ON A CELL PHONE, THE ADDED FEATURES (PLATFORMS, SHORT STORIES, YEAR AHEAD, ETC.) CAN BE ACCESSED FROM THE TOP LEFT HAND CORNER (STACKED LINES). ALSO, THE ‘TRANSLATE’ & WORLD CLOCK WILL APPEAR AT THE BOTTOM.
在手機上，添加的功能（平臺，短篇小說，提前一年等） 可以從左上角訪問（堆疊線）。
*** All times / dates: Please remember that all time references (e.g., “dawn”) are PDT – Pacific DAYLIGHT Time zone. You can refer to the World Clock in the sidebar for more listings or Google ‘time zone converter’.
Email: suningem@gmail.com
Tim’s YouTube links: Unveiling Astrology
Unveiling Astrology Part 2)
START NOTHING (ALL TIMES ARE PACIFIC DAYLIGHT) :7:54 pm Sun. to 5:14 am Mon., 0:41 am to 5:05 am Wed., and 4:30 am to 7:37 am Fri.
PREAMBLE:
Early warning: Mercury retrogrades June 29, so we all should be cautious about starting new projects, or planning anything for the first 23 days of July.
***
Don’t use “Booking.com.” They charged me $ 189 for one night in a motel. When we arrived, I pretended I had just come in “off the street.” The price: $ 129. So booking.com cheated me of $ 60. My advice? Forget these travel sites, Trivago, Expedia, Booking, Kayak, etc. Just phone or email a hotel directly.
***
WEEKLY FORECAST:
ARIES: March 21-April 19
Still lots of paperwork, calls, and running around, Aries, especially Sunday, when these are fortunately highlighted. Try to get all these little things/chores done, because June’s end will begin a period of confusion, mistakes, and delays. Some of these things might relate to family or home. (Two weeks left of great good luck in this area.) Your romantic prospects look better now to early July. Money still flows to you — bank it or pay down debt. Your relationship area sparkles for the next seven years. Pre-dawn Monday to the same time Wednesday (PDT) steers you toward home, garden, family, nature, security. You can make great progress here Tuesday. Wednesday morning to just past dawn Friday (again, PDT) brings creative surges, risk-taking, romance or flirting, speculation, teaching kids — but none of it comes easily. Tuesday eve/night best. Tackle chores Fri./Sat. Proceed with ordinary caution — things will tend to wrap up successfully Sat. night and Sun. morning.
TAURUS: April 20-May 20
It’s your last week of focus on money, possessions, casual sex, and ordinary learning, Taurus. The four weeks ahead bring affection and beauty to your home. Good time to paint, decorate. (But remember, NOT after June 28, when mistakes start.) You remain pretty assertive — but stop short of aggression. Sunday’s good for shopping, earning, embracing someone. You might start a money project, but make sure it’s a short, quick one. (Read PREAMBLE.) Paperwork, errands and communications fill Monday/Tuesday (dawn Mon. to dawn Wed., PDT). Deception or practical obstacles get in your way, Monday, but all is clear for success Tuesday — maybe great success. Be home, hug the family Wednesday to a bit past dawn Friday. Wednesday might bring you face-to-face wth fate/destiny, esp. in areas of home, career. Don’t push too hard Thursday, it could spark a dispute. Romance and creative urges arrive Friday/Sat., but without high prospects. Nerves or disruption Friday early afternoon. Saturday’s better, but you might yawn.
GEMINI: May 21-June 20
This is your last week of peak energy and charisma, Gemini, so use it well, esp. Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, when you can forge ahead in personal (Sunday) money (Tues.) and communication/travel (Wed.) matters. Remember, your good money luck tends to peter out after June 29, so act early and decisively. (But don’t start projects that you will have to work on between late one and late July. — Read PREAMBLE above.) Continue to avoid belligerent people, sketchy places. Much talk and back-and-forth about money now into April. You might be concerned with a home’s value. (But overall, it’s better to focus on your career and reputation than on domestic issues.) Friends grow friendlier, until almost mid-July. Romance with a “friend” also possible. Sunday, you’re on top. Buy/sell, learn/study, and/or hug a sometime lover Monday dawn to Wed. dawn (PDT). Monday’s tough, but Tuesday’s great, esp. emotionally. Wednesday to just past dawn Friday sends you on errands, brings convo’s with casual friends, and dumps paperwork in your lap. Good — opportunistic but maybe competitive Wed., fractious Thurs. Be home, hug the family, garden, rest and contemplate Fri./Sat. A bit of disruption Fri. daytime.
CANCER: June 21-July 22
It’s your last week of “lying low,” Cancer. A time for rest, contemplation and planning. (Plan now — Tuesday./Wed. — but any plans made later will tend to be un-anchored, will drift into changing…) Seek advice, liaise with gov’t or head office. You’re optimistic about your career and reputation now (to end of June) — an Aries or Taurus might aid you. Despite weariness, you remain lucky all June. (July will begin 12 months of great money luck!) (Actually, it starts a bit earlier — i.e., now — in milder ways.) Seek quietude and rest Sunday — all’s well. Your energy and charisma surge upward Mon./Tues. You might feel or be blocked Monday, but Tuesday holds major luck, especially late. Chase $, buy/sell, hug a sometime lover, maybe study/memorize something, Wednesday dawn to Friday dawn (PDT). Wednesday’s okay but puzzling in money and love zones. Thursday can bring conflict, late day. Friends, trips, communications and paperwork fill Fri./Sat. Friday can frustrate until the afternoon, esp. if computers or electricity involved. A rather ho-hum Saturday, but all’s well!
LEO: July 23-Aug. 22
It’s your last week of “party time,” Leo. Socialize one last time (Sunday and Wednesday good) before you retreat into rest and recuperation mode (late June to late July). Sunday is easy and buoyant; new friends possible. Retreat to rest, contemplate and plan Mon./Tues. Monday’s tough, holds “No”s; but Tuesday is inspired, spiritual or magical. That “magic” continues into Wed./Thurs., when your charisma and energy soar. New, maybe semi-mysterious opportunities and people Wed., possible friction Thursday — be diplomatic this eve. Chase $, buy/sell, pay bills, hug a casual lover, and/or learn something in a formal way, Fri./Sat. Friday is a bit disruptive (early afternoon PDT) but the rest of Fri./Sat. Is a bit boring. In the bigger picture, give a temperamental, impatient boss a wide berth until June 28. Don’t challenge authority. Your “looks” improve now to mid-July. Something secret, or tied to gov’t or an institution, causes comment all the way into August 8. June 30 will start 12 months of huge luck for you — major romance a definite possibility.
