Only...

the funniest site on the Web: Go Fug

(And because it's getting near Christmas, I'll turn the Comments function back on. Don't ask. I have these little rituals that I cannot explain.)

Snowed in!

This reminds me of another time I coveted a very expensive piece of apparel. (How's that for a forced and inappropriate segue from the last post to this one?!) I was 21 years old and living in Toronto while I attended fashion design school. Being a fashion design student was only my avocation, however. My true vocation was shopping and going to parties and trying to look more sophisticated than I was.

I had never before lived in a large city and was seduced by the glamour. Soon after I arrived I became convinced that the key to happiness was to give the impression that I was a big city girl from way back. If possible, I wanted to convey the idea that, from my perspective, Toronto was rather small and unimpressive. I hoped those who saw me would say, "My goodness, she's so in touch with what's going on. Perhaps she's from New York. Or Mexico City. Somewhere really big, anyway." The key to creating this new self was dressing the part.

I was aided and abetted in my delusion that clothes could change the course of my life by the fashion magazines I consumed as though they held the secret to life. (For instance: If I wear my hair extremely windswept like the girl in the photo, I too will look willowy and heartstoppingly beautiful. Also, I should find a graffiti-covered surface to stand against for maximum effect.)

At a certain point I decided that I wanted to look very, very wealthy. I liked the term "old money" and wished to appear as though my money was walking around with an oxygen tank and walker. Today, I'd probably want to give the impression that I have something to do with "hedge funds". Of course, I don't really know what hedge funds are and my grade eight math skills make it unlikely anyone is ever going to hand me a hedge fund to manage. Given the state of our wretched garden hedges, I doubt anyone would even give me an actual hedge to manage. But that's another story for another time.

Just as I was making a commitment to appear wealthy (if not to actually do anything to become wealthy) I realized that somewhere along the line I'd run out of student loan money. This was inconvenient because I still had quite a bit of school left to complete and to pay for. Luckily, I had a tax return coming and a birthday. Between them, I'd just be able to pay for my final term.

I received the money and it looked like a windfall. Sure, it wasn't exactly old money. But it would look like it was old money if I spent it wisely on a genuine IRISH KNIT SWEATER from the Irish Shop! If there's one thing my fashion magazines had taught me, it was that wealthy, old money individuals were very fond of cable knit sweaters. The truly rich spent all their time hanging out with labrador retrievers while leaning against barn walls and lounging carelessly on mossy lawns with vast, old money mansions in the background.

With that in mind, hours after receiving the money, I rushed off to the Irish Shop on Bloor Street and purchased myself a genuine Irish knit cabled sweater, complete with a little tag written up by the geniune Irish woman who'd knit it (in her genuine Irish stone house, located in her picturesque, emerald green Irish village by the sea). She signed the note "Doreen". That really got me. Doreen! How wonderfully Irish! I knew all the old money people were going to recognize the quality of my sweater. They might even have their own sweaters knit by Doreen!

The sweater knit by Doreen cost $350 and it still smelled of the Irish sheep from whence it came. It was 1989 and my annual income at that time was, not including student loans, about $4000. But no worry: people of quality aren't afraid to invest in quality!

I left the store and walked home, sure that people were looking at me differently now that I carried a bag from the Irish Shop. I imagined that any moment one of the people driving Mercedes along Bloor Street would pull over to ask whether I'd be going to the shore that summer or rather heading to the South of France.

When I got home to my somewhat grotty student residence, I quickly put on my new sweater. It hung to nearly my knees, possibly not the most attractive fit in the world. But that was of no concern to someone who'd recently completed a term at fashion design school. I used my new skills to insert a piece of elastic along the waist to tuck it in. That made the sweater less sloppy. Unfortunately, it also meant I would not be able to return it to the Irish Shop.

It took about a day of being completely neglected by the Old Money People for me to realize that I had spent the money I needed to complete my school term. The college administrators didn't think the fact that I owned a Genuine Irish Sweater knit by Doreen reason enough to let me back in. And they refused to accept the sweater as payment.

So I dropped out of school. To this day, that is the most I've ever paid for a sweater. It's almost more than I've ever paid for a car. When I look back on the missed path as a costume designer I totally blame Doreen. And Vogue magazine.

Loeffler, How I Loeff You

It may not be appropriate to admit this on the ever-so public World Wide Web, but I've been having an affair. Granted, it's not a real affair. It's an emotional and mental affair. And it's with footwear, so don't get too excited.

