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Four-Day Forecast for Wendy

1

You have a keenness to never let your running mind rest. A keenness to be emotionally important.

You love dancing while wearing a bowtie and are not allergic to glee.

But you will never applaud a legend in the unmaking. Your dad, the retired banker, for one. His aging narrative has grown side effects.

Yesterday he was spotted exposing himself at a busy intersection while wearing see-through pantyhose beneath your mother’s curry-coloured coat. This caused mild excitement among passing motorists. The police were called. A witness described your dad as “not having much to show for himself.” He was quietly delivered home.

In light of all this, your becoming an astrophysicist doesn’t seem like such a big deal today.

2

Today you are in the Original Mystery business, a former bride hoping to penetrate the story, deliver the goods. Elements of a leaping terrier appear, and devoted goats, elephants, as well as flat, floating fish. A festival of washing dishes, cooking, hauling garbage, weeping, and laughing appear.

Mostly you are rushing from one beginning to another declaring, “Doesn’t the world look stunning? It almost feels natural!”

It’s hard to describe the look in your shiny chocolate eyes.

3

On this day you will mention to Gary, your husband of twenty-nine years, that you wouldn’t mind being your family’s head of state. You come from a long line of matriarchs, you’ll explain, and so your request is not an unreasonable one. Furthermore, you will say, “The men in your family do not become heads of state, ever. They tend to drop back to their own devices and drink Scotch in the corner of the living room with the cat on their lap.”

It will be late afternoon when you broach the subject with Gary. He will receive this as Good News! He’ll be in the garden shed smoking his daily joint. He’ll be sitting on the old white leather chair he dragged out there and he’ll be looking at you pleasantly. You, on the other hand, will be breathless. Nevertheless, you will tell him what’s on your mind.

Gary will be quiet for a long while after you speak. He’ll be staring at the dust on the shovel. Finally, he will say, “If that’s what you want, Wendy …” And grin.

4

Today your dog, which is wearing a red vinyl jacket and is tied to the boulevard tree outside the thrift store, will decide to end things. His name is Rusty, and suddenly, he feels like he’s dragging a rusty anchor.

This is because he now understands the truth of his situation: you don’t really love him. It’s what he’s suspected for some time – that, for you, being with him is like being in a prison. Because he, Rusty, is never going to grow up and go to school and get a job and support you later. That very quickly he’s going to become an old dog and possibly an expensive and cranky one.

When you come out of the thrift store he can read the truth in your eyes. Even though you say, “Thank you so much for waiting for me,” he knows it’s a lie. Your mind is elsewhere. You’d sooner walk by him and visit the cat in the pet shop down the street.

Every dog should have a boy instead of a fifty-six-year-old woman, he thinks.

This Year

–the dog will have six hundred friends

–almost everyone will lead a charmed life and spend it singing

–no one you love will get hurt, though some of us worn-old will disagree with this

–many will wear so much gold for good luck that no one will offer them guidance

–hair will be mostly styled for its hypnotic value

–everyone will follow forecasts, warnings, advice

–everyone will be part of the chorus, the ubiquitous hum

–everyone will plan to enjoy the next twenty-seven years

–everyone will get their picture taken with the President

Backup Chorus

–We are three nameless women harmonizing behind the male lead.

–Three TV goofs walking into walls with ladders.

–A quartet of optometrists singing “Wait till the Sun Shines, Nellie” on board the doomed flight in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five.

–A string trio covering Green Day over there by the subway exit.

–Five old women knitting together in a storefront to attract business.

–We are Janet saying to Elaine, “I was beautiful once and everybody loved me.”

The Cinderella Problem

You have a fondness for sweeping floors and raking leaves. You are happiest alone or when getting your hands dirty. You’ve often thought you’d make a good Cinderella. You like shoes and would consider a prince with a foot fetish as not a bad catch. You like a fancy-dress ball as well as the next person.

Many of these attributes have been put forward over the years but you have never been chosen. It’s beginning to look like you will never star in a fairy tale.

