Why I Avoid Social Events In This Town

So the
other night I went to an “author” evening at the Tweed library, where Michael
Ondaatje (squee!) and his wife Linda Spalding (also a fantastic author) were
reading from recent works and speaking. To say I was excited would be an
understatement. Michael Ondaatje is one of my heroes. I absolutely love his
work.




Anyway, the
reading was scheduled for 7pm, so I thought arriving at 6:30 would ensure a
good seat without making me look like a total fan girl. My mom, whom I guilted
into coming along, met me at my place around six. We thought we’d have time to
pick up coffee and then walk back, but as we passed the library, there was a
sea of white hair, the muted colors of fancy “casual” clothes, and Birkenstocked
feet at the side of the building. Well shit. We went to get our coffee anyway
because I wasn’t done my smoke and I suspected I needed the caffeine and the
nicotine together.



By 6:15 we
were inside the building, only to find the front half of the room full. Either
people were seated, or they’d stuck items there to “reserve” their seats. I
instinctively moved to the chairs covered by a scarf. Fuckers think a scarf is
going to keep their seats? Pfft. Then I looked at my mom. Her deer in the
headlights stare warned me that a “scene” might be the end of her. Mom’s been
through enough lately, so I chose a seat behind the scarf seats. I wanted to be
close to the wretch who so rudely kept me from the center of the room, denying
me the perfect seat. Yes, I clench my teeth just thinking about it.



Anyway, I
observed the crowd as I waited. Aside from a couple of teens that came with their
mother, I think I might have been the youngest one there. But that’s okay. I
was also the second or third hottest. What really interested me was the small town
dynamic rearing its ugly head again. Mind you, there were a handful, perhaps two, of people there who were delightful folks. Kind, considerate, honest and truly interested in the arts and Ondaatje and Spalding's work. Other than those few, I was surrounded by the very element of
Tweed society I loathed: The folks who fancied themselves “cultured” simply
because they threw copious amounts of money at anything that might be
classified as part of “The Arts.” The ones that talked down and through their
noses, and only acknowledged my existence after I started living with Kurt, who
apparently has the “right” last name, although they had no clue who he was on a personal level. Hell, I’ve lived here my whole life, and
it wasn’t until then that many of these shits said a single word to me other
than, “Mmm-hellooo, can I have a….” as I worked some cash register somewhere. Fucktards.



Oh yes, the
farmers’ wives, the glorified cashiers, and the bored middle-aged housewives
were all in attendance. Their male counterparts, most of whom I recall spending
many an evening sloshed out of their knowledgeable skulls, hitting on anything with a vagina, during my time at the
Tweedsmuir, sniffed and preened at their
obvious sophistication. I noticed one man, seated next to a woman - was she his mother or his wife? He had that 40-year-old virgin look about him, but she kept touching his back, and he kept shrugging her off, so I wasn't sure. I puzzled this for a while, probably staring blatantly at them, but then I heard a voice behind me, “What’s the author’s
name?”


What’s that
now? Hold the fucking phone. What’s the author’s name?! I took a breath. My mom
started looking deerish again, and I smiled. “Probably can’t read it.” I
muttered, but real quiet-like, so as not to embarrass my poor mother. Then I
slouched in my hair and played with a loose thread on my shirt. I looked down
once or twice to make sure my bra was still creating imaginary cleavage, and
flicked a freckle that looked suspiciously like a flea.




And we
waited, being stupid-ass early and all, so I checked my phone, shut off the
sound and tried to figure out how to shut off the picture sound too. My phone
makes this beep and click sound when you take pictures. No, I didn’t manage to
shut that off. More on that later.



Now the
woman seated ahead of me, scarf woman, sat down and every fiber of my being
screamed “Faaaaack!” I realized I loathed this woman long before the scarf. If
you want a person that embodies every evil, snotty trait a female can have,
while not really being attractive or rich enough to justify said traits, this
is that woman. She sits and looks around, her bird-like face and beady eyes
scanning the room. Once or twice her nose curls as she settles on something
particularly distasteful, but then she stands, replaces the scarf and walks
away. Oh how I wanted to move that damn scarf and sit in one of those chairs. I
wanted to kick her fancy water bottle at the wall and step on her ugly as shit
sunglasses that turned her bird face into a fly face. But for my mom’s sake I
didn’t.