I teach in Vancouver on Tuesday nights and early Wednesday mornings I stand outside a small boutique waiting for the bus that will take me to the ferry. And for the past several weeks there has been a pair of shoes in the window. Sometimes they are displayed under a skirt and blouse ensemble on the right. Sometimes they are tucked under a pair of fab skinnyleg jeans on the left. But always they are giving me the look. The look that says: "Well, hey there, Sunshine. I'd sure like to meet your feet."

At first I tried to resist their flirtations. I live on the Island. I spend a lot of time walking a dog in the rain and the mud. I spend a lot of time cleaning a horse's stall and walking through wet pastures and into dusty arenas. Like Meryl Streep in Bridges of Madison County, I've made my lifestyle choice and most of the time I'm happy with it. My closet is filled with running shoes and rubber boots and that's just how it is.

But when those shoes give me that peekaboo look through the tiny little sliver of open toe, it's like Clint Eastwood has just showed up at my door. It's like my entire lifestyle has been a mistake. I should be living in New York (or at least Vancouver) and I should have an entire wardrobe full of clothes that would look just right with a pair of handstitched high heels in a shade of brown that is both classic and totally contemporary.

I've tried not looking at them. It doesn't work. Even when they're not in the window, they seem to call me from inside the store. I end up standing with my nose pressed against the glass trying to catch a glimpse of them inside the store. People look at me funny.

'Why don't you just buy the shoes and be quiet already?' you might very reasonably ask. Well, I enquired after them and discovered that they cost $600. Dollars. Not pesos.

It seems to me that the day you spend $600 on a pair of shoes is the day you've crossed some sort of line. (Unless your name is Barbara Amiel and/or you're fond of the phrase: "Let them eat cake." Or you live in New York. According to the Gossip Girls books, most teens in New York would be totally embarrassed to wear shoes that only cost $600.)

But if you live in Nanaimo, British Columbia and have a mortage and other responsibilities, $600 shoes are not an option.

So what is the answer? There is no answer. Sometimes the best affairs are the ones that take place entirely in one's head. Until the course is finished, I will stand each Wednesday morning as near to the shoes as I can get in a proprietary fashion. I will visualize each of the outfits I own that the shoes look fantastic with (I will have to make up these outfits, as I don't actually own them). And when the shoes finally sell I will know that our time together was short but it was intense. I may write a story about it, one filled with heartbreak and yearning, called The Shoes of Madison County or Why Don't I Have Anyplace to Wear These (and Why Can't I Afford Them Even if I Did.)

Loeffler Randall

If you can guess the pair that are filling my dreams, well, you get nothing except to share the bliss of looking at them and wishing they were yours. Unless you're one of those lucky bastages who actually trots around in $600 shoes. In which case, please buy some and give them to me when the affair is over.

Another Day, Another...

Alice, I Think poll...

I'm not sure how many people are visiting the CTV site anymore (Alice is only on in reruns on the Comedy Network), but if you're interested in a second season, feel free to vote. As yet there is no news about a second season. Word has it that the decision will be made early in the new year. I'll keep you posted.

You might think that I have been very busy fielding phone calls from outraged human rights activists who are concerned that the banning of my books in Texas is going to have adverse affects on the development and long term prospects of young people in the Lone Star State. Sadly, you'd be wrong. I think I will have to do more than threaten to bring a dirty cowboy (and pole routine) to my school talks to generate any sort of furor.

In fact, I've been very busy trying to finish a new book and putting the final touches to the copyedited version of Another Kind of Cowboy.

The new book is a mystery/detective comedy called A Mack Daddy Mystery. Researching it has required me to read the complete works of Micheal Connelly (certainly no hardship), as well as Dennis Lehane, Raymond Chandler, Elmore Leonard and Chuck Hogan. As a result of reading all that hardboiled crime fiction, I've begun calling people "sweet cheeks" (an entirely different term than the one Mel Gibson used to address his female arresting officer) and looking for "perps" in my spare time. I'm also thinking of getting a "gat". To balance out all the testosterone, I've been watching back-to-back episodes of Veronica Mars, which is definitely one of my top three shows of the moment, along with The Wire and Battlestar Galactica.

One exception to my all-crime, all-the-time, reading is a new book called Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O'Neill. I started it last night and it's absolutely brilliant: beautiful and funny and sad. If you loved A Complicated Kindness, you'll adore this. I heard Heather O'Neill reading from it on Jonathan Goldstein's Wiretap several months ago and was very taken. The book has lived up to my expectations.