The Burning Bush
thoughts from a cunning linguist

July 10, 2003

1 sleep!

In less than 24 hours--that is but 1 sleep now--my Toronto visitor arrives for 10 days. Yay!

Posted by Bush Whacker at 06:05 PM | Comments (1)

July 07, 2003

Rosemary, the Guardian Seagull

This afternoon I went hiking with the Psycholesbian from Cow Bay to Lawrencetown Beach. At the beginning of the hike, on a loop called "Rosemary's Way," the Psycholesbian spotted a seagull, whom she promptly named Rosemary, of course. Thereafter, Rosemary appeared to follow us throughout our hike. And, after we had hiked the trail, thrown ourselves (twice) into the icy waters at Lawrencetown (note: this was not swimming!), and eaten scones at the Heron Tea Room, Rosemary reappeared to accompany us. We were sitting on a hill taking in the spectacular view of ocean, cliffs, and beach spread out before us. And who do you think comes walking up to us, to within about a foot of us, maybe a dozen times? Rosemary, of course.

What a splendid day it was.

Posted by Bush Whacker at 10:58 PM | Comments (0)

July 06, 2003

Feelin' Hot, Hot, Hot

It's 9:30 and still 30 degrees. My mother would die. (She, of "oh my! the heat! I'm near gone!"--and that's only when it's around 20 degrees!)

It's been the kind of day during which one should do as little possible in hopes of keeping cool. So I got up, went to the gym, cleaned the bathroom and kitchen, attempted to rid my computer of a nasty virus, and hammered my dresser back together. And then I decided I would cook--yes have hot food for supper. What could I have been thinking?! A load of ice cubes would not go astray right now.

Oh, and it doesn't help either that there are now only 5 more sleeps until my visitor arrives from Toronto....

Little wonder that it's "hot, hot, hot" today!

Posted by Bush Whacker at 09:41 PM | Comments (1)

July 04, 2003

Homing Devices and Irish Wakes

I'm a Newfoundlander who no longer lives in Newfoundland. But unlike most other ex-patriat Newfoundlanders, I have always thought that I don't really have a homing device planted in my head. Newfoundlanders are legendary for longing to be home after they've left. I think it's about two things: first, the desire for community and belonging (wanting to live where everyone knows your name) and second, the landscape (being close to the ocean and the ruggedness of the physical environment). I think I am starting to feel more nostalgia for the landscape: the water, the coast, the cliffs, the fog. But I've always had a bit of a vexed relationship to the community thing.

I remember not quite fitting in. Perhaps this was my proto-queerness. And even still, I don't always have the sense of fitting when I return. But there are some things that I do think Newfoundlanders (or at least some of them) do very well in terms of community and some things I have an enormous longing to be part of. One of these is sending off the dead.

Today my cousin (whom I discussed in an earlier blog entry) was buried. In typical Catholic fashion, the family has been having an Irish Wake. In Newfoundland, this means lots of drinking and partying. It's quite the celebration of a life. And I feel a bit robbed because I'm not there. After all, I was there for the tense reports from the hospital and all the updates through last week. It now seems somehow like I don't get to say good-bye after all that.

Irish Wakes are the best laugh ever. Historically, such a wake would be held in the home of the dead person. The corpse would be laid out in one room and people would come for the visitation. They could come day or night--the thing was that no one was supposed to sleep during the wake. If you fell asleep, you could expect to wake up and have your face smeared with lipstick or be the brunt of some practical joke inflicted on your while you slumbered. And while the wake would go on, the booze flowed, cardgames were played, food was replenished by all the neighbours, and stories would be told. Yes, there would be tears, too. But the gathering would always be a mix of sorrow for loss and joy for the life lived.

These days, with the modern funeral home, Irish Wakes are not quite the same. They tend to take place in the homes of families after or between visitations at the funeral home--so no corpse lying in the next room. And there's not usually the same effort to stay up for the three day period. Still, the tradition continues in some circles as people relish the revival of the phenomenon. And by all accounts, there is one hell of an Irish Wake happening right now for a guy who deserves one hell of a sending off.

How is it, exactly, that one can slice oneself into pieces, longing for and resisting things all at one? Today, I feel the homing device kicking into motion and would like to be there when the crowd raises a glass, saying "May the road rise up to meet you and may the wind be always at your back."

Posted by Bush Whacker at 06:31 PM | Comments (0)

July 03, 2003

Playing it Straight

Picture it: Halifax, 20 June 2003. The Whore of Babylon and The Bush Whacker waltz into a car dealership--queer as $3 bills. Having surveyed the lot for a few minutes, we are approached by our soon-to-be attentive salesman, Damian. The next four hours constitute our adventures in car-shopping, replete with feats worthy of Harry Potter: mind-reading, mathematical adjustments, and magically increasing the worth of Maurice's old car from $400 to $1500. (Must've been my magic wand. Oops, no, wait, I left that home...) But most of all, it's an adventure in heterosexuality.

Damian took Maurice and me to be a straight couple. And, well schooled in the dramas of the queer world, we played our parts to a tee. Damian asked where we lived; Maurice told him I lived in the south end "for now." (Not a lie, but not the truth as Damian believed it either.) Damian asked which colour car Maurice preferred; Maurice shuffled his choices somewhat to reflect the colours that I liked. And in the middle of the negotiations over price, it was me to whom Damian spoke most. He had to convince "the wife." Interestingly enough, when it came to the female business agent at the dealership (who did the paperwork after the deal was sealed), she directed all her attention at Maurice. Tell me now that the selling of cars is not sexualized.

