December 1–2, 2001 — Expensive staplers and short days

I ended the last two journals that I wrote by saying that I was off to clean my room in preparation for my sister’s arrival. As you might expect, I ended up lying both times, and my room was as messy as it had ever been when it was time for me to meet my sister at the bus station on Saturday afternoon.

But Saturday started a bit earlier than that: I had called home the night before asking that my mother call me and remind me to meet my sister, Caitie (short for Caitlin), at around noon. I decided to set my alarm, just in case.

This turned out to be an excellent decision, as no one called. I had the most horrible time trying to drag myself out of bed even though it was already noon. Pathetic.

I went to meet Caitie at 2:00 pm, only to find that her bus wasn’t actually scheduled to arrive until 2:25 pm. I went to HMV to kill some time.

(I ended up spending most of my time in HMV giggling over the list of special features that are included with the special edition of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Subtitles for people who don’t like the film? Brilliant. And definitely enough to land it on my Christmas list, which now contains three books and one DVD. If I keep this up, there’ll be no surprises at all, and that’s not nearly as fun.)

And then I was late to meet Caitie. The distraction of DVD packaging is a powerful thing, and it becomes all too easy to lose track of the time.

We started on our way back home to drop off her backpack and whatnot. She brought me my Bane LPs and some Neil Gaiman graphics novels, too, and there was no use in carrying those around all day. (My mom had packed the records and books in a plastic bag from a liquor store that, for one reason or another, felt strangely awkward to carry around.)

Then we went back downtown. We had to buy birthday presents for our mother, Saturday being her birthday and all. That ended up the main focus of our afternoon shopping trip.

We went into a lot of stores that I could never go into on my own. Caban and The Gap and Club Monaco. Ugh. The worst, though, was a store on Queen Street called Urban Mode (if memory serves me correctly). I was fuming by the time we left; nothing made sense, and everyday items cost hundreds of dollars. The highlight was the plastic stapler with a $125 price tag. I must’ve stared at it for at least ten minutes, trying to find a reason. I almost wanted to ask how much the matching tape dispenser (in the shape of a snail) would cost. The $60 pot holder (a small, ridged square of black rubber) started to seem almost affordable. I wonder how people justify buying things like that when their functional equivalents cost ten times less in a normal store.

Still muttering to myself about staplers and pot holders, Caitie dragged me further down Queen Street West and we went to some fabric stores. I was distracted and hungry, mostly. We eventually went to a mall food court to eat, still having found no birthday presents.

We eventually ended up buying our mother white towels with “CLEAN” embroidered on them (because she doesn’t like people sharing her towels, and we thought it was funny at the time), a liquid-soap dispenser in the shape of a blowfish (because she likes fish and, to a lesser extent, liquid soap), and a copy of All Families are Psychotic (not as a statement on our family, but because she likes Douglas Coupland). Caitie had already bought a card and signed it in my name (making my writing look like that of a three-year-old, as I understand it), so after buying a little gift bag, we were pretty much finished. We didn’t buy much at all for ourselves.

We arrived home at around 10:00 pm. We started watching Chasing Amy, but Caitie fell asleep before it was over.

We slept until 11:00 am the next day. We’d decided to see Monsters, Inc. before the bus to Ottawa left at 4:30 pm. With the movie starting at a bit after 2:00 pm, we only had a couple of hours left for downtown.

Seeing as Caitie had mostly justified the trip to our parents by saying she would look into things related to university while here, we did that. I walked her around the Ryerson campus and we visited Nathan to talk with one of his roommates about the fashion program, which is what Caitie would like to take after high school.

Then, Monsters, Inc. We arrived just as the opening credits ended. It was good enough to be more than worth watching a second time.

Our timing was also good for the buses. They almost always seem to send one twenty or so minutes early on busy days, and we showed up just in time for my sister to catch a slightly early bus and to be on her way home. I called my parents to let them know that things had gone well and that no buses had been missed or pieces of luggage misplaced in the process.

I went home and read a bit of Pulp by Charles Bukowski. I don’t like it so far. His writing style is refreshing, though. Especially after The Second Angel, a book that thrived on big words and abundant references to pieces of literature that I’ve never read. (Or maybe I just don’t like it when a book makes me feel stupid.)

Cuff The Duke was playing a show that night at Lee’s Palace as part of wavelength, a weekly indie-rock night with a monthly zine accompanying it. I showed up earlier than I needed to and sat alone reading a newspaper until Maggie and Sara arrived. I talked to Maggie for awhile and was able to share my unfaltering happiness at having decided not to go back to school this year. Not long after, Amy, Jeff and Johnston arrived, although not necessarily in that order. I got caught up on some Oshawa gossip and talked about the Cuff The Duke Web site, which I plan on finishing tomorrow.

Cuff The Duke played a great set, my favourite of the last few times that I’ve seen them. They played a song that they said was brand new, but I’m convinced that I’ve heard it before, as I knew some of the words. Or maybe I’m just confused.

And then I got a drive home. I want to finish reading Pulp tonight, but I’m having a hard enough time writing this that I think my mind might be too foggy to concentrate on reading.

There’s always tomorrow. For now, at least.