HEATHER MALLICK
No more high hopes
January 1, 2007
Here are my New Year's resolutions for 2007, made with gritted teeth and a determination that this will be the Year of Realism. No more high hopes. It shall be the kitchen-sink drama year of resolutions as opposed to the Disney musical, the My Name is Rachel Corrie of vows, not the ridiculous Tarzan.
- Not that I'd know anyway, since I will continue to shun the theatre. As much as I wanted to call CanStage in Toronto and threaten a boycott for its refusal to stage the Corrie play, the fact is I can't boycott something I don't attend. (Any good play is perfectly readable, on my couch, with a pillow and a blankie). CanStage's response, after checking my ticket purchase history, would be "Who are you kidding, lady?" and rightly so. I also detest all musicals and vow that this will continue in 2007.
- I will trade in the Toyota Camry for a small, highly fuel-efficient Toyota Yaris, which I will then shun like theatre, taking the bus and subway whenever possible. I will plant birch trees in my back garden and replace the dead rhododendrons with plants that dislike water, positively loathe the stuff. I will take the train to Ottawa rather than fly. Even better, I will not go to Ottawa. My carbon footprint will be a size 4.
- I will break a habit of decades and begin to speak French out loud. There's no point in reading novels in French and practising my pronunciation and keeping TV5 on in the background if I am too shy to say the words aloud and risk making an error. If I screw up in France, the French person will correct me (and I appreciate this profoundly). If I make a mistake in Canada, so what? I'll be able to tell from the strangulated look on the Quebecer's face that I'm a hopeless Anglo (thanks, already knew that). I'll look it up and do better next time. Enough of this absurd shyness and stiff-necked unwillingness to do something badly, which has cramped so much of my life.
I will stop watching art films that cause me to write sentences like the previous one. I will not, as I did between Christmas and today, run down to Film Buff, rent eight fantastically unpopular DVDs and announce to my husband, "We're going to be polished and intellectually improved by the end of this week. I shall immerse myself in the life of the mind. Truly, I shall gleam."
Last night we sat frozen before Patrice Chéreau's version of Joseph Conrad's 1897 novella The Return. (Conrad said of it, "I hate it.") Filmed almost entirely in the dark, nothing much happens in Gabrielle. A woman decides to leave her husband, changes her mind, and they argue in front of the servants for days, scarcely touching their broth.
"Did he just strangle her? Or did they have the sexing? I wish they'd turn the lights up." Yeah, my monologue was positively glistening.
On the other hand, the Romanian film The Death of Mr. Lazarescu was bloody good.
- I will donate money to the Out of the Cold people who had planned to shelter the homeless one day a week at a church in my Toronto neighbourhood. These refuges are welcomed everywhere in the city but here, where homeowners are complaining about lazy, nasty hungry people who will import bugs. A few blocks from the church that had planned to feed the homeless is a spa "for mind, body and spirit." It's for dogs. Here in Dogville, pets are worshipped, but autistic children are insulted in restaurants by parents with "perfect" children. In my part of town, be canine, immaculate and well-fed. Or else.
- I will exile the exercise bike and the ab roller to the furnace room. I will replace them with a lovely … armchair. There's nothing more loathsome that the pointless self-obsessed treadmilling of the middle classes. From now on, I will eat smaller portions and buy better maintenance products. (By the way, that news story about how cheap skin cream was better than the pricey stuff? I bought the one they recommended. It stank of mosquito repellent.) "I can smell my goddamn face," I told my husband. "Try to walk quickly," he advised. "That way, it will trail you rather than precede you." (Since Gabrielle, we still speak in this stilted fashion.)
- In this year's federal election, I will vote for whichever party/local candidate is most devoted to preparing for climate change. We are headed for what Jon Stewart calls a "catastrophuck" (though he was referring to Iraq) and global warming trumps almost all other issues. I always do vote against my economic interests anyway — raise my taxes, I cry — and this will be even more of a vote for the future of our young people. I like the young. Go to youtube.com, search for the "hahaha" video and you'll see what I mean.
- I will visit Australia and Japan next year. Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I contain multitudes, OK? If I wait any longer, my guilt over flying will be immobilizing. Perhaps we could sail there, avoiding that chunk of the Arctic shelf that just fell off. Is that better?
- I will learn how to program my iPod nano. I will master my PVR. I will pester Rogers cable for that 24-hour France channel, and could they please cancel their horrible $2 monthly magazine I never asked for. I will assemble my unused radios and discipline them into performance. I will get the BBC on shortwave. No, really.
- I will renew my garden with fences blue and pergolas red, as we endure the drab grey winters of modern times. I will put up another six metres of bookshelves. Get cracking.
This week
This week I watched The Thick of It, writer Armando Iannucci's great British political comedy series on BBC Canada. But the lead actor has since been charged with child sex crimes. I shall enjoy the show — innocent till proven guilty — all the more knowing I won't be able to bear looking at the thing if he's guilty.
I am watching David Attenborough's collected Blue Planet documentaries on the world's oceans, and listening to Tom Waits's new CD, Orphans, Brawlers & Bastards at night.
Oh, and I baked for Christmas: walnut slices, iced sugar cookies, cherry cakes, coconut macaroons and acorn bites. My mother's shortbread, however, won by a racehorse.
ABOUT THIS AUTHOR
Biography
Heather Mallick has a nice old-fashioned M.A. in English literature from the University of Toronto. She has worked as a reporter, copy editor and book review editor at various Toronto newspapers and most recently wrote a column called As If for the Globe and Mail. She has won National Newspaper Awards for critical writing and feature writing. Her first book, Pearls in Vinegar, based on an ancient Japanese form of diary, appeared in 2004. Her second, an essay collection called Cake or Death: The Excruciating Choices of Everyday Life, was published by Knopf in April 2007.She also writes for the Comment is Free section of the Guardian.co.uk. Her website is www.heathermallick.ca
