Only in Mexico...

Only in Mexico...
...would I be sitting in the front passenger seat of the cab, holding my cab driver's beer for him while he goes off into a corner of a parking lot to pee, while Pam and I drink the Cokes that he bought us.
...would the police officer take 20 pesos instead of issuing a traffic violation ticket.

The Barfing Date

Since last Spring I've been back in the dating pool. I've met a variety of guys - one at a party, one in a lineup outside of a nightclub, one at Starbucks, a few from Lavalife internet dating.

I've had a couple of disasters - one of them was about three weeks ago. I met this guy at a Persian restaurant with some friends. He got my number and he made dinner for me a few days afterward. I shouldn't have gone over to his place, that was my first stupid mistake. We watched a couple of videos and I noticed he was drinking a lot of wine. Suddenly he was lunging onto me, mouth gaping open, pinning me down and trying to woo me with disgusting passionate kisses that tasted like cashews and salt. I shoved him off me and sent him back to his couch, but he came at me again twenty minutes later and soon afterward I was hurrying for the door. He kept whining in a high-pitched voice, "I didn't do anything wrong..."

There is one other date that really stands out - I call it The Barfing Date. It was my first meeting with a guy named Paul from Lavalife. We had lunch together at a comfy Commercial Drive restaurant on a Saturday during the summer. We enjoyed our meeting and agreed to go out that evening as well. We each went back home and the plan was that he would pick me up in his van and we would go to the fireworks competition at English Bay.

During that afternoon, I started to feel sick to my stomach and wondered if I should call Paul and tell him I was suddenly sick...then I realized he would think I was making up a dumb excuse to brush him off. I kept telling myself I really wasn't that sick, even though my room-mate's cooking was nauseating. I escaped outside to wait for Paul on my front steps.

He picked me up and we drove to Granville Island to park, and then we took a passenger ferry to English Bay. I was becoming increasingly sicker and he was concerned, asking me repeatedly if I wanted to go back home. I hardly ever get sick and I just couldn't imagine that it would get worse, and I kept saying I could make it.

Well, I never did make it all the way to 10:00, which was when the fireworks were to start. I remember lying on the blanket with crowds of people around us while Paul took out his picnic spread and started to eat pate on crackers. At the best of times, pate reminds me of wet cat food and at this point I knew it was only a matter of time before I was going to hurl. I told him I couldn't make it, and I was so sorry, and he was very kind and understanding. We left right away but I could only lie on a park bench with the blanket around me, so Paul went to get his van.

As I lay huddled on the park bench, I must have looked like a homeless woman, and people passing by were jeering at me. One guy nudged me and said, "Wake up, the fireworks are starting!" Another guy poured his drink over my ankles and laughed. I was absolutely miserable and I started to cry. When Paul's van arrived through the street barricades, I sank back thankfully into the passenger seat.

At one point on the way home, I sat up and yelled, "Pull over, I'm going to puke!!" I was unbelievably sick on the sidewalk and I had no idea where Paul had gone. But he came up to me and led me away onto a little stone wall in the alley and gave me a breath mint. Somewhere inside of me I found this hysterically funny, that a breath mint would suddenly materialize from his hand at this precise moment, but I was too ill to laugh. Later when he dropped me off at home, I whispered, "I'll call you tomorrow," and I ran inside like a shot.

I actually saw Paul a few more times after that unfortunate night, and we had a good laugh about it. I don't really think our disastrous first date was a foreshadowing for failure, but in the long run he wasn't the right guy for me, either.

I've created a few private nicknames for some of the guys who didn't work out: the Gaping Cashew Mouth, The-Guy-I-Barfed-In-Front-Of, Mr. Needy-Hands, The Jerk, The Paddler, Parsley Guy, and Mr. Don't Want A Relationship. I've given up on Mr. Right, I really don't think he's just around the next corner. (You're wondering about the Paddler, aren't you? Haha, not going to tell.)

Tracey With An E

It's an important E. When my parents named me (34 and a half years ago) they wanted to name me Tracy, and my mother was concerned it would be too "masculine" - like Dick Tracy. So they added the E and I believe it was a good choice. I don't really believe in numerology, but somehow I think it affected the way I live my life - it's softer around the edges with that E.

Funny, when I tell someone my name while they're writing it down, I say, "Tracey with an E." I just can't stand it when they spell it wrong.

I have a friend named Lois who is the admin assistant at my school where I teach Grade 5. A few years ago when I first met her, I said, "Tracey with an E" when she was recording my name. As a side job, Lois writes pilots for TV shows and screenplays for feature films, and she's always collecting ideas from people around her. A few months ago, she let me read one of her scripts for an incredibly great film entitled, "Pride and Joy". I was sitting in my classroom reading it while my students were silent reading and one of the characters in the script said, "Tracey with an E" when she was describing her daughter or niece (I forget which). My head prickled at this point and I couldn't understand how this coincidence had happened, so I ran downstairs and burst into the school office, waving the script at Lois and yelling, "Is this ME??" Lois is so cute - she smiled and giggled with her dimples doing their dimpling and nodded. She said, "Where do you think I get all my ideas from? It's from the people around me!"

Well, I guess I'm famous now. I'm in Lois' script. I'm a minor character - Tracey meets a guy named Sandy and they eventually get married. When Lois was promoting the script, she said that some guy who wanted lesbians in it suggested that Sandy be a woman. I figured that would be okay, too. But so far Sandy is still a guy.

Now, I said all that to get to this point: I was sitting in a coffee shop with Lois about a week ago, telling her that I wanted to start a Blog and needed an idea for what to call it. Without even half a second's hesitation she quickly said, "Tracey With An E," as if it was so obvious why would I even need to think about it? The dimples came out again as she smiled and that was that. So here I am.

On a quick side note:
Lois Holmlund and her writing partner, Ryf, co-write scripts and their company is called, "Two Feather Monkey Productions"...if you're interested in that sort of thing, you could check them out sometime. I don't think their website is running right this second but you can google it and see what else comes up.