So, the spider has been removed. I got home, took one look at the window and I knew. I couldn’t spend one more night in my apartment with the treacherous spider plotting my death and imminent world domination from my living room window. No more.

Knocking on Tall Guy Chris’ door I made sure I looked right pitiful. I stood there ringing my hands and biting my lip. I basically had “please help me” written on my forehead. I am being 100% honest when I say the spider grew again. It was certainly bigger than it was in the morning. Seriously, I think it is on steroids. When I drew the curtain back Chris actually took a step back and exclaimed “Oh my god!” “Chris, “I said, “Chris, that spider has got to go.”

Chris took the spider out of my apartment, when he came back he said that he thought the spider was wearing a watch. It was just that big.

As the spider may have a well-developed frontal lobe I worry that it has a memory and a sense of vengeance. If so…that spider may be back.

With the spider gone I could relax and watch some trash TV. For some reason I decided to watch that entertainment show called “Insider.” Well, there was nothing on my few channels and I was waiting for Coronation Street to start (BTW, the Street is KILLER right now. Killer! Katy, in a fit of rage killed her father with a monkey wrench in the Kevin Webster’s garage. Her mom came and found her and took her home. The next day Tyrone and Kevin found him. The police don’t know that Katy killed him. I wonder if they will try to blame Martin, Katy’s old boyfriend, he was angry because Katy’s dad succeeded in breaking up their relationship and Katy just aborted their baby. Kevin is also a suspect because Katy’s dad was telling people that Kevin’s wife, Sally, was having an affair with Martin. Kevin was gonna fire him the morning they found his body. The DRAMA).

Anyway, “Insider” or is it “Hollywood Insider” is ridiculous. First of all, there is little to no actual content in the show. They just keep telling you what they will be reporting on for the first 10 minutes. Then the 20 minutes of actual show they don’t say anything other than what they said when they were telling you what they were going to say.

I am sure I have watched this show before. About 6 months ago. I forget why, but I wondered the same thing then: what is America’s obsession with Carnie Wilson?
- posted by Debbie @ 10:43 AM |

 
So, there is a massive spider living between the two glass panes in my living room window. When I say it is massive, please know that I am not exaggerating. Dude is large enough to have developed vocal cords. It may start talking to me. I could name it and call it my pet, but as you can probably tell, I am not interested in having a spider as a pet, especially one so large. Generally, I despise the “damsel in distress” routine, but this is an emergency. I called the bf and told him all about the giant spider. My trash talking has come back to haunt me. Apparently, if I’m so tough I can kill the spider myself.

Yesterday, I told my friend about the spider over email. She will, for the purposes of this blog, be known as Evil Pam. Evil Pam suggested, “the spider may work it’s way into your apartment and” … now just imagine … “crawl into bed with you.” Thanks Evil Pam, thanks a lot. I woke up on the hour, every hour and stumbled over to the window to check that the spider was still sealed safely between the two panes. Actually, sometimes all I had to do was sit up in bed and look. The spider was back lit from the street lamp and cast an ominous shadow on the sheer window covering.

This morning, at about 5:00 AM I noticed that my Tony Soprano spider had taken over the territory on the other half of the window. I think it is gonna try to take over my apartment. Also, I think it grew over night. Looking at it before I left for work, I noticed four different shades of brown and … gulp … hair.

Since my first target didn’t respond to my “help me I’m just a girl” routine, I have to see if it works on someone else. I got two people to choose from: Downstairs Dean. He is a large patient man who would help me. If he’s not home, I’ll try Tall Guy Chris, who lives next door. If neither of those guys will help, it’s me. Alone. With the spider. Folks, if you don’t hear from me tomorrow, it will be because the giant spider has wrapped me up in its silken web and is waiting for me to die so it can feed me to it’s young.

Well, the spider probably also has a large brain. He’ll probably dress up in my clothes and come to my office and then attack everyone here. For the love of humanity, this spider must die.
- posted by Debbie @ 1:32 PM |

 
So, last night I watched the first half of Breaking Point: The 1995 Referendum. The Referendum is one of those moments in Canadian history that you look back on and say “I was at this location doing bla bla bla when the ‘non’ side won.” There are a few other moments like that for me. When Pierre Trudeau died, when Mike Harris was elected for the second time in Ontario (who says you can’t buy votes?), when Mitsu topped the charts with “Bye Bye Mon Cowboy.”

I remember that night of the referendum and the news leading up to it. I was in my second year at university and the film department was playing Babettte’s Feast as part of a festival about food (the same festival featured Delicatessen – excellent film). To be honest, Babette’s Feast bored me to tears. Or, more accurately, it couldn’t hold my attention and I kept slipping out of the cinema to run up to the Grad student’s pub to see what the latest count was from the referendum. Really, I saw more referendum than movie

I remember leaning against the door jam at the entrance of the pub and noticing the TA from the anthropology class I dropped in my first year, Roy. Roy was a rocker extrodinare and he either had several pairs of skin-tight black jeans or he wore the same pair every day. He also wore a Metallica t-shirt, but that could be a figment of my imagination, because, it completes the look far too perfectly.

I really liked Roy. He was hilarious. Even after I dropped my anthropology course, he’d talk to me in the halls. In my second year when I told him that I enrolled in another anthropology course, “Power and Politics” with Malcolm Blinkow, he raised both fists in the air and roared like a rock star before playing some air guitar. Yeah, Roy was a good time.

On the night of the referendum he was particularly engaged with the reporting on the small TV that teetered over the bar beside the pre-packaged snacks. He griped his pool cue and shouted comments in response to Parizeau, Bouchard, or Charest, whoever was giving a speech. He hopped around the pool table playing a few chords of air guitar here and there flicking his long dark hair around pointing at the TV or his imaginary crowd.

No one in the pub believed the vote was going to be as close as it was. No one except Roy it seemed. He faced every result like the count was following the numbers that he had placed his winning bet on (there was a oui/non betting pool at the pub, but I think the participants were being sickly morbid to bet on the break-up of our country). At a table close to the juke box three or four Poly-Sci students, thinking is was their time to shine, pontificated loudly on what a “oui” or “non” would really mean and how the discursive strategy of each side effected the symbolic imaginings of the nation state bla bla bla. I guess everyone deals with a break-up differently.

Finally, everyone held their breath and the final numbers were in. Not even 51% for the “non” side but that was enough. People cheered, but remained uneasy, more nervous that at the start of the night, actually. Pretending to be blown away Roy leaned back. Then bent over the table ready to take a shot. Before he slid the cue through his left hand he popped his head up and said, “It’s a non victory, but it’s no victory.” He missed his shot and for the rest of the time I spent standing in the doorway there was no air guitar no hoots or hollers.

Ah Roy, where are ya now?
- posted by Debbie @ 12:41 PM |