Goodbye NDG, Hello Plateau!

I have spent the last week scraping, plastering, priming, painting, installing, packing, unpacking, breaking, fixing, etc. It was a slog, but I am now in my new home - the best present a girl could have on her 35th birthday.

As a newly-minted Plateausarde, I have the following to report as regards my fitting in/not fitting in:

GOOD: went shopping and used my enviro-bag
BAD: got up at 8.30 every morning (this according to Mr. Robertson, may get me kicked out and toot sweet)
GOOD: went to Belgian bakery and bought croissants and chocolatines on Saturday morning

BAD: did not shovel my front steps and wave jovially to neighbours as I did so

GOOD: walked everywhere

BAD: did not check my email, visit Facebook, text message or read blogs for two whole days (does this mean I will be set upon by a gang of rabid Gen Ys?)

I'll keep y'all posted. Now could someone please tell me how to use the thermostat? It's freezing in here...

A quick shout-out to the bendy boys...

Big congratulations to Seb Gagné, my favourite pest, and Étienne Denis, my favourite (and only) boss, for exploring their inner yogis.

Both of them are taking a yoga class at the Lyne St-Roch studios, and I could not be more proud *sniff*.

I expect weekly updates on the progress of your downward dogs.

And remember to keep those heels down!

Borderline, the movie

While the rest of the world discussed Hilary Clinton's comeback, Anne C. and I stepped out to Cinema Beaubien to catch Borderline, the film adaptation of two novels by notable Québec writer Marie-Sissi Labrèche.

(How nice am I? In case you'd rather read about politics than movies, I've provided a handy link to an excellent article about Ms. Clinton.)

The three best reasons to see Borderline - other than admiring the always radiant Isabelle Blais as Kiki:

1. The layering of Kiki at different ages - sometimes Kiki-child, Kiki-aged-20 and Kiki-aged-30 share the same scene. The director layered their appearances perfectly, never once making it cheesy or sentimental. This technique was especially evocative because it reminded me that wherever we are, we carry the stories of our past with us, but that they don't have to define who we are today. It also pays homage to our responsibility to our past mistakes. As horrible as they may be, our mistakes belong uniquely to us and we must accept them in order to transform our actions today. Lesson learned.
2. The sex scene between Isabelle Blais and Pierre-Luc Brillant (oh, relax, I didn't ruin anything - you're told within the first few minutes of the movie that IB's character has slept with everyone in town. And their sisters.) The push and pull of bodies - of wills - was perfectly calibrated, totally believable and gut-wrenchingly genuine.
3. Pierre-Luc Brillant as the pastry chef/poet/would-be lover. I mistook PLB for IB's love interest in Les Aimants, a heartbreaking little movie that's "pas intelligent mais ça marche." It isn't the same actor, but both of them give off an achingly tender persona that makes the ladies swoon. See both performances. You'll get all woozy in the knees.

Happy movies... or politics.

Why Coronation Street rocks

I started watching Coronation Street back in university when I needed to unplug from the reading. It was my aunt Lia who first introduced me to this unpretentious Brit soap, but I didn't realise I was hooked until 10 years later.

I've had to defend this love of mine many times, as most people think Corrie is only for maiden aunts and tea-cosy collectors. If you ask around though, you'd be amazed how many Corrie fans are under the age of 40 and fully mobile.

(I'll gloss over the part about how I once belonged to a Coronation Street club that met once a month to discuss the latest events. I get ragged on enough as it is for belonging to a book club.)

Here are my top ten reasons for loving Coronation Street:

1. Characters are not impossibly beautiful bimbos who wake up with perfect make-up and unwrinkled silk pajamas. Instead, Corrie characters are impossibly plain of appearance and wake up with ugly t-shirts and pillow marks on their faces. Hello bad teeth!
2. In American soaps, half the characters work in the fashion industry, while the other half work as doctors. Most Coronation Street inhabitants work as seamstresses in the local knicker factory. There are currently no doctors or nurses on the show, but Gail (chinless) Platt does work as a receptionist at the local clinic.
3. As viewers who have been watching Deirdre Barlow get progressively thicker around the waist and increasingly tendon-y around the neck can attest, Corrie actors don't get cosmetic surgery.
4. Kitsch is king. Vera Duckworth's earrings! Liz MacDonald's sequined camouflage top with slit sleeves! Cilla's short skirts! Fiz's scooter! This show is wall-to-wall fun fur, fluorescent yellow, big feathers, lightning-bolt necklaces, and powder blue eyeshadow.
5. Spider Nugent (photo above) is considered by many to be one of Corrie's biggest hearthrobs. His character is described as The Street's first eco-warrior, vegan and didgeridoo owner. Seriously. 
6. No matter the severity, Corrie characters proudly wear their scratches, bumps and bruises for weeks, as their fake wounds must heal at the same pace as the real thing. Also, pregnant women only give birth after nine months, and children do not magically turn into teenagers overnight.
7. Characters order bacon butties all the time. No shame, no calorie counting.
8. Snappy writing, like "I don't know what I ever saw in you, you bunny boiling freak! Cheap sex whinging gob! Legs from heaven, personality from hell."
9. All the accents are real.
10. Even if I read the spoilers and find out what's happening for the next six months, it's still fun to watch. Yes, it's so artfully done that I never have problems willfully suspending my disbelief

Must go catch today's episode now - I think Paul dies today!

