so long 2010; look me up if you need a reference

The cover I painted for my 2011 day-timer.

* * * * *

Well, that's it: another year on the path behind us. Or left wandering blind in the forest.

Some quick and haphazard math tells me that I walked about 1600 kilometres this year. And who did I meet along the way? Well, some very interesting folks.

headband guy
O headband guy -- why are you fighting it? Don't you feel how cold it is? I've got the hood up on my parka and I still feel the wind. And why are you trying to save your hair? You're like, 45 or 50 years old. Nobody cares what we look like anymore. Nobody under the age of 30 even sees us. (And you can drop the all-black thing, too -- 1992 is nothing but bones now.)

skeevy guy
O skeevy guy -- I see you. It's obvious that you're not really walking anywhere because you don't have anywhere to go. You're just kind of twitching your way around the neighbourhood. Looking around. Looking for things to steal or places to break into. Or someone you know so they can give you some smokes. And then you'll assault them!

bareheaded girl
God you're going to get such a cold.

gym-shorts kid
And you're going to get pneumonia.

rough lumberjacket guy
You're can't do that thing up, can you? And even if you could, you wouldn't.

hunchback with styrofoam cup
A personal favourite. You hold that empty styrofoam cup aloft before you like it's the olympic torch. Where are you going? Where are you taking it? What an enigma you are, o neighbourhood frankenstein!

fur-hat guy
Yes, I see, you have a fur hat. What a maverick! You can stop grinning now.

rumble couple
She's insane (it's the multiple layers of sweat pants) and the male half follows about five paces behind -- grim, dirty, constantly smoking, and emitting this low-pitched grumble as you walk by. She might look at you (at least with one eye) but he never does; in fact, he's not really looking at anything. And there they go.

and goodbye to all that {again, again}

Someone was a *little* nervous leading up to Christmas ... which I would be, too, if I had certain issues with being rotten.


Still, there's alway Grandma and Aunties with their parcels from out west to act as a sort of safety net for the troubled and naughty and little people who wreck all of daddy's things.


Disturbingly, many of these parcels contain books, and *someone* likes to read -- a habit we're going to have to work hard to break.


And so we settled in (yes, that's my foot) for a day of celebrating the birth of the world's most famous carpenter (?) and there was much talk of a floating fat man in red pajamas (?) and eating of Mandarin oranges (?) and later turkey (?) and kindness and goodwill and feeling grateful that we weren't trapped in some airport where Christmas, every year, is like some psychic Armageddon.


And only one (well, maybe one and a half -- it was kind of a running battle) days of fighting this year! It's a Christmas miracle!

xmas cards not featuring scenes from wwII

Everyone says I'm such a curmudgeon. Fine. You say curmudgeon, I say devilishly handsome action figure who happens to hate xmas. It's pretty much the same thing. And yet every year I make our family xmas cards. And they never feature burning ships at sea or some frozen pile of elf skulls.

The above image is for our main card. But I made the one below for those people (read: old people) who wouldn't know what hipsters (read: kids named Graeme and Hudson) were.


And Merry Xmas!

more is never enough

This is a drawing from my nephew Shawn. He is four. The notations are done by his grandmother. She is considerably older.

Apparently, the 'angels' in Shawn's universe are decidedly British: bad teeth, bad fashion, Dickensian socks with no toes (the haircut, too, is vaguely Malcolm McDowell). The multiple fingers are disturbing but he *seems* happy enough. And why does he live amongst snails and snakes? I thought his side won that war.

* * * * *

Did I tell you about my new gloves? I have new gloves. C was going out to the suburbs to spend a million dollars on tights and corkscrews, so I asked her to pick up a pair of gloves for me. Mine had rips in the fingers (it happens, from being outdoors so much, and throwing Oona's stroller into the storage bins like the bartender manhandling Mickey Rourke in Barfly).

Anyway, she got me new gloves. Good gloves. *Really* good gloves. In fact, if I ever mount an expedition to the Pole, or take up the handling of radioactive waste, I will have the right gloves. In the meantime, however, I can't bend my fingers. Or hold things. I feel like Oona must feel when I put socks over her hands when she's acting up at the dinner table. Yes my hands are warm. In fact, they're sweating.

