My First Oil Painting

There it is: my first-ever oil painting. After years of wanting to do paint, I finally painted this weekend. It's supposed to be a hay field that's recently cut. There are the brown rough stalks in the foreground and then an a green canola field in the background. I remember stopping my car to take that picture.

Later I'll add the bales of hay (when I figure out how to do it).

After I painted, I spend the rest of the day looking at the world and thinking to myself "how would I paint that? those clouds? that over there? would I start light? Go with green?"

Munchies and Worms

In the town of Clarksburg Ontario, on the shores the Beaver River, you can buy worms from a vending machine. It's the only thing you can buy in this town 24-hours a day (in summer time).

My first painting

Bait Machine

Taking Off

For the first time in a long time, I took a day off from work. Got straight into the car and sped out of town as fast as I could with a bag full of clothes, my computer, and an iPod plugged into the tape deck.

It was a beautiful sunny winter day, the roads were clear and there was no traffic. Willie Nelson on the 401, Justin Rutledge on the 410, a little Same Cooke on Highway 10, and then Neko Case north of Shelbourne.

Big drifts of snow, frothed like milk blanketed the sides of the highway. Fields are all white, endless. I watch the fences rise and fall, rise and fall like waves as I drive past. The orchards are empty, the rows almost animate as you pass them at high speeds. Windshield wiper fluid freezes every time I try to clear off the salt stains.

I don't stop once, the car just keeps going. I only look in my rearview mirror to look for cops - the only thing that could hold me back now.

Massage

I can barely move my carcass for a body around town these days. My back, shoulders and neck are like hunks of frozen meat. Under my skin I can feel knots hard as marbles. Instead of complaining, I cashed in my coveted gift certificate to Holt Renfrew Spa on Bloor Street. Very big deal. It's an hour long session, something I am going to relish in all its glory.

I limped in the front doors, passed the Armani collection, caught a glimpse of a shirt for $2,500. A bag for $5,575. The shoppers in here are very serious. Expensive hair. Boots that I care not to know how much they cost. I realize I am limping and sagging to one side - I am that tense.

I check in at the spa and I am led to the change room, passing a group of women in white bathrobes sitting in chairs with cotton balls between their toes. The air smells like nail polish. I can't WAIT for this massage. Even if it means surgically removing my muscles, pounding them with a meat tenderizer and putting them back in.

I change into my robe, a pair of foam slippers. I wash my feet with some expensive soap. Every room is clad in marble. Oh I can hardly wait!

Dez is my lady. She tells me to get into the massage table and she'll be back when I'm ready. I flop down, face first, smelling that fresh towel smell. Ah, man. This is going to be so good.

Dez returns and begins rubbing my back. I hear soft music playing.

And then when I look up, it's Dez. She's tapping my side.

"You must have been tired," she says. I'm done. I let you sleep an extra ten minutes."

I didn't even get one minute in to my one-hour massage before it was over. The horror!

She could have left and I would have never known. I was tense just thinking about it.

Watches or Couches

Last summer I bought myself a new Seiko watch from a family run boutique on Spadina avenue in the heart of Chinatown. It wasn't expensive but had a feature that I liked: it doesn't need a battery. Just the movement of my body and arms keeps it charged up by means of device within the watch's gears.

I die, it dies.

However, without a battery, I was told that the watch will lose synch over time and requires to be recalibrated in a few months. The man behind the counter said I could come back and he'd fix it for free.

Recently, I noticed the watch was consistently five minutes fast at the end of every week. I returned to Spadina on a cold, grey Satruday afternoon and presented my impatient watch. The man was about my age, dressed up in fancy clothes and wore a set of magnifying goggles over his forehead, ready to deploy on his nose when forced to examine the tiny parts of his wares. He took my watch, still warm from my hand, and placed it into a small cradle attched to an LCD computer - much like something you would see in an intensive care unit in a hospital. The machine started to beep and tick as it measured the pulse of my watch. A graph appeared, lights flashed. The watch was running 10 seconds fast per day. The man, opened the back of my watch carefully and peered into the gears under a brigh spotlight. Using a miniscule screwdriver he poked a lever deep inside the watch. He returned it to the computer and measured it again: 5 minutes fast. Then again three more times until my watch was calbrated perfectly. As he worked, I peered into his workshop. Th walls were covered in diagrams of watches, the gears individually named and aligned. There were shelves of tiny screwdrivers, pliers, vices, clips, files. Everything tiny, like an elve's workshop. Surely it was was a passion.

"How long have you been working with watches?"
"Oh, forever. My father started in this business."
"You must really love it."
He screwed the plate back onto the watch. "It's an OK business.," he said flatly.
"But you must really like tinkering with the parts. Looks interesting. Like an auto mechanic."
"Ya, it's not bad. What do you do?"
"I work in TV."
"How is that?"
"It's OK. Maybe a bit like fixing watches."
"Ya I've been doing this forever, so ya, it's just that. Better than selling couches."
"A bit."
"Can you imagine selling couches. How horrible would that be."

The Mice of St. George

It's rush hour, deep in the heart of winter, deep underground. St. George Station in Toronto. 6:23pm.

The platform is filling with people on their way home from work. Up above ground the city is freezing - with temperatures sinking to minus twenty and blowing snow. We are all in our heaviest winter wear of long coats, hats, gloves. The west bound train is delayed. The platform of people is getting thicker, people are spreading out and layering several bodeies deep in search of an open spot to stand. I am standing near the platform's edge, looking down the tunnel in hopes a catching a glint of light, a puff of wind that will signal the train's approach. Nothing. And more people are coming.

