Biased Bitching

Facebook and The Death of The Internet

2011-10-10T23:33:00.000-07:00

Oh, Internet.

I remember when you were shiny and new. Like a puppy that hasn't yet shit on your floor or ripped up your favourite shoes. Everywhere on the internet seemed teeming with possibilities, and people! in digital format. Always always there were a few people online to chat to. The internet was like a small town where you kind of new everybody without knowing their name.

I don't know quite when it happened, but the internet has become a scary place for me. I think this might signify my move into old age. It happened very suddenly. One day I was liking shit on Facebook, adding another comment onto a dumb picture, driving everyone who liked it and can't stop getting updates on their smartphone about it crazy. And the next it felt strange and confusing. I think, because the majority of what I.. we, maybe? understand the internet to be suddenly become filtered into one site: Facebook, the rest of the internet got turned into a kind of ghost town. Going back to the old message boards where you had to refresh the forum obsessively to see if anyone replied felt like going home. Except home was deserted and there were only a few drunk idiots peeing on what was once your best friend's house.

I haven't logged in to MSN messenger in YEARS but I assume it will be as dead as the next thing. Any social networking site is just kind of... gone. And using Facebook after this las update is... just... shitty. I know it's stupid, it's basically the fucking same old shit. But I can't choose to not see "top posts". I don't give a shit about top posts, like Facebook is some popularity contest between my friendslist. I just want to see what the people I care enough about to add to my damn friend's list are doing. Chronologically, preferably. And since I can't do this, I just get frustrated and feel like I'm missing my people everytime I log on, because I am inundated with over-shared, liked-by-57-drunk-19-year-olds crap when all I want to know is how my friends are doing.

I feel like I've reached a point where I understand what my parents must feel like when I try to explain some aspect of the internet to them and they just don't get it. They look blank, scared, and confused.

And that's how I feel, now. Like all of a sudden I looked up and "The Internet" as I knew it was gone and all I can think is "but I was here the whole time".

Life in the Cat House

2011-10-07T00:54:00.000-07:00

Weyll, our cat and my parents cat still don't get along. And our Cat, Bailey, is getting sick of living in my old bedroom. So she regularly escapes, especially when we are half asleep in the morning and trying to run around quietly in the dark not waking one another up. Which is what she did on Monday as Amanda was trying to leave for work. Normally it's not a big deal—we scoop her up and put her back in as she meows protest before anyone else notices. But Monday was different.

No, on Monday, she ran downstairs as fast as she could, with Amanda trailing after her. Upon seeing a dog, she ran back upstairs, unfortunately not into our bedroom. No, she ran into my parents bedroom, where their cat sleeps, nestled up next to my parent's bodies. In she trots, pleased as punch to have found the perfect speed, where Amanda is fingertips away from grabbing her without reaching a full on sprint. She danced along the edge of the bed, gloating over her victory and freedom. That is, until grey cat saw her. Grey cat, who actually never got a name—he's kind of an enigma. One name just doesn't suit him. We tried Hunter, Skuggi (shadow in Icelandic), Vampire Bill (when he sleeps his incisors stick out so he looks like a vampire, and he's kind of emo. Suki!), Beast, Enigma, you name it, so I just think of him as grey cat now, but my parents call him Kitty Boy the Second (KB II)—did not appreciate her little foray onto his bed. Onto his human's bed, no less. So he begins to chase her, using my dad as a springboard to propel himself forward (which is necessary as he's kind of fat), causing my dad to wake up like the plastic game piece in Don't Wake Daddy. And so they tear down the hallway, yeowling, ending their little race under our bed where I am still in a half state of sleep hiding under the blankets as best I can as Amanda left the lights on during this idiocy.

I am stunned to alertness by the fact that a five alarm cat fight is going on under my head under a mattress under a bed spring. It sounds pretty much like your generic cat fight until Bailey's yeowling and growling takes a higher, slighty more blood curdling note than before. I am still sitting in bed shocked. The only thing I could think to do? Start jumping up and down on the bed. Because apparently the imminent threat of my behind crushing the cats through two mattresses will stop them. I wish I could have seen what I looked like, bouncing up and down and screaming at the top of my lungs as Amanda came to the doorway, looked at me and said, "Rachel, really? How is that helping?"

We finally got grey cat out from under the bed with a stick. Why I had a random piece of wood sitting around in my bedroom, I don't know, but thank God it was there. Amanda left the room, and I attempted to coax the cat out from under the bed. This is when I noticed her paw was bleeding.

Now, I should preface by saying that once she came out from under the bed she was all too happy to take a treat and walk around, shaken, but not too worried about life, and not treating that paw any differently.

But I get owning a cat is a lot like having a child. Especially with Bailey. She acts like a baby. She likes to be held almost constantly. She talks to us even though we don't understand her. She likes to put things she shouldn't inside her mouth. She is constantly getting herself into trouble and is only too happy to be "saved" by one of us. She doesn't really have a sense of balance and falls over a lot. And she refuses to cover her own poop so we have to bury it for her. The silver lining in all of this is we get to keep a permanent baby who will never learn the language to talk back and we won't have to put through college, just buy the occasional bag of Greenies for.

Anyway, I saw the blood and freaked out. I can't really explain the emotion I felt when I saw her injury. Some mix of disgust with sadness and shock and righteous anger and vengefulness complemented with tenderness and deep concern for her as well as anger at myself and general helplessness and ineptitude. I guess that's what being a parent and seeing your child unwell is like. I just knew something wasn't right, I couldn't do anything about it myself, but we needed to find someone who could. I called for Amanda, and convinced myself that we had to take her to the vets. I was hysterical. I'm sure being woken up at 6:45 by a cat fight after five or so hours of sleep didn't help, but I was crying followed by manic laughter followed by blaming myself for Bailey escaping because I got mad at her for chewing my book jacket—a real hot mess. Amanda, bless her heart, agreed to go to the 24 hour vet clinic with me and be late for work. So off we go on our crazy adventure into rootin' tootin' Newton.

We get to the vets office and it looks closed. I get out in the grey early morning drizzle and check, not seeing a bolt or latch between the metal and sheet glass doors, I go and open the door for Amanda and pull the kennel out. We open the doors and are immediately hit in the face with the overwhelming scent of fresh and stale dog urine. A look at the door mat confirms the presence of both. A man, in far worse condition than either of us sits in one of the three old pleather wrapped metal framed chairs, checking his phone sporadically. There is an animal cage of some kind left empty on top of one of many filing cabinets; it does not bode well. After what feels like a half hour, a man wearing a lab coat and the same Sandals my dad likes to wear around the house comes out.

"Are you together?" he asks with a thick accent and gestures towards the man.

"No," we respond.

"Have you been before?"

"No."

"Ok." He places a pen on top of a clipboard filled with blank sheets.

"You want me to fill this out?"

"Jes. I come back, you done. What is problem?"

"Our cat has a cut on it's paw." He looks pained. There has been a dog screaming and barking non-stop since we arrived. It sounds part hound as its please almost turn into yodeling when he gets particularly upset. Our "emergency" pales in comparison to what his night was surely filled with. He leaves.

I hate filling in paper work. I always fuck something simple up. The first time I took Bailey to the vets I out her date of birth as the day we got her, which is what the SPCA wrote on her files. The vet looked at this and said "Uh, date of birth says Nov. 16 2010. That would make her three days old, and she is obviously more than three days old." That vet visit was also a nightmare, but it's a story unto itself. This time I just write 2007. After what feels like an hour, he returns and checks the paper work.

He asks again, "O-k. And what was wrong? She is throwing up?"

"No she has a cut on her paw. The other cat she lives with attacked her and we wanted to make sure it wasn't worse than it seemed."

I guess this explanation made our situation seem slightly less ridiculous as he softened and reassured, "It is good to double check—be safe. She is spayed?"

"Yes."

"Ok. You go to waiting room B."

At first I am excited to get into a room, to feel like some progress is being made, like this nightmare is closer to being over. Until I inhaled. The smell of urine from before is amplified by ten, like the tiles were grouted with excretory materials. The room is small with one chair and nowhere that feels clean enough to put anything down. The smell makes my nose feel warm and makes me feel nauseous. We wait for what feels like another eternity. We hear people enter the building, starting their shift, figuring what area they work in that day. A short woman with long, pierced earlobes and a white coat walks in.

"Ok, hi. So Bailey, jes? You take out." I open the cat carrier. "Her paw, jes?"

"Yes." Bailey, obviously very hurt was running around the room, smelling and investigating.

"She seem ok, she is very active," the vet said. "Can you hold?"

The only time someone has ever asked me to "hold" like that before was at a salon while getting my eyebrows threaded. It made me a little more nervous, if that is possible. We attempted to hold her on the table like a normal cat, but she was having none of it. The entire vet visit was conducted with her clinging to Amanda's shoulder, her favourite place on earth, I think, we me occasionally steadying her head so she couldn't bite the vet. The best part of the whole visit was when the vet wanted to shave her paw to clean the wound better. Great idea in theory, but the second the clippers were turned on she practically vaulted for the ceiling from Amanda's shoulder. Again, clearly disabled from her injuries. We managed to get the wound cleaned, a bandage put on, and an injection of antibiotics into her.

I don't know if you've ever seen a cat with a bandaged foot before, but beyond the horror of your beloved pet looking like s/he belongs on one of those sad, late night, Sarah McLaughlin, donate to the BC SPCA commercials, it is hilarious. As soon as the vet left the room to go get the antibiotics, she tried to shake it off. If you've ever seen an animal try to shake water or something off of their paw, but they shake it like a polaroid picture so to speak. So here's Bailey, still on Amanda's shoulder, trying to shake off this bandage that makes her paw kind of like a little tiny hand in a boxing glove, whapping Amanda in the side of the head like a cartoon kangaroo, setting her Pork-Pie hat askew. Twice.

Anyway, after the madness, we shove her back into the kennel (easier than trying to get her there) and go out to pay for the visit, hoping to God it doesn't put us in the poor house. We leave the room to watch the man from the waiting room being told that the dog he came in with will be returned to him in an urn, wrapped in paw-printed cello-paper in a little twine handled paper bag—the worst gift you could ever receive. Definitely a humbling reminder that it could have been a lot worse. From his conversation with them at the desk, we learn that it wasn't his dog, but a friends who was away for the weekend that he was looking after. I don't know which is worse: loosing your pet while away, or having to make the decision to euthanize a friend's pet as an act of mercy. Ugh. In better news the bill was less than a hundred dollars with medicine and tax included, so really it was reasonable. And honestly they were very good. They were patient with us and our crazy cat who insisted on being on Amanda's shoulder the entire time and our grave concern over a 4 mm long cut that the cat didn't care about. They operate an emergency clinic, not a posh office and they do a good job. I make the situation sound grim, but I would go back, urine and all.

She did pull the $20.00 dollar bandage off during the car ride home, though. And she has been fine since, and her paw seems to be healing well and isn't giving her any trouble. The whole situation just left me feeling defeated. My financial/job issues were still very unresolved (they still are, but they will be fixed tomorrow), my cat was injured, I felt like I had failed to keep her safe (I've always been completely paranoid that something bad might happen to her, I don't know why. I wonder about her when I'm out and hope that she's all right and worry that something outside of my control will happen. I told Amanda while driving her to work that if she could make enough money for me to stay home, write brilliant essays and stories and what have you but otherwise be a stay at home cat mom, I would), I felt like we would never get the two cats socialized and that this whole moving to my parents house was a terrible idea, that grey cat would try to kill our cat—that it was beyond hope and repair. That my life was beyond hope and repair. I cried for the majority of the drive home from Amanda's work, my misery compounded by a trojan-y type Email from a friend that said there was "a real bad blog about me someplace". Monday had won. After I got home I did not leave the house. I couldn't possible face the world, especially not after the bad news another friend delivered.

Tuesday left me frustrated as well, but for no particular reason other than it came after Monday.

Wednesday happened, and I felt better, but still unsettled by the cats. My OCD around making sure "everything is ok" before I leave the house got to the point where I was (and I still am because this is fresh in my mind) just standing outside the bedroom door, pushing on it repeatedly to try to convince myself that there was no way a freak accident could happen and grey cat could get the door open and kill Bailey while I was gone. I went to class and returned home, excited to have the afternoon and evening to myself with the cat and dogs and the other cat, but separately. And so I spent the day in pyjamas, hair unwashed (I wore a hat in public, not that that makes it any better), just hanging out with the cats and the Golden Girls. So help me, when Betty White dies, I am going to get a memorial tattoo to the Golden Girls, for all the sad times they've helped me through. During this, I got a text letting me know that a good friend was in fact not dying, but was officially in remission. I don't think I had really admitted to myself how upsetting the potential diagnosis could have been, but afterwards I felt a bit renewed and lighter. Until, the cats saw each other through the window and Bailey just seemed upset and miserable and grey cat looked like he wanted to attack her, so it only served to remind me that all was unwell on the homefront. Then I made the mistake of watching the news. Bad idea. Wednesday afternoon was beginning to feel a lot like Monday, despite how good it felt to know my friend got to have a second chance and that I didn't have to lose her.

Later, I ended up on the computer. The computer room is Bailey's favourite room because there is lots of shelving with boxes of things and lots of dark corners and places to climb up and hide in on and at. She constantly disappears and then reappears, covered in cobwebs, pleased as punch to have discovered a new dark crevice. After tiring of adventuring, she decided my lap was a good place to curl up in while I watched New Girl. After a while, Brandy walked around the corner, looking at the cat, stepping gingerly, but wagging her tail. I assumed the cat would want to be left alone so told Brandy to go, and she did, begrudgingly. Up until then, Bailey had been put off by Brandy's strange stalking followed by wagging and had tried to hide from her and avoid her at all costs.

I should tell you that Brandy has a difficult relationship with cats. She loves them. She loves all small animals, but especially cats. If you say "Brandy, where's the kitty?!" she perks up and starts wagging her tail and scanning the room excitedly. The problem is she doesn't get the whole... big dog, small cat thing. And she likes to chase small animals. Not in a prey kind of way, but it looks like it when she's doing it. She just chases them, and then once she catches up she doesn't really know what to do with herself and acts sheepish and wags her tail a lot and looks away, making hurried glances back in her new friend's direction, trying to sneak a sniff in without getting her nose batted at. If that happens, she looks kind of confused and hurt and half backs, half dances away, wanting to come back but not sure if she should. When the crazy cat fight was in progress/slightly after, she was sitting outside the bedroom door politely (I never used to let animals in my room before this whole move in thing so she likes to sit at my door until someone pays attention to her but doesn't like to enter the room) but looking very concerned, trying to see around the door and under the bed to make sure this new little thing that had entered her life was ok. I didn't see this, but Amanda did and told me about it after I related this next bit to her.

After Brandy started to retreat from the room, Bailey crawled off my lap and climbed through the shelving next to the desk and meowed at Brandy, kind of like she meows at us. I couldn't see either of them anymore, but neither returned so I assumed they were both out in the living room or kitchen where my mom was. I thought it was strange, but I didn't think much more of it. A little while later, my mom came in the room to report to me that Bailey had just walked up to Brandy and rubbed herself all against her legs, practically on her face. Finally, finally, finally, something clicked. Finally I felt like "we" as a family unit were accepted into the fold. It wasn't perfect, but it was a step forward when everything else had felt like a step back. And seeing Bailey's behaviour change was a relief too. Instead of skirting around the house, pausing to focus herself to jump over and run away from the dogs, she started to trot around and really enjoy exploring, finding new places, but fearless enough to actually sit on the furniture in plain view. Everything seemed to switch from black and white to technicolour.

I guess life is funny like that. Just when you give up hope, it reminds you that the world is, in fact, a very nice place to be, and that it is filled with abundance and potential. In AA, people say you have to hit rock bottom before you can begin to get better. Maybe you have to hit your rock bottom in a given situation in order to really appreciate the good things that life has to give. Either way, I'm grateful that things are going better, and as fucked up as things seem to be sometimes, and will probably get in the future, the good news is that all the shit really does, as my Amma always said "come out in the wash". Things are getting better. I'm excited for all the potential the present has and that the future promises.

Vancouver is a Fucked Up City

2011-09-24T00:26:00.000-07:00

So I was reading The Straight (big surprise there) and came across an article that is about a couple who has built a sweet as garden behind their apartment building in East Van. Sadly, the article isn't about how stupendous gardens are. Rather, it is about how their landlord has basically given them a cease and desist letter re: gardening. One of their (the landlord's) issues is with them "running a business". After googling the address to see what the building looked like (I'm such a fucking real-estate nerd now. It's gross), a few results on a site called Village Vancouver came up where Jodi (she's one of the gardeners) and a group she's part of called "Backyard Bounty Collective" who are all about "City Folk growing their own food" which I think is pretty rad, but there again, I'm kind of a hippie. Anyway, I guess I could vaguely see the direction the landlord is coming from there. Sort of. Except she's basically just offering people who are interested a look-see at her system. For free, from the looks of it. Not really a business. More like the epitome of "non-profit". Anyway, IANAL (best acronym ever! "I Am Not A Lawyer"), so I'm not here to argue the minute legal issues here or tell you who I think is right or who should win. I get that if money ever exchanged hands the landlord is responsible for the "business" that was conducted and if the building isn't zoned right they can be fined. It really sucks for everyone.

And that, good friends, is what I'm here to bitch about. When the fuck did our lives become so fucking zoned, bylawed, legalized or criminalized so that we couldn't sell a fucking tomato to an acquaintance if we wanted to? Jesus, I mean by those standards because Amanda has cut a few people's hair in exchange for food or company we should have had our apartment zoned for it? Fucked up. Can't have a bloody bake sale because no one has foodsafe? Fucking stupid. Oh wait, no, thank you, Board of Bullshit, for saving us from another Cookie Cholera outbreak like we had back in '86 before idiotic laws were in place like they are today. Man, I feel so safe knowing that everyone who hands me my cookie on a napkin will have taken a course to do so. Don't mind the fact that a four year old went missing for a couple of days and was returned to the house which was "under surveillance" without the police noticing. I WILL NOT DIE FROM EATING A COOKIE SOME RETIRED OLD LADY BAKED, THANK GOD!!!!!! I will also, apparently, not buy a few home grown carrots out of a back alley, because the Residential Tenancy Board will keep me safe from.... pesticide free food? Me supporting local people? ... umm... Getting excited about being more green... ? People affording rent? Thanks for that.... I feel better already.

I think what really kills me about this is that a whopping 20 dollars or so may have at one point been exchanged (and that is a hypothetical assumption, I know nothing about this fact) and people are potentially going to lose their fucking home over this and I STILL haven't been paid my last pay-cheque by my former employer? Who the fuck is championing this case? Who the fuck is ensuring people aren't getting screwed left right and centre by their employers, landlords, et al? No one. The worst thing that could possibly happen in this city is that someone might make an extra buck by having a garden, and someone might hand you a cookie that someone else who hasn't taken a day long course that teaches you to not be a fuckwit has touched.

So, in short: you can't have a garden, but it's ok to work for free in Vancouver. Don't drink the Kool-Aid, no one has Serving It Right.

Four Simple Rules to Not Get Fucked by Corporations or alternatively, Why Unions Are Good for Workers

2011-09-16T22:52:00.000-07:00

Recently, I stopped working for a large corporate entity. I shall not name them or any coworkers and I shall not specifically tell you which entity has done what (I've worked for a variety of large corporations), because I like not getting cease and desist letters. What I will offer you is rules to live by to keep you from getting dry-fucked by them as little as possible. The "don't drop the soap" of the corporate world, so to speak.

1. Remember That a Corporation Doesn't Actually Care About You
I think this step is the most important, because most companies go to great lengths to try to make you believe otherwise. They will give your boss money to put towards buying you guys lunch every few months. They will give you crappy generic tangible goods for having worked for them a certain amount of time. They will give you cards, thanking you for the things you do well. They will call your workforce a "family" so you feel a sense of community, and superiors often give you pet names like "hun". It's easy to go through your work life thinking that you have a boss and that they would go to bat for you if the shit ever hit the proverbial fan because you're his or her "hun" or "bud", and that even though you are a peon in the feudalistic scheme of the company, you matter to someone. But at the end of the day, you fucking don't. Your manager can't go to bat for you, because orders come from mysterious men (and a substantially smaller amount of women who undoubtedly make less) who pull the strings behind the curtain, making the big greasy smiling head say Politically Correct things and giving orders like they are god, or as your manager will call them "Head Office". This is easy to remember as "Head Office" is where the giant talking head lives. Until you realize that you are thought to be as stupid as the Scarecrow, Soulless like the Tin Man by your superior's superior (and trained to be as cowardly as the Lion), you are going to continue to get fucked while your cell mate whispers, "Welcome to Oz, Bitch," in your ear.

