Cat Skinner Club

Ushering in a Pantsless Soho Nightcap

Emporio

All the babies I’ve encountered in the city are fussy today. The morning started out hot – a clear dry heat that made me think of Austin, Texas. I threw on an ankle-length gray jersey sun dress and some silvery flats with a turquoise scarf to go downstairs and get coffee with my loves. I hadn’t washed the makeup off from last night, and the effect was a smoky, sleepy, tousled “We just had a great time” kind of thing. Which was true.

Our night started with a trip to Brian’s. Brian is a fund manager, owns a sweet little bachelor pad with a skinny stainless steel fridge that only contains a Brita jug and an entire door full of joint repair protein beverages. I had asked him whether the beverage company was sponsoring him. He’s compact, in perfect shape, bright blue eyes, handsome, and was dismayed that his new cut (sort of a Jarhead meets 80’s fade) had gone awry. He wanted a faux hawk. I don’t think it will matter. I think this guy will get whatever he wants, regardless.

Brian is a nice host. He’s confident, but a little quiet. We have a little “visit” at his place, and then we hop into a cab to meet up with a dude they call Mr. Nice. Nice is a band manager who is touring with his current project. He has a knack for finding bands just poised to launch to stardom. In the squishy little cab a song comes on. I never listen to the radio, so of course I don’t know it, but Brian tells us it was absolutely everywhere in Miami. It has a driving dance beat, and lots of electro sound effects. I cringe as the lyrics begin. I hate this music. It makes me think of the guys I used to secretly lust after in high school, who would never give me the time of day. Music like this is part of my baby brother’s universe, not mine. Then I’m listening to the lyrics more closely, and the beat feels like it’s sinking into my skin. It’s an anthem. An anthem for a generation born into a world where they can have anything – and they do. They eat life in great big fistfuls of beautiful women, sexy cars, and artisan mini-burgers they call “sliders”. They are full, sensory creatures but they are afraid of emotion. They want to taste, and smell, and see, and hear, but they aren’t sure how to feel. They seem fragile to me, and beautiful. The lyrics to this anthem speak to them because they are raw, and real.

We arrive at a bar in the Lower East Side where Mr. Nice is seated on a patio with a girl from Paris. She greets me and pulls me in gently. I give her one air-cheek kiss, not two. I’ll see your charming custom, and raise you my Canadian brassiness. I’ll bet most of the people she meets her have no idea what she’s attempting with that kissy greeting, and I bet they resist her. She’s wearing what I initially thought were Crocs, so I decide she’s not THAT French.

The bar has projected surf scenes on the back wall. It’s tiny inside and packed. The left wall is papered with a giant map of an Australian beach, and the other with paintings of old beach shack signs. There are balloon clusters arranged at the front, which you can view from the street because of the garage-door-style patio opening. There are three clusters; one that says “Good Luck” with some primary colored balloons. One with a giant foil Dora The Explorer (Brian of course has no idea who that is). The other is just sparkly and colourful. They could be any occasion, for any celebration. I decide it’s a ploy to encourage people to bring their parties to the bar.

Our hostess is a pale Aussie brunette. Our waiter is the most exquisite looking Aussie aboriginal I have ever seen. He’s beautiful from every angle with a bold faux-hawk meets pompadour hairstyle streaked with a bleach blond stripe. His teeth are perfect, and he’s definitely a homo. I love him, and his accent.

Every square inch of the bar, and the entire experience is designed to feel like this famous Australian beach, and it’s perfect.

We have a drink there and decide to move on. It’s impossible to get Nice to leave. I’ve realized the man is in a beautiful bubble, and so to lure him with us, we kidnap his Parisienne and stroll down the street to another place that looks like a Paris bistro. It’s so pretty, and I don’t want to leave, but we’re starving and there’s a huge wait for seating. We head diagonally across the street to another bar that totally makes me think of the nicer pubs I’ve seen on college campuses. The kids inside all look like they could be from Burlington (Ontario, of course). It’s the first place we’ve been where I’m not delighted and amazing with the seemingly effortless way that New Yorkers throw their outfits together. The older I get, the more I really, really love fashion.

