A Very Fairy Conversation

There have been clouds for days and I'm getting a sunburn. I haven't left my apartment for almost a month, but my skin keeps getting redder and redder and soon I'll be burnt to a crisp. I already look like I've been spinning on a rotisserie.


My aunt came over to change my sheets and scrub the toilet. She noticed the burn.



What are you putting on your skin?

Nothing. I haven't put anything on my skin.

Are you sure? Your skin is looking red all over- look at your arms.

I'm getting a sunburn.

That's impossible. You don't leave your apartment.

I haven't left in a while.

You must be having an allergic reaction to something.

No, I don't have allergies.

Well what else could it be?

The sun is wearing some sort of invisibility cloak and creeping into my apartment.

Don't talk like that. Don't talk crazy talk, you sound just like your father.


So I rolled up my sleeves to show her the tan line. She put the bottle of toilet duck on the kitchen table and pulled out a smoke from the pocket of her apron. Lit up, took a long haggish drag and came over for a better look.


It does look like a sunburn. Huh...What the heck?!

I think it's the new dog next door.

What does that mean?

It was rescued from Mexico and it brought the Mexican sun with it. It was a mutt. The sun must have hitched a ride on its back and put on an invisibility cloak so it could sneak through customs.

I don't know, that doesn't sound very plausible.




Some things don't sound plausible because they aren't plausible. But they're true. Fuck off if you don't believe me.

The Golden Science of Repressed Longing

The Academy Awards are on tonight, so Shane and me are ordering a big thing of noodles and breadsticks from Romeos. i already got drinks, i got RC Cola and so much rum its crazy. i got two bags of sour keys and some licorice and a bag of tostitos and a bag of jerky and two boxes of turtles to bring over. Wer'e watching at his house because his dad just gave him a flatscreen TV for his birthday. it's a 40 inch flatscreen TV and Shane just about creamed when his dad brought it over with a big red bow on it and everything. i was like Holy thats a big TV, and Shane was like Holy Fuck, too. And his dad was like youre darn right its big, alls the men in this family got everything big, haha. So funny.


Shane and me been going together two years or actually 27 months if you count months. i pretend to be in love with him, i even pretend it to myself. Like i tell myself i am in love even when the little stern voice lights up my insides with all kinds of meanness saying oh, your just phony and you just get boyfriends cause you don't want to be alone. ill just say shhhhh, thats enough nasty talk thank you very much.

i dont talk nasty, im in love thank you very much!

And i been trying real hard to get all worked up over Shanes new spikey blond hair. He does his hair like Chandler from Friends now cause i said i liked the way he weared it one time and whatdya know, next day he got his but over to a salon and paid almost $80 for a special Chandler cut!! i was like eighty bucks FUCK OFF!!! And Shane was like do you like it? He was all nervous, and i was like yeah it looks da bomb. Honestly though, it looked nasty because his foreheads kinda big and he doesnt have much for a chin. But whatever, he tried, he got a blow job that night, ha ha~! And its grown in good.

But tonight the Oscars are on. Did i already say that? Ha ha. Say la vee! i love that expression.

So i dont tell everyone this but i used to be an actress. i was in two plays and a whole entire series of commershles for this houseplant food called ChemBreast. They were just online commershles because Randy, the guy who filmed me? He said the commershle would be too long for TV and they woudlnt let it on. i had a bunch of lines and i was really into my character because i'm a methed-actress. i was the star of the commershle because the camera was on me most of the time. It started adn i was at the doorstep of this house in a bikini and a tie. i knock on the door and the other actor (his name was Mark but later i found out it was Ben because i saw him working at Sport Check and i saw the name tag, ha ha!) answers like yeah can i help you? And i say hey, im Austin, are your plants thirsty because Chembreast will help quench your thirsty plants mouths and then Marks like yeah, come in I want to test your product and then i go in and im like let me show you my product and hes like yeah baby, show me your product but first lets go see my wife and my two friends Derek and Adonis theyre in the hot tub upstairs. Anyway, i dont have any lines after that just noises until the end when i pour the ChemBreast plant food to a dying potted fern and it suddenly grows (CGI effects) and then i get to wink at the camera, ha ha! Thats just one of them in the series and in my opinion its the best one because as they say sequels aren't as good as originels.

