Life Lessons

In the spirit of the New Year that is coming, I have been reviewing my life thus far.

Over the years, I have had many incarnations and with each one, I have learned many valuable lessons which I feel it only right to share.  I know how you live for my advice and wisdom.

Here are a few of the things I’ve learned, broken down by era:

The Actress Days

If you accidentally fall on stage and later the director praises you for your creative acting choice and excellent stunt abilities, smile modestly and take the credit.  Tell people you are ‘method.’

Don’t ask every other actor you see if your ass looks okay.  You’ll sound like a wanker.

When you show up for an audition and they ask you how old you are, say, “How old did my agent say I was?”

Stage kisses are just that.  Stage kisses. No need for off-stage rehearsals.

The Rave Days

Dancing too hard for hours and hours = Overheated = Taking off shirt on dance floor to cool off  and dumping water over head = FREE BEER!

People in country-western bars do not appreciate when a couple of punkish club kids crash the party and try to mosh in the middle of a line-dance.

Don’t panic when your feet leave the floor in the mosh pit.  This is the safest place to be.

Don’t immediately write off the cute guy who buys you roses and wants to go out with you, just because he is currently living in his car and working as an Elvis impersonator.  He may be the lead singer of INXS one day.

Being asked to be the keyboardist in an all-guy band is not really an insult, despite the glaringly obvious fact that you are just the token female, because you don’t really play keyboard all that well.  Just enjoy the attention.  One day you will be old and boring.

The Neuroscience Days

Being a brain surgeon does not necessarily mean you are sane.

A major final research project can indeed be carried out and written up in a single 24-hour session.

If you are in a class of only 8 people and choose to sit in a seat in the top far corner of a 200-seat auditorium because it happens to be the only left-handed seat, be well-prepared because the professor will inevitably assume you are a slack-ass and will call on you repeatedly.

If your Abnormal Psych professor dresses like Madonna circa 1984, you may want to consider switching to another class that fulfills your clinical requirement.

The Artist Days

Artists who claim to need expensive paints and brushes are wankers.  Don’t waste your money.  A decent artist could create a painting with nothing but pocket lint if they wanted to.  And they have.

Use artistic license.  Make people look prettier.  If people wanted stark reality, they would just take a photo.  That being said, don’t make them look too much better or everyone will know you’re full of shit.

The Extreme Sports Days

ALWAYS listen to your skydiving instructor.  Unless he’s been smoking pot.  Then you may want to take a quick glance through your skills manual on the flight up to altitude.

The insurance company will not insure you if you tell them the truth about your hobbies.

Sunscreen.  Always.

Invest in a belt chain for your cell phone when jumping out of airplanes.

When approaching large groups of teenagers on the trail when barreling along at high speeds on your mountain bike, yell at them to get out of the way well in advance if you don’t feel like stopping, because they.  will.  not.  move.  voluntarily.

Next time:  The Skater Years (or How to Figure Skate Without Becoming Tonya Harding or That Other Chick);  The Rubik’s Cube Years; and The Martha Years (or Who The Hell Are You and What Have You Done With Drea???)

Higher Power, My Ass

Okay, first off, lemme just say…I’ve never been much of a believer.  Mumbo-jumbo blah-de-blah whatever.

But you know what?  I’ve had a revelation.  There really is something out there.  I have PROOF.

I also know that whatever this Higher Power is…whether he/she/it is a single entity or a collective consciousness or a bunch of electromagnetic energy hovering in the ether…  Whatever it is ~

It’s an ASSHOLE AND HAS A SICK SENSE OF HUMOUR.

I know this, because:

I bought a convertible and a mountain bike.

AND IT HAS BEEN RAINING EVER SINCE!!!!!

But I am a reasonable person.  I am a happy person.  I am nothing if not resourceful.  I could survive on a desert island.  So I will not allow this to slow me down.  I will forge ahead, I will smile, I will adapt.

Thus, I have a plan and my plan is thus:

Commencing at approximately 0800 hours tomorrow, I shall begin the process of dismantling Spike the Bike as the initial step in converting Skipper the Geo Tracker into an amphibious pedal-powered sailing vessel. 

