I remember finding a mummified cat.

Actually, I didn't find it . . . my boyfriend at the time, Rob, found it in a mostly empty warehouse that a friend of ours was using as an artist studio/living space. He couldn't wait to show it to me, and to show me where he had found it while poking around behind some boards on one of the abandoned floors. The cat was a normal sized house-cat in the exact same pose as the "Restricted" panther, one paw forward and in low slink mode. All the skin was there but thin, like wasp paper, and shrunken over the bones. Just like the warning growl a living cat gives before attacking, its face was pulled back into a tight grimace. All in all, it looked remarkably life-like. We were fascinated with the cat! What a find!! Naturally Rob put it in a place of honour in his room. How a dead creature could mummify in the moist humidity of the West Coast, I'll never know. I do know it felt like a gift to find it.

I remember drinking tea with my friend, Sheri.

This was back in the early '80's, and Celestial Seasonings was still relatively new to us, and we bought new tea if we liked the picture on the box, or if the quote impressed us. We didn't care if we actually liked the tea inside. We would save the empty boxes and pile them against our walls, arranging and rearranging them into pleasing patterns. The tea made us feel artsy and unique and creative, which is a lot to ask of a little tea bag. I never did like the Red Berry Zinger all that much, but it had a cool box, so I'd just put a lot of honey into the cup and drink it anyway.

This past summer I managed to take a tour of the Celestial Tea factory in Boulder, Colorado. It was more fun than I expected! But I realized as I watched the endless parade of neat and tidy little tea boxes on the assembly line that something like "artsy" and "unique" and "creative" can be used as marketing tools, and that they worked on me for a long time. I don't buy tea anymore unless I think I'll like the flavour. If I want to look at the boxes, I go to the store and look at them.

I remember the first time I dyed my hair.

I was 20, hanging out on Granville Street with a bunch of street punks. I was quite attracted to a 16 year old guy named Adam--he reminded me of Sid Vicious. It didn't strike me as strange at the time that I wanted to go out with a boy instead of a man...I didn't know who I was, and he seemed so confident about his identity. It was quite alluring! So when he suggested I dye my hair black, I jumped at it. Anything to break ties with who I used to be.

One problem...I grew up in a house without hair-dye. I had never seen anyone dye their hair. Adam and his friend, Kale, said they'd help me. Oh boy!! Two for real punk rockers....fur-coat-hating, metal-stud wearing, tattooed vegetarian punk rockers were going to dye my hair!!! I couldn't wait. We went back to Adam's apartment and Kale, who turned out to be surprisingly gentle considering his large girth, took care of the dyeing process. I remember looking up into Kale's eyes as he rinsed the dye out in the bathroom sink. I was so happy. I felt so daring! I was going to look so unique!

It was 18 years before I grew out all the many and various colours I put into my hair. Now it is North American mousy brown with a generous sprinkling of kinky grey. I like it! I look intelligent. I look distinguished. I know for certain that nobody else on the planet has hair quite like mine. And I had thought uniqueness could be bought in a box from the drug store...I'm glad I figured that one out.

I remember bowling with our youth group. Our church was too small, so I went to the MB (Mennonite Brethren) youth group, with my parents' blessing. As far as I knew, everyone was as good and well-behaved as I was. There was no drinking or carousing or sex. We were so shut-down by our upbringing that we had to be told how to goof off! We'd all go bowling, and instead of just naturally being goofy, which we would have been too unsure of ourselves to do, the leaders would hand us a list of goofy ways to bowl each frame. "Bowl left-handed" or "Bowl backwards" or "Bowl like Fred Flinstone". Oh good, rules! A list!! Now we could all safely goof off because we were told to. We knew what was expected of us, no surprises. And no freedom. What if I wanted to bowl every frame like Fred Flinstone? Would I have been mistrusted as a potential troublemaker? "She was goofing off out of order, Mrs. Rempel--we thought you'd want to know."

I remember realizing that everybody swallows.

