I have attempted to write a suitable post before, but for various reasons have been unsuccessful. One, there is no internet connection at my gran's where I am staying, and I cannot find a viable wireless signal. Two, for a town with anywhere from 220,000 to 250,000 university students (about 30% of the population), there is a paucity of places to sit and tapatapatapa in relative peace and comfort, so I've been parking my ass in the main square on cold stone benches to find intermittent wireless signals. Finally, the reason for my being here (ancient gran on last legs) is playing like a black comedy. What I write invariably stretches into many pages, of grim humour concerning senility, decrepitude and desperation. In short, a better play or short story in the style of Gogol or Ibsen. For the blog format, let's keep things relatively light and frothy.
It's not all darkness. Tonight, for example, I was taken to an E.L.O. Concert. Yes, Electric Light Orchestra, ye olde makers of hits like “Evil Woman”, “Strange Magic”, and “Don't Bring Me Down”. (I'm sensing a theme of disappointed love here.) It was pleasing to see so many boomers having such a gay ole time.
My cousin's ex took my mother and I, and will be escorting to us to quite another concert tomorrow; namely, Canadian punk/death metal group Fucked Up. C'mon, they are this year's Polaris Prize winners! Gotta support that Canadian music, even though none of us have ever heard the band before.
It should be a good scene: my 64-year old mum wearing her Vancouver 2010 t-shirt in support of the Cancon, my elegant 41-year old cousin's ex, his 16-year old son, and yours truly. From what I understand, there will be a half-naked, howling bear man, likely some blood and definitely a deafening roar. I'm interested to see how it is received by all parties.
It has been a week of lovely moments, if not transcendent ones. There has been a two-day sex+friend tryst in the bleak environs surrounding Toronto airport (more on that soon); there have been numerous trips to Polish galleries and films and concerts, all under surprisingly sunny skies. I have walked the cobblestone streets of the old town of Krakow and wondered what it would be like to live here again after so many years, and felt pangs of Euro-wistfulness listening to a Chopin piano recital or drinking hot spiced wine in an ancient square. Yes, yes, very sophisticated little creature am I.
Let me speak about the visceral pleasures now, enough with the Eurochic pretensions. Namely, the food. I do love this time of year, when vendors set up open grills in the main square. Imagine enormous sausages, so plump and juicy that hot pork fat ejaculates out the end with every bite, and frying pans the size of steel drums filled with three kinds of pierogies and steaming piles of seasoned cabbage and the best potatoes in the world. There's no better time to come to Poland to eat than now, I've decided.
For example, as a national defence against the encroaching cold, doughnuts are now in season. These doughnuts are only made in winter, yeasty bombs with a slight heart of plum jam and a glaze of icing sugar, sometimes a few chunks of candied orange peel. When I was a child, my gran used to make them and I would help her. In this respect, my childhood was an epicurean's fairytale: plopping rounds of sweet dough into bubbling fat and turning them once at the perfect moment; scooping them out deftly to cool on a platter; sifting icing sugar in a soft drift over them. Oh heaven. Homemade Polish doughnuts are traditionally filled with rose petal jam, a delicious strange sweet substance made from the blowsy heads of flowers past their first prime. I have a jar of it at home, but it is so old I am afraid to use it for fear of botulism.
The food can be so simple and good here it makes me a bit sad to think about home, where we have so much and yet the butter, the flour, the bread, the potatoes do not taste of much compared to here. If I could smuggle a sack of potatoes into Vancouver, I would. My mother is incredulous that I plan on bringing back a bag of flour and a jar of beets with horseradish, among other treats, but who knows the next time I will be here?
On a completely different note, my tryst was lovely as I spent time with the person I desire the most, who is perhaps, also my favourite person in the world. Much different from the last time, which was also the first time, which will always be the best. This time we were both en route to international destinations, both somewhat preoccupied with travel details and petty concerns, and we stayed close to the airport. Grey skies, the far reaches of suburban strip malls, eating generic food in generic restaurants where large people looked at us with flat expressions. At one such “grill” I was eye-fucked in a most unpleasant manner by several patrons as I made my way to the door. Nothing wrong with an appreciative eye-fuck, but this was downright unwholesome. I'd venture the GTA burbs are sleazy and soulless. Despite the environs, it was still pretty damn GOOD.
