famouswriter

God, she's just not that into you.

2006-11-28T11:25:00.002-08:00

I hadn't slept. I'd destroyed myself staying up all night as it turned into morning, making out with him, the invoker of butterflies in my stomach. I had gotten to my parents house to look after my mother (inbetween my eighteen naps) and funnelled two massive cups of coffee down my throat. Tidal waves of nausea ensued. My head throbbed, my mood ebbed and flowed between memories of soft words spoken in the spaces of kisses, and all I wanted was to go back in time.

When my father came back from work, I'd somehow managed to look after the two dogs, and feed my mother, and I decided I would treat myself to a cab home. When I got in, I thanked the cabbie for accepting my dog as part of the fare, and made the polite chitchat you should make with your driver.

Not two minutes later, Jesus Christ hitched a ride with us.

"Can I ask you a personal question?" John, the cabbie had asked me. I figured a personal question or two wouldn't hurt, would keep me alert and on my toes.
"Sure, " I said.
"Have you imagined your spiritual death?"

What the...? How's that...? Spiritu...huh?

John launched into a diatribe on God and his son and the happy family of divinity and truth I was doubtless missing out on. I was a sinner, I colluded with sinners, and unless I opened my heart to Jesus, I could consider myself unwelcome in Heaven. I frantically tried to think of some polite way to intercept this forced conversion of my faithlessness, but John, in full preaching mode, spittle and religiosity spraying from his lips, would not be interrupted. Plus, we had somehow ended up on the highway, and I was frightened, I don't like not knowing where I am, and I feared he was kidnapping me to fulfill some daily quota of saved pagan flesh.

So I kept quiet, and interjected "That's a good point" and "Hmm, interesting" into the few pauses John's intakes of breath allowed me. I was sick and tired, and it was evident that God, once again, hadn't been listening to me. We've already had this conversation, again and again, but he simply can't let it go. Now he's even getting his friends to talk to me about it?!?

For the last time!!!

Me: Are you there God? It's me, Mookie"
Him: Yes, my child.
Me: No, no listen, please, I'm not your child. I'm not a follower, a sheep in the flock, a virgin, a sinner. I'm me, a human. I'm a godless human.
Him: I don't think so.
Me: No, really, I appreciate that you take such an interest in even the most ignorant opposition to what I'm sure, if I 'believed', is your Greatness, but please, stop. Stop calling me, stop popping up in every corner of conversation I think is God-free, stop piggybacking my cab rides. I don't need you. I don't want you.
Him: -reverential silence -This isn't over. -Thunder-

Why, in the past two months, have I been confronted repeatedly with my un-religion? In defending my beliefs of randomness with a few religious friends, I've ended up sounding bigoted and righteous. Why is this questioning of religion called a "lack of faith"? I have faith, primarily in tangible things. In people, in actions, in concepts of love and truth and goodness and bravery, concepts proven by people and their actions. I've made my own peace, saved my own self from spiritual disintigration, numerous times, I've cobbled together my own answers on why terrible things happen, and redemption, forgiveness, these are earthly possibilities I've witnessed down here in real life. I didn't need God then, and I sure don't need him now!

Far be it from me to tell another soul how to manifest salvation. May intolerance and fearful hatred of the unknown never know my company. But for Pete's sake! just as sure as I don't pass judgement on your faith, stop assuming the absence of mine! Stop telling me I'm doing it wrong, because the fact remains that I still have innocence in my heart despite my sins of pride and envy and near-adultory and all the other black marks against my name. I still believe in the inherent greatness of ordinary people despite a dearth of evidence to the contrary in the daily news.

I didn't vomit in John's cab. I wish I had. It may have afforded me the silence I had a right to, but was too scared to ask for. Jesus was remarkably silent for the whole ride. I imagine if he did exist, he would have rolled his eyes at the preacher and the sinner, neither one truly being themselves, cracked open the window, and let the sharp air fill his lungs as he looked up at the darkened sky, wanting only to get home.

This side of paradise

2006-08-20T19:27:00.000-07:00

Oh god. It's happened. When I wasn't looking, somehow, I've "come of age". And it's saddening me, because I've already consumed a large share of first times. First love, first intoxication, first heartbreak, first depression, first trip to Europe. First steps out of my parents' house, first taste of independance. And I'm a bit scared I'll never feel with such intensity and innocence again. Scared I'll never give with as much, and scared my happiness will never again be incumbent on so little. I've exited a poetic and sometimes cruel part of my life, and as with all goodbyes, part of me wants to cling on to its pantleg and beg it to stay as it walks out the door.

I feel like when I started this blog, and its predecessor, Staygoldoutsider, I was still entrenched in the process. I was going through it and making the spectacle available for public consumption. But it's been harder and harder to write. And not because I've not had the urge and need, but because the wellspring of post-teen identity crises is drying up! Too many realizations are being made! Too many issues of the Economist are being read! Too much identifying is occuring with Oprah!

The post-coming of age symptoms are too great to ignore. Wistfulness, accompanied by great, heaving sighs, rubbing of the forehead. Searching looks in the mirror. Almost compulsive gazing out of windows. Gentle crushes on 19 year old actors because they remind me of my first love. A nasty tumble into near-destructive nostalgia, whereby I punish myself with memories of love, sex, travels, angsts, friends and pivotal moments, all viewed through the sentimental lens of adulthood, all neutered of any of the actual torment they inspired.

The fact is, I am no longer a teenager. I am old enough that, had I been sluttier or more careless, I could now be a parent of a teenager. I think that is the earmark of when you can no longer claim allegience to the sufferings of youth.