My eye catches movement on the tracks, but it is not the rush of the train. There are two mice darting in and out of the tracks after each other. Their fur is the same sooty brown of the concrete. There they are amongst that crushed pop bottle, that Doritos bag, that Fruitopia bottle cap. Other people see them too. Two kids in snowsuits point out their movement to their mother with excited arms. A man folds a paper under his arm and watches too. Anyone near the track's edge is following them, craning carefully over the tracks to observe this game between the two tiny dirty creatures.

I feel a breeze on my face from deep down the tunnel now. Then rumbling. Then light. Screeching. Roaring.

Every human steps back from the edge. Only those track mice can survive the approaching train.

Windburn

The wind has been howling all night. In steady waves it knocks against the side of the farm house. It whistles through the small space between the window and the frame like a leaky flute. Out through the window, the fine grains of cold snow swirl, twist and scatter over the white fields, sifting through the empty trees, fenceposts. Deep, smooth hollows form against anything that is unmoveable - the snow is like sand in a windtunnel. The wind blasts the snow into the bricks, into the screens. The windows are eteched with frost.

A bunch of us have retreated to the countryside for a city getaway. But we stay inside mostly, reading books, listening to music, playing scrabble. But mainly watching the wind and the snow whip past. There is an absesnse of so many things out there: colour, temperature, life. But there is motion: clouds keep pace with jet planes.

We decide to go for a walk - just to the end of the property where there is a forest. A country person would call it a bunch of trees. We strap on our layers of winter armour: long uderwear, jeans, wool socks stuffed into rubber boots lined with felt. Coats with hoods and cuffs velcrowed up tight. And finally, the snowshoes to keep us above.

But it doesn't help. It's -20 degrees. The cold air leaks in through the small seams, up the bottom of the coats, down into the boots, through the wool caps. Every slight movement outside lets the wind in. We trudge west to the forest, directly into that wind that sticks needles into our eyes, ears and noses. All you can do is look at your feet to save your face. There are no trees to slow the wind's force. The white is blinding. The only colour is the field choked with Dogwood. Every step feels like three steps. The blood pumps. Ears ache. Wrapped up tight, and not caring what's around you. The forest, which might offer some relief, never seems to get closer.

And when we finally make it to the edge of the forest, we pause momentarily and walk further in. Our snowshoes crunch on the ice - it sounds like a dog chewing on a bone. As we go in deeper, the wind dies down. I can take off my hood, lift my eyes. Breathe. It's like we've entered the eye of a hurricane. For all around there is that terrible wind. But here, it's calm. The tops of the trees bend and creak like leather. There are long naked shadows combing the white snow. For a second you can relax.

Until it's time to return to the farm house.

It's half a trillion dollar industry!

I'm on the subway on the way to work. Rush hour. Very busy. Platform is crowded; people bump past and knock shoulders without apologizing. Line ups for the escalators. Line ups for the turnstiles, line ups for the train doors. iPods stuck in everyone's ears. The advertisements all seem very very annoying. People packed on the train, faces to armpits, seats are prime real estate. People in winter coats suddenly start to boil and sweat.

This guy walks on. He's big. Barrel chested. Big nasty brown dreads. Wearing a Mexican blanket kind of jacket. Sunglasses. He's carrying four grocery bags stuffed with crushed 2-litre pop bottles. He starts talking to himself.

Oh, god. Don't talk to me. I'm not in the mood.

"I'm opening a chain of corned beef deli restaurants all across the country... corned beef, everyone loves corn beef. I'm pulling in millions. Corned beef.... We'll serve up pickles and fries and coleslaw...."

Oh god. I need to get off. Change cars. But then, this is a pretty interesting story he's got. So I stay and listen.

"If anyone wants a job I'll hire you.... I've got a hundred stores in the states already. I've got a huge staff. I'm gonna franchise. Corned beef of rye, corned beef on pumpernickel, mayo, mustard, we'll have them to go, we'll wrap them in waxed paper, we'll serve coffee, on nice plates. Put one restaurant on every corned. I've done this a million times... I've got the angle on the whole operation...a half trillion dollar business."

The train pulls up to Museum station. He turns and exits the doors.

"I'm hiring. Just give me a call."

A Window on Construction

It's better than TV. It's better than YouTube. Outside my window at work, I am watching them build the new Ritz Carelton luxury hotel and condo suites. A week ago they scraped out the temporary parking lot that was there. Then two Cat front-end loaders descended upon us and began scooping out the brown earth onto the backs of an unending stream of dump trucks. The cranes arrived to drill in the piling, the welders are melting together steel beams to sink into the earth. Two men in hardhats are standing, discussing something on the edge of a deep hole. The bulldozer shunts a massive block of concrete like a toy. People in my office stare out the windows, watching for minutes, gazing down at all that busy work. The big scoops of dirt, the inhuman movement of massive things, hypnotize us. It's like watching a jumbo-sized sandbox.

"We could tape this and sell it to kids," said on TV producer.
"I kinda want to be out there," said another producer. "At least with digging a hole you have a defined goal in your work..."
"Look at the colour... they've hit the clay. Maybe they'll find a dinosaur."