Your ugly stepsisters were actually good looking.

Your stepmother did the best she could.

The Chicken Remedy

If you need to peck ceaselessly at worrisome things, and it’s becoming a problem because you are pecking so much that it’s causing turmoil in the lives of others, wear red contact lenses.

This remedy has been inspired by chicken farmers. Red lights in the henhouse will decrease a chicken’s high, the one they get from pecking each other to death. Red contacts will do same for you.

I am a chicken that knows this.

National Craft Day

I’ve sculpted this clay figure. It’s tiny, four inches high, but only has three legs because I ran out of clay. It can’t stand on its own. It could be mistaken for a frog because I painted it green. But I like it. And I want other people to like it too.

How many people do I want to like my sculpture? How many people do I want liking it before I am satisfied that it is really liked? Can I put a number on that? I wouldn’t say no to a thousand people. A thousand people liking my sculpture would be pretty good, though more would be better. And Facebook “likes” don’t count because I want my sculpture to be liked for longer than a few seconds.

Another thing – do I have to be alive while people are liking my sculpture? I ask this because “decades” are no longer an option for me. Do I want people liking my sculpture, then, when I am just-about dead? After I am dead? When I am long-dead?

Oh my God! How dead is long-dead these days?

Hands on the Wheel

There is no law forbidding your dad from taking his electric train set with him when he’s buried. Many people have taken things with them after they die, the idea being that they’ve still got their hands on the wheel, so to speak.

Bob Marley took a Les Paul guitar and some weed.

Miles Davis took his trumpet.

Tiny Tim took his ukulele and some red tulips.

Harry Houdini took a packet of letters from his mother. (There was no escaping his mother.)

Roy Rogers took his cowboy hat, his dog’s ashes, and a pair of riding gloves.

Frank Sinatra took a bottle of bourbon and a pack of Camels.

My mother-in-law took her full-length mink coat. She wore it.

My grandmother took a deck of cards so she could continue playing solitaire.

My uncle took his dog Buddy, who’d died a week before. Buddy had to be dug up and reburied.

Then there was my father. He was a quiet man, but also a man of action. He wanted a roll of quarters with him in case he found a pay phone. To call home, he said.

Dream Come True

I remember my dad telling me about growing up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, when he was a kid, and how his grandpa retired off the farm and moved in with my dad’s family. And his grandpa lived out his days with them. That’s what happened to my dad’s parents and blah, blah, blah. That’s what you did back then, you looked after old people, blah, blah, blah.

My dad’s grandpa died on the couch, with two loaves of bread and some peanut butter on the coffee table and a bag of apples beside him. He had twenty-eight dollars in his pant’s pocket. The family had left him for a few days to go to a hockey tournament in Brandon.

Fortunately, things are different now. It’s become vogue to put your parents in a nursing home or whatever, or find them a place in a retirement community. Now you can get on sooner with your post-parent life.

Summing Up

I’m an optimist by nature so still have many friends. And I’ve stayed true to the end. I’ve been coming back like an affectionate robot for decades. I haven’t lost it yet – water-skied fully clothed or worn a clown costume to town on a Tuesday afternoon.

I’m a sweet guy.

I’ve loved the handsome heads and hefty vaginas of many. I’ve loved drinking Scotch against existence rushing by, and attending undertaker conventions because it wasn’t me yet.

But you don’t want people to know how long you’ve been around. If they do, they will think, “Well, that’s long enough. Pull the plug on him. He’s had his chance.”

I hope my end is sudden. I want people to say, “Who said he could leave the party?”

Vibe

Oh there you are, dear. I thought you were dead.

The Hearse Driver Speaks

Once a gentler, more respectful public was the norm. A funeral procession was escorted by police on motorcycles. People stopped and took off their hats, put their hands over their hearts. Cars pulled over. For a few moments onlookers paused in reflection. It was like a Norman Rockwell painting – among them a shopkeeper in a brown apron, an old woman in a blue coat, a freckle-faced boy with his mouth hanging open.

Not so today.