I'm not saying I'm old. But I am showing signs of a different age box. They come random and fast. The delineation between youth and maturity are just that much clearer to me. It's funny, I remember near-panic attacks during my grunge days, worrying I'd one day wake up and be overtaken by love for country music and take up line-dancing against the iron will of my struggle for coolness. I don't think I'll be honkey-tonking any time soon, but the thing is, I listen to country music now. Not the new stuff but the old greats, like Ray Price and Woody Guthrie and Hank and Patsy and anyone who makes the hairs on my arms stand up. Good music is good music. "Who's your favourite band?" is no longer an applicable question, because the answer no longer defines you.

The other day I was walking my dog, and I had an out-of-body experience, whereby I imagined myself doing this exact thing, walking this dog down this street, wearing this dress. Only it was four or five years later, and I had a husband and kids. "These are my children, Olive and Buck." I mentally introduced my children to an imaginary aquaintance. I've always figured I'd have children, I know I want them. But I've never envisaged them, never given them names and personalities, never associated personal pride with procreation. They are a real-er possibility now. Something I want not just with my mind but with my being.

The biggest change in me has been the realization that I am farther away from teenagehood than from my thirties. I notice things, like wrinkles, which I'm determined to not care about too much, or lower energy. I frequently use the sentence starter "now that I'm getting older...". I'm distressed greatly by the teenagers in my neighbourhood, they seem more rough-and-tumble, less innocent, more wise-ass than I remember teens being. And I am going to be confronted by the fact that I will be a fair decade older than some of my classmates when I enter school in a couple of weeks. And it matters to me. Not that I can elude the capture and assignment of my self to a demographic, but it matters that I adopt a different sense of gravity. That I begin to take my life seriously, because I am no longer allowed the delicious freedom of responsibility and surprise at consequences to stupidity that comes with youth.

It's a melancholy and exciting time, this ripening process. But one thing that remains is the uncertainty of life. That is something shared by young and old, and it's the thing that will keep us caring about one another, because what happens to you can happen to me, and the older you get, the less invinceable you become. We're sorely mistaken in being such a youth obsessed culture, because I honestly don't think we would be able to handle the wonderfulness of a teenage life lived with the wisdom of our retrospect. Our youth would be too intense, too absolute, too short, and our beauty, the nubile bodies and fresh faces, would be too sorely missed. There has to be something to look forward to in crossing over to adulthood

And so I can gently mourn the firsts I've already passed through. Because there are so many more to come. Like my first paycheck from a "real" job, the first article I get published in a newspaper or magazine I respect. The first time I buy a major appliance. The first time I fall in love with a man in an adult way. The first passing of a beloved. And the first birth of one.

The grass, it now seems, is greener on this side.

Ain't no sunshine when she's gone

2006-07-06T10:20:00.000-07:00

In a whispered, self-help rhetoric that Dr. Phil would be proud of, my audience, my reflection in our overly-lit bathroom mirror stared back at me, red and teary and mascara blackened around the eyes. She is the stronger one, the better one. She's the me I'm supposed to be, positive and focussed and not falling apart at the seams. She's pissed that I ruined our eye make-up.

I'm a mess.

It amazes me sometimes how well I hide it. To look at me, I honestly don't think you'd know what kind of storm is going on inside me. You wouldn't see the electrical currents of an anger that is misplaced in a relatively gentle soul, sparking and volatile. You might mistake the gleam in my eyes for brightness or a good daydream, but it's the gloss of hours-old tears. I am proud of this front I can put on, proud that I can still function and hold off this saddness and not let it take over me. But in the quiet, when I'm alone, it deafens me, and I don't know how to let it manifest in a "healthy" way.

My mom sits in bed, gauze in her mouth from dental surgery, a multiple tooth extraction procedure. I stroke her hand, bruised from an i.v. insertion. She snores a little. I am still shaking with overly strong palpitations of my heart, my father and I have thrashed each other verbally again, and I feel like he doesn't actually like me. I long for my mother's intervention, that tenuous tightrope walk she used to perform so effortlessly, running interference between two warring factions of the same tribe without ever picking sides.

And I try, once again, to look at pictures of her, scattered around the bedroom, beautiful, like Jean Seburg in "Breathless" beautiful, and remember the sound of her voice, fragments of conversations we used to have. I try to remember her laugh, unguarded and pretty, and the way it would elate my sister and me to make that sound come out of her. I try to remember what she would say to me when I was upset, or jokes we used to have between us. But I'm coming up short. I can't recall that information. I am emotionally impotent, and it scares me. Where did she go? She was supposed to live on as usual inside my head, that was how I was going to deal with her illness, and now, I can't even keep her there!

There are so many important things she will never see. She will probably never meet the man I will fall in love with. Nor will she meet her grandkids, not at the rate I'm going at falling in love. She won't see the house I one day will own from the money I secure being a successful journalist. She won't see me, the product of all her hard work and her labour of love, and how I turned out. She won't have that moment where she can breathe sweet relief, because she will know I can take care of myself, that I'm okay.

I have no one to really talk to about this. A lifetime of shrinks, and I trust no one to tell me what I don't know about myself. I have no pills this time to anaesthetize myself. I have only a bit of common sense, the kind that tells me I'll get through this, and that I cannot use it as an excuse to fall apart. It's funny, tragically so, that things like this are supposed to bring your family closer together. And yet I feel like the three of us, myself, my sister, and my father, are all finding quiet corners of different rooms to make our own kind of peace with this, and I don't know how we'll find our way back together.

I just hope that one day, the shock of this slow, steady decline will wear off, and I will be flooded with memories, like confetti thrown in front of a fan. I won't feel so alone anymore, because I'll remember her as she was. And that glorious rememberance will be the very antidote to this devastating loss.

And life will go on.

