There’s something weird going on in my living room. It’s my TV. It’s on, of course (it’s always on these days). But, on the screen, there is NO REALITY TV SHOW. No. There is something VERY VERY undramatic on instead….

THIS.

I am watching THIS.

THIIIS!

Now, really. Something must be wrong with me. WHY CAN’T I CHANGE THE CHANNEL? Why am I GLUED to this remarkably dull ceremony? Why am I so intrigued by this guy who invented different forms of BARLEY? BARLEY? Everyone is VERY OLD. VERY WHITE. And, VERY MALE.

WHY AM I WATCHING THIS?

I’m not even watching the potentially exciting part when they award David Suzuki….

Oh! Oh! Oh! Shhh for a sec. Here’s Alex Colville. One of my fave artists. He’s the guy that painted this piece, which I happen to have in my living room:

Yeah, the painting’s a little creepy. A testament to the GENRE — magic realism. I love me some magic realism…. I also like the pointaillism technique Al uses: the whole painting is comprised of teeny tiny brush strokes….

(Oh gosh, I almost typed “breast strokes” instead of brush strokes…. It’s gotta be because he’s grunting: the rascal is grunting for some BOOOOOBIE.)

Is this not the weirdest post EVAH? It’s, like, on the VERGE of intellectual. But, it JUST doesn’t get there, does it…? It refuses….

No matter, though. I’m glued to these old men tonight. And, I’m enjoying the monotone voice of the announcer as she invites each old man up to the front of the room to accept his medal…. The man approaches a short woman, and he bends down to the level of her breasts so she can slip the medal around his neck. Why am I chuckling at this?

Am I a little bored tonight, maybe? Overtired? Yes…!

Or, at a more subconscious level, am I profoundly intrigued? Intrigued by this man who has dedicated his LIFE to barley. Do I profoundly relate? (My kids are GENIUSES, after all…!) Does this somehow speak to a glimmer within me. A glimmer of possibility that never came to fruition….

They’re all wearing glasses, it seems. Eyes strained from the study. They’re either wearing glasses, or they’re cross-eyed.

I used to wear glasses…. My eyes were so strained from studying.

Yes. The glimmer of the possibility…. I was {THIS} close to devoting myself to literature and philosophy. But, I turned my back on it, moved back to Toronto, and devoted myself…to LIFE.

As AWESOME and important as it is achieve these remarkable things in life — AND I COMMEND AND THANK AND HONOUR YOU, OH BARLEY MAN (seriously, I do) — you have to be a certain kind of person. As passionate as I was about literature and literary/philosophical research, I was sacrificing everything else in my life for it. I wore the glasses, and I holed up in my apartment with my cats.

I’m sitting here watching old men receive awards for great things. Great things, great study, and great sacrifice.

My little rascal’s sitting here staring at me, grunting. He wants a boobie. I couldn’t be happier. I couldn’t be happier with my choices. With the possibilities that I chose to embrace — even if it meant turning my back on other, more grandiose ambitions.

One of William Wordsworth’s best verses comes to mind…:

But oft, in lonely rooms, and ‘mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration: — feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man’s life,
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts
Of kindness and of love.

– from Lines Composed A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting The Banks of Wye During A Tour. July 13, 1798.

On that note…… Want gossip? Check it — at CHEATY’S CELEBRITY GOSSIP!