Today a funeral procession with a police escort will not be seen unless you are a hero or a major politician. Today the driver of a hearse manoeuvres in traffic like everyone else. We get no special treatment. In fact, it is not unusual to have someone in a car cut me off and then give me the finger as I watch them drive by. Several times I’ve driven a hearse that’s been pelted with pop cans. I’ve had people yelling obscenities at me, making rude gestures from the side of the road.

What do they think is going on? Do they think it’s a scene in a movie?

They need to understand that death is driving by. That when the inevitable happens to someone they love, it will bring with it a degree of sadness. They need to understand that, for example, of course they will miss Shannon, but that life’s a bitch, and then you move on. That Shannon is dead.

Vibe

Don’t be too moody in school these days or they’ll put you on pills.

Keep Calm

Even while the woman in your dream lingers in your bedroom doorway smoking a cigarette.

And the man holding a clipboard and who looks like William S. Burroughs announces that the reality genre is cooling.

And original poems, stories, phrases are written, read, and forgotten, meaning that your masterpiece has eluded your grasp again.

And the rumpled bed covers in the half-light look like a woman curled and weeping.

It isn’t you. It’s your imagination.

Couch Lock

Every time I see superweirdos on the bus I embrace them. This is because I’ve come to realize that, like me, superweirdos naturally want to overthink things and analyze, like, the meaning of life, and that the only way to do this is to disengage from those around them and let the messages come through. I figured this out one time I was high on the narcotic analgesic drugs I was taking for my broken foot.

So I started getting into this state of couch lock, which is doing absolutely nothing while sitting on the couch. Like, nothing, nothing, like, less than nothing. Doing nothing feels like riding a wave, and then you feel another wave coming, and you paddle hard and you hit it. You spend the day doing this, and the next day it’s the same.

Doing nothing, I’ve had moments when I am, like, Whoa! And moments when I’m a little dazed and can’t believe this is real life.

Yesterday the message was that I am getting better at singing. Today the message came in the form of a memory, the one where I got heckled at my own wedding reception. Ashleigh, my ex, was off dancing when a drunk jumped on the table and yelled, “You’re nothing but a joke, Brandon, a character in a Woody Allen movie!” I must have looked like such a loser.

Old Days

When I was seventeen I heard a noise coming from the backyard and went to investigate. That’s where I found Peter, the boyfriend of the woman who owned the house. He was lying in the driveway in his boxer shorts with a knife sticking out of his chest. It was that kind of a neighbourhood.

We lived in the basement suite. My dad was always yelling at us to close the door. “The door’s not an asshole. It doesn’t shut by itself!”

You want the obvious truth? Death was a bit overwhelming, and talk about decay made me sick. So I thought, well, everything. It was, like, maybe Peter died for love, maybe not. But hopefully his girlfriend would get a stack of money to help her with the change, going forward.

The yard next door was where I went on a daily basis. I was constantly there with Lisa. I’d sit on her back steps and sing “Sherry, Sherry baby.” She had a passion for vegetable soup, but I always knew eventually she’d come out.

Calendar

Now and then you will find yourself thinking of time as a calendar in a late-night, black-and-white movie you saw when you were ten years old. You and your father on the Colonial-style couch in the den.

Near the end of the movie the screen cleared and a calendar tacked to a wall appeared. Each page on the calendar contained a single number representing a single year. One by one the pages came loose and fluttered to the ground. A pair of birds flew in to take the pages away. Cartoon birds like in Disneyland.

You felt unease at the speed with which the years disappeared, and how easily. Your father must have sensed your mood because he said, “It’s showing the passage of time. Loretta Young was twenty when the movie started, and now she is fifty. You see that, don’t you?”

You take a deep breath of terror and say yes.

Doris Grant Day

Doris Grant was a home economist who invented a brown bread that didn’t need yeast or time to make it rise. As a result, the people of England didn’t go hungry during the Second World War. They could make the bread between air raids.