2. Understand That You Are Not Entitled to Anything
Upon signing the documents that confirm your employ at a corporation, you should be informed of your rights as an employee, or, rather, the things you are entitled to. These things will probably include an approximation of 5 days off a year, usually divvied up with the majority being sick days, with a bereavement day or personal day thrown in there. They will also inform you that you are entitled to a certain amount of holidays (maybe, most places just pay them out on your regular payroll and expect you to keep a separate savings account for the whopping $4.00 they will give you every two weeks towards that. Wooo-eeeeee, hunny, weez a-going to the fair! And when you quit, if you have used your vacation time (assuming you were "entitled" to any to begin with, they will inform you that vacation time is allotted based on portion of the year worked. So your 9 vacation days for the year is based on working the full year. If you do not quit on December 31st, you will have not worked enough time to warrant "deserving" vacation time paid, regardless of how many years you worked for them without having guaranteed hours, never getting benefits, getting fucked five ways from Sunday. The fact that you did not complete that year means they are going to take that money back from you. And the best part is they will word it such that it is the money "you rightfully owe them", and you will have to sign a document agreeing to this and allowing them to do so. Here is the Catch 22: when they say you are "entitled" to 5 days off per year, they mean that's how many you can take without them getting mad, treating you like crap, sending you nasty letters saying they won't pay for any further days you take off. They can't actually not pay you sick time if you are, indeed, sick. So if you know you need a day off to write a paper; if you know you need a day off to go to a family function that doesn't involve someone's death; if you just need a fucking day to yourself because your job runs you ragged and pays you as little as is legally possible or the work you are doing: don't book a goddamn vacation day off. Just say you're sick. Say you have a migraine. They can't ask you to get an MRI. They can't ask you to bring in a sample of your explosive diarrhea or projectile vomit. They just have to say "feel better!" and be passive aggressive the next day that you do come in. Be a sickly unreliable asshole, because you will not be rewarded for your honesty.

3. If You Are Not White, Heterosexual, With a Boring Haircut and Plain Clothes, You Are Trouble
Corporations don't know what to do with people who break the mold. And I'm not talking 00 Guage ears with full sleeves. I'm talking about someone who has bright red hair and likes to maybe dress kind of pin up. Or who look coloured, even worse, indigenous. Or who sends visible/audal cues that they are *whispers* gay! Or maybe who aren't afraid of breasts and their sexuality, so perhaps show a little more cleave than some are prone to. Or who might want a small tattoo somewhere visible, but tasteful. Or who aren't obsessed with controlling their bodies so they don't wear a bra. Or maybe who are just fashion forward and understand that a nice walking short in a decent material can make a really nice, professional outfit. All of these people are too scary for a corporation. They don't look like they could be part of a public service announcement for the GOP, and so they don't belong. Oh, they will tell you that they support diversity. The will donate to local charities and sponsor runs that they will expect you to be involved with and donate money to. They will probably also inform you that you are entitled to a harassment free workplace and that if you don't feel comfortable talking to your direct superior you can talk to this person, or their superior, etc. etc. and that no one expects you to just have to put up with a shitty workplace—that "we" (whoever that is) cares about your day to day happiness. But, if we remember rules 1 and 2, we will know that this is all a rouse. You can complain as much as you want. You can have to sit there in the lunchroom and listen while a coworker tells you that Indo-Canadians just need to get their barbaric side "bred out of them", and then there would be no more gang violence (I had to). You will have to listen to people talk about how homosexuality is not natural because capital-G Gaaawwwwwd intended for men to be with women, and that anything besides that is an affront to Gaaaaaaawd, so no wonder their relationship is failing (I had to listen to a divorcee say that one. Rich, n'est-ce pas?). You will have to listen to your manager say things like "It's good your parents accept your lifestyle. Because if my daughter was gay, I would have a problem with that," (I did). You will get to watch while your largely Indo-Canadian coworkers get told that all of "their people" are cheap crooks (Are you sensing a theme?). And when you talk to your coworkers about this, they will say, "Yeah, I know. They're crazy racist fucks" or "They're a religious zealot, so... what can you do?" And understand that even IF someone gives a damn and comes in and talks to people about "tolerance" or some bullshit like that, it won't change anything, because the bottom line is the All mighty Dollar, not your well being. So if bigots bring in the bacon, no one cares about your minority ass. And if someone comes in to talk about queer tolerance, everyone will know that the big gaylord called up the PC-Po-Po. And you will be shunned, because they will think about how hurt they are that you didn't just say something to them about it, like you should have to say something in the twenty-first century, or like you could form words beyond "FAAAAAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCKKKKKKKK YYYYYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU, I'M GOING TO RIP OFF YOUR HEAD AND SHIT DOWN YOUR NECK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" So understand that if you are different, you don't really have support systems in a corporation. You are just going to have to rock your bad self, Stonewall style (or, AIM style, or Komagata Maru style, or Burlesque style, or Women's Movement style, or Stacy London and Clinton Kelly style, or Etc. style). Be louder than the assholes, but always be appropriate. Don't let them get the chance to be fucking idiots. Because they will. And no one cares about you. And you aren't entitled to shit.

4. The Bottom Line is The All Mighty Dollar
I've hinted at this previously, but I will now spell it out for you. You don't matter because corporations don't care about people; corporations care about profit. Corporations don't care that you're fucking exhausted, that you do more work than your coworkers, that you are continually short staffed, that your manager is so incompetent that if given a gun and a barrel of fish, the only thing s/he would shoot is him/herself in the foot, that all of your customers are dirt-ass poor and can't afford up-selling and that it makes them feel like they don't deserve your product, that the single mom up to her tits in debt doesn't need another loan, muffin, shirt, latte, toy for her screaming child or any other temporal, tangible and/or useless shit. It just matters that you are selling what they ask you to, regardless of the fact that your workplace is inconducive to doing that. And even when you do sell what they have asked you to, they will only praise you momentarily, and then they will expect more. What you have to offer is never enough. More is always needed. And when you fail to provide them with more, more, more, more, more, they will say "Oh, RCL, but you were doing so well, what happened? What happened to you? I know you're capable of it. Is something wrong? Do you need some coaching?" like there is something wrong with you. Like you aren't doing your job. Like you are a malfunctioning computer (not that they know how to use a computer. Your manager will undoubtedly ask you how to do things like copy and paste, or forward an E-mail) that they can't figure out how to install MakeMoneyFast v. 5.9 on or remove the cookies from. Fuckwits get to be fuckwits as long as they bring in the money. It doesn't matter if their selling techniques are unethical and essentially involve lying to customers. It just matters that they appease the bottom line. These people can call in sick. These people can do fuck all all day. These people can piss off every other customer that comes in. They can fail to do the actual components of the job required to sell things. But if they create revenue, who cares? Who cares that they slow an entire team of coworkers down? Who cares that they bring down morale? Who cares that they don't deserve a promotion? who cares that they've only been there for a week and don't know shit about shit? Who cares if they're even human, as long as they create the most revenue possible, it doesn't matter if they go home and have sex with Satan. They will be the biggest "asset" your manager has ever seen, and s/he will lick their asset to keep them around. Your commitment to a Corporation counts for nothing. Your skills and abilities don't mean shit if you can't increase your corporation's revenue. So don't worry about doing the best job you can. Don't worry about being the most productive employee. As long as you can adhere to certain codes and make money, it doesn't matter because you don't matter. And the only way to be of value or to maybe deserve something (but never be entitled to it) is to whisper sweet monetary figures into the moist crevices of the beast's ear.

So! These are the four simple rules you should understand before working for a corporation. If you can remember that no one cares about you, or thinks you are entitled to anything—that they just care that you are conditioned into being a money making automaton who is indistinguishable from your coworker (because free thought and individual worth is dangerous when the All Mighty Dollar is the bottom line)—then perhaps you can come out on top. But I doubt it. Like most people working at a corporation, you will more than likely come to the same understanding as the rest: bend over and take it. And don't forget to smile. Customers like it when you smile.

Quick Thoughts on the Riot

2011-06-21T00:32:00.000-07:00

I need to write this before I forget to. So, I do have a few thoughts on the riots. But I'm more interested in how they have proved me right, because I LURVE being right.

1. Rioters are dumb. Anyone who can't think for themselves and does shit because someone else is doing it is clearly an idiot.

2. A half assed apology in which you ultimately defend your actions is B.S. But some individuals keep updating their apologies, so it's good to see an actual dialogue established.

3. This is my favourite, because it makes me right. The internet is a separate entity unto itself. It is a country that doesn't really exist. And on the continuum of "civilization", the internet is in it's wild west days. How do I know this? Vigilanteism. People would never say this "PEOPLE NEED TO ATONE, THEIR HOMES SHOULD BE BURNT DOWN, THEIR LIVES SHOULD BE RUINED" to someone's face. A few bold people might say it in public, but not TO someone's face.
But on the internet it is ok. And there aren't really laws for the internet like we have for real life. We try to apply those laws, but it's like the wild west: too big with practically no law enforcement. So shit happens anyway. Very interesting example of human nature, and what happens when we are let alone to express as we please. It will be interesting to see if the internet ends up as policed as our everyday lives. And if that happens, what will be the next arena for release?

The Hospice Issue

2011-06-13T00:41:00.000-07:00

Oo, what a hot ticket topic in Vancouver. UBC decides to build a palliative care hospice next to an overpriced highrise, and the residents claim that living by the dead is against their culture.

Ensue racist tirades and illogical whining.

I've been hesitant to talk about this as I feel like it is a loaded topic, it is something not all of my peers would agree with me on, and I truly feel like it has brought out the worst in everyone.

Now that I've committed to this, where to start?

Well, foremost, I am glad that UBC decided to go ahead with the hospice. I take issue with people saying they can't do something because it's not all right in their culture, or saying that progress should stop because of them. I don't think the feelings of the few should trump the needs of the many, which is ironic, because that's a fairly socialist view, and many (I assume old white folks) have said, "Don't care about the dying? That sounds like an unfeeling Communist attitude—go back where you came from!" Except with poorer grammar. I think the students of UBC were right to have reservations about a hospice going up near dorms. Who wants to get yelled at for causing a ruckus near the terminally ill or very old constantly? And what person living out their dying days wants to hear frat parties? That is just good planning. But when someone says "my beliefs trump your very presence here," that is a big problem. Why? Because that's intolerance. I know this is about very personal cultural beliefs, and I accept that. I accept them as ridiculous, but that's besides the point. If a religious group of any Christian denomination populated most of a high rise, and a long term care facility for patients with HIV/AIDs was to be erected next door, and they decided to protest, those people would be publicly shamed. The odd few might agree, but I'm pretty sure, "I don't wanna catch the gay, how would you feel living next to that, looking at the gay all day long?" would be subject to public mockery. So why did anyone bother to even consider the ridiculous fear of the dying? I know the dying aren't really a minority group that gets the short end of the stick very often (besides the longevity stick), but my point here has more to do with illogical beliefs. People are allowed to have them. But we shouldn't create public policy around them.

"RCL, you can't call someone's belief system illogical! That's as bigoted as your hypothetical, any-denominational Christian "Catch-The-Gay" group!" you might be thinking. Maybe. But I disagree. Why? Well first of all, any religious type belief is illogical. That's what makes it religion! But seriously, any belief in anything that isn't proven goes against logic, i.e illogic. I'm not saying they are invalid, just illogical. And secondly because a host of Chinese Canadian community leaders came out and said their beliefs have nothing to do with hospices, and even if death is a concern, simply placing a mirror on a balcony is enough to reroute the overwhelming yin energy emanating from the sick, reflecting it away. If this were truly a cultural issue, then the cultural solutions to this would be enough. However, residents claim they have had to go to counseling and therapy over this. Hmmm, so, you mean you used our healthcare system to try to make sense of why you don't want to add to the value of its services.... Meaning that you believe in certain cases, Western practices are more relevant to your life in Canada than your cultural beliefs.... Iiiiiinteresting. I should clarify here that I think immigrants having access to our healthcare system is a necessary, positive thing. All Canadians deserve to be healthy, new, not quite official yet, landed refugee, or otherwise. That is a basic human right. I am not saying that people who oppose certain aspects of our healthcare system shouldn't have access to it (and anyone who does think this doesn't deserve to access a social system intended to benefit all rather than a select few), just that it seems very hypocritical to me to find Western solutions (which clearly are not working) when there are Eastern solutions that align with the belief system this whole problem is rooted in.

In short this all seems like a load of bull. We should have never pandered to this. I'm not going to speculate that this is about property value or anything else, or if UBC would have catered to the beliefs of another ethnic group. This was the belief of a few, not all, and this should not be an issue of Chinese culture being at odds with Canadian culture. this issue highlights the veiled racism and intolerance we find in Canada. It's not all right to tell people to get the fuck out if they don't like something. New citizens should be allowed to express their likes and dislikes for Canadian public policy. Change isn't always a bad thing.

Election Time!

2011-04-25T04:40:00.000-07:00

It is election time here in See Ay Enn Ay Dee Ay, and like anyone else that gives a flying fuck I feel like I will have underlying anxiety (possibly followed by a bout of depression, depending) until the damn polls are in. Mainly because Harper cannot get in again. It just cannot happen. I refuse. Straight up.

What is baffling me is the kind of people who support Harper. No, not the whackadoodle Christians or the business owners (although unless you're the CEO of a bank, he really hasn't done much to help you. At all. Not even a little. Probably not a fucking bit. Actually, he probably sleep raped you.) The entire thing reminds me of a Patton Oswalt bit where he talks about Bush supporters:

Like this one chick I found on a networking site who responded to a poll that asked "Which candidate is the most trustworthy?" Answering "Harper, obvs!!" And maybe she was being sarcastic, but I highly doubt it.

So I decided to look at her page, to see if she was some crazy religious zealot or some rich white chick.

No. No no. She was a vaguely ethnic looking, maybe native, maybe not, I'm not into eugenics. A raver (what the fuck, they still exist??), and "bisexual" who also described herself as "homoromantic" whatever the fuck that means. Watching the sunset while peeping two old fags go at it at the beach? That's what it brings to my mind. She also likes recreational drugs. And luckily for us she's not old enough to vote.

Anyway, my first thought was, "WOW. HARPER FUCKING HATES YOU!" How the hell can someone consider another human being that thinks homosexuality is the sin to tarnish all other sins, who doesn't know the difference between First Nations and East Indian, who doesn't give a fuck about women and children, who could give two shits about the general population's health, who probably can't even spell "environment", who doesn't care if you have a job, or if there's money in Employment Insurance to make sure you don't starve when you can't find work, who wants to throw anyone that's ever smelled pot smoke in jail, and who doesn't care about anything besides his wallet and some supa kewl fighter jets—PEW PEW!!!!— to be trustworthy? HOW? WHAT ABOUT THAT SAYS TRUSTWORTHY??? Trustworthy of what? Always being a completely unaccountable sack of shit?? Maybe he wants the fighter jets so he can get closer to his super cool sky man faster? Because he believes the end is nigh and that Sky Man will come to save him (but not women, and definitely not gays) Zzzzzzoooom!

Hysterical rant aside, there's one ad that pisses me off to no extent, moreso than all the bullshit we've had to (well, took lying down, really) put up with for 8 years, or whatever, I don't know. You know the one where the average Canadian mom (some Aryan looking lady) is sitting at her coffee table, trying to balance the family budget, saying Harper's tax cuts have made it so much easier to balance the family budget? And then worrying that Layton and Ignatieff don't know where they're going to get the money to make all these promises, except to tax us more??

That ad makes my Goddamn head explode. Seriously? WHERE DO YOU THINK THE MONEY FOR ANY KIND OF SOCIAL SERVICE HAS EVER COME FROM?!?!??!?!?!?! Whatever tax breaks Harper has given you have to be offset by the amount of shit you have to pay for yourself now. Like if you're a single mother, you have to find child care on your own. If you're an ethnic minority group, a lot of your Governmental funded support groups have had to shut down. If you're poor, and have to use services like the food bank or the Salvation Army, donations have dwindled because we are in a recession. If people have anything right now, they are holding on to it for dear life, and they're sure as hell not giving it to some dirty, poor darkies. That's what happens when there's a recession. All of that volunteering people can afford to do? They can't anymore. All of those donations people make? Can't afford them anymore. If we don't have a social welfare system to fall back on in dire cases, we're fucked. Just like now.

So for the love of God, Sky Man, Pot, Nature, Jobs, Women, Minorities, the Elderly, Double Rainbows, Education, Health, Peace, Freedom vote for ANYONE BUT YOUR CONSERVATIVE CONSTITUENT. Just not the Christian Heritage Party. Because that's a whole new level of scary. Let's not go there right now. Oi.

Here, have some more videos:

And now for something entirely different

2011-04-11T15:56:00.000-07:00

No seriously, it is!! There's lots of shit I could complain about or rant about, but I just finished a final paper, I got a cheque giving me money back from a speeding ticket I paid, I managed to get a shift covered so I have more time to study and don't have to run around like a chicken with my head cut off. So why get myself all upset over something I can't actually, at this point in time anyway, do anything about?

So instead, for your viewing and eating purposes, a recipe I just made up! I call it:

Kind of Thai Marinated Chicken Breasts

Ingredients
3 large or 4 small chicken breasts (about 0.5 kg)
3/4-1 cup of soy sauce (I didn't measure anything, but that's about what it looked like)
3 Tbsp. Coconut Oil (This shit is really expensive, so if you don't have it, maybe you could replace with sesame oil, peanut oil, or coconut cream, but having never tried it, I don't know what it would taste like)
1/2 Tsp. green curry paste
1 Tbsp grated ginger (I keep mine in the freezer so it keeps fresh and grates easier and then reconstitutes after sitting on the cutting board for a bit—no more gross ginger pulp.
1 Tbsp. lime juice
1/4 Tsp. red pepper flakes
2 cloves garlic—minced
1 shallot—sliced so that it forms rings (because beyond being tasty, I think they look really cute)
Salt and Pepper to taste.

I probably should have prefaced by saying that I haven't actually tasted this yet. I made it up out of my head and am hoping that it turns out delightful. Will post update as to whether this is edible or not.

My reasoning behind it: I thought I had schezuan sauce in the fridge, but as it would turn out it was growing its own civilization on the rim of the jar. So that was a no go. My original plan was just to chop up the garlic and shallot and use the sauce to get those to brown on top of the chicken in the oven. But with no sauce, I had to improvise.

I'm allergic to soy, so I was reluctant to use it, but we had nothing else, so I will just deal with painful burning urination. After finding that in the fridge, I also noticed the green curry paste that had been there forever. I decided to mix the two, but thought they might not complement each other 100%, so thought coconut oil would blend the two nicely: coconut rice is good with soy sauce, and the green curry paste has to be mixed with something! I had to nuke the mixture to get the oil and paste to mix with the water based sauce. I think next time I will get coconut milk and use that instead of soy sauce. If this proves edible I may keep a tablespoon of soy just for taste.

After that, I added the shallots, ginger and garlic. Liking spice, I decided why not add a little red chili pepper flakes? Concerned this might be a wee bit too spicy, and that all my flavours were on the heavier side, I decided to add some lime juice to liven it up a bit. Plus I like citrus in most things. I added the ginger, which I don't think is that typical of Thai dishes because above all else, I like that it's anti-bacterial and anti-microbial, meaning that it alone will kill some of the nasty lurking around in meat. I think cooking meat without spices like curry, ginger or cumin (which have natural anti-biotic properties, and also begin to cure or cook the meat on their own) is just ind of nasty. You either have to cook the shit out of meat until it's no longer tasty, or worry about dying from some damn thing. So why not use what nature gave us? Beyond that, it is so pungent that it actually starts to cook the meat itself, and since I'm strapped for time, that is nice. It is also a tenderizer (because it starts to break down the protein fibres) and opens up the meat to all the other flavours you put into the mix. If I can put a spice like that into a meat dish, I will.

