November 28th, 2010

Teenage boy behind me on the bus, on cellphone

Hello.

(long silence)

Because it’s Sunday, retard.

(silence)

You thought it was Saturday? You’re kidding right? That’s so funny.

(mean cackling, followed by long silence)

So where did you go to the bathroom, then?
(silence)

The mall is closed but Zellers is open? That’s weird.

(silence)

The mall is closed because it’s Sunday night, remember?? Just wanted to mention to you, tomorrow is Monday, which will be followed by Tuesday…just tryin’ to help you out.

(silence)

You gotta stop eating paint chips, man.

(silence)

Wait, are you in the bathroom right now?

(silence)

That’s weird…(discussion of a hiphop concert that is boring and goes nowhere) Listen, why don’t you call me back when you get outta there? I just feel weird talkin’ to ya while you’re…yeah, ok, goodbye.

(sound of phone snapping shut, followed by more cackling)

November 11th, 2010

Why not feel good?

I’ve been reading various angry-making things in the newspaper–always a mistake to read the newspaper–and I had considered a long ranty post. But really, I’m about to jet off on a mini-vacation and the weather’s nice, and I’m not really in the mood to rant. So I offer this instead:

Yesterday I got on my bus at the end of the day and zoomed straight to the back, as I always do (because if I’m going to have to stand, I want to be knocked into by as few people as possible). When I got back there, I realized there were a couple seats technically free, but one was occupied by a big tough guy’s sweat-panted spread thigh, and the other by a tough teenaged boy’s backpack. I tried to catch either guy’s eye, both turned away, and I thought I wasn’t going to get into it. I reached for the pole as the bus started.

Another tough teen looked up in alarm. “There’s seats, there and there!” He pointed helpfully. The two-seat stealers shifted nervously.

“It’s ok, I don’t want to…”

Tough teen #2 leaped up as if electrocuted. “You can sit here! Sit here!” And then he went across the aisle to the big guy, shoved his knee aside and sat down.

My hero!

And in case you are not already cheered up, let me introduce you to Josey Kitten, my parents’ new roommate:

Yes, that is my toe–nothing if not a master of photographic composition, me. Josey’s in charge while I’m away.

October 13th, 2010

Fun guessing game–wanna play?

I’ll warn you upfront that I don’t have an answer for this–I just figure if I get a majority vote I’ll pretend it’s truth and count the case closed. So let me know what you think:

On the bus this evening, I overheard the following 1/2 of a cellphone conversation coming from behind me. Voice is male.
***
Hello. Hello. Hello?? Hello?? I’m on my way home. You’re cutting out. I’m on my way– Why don’t you let me call you when I’m home, I can barely–

I’m on the bus. Because I caught a ride with M. and he drove me three-quarters of the way home [RR notes: I swear he actually said “three-quarters”] Because S. was going to stay until 8. Because I didn’t want to stay until 8. Uh-huh. I don’t know. I don’t know. An hour? 45 minutes?

Why don’t I call you when I get home? I’m going home. What do you think I’m gonna do? I’m gonna walk Princess, grab some dubes, and go over to K.’s. [RR: I *swear*.] Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I’ll call you when I– No.

Ok, peace, whatever, it doesn’t matter. It does? Because of what I said to you last night? What did–? In my sleep? Oh, fine, hold me responsible for something I said in my sleep. I don’t care. Listen, my phone is going to die. I don’t want it to die before I get home. So I gotta go. It’s gonna– IT’S GOING TO DIE!!!

No, I won’t miss any calls from you.
***
Soooo…obviously, I waited a modest amount of time before turning around to see if I could match the voice to a face. In the back of the bus, I found some women and children, plus two young men.

One, perhaps early twenties, pin-striped shirt with v-neck blue sweater over top, big white-boy fro, at least one earbud, mouth slightly open as he gazes out the window.

Two, later twenties, green fleece sweater, sunglasses pushed back on head (it was raining), close-cropped hair and chin-scruff, holding smartphone-type item to his chin–grins at me wolfishly when he sees me looking.

The question I put to you is–which one was it?????

RR

October 12th, 2010

Do you ever get that feeling

…when you are driving or bussing or walking in the dark past a lit-up building, that there’s probably a person looking out each window? And that if you could get close enough and slow down enough and somehow make eye contact with all those people…it would matter somehow? The *how* I’m not sure of at all, but I always get that flash of sadness that I can’t do it.

