Introvert zone

So there's a male version of me on the train since I got back from California. It's creepy. At first, he stuck out because he's at least 6 feet tall, which few of the Quebecois men here, are even close to (which I have to admit, I dig. I like the smaller, devastatingly handsome, sprightly, quebec men). Despite his long legs, and athletic physique (he's not the physical male version of me, that's for sure.), he has this slow, downtrodden sort of walk and this way of moving very delicately and deliberately. I do this when I'm going somewhere I don't want to go. I walk and move exactly like that. He never smiles, never talks to anyone, hardly looks at anyone and always sits in the same seat in the back corner of the car, the "introvert zone".

Like me, he always has an ipod on and closes his eyes during the ride to block everyone out. I know he's not sleeping because his face never relaxes. He's always slightly frowning. He pulls himself in a little closer when others come and sit in his area, despite his size and leans against the window for support, looking outside, poker-faced. He doesn't seem psychotic or creepy. He's not unabomber queer. He just seems to really want to not stick out or interact with the crowd and seems also a little depressive but socially well-adjusted enough to be polite and civil.

Maybe I just notice because I have "extreme introvert" radar, being one myself or maybe we just stick out like that amongst everyone else who is chatting, snoring, rustling papers, barking into cellphones, restraining squirming children...and so on.

I found it interesting to watch him for a while, to see how much he reminded me of myself and to see what my manner projects to others. It's extra strange that he is so tall and actually, quite handsome and yet acts like a phlegmatic, reserved, outsider. His physique says : Volley Ball Team Captain, his manner says, moody lonely guy. That's our main difference, I feel like my physical self sort of goes well with my manner. My dishevelled, dumpy look matching with my moody plodding along in the shadows.

Of course, I could be projecting it all. It's possible. I'm not sure why I would bother. I think it's more likely that I've spotted another person who is a far down on the scale of introvert as I. We are rare as heck according to the Kiersey temperament sorter. T is one too. I would have spotted him the same way in a crowd. I don't think this chap has spotted me. He never looks at anyone, but then again, I might seem like I don't notice anyone also. I'm pretty sly. Maybe he is too.

I've started sitting at the other end of the car (we have chosen the same car. I chose it because it's the least popular and I bet that's why he does too.)and I face the other direction. I feel like there's only room for one major introvert per car end. Besides, if I stick out to him as much as he sticks out to me, I'm uncomfortable with possibly being that visible. We both move and act to be the most invisible and unaproached as possible for a reason. I guess I could go to another car entirely, but I also don't want to be turfed out of my territory.

You are insane, Monsterteeth. Look at you making it all up in your head.

Look, I know a vibe when I feel one. I can read between the lines, man. Plus, it's more interesting to focus on, than all the other, perfume and cigarette stinking, noisy, space-taking, burping, coughing, twitching extroverts ruling the world and the train.

This morning, we actually crossed paths a few block from the train station, on the way to work. Nearly walked right in to one another going perpendicular ways, but we both avoided collision, despite walking with heads down, and ipods on. Radar. I slowed slightly in my gait and he veered slightly to one side and we passed without meeting, looking or acknowledging. Quietly and impersonally, the introverts way.

On a side note: I noticed, for the first time, there is a little sign on the train platform with symbols indicating that upstairs there is coffee, tickets, information, a bank and...gloves and umbrellas. A little joint symbol of gloves and an umbrella. One of the first things anyone thinks of when exiting a train?? No sign for food or doctor or pharmacy (which are all in the station) but, hey, you need gloves and an umbrella?? Don't worry, sign says they got them. Maybe they should mark out the introvert zone on the train with a little symbol also. Maximum capacity: 1.

Drowning

I wonder if art is just about keeping one from drowning in sensation. Or at least, the urge to create may be about that. Art has such a loaded meaning for everyone.

I know someone lacking a sense of smell. She wonders what smell memories are. She’s heard people talk of them. I told her my life was practically built around them. They pivot me from one moment to the next, simultaneously reminding me as they generate anew. I live the moment, while I remember another. And the moment lived, will come to me later in the future, while another present takes place.

This morning, the smell of someone’s cherry lip balm caused a swirl around me of Vicks cough drops on an October afternoon in grade school. The sky overcast and dark like evening, the class quiet and reading. A sore throat blurred by cherry menthol and pencil shaving smell coming from the sharpener. Outside, orange and brown leaves glow on the sidewalk through the grey light.

