girl power inc.

it becomes a bit of a slog, sometimes, being the single person during the holidays. during this time of year i feel, as must every other single, as if i am the only one in all the world. the only single, ever.

most events, especially those for new year’s eve, are marketed for pairings of two. this year i debated buying myself two tickets to the dinner i really want to attend. i could eat twice as much. drink twice as much. take turns sitting opposite myself. toast myself. bring two outfits.

all of my happily and unhappily paired friends, of course, are always inclusive with their plans. oh, me and him, and him and her, and him and him, are booked in for dinner, and you are most welcome to join! but i can never shake the feeling that i am being tucked in at the kiddies table: the place for the cat ladies, maidenly aunts, and toddlers. i hate toddlers. they’re so childish.

the step ladder i used when hanging my drapes has been sitting in the living room for over a month, so yesterday i decorated it, in lieu of a tree. this year i have a yuletide step-ladder. when i rise in the morning, traipse downstairs, make myself my morning coffee and sit in my old archie bunker chair, i really enjoy the fact that i have a yuletide step-ladder.

but then i began to wonder if i am, in fact, a yuletide step-ladder. a quirky kind of misfit. is it wrong to wear a mistletoe headband and hang about the grocery store in trembling anticipation?

and it isn’t about being the single. being the single is fine and dandy. it’s really more about the extreme commercialism that somehow seems to miss the fact that “the singles” exist. it’s about the jewelry store ads. must i go to the jewelry store, buy myself a bauble, wrap it, then get on bended knee and present it to myself? but wait! maybe i can do that at new year’s eve when i have dinner with myself. i can get on bended knee in the crowded restaurant, propose to myself, say yes, (or no, who knows.) and everyone will look on and applaud. (or commiserate, depending on what the answer turns out to be.)

it’s about all the ads which seem to think that everyone has a happy family, no one gets drunk, the tree never falls over, all the prezzies appear beneath the tree magically wrapped and the credit card never spontaneously bursts into flames. everyone’s in love, no one has a broken heart and no one’s out of a job. where are all the ads with the real people in them?

in my ad, the single lady awakes, traipses downstairs to make the morning coffee. she discovers that she is out of cream. the cats roll around on the floor howling with starvation because even though the bowl is full of dry food, the single lady is all out of the good cracking wet stuff. the lady considers whether to get dressed but throws caution to the wind, shoving bare feet into boots, hoping the nighty gown doesn’t hang down (too far) beneath the winter coat, falls flat on her arse on the way to the corner store and once there discovers she has forgotten to bring her debit card. lady trudges home. lady trudges back to store. upon arriving back at home lady discovers that wonderful neighbour has shovelled and salted her driveway! that’s my kind of christmas gift! that’s my kind of ad.

for the party of one, there are dreaded questions, no matter how high one’s own esteem of oneself. “what did you get?” (it’s really difficult to surprise oneself with gifts unless skilled at shopping when loaded.) “how’s your love life?” (singles need to retaliate and start asking the marrieds “when is the last time you had sex?”) “when are you going to find yourself a good man?” (no thanks, i prefer to stick to the bad ones.) “would you like to meet my cousin when he gets out?” (hmmm….)

i have had an amazing year, filled with highs and lows. i am grateful to my core. for those of us who are the singles, sometimes we chose it that way, sometimes it turned out that way. sometimes a brandy in front of the telly watching “dial m for murder” is perfect. sometimes when i contemplate ringing the place where i want to spend new year’s eve and booking a ticket for one i feel a little sad. but maybe they have a table there built for the singles.

it could be a party of ones.

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in the controversial 1981 movie “a whale for the killing” (based on the farley mowat book of the same name) a stranded whale becomes a polarizing symbol. it becomes both a target and a mission in a small newfoundland community. many may not remember the movie now, especially in our new tourism industry where whales are balletic stars of sea and screen.

it’s not too shabby a time to be a humble comedy hack, i was thinking just yesterday. my job is to hunker down in a room with a bunch of other comedy hacks and dream up hitherto unknown ways to make people laugh. if i am successful with my work, a bunch of random strangers will sit in a theatre and intermittently burst into spontaneous laughter. if i fail, the worst that will happen is that no one laughs. although, sometimes comedians will say “i killed it out there.” or: “i died out there.” but no one gets killed. no one dies in comedy. (although secretly deep in my soul sometimes i die a little when people don’t laugh but that’s another blog for another day.)

with the sudden and brutal cutting of the city of st. john’s arts funding, coupled with staggering tax increases for small businesses and home owners, it has indeed felt as if something has died. no one is laughing. it feels as if, having run, crawled, swam, struggled to bring the professional arts into the light, while residing within a city that promotes itself as a cultural destination, the artists were slain just before the finish line. the world can watch all the technicolour tourism commercials where the happy clothes dance in the wind, the sea rolls with elegant flourishes along the rugged coast, impish children toss a sculpin back and forth. but without the professional artists, this will be a barren place. many of us were watching anxiously as the new cabinet under our new government was sworn in. we are always so desperate to see that our portfolio is not considered the ‘throwaway’ or the ‘training ground’, that it is taken seriously. thus we were caught completely off guard with the shoe thrown from another direction. many individual artists and companies will not recover from this freddy kruger slash.