War of the Words

2006-06-01T10:50:00.000-07:00

I have a love-hate relationship with fighting. A once self-described peacekeeper, I have since tasted the sweet nectar of verbal victory, and it has spoiled me forever in keeping my mouth shut.

We've all experienced that glorious, thrilling, intoxicating moment of being "right". But for some of us, it has an addictive quality. Heated debate can become a form of seduction, leading up to the climax of conversational checkmate. When ideas come to an impasse, and your opponent walks away...it's hard not to let the moral superiority that slips in go to your head and stay there. But don't you feel alive? Can't you feel the blood slowly draining from your flushed cheeks, still hot with the passion of well-articulated arguments? Is your heart still thumping, has it recovered from that crescendo of information exchange? Don't you just love yourself?

But those are arguments in the abstract sense, over politics or history or current events, things that can be won with a well turned phrase and a liberal dose of fact. Rarely is there any serious fallout from these coffeehouse skirmishes. There is another kind of argument, equally addictive and dangerous in high quantities, and those are the fights you have with people you love, over personal matters. This is the 'hate' part of my relationship with confrontation.

When I was little, I was so terribly sensitive to familial conflict. My sister was something of a firecracker in her younger days, and had, what they called back then, "a mouth on her". And I would imagine the hurt in my parents, as I'd surely felt it myself, and I would be compelled to make it right, to erase the conflict with being good. I was discouraged from following my sister's example, and so I learned the delicate art of appeasement. A necessary skill, but one that, if not balanced with the know-how of assertiveness, can paralyze your sense of self. (How can you know who you are if you don't know how to respond to injustice?)

Beyond the induction into teenagehood and the hormonal obnoxiousness that went hand in hand with it, I only really learned how to fight when I fell in love for the first and only time. My ex, however lovely and well intentioned at heart, had a knack for rubbing people the wrong way with offensive, self-righteous social commentary. I was often included with said group of the offended, and when I learned to identify that burning feeling in my stomach as the need to speak out, he was at the receiving end of it. And because he loved me, he often listened to me. And conceded defeat.

And so, I figured I was good at fighting. I could change peoples' minds. And I think I started to believe that because my intentions were pure, I was pretty much always right. If I could batter down the most oppressively negative, angry man I'd ever met with my optimistic insights, then I could win over anyone, right?

Except there are people in this world whom you will never change. They are called your family. This includes spouses, lovers, best friends, anyone who is in the inner circle. People you don't put your best face on for, because they are privy to all the ugliness and awkwardness you disguise for strangers, as a bestowal of trust. With these people, the only way someone wins is when someone gets hurt and walks away. There is no victory in that, no delicious righteousness, only the heavy heart that now carries the guilt of injury, and that awful moment of quiet that accompanies it.

I just don't know when to fight, and when to walk away. I let things fester and boil up till I become irrational. The rules of combat are suspended, I arm myself with every broken bottle, brass knuckle and pocket knife of cheap words, and I rumble till there's no one left standing. It's the strangest thing, but a fight with family reduces me to my inner thirteen year old. Mature enough to put a voice to grievances, but not sophisticated enough to take the sting out of it.

I realized this morning, as my eyes were filling with tears, and I indulged every last ounce of burning in my gut toward my father, that the only moment in a fight worth having is one filled with mercy, and devoid of pride.

I wish that moment had been mine.

Free the bees

2006-05-26T16:02:00.000-07:00

Anyone who knows me knows I am terrified of bees. Bumblebees, wasps, hornets, anything bee-like, I'd rather it kept away from me. I've even had a bee fly into my ear. It stayed there for a good ten minutes while I wondered what, exactly, one is supposed to do in this situation. Stay calm, good. Sticking finger in ear, bad. I've even gone to the extreme lengths of getting bees tattooed on my arm, figuring that if I could get multiple needles piercing my flesh for two hours, what harm could a little bee sting do?

But I'm still terrified. Bees are angry. Bees have wrath, and bees exert their vengeful wrath at the slightest provocation. They are completely irrational, and I fear irrational beings.

Yesterday, I was taking a good, honest look at myself. I'm an attractive girl(I cannot bring myself to call myself a "lady" yet) But something was amiss. It was my hair, or rather, the tumbleweed atop my head where my hair used to be. How did I fail to notice how ratty it'd become? I was so excited by the length-anyone who's had short hair foisted on them from childhood will understand the fulfillment of Crystal Gayle-length hair daydreams-so much so, that I didn't care what condition it was in. So, in the spirit of frugality and self-sufficiency, I got out the scissors, as I have many times before, and started cutting my hair.

I feel the need to explain my fear of hairstylists. When I was small and my mother used to take me and my sister to TopCuts in Yorkdale, I was always given the short bowl cut my mother found so adorable on me. And once, as we were leaving, one of the "stylists", I use the term loosely, mistook me for a boy. It's been seared into my memory. From then on, I wanted long hair. And every time I grew my hair out and went for a trim, they would not listen to me "please, I'd like to keep as much length as possible", and I would leave with short hair and feel like a boy. So as soon as I could, I started taking haircare into my own hands. I'm actually not bad at it.

Only, this time, I was not so good at it. When you have a bad haircut, you feel so vulnerable, so exposed. Who among us doesn't have a Sampson complex to some extent- 'my hair is integral to whatever hotness I may possess'- and how many of us are jaw-droppingly beautiful or confident enough to laugh off a bad coif? My heart was racing, because I didn't trust myself to go on and try to fix it. So I picked up the phone and called the salon I go to whenever I screw up my hair, which is now averaging about once a year. And today, I ignored the clammy hands, the upset stomach, the shortness of breath, I sat back, and I trusted. I trusted that my stylist would listen to me, would leave me with some hair.