VIRGO: Aug. 23-Sept. 22
Your career, reputation and worldly standing remain your strongest focus this week, Virgo. (That will change next week, when a month of happiness comes — in a sense, that month will cap off a year of good luck in social areas.) Strictly avoid lawsuits (and the lawyers who make them) all June. Your private world grows more pleasant, even affectionate now to July 9. (But watch sugar consumption.) A secret attraction might start. Sunday emphasizes career and worldly standing. You might want to launch a new project, but be careful — in late June a period of delays and mistakes arrives. Happiness, optimism, social joys and flirtations fill Mon./Tues. Monday’s not great — illusion and practical obstacles confront you. But Tuesday is inspired, rewarding. Retreat from the hustle and bustle Wed./Thursday: rest, contemplate, seek advice, but only make short-term plans, not long ones. (Read the PREAMBLE above.) Wednesday might hold a tug-o-war between work and other duties. Thursday needs care until late evening — don’t invest, nor start a dispute. Your energy and charisma return Fri./Sat. — yes, get things done! An electrical situation or computer (or a group you belong to) might fry your patience Friday. Otherwise, all’s smooth.
LIBRA: Sept. 23-Oct. 22
It’s the last week of intellectual wool-gathering, Libra. (Although on another level, intellect, far travel, law, learning, love and media, you are just starting 6 to 7 years of enhanced, creative fortune — if single, you’ll have a chance to marry your “true love.” A benevolent Sunday hints at this.) You continue to be attracted by “secret” sex, to June 28. Restrain any impulsiveness when investing. Friends start to come out of the woodwork, with affectionate words. Your career and worldly standing remain ultra-lucky, but only for the rest of June. So make your moves now, or relax. (Read PREAMBLE above.) Monday/Tuesday feature career, prestige relations and worldly standing — poorly Monday into early Tuesday, but very well the remainder of Tues. — a late bonus or promotion might arrive. You’ll socialize Wed./Thurs. — optimism, flirting, entertainment and wishful thinking fill these two days. Wednesday might hold a challenge or a “destined connection,” and Thursday says “no” to co-operation, pretty well all day. Retreat to rest, think and observe Fri./Sat. — don’t make plans, as the weeks ahead will upset them, cause “alternate paths.” Friday might contain a wee disappointment involving the first two sentences above.
SCORPIO: Oct. 23-Nov. 21
Still in the “changes” sector, Scorpio. Big finances, shared assets, secrets, deep wells of intuition, powerful lust, pregnancy, death, medical and lifestyle choices, commitment and consequences — these are the prominent themes, for one more week. (Next week, you will sail into mellow, thoughtful waters.) Agreements or conflicts at work. Be diplomatic. Someone feisty might want a “partnership.” Higher-ups will favour you until July 9. Now through early August your ideas and opinions (and travel and financial concerns) are percolating (and very fortunate), but it’s hard to find a solid direction — you’ll find this after July 23, not before. For Sunday, re-read the first two sentences above — it’s a day of accomplishment. Your mind wanders, but into “truth land,” Mon./Tues. (Well, illusion/deception occurs Monday morning, PDT. But after this, facts and inspiration dominate.) Your career, worldly standing, are highlighted Wed./Thurs. — fortunately Wed., but you might experience a tug-o-war between outside career and home ties. Be diplomatic to avoid a dispute Friday. Happiness comes Fri./Sat., as your popularity grows, and social joys, flirtations, entertainment and optimism prevail.
SAGITTARIUS: Nov. 22-Dec. 21
This is your last week of open relationships, Sage. Next week, you start a month of “hidden” or private relationships, which will be focused on money, or sex, or power, surgery or a new lifestyle. Even now, these interests are very fortunate — but act quickly. (They are highlighted Monday [unfortunately] and Tuesday [fortunately].) By June 30, half this “good luck” dissolves. Even worse, by June 29, three weeks of confusion, delay and mistakes begins, right where this good luck operates. (On the plus side, during this time — July, mostly — an attractive old flame might return, or a former investment or research that’s valuable.) Work remains intense (and creative) to June’s end. Sunday is for relationships, exciting meetings, agreements and opportunities — opposition if you’re self-involved. Mon./Tues. are described above, under “hidden relationships.” Mental inspiration, far travel, law, social rituals, media and gentle love fill Wed./Thurs. Wednesday starts with good feelings, but might evolve into serious examination of a love relationship. (Might be someone else’s relationship.) Thursday seems to “fight” romance, could lead to angry words late day. Be ambitious Fri./Sat. — both days might seem ho-hum, boring even, but chances are you’re setting the stage for a Sunday advance.
CAPRICORN: Dec. 22-Jan. 20
One last week of work and health concerns, Cap. Just set your shoulders and plow through it. (You’ll get a big jump on your chores/tasks if you start Sunday.) This is also a “machine” time — if you want to buy one, Tuesday daytime/eve or late Saturday night are the best times. Though Sunday is (successfully) work-oriented, Mon./Tues. bring relationships and fresh horizons, opportunities and/or opposition. Emotional and practical barriers arise Monday into pre-dawn Tues. (PDT) but the rest of Tuesday is inspiring, loving, agreeable, might even hold a late plum or bonus. (Perfect night for a film.) Life’s secret side emerges Wed./Thurs. — sexual temptations, power impulses, financial moves, and lifestyle or medical decisions abound. These are fairly fruitful Wed., esp. if you can close a gap and turn separation into co-operation. Thursday is challenging. Don’t invest generally, but esp. avoid domestic, agri, mining, forestry, restaurant, furniture, clothing, gardening or real estate purchases. Fri/Sat. bring a mellow mood, intellectual expansion, far travel, law, learning, media, and gentle love. Both days have little to recommend them (Friday’s disruptive around midday, PDT) but both, Sat. esp., are setting the stage for a “late success,” to occur later Saturday, and into Sunday.
