Jamie Lee Curtis

            On Friday it was my birthday. 

            In the morning I listened to Switched On Bach during yoga. I didn't want to listen to Radio Canada because there's a segment called Capsule Linguistic that opens and closes with someone doing annoying whistling. 

            I finished posting "The Final Waltz", my translation of "La Dernière valse" by Boris Vian. I listened a couple of times to the last of the Boris Vian recordings I have on my computer, which is "Que tu es impatiente, la mort" (Death You're So Impatient). After this song I'll have to search YouTube for recordings of his songs. 

            I tried to do some recording with my guitar and microphone but came up against a delay that made it hard to play. I wanted to hear myself synchronized. I searched around for three hours and it doesn't seem possible. Plus sometimes I could hear myself and sometimes not and I don't know whether I did anything or if it was just glitchy. It's very frustrating. Some say I need to buy more equipment to monitor without delay. I pretty much wasted the first few hours of my birthday because nothing was accomplished. There's no delay when I listen with headphones through the interface but I want it with the speakers. I didn't even try it with the electric which apparently is another problem because one can't really get an electric guitar sound through an interface. On further searching I think I can get guitar amp sounds simulated digitally, but the issue now is to just be able to hear the guitar without delay. I might need a separate set of speakers just for the interface. 

            I went out to a bakery on Brock where I spent a ridiculous $10 on a breakfast sandwich. The guy asked if I wanted it heated. Who wants cold eggs unless it's egg salad? I had it at home with my coffee.

            For lunch I went up to Ali's and got a spinach and potato roti. For years they just put spinach with the curried potato but for the last couple of years they've thrown in other vegetables like celery and maybe cabbage with the spinach and it has a nasty taste and texture. Last time I'd thought it was just an order mix up but next time I'm going to make sure they just use spinach. I had it with a beer while watching part of a 1978 concert of Parliament Funkadelic. The video is in black and white and the sound is pretty bad. 

            For a long time there's been a big crack running up the plaster of the eastern wall of my living room above the door that leads to the kitchen. Today I decided to chisel away the plaster between the crack and the southern wall to expose the brick. I might free up the brick for that whole wall eventually because I think it would look better. I'll have to re-plaster the edges where the east wall meets the ceiling and the southern wall though. 

            I rode up to Walmart and bought briefs, tank tops, and socks. For almost the last year they've had no black tank shirts but now they finally do. 

            I took some photos of my new guitar strap. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 20:17. 

            I went down to Pope Yes to try the classic chicken sandwich to see what all the fuss has been about. I still don't know. It's just crispy battered chicken on a bun with something close to mayonnaise and two small pickles. I also got a box of six biscuits. The whole thing cost $15.23. I gave her a $25 and I was sure I gave her two dimes and a nickel but she have me back a $5 and change instead of a $10. She said that I'd given her a dime and two five cent pieces. Anything is possible. I gave her a dime and she gave me back a $10. I told her she still owed me a nickel. She said she needed to hear the number of the coin because she didn't know what a nickel is. It's the first time in my life that I've ever encountered anyone in North America that didn't know what a nickel is. I added chili sauce, tamarind chutney and an extra pickle to the sandwich and had it with two beers and three biscuits while watching "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once". 