Next, I shall replace Skipper’s gas/brake/clutch pedals with pedals harvested from Spike, applying waterproof seals as required.  These pedals will power the propellor which I shall create from scrap metal scored from the now-redundant fuel tank, thus also making Skipper an eco-friendly transportation choice and possibly bringing world-wide renown and a documentary collaboration with Leonardo DiCaprio.  This propellor will also be of a daisy-shaped design so that it is pretty.

Tires from Spike shall be revamped to act as emergency flotation devices in the event of a man-overboard situation. 

Should the rain ever cease (hah), my work shall not be in vain, as Skipper’s canvas roof will be transformed to act both as a shelter during inclement weather and also as a sail should the sun ever decide to appear.

I shall use my subliminal psychic powers and my innate sense of cool to convince the rest of the world that frizzy hair is as awesome as it gets. 

I will pretend that I am Holly Golightly in the final scene of Breakfast at Tiffany’s.  Being wet is poignant, endearing, dramatic and poetic. 

I will also commence construction of a massive rainbarrel to collect and filter our clean(ish) Canadian rain, which I will then sell to the Americans as drinking water at an outrageously marked-up price.

So go ahead, Ye Gods.  Melt the icecaps.  Destroy the levees.  Bring it on.  I can take you.

   

This is only the beginning.

Why I Rock.

I have currently been awake for 28 hours.  Since 7 am yesterday morning, I have: 

• Read and edited the entire first draft of a novel I’m working on (don’t get excited – it sucks.  But it’s like when you make pancakes.  The first couple are always lousy.  I’ll write something someday that will make it out of the Desk Drawer of Shame.) 
• Gone for a two-hour hike along the ocean.
• Gone for an extended swim in same ocean.
• Stepped on a jelly-fish (not actually on my to-do list, just thought I’d take another stab at the sympathy vote.  I mean, it was dead, so it didn’t sting me or anything…it was just really yucky.)
• Worked an eight-hour graveyard shift at the ol’ emerg dispatch, where I helped save 14,985 lives and wrote 688,324 reports.
• Enjoyed a 40-minute thrill-ride through the jungles of Bridgewater on Spike the Mountain Bike. 
• Updated my blog.  Twice.
• Finished the sketch for a portrait commission (it’s coming, Tanya – it’s coming soon) and transferred it to art paper.
• Scooped more cat litter than any human should ever be required to scoop. 
• Taken a leisurely stroll through the gardens surrounding my loverly home.

AND NOW:

I am curling up with Pyewackett the Magnificent and my new book, of which I hope to read no more than three pages before being swept away in the arms of my darling Morpheus.

 

The Hypnotic Gaze of Pyewackett the Magnificent

How Many Clowns Can You Fit in a Barbie Jeep?

Skipper

As most of you know, I drive a Tracker. For those of you who aren’t 100% clear as to what this means, I’m gonna tell ya.

A Tracker is a helluva tiny vehicle. Yes, it has four-wheel drive. Yes, it is technically classified as an SUV. But it is a tiny vehicle. It actually has less storage capacity than my two previous cars – a VW Golf and a Toyota Tercel, both very compact cars in their own right. But the Tracker is smaller. Which is great when you’re talking mileage, but not so great when you want to talk capacity. The tailgate space in Skipper (my Tracker’s proper name) is only about the depth of a case of beer (which most would agree, is wide enough…)

Like so many things in life, though (cough* me*), Skipper, though tiny, is awfully cute. Cuteness is very important.

I am now going to wow you with something that kind of wowed me today.

I have a tendency to live out of my car in the summertime, so I decided to clean Skipper out in anticipation of a trip to the city next week since I’ll be doing a fair amount of visiting and will require seating space that is currently not exactly available.

The following is an inventory of all the crap I managed to squeeze into this retardedly tiny jeep.