AQUARIUS: Jan. 21-Feb. 18
It’s your last week, for awhile, of romance, beauty, play, risk and winning, Aquarius. Next week, you start a month of work. (Be careful with that work, as June 29 to July 23 bring confusion, mistakes and indecision to this area. — On the other hand, great good luck hovers around your work all June.) Relationships are essentially romantic now; someone treats you graciously, wants to be closer. Be gentle on the home front, with kids, parents and spouse. Sunday is romantic, brings pleasure, beauty, a short winning streak. A new bond might start, but I don’t know if it’s a good one. Tackle chores and protect your daily health Mon./Tues. Monday holds practical and “perception” obstacles, but Tuesday runs smoothly, and holds a potential bonus if you can see it. Also Tuesday, a chance remark or a subtle meeting of glances could spark a strong, “magical” attraction. This or another attraction might be followed up Wed./Thurs., when relationships are significant. Wednesday might offer “all or nothing” in a special bond. Thursday, unfortunately, seems prone to verbal disputes. Delve into the depths Fri./Sat. — secrets, research, valuable information, financial action, sexual temptation, possible surgery, heightened intuition — these fill these two days. Some disruption (esp. w/computers) Friday morning/midday (PDT). Both days are a bit boring, but they (i.e., your efforts) lead to a successful Sunday.
PISCES: Feb. 19-March 20
One more week of domestic focus, Pisces, then you will (June 21) enter a month of winning, play, romance and creativity. (These things are already lucky, have been since June 2025. But this luck “fades” after June 29, so time your actions. In regard to timing, Mercury retrogrades June 29, bringing three weeks delay, confusion and mistakes. Act quickly before that date. That retrograde might bring an old flame, ex-spouse, or former home back to your life.) But this week, concentrate on your home, family, garden, and security. Sunday’s soaked in this home stuff — good, do domestic things! But Mon./Tues. bring the romance theme, along with pleasure, beauty, charming kids, sports and winning. Today might appear successful, but it’s not — be cautious. Tuesday runs smoothly, with a possible moment of “love’s magic” — though this might entail love of family, kids, nature. Tackle chores Wed./Thurs. — Wednesday needs diplomacy, as work and duties seem separate, and might conflict. Still, possible opportunities. Thursday daytime (peaking about 7 pm PDT) holds potential anger, accident. Relationships dominate Fri./Sat. — badly Friday morning (PDT) but fine, though boring, after that. Still, events are sliding toward a Sunday (June 21) success, even the start of a love affair or money grab.
THE END.
AFTERAMBLE:
Trump‘s basic mistake: if you’re trying to press someone into an agreement that they’re reluctant to join, you don’t sit back and say OK well, I’ll take the pressure off and hope you agree to our terms. Instead, you keep the pressure on, you keep the military active. That’s the only kind of pressure that will push the GRC to make an agreement or surrender.
***
I recently advised against shorting the market before August 2027. However, this caution against shorting begins July 1/26 into August 2027, not right away.
***
The dramatic clouds of Spring.
***
Just looking at a chart for the start of the Russo-Ukraine war February 24, 2022 (Sun in Pisces). Ukraine (U) is a Sagittarian name. Russia is an Aries name. In this Pisces chart, Sagittarius sits at the top, while Aries sits in the 2nd house. This indicates Ukraine is “on top” of Russia. In Sage, the Moon sits, ruler of the 5th of winning. The moon also indicates the massive civilian bombing Putrid’s engaging in. In Aries nothing sits, showing the progress Russia is making. There is also nothing in Libra, Putrid’s Sun sign. But two planets occupy Aquarius, Zelensky’s Sun sign. Ukraine’s Moon sits behind Russia’s Mars (in Mar’s 12th house) indicating that Ukraine is weakening, enervating and restricting Russia. Hmm.
By the way, You should know that Biden encouraged and gave Putin “permission” to invade Ukraine in February or March, 2022. Look it up — most news media ignored/suppressed this little item.
***
It’s amazing how much and how little I know. I set out to write something different, but stumbled over myself on the way. So here it is:
It’s amazing how nature provides, how this garden we inhabit seems to contain solutions,, as we develop and face new needs. For example, as the world supply of fossil fuels entered the sphere of depletion, within a century of this we discover that the Earth has large pockets of uranium, the fuel that will take us to the stars if anything will.
How did the Earth know that one day we would need a radioactive mineral? And why supply this millions of years ago, for us to discover just as pollution is starting to strip the trees?
Hey, who’s in charge here?
***
I really liked Spencer Pratt, the upset candidate for mayor of Los Angeles. But I felt for some time and still feel that he won’t win. I wish he would, I’m rooting for him. But Pratt lacks one essential quality, a quality that Karen Bass carries around with her like a quickly available accessory. The quality: gravitas. Pratt lacks gravitas. And for some reason, voters have always looked for that. (It also looks like the Dems might have again managed to rig the election, but I’m not going there.)
***
Biden:
Three children, one girl and two boys.
One of the boys died (cancer). The other son is a crackhead and whore-monger who is almost 60 years old. Who escaped a gun charge because his daddy pardoned him. This good fellow took his dead brother’s wife to bed, then sired a daughter whom he has tried repeatedly to disown. That’s real loving parenting, but not as loving as Joe Biden, who sexually interfered with his daughter. (Source: her diary, available on the Internet.) She is or was an alcoholic.
Besides being an incestuous pedophile, Joe Biden is also a home wrecker and an adulterer. So was Jill Biden, an adultress. When they met, she was married. But Joe was a lot more famous, and Jill obviously loves a crowd, so she dumped her husband and married Joe.
Trump also had three children, two sons and a daughter, just as Joe did. But everyone of Trump‘s children are healthy, well adjusted, hard-working – and they love their father. At reunions, Trump is surrounded by his children, grandchildren, in-laws, and everyone else.
If the children are the revelation of the man, than Trump wins, hands-down.
I find it puzzling that a large portion of the population of America – and it seems 99% of Canadians – have Trump derangement syndrome, or at the very least find him repulsive and call him everything from Hitler to the devil. He’s a bad man. There’s something wrong with him. He’s evil. What these people are really saying is that “he doesn’t have our culture, he’s an oaf and a goof, and yet he keeps winning, and that really fries our brains.” Yes, he’s a huge braggart, and constantly exaggerates his results – biggest in history is one of his favourite phrases.
Yet – think for a moment – where is there any BDS – Biden’s derangement syndrome? His only publicly criticized failing seems to be his ever-growing dementia.