I was probably three or four. Saliva would gather in my mouth when I wasn't even eating, and I'd have to swallow it. Sometimes I worried about this, and wondered if I was defective in some way. One day I finally got up the guts to ask my mom about it, and she laughed at me and said that everybody swallows, it happens all day long to everybody.

And I had thought I was special.

I remember getting a foot massage at three in the morning.

I was living in a warehouse on the edge of Gastown, full of artists and musicians all living there illegally. It was great! My roomie and I had half of the top floor, so we could go on the roof whenever we wanted to and howl at the moon. And being six stories up, we had a great view of the North Shore.

Now, I have to tell you about....nope, can't remember his name. Hmmm....we'll call him Bob. I met Bob when I was hanging out at this artist's studio. I remember his name--Lincoln. I liked to go to Lincoln's studio and watch him paint, I found it very relaxing. Bob also hung out at Lincoln's a lot, and one day, without any effort on my part, Bob declared his undying love for me!

That came out of left field.

I told Bob right away, and in no uncertain terms, that I did not return that love, and that there was no chance of a relationship between us...and he looked like a whipped puppy, but didn't say much more about it.

I thought that would be it. Days went by, I'd see Bob, he'd look sad, but it wasn't spoken of again.

Now get this. Go back to the warehouse. I live on the top floor of a six-storey, 12-foot ceilinged warehouse. It's the middle of the night, and I am fast asleep. I am pulled out of my slumber by a tapping...tapping...where is that coming from?...tapping on the window, tapping on the WINDOW??? I sit up like a shot and look over to the window, and there is Bob, leaning over from the fire escape outside, tapping on the window at 3 or 4 in the morning.

I did not know what to do! Bob seemed tame, so I crawled out of my futon and opened the window.

"Bob, what are you doing?" (can you hear the incredulity in my voice?)

"I know you don't love me, and that you'll never love me, but could I just please come in and give you a foot rub?"

Probably I shouldn't have let him. It's about the creepiest request ever made of me. But he looked so sad and helpless and harmless, I let him in. My roommate called sleepily from behind his curtain, "What's going on?"

"Oh, nothing, Don. I'm just getting a foot rub."

(Don's sleepy voice)"Oh. OK, then."

Bob had brought foot cream and everything. He rubbed my feet without a word, and then left out the window and down the fire-escape the way he came.

I slept lighter for a few days after that, but Bob never came back. I guess the foot-rub was his way of breaking up with me.

I remember roller skating back at the roller rink...what was it called? The Stardust? Aren't they all?

The other day, the song "Cars" by Gary Numan played on the radio. My husband turned it up LOUD, and I found myself transported back to the roller rink, the Stardust, and I was, oh, 15, and I was skating around the rink to loud, loud music, and I was dancing on wheels even though "Dancing is Wrong! " and I felt so free, so alive...

I had forgotten the immense importance of the roller rink to my teen-age existance. I loved to rollerskate! I loved the speed-skate when I'd pump my legs, leaving my friends and my fear far behind--almost nobody could pass me!! I remember wishing I could speed-skate with the boys. The girls were too slow.

I hated the Couple Skate. Nobody ever asked me to skate, and they played slow, stupid music. I usually went to the bathroom during the couple-skate.

Abba, Gary Numan, the B-52's, old disco, new wave. I loved it!

I remember watching my first music videos.

It was in the early '80's, when there was a show on Canadian television called "Friday Night Videos". Mom and Dad, my sister, everybody was asleep but me, and I was staying up to watch the late movie. The video show was on first, however, and I was captivated as I sat on our brown couch in our small living room with the green carpet over the old peach linoleum.

Only one video sticks in my mind from that night. There was a guy standing on a sort of pedestal, and he was dressed all in shiny black vinyl or leather, sort of a biker outfit but shiny, and he had a policeman's hat low on his head. He had big black sideburns and a pencil-thin moustache. There was a woman by his feet in a sleazy dress, sort of writhing and trying to climb up his leg through most of the song, and he was ignoring her. The guy was singing "Shoot it up, Smack Jack, shoot it up, Smack Jack, it's a drag with a monkey on your back, Smack Jack..." in a gravelly voice, and every time he would sing a word with a short "a" (smack, jack, drag, etc.) he would open his mouth and stick his tongue out almost to his chin.

