GROUPIE PAPER?
The best way to tell the story is from the start, except if the start really opens at the beginning and then we should start there to avoid any complicating problems.
So, the beginning…
I was working one day in the gallery and to my surprise two very interesting people carried in a unique selection of paintings. They were newlyweds, the woman explained that she was a distant granddaughter to one of the painters who painted with the Group of Seven and if the paintings she had were of any value. Three pristine never before seen paintings stood in our gallery, (common if it’s a hand me down- paintings tend to get lost, found, rediscovered, painted over, restored and lost again) The frames were even originals, meaning that they were made by the artist to suit the paining. However, they didn’t care to wildly about saving the frames and wanted something that would really bring these paintings into the 21st century and riiiip- there went the backs of them and paper fell out onto the floor from behind the artwork.
I lean in and grab the paper off the floor and put it on a shelf as if it was nothing- go back to my work…
I had an idea of what I wanted to paint on that paper. I knew quite well it was Groupie Paper and that it was well over 40 years old. I am a sucker for that. I once kept a piece of watercolour paper after a significant time in my life for over 10 years just so I could use it in my first art show. All I needed was the time and I was set. Well, time and my model…

AnnK: “I know you’re having a bad week, but you have to come over- you’ll feel better after we get started.”

Gail: “I’m just not in the mood right now. Just not in the mood.”
AnnK: “Alright- well, think of me when you do get in that mood- like you wouldn’t already- hummmmm?!?”

Gail: “Get lost, AnnK.”
/phone hangs up, clicks beepbeepbeepbeepbeep…

That paper stood around for a while- almost a week as I waited for my model to get out of her head. Never push your subjects into a pose- get the natural flow of their moods and expressions and you will achieve your vision. I can wait. I waited.

AND THEN WE
Sometimes, and often, I am sidetracked. Most likely the sidetracks will take on shapes as my friends or family banging at my door at 9 in the morning looking for me or for answers. I always have answers even to questions not yet asked. The question that morning came in the vision of a phone call as I stumbled around my kitchen looking for breakfast, my hair sticking up in places, the clothes from yesterday still on my body. I left a cupboard door open in my confusion to get to the phone before it hung up.
It was my mother on the other end informing me that my old best friend’s mother had passed away.
I remember I sat with the phone in my hands for a while just listening to my mom talk to me as the images of Julie’s mother shocked into my head. She’s dead? She’s really gone?

Mom: “You’d best get down to the funeral home with a card, right? You know that’s the right thing to do.”
AnnK: “You know how I feel about that…”

Mom: “/using my real name in a stern voice to which I wont write out here, I know you’ve had a falling out, but this is not the time or the place for that.”

AnnK: “Mom, you’re right- I didn’t say you weren’t- its just ah- weird.”

Mom: “Put it behind you and get over there today, you can always go early if you have to work.”
AnnK: “I do have to work. I teach at one.”

Mom: “Well, do it today, before one.”

AnnK: “Yeah, I will mom.”
/click beepbeepbeepbeep…

When I hung up the phone, I looked around me and noticed the cupboard door was still open and how quiet everything was.

ALL THESE THINGS THAT I HAVE DONE
Sarah J’s fist was pounding at the front door only minutes after I was closing the cupboard door. I let her in and explained what had just happened. I still don’t know what possessed her to say “Yes, I will go with you” because I think she has only seen one other dead body in her life. Most people would look at Sarah and think, “I don’t want to warp her” as the biggest excuse, but I doubt a dead body would really warp her mind. If anything I think she gained a bit more experience and observed the entire thing as some exciting turn of events for her artistic fodder.
However, I was a walking right into the path I had been avoiding for the past 3 years. There I was, a yellow belly rat sneaking into the funeral home before anyone else with a card in my hands and with Sarah J at my side as a bunch of desperado bandits. As I stood in the lobby of the funeral home my reflection in the cheap frame-glass caught my eyes… it was an image of me only 13 years old acting immature and giggling, “You thought you could trick me- set up your mom and I would come running, but you didn’t think I would come early!” I looked down at my feet and looked around for the right room.
I did not even think they would really have anything on display at that hour, but they did- even though I had reassured Sarah that they would not. I guess I do not know the industry. I remember when I saw that her mom was right there I leapt out and watched myself walk down the hall to her and then came back in as I leaned over. She looked fine. She looked just fine. It hurt. Sarah poked her head over and looked in. Maybe I could leave a few lines for her to fill in about what she saw because I do not remember since that is when my head turned off.
__________________________________________________________
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SHE’S ONLY SLEEPING
I remember after that moment I was lost. I just sort of got up and walked away from myself as I was angry and just let my body run in auto mode as we flew past cars, into coffee shops. I cannot remember walking out and I can’t remember walking at all- just floating from one place to the next. I woke up temporarily by the pond and I watched Sarah look out into the distance- she was smiling. I wondered what she had been asking me for the past hour- (was it an hour?) and if I had said anything funny or charming in that time. I remember I would drift back in and out- somehow in the drift time someone (I think it was me) put a check over $600 in my back pocket and I ate some food in a really dark restaurant. When I did finally wake up, I was outside of a car and Sarah was leaning out the window, her arms outstretched, holding me and telling me she would be back again soon. I watched for a long time as the van peeled out of view.
I walked up the path- I remembered I was going to teach and a young girl was waiting for me.