It was not easy. I was forced to engage in "chitchat", which I'm not really great at under pressure. I was subjected to styling products, which are always used with rather too much creative license. And I found the hairdryer nozzle a tad invasive. I emerged from the salon an hour later, a little poorer, a little unsure, but with the satisfaction that I'd faced a pretty stupid fear. I'm walking a little taller today, I don't know if it's that I like my haircut, or that, more and more, I'm starting to just not give a damn what strangers think of me and my hair. Slowly and surely, I'm letting go of the scaredy-cat who lives in my belly.

Look out bees. There's a new gal in town.

musings from the sickbed

2006-05-22T11:33:00.000-07:00

Saturday night, too many drinks. Some first-year university student is firmly attatched to my backside as I dance, but I'm drunk and happy, so I let him. I'm with friends, I'm having a "Saturday night" with no inhabitions, and as I trip home at two in the morning, I feel at one with all the other revellers lining up for hot dogs or pizza, anything to soak up the excesses starting to rear their consequences on health and decision making.

And at approximately five in the morning, I wake up. With a migraine.

I've suffered from migraines all my life. I used to get them a lot as a kid, brought on by hypersensivity, and tension. I would spend hours, vomiting and writhing in agony, my family standing by in case there was anything they could do to ease my pain. But these are migraines, ain't nothing you can do but pray for the end.

The funny thing is, when I get sick with such a concentrated bout of suffering, my life does flash before my eyes. I count the seconds till the naseau subsides, for moments of normality I'd previously enjoyed unnoticed. I wonder if this is what death feels like, or if this compares to the pain of childbirth. I would sign just about any document or commit to any type of illegal activity just to make the hurt go away. And my heart swells so full of love for the poor family members that stand by me and offer words of support and advice as I stare pathetically up at them from the bathroom floor.

This time, I called my sister. It was the first time I've had a migraine away from home, and I haven't called my parents. I called her. "Let me finish stuffing this bagel down my gob, I'll be right over". She was at her boyfriend's house, I was undoubtably disturbing their cozy Sunday morning, but sure enough, within half an hour, she was there, rubbing my back and bringing me ice packs, staying on hold with TeleHealth Ontario to find out if I needed to see a doctor. She cancelled her plans with her boyfriend to stay with me. It was exactly what I needed, it's something no pill or promise of better health could do. Make me feel safe and loved, amidst the physical manifestations of all the insecurity and heartsickness I've been feeling of late.

Something sweet came of all this. I was reminded of my childhood, and the way my mother would look after me when I was struck with migraines. There would always be her soft hand smoothing my forehead. A glass of apple juice on the night table. A popsicle melting in a bowl. Cool sheets on my bed. And when relief and sleep would overcome me, she'd turn out the lights, close my door just enough so that some light from the hallway would keep me company, and I'd hear her and my father talking and making dinner downstairs. There is no greater thing you can give a child but that. That sense of being cared for. It's the gold of parenthood.

Those days are gone now, but I was brought back to them by my sister, who is the closest I have to a mom now. I know she will move out one day, and live with her boyfriend, and I will have to learn how to save myself, but for now, I will let myself indulge in those tenderest of moments when I can forget just how much life has changed.

Born yesterday

2006-05-16T11:31:00.000-07:00

I'm 28 years old. I've had enough experiences with men to have at least some insight into the male mind. And yet, when it comes right down to it, I haven't the foggiest clue.

In the past two weeks, I've amazed myself, both with lack of clarity when sober, and astuteness when drunk.

A few doors down from my house, there's been ongoing construction, and as with most construction, there've been construction workers. I get up rather early these days to take the dog for her morning walk, and on these early morning, dewdrops-on-your-sneaker-tips kind of mornings, I've walked by the site. There was a rather attractive fellow working there, and he and I would exchange hellos, gradually lengthening the scope of our conversations to "how are you's", and "bad weather we're having". Not exactly sparkling, but a start, anyway. One day, as I walked by and went up my front steps, he ran after me, and introduced himself properly. He suggested we exchange phone numbers and maybe go out sometime. His phone, he said, wasn't working, but it was getting fixed that day. I, admittedly turned on by his rather well-muscled physique and lovely blue eyes, said yes. I mean, not everything has to mean something, right? A date or meeting with someone new doesn't immediately have to send me into apoplectic fits worrying how I'll break up with him if it doesn't work out. Emboldened by my new disregard for my usual over-thought, I sauntered that day. I felt filled with a certain brand of freedom, both sexual and from my own nature. I felt hot.

Later that night, my best friend called me up, and we made spontaneous plans. Wow, I thought, this is a new me. I never make spontaneous plans, I don't even know if I'm spelling spontaneous correctly! We met at a bar near both of us, and had a few beers, and a great time chatting and watching the cute waiters. Confidence is infectious, and both of us were feeling a bit more !!! that night. Sitting next to us was a fellow who came and joined us after his female companion left. I'd noticed him earlier as he walked back from the bathroom, we'd made prolonged eye contact, and I was again amazed at how un-self conscious I was being.

He talked a lot about the ridiculously interesting life he'd been leading, his fantastic job, which put him in league with the upper eschelons of Canadian music gods, his philosophies on life and choices. Both me and my friend found him entertaining, and not too arrogant, for one so well-connected and travelled. I noticed he was pretty much ignoring me, and for some reason, I knew it was because he was trying to be aloof. Usually, I'd think he just didn't notice me, but the construction worker's interest in me had bolstered my ego a bit, and so, without the headache of lowish self-esteem, everything was standing before me, remarkably clear, even as I got progressively drunker. When my friend excused herself to the bathroom, my suspicions were confirmed, and he started in on how he'd fancied me from the moment he saw me, he wanted to know me, and that he'd been playing it aloof so I'd think he was cool. I was tickled, and at the end of the night, under the initial intention of walking my dog, we went back to my place.

