Iqaluit and mayonnaise like peanut butter and jelly

One thing I've noticed over the past couple weeks is the way Iqalummiut seem to go all out with their mayonnaise.

I'm not going to say that I dislike the stuff, because I don't. I really don't mind it here and there -- although I just asked Oil Can about his opinion of the mayonnaise love and he vomited a glass of milk into a fern.

It just seems maybe as if the mass of the white stuff globbed onto sandwiches and the like is a little bit excessive.

I find too much of it is impossible to break down with saliva. It just clumps together. And then, hours after eating, you'll still find these small, resistant pockets of mayonnaise holding out, in between your teeth, almost like (what's the most commonly used cliche?) Japanese soldiers abandoned on remote islands in the South Pacific during WWII who whole-heartedly fought on years after the war ended, because they had no clue it was over.

I've found a slew of the egg-based condiment clogging up clubhouses and wraps and burgers from three different restaurants now and I'm beginning to wonder if mayonnaise levels aren't legislated by government.

Premier Paul Okalik signing off on the No Jar Left Behind Act?

I feel the need to get to the bottom of this. 

I mean, Can can't keep his food down... and now he's just staring at me and I feel uncomfortable. All the chairs are broken, so I'm cool now.

Oh, and for those of you keeping track at home... the mayonnaise truck seems to be stuck in neutral for the time being.

A whole lot out of nothing

The Can is a happy man.

Stepping into the downstairs lobby of my building, I heard some bass booming and high-pitched hollering.  As I walked up the stairs and toward my apartment, the sound got louder and when I opened the door, there was Oil Can, finally out of the tent, rocking to the Seinfeld beat? 

I said, huh...

"This kid is hawt, baby!"

Oil Can kept repeating and snapping his fingers.

"Day-yum..."

I said, "That's the Seinfeld theme!"

"What the fuck is a Seinfeld?"

I put my bag down and I had me a little listen, and I agree...

"day-yum, indeed."

Since this internet connection is slow at best, I was only able to catch a couple tracks off the mixtape on youtube.

What this dude Wale from D.C. did was he ran with this Seinfeld concept, where he used the characters and their quarks to flow through a bunch of different, interesting and important issues... (Check out The Kramer to see what I mean - listen to it the whole way through - shit almost makes you feel squeamish at times, but it's because he's so right).

He is most certainly on point.

I'm watching the download bar, meter thing snail along, so I'll set up a link or two of Wale's "mixtape tape about nothing."

Wale - The Opening Title Sequence

Wale - The Kramer

Wale - The Vacation from Ourselves... complete with Elaine Benis shout out at the end...

This is going to accompany the marathon Nintendo sessions and deadline stressing this week...

And it's good to see Oil Can smile again... like he is choosing to ignore the giant chunks of sea ice crashing into the shore of the chilly city and the airport being closed due to low hanging, nasty grey clouds...

I owe you one, Wale

Herbiberous

Icebergorrhoids; or an anus singed by purity

Maybe as part of that whole growing old thing I wrote about the other day, I should have put that I wouldn't START becoming one of those people that spends an inordinate amount of time talking about the weather. It's sad watching myself turn into that lowest common denominator conversationalist.

With that out of the way, it was +4 today. It's July 28.

Kind of chilly. Twas so bad that I had to coax my testicles out of my body today with motivational slogans.

Oil Can is not impressed. He won't even talk to me. 

He's sitting under a tent in front of the open oven, cranked to 450, with his hand out the flap, giving me the finger.

I tried to take advantage of the day by visiting the ice flow that's blown into the bay off the ocean.

It was really neat actually, exploring the beach, with all this washed up sea ice. I found a large chunk stranded on land and got up nice and close. 

I'd say it was about 15 feet long, 12 feet wide. It was dripping like mad underneath, but I bet if I'd sat there and watched it for a day, it wouldn't have  changed size in any noticeable way.

I tried to get a picture of myself on the giant ice cube, but because my camera is crap, I couldn't zoom far enough away to make it look like I was on the thing. Needless to say, Oil Can did not accompany me on the adventure to snap the shot.

Oh... he just threw a chair at me. Thing had some zip on it...

"Dayum, Oil Can. You can still bring the heat!"

Ooops, didn't like my choice of words. He just chucked a spatula at me. "... and Joe Momma...", I think he said, as he slid back into his tent.

Oh, that Oil Can... what a character.

So yeah, I was sitting on the freezing block of ice while I was trying to figure my camera out. After a few frustrating minutes, I hopped off, and now I'm convinced I gave myself hemorrhoids.

But that raised an interesting question:

How many people can say they got hemorrhoids from sitting on an iceberg before? 

A privileged few, I bet.

Herbiberous

Iqaluit: abandonment of free will

I've been a resident of Iqaluit for over two weeks now.

Initially, getting off the jet, for some unexpected reason, I had this feeling that Iqaluit was going to be massive, or forever sprawling or something, even though I knew it wouldn't. It did stretch on quite a ways, but eventually the road stops, and I was kind of affected psychologically by the limitations. Even the Road to Nowhere ends (predictably in the middle of nowhere.) I will completely attribute the feeling to the fact that I've never disembarked from a jet in a city smaller than Yellowknife, which just seems bizarre.