At first this year i was like im so over the Oscars, who cares but then i always get excited because of my acting history and i gotta confess i do think that could be me up there winning that award one day, you never know. I got the book and th e DVD of The Secret and I use the teckniqs so I can really say you never know because you don't. The secret is about a thing you can do to get everthing you ever wanted and more.


So who do i thinks gonna win tonight? Well i hope not heath ledger, hes fcuking dead as a doornail so he cant even appreshiate it and anyway he was also in that fag movie a few years back that made my dad go nuts to the mental hostpital. Buttfuck mountain. Thats not the movies real name but im sure you know the movie I mean. i dont really want to get into it but the long story short is he went to the movie cause he thought it was a hunting movie because hes a hunter and a trapper and whattdya know there was heath ledger kissing the other dude and getting in love with him or something, whatever. and my dad was cleerly so disgusded by it that he went psycho and started to scream in what sounded like naother language and punching himself in the face and everything in the middle of the movie theater. Maybe you read about it in the local paper? i dont care if you did its all over now. They got the ambulence and everything and next thing i knmow i was visiting my poor dad drooling away in PIC.

The Last Breakfast

The morning I got up to give birth, I was very excited.

I was excited:

A. To meet my daughter.

B. To consume the bag of tasty treats I had purchased from the Thrifty's bakery the evening before.


I had a brown paper bag.


Inside was a cranberry bran muffin, a cherry danish and one of those deliciously shitty cheesy-cheese bagels.


There was nothing else in the house to eat except for the tiny bottle of peach Yop in the fridge, which was also to be included in my Last Breakfast.

I had planned this breakfast meal meticulously. For weeks, whenever I had visualized the day I was to be induced, I had included the brown paper bag of tasty treats in my fantasies. Yes, I had said to myself, it will be a perfect morning. I will get up, have a shower, put on my comfy new fleece baby-havin' PJs and sit down at the table with my frightened husband, my Yop and my bag of pastries. I will have myself a plate and on it I will dump the pastry, the muffin and the bagel. I will take bites of each treat whenever I want. Like I'll take a bite of muffin, then a bite of pastry, then a swig of Yop, then another bite of muffin, then some bagel. It will be very pleasing to me, I said to myself. It will all work out very nicely, I said.



I had to be at the hospital at 7:30 to check-in. My mom was coming to pick us up at 7:00. The alarm went off at 6:00.

Frightened Husband had to help yank me out of bed because I was so huge.

Don't fucking yank me so fucking hard, I said, I'm fucking pregnant.

Mellow out, said Frighty with all the sweet gentleness he could muster, I'm trying to help you.

Sorry, I said. Then I started to cry. I'm so fat, I said.

You're pregnant, he said, We're having a baby.

I want my muffin and my danish, I said.

I waddled out to the kitchen. There was the brown paper bag, right where I had left it. I went to it. I picked it up and looked inside.


EVERYTHING WAS FUCKING COVERED IN FUCKING BUGS!


I spent a good long minute staring at them.


Blink, said my eyelids. Blink, blink.

Then my mouth said: I CAAAAAAAAN'T FUUUUUUUUUUUCKING BELIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVE THIS!

Frightened Husband came running. He had leaped out of the shower soaking wet and was dripping shampoo everywhere.

What's wrong???


I howled. I wailed and howled at this unimaginable injustice from that great, deep lake of sadness below my ribs.


I held out the bag so he could see for himself.


He just could not comprehend what was happening.


That's what you're freaking out about?! God DAMN it, Chelsea, don't EVER do that to me again! I thought something terrible had happened!



Something terrible DID HAPPEN, I sobbed.



Drip, said the shampoo from Dave's head. Drip. Drip.


He was just looking at me.

He was looking and looking at me as hard as he could, trying to figure out what do do.

I looked at him, too.


He appeared young.
And frightened.
And wet.

And cold.


There's ants on my breakfast, I whispered to him.

He came to me and hugged me.


You're getting me all wet, I said.

Shhhhhhh, he said. I tried to wriggle out of the hug but he held on.

But you are, I whispered again, getting me wet.

