Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Welcome to my Bizarro World

I live in a Bizarro world.

Somewhere in my mind a phone is ringing. No, wait. The phone is ringing outside of my mind.

I stumble out of bed and a conversation begins. “Ummm, hmms” issue out of my throat accompanied by automatic head nodding courtesy of some invisible, puppeteer, spirit guide and apparently an appointment has been made by me.

“I’m sorry to have awoken you. You can go back to bed now.”

Snap!

“What, pfffft no, no, no, I’ve been up for ages.” (Head nods yes). “No problems. See you…?” My eyes come into focus and light upon my appointment book, “at... 3:30 today.”

The computer beckons and I stumble over to heed its call.

“Please tell me, other than “realizing there is no perfection” specifically what other existentialist answers came to you through yoga?” it asks.

A few weeks ago from cyberspace this question splat across my screen “What is the purpose of life?...PLEASE TELL ME WHAT THE ANSWERS WERE THAT YOU FOUND!!

AAARRRGGGHHH!!

NOT THAT QUESTION AGAIN!!

Well it, the computer, doesn’t actually ask these questions an editor does. An editor who I have not met, for a book whose publication, each springtime over the past 4 years, I have been told via e-mail is “imminent”, regarding an article I wrote from the perspective of my 16 year old anorexic self. So, every once in a while from out of cyberspace these questions like the flowers of springtime “spring” onto my screen demanding to be answered.

All righty then.

In order to fortify myself for the task to come I go downstairs to brew a cup of coffee. In big bold blue letters backed by a sea of gold the word BONANZA pulses on the TV screen. A word just yesterday I had decided had become one of my favourite Spanish words of all time, meaning either calm sea or prosperity which cracks me up when I think of the TV show by the same name. Hoss, Little Joe, Ben and Adam come to mind and the fact that every fiancée any one of them ever had, met a horrible, but beautiful, death within the span of an hour. A cacophony of people speaking in a language I do not know, issued at the speed of light, bombards my senses; the Spanish language on CNN (say ehnay ehnay) is still unintelligible to me other than the word BONANZA.

While the brain stimulating, brown liquid drips into my cup I go down to the laundry room to collect items that have been drying for days now. As I stand to leave, loaded down by my full laundry basket, a kitten clings to a branch. On the poster where this perpetually youthful kitten has been dangling for over 18 years now the words HANG IN THERE transport me to the day when it arrived.

Dad and my niece Kait appeared on my doorstep.

“Here” he laughed, shaking his head as he handed me the poster over the threshold. “We can’t stay, gotta get Kait back home. We were at the mall and this made us think of you.”

I stood there gazing at the message on the poster in my hand as they skipped back to the car sharing a conspirational laugh.

The sounds of their laughter fades into the distance as the words HANG IN THERE remain in view.

For Pete’s sake it’s not even noon yet!

The only thing that would make this day more Bizarro would be that I get confused with my double who has been lurking around my hometown for 30 odd years now. But I hope this doesn’t happen as I look like s**t today and I’d prefer to be mistaken for someone else who looks a hell of a lot better than this.

Although, maybe in Bizarro terms that wouldn’t really be what I want, but then I'm not sure.

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