July 12th, 2010

Home Hightlights

Vacation is over and I am back in beloved, smoggy Toronto. I will be, in rose-coloured fashion, concetrating on the belovedness and not the smog, nor will I dwell on the lack of ocean breezes and fresh lobster. Instead, I will focus my attention on:

–big pile o’mail! Highlights include box of free samples of soaps and shampoos, several New Yorkers, the issue of Canadian Notes and Queries that contains my short story “Sweet” (no relation to Dani Couture’s fantastic poetry collection by the same name), baseball tickets, a thing from the government saying I don’t owe them any more taxes, a separate thing from the government saying nor will they be giving me any money, a cheque from the government, and even an actual personal letter!
–raspberry bush o’erflowing with raspberries
–worst fears not realized: apartment not on fire, work projects not disastrous, G20 not ongoing, only one plant dead.
–a couple delightful reading invitations, including one for my beloved Pivot at the Press Club on August 11 (8pm). I haven’t read from Road Trips anywhere yet, so I guess this will be a launch of sorts! Hope you can come!
–hilarious friends, who have spent their time without me going to mustache contests and discussing the merits of accidental death and dismemberment insurance.
–TTC–no, really, I’ve missed it!

March 25th, 2010

Incidents and accidents

1) In class yesterday:

Me, looking over the shoulders of two grade 11 girls as I walk past their desks: Girls, c’mon! I said no phones. (keep walking)

Girl, calling after me: Sorry, miss! We were just–

(I turn to them)

Other girl: Trying to look something up.

(Me internally: Dictionaries live in phones now?)

First girl: Yeah. How do you spell “schizophrenia”?

Me: Oh, well, er– Yeah, fine. Look in your phone.

First girl: Thanks, miss.

Me: You’ve won…

Other girl: Yes, miss.

Me: …this round.

This proves that the reason I refuse to get a cell phone is that I am afraid they are smarter than I am (and I’m probably right, because what I was actually think began with “s-k-” until I realize that was nuts. People think I’m a good speller but I really just own a good [paper] dictionary and sit with it open at my left elbow, which is why I spelled “schizophrenia” correctly above).

2) On the subway, I laughed aloud at something I was reading. What I was reading was Moral Disorder by Margaret Atwood, so it’s not so surprising that I laughed, because it is very funny. But it’s a little surprising because I almost never laugh aloud when alone. I don’t know why, but somehow I think laughing is a communicative act, though semi-involuntary. I like funny movies and go to a fair number on my own (for reasons of necessity brought on by [occasionally] having extremely bad taste–I can’t accept that they would bother to make a movie called Hot Tub Time Machine unless that had something important to say about the subject) and I’ll laugh with the audience in happy solidarity, but not really reading and watching tv alone (from what I remember).

Anyway, but then I did, last night, and it caused the drunk guy behind me to say something obscene to or about me. Which is not exactly positive reinforcement to keep doing it.

3) I was walking down the sidewalk this morning and a truck travelling the opposite way made that “ffffffftttttt” sound that I always associate with air brakes although I actually have no idea what it is. But the truck was still moving along at a good clip, and then I noticed that a little jet of steam/smoke shot out under the *front* bumper in time with the noise. I was staring at this in perplexity when I realized the driver was waving at me in a hey-there-old-friend jaunty manner. I definitely don’t know him. There aren’t a lot of pedestrians in that part of town, perhaps he was just offering solace to an endangered species. Or maybe he was just glad I liked his truck?

Does anyone know what the noise and/or steam mean?

RR

December 16th, 2009

Randolinquent

Written on the back of a bus seat in Wite-Out pen:

“F*ck the free world!”

But not the dictatorships?

RR

November 27th, 2009

Eavesdropper

I’ve already admitted on National Radio that I sometimes turn off my iPod on the TTC but leave my earbuds in, the better to innocuously listen in on the conversations of my fellow riders. Sometimes I don’t even have the earbuds; I just listen. Like an evening earlier this week, when the fellow behind me on the bus was arguing vehemently via cellphone.

The topic was whether the person on the other end would come to his house that evening. It was already rather late, and the guy was still on the bus and not in said house and so I wondered, is this a booty call? Those aren’t usually so contested, I don’t think.

Eventually, I worked out that the reason the other person (pretty sure) a female wouldn’t come over was that he would not permit her to smoke or drink on the premises. She felt this was a dealbreaker; he felt that was stupid and she shouldn’t have been smoking or drinking anyway. He said, “I’m gonna let you think about this. You think what you want to do and whether that is a valid reason for not doing what you want to do, and then you call me back.”

She called back almost immediately, and the conversation repeated itself, almost exactly (on his end, anyway). Then I think he noticed me listening (I wasn’t looking at him, but I had closed my book) and went and sat somewhere else. So I don’t know how it ended.

At the university discussion also this week, students asked me about using eavesdropped quotations in my work, which is actually something I never do. Or maybe almost never–I can’t think of a time I have, but the rule isn’t terribly rigid.