Where brown bread was concerned, Doris Grant said, “If you love your husbands, keep them away from white bread. If you don’t love them, cyanide is quicker but bleached bread is just as certain, and no questions asked.” She said loaves of white bread should be dropped over Germany.

Think of Doris Grant while the bombs of bad news continue to fall on our heads.

Secretary Day

Pushing upwards means wanting to dance where you’re not supposed to.

Perseverance means wearing your secretary suit like a legend in your own time.

You’re kidding? means there is seldom joy in filing.

Top means work is cry-worthy but extraordinary.

Bottom means departure towards small things as a keeper of secrets.

Sixth place means it feels like God rather than you who is making a fortune being successful.

Fifth place means a banana suit for the off-hours.

Fourth place means a hallowed task and a singing mouth.

Third place means your body is like a devoted goat.

Second place means it feels like a journey of bodily insides.

First place means it furthers one to wear the gorilla mask.

No blame means everyone is written into your story for a reason but you will never know how the story ends.

Gordon Lightfoot Day

Oh, this day is tough. It finds me in my older years sitting at my desk. As usual, I’ve been clawing at ways to keep the universe exciting. One way I’ve found is to heed the words of Clint Eastwood: “Never let the old man in.” Or in my case, the old woman. Another is to listen to Gordon Lightfoot’s songs again, the ones about moving on. Altering their meaning a little. I hope he doesn’t mind. So that moving on can also mean not getting stale. Not letting the dust settle.

It’s Supposed to Be a Fun Deal

Everyone’s so nervous these days. Not me. I’ve been wearing my party clothes all week. On Thursday evening I’m hosting a tap-water gala!

Though Hillary says hosting a gala during a time of austerity and normalized decline is a weird thing to do. And Mother says one should be careful of tap water. And David says I look like the Second Coming in my long white apron.

But I wonder. Are we not about to have a keen new perspective on things? For example, the fifth of May has been declared National Prayer Day across the United States of America.

Vibe

When I saw the Mona Lisa at the Louvre, I was, like, meh? Because I’d seen the picture a million times. On jigsaw puzzles, posters. So it was, like, I waited in line for this?

In every picture she’s wearing the same dress. She has no eyebrows or eyelashes. Her hair lies flat on her head. She’s sat on the same chair for five hundred years and still doesn’t know when her husband, the silk merchant, will return from China. Off-picture, her mother-in-law’s bleating about the lack of beer in the larder. The roof’s sprung a leak. The servant girl is pregnant again. The second plague pandemic is happening. Millions are infected or dead. A lucky few struggle to find a last safe corner for humanity.

There are so many things like that you’ve seen so many times before.

Ritardando

When you wake up on the morning of July 2 you will be looking, as usual, for that deep, great, plus-size model of life. You won’t find it. Instead, you will find a day that is situated at the exact midpoint of the year.

This balancing of the year always occurs at noon. If you want the second half of the year to carry on in much the same way as the first half did, that is, with you alive and kicking, then you will need to do some balancing of your own. The easiest way is to straddle a teeter-totter for a few minutes, one in a park, or one of your own making.

This balancing is called a ritardando, a sacred pause in the flow of things. Failure to pause and balance could result in your feeling like you don’t even belong here.

Interestingly, even though the second half of the year doesn’t yet exist, it still weighs as much as the first half. Mixing existence and non-existence together like that is a feature of the arcane law called Cheat and Transformation, by the way.

Also of note: July 2 is World UFO Day. Expect to watch the skies this night. There are bad things out there, and they are close.

Annual Day

Annual Day happens once a year and it is never good. This year the date is March 2.

As usual, you will attempt to ease its passing but this will be futile. Nothing will help. Not playing Madama Butterfly in the morning with the windows open. Not making yourself feel glad about the clouds.

By afternoon you will be sitting over tea like a chalk statue with blank eyes, thinking: Today existence is something to subsist in, breathe, vegetate, and be converted to.

Then you will lie down and face the wall.

Later, even the stars will look dull.

How We Live

At any moment a fog bank of evil intentions can appear. Knowing this, we traffic in distractions.

