Rachel Story-Time for Butterfly Man

[Rachel Peters]

This One Time in Montreal...

I was with Karen in Montreal one night, during Jazz Fest/Just For Laughs. I think it was three years ago. For some reason she ordered us a pitcher of beer, when she knew we were both half-pint sort of girls. It arrived and we stared at it... overwhelmed by the task set before us.
Once we were each into about a pint-and-a-half (at the point where we were probably just drunk enough to not think we were drunk. This is usually accompanied by thinking we're damn funny and super hot) I stopped to question our state of being. I try to avoid being drunk. She, being all seminary-y and roll model-ish and social worker-esque, also tries to avoid it.
I was concerned, looking at our half remaining pitcher of liquids, knowing that Karen hates to waste. She will finish anything in front of her for fear of being wasteful. So, amidst the jokes that probably weren't nearly as funny as we were sure they were, we tried to assess whether we should just leave the pitcher and move along, or if we should spend more time in our cozy little corner.

Karen said, "Well, I figure if we're still this lucid, we're not too bad."

I said, "What?"

She said it again.

I said, "What??"

She repeated it several more times. Maybe five in total. Each time getting a response of, "WHAT???"

I had to stop her.

"Karen. Wait. Stop. Ok, let me tell you what I'm hearing...
'iverse iffezz loofizz, we're not too bad.'
"...Is that what you're saying?? Because if it is, I don't know what it means."

Consistently, those were the alien words I was hearing. Each and every time she repeated it.

"iverse iffezz loofizz, we're not too bad."

"What??"

"iverse iffezz loofizz, we're not too bad."

"WHAT??!"

Karen stopped and thought...

"Did I say it wrong or did you hear it wrong?"

"...I don't know."

"Maybe we should leave the pitcher."

We were sober enough to find the many layers of humour sandwiched within our conversation, and I haven't laughed so very hard in a while, as I did that night.

[martin ewen]

Damn sorry to hear you're not holding there Robert.

Solar blew up you say? Gosh darn learning curves!

I will kill those pigs robert, I have, as you know, a little pent up rage. It would be my pleasure.

They would be slow deaths however, maybe when Kumi's working.

Me I'm in ruddy good health. I've embraced the bile and turned it into taffy.

Which put another way, I've snapped.

I've just finished, at 6-30pm today an 18 day stretch, CNE and Toronto Buskers 4 day diversion in the middle.

I got to see some of the most cutting edge, avant guarde risktaking variety performers on the planet, I got to work in their shadow's.

Tony Orlando!!! [as if the universe could possibly contain enough exclaimation marks]

I have no idea what happened to dawn, dawn was a long time ago in Orlando-years. The guy gets into one of those torture mummy casks with the pointy spikes daily, each spike dripping with Botox.

More like Tony Orlando and the hour of the wolf. [traditionally between 4 and 5 am and most popular for abducting enemies of the state]

oh and not to forget, Mickey Rooney!!

I tell you Robert, if we both change, if we become 'nice' i believe that just like Mickey we can live forever. He's lost a lot of height with age. He's got this piece where he tapdances with an ant and they blow it up on a big screen behind him. At least that's what i think was happening. The petri dish he was performing in was a little cloudy.

So anyway, I'll be back in Hawaii on about the 22nd, [if they let me back into the states with a week left on my present green card] and then flying out again on the 25th to China.

Then back on the 5th oct and i think Celia wants me to stop working at Home depot assmebling wheelbarrows and become a doctor or something.

I'd love to be a Jung doctor. Amputating subtextual limbs. I do the catch and release thing with patients id's.

So anyway robert, it's a curse isn't it, to have all this exciting bad stuff happen and still be bored.

You just leave those pigs to me. The ones I don't orlando, I'll mickey, and if they are numerious I'll roger whittaker them and nana mouskouri them too.

[martin ewen]

Um robert, I think i just replied to a post you made 2 years ago.

Uncanny how little things change.

[Rachel Peters]

My Island in a Concrete Sea

If you'll all turn to page two of this thread and read "My Little Crap Shack of Love",
I would like announce an update: My dream house is currently boarded up with a sign from the City announcing a TBA meeting to discuss the future of the parking lot house and the possibility of turning it into more parking spaces.
I think with a good argument, a Power Point presentation and maybe a little fire eating I could win it for a rock bottom price. ...if it's not condemned and only suitable for demolition.
Money in the city's pocket and someone to take the place off their hands might be more appealing than spending money to tear it down and rezone the space.
Here's hoping.
My real estate agent is pretty cool. ...I can't believe she's still responding to me.
I need to invite her over for coffee.

[Lee Nelson]

was just there

I was just in Hamilton a couple of weeks ago
Trullee Odd and I were having a great laugh about this house when we saw it
Now here it is again
Go Rachel
Ill help you paint it

[Rachel Peters]

The other Side of the Tracks

You know Trulee Odd and I live only five houses away from each other (on opposite sides of the tracks -- we can't decide whose is the good side). We really should share the joy of our performer visits more often.

Maybe this lovely little crap shack could be a performer's bed n' breakfast!
oooo!

If I get to go to this city meeting I'll see if I can work fire eating into a presentation.

[Rachel Peters]

awwwwwww. It's already been sold to the plaza. It'll surely be leveled.
So long to a dream.

[Rachel Peters]

My Hamilton Is...

Overheard at Tim Hortons:

“Dude! Did you hear what happened to Mike?!”

“Yeah! He was trying to help that old lady and he got stabbed by a crack head! …Man, if that guy tries to buy crack off of ME, I’m just going to stab HIM! Ya know? Because that aint right, man.”

