Paul’s “G”odiva Spot

You know, someone gave me a wonderful idea about throw rugs in one of the comments on my blog.  And as usual, I have fed it to my imagination, just to see where it will go, and this is what I came up with:

Seeing that every apartment building has to have a paid of pesky neighbours, I thought it fitting to be ready for if they should come and visit me again.  I have decided that if that should happen, I am going to turn BOTH of them into throw rugs!  Now this is practical in many ways.

1.  Whenever they get dirty, and I can take them outside and beat them.

2.  They’d make a perfect edition to the decorative ideas I am thinking up for my living room floor.  I was thinking about the tradition oak or cedar tree growing out of the middle of the living room floor, but throw rugs will do.

3.  After getting a good taxidermist, I can pose them in various positions:  arguing with mouths agape, the stunned look, like that as if they’s seen a ghost, or the back of a skunk, or my favourite, spread out in splits on the floor with a desperately happy look on their faces.

Now of course they are not going to hold still and let me turn them into throw rugs, so this of course is just a though of IF I could do that.  And after listening to them knocking around downstairs, and not complaining about it, I am trying to take all of this with lots of laughter, and a grain of salt.  But I get the giggles everytime when I imagine them as items of Feng Shui!

Moi 

…I had another EPISTREVY*! People here in Toronto (and maybe in all of Canada) for that matter, are not ever to be known, or to be referred to as MORNING PERSONS!!! There I was, zwiddling desperately to school this morning, and yesterday morning, with glee bursting out of my corpus, and everyone who passed me by, either while jogging, or by just some other reasonable facsimile of ambulating, was giving me the look of deseperate constipation, or as if they wanted me dead and buried somewhere, or worse, tied up and left dangling from a telephone pole! This is of particular consternation to me, because where I come from, people SCHPRIIIIINK out of bed before the sun comes up, and we are pretty much in full swing by 8:30AM.

After giving this lots of thought, I have devised a few ways that I think I can remedy this situation, though not for all of Toronto, but I can begin in my immediate sphere of influence…THE FACULTY OF MUSIC! Here’s the gimmick:

One select morning in winter, I am going to come bursting into the school (bosom first of course) squealing at the tops of my lungs a loud, “GOODNIGHT YOU FAAB PEOPLES!” to everyone within earshot. Now if I time it just right, and practise, I could even do that and zwiddle around at the same time…kind of like walking and chewing gum at the same time, which is I think more complicated for me to handle.

Then, I am going to get a cylinder of helium. I will sit in the corner of the lobby and sell breaths of helium for five cents each. That way, people can take a good breath of helium and then, go talk to their professors right after. That will definitely get a few laughs, not to mention that it would be a rather ENLIGHTENING experience…get it? HAAH!

And now for the PIECE DE RESISTANCE! I remember when I was living in New York, doing my undergraduate degree, my roomate thought I needed an education into American humour. So, as a Christmas present, he got me a whoopie cushion. So that gave me an idea! I can get about a dozen of them, and plant them on random seats…and voila! Instant giggles all around. I am so tickled silly to this day by whoopie cushions…they just do not ever get old…at least not to me.

The long and short of all of this babbling is that laughter is, as it says in the Bible, the best medicine. So, everytime I get in a good laugh, I am in fact drugging myself! I am self medicating. I am giving my face a good sculpting workout. I am giving my diaphragm a good jiggle…along with everything else! Life can get so very depressing, and as you all know, I am very familiar with this. How many times have I collapsed into a puddle of snot and tears before you? Or fallen desperately upon some unsuspecting shirt/blouse sleeve…usually with someone’s arm attached to it? Therefore, I have taken it upon myself to become a ‘mirth’ mercenary, mercilessly forcing giggles out of otherwise reluctant and/or constipated people, one by one.

Moi

* Epistrevy: Meaning an epiphany, an epistle, and a revelation all smooshed into one.

Have you ever gotten that feeling of being so hyped and prepped for school, that you get up extra early on the first day, actually comb your hair, wash your face, moisturize, and even WALK to school all because you are excited about starting the first day of school off on the right foot? After you have gotten that off your chest and are actually INSIDE the school building, have you ever felt that proverbial BRICK WALL that you hit when you get there only to discover…”Now what?”? Well, that was me this morning, and, as per usual, I am going to tell you all about it whether you like it or not!

I sprang out of bed this morning, at 3:30AM! Then I saw how ridiculous it would be for me to show up at the steps of the school that early, and decided to try to go back to sleep. When that did not work, I finally got up at 5:30AM! I thought to myself, “Today is the first day of school…HURRAY!!!” And I jumped up in the air, and if I could have, I would have done one of those aerial splits you see on excitable cartoon characters…but I no longer do those, lest I want to visit the ER, which I don’t! ANYWHO, I could not wait to come bursting through the doors!!! After I breakfasted, I took a brisk and desperate zwiddle down Avenue Road towards the faculty, all the while, gleefully giggling to myself, and enjoying the look of pain on the faces of those gawking at me as my zwiddling wreaked havoc in its wake!