My boyfriend tells me to read Brian’s palms. I have no idea how to do this, but Brian doesn’t know, so I go through the motions that I witnessed when my boyfriend’s father read mine, and I fake it, filtering out the noise around me to just say the first things that pop into my head. I decide quickly that the way you move your hands is significant, and that each finger is tied to a different aspect of your life. The degree of resistance when I touch the fingers is indicative of your emotional relationship to those aspects. I squeeze the pads of his hands to see how firm they are. I don’t even focus on the lines and meridians, because I have no idea what’s what. I won’t tell you what I said, because I know I mostly nailed it, but I think Brian was impressed. So were my peeps.

Brian and my fella decide to order one of everything on the menu. To my absolute delight, I realize that everything is inspired by comfort food, but bigged up to meet the demands of this city’s exquisite palette. I wish my buddy Josh were here. Or my brother. Or both. I’m also slightly regretting the chocolate porter I’ve ordered. Hello carbs!

We smash through the food and it’s all delicious, but what killed me was their mac and cheese. Mac and cheese should be taken seriously, and they totally and completely understand this. It was easily the best I’ve ever had, with a hint of dried basil included in the creamy sauce. I miss pasta, so I didn’t hold back.

Once we’re full to the point where my painted-on jeans just can’t take it anymore, we decide to head. We’re not sure where we’re going next, but we hop in a cab and head back to Soho where we’re staying. Brian is working the next day, so he decides to leave us, and the three of us step into Emporio, the beautiful restaurant across the street for a dessert to share (god help me) and a bottle of sparkling Italian dessert wine.

I order the tiramisu and my love orders the pannacotta. We share it three ways and though it’s incredible, all I can think of is how tight my pants are. My girl gets sleepy, so she excuses herself to head back to the apartment to crash, and we continue on. Beautiful, emotional conversation is had, and the bottle is empty. I’m uncomfortable, and I say as much.

“Take off your pants” says my love. “I dare you to.”

I laugh. I’m wearing a killer pair of black platforms and a strapless top that could be pressed into service as an obscenely short dress. I consider this.

“C’mon” he says. “I’ve paid the bill. Go to the bathroom, take off your pants, and meet me at the door.”

“I bet nobody will notice” I say. The restaurant is half full.

I’m still skeptical. I’m not drunk enough to really engage in such antics. Then comes the straw breaks the camel’s back.

“It will make Adam’s week.” says my love.

Adam, my friend who I’ve never met, who has given us this beautiful night of good company and good food by letting us crash in his empty apartment. Adam who is managing things that no child should have to manage, far away from all of these open, entertaining people who are his boys. Adam, who I’m sure you can feel smiling all the way from Long Island.

I get up and head to the can. I pull off my jeans, take one final piss, and then fluff up my hair, put back my shoulders and open the door. Our waiter sees me first, and looks directly at the pants folded over my arm. My full tummy is free, my ivory legs are unleashed for the world to see, and my shoes are the only reason this ridiculous outfit could work. I stride through the restaurant, head held high, breeze tickling my white ass, hand my pants to my love, walk out the door and pronounce “This one’s for you, Adam.”

The Lady Comes Knocking

The Amazing Dashiell

This week has been wrapped in the familiar haze of a place I’d hoped to avoid for a few more years. A dear friend of my love’s is losing his father to cancer (I always, always want to capitalize that word) in New York, and tonight we embark on a midnight road trip, Thelma and Louise style to lend our love, keep his apartment warm, and probably stock his freezer.

These painful stories are not my own, but they are so much the same in their telling. Someone strong and vital, a real force in this world, much loved and admired, taken down slowly by wasting illness while his loved ones stand by feeling entirely helpless and exquisitely mortal.

His daughter was married in his hospital room before he was moved home to hospice care. They weren’t sure he would make it, and wanted to act quickly so he could share the moment. Martha Stewart writes about this here. I can’t imagine anything in the world more bittersweet – such important moments happening simultaneously. My heart is aching for people I don’t even know.

Because I do know. I know what the gentle fingers of death feel like when She is near. Not disease. Disease is cruel, and angry, and unfair. Death is the gentle release at the end of it all, and when She is close, I can now feel Her and remember Her, like an ancient Mother, folding us gently into Her darkness. The hardest part is witnessing our loved ones, and ourselves opening our arms to this visitor that we’ve been taught to fear since childhood – whispering her name to the winds to speed her imminent arrival along.

