Re: Took me long enough to figure this out! Thought maybe I was stupid or something

[Patte Rosebank]

Actually, I’m thinking seriously of taking some of those stories and trying them out in comedy clubs. I’ve always enjoyed the stand-up comics who are storytellers: Dave Allen (whom I met in 1990, the last time he played Toronto), Billy Connolly (peppered with expletives, but it works with his accent and persona), Charles Fleischer (such a wild stream-of-consciousness act, that I swear I was the only one in the room who could follow it). This requires a lot more effort than just making observations. It must be formally scripted, for maximum impact. I usually do this not by writing it down, but by telling the story to various people and keeping the wording that works the best. That’s how I come up with lines like, “This was a red flag to a bullshit artist like me.” And how I memorize these scripted stories.

As for the cleaning horror stories…

I have a vacuum cleaner somewhere. Also a Steam Mop. And one of those lobby dustpans, on a long stick so you don’t have to crouch down to use it. All of these cleaning tools are festooned with cobwebs and dust bunnies. I killed my vacuum cleaner the last time I used it, and my dad repaired it and returned it to me. I’m sure I’d kill it again if I were to use it. And the Steam Mop was recalled due to an electric shock hazard. I wrote in for the free part to fix that, but I haven’t installed it yet. And until I do install it, I’m not going to risk electrocution.

But amidst all the chaos and clutter, I do know where to find things. I know that this bunch of fabric is located in heap A; the interfacing is in heap B, etc. My patterns are in lateral filing cabinets (purchased for $50 each when a Fabricland closed), but in no real order—except that all the vintage patterns I got from my grandmother are in the bottom drawer. I have to keep them separate, because the sizes are very different from today’s sizes. You’ll often hear that “Marilyn Monroe was never smaller than a size 14”. Well, a size 14 in the 1950s was 32 – 26½ – 35. Today’s size 14 is 36 – 28 -38. Note how much the bust-waist-hip ratios have changed since then, too. Today’s women don’t wear firm foundation garments, so they don’t have the same curves. But I digress…as usual.

I would love to have an organized, neat apartment, but whenever I start working towards this, my back seizes up and I have to abandon my futile efforts. I wonder if it’s psychosomatic.

My dad keeps threatening to have my apartment declared a dump site. When he used to work at the Ministry of the Environment, he and his department filled in the formal certification for a dump site and attached it to a colleague’s perpetually chaotic desk. The colleague was quite flattered because it appears to be the only case ever of a desk being formally declared a dump.

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