            Evelyn and her husband are Chinese immigrants who own a failing laundromat. They have a daughter named Joy in her late teens or early twenties. Evelyn is trying to deal with the fact that her daughter has a girlfriend. Evelyn's father has just come from China to live with them and he thinks that Evelyn is a failure. Evelyn and her husband Waymond are being audited by Internal Revenue. Evelyn and her husband are on their way to an interview in the elevator of the tax building when Waymond suddenly changes his expression as if waking up. He opens an umbrella to block the surveillance camera and begins speaking to her without a Chinese accent, telling her that they are in grave danger. He puts a headset on her that looks a lot like a set of hands free phone devices. He tells her that she might feel a slight pressure in her head. The elevator opens and she sees her point of view at the moment of her birth. Then she sees her life flash before her. Then Waymond shifts consciousness and he's back to his previous self without remembering anything. The headset seems to be invisible to everyone. The very quirky auditor named Deirdre Beaubeirdre finds many discrepancies in the items that Evelyn has claimed as business expenses, such as a karaoke machine for the laundromat. During the interview Evelyn is physically there but she is also pulled away to a broom closet by the version of Waymond who she met in the elevator. He says that he is from another universe and that there is a great evil endangering all of the universes. He's searched for years for the person who could fight that evil and all possibilities have led him to her. He tells her he is about to die in this reality but he'll contact her later. Suddenly two hands smash through the door, grab his head and break his neck. Deirdre bursts through the door, grabs a pipe, swings it and knocks out Evelyn. She screams during the interview and everyone looks. Deirdre gives them until that night to get their expense records in order. As they wait for the elevator Deirdre walks toward Evelyn and she thinks she's going to attack her again so she punches her and knocks her down. Deirdre shouts for security. Suddenly the other Waymond takes over just as security arrives. He puts on Evelyn's headset, pulls a Chapstick out of his fanny pack and eats it. He presses a button on the headset, shifts consciousness, then removes his fanny pack and uses it as a martial arts weapon against four security guards. He takes them all out Jackie Chan style. 

            Meanwhile the Deirdre that knocked out the other Evelyn introduces the great evil that the other Waymond was talking about. Her name is Jobu Tupaki but she is another version of Evelyn's daughter Joy. She examines the body of the Evelyn on the floor and says she's not the one. Jobatobaki can switch through universes like she's channel serving and she arrives at the one where Evelyn is in Joy's body.