/30/
TONY AND JODY
A Short Story by Tim
PART ONE
Tony and Jody met in 1970, their first year at university. Within a week, they began an affair. Jody, 24, was married to a successful junior bureaucrat; Tony, 22, was from the streets of the Eastside. She was tall and slim. She strode through the crowds of students, eyes twinkling with mischievous insouciance, freed from ordinary cares, with a hint of happy revolt. She was followed by a trail, like a wedding dress, of watchers’ eyes. Tony was quiet, proud, flexible.
They did not agree on everything. For instance, when they walked down a shopping street, Tony tried to hold her hand, and she slapped it away. Later, he surmised she was worried that someone would see them holding hands and tell her husband. But he also knew, slightly unhappily (in the cup of his love it was only a drop) that it lay in her nature to be brisk, independent. He felt it mildly, a little breeze stirring his hair for a moment on a summer day. When he thought about it, he saw himself in one place and her just a little place away — but grab-able.
After the first class, they approached each other immediately, and ended up in a quiet concrete staircase in the Student Union Building. She sat on one stair and he sat too. As she talked, Tony felt a powerful urge to reach out and put his palm to her breast — not as a daring or courageous or even sexual thing, just an urge to put his hand on her blouse. Like a believer would touch a magic talisman. He could see the lift of her blouse, telling him they were small. That drew him, also, though he didn’t fully realize it.
She drove Tony home in her red Volvo, stopping in the lane behind his communal hippie house. He took a chance when she stopped — hardly a chance, as she met him halfway, their lips meeting. The next day, she parked the car and they climbed to his attic room. She was quick and blithe, undressing; shame was not part of her character. She was direct, and he responded happily. She threw herself on the bed (a steel cot for one sleeper) and drew him onto and into.
She was a few inches taller than he. That impressed him, almost as though he was getting a bonus, more inches of woman than he might deserve. She was lean, but she had wide hips — and very long legs. She walked and talked with a kind of mischievous, happy and gentle arrogance.
When he came, his penis hit some barrier in her; it sent a shock through his body, so strong it would jerk him right off her as he struggled to withdraw. Meanwhile, her body trembled, her thighs jerked spasmodically, her eyes went somewhere and her face grew almost frighteningly bald. Afterward, after a few minutes sleeping, he would wake to see her face was bright, flirty and charming again. They would talk for hours, then fuck again, then talk, and fuck again.
She was a bit mysterious and secretive (because she’s married, he thought) but talkative and teasing. Holding the steering wheel of her Volvo, she would turn to him, talking, her eyes bright. Her face always looked like she was on the verge of announcing the most genius idea in the world, an expression she could maintain for hours. When her eyes were bright like this, it gave him a subtle thrill, but he couldn’t describe why. The thrill was hardly noticeable, but it surrounded him. There were perhaps 10 or 20 different thrills like this.
The affair lasted eight months. In May, Jody told him quietly but perfunctorily, easily, that she was ending the affair, to return to her husband — although she had never left him except for the lovemaking in Tony’s little attic room. Tony protested, but she fled away. Two weeks later, she called to say she was in the hospital in North Vancouver. He went there immediately. She was in the psychiatric ward, although he was told it was just for a rest, for exhaustion. Her husband and what Tony supposed were her parents were there. He didn’t feel ashamed. He looked on her husband and the parents as illegitimate, as interlopers on his true destiny, which was Jody. He wanted to talk to her, and at last they were together in the sunroom, alone for a minute or two.
What’s wrong? he asked.
Nothing, she said, I just need a rest. I can’t see you anymore. I don’t WANT to see you anymore. You have to leave me alone.
But I love you. (He meant, they don’t.)
I’m sorry, Tony, I have to go back to my husband. I’ve been so bad. She clenched her perfect white teeth so tightly it drew her temples down. Her teeth showed, her eyes slitted, her face went red. He thought she wanted to cry but could not.
Then why did you ask me to come here?
I don’t know.
You want to stay with your husband because he has money, and I have nothing. He spat it out, in anger and hatred. You’re a coward. But one day I will be a prince in this city. (A prince? He thought later.)
For months afterward, in his room he would turn to speak to her where she sat in the old red armchair — then realize she wasn’t there. Or he saw her lying on her stomach on the bed, and then she wasn’t there. For months, he saw red Volvos everywhere on the street.
The following September he did not see her on campus. In December she called to invite him to her house party on the North Shore. He went. Perhaps 40 or 50 guests gathered in clumps in the living room and kitchen and hallways. Tony felt stupid. He had worn his corduroy pants that were too short. When he looked down at himself he looked squat and silly. He was just feeling that minor humiliation when he looked up and saw Jody staring at him. Her look was intense, almost ravenous. So she does still want me, he thought. It made him feel even more awkward in his short pants. He left without speaking to her.
Two years later, in his fourth year at UBC, she phoned him once more, and in a disdainful voice hired him to clean up her back yard. In the summers, to support himself and help pay for school, he drove a pick-up and took garbage to the dump for a fee. He began with a 40-year old truck a friend lent him. It lasted a few weeks before the worm gear seized up and the old truck, halfway to the dump, gradually steered itself right off the highway. But he had earned enough to buy his own old pick up, and he resumed his garbage hauling, emptying garages and shovelling garden waste. He canvassed the wealthy neighbourhoods, knocking on their back doors, or leaving his card on the front door. Every fall he sold his truck and every spring he bought a new one. By the time Jody phoned him he had a running ad in the newspapers and a 1 ton with a hydraulic lift. In the summers, he worked every day. In the winters, he pulled his ads, but former “clients” called him, so by the third year Tony hired a guy to perform jobs over the winter, while Tony attended classes.
He was in his fourth year at university, and doing well. He was invited to grad school, and given a fellowship of $8,000 — a solid sum in the 1970’s. He took the money and promptly went to one of the gulf islands and bought a building lot for $7500. He had, to a large degree, forgotten Jody — or at least removed her from his day to day actions and thoughts. Three months later, he sold the lot for $ 20,000. Then Jody called.
He went, with scepticism, anger, suspicion and eagerness. She and her husband owned a cathedral-ceiling’d house in a modern neighbourhood on the bottom slopes of the North Vancouver mountains.
Jody came out when he backed the truck up her side yard to her back fence. They stood in the back yard. Tony scrambled over the junk, roughly calculating. He was already impatient, because he knew people always thought such jobs were cheap, and protested the price.
