Depression is Driving a Brand New Chevy

Last night I was supposed to go see a delightful zombie movie with Alastair, but got hit by a sudden Attack of Ferociously Antisocial Behaviour, and remained at home to enjoy a solitary “graphic” themed evening.

I spent an hour drooling over graphic t-shirts at Threadless.com. Naturally, being a woman of large and intemperate desires, I want all of them, but I felt particularly drawn to the two that involved astronauts: the one with the funkadelic boombox-toting moonwalker, and the one with the the ‘Madness of Mission 6’ dude freaking out at psychedelic visions of zombie spacemen.

“In 1976, Cosmonaut Nikolai Peckmann was sent alone on ‘Mission Six’ to an orbiting space station to study the radiation levels and strange circumstances that killed its four crewmen. By the third day, Peckmann’s broken transmissions were coming back to ground control filled with increasing paranoia and delusion. He said that the spirits of the dead cosmonauts were coming to claim him. The station was allowed to drift out of orbit and into space; a failure never to be mentioned again.”

After that it was graphic novel o’clock, so I settled down with a nice cup of Ovaltine and Daniel Clowes’ ‘David Boring’. I wasn’t sure how this book would strike me. I loved ‘Twentieth-Century Eightball’, but was strangely unmoved by ‘Ghost World’, so it was a 50/50 split with his work to date. The art, as usual, was stunning. Sharp, high contrast inks with an immaculately tapered line. Characters with unique, individual features and perfectly captured emotions. Illuminating background touches (graffiti: “the end is nigh”, storefront: Divorce Attorney), as you’d find in the panels of ‘Watchmen’. And in the end, the protagonist’s name could not be further from the truth. Mr. Boring’s story is about sex, murder, lesbians, incest, cop killers, the apocalypse and a lucky penny – there’s nothing boring about it. There is a claustrophobic repetition of mistakes and that oppressive sense of a tightening noose from which there’s no escape, but it’s a thrilling inevitability of doom, much like in the best Hitchcock films. For those of you who are into deadly bacteria, or who have had recent brushes with misery due to dreadful colds (? ?) our unlikely hero’s obsession with invisible things that can kill you will be a nice counterpoint to augment your reading enjoyment. For the nautical-minded, or even someone who just likes sailors (? ?), there are lone survivors breaking social taboos at sea (reminding me of ‘Goodbye, Chunky Rice’, weirdly). Personally, I loved it. Highly recommended for a day when you are ready to embrace the sour possibility that the course of true love will never, ever run smoothly enough for you to stop being alone alone alone.

Daniel’s vivid and morbidly sex-obsessed imagination seems to have rubbed off on me a little. While standing on the crowded subway platform this morning, I closed my eyes and envisioned the men who brushed past me at close range, turning their heads slightly to kiss me. Remember that scene in ‘Empire Records’ where the girl is grooving with her eyes shut and headphones on, doing strange ballet moves to the music, and Mark is sweeping the floor and he closes his eyes and leans in to kiss her, and then she opens her eyes at the last second? Kind of like that. Welcome to my brain.

I dressed in a spectacularly unprofessional manner for work today: striped brown, lime green, red, pink, turquoise and mustard tights with a red skirt and chocolate brown princess-sleeved shirt. I caught my reflection in the elevator mirror. Standing next to all the lawyers in their charcoal grey and black suits, I look ludicrous.

In deference to my recent graphic novel experience, I will take a moment to enable any stalkers I may have accrued on the west coast by informing them of my exact whereabouts from 8:30am until 10:30am this Sunday, March 25. I will be moving along the following 16km route, 8km out, turn, then 8km back, at a pace of 7mins16sec per kilometer.

Bring your binoculars and telephoto lenses. Pants optional.

14 thoughts on “Depression is Driving a Brand New Chevy

  1. I happen to think you looked spectacular this morning – where is that wonderful sense of self and adventure my daughter used to have. You would have looked like a bird of paradise in a garden of weeds int he elevator…

  2. Oh, hey, don’t get me wrong. Sense of self is perfectly intact.
    Just because I said I appear ludicrous and unprofessional, doesn’t mean I don’t like how I look. I’m quite pleased with the results. But it would be false advertising to say I look “corporate” and “the opposite of silly”.

  3. I’m not that professionally dressed today either. Jeans with a black blazer…..but a Wonder Woman tank top underneath 🙂

  4. Um, I don’t think you want to run that route: Cambie is under crazy ass construction, and running along 12th would be kind of blech. Also, does the Cambie bridge even have a pedestrian pavement? We can, perhaps, map you out an alternate, more aesthetically pleasing and accessible route that involves the Burrard street bridge and running along the water through Kitsilano. Much better, methinks.

  5. Because you are one of the few I like well enough to share this delicious fact with, Baldwin’s Natural Foods has a small supply of the aforementioned delight in stock right now. Heaven!

  6. Bad luck to invite stalkers when you are running over ill-named False Creek and Lost Lagoon, Moira. Why can’t you run down to Sunny Valley or Shiny Happy People Who Don’t Bury Their Victims in Landfills Park?

    -Frank

  7. Hooray!
    Thank you, my chocolate goddess. (I will refer to you in that way ALL DAY.)
    Baldwin’s, here I come.

  8. What? You no like the malty chocolate goodness?
    Or was that question more about the dubious wisdom of me drinking hot milk?

    I need a lactard icon.

  9. Just the weekend. I arrive at the airport 9am tomorrow – wanna pick me up? 😉 K and I fly out to HK on Tuesday. E-mail me offline with what you’re up to. I’ll probably head out to the island to visit Caius one of the four days I’m there.

    By the way, you still need to add my Wii to your system – I sent you my Mii and there’s a comment from a few posts back where I responded with my unit ID, so go get it and add me to your address book!

    M.

  10. I want to see that movie. What is this limited release crap? Billy Connelly is a big name draw, he can get people to watch things. Plus- ZOMBIES!

    aw well heck.

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