A moment later, walking up the stairs from the platform to the station, toasted bread and pastry smells flood me with Easter at my German grandmother’s house. Her egg bread is cooling on the counter, and I’m too small to see over the top of the counter or reach it.
A bird cheeping through the open window above the sink blows cool spring air in a stream and the adults murmur in the living room. The cuckoo clock ticks and the fridge hums. Cold cement and ferment smell slips under the door to the garage and basement, where I go to play.

Coming up for air, back to the present moment, the big electronic board in the station, displaying the departures and arrivals is malfunctioning. Instead of Bon Voyage/Have a Nice Trip, Have = Nice flickers and flashes. Have =nice. Have can equal nice, depending of what you have.

Leaving the station, out onto boulevard De Maisonneuve, toward University, the cars push and shove, the clouds darken and tiny sprinkles or rain flip around in the wind. A moment I will store for later, because I’m still immersed in my own history of sensations. Sometimes, so overwhelming, like standing in front of a deep pool of Mediterranean blue, knowing you need, must, want to dive in, be enveloped and surrounded. I could lie down in the middle of the street and forget the present entirely. “An outlet!” my mind and body yell. “Give me an outlet or let me live underwater! Let me drown.”

More art with bad tools.

Crud vs Crap

Gawd. I'm actually busy at work. I never have time to blog again. Again? I mean ever. See, I'm barely even paying attention because as I type this, I am processing, inputting and maximizing on efficiency. You betcha.

Plus, since I'm only ever working or following the kitten around with toys and pulling him off of things he shouldn't be on, life is pretty hard to make interesting in blog form.

We are all very productive in the office. Right now, the three bosses are listening to Barry Manilow. The woman boss is trying to convince the man bosses that Barry Manilow is better than Paul McCartney. The man bosses are laughing very hard and the woman boss is getting pissed off and just keeps playing more songs, as if she will convince them. "Okay wait, Mandy then." Plays 5 seconds of Mandy, the men laugh. "Okay Can't Smile Without You." Play 5 seconds, the men laugh and so on...

Also, I urge you to enjoy this Ad Campaign for Absolut Vodka by Tim and Eric and Zach Galifianakis. It's real. Enjoy Parts 1, 2 and 3 why don't you. In a perfect world, all advertising would be just like this.

Watch

1 plus the ultimate answer minus 34

Happy birthday to my sister, who has endured me for the following amount of years:
One plus the answer to life, the universe and everything, minus 34. Yes, Krisp, you are now past the age of the ultimate answer but only 8 years away from enduring me as your only sibling for the ultimate answer amount of years. Surely then, it will all make sense. Whatever it all is that's not making sense??

Ahem, get out there and give'er plus cake.

Wrong tools for the job? Who cares! (Rhetorical)

Well, Mr.Kitten has been named. Fuzzy. Suits him. Tried a whole host of names:
Zissou, Mr. Noodles, Professor Candy Pants, Joey, Dee Dee, Ned...nothing quite fit.
Except Fuzzy. And so he shall be named.

Or Poopy would be appropriate right now also, as he has a bit of a "soft poo" issue that's being tracked through the house. Who wants to visit?!!

T is at the vet as we speak, hopefully working that one out.

And now, my new thing. Illustrating with work tools. Shitty ballpoint pens, bad paint programs and photocopying of whatever the hell I felt like drawing last week. They probably are too big to see properly when you click on them, but that's the deal with using work tools. Take it or leave it! (Hint: don't leave it. Take it!)

The smell of wrong.


We overheard a very bad blind date.


Avoue que tu m'aimes, elle a dit.

Uh oh. Some people got a kitty cat!

We went and did it. Got our selves a little baby kitten from the SPCA after MUCH deliberation. It took 3 thousand hours and a lot of stress and he's jumping on and chasing everything that moves, but he is the cutest cutest cutest. We don't have a name yet. We've tried a few out and none have stuck. In the first evening he ate, drank and used the litter box so Wihoo! for small victories. Feast your eyes on this handsome creature:

Snuff Box tonic.

Ah, once again, British insane people have renewed my vigor with their humour tonic. Snuff box episodes are finally on you tube. Begin the journey here: clickityclickbarbaratrick.

Not really what you are looking for.

I saw this idea on another site: Que sera sera. She listed some of the search terms people used to wind up at her site. I have a site meter thingy that keeps track of such things. Crazy but true. Here's a recent list of some of the searches people did to unwittingly end up on my blog. No one stayed to read by the way. Screw them, they're obviously all creeps anyway, judging by their perverted and sinful searches.

-"shy monster movies"

-"I can't stand it, I know you planned it" -what? they knew the lyrics but couldn't
remember who did it? That's like forgetting what toast is made of.

-"monster teeth paint helmet" wuh??

-"teeth in undies" well, we are all curious about that one aren't we.