I don't know when exactly I cottoned on to the fact that he was completely coked out, that there was a very strong possibility he was actually something of a liar, and a rather grand one, at that. But after a rather unmemorable encounter, and some pathetic excuses as to why he wouldn't be able to join me for breakfast,(I didn't invite him!) I saw him, in my drunken stupor, for what he was. It wasn't that far off from who I thought he was at the bar, someone used to partying and saying what sounded good. And amazingly, there was no shame or self-criticism involved, post-revalation. It was what it was. A one-off. Not without a lesson or two.

Fast forward to not one, not two, but three sweet phone messages from the construction worker. After the second call, I had decided I wasn't going to call him. I know, it sounds despicably classist of me, but I just couldn't see it, couldn't fathom what we'd have in common. A week went past when the third call came, and with it, a sharp reminder that I can be a bit too judgemental and introverted with people I don't know, and so I fished out his phone number and gave him a call.

A woman answered. I asked to speak to "Bob". 'Who is this?' she asked, suspiciously. I told her my name, and when he got on the phone, the jig was up. He was cold, aloof, positively reluctant to talk to me. A colonoscopy might have been more comfortable for him. There was that clarity, just a bit on the tardy side. His phone was broken? Asking me about the construction site that he was no longer working on? Oh, you silly, naive simpleton, you daft, not-tuned-in-to-your-first-instincts girl. I'd been so worried I was being a bitch and not giving him a fair shot, that I ignored whatever the heck it was in me that initially said "don't call". He tried to get out the words "I'll call you later", but I cut him off and hung up.

I was embarrassed. My ass was a bit sore from falling off my chair in disbelief, both at my ignorance, and his idiocy. But I reminded myself that I've fallen off several turnip trucks before, and I'm still able to laugh about it, even with that purpley-red emotional bruising.

They're out there, my future bad dates, blissful and short lived love affairs, and perhaps, if I'm lucky, one or two more deep, enduring ones. I'll try not to shy away from musicians and hard hats out of past experiences. I'll just have to go by my guts.

Survival Revival

2006-05-11T13:22:00.000-07:00

It's been astonishingly easy to recede into my new life as dog owner, insomniac and dutiful daughter. This new life has consisted of a near obsession with getting my dog to eliminate bodily waste outdoors, never ever sleeping in, and sobbing internally at the sight of my mother fast becoming vegetative. When you put it like that, I tell myself, it's no wonder you're so bloody crusty these days!

And yet, all I need do is pick up the trusty Toronto Star as I've been doing daily now, and there it is in black and white for me; the gift of perspective meted out by my favourite journalists and reporters. They are my unsung heroes, I don't know what most of them look like, and I doubt they have any ideas about me, but time and time again, they post cautionary tale after cautionary tale, warning me what ignorance does, what unchecked egomania turns into, what fucked-upedness lurks when broken spirits are left to reset their own bones.

I nearly wept with admiration when I read about the two Aussie miners who survived on one cereal bar and licked water off the collapsed mine shaft walls, only to emerge two weeks later(I think it was two weeks) with the energy to raise their fists in triumph and fashion smiles of gratitude for fresh air and the sight of loved ones' faces.

Or the Ugandan mothers dying of AIDS, writing memory books for their future-orphaned children, to compel them not to stand headlong and crippled in their losses but to remain steadfast with a happier past that will accompany them through the loneliness and hardship ahead.

Or the Palestinian families who didn't support the Hamas faction's rise to power, who are subsisting on lentils and despair till their wages are re-instated, watching the scant emergency supplies being passed by them to their Hamas-supporting neighbours. All for the price of bearing witness to the unpopular outcome of their democratic process, an outcome the international community feels makes them unworthy of their daily bread.

I could go on. And on. And so on. I read these stories, I see the pictures, no less potent in a black and white freeze frame, and I wonder what right I have to sob or panic or wring my often idle hands. I know suffering is subjective, and I've never really liked those people that would begrudge you a good sob at your hard luck simply because suffering is more severe elsewhere. But goddamn if it doesn't humble me some to realize I have food in my fridge. That I live in a country where the LRA doesn't steal my neighbours' children away to arm them with guns and fates worse than death. I am not amidst a civil war that fells family trees swiftly and without mercy, leaving human forests barren in its daily wake.

I'm a complete sap for happy endings, even though I know that the older you get, the harder they come. I know my mom won't get better, but occasionally, I need reminding that life will go on with and eventually, without her. There will be bills to pay, dogshit to pick up, and the odd moments of perspective found, to light the way between the darker coridoors I so often find myself in.

And so, I count the days till my entry to that world of perspective provision called journalism. This is not the happy ending I'm so prone to tacking onto my writings. It is the exhausted hope of someone gleaning illumination from whatever crack it breaks through.

The conservative party

2006-04-17T10:30:00.000-07:00

When did I become such a square?

I have never been much of a social lion. My version of teen rebellion did include a fair amount of bottle tokes and wine coolers, late nights at clubs or bars with people I didn't really know, like or trust, a touch of death metal(long live Entombed's Wolverine Blues) and an atrocious fashion sense. But it was relatively short-lived, and I found my way back to my good girl ways, eschewing the party for renting movies with my boyfriend and walking his dog.

Had I been content enough with turning into his parents at the tender age of 22, I am sure I would be as happy as a pig in poop to eat hot dogs and powdery mashed potatoes off Tupperware plates and do jigsaw puzzles infront of Wheel of Fortune. But I had a nagging suspicion back then that there was more in store for me than premature middle age. There were faraway places to travel to, lovers to love and hate, adventure, sex, friendships, experiences exciting and new beckoning...