            The police are looking for Evelyn and Waymond who are hiding in the tax office. The other Waymond tells her that he is the version of Waymond from the Alphaverse, which is the first universe to develop the technology to contact the others. The Alpha Evelyn was the scientist who invented that technology but she was murdered like she has been in every universe. Jobu is building something that is designed to pull all the universes into nothing. That is the reason why in every universe things have started to feel and taste wrong. They are attacked by Deirdre. As he did with the Chapstick, Waymond has to perform out of the ordinary acts in order to Versejump in order to access the abilities of other versions of himself in other universes. In the Alphaverse there is a team working with computers to calculate the possibilities and communicate to him through his headset. This time he is told that he has to self-administer three paper cuts in order to jump. But Deirdre has accessed a professional wrestling version of herself and grabs him, slams his back on her knee and then drop kicks him. Now Deirdre is after Evelyn. Waymond communicates to Evelyn from the Alphaverse that she has to Versejump. He tells her to concentrate on a universe in which she studied martial arts, then she has to perform a statistically unlikely act in order to make the jump. He tells her to tell Deirdre she loves her and mean it. Evelyn finds her universe's Waymond as Deirdre is coming after them. She keeps telling Deirdre she loves her but it's not working. They run into a stairwell. Deirdre jumps from several floors and is about to make impact with Evelyn when Evelyn finally tells her she loves her and means it. Evelyn Versejumps through several universes until she arrives at the one where a kung fu master saves her from a mugger and then trains her to fight with her pinky finger. She becomes a glamorous kung fu movie star. Now she has the consciousness to fight Deirdre as if she is moving in slow motion and defeats her. Evelyn tells Alpha Waymond that she wants to live in the last universe she accessed. Waymond tells her very firmly that the other worlds are only for acquiring special skills. If one falls for the temptation of staying one invites contradiction leading to chaos. That's what happened to create Jobu Tupaki. She now has the power to be in all of the universes at the same time. Jobu Tupaki arrives and the police try to stop her but she makes one cop spit glass, suddenly makes another be dressed like Carmen Miranda, jumps on another and he is suddenly upside down and falling on his head, bullets are turned to smoke. She fights another cop with two giant floppy dildos. Evelyn suddenly realizes that Jobu Tupaki is Alpha Joy. She pees her pants and jumps to a universe where everybody has hotdogs for fingers. In that universe she is also Deirdre's lover. Jobu shows Evelyn what she built that threatens the universe. She built a giant bagel and put everything on it. Everything is being sucked into it because Jobu has concluded that nothing matters. Suddenly the Alpha version of Evelyn's father arrives, Alpha Gong Gong hits Jobu with his wheelchair and knocks her through a wall. He tells Evelyn and Waymond to follow him. Evelyn's father is senile but this one is fully conscious. Alpha Gong Gong tells Evelyn she has to kill her daughter. She refuses. She instead decides that if she can become like her she will become strong enough to stop her. She begins jumping from universe to universe. Alpha Gong Gong gives orders to I guess the Alpha Police to kill Evelyn before she becomes another Jobu Tupaki. Now Evelyn, Waymond and Joy are on the run. Evelyn has a big fight scene with several Alphas. She has a big fight with the Alpha version of one of her laundromat customers who is now using her little dog on a leash as a spinning weapon on a rope. She fights another guy who loses his powers and so in order to jump again he has to pull down his pants to try to sit on one of Deirdre's butt plug shaped tax auditor trophies. Evelyn keeps kicking the trophy away so he can't reach it. But another Alpha takes a flying leap and sits on it. Evelyn sucks the snot from a guy's nose so she can also jump to martial arts skills. She takes them both on. Meanwhile another version of herself is watching the whole fight in a movie theatre. Alpha Gong Gong pins her to a wall with a wheelchair and unpins a hand grenade. She snorts a fly and accesses the pinky power kung fu universe to free herself. More attack her and she defeats them with her pinky. Alpha Waymond is killed by Jobu. Evelyn faces Jobu but is overwhelmed by all the jumping and dies. But this is all in the movie that the other Evelyn is watching. Evelyn has planned a Chinese New Year party at the laundromat for all her customers. She confronts Alpha Joy who takes her to the Alphaverse and shows her the bagel. She says every version of Joy is Jobu Tubaki. People start getting sucked into the bagel. Alpha Joy starts heading toward the bagel to enter its oblivious hole. Evelyn tries to stop her. Jobu's followers like Deirdre attack Evelyn. Evelyn starts to fight but then stops herself, not wanting to hurt anyone. Instead of accessing her own fighting potential in the multiverse she begins accessing the greatest needs of her enemies. One opponent needs a chiropractor and she fixes his back. Another who is attacking her with a scissors needs domination and she becomes a dom and spanks him. She gives all of her enemies their hearts desire. She stops Alpha Joy from entering the bagel. She fights her defensively in every universe. Finally Joy begs to be let go and Evelyn says okay but tells her she will always be there for her and Joy comes back. The tax audit goes fine and everything is all right. 

            Deirdre was played by Jamie Lee Curtis, the daughter of Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis. Her first roles were on television, starting with Quincy. She played Lieutenant Barbara Duran on Operation Petticoat and appeared several times as a panelist on Match Game. Her first movie was Halloween and she became famous through it as a Hollywood scream queen. She appeared in seven more Halloween films and other horror movies. The movie Trading Places, in which she played a kind hearted sex worker helped to break her scream queen type casting. She broke into comedy when she starred in the extremely successful "A Fish Called Wanda". She starred for four seasons on the sitcom Anything But Love. She starred in the movies Blue Steel, My Girl, Forever Young, True Lies, The Heidi Chronicles, Freaky Friday, Christmas With the Kranks, Knives Out. She won an Academy Award for her performance in Everything Everywhere All At Once. She's written several children's books. She invented a diaper. She dated Adam Ant and married writer and actor Christopher Guest who co-wrote and starred in Spinal Tap. By marriage she has the title The Right Honourable The Lady Haden-Guest but she never uses it.