December 14, 2006 - Thursday

December 14, 2006 - Thursday
hello, i am a rare pygmy-Indian
How disassociated am i?

I'm so disassociated that I end up loudly blurting out things in public that normally I was able to get away with because for the past 7 years, for the most part, people couldn't understand what I was saying. Things like:

"Good God, that man looks like Henry Kissinger on crack…"
"My balls, they itch. Itch I tell you..!"
"Whoa, when that chunky family hits the incline you best not be at the bottom of the hill..."

When confronted with service people I pause for a second to choose the simplest words possible so as not to confuse non-english speakers. Naturally, they're all native speakers –sort of.

"Do you have book for many pictures?" doing the universal opening-book motion with my hands.
"You mean a photo album?" the slow reply, as if I'm the retard in the conversation.
"Yes-yes! a photo album."

Total discombobulation in terms of the space/time continuum. Not to sound like a trekkie, but there is a disparity between distance (space) and time here. Mostly, because it's become impossible for me to judge how long it will take me to get somewhere if I plan to meet someone. It usually takes either half-an-hour or ten minutes to get from point 'A' to point 'B' anywhere in Prague. Here it takes people 16.8 minutes, or 47.2, or 7.9 minutes. By car, naturally. These ridiculous numbers are due to factors like stop-lights, degenerates operating heavy machinery (like automobiles), and slowing for black ice.

Black ice is a particular road phenomena in colder climates. Basically (aside from the words sounding like 'black guys' and avoiding the jokes therein) it is a patch of ice exactly the colour of the asphalt beneath it. Wet pavement looks like black ice. Black ice can also look like dry pavement, a pothole, or your aunt Belinda. People here, having witnessed their friends take hilarious dives on account of black ice are naturally wary of it when operating a car. And because everybody's car here is roughly the size of a small continent black ice takes on a new and scarier significance.

But really, who gives a shit?

Suddenly I can hear conversations around me. All I can say is this: I truly miss the general deafness I had in Europe. I try not to go out much because when I do I'm confronted with that nasal accent that drove me three kinds of psychotic when I heard it in Prague. YES Canadians DO have accents, and YES it's about as delightful as having an angry ferret crammed up your ass. Every statement sounding like a question… And YES 'eh' is used proudly, in full knowledge that it's a cliché. Sitting in the foodcourt of an absurdly large shopping mall the other day i was forced to listen to this. Nothing short of plugging my ears with road-tar or sustaining a high-pitched scream throughout could have saved me from overhearing:

"So the bread's cheap in Loblaw's?"
"Yeah eh? But not as cheap as Costco?"
"Yeah eh? That's what I heard too?"
"Costco's is beg eh?"
"Yeah, fuckin big"
Pause… To harness in their wildly churning imaginations, I guess.
"You like white bread, eh?"
"Sometimes? I like brown bread to though eh?"

And yes, Costco is big. It's wholesale goods in mass quantity in a room about the size of the drydock for a battleship. I once drove around a forklift in a smaller space. The sort of things like 3lbs of peanuts, 2lbs of cheese, and 5lbs of chips can be purchased there. I burst out laughing when I wandered through the clothing section and saw the women's bathing suits on display. Bathing suits that could easily cloth a self-conscious hippo, or serve as a safety-net for someone that wanted to throw themselves off of one the top shelves of the huge place. Judging by the other shoppers it was easy to see why there were no other sized (like 'reasonable' size, for example) bathing suits available. Christ save me from when summer rolls around and I find myself on the beach under the shadow of someone wearing this mammoth swimming attire.

Another conversation:

"So she says, she says, 'Jenny you look like a grape'?"
"Like, yeah?"
"Yeah, an' Jenny's like, she's like 'Well, ferget it Nancy, cause you look pretty stupid too'?"
"Oh mah gawd?"
"Yeah, so like, Nancy? She walks away, like crying?"

This A.D.D. of mine has sadly bled into meeting friends in public places. I simply cannot focus on a conversation with someone because of all the inane babbling going on around me.

Three times now I've attempted to take my beer outside and was met with frantic admonishings from friends who say you can't do that. Essentially the pleasure of having a cigarette while drinking has been removed as you have to go outside in minus-degree weather to have a smoke… without your drink. All three times –when nervous bar staff have tried to confront me on this— my friends would jump in and say something along the lines of "He's just come back from Europe" as if I'm a rare pygmy-Indian newly finding myself wide-eyed in the industrialized world.

The belief in the myth is strong here. You get things like a supermarket chain named 'Your Independent Grocer', or advertisements now proudly announce what things don't have: No Sugar! Low in Carbohydrates! Decaffeinated! No Cholesterol! –and now that these things are so commonplace that breakfast, lunch, and dinner has the same pleasure-value as chewing on a rock, they've started inventing new and more sordid ways that your tasteless food can kill you: 'Trans-Fats'!

Now, I'm not sure what 'trans fats' are, other than that they are the talk of the town these days. Everybody is trying to eliminate these 'trans fats' from their diet. "'Trans fats' are bad for you." they say, "Trans fats contain the bad cholesterol." they decry, "Trans fats are non-hydrogenated, and have more monounsaturates!" they howl.

"What?" I ask
"We have no idea!" they reply

Come on people, I know for a fact that none of you are biochemists, yet you bandy these words about as if you were. And judging by the swimwear at Costco whatever effect you're expecting from eliminating these 'trans fats' from your diet is not working. Saying 'trans fats' are the cause of your health problems is like saying an ice-cube sank the Titanic.

Due to the lack of anything really exciting going on here —like genocide, poverty, or civil war— this country has turned to intangible and silly sources of paranoia and fear to feed their need for emotional lows. Which already exist here thanks to the wonderful field of psychiatry that has provided a multi-syllabic label for any mental activity a breath away from total death. Jesus, with so many things that could be wrong with your mental health no wonder you need drugs to keep your head at the waterline.

Crap. I've started rambling again…

Anybody have a life-jacket they can toss me?