I have left all of this so sit, covered, on top of the pre-warming oven (the chicken breasts were still kind of frozen when I started to marinate them) to speed up the marination process and to keep the coconut oil in liquid state.

My plan is to keep them in a tin foil packet in the oven, and open that up for the last 10 or so minutes of them coking just to get everything to get nice and brown.

I hope this isn't another "well, at least I tried!" made up on the spot recipe. We'll see.

Update:

It was fan-fucking-tastic!!!! A touch on the salty side, but if you used low sodium soy sauce I'm sure that would help. Also, might consider adding a bit of brown sugar next time just to balance it a little more.

It wasn't really "thai" tasting per say, just, as Amanda put it, "vaguely asian" and "nutty but subtle".

I ended up forming a tin foil bowl for them on a cookie sheet and baked them that way. Glad I did as there was a TONNE of liquid left over, so you might be able to use more meat than I did. The sauce was delightful on the rice though, so I think I would stick to those measurements.

All in all, a winner. I served it with a sesame orange dressed salad and rice.

Fuck TransLink

2011-04-08T00:36:00.000-07:00

So, for those of you that don't know, the latest and greatest in Vancouver is that a fare-evader was refused entry onto a train (after purchasing a ticket) forcibly, by a Sky Pig (aka Transit Security), because she was wearing a "fuck yoga" pin. And that's offensive. Apparently.

Sacrilegious as far as most West End Yoga Moms are concerned, I guess, since everyone keeps going on about how "Children use public transit, too!!" Yes. Yes they do. And beyond having eyes they also have ears, which means they have guaranteed heard "Fuck" in passing. They also probably attend a school where I'm sure some "bad ass" class mate has said "Fuck" to get attention. So it shouldn't really matter that a pin/shirt/book/mouth say "Fuck".

Others say "that pin expresses hatred for a way of life." Well, sort of. Kind of. In a most, "whywon'tyouletmecuddleyouyoudon'tlovemeandyouneverhaveyoubitch" crazy ex that should have been on Zoloft kind of way. The sentiment it really expresses is "Yoga is not for me and this trend of self actualization through expensive pants and a tighter ass is silly." If the pin said "Fuck anyone that practices yoga, bomb an Ashram, they're full of Asholes," then yeah, maybe that would be hatred for a way of life. More pointedly it would be a hatred for a trendy vacation getaway for whiteys, but that's not really the point. By saying that, these same people also imply that wearing a "Fuck H8" shirt somehow expresses hatred for a bigots' way of life. Which I'm sure these "yoga is life" types wouldn't consider a "valid" way of life, and neither do I. But by this same logic, it's a way of life that bigots should be allowed to go about their merry ignorant way enjoying with the same freedom that mat-toting yuppies do as they embark on their Ohm filled, zen path of righteousness.

TransLink has tried to defend the actions of this SkyPig by saying that they are there to enforce the rules and regulations of transit use which include "customer courtesy", i.e. to regulate foul language use. If that's the case, shut down transit in Surrey. And the East End. Especially the DTES. And definitely the Granville area. Particularly on weekends. Discontinue the nightbus, because amid drunken slurs, the occasional "nnnsnfff ... he... hey fuuck-ayou mannnnn.. yerrrra... No! man.. I'msh just kidding, man I love you... shoo.. mumm.... cndjs...." can be heard, and that is just disgusting. Well. It is obnoxious. But I'm happier knowing that person isn't driving themselves home. But no more! That is far too vulgar behaviour for public space, and our Victorian moralistic sense is more important than public safety.

This entire issue has been turned into a circus of ridiculous, moralistic, slippery slope arguments made by individuals who feel that their perceived rights trump those of others. In particular an obviously "alternative" woman who chooses to express her views openly. How terrifying.

So if this is too much for you to take, I suggest you take her method of dealing with unpleasant circumstances. Walk home instead of taking transit, where you can only hope you will meet less assertive people. God help you if you run into any homeless people, panhandlers, sex-workers or drug addicts, though. Then you might have to face the reality that you live in a large metropolis in the twenty-first century. And that could really harsh your zen, maaaaan.

Namafuckyouste.

The Glamorous Teen Mother

2011-03-16T23:59:00.000-07:00

So Amanda and I have both been sick for ... four days? now? I don't know. Time loses all meaning when all you do is sit on the couch watching Californication, reruns of The Wonder Years, getting coerced into watching The Vampire Diaries, and playing iPhone games.

Anyway, after going to the walk in clinic today (it's the flu; it's viral! Rest it up, bitch!) we made a pit stop for Advil.

While waiting in line, I was perusing the magazines (as I am known to do), and noticed this latest edition of "In Touch!" which my manager brings to work and leaves in the lunch room, so I know the sheer brilliance, depth of subject and theme, and elocutional quality one can expect from said rag. This one left me a little bit more perplexed than usual, where I can generally sum up my feelings on the contents as "fucking heteros" (yeah, I went there, whatcha gonna do about it?!).

Anyway, this edition (which I can't find a cover image for, but as soon as I do you can bet your ass I will post it) was all about teen mom's getting the wedding of their dreams, or some ring, and business like that. At first I was wondering who he hell these rando women. Girls? I don't know. I didn't check the article, as by then Amanda was done paying for the goods, so I had no idea what it was about. But they were throwing around these girl's names like they were household brands. "Frigidaire makes amends with ho of a mother!" "Kleenex is doing it for herself!" Honestly, those make more sense to me.

Since I'm a good little student, I decided to research this shit. As it would turn out, MTV put on these shows called, "16 and Pregnant" and "Teen Mom" without consulting me or even sending a tweet my way. Those cunts. #losing

Anyway, according to my sources (wikipedia, don't hate) the girls decided to do the show to show people how hard it is to be a teen mom but to also show people that you have options. And when I heard that, I decided "well, all right, I've never seen the show, and honestly I don't care to start now, even if it is for (social) science, so I'll just assume that's the case and that they attempted to throw a lesson or two in there." And apparently it's hosted by Dr. Drew, and I secretly really enjoy celebrity sober house or whatever the fuck that show is called.

But I'm still skeptical. Not really about the show, or that the girls did want to show people that it is hard. And you have choices. So choose wisely.

I'm just skeptical that all of those good intentions, and all of the mumbo jumbo psychobabble I'm sure was eschewed on the show can't make up for the underlying fact that so called "news outlets" like In Touch or whoever the hell is reporting about this turns people's hard struggles into fairy tales. That was a word they used about the experience. Fairy tale. Some girl was going to get a Fairy Tale wedding or ending or something like that.

Pardon me, but I guess I missed the Disney classic "The Princess and the Bastard Baby".

Ok, stay with me. Simmer. Let me clarify: I think a woman should have the choice to do whatever the fuck she wants in life, whether that includes getting pregnant at 16 and keeping the baby, having 7 abortions before age 25, or becoming a huge loser like Paris Hilton, or becoming a giant bull dyke, becoming a man, an astronaut, a porn star, whatever. It's all good to me. I also don't think it matters if you're married before your child is born or that both parents stick around. As long as a kid has someone stable and genuinely caring, I figure that's more than a lot of kids born in wedlock have

With that said, I think that we need to be realistic about the current state of affairs in regards to women's rights particularly those pertaining to mothers. On the Long Census, before making it voluntary, they completely removed the section that pertained to unpaid labour. It doesn't exist anymore.

Guess what, people? Women do the majority of unpaid labour (statistically speaking). Your country just told you that you don't fucking matter. Your country just said that if you don't hold a job outside the home, you don't fucking rate to us. All the diaper cleaning, the cooking of meals, the cleaning, the infant/child psychologist job you've found yourself in, the new insane ways you've come up with to keep your sex life interesting? The country could exist without you.

But wait! Try this on for size!

In Canada unpaid work is estimated to be worth up to $319 billion in the money economy or 41% of GDP; globally the numbers skyrocket to $11 trillion US. (http://www.unpac.ca/economy/unpaidwork.html)

319 Billion, hey? That's a lot of fucking money. 41% is pretty big, too. So why then, is unpaid labour no longer being taken into account on the census?

Did you know that the Harper Government is trying to take away funding for Victim's Services? There's a 50 BILLION dollar surplus in their account, so rather than take that money and put it towards preventative community strategies, to prevent the 25 or so women that were murdered by their partners last year in Canada from getting murdered again next year, we'll just get rid of that program, because they're running at a surplus, so it isn't necessary...... Fuck the fact that if 25 people died of the flu, we'd call it a pandemic and have H1N1 signs up everywhere, telling you to look ethnic and cough in your sleeve. If our country did anything about it, it would probably be to make a vaccine. It would be about as fucking useful as a flu vaccine, anyway. Save On will post signs that say "Wife Beater Vaccines are IN!!!!"

But back to the issue that your country basically said that you don't exist to them.

Women of Canada: your country just sleep raped you. No, seriously. You woke up with Harper's dick in your ass, and when you got upset he said "Oh, well I just thought that since you liked daytime consensual dick so much, you'd be into sleep dick."

The Sexiest Surprise Ever! Sleep Dick! In the Ass! Tighter, Warmer, and More Degrading!

What the fuck does this have to do with Teen Mom and In Touch? Well, when a magazine purports that someone can achieve fairy tale status through teen pregnancy, when that same person's country doesn't recognize the unpaid work that they are putting in to raising that child, so it can be a functional member of that same back asswards society, and when it doesn't offer any real support structures to mothers (100 extra bucks a month [I think it's more than that if you have a newborn]? Fewer and fewer daycares, if any that are subsidized? The Food Bank [who doesn't want to live off of beans and ramen noodles, DIARRHEA FOR ALL!!!!!]?) no one is #winning. No Fucking One.

post script: in touch has an online version (kind of like a blog shittier than Perez Hilton (yeah, it's possible)), which decries, "Teen Mom Stars: Desperate to Cash in".

Neat. So, when you're not busy selling false hope by exploiting the girls' situations, you're calling them gold diggers. Keep it classy, In Touch.

Oh shit.

2011-03-07T18:45:00.000-08:00

I was just re-reading my blogs from four years ago. Apparently I was a chatty cathy but don't have much to say.

I made two conclusions based on what I read.

1. I am hilarious

2. I was a much better writer when I was actively writing on the daily.

I'm thinking it might help my grades to start blogging again. Also, possibly, my sanity.

Levi's Curve ID and the Feminist

2010-09-07T01:18:00.000-07:00

It would make for a good movie title, no?

Anyway, I read a few feminist, web-based publications who have recently been up in arms about Levi's Curve ID jeans. Basically, what Levi's did was do a sample of the female population, assessed that there were three main body "shapes" that women had, and made three distinct jeans fitted in the crotch/rear/hip/thigh area to suit each. They titled the three classes "slight curve, demi curve, and bold curve" (and I'm surprised Blackberry isn't suing them for the last one). OK. So women spoke and Levi's listened. Sounds good to me, so far.

The jeans themselves are not the problem, though. Most are offended with the choice in models/wording for the advertisements. One of the major ads in North America is one whose text states, "All Asses Were Not Created Equal". The accompanying graphics include three women, supposedly of the three "types". Only the "slight" curve is in profile, the other's backs are facing the camera, so the actual "ass" size/shape is hard to determine. All of the models are white. Here's the ad:

Most people's arguments against this campaign can be summarized as this: 1. "All asses were not created equal" implies that some asses are lesser than others, 2. There is no ethnic diversity in the models chosen 3. All of the models are, well, model thin and they do not properly represent the "average American" but since I'm writing this, we'll use "average North American".

So here are my thoughts on this. I'll preface by saying I'm a "white" female, who is currently "over-weight" but hasn't always been, and has virtually NO ASS (yeah, fuck off, anyone reading this already knows that—WHATEVER!), so as far as desirable asses go, I'm kind of the bottom of the totem pole here (which is a really stupid comparison because the bottom of the totem pole is the most important animal/being because it's what holds the rest up, but that's not my point here).

Here are my points:
1. "All asses were not created equal" states exactly what it .. well, states. Not all asses are the same. This is not a statement of merit or one implying self worth in relation to one's ass. Connotatively, to some degree, the phrase "all [plural nouns] were not created equal" indicates some measure of worth, yes. But when you look at an ad, you have to remember, that unless it's a public service announcement, it's point isn't to make you feel better about yourself or actually aid you in some way. It's to get you intrigued, make you understand what the product is, and to demonstrate why you might need (this is crucial, but may be becoming less crucial with generation WANT on the rise) or want the product—how you would benefit from it in some way. I would argue that the sense of worth is supposed to imply that trying to find a pair of jeans with no luck is what the phrase in question refers to. The rest of the ad then demonstrates that they have three distinct varieties of fit to cater to your asses' needs, unlike other clothing manufacturers who don't see different shapes as worth merit, hence the problem most women have when finding jeans. Not some batcrap repressed self-worth issues y'all are projecting onto this ad.

2. This point relates to the crucible phrase in question. Ok. So. Imagine this ad with some skinny white broad as the slight, an athletic yet curvy person with olive skin as the demi, and someone with black skin as the bold. Can you FATHOM the PR shitstorm that would have ensued if Levis has used the word "equal" and then demonstrated ethnic diversity with the women in the ad? I can see how they could have had a slender darker skinned person as the slight, and a pasty, white, glow-in-the-dark type with child bearing hips as the bold (and that would have subverted pop-culture's racist assumptions about who falls into each category), but I still maintain that the same people who assume the word equal connotes value would in some way find fault with the ethnic markers of the person selected to portray each shape. For a company, it's a lot easier to just show a middle ground. And honestly, we have no idea what ethnic background each of those models has. Maybe demi curve is First Nations, and Bold is from the Middle East. We (well, you, but since there's no I in team, we) are assuming that palour indicates culture, which it does not always. Plus, Levi's have always had a lot of ethnic diversity, in the sense that their models look like they are from visible minorities. Nit picking this ONE ad is... well, nit picking.

3. I agree that the women in that ad are all pretty thin. Probably more thin thin is healthy, but I'm not a doctor, nor am I about to find out who they in order to find out their BMI and ask them to take a fitness exam on an elliptical trainer. Quite frankly I don't care that much. These women don't represent the average North American. But guess what? At this point, the average North American is best demonstrated by the before picture on a Jenny Craig ad. And that's not fucking healthy, either. I will concede that in their mass marketing campaigns, Levi's has done a pretty shitty job at showing "real people of real shapes and sizes" wearing their clothing, aside from the fact that these people are not mannequins, like the ones in this B-roll ad:

Shitty ad. Sweet song. Worth the listen. Anyway, my point is that for "the average person" who IS a healthy weight, and who exercises regularly, and has a functioning self esteem and some self worth, these models aren't people they need to become like, they're just people wearing pants. Pants that they, as slightly different looking people who also wear pants, might like to wear. For fuck sake, I don't see a black woman in an ad and think "Fuck. I love those pants, but I can't buy them. They're for black people only." So why would a fat/bigger/curvier/heavier-set/however-you-want-to-word-it-person look at this ad and think , "Well, me, I like those pants, but a skinny person is wearing them in the ad. I live under a rock and assume everything is marked O/S, so I guess those just aren't the ones." I mean, I currently think, "I wonder if they make them in my size?" and then I go online and see if they do. And if they do (and they do, for the record), I subsequently think "SWEET!" and if they don't, I blog about what a bunch of fucks they are. Kidding! I think "fuck you" and move on.

Anyway, I decided to do some investigating last night, and what I discovered on the Levi's site was pretty cool. You can search a section by size/style/curve ID and see REAL WOMEN wearing YOUR SIZE in whatever style of jeans YOU (assuming you're a person who wears "women's" jeans) usually wear. Here's the link: http://store.levi.com/gallery/default.htm?curve=slight It's preset to go to pictures of assless wonders such as myself, but you can change the parameters to see others. These women are real, with arms that flap, back rolls, squat legs and skins of all colours. Just like me and you and other people too. It's interesting. It's worth checking out. And you know what? I think it's less condescending than other ad campaigns that have reached out to women of all shapes and sizes. Why? It doesn't tell me I need new soap to be beautiful. It just says "Hey, your ass might not be the standard unit of jean measurement. Ours are different. Give us a try."

They don't promise a firmer, tighter ass in just fourteen days. Just something to cover it with.

You Know What?

2010-08-20T00:09:00.001-07:00

My Amma just died, I'm 1700 in debt, I have realized I've fallen back into a negative behaviour cycle, but really?

My life is pretty fucking amazing and I'm grateful for everyone I know and love. I'm excited for tomorrow every night when I go to sleep.

I like this.

What the fuck difference does it make?

2010-07-22T00:36:00.000-07:00

Maybe I'm being overly sensitive. But I don't think so.

Anytime I have applied for something/voted for something/seems like anytime I did anything online, I have been asked at some point what my gender is. And I am given (usually) two options. Male. Female.

Case in point, this stupid thing I just tried to do.

So, apparently there is some Grease Sing-A-Long on tour that's coming to different cities. You have to vote so that it comes to your town. Well what the fuck, why not? I like Grease, and I like singing along!

So I click, and I go to the site.

And I vote: Vancouver! Declare!

And then I have to fill in a questionaire. Which I could maybe understand if I was answering something vaguely more important. Maybe. But not really. And I can kind of understand parts of it, like the E-mail, to make sure people don't spam (lol, like that stops people/bots). But really, what the fuck difference does it make what my "gender" is (and what they mean is biological sex, I hope, but more on this later) or for that matter, my age? So someone can give me more directed ads during the show? For shoes! And ma hair!! And foods! And for stuff to make me skinny and young!! ? And why the hell am I, OOPS!, not allowed to submit the form without telling them what my genitals look like and how much use they've gotten? A lot of forms like that at least give you the option of selecting "prefer not to say". But not this one. "Error! You're a weirdo—PICK A TEAM!!!"

Folks, gender is what's in your head (this is debateable, and more research questioning this is in the works along with more supporting it), but regardless, not everyone feels "female" or "male". They might be gender queer. Or trans. Or whatever. And biologically speaking, they might be intersex. Approximately 0.1% of the population is. And it really doesn't make a difference what they say. All that Grease Sing-A-Long needs to know is that there is a fucker (or maybe an asexual, who knows) from a certain city that wants to have some summer loving and sing while they do it.

Differences don't help us none.

...

2010-06-25T02:09:00.000-07:00

I sit
on my patio
and drink a beer
and smoke
a cigarette
and I think of you.

I wonder if you want me in your life,
if my presence in your life is just an annoyance,
if you've forgotten me in your life
if you're angry I couldn't be ok soon enough.

I don't have any allegory,
symbolism,
synechdoche,
allusion,
metaphors,
images.

I just have this.

That's So Gay

2010-06-16T12:38:00.000-07:00

Yup, I'm doing it.

I never thought I would really care about people saying the word gay. It seemed overly sensitive. Was it really an epidemic?

But after spending more time around the general (non-gay) public, I have realized that it is.

Seriously, every five words: gay. So gay. And it doesn't help that the kind of person who usually says it says it like "ooooohhh, that's sooo gaaaayyyyyyeeeee-uh"

The irony is that I don't mind if someone who is gay uses it. Around homos and other neredowells, I will drop "that's so gay" like it's hot. But there's a kind of humour there for me that makes me want to. My best gay friend says she loves her girlfriend so much, and I call her a gay lord? Well, she kind of is a gay lord for saying that. It's also a term of endearment in a sense, since I'm essentially saying "hah, that's awesome, bro." Or telling my other gay friends that they're fags for watching Glee. Well, they are fags. And they watch Glee. The fact that they watch Glee has nothing to do with it, and on some idiotic level, that amuses me to no end. And if any of them were to call me a stupid dyke, I would probably feel warm and fuzzy inside, like watching a baby bunny nuzzle a spring flower.

But listening to my co-workers call something gay? Nails on a blackboard. Makes me want to scream "THAT'S SO (NEGATIVE DESCRIPTION OF WHAT THEY'RE LIKE)!!!!!!" and then give them the crazy eyes. Or maybe the "could've had a V8" noggin bump.

So my solution is that we rise up, and reclaim gay. Make it ours. Take it back.

.... I'm not good at inspirational writing.

