Illin’ Like A Villain...

Music of the moment: Fiona Apple, the albums: When the Pawn Hits..., Extraordinary Machine, Tidal and The Eurythmics: Greatest Hits (Europe)

It’s not very often I get so sick I have to miss work, which has been the case for the past three days. I won’t get into any gory details, but I’ve come down with a case of the stomach flu that requires staying at home, in a large deal of pain that leaves me as weak as a kitten, and with a moderately high fever... I’m no pussy when it comes to getting sick, either. Unless I’m dying, I go to work. Unfortunately, shivering until my muscles started to lock up because I couldn’t get warm on Thursday night wasn’t going to help me, especially when I live with the people I work with, who forcibly told me to stay home. So did my dad, actually. Pfft. Parents.

The last time I came down with the stomach flu, I was dating my first boyfriend, and I’m glad I had someone to take care of me. If I think the way I feel right now is bad, at least I’m not violently hallucinating and seeing things in the paint on the walls like I was the last time. This time it’s only mild hallucinations, and only when my fever is at it’s highest. Hooray Advil!

But I’m bored. Fuck, am I bored. I’ve spent the last three days, and potentially the next two more days in bed. Yeah, yeah. Don’t tell me how often I brag about my bed, duvet, sheets, multitude of pillows, and how much I love it. That’s not the point.

Usually I have to leave bed unwillingly, before my body wants to wake up, and instead I’m spending a lot more time unwillingly IN it, when I’d rather be able to at least go for a walk around the neighborhood. At least fate could toss me a cutie to coddle me, make me tea and cuddle with, instead of leaving me in the foetal position, wishing I was dead, as my stomach rebels and tries to shuffle out of this poor mortal coil. I’d certainly prefer a cutie in my bed with me, than overhearing various noises of coital passion from different individuals in my house at varied hours of the night. *sighs* I have to keep reminding myself that I chose celibacy, but lately it feels like celibacy chose me. I’d like to clean my room thoroughly, but I’m lucky if I can stay on my feet for more than ten minutes at a time right now... Knowing me, I’d try to rearrange my furniture.

I slept for a record 27 hours straight. That’s almost disgusting. Actually... That is disgusting. No matter. Apparently I needed it. What I didn’t need was the flood of nightmares. I think every dream I’ve had is a nightmare.

I’m glad my mom tossed me a score of books the last time I went over to visit my parents, because I’ve finished two of them. I’ve watched my Quentin Tarantino movies again, for the millionth time. (Because seeing someone else’s guts sprayed across the screen helps keep my mind off of MY rebellious guts.) And overly dramatic, special effects laden, cinematographically beautiful martial arts films like “The House of Flying Daggers”. (If you love colours, go rent that movie, it’s beautifully shot.) Jes, my leedle friends... Me rikey action and Kung Fu movies. Go figure.

It reminds me of when I was in New York City, and I had to do my laundry. Weird combination, you say? Let me explain with a little personal history.

When I was a late teenager and into my very early twenties, I was involved in an international left wing political youth organization, which shall remain unnamed, for several reasons, including my desire to remain disassociated from them, and also because of a falling out from their political ideology, and a lack of desire to currently support them. It’s also the reason why I remain largely silent on political positions in my writing, excepting a few subjects, of course.
Because of my heavy involvement with this political organization, and the fact that I am a fairly capable public speaker with the desire to teach people the rudimentary history of Feminism in the United States and Canada, I was chosen from my peers to lecture across the United States at various functions held by the organization I was in.

I traveled in “caravanista” style across the United States, from Seattle to New York City, stopping in major northern and central U.S. cities to give lectures with half a dozen American friends. As an aside, the Chicago Tollway/Expressway sticks out in my mind as absolutely terrifying in speed. It was a wild experience for someone that was only 18 at the time. Hell... I couldn’t even legally drink alcohol there, and I was speaking in front of full audience halls.
I was staying in New York for an extended period of time, living in Brooklyn, and traveling to Manhattan every morning at a horrifically early hour of the day. I slept on a smaller than twin sized width air mattress on the floor of a bachelor suite apartment where I saw cockroaches for the first time.

