Balls of Rice

Author: Nic Olson

  • Grandpa


    His hands. He did more with his hands in his lifetime than most men would do in ten. The garden–each step, from dropping seeds into the earth to dishing out creamed corn onto the plate on Sunday dinner. The machinery–every lawnmower we ever owned was at one time fixed by Grandpa. There was never any doubt that he’d be able to diagnose the problem and repair it quickly. The wood–he dabbled in creativity, making wood sculptures of landscapes and birds and yard decorations, intricate as they were handsome. And the popcorn balls, which I at least always thought he made, but for all I know Grandma may have made them. Of the garage, his domain that spilt over with equipment and utensils, his hands were his greatest tools.

    I had a child-like fear of him, not a fear of discipline or fear of disappointment, but a fear of his size and strength and person. A fear that one shows one’s elder. This may have been born out of the fact that when I used to enter his house as a kid he would greet us with, ‘Oh, not you again,’ which seemed to become a running joke. It very well could have been a genuine reaction, and likely justified, because if I was around, it meant there was at least three more little shits running around his house, moving the furniture, making a mess of the basement, eating his candy, and making Grandma spend money on phonecalls to the Nintendo hotline.

    And when I remember him I try think of the things that he must have seen in his years–the droughts, and the war, and the span of technology and the changes in the places he called home. An exhausting range of years that could do nothing but yield a man of strength, which he proved to be. Towards the end, when he slowly lost the basic use of his hands, it obviously frustrated him. A life spent being useful and fixing problems with his ten fingers, and this was taken away from him. He still kept his sense of humour and his sharp mind, but at the end of the slow process of losing his dexterity, he lost one of his greatest tools. His mind was sharp as a saw blade–when we had to take family photos you could always tell that he disliked posing and getting his photo taken as much as his grandsons did, but always said something witty to motivate us to hurry up and something smart to get us to smile in the photo.

    He was well-equipped with evident tools which made him a great man. He provided his children with the tools of strength and ability that he had, and he did the same with his grandkids.

    If I end up a half as useful as Grandpa in my life, I’ll consider it well spent.


  • The Colourful Exhibition


  • Outside Empty Garages

  • Inside Empty Garages

  • Hail the Glorious Midwest.

    Oh the glorious midwest. Awkward and beautiful, sandwiched between the uppity folks of the high east and the character of the deep south, unsure of where it stands in the American civilization. Somehow, for some reason, I miss it. I haven’t spent great amounts of time there, but enough to know what to expect. For a brief second while sitting at work, looking out the window, I felt as though I was in Springfield, Missouri or Fort Wayne, Indiana, if they are even considered to be in the borderless midwest. A grey unfamiliarity, a dead downtown street on a warm Saturday afternoon, a kid walking past in a black wifebeater. Whether it is from reading lots of Grapes of Wrath (which I know is set in the south and headed west) or whether Tim Barry’s voice and train-riding demeanour gives me the taste of the damaged air of bars in which you can still smoke, or whether I now live in a house with a porch, I just don’t know. But the Midwest—that car-drivin’, cola-drinkin’, Wal-Mart shoppin’, expanse of land that just doesn’t have a real enough location to have a real decent name—it resonates for some reason.

    I guess it is because if there is a Canadian equivalent to the American midwest, I am tits deep in it.

  • Back to Basics

    Back to the basement of perpetual self-inflicted hunger. Back to the basement of crusty Daddy-Long-Legs decorating the latticed ceiling and once white-washed walls. After five months of theft (that is what it essentially was) I am leaving the comfortable confines of my parents’ home and have moved back into the grunge and the shadows that complement me so well. I am willingly moving from a home with unlimited quantities of food, like the aisle in the heavenly supermarket that is lined with every food that you love, to a home where I purchase my own goods, and where my meals will not stray far from the staples of oatmeal, sandwiches and rice (also, coincidentally, three meals I have taught myself to love).

