April's Real Blog

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Heat Rises

Mike's still dwelling on this past Sunday nite, yo. Last nite he called and told Mom that while he an' Dee were trying 2 sleep on thoze air mattresses in the LR, Dee was all, "Our apartment downstairz was cooler wasn't it?" And Mike was all "Uh-huh." And Dee was saying that their current apartment was much nicer xxcept 4 the summer, and "We alwayz slept much better downstairz, didn't we?" Mike: "Mmmmm." Dee: "One air conditioner was all we needed--and we didn't have so much trouble w/the fanz! .... I wonder Y it was so much cooler downstairz." And Mike didn't answer, but he thot, "Heat rises", while he had steam, like, coming outta the top of his head and sweat trickling down his face and neck. Heh, I wonder if Dee was going on like this as revenge 4 waking her up when he started messing w/the fan, since she was sleeping OK till then.

It's weird how Mike's not-Rosewood-not-Beaches nabe seemz 2 B the only part of TO that didn't, like, have that cold snap the rest of the area got, eh?

Jeremy, when Ger was getting in2 all thoze fites @ hockey, I was mostly afraid of his getting hurt an' getting in trub. I'm not sure how U got the idea I thot it was teh sexy.

Apes

posted by April Patterson @ 6:54 AM  

13 Comments:

  • At 12:28 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    April,

    Boozhoo (Hello).

    I read your writing about your niijikiwenh (brother’s) late night talk
    with his nindikwem (wife). I also had a late night talk that kept me awake. As you know, your sister and I speak from 10 pm to midnight every night. My work shift was during the day yesterday, so like your sister, I could go to sleep right after we talked. Your sister said, “It was nice when you did all the driving for both of us. It was cool wasn't it?" And I said, “Uh-huh." And your sister said, “When we lived closer, one car was all we needed--and we didn't have so much trouble with higher gas costs! .... I wonder why I was able to go so long without a car.” I said, “Mmmmm.” I was pretty relaxed and I thought I might be able to drift to sleep easily, but then my sweet girl talked about how much she was looking forward to the weekend, when she could go from Mississauge to Milborough to her friend Gordon’s car dealership to buy a car, and how she was looking forward to seeing the new convenience store and sampling their famous cinammon buns and how she was looking forward to showing people at the car dealership that she could keep a promise she made last summer. I said, “A promise to buy a car?” Then my sweet girl said, “I would never buy a car from anyone but Gordon.” The whole time she was talking about this, I got this really nervous feeling and when she finally hung up at midnight, I was sweating and shaking. So, I called up Chipper (Susan Dokis), and lucky for me she was still awake, even that late at night. She said she had been thinking of me. I told her I was tense and I couldn’t get to sleep. Chipper said she knew Ojibway relaxation techniques that would be perfect for an upset police constable. As she phrased it, “When the heat rises, a good Ojibway woman can get him back down again.” So, Chipper told me some things on the phone that drained my tension away and I slept very well after that. I don’t know why your sister talking about cars made me tense. I hope she is not a bad driver.

    Gi'-ga-wa-ba-min' na-gutch! (See you later!)
    Constable Paul Wright

     

  • At 12:52 PM, Blogger howard said…

    April,

    Notes from the tour. I slept with Becky last night, because she said she wanted to make sure Marjee Mahaha and I didn’t do anything improper. There was not a lot of sleeping though. Yesterday, Becky had met with Gary Beals, the Canadian Idol runner-up, who lives in Halifax Regional Munipality and they agreed to duet on his hit Summer Nights at the TD Canada Trust Atlantic Jazz Festival. Becky was excited and had a hard time sleeping. She said, "Gary Beals is a lot cuber than MCDunC, wasn't he?" And “Gary doesn’t have Duncan’s purple lips, but his face is a lot more mature, except for his nose.” And "I always sing better with a professional, don’t I?” And “One more good musician is all 4-Evah needed--and of course we didn't have any trouble with having any fans! .... I never wonder why it was so much cuber performing solo. It’s like coming from the downstairs into the light." And “I got the heat and heat rises. My career is on fire.” And more things like that. I am little tired today, but Becky is full of energy. I think she will do well at her performance.

    Howard K.