And not that I feel marooned on Baffin Island, but I have never been able to say that I cannot leave somewhere on my own accord. I can't just drive away. There are no roads out of here. There is no escape route. 

Did I abandon free will by getting off the plane?

* I probably did months before that *

And is it a contradiction if I voluntarily gave up my own free will?

Iqaluit is an interesting spot.

This place is like Yellowknife was when I was but a wee l'il fella. One in ten streets is paved. There is no landscaping. There are big shipping containers sitting in front of apartment buildings or in backyards and some clever Iqalummiut (what citizens here are called) have converted them into sheds. There are no real layouts for streets, buildings just seem to lay haphazardly on lots. There is a fear of the mistrustful outsider.

Just like the mischievous days I spent lost in imagination, kids play in the streets, on pipe boxes, in creeks, in piles of discarded metal, everywhere, at all hours.

There is a sense of community that is lacking in most places I've ever visited. Yellowknife is still clenching it, but it's slipping with each new homogenous, blasted out development in Frame Lake. Yellowknife doesn't seem so frontier any more. It seems kind of domesticated, potty-trained, like the Bumble in Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer, after he has his teeth removed by Herbie the dentist.

* don't get me started on the pop culture wussification of my namesake *

I don't think it's all bad, but Iqaluit still has a bit of the wild west feel to it. It still has claws. It's not nerf.

And the kids are growing up real here. Kids aren't rewarded for being cute. They aren't coddled. There is no micro-managing, interfering, magazine-reading parenting going on here. Kids are learning for themselves, in groups, first hand. And it's easy to tell by the way they interact with their parents that they aren't treated like subordinates, but merely shorter humans. They are spoken to as people, and not like an insulated, developmental project, as I've seen in the south, with parents leading them around on leashes.

Was that weird?

Oh, and the sunsets have been redonkulous... Every night, from my patio, they get better and better...

Herbiberous

Botoxed balls: Staying young manifesto

I turned 25 last week. I was kind of busy, distracted, sleeping and unable to wallow in my own wrinkle-addled misery.

But now I'm on a couch, watching baseball, scratching my bag, feeling every bit the geezer.

I've probably played through a third of my life. That might be optimistic because I really don't want to live much older than 70, in all honesty. I don't see it being much fun. Although, I could see myself getting used to the yawn filled days, chalked full of eating, sitting, laying, and crossword tinkering...

25 is a whole new ballgame. If I was a library book, I'd be taken out of the kids section and filed under young adult. All my really, really dumb mistakes should be behind me -- no more public urination for public urination's sake.

I need to start thinking about the future, about setting some goals, getting my priorities straight.

I need to start zeroing in on an answer to the question the wise scribe yelled to the chubby kid in that Twisted Sister video: "what are you gonna do with yer life?"

There are things I need to leave in my pre-25 days, in order to move ahead with these serious matters.

But not everything, or else adulthood would be unbearable.

So what I've decided to do, in maybe a desperate stab at staying cool, is to jot down a list of activities that I will refuse to give up as my hair falls out, my eyes dry and scab over, curlies grow from my ears and my breath gets gnarlier.

And who doesn't love a good list?

As I degenerate into middle agedom, I will not stop:

- watching cartoons

- concocting horribly corny nicknames for people

- placing straws, pencils, pens or whatever narrow, cylindric detritus I have at my disposal, down someone's exposed plumber's crack

- doodling when I have to sit through something eye-pokingly boring

- air guitaring in bed, with my headphones blaring, pretending I'm playing in front of a stadium full of bra-throwing fans

- searching for the sublime poop joke floating out there somewhere in the universe, and dreaming up evermore elaborate and delicious poop analogies

- listening to hip-hop

- trying to be punny (it may actually get worse with age)

- diving for flyballs on a grass ball field

- appreciating the simple brilliance of a greasy grilled processed-cheese sandwich, chicken fingers or any dippable food item

- laugh when someone gets canned in the nards or when something embarrassing happens to a person wearing a suit

- playing with my dingee

- getting down on the floor to play with legos when they're around

that's about all I've got for now...

Herbiberous

Velcomen

Velcomen!

I'm not sure what language I was going with there. German, maybe? Not sure if it's even close to spelt that way either, but it sounds like welcome and that's what I was getting at.

I suppose you're wondering why I started a blog... I don't really know to tell you the truth, but it seems like quite a way to let people far away into my poop-metaphor creating noggin. 

That's it. 

And maybe also to squeeze some purpose out of my disturbingly time-devouring youtube scouring.

Ooooh yeah... I also have an exciting announcement:

I will be posting regular observances from former American League 15-game winner, Oil Can Boyd!!!

Note from Oil Can:

"I am the Can, and I am going to come right at you with my best shit."

Indeed.

With that, I say all the best and I hope you enjoy,

Regards,

Your pals, Herbiberous and Oil Can