    After somewhat successfully living on my own for two years, moving back in with the parents was a new level of pathetic that I hope to never repeat. The only complaints I have against my parents is that they cooked too much for me, didn’t get on my case enough and let me drive their cars when I wanted to. I need limits that I can break and gates that I can explode out of. I need to struggle like the settlers of our great nation, finding out ways to survive on my own, killing animals for food and growing my own vegetables. I need to be beaten down. Now, a different kind of pathetic defines me, one of choice and purpose. I will be pathetic my whole life, that is inevitable, but I must be pathetic on my own terms.

    The simpleness of human beings is almost embarrassing. How sunlight and warmth bring out pleasant moods, how change of scenery can be reviving, how new opportunities bring a feeling of success, how relationships weigh so heavily. Even when I think I’ve got it figured out; that I can control myself to the point of being able to avoid being affected by outside stimuli, a brick wall of sorts, I am quickly humbled. How we claim to be far greater than other animals, who simply respond to their surroundings to survive, I don’t understand. Anatomically coldblooded human beings.

    So in this time of change, seasonally and personally, renewal and refreshment is a choice. That, and being able to walk without crutches.

    Back to simplicity and semi-poverty and basement-humid fungi and curtains for doors and sleeping on the floor. It feels right.

  • I made a sleeping bag.

    Breaking my ankle yielded this. Finished one hour before my cast was officially removed. Thanks to Corny for the bags of cut up sweaters.

  • Fail Blog

    I received my first rejection letter last week. And the second just a few days later. No, not the kind of rejection letter you get from a lady (although I will not be surprised if/when one of those ends up in my mailbox), but the kind of rejection letter you get from a literary magazine after you send them a piece of literature. I submitted to this particular magazine because the process was extremely simple, required no extra effort, and was a fancy publication from the cultural mecca of Brooklyn, New York. I expected nothing less than a rejection letter, however I expected it a few months down the road, when I would have been more prepared to receive it, would have forgotten of my childish dreams to be published in the self-proclaimed greatest city in the world. Failure is seeming to become a more and more relevant piece of my current life.

    Humans enjoy watching the failure of others, it is what most entertainment is based on, and is entirely what internet entertainment is based on. It is entirely what the cultural pinnacle of America’s Funniest Home Videos is based on. And although I think it is natural for us to want to gawk at such spectacles, I think it is sometimes good for the human mind to avoid doing what seems pleasurable. A good exercise in restraint.

    Failure wasn’t a common thing in my younger days, whether I was too naive to notice it or it happened less often, I cannot say for sure. For whatever reason, this moment of failure resurfaced in my mind last night: In grade six I asked Jillian Frick if she would date me, and she said no. She said that I was more like a brother to her. My crush since first grade—the smartest, nicest, blondest girl at school—and I was destined to fail as the friend she considered as her brother. I wanted to grade-six-date her so badly, which consisted of MSN chatting, an arm around her while watching a movie, and status. When I ended up dating Ashlyn Cooke in grade six and seven, she always got on my case for not holding her hand when we walked to buy five cent candies. The thought of touching my girlfriend never even crossed my mind. Simpler times. I am still simple.

    Rejection isn’t something I’ve had to put up with a great deal in my life. A middle-class English-speaking white male in Canada. It is likely for this reason that being a middle-class English-speaking white male in Canada is something I desperately want to fail at. When I think about any of my statuses, I regret my life. Not that this regret will make up for the fact that I’ve had one of the easiest lives of anyone that ever existed, nor will it change the world in anyway, but it might at least encourage myself to change from being a waste of skin, to being a waste of skin that knows he is a waste of skin.

    I sent the same two stories to two other magazines, ones in which I actually believed I may have a chance at, at least that is what I’m telling myself now. When the inevitable day comes that those stories are returned to me with a letter that includes a quiet thank you and an encouraging keep trying, I will breathe in the rejection as if I thought it was my fate in the first place. My life of failure and rejection starts now. And if I accept it as such, then it isn’t as tragic as it may seem. Rejection and failure are good for the soul, good for humility, good for what ails you. Nothing cures the disease of middle-class English-speaking white males better than rejection. To be healed, I will keep submitting to magazines far out of my league.

