On Wednesday morning I got my place ready for the exterminator again, exactly two weeks after the last time. During the first week I saw about one bedbug a day out in the open, usually on the door at the head of my mattress. During the second week, I didn’t see any of the pests at all. After moving my mattress out of the bedroom though, I decided to take a closer look at the depressions around the doorframe and in the baseboards that the mattress touches. I found about ten live bedbugs but only one of them had red blood from recent feeding inside of it. The rest were greasy and black inside.
The Orkin guy arrived at around 11:10, a little later than usual. I saw him as I was about to get on my bike to ride to work, so I stopped to tell him about the bedbugs I’d found. He said that it’s a good sign that most of the ones I’d found aren’t feeding, because that means they are sick. I noticed while talking to him that he has a pierced nose, but with no jewellery. I wonder if he stopped wearing anything or if the company doesn’t allow a nose-ring while he’s working.
I worked two shifts at OCADU from 11:50 on. The first class was the second half of my pose for Sara Sniderhan’s painting class. Just before the class started, the door opened and one of the OCADU security guards stuck his head in, He said, “Hello everyone!” then he paused, urged us to “Have a good day!” and then closed the door. Sara commented, “That was awkward!”
For my second shift I went across the street to work for Zarica Vasic. She comes across as being such a cold fish and somehow, perhaps because a stereotype perpetuated by the cinema, he eastern European accent serves to enhance that impression. She’s probably a warmer person than she seems on the surface.
For most of the three hours, she projected slides of life drawings by well-known artists and had me take the poses that the models in the drawings were taking. I really hate being told how to pose. One of the only reasons I’ve kept doing this job over the years is because it’s creative, and I’m allowed to express myself as I please. But I guess that in this case, she just wanted her students to learn the styles of the sample artists and she felt that if they had the examples and me imitating them, it would help towards that goal.
On the way home along Queen, I was going under the railroad bridge just before Dufferin, and saw a guy carrying something with a long handle and who was walking slowly while looking at traffic. He looked like one of the “squeegee kids” we used to see a lot of around town. What he was holding, as far as I could tell, was a dustpan with a bag attached and a broom. Taking up the whole of his back was a white sign with hand painted black lettering that read something like, “The Litter Guy: picking trash off the city streets. Any donations would be appreciated.” That seemed like a good idea to me. The city should be paying the guy union wages to do that job. Apparently the guy is from Winnipeg and he used to do it there, then came to Toronto, then went back, and it looks like he’s back in Toronto. His name is Mark.
When I got home the poison fumes were still thick in my apartment, even seven and a half hours after the technician sprayed. I opened the windows and took my bedding to the Laundromat. The smell of the insecticide still hadn’t cleared by the time I got home, but there was nowhere else to go. I kept the windows open for the next couple of hours.
That night I watched the last of the Buster Keaton silent films that I’ve been able to download. This one was called “Spite Marriage” and in it Buster played the devoted fan of a theatrical actress, who came to every one of her performances. She was in love with her leading man in the play in which they were performing, but he suddenly dropped her and married a society blonde. Hoping to make him jealous she attached herself to Buster and married him. Since he was only a pants presser though, her manager persuaded Buster to go away so the marriage could be annulled, because it wouldn’t be good for her image to be seen with him.
Later, Buster ends up working on a cruise ship, on which the actress and her boyfriend are sailing. The boat catches fire though and unbeknownst to Buster, it is abandoned. On the way to the lifeboats, the actress is knocked unconscious but her boyfriend, to save his own life, just leaves her there. Buster puts out the fire and saves the girl. For a while they are the only people on board until they are boarded by bandits. Buster defeats them and wins the girl.
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