31.Jan.2009 This Was My Week: January 30

Monday

It’s a good thing I don’t play hockey in a league in which winning actually matters. Because there we are, with two minutes left in the third and a one goal lead. It’s the playoffs – well, it’s playoffish, given the “play nice” ethos mentioned off the top.

Anyway, with two minutes left I get a penalty. It’s a collision, accidental, my stick tangling between the legs of the defender racing towards me with the puck. I ask the ref what my penalty’s for – and he kind of shrugs. Decides it’s “interference”.

45 seconds into my penalty, our opponents score. The game ends in a tie, the victory that should be ours already a distant memory.  I skate back to our bench, head bowed.

Tuesday

I push my way into the depths of Jet Fuel, and after a few awkward minutes I’m able to commandeer a table and start some work. It’s been months, but at Jet Fuel it’s the same, the same and more of the same.

Thank god.

I wish I could capture the magic of Jet Fuel, bottle it and sell it. Wars would still start, but a few weeks in everyone would realize the folly and lay down their arms. Love would still die, but in its place lasting friendship would bloom. Bikes would still get stolen, but in the hands of the wrong person, their gears would seize up, a tire would blow, the thief pitched onto his ass. Not into the path of oncoming traffic or anything dangerous. Just into a mud puddle (do these exist except in children’s books?) to humiliating effect.

Anyway. Forget bottling the Jet Fuel magic – I barely know how to describe it. The magic has something to do with the high freak quotient – the drug-addled outcast feels right at home and the most mundane administrator lives vicariously, feeling a little cooler than she rightfully should. It has something to do with the improbable cluster of middle-aged, middle-class moms and tots running amuck amongst the freaks. The tight quarters and crowds force you close to people you don’t know and don’t want to talk to. But for listening in, overhearing – it’s perfect for that.

It definitely has something to do with the listening in. It has something to do with the music. And the wifi. And the art – for better or worse. The back patio – also for better or worse. And maybe even the food – scratch that, why call it food when it’s only ever muffins and maybe danish running out by 11am. There’s the alienating menu – alienating because it doesn’t exist. First-time customers come in and stare at the stacks of dusty CDs, shelves of cycling jerseys and empty glasses. No menu in sight, and don’t bother asking for a coffee.

Apparently they don’t serve coffee. They serve espresso and all the bla bla drinks. They’ll do up an Americano, they serve something called a Jet Fuel. But coffee? There’s no coffee here, idiot.

Whatever. That’s the magic of Jet Fuel.

Wednesday

Today is the day that lists and lists of files, with indecipherable names like 0002Q9.MXF and 0004ZG.MXF become pictures. Moving pictures, in lovely HD, sometimes with a bit of sound attached. The talented and attractive Andrew sits in the official Girls on Top edit suite, sorting through the lists and the files called 0005AY.MXF, transforming them all into hours and hours of material, eyesight failing incrementally with each click of his mouse.

The edit suite isn’t really a suite per se, it’s just a large table piled with drives and monitors, stuck in the corner of the administrative office of one of my favourite t.o. filmmakers. She’s generously supporting the film in several ways – and allowing us to set up shop and cramp Dusty’s style is just one of them.

But what I really want to say is HOT DAMN IT’S EXCITING! How wondrous to finally see files become pictures, pictures we can bend and carve and shape into something beautiful.

Thursday

Nothing like reclining on the sofa with a plate of Kraft Dinner – well actually the President’s Choice facsimile, purchased from the rat-infested Loblaws in my ‘hood – to watch an episode of Kath & Kim. Everyone without a life watches The Office and the Tina Fey Show, I mean 30 Rock. But I’m wondering if anyone other than me is delighting in the trying-too-hard Kath & Kim. It started out badly, but now it’s finding its feet, in all likelihood just weeks before it gets cancelled.

The cast rocks, though it’s a little kooky that in real life, mom Kath is only eight years older than daughter Kim. As much as I love Selma Blair she’s at least a decade too old for the gig.

Friday

Thank god it’s Friday. And thank god for the Ontario Arts Council. There’ll be no more contaminated macaroni and cheese product in this house – it’s time to put on my good jeans and treat sk to a martini.