I got to the school, and came bursting in (literally) through the doors, almost like when Elisabetta (a dramatic soprano also capable of pigtails and a brass bra) makes her desperate entrance in Tanhauser blasting her way through “Sei mir Gegruesst!” It was at that point, when after all of that glee, I said to myself, “First day of school…NOW WHAT??” I had hit that brick wall of boredom and exhaustion just as hard as I walked into the closed side of open double-door last year! What the heck was I so giddy about this morning? And I had not even eaten any chocolate!! So now, I cannot wait for the day to be over with, and I can go home and crawl back unto my couch!

The difference about this year is that, I actually look forward to going home, and no longer dread it. I used to dread going home because before, when I was living with people, I could never tell from one moment to the next what moods I’d be walking into, or whether my landlady was going to tell me that I suck at cleaning (which I don’t) or that she has to talk to the dog first before talking to me. I can come home and fling myself upon the ground and cry if I so wish. I can even through all cares to the wind and prance around the apartment naked…(*three second awkard pause*)… not that I make a habit of that…but the THOUGHT of being able to do that is what is so appealing!

And speaking of prancing around naked, that reminds me… Why have you all stopped sending me comments??? Huh????????

Which also reminds me…I had a visit from my neighbour one floor below me. He came to invite me to come talk to him and his girlfriend/fiancee, about the fact that they cannot sleep at night because I walk around in my apartment. I told him that seeing that I still have not figured out how to float through the apartment, and still have not been able to hold both legs alooft while ambulating, I was doing the best I could by walking as lightly as I was able to. Any lighter, and I would be on point!  This was the second time I was being harrassed by him! Look at that! I have only been there a month, and already I have a pesky neighbour!  I guess every apartment building has to have one or two.

So now, all I have left to do is to figure out how I am going to get through the rest of the school year! For those who want to know: I am planning to come to Winnipeg over Thanksgiving…but NOT (and I repeat: NOT) to volunteer myself as dinner!!!! LEAVE MY HAM HOCKS ALONE!!

Moi

Here are seven factoids I have learned about those of you who think I have a pigtail (or cannibalistic) fetish:

1. You are ALL nuts!

2. How can I have a cannibalistic fetish when you all are out to get me (as in, trying to eat me)??

3. This is really an attempt at deflection for all of you who do have some naughty fetish or another…

4. I think you all want me to have these fetishes for your own amusement.

5. You love seeing me running, squealing and flailing about when being chased by people armed with spatulas and two-pronged forks!

6. You all have secret desires to wear pigtails (like the ones in the Wendy’s commercials)

7. I am coming back to Winnipeg over Thanksgiving, but THIS time, I will be wearing an armoured suit!

LUCIANO PAVAROTTI, tenor (1935-2007)

It has been a while since I last blogged.  I have spent the last month in Toronto getting my apartment ready (yes… I do have my own place now!).   I remember two days ago, lying in bed with Sheba (my laptop…GET YOUR MINDS OUT OF THE GUTTER!), and just as I was about to power down, I see the headline: PAVAROTTI DIES!  Those two words burned a hole in my mind and in my spirit!  I used to think that he would live until he was 99, and sing right into the grave!  I mean, you all know how hard I took the death of Beverly Sills.  I thought she too would live a longer time, and that someday, she would come hear me sing…but I guess time does move on, and eras do end.  His death, to me, has marked the end of an era.  There will never be a singer like him…ever!!!  And maybe, that is a good thing!

I have spent a lot of time being afraid that I’d never live up to other people’s expectations.  I know that in Jamaica, there are those who expect me to sing like Pavarotti.  Well, that is just not possible!  And eve if it were, I would not want that kind of pressure.  As far as I am concerned, God has given me this voice, and has made it to sound the way it is supposed to sound…like me!

Pavarotti may or may not have been a man of high morals, but that is not for me to decide.  In other singers’ autobiographies that I have read (namely Beverly Sills and Marilyn Horne), they talk about him having the reputation of being a womanizer.  I do not know the truth to this because I obviously was not there.  BUT, the one thing that I have ALWAYS appreciated about him is his down-to-earth-ness!  He always seemed to be someone who knew where he came from, and was never too old or too big to be spoken to or even corrected by others.  I remember watching one of the Arts channels on cable, and seeing a clip on Pavarotti, singing along with a mens’ chorus in Modena, along with his father, with whome he shared a solo in a traditional Italian Folksong.  Hearing father and son sing a high B-flat together made me cry.  I could tell that all of those men with whom he sang had some kind of a relationship with him.  I could see something familiar…the sense of community.  I know this because my culture is very similar in that regard.

Times are indeed changing.  An era has passed,  Beverly Sills, Regine Crespin, and now, Luciano Pavarotti have all passed on.  Now is it up to us…the next generation of operasingers to make our own mark in this world.  So do not look for me to fill Pavarotti’s shoes…because I can’t!  Look for me, however, to make my own footprints, along the path that God has planned for me.

Moi