Girl: “I had a great idea from last weeks class, you want to hear it?”

AnnK: /me rubs her eyes. “Yeha, what it is?”
Girl: “I want to document my life as I have been under probation since I was 13, I want to show what will happen to you if you go down this way, do drugs and get into trouble. Its not fun- I really want to show that to people so I can change them. What do you think?”

/me walks off for a moment and pulls out a smoke, I hand one to the girl and she takes it and says nothing.
AnnK: “I think its great. I think you have honesty and that’s something you cant teach.”
Girl: “Thank you… hey- you alright? You look pale.”
AnnK: “ah… I just woke up- just now… I just got back from something really unfortunate.”

Girl: “Are you narcoleptic?”
AnnK: “You wanna call it that you can call it that. I don’t call it that.”
Girl: “So… what do you call it?”

/me looks off into the distance and doesn’t say anything else, puts out her smoke by stepping on it and walks into the classroom.

ZOMBIE PAPER- OH WAIT- I MENT GROUPIE PAPER
When you play Mother 2, Earthbound, or whatever you want to call it- you come up to the third chapter of the game, which is a village known as Threed. In Threed, the entire town has been taken over by Zombies who work for the flatulent and ever so barf-tastic Master Belch. The only way to defeat the zombies is to use what they call in the game as “ZOMBIE PAPER”. It’s easy to use, just put it down on the floor of a room or circus tent, go to bed and when you wake up all the zombies are stuck to the paper! Its ingenious, its pure Apple Kid and odkesa!
My Groupie Paper was to work the same way- only when I would put it on the floor it would attract my creativity and would cause it to be stuck to the paper. Only I had it folded up on top of a shelf as I waited for Gail to come over and pose for me.
Always with the waiting! After a day such as that (and narrowly missing being stuck in a dream for the whole day) I paced around my room trying to figure out how to stop waiting and to capture action. Maybe running around in the backyard of Town Hall would cheer me up as I needed a walk and I had great music- music ready for a long paced adventure. I made plans with a friend and remembered smiling as I looked out towards a sun setting in the corner of the window.
An hour later, it was dark and I was still waiting. Waiting for someone to get over to the apartment is like waiting for paint to dry only I had no paint drying and I figured it would be way sexier if I was working on something then just goofing off online when he got there. I pulled down the Groupie Paper, decided I didn’t need my model after all because all I really needed was my music and dad’s old water colour set.
I was most upset with my speed to think that I had finished well before he actually got to my place. I was hoping to take my time with this one, but it came perfect- too perfect. Every drop and every line, every colour stroke was wonderful, beautiful and all direct and precise. When Pat arrived, I had not really put too much thought in what we were to do and everything was thrown out the window as I had finished my painting too quickly.
Still, I am on the hunt for more Groupie Paper and there wont be an end to the story until I get every sheet I know that exists.

EXTRA, EXTRA READ ALL ABOUT IT (the pinball wizard’s in a miracle cure!)


THE HYPERSOMNIA DREAM IS REAL
It started out quite vividly as I walked up to the side door of my apartment and noticed my door wide open. I go inside and I walk to my room and lay my head down. When I got up, my wall was missing and out before me was a huge field where they were toiling the soil, readying the local harvest. In the distance, I could see mothers hanging their laundry with scarves protecting their hair from the sun and sheets bleaching in the afternoon haze. I noticed I was sleeping on my floor, under the bed, (sometimes I do that) and next to me, a blond haired girl without her shoes is next to me in a red skirt and white blouse. She wants me to take her picture, she wants me to make her beautiful. She is playing with small hand sized toys- she must be 18.
I get up and tell her to run out into the field, I will bring more toys for her to play with and I look around my room for where I had stashed them. I look everywhere until I look under the bed and see a mound of disgusting dirt lying there- it was not just before- I know I am dreaming now. I reach into the dirt- there are maggots and animal feces sprawling out into the darkness of under my bed as I reach for packages of tightly sealed plastic bags. I pick two and take them to the washroom to wash off the muck. The first one bled brown dirt under the water as I tear it open and several squeaky toys fall out. The second bled red and yellow dyes as broken headless stuffed toys fall out and clog up the sink. I start lining the toys up in the sink, one by one, cleaning them off….