     

  • At 1:02 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    April,

    I’m sorry your brother was so uncomfortable with the heat where he lives. I asked my mother and father if we would ever have a problem where our air conditioner wasn’t working and they said no. Then my dad said, “Actually, we had a problem with an air conditioner once, back in the heat wave of 1988.” My mom said, “We just had Blair then and he was so little.” Then my dad said, “And we were such stupid parents.” My mom laughed and said, “Blair woke up in the middle of the night when the air conditioner failed and like idiots, we gave him a cold bath to cool him down.” My dad said, “That just made Blair wide awake. It took forever to get him back to sleep.” My mom said, “And then we put him on our bed to sleep, because our bedroom had a good ceiling fan.” My dad said, “But we forgot you don’t let toddlers sleep on grown up beds and in the middle of the night, we heard a ‘Thunk’ and a lot of crying when he fell out of bed.” My mom, “Oh, Shannon, we were probably the stupidest parents alive.” My dad was laughing and said, “No. No. We could have been stupider. Maybe we could have put Blair in heavy long pyjamas and covered him with blankets. That would be stupider.” My mom said, “Now that would be incredibly stupid. Oh, Shannon we knew so much more about parenting when you came along. We make sure our air conditioner gets regular maintenance these days.” I felt better to hear that.

    Love,
    Shannon Lake

     

  • At 6:51 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    April,

    Little sis. I had an interesting visit to the Milborough Public Library today. I don’t know if I mentioned it to you, but I am in the process of putting together a book about a woman named Sheilagh. I think the last time I tried to speak to you about it; you had laryngitis and couldn’t talk. I suppose that one of the joys of this Blog, is that we can still communicate together even when your physical faculties deny me the pleasure of conversation with my little sis.

    On one of those nights like I had recently, where I couldn’t sleep, I plied my usual outline method of producing a story about a young woman from England, just after World War II, who has come to Canada as the bride of a Canadian solder to Saskatchewan. My main difficulty in writing is that although I can see the world an English girl from Devon must call home, I can feel the weight of her decision to follow her husband to Saskatchewan, and I can hear the voice of her Canadian husband, the writing of the dialogue for the Sheilagh herself has proved to be difficult. Deanna has tried to help me by explaining a woman's strength comes from intangible things, like love, understanding, reassurance, support, and a desire to keep her mother from fighting with the neighbours. I try to feel as though I am a conduit for Sheilagh, allowing her to say in her own words what happened to her, but as a man, I have no earthly idea what she is talking about. You know the old adage, “Men are from Mars, Women are from some other Incomprehensible Planet.” So, I have been seeking help from the strong women I know like my daughter, my wife, and my sisters. My daughter had a coughing fit when she tried to pronounce the name of my main character, Sheilagh, so she was of no help. And of course, teacher Liz was too busy with her school preparation to help me. And you had laryngitis and couldn’t talk. So, I resorted to calling Carlein Stein, Josef Weeder’s paramour and workmate, your former friend and current slut, Becky McGuire, and a lady I found in the phone book whose name was coincidentally spelled the same way as Sheilagh. The only one who was any help was Becky McGuire, but my discussion with her rapidly denigrated into a discussion of various intimate positions, which considering her background, she naturally knew quite a bit.

    Finally in my despair, I turned to the director of the play about my youth, Mr. Miroirbelle, who said, “I told you not to come to rehearsals!” and then he told me of a librarian named Sandra at the Milborough Public Library, who liked English. This kind lady recognized the opportunity to create literary history, and agreed to help me see how accurately I've captured the female experience in my novel.

    Today I went to visit her at the library to see how things were coming along. She did have some interesting notes. For example, she told me the love poem of her future husband and Canadian soldier-patriot, Dean Soborski when he was courting Sheilagh had a few anachronisms in it i.e., things that did not exist in 1945.

    The original poem went like this:

    My beloved Sheilagh,
    I would take this log,
    And work like a dog,
    Electric saber saw through a fog,
    And work to unclog,
    My train set catalog,
    A small, dead tree from this log.

    You see the anachronism? No train sets with dead trees in 1945. As I was working through these notes of Sandra’s, a tall dark man with purple lips started yelling at me, “Stay away from my girlfriend! I warned you!” I said, “And you are…?” Then he said, “Duncan Anderson.” I was quite surprised and I said, “Are you sure? The last time I saw Duncan Anderson, he was a little boy of 5.” The tall, dark man said, “You idiot. People get older. I am the same age as your sister, April.” I said, “Assuming you are who you say you are, this nice librarian is clearly not your girlfriend. After I received death threats from someone claiming to be my good friend Duncan Anderson over his girlfriend, I asked my mother who Duncan Anderson’s girlfriend was and my mom said it was a young, white-haired, biracial girl named Eva Abuya. My mother’s not wrong about things like that.” Duncan yelled, “My girlfriend is Zed, not Evah!!” and he gestured to the librarian, who had been helping me. I said, “This nice librarian is named Sandra, not Evah or Zed. Perhaps, you don’t know who your girlfriend is.” At this point, we were attracting a little attention and the nice librarian took faux Duncan aside for a brief, but heated conversation, which as near as I could tell had to do with things like not finding effeminate, married men attractive, and the differences between faith and fate. The tall, dark man with the purple lips looked a little sheepish, muttered a brief apology to me and ran back to the interiour of the library. The librarian looked after him, and said to me, “Perhaps we can do this another time.” I had to agree there, since the whole experience flustered me. As you know, I don’t like confrontation, particularly confrontation with people pretending to be people I know.