Things I hate Doing Out of Boredom

2010-05-25T15:43:00.000-07:00

It's been a while. Months? Years? Whatever.
An update unrelated to the integrity of this post: in a freak eyebrow waxing incident, I lost half of the eyelashes on my right eye yesterday. It's not the most noticeable thing in the world, but I notice it right away when I look at myself in the mirror. I'm tempted to have my own little Shiva, for the loss of my eyelashes, mainly so the mirrors get covered and I don't have to see myself all the time. It's odd how attached you are to little things about yourself. Eyelashes: of all the body parts, who would have thought? Although, I am fairly vain about my eyes (as you might have guessed), so my level of discomfort isn't that surprising. Oh well, this will make for amazing drunk stories in a few months!

Anywhoo, as I am only taking one course this semester and still only working three days, I actually have free time. This is a good thing, but today I have found myself bored out of my wits. I know I should be cleaning the bedroom, or reading ahead for this class or looking into volunteer work or exercising to stave off the fat, or something useful, but I found myself sitting infront of the TV (no cable, so playing Animal Crossing) for three hours, and then in front of the computer for three more.

In an attempt to occupy some more time before Amanda gets home and I can torture her for attention, I have decided to compile for you a list of things that I hate doing out of boredom. Ready, set, vegitate.

1. Eating

Don't get me wrong, I love to eat. Food is wonderful and good and necessary——starving bad. With that said, nothing sucks more than realizing an hour or two too late that you weren't even hungry in the first place and that you have singlehandedly mowed through a family sized bag of chips/pop corn while watching a show or movie you didn't care about in the first place. This is when the self disgust and shock kicks in. Also the feeling of desperation, because a) you're too full to move and b) you know that no amount of cardio/pilates/whatever can take away the dents in your ass that mega value pack of Cheetohs will inevitably leave.

2. Cooking

This one is related closely to reason numero uno: if you are in the kitchen, you are close to food, and the chances of over eating are high. As well, I find that when I cook, the temptation to sample everything that I'm cooking whilst doing so is just too much, and then once it is actually all put together, I help myself to a regular portion of it, thereby eating enough for two people. As well, it means if you're bored the next day, chances are, you will partake in activity number one.

3. Watching porn

I don't know what it is about watching human beings stick things in other human beings, but we are obsessed. On days when I'm bored, the thought "I guess I could watch porn....??" usually occurs at some point, followed by the dismal, sad, distracted and bored watching of it. Maybe it's appealing because I'm making the same stoney, disinterested face as most of the girls in it.

4. Playing Video Games

I really hate this one because even a video game where you can't do a whole hell of a lot can suck up a good portion of your day (see me playing animal crossing for three hours today). How can electronically fishing with the click and point of a Wii remote be that satisfying? The money. That, and the fact that an uncoordinated idiot like me can actually manage to do it (I have caught a fish before, but it took me like five hours to catch one. Not very rewarding, IMO). As well, I have successfully paid off three mortgages now in the span of a month and a half. The saddest part is the accomplishment of getting 30 000 bells when I'm not sure that I made the minimum payment on my line of credit last month. Unfortunately, Bells do not translate into Dollars. This should not be rewarding, and I know on some level what a pathetic ode to capitalism I'm partaking in.

5. Watching Videos and TV Shows You Don't Really Care About

I think this one sucks for me, because without cable, it means I'm wasting something of limited supply, more of which can only be procured with more capital. Once I'm done season whatever of Some Dumb Show, I won't get anymore, either because I can't have season next, the show ended then, or it's in post-production. And then what will I do? I feel the need to limit myself to x amount of episodes per day, such that I can be amused at least until my next pay cheque. As well, when I'm watching something that I'm not that interested in, just or the sake of watching something, I'm depriving myself of the sheer joy of watching something when you really want to watch it, for what it's about, not just the fact that it is. Because TV shows only come on once a week, they do the limiting for us, and offer the incentive of repeats and variety. We can watch Some Stupid Disposable Show while waiting for That One We Watch Religiously to come on and not feel bad, because Disposables come on all the time and re-runs can be watched any old night where we can't sleep.

I think this might be one of the most depressing things I've ever written.
Ugh. I hate days like this.

Nothing

2010-04-09T22:47:00.000-07:00

Is what you've heard from me lately. For a number of reasons. I don't actually know what the are, but I'm sure there are a number of them.

It's not that I don't know what I want to do with my life, but I just feel like... like when I look in the mirror I have no idea who the fuck is looking back at me.

I feel alien in my body. I've gained at least thirty pounds since I last had the guts to step on a scale. I looked at my feet last night and realized I hadn't painted my toes since New Years Eve. Usually I always wear toe nail polish. Always.

I look around at my apartment and I see the good intentions and beginnings of plans to make things better that have amassed into garbage. Little tasks like daily upkeep feel like they're too much and so I'm surrounded by filth.

Everything just feels like too much. And I don't even really know what that means.

So I made an appointment with my doctor on Tuesday because although I've felt like this before and it has passed, I'm sick of feeling crippled and like I'm broken half the time. I can't spend half my life waiting to feel good.

Tell Her She's More Than Just A Pretty Face

2010-02-03T17:27:00.000-08:00

Apparently Facebook memes are the only thing I bother writing about. This is a sad realisation.

Anyhow, there's a Facebook group/event, called "Tell Her She's Beautiful". Don't get e wrong, I'm not opposed to trying to combat the popular theme of girls and women to be self deprecating through positive means. I also really like that the creator included that men feel self-consciious, too, but that it is a predominantly female trait. How very feminist of him (it's not all bad news, yay!)

But here's my personal (which, by extension is political, but I don't much feel like getting into "society's" crap today) take on it: I'd like to be more than beautiful in a generic sense. I'd like to be told that on more than just a few days out of the year. I'd like to be appreciated for more than just my exterior/interior beauty. I want to be appreciated for everything I am, not just my superficial identity.

The creator of the group points to the media as a major source for women's insecurity issues. And I don't refute that point. But I do feel that a little bit of critical thought exercised when consuming media goes a long way. It doesn't take a genius to realize that the "real people" in ads aren't real life real. They're advertising real. And for ads to have an agency over our lives, we have to give them that. Billboards don't forcibly take that away from us.

So anyway, here's my main point: if you feel the need to give some female in your life a nugget of sunshine sometime near Valentine's Day because you feel that they aren't feeling totally good about themselves, tell them they're beautiful, but let them know they're more than just their feminine attributes. Tell them why you admire them, and why they're a good friend. Tell them what the excel at. Show them the timeless awesome parts of their identity that you see in/on or with them everyday that they migh not always get a chance to see in the mirror.

The Colour of My Bra Will Cure Cancer

2010-01-08T14:16:00.000-08:00

Ah, yes. Internet memes. I don't remember the last time I talked about them, but nonetheless, here I go.

I think anyone with a Facebook profile now knows that yesterday, every woman was supposed to update their Facebook status with the colour of their bra. Somehow, this was supposed to promote Breast Cancer Awareness. I had a number of visceral, personal responses to the matter. To make my life easier, I'm going to go through them chronologically, because that makes the most sense to me.

I was sitting in a Gender Studies class, looking at my phone (a horrible student, I know), trying to figure out what the fuck all of these colours were in my friend's facebook statuses. My phone has been acting up recently, so I figured I might have missed something, and googled it. The first results basically stated that people were doing it to raise breast cancer awareness (and to confuse the boys, TEE HEE!!! @^_^@).

I personally do not agree with Run For The Cure or The Canadian Breast Cancer Association. I don't trust any major disease/condition awareness "group" (corporation) that has come about as a money making "fundraising group" in a capitalist economy? Why? Basic economics says that it's not financially responsible for these diseases to be cured. I don't know the exact figures, but I can only guesstimate that there are thousands of people employed by these organizations searching for cures. If the diseases were cured, all of those jobs would go away, and all of the funds being allocated towards that research would go elsewhere (which could be a good or bad thing, depending). I guess I sort of see this as the homeless person/vagrant who asks for money because s/he's hungry, and then when you give them food they throw it back in your face and tell you to go fuck yourself.

As well, I don't agree with the sexist ways Brest Cancer support groups and therapy operates. If I were dying, I wouldn't want to be treated like an infant, given teddy bears and colouring books to help me express my feelings. What the fuck am I talking about? "Welcome to Cancerland: A Mammogram Leads to a Cult of Pink Kitsch", an article in Harper's magazine about Barbara Ehrenreich's personal experience with cancer, and the infantilisation, and the bastardisation of feminism that Breast Cancer Foundations have used for their benefit. If you care to read the article, you can do so here!

On a personal level (which feminists and co. know is also political, but that's another story), I don't agree with chemotherapy and radiation as a form of cancer treatment. I know that it has successfully treated many people's cancer, but poisoning one's self as a method of healing just seems counter-intuitive. I'm not opposed to Western medicine entirely, just this, and a few other parts of it. I am opposed to the oppressive force of the medical (and pharmaceutical) industries, however. I think everyone, no matter what they're issue/disease/ailment is, should always research their options fully before proceeding. But I'm a paranoid person. And my methodology isn't necessarily yours, and I don't expect it to be.

Anyway, I saw the colours, and realized what was what. So I updated my status as "Fuck the pink cult of hegemonic femininity". And then a Facebook friend linked to Another of Ehrenreich's articles that she published on the topic of updated your Facebook status, found here. You may think using Ehrenreich as my only source to weaken my argument. I think that validates my belief that her voice was relevant and still is relevant in regards to this topic. She basically says that campaigns like this mask the real problems that our society faces in terms of cancer, and that women need to focus on larger issues than just the diseases that plague us, but the way those diseases are considered and treated.

And I've come to realize that I shouldn't be upset at this because it relates to Breast Cancer Foundations/Awareness. That's petty and it focuses only on me and my biases, rather than the bigger picture and the betterment of society as a whole.

I should hate it because it is completely pointless, and does nothing to raise awareness about Breast Cancer, and is an attention seeking and sexist move that perpetuates negative gender stereotypes. Checking your bra colour doesn't prevent cancer. If the message said "check your bra colour, and then feel yourself up and make sure you don't have any lumps", I could get behind that. Posting your bra colour to taunt the boys? No. I'm not twelve. Nor do I expect most men to be drooling idiots that can't google "facebook colour status update" nor see that his female friend just joined the group "♥ change your facebook status to your bra colour for breast cancer awareness!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ♥". I also don't think that updating your bra colour in your facebook status is going to give some guy a woody, or even a chubby, unless he lives in some puritanical alternate universe where he doesn't see cleavage and bra straps every day.

As well, who's to say that bras are limited to females, or equate having breasts? Some men like to wear bras. And they probably won't get breast cancer, unless they choose to undergo a sex change, where the hormones would increase their chances of getting breast cancer. Why are they removed from the equation? Why aren't men allowed to support breast cancer, and why is it that when men rally to support women's rights, some stupid women's lib nut case knocks them down, and says they're detracting from "women run organizations"? I guess their genitals prevent them from showing empathy and support. But that doesn't explain female protesters at the Polytechnique massacre holding signs that said "Dead men don't rape", does it?

It's also trans-exclusive, as it assumes boys are boys (without breasts) and girls are girls (with breasts), and as all girls have breasts, all good girls should wear bras. Anyone who doesn't lies in a marked outcast group. I know that this is knee-jerk, and that no one sent out messages that said "no trannies allowed". But they weren't included. They weren't thought of. An entire group of people just got passed over, and no one noticed or cared, and most people reading this probably think I'm nuts for giving a fuck, and are wondering if I'm planning on getting a mastectomy or something. Don't worry, my breasts will live to see another day. And hopefully on one of those other days, people can support something without having to figure out if their sex/gender/sexuality/skin colour/anything is going to prevent them from doing so.

After writing this, I now realize that this is why parent's have deemed my Facebook "not-kid friendly", and probably also why I'm lacking in any social life.

No seriously, invite me to your dinner parties! I'm a fantastic conversationalist, I swear!!!

Death

2009-12-17T10:14:00.000-08:00

Death is a funny thing. Everyone knows it happens. It's around us everyday, all the time. People are dying every day, from they moment they're born; some people are just a little closer to the actual moment. The longer we exist, the more we experience death. And yet it doesn't seem to get any easier with each passing. The combined pain of everyone we've lost builds: the knowledge that we can survive without them keeps us grounded, but the knowledge that life will never go back, and will always be life without them haunts us, plagues us, taunts us.

Those of us who believe in an afterlife or reincarnation know, as far as a person can know something like this, that death is actually a rebirth. Even the scientific know that energy can never be destroyed nor created. Even if death is just a transmission of potential energy, stored in carbon chain bonds being broken down after one is buried in the earth, no one ever just goes away, or ceases to end. Even if death is a transmission from physically living to living in memory, they're still there, just in past tense.

Death shakes most of our foundations, and yet it happens without notice. When someone dies, time doesn't stop. There's no hiccough in history. In one second, someone is here, and the next they're just not. If we wanted to, we could probably time death down to the millisecond, or the microsecond. In a moment, you know and feel that they are gone from you forever, and as much as you want them to be able to hear you say "I love you, I'll miss you." and however much you know that they already knew that, the knowledge that you can't do it again is, simply put, heartbreaking.

I wonder if David Suzuki likes art....

2009-12-14T10:26:00.000-08:00

I should start this like any good feminist writer would, and state my biases. I love The Tyee (http://www.thetyee.ca). Their articles are a little less sparkle and shine than The Georgia Straight, but as far as I can tell, they're also a newer, online only news source (green points for them, but I'll get back to this later). Anyway, I spend more time than any sane person should reading news articles/related blogs online. So last night when I wasn't tired yet, so stayed up and started reading (I thought Amanda would be upset that I wasn't in bed to fall asleep with her. This morning she admited she got to sleep with her knee up for the first time and had a better sleep than she can remember; so much for that theory), I found an article by David Suzuki. Or the foundation. Something like that. Anyway, as usual, it was written for the masses—very simple, very straight forward, very linear. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, I just like reading things written for post secondary level readers, because it's what I'm used to, and because I feel like I'm being taught a lesson by some authority figure that thinks I'm slow when things are dummed down to that level (but that probably says more about me and my insecurities around my intelligence, not Suzuki and co's writing style).

In any case, the article raised good points and was informative. Thumbs up. But what I found the most interesting was the comments left on it. I don't believe in didactic knowledge, I think knowledge should be dialogic (a conversation versus being told and accepting something), so I am always interested in what the general readership had to say about a piece. This is the article I was reading: http://straight.com/article-271903/vancouver/david-suzuki-protecting-nature-our-neighbourhoods-saves-us-money , but now that I've gone back and looked at all the Suzuki articles on The Straight, it's surprising, but I never used to pay all that much attention.

Anyway, read that one, don't, read the comments, don't, read others and their comments or, perhaps maybe, don't! Whatever the case, the point is the comments on all of the articles (albeit some are posted by the same people again and again) show that there is some disagreement over Suzuki and Co's legitimacy as a Non-Partisan group. The main tenant of this backlash being an article in The Tyee (http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/BC-Politics/2009/04/15/SuzukiChairLiberalSupporter/) , which details how James Hoggan (the Suzuki Foundation's chairperson amongst other things), has given over $8G's to The Liberal Party over the last few years. Ok, stop. Before everyone freaks out, I want to clarify: I think David Suzuki cares about the environment and is a good person—I don't hate him; Hoggan is one person and is not indicative of the Foundation as a whole; I do not think this makes anything the foundation does any less important, nor does it make their arguments/suggestions any less legitimate. On the other hand, Hoggan is the chairperson, not the office assistant that gets everyone's coffee, and it's important to know the political ties that underlie what the public is told is non-partisan and generally marketed as a kind of holier-than-the-next organization.

While this may be a bit red-herring, I think it's interesting to note how The Foundation, as pointed out by commentators and the articles, has generally backed the Liberal party in their initiatives, while not others (particularly the NDP). And while that is true, the NDP was a little less radical in their approach to climate change, understanding the party as representative of middle class to lower middle class, unionized, working folks, it was in their party's supporter's best interest to not support a tax that would increase the voter's cost of living by whatever-fold. Being environmentally friendly is really important, but so is being able to afford housing and food (though, I'm sure the homeless have much smaller ecological footprint, so maybe more homelessness is better for the environment. Better yet, dead people make good fertilizer, so it's really win win win for the environment either way).

This is hardly a "scandal". Any kind of rights-activist, as long as they are a tax-paying citizen, is also a voter and will have a political preference. Assuming that one's voting preference ends after submitting a ballot is ridiculous; none of us can say our political leanings haven't influenced other parts of our lives. This isn't abnormal or wrong, in any way. That said, it's still important information, as it helps show the inter-connectivity of the political/social ties in this city and country. The more you know, and such.

Feminazis: Just a Bunch of Cissies.

2009-12-06T14:59:00.000-08:00

I haven't done this in a while. I've been busy dealing with my scholarly demons, and since those are nearly all dealt with, I've decided to write in a manner that I actually enjoy (although, I can't lie, I've been enjoying writing essays all semester, which I think is a definite positive). Anyway, here goes:

Since "coming out" as a feminist, I have realized how crazy most "feminists" are, and have come to learn more about fanaticism and polarity from them than I could have from any religious fundamentalist. Sadly, I think an analogy involving Cesar Milan's dog training theories is appropriate in this case (I will not make the obvious joke, involving a bunch of crazy bitches). Dogs, he says are motivated and act in a number of ways: fight, flight, avoidance, and submission, touting submission as the ideal state for a dog (submissive and calm, to be exact). Hold on, calm down, stay with me: I don't think the only good feminist is a calm and submissive feminist that responds to tongue-clicking (that is, however, how I like my lesbians). What I do think, is that to some degree, all beings respond to situations in terms that can approximate to these. People either respond aggressively, passive or assertive, they pretend nothing happened, or become enraged about something else, or they just let things happen, which is all too often confused with a "laissez-fair" approach. Well, not confused, because that is what it is, and how it's known. What apathy is sold to us as, is the Canadian way, which I don't think is so. I think our ethos operates through irony, but that's another blog post.

Back to feminism. What I see today, at least what I see being popularized in the media, is a brand of feminism that is just as fear-based, biased, sexist, and exclusionary, therefore just as useless as ever. What the fuck is that supposed to mean, you wonder? Don't I appreciate anything that the other waves of feminism won me? Of course I do. I know that the feminists of yore thought they were fighting the good fight. I appreciate what they did, and I am not forgetting the bravery they must have had to speak out against the oppressive forces of patriarchy.

But I'm wondering if fundamentalist feminists today have forgotten that that war was "fought". I don't think it's over, personally, but I think the general public hears someone complaining about the male-dominance of society, and sums it up in their head, connotatively, as "someone bitching about men, yet again". And this is partially right. Feminists wanted equality. This often means substantive equality, but I think this notion of being equal is used disproportionately. If you want to fight for equality, the most subversive way I can think to do so, is to fight for the betterment of everyone. If you want to radicalize things, don't wait for things to change. You, we, I, pronoun has to make the change.

It would probably help if I clarified what's got my proverbial panties in such a knot. And for that, I'm going to point you in the direction of The Georgia Straight, my trusty news source.

1. The Lu's Pharmacy Kuffuffle
Basically, the Vancouver Women's Health Collective opened a pharmacy that was run by women, for women, and was going to operate in the Down Town East Side. It was supposed to make women living in that area feel safer, and cater to the people in that area. But then they refused to serve a trans-woman, citing that she was not a woman-born-woman. Is it just me, or is the term "woman-born-woman" a little too biblically resonant?

Also, assuming birthright should give you access to services is... a little too Medieval for my liking as well. If someone has transitioned, they will have had to go through years of counselling, and would have had to undergo major surgery. If someone is living as the opposite sex, I think they've gone through enough hurdles, and probably dealt with enough, having to live as the opposite sex before being given hormones to help their cause. I hate going out in public on days when I have run out of clean laundry, or have been to amassed in piles of books to be read to shower. I can't imagine what going out in public in a body you don't feel is your own, wearing clothes society doesn't see as "yours" because of the department you bought them in. No, these trans women didn't get their period in highschool the way is cissies did. They got to go through something pretty close to that during their adulthood. They get to be objectified and made to feel lesser-than by men now, the way us cissies do now, after being treated as lesser than by their chromosomal-compadres for being cross-dressing freaks previously. Call me a bleeding heart, but I think having a lived understanding of the difference between male and female is enough knowledge of "being woman" to get into our special little pharmacy.

So far as I can tell, the pharmacy is still for "woman-born-women" (ironic point to note: isn't anyone who didn't come from a test tube "woman born"?) or, in what I guess is "transpeak" to femilinguists, cis-exclusive.