Somewhere along the way though, I took a wrong turn, and got locked into the service industry. It tamed me(or exhausted me, I'm not sure which) of any notion of exploration beyond the walls of citylife survival, and once again, the party went on around me, without me. What was left was drinking at bars and going to shows, and having a few lacklustre affairs and dreaming of something bigger and better. Because I thought that was what I was supposed to want. People I greatly admired had astonishing capabilities in drinking and regaling others with their hilarity and the anecdotes and battle scars that ensured they were the very nucleus of the party. Was the world seperated into two kinds of people; the guests of honour, and the people who set up the snack table? Was I a snack table person?

I have always derided myself for not being very much fun. Oh, I'm a decent sort, and I have a good head on my shoulders, and I'm quite good at being your friend. But I don't dance on tables, or even dancefloors anymore, and I rarely feel like going out. My great pleasures involve reading and watching movies, cooking and writing and daydreaming. All rather solitary endeavors. I'm fine, truly fine, on my own. And I've always thought there was something kind of terribly wrong with that.

But a couple of weeks ago, I had a eureka moment. I realized that, nearing thirty and being functional and independant, I am, in fact, a lot further along in life than people far more accomplished and outgoing than me. And I discovered a distinction I'd never made for myself before. That I'd much rather think of myself as interesting than fun. I'd much rather put an end to this lifelong battle between my true nature of squareness, and the need to be entertaining. I may never be wild and spontaneous, and certainly not necessary to keep the party going. Indeed, there are times when I think my social life is in the constant dip of low blood-sugar. But I kind of think that's okay. Because the world can't run on extroversion alone. If everyone talks, who will listen? If everyone is well-travelled, well-dressed, well-read, what's left to aspire to, and who's left to impress?

Besides, someone has to help keep Wheel of Fortune on television.

The loneliness of love

2006-04-16T07:10:00.000-07:00

Other peoples, that is.

My sister is in love. And not in that first flush of giddy infatuation. She is in the deep, mutual, obvious kind that we all wish for, where she stands next to her boyfriend, and they look at each other like no one else is there in that second of their gaze. It's a beautiful, subtle thing to witness, especially because my sister deserves this love so much, she has the bottomless heart of a puppy dog, and the ferocious protectiveness of a momma bear. She has found her footing with a wonderful fellow, and I believe what they have is real and maybe even forever.

And I'm jealous.

I'm not sure what I'm jealous of more, her finding the kind of love we all dream of, or of my losing a part of her to a boy. My sister has always been a piece of my backbone. When we were kids, when we were desperate and lonesome and made fun of at school, when we were losers and felt ugly and angry and far too normal, we were each other's everything, everything that was missing from our peers and parents. We've often joked that mashed together, we'd be the perfect woman. And then she moved out with a boyfriend. They lived together for four years, and when they broke up, she moved to England.

It was hard living without her in close proximity. But I learned to be my own person, on my own two feet and all my pieces of backbone have been fused together by my own blowtorch of independance. We stayed close, but it was different than before. The scars of severed inseperability were still there. Then, last year, we decided to live together. I immediately harboured daydreams of times past, us sitting up late into the night talking and realizing how night-and-day we are. Us going on bad dates and laughing about them, borrowing clothes and watching girlie movies.

But then she fell in love.

When friends or loved ones fall in love, it feels like the end of childhood. Of days when you were needed in an all-encompassing capacity, when it was us-against-them. It's a different kind of coupling, obviously. Your lover, ideally, becomes your best friend. They are the outside world seeping in to your private domain. A lover carries you away to a universe of two on a rusty bicycle. And leaves the sister in the swath of the romantic abduction feeling like days of scraped knees and hairstyles copied out of magazines, movie star crushes and Kool-Aid are now the sole property of memory.

I guess love ushers in adulthood. Not just for those involved, but for the ones surrounding it as well. She's in front of me now, she's a sign of things to come, of good things happening to good people, of the rewards to risking and daring to love and be vulnerable. And all I can do is watch, partly wistful, and pull the thin coat of lonesomeness around me. Hope and memory will keep me warm.

slo-motion

2006-04-05T09:24:00.000-07:00

That's me today. I am shucking all responsibility today, save for laundry, and immersing myself in the simplest of moments and pleasures, I'm surrendering myself to calm. Here's my day so far...

Woke up when my body told me to. Made some fresh coffee and saw my sister off to work. I crawled into my bed and drank the coffee in a mug I found at my parents' house, in the basement. It is from Jerusalem, and I like to think my mother bought it when she and my father were on their honeymoon there. I don't know the story behind the mug, but it's hers, and it makes me believe the coffee will taste better in something she held. I watched an Italian movie and marvelled at the scenery I only briefly experienced three hot summers ago in flip-flops and the fear of a lone traveller. It was three hours long, and I took a break to make food.

When it was done, I read a review of it on the internet, I love Roger Ebert, he says what I wish I knew how to articulate, and you feel full reading it, like you've just eaten exactly the right amount and can now put aside all thoughts of hunger. I took a shower, and bent down to touch my toes and watch the water splatter on my feet. I imagined I was kissing someone, because kissing in the shower is oh-so sweet. I stayed in there as long as I wanted to, long enough to relax, not long enough to get water-wrinkled. And I realized in there, that I must abandon everything, save laundry, on my to-do list today, because today, I am my own girl. I am at no one's beck and call. I am not immersed in the repressed saddness of caring for my mother, nor am I at the pet store, hauling bags of litter and dog food around, waiting for minutes to go by.

I'm going to get dressed now, and put on my make-up, like I'm going to a party, only I'm just going to the video store. Later, I'll walk up to an out-of-the-way grocery store, and buy my sister those Matsu apples she likes so much. Afterwards, I'm going to meet my best friend for dinner, and I have a new magazine that we will devour for dessert, with imaginary, unlimited budgets, and movie-star boyfriends.