I don't know why C has this button in her head. I don't know where it comes from. If I asked her for a barbecue lighter, she'd come back with a flamethrower mounted on a helicopter.

take me away with you, mister owl

Another painted journal, now out there in the world.

Much time at home this weekend, sending hundreds of virgin kleenexes to their gruesome, gluey deaths. In crumpled heaps they died and still I reached for more.

Some relief/success from apple cider vinegar. Will try a stronger concoction tonight.

And finally we got a tree. C's life has new meaning.

x - x

x - x; india ink on math paper.

Well, all that positivity didn't last long.

échantillons positive

échantillons; india ink on math paper.

* * * * *

Some people (I'm looking at you, Jeannette) have said, as of late, that I complain a lot, and that I'm overly negative. Surely this is a scorpion, it's-my-nature kind of thing. Still, as I was lying in bed last night, listening to one of the cats (the fat one) puke on the stairs, I had three thoughts:

1) I wish I was asleep right now.
2) Be careful of that puke when you get up in the morning.
3) I should try to be more positive.

* * * * *

I mean, nice things *do* happen, almost randomly. For example, Megan Power just wrote a very nice review of my book in Arts East, an arts and culture ezine (a sharp-looking pdf they mail to you upon request) from Atlantic Canada. She said

Berger’s exceptional collection of strange, artful short stories offers the kind of instant gratification readers are hungry for in a time-starved world. Every school kid’s fantasy comes vividly true in ‘An Arsonist’s Guide to Physics’ - in a miraculous two and a half pages. Berger’s economy is his genius: he gets to the heart faster than a gamma ray. In ‘Free Rein’, a history professor and his mistress gamble the last of the children’s savings bonds with mixed success. ‘Red Horse Leader’ reads like a micro novel. ‘The Kingdom of Chicken’ is a surprisingly poignant portrait of the single girl’s dilemma and ‘Big Head’ is the literary equivalent of an episode of The Office, complete with email exchanges which make the reader cringe and grin, often in the same sentence.

* * * * *

A while ago the talented Gillian Sze wrote to tell me that she was using one of my illustrations on her website as an example of work that she likes (it was used in her great magazine, Branch). And I said of course and thank you and I wrote it down to use on a rainy (or snowy, and virus-plagued) day like this one.

* * * * *

And here is a wee review I wrote recently for the Advent Book Blog, for Carolyn Smart's Hooked. The Advent Book Blog is one of those great ideas where people who care about books just start something out of nothing and run with it. Which you have to do a lot of in this country.

* * * * *

And speaking of books, an artist friend of mine just signed a deal for a book about a year of making art. I'll repeat that: a book about making art. And that's so gratifying, to see the right people get the things they were made for. It's all just in the planning stages now but I'll tell you more as it comes along.

* * * * *

So there you go: positive. Positive! I'm more positive than Tony Robbins! Now if only I could be that shark-like.

it's such a long way home, it's how the story goes

Drove to Montreal to see my niece Stella this weekend. This is something that has to be done quarterly, at least, if only to remind Stella that I'm still here and that I want to be part of her life. That I care about what happens to her.

Stella is seven. She's absent-mindedly addicted to something called Pet Shops. She also has a hamster named Oreo who is nocturnal and bites when forced to be un-nocturnal. Stella says teeth brushing is something that should only be done in the afternoon. But then sometimes you get busy and forget.

Our own relationship might take some work.

I've been sick off and on for about a month now (thankyou, Oona and various daycare minions) and who knows if it will ever end (honestly, I've almost given up) so I finally just had to say to hell with it and get in the car and go.

Christmas, after all, is looming.

* * * * *

Saturday was mild and the highway was fine for driving -- until I hit Quebec. Then the highway turned to shit. Then the usual random mayhem of abandoned roadworks took over. Of course they changed the point where you veer off to 20 Ouest. Of course I missed it. 

So now I'm on Autoroute 40 E heading into the city. Fine, I've done this before: I just need to find that particular bit of insanity called the Autoroute Décarie and burn my way through Centre Ville and down to Pointe-Saint-Charles. But I miss that turn, too. 

Getting lost in the north (read: ass) end of Montreal is a bit like that scene in the Ten Commandments when Anne Baxter taunts a sickened Yul Brynner (as Ramses) after he's lost almost everything -- if only he was being swarmed by rabid monkeys armed with rubber hammers at the same time. The only good thing about getting lost in Montreal is that you can drive around like you have a nagging brain injury and no one seems to notice. 