Well? She slanted her hips in her provocative way.
He could see a man in the house, in the kitchen, watching them. It was not her husband.
Who’s that?
He’s a professor at SFU, she said. I have lots of educated friends.
It was supposed to be a put down, he knew. So she’s a slut, he thought. Damn her!
Well? Can you do it or not? — in that disdainful, subtly challenging and provocative voice; he could not separate her voice from her assertive, sexual posture — her hips thrust forward, one knee bent, fingers in her pockets.
He told her it would take, probably, three loads at $70 a load.
Three loads? No.
Jody, I can’t pick up more than the truck will hold and you have at least three truck loads here.
Well, I’m busy. Do what you can. She turned her nose up and left, into the house. He brought his truck down the driveway and began filling it, looking up every once in a while to see her inside, through the big kitchen windows, standing with this other man. He was sure she was doing it to insult him, to anger and humiliate him — him the garbage man, show him she could get any man anytime, a professor, that she certainly did not need — or want — Tony. He put his head down and did his work and said nothing. Fully loaded, he pulled his truck to the street, then went to get Jody for the $70. She came out before he’d gone five steps.
It’s $ 70, he said.
But you haven’t even taken away half the garbage, she protested. It’s still strewn all over my backyard.
I told you it would be three or four loads.
Well, I’m not paying. You’re trying to cheat me.
Hey, he said, don’t pay me. I’ll just dump all this on your front lawn. He went to the driver’s window, reached in for the hydraulics, and gave a short, bouncing rise to the deck to show her how easy it would be to dump the entire load. He stood and waited. In a huff, she went back to the house and came out and threw the $70 on the lawn in front of him. OK, he said. He picked up the money and drove off. He did not go back for a second load, and she didn’t phone him again.
40 years later, Tony was sixty-five and had become comfortable — not quite wealthy — as the largest newspaper distributor in Vancouver. It was easy: he just charged one-half cent less per paper, attracted crews by buying them breakfast at McDonalds, and kept them through fair treatment. Soon, he had seven McDonald’s going, and a manager for each newspaper crew. Now, ready to retire, he delivered over 20 million items a day. He had let his garbage business continue, but under a manager. So he fulfilled his “prince” boast — he was even featured in the Daily Sun’s business section once, 10 years before.
And was living alone after his third marriage.
She called. Over the next three years, she called every six months or so. Their conversations quickly veered into how they would live, how he would build a garden arbor, and they would fill their yard with flowers and they would have rabbits and it would be a paradise. But she was still with her husband. Finally, after his dreams and fantasies rose and fell with every phone call, he said to her, with a blank firmness: “Don’t contact me again unless you’re divorced or he’s dead.” Four decades ago, Tony had briefly considered killing him — had even consulted an astrologer — but lived beyond that, and felt only a quiet horror at the former self that might have done such a thing, that even contemplated it.
Ten years later, when he was 75, in September, she called again. What about William? Are you divorced or he’s dead? He felt a grim satisfaction in repeating his decade-earlier demand.
Oh, he’s not around, she said dismissively. Tony now was single, living with his daughter, son-in-law and grandchild. Jody’s voice, like a magic spell, wrapped him in a cocoon. She began calling every day. She demanded that he say he loved her, again and again she demanded it, that he say he loved her, that he loved her unconditionally. OK, he said, I love you unconditionally.
Why? she said. Why? Why do you love me unconditionally? So he would try to think of a reason why. After a winter of calls during which they would argue and woo, talk silly and spin mutual fantasies about a future together with gardens and butterflies and rabbits — after this, she suggested he come up and visit her where she now lived, Rock Creek, 500 km away. Which he did, the next day.
It was suppertime when he groaned himself stiffly out of his car in her turn-around. After five hours of driving, his legs felt weak, wobbly. But when he saw her his strength returned. She stood on the gravel, in a way he remembered: torso tilted back, hips mildly forward, one knee bent, and watching with big, intelligent, curious and mocking blue eyes. She had always, in the 70’s, been casually but richly dressed: pants, full mane of hair, fashionable jacket. But now she stood in a loose, old pink t-shirt, torn at the bottom, and long, old pants — men’s pants? — short at the ankles and cinched with a belt at her narrow waist — he could see her hip bones pushing the sides. All this was topped with bright, short, perfectly coifed blonde hair, like a candy on a garbage dump.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” she said.
Maybe it was the culmination of 50 years of repressed impulses, but now he did what he had not done on the Student Union stairs: he reached out with his left hand and palmed one of her breasts; it was not firm at all, but easily squished, like pudding in a collapsed balloon. There was little there. She made no move away or to him, but held his eyes with her blue ones, mildly surprised, aloof, mischievous, but not retreating.
“Well, I guess you’ve wanted to do that for some time.”
“Yes,” he said.
“Are you going to kiss me too, or is it right down to business?”
He kissed her, drew her thin body to his, and pushed his palm at her crotch. He thought he felt bone somewhere.
“No no! Come, come now,” she said as she grabbed his hand and pulled him, marching toward the house. The sky was turning blue, into twilight. But he stopped short of the house and faced her. She looked embarrassed. She made no move away or to him, but held his eyes with her large blue ones. He felt that everything about her gave him permission, so he reached with both hands and lifted her t-shirt up to her neck. Her breasts hung flaccid in loose blue satin bra cups.
“Well, don’t ask me,” she mocked, as she lifted the cups for him. They were small, they hung like two slender, smooth fish. But her nipples were larger than he remembered, stiff and thick in his hunting lips.
“But not down there. Not now, maybe not ever,” she said, her fingers in his hair.
“Why not?”
“I’m 77! I haven’t had sex in years. I don’t even know if I can have sex now. AND WE JUST MET, THIS MINUTE!”
“Yes…But I’ve been in love with you for 50 years.”
Her face jerked away and her body stiffened. He felt relief or whatever it was roll off her, as if the air had waves that affected him.
So he knew, on a level that counted, beyond a bunch of phone flirting, that she really wanted him.
“Well, we can probably find out,” he said, alluding to the sex possibility.
“We will see. Now get in.” She pulled away and opened the red back door.
In the bedroom (after they drank two litres of wine in her kitchen) she pulled off the wig. He hasn’t realized it was a wig. She wasn’t a perky blonde. She was entirely bald, not one hair on her head. He didn’t remember anything else. He passed out.