Bird woman
returns with her hubby, a nice enough man if a little strange. But then, to
live with bird woman, one would have to be a bit on the crazy side. She sits in
the seat beside the one she had previously, because the seat on the other side of that seat is
empty. She scowls at the man who would dare sit right next to her original
spot, like his commonness might somehow taint her flabby, snooty body. Yes, I
watched her arm pit flab squish and squash for a long while. I don’t know why,
but I couldn’t look away. She wore one of those hippie-like sundresses that only look good on...nobody. Every time she sat back, it squished out the side. When she
brushed her carefully cut and highlighted hair from her eyes, it squashed out the bottom. I
stared at that until I noticed the stubble at the back of her neck. One should
not cut one’s hair quite that short if one has a monkey neck. Just saying. Also
said neck stubble revealed that her strawberry tresses weren’t as natural as
she’d like us to believe.



Anyway,
Ondaatje and Spalding enter the room and after a long, but sweet intro, Spalding gets up
to read first. The woman has a musicality to her writing and her voice you don't often get to experience. I listened
completely enthralled…until bird woman jerked her head around to give the guy two seats to my right a nasty look. You see, he dared to type into his Blackberry while
Spalding was speaking.  I wouldn't have noticed but for bird woman's violent body movements. He seemed to be taking notes, because he’d look up for a
bit, then furiously type away. I saw nothing wrong with it, because the beeps
were soft and we could still hear the author clearly. But bird woman was
disgusted. She turned around a few more times, reminding me of an ostrich the
way she elongated her neck and pointed her face, blinking big dark, empty eyes
at him. I almost expected her to squawk. She tsked and ahemmed, but he didn’t
stop. I thought to myself "Either get some balls and say what's on your mind, or keep your fucking eyes forward, you distracting bitch." I did not say this out loud. Think of my mother!



I sat on my
hands to suppress the urge to punch her in the neck. Then, when the man hadn’t
even beeped for like five minutes, she turned again and tried to stare him into
oblivion. He didn’t look at her once, much to her dismay.



Spalding
finished, and I vowed to buy her book. I can’t wait to dig into it by the way.
Then Ondaatje stood. As he read from his latest book, I listened to his
beautiful accent, and got lost in the magical storytelling that is Ondaatje’s
specialty. Can’t wait to dig into that one either...okay, I've already started reading it.



Part way
through Ondaatje’s reading, I glanced down and what I saw nearly had me out of
my chair screaming. Bird woman’s husband had removed his shoes. Who does that? You? We're no longer friends.




Seriously, though. He sat there,
not two feet from me, with nasty bare feet planted on the shiny white tiled floor. The
toenails were longish and curled down at the end, and the wrinkles around the
soles of his feet both horrified and puzzled me. The tops were tanned like
leather, while the soles and heel were pink as a baby’s bottom. *shudder* I looked at my
mom and she giggled. Bird lady made to turn, then must have thought better of
it. Yeah, that’s right bitch. Just try to evil eye me or my mother. I’ll fucking blind you for your trouble.


She glanced
at hubby's feet, then to the sandals in his lap. She evil eyed him, but he was
all “la-di-da, I’m so nice and I can’t see beyond my pink happy haze,” so she
looked away. I think he smokes pot. He looks like that type. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I should smoke pot.



Moving on...




Once
Ondaatje finished reading, the floor was opened for questions. Not literally
mind you. We were just allowed to ask the authors questions. The floor didn’t
open up. That would have been cool though. So, yeah. Anyway, I thought it’d be
a good time to snap a picture. “Beep-beep-click” went my camera and bird woman
swung her ugly face around so fast, I could feel the breeze. My mom’s hand
fluttered near my arm, as though to hold me back should she have to. I stared
at bird woman and smiled. “Oops.”



She sighed
a disgusted sigh and turned back around. “Yeah, fuck off.” I muttered just loud
enough to reach her ears, but not loud enough to give her the gumption to
confront me. I might have called her a twat, but I think only my ears heard
that one.



So then a
few questions flew around, and Ondaatje and Spalding gave both thoughtful and
thought-provoking answers. I liked how Spalding described feeling lost after
finishing a novel, not quite ready to start something new, yet needing to let
the finished one go. Ondaatje said he felt plotting the entire novel beforehand
requires an awful lot of faith in oneself. Of course, he admitted writing on
the fly did require more editing, but that’s how he liked to work. I totally
understood how he could enjoy beginning a novel without knowing what the second
sentence would be, much less the last one, and how that is both terrifying and
exciting.



