Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland Page B

apparent reason. You’d be a fool to think that everybody gets the same treatment. No way, José. Everybody else in the world has to jump up and down and scream to even get served a cup of coffee. You just have to sit there looking vacant, and they’ll be tamping free T-bills into your underwear’s stretchy hem. Having said all this, I managed to screw up this once fortunate face. The conventional wisdom is true as regards faces: by mid-adulthood, what’s inside you becomes what people see on the outside. Car thieves look like car thieves, cheats look like cheats, and calm, reflective people look calm and reflective. So be careful. My face is like yours, but I ended up turning it into the face of failure. I look bitter. If you saw me walking down the street, you’d think to yourself, “Hey, that guy looks bitter.” It’s really that simple. My face is now like one of those snow domes you buy in tourist traps. People look into it and wonder, How badly was he damaged by the massacre? Has he hit bottom yet? I hear he used to be religious, but it’s not in his eyes anymore. I wonder what happened?
    Just don’t screw your life up the way I did, but you’re young, and because you’re young, you won’t listen toanybody, anyway, so what’s the point of advice? This whole letter is a pointless exercise.
    Wait-here’s a biggie: you’re prone to blacking out when you drink. Using something else along with the booze gives you longer blackouts more quickly, and a blacked-out experience can never be retrieved. At least, I have yet to retrieve one, and I’ve tried, thank you. I even went to a hypnotist a few years ago, one I know was a medically trained hypnotist, not some quack, and… nada .
    What else? What else? It’s better to eat lots of meals throughout the day instead of just three. Also, if you want to get close to somebody, you have to tell him or her something intimate about yourself. They’ll tell you something intimate in return, and if you keep this going, maybe you’ll end up in love.
    You probably won’t be very talkative, but your mind ought to be pretty alive most of the time. Find a puppet and make it do the talking for you.
    Finally: You will be able to sing. You will have a lovely voice. Find something valuable to sing, and go out and sing it. It’s what I ought to have done.
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    The hospital just phoned. My father slipped on his kitchen floor and cracked some ribs and possibly did some cardiac bruising. Could I please go to his place and gather some basic items for him?
    â€œHe gave you my phone number? I’m unlisted.”
    â€œHe did.”
    â€œBut he’s never even phoned me.”
    â€œHe knew it by heart.”
    The nurse said she’d leave a list of items and a key in an envelope down by reception. “I have a hunch you two don’t get along and he needs a few days without incident. You don’t have to see him.” “Right.”
    Dad’s apartment is somewhere in North Vancouver-off Lonsdale, not even that far from Mom’s condo. I could simply not go, but I have to admit, I’m tempted.
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    Dad lives on the eighteenth floor; God must like elevators. The apartment is a generic unit built in maybe 1982, about ten minutes before the entire city went crazy on teal green, a color I’m forced to endure at least a few times a week as a subcontractor. Dad’s place is dark yellow with plastic mock-Tiffany lampshades, and brown-and-orange freckled indoor-outdoor carpeting. My job in the renovation business has turned me into a fixtures snob: the hardware-store cupboard door fronts are all stained like burnt coffee; the Dijon-colored walls have remained unmodified since the the rollers were put away in 1982. The windows face the mountains-the apartment receives no direct sunlight except for maybe two minutes at sunset on the longest day of the year. This is not an