2. The Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Outreach Centre uses the Polytechnique massacre's anniversary to push their agenda.
What the fuck is wrong with that? you may be wondering. Well, nothing, really. I don't think that someone shooting a group of women and beating your spouse is really the same thing. Spousal abuse is very intimate: you know your partner; you live with our partner. Spousal abuse is more than just getting the shit beat out of you, and so I find the link between shooting strangers because of a mental illenss and as a political statement and beating the fuck out of your partner, mentally, sexually, verbally, any adverbally way you please, to be two entirely different things. Jut because women get hurt in both cases isn't good enough. Guns being phallic symbols isn't good enough, either. This is a slippery-slope argument. Women also get hurt during childbirth. So let's call childbirth inverted rape, in that it's not penetrative, it's excretative, but it hurts and involves the vagina, so it's bad. Cesarians for all! Anyone making that argument would be viewed as the nutter that they are, and so should anyone trying to compare a massacre to an intimate, subversive act of violence.

I want to make something very clear: I think that the services The Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter offer are crucial, and have probably saved a lot of women's lives. What they are doing is beneficial. However, I disagree with the way they choose to operate, and I fear they walk the man-hating line a little too closely. It is these kind of biases that make feminist look like a bunch of man-haters, and ultimately do little to better anyone's lived reality. And isn't the point of these organizations to make life better for everybody, not just one group?

Ok, back story. Kimberly Nixon was refused to become a counselor at the shelter because she wasn't born a woman. She had lived for one as twenty years, and had suffered spousal violence, but wasn't allowed to aid other women, on the basis that her vagina was man made instead of nature made, basically. If you want to read the VRR&WS's version of the story, click here. I love how they made note of the fact that she has not paid the shelter back, like it's a debt to society. Ok, it is a debt to society, but not allowing trans women the same positions as cis women is a debt to the trans-community portion of our collective society.

How is this right? As feminists, we're supposed to be fighting for equality for everyone, and in the universe I live in, that includes trans people and men, alike. I've seen them, with my own eyes. For real, they exist. And they have feelings, too. And they have useful life experience. And they can, if anyone bothered to ask, give valuable insight (valuable instead of useful, since monetary gain and losses seems so important in this case) as to why violence happens, the difference between M and F, and what insane power the stick people bathroom designation signs have and hold over our society.

But no! We can't talk to them! They're men! They were men! They're those goddamn traitor dykes, who want to be men! They're playing for the enemy!... Wait, what? If we understand the world through this lens, we only play up the importance of difference, and will only remain a society divided by them. If we focus on inequality, that is all there is. If we hold on to the past, our past, trans people's past, inequality women experienced in the past, we won't have a future that's any different. Refusing to let a trans woman help other women assumes that she is lesser than. They placed (forced) Kimberly Nixon in a submissive position to cis woman——this is not equality at work. This is a fear of anything born of man. This is treating someone who is/was (technically speaking, not at heart) a man as bad because of genetics.

Considering the wars that have been fought over genetics, I don't think this is a smart political decision. In the Q-munity, it makes sense for one group to support other facets of the community's cause. Why? Because we're all in the minority here. A weird, psuedo-visible minority that kind of hangs out on the fringe of that "other" community, where the heteros and the cis people enjoy their birthright advantage over us. No, it doesn't directly help a gay man to support feminists, but when the feminists and the dykes back them on something, it seems a little more important. So for these Women's groups to say no to part of the Q-munity, part of THEIR community, it seems like a very stupid move. These fringe groups look idiotic, being so politically divided. I personally want to be treated like every other hetero, cis person out there, but when political allies are busy flailing about, disagreeing, it's understandable why it's hard to be taken seriously. I'm not saying communities should wage wars on others. I'm saying if we want equality, we have to look beyond our boundaries of personal space, and perhaps help someone else fight for their rights in order to secure our own.

I want to have children. I want to have children with my lesbian partner. I don't want my daughter to feel that she is at odds with her male friends at school. I don't want my son to get things he doesn't deserve because of his penis. And if my child feels like ze was born the wrong gender, I hope ze is able to live zer life any damn way ze pleases, whether that means surgery or not, and that no one tells zem that ze can't help people heal because of that.

Are you there, God? It's me, Rachel.

2009-09-10T18:31:00.000-07:00

I got to thinking, while sitting on my couch, trying to wind down but way too excited and on that too exhausted to function but hyper fifth wind, about a point in my life where I still believed in God. I was thinking about my building manager, and how she had said to another livee, in regards to someone who helped her fix the place up tearing his knee cap from the rest of his leg business, that they should just pray really hard for him.

I can vaguely remember a time, I must have been about four years old, when I would pray and I actually thought someone was listening, or at the very least, I felt connected. I guess I can chalk it up to being innocent and not knowing more about the world. Maybe the belief went away when I realized that Santa and the Easter Bunny weren't real either. If those wind like, "You don't see them, you feel them, and you know they're there, and you believe, and they make their presence known," things were all a big lie, too, what's to say God wasn't? I don't remember thinking that. I do remember feeling, when I attempted to pray when I was... I guess twelve years old, the feeling that my connection had been lost. Like I was talking to a dial tone.

I really don't remember, in those eight years between feeling something to feeling nothing, anyone saying to me "God doesn't exist." I went to private school. You got to talk about religion. No one forced any creational-type theory down my throat, until I was in highschool. My parents weren't the type to tell me that anything I believed in wasn't possible, so they definitely didn't do it.

The only thing I can think of, is going to Christian summer camp, and feeling in awe of nature, and the ocean and the smells, and the green, and the unending amount of trees, and feeling close and connected, like everything around me was alive and like the wind itself was alive and everything was humming with potential energy. And then meeting His disciples. And trying to get to know them. And always feeling, on some level, that I just didn't.... quite..... fit. Or that somehow, and in some way, I was doing it, whatever "it" was, wrong. And the more I met people that sang with their hands in the air and cried in worship, and talked about feeling full of His goodness and His love, the more I felt rigid. And unconnected. And empty.

The more I got told to put all my faith in God, because through Him, all things are possible, the more I felt torn between selling myself short and trying to let Someone Else choose my fate, and making it happen Myself. The more people told me about how they had stumbled and fallen, and trespassed, but that He had forgiven them, and he had absolved them, and picked them up, while crying so hard, the way someone who can never forgive themselves can, made me question the amount of trust I was willing to put in Someone who seemed to cause these people so much tribulation and grief, and the more I wanted to learn how to love myself, and treat mistakes as bumps in the road, ways to learn and grow, things to be thankful for.

And then as I went back year after year, the trees looked smaller. And I explored every inch of the forest, until I reached the chain-link fence around the property. The ocean seemed colder, and more gray. The juice got more watery. The cabins seemed smaller, and smelled like wet ocean towel and aquasocks. And I felt less in awe of and humbled by a presence than I felt judged. And then He became him, and i grew into The Person I Am Now.

Maybe God, or whatever that presence and connection likes to be called, and I fell out of love. Or maybe he didn't hang up on me or vice versa. Maybe I'm just on hold. Maybe one day the dead air will cease with a static click, and the dull tin hum of a live connection will start.

"Sorry, I was really busy in the Middle East. Now, what were you saying about wanting a pony?"

Stuff that's begun and stuff that be done. Y'arr.

2009-08-03T23:02:00.000-07:00

After a day spent initially groggy, then frustrated, more frustrated but full, a little sad and pensive, and then spent masturbating wildly, watching porn without worrying about headphones, playing guitar hero and watching The L Word, I’ve come to the conclusion that for the first time in a long time, I’m content. Happy, even.

And I know I’ve pretty much written that before, verbatim. But somehow this feels different. Less like a limited offer, and more like a change in the right direction. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not happy with my work situation. And I’m currently broke, says my chequing account. But I feel like slowly, I’m learning that monetary afluence and happiness aren’t necessarily the same thing. Yes, with more money I can afford to do the things that make me happy, but if I’m not living the way that makes me happy, as soon as the well of gold coins runs dry, so does my emotional well being.

I’ve always thought idea of being “emotionally wealthy” or whatever the phrase is as being trite, and a way that poor people convince themselves that they’re fulfilled, but, at the same time, I think the concept of fullfillment went completely over my head and was sadly confused with status, and other people’s impressions of me. Work for status. Date for status. Fuck for status. Love for status. Learn for status.

I still have expensive taste, and will wait to buy what I actually want at an 80% higher price than what I could just have and try to be happy with, but I think that has more to do with being the kind of person who, as removed as she was at one point from what she actually wanted and needed, know what she wants and will get it, no matter the effort, work and or cost involved.

I’m remembering what I wanted to do with my life, not what I thought I could do. And instead of feeling like it was impossible, or like I would have to be alone to achieve my goals, or like I’d have to move a province away and re-create myself, I’m feeling less like I’m confined, resource-wise, and more like I’m in control of myself. At the same time, I’m feeling much less like I need to try to control everything around me at every waking and sleeping moment, and more like I can enjoy my time—like I deserve to enjoy my time.

Some of you may think this sounds like a sad ode to Amanda. In a lot of ways, I owe her thanks for being patient and reminding me what being an individual is like. With her, I feel a lot more like a singular person than an addition to a larger entity. I feel like I have something to offer and give (not emotionally, in other ways), and potential that is going to be attractive to people. I’m furstrated with my current job because I feel like my potential, my skills, myself, aren’t recognized. Ney, rather a hindrance. And annoyance. Kind of makes people around me feel awkward. And as much as I’d like to be the gay crusader, I don’t care enough about the place itself to do that. I’d have to have some kind of ties. But I don’t. As much as I care about the cause, I don’t feel any shape, form, or variety of sentimentality or compassion for the institution.

For the first time in a long time, I’ve wanted to write. Besides this, I haven’t really. But the yearn to write, and the cogs grinding off the rust, laying out a story line, seeing a yarn weave in and out to its end hasn’t been a regular occurence in a long time. As much as I’ve brow-beat myself and scared myself out of actually doing it, I’m remembering how much I love doing it, and how, although after some essays and some profs and TA’s that thought otherwise, I can write. Well. With flair. Effectively. Attractively. While a few people hate it, a lot of others do not. Quite the opposite.

However much I’ve tried, and may have liked to pretend I was pleased with meeting satus-quo and playing along, I think I’m pretty much done.

Moving: another four letter word.

2009-07-24T22:29:00.000-07:00

My god. The amount of tears packing some boxes, loading and unloading them, along with a few articles of furniture has spurned, you would not believe. I'm pretty sure it's on par with "My Sister's Keeper".

Living with someone at your parent's house versus living with someone in your own space is completely different. You keep saying it's not. But it is. It's... a million times more awesome.

.... I had a million things I wanted to write about, but I feel kind of...

It's Friday. After tomorrow I get a day off. Today wasn't that stressful.

Blah.

Done.

2009-06-24T19:47:00.000-07:00

In a few ways. I haven't done this in a while; some of you may have figured I was done. No.

I'm tired and I'm exhausted and I'm sick of running around hell's half acre just to get some hours at work.

I have 3 dollars in my chequing account; good luck compromising my card.

Anyway, before I throw in the towel, I give you this: one girl's struggle to make it home, in the face of shitty drivers, fate, and the weather. Or m drive home from work today. Whatever.

So, I leave to go to work. The gas light in my car came on part of the way home from work yesterday. It's a 30km drive, and my light comes on when I have 10L. left in my tank. I'm getting about 10.8L/100km, so I had about a milk jug left. Kind of nerve wracking.

Even better that 65th Street is two lanes, both ways, and I was in the wrong lane, so had to circle around and ended up being late. Five minutes, but still.

I also spazzed and had nothing clean left to wear. So I was wearing a) an ugly striped blouse that doesn't fit b) pants that fit until I quit smoking aka gained a bunch of weight back, so they're too short and too tight and c) a pair of pink, asian looking ballet flats. And then I french braided the top part of my hair. I'm pretty sure I looked like the Hook and Ladder special.

So I get there. And I'm... sniff. Kind of.... sniff. Smelling something... sniff. ... KInd of.... Smelling.... ME? No way....

And then history rewinds itself, and I remember not wanting to be late today, so first thing I did upon getting out of bed was putting clothes on. Not deoderant. Just clothes. FUCK.

So I go to the bathroom, because I have to pee.

And it... kind of... looks... like I got my period. Yeah, yeah I did. Wooo for clumped up toilet paper (I refuse to believe I'm the only one who does this. You know you do. You don't want to admit that you walk around with wadded up TP shoved in your nook and cranny. But you have. And you will again). By the time I get back from the washroom, someone else has gone on their break. So half an hour before I can go fix myself.

I canoodle my way into getting the next break, and run to Safeway across the parking lot, and buy deoderant and some body spray, and then run to the washroom at the back to go fix myself, aka take my shirt of and wash myself off like I'm homeless and then drown in deodorant and bodyspray. And then try to use the washroom and shove an applicators tampon in myself, which, if you've ever seen my fingers, is a feat in itself. Yeah. I went there. So does Amanda most nights.

All the while, someone tries to get in the washroom, the lock of which is broken, but thankfully the lovely people of Safeway put a slidey-lock on, so my body remained nobody's body but mine. By the time I smoke (I do that again. Oh well) and get back inside, I have ten minutes to microwave a frozen burrito, and eat it. And you'd better believe I do. I almost throw up a couple of times, but I eat that damn burrito. And thank fuck I do, because if I had tried to make it home without having had lunch, I'd have died, but we'll talk more about refueling later.

We close. I balance. Woo!

I get out to my car. I'm reading texts from Amanda. Man, it's muggy. I open the window, and then proceed home. I go to leave the parking lot. I stop at the beginning of the driveway. I start foreward.

SPLAT!

A bird shits partially in my car, partially out the window, and with such force that some of the splatter gets inside my closed glove compartment, all over the passenger side door handle. FUCK! I forget to merge into traffic. FUCK! I have to wait. FUCK! I can't get into the left lane to turn left. Oh well, if I just keep going through the intersection, I can make an easy right into a gas station and put my last ten dollars into my tank so I can get home.

This is where I believe that bird shit is lucky. If nothing else, at least fortuitous. I spend a few minutes cleaning the crap off with window washer fluid. And then I go in, pay, get washroom keys and wash my hands off. Fill up (hahahahaha, I get enough with ten dollars to get about five dollars above the gas light level. Whoop), and head off. Call Amanda to explain my retarded situation. Hang up, cruise along, feeling good.

Turn on to Ladner Trunk Road.

And then

it all
comes
to
a
halt
.

And then I proceed, never going faster than 25 until I get to 88th Street, down Ladner trunk, stopped, or creeping along so that my spedometer arm never leaves the resting peg.

The guy behind me got rear ended, and possibly tapped my bumper, or I just heard the noise and had flashbacks to when I rear ended somebody like in 'Nam or something.

So then he (in a little white Toyota clunker) just sits there. And the guy in a Black Mercedes station wagon passes him on the wrong side. Yes, the guy who just hit him.

SO THEN!!! Dude in white toyota pulls up beside the guy in the mercedes in the ONCOMING TRAFFIC'S LANE. AND THEN!!! PROCEEDS TO GET OUT OF HIS CAR AND BERATE THE GUY WHILE PASSING SEMI'S ARE JUST ABOUT WHIPPING HIS ASS WITH THEIR BUMPER.

I was so afraid that he was coming to yell at me for... stopping? I don't know, that all of the muscles in my back and neck seized up and I just about start crying. Not until I was at the exit to 91A did I start to relax, and three hours later they're still sore. Anyhow, they did their little song and dance, and I continued on. Once I got past 88th, it was smooth sailing. Except once I got past the gas station there, it started to rain.

And then it poured.

And then it pelted.

Fuck. I'd already been skidding and torquing at any red light that turned green and I had to start fresh at, and it was just drizzly then. But, the rain all day and then the heat of the exhaust of hundreds of cars doing 6km/hr for that long had washed and dried the road, so now it was just wet.

The rest of my drive was uneventful. I got home, looked at my bumper and the only marks I could see looked like the ones from when I backed into the bumper of my dad's VW van. There might have been one extra one, but hardly anything that would exceed my three hundred deductible. And like hell I have three hundred bucks lying around.

So then I sit down to type all of this out while on the couch, happy that there was dinner made when I got home, and that someone left a chocolate bar on the microwave——that something went right today. And in my euphoric stupor, I forgot I had a vagina. I forgot that they bleed 1/4 of the time. In that ten seconds, life was perfect and absolutely nothing was wrong....

... oh god, fuck, oh god.

I quickly sit up and run, with my pants as low as I can wear them but remain decent (well, they werent my pats, they're Amanda's favourite pyjama pants, they just happen to be my favourite pyjama pants too, now, when she's not home), while my last ounce of shame and pride was washed down my leg in a trickle of red.

And this is where my story ends.

Or I thought it did, until I got back downstairs to sit down to write this again, and my cat, who is dying of AIDs (yeah, he's still kickin'), climbs up on the couch behind me, and just from the force of gravity, liquid of some variety comes pouring out of some bodily orrifice and onto the couch and partially my shoulder.

This is where it ends.

I'm hiding in my room, and I'm done. I'm done with this house, I'm done with debt, I'm done with having sick, half-trained animals, and pretending problems, like dying cats and gas lights, aren't there. Or trying to cover the couch up with blankets, or math out how much gas I have.

I'm done.

So done.

If Amanda is lucky, I'll curl out of the fetal position later and pick her up from SkyTrain.

You know your day sucked when the highlight is birdshit.

BULLSHIT, BULLSHIT, BULLSHIT.

2009-05-25T23:12:00.000-07:00

Fuck.

I hate to admit this, I really do, because I've always said otherwise, but it is fucking hard to find a decent place in Vancouver. Well, not Vancouver, but the trout lake/commercial drive area. Yes, I'm dyking it up, hardkore. You would think in a city full of dogs, it would be easy to find pet-friendly places. No. No it's fucking not.

I'm pretty sure at this point, the only way I'll be living in the Trout Lake area is if I start sleeping at the fucking park on a bench. I'd save hundreds on rent!

Also, if one more person I email back tells me their doing missions work in Africa, or that they're a real estate investor looking to give places away for dirt cheap so they don't have to find a landlord, and then they link to some shitty free website that includes a picture of a tree lined path AND NO FUCKING HOUSES WHAT SO EVER, I'm.... I'm just going to give up and live at home for-bloody-ever. My parents are all right people. Why the hell not? I mean, I might get my ass dumped licketty splitt, but, being single and lonely and without your lobster is awesome, right?.... errrrr.....

I'm fucking exhausted. My bedroom is too small for two people. There is no room for all of my clothing, let alone a second person's. Living out of laundry baskets doesn't fucking work. Trying to keep up with the constant out-pour of dirty clothes is impossible when there are no free laundry baskets. Living with someone who refuses to wear a shirt more than once is driving me up the wall, because I'm a crazy hippie and I think it's a waste of water and detergent and money.

Oh, and getting paid two weeks after the period you worked is bunk. Because I was getting 13 hours a week, but recently have been getting more. So I have yet to see the influx of money from the higher number of hours weeks, but am fucking exhausted from working them, and still needing money like a sonovabitch.

This is a really pathetic rant, but it's hot, I'm tired, I had a shitty fucking day, I'm not working much this week so that stresses me out, and I have to sleep alone tonight for the first time in.... a month and a half or something. I'm partially excited and partially really sad. Fuck. fuck fuck fuck.

Bullshit bullshit bullshit.

P'arrrrrrrrrrrrrno, maytee.

2009-03-25T21:31:00.000-07:00

Ok, so, the wife works at Rogers, and they were doing inventory, and found that they had an extra copy of "Pirates" the porno, so they tossed it at her when she was leaving, saying "you like pirates, here." So when she got to my place, she left it on my bedside table and we totally forgot about it. Next day rolls around. She works, I hve the day off, so go to the library and go hard on the studying for a few hours and actually accomplish some stuff.

But there is a problem. Studying makes me horny. I think it's from three years of denying myself any bedroom fun until I'm done my homework, because otherwise there is no fucking way I would get anything done. So I get home from the library and look at the clock. Two more hours 'til she's off. Bullshit.

Then I notice Pirates sitting beside my bed.