I'm going to read the paper while I wait for my clothes to dry, and work on a few more pieces of writing. 'Cause all that matters right now is not a heck of a lot.

Me. Today, it's all about me.

question of the day

2006-04-03T21:35:00.000-07:00

Okay, spurred on by Kelley's tough love, I'm going to write sheer, fricking nonsense, in an effort to be a writer, the kind that writes through the blank stare and drooling idiocy that happens between moments of inspiration...

I'm taking the subway to my folks' house, and I'm noticing, for the 17 millionth time that the escalators, at not one, but TWO stations, are being fixed. Again. Has anyone else noticed this near-epidemic breakdown of moveable stairs? Is escalator technology so incredibly fragile and complex? And if it is, why do we risk our lives daily by taking them? Also, is it possible to take the escalator on the standing-only side, and not look at the bum of the person infront of you?

There. I'm a writer now. Less nonsense, coming soon...

the Nobodies

2006-03-29T09:31:00.000-08:00

Okay, I didn't write yesterday, but does writing in your head count? If that's the case, then I'm writing more than I'm talking. Anyways, lots going on in my brain today.

My mother is an Israeli citizen, and when she was 19, she served in the military for two years, as is manditory. And I couldn't help thinking that for a lot of us left-leaning western liberals, being in the military is bad. It implies a willingness to cooperate in warfares we don't know, don't care to know, or know about but don't support. It implies complicity in the American brand of cultural imperialism we love to criticize. It brings to mind crewcut-and-combat fatigue uniformity, handling weapons of destruction and heartbreak. In short, it elicits a distaste for a particular side of humanity we'd rather ignore or reform through prayer or pacifism.

What if we, as Canadians, had to serve, manditorily, in a Peacekeeper/maker corps? What if we devised a military power that was founded on the principles of pacifism, with emphasis on helping those that wanted our help to reconstruct their lives and towns and governments in an unarmed capacity-building irrigation systems and supporting sustainable agriculture, building schools and shelters, working within a religion and culture rather than imposing our own? Our military wouldn't wear combat fatigues or carry weapons, because that wouldn't be our purpose, to intimidate, to pre-empt violence. We'd be of service to others, not pushing forth our own social/political mandate. We'd serve for two years, maybe even get to choose which region of the world we'd like to co-operate in...

Part of me knows this is laughable and impossible. We would never take a stand against the American government and openly oppose the war from all levels of government. Nor would we ever foist the burden of compassion onto our citizens with the force of law. But a large part of me feels a lot of us are arrogant in our ignorance and scorn of the Canadian military and what it means to enlist and be a part of a greater good-at least that's what I think is the reasoning for enlisting. Do we know or care enough about international politics(seeing as we barely care about our own) to understand that decision? On a more practical level, do we know what it is like for troops stationed abroad, living in everyday peril in a foreign land, missing families and sweeties, and chocolate chip cookies? Shouldn't we?

Almost every morning, I turn on my computer and check out certain websites. Yes, I have about three or four news sites that spark my interest, but appallingly enough, I also have three or four celebrity gossip sites I check. The result of this daily disclosure of smut is that I am astonishingly well versed in celebrity scandals and disgraces, but I would be hard-pressed to speak with the same amount of ease on world events as I would an Elton John event in which Scarlett Johannsen devoured some actor with her impossible lips and beautiful cleavage. Which begs the question; For a society obsessed with reality television and the very real downfalls of celebrities, why are we so completely ignorant of real people, people actually worth remembering and celebrating?

In the Toronto Star yesterday, I read a quote by an Iraqi citizen who was being asked about the release of James Loney and the other hostages, the flavour of the article being that Iraqis seem indifferent to it. And he said that he is indifferent, if we can call it that, because spilling Western blood is expensive, whereas Arab blood is cheap. We don't know the countless local victims of this war, this is the travesty. But we know the soldiers who die, we know their families, we see pictures of their weeping widows and sweet-faced children. There should be no inflation in the currency of blood! The human cost, for the most part, is the same.

I'm not saying anything new or groundbreaking here. I'm just feeling like we are so complacent! Like I have an excuse to not get involved on a mental or physical level in world events, because I am looking after my sick mother, because I'm depressed, because a customer was mean to me today. I know it's easier to focus on the Brad Pitts' of the world, because they can ache and be insufferably human from the comfort of their million dollar homes, and because they have the millions to get involved on a mental or physical level. What can I do? Write letters? Send fifty dollars I barely have to Tsunami victims? Maybe that is why people join the military. Not for glory or because they're bloodthirsty, but because it's something, it's a contribution, an extraordinary sacrifice of personal security and the comforts of home.

I'm not signing up, I've got fights on the homefront here that need my presence and engagement. But I'm not going to contribute anymore to the meanness of society, like the buying of magazines that play games like "Pin the tail on the starlet anorexic", or the gossip sites that trumpet relationship break-ups with vicious "I told you so" cruelty. I'm not going to view soldiers solely as puppets to dangerous administrations. I'm going to keep an open mind to unpopular opinions, ones that don't necessarily accord with the liberal left, keep reading and writing about the international backyard, because right now, it's all I can do, to keep the haunting of the nobodies at bay.

ten minutes

2006-03-28T14:11:00.000-08:00

This is in support of ugly ducklings and late bloomers everywhere.

Yesterday, I was taking the subway home from my parents' house. As I got on the train at Bloor going west, I ran into an old high school classmate, whom I'd apparently run into at a previous job and forgotten, and whose name I got wrong. Oops. Anyways, we had one of those quintessentially awkward high school reunion moments that happen when you live in a city that operates like it's New York.