1. 1 black mountain bike named Spike (I don’t have a bike rack for the back of the vehicle yet, so this is stowed on top of the folded-down rear seat…and partly over the folded-down front passenger seat…and yes, it was quite a feat to come up with this arrangement.)
2. 1 large purple boogie board with leash
3. 1 grey flowered helmet (for skydiving and biking)
4. 1 pr navy flippers
5. 1 pr child-size (shut up) skydiving goggles
6. 1 large floppy straw hat with decaying flowers (gifts from children) tucked into the brim
7. 1 light-weight backpacking tent (Go ahead and laugh if you must, but if you know anything about me, you know I’m pretty…spontaneous sometimes.)
8. 2 camping mess kits
9. 1 Epipen prescription, never filled because I am a rebel and those stinkin’ bees don’t scare me
10. 1 notebook
11. 1 pen
12. 1 ‘do rag
13. nylon rope
14. 1 pr surfing shoes
15. 22 seashells (assorted)
16. 4 pretty rocks
17. 1 piece of brain coral
18. approximately 2 cups of sand shaken from floor mats
19. 4 pieces of sharp glass picked up off the beach so no one steps on them
20. 1 vertebrae from unknown animal (taken from beach because it’s cool)
21. 1 bag containing gifts for people I keep meaning to visit
22. 3 library books (not quite overdue – yay me!)
23. 1 bag of cat treats (for vet visits)
24. 1 scrap of badly tea-stained post-it note with barely-legible directions to a friend’s house
25. 1 dayplanner (rarely used)
26. 1 black art portfolio
27. 1 small portable watercolour set
28. 1 skydiving jump log
29. 1 Canadian Sport Parachuting Association rulebook
30. 1 Canadian Sport Parachuting Association skills manual
31. 1 pr running shoes
32. 1 pr cycling shoes
33. 1 pr cute shoes (one of which is missing its heel – left behind in a driveway in Lawrencetown on a recent visit *see previous entry for tea-stained post-it*)
34. 1 pr navy yoga pants
35. 1 red long-sleeved t-shirt
36. 1 beige shawl
37. 1 red knitted over-sized hooded cardigan
38. 1 black Indian cotton peasant blouse
39. 1 brown Mexican blanket
40. 1 bottle Off bug spray
41. 2 flashlights with spare batteries
42. 8 granola bars (assorted)
43. 4 L bottled water
44. 1 portable air compressor
45. 1 car jack
46. 1 tire iron
47. 1 windshield brush/scraper
48. 1 spare fan belt
49. 6 assorted maps/road atlases
50. 1 portable dictation recorder
51. 1 Swiss Army knife
52. 14 cassette tapes (yes, cassette tapes. Skipper is not a modern vehicle.)
53. 1 MP3 player with external speakers (I, on the other hand, am a modern girl)
54. 5 cloth grocery bags
55. 1 jug windshield wiper fluid
56. 4 pairs sunglasses
57. 1 portable aluminum coffee mug
58. 1 stick of antiperspirant
59. 1 tube of lipgloss (sunblock)
60. 1 tube of lipgloss (pretty)
61. 1 small travel hairbrush
62. 1 tire pressure gauge
63. 1 Crescent wrench
64. 1 waterproof disposable camera
65. 6 bungee cords
66. 2 tubes sunscreen
67. 1 roll of toilet paper (you never know)
68. 1 lighter
69. 1 can WD40 (good for lubricating stupid ragtop window zippers as well as bike chains)
70. 1 nylon folder containing important car documents
71. 1 pr fingerless cycling gloves
72. 1 pr striped winter gloves
73. 1 winter scarf to match striped gloves
74. 1 pkg sparklers

I’m not even kidding.

Do you think there’s a Guinness Book record related to this? Or a support group?

Drea M.’s Tips for Procrastination

It is a well-known fact that I, your loyal and endearingly kooky friend, am an adrenaline junkie. What this means is that I do my best work under pressure.

My best painting sessions take place in the wee hours the day before a dead-dead-deadline…by, say, candlelight because the power is out…with one eye closed because I’ve lost a contact lens…painting with tea, grape juice and my very own blood because I’ve run out of pigment…using the tail of the cat to apply said tea/juice/blood because said cat has eaten my only paintbrush. You get the picture.