I'm always amazed at how easy it is to pass as straight--not because one has to really work at it, but because so many people just want to believe that a male and a female together constitute a couple, no matter how queer they may appear. (I wonder, Maurice, what might have happened had you worn your "Homo Depot" shirt? Maybe next time?) It's a bizarre form of wishful thinking, driven largely, I think, by the fact that people assume it would be an insult _not_ to assume that people are straight.

As far as I'm concerned, if people want to believe so much in the mythology of heterosexuality, it is a queer's right to use it to his or her advantage. And so Maurice got a good deal on his car. Isn't that a "fairy"tale ending?

Posted by Bush Whacker at 11:51 PM | Comments (1)

July 02, 2003

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggedy-Jig

Well! After traipsing about Atlantic Canada over the last two weeks--first to Fredericton, then to my hometown Newfoundland, I can safely say I'm glad to be back in my own domestic space. There are just too many things to tell, so maybe I'll just give you the memorable highlights:

Fredericton

*en route to Fredericton, I was mistaken twice for being a man. Got called "sir" and everything (once by the woman at Tim Horton's and again by the guy working the toll booth on the Cobequid Pass). I must say, I find it quite amusing. Okay, I'm hardly a femme, but I'm not that butch. I think the only bothersome part about it really is the apology that ensues after the error has been realized.
*in Fredericton, the E-bay Queen and I cruised around in his little Miata, top rolled back, playing music and singing at the tops of our lungs. The Wig Box song (from Hedwig and the Angry Inch--have you seen it? If not, you must!) wins the prize as theme song for that particular part of our trip--though it did encounter some stiff competition from Luba ("Everytime I See Your PIcture I Cry" and "No More Words") and from that really awful song by Charlene (80s--the Disco Lassie would understand) called "I've Never Been to Me" (Otherwise known as the opening torchsong to Priscilla, Queen of the Desert).
*the Renaissance Eeyore and I biked along the very beautiful trail that goes along the river in Fredericton and the next went hiking (e-Bay Queen in tow) at Mactaquac--a provincial park just outside the city. Absolutely glorious!
*on the return trip to Halifax, I introduced the Psycholesbian and The Queen of Sheba to the above soundtrack. The Queen declared "I've Never Been to Me" to be a "three-cigarette song." Only a drag queen could really get away with it, clearly.
*the Psycholesbian has rechristened the town of Truro "Canpar": she fell asleep along the way home and awoke only when we stopped in an "unknown location." The Queen and I didn't tell her where we were. The most prominent sign in sight was the Canpar sign. Hereafter shall Truro be known to us as Canpar.

Newfoundland

*most of my trip was spent doing what (Newfoundland) Catholics call "the corporal works of mercy": visiting the sick and suffering. (A now defunct Newfoundland comedy troupe once modeled sketches on this phenomenon--sketches with titles like "Sad Catholics at Christmas" and "The Wake of the Week." Newfoundland Catholics, it seems centre so much of their lives around grief and suffering that it has become a joke--though it does seem that we have a disproportionate number of reasons for the grief and suffering than most!) I spent most of my trip visiting my grandmother, who suffered a stroke almost a year ago now. She now lives is a senior citizens home and is quite unhappy. The visits are usually difficult because she and I have always been quite close and she is desperate to communicate with me, but she cannot because her speech has been quite hampered by the stroke. At the same time, she is quite aware and alert. In a way, her misery is increased by the fact that she is so aware. I also visited my great-aunt several times, who, two weeks ago, underwent a triple by-pass heart surgery. And, finally, while I was home, my first cousin )once removed suffered a stroke. He was only 55 years old. I come from avery small town. There are essentially two main families with my surname. This man was from the other family, but given the size of the town, the families have always been quite close. Last year, when my grandmother had her stroke, this particular cousin insisted that my grandmother should have been given a particular drug, widely used to counteract the effects of a clot stroke (which my grandmother had had. There are two kinds of stroke: clot strokes and bleeding strokes). So when he had his stroke last week (also a clot stroke), he was aware enough to insist that he be given this drug. The drug has a 4.7% chance of actually producing the second kind of stroke: the bleeder (which is much more difficult to contain once it happens and is often fatal). He fell into that 4.7%. He died on July 1, the day after I left to come home to Halifax.
*in the face of all the above, what I am now about to describe may seem rther odd. But there were some other quite lovely and fun moments to the trip as well. One of the highlights was hiking the cliffs along the coast one beautiful Saturday morning. The sun was out, it was warm, and there were icebergs in the bay. And what a stunning view! I could even see the early morning mist burning off at the edges of the craggy coastline. I definitely longed for a camera. One day, I will have a digital camera and will be able to show you all the sights.
*my mother also cooked "da feed": corned beef, greens, all the veggies, and a turkey to boot! And another day, she made me cod tongues, fried in fat back pork. Heart attack on a plate, yes, but it was damn good!
*and I got to hang out with my oldest friend (whom I've known since I was a toddler). We drove to her husband's hometown (an hour and a half drive that seemed to take only 10 minutes) for a big party. The most peculiar thing about that was that Clarenville (the town in question) seems to have instituted an unofficial ban on tonic water. I decided I wanted to drink gin and tonic. But we spent an hour trying to find it! Four grocery stores and two pharmacies later, there was still no tonic water to be found. The labels for it were there though. The strangest thing ever, it was. (that's my Yoda voice)


And throughout all this travel, there has been another quite important ongoing development. E-mail and the telephone have enabled my connection with the woman I met here at the Stupids a month ago (yet to have her own handle in the blog--that will have to change...I'll think about it) to blossom. She is coming back to Halifax in 9 days to stay here for about 10 days! Yay! Only 9 more sleeps. More on this later...

Now: haven't I just run the emotional gamut in the last couple of weeks? And you wonder why I haven't had time to blog.

Posted by Bush Whacker at 08:03 PM | Comments (2)