I was entranced! I was confused! I had never seen anything like this in my whole life! It wasn't until the song was over and they showed who it was that I realized the singer was a woman, Nina Hagen. My mind was blown wide open. The thought running through my head was "There is a whole world out there that I know absolutely nothing about!". And then the video sort of faded from my memory as time passed. They certainly never played it on Friday Night Videos again!

Many years later, after I'd left home, I saw "NunSexMonkRock" for sale at a used record store. I bought it, ran home, put it on my record player, and there was Nina Hagen, singing "Smack Jack" for me again. I could see myself sitting on the couch watching it, remembering the feeling: revulsion and attraction swirling together, like a lava lamp. I had thought I had forgotten the video, but the world it had introduced to me had lain in my thoughts like an undercurrent, slowly pulling me towards experiences that reproduced the same feeling. I wanted purple hair (this was way before you could buy purple hair dye in any drug store!), I wanted to look shocking, I wanted to not understand everything that was put before me.

Maybe I can blame everything on Nina Hagen!! I'll bet she would't mind. Actually, I'd rather thank her. Wanting to not understand everything has been a great freedom for me.

Nov. 15, 2006--Note: Thanks to YouTube, I have been able to rewatch this video for the first time in over 20 years. I have put a link to it, but have not changed the memory as written here. I am amazed at how close my memory is to the actual video, and interested to see which parts chose to stick in my mind.

I'm still stuck on the wart memory (see entry below this one).

Why is that such a strong memory for me? What was it about that episode that was so important to me? I wonder if it was the aspect of being told I was a big girl? I remember often feeling disdain for grown-ups that would baby me. They'd tell me what a big girl I was, and I'd be thinking to myself, "Well, tell me something I don't know." I considered myself to be a big girl. I thought of myself as an equal player.

Now that I'm in my late 30's, I don't feel so sure about that anymore. I don't always feel like a big girl. I feel like everybody learned something in some class I must have missed in school that teaches you how to cope with life.

Maybe I'm growing backwards, like Merlin in "The Sword in the Stone." If only I felt child-like, and not childish, I could deal with that thought better. If only I gained magical innocence the older I got. If only I could regain my confidence. I don't remember where I lost it. Maybe that's why I'm doing this whole blog exercise, to find my lost confidence.

Have you seen it anywhere?

Maybe the wart memory was so important because I felt myself so distinctly separate from my mother. She wanted to see that wart, and it bugged me that she wanted to see it. I felt it was none of her business. Maybe that was the first time I ever felt that...it certainly hasn't been the last! The wart, a symbol of my waking independance. Except not a very good symbol, because Mom won, and the wart was removed.

Geez, how depressing. How easily my strength is removed, how I'm praised for turning it over. How often do I do this? How often have I done this?

I think I've nailed down my earliest memory!

I have quite a vivid memory of having a wart removed from my foot. My mom was hassling me about it, and I kept telling her it was a lump of lipstick that I had stepped on...I didn't want her looking at it. She finally won, and I had to go the doctor. It was a huge plantar's wart.

I remember laying on the doctor's table. I remember the doctor, bald, glasses, with a kind face, telling me "This is going to burn a bit, but you're a brave girl, right?" I didn't say anything, but determined that I would not make a fuss. I WAS a brave girl, and I was going to show them. It did hurt, quite a bit, but all I did was clench my fist. When the procedure was over, my mom and the doctor praised me endlessly..."What a brave girl!!" I was so proud of myself!

I was talking with my mom about this just the other day. I asked her how old I was when this took place. She tells me I was two and a half years old! Wow!! The memory is so clear, with so much detail...I find it hard to believe that I was only two.