I do wish I was better in situations like that. I'm fine when I'm with someone else: calm, good-natured, quick with the map. But by myself I'm like Greg Norman at the 1996 Masters.

Anyway: it's 45 minutes of pure psychic collapse that I'll never get back.

* * * * *

The actual visit went pretty well. Rachel (Stella's mom) and Stella put up and decorated their tree. Then their cat Ray Ray knocked it down. Twice. We ran some errands for Rachel, I got to go to the Drawn & Quarterly store, Stella got to go out for Chinese food. There was a weird couple one table over and the male half (who looked a bit like Gollum) kept trying to talk to us, which really bugged Rachel but I hardly minded: my underlying assumption, always, is that Montreal is populated by out-patients and special-needs recipients.

After we got home, C called. In a hoarse whisper (she'd lost her voice), she said that her own cold had suddenly shot up into her eyes, right after I left, and now they were red and swollen, and that while she thought that she'd gotten both her contacts out, she couldn't be sure. This, of course, did not make me very happy -- the idea of a contact being stuck (read: fused) in her eye. And she'd rinsed and mucked around so much in the meantime that she didn't know what was what.

But can't you tell if the vision is any better in that eye?, I asked.

No, she said. The prescription's so weak that I can't tell the difference.

I love being phoned with unsolvable problems. They make me go to bed early.

* * * * *

Stella let me sleep in her bed; apparently, it's a 'treat' for her to sleep on a couch that feels like rocks covered with corduroy. I woke up (I'm sure I slept at least ten minutes, if you added it all up) with both my eyes practically glued shut with sleep. And ooze. At least I wasn't wearing any contacts.

Rachel had to leave early to go to work. She wanted me to walk Stella over to her dad's before I left town.

I don't really remember where he lives, I said.

That's okay, Stella knows, Rachel said.

Um ... can you give me an address anyway? I asked.

I don't really have an address, Rachel said. It's the green door with the flower on it.

Okay, what about a phone number?

Dude! He just got his power turned back on like two weeks ago -- he doesn't have any phone.

Luckily, Stella did remember the way to her dad's. Of course, a snow storm had started, and on the walk back to my car I got turned around a bit, but this time I was able to laugh it off. Ha ha ha!

* * * * *

This is one of Ritchie's drawings. Ritchie is dedicated to the idea of being an artist, and we wish him every success, but we also wish he'd make the necessary compromises with the rest of life.

* * * * *

So yes: a snow storm. And an ice-pellet storm. And a rain storm. Of course, Environment Canada had only mentioned a 40% chance of flurries for the afternoon. Which means 100% chance of crazy storms first thing in the morning, I guess.

Saw a few accidents. People always have that not-thinking look.

* * * * *

But I made it home okay. Ah, I thought. A bath and then relax.

I opened the door to find C looking like Rocky at the end of the first movie. The sink was full of dishes. The house was a tip. Oona was still in her pajamas.

Strangely, C had found the time to put the ornamental pepper shaker back in the glass cabinet.

So I cleaned the house and washed the dishes and set up a play area for Oona and then went out and got groceries and talked to the pharmacist and got some drops for C's eyes. And then I made supper and gave Oona a bath.

* * * * *

And I was letting Oona run around in her room (read: pull everything off every shelf and out of every basket) because I didn't have the energy to stop her and I had the vaporizer going on the floor and of course I wasn't looking when she tried to take the top off and got a mild but still thumb-sized steam burn on her thigh. Ugh.

* * * * *

One of the items on the grocery list had been more soothers (pacifiers); Oona still needs one to fall asleep, and they're always going missing. C likes to boil them before putting them into circulation.

So last night she put two new ones I'd bought on to boil and then went upstairs. And forgot about them.

I was in the bathroom having a shave. I emerged to find the air thick with a misting kind of smoke and that particular stink of burning plastic.

Later, after the smoke alarm and the frantic running around and throwing doors open and me taking a smoking pot out the backyard, C said she was sorry.