Fine! He spat, and huffed off back to the shower.



Please try to understand. The ants had just appeared out of nowhere. They had taken over the whole brown paper bag, and weren't they just busy stealing my food.


Crawling all over it with their terrible little feet.

My Outer World Sure Is A Dump Today

You know when you stand up too fast and all the stars in the universe come rushing at your face like little shards of glass? It's fucked, but it happens, doesn't it?

I drank a cup of my dad's MGB coffee this morning and it's given me the bad anxiety. Really bad. I dropped Ava at daycare mid-morning and as soon as I pulled out of the driveway it really started buzzing.


First I started worrying that she was going to puke.

She might puke today, you never know.

She's not going to puke.

But she might puke today and you dropped her off early.

That's okay. It's fine! She'll be fine!

Oh yeah. You're like one of those WalMart moms with the hamburger heads. You have a burger for a head instead of a human head.

That's ridiculous.

You know what you are? You're an asshole. She might puke and you don't even have your cell phone.

She's fine. She's not going to puke.

How do you know? Hmmmmm... selfish. Selfish asshole.

I'm not selfish. I'm not an asshole. I need time for myself sometimes.

Okay. Yeah, maybe you're not an asshole.

I'm not. I don't think I am.

Try to think of some people who think you are.

No!

Just try, it'll be fun!

No. Who cares?

You do.

I do not.

Yep, ya do. You say you don't, but you do. Everyone does.

No, not everyone. Not Peter Mansbridge.

Yeah, maybe not him. But everyone else.

Fine, everyone cares. So I'm like everyone else, can we drop it now please?

Fine.

But...


Hey!!!!


Look at this car! Look at these fucking cassettes everywhere! Look at the drink holders, those pennies have been stuck in there since last July! Disgusting!

But I haven't had time, to be fair-

Well, you've sure been taking a lot of naps lately. Think of what the daycare ladies would say if they knew you dropped Ava off so you could have a nap?

You're just nitpicking at me.

Yep. Somebody's got to.

Why do you always say Yep all the fucking time? Stop saying Yep.

You might be hungry.

I might?

Yes, you're hungry.

I am?

Yeah, go buy some donuts. Go through the Tim Hortons drive through and get some. A pack or a dozen or something.

I don't even like donuts.








I really don't like donuts.








I'm not an asshole.

LOL, just kiddin'... TTFN :)

I had this scratch and sniff book when I was a little kid. It was all about pizza. You could scratch the tomatoes and the oregano and the dough and the pepperoni and the cheese. I loved the oregano page and I would sit there and sniff it like nobody's business.

I had this other book about two monkeys, Saba and Shana. They lived on an island, and the island ran out of food, so Saba built a raft and sailed away to find food to bring back to Shana. Shana waited and waited and every night she gazed up at the stars and wondered if Saba would ever come back. A few other things happened and all kinds of animals worked together to support Shana. Saba eventually returned with food and all was well.


I had this teacher in highschool and I thought he was really great. He taught English lit and creative writing.

I definitely would have allowed him to molest me and I wouldn't have told anyone.

He never even tried.

Maybe he was molesting someone else, but I doubt it. I suspect he just wasn't the molesting type. He seemed sort of devoted to his wife, who was (is) a rather famous and very celebrated Canadian poet, though rumors swirled that he liked to fuck girl students right after they graduated. A few times, during class, one former student knocked on the door and he went galloping out in the hall to see her. There was a rumor they were loveys (typo and it stays). I saw him giving her a long hug once in his classroom when I went there to pick up an essay. She had been the star poet at our school, published in a few major magazines by the time she was seventeen. She wrote poems about cancer and radios and furiously cunt-stained leotards and things. Yeah, very fucking eloquent. When I was in this teacher's class, she was in her second year of writing at university. She was that girl. She wore scarves. You know?

I was so jealous.

Guess what Dave's doing? Sleeping. Because he's tired. He finished renovating the shower tonight. It's been three weeks of renovating and I've had to shower at other peoples' houses. I could have had baths, but I don't like taking baths. I don't like looking down and seeing the water pooling in my belly button and all the little wet blonde hairs on my pasty skin . All I can think is:



I AM A MAMMAL IN A TUB.