WAKING
It seemed as if my phone had been ringing non-stop when I finally fell out of that dream I was in. Seven missed calls and already 1pm. I roll around on my bed in my sundress as I try to motivate myself to go back into the horrible surreal real world. Not thinking I reach onto the floor to find a semi clean shirt and pull it over my head as I walk out my door.
The sun is beating down on me now- I am walking with my hands over my face as I wince to see in the distance. I could be blindfolded and I could still find my way around my block, yet its good to have those eyes open. As I arrive up to the gallery, Miriam and Peter point and start to chuckle.
“How do I get a little extra?” Peter asks.
“Yeah,” Miriam says. “How do we get a little extra?”
I am in no mood for mind puzzles this morning/afternoon- I am here to work and then go home to type up my interviews for the paper. “What are you talking about,” I ask both of them. “Are you already teasing me?”
They both point at my shirt. LOW AND BEHOLD- I made the wrong choice of picking the one shirt that I won at a drag club in Toronto that reads: “ASK ME HOW TO GET A LITTLE EXTRA”, some promo bar swag for Corona Beer. I giggle a bit and shrug it off knowing if I get my work done fast there, I can get myself home and I can change my shirt.
I should have turned the damn thing inside out immediately. Steve the Cowboy comes in next and asks me how he gets a little extra. I quickly finish my work and leave to go to the bank, shrugging off the goofy comment. I should not have walked right down Main Street, either. Everyone who saw me started yelling “HOW DO I GET A LITTLE EXTRA, ANNK?” and there I was left to stand around like a goon, waving at them, feeling remorse for not turning the shirt inside out.
I walk faster.
I get to the intersection. People in cars stopped at the lights hang out of their cars yelling and hollering at me. I feel as if I want to crawl into the sewer. Just then, the largest, blackest pick up truck in all of Halton whirls up to me and a gruff British voice yells out, “GET IN, KORNY!”
My editor had come to rescue me from total Main Street humiliation.
I jump into the car and fuss with my seat belt, the words escaping my lips “Gee- Thanks Stephen- you have no idea what-“
Stephen looks right at me at that moment and says “So how do I get a little extra? What is that shirt all about, Korny?”
/insert frustrated hrrrrrr right here.

It is almost five and I am at my desk- Gary and JR are in the living room laughing at my story since I have not bothered to change yet. Why not? Its one for the blog and it is a good laugh.

I have plans to burn the shirt when Tony comes over.

I was followed home to my house by a red van moments after the waiter burst from the restaurant doors. He saw me from the service floor and bolted for my direction, waving his arm frantically. I smiled politely, waved, went along my way to where I can get my sleep. I had my earphones on so I didn’t hear him calling my name and I foolishly turned around (okay- turn me into a damn pillar of salt) to see if maybe… maybe I was safe and I wouldn’t have to get too close to anyone or talk to them.
The cards were not in my favour.
I was in his arms seconds flat as I arched peculiarly away from him.
Let me go home.
I don’t know what I am saying to you.
Just let me go home.
I’ll say just about anything to get you to go back to work.
I backed away. I said goodnight and took off into the dim lit street to my house.
I am walking faster, pulling my skirt down lower, my eyes dart out everywhere to notice what is surrounding me and I do not like it. The cool social gathering of mature men behind the store, young country boys yelling from the local bar, nothing ahead of me but the glow of my apartment window at the bottom of a navy smeared backdrop.
The van slowed down 10 feet from the corner and sat there. I quickly pulled off my headphones and moved quickly.
As I turned to check behind me as I entered my apartment, I notice the red van pull up into my driveway.
I let the door slam behind me.

RING RING…RING RING…>CLICK< BEEEEP BEEP BEEP BEEEP…
What is worse?
You have to choose only one- no grey, no shades, no tints.
Is it worse to lose someone in death then to just lose them- lose them par say as in lost, forgot, missing, gone and away without a trace?
Think about it.
Now think is losing and death the same kind of pain?