  • Lyric of the Month: March 2012 – Bane

    All swelled with pride, your chest blown out. Face the flag as you declare “We are the greatest country in the world. Richest, smartest, most advanced. Who can keep up with us?” And where has it gotten us? Take a look around. As miserable as we have ever been; Violent, mean, pulling our hair out. As fourteen year olds march through metal detectors; Bitter, unhealthy, empty. Most dissatisfied of societies. My granddad weeps for the simple days. Everything that you could ever dream of five minutes from our fingertips. Prettied, processed, packaged, shipped right to your door. We need everything in every colour to feel that we’re alive. We’ve got to brag to all the world about all our toys just like when we were five. I hear you chant “Everything is alright, it’s gonna be alright” As you rush to your night job, everything is gonna be alright. Knuckles white as you grip your purse. You scream that things could not be better as the flames lick at your face. And I’m as fucked as anybody. The bright lights catch my eyes I’m as scared as anyone. The blood rains from the sky. We can’t tell what we want from what we need, or which one matters more. It’s all a spinning mobile, it’s all a catchy lullaby. Everything is gonna be alright. So suck your fucking thumb.

    -Bane, Release the Hounds, Give Blood

  • Hump Day Leap Year

    Thus far it has been a leapable year. A year that I will remember as one that was somewhat wasteful, somewhat unaccomplished, somewhat unfortunate.

    However, when I speak of ‘this year’ I speak of the past two months, because like it went in elementary school when I remembered things by grade, I now allot the time based on full years, which pass like bunches of days and are remembered in that way also. Of the past twelve months, the past full year, I have broken my lifetime record of lowest income. It has been on a steady decline since I quit my job as a mindless labourer of ten-hour workdays of fifteen hours a day. One that I left purposefully because working with a group of undesirable cocaine addicts who hated their jobs but grinded their way through it for the paycheques wasn’t worth it.. And now as tax season rolls around again I hope for at least a decent payoff so that I can use my springtime governmental bonus to make this so far forgettable calendar year one that counts.

    Of the past four years I would leap none of them. I would hump them all. Hump Day, as far as I’m concerned, was invented by a friend, Lucas Roelfsema. For some time it was customary of him to send Wednesday messages to those he loved, “Happy Hump Day. Who are you humping?” and my response often included his name or the name of someone he knew.

    But of the leapable start to this calendar year I created a project to prove to myself down the road that although it was possibly  leapable, it still yielded a very functional, very ugly hand-sewn blanket. Of old pieces of sweater and found threads and needles, I will block out the memories of uselessness and self-pity with an eight-foot by eight-foot misshapen square of wool.

    I remember at a family Christmas when I was younger, one my aunties gave my grandparents all the pieces to make a quilt, including the quilt squares, already sewn and embroidered, wrapped in different packages for all the different necessary parts of a quilt. She cried when my grandparents opened the last package. I never understood why; my parents told me it was because she had put so much work into the gift. I thought of this notion once I finished my book, and again when I started my quilt/sleeping bag/ragged-ass mess of chopped up sweaters. For the completion of my book, something that I have been working on since before the last leap year, I didn’t cry. I barely got sentimental. I mostly got angry and began to deny the book’s existence. It likely wasn’t my crowning achievement. This quilt is likely just that. I expect to cry in joy for several days after it is finished.

    It would be a shame to have an entire year that could be considered leapable. A year without a single moment worth clinging to. I think years that are impossible to leap often depend on those people which you are metaphorically humping, which means, upon further review, this year has yet to be a calamity enough to leap. That, plus a quilt, a life lesson, a few good stories of shoplifters and you’re off. An admittedly somewhat wasteful, somewhat unaccomplished, somewhat unfortunate two months that I wouldn’t leap for much. Maybe a Klondike bar.

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