So I says to myself, I says "Well... I mean.... it couldn't hurt to just.... take a look at it. Plus, I could text her during. Which would make for a fun car ride home... " So I pop in one of the two disks in the little dust sleeve the pair came in. The one with two ladies on it. I figured this was a safe bet. Sadly, it was disk two of two, featuring bios, the making of, and bloopers. .... None of these are my idea of pornographic fun. porn bloopers just make me think of Hai2u and... no thanks. Eject.

Put the other in.

"The disk format not supported" flashes on the DVD player screen. Bullshit. Oh well.

I hit eject. "The disk format not supported" flashes on the screen.

"Yes, I'm aware," I think to myself. I hit eject.

disk format not supported.

...... eject, eject, eject.

not supported, not supported, not supported.

..... Oh fuck. EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT!

NOT SUPPORTED

At this point I'm picturing the conversation at Simply Computing I'd be having "I uhhh... was just uhh.. holding it for a friend.... in my ... disk drive... and it got stuck..." but then realized I could manually eject it from the desktop if I closed DVD Player. Phew.

So I say a few curses at the disk, and toss it into the loose-paper pouch of one of my little notebook/clipboards that I use for school, which I shove in my bag, so as to not break the disks and to not forget to give it back.

So go pick her up with bag and DVD in tow, go back to her place and... conveniently forget about DVD's and fixate more on slots. Needless to say, I overslept this morning and ended up being a half hour late for class.

So I run in, sit down as quietly as I can, place my notebook down on the desk, and flip it open.

And what should pop out and slide across the desk?

Pirates.

Goooooooodtimes.

I just had the most awful fucking realization I've had in a long time

2009-03-11T03:30:00.001-07:00

I fucking hate English.

Well, no. I love it.

And that's the problem. I love it, I get it, I can read it and understand it, but... to write and argue about it, I just have no passion for.

I've always done it, because it was required of me. And I was good at it. And I am good at it. And I can think outside the box. And interpret. And write a good paragraph, with a topic sentence, and write a good essay, with a detailed thesis.

But I'm not passionate about it. I just... sort of do it, because. Because people told me I should. Because I was rewarded for it. Because of some stupid arbitrary grade I was assigned based on my ability to perform like a trained animal.

And I just kind of take classes, because.

And I don't know what the hell to do with this. Or about this. Or to fix this.

You know what I wanted to be for, like, ever? A doctor. I love the human body. I love helping people. I want to fix people. Make them better. Make a fucking difference. I don't want to fucking read mouldy old books and write shitty fucking papers about them and adhere to some old pompous asshole's idea of what is right and how one must consider art, and literature as art while sitting in a stuffy office surrounded by dead trees bound in cloth, stored on more dead trees and boxed in by concrete.

I want to fucking read books because I like them again. I want to read poetry for the sake of loving the words and ideas and emotions.

I just want to fucking enjoy something and not fucking tear it apart until I'm left with a million little scraps of what was once something totally whole in my hands. Just admire it.

Is this going to write the paper that's due in four hours? No. It's not. And no matter how much I fight this and have temper tantrums, it's due and needs to get done.

But... I don't know if it will get done. Not tonight anyway.

If you've been hankering for another Wolfgang epic, the wait is over.

2009-03-09T20:37:00.000-07:00

A conversation I just had with my dad:
RING!
"Hewwo?"

"WELL HI THERE LITTLE GIRL!"

"'Ang on. I 'ave a mou'foo owv wis-uh-weeng. Ok, sorry"

"Yeah. So, is mom about?"

"No, she went out with Lilah."

"Oooooohhh, I see. Hm. So then she's not taping Medium for me."

"I don't think she realized it was on tonight. She was fixing the timer earlier, but I don't know what for."

"Huh. Well can you do it for me?"

"What channel is it on and when?"

"I don't know."

"Well that doesn't do me much good. If I find it, I will."

"Ooookay, thanks."

"Yup. Have a good night. OH! Amanda wanted to thank you for breakfast, but you were gone by the time we got up. So, thanks."

"Oh, don't worry about it"

"I know, I told her it was just putting an extra piece of toast in and an extra egg. And that she could thank you the next time she saw you."

"Yup. What time did she leave?"

"I took her to work at three, so a little before then."

"A-ha. And she was all licked clean by then?"

Yup.

CAN I HAVE YO NUMBER GIRL? CAN I HAAAAAAVE IT?!

2009-02-17T21:32:00.001-08:00

Hokai, so, I'm sitting in physics class, and this weird guy usually sits behind me to my right, and this other girl almost directly behind me but the seats are staggered, so to my left. The girl is adorable, nerdy and quiet looking, and sits as far as she can in the corner. Which is fairly similar to what I do, although, I just sit there because a) it’s close to the front and I can’t see worth shit from further back and b) I can’t stand fuckers who sit at the end of the row so that no one else can get in. ANYWAY, she seems nice, but I had no intentions of ever striking up a conversation with her because... really, I’m not a sociable person. I’m nice, and I can carry out a perfectly normal conversation, but I don’t like talking to random people I don’t know from Adam or Eve or Steve for that matter. That and she doesn’t really seem to want to talk to people either. And I am ok with that.

The guy is Middle Eastern or something, and wears your typical Euro-trash mock loafer-y leather trainers and jackets with fur trim. I really couldn’t tell you what he looks like besides “a douche” because I’d rather stare at the nerdy girl behind me, but since she’s behind me and that would be really awkward, I don’t. Anyway, he always asks girls sitting around him if they understood that last bit or if they can read that word on the board. Never a guy, always a girl. Right there he pissed me off, and that was before he had said a word to me.

Back to the future: our midterms had been returned in the last class. We never really went over the answers in class, and.. well I don’t care because I did well and knew all the parts I was fucking up on as I wrote the thing, so hey, thanks for not boring me to death, proff. Anyway, this guy was asking the girl the answer to some question about the amplitude of a wave from the exam. She didn’t have hers with her, which she told him, and he still persisted, saying “well just look at it, what did I do wrong?”

In my head I’m thinking “Fuck, I feel so sorry for her. What the fuck is this douchebag’s problem? Figure it out for yourself, don’t torture the poor thing, ass. Who the fuck do you think you are?” also, “How the fuck do you not know that the amplitude is the distance between the highest or lowest crest/trough of a wave and the point of equilibrium? What are you, some kind of noob? GOD!” so I turned around and explained that he needed to divide his answer in half because the distance wasn’t from the highest to lowest, it was highest or lowest from the point of equilibrium. And then I turned around and went back to my crossword, which I have become obsessed with. Yes, crosswords. Shut up.

Then he asks, “Sorry, and what unit is that measured in?”

“Metres,” now I’m wondering if he has some kind of disability.

“Could it be centimetres?”

This kind of shit I can put up with from five year olds. Maybe a seven year old. Not someone my age. “Whatever, just a unit used to measure distance. Probably the one given to you in the problem.”

Then he asks if he can see my exam, to which I respond, “Sure,” thinking “If it means you’ll stop asking me dumb fucking questions, have at.”

He returns it mid class, and then after class he approaches me and asks, "What's 3?"

I snort, "Excuse me? It's a number?"

“No, for one answer, you wrote three.”

“Well then it was probably the answer.....”

“No, it was a unit.”

“Um.. ok, I guess I’ll take a look at that..”

All it was was a handwritten zed in “Hertz” aka Hz. Which I explained. And then he stood there looking at me. And that’s when it all went from bad to worse.

I took ages putting that exam back into the pocket of the covered clipboard I use for that class. I painstakingly reorganized the books in my bag, desperately hoping he would take the hint and fuck off.

But no.

No, for five minutes he stood there while I rifled through my bag at half the speed of smell.

Ok. So I’d talk to him for a while out of the class. Ditch him in the hallway via taking the long way ‘round. I had thought about seeing an old TA of mine during the two hour break I have on Mondays (this was last Monday, by the by), so I’d get rid of him that way.

“What is your major?”

“English.”

“Oh. And you are taking physics?”

“Yeah. I like physics.”

“But you are so good at it.”

Blank stare. Possibly raised eyebrow. Probably the full on “Rachel thinks you’re the biggest douchebag in the world”, since I’m not so good at keeping a straight face. “Uh huh.”

He introduced himself, followed by a silent moment, until he asked me my name. If I were smart I would’ve said something else. Constantinople. Diana. Keith Richards. Anything.

But no, I went with my name and begrudgingly shook his hand. Very. Begrudgingly.

“I find this is hard class, I don’t play musical instrument. Do you?”

“I played piano for nine years.”

“Nine years? Wow.”

“Yeah, I don’t remember much though.”

“I am so wishing I could play a musical instrument. I play the guitar a bit.”

“Oh really,” said as flatly as I could, or possibly panicked, since I was looking around like a cornered small animal for an escape or a diversion, or someone I knew so I could scream “HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!” and run up and hug them even if I’d only had one class with them once and thanked them for picking up my pen when it rolled under their chair. Up until this point it really wasn’t so bad. I mean, besides the fucking obnoxious way he was looking at me, like someone lard-ass at The Keg looking at a bloody piece of veal on a white dinner plate, he’d just asked banale, stupid questions.

“What are you doingk after class?”

“Oh! Me? uhhh... Uhh.. I have a break.” In retrospect, I should have just fucking lied my fool face off. At this point I can feel my pulse and have made it to the part of C wing where it joins the third floor of the AQ so I’m in a mass of people. How the fuck can there be NO ONE I know around? Any other day I see at least one person I know, but today? Noooo. I’m almost wishing creepy English guy would show up. Ok, not really. But at least he didn’t... I didn’t cringe the first time he talked to me. He was ok until he got all... weird.

“What about you?” I choke out, clinging onto the hope that he will have a four hour lecture far the fuck way from me.

“Ah noo. I have nothing now.”

“Oh. Oh. Uhh. .. well. I’m .... uhh. I.... I’m actually going to see an old TA of mine. So yeah. I’m meeting him. At twelve thirty. So I gotta go. OK BYE!” and I try so fucking hard to push into the sea of retards milling around like the stupid tuna in the net in Finding Nemo. But I barely move at all. And then he’s beside me again.

“We are going the same way!” he says haltingly but excitedly like some stupid child.

“Yeah. Um, I’m just trying to find the first stairway I can to get upstairs. To his office.”

“You say this is old TA of yours?”

“Yeah. Summer semester. A long time ago.”

“You still remember him?”

“Yeah. It was a good tutorial.” WHY CAN’T THESE FUCKING MORONS GET OUT OF MY FUCKING WAY, OR MOVE A LITTLE FASTER? THEY’RE ALL PROBABLY THE FUCKING IDIOTS IN DADDY’S BEAMER WHO SPEED AND TAILGATE ME EVERYWHERE I FUCKING GO, BUT NOW? OH NO. JUST MILL AROUND LIKE YOU’VE HAD A LOBOTOMY. FUCK!

“His office is in this building?

“Yeah. Upstairs. Top floor. Waaay up. Faaaaaar faar away....” I trail off. I have found the stairway. It is in my sight. It WILL be mine. “WELL THERE ARE THE STAIRS OK BYE!” I practically run. My legs are shaking. Honestly, I know this sounds completely harmless and innocent, but there was... just something. That “fuck, danger, run” feeling you get sometimes. It reminded me of the time some guy tried to pay Stella and I to deliver some letter to his girlfriend for him while we were walking home. Anyway, the TA who I was planning on seeing if he was kicking around wasn’t there, so I hid up in the AQ for two hours until my next class, in the poli sci department all by myself. And I was more than ok with this arrangement.

Wednesday. We get our latest assignment and two other hand outs. He sits where he usually does, so does quiet girl. The prof gives him the handouts to dole out amongst the four or five of us who sit sporadically throughout that section. Damnitt.

“Here you go, Raaashell.”

He rolls the R. Here’s a random fact you can add to those other twenty I posted a while ago: I can’t fucking stand it when people use my name in conversation. I never expect it and it throws me off. It makes me think of a cheap car salesman. I especially fucking hate it when people I barely know put special emphasis on my name or try to make it theirs in some way. It’s my fucking name, not yours. Of course, the prof doesn’t hand out enough of one sheet, so he makes a point of announcing that I can have the only copy, he will get himself more.

“No. That’s ok. I’ll get my own.”

Quiet girl pipes up “Um, but..” because she’s been given none, so I turn around.

“Here you go!”

She looks thoroughly confused. Oh, sisterfriend, if you only knew.

I can’t remember how the fuck I got out of talking to him after class. I think I just booked it the fuck out of there as fast as I could, before he could get his shit together.

Friday rolls around. I piss around at home until the last minute with the intentions of coming in late so I can sit wherever this ass hat isn’t, even if it’s back on the bus down the mountain, I really don’t give a shit.

But no. My dad sees I’m going to be late and instead of driving me to the SkyTrain like he said he would, drives me all the way up to SFU.

... How the fuck can I be mad at him for going out of his way and wasting gas for me? I can’t. What I can do is hate the fucking shitbag in my class some more.

So I go to class early, but armed with two 24’s (to do both crosswords, I was totally excited!) and with my iPod on. What kind of idiot will bug someone when they’re doing a crossword and listening to an iPod?

So I sit where I usually do. Another part of this, for me, is that I don’t want to change where I sit for this shitbag. I like my spot. I can see, I can hear, no one sits directly beside me. It’s prime classroom real-estate! I refuse to look up, and brainstorm words. Fuck ass sits at the end of my row, so that I can’t leave until he does.

Fan. Fucking. Tastic. I’m trapped. There wasn’t much word crossing or music listening going on after that, only the din of “IHATEYOUIHATEYOUIHATEYOUIHATEYOUIHATEYOU” running through my mind. I’m literally furious with this kid for... being persistent? I don’t know. Part of my anger is stemming from a confusion as to why I’m so irrationally fucking angry about this, but all that really mattered in the then and there was that my nervous system has kicked into fight or flight mode again. So I sit through the class, mainly watching the clock, feeling panicked and nauseous and wanting to cry because I feel so fucking helpless.

The class ends, and I immediately shove my iPod back in and on, and try to ignore him.
No, apparently the international sign of “FUCK OFF!” doesn’t mean anything to him. Tangent: I don’t understand people who try to talk to me when I have my iPod on. You can see the fucking headphones or earbuds. I’m usually holding the damn thing in my hands either in my lap playing with it, or on top of my bag or something. I can’t fucking hear you, I don’t want to fucking hear you, WHY ARE YOU TALKING TO ME?!

Back to our regular programming.

“What are you going to do your project on?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean I don’t know?”

“... I... haven’t thought about it. I don’t care.” The entire time I’m staring at my phone, willing someone to call me, or text me. And texting people. Anything. I’m being as rude as I possibly can. No sane person will hang around while someone they don’t know is clearly so disinterested or distracted.

Perhaps I’m completely right to get the heebie jeebies as this ass can’t be sane.

“Are you taking the bus?” He hasn’t moved. He’s sitting. He won’t fucking move. I can’t get out.

“.. Yeah. Actually I’m waiting for a call from my autobody shop though.”

“Oh why.” He’s still sitting. He leans towards me. Jump back.

“I rear ended someone.”

“OH REALLY? I TOO DID THAT!”

Fucking great. Now we have something in common. Why, we must surely be kindred spirits. Meant to be. FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK. What was supposed to be a genius way to pretend to get a phone call had completely screwed me. But that’s what life likes to do to me, doesn’t it? If it can, it will screw me, in the most ironic, karmic, and embarassing but hilarious for you jerks to read way. And hey, it gives me shit to write about, so there’s that. ANYWAY. I stand. I shove things in my bag as fast as I can. I’m ready to jump over the back of my chair, reverse Roberto Begnini at the Oscar’s style. I wish I could scale walls.

“Yes, it was foggy and hard seeing, and I just hit him. I don...” I’m not listening to this guy. I’m trying to breathe deeply, I’m trying to make my brain shut up so I can think of a way out of this.

“Well. I’m waiting for a call from a friend of mine, too. I’m going out with them.” He finally gets the picture and gets up. He’s very tall. Taller than I am for at least a head, and still in my way, completely blocking my only means of getting the fuck out and the fuck away, I’m completely trapped, he’s in my way, tall.

“Oh. Well I’m going to talk to the prof,” I don’t know what fucking look he’s giving me. Some stupid version of a grin. I hate him. So much. Hate. So much.

“Yeah. Ok, well let me out of the row, because I’ve got to go.” He finally moves enough for me to pass by.

“See you.” A look. His eyebrow is cocked. I don’t know what the fuck that’s supposed to mean, but I don’t fucking care because I’m free. I take the stairs out two at a time. My knees are weak, I have to hold on to the railing as I descend the stairs leaving the class. Oh god. Breathe.

I get out of the school to fresh air as fast as I can. I call Nicole, practically hyperventilating, hysterically retelling this story. So we cement out plans, which we had made earlier, and I hang up. I’m about fifteen feet from the bus. I hear footsteps.

“I CAUGHT YOU!” he announces proudly and breathless from running to catch up with me.

This is the moment in the horror movie where you think the killer is dead but they open their eye, and the entire crowd inhales as if a singular synapse fires above them.

My hands are shaking. The words “I caught you” while being a complete product of a lack of skill with the language seem crudely appropriate, almost Shakespearean in their placement and appropriateness. Of course he’s taking the same bus as me, of course! But fortunately he doesn’t take the train. “I used to have park here, but I share with my friend, and they take away, and they tow my car if they see it in the lot. I park at Production.” There’s a saving grace. But the line for the bus is huge. “I went to doctor this morning” Which means a packed, too-close-for-comfort ride. I can’t do it. “I keep getting headache for no reason. Have you ever had somesing like this?” I just can’t. I want to cry. I just want to break down and freak the fuck out. I want to get away. I just want to run. Until my lungs explode. Until my legs cramp and I fall. Until I can’t anymore. My hands are shaking so that it’s hard to text Nicole saying she has to call me right fucking now and save me. Right fucking now. Now. Now. Now.

Telus, I complain about you a lot, but for the love of all things digitally, thank you for not failing me then. Deus ex phonecall.

“Oh hey! Yeah, I’m just about to get on the bus.”

“Oh. Oh, hahaha, you’re on your way up here on the bus? Oh. Ok. Well... I guess I’ll just get a coffee and wait for you or something. Yeah, sure, up top. Yeah, ok....”

The entire time I’m backing away, bashing into people, pissing them off, but I don’t fucking care. I don’t. fucking. care. I’m free. free.

I just walk around the campus for a while, wasting time until the next bus, I check my email, I can’t sit still, I have to keep moving. Tears well Up in my eyes, which makes me more angry. I... I don’t understand the response, I’m just angry. So fucking angry.

So now, I have class tomorrow, and I don’t know what to do. If I have to deal with this shit any longer, I’m going to lose it and just fucking start screaming at him. I...

I don’t even know. If you didn’t think I was crazy before, you probably do now. but I don’t feel crazy in the moment. I just feel threatened. I feel like I can’t just say what I want to. I can’t just scream “I DON’T LIKE MEN, FOR FUCK SAKE!” at him. Maybe I’m mad because I can’t do it. Maybe I'm mad and upset because I can't work up the self-assurance to call him on his obvious feelings for me. I'm to embarassed that I'll be wrong. And he's doing this so that he can play it all off as nothing. So I seem like a fucking ludicrous psychopath. I know I'm not, but still. Or maybe my anxiety has finally gotten so bad that I need professional help. I don’t know. Either way, I need to find a solution. Soon.

For they shall be ashamed of the oaks which ye have desired, and ye shall be confounded for the gardens that ye have chosen.

2009-02-01T20:47:00.001-08:00

Lately, I have found myself vaguely frustrated with everything. Constantly.

I like how I'm writing this as if to somebody who cares. I hate myself already for this selfish immature rant. I wish I had something better to say, something poetic. I am not poetic. I have written about this before.

I have no focus. I follow things through and complete them but without zeal and often without realizing I'm even finished. I rear end people not knowing how I ended up there.

It bothers me that I start most sentences with "I". It makes me feel selfish. Secretly, I like to think I'm the opposite of selfish, although, in reality, this is not the truth, nor possible. What is the truth is that I had to modify each of these sentences so that they didn't begin with "I".

I don't feel like I'm in a rut. I feel like I'm in a fog. Constantly.

A friend of mine told me this can happen when you quit smoking. But it has been a while. And I still feel groggy. I don't yearn for a cigarette. It is very seldom that I ever got physical urges for one. All I feel now is envy for people who can walk down the street, smoking a cigarette, putting common knowledge, and moments of their life out of mind long enough to do something they enjoy.