I’m packing for tonight’s long drive to the Big Apple. I’m making lists, and crossing things off, all while sitting my best friend’s nine-month-old boy Dashiell. He’s incredibly sweet in his disposition, like he knows my heart needs to be reminded of the overwhelming beauty of life. He is hope, and possibility and happiness in a solid man-baby chunk of dazzling smiles and delighted chortles. He naps eats and entertains like clockwork, and he is the most precious reminder of why we must all use every day like a precious gift before the Lady comes knocking. My own girls are far away,warming the heart and soul of their visiting grandmother and I am aching for them right now.  I take comfort in the knowledge that they are probably inspiring the same feelings of gratitude in her huge heart right now.

The road trip flies by, the hours seem like minutes with my beautiful company and the comforting warmth of deep, fueling love at the other end. We are all for each other in this world we have carved out, and if one of us hurts, we all hurt.

New York City is the dazzling, outrageous boyfriend I left behind so long ago, and it fills me with joy to see him again. I stroll through the streets, delighted by everything I see, open and drinking it all in. I’m savoring every moment for those who no longer taste this feast

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

I don’t want to be one of those boring people who complain about the weather, but I seriously cannot deal with this heat. Our beautiful new home is without A/C and I haven’t slept in two days. The sprinkler, an endless supply of frosty beverages, hundreds of cold showers and antics involving ice cubes offer only the briefest respite. Our neighbors think we’re nudists.

Productivity has ground to a halt, but I’ve finished the first draft of my book. My first book, written under a pseudonym, waiting to be edited, then shared with a select few readers for very important feedback. My book. The first of many, I hope. Once I’ve really found my writer’s voice, I’ll write in my own name. Fiction perhaps.

The children and the other grown ups in our house have melted into the sofa and are sipping homemade lemonade as they watch Night At The Museum for the second time. I’m looking at their sweaty hair pasted to their flushed faces, and I’m thinking about filling the tub with cold water. They don’t seem to care about the heat like we do.

Summer was magical when I was a kid. We were allowed to play outside until the sun went down, unsupervised by adults when we were a little older, with a huge community of kids to amuse and entertain us. Epic games of Capture the Flag were played out in the communal green space and playgrounds that backed our townhouses. The world was all ours so long as we never tried to cross the street by ourselves.

My mom or dad would walk us to the corner store where we’d stock up on Freezies, or Popsicles, or Drumsticks and we always bought enough to share with the other kids. While we tore around the neighbourhood, the grown ups would sit in the garage, with the door thrown open to create shade, sipping frosty beverages. Everyone knew everybody, and everybody’s kids.

The neighbourhood children were a motley crew. Predominately boys, there were outspoken teenagers who were aggressive and surly. They had a secret stash of Penthouse magazines which they took great delight in, and were generous enough to share. There were two brothers who lived across the lane – Marc, who was handsome and soft-spoken and eight years old to my seven, and Brock, his younger brother. We called him Broccoli, and he always had a Koolaid moustache and wore rain boots, no matter the weather, always on the wrong feet. He was outspoken, and as far as I could tell, was my father’s favourite kid because of his inherent ridiculousness.

I remember a few of the girls I played with through the years. Stephanie was my very best friend, but she moved away when I was seven, or eight. Lucy was an Indian girl who used to pee her pants when she was nervous, but refused to go home and change. I was her friend because nobody else would be, until I realized she was killing my own image, and then I shunned her. I’m still ashamed of that. Sharlene was an only child. She was totally spoiled and had the very best toys. Her mother was very fat, but always well dressed and heavily made up. She wore nice perfume, but when she smiled, she never smiled with her eyes. Her father was very tall and skinny, with an afro. He looked like a q-tip. I think her mom used to beat up her dad, and I know that they weren’t very nice to each other. As a result, Sharlene was an incredibly nasty little girl who used to let me play with her favourite dolls in exchange for being able to pinch me as hard as she could.

Madora was a very beautiful, very tall girl who had a German mom and an Indian dad who wasn’t on the scene. She taught me about Duran Duran, Billy Idol, and French Kissing. Her brother Oliver is the reason I love brown men. He both terrified and excited me. He was much older than us. Sometimes he’d walk around in his underwear. I liked Madora’s house the best.

One of the kids I remember most vividly is a kid whose name I can’t remember. He was very fat, and his parents were also obese. They had a film projector, and a movie theatre popcorn machine. His dad would get his hands on the greatest movies, and invite all of the neighbourhood kids over to watch. I saw Snow White for the first time in their living room. I think that’s the only time the other kids ever really spoke to him.

