It’s minus 17 here at Borel Compound. I still wear shorts because I cannot stand pants. I will not stand for them, nor in them. I have not been doing too much standing this holiday. There has been a great deal of sitting and much lying. (In shorts. Or short-ish, jodhpur-like sweat-trousers.)
The book made another year-end list and a DECADE-END list (this made me as happy as a criminal who’d just received a cake with a shiv baked into it!) Thank you Ron at the National Post. And thank you Julie at The Mark.
My father interrupted me a moment ago to tell me about birds makin’ it. This is what a traditional French father sounds like when speaking of The Birds. (Later, I hope to get The Bees.) I don’t think David Attenborough has too much to worry about.
“The female has sex with a male. But they’re tiny. The male throws his sperm. But that bird who copulates with the female is not the regular partner. When the regular partner comes in, he chases the guy, goes to his woman, and removes the sperm with his beak. CAN YOU IMAGINE THAT? Can you imagine a GUY doing that?”
My father said after a bit of thought, “Some guys.”
(There were protestations from my English mother, who’s making toast in the kitchen.)
“I’M EDUCATING MY DAUGHTER!”
I asked him what birds did this. He couldn’t remember.
i have failed, so far, at Joanna Polley Week. i did, however, ask my brother if he’ll be your boyfriend. 3-D sight unseen (2-D sight seen), he offered his arm with a message to you.
but we’re no longer friends.
(JOANNA POLLEY: we’re mid-way through Joanna Polley Week on kathrynborel.com/blog — if you have any requests or complaints, please make them now.)
Nico brought Amsterdam shag he purchased in Brooklyn and it really freaked our shit.
Merry XMorse (mainly to you, Joanna Polley!)
they made me wear a dress. (malcolm was my first friend. the only friend who would have me considering my major thug status.)
(joanna: do you remember what you felt when you were this small? i certainly don’t.)
you know when you’re in an airport waiting area and there’s generally only one person you’re legitimately attracted to and so you make a show of moving around a lot and walking past them a few times and you conspicuously look at what they’re reading and maybe you brush up against them by accident just to see what they smell like?
i thought he was that person but when i did the smelling thing i decided he was not because his skin was strangely translucent upon a closer look. now i’m convinced he’s a ghost. (the ghost is traveling to halifax.)
(JOANNA POLLEY, YOU’VE SUCH AN EMPATHETIC FACE.)
Joanna Polley is the sister of my friend. To keep in shape, she does that thing where she hangs from ribbons that have been bolted onto the ceiling and twists herself into crazy shapes and does death rolls and the kinds of things you see in the kinds of fancy Los Angeles bars “they” put on the TV.
And now, a photo of some children I met last week at a holiday party! (I made the redhead cry after working him up into a froth. His beautiful mother said, “did he bump his head? I said, “no.” He hadn’t bumped his head — he was just having too many feelings.
Pairing socks after emergency laundry day is like solving the world’s most annoying puzzle.
There is very little satisfaction in this exercise because when they have been paired, tucked and piled, you realize your socks are all gross and you need new ones.
And then you get depressed about buying new ones, as you know so many of them will end up lonely and unpaired (especially the pathetic white ones.)