My doctor says I have a sinus infection. But shooting steroids up my nose every morning has yet to rectify my weathered head. Oil of oregano hasn't made my Eustachian tubes drain; I haven't been able to hear properly for two weeks. I'm assuming that as a result of this, I can't taste anything, because everything tastes bland and listless to me.

The other day, I held Listerine in my mouth without realizing it for almost five minutes. I burnt off the top layer of skin in most of my mouth.

I haven't cried. Not out of not wanting to. Not out of not feeling like it. And not out of refusing to let myself. I just haven't.

The problem with being a closet optimist is that, when things go horribly wrong, you still hope and secretly believe that everything will work out properly and well in the end. Outwardly, you admit that things went tits up, and say "And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood," and go through the actions of washing your hands of the past, but internally you're staring at your own blood covered hands, fully convinced it will dissipate, hoping your hands will become white as snow, as wool.

But that's not the case.

For ye shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no water. And the strong shall be as tow, and the maker of it as a spark, and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them.

ELVIS IS IN EVERYBODY! He's in your jeans! He's in your cheeeeseburgers!

2009-01-29T23:38:00.000-08:00

Elvis is in nutty-buddies! Elvis is in your mom! He's in everybody!

He's in the young, the old, the fat, the skinny, the white, the black, the brown, and the... garbage man?

What?

Today, my dad went out for whatever reason before the garbage men had come.

Upon arriving home, he burst into the house telling me to stand out on the stoop with him and wait.

So we did. I'm freezing my tits off in my pyjamas, getting annoyed, not knowing what the hell I'm waiting for, and then I see it. And it is beautiful.

The guy driving the Emterra garbage truck, a little Chinese guy, is wearing a silver, plastic, Elvis .. I don't know if you would call it a wig, since it was a solid hunk of plastic, or a hair hat.... But there he was, in his hunk of another man's garbage glory, reversing a giant white waste receptacle down my street at 11:24AM.

I've posted this before, but it suddenly has new meaning for me, so:

Doing Laundry: Dangerous Business.

2009-01-28T04:03:00.001-08:00

Last night, I was finally getting around to doing shit I needed to. So I was picking dirty clothes up off of my floor, and spied a lonely dirty sock by my closet and bent to pick it up. What I failed to notice, though, was my saxophone wrapped in my closet door (they're curtains) and proceeded to try to break the end of if with my forehead like I was a fucking ninja or something.

Of course, this did not work, and only resulted in me being in pain and disoriented for a few minutes. Now, usually I have the equivalent of three shots of espresso, or 16oz. of coffee before... 1 PM PST, every day.

Yesterday I did not ingest this until 4:30 PM.

So I'm not sure if the worst migraine of my life came from this, a sinus infection, or whacking my skull into a case that managed to protect my saxophone from my bullshit and plane trips and bus rides and god knows what for six years. In any case, it got so bad that I got violently ill and then dragged my ass into my bed, turned off all the lights and any form of noise, and passed the fuck out at 8:45PM. I woke up once when my mom got back from going to London Drugs and brought me an Advil. She turned the light on and made a lot of noise which resulted in me crying and feeling like I was about to throw up for the next fifteen minutes until I went back to my vegetative state with my head under the covers, because even the natural light in my room was too painful to be around.

I just woke up now, at 3:45 AM. My head hurts, I have a bump which I have yet to inspect, and I need to write up a physics lab that I did earlier in the week, but obviously did not get around to making a good copy of last night.

If my life gets anymore fantastic or fabulous or fortunate in the near future, I'm going to find a shrimping boat and take it out during the middle of a huge storm and scream bloody murder until some half-wit adult with a bad haircut proclaims, "She never said so, but I think Lieutenant Rachel made her peace with God that da-aayuh."

Rear ending someone on a Sunday afternoon

2009-01-18T23:25:00.000-08:00

I know on a lazy Sunday, this seems like an excellent idea. The thrill of chase, the moment that hangs outside of time before the dull "dunk" of metal hitting metal, the recoil of your car and the inhale afterwards that starts time again can be very alluring.

But I am here to advise you that it is, in fact, a terrible idea, and not much fun at all to collect your turn signal and fog lights from the road in shame.

My advice is to take the SkyTrain on a Sunday. Be lazy on the sabbath: make an electronic system haul your ass around instead of smashing it into other people's. The numbers you exchange with people that way will be much more happily kept.

My back hurts.

As does my ego.

The best part is I had "Two Feet of Topsoil" playing in my head while this was all going on.

Not only have I hit rock bottom ever since she up and... whatever'd, I then hit the back end of some guy's Honda Odyssey.

Sigh.

Here, have a song I like but now have weird associations with:

This is what I sound like! Oh my god!

2009-01-18T01:45:00.000-08:00

Oh dear God.

2009-01-12T00:31:00.000-08:00

Today I found something vaguely mortifying.

I was peeing, and looked down, and said to myself, "No. Fuck no. Oh god, no."

I didn't want to believe it. I couldn't look away. I kept trying to hide it, yet there it was. I put my pants back on, and took them down again. And there it was. Stupid bugger.

So I got a pair of tweezers, so as to investigate further. I hoped, as I extracted it that it was not true. I got the loop out of the cabinet and inspected thoroughly, at 15x magnification.

And no matter which way I looked at it, and believe me, I looked at it at every possible angle and which-way, for a good five minutes or more, I was just going to have to face it. There's nothing I could do to deny it, and where there's one, there's more. My sex life as I know it is over.

I had a white/grey pubic hair.

..... You thought I had crabs, didn't you, you sick bastards! HOW DARE YOU!?

I'm nothing if not a con artist

2009-01-10T00:51:00.000-08:00

I can't write poetry. I just can't. If not the moment I pick up the pen, or go to type something out, I'm aware of the fact that I'm trying to write a poem. And In the back of my head, all I can think is, "I'm writing a poem I'm writing a poem I'm writing a poem I'm writing a poem I'm writing a poem I'm writing a poem I'm writing a poem I'm writing a poem I'm writing a poem I'm writing a poem."

And I achieve nothing. Well I achieve something: I write a poem. But when I read it over later, it feels like I wrote something while someone was watching. Like someone said, "Dance, Monkey!"

So:

"You and I have a special talent," she says, looking back at him. "And I saw it immediately. We're the substitute people. I've been the substitute person my whole life. I'm not an Ellen. I never wanted to be an Ellen. And I'm not a Cindy either. Although Chuck's love me. I like being alone too much. I mean, I'm with a guy who is married to his academic career. I rarely see him and I'm the substitute person there. I like it that way. It's a lot less pressure."

I've been singing Long Ride Home all day now. And every time that I get to the part about the house being dark as it can be, and feeling as empty as the inside of me, I feel like a liar.

I don't feel empty.

I feel full of something. I don't know what. Hope. Potential. Energy. Piss. Vinegar. Bullshit.

Something.

I don't want to just live everyday, I want to own everyday. If I do just live every day, I want to live those days honestly and originally.

This is so basic, why do I feel like this is an epiphany?

Do you ever wonder?

2008-12-22T22:33:00.000-08:00

Do you ever wonder about love songs? Especially really popular ones?

Like Etta James "At Last"?

How many people have danced to that at their wedding, their first song dancing as some couple indoctrinated into an age old process of conformity and declaration of beliefs morals and gender?

But who did she write it about? Who did Mack Gordon and Harry Warren write it with in mind? Are they still with that person? How did it end up? Are they still together? Does the fact that it was written for a musical mean something? Will Connie Ward and Bill Abbott's relationship define that which the people who dance to this song are capable of together?

Does love matter over time, or is love an x variable that is outside the realm of time and is important and meaningful just by virtue of it's being?

Or having been.

Or is it something that always is?

Of Mice and Cats

2008-12-06T14:14:00.000-08:00

SO we don't always get along. In fact, a large portion of our time together is spent antagonizing one another.

But in that we share a bond that probably no one outside of my self, my dad, and my rancid old feline will ever understand.

Anyway, when I'm upset, or sick, or studying, or just being quiet in general, he and I always end up hanging out on the couch, him either lying on me or beside me. In this case he was sitting on the back of the couch right behind my head so I was kind of resting on him, but also pressing on the couch so that he was kind of falling off onto me.

He'd purr, which is a really soothing noise, and then stop, so I'd reach up behind my head and pet him while reading like re-winding a mechanical toy. And then I got to the end of a chapter and he got up and stretched, and I was scratching his belly, and listening to him purr and breathe, and I realized that he's dying.

Not soon, not tomorrow. But his breathing is uneven, and it's hard for him to swallow. His glands are a little swollen, and the lump that he's had in his neck for as long as I can remember is less fleshy and more angry feeling than it used to be. He twitches without warning while lying around, and coughs and sneezes at random.

This is really sad to me. He's my first and only cat. Who else will yowl at me from the deck in the mornings, and try to rub against my legs, soaking wet with rain, while I curse and swear and push him away, only to give in and feed him and pick on him while he tries to eat? Who else will torture me by licking himself when he wants to be let outside?

And how the hell will my mom deal with this? She loves that cat more than anything in the world, and he loves her to the point where he'll attack my dad's legs if he's yelling at her.

And then I picked up my book again all teary-eyed, and the next section in it was about coming to terms with the death of identities, the past and achieving a state of nothingness.

Today, I am not enjoying synchronicity. Or studying.

I knew you'd find it eventually.

2008-12-02T18:14:00.001-08:00

Mo copies, mo problems.

2008-11-30T20:04:00.000-08:00

I am no longer auto-importing stuff from here to Facebook. I'm saying this here rather than on Facebook because the reason for me doing so is that I miss having some place to put all of my thoughts or rants or bad poetry oh noetry or to, in general, release my deep dark thoughts into the even greater, deeper and darker depths of the universal abyss of the internet.

I had a paper due on Friday that I have just started this weekend. It's for a family sociology class, and while I partially didn't start it because I really fucking hated that class, another reason, which I was trying to ignore, was that the topic has become one which is... touchy, I guess.

I decided a month and a bit into the semester that I would write about gay marriage/parenthood after watching a documentary on it that was really depressing but, I thought, important.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say, but having trouble with even here (which is ridiculous because I doubt anyone who doesn't already know reads my blog, if it doesn't get exported to another source), is that I'm head over heels for this fucking amazing girl. Woman? Whatever. Feeee-mayl.
But I've told a) close friends and b)... technically that's about it. So I'm torn, because I feel like a horrible person for not being able to fucking adore her and yammer on about her to EEEEEEVERYONE and EEEEEEEEEEVERYWHERE like I always do about my beloveds, and like she deserves to be spoken about. But I can't. It's scary, and difficult. And I don't even know if I have the vernacular to begin to (ok that's a stupid thing to say. I think I just like the word vernacular). And the repercussions could potentially be huge. Like it's one thing to be gay and work at a cafe, but in a professional, conservative setting? Plus, having to explain why I talk about my exes with the pronoun "he" but I like a girl.... I don't want to have to be some fucking rainbow spokesperson. I know a lot of people criticize those in the public eye for not being more open about their sexuality, and I've always thought that was ridiculous, but now I think it's ... ugh.

But yes, while trying to write this paper, I've felt the black coulds of anxiety and panic looming over me, reading about people getting estranged from their families and legally not allowed to have anything to do with interring their partner's body or caring for him/her when he/she gets sick because they aren't "married", or having kids taken away from them, or being shunned by one community for one thing and another for something else and I'm just sitting there going "Jesus Fuck, I can't even properly explain this to people I know, how the fuck am I supposed to deal with any of this other shit?"

And the best part is that I'm not a person who can ask for help. Well, I can. But it takes a long and painful time because I'm stubborn and independent. Once I do it's very simple. but until then, it's laborious and excruciating. And I have a lot of fucking questions I'd like to ask someone who'd know, but I don't really know anyone who's been in my position exactly, and I can barely ask friends for help, so asking a random fucking stranger is sort of.... well, I make one of the "Are you fucking kidding me faces?" that I'm famous for at the thought.

So, the long and the short of my story is that my paper is still not written. But I was hoping that barfing some of the thoughts that have been occupying channels in my brain I need open to get the facts I'm ingesting from these stupid articles back out in essay form would help.

I guess we'll see.

I hope posting this doesn't somehow open a can of worms. But, I suppose I'll have to eventually. This is just a wee baby step.

I kind of feel like crying right now.

Exhale.

Dear Tim Horton

2008-11-24T01:16:00.000-08:00

Your coffee fucking blows. Your baked goods kind of suck (by kind of I mean they taste like the pre-fab, frozen dough/batter fundraiser sale special: now with less trans animal fats, but more hydrogenated palm oil! Yay!). And your smoothees (THAT'S NOT A FUCKING WORD, P.S.) taste like Bactine.

Your only redeeming quality is your bagels and sadwiches, but whenever I get one YOU FUCK THAT UP, TOO. DOUBLE TOAST, ASSHOLES. NOT ONCE, TWICE. POSSIBLY THRICE!

Damn you for being the only place open this late that sells coffee. And damn you for being so cheap! WHY MUST YOU TEMPT ME SO?! I'm questioning if this coffee even has any caffeine in it, or if it's just water they added green and red food-colouring to and just boiled a couple of Export-A gold cigarettes in the water for a while, and then gave it to me as a collosal fucking joke.

Bleh.

Anyway, back to writing the most intellectual paper I've ever written. Here's what I've got so far!

Oh, COME ON!

2008-11-19T08:13:00.000-08:00

Ok, I was sitting at the table this morning, eating my leftover quiche lorraine sliver and my kashi granola crap, reading the back of "Elizabeth: The Golden Age" which I rented last night.

So I'm reading the summary, and the warnings they put on the back. Sex: Sexual conversation, sexual something else, female nudity (at this point I thought 'Fuck yes!' in my head and nodded while smiling with a mouthful of granola. If only Cate could've seen me at that moment, I just know she'd love me), and then I look at the drugs/whatever category: smoking.

Seriously?! SERIOUSLY?!

Okay, so maybe it is highly addictive. And maybe it is bad for you. But! But! I don't know. What a bunch of crap. I remember when you could smoke inside. And then when smokers got encased in these glass rooms, on display for all the good little pink lungs to study in their natural habitat (Tim Hortons).

And now they (we, I guess) have been forced to the streets, never to get closer than three metres from any building, nowhere to call home, a plague o'er the earth.

Sigh.

Dear Ocean,

2008-11-17T17:12:00.001-08:00

When I was a young girl
I used to love you.

I wanted nothing more
than to be near you and taste
your salt on my lips.

I would hide in you
submerged
pickling myself
in your tears.

But then I left you.

For hills
and trees
and paths inbetween
and blue skies
and cloudy skies.

Burned by fire
I returned to you
but the magnitude of
your depth left me
fearing what I
did not know
and could not see.

But now I am drowning
and want nothing more than to hide
naked and unoriginal
in the dark recesses of your depth
breathe deeply
and find some peace there.

(p.s. I'm aware this is quite possibly the worst, most pathetic
and ... just blatantly awful thing I've written in fucking ages.
I'm tired. Give me a break.
Just let me wallow
and pretend I'm not the world's worst poet
Ever.)

What a Stupid Fucking Day.

2008-11-01T18:28:00.000-07:00

Honestly.

I got up, and was exhausted. But I was expecting that. I was even expecting a little tiny hangover, so I wasn't upset by that, and after drinking some water I felt better, almost good, so it wasn't that.

The drive to work was fine. Well, until I got two blocks away from where I was going. I was approaching a red light, and slowed down (go figure), and noticed this brand spanking new cherry red Lincoln Town Car beside me, being driven by some old. fuckin'. dude. Now that I'm thinking about it he probably had a bum leg and was pretty close to being legally blind, but still. So, I was admiring the car, and feeling sorry for his gas bill, as the light changed. Clutch, gear, start eeeeeeasing into first, just get rolling, and start to head into the void the car in front of me has left. I never go that fast from a stop, because (duh), I have to shift. Plus I don't trust dumb mother fuckers to not run red lights. So, I'm just rolling forward, when this town car, who ended up about a half of a car length ahead of me at the light, fucking saunters on into my lane. No signal, no pull forward, really, just WHAN, crank wheel, sideways into my lane, and then keeps going into the fucking parking lot to the right. I'm so fucking stunned that I can't get the clutch in in time and stall, but I get started before dumb fucking old man even begins to turn into the lot, so I have to stop again so I don't hit him while, I don't fucking know, he sits and thinks about his meaningless, possibly incontinent life before he almost hits a fucking pedestrian crossing the mall entrance. What a waste of a car.

So, I make my way the rest of the two blocks to work without incident until I pull into the parking lot. Now, we informally get one side of the reserved lot, while whoever the fuck gets the other. But all it technically is, is reserved for that strip mall, of which, my bank is a part of. So I SHOULD be able to park anywhere. Anyway, I pulled in, and the only spots left on our side were... semi-filled. One had half of a dumpster in it, and the other had a tree beside it that was bent over so that it was hanging into the spot. And not over it, all nice and arch like. Into it. Like, touching the ground. Blocking out the wall behind the spot.

So, I parked on the other side, where only two of the, oh, 12 spots were taken. I asked once I got into work if that was ok, and they said "Uh, I'd move it," but we were ridiculously fucking busy, so I didn't get a chance to go out to my car until an hour and a half after I got there. When I did, I find a sign on my rear window under the wiper, on my front window under that wiper, and (here's the real fucking kicker) a sandwich board behind my car so I can't move it, that details that this is reserved parking, and that towing is strictly enforced. That's right, a fucking sandwich boardNow, I will say that I am glad and thankful that my car was not towed. BUT ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?! Fuck! The town's population (and I won't mention the town, because it's small, and people probably have nothing better to do than sit in their old farmhouses, scouring the demon internet for google results for the name of their town, hunting down the naysayers via IP and Proxy addresses, and bringing their entire church congregation to protest on mine and others' heathen doorstep) is probably close to 2000. Is parking really at a fucking premium? Maybe it's like the Southpark "Dey tihk arrrrr jaaaaaaabs!" phenomenon, except "DEY TIHK ARRR SPAAAAHTS!" I don't know. Either way, I ended up having to park in the tree's spot. It was like being in a tree carwash. I couldn't see out of the windshield. Which was fine, because I was backing out (yeah fuck reverse stall parking, I was out on company time and it was busy), but when I got out, some of the bows flopped down onto the inside of the door, so they got stuck when I closed it, because after all of that I didn't feel like fucking fighting an evergreen in a parking lot with the parking police watching my every move. So I had a tree in my car for most of the day, which probably killed some of the tree, which upset me. Oh well. Go back inside.

To the day from hell. There was a line up of at least four people ALL DAY. For maybe three ten minute spans was there no one. THERE AREN'T THAT MANY PEOPLE IN THE FUCKING TOWN. HOW THE FUCK CAN THAT MANY PEOPLE ALL NEED LOTS OF MONEY ON THE SAME FUCKING DAY? RENT? WRITE A GODDAMN CHEQUE, PEOPLE. GIVE THE LANDLORD A VOID CHEQUE AND SET SHIT UP THAT WAY. THEY'RE ALL RELATED TO EACHOTHER ANYWAY, WHO CARES IF A DISTANT COUSIN KNOWS YOUR ACCOUNT NUMBER?! FUCK! We ran out of money. Like, we ended up with one hundred dollar bill, maybe three fifties, and like, nothing. It was ridiculous.

That, and I'm so fucking sick of people treating me like an idiot because I'm new, or like I'm going to fuck everything up because I don't know them, and refusing to let me try. "no, I'll wait for her. She knows me. I COULD TOO, IF YOU WOULD FUCKING LET ME! Even when I went to get lunch (take out sushi, which was the highlight of my day, pretty much), everyone in the restaurant turns and looks and then gets these abhorred looks on their faces, as if to say, "OUTSIDER!" Anyway, I left while they were making the sushi to go smoke, which was also a highlight, and the same shtick when I came back in. Where the fuck am I, British Columbia, or some British village that dates back to the medieval times? I know you assholes have only lived there for MAXIMUM two-hundred years, so don't give me that bullshit. The entire town is on land that was stolen from the Matsqui nation, so unless you've got a status card, go fuck yourself. And if you have a status card, then glare all you want. In my mind, you get that right.

