BJ and Little Johnnie Stout

Sweet Creator of Elvis's hips! This blog is becoming a dry and dusty expanse of procrastitory voidliness. I blame it on Gracie, my new niece. I could blame it on work or life or myself, but those are common targets for my finger-pointing. Gracie is brand new. I doubt she's been blamed for much of anything yet.

Actually, in a way, it's also BJ's fault.

Every year since I was 15 I've made the same New Year's resolution -- not to live a boring life. It's a bit vague, admittedly, and I work at it about as hard as most people work on their New Year's resolutions -- i.e. not at all. Usually, life itself just foists itself upon me so I don't worry about it. Every once in a while, however, someone comes along who reminds me that really I could be a bit more interesting. BJ is one of these people.

In August I visited my mother in Victoria, Canada. My stepfather was also there. This is rare as he has spent most of the last year working as a paramedic in Iraq. He's another person that makes me feel my life's a bit dull sometimes. So, anyway, both of us were in the garage talking about manly things. (Jeff is pretty manly; my mother is not -- so the only part of the house that is really his is the garage.)

They live in kind of townhouse development so all the garages are next to each other. BJ is their neighbour. She was a singer in a band in the 70s that had at least one big hit and was married for a time to someone who is still big in the music business in Canada. She pulled up outside the garage in her new car, a PT Cruiser convertible. The top was up and we could see her moving around inside the car, laughing and running her hands all over the inside of the car, but we couldn't hear what she was saying. She wore a leopard-skin pillbox hat and cateye sunglasses and looked to be some indeterminate age between 45 and infinite. It was the first time I had ever seen her. Finally, she threw the door open and leaned out.

"I've had this car for over a week now and I still don't know how to roll down the windows!" She laughed.

Jeff and I ambled over and peered inside the car. He, being the more manly of the two of us, soon spotted the window switch. We introduced each other and BJ said, "How do you like my car? It's a gift from a man, you know. I'm a kept woman. It's fantastic being sexy!" Then she disappeared into her own garage.

That night BJ came by for a few drinks. She absolutely monopolised the conversation from the minute she came through the door. I was completely jet-lagged but I couldn't go to bed. I had to stay up and see if she ever drew breathe. She'd just returned from the Toronto Film Festival and was filled with anecdotes of plastic surgery disasters she'd seen and tales of country singers licking frogs. She was considering some plastic surgery herself. The mystery man who'd bought her the car offered to get her anything she wanted for Christmas and she was thinking of asking for a boob job. "Or maybe I'll just take the money and buy myself a flat panel TV as big as my living room wall. That way we'll both have something nice to look at when he comes over."

The only time BJ paused was when Jeff was talking about his experiences in Iraq. I went to bed a shaken man determined to follow a new and exciting path in the morning.

But what path to take... I can't sing and even if I could, it was probably too late to become a faded rock and roller. Taking a job in Iraq would definitely fit the bill adventure-wise, but, to be honest, the idea scared the bejesus out of me. I needed to find some new occupation that would be creative, challenging, hold a moderate risk of blood loss, as well as being totally unexpected. The answer, obviously, was needlepoint.

My sister was pregnant and all the women in the family were putting together a quilt with a nursery rhyme motif. I immediately volunteered to do a square. I got Little Johnny Stout. He occupied much of my holiday. And sure enough, it seemed to add a spark of interest to my otherwise hum-drum existence. You wouldn't think, in this enlightened age, that the sight of a man doing needlepoint would cause much of a stir, but it did. Suddenly all those anecdotes about mortars flying into the compound and movie stars having the brains of virgins injected into their butt cheeks didn't seem nearly as fascinating, at least not when contrasted with the site of a burly hunk of man-meat like myself doing satin stitch.

Next year I plan to take up finger-painting.