    In any case, since I am in Milborough, I thought I would stop by the house and see if I could help with fixing your air conditioning, since you wrote it was not working the other day. I have several rolls of duct tape in the car.

    Love,
    Michael Patterson

     

  • At 7:07 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    april, i finally got some time 2 rite. rebeccah’z concert went ok, & that duet w/the gary beals guy coulda gone bettah, xcept rebeccah kept pinchin’ hiz butt. it wuz sumthin’ ‘bout how teen pop princesses hafta have a sexually aggressive public persona 2 further their career or sumthin’. i dunno. rebeccah seemed happy ‘bout it, cuz sum of the halifax guyz were yellin’ out, “if he duzn’t want u, i do.” rebeccah’z dad wuz pretty happy ‘bout it 2, cuz sum of the local press rilly wunted 2 interview rebeccah aftahwardz, wen they weren’t v. xxcited ‘bout that b4 rebeccah’s set n the festival show. howeird wuz not happ ‘bout it @all, but he can b kinda prissy ‘bout stuff. @least hiz food iz way bettah than the rancid shark meat.

     

  • At 7:07 PM, Blogger April Patterson said…

    well, mike's here. he is totally floored at how the air conditioning is, like, miraculously working.

    i tried 2 get him 2 understand that the guy @ the library really was duncan, and that he'z dating zandra, who does't like ppl 2 call her "sandra", and that dunc callz her "zed" as a nickname. and my mom has the weird idea that dunc is d8ing eva, even tho eva is d8ing jeremy, @ least when jeremy's not away on tour. i tried 2 xxplain all this, but he looked confused. like the kind of confused where u don't undersand sumthing cuz u don't wanna do the work 2 think abt it.

    apes

     

  • At 7:17 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    April,

    I agree with your brother. It confuses me too sometimes. I had to write it down in my diary, and I still couldn't figure it out. How many names does Zandra have again? I have Sandra, Zandra, Zed, Z, and some other names kids in school called her like "the goth Z-girl who likes to correct the way you talk" and "Lady McBreast".

    Love,
    Shannon Lake

     

  • At 7:22 PM, Blogger April Patterson said…

    shannon, just stick w/"zandra" an' u won't go wrong, eh?

    apes

     

  • At 7:46 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    April,

    Little sis. I guess I wasted my money on all that duct tape. Mom didn’t have any idea how I got the idea her air-conditioning was broken since it had been working perfectly for months, but she did mutter, “20 more days until August” a few times. I enjoyed listening to you and mom argue about who Duncan Anderson’s girlfriend is, and I have accepted your logic that Duncan Anderson is no longer 5 years old. I was disappointed you had to leave so soon to practice with your band, after your boyfriend Gerald called to remind you about the rehearsal. However, I was a little surprised how reluctant you seemed to be to go to the rehearsal. Your catchphrase, “Survive Surtsey, Sweetie” which you were muttering, was very confusing to me, but it has been a confusing day. Dad was wandering around muttering, “Die, Neighbours! Die!” That was not confusing at all. In fact, I am thinking about adopting that catchphrase myself.

    Love,
    Michael Patterson

     

  • At 8:43 PM, Blogger April Patterson said…

    we're in dunc's new rehearsal room. "ger" is being v. enthusiastic in his drumming, and between songz, he keeps saying stuff like, "my playing has really improved, don't u think? i was a pretty weak drummer b4, eh?" dunc, eva, luis, an' i kinda look @ ea other, then we say stuff like, "that was gr8, ger, let's do another song!"

    apes

     

  • At 9:26 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Becky,

    How I miss giving you hickeys. I am at rehearsal now with 4Evah and Eva. It is very strange. Our drummer, Gerald is different somehow. He is polite to the women, almost like a Latino. His drumming is better. He has more energy and drive to the beat. He says sometimes, "Playing a drum is just like punching your brother in the stomach." And he has not said the words "psychosexual self" or "viking" once. I think it is because school is out for the summer, he has changed.

    Becky, do not let anyone else put their lips to your neck. I am missing you.

    Luis

     

  • At 9:48 PM, Blogger April Patterson said…

    luis, i think "ger" musta read yr mind. not 5 minutes after u posted, he sed, "if i were in one of my annoying moods, i'd b saying stuff abt psychosexual viking sagaz, but i won't b/cuz i'm not! lucky u!" then he, like, pretended he was gonna punch himself in the stomach. it was v. odd.

    apes

     

  • At 1:50 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Becky,

    Your little Luis's labios del amor remember we are not exclusive. But other girls do not kiss the way you do. They are poor imitaciones of you, my muchacha bonita del blonde.

    Luis

     

Post a Comment

<< Home