The next day, he was hungover and sick. He just wanted to sleep, nap or lie still. But she was disgusted. He was faking sickness, he was boring, he was a pansy. At one point, she listened as he phoned 811 for free nurse’s advice. He had been in the hospital briefly a few months ago for a digestive problem. Now, hung over, he wondered if it had come back. Jody fumed and mocked him. He lay on the couch and ignored her. Then he went outside, but she followed after awhile, and told him how boring he was.
That night, after she had complained all day about his inability to drink and his hypochondria, he lay on his back in bed. After awhile, she came to bed. But not for sex, she told him: I’m 77. It’s too dry for sex, you KNOW that. So they both lay on their backs.
“Sometimes,” she said, peaceable now, “I lie in bed and watch the ceiling. And a portal opens up, filled with swirling sparks or lights. It’s a way to the spirit, but I can’t quite — float up.”
“Oh,” he said, happy to explain, “that might be caused by a physical anomaly in your eyes.”
She threw the covers off and stomped from the room.
He tried to sleep.
Awhile later she came into her bedroom: “I want you to leave in the morning. Go back to Vancouver. I don’t want you here.”
Thank God, he thought. He was secretly glad to go. He left in the morning. She rode with him to the gate of her 200 acres. Before she jumped out to open it, she turned and said some silly thing, with her blue eyes twinkling, and smiled, full tooth. It was an invitation to stay. He knew that. When she smiled, like a potion it wiped out all thoughts of her rougher side.
But he was not good at changing his decisions, so he left without even touching her. As the yellow hills passed, he felt a sinking, brown conviction that he had escaped something; he wasn’t sure what. A mile away, he thought he should turn around, but he didn’t. And at the top of the hill with the town of Osoyoos far below, buildings like little rocks, he thought he should turn around but he didn’t. And after that he thought it was too late.
For weeks, that smile haunted and drew him.
She had emailed him that night after he left: “I never realized I would be so glad to see you leave. I was so relieved, as soon as my gate closed, that you were gone. You suffocated me. God, I felt so free when you finally exited my property and I could lock the gate. NEVER, EVER come back.” That actually helped him feel free of her, and her smile was just a treasure he put in a box, maybe for future reference.
He never thought, What is wrong with me that angers her. Instead he thought, Why does she act that way?
One month later, she began to email. He answered politely. She telephoned to invite him again, IF he could be a man and behave. He smiled and went. If she had gone to France or Germany and phoned him from there and said come, he would have come.
She showed him a set of 6 plastic “expanders” from a medical internet site, each one a little bigger than the next, so she would be ready for him. She was on # 6, so he could try. As he lay between her long, praying legs, she gently grabbed and held a testicle in each hand, to make sure he didn’t go in fast nor deep. She would only let him in an inch or two this first time. Within a few days, though he was still not supposed to, he slid it right in.
He had swallowed some generic Viagra before visiting, but by the third day onward he didn’t need it, his erection popped up constantly. They played in bed like monkeys. Every time he reached a certain excitement — a minute or two before orgasm — he would take her round bald head and kiss it and rub it and slobber over it, until climax undid his limbs. His heart soared with pity, pleasure and love every time he stroked that baldness.
At 77 she was lean — thin — with long, gangly arms and legs. She was an inch or two taller than him, but probably weighed 30 pounds less. Sometimes when she bent her arms, especially with her long neck and bald head, she looked like a praying mantis. But even her thinness was sensual; her stooped shoulders and long arms and long-fingered hands captured him in an airy and sensual lust.
She lived on 200 acres of ranch land, in a house in good condition, with tile and hardwood on two large floors. Every night, she opened a bottle of wine and, sitting opposite each other at the small yellow kitchen table, they sat and talked. In the beginning, they held hands as they talked. Mostly she talked. He was not a drinker, but he drank one glass to her two. He was not going to let her get him drunk again, after his first visit.
She told him her hair fell out when her husband William died three years before. Three years, he thought, and you only phoned me after that long? She said she had been in this ranch house for almost 20 years. William had bought the place and oversaw the moving, moved her in, the furniture, everything, then immediately went back to the coast, leaving her with a full, empty house. Until recently he would only return every Christmas and Easter for a visit. Tony figured her husband had put her in this 200-acre prison of solitude and she did not have the will to escape.
His heart lurched with pity. Why? Why would you do such a thing? Three years before he died, William returned to her, moved to this house and obtained a local township job as a civil engineer. Jody bragged about how professional he was and how everyone looked up to him, and how all the town’s prestige people showed up for his funeral. Cancer. Tony wondered, only slightly, if three years with her had created the cancer, earned him death, She said her hair fell out within a week of his death.
In bed, Tony stroked, nuzzled and cuddled Jody’s hairless knob, her handsome head, telling her it would grow back due to his love. He loved the pale hardness so much he would orgasm with his lips on it. He was surprised by his affection. His eager embrace of her baldness was nine-tenths joyous surrender, and he swam in it.
Before he left, two weeks later, he thought he almost perhaps maybe detected a barely visible — was he imagining? — a white fuzz on her smooth head. He didn’t mind her baldness in public, but she did. She wore the short blonde wig when they went to the store or into town. He didn’t mind how skinny she had become, either; in fact, both conditions excited him. On this second visit he became erect just hugging her or caressing her head. He didn’t mind the wrinkles that had formed around her jutting jaw; they only reminded him that they were both seniors. Everything about her attracted him. Even the long thin finger she shoved up his bum, and his pudgy one up hers in retaliation, as they squirmed and wrestled happily, talking and joking and climaxing.
Once, in the garage, where they were re-stacking a pile of firewood that had tumbled, in the shade and pungent scent of cut wood, she paused beside the closed door, facing him. He went to her and kneeled and gently pulled down what he secretly called her “poverty pants.” She wore these every day, a pair of baggy, loose, threadbare pants that had probably been a man’s, a belt cinched tight, and a long-sleeve shirt. She had no underpants on. He gazed on her vagina for at least a minute. It was long and thin with corrugated lips like in cardboard, the rippled paper between two sheets. Each side had thick, stiff and short grey-black hairs, like the brushes on the bottom of vacuum cleaners. She held her shirt up, around her navel. Her belly was flat, wide and long.
“Can I lick it?”
“No!”
But she stood there, unmoving, only her fingers gently wrestling in his hair, while he buried his face in her grey-bristled paradise.