I listen a lot to what people say because I want a wide range of voices in my head (only ones I invite, obviously). I want to know a range of expressive styles, accents, lisps, slang, grunts, etc. I also want to know what a wide range of people think about stuff–some people feel it is reasonable to call an SO at 10:30 at night and demand that she not only come right over but abide by house rules. Ok. No one’s ever asked me to do that and none of my friends have ever mentioned it, so if I didn’t eavesdrop, how would I know?

Life is circumscribed, always, and in many ways that is good. My friends and family have a lot in common with me–interests, certainly, but also education levels and vocabulary, age, socio-economic status, etc.–which only helps us understand each other. But there is a limit to the vocal variations in that: We don’t all speak the same way, but there is a great deal of overlap.

I think, to be the writer I want to be, I need a broader pallatte than just people I happen to know. So I listen, and learn about how the world is and how sentence patterns can evolve. If a person says “moving forward” instead of “from now on”, uses “knife” as a verb, uses “my work” as a location not a project, insists that he is only “being true to my values” in everyday conversation–well, that tells me so much about how they are in life, and I crave being able to use that sort of shorthand in my work.

I don’t transcribe or quote partly because I don’t feel quite right about it; no one will ever track down that guy from the bus, but I’ll feel bad that I stole his words (although stealing his style of speaking is better how, exactly?) More than that, though, I don’t quote because I’m writing fiction and it is very very rare that the demands of the plot and characters I’m writing about will take in unedited words from a real conversation. More than just being true, story dialogue needs to be true to the characters, which is why I never take more than a general sense of rhythm and style from the folks I listen in on.

Here’s another one: At the Yonge & Bloor subway station newsstand, at rush-hour, among many other people a teenage girl is looking carefully at all the candies. She picks up a pack of tropical Jolly Ranchers and holds them up to the cashier.

“1.95 please.”
“Do you have–“
“What?”
“Do you have the chewy Jolly Ranchers?”
“What?”
“They’re like these, only chewy. I don’t see them here.”
“I– If you doan see them, we doan have them. Do you want those?”
“Could you look? If you have them?”
“We don’t– Ok.” [counting me, there were approximately 10000 people in line, but the cashier was so confused she went to the other candy rack and came back momentarily] “No, we doan. You want those?”
“Oh, no. Do you know what other stores might have them? In the subway?”
“I– No, I’m sorry. No idea.”
“Oh, well…ok.”

Of course, one could argue that I am quoting here, on the blog, but here I am also giving attribution to the speaker, insofar as I am able. Please hold no illusions that I am able to make this stuff up.

I don’t know these voices are doing in my head besides going into the general mishmash file called “experience.” But I don’t have a tv, so this is pretty good entertainment for me.

RR

October 21st, 2009

Games to Play on the TTC: Snark Projection

Regular readers of this blog will know that I spend a lot of time on the TTC and that I love it. It’s not a perfect system (I’m looking at you, big open U up north) but it functions admirably, and for $1200 a year, gets me everywhere I need to go, plus most places I want to go. I also love the openness to strangers and their lives that public transit gives me. When I stopped working in the service industry, I found I really missed the constant stream of new faces (although little else). Some days, the bus is my only chance to see any strangers at all.

The TTC is a fashion show, an easedropper’s paradise, a microcosm of etiquette puzzles (exactly how crowded does the bus have to be to make standing in front of the doors acceptable?), and chance for random acts of kindness. Of course, that last one is especially fun to watch: how many bookmarks, metropasses, gloves, and pieces of fruit have people rescued for me in transit? I see people lifting up the fronts of strollers, grabbing the arms of blind people, offering their streets to pregnant ladies, mentioning that someone’s tag is out almost every day.

But I also see a fair bit of bad behaviour. So, though you know it comes with (largely) love, this particular game is snarky. I have noticed a bad TTC tendancy has lately picked up force, and I don’t like it, and to comfort myself, I have been writing little storylets based on the bad behaviour.

On most of the newer TTC buses (since about 2006), the seats in the raised rear portion of the bus are in pairs beside the windows. I always sit at the back and have firmly internalized the bus-logic rule that if you are alone in a two-seat, you scootch over to the window if you want to zone out. It is permissable to remain in the aisle seat only if you are able to remain alert and immediately swing your knees out into the aisle if someone wants to set next to you (because there is zero leg room for someone to get by; the aisle person essentially blocks access to the internal seat).

BUT! Some people I’ve encountered lately have not only not been scooting over or putting their knees in the aisle as I angle for the seat, they have been meeting my gaze balefully, almost angrily, even when I ask if I might please sit there. They do actually let me–no one’s said no yet–but a lot of people have looked furious about the proceedings.