-"pants with wings"

-"the ice caps are melting ho, ho ho ho, all the world is drowning ho ho, ho ho, ho ho." yes, someone actually typed an entire refrain of Tiny Tim as a search. I wish this person had stuck around my blog and read a little. We may have more in common than they know.

-"metalhead haircuts" I hope they were looking for one to have instead of one to make fun of.

-"make uped ladies". This one came from Iran. Either a search done by someone with bad english or someone under the age of 10.

So there ya go. My tags do work no matter how obscure I make them.

Hey now, why don't you look at our recent saturday night outing for the International Fireworks competition. I'm working on being able to post some video. For now, the photos must do.

Twas a hot summer night. Dark photos. I like night photos for some reason. I'd like to paint these.

Important person sensor.

Mercifully, there is music to listen to and words to read. I've had an awful couple of weeks of work. So negative and depleting. I've started to dread the days. Tired beyond repair...

I plug the music into my ears and read words which some lovely people have strung together skillfully into novels and books and it suffocates all the other crud into disappearing for a while. Without music and books to replace my reality, I guess I'd be drinking gin straight from the bottle as the train careened me towards work each morning. Or freebasing chocolate?

Last night, I had a dream I was a nurse, surrounded by old and sick patients in wheelchairs. They were hungry and wanted food and medicine. I handed them dirty ashtrays.

That about sums it up.

A man got on the elevator this morning. He was so self-important, that despite there being 7 other people on the elevator (him being the last on), and despite the fact the he was going to the top floor out of 33 floors, he stood directly in front of the doors and stepped off at the first stop, assuming it would naturally escort him to the floor he needed before everyone else. Yes sir, the elevator has an important person sensor and will do your bidding directly! You don't have to wait for all us other chumps on floors below you to get off. Why would you when you've got buttons to punch on your Blackberry and tasks to delegate?

Who looked like a moron striding off the elevator and then scrambling to get back on? The big important business man, that's who.

Good morning campers.

Well well. Rats off to ya Canada. Happy Canada day to you. Canada woke me up at 5am this morning. Just could not get back to sleep, despite having the free option to sleep as long as I like, this being a holiday and all. I'll probably give it another try soon, but for now, I am outside, listening to the squawking red-winged black birds and watching fish jump out of the water (their version of swimming? suicide attempts?) Early in the morning is a pretty time to be up. Always reminds me of camping. In fact, it smells like camping right now. That smell of night cooled earth, slowly warming up. Actually, at this moment, the sun is well on high and things are different. The gentle sunrise became the blazing sun and the smell of camping is gone, replaced by the smell of hot day.

In parallel to camping again, I myself have had the transitioning feeling you get when you first get up at dawn, and leave the stale air of the tent. The dewy coolness outside is so fresh, it makes you feel like you could live off just bark and leaves and rainwater, like a clean little creature of the woods. As if you could cast off the shackles of the modern world-running water, electricity-and just groove on nature. Then the sun comes up higher, and it gets hot and bright, and you become aware of how badly you need a shower and a tooth brushing. Also, you start to feel the body heavening (That's right, heavening. New word. The act of making heavy.) effects of having had only 5 hours sleep and you feel like a thousand pound, bleary-eyed, dirty slug.

Well, it's not that bad. While camping, that feeling is usually fixed by diving into the nearest body of water. Here at home, a nice cup of tea helps.

Work has been annoyingly consuming my days lately. Little time for blogging. Summer means endless staff vacations for everyone except me (I had my four months so I can't truly complain, although I bet I can find a way to do so anyway). Since it's such a small office, one person being gone impacts everyone. Lots of crankiness and overworked, hassled women seething around the place. I try to remain distant but it ends up affecting me also.

I joined the YMCA, thinking it will be a way of getting me through the stress of it all. A frustration outlet, if you will. I've been trying the different classes they offer, to keep things fun, and gave aquafit a shot last night. It was just as you'd picture. The feeble and the obese, flapping and flopping around to the beat of the Michael Jackson and Abba covers, sung by chipmunks, or midgets or children or more likely, old guys with ponytails who's voices are then sped up to sound like chipmunks. Then again, it was the "suitable for all levels" class. Maybe advanced is a little more challenging. I hope so. Combining playing in the water, with actual, beneficial exercise would be ideal. We'll see.

In the meantime, back at home, I plan to spend this holiday (awkwardly placed in the middle of the week), doing as I choose and choosing as I do. Right now, I think I might pop back in the tent for a little morning nap before I embark any further on the day.

5:30 am sky.


6:30 am sky.


6:00 am tomatoes.