PART TWO
But he left a second time, almost desperate to get away. He was not even sure why. Something discomforted him. He made an excuse, a dentist’s appointment. When they argued, she would say, “You’re suffocating me. Don’t suffocate me!” But it was Tony who felt suffocated. At least, that was approximately what he felt. He did not like her ranch. He didn’t particularly like the house nor being in it. Though they played on the bed during daylight hours, he did not like it when every night from 7 pm onward she began drinking wine at the yellow kitchen table, and kept it up till 11 pm and made him sit across the table from her while she told him about her marriage and her life and her neighbours and her relatives. She spoke, even laughed, not with resentful arrogance, but with a natural disdain for — everyone. No one visited or phoned during that two weeks.
He had no idea why; he just had to escape.
She sat in his car as he drove to the outer gate, which she would close after him. When he stopped at the gate she smiled, her eyes shone coyly, and the plank of her graceful thin body turned toward him.
“I don’t know how you give me such…orgasms.” She said the last word shyly, primping her cheeks, as if it was prohibited. “Well, goodbye.”
He was one moment away from giving up and going back with her to the house. But he didn’t, and he fled. But as he raced through the grassy hills back to Vancouver, he felt crazy, disconnected and strange. His father had left when Tony was seven. He had fled, just like Tony did now. Racing through the piles of hills, he felt like a ghost, like his father’s personality and madness had suddenly swooped into him. Little bolts of panic pierced his breathing.
As soon as he reached home, he wanted to be with her. He emailed as much.
She began calling him every night, and keeping him on for hours, with all things but with one constant refrain: Do you love me? Unconditionally? Say it! Say it! Okay, he said, I love you. Finally he said, Don’t phone any more. Just emails.
She sent him an email once, twice, sometimes four times a day. Some were hateful and aggressive, biting at his self-worth, some were nasty, hinting that he had a s.d. (small dick) or that he should stick a b.p. (butt plug) up himself. She called him faithless, wrong-minded, a capitalist who took advantage of people to make himself rich. He was blind. He did not know himself. He was spiritually empty. She was New Age (though the age had passed decades ago) but he was full of greed and exploiting his employees. As the weeks passed, he became a pervert in her texts, probably a pedophile. He didn’t know how to trust anyone. Every 5th or 6th time, she would insert a friendly, sweet, praising email into this pile of denigration.
Finally, she asked him to come again, and bring a bag full of sex toys. This side of her excited him also, but made part of his mind quietly thoughtful. He bought a bunch, but they did not once use them. They spread all the implements and vibrators on the bed. She looked at everything carefully and curiously, then she gathered them up and left the room. He never saw them again. But now they had sex every day, two or three times.
But sometime in week three, outside, behind the ranch house, as a spring breeze lifted his hair, she seized his wrists and said, fiercely, almost hissing, “Are you committed to me? Say yes or no!”
“Yes,” he said after a moment. He knew if he said No, that would end everything. Her asking, forcing the matter, scared him a bit. That evening, he told her that the ranch unsettled and depressed him, somehow he just felt bad here. So on their trips (she drove always) to a local store or gas station, and to visit Grand Forks or Osoyoos or Penticton, they talked about getting a place together in one of these towns.
Her arms were so long that if she held her elbows at her hips and crossed her arms in front of her, they would reach to her eyes — And she often used this gesture, laying her long fingers on her prominent cheek bones, her eyes twinkling with seduction, challenge and humour: isn’t this a fun game we’re playing?
When they weren’t monkeying with their bodies, she worked ceaselessly, pulling weeds, trying to keep her “ranch” presentable. She had a horse, a goat, three cats and four dogs, all, she said proudly, rescue animals. On his first visit, her house stank of urine and something else. One of the dogs was blind, another had no control, and peed everywhere. Though it didn’t bother him hugely, he used it — After his first visit, as she was castigating him via email, he wrote that her house stank so badly he didn’t want to be in it. Within days, she invited him up again. On the second visit, she had eradicated the odours, and two dogs were gone. “I never suspected!” she said.
Then he left again.
He invited, asked, urged her to come to Vancouver, to sample his life, to meet his small family (and to save himself another 5 hour drive). She refused. She wouldn’t leave her rescue animals. So he was to come into her life, to live therein, but she would not accept his; he could not bring anything into her life except himself. Even his beliefs and ideas were not allowed. For instance, his concept of God was all wrong; and when he tried to argue it, she either flew into a rage, or set her mouth and stormed from the room.
For two years it continued: he would visit, then flee after two or three weeks. But each time, he brought more clothes. He began bringing his computer. He tried, at her suggestion, to set up an office in a room formerly for the cats. But she would come in repeatedly, to demand that he answer questions, most of them aimed at when he was going to stay permanently, though she used various angles of attack. Why hadn’t he ordered a local wi-fi for his laptop yet? Why was he dawdling in here when he could be out helping her? Why hadn’t he set up a dentist appointment here, in Osoyoos as she had advised? (He suspected she knew he used his Vancouver dental appointments as his “get out of Jody’s” card.) Those Vancouver dentists are all dishonest and incompetent. Have you phoned about a hearing test yet?
Baby curls of pure white hair greeted him on what was perhaps his fifth visit. Shy, sparse but cheerful, they bounced on her head. He could still see the baldness beneath, but it was a healthy crop. He was amazed, and said, “Look! Look what we’ve done. You have hair!”
“Yes, but I’m losing my voice.” This was her lament when they were together, her accusation when they were apart. “You did this to me,” she emailed him in Vancouver. “You took my voice when you told me not to phone anymore. You are so controlling, you took my voice. You only want to hear what you have to say, so you’ve made me so unconfident I can’t even say hello to people in the store. You did this to me.” He called; her voice warbled, went faint, rasped unintelligently. She didn’t try to phone him anymore. Two emails later, he had abused her so much she now had edema in her feet.
His daughter said, “Leave her alone, Dad. She’s obviously crazy.” His friend Dan told him he was being cruel, to keep seeing her. Tony thought that was probably true. Maybe he should quit her. But he didn’t feel large enough, solid enough, to quit her. Jody, for her part, said his daughter was greedy, selfish, surely a terrible mother, and he was a coward because he would not stand up to her and sell their home in order to live with Jody.