I loved every minute of it.

I was working on various articles in the publishing house on the newspaper that was produced in NY, and also volunteering part of my time on a work brigade, repainting and doing light construction on the roughly 100 year old building that housed the publishing house, the main bookstore and the major offices where it was written.

I worked upwards of 14 hours a day, and unfortunately for me, due to my work schedule, and the limitation of how old I was, (and where I couldn’t go) did not get to see as much of NYC during my stay there as I wish I could have. Nightclubs weren’t really my thing, not digging the poseurs and haute couture culture. I prefer pubs, now. I’d rather have visited museums, landmarks and art galleries. Truthfully, it’s the only thing I regret from my entire trip there, though I did get to see the Twin Towers before 911.

Most of my travel had me going through the Italian district, Greenwich village, and the business quarters of NYC and the area of Brooklyn where I was staying with friends, on the way to and from the subway stations.

I found a few little cafés and restaurants there that totally captured my soul; including a café where I went for breakfast, and the woman serving me had such a thick Brooklyn accent that I had to ask her what “Cwaffee” was a couple of times before I understood her. I found a 3-generation family-owned pizza parlour that served almost any kind of food ON the pizza. It was amazing. I still crave it to this day. I had the freshest croissants from fantastic bakeries and the ever important Starbucks Vanilla Lattés I love. I had dinner with Vivian at a mexican restaurant that served me the biggest beef and bean burrito I think I’ve ever seen in my life to this day.

I reveled in the architecture I saw there. I saw buildings that were older than the city I grew up in, and it blew my mind. I saw an old private school turned public school that still had the words “Boys” and “Girls” on separate arched entrances in the brick walls. I noticed that apartment buildings dominated Brooklyn, and the only house I saw was actually attached to an apartment building. I was dazzled by the glass and metal towers of Manhattan proper, and charmed by the brick buildings in Brooklyn.

Brick buildings still captivate me, as Erik can attest when I used to drag him through Gastown with my digital camera, when he lived here.

I had a several culture-shock moments, One, with a gruff NYC newspaper vendor, when I found a news stall that sold Canadian cigarettes (MUCH to my delight) and I dropped a dime accidentally between the stall and his paper stand. I think the words “I’m sorry! I’m Canadian and 18 years old, please don’t yell at me!” came pathetically out of my mouth as he yelled at me and I cringed and fumbled in my pocket for another dime. I think he almost laughed at me when I put it into his hand, but he might have broken character if he did.

I almost got schmucked by a couple of cabs when I didn’t cross the street quickly enough. I think the appropriate speed to cross the street is supposed to be “run”. I had a lady that claimed to be a psychic and ran a business out of her home in Greenwich take my hand and ask me if I wanted my fortune told. I really did want my fortune told, but I politely refused as Vivian smirked near me, because she’d probably fleece me blind.

I was astonished at how much garbage the residents of NYC put out a week. I counted 9 garbage bins (not cans, bins, and no recycling!?) outside my host’s building alone. Vivian and David’s landlady thought I was Irish for some reason, even though my accent is most definitely Canadian, to which my co-workers at the publishing house loved to point out. (Much to my chagrin.) I was a suburban girl in a very urban environment, and I reveled in it.

I was there through August. The subways were like going into the seven depths of hell, it was so stifling and muggy. I remember looking startled as someone walking between the train segments along a terrifying (at least to me, it was terrifying) catwalk between cars and into my car. I’m sure I looked horribly naive and awestruck, and I was. Everything was so confusing and wonderful. There were so many people.