Unfortunately, in a world with neither the demands of children nor (currently) a significant other, such pressure is not always easy to come by. For the most part, I live by my own rules and my own schedule.

So when I find myself, as now, with a medium-sized stack of art assignments on my drafting table and clients with very flexible time-frames for completion, I tend to also find myself lacking motivation.

The only possible solution is to flamboyantly and decadently fritter and waste the hours that I could be painting until the time remaining is just barely sufficient to complete the projects, thereby imposing an artificially-induced sense of urgency (which will, in due time, become true urgency).

Over the years I have become quite an expert in the art of Procrastination (and its close relative, Time-Suckage).

I have decided to share with you today some of my techniques for tightening the space between Now and Deadline. It is also hoped that by spending this time writing this article when I ‘should’ be painting, I will have helped to make that fire under my ass easier to ignite when the time comes.

Current Fave Time-Suckers

• Creating MP3 playlists made up exclusively of obscure disco songs of the 70s, such as The Singing Nun’s version of The Lord’s Prayer (which leads to my next time-sucker):
• Following the google-trail created by searching for obscure disco songs sung by nuns in the 70s and seeing where it will lead (strangely, it involves Ricardo Montalban.)
• Perfecting my ability to avoid banging my knee on the helmet dangling from the handle-bars of my mountain-bike (carrying the helmet in the unlikely event I should meet a cop on the hiking trail – thus preventing getting a ticket while still feeling the wind in my hair. What a sneak I am). This is connected to the next one:
• Perfecting my ability to swerve and avoid decapitation of insane chipmunk that insists on a game of ‘Chicken’ whenever I ride by on my bike.
• Sitting on various outdoor cafè and bistro patios, people-watching and getting drunk with friends, thus also promoting time-suckage to others (this is indeed one of my favourites – and can lead to a multitude of other useless activities such as drunk-texting, skinny-dipping, befriending complete strangers, and hours of Fooz-ball.)
• Speaking of which, drinking in general tends to be an excellent, cost-effective and readily available solution to most cases of excessive time on one’s hands.
• Sitting outside with an unlit cigarette from the emergency party-pack, pretending I still smoke (smoking is probably THE best waste of time there is…unfortunately, my vanity prevails and prevents me from smoking full-time now – too bad, really).
• Asking my dad to “Sooo,…tell me again what it is you do at work?” (CAUTION: This one can take DAYS away from your life.)
• Clipping cat toenails and feigning deep interest in their grooming patterns.
• Researching the connection between serotonin reuptake and the ingestion of large amounts of LSD (for my thesis…yeah, my thesis.)
• Looking up the meanings of all the new, complicated emoticons that keep showing up on my profile, reminiscing about the good old days when it was just simple smiley-faces, and spending at least 40 minutes trying to design one that actually looks like me.
• Starting to arrange my library according to the Dewey Decimal System, then getting distracted and spending the rest of the afternoon flipping through my favourite books. (WARNING: This double-layer method of procrastinating-about-procrastinating is highly advanced and recommended only for those with superior skills in the field.)
• Mapping out travel itineraries for this fall to visit my peeps in Toronto, England and other logistically impossible places to hit all in one trip – which doesn’t stop me from trying – while understanding in the back of my mind that if I don’t finish these stinkin’ paintings, there shall be no travel at all.
• Plotting for next April Fool’s Day.
• Practicing my psychic abilities.
• Performing new-age improv music on my keyboard – which will then be lost for all time, despite its utter brilliance.
• Taking apart the DVD player just to see how it works.
• Creating little hands out of Fimo to leave lying around on windowsills.
• Returning calls while refusing to consult my address book, insisting on ‘remembering’ people’s phone numbers by dialing various combinations of numbers that I know are in the real number.
• Answering telemarketing calls and insisting that I will answer their survey questions if they answer mine.
• Writing inane posts for Facebook.

That’s all for now – if you have any suggestions, feel free to send them my way. Must go recharge all the batteries in the house now.