I don’t think the rules have changed since I moved to TO–but in order to not simply start hating everyone, I have been imagining the interior monologues of these people, trying to empathize with how they must somehow feel wronged by my desire to sit beside them.

Here’s what I’ve got, for only some of the encounters I have had.

1) I am in love! I am in love and texting my beloved! Texting is our bond! If I do not text him immediately, he might not know I love him! Textless, he might break up with me! Then I would be loveless, heartbroken, life would not be worth living. I might die. I see a shadow. There is someone standing over me, but I cannot stop texting “OMG, I <3<3<3 u!!!!!!" to see what this shadow wants. Clearly, it is less important than love. Even if the shadow is in love with me, I am spoken for. Probably. Unless the shadow is super-hot...maybe I should look up? 2) That young woman is clearly young and slender, while I am feeling fat and old today. My friends tell me that I am neither fat nor old but they are lying so that they won’t have to deal with my problems. I’m not going to squinch up in this narrow little molded plastic seat, I’m not going to let her make me feel fat. Alone, my thigh can perhaps inch a bit over the seat divider and no one cares, but if that little gym rat were sitting next to me, she’d shift awkwardly away and make me feel like a big fat cow. No way am I letting her insult me like that. She can stand on her gym-toned legs. 3) That young woman has a big ass. If she sat down next to me, I would have to squinch awkwardly into the aisle to accomodate her ass. After a hard day, I deserve to have full access to my complete molded plastic TTC seat. I am not responsible for her lack of willpower regarding molasses taffy. She should stand–it tones the glutteal muscles. 4) I am in a gang. Gang members get full control of the back seats on busses. How can you not know this, lady in the tights with flowers on them? Clearly, you are not in a gang, but you should still respect the entitlements of gang members. See this enormous cubic zirconium in my left ear? See this silver flip-phone with rhinstone bedazzling? This is bling, flower-lady. Where is your bling? Ok, you have bling, but it is in the form a butterfly broach. Are you in the butterfly gang? No, no you are not, because there is no such thing, and therefore you have no right to any seat in the back row. They are all mine. Go away, and come back when you’ve joined a gang. What do you think–am I close? I know this is sort of game is a poor substitute for accepting that people are a little rude sometimes, but I like my way better. Please, feel free to play along! RR

August 28th, 2009

TTC Hand Stories

1) A middle-aged gentleman in a windbreaker in a corporate-branded windbreaker and earbuds sits down in the single seat ahead of me on the streetcar. I am facing forward, the way the seat goes, but he faces sideways, into the aisle. I am always startled by older people with earbuds, because my parents are my reference point for all older people, and they would no more stick appliances in their ears than in their noses. But I am reading, looking out the window, reading, not paying attention to this man…until he begins to take things out of a plastic bag. Then I have to look, in case he’s got a book and I need to read the spine, or a snack and I need to see if it looks appetizing, or…or…*anything interesting at all* (I don’t get out much; I am your streetcar worst nightmare). Whatever it is, there are several, each in an individual cellophane packet. I peer through the cello but can’t really understand what the items are–some sort of crumpled while loops of fabric. I look harder and harder until the man turns to meet my gaze and I turn back to the window, feeling like the giantest weirdo on the TTC for staring with such intensity at the poor man’s craft materials or whatever. I don’t look at him again until we get off the car, when I realize the man is gripping the pole with a hand cloaked in a thin tight white glove. His other hand is bare–yes, I looked–I don’t know what he did with the other gloves. He gets off without looking at me again, earbuds and windbreaker and Michael-Jackson glove. Another thing my parents would never do.

2) A beautiful young woman in a sleek black business suit sits on the Yonge line southbound, eating a bag of Cheetos. Look closer: it’s not *quite* a business suit. The blazer’s got a zipper that goes up to the throat, and her high spike heels are on bare feet rubbed popped-blister raw. Look closer: her hair is a tumble of beer-blond curls that have clearly required a heat-styling implement, but now they’ve started to unscrew, some rounder than others, some nearly perfectly vertical. And closer: not quite a young woman; behind her expensive narrow red glasses frames this is a university student with a posh summer job–maybe even a high-schooler. Her knees are knobby and crossed wide. She is eating the Cheetos at a great rate, as if someone will get on at a predetermined stop and take them from her. It is not a single-serving bag. Despite all of the above, as close as you can look, she is still beautiful. She eats the last cheese-twist and, with even more urgency, inserts her frost-pink manicured nails into her mouth, on at a time, and sucks the electric orange dust from the creases before she dares brush them against her cheap black suit. She finishes the tenth nail just as we arrive at Union and, crumpling the bag in her fist, she darts off.

Mutiny, I promise you
RR