So, if there is one thing I have noticed about Montrealers – or perhaps it is the group of Montrealers I spend time with - it is that they love to talk romance. It’s on the tip of everyone’s tongue. On a regular basis, people who barely know me grill me about my love life and then turn their attention to the next victim sitting sheepishly just across the table.

A couple nights ago a friend of mine squirmed a little in her chair when she was asked why she doesn’t live with her boyfriend and if she expected to marry him. I felt badly for her as forehead crinkled while she searched for the words to explain herself and the relationship. I felt badly for her but as long as the attention rested on her it meant I was safe.

We are kind of like a sport, those of us who are single or just starting something. I think we are fun to talk to and gossip about. One of us just had a date, another is still working things out with her ex, yet another has started a long distance relationship with a South African mother of two. It is all conversational fodder and no one seems to mind the gossip or consider it an intrusion. It’s like we all know it is the business of humans.

I have to say that I enjoy the discussions. I mean as long as they are not about me. I like that people talk about things that I am – and I think a lot of people are - a little sensitive about but should be perfectly normal. It’s like people are more naturally interested.

During one such discussion I was called “Charleuse” (I have totally written that wrong). The word, when said properly, means both warm and passionate. After that I could talk about romance all day.
- posted by Debbie @ 11:59 AM |

 
So, I went dancing this weekend and this guy dancing beside me was vogueing. I’m serious. He was Gretta garbo, and Monroe, Detrich and Demagio. He was Marlon Brando, Jimmy Dean on the cover of a magazine. Has vogueing become ironic? Please say no. I watched him stunned as he fluidly posed and then broke out into a full on ‘robot.’ This guy was special. I had to admire his style and mastery of the form.

I really can’t see it coming back into fashion because, frankly, from what I remember, most people couldn’t do it. I remember standing in front of the TV watching Madonna’s video trying to do the arm thing where she has her arms stretched out and then she bends them to touch her shoulder with her right had and the bottom of her shoulder blade with her left. Then she does the opposite. I know that I wasn’t the only one trying that move. I can say with total confidence that we looked like idiots. I can’t watch that dance without feeling completely embarrassed.

On a completely different note, this morning I open up my email and there is a message from someone with initials jc. I know who it is. About four years ago when my cousin got married, I had to be in communication with one of her bridesmaids. Julie. She’s nice and everything, but we don’t hang out or anything. So, we don’t communicate as friends. I am 100% fine with this. However, she is one of these people who likes to send mass email forwards with stupid jokes or pictures of kittens with ’funny’ captions meant to be what the cat is thinking. She is also seems to be totally unaware that there are email hoaxes designed to get you to forward emails. You know, there are people who like to start email forwards and fool people into sending them to everyone they know. When she started they were often about the state of women in West Africa, or Afghanistan or bla bla bla.

Today’s email from jc was called “Does anyone recognize this girl?!!!!” There is a photo of some random blond white-girl-child with scratches on her face. The email reads that this child of ‘western origin’ was a victim of the Tsunami, has amnesia and doesn’t know who here parents are or her own name. Now they are enlisting the power of the internet to find her parents, please help this child, she deserves your prayers. If you don’t have pity for a little girl who is both white AND blond, you are obviously made of stone. She obviously deserves better than to have to live in Thailand as an orphan. It’s not like she is a little Chinese baby.

Please stop me from vomiting. Come on, you cannot be so divorced from your own mental processes to actually believe this story and participate in it.

Jc you probably don’t read my blog, and you probably just send these idiotic forwards to everyone in your address book, but on the off chance that you are reading this, please, for the love of that little blond haired white girl, stop sending this crap. Please.
- posted by Debbie @ 9:52 AM |