I AM A MAMMAL IN A TUB.

I AM A MAMMAL IN A TUB.


Anyway, back to the teacher story*. This guy was my hero. I worshipped him. I used to go to all his poetry readings. He got stuff, you know? He was so intense and ascerbic and funny- a brilliant teacher, perfect with teenagers- he could get even the dumbest twats excited about Beowulf or Sir Gawain or fucking John Donne. And you could always pick out which kids were in his writing class by eavesdropping on conversations in the hallways. Everything was cliche this, cliche that with them. I was just as bad. Flare jeans are so cliche, I would say to myself, I'm so glad I wear pajamas to school. I'm a real original!. Yep, I was that kid. The kid in the pajamas and slippers with the rat-nest hair and the scowl, wildly in love with my English teacher and tolerant of my flamboyant boyfriend who did things like stick safety pins through his cheeks at assemblies, getting blood all over everywhere just to be punk-rock and awesome.

I was a prime candidate for molestation... how I longed to be groomed, to be taken advantage of!

Of course it never happened.

Of course he was professional and respectful to the end.

In 2007, I was applying to a BA in Communications program and I needed an academic reference who could attest to some writing ability on my part. Since none of the profs at Camosun would have remembered me and since this teacher had accelerated me from Grade 9 English into English 12 and AP Lit, I facebooked him and asked for a letter of recommendation. He graciously agreed and emailed it to me, but I needed a signed letter, so he said I could drop by his place in James Bay. I went there and took Ava with me- so excited to see him again and so thrilled to show off my beautiful baby that it didn't occur to me how different I looked compared to the last time I saw him.

He answered the door in a wife beater, looked me up and down. And I saw myself through his eyes. The disappointment. Gone was the plucky, gaunt teenager with quirky but endearing features and the big sky future ahead of her, the future filled with coffee-shop poetry tours, scholastic successes, dirty but romantic bumsex with dashing foreign poets and politicians. Maybe he thought I would have grown into a swan, or at least a cutie-pie granola mom. Not this frumpy sausage-lady standing on his porch with a crying infant, enormous leaky tits and jiggly arms like some goofy, desperate escapee from Bountiful. I saw all of that wash over the man's face- the shock, the disappointment. So I talked a lot. Because I felt uncomfortable. I blathered nervously for way longer than was appropriate or necessary.

When I got back to my car and was driving away, I started to feel angry. What a shallow cunt, I thought. His behavior toward me was clearly influenced by my eighty extra pounds. I wasn't thinking straight, but it seemed clear to me that he had deliberately forced me to feel uncomfortable. He didn't even PRETEND to be interested in me,I fumed, He didn't even ASK whether I was still WRITING, not even to be fucking POLITE and even after I LICKED his ASS, praising his ASSHOLE collection of poetry, his mediocre-at-best book of short stories and his DISMAL new novel.

I wanted to drive back and scream "YOU'LL NEVER BE AS GOOD AS YOUR WIFE, DICKHEAD! STOP FUCKING TRYING! HOW DAAAAAARE YOU JUDGE ME!!!!"

Instead, I went home and looked at his facebook page while Ava was napping. I read all the adoring wall messages from his current students, and I cried and cried and cried into a huge bowl of ice cream. Then I ate the whole bowl and licked it clean and cried some more.

Then I noticed his facebook status.

"Joe Blo is taking his ninety-year-old mother out for lunch!"

I commented:

"Ninety years old? Must be nice to be middle-aged and still get to take your fucking mother out for fucking lunch, eh? What the fuck did she do that was so fucking great that she got to live to NINETY FUCKING YEARS OLD?! I bet she smoked a pack a day and ate fucking wonderbread, didn't she? MY MOM RAN MARATHONS and she's DEAD at FIFTY, so FUCK YOU!"

I read my message over. Maybe that's a little harsh, I thought, so I added:

"LOL, just kiddin'... TTFN :)"

!


Some people live to be the heroes of the young.
They love the promise, the blank slate minds.


The nubile limbs, so many years shy of ruin.



*Details of story changed. Lots of details. Lots of this stuff didn't actually happen. LOL, TTFN!