Mainly we stayed in our hotel room, where amongst other pastimes we ate perfectly ripe, fresh pineapples. My lover has a predilection for fruit bordering on the fetishistic. I watched, curious, as he pulled from a knapsack two perfect pineapples, a knife, a cutting board and a large plate. He is a master of cutting and peeling, so I left preparation to him and was suitably impressed. We ate sunny slices for two days in bed and in the tub and in the shower, in the morning and in the middle of the night. It was the best I'd ever tasted, tender and sweet with none of that acidic stringiness one finds so often. Each one of our encounters is paired with at least one fruit: first honeydew and blueberries, then pineapples. I'm guessing mangoes will be Miami in the spring.
On a tangent, in the last week, I've had the opportunity to make a few observations of men and seduction. Perhaps I can take the opportunity now to offer some prosaic advice to the gentlemen.
One, it is not recommended to eat pungent things before contact. My lover, perhaps preoccupied with imminent travel and moving preparations, had eaten a Vietnamese sub at some point in the day. I am a woman fastidious enough to dose herself with boric acid lest she be a mite fishy in the snatch department, so yes, I may be a little hypersensitive to smell. But could he not have chosen a plainer sandwich, a less potent snack? A sigh here, of both chagrin and admiration, for a singular adherence to his desires is part of what I find appealing about him. I got over the sandwich smell (I'm nothing if not staunch in pursuit of great sex), but still, my preference would have been for a less aromatic reintroduction to my lover.
Two, with regard to an evening recently spent with a different gentleman, in conversation. My cousin and her husband divorced two years ago, and he is still awash in nostalgia. So it was not so great a surprise for him to confess to a little crush on me, and to express a desire to kiss me. Now, am I alone in finding it off-putting when a man tells me he wishes to kiss me, and then looks at me expectantly? Is it perhaps old-fashioned or demure to wish for no words to be spoken, only for action? I don't mean being thrown down and kissed (which can also be nice), but eye contact held, the move closer, a hand on the face, the slow approach? So I didn't kiss him, and laughed it off, and deflected a later clumsy attempt on his behalf to get me, ONCE AGAIN, to kiss him. No dude. You want a kiss, it's not a topic for conversation. Come and get it, see if I'll play. Risk it.
He is pleasant and interesting and I am fond of him, but not enough to forgive this faux pas. But we did hang out till the wee hours and I had a pleasant evening drinking whiskey and answering questions about why relationships end, etc. I am glad I didn't kiss him—just say it was terrible? We have so many fun plans for the rest of the week, what would happen to them if the kiss was wretched? Or even if it was good, what then? I have no desire to bed him, being freshly sated from my lover. (I tell myself it's not because I am in love, it's because I am curious to see what happens. The truth is I am indifferent to other men, though I am not sure of the logic in this given my situation. But all shall be illuminated with time.)
Back to a final piece of advice for the gents. If you see a woman you would like to talk to, first ask yourself, would any sane woman not find it creepy to be approached while she is eating a messy, squirty sausage? I was enjoying such a treat on a picnic bench one evening in the square when a man came and sat next at the table next to me. I ignored him and continued to eat, but could see him with my peripheral vision leaning in, ever closer, like he was in a state of gradual collapse. Thinking he may just be drunk, I concentrated on the delight of my sausage until I felt a slight pressure on my toe. Lo and behold, the dude was pressing my foot with his; when I finally looked at him I saw a weaselly looking little man in his 20s smiling at me, looking quite silly and possibly high. High guys love me, it's kinda my thing.
“Where are you from?”, he asked in slurry English. I looked at him with likely a cool expression, chewed sausage and said in Polish, “Hiszpanii” (Spain). “Ah...” he said, and looked like he was trying to think of something in Spanish when I wished him good evening (again in Polish) and took the rest of my sausage on the road. Dude, what were you possibly hoping to achieve? Okay, but does this ever work for ugly guys? All you did was irritate and amuse me, and make me finish my delicious meat snack while walking.
Fellows, a piece of advice. If you wish to approach a woman, ensure she is a) age-appropriate (though thank you) b) not snarfing a sausage (though I can see the appeal in hindsight) and c) that you have a realistic target. To be blunt, if you're ugly and I am not, chances are you will not win me over with sparkling conversation (“Ah!”). Oh yeah, and don't be high.
Now I am going to thaw my ass and suss out a doughnut.
-Gretchen Rutte
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