the toonie

When the toonie first came out, it featured Queen Elizabeth on one side, and a polar bear on the other. Dad was excited to get home and show me. He ran up the stairs, and said, "Look! It's the Queen... with a bear behind!"

The Math Department.

When I was at UBC, studying math, some fancy board of directors decided to remove all the chalkboards and replace them with whiteboards.

The math professors were furious -the UBC math department has a reputation of being a bit stodgy. They launched a campaign to keep the chalkboards. They didn't want projectors, or whiteboards. They needed their old chalkboards. They referred to the chalkboards as "Weapons of Math Instruction".

It was successful. They got to keep their chalkboards.

Hobbies

 My current hobbies are:

-talking about how late I started puberty

-talking about how early I've entered menopause

-tooth decay

Why am I not getting any hits on dating apps?

education

Everything I know about reproduction, I learned from Bernard Kliban cartoons. I still don't understand how babies are made.

They tried to teach us in school, but as soon as they said, "When a man loves a woman very much..." I passed out.

Etiquette

 We had a book, written by Amy Vanderbilt.

Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Guide to Etiquette.

Our father used to read out loud to us, from the book. We all laughed, including dad. And we learned nothing about etiquette.

That's my dad.

Fist fights were a regular occurrence in my childhood home. One time, my brother had me by my shirt collar, repeatedly punching me in the face. He was a lot bigger than me, and I couldn't get away. Our father walked into the kitchen, saw James punching me in the face (my face was already bloody), and said, "What are you doing?? Put up your hands! Block him!"

He didn't stop my brother from hitting me, but he did yell at me for not protecting myself.

hair

I have literally never combed my hair. Last week, a nurse did it for me. First, she handed me a comb, and I looked at it, then asked her, "What am I supposed to do with this?"

She took it from me, and combed my hair. She made me look like a young King Charles.