At the end of my first week there, I left the apartment later in the morning than my hosts, and took the subway by myself for the first time. I had memorized my stops on the trains, where I changed over to other trains, but unfortunately for me, I didn’t recall exactly the route I needed to take to get to my workplace. Consider it stupidity for not paying strict attention to my guides, and getting lost in the visuals around me. I was given the wrong directions half a dozen times by locals while trying to find my way, that they no doubt found some harmless little kicks sending me the wrong way. It wasn’t quite so amusing for me, however.

I was doing renovations that day and not writing, so I was wearing shorts, runners and a T shirt (very splattered with cream coloured paint) and it started to rain. In the middle of a heat wave, to someone from the West Coast of Canada, rain is a reminder of where you’re from. I might have been 3000 miles away, and three hours ahead, but for half an hour, it felt like I was at home again.

The smell of water hitting sun-scorched cement after weeks of no moisture is one of my favourite smells. It’s something I will never forget, and something I will always associate with my time there. By the time I arrived at my destination, I was twenty minutes late, drenched to the skin, but humming and I don’t think I stopped smiling all day.

My third week there, and including my 2 weeks traveling on the road, I had run out of clean clothing and en-suite laundry in NYC is apparently, scarce. Getting directions from Vivian and David, and wearing my last pair of shorts, a tank top and my old sandals, with my then long, brown hair in a ponytail, I went on a walk to explore, and find a laundromat.

And fell in love with Brooklyn in the process.

I loved how OLD the city felt compared to mine. Vancouver is always expanding. It’s always felt like a new city to me. I often think that the city’s colours are orange and blue, from all the construction sites and tarps around.

In Vancouver, there isn’t much ethnic diversity other than Asian, East Indian and Caucasian. There aren’t many black and hispanic people. There are TONS of black and hispanic people in New York, and I loved it. People that know me well enough know that when I was a little girl, I wanted to be black, because I always thought they have the most beautiful skin I’ve ever seen. People that know me well enough now, know that I’m slowly teaching myself Spanish, because I think it’s a beautiful liquid sounding language.

I loved the diversity. I loved how different it was than my home town. I loved seeing women chatting across alleys from their apartment windows, I loved the scents coming out of various greasy spoon restaurants. I loved the busyness. I loved the grime, if that makes sense. I loved the little convenience marts, located all along the streets I walked.

After twenty minutes of walking, I found the laundromat. The door was open, and there was a smiling Hispanic man in a tank top and shorts behind the counter watching old Bruce Lee Kung-Fu movies. I’d been doing my own laundry since I was seven, but had never been in a laundromat before. He showed me how to use the machines. He got me the quarters I needed from my 20 dollars, and I bought my laundry soap, tossed my laundry in the machines, and sat down to watch bits and pieces of Kung Fu movies I’d never seen before.

I spend a lot of my time observing my surroundings. It’s as true now, as it was then. I watched the black woman folding her laundry while her little boy played with his toys under the table. I watched the tired looking white guy flipping through a magazine.

I wrote a letter to my boyfriend at the time. I wrote down all my thoughts over the past few weeks on a notebook that I always carried around with me. It was basically my only respite from working and writing politics in the past month. It was my two hours of quiet and peace in the middle of one of the busiest cities in the world at ten p.m., before I had to go back to Vivian and David’s and become “political” Linds again. Before I had to crawl into my “bed” and wake up at five am for another long day of mental and physical labour.

It was the smell of laundry soap, and warm city air against my shoulders and toes. It was the sound of Kung Fu in the background, and a child laughing as his mother teased him and he played with his toys. It was the sound of cars going past, and the jangle of bells from a convenience mart door opening and closing, the hum of an oscillating fan, and the taste of a slightly warm can of Coca-Cola and the occasional cigarette as I sat on the cement stoop outside the building and wrote to a boyfriend who probably didn’t care that I was writing to him, but I did it anyways. It was relaxation and doing whatever I wanted, and for the first time in almost a month, I didn’t feel homesick. I didn’t miss my parents that badly.

It’s why I enjoy going to a laundromat with my girlfriend every two weeks, and keep her company with a coffee and a chat. And it’s definitely why I enjoy Kung Fu movies.