Bird woman
kept nodding, but I think she might have a disorder, because she didn’t nod
when it made sense to do so, just when they spoke. So like…all the time.


Then a
strange looking man stood and asked a long, rambling question  (actually he lost me about half way through his spiel) and told them
they had two options for an answer. Bird woman glared at him, although I’m not
sure why. I mean, no one really understood the question. Maybe that’s what
condemned him. Confusion is pretty infuriating. Ondaatje won my heart when he
said that he had no idea what the man was asking. Spalding, smart as a whip,
clarified and summarized the rambling nonsense into a basic idea: Would self-publishing
eliminate traditional? In short, her answer was no. Spalding didn’t feel that
self-publishing hurt traditionally published authors at all. Traditional
publishing will adapt and change and it will endure. The only people hurt by
the self-publishing boom, in her opinion (and mine) are the readers. When you
have anyone and everyone publishing a book, regardless of whether they should
be allowed to put pen to paper or not, then the reader is left to wade through
the piles of crap just to find that gem. The reader is the one that is
overwhelmed, not us.



Amen,
sister! Amen.




Bird woman
looked confused and angry again. I thought I’d like to kick her right in the
back. Just bam! She’d fly forward, maybe hit her buck teeth on the chair in
front of her, maybe even smash her big nose. Maybe blood would spray
everywhere, hitting the obscure question guy. I’m sure he’s a germ-phobe with a
million OCD tendencies. He’d scream like a girl and run, arms flailing, from
the room. Bird woman’s husband would stand over his wife and say “oh dear,” and
she’d be all screaming, saying something like, “Oh she kicked me.” I’d blink my
baby blues innocently, flash some dimples as I smile shyly and say, “I was just stretching my legs. They are awfully
long, and this space is really tiny.” and the others around us, not wanting a
scene would be all, “Of course you did dear. It was clearly an accident” as
they slowly moved out of my way. Later they’d walk away, whispering about how
this town has gone to shit and how women like me shouldn’t be allowed out in
public. Sigh. But I didn’t do any of that. Jesus, I’m not a violent person. Not
without the proper motivation anyway.



So with
questions over, much laughter ensued and we moved to the library’s main room to
buy books and get them signed. There are two doors out of the meeting room, so
I took the one closest to the book table. I wanted one of each book of course.
We stood in line, third place actually, when a voice from behind me is all “This
line is going to have to move. There is no room to get out the door. Hello, you’ll
have to move.”



I turned to
find a oldish, largish, sourish woman shoving at my friend’s back. I was like,
hell no. This is my limit. But, always in control of my temper, I said, “Isn’t
there two doors? Use the other one…since there is no other place to put the line.”
I might have dropped an f-bomb. I'm not really sure. I don't think I did, but sometimes they drop without me noticing. You know how it is.




Anyway, the woman shut her pie hole, but continued to push her largish tits into my
friend’s back. God I hate how women with big tits get all "I'm gonna push you with my tits." What's that about? Ugh. Also, I'm a little jealous of said tits. I won't lie. Don't go rubbing it in that you've got a built in chest weapon. I get it. I see them. Move along now, you and your pushy tits.




So I bought my books and we went outside for a much-needed cigarette
so that perhaps the signing line might free itself of assholes in our absence. I
hoped old, sour big tits left by the time we got back. I played the kicking
scenario again in my head with her taking bird woman’s place. It wasn’t quite
as appealing without the husband saying “oh dear” rather uselessly. With OCD rambling question guy gone, we'd lose that comedic element too.



My mom went
home, not interested in a signed book apparently, and I returned to the library
with my friend. Oh yeah, a friend met me at the event. Did I mention that? She’s
a writer too and great fun and not at all offended by my bursts of bad temper. Anyway, we got our
books signed, I shook my hero’s hand, my wallet was $44 lighter, and
then we passed the donation jar. While many of the attendees did not buy a
book, they did plop good-sized amounts into those jars. All I had left was a toonie,
and I felt the disgust-filled stares burning a hole in my back as I dropped it
in. I almost took the toonie back just to spite them. But I didn’t. That would be wrong.



We left the
library to the hoards artsy fartsy types, and had a smoke while discussing the night’s activities.
New treasures clutched tightly to my chest, I vowed that unless Stephen King
came, I’d never go out to an “arts” event again in Tweed…until it’s me speaking
of course. I cannot wait to see them turn out for what I have to say.