Short story snippet

I was going to write something original tonight, but am in too foul a mood. Instead I'm recycling something old. Well, old to me - new to you.

I wrote this a long time ago about someone I once knew. I picked it up again recently in an effort to make something of it. It's still a work in progress, but enjoy it anyway. Suggestions and criticism always welcome.

ad xx

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Now that it's over, I've been searching for the one thing that I can keep.

The one memory that will last longer than pictures or notes scrawled on the corner of a napkin.

Although I have those too.

But I can only remember that day last spring when I turned a corner and saw him standing in front of the fruit store. The collar of his orange windbreaker was perked up. Bags weighed his arms down. His eyes were cast upwards to read a sign in the store window. Skin stretched so taut over his Adam's apple.

And I thought, “This is what he looks like when I’m not around, when he’s not being the John I know.”

Right then, with John standing before in his purest form, I glimpsed the universe of tenderness and pain and fear and courage inside him. All the beautiful things I could never see because of the angry push-and-pull that defined us. It was like seeing John as a child and I immediately understood that he was forever out of my reach. That I would never know the man standing in front of that window because I didn't know the words to lead me there.

So that's what I must keep. Isn't it terrible? The only memory I have and I don't even get a role in it.

Other than to exit.

The frail human ego

With Italians, it’s all about respect. Why do you think some of them punctuate the beginning and end of every thought with the personal pronoun “me” or “you”?

It’s because they are very concerned with giving everyone – especially themselves – due respect. It’s their little way of affirming themselves and their opinions.

It’s the same reason why so many Canadians punctuate their sentences with “eh”. It’s just a call for acknowledgment, the cue that will elicit the approving response we think we require.

Me, that's what I think, me.

Removing body hair

Understand one thing: a woman's greatest enemy is unwanted body hair.

When it comes to depilation, no expense is spared, no discomfort avoided, no measure left untried in our ongoing battle against those hated follicles. The stuff is everywhere - legs, bikini lines, arms, underarms, upper lips, eyebrows, unruly hairlines - and, for the most part, it just keeps growing back.

The thrust that drives the pharmaceuticals to come up new and parade-worthy treatments for erectile dysfunction is basically the same thrust that women apply to the eradication of unwanted body hair. More than anything else, men want to get it up, and women just want it gone.

(There's a neat little rhyme I could make at this point with the word pluck, but I leave it to your imagination.)

Waxing, bleaching, shaving, lasering, sugaring, plucking, threading, nuking. All of which must be following by loofahing, exfoliating, and moisturising to prevent rashes or the much-feared ingrown hairs. As a result, the amount of products and accessories you accumulate is astonishing. In my closet alone, there is hot wax (with a spreading knife and reusable cotton strips), disposable razors, post-laser treatment balm, three kinds of loofah, an exfoliant for my face, and more face and body creams than you can shake a stick at.

And I'm not even that hairy (which is astonishing for women of my tribe).

With the amount of money that we spend on hair removal, it surprises me that women don't already receive spam email. Like instead of "Your size DOES matter" and "Impress beautiful ladies with your massive weener", I can see "Never be embarrassed about the size of your eyebrows again" or "He can't get enough of your smooth legs".

But seriously, people, as utterly frivolous as this may seem, it really isn't. We've even named different wax jobs - the half-Brazilian, the Telly Savalas, and other things that sound vaguely like wrestling holds. Would you let some stranger stand over you while you're lying on your stomach - wearing no underwear - and spread hot wax in the valley between your cheeks? No? Women do. All the time. That's how serious it is, buster.

My own modest routine includes: self-waxing of the legs, aesthetician waxing of the bikini line, laser treatments on the underarms and threading of the upper lip and eyebrows. It's time-consuming, but it must be done. Some would justify it as the price you have to pay to be alluring and sexually attractive. While I admit this to be true, I would also like to point out that having smooth skin is a pleasure for me as well.

There is much satisfaction to be had in taking care of yourself - in letting others take care of you.

I especially love going to the threading salon and being ministered to by a beautiful Indian woman who sings along to Bollywood-sounding music on the radio as she unroots my facial hair with surgical precision.

I also have a really sexy girl aesthetician, but that's another story for another time.

Right now, I have an ingrown on my thigh that I need to look at again. And maybe even squeeze this time. Just a little. With the edge of my nail. A little.

Please note: 'weener' was mis-spelled on purpose. I cannot bear to have anyone think I  made a spelling mistake and didn't correct it.