the city claims that halving the arts budget will save just over 1 million dollars. but in fact, studies abound and research proves that every dollar invested into the professional arts generates at least three dollars of revenue in return, so i consider that the city has just robbed itself of approximately 3 million dollars in off-shoot revenue.

the professional arts are indefinable, intangible, intrenched, intrinsic, it’s a life, a calling, a living, a passion, a cross to bear. the artist and the art, is priceless, is invaluable. because we refuse to be disposable we will not go quietly into that good night. but the night is upon us. and whether we choose to go quietly or not may be the only choice left to us.

the whales will be the last performers. their jumping, twisting, dancing and songs the only remaining artistry. unpaid. no per diems necessary. except in the movie the whale got killed.

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He’s an old man now, the oldest of all the old men. He sits with the others on the wharf every morning that’s fit. There they debate and pontificate, and in that manner they solve the problems of the world. The world pays them no mind but they agree that without their wharf-parliament the planet would topple off its axis and careen willy-nilly through outer space. They are a sparse lot, slowly becoming a memory of themselves.

These are the last souls to remember fighting in the Second World War. He returned from those mangled foreign fields and spoke not one word about it ever to any creature with a mind to ask. He went to the States to build the skyscrapers that in his opinion do not graze much less scrape the sky, but which were all the craze as the world tried to rise above itself. He then came home to Newfoundland to live in that ubiquitous place known as Around The Bay. He claimed and restored the old family house nestled safely low to the ground and spurned the fishery. He became a poet and a tailor and sewed secret words into every article of clothing he made, his poems built slowly in that manner and for his own satisfaction only. A swaggering merchant of beer once sported a three-piece suit with “I lay my arse upon mellifluous sorrows” secretly stitched across his backside. A deceptive bride swanned down the aisle with “These anxious hackles of love do itch” stitched within her veil. He had no qualms about making a customer wait upwards of a year for a single suit, or sometimes turning people away altogether because he didn’t believe they understood the meaning of fabric.

He loved but one woman in his life and lost her when she ran away with a more conventional sort of fellow to live in the States among the very skyscrapers where his initials had been scratched and forgotten upon steel. If he grieved he never spoke of it to any creature with a mind to ask. He took in a black cat he pragmatically named Blackie. They resided together within his cozy house for many years, scarcely noticing the passing of time until Blackie grew a brain tumour and went blind. She continued to hunt and bring home prizes of birds and shrews until one day it was her own self she laid at his feet as a final tribute. He buried her beneath the apple tree where she had so gleefully stalked many witless birds.

He and his companions champion weekly card games and play ferociously for prizes of giant packs of toilet paper and cartons of Carnation Milk. None of them will admit to being old. They make frisky comments about the widows and spinsters and ex-nuns who occupy the fewer and fewer seats at the card game. The future still lies ahead. There are still hopes of discoveries, love, and winning the lotto.

One night while driving home from the card game he gets lost and has to pull over, unable to remember exactly where he is. In his mind’s eye he can see from whence he came and can envision where he wants to be, but the in between of how to get there has vanished. Around The Bay is not a complicated place but it has suddenly tangled itself into an indecipherable ball of string.

He knows he has won at the cards and he contemplates adding the giant pack of toilet paper to the many other giant packs of toilet paper stacked up in the living room where he no longer does any living. He thinks that if he can only make it home he would like to sleep and sleep on the soft cot in the kitchen next to the wood stove, safe beneath the watchful gaze of Saint Joseph.

After a spell the way home unfurls itself like a déjà vu. He travels it with a blind trust. Having lived a full-on exuberant life for ninety-four years, he knows not to be surprised when Death raps upon the door. Come in my son, he says as he puts the kettle on. Death sits in the rocking chair and speaks about an array of topics, remarkably mundane topics because one would expect Death to have illuminating utterances but Death does not. Death wants to talk about the preponderance of serial killers who seem to inhabit Coronation Street and how crock pots were never foretold. Death comes to dim the lights, which is lonely work. At the last, when a glimpse of the heart’s desire is offered, it is not the long lost lady-love who shimmers at the bedside. It is Blackie who leaps upon the cot, purring, eyesight restored. She kneads upon his arm in a rhythm both familiar and strange.

He fades gently while the kettle boils, sinking into long sleeps which grow longer and longer until the longest one.

Within the cotton pillowcase reside the words “A caplin might so well dance.”

(This is the Cat: now in bookstores everywhere. On-line too!)

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