HALP!! Questionable Advice by Genia Blum
Answering questions while rolling my eyes, a column for Queen Mob's Teahouse
#6
Stop?
How much time can a human being waste staring into a mirror, stalking others on social media, and driving a leased vehicle into the desolate outback to attend semi-religious relationship seminars?
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#4
Not a Good Look?
It’s mystifying why the podcast gurus you follow advocate “loving yourself” but offer no practical advice on being kind to others, let alone instructions on how to exude grace and confidence through good posture, or how to prevent skin damage by wearing a broad-spectrum sunscreen.
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#3
For Reals?
You threw a tantrum because you wanted gifts and flowers? What else—a bouncy castle and pony rides? Are you blowing random dudes and fantasizing about actual relationships? Get a grip. He’s already deleted your number.
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#2
Say What?
Satan can be a dissatisfied neighbor, your work colleague, the corner merchant, a cult leader, or that grinning clown in the garish Lycra who’s sweating too close to you at the gym.
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Let Me Clarify: Unsolicited Advice by Genia Blum
A series of short pieces for Queen Mob's Teahouse based on personal opinion and experience
#14
Death Cafe
Years ago, I survived a massive overdose. My near-death experience left me grateful for the second chance at life, and removed all anxiety about a future demise.
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#13
Applause Please!
I’ve never been dropped in a pas de deux, nor hit by collapsing scenery, nor suffered a serious injury onstage—just a strained hamstring in a solo with too many splits; and a contusion of the instep when a stagehand, blinded by strobe light, knocked a chair over my foot.
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#12
Mentorship, Memories, a Decade of Reinvention
When we were young, my family had visited hers in rural Ohio, in a small town outside Cleveland that seemed very sophisticated to a child from Winnipeg, Manitoba—it boasted a McDonald’s drive-in at a time when Canada’s first Golden Arches were still light years away.
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#11
Stuff a Turkey, Be a Better Person
In my kitchen prison, I’ll stick my head in the oven—every fifteen minutes, whenever the gas switches off, for the next few hours, until the turkey is done, because otherwise it’ll be as cold and pale as the previous year when we didn’t sit down to dinner until midnight.
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#10
Equal Cheese and Melted Rights
Making fondue from scratch involves more than just grating and melting two pounds of perfectly good Swiss cheese over the unreliable flame of a spirit or gas burner placed imprudently in the middle of a table, nowhere near a fire extinguisher.
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#9
Phantoms, Witches, Apostrophes
Almost every night, a witch appeared at the side of my bed, wrapped her bony arms around me and dug her sharp nails into my back. I writhed and screamed, and cried even after my mother roused me. She stroked my head and whispered, “It’s only a dream.”
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#8
Turner, My Big Mouth, and I
A young invigilator—most likely alerted by the magnitude of my hand gestures and the fortissimo of my voice—had followed us from room to room and interfered with my view of the pictures, despite the fact that I was using my eyes to merely gaze at the artwork, not burn holes in it.
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#7
What Kind of Name is That?
I’d wait for the inevitable pause, the stuttering and throat clearing, the garbled approximation of what should have been my name, and then, with burning cheeks, I’d fulfill a request to pronounce each syllable slowly, clearly—and more than just once.
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#6
The Eyebrows Have It
My Aunt Irena knew how to do eyebrows. A former opera singer, she distracted from the signs of aging through her expert use of scarlet lip color and blacker-than-black eyebrow pencils. Madame Irena Turkewycz, the diva, would have been unrecognizable without the bold arches dancing up and down her forehead …
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#5
What to Wear to a Wedding
The Reverend Monsignor Wasyl Kushnir mumbled the matrimonial covenant in Church Slavonic; a weedy altar boy swung a brass censer; and one of my father’s third-year dentistry students, pressed into taking photos, created an ungodly racket by tripping over kneelers and music-stands.
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#4
Trousers of Trust
Even before our son was born, I'd pictured him toddling around on chubby, dimpled legs in classic, dark blue trousers with H-suspenders, like a posh French infant or the coddled progeny of the British royal family.
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#3
Don't Forget the Lipstick
Flavored lipstick! During lunch break, when the nuns at Immaculate Heart of Mary School weren’t paying attention, I snuck off to Woolworths on Winnipeg’s Selkirk Avenue, and bought a shade called "Caramel Kiss."
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#2
Picasso and Rising Damp
Madame had once asked me if we might get a dog. She didn’t add: "… for your children." Our family’s function was that of a human shield: a noisy presence in the garden flat, a supplement to the simple burglar alarm that triggered a siren whenever a bird (or bat) strayed through an open upstairs window.
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#1
Wearing Pajamas All Day
I keep a Swedish laundry basket in my bedroom, hand-woven of a single, acid-proof, stainless steel wire, shiny as hell. It holds a big pile of black pajamas: a rotating supply of freshly laundered, Lycra-infused, cotton leggings and matching, long-sleeved, scoop-neck tops …
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