[Thanks to Prentiss Riddle and his blog, Apprendiz de Todo, Maestro de Nada, for the link!]
Wear a Star of David at York University (located in the north-west corner of Accordion City), and suddenly you’re an automatic villain-by-proxy. I feel for the Palestinians, but some of their supporters are just downright loathsome.
Where’s a “they can all go to Hell” rally when you need one?
My friend, former OpenCola co-worker and coder for Blogger/Google Steve Jenson has made the big time: his photo appears in a CNN.com story, Blogging Goes Mainstream. And to think that Dan and I were sure that his first CNN appearance would involve him being escorted into a police cruiser…
Mid-September 1999, a few months after everything happened.
It was a quiet evening at Tequila Bookworm. Aside from Chris and I, there weren’t any of the usual suspects at the cafe that was also a bouquiniste and magazine store. I’d been there for a couple of hours with my laptop, working on a database of every mall in America, ordering a Diet Coke every so often. For almost two years, the cafe had been like an office for me: with a laptop and cellphone, I could get work done and also get a break from the solitude that normally comes with the double whammy of self-employment and computer programming.
Chris had joined me a half hour earlier. He was walking on Queen Street when saw my bike parked outside the cafe and came in to say hello. I’d been showing him photos from Burning Man on my laptop.
I don’t know how we got onto the subject of The Girl, but I remember it started with him looking around for her at one point.
“Is she here?” Chris asked.
“[The Girl]?” No, she’s not working tonight.
There was a brief lull in the conversation.
“I warned you, but you went ahead and did it anyway.”
“Did what?” I asked.
“Broke the rule. The don’t-date-where-you-drink rule.”
“Oh, that.”
“Everyone breaks it. I got warned when I did it, didn’t listen, regretted it. Every time I tell someone the rule, they break it anyway.”
“Maybe it’s one of those things. A game you’re not meant to win, but have to play anyway.”
“You mean like life?”
“Geez, Chris, you’re morbid sometimes.”
“Just a realist, my friend, just a realist. And speaking of reality, guess who’s coming our way. I’ll leave you two to get re-acquainted.”
Chris rose from his stool, threw his satchel over his shoulder and nodded a quick greeting to The Girl, whom I didn’t notice walking in.
The Girl said “Hello” in return with that charming British accent, took a seat beside me, smiled and ran her fingers through my hair.
“So,” I said, “what’s a girl like you doing in a nice place like this?” (Yes, I stole the line from M*A*S*H. So sue me.)
“I saw your bike outside.”
My bike is a dead giveaway that I’m nearby. It’s an olive green 1950’s style cruiser. I’ve always wanted something like it since seeing Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure.
The bike in question. A Raleigh 5-speed cruiser. It’s not about speed, but comfort and style.
“Your natural colour,” she said, messing up my newly-dyed jet black spikes.
“It was only that colour when I was a kid,” I said. “Mom wouldn’t let me go to Eileen’s wedding as a blond.” My sister’s wedding, a spectacular event that started at St. Michael’s Cathedral and concluded at the ballroom of the King Edward Hotel with about 200 or so guests, had taken place the week before. If my wedding is a tenth as good, I will be a happy man.
I decided to return the favour and twirl her dark brown locks. Like me, she’d been blonde earlier in the year.
“Once again, we cross the line of the waitress-customer relationship,” she quipped.
“You’re fixated on that, aren’t you: ‘waitress and customer, andnever the twain shall meet’. It’s not like a doctor-patient relationship. Doctors hold the power of life and death. You hold coffee and sandwiches.”
“Well, as long as we’re breaking rules, do you still have that Canadian Club at your place?”
“There’s still half a bottle left.”
If life were a cartoon — and it often is — there would be two miniature versions of me sitting on my shoulders. One would be dressed in white with wings and a halo saying “Do you think this is such a good idea, Mr. deVilla?” while the other would be dressed in red with horns and a pitchfork, doing pelvic thrusts and saying “British Invasion!” FWOOOOOAAAAARRRR!”
It was one of those moments. I even sort of looked like that.
The smart thing would be to go home alone, curl up with Tequila (my teddy bear) and the copy of Accordion Crimes that the cute girl I met at Burning Man gave me as a keepsake.
Mind you, would I have as much fun if I always did the smart thing?
Next: My ex-girlfriend lusts after The Girl, or how I met her.
Congrats are in order to…
Fellow GTABlogger, Filipino and all-round impresario Rannie “Photojunkie” Turingan for winning the Best Canadian Weblog award in the 2003 Bloggies. Remember folks, that award will be mine next year. Oh yes, it will be mine…
My friend and former officemate Cory Doctorow for getting his first review in the New York Times. He’s movin’ on up, to the east side…
If you haven’t checked out Small Stories, the Web site of comic artist Derek Kirk Kim, do so! It’s full of kimchi-spicy Korean-American Gen-X “why can’t I get a date” hilarity, pathos and angst.
Derek’s most recent comic series, Same Difference, has just concluded. He’s taking a short break while working on other projects, but luckily for us, his brother Brent has stepped in by providing scans of a comic he made years ago, Rumors. Take a gander at a slice of this story (“based on true events!”) and Brent’s quirky comic style:
Okay, so they’re not brand new, but they’re still a good read.
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll remember that I promised you folks a recounting of my worst dates ever if enough of you nominated me for a Bloggie award. I didn’t make the nominations but announced that I’d run the story anyway, just to say thanks for all your support.
The first entry of that story appears tomorrow. Set your story calendars to the year 1999…
In the entry for “accordion” in Wikipedia:
The timbre of the accordion is coarse and devoid of beauty, but in the hands of a skilful performer the best instruments are not entirely without artistic merit.
Appending this rather uneducated entry is on my “to-do” list.