"So, are you still working at _______?"(the clothing store I'd run into her the first time around, where I worked miserably and briefly for two months)
"No, no that job didn't last long. I work at a pet supply store now."
"Oh, neat. "
"Whereabouts do you work?" I asked.
"Oh, I'm a lawyer, my office is downtown, I'm in real estate, wills, things like that."
"Oh, wow."

So the lawyer and the cashier catch up till one of us mercifully gets off the subway, maybe at a stop sooner than we'd intended. And it got me thinking about this article that I'd read a long time ago on the back page of the Globe and Mail, about a waitress who didn't want to be defined by what she did for money, because on her own time, she was first and foremost a writer. I kind of feel like that.

I never liked school. It was not for lack of intelligence, or interest in learning. I was a troubled soul, and a teenager on top of that, which made for a truant and trucculant student. I dropped out when I was 17, and returned to finish high school at the tender age of 21. And I did finish, if only out of principle of completing what I'd started. But after that, and a failed attempt at college, I decided that all I really needed were my trusty books and love, and school could just be one of those things other people did that I did not.

This arrangement worked out well, despite obvious disadvantages in terms of the types of jobs I've been able to obtain, because I've had a lot more freedom than my 'gainfully employed' peers. But this freedom comes at the cost of financial stability, which, at some point, became more than an irritant, it became a hindrance to any kind of future I'd want to be living in. I'm not happy living paycheck to paycheck. But more than that, something else has caught up with me. The need, not just want, but need, to be outputting something of value and integrity and meaning into the world, beyond a swift hand at the till and a ready smile.

That's why I'm going to go back to school. I know, beyond any certainty, indeed, with the kind of certainty most people envy because it implies a deep sense of self-knowledge, that I am entering the right field. I was born to write, I was designed to let my bleeding heart drip on the blank page in lieu of a pen, and the degree of success I find is no measure of the satisfaction I will feel for doing something challenging and real. And on another level, I've realized I am actually deserving of a better quality of life. The field of journalism is a noble one, the role of the journalist is one of the safekeeping of hope, for every journalist represents, to me, someone who gives a damn beyond their own backyard, someone who wants us to operate and govern and live in the staggering illumination of fact and suffering and of what could be. I want to be a part of that.

And if I'm ten minutes late coming to that realization, so be it. I'm here now. And because of it, the future is somewhere I'll want to be.

White Knights and Unicorns

2006-03-26T06:10:00.000-08:00

It's my goal to write every day. No fear of censure for poor writing from an audience who I don't know exists yet, so I will be brave and opine and whine and rant and be creative as much as I can. I want to see if this "writing as a discipline" thing has anything to it.

Last night. Out to a movie with an ex-almost something fellow. Talking over hot chocolates, I realized I am the writer who doesn't write. Or not enough. I'm always waiting for the right moment of inspiration, or spending so much time trying to set up the right mood and atmosphere to write, that I exhaust myself trying to be a writer. That I forget to write...

I've been having loads of politically/socially incorrect moments lately. I was flipping through my latest copy of Vanity Fair, reading a brilliant article by Sebastian Juergen, about the forgotten war in Afghanistan. There's a picture of three soldiers in a moment of downtime, lying on the ground, one of them flipping through a magazine, and I thought to myself, amidst inner head nodding and soul elevation, the kind that happens when you read something so moving and perfect and intelligent and fierce, Golly, I thought, men sure do look fine in a uniform.

I could love a soldier. Something sexy about the uniform, the ability to shoot, more importantly;(and politically correct) the ability to know how to shoot and not do so. Something powerful about a man who enlists. They're not all farm boys from Iowa trying to rack up life experience to brag about in hometown bars years later when they arrive at that point in their middle aged lives, broken and battle worn, memories lubricated by denial and alcohol. I believe some do it for love, for love of country, for love of a society that trumpets human rights and the right to be human. And I love that love.

That's where the politically/socially incorrect part comes in. Am I supposed to, as a woman who would claim that a lot of feminist principle shadow the periphery of her morals, find a man in uniform appealing? Where did this fantasy of the knight come from? Is there part of me that loves the machismo, the complete mystery of female exclusion from war and the single-minded pursuit of sniffing out the enemy like a pig searching for truffles?

I'll admit it. There is a part of me that wants to be protected. That dreams of a big, strapping lad who's got my back, if I need my back to be gotten. That gets tired and annoyed sometimes, of the quest to be a self-contained unit of independance and sufficiency, of being my own knight, of eliminating all sense of purpose to masculinity, because femininity should be able to cover both spheres of delicacy and power. And I'll admit that I am entranced by men, mythical beasts that I've made them, because they are so wholly unlike women. And yet, nowadays they are so confused as to their knightly purpose in the court. As are we.

Men and politics, one of my favourite combinations. Men and war, one of the most baffling marriages. And I'm reading an article that is defining in no uncertain terms the bravery needed, the ability to walk straight into your fear and your possible death and ascend it for a greater purpose. And I'm sitting there thinking how hot soldiers are. Good grief!!!

Is it envy? Or is it just human nature to want what you're told not to want? Do we actually need gender roles? No one likes being told what to do, or how they should be, but imagine if men and women had the right to choose who and what they wanted to be, masculine or feminine, and both positions would be considered equal. Maybe lots of us are scared to be mothers and wives because no one takes that job, for it is a job, involving sacrifice and diplomacy and the application of love and passion, seriously, or as on par with being a breadwinner. Until equality is the dominant social principle between men and women, will I have to keep up the fight to be recognized as a woman who can do it all without a man? Will my "dirty fantasies" involve being a housewife? Will I ever admit openly that I love a man in uniform, that I admire the power it represents, without knowing if I want it for myself?

Till next time.