Anyway, because today was so fucked up, I ended up not balancing at the end of the night by a long fucking shot. Loooooooong. Like making a penalty shot at GM Place in overtime from my back yard. Fuck. And because we all spent an hour after work trying to find the differences, it was too late for me to fax in my time sheets, so I'm not going to get paid for a month. That's a long fucking time to not have any income, especially with Christmas and like eight birthdays coming up. I'm going to have to put everything on Visa, hope the fuck I don't max it out, and then pay it all off, which pisses me off because I give myself cash allowances from my paycheques and save money that way. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. WHO USES TIME SHEETS?! The same people who are too fucking cheap to give me a paid fifteen minute break? Guess so.

Anyway, an hour after it was supposed to occur, that was the end of my work day. I ended up just walking around, smoking and texting, getting stared at by the locals for a while after work, just because I was too everywhere to drive. And then I sat in my tree-car for a half hour just talking to Ekam because I still didn't feel ok. And I've got to say, doing that was pretty much the smartest thing I've done all day, because I actually felt better afterwards.

I mean, I still sped all the way home, but that was partially because the person behind me was speeding, and the person behind them was speeding, and the guy in front of me was speeding, too.
And since I didn't get pulled over by the cop I passed on the way to work doing twenty above the posted limit, I figured it was safe to say that no one around there gave a fuck, since most people who drive there stink like cheap beer anyway.

And I sang. Really loudly. Which was cathartic, even if the songs were fucking stupid, I knew all of the words, and it just felt good to not have to be wishing some ungrateful stuck up shithead a nice day or thanking them after they treated you like shit. Screaming about how I fucked up Saint Petersburg, or how you have to have faith, or that I plan on staying alive beat the hell out of anything else I'd said today.

And now I'm going to check the 6-49, which I bought because my dad made me, and I really hope, that at the very least, i could get two stupid dollars to make up half of what the damn thing cost me. Just two dollars. That's all I want. I mean, enough to just say "fuck work this week, I'm driving across the mountains, see ya'll later!" would be preferably. Devine even. But just two dollars.

Is that too much to ask for?

Man, I Always Find the Keepers.

2008-10-27T01:00:00.000-07:00

I haven't really done all that much worth noting lately. Or been doing. Or something. I work, and it's pretty boring and I'm not allowed to talk about what goes on there, because the first rule of Bank Club, is you don't talk about Bank Club.

That, and what I've been making sense of lately isn't ... really what I would consider broadcastable, which is weird because I'll talk about just about anything, including being incontinent, and the benefits of fucking while menstruating. Maybe at heart, I'm just old fashioned...

In any case, now that that shitty, two sentence paragraph is done with, I figured that I should write something, just for good measure and so no one thinks I've died or something. So here goes.

Ok, so, I was trying to find the skit Ellen Page did on SNL where she "goes so gay" at a Melissa Etheridge concert and says she's burning bright with sister fire, and asks the age old question, "Why does everything have to have a freaking label?? Why can’t I just hug a woman with my legs in friendship???" but unfortunately couldn't. I did find an awesome SLOTH! video instead.

I also ended up watching a Melissa Etheridge music video on youtube, and afterwards, scrolled down to read the comments, because ... that's what I do on YouTube. I don't know.

So I find this shitstorm posted by "JohnMcCain4Prez08", which went as follows:

This is librul LEZBO music for a bunch of llibrul lap lickin filthy LEZBOS who HATE America. I'll bet all a you little LEZZIES wachin this are for that librul NEGRO spook Obama. Right?

Say NO to womens "rights"!!!!!!

CALL UP THE DRAFT and EXPAND the war in Iraq 100+ more years, then:

INVADE IRAN, Seria, Lebenon, Sowdi Arabia, the West Bank, China, & Rusia!!!

GEORGE W. BUSH is the GREATEST President EVER!!!!

KEEP the BUSH/CHENEY dream ALIVE!!!!

SUPPORT Bush!!!!

McCain '08!!!

And at first I thought it was a joke. And then I went to his page.

At first I thought it was hilarious. And then as I read more, and clicked more, it just got depressing.

And now I have a headache.

I don't really like this post enough to "publish" it, but since David said he was disappointed with my lack of blogging, I'll do it just out of principle.

The Lost Art of Record Listening

2008-09-29T00:34:00.000-07:00

I have eaten a lot of simple-sugar, refined-carb loaded shit in the past few days, so my blood sugar and subsequently my moods have been about as stable as Amy Winehouse (Did I honestly just make a Winehouse joke? Really?). Anyway, I just downloaded AC/DC's full discography, and while manually uploading the album artwork (why iTunes can't find artwork for shit that I know is labelled correctly, I will never know), and in the middle of doing so, got the theme from That 70's Show stuck in my head, the Cheap Trick song.. why am I describing this? Whatever. I was struck by this overwhelming sense of loss. There I was, scouring the internet for the best quality .jpg, to "complete my music collection", alone, and for what? So iTunes looks pretty when I open it? So I can scroll through my music "library" and feel a sense of accomplishment, looking at all of the files of .mp3's and .m3u's I torrented?

And it's not that I'm worried about the starving artists that make up AC/DC. I'm being ridiculous, here, I know, but I'm not a flat out moron. They definitely don't "need" my money. I just can't help feeling like I'm missing out on part of the whole experience of listening to an album. I was looking at the song on each one, and was surprised by the amount of duplicates. One song would be on three different albums, which at first I thought, "What a rip off! Bastards can't even write new songs? Fuck, this is going to screw up my play-count" and then thought, "You idiot, you weren't intended to listen to one song, and then another song from a totally different album by someone else. You were intended to listen to the album as a whole. that's why albums used to have relevant names. You were supposed to experience the album, and thought was put into the placement of the songs. Like a fucking collection of William Blake."

At this point I sort of woke up and felt a little self conscious for comparing AC/DC to William Blake. I could hear the cries of the music snobs echoing in the insecure recesses of my mind, such as "Unoriginal!", "Untalented hacks","Ubiquitous!" or just, "LAME SHIT!" I then retorted to this crowd of scraggly, greasy, spotty faced mother fuckers, "WHAT KIND OF FREAK DOESN'T AT LEAST ENJOY AC/DC? WHO DOESN'T BOB THEIR HEAD AND TAP THEIR FOOT TO 'IT'S A LONG WAY TO THE TOP'? ASSHOLES!" And.. I mean really, who doesn't at least enjoy AC/DC? The only people I know who don't are.. my ex-boyfriends. Maybe that was the problem. Anyway! That's besides the point.

There is rarely a communal bonding done over the first listen to a new album. No one runs out to buy a new CD and then sits in their room with their friends just enjoying it and shooting the shit. We torrent or buy it on iTunes, alone, and listen to it while we're out, on our iPod, not talking to anyone. We're too busy doing fuck knows what – shit like blogging, to just relax and actually appreciate something. No one gives a fuck about buying an album because no one gives a fuck about the album as a piece of art. It's like this weird fucking fragmentation of the concept that has altered the way "the album" fits into our lives and is viewed.

Music is yet another thing that we let ourselves be instantly gratified by. No waiting to get the album, feel the weight of it in the store, the way the paper-wrapped vinyl slides out of the cardboard into your palm and reverberates upon impact. No epic struggle with the shrink-wrapped within an inch of its non-existant CD life, trying depserately to find the non-existent plastic tab along the seam. No rush to get home and listen to it. Just, "Bing! AC/DC - full discography has completed downloading!"

I realize I sound like a weird, Postmanian, fear mongering, technology hating, pseudo-Amish freak right now, and let me just clarify, I like iTunes, and I like the fragmented nature of a mixed playlist, and if I had to listen to my friends idea of a good album with them, I might not be their friend anymore (haha, sorry). I don't want the internet to go away, I don... Ok, I do want to go back in time, if it were possible, I would be all over that. But not because I have some weird grudge with the present. I'm just mourning the loss of something I never realized I cared about before.

I'm being kind of stupid though. There's nothing but my own, shall we say, "frugality", stopping me from doing this. That, and the fact that most people think my taste in music is crap.

So, for those about to listen to vinyl–I salute you.

STREEET JUSTICE!!

2008-09-28T00:41:00.000-07:00

I have nothing insightful, deep, educated, or relevant to say.

Just that today, which being driven around, we hit two animals: a squirrel, and a fucking raccoon.

It was made twice as shitty and awful and upsetting by the fact that the person driving's previous dogs both got run over while she was within metres of them.

Watch out, mammals: Jasmine's gonna hunt you down.

Besides that, though, the night was a tremendous success.

Well, besides the fucking weirdos having sex in the bathroom at Breka, the all-night cafe/bakery we went to. And it's not that I'm opposed to sex in public—far from it. Just that when you're drunk as fuck, your pants are falling off, and you have a handle-bar moustache and a metal shirt with the sleeves hacked off, or a bubble dress that's cinched just below your ass and about to show your grilled cheese sandwich off to the world with an armband tattoo, you're probably not going to clean up after yourself. Which means, even though I'm giving myself a kidney infection, I can't go into that bathroom to pee. Just no.

Maybe they'll get high and listen to The White Album and try do d-d-d-d-d-doo it in the road and get run over too.

I should've stayed home.

2008-09-21T23:06:00.000-07:00

I got woken up three hours earlier than I was planning on getting up by my dad bringing me a cold piece of pizza and a sliver of leftover cake and some weird tea which I proceeded to spill on my bed. I felt sick most of the day (I blame the wine), and then got into a collossal, passive aggressive fight with my mom involving getting out of the car while it was running with her in the passenger seat confused.

After that I went downtown just to hang out and study a bit. So I texted Nicole so we could hang out on her break. And we did, and it was good. Just as she went back inside, it started to rain. Like, piss.

Great. I'm wearing a dopey thin cardigan. She gives me her umbrella, so hooray, I don't get soaked. This was pretty much the greatest thing to happen all day.

By this point I'm starving so I go to a sushi place to have something, and after I'm seated and having tea, I realize I'm fucking surrounded by couples. Every last person in there. If not one, two, on a double date. Which I expected, but until I was actually in the lion's den it... well it was more depressing than I thought it would be. I keep getting accosted for my order, which is hard to come up with since they have about eighty different weirdo roles at this location. Downtown sushi on Davie. God food, shitty service. I get something the server suggested because she looked like it was either she wrote that down or punched me in the face. It was good, but spicy, and there wasn't enough wasabi, and I didn't feel like asking and drawing any attention to myself. I think my main problem right now is I've been feeling ridiculously insecure and worthless for whatever reason. Anyway, it was good, large portions and couldn't finish it all.

So I leave, to find a starbucks to just hunker down at and read. Everywhere downtown is pretty full and loud, so I figured I would go to the one in New Westminster by Columbia because it's usually not too busy. So, I get on the SkyTrain at Burrard, and one stop later at Granville, a lot of people get on, which isn't anything extraordinary. In fact, it's expected. But what I wasn't expecting what came next. I was sitting in a seat facing the other end of the train right before the perpendicular seat facing the other side of the train, his girlfriend sitting across from him in the seat facing his side of the train diagonally across from me. They hold hands across the space between him, and he pulls her by the hand up off the seat, onto his lap, and she plunks down and they proceed to make out, loudly. I shit you not. I usually sit cross legged, so her ass is pretty much bashing into my foot.

They moved and then got off maybe five stops later, so it wasn't too bad. But still fairly barf. And by fairly I mean if they hadn't moved by the time we go a bit past Stadium, I might have actually said something, which.. is saying something.

Anyway, I get to Columbia Starbucks, all is well, no one tried to felate someone beside me on the rest of the ride, I get some tea, and go outside to smoke. All of the chairs are soaked and there is no ashtray, so I feel like a jerk and sit on the arm of one of the chairs. In general an awkward moment where I think "I hate having this addiction in a place where no one I see regularly smokes and most of the population freaks out screaming "BLACK LUNG" when they see you smoking. Oh well, I go inside and sit down in the corner, get into my book... and they want to take in their patio and put it where me and some other person I don't know are sitting. So we get relocate. I get back into the readings and hate them a little less, but still get angry everytime I think of how mall the damn font is. Fifteen minutes later they're like "We're closing in five minutes".

It's 7:55.

WTF?! Since when does a Starbucks anywhere besides in some defunct mall close that early? How the fuck are douchebag students supposed to sit around and read liberal arts books for their useless degrees if you close at eight?! Ugh.

So my dad calls me (goood timing, maybe things are looking up?) and asks if I want a ride, which I didn't really, but hey, I wasn't pissed off at him, so I said sure. So I get on the skytrain, which is fine and make out free, get there, wait a minute or five for him, no big deal. There's a covered bench and it doesn't smell like pee! Golly!

He gets there, we get out of the lot, get in the left turn lane to get onto Scott road. And the car stalls. Not stalls, per se. Up and fucking dies. He had to push it while I aimed it into some random drive way, with the window down and my torso out because the back of the station wagon is chock a block full of boxes and whatever else he's got going on so I can't see shit all out of the back. So I'm completely disoriented, trying to reverse without my head turned to the right and my hand on the back of the passenger seat. Finally some guys stopped and helped us out, but.. shit. No power steering is BALLS.

Anyway, he got the car restarted finally, and got home. But... yeah. Quite the day. Oh, and I don't know if my superglue fix is going to work, I may have ruined a pair of $270 headphones, and I think I'm getting a cold sore.

Kick. Ass.

I hate people.

2008-09-15T16:52:00.000-07:00

A lot.

I think every blogger (and their dog) is probably already on this, but regardless, I was rushing to the bank to get money to pay my student fees when my mom told me about this story that had been on the news. Some guy was out in his front yard with his kids and one of his son's four month old Jack Russel puppy. The kid had had brain surgery, and had a dog throughout who was, I don't know how to word it, his companion throughout who had recently died, so they had gotten this dog.

Two hunters are walking by near the house, and the puppy follows them, and doesn't go back.

So, instead of ignoring the dog, or, hell, kicking it, or yelling at it, what does one of them do?

Blows it's fucking head off. So guy comes running around the corner to see his dog's dying twitching body.

At this point in the story I almost puked in my lap.
I'm not an animal person, but, that's the most disturbing thing I've heard in a long time. I find it easier to watch .... I don't even know. I was surprised by the response, actually.

In any case, I won't say what I'd really like to do, because that may or may not be considered "uttering a threat", I'm not sure. But, I hope that, for whatever they're charging the guy with, he goes to jail, and ends up sharing a cell with a psychopathic homicidal PETA activist dog lover.

Oh yeah. Pets don't have any legal rights in Canada. So they're charging him with... I'm totally ignorant of the actual term, but some firearms by-law. Possibly reckless endangerment. I haven't actually looked at a real article yet, because I know if I do I'll start crying my stupid face off.

Maybe I'm just distraught because when I pictured the dog's head being blown off in my mind, I saw Eddie.

Oh, Porn.

2008-09-12T01:02:00.000-07:00

I realize that this is a kind of strange thing to blog about. And for some of you (if there's anyone who actually reads this crap anymore, and I doubt that anyone does), you may find the thought "my friend watches porn and has sexual urges" to be weird. Particularly if you've known me forever, or are related to me or work with me, and really don't want to even think about me in a sexual way or something. So I guess this is a disclaimer paragraph, rather than an intro. If you're already scringling up your face going "really, RCL, porn? ..." you should probably just stop reading now and if I ever ask you about my blog just reply "yeah, haha, it's funny" and I will feel better about myself and life will go on.

Anyway, porn watching is a strange experience for me. I can't say that I really "like" porn, in a conventional way. I mean, if you show someone a picture, in particular a moving one, of people having sex, he or she will probably get at least moderately aroused. Not rocket science, I'm not claiming that my libido has more class than the next persons or better taste or something. As we can tell by the people I've dated, I'm not picky. As well, let us note that I am also vindictive.

I usually find myself having an argument with myself about whether or not I should watch porn at all, because, while it's.. um, stimulating in one way, I start analyzing it while I'm watching it and make strange arguments about it. Once all is said and done, the urge to blog about whatever dumb shit I just watched in detail and essentially write an essay, that could be called "Heterosexual Lesbian Porn: how homophobia has lead to gender role playing in girl on girl pornographic media," or sometimes things less scholarly and more along the lines of, "Three dudes one chick: this is the gayest thing I've seen since brokeback mountain" if I'm just wondering how the hell anyone could get off on watching something so blatantly obvious and stupid, even though I just did. I guess I have a weird complex about writing about how stupid porn is because I watch it.

I think, though, that my weird analyzing/personal response to porn is half the fun for me. I don't know if doing that is just the only way I can justify watching it at all to myself, or if I just really like tearing apart everything until it makes sense to me. Anyway, my major points of rumination:

1. The Ass.
What the hell is so appealing about some girl's stretched out asshole? No, seriously. Besides the "I did that," appeal, what's fun about that? As well, hen they actually do show the woman's face, he looks sort of like someone's showving something up her ass (oh wait....) I think I'm just generally very confused by any real fondness for the asshole, in the case of heterosexual relations. I mean, there's a perfectly good vessel mere inches away that shit doesn't come out of. And you pick the one with ecoli in it ... why? Also, what the hell is so fucking cool about this "ass to mouth" scenario. Call me old fashioned, but I think actively wanting someone to put fecal matter in their mouth is just kind of gross. And for the record, if I wanted my fecal matter anywhere near your mouth, I'd be shitting on your face, rather than sitting on your face. The two, for me, are mutually exclusive.

2. "Lesbians"
I'm curious as to why vidjas which involve one girl actively penetrating another with a phallic object, slapping her ass, shoving said object down other girl's throat, and in general, playing the "male" role is considered "lesbian". I don't know. In one light I could be being narrow minded, but as far as I see it, it doesn't matter that both/all parties involved have XX chromosomes. If one person is acting as the male, it's heterosexual sex between two paid women. And as such, I don't see what's so exciting about it. I guess for some people out there it's the only way they can handle "lesbianism" because it's still familiar, or, for some it's that dumbed down "kind" porn, because everyone knows women are submissive and could never hurt anything, therefore, lesbian porn is all rainbows and rabbit vibrating dildos for everyone involved.

3. Vagina Slapping
Don't you love how I'm giving this shit technical names? Anyway, I've never understood what the hell this is supposed to result in, or why it's cool, or sexy, or how the hell it would ever get someone off. Really? Smacking your dick on someone's stomach/clit? Is physically expressing dominance in such a straightforward way really... attractive? Everytime I see this I can't help but wonder if buddy has alzheimers and just forgot what he was doing, and rather than scratch his head or stroke his beard (which he wouldn't have since everyone in porn is hairless) he just taps his penis on whatever is near until he remembers, "Eureka! I was putting my penis in that there hole!"

4. Socks
Why? I can't fucking stand this. In porn or real life. And I get in real life that, hey, sometimes it's cold. Or sometimes you're in a rush, and by the time push comes to shove, you're not about to say "Oh, let's stop this wonderful passionate in the moment sex so I can take my socks off; don't want to ruin this!" But, porn, ou're not fooling us, or at least not me. I know that this was planned. I know you had lots of time and opportunity to take your damn socks off. Even if it's legitimately made at home porn, you had to get the camera out. That takes time. At least one person knew there would be a camera involved, why the hell would anyone choose to leave their socks on? I really really hate when the woman has little girl's frilly socks on, and leaves them on, particularly under mary-jane style shoes. Role playing is cool and all, but that veers a little to close to finding children sexually attractive to my liking.

5. The Teenager
Barely legal! I don't know. I'm always a little put off by some "just turned 19" "girl" wanting to have sex with a creepy, domineering old man, usually with an accent. For the record, I KNOW it's a fantasy thing, but, can't you help but wonder, even in fantasy land, why this girl would want to do that? What would she get out of it? Isn't there a weird, incestuous connotation to it? Why would anyone want someone to have such little self worth that they felt the best they could do was some middle-aged, unkind dude in a field? I understand that some people find thin, small, fresh faced, girls more attractive. So why use the word "teeeeeeeenager" rather than "petite"?

6. Facials and Creampies
I really don't understand this. And it's not that I'm a stranger to it, it's just that I don't understand why every single porn has to end with dude coming all over some girl's face, and then her whapping her tongue around like a dog with peanut butter on the roof of its mouth, or coming all over someone's genitalia and then proceeding to exclaim, "look at the mess I made," or something akin to that. Really? Do men really feel so insecure about their role as the dominant gender that they have to ejaculate all over everything, or stretch everything out, or smack their dicks on everything? Is not being the bread winning warrior