THIS is my Hamilton.

I stepped onto a HSR bus at Main and Dundern when my senses gripped me and forced me into daycare teacher mode.
*sniff sniff*
“Wuh-oh”, I thought to myself. “Someone made a poopy!”

So now I had a game to play. Could I glance around the bus and tell just by looking who the offender be?
There were a few old ladies on the bus, but they were all dignified enough to give me doubt any one of them had lost control of their faculties. If you care enough to primp your hair into a bee hive with 75 bobby pins and pat yourself down with baby powder, you’re probably not going to go poop yourself on a bus.
There were McMaster students, but they were all dressed far too well with Daddy’s money to risk ruining their designer pants (designer pants that either sagged to bring their bum at their knees, or tapered so skinny at the ankles they were possibly painted on. Neither fashion is one I understand).
There were a lot of “downtown people” (a term for the mentally ill crowd who gather in the Central Hamilton area to be close to all the social services), so I still had a lot of options to play with. I scanned across the crowd once… and then I caught a face.
No one should ever have their eyes open wide enough for me to be able to see that much white. If you can make out the entire circle of the iris, something is wrong.
She was clutching the bar in front of her with all her might, as if she were anticipating a tornado might rip through the aisle and blow her away. Her eyes were mighty wide, but she made eye contact with no one. …Oh, she knew.

Naturally, I sat down across from her.

I watched.

(to be continued)

[Rachel Peters]

Serious about Humour

Humour is my language.
I can speak other languages, but I prefer to express myself in my mother tongue.
Personally, I believe it should be everyone's language, much like how Americans go abroad and get annoyed that not everyone speaks English. As understanding and empathetic as I generally am (or appear to be) when conversing with others, I have a difficult time understanding people who just can't communicate in humour.
If I have to repeat, "No, no. You see, that was a joke." more than twice in a conversation, you've probably lost me. I just might give up right there.

If human interaction were baking recipes, then humour would be the milk. Not every recipe needs it, and it would spoil a few dishes, but most baked goods ask for at least half a cup, worked in evenly throughout the mixture.
Well placed, perceptive humour can be an ice and tension breaker.
It can be an open door, as well as a terrific wall -- an invitation or a deflection.
There are things you can get away saying through sarcasm that would never work in a serious tone.

My best defense against fighting most of my insecurities is humour. Self-deprecation can help you own your imperfections and mold them into strengths.

I bought a house a few years ago and quickly realized that green thumbs are not items I possess -- not on either one of my hands. I dug up my front lawn one day with the intention of turning a new leaf and starting a garden, but I then forgot (or rather, didn't care enough) to actually plant anything. As a result, my lawn was wonderfully tilled and ideal for lush and fertile weeds. I like to think I was starting a weed garden, but too many people misunderstood me when I said things like that.
At its worst, my weeds grew to be about 4 feet tall.
Old Italian men would come around to my house just to point and laugh.
One of them told me to get a husband and have him fix it. I thanked him for pouring salt on my wounds.

When giving instructions to my house, I eventually found myself describing it as "the one with the ugly lawn". This was becoming my home's most distinctive feature.

My friendliest neighbour Bob, "The Dirty Old Man Who's Past His Prime" (I swear to you, that's the way he introduced himself) tried several times to pawn his lawn tools off on me, until I insisted that I had worked long and hard to get my front lawn just perfect like this.
"Oh... Yes. Yes. I thought so." He said. "I didn't mean to insult you. I just thought... You know, if you ever wanted to prune it, to be even nicer...... I have a Weed Whacker in my shed."

I needed to take control of the situation and make sure my other neighbours wouldn't hate me.
Bob was funny andnd his lawn is dirt, so he would have been the last to judge.

So...
Fix the lawn?? Pfffft. Not likely.
Making them laugh was the key.

I began to put up signs. The first one began with a grain of sincerity and read,

"Yes, I am aware of the condition of my front lawn. But thank you for your concern."

That sign was put up simply to stop the stares and murmurs from contractors, neighbours and passers-by.

Then came,

"Yeah?! Your MOM'S an ugly lawn!!",

"My other lawn's a Porche.",

and,

"I do this to make the other lawns feel better about themselves."

(That my friends, is what I like to call "one-downing". Instead of "one-upping", where one tells a better story, making those around him feel worse about themselves, one-downing self-deprecates and helps to build others up -- make yourself plain, so the girl next to you looks glamorous. That sort of thing. My lawn was one-downing all the other lawns on the block. My lawn was the Ethel to everyone else's Lucy.)

I kept those signs up for over a year. I grew to care very much for them. And at one point my mother (a very funny woman) did a drive-by lawn ornamenting, leaving behind a tole painted garden sign in the yard which read, "Quiet please, weeds growing".

Eventually I realized I had reached a point where I had developed pride over my particular weakness, and my owning of my bad thumbs had now lost its point. I began to let the lawn get uglier just so I could keep up the signs.
"My place looks like CRAP! Stand tall! Stand proud!" I would think to myself while arriving home from work.

The Fed Ex lady had told me she looked forward to coming to my house, always hoping to find a new sign, and that had made me very happy.
(She would also assure me that the lawn wasn't so bad.)

I've since taken down those signs, and today my inner city lawn looks a lot more like Bob's. It's not glamorous and it's mostly dirt, but you wouldn't get lost in it anymore.

I'm no longer insecure about my habit of neglect, but I sort of miss the attention from the signs.
The Fed Ex lady has long since forgotten me.

I'm considering planting corn.