I wear a candelabra on my head, or drink wine holding the glass with my toes, or do a thing with my grandmother’s flapper beads. This seems to help.

You go around wearing a false head, one of a giant seagull. Just because we live near the beach.

And we attend many festivals to keep ourselves buoyed, the latest one being in celebration of large numbers: Sixty thousand real estate agents in the City of Toronto!

But mostly we get pissed, start a fight, and get bounced from the tea shop.

Today’s Letter

It’s a beautiful life we have, but sometimes not so much.

There’s Aiden. We had to accept his building cars. He’s says he’s an artist now who only cares about what he’s creating. He’ll cut up your car without asking.

And Anthony. We had to understand and respect his choice. If he wants to go to Tibet or Nepal on some kind of spiritual journey that’s his business, even if he is an atheist.

And Ben. He was on TV overcoming his demons, and reaching out and seeing the supreme love over the whole world. All Praise to the Lord for that.

Otherwise, it’s the same old same old.

Ed made twenty-four in cribbage.

We put the cat down.

Darla says her baby’s a real private person.

Mother’s Advice

Never listen to anyone who says that clowns are stupid and you should become a venture capitalist.

Never look for deep structure in a bowl of oatmeal.

Avoid chomping on gum. If you substituted mashed potatoes, would you find chomping acceptable?

Search out people to laugh with when things become unhinged.

Stay alert. The road is in a hurry.

And remember, if you are not in the red playroom of pleasure with some naked flesh in your face, the experience of an afternoon is much like that of any other afternoon.

It is always fun until someone pokes an eye out.

Father’s Advice

If you’re looking for a phrase guaranteed to ruin a first date, say, “I know this sounds crazy, but I think I’m falling in love with you.” Likewise, never take a date to couple’s therapy. And when your special day rolls around, never say, “It’s my birthday, I can kill a kid!”

It is better to ignore the bass beats in life and dance instead to fragments of rhythms. It will make you look like you’re having an epileptic seizure, but so what? Like Frank Zappa, you will be saying, “Oh, this is the great new way!”

And each day you should ask yourself: Have I checked for infectious diseases? Played the banjo? Breathed mindfully. Known which mouthwash causes cancer?

Because this is it, the community of fleeting moments. And it’s true, the real story is even more incredulous than the one you tell yourself.

The Sailor’s Advice

Learn to navigate your days. Never set your course by the moon. Pay attention to the stars. Lean into the wind.

Remember, there is always the swift pace of passing years. You will feel this acutely while trying to grab the day by its throat.

Grit your jaw.

Steady as she goes.

Grandma’s Prophesy

There will be violence, there will be sex, there will be brothels in every town.

Waves of tears will continue to flow; death will remain a timeless character. For the vast majority of people this controversy will never go away.

The generational differences between the young and the old, however, will remain a source of amusement.

Brad and Angie will call it quits. They love each other intensely but want other things out of life.

You, on the other hand, will never get everything you want. Your father will continue to take his helping of wives. Pay attention! Your mother will continue to shovel snow.

Advice Ancient and Modern

To ensure that a change in life or in love will be good, the ancient advice is to throw hot stones against the door where you are living. Besides providing you with temporary good luck, this action will also cause all liquids in the vicinity to flow more freely. Rivers will become fast flowing; heavy rain will be unleashed from suddenly ashen skies; your blood will quicken its course through your body, causing your face to flush, your muscles to strengthen, and your energy level to soar.

You will need this energy. Because along with good luck comes bad luck, often in the form of malevolent spirits that will tamper with your liquid moments, causing your thoughts to become like rooms filled with landmines, causing gleefulness to vanish, dread to be restored.

The modern advice says there are several strenuous things you must do to ensure that bad luck doesn’t gain the upper hand, but so far we don’t quite know what these strenuous things might be.

Perhaps there’s a list somewhere.

Maybe you can find it.

Or figure one out.

The only advice I know is to wear yellow and hold your breath.

Vibe

You’re only as good as your last YouTube video.