On his last visit, one evening, angry because Jody had begun criticizing his daughter, he had enough. She had never met his daughter, but she was clever, and from various little things he’d mentioned to her, Jody had spun enough of a web to hit some accurate, painful points about his daughter’s shortcomings and character failures, and his failures as a parent. He became so angry at her berating condemnations that he, for the first time, drank more than her. He went to the cupboard and opened a second bottle of wine, then a whiskey mickey. He remembered nothing in the morning.
For the first time, he did not go to their bed. He slept on the floor of his “office.” At 7 am she came in to wake him and told him to pack everything up, he was leaving — immediately. “No one EVER calls me a piece of shit. Go. Get out.”
“Is that what I called you?”
She had packed a box with his clothes and toiletries; it sat by the back door. He picked it up, loaded his car, and drove away without a word. When he arrived home, he discovered that his new sneakers and new orthotics ($ 500) were not in the box. He emailed, asking her to mail them to him. “I threw everything out,” was her emailed answer.
Weeks later, she asked to borrow $ 10,000. He sent it up. A week later, she asked to borrow $ 20,000. He answered: if you agree to stop drinking and to go out once a week with me to socialize, and sign a promissory note, I’ll loan the $ 20,000.”
In answer, she sent him the $ 10,000 back.
“Fuck you,” he wrote. “I’m not communicating from now on. We’re through. Goodbye.” That was October. For months, she sent him two to four emails a day, almost in a pattern: two nasty ones, then a sweet, friendly one, then three criticizing ones, then a nice one… But he didn’t answer.
In February, her birthday month, she sent him such a gentle, tender email that he melted. For months, he had been pondering whether it was better to be with her, to buy a house together and stay until death, or wipe her from his consideration and start a new life. But when he read her nice email, even after he had “refused” to lend her money, his insides swam in pity and love.
He wrote back, in huge letters:
WILL YOU MARRY ME?
She replied:
Yes. Oh yes.
Now that he had finally made the decision and asked her to marry him, and she had said yes, for some reason he did nothing. He thought he had to go up there, but it was winter, and he’d have to change into snow tires, and he…didn’t. His thoughts simply stopped; he hung in stasis, without remarking it to himself.
Three days later, Jody sent him one of her classic negative assaults. He was a pedophile, ugly, bad teeth, no one wanted him. He wrote her back, almost in jest:
I WANT A DIVORCE!
Then, nothing. Nothing for a week.
His phone rang. It was the hospital in Grand Forks. She had pneumonia, and he was her emergency contact. Can I see her? he asked. Yes, of course you can, but we’re airlifting her to Kelowna General tomorrow, so you’ll be able to visit her there. A comforting voice. He had visions of nursing her back to health, she on her bed for weeks.
He called Kelowna General. The MD said he could visit 24 hours. Yet still, Tony didn’t buy a plane ticket nor book a hotel. Everything slowed, without thoughts. Then, after a day, he flew to Kelowna and fell asleep in a motel. Wednesday morning, he approached the hospital desk. She doesn’t want any visitors, the nurse said. I’ve known her for 50 years, he said. I’ve come from Vancouver to see her. Okay, the nurse said, just for a short time. She led him to a room; there lay Jody on her back, thinner than ever, but with a luxuriant head of white curls. She watched him. He ran his hand through her curls, smiling, to remind her that miracles did occur. She didn’t look at him when he touched her; she looked away. How are you doing? He asked. She’s doing better, said the nurse. We’re going to move her to a normal ward today or tomorrow. We only have to worry about her heart; if it’s okay, we’ll move her.
He took Jody’s hand in his. She pulled it away and slid her arm under the covers. “You have germs,” she said.
He said nothing. He left. His fantasy of nursing her to health in her ranch home, of that being a soft entry into actually living together permanently — now it was just — gone. He had booked the hotel for a week. But he flew back that same day.
Thursday morning he phoned the hospital. She had died in the night.
In his life, a handful of people had died, but it had affected him very little. With Jody gone, the world seemed huge and empty. For months, he regretted not rushing up there to marry her. He was sure, too late, that his “DIVORCE” message had led to her death. He had sent it as a loving poke at her, but as the weeks passed, he slowly realized, admitted, that he had lifted her up, then dropped her. He realized that he was her only hope, or something.
Now the world was so vast, and she had emptied it. It made her larger. In someways she had widened to fill his entire horizon these past three years, then died and it all deflated. And maybe he had killed her.
He didn’t know if he was in her will or not. No one had tried to contact him. He didn’t really care. Like any man would, he felt some greed, but it puzzled him more than drove him. … If she had left the ranch to him he would’ve paid off any liens and sold it right away. He didn’t know why he felt repulsed by the property, inside and out. Perhaps because it had become her prison.
But other things about her he began to desperately grab. He flew to the auction one Saturday and bought her old GMC pick up, and afterwards went to the Sally Ann to see if any of her garments were there. He found several shirts and pants that she had worn; he bought them. He didn’t go near the lingerie section, though he thought he saw her blue satiny bra lying shiny and limp on a ragged pile. He was tempted, but embarrassed. He bought her shirt and terrible pants. They were enough to bring her close, and he wanted her now, not her genitalia.
That night, he broke into her ranch house. He found a bottle of wine she’d hidden over the stove, behind the fan. He opened her desk and her clothes drawers. They had been emptied. He sat on their bed — on the mattress. Someone had taken the sheets and blankets. He pulled on her old baggy pants and thIn t-shirt, and slept in them.
In the morning, hung over, his bladder full of yesterday’s wine, he stumbled outside to empty it. (He liked urinating outdoors. She hated it. It was disgusting and the neighbours — the closest one a kilometre or two away — would see it.) But as he lurched out the back door, there she was, absolutely alive. She sat on the ground, her back against the house, long thin legs bent and leaning open, a hand on each knee, her skinny chest and thin neck, her thin crotch, her tits like eels, in her terrible t-shirt and shapeless pants.
“Pee on me.”
He pulled her pants down — for he still wore them — and streamed it full on her. Within a minute, she dissolved, and only a patch of wet brown shingles steamed in the morning sun, drops glistening. He hadn’t caught her eyes, her huge blue eyes, though he tried to see them; but she disappeared first.
Driving back to Vancouver, he wondered why he was going there. Oh yes, his children and grandchildren. Nothing had nothing in it, so it didn’t bother him whatever he was or wasn’t.