Dollarama Wildflowers

The seeds are as tiny as poppy seeds, even tinier, like specks of dust, packaged in a homely, large-economy-size type box. I would say it is roughly the size of a box of Cow Brand Baking Soda. It’s called “Wildflower Mix” and it’s an impulse purchase from my local Dollarama, the twenty-first century equivalent of Woolworth’s,Continue reading “Dollarama Wildflowers”

Alice Munro’s Kraft Dinner

Something’s afoot. In Walleye, Quiltingsnatsch County. And Alice Munro’s damn well going to tell us about it. 1. Hungerness Shortly before dawn, my mother, Serena Addlecrone— —floating up to the borders of consciousness, swaddled in her duvet in her lacy-white bedroom in the town of Walleye, Quiltingsnatsch County, population twenty-six thousand (so read, and stillContinue reading “Alice Munro’s Kraft Dinner”

Nothing But Tweets

making Twitter pull its birdly weight Welcome to the first edition of Tuesday Time Crush, in which I cravenly avoid the soul-destroying boondoggle of forcing myself to get creative by regaling you with a selection of the witty, cerebral two-hundred and eighty-character bon mots which I have posted to Twitter, the bidet that’s convinced it’sContinue reading “Nothing But Tweets”

Lament of the Increasingly Irrelevant White Guy

(to be sung à la Woody Guthrie, in the key of “Mi, mi, mi, mi—MI!”) I hate those PC leftiesOur freedom is destroyedBy using a respectful wordDisgruntled white guys feel absurd What’s wrong with good ol’ English namesOur ancestors deployed? CHORUS: My daddy is a “Paki,”My mother is a “kike”My sister, she’s a “cripple” andThatContinue reading “Lament of the Increasingly Irrelevant White Guy”

Best of my blog

‘Tis the season to be fobbed offFa la la la la, la la – la – la! From October, 2019. Skipping rhymes for Gen Z These kids are the future. Assuming we have one. I’VE BEEN UNDERCOVER IN MY SAILOR SUIT AND adorable Hudson’s Bay dress shorts (available in Québec only in polyester, due toContinue reading “Best of my blog”

Facebook Life Event # 302: Scary Weird Coincidence

So I managed to fool someone, via photographs from 1982, into thinking I’m handsome and desirable and that they should spend the better part of a sultry night caressing my eyebrows, following my treasure trail—currently overgrown and littered with cigarette butts and empty Coke cans—and exclaiming with delight, either real or feigned, I’m not fussy,Continue reading “Facebook Life Event # 302: Scary Weird Coincidence”

Semantic Bleaching

“Life on hold sucks!”read the bus shelter ad. They meant the pandemicI suppose But what a wry, ironic understatementIf you think of the awesome reality of life on hold. {That’s awesome in its original meaningOf inspiring ecstasy and terror, the experienceThat the Romantics called the sublimeAnd that must have also crossed Aristotle’s mind when heContinue reading “Semantic Bleaching”

A Little Knowledge in All the Wrong Hands

But before we get to that—poor Meghan Marple, Duchess of Sussex! Right? That’s all. I start my day with that simple novena to the difficulty of being a beige-colored quasi-Royal in a world where pink-and-white full-bore Royals are no longer respected, even coming as they do from a long, distinguished line of Mountbatten-Windsor-Bowes-Lyon cannibals andContinue reading “A Little Knowledge in All the Wrong Hands”

Break My Heart, Please

Two singers and their landscape of hurt and healing Lianne La Havas: Bittersweet It’s time for me to rave about Lianne La Havas again. Do you know this London-based singer-songwriter with the dusky voice and the wide-gauge vibrato you could drive a dream-laden, funkadelic truck through? Well, you should. I can’t think of anything recentlyContinue reading “Break My Heart, Please”

Christmas on Victoria Day!

PLUS: Sex is now illegal, or at least in very, very bad taste. I hereby declare today Christmas on Victoria Day. I even have a slogan: “Victoria: The OTHER old, Canadian queen®.” It’s my truth. You are not the one who gets to negate that. I may be losing it. Or I may be aContinue reading “Christmas on Victoria Day!”