at the border to further explain why I had only left Canada for a few hours; Monty's transnational existence continues unquestioned by authorities (mostly, they did ask if he was Canadian, which is an odd question, and we lied and said yes because the truth is too long a story); and everything went off without a hitch!!! It was a thanksgiving miracle.

Montoya seems to be adjusting to his new life in the 'twa very well. Disasters include December 1 when he pulled a bag of flour off the kitchen shelves, ate a bunch of it (really? that's the level of desperation you were at, little dog? have some pride), got thirsty, had a big drink, inadvertently made a flour paste with his paws and snout, and tracked paste-y, floury footprints around my apartment, complete with one perfect dog-print on the foot of my bed like a CSI clip. Then he had a nap. Thankfully he waited until I had put him outside before having the 'rhea all over the backyard. So business as usual with the Monster: he got yelled at and felt bad for a while, but I don't know if he really understands why. I am *determined* not to leave within his sphere of activity the fantastic advent calendar E brought me. Determined! Once everything interesting in the house has been placed above a 2.5 foot height restriction, he and I will lapse into our casual, cozy existence as before.

E will be back in 12 days!!!

Word appreciation

Fucktard is such an awesome word, especially when one is describing certain students. Fucker usually isn't applicable because it confers a certain kind of malicious agency to the fucker which more often than not is not there. They're not *trying* to screw up your day (I think). Fucked-up and Fuck Up are ultimately unsatisfying because they imply that the person is either high or suffering from a bad case of typecasting which makes it seem like their problems are environmental. Fucked is good because it carries with it the idea that the person is beyond help (ie/ they are fucked) but you can't really use it as a noun or at least not in an elegant, conversational way. I like how the first syllable of fucktard preserves an association with the fuck- genus of descriptors without specifying which one. Thus, fucktards can be malicious fuckers but they can also just be fucked - it depends on the context.

Turning to my appreciation of the 'tard syllable, we all know that retard can't be used anymore because it implies that you think the person has some kind of mental or physical condition like Down's Syndrome which is wholly unfair to people with these conditions. On the other hand, I'd really like to recover the non-medical-specific use of the term which not only intones that a person is slow but that that person actually acts as a pull (retardant) on everything else. Thus, by being a retard the person in question is dragging us all down. Again, when applied to people with severe physical and/or mental conditions this is a horrible, awful perspective to support (thanks 20c science for your shithead usage of that word, YOU are to blame). When applied to certain people (I'm currently thinking of 7 examples - I'd make a dwarf comment but that's a whole other topic of nomenclature that I'll save for another day) in certain situations (ie/ my day), it makes perfect sense to use the word retard, though politically incorrect. I enjoy how, by truncating the word to "tard", we signal that we are aware the usage of full-on "retard" is no longer viable but that we wish to retain the judgment-laden meaning of slowness and dragging down, discarding medical-condition specificity in the process.

For the reasons above, the conjoining of fuck- and -tard into fucktard creates a wonderfully flexible and meaningful descriptor for the fucktards who animate my day. Of course, there are typologies within the "fucktard" rubric but I will save that discussion for another day. I can only split so many hairs per day and I must pace myself because it is still the morning.

Cousin Jeff Captured!

Friends, I'm happy to report that my cousin Jeff is now safely behind bars. All of southern Alberta can breathe a sigh of relief.

The bitter end to his getaway-hangaround-getaway escapade was not without drama. After mooching/extorting $50,000 over the course of a month from my great aunt and leading the police on drug-fueled chases through shithole places like Stettler and Red Deer (a.k.a Dead Rear), my extended family hatched a plan to have him captured the likes of which only a TV crime drama could approximate. Cousins Glenn and Allison (Allison of adopted-so-not-in-the-family-history fame) knew that my great aunt was funneling money to the criminal so they decided to set a trap. They "found" $5,000, gave it to my aunt as a gift, let it be known in town that she had come into some money (not a hard thing to do in Three Hills, AB, population: 3000) and waited for the perp to establish contact. Which he did almost immediately. They had the RCMP set up a stakeout on my aunt's place and just waited for the idiot (someone who apparently has some legally significant percentage of my DNA) to show up. In the meantime, my aunt was in hospital having her mental faculties assessed. She was declared incompetent and has now lost her power of attorney. Anyhoo, Jeff showed up at my aunt's house and a *gun fight* ensued. No one was injured and he was taken into custody but I don't think things will go well for him in prison. He did take a shot at an RCMP officer and rumour is he was involved with a biker gang in Red Deer so this all adds up to a long or violent incarceration. I don't imagine that long AND violent is a possibility. Everyone is upset. If there is one thing I've learned about that side of the family, it's that their moral compass is controlled by the purse strings - and not the Anglican church as they're fond of declaring.

The Boulter wing of the family has always creeped me out. They still give me the vibe that they are just being nice to me because other people are around but if I find myself alone with one of them they will turn on me like no one's business. They seem like the kind of people who would burn others to the stake or Holocaust you or something like that. My mother likes them, probably because she grew up with them and recognizes them as her family, but she has never left me alone with any of them, not once. I always think of them as my mother's family. The wacky Jews who I'm related to (who also give me the heebiejeebies), I think of as my grandmother's family and I imagine my mother does too. This is dumb because all of them, heebiejeebies included, are all just My Family.

18; 30

18 more days until I get to see E and Montoya again; 30 more days left in the semester. It feels like a hundred years. If I were to try to type out just how much I miss them, I would have to lie down on my unvacuumed floor and slip into a permanent drooling, catatonic state. I try to keep the number of, "This is not worth it" thoughts down to only about several dozen a day but it isn't easy. The cardinal rule of profdom is: never evaluate your feelings about your job with a month left to go in the semester. I remind myself of this rule several dozen times a day. I took the Smiths off of my iPod thinking that it was the wrong kind of musical therapy for the month-left-to-go-in-the-semester phase; then I found an even more haunting-compelling-depressing soundtrack and I have to say, I totally *love* it: Austra's latest album Feel it Break. YouTube:


Yeah, they're Toronto hipster douchebags. This may not shock you: they're very popular in Germany and Iceland.

Visit with my mother was good! Every year she gets me a gift (or series of gifts) designed to Really Improve My Life. She always pretends that the gifts are something that everyone needs to be whole and she's doing me a huge favour. They are civilizing missions or at least unsubtle messages that my appearance is not measuring up. The gifts always backfire (not because I sabotage them! They just do) and that's what makes them and the whole ritual endearing. One year it was *a lot* of anti-wrinkle cream (I think that was more about my mother's insecurities about self and less about me), another it was "accent colour" (read: orange) sweater vests, every 4 years (like the Olympics) it's some kind of makeup, there was the earrings year, and ubiquitous yoga and "skin clarifying solution" years. This year: The Flat Iron. WTF do I need a flat-iron for? I have no idea. When I didn't express enough happiness with my new gift, she was quite miffed and said something like, "I just wanted to get you something that could really help you!" Help me do what? I asked her if she really thought that I was going to use the flat iron everyday even if it did make my hair AMAZING. She thought about it for a few seconds and said, "No." Did we just have a breakthrough? She told me to keep the flat-iron for E. But that was the only bad moment. The rest of the time we ate and ate and had a good time. And she did help me in the end, she took my car to get the winter tires put on while I was in class and that was a HUGE help.

We're planning an elaborate roadtrip in the Spring from here to Baltimore (stopping at umpteen Amish quilt-y places along the way).

Convo with Mom

Convo 14 with mom
by: montyfraser

FYI: Barb is fine, book club was excellent, there were no bedbugs. The Terminator said so.