How some people secretly see their horses...

Thanks to Felicia for sending me these.

White Pines!

I'd like to show some of my most special dance moves to the OLA for nominating Getting the Girl for the 2010 White Pine Award!



Well, maybe I'll just dedicate this to them!

The Good News and the Failure Pile

Did I mention that the lovely new mass market edition of Another Kind of Cowboy is now available?

And did I mention that I had dental surgery last week and have been on a soft food diet for six days? At first I thought I might starve (soup is nice, but it's not really food), but then I discovered my old friend, Alphagetti, as well as ice cream cups and whipped potatoes with butter. So instead of losing weight, as I'd feared, I'm packing it on like I'm in training for the next heavy-weight bout. And did I mention that even though I've perfected perhaps the most high calorie, low effort diet ever, I'm bitter and ill-at-ease and it's all because I miss chips? All true. Which reminds me that if you haven't heard Patton Oswalt's riff on KFC's bowls, you must. (Plenty 'o swearing: be forewarned.)



Failure pile in a sadness bowl. I'll take one of those. Also, in the concert version of this, he refers to the mound as a "hillock" and that makes the whole bit even better.

Mock me if you must...

but at least be funny about it.

File under: how did I miss this one?

I have a book crush on King Dork. I'm only 50-odd pages in, so things may sour. But as of now, it's the real thing. Why? Well, there's this:

"Oh, wait. I should mention that Catcher in the Rye is this book from the fifties. It's every teacher's favorite book. The main guy is kind of a misfit kid superhero named Holden Caulfield. For teachers, he is the ultimate guy, a real dreamboat. They love him to pieces. They all want to have sex with him and with the book's author, too, and they'd probably even try to do it with the book itself if they could figure out a way to go about it. It changed their lives when they were young. As kids, they carried it with them everywhere they went. They solemnly resolved that, when they grew up, they would dedicate their lives to spreading The Word.

It's kind of like a cult.

They live for making you read it. When you do read it you can feel them all standing behind you in a semicircle wearing black robes with hoods, holding candles. They're chanting "Holden, Holden, Holden..." And they're looking over your shoulder with these expectant smiles, wishing they were the ones discovering the earth-shattering joys of The Catcher in the Rye for the very first time.

Too late, man. I mean, I've been around the Catcher in the Rye block. I've been forced to read it like three hundred times, and don't tell anyone but I think it sucks."

Oh, Frank Portman of the Mr. T Experience. You have done me in two hundred times in fifty-odd pages. Oh, and apparently King Dork is being turned into a movie that will be released in 2011. Please let the film not be ruinous, the way the movie version of I Love You, Beth Cooper apparently is. I haven't watched the Beth Cooper movie. I'm far too attached to the book.

Consumer Reports

Hello, sad, dusty little blog!

I expect you're accustomed to neglect by now. That's probably a good thing. Keep the expectations low. That's my strategy for avoiding disappointment and it has never let me down.

Take my approach to retail, for instance. I don't expect sales people to be cheery or helpful. I don't expect cashiers to be fast. I was certainly none of those things. My attitude toward the customers who came into my spheres of retail (video store, yarn sales, kichen supplies) veered between openly hostile to insultingly apathetic. So I'm always surprised when service is good.

I would now like to present the award for Surprisingly Excellent Service to the staff at Van Isle Videos. Not only is the store comfortingly non-fancy (baby poop coloured carpets, buckets located at strategic locations to catch drips from low-hovering ceiling) it also has the best staff in Nanaimo. First, there was the guy who was debonair in his brisk efficiency when he went to pull DVDs to fill the empty cases. He nearly danced back there behind the counter. He performed this little bow-salute-type gesture when handing over your discs. It always made my day. He cared. Or at least gave the impression he did. Sometimes I went in and rented something just to get that bow.

He has gone onto be dashing to customers elsewhere (I presume) but the rest of the staff is just as excellent. They don't do the "use the customer's name" trick, which always comes off phony, but they nod at you if you've rented something half decent and that's worth the price of a rental for me. Several of them appreciate Homicide (the show, not the act). Again, that makes them okay with me. (Quick interruption for a quote: Homicide doesn't need metaphors. Homicide just is. Detective Frank Pembleton. Quote over.) The staff at Van Isle never seem bitter when they're trying to have a smoke out front and I interrupt them. Again, I could have used their good example when I was a chain smoking video store youth employee. Some of them have interesting yet strangely tasteful piercings that I've never seen before, which is an added bonus.

Overall, I always leave Van Isle feeling better about life and the world. Plus, they get in all the good TV shows and have a huge section of British movies.

On the other side, I'd like to present the Totally Crap Award to the new Mega Super Duper Outdoor Store on the Old Island Highway. I was riding my bike by and thought I'd stop in and see what they had to offer. I had my purse/messenger bag around my shoulder. I was confronted at the entrance by two staff members who demanded my bag (and tried to force flyers on me). This was at the grand opening. Wow. Delightful welcome, Mega Store! I drew myself up into one of my patented outraged huffs and marched right back outside. I may have muttered something that didn't make sense as I went.

Mega Super Duper Outdoor Store: if you can afford to build and staff a half acre enterprise, surely you can afford some cameras and security gates and not subject customers to search and seizure before they even get through the door. Nothing about being treated like a thief makes me feel like spending money. In conclusion, bite me Outdoor Store. I'll keep getting my outdoor-type gifts for Jim (who is still calling himself Dmitry) and my camping supplies for Lucky Bitches Camping Extravaganzas at Canadian Tire. They have that fake money that's fun to play with and tired, irritable staff who clearly don't care. But nobody at The Tire messes with my purse! (Oh, and if you're looking for fishing or (god forbid!) hunting (gak) supplies, try Gone Fishin'.

P.S. The new book, Republic of Dirt , has found a fabulous publisher and editor in the U.S. As soon as I have details on the publication date, I'll put them here, on the dusty, sad blog.

xoxo