I had that pot for twenty years, she said.

waiter, my Dalmatian has spots on it

*Somebody* is getting a painted journal for xmas (and it's none of the usual suspects) ...

grumpy dads need a morning group, too

The thing with this parenting gig is that some days contain whole days even before breakfast; this morning, for example, I was up by 5:05 so I could shower and eat and make my lunch and generally be out of the way by the time C got up for her new morning Toastmaster's group (which has led me to wonder -- what kind of amateur psychotic gets up in the morning wanting to make a speech to a room full of strangers? pretend lawyers? aspiring dictators?) and I could get Oona up and fed and en route to daycare in good time. The only plus in all this is that I have a chance to throw at least one cat (the fat one) outdoors for the day.


C told me last night that, sooner or later, I'll have to drop the "grumpy dad" routine -- otherwise Oona will just look at me someday and make a stink face. I had three reactions:

a) You don't think she's going to give us plenty of stink-face regardless of how we are?
b) Yes, it's worked out so well for all those kids whose parents tried to be best friends with them. So well, in fact, that many of them never left home.
c) Who cares.

And then, of course, at work this morning I get the inevitable call: C wanting to know if she needs to swing by the house, in order to let the cats in. Incredibly, I tell her, the fat one was smart enough to hide before Oona and I left.

autoamerican, freestyle pursestyle

As a thank you to C for passing on some new clothes (a mail-order outfit sent the same order twice, and decided it would cost more to fix the mistake), our friend Leah gave her the present of a fabulous record purse, made by her own friend Sophie here in Kingston. Sophie's just started an Etsy shop here. The album sleeve for C's new purse is Blondie's Autoamerican, which is at least half right.

and then he unleashed his weather machine

Is it just me or is all this WikiLeaks business very confusing? Julian Assange is such a strange character; C says he looks like the weedy French villain in a Bond film. But the governments involved don't exactly look like white knights either -- why, for example, is it necessary to lie about the number of civilians who have died in Iraq? And why are they so shocked/appalled at their communications being leaked, when every government has to operate under the assumption that there are agents (Chinese, Russian, Bond villain or otherwise) that want to get their hands on it? What's amazing to me is that information still filters out at all, when the parties involved are so righteously paranoid, and spend so much treasure building their castles.

And now, suddenly, the Swedes are after Mr. Assange for sex offences ... it's like Denmark announcing that they've just charged Michael Moore for money laundering. Curiouser and curiouser.

if she can't have it, no one can

Walked downtown to the post office at lunch, so I could mail a painting and some cigar-tin stories. It was the usual bullshit bingo: stooped Ukrainian women clutching parcels wrapped in butcher paper and string, middle-aged bearded guys in leather jackets trying to buy a single stamp, and herds of university girls wanting passport photos and the postal code for Vietnam. I ran into a guy who used to work in my department. His new outfit, apparently, is having their xmas banquet tonight.

We had to cancel ours, I said.

Why was that? he asked.

Because the managers' head table was going to be bigger than all the others put together, I said {true story}.

My old coworker then lamented that he might not enjoy his own dinner so much anyway, because his wife was out of town and he wouldn't be able to drink (and drive).

Can't get another date? I asked.

At which point the pint-sized old lady behind me piped right up. He better not! she croaked from behind her giant package. No fooling around party for you!

finally a piece that speaks to me

More artwork from Oona; I believe this one's called Two Cats in a Hot Hot Oven.

Let me just say that while she's brought home a lot of dubious work in the past, Oona has really redeemed herself with this one.

I like it. A lot.

I like artwork that tells me a story, that makes me ask questions. How hot is hot hot? 475 Fahrenheit? That'd be my pick.

* * * * *

The fucking cats: I don't know what offends me more: coming in with Oona from the wind and the rain and finding the fat one in the middle of a long, luxurious stretch inside a basket of fresh laundry (that C has specifically put out for her) or seeing the neurotic one frantically trying to find traction on the laminate floors as he races off to his hiding places on the air ducts in the basement.

* * * * *

They're inside pretty much all the time now (not that they were forced out much in summer either). The most fresh air they get is a few hours here and there when C is out at Toastmasters, and I'm in a pitching mood. But sometimes I can't even be bothered with that.

* * * * *

And why would they go outside? Right now they're living like inbred Spanish kings. And the one just keeps getting fatter, and the other one more neurotic. And I get to listen to them fight, and watch them barf, and lick themselves, and each other.