Now, I can’t imagine our kids playing without us right there until they are about eleven. The world has changed so much in such a short time. My own neighbourhood has a hard edge that I don’t remember from when I was a kid, and there are hardly any children there anymore. It was such a safe haven when we were little, and we all watched out for each other.

Epic waterfights that lasted an entire day, neighbourhood cook outs with five  six barbecues, fireworks stockpiled by every household and displayed for all to enjoy, hide and seek, slumber parties, and staying over for supper were all highlights for me. I wonder what my own children will hold dear when they think back on this languid, steamy days.

Next week A/C, better sleeps, and deeper dreams. Thank goodness for the wading pool at the park down the street.

Random Acts of Nature

Rainy Day by Alexander Volkov

Yesterday, I had just launched in to a much-needed psychiatrist’s visit when the entire hospital building began to move underneath us. Ten seconds and a shudder later, this phenomenon stopped. Then we were evacuated.

I got separated from my shrink in the stairwell, and blinking into the sunlight like a mole, I wandered shell-shocked until I found a Second Cup. Then I called my family. Almost all of them.

The descent down several flights of stairs, iPhone in hand, eliminated my fear that someone had bombed the G20 summit downtown. Apparently we’d experienced an earthquake. Everyone was safe, but my head was still full of stuff. An explosion of cranky, a nap, a date with my girl, a good night’s rest – my head is still full, but I’ve been thinking…

Underneath all of our personal drama spins a planet that is complex and changing all of the time. It spins and quakes and shudders and erupts and then continues to spin again.

There is not one among us who hasn’t similarly quaked and erupted only to return to our rotation, and in that realization comes a deep sense of peace.

Looking at this next chapter, all of the worry seems normal, and totally manageable. The time has come to let go of the things I can’t control and simply have faith. It’s time now to take good care of my mind, my heart, and my body to sail smoothly through the next adventures that are in store.

I listened to the pouring rain in the early hours of this morning, safe in my bed and curled up beside my love and knew that something wonderful was coming our way.

Today I woke up and everything was okay.

Another Chapter

www.oliviabee.com

Hello world. I miss you guys. Life is settling nicely now, and I’m definitely going to have more time to write, so there will be more frequent postings. I wrote this at the start of the month…

The Fortress of Solitude is no longer.

Yesterday I spent twelve hours moving, with the aid of my man. We schlepped like nobody’s business, and today I feel like I’m hung over and have fallen down a flight of stairs.

My point is not to whine (though god knows I’m good at it), but to tell you that an era has ended.

I have all the happiness I have ever wanted, and I’m so incredibly grateful.

We have amazing families, and now I can proudly say that they are all of them united in their love and support. I’m always so delighted when people surprise me, and my heart swells with pride when I reflect on the loving, caring people we have in our lives, who put our happiness first and really examine how happiness can be defined for different people.

My new love has brought a beautiful new concept into my life. This concept actually summarizes something I’ve believed since I was quite small. I love these opportunities to attach a name to a belief or a value I’ve held dear. For some of you, this term is new, and for me it is how I wish to define my life, and is the primary value I wish to instill in my children.

Pluralism is essentially the idea that our differences are what make us a vibrant society and they should be respected and celebrated. It’s kind of what comes naturally to most Canadians, but more specifically, it can even describe the idea that despite our differing customs, values, faiths, and cultures we are all connected by a single unifying thread that some people think of as Divine.

I’ve always felt this, and I’ve always believed that rather than looking like an old dude with a beard, God is in fact an intangible presence, more like a light that embodies male and female qualities or polarities. More than anything else, I’ve always felt that my relationship with God is deeply personal, so even in Schnooville, I won’t wax poetic about theology.

My point is this; my in-laws are awesome. They are warm, loving people who love their kids, and who really walk the walk and talk the talk when it comes to their faith. They are enlightened and forward-thinking, and I’m really proud of all of our parents, and eager to build relationships with the ones I’ve just inherited.

This life we’ve carved out for ourselves is unlike anything I’ve been able to discover, even in the vast expanse of the Internet. Our network of support will be one of the most important things in our life together. Thanks to all of our moms, dads, sisters, brothers, and cousins who have been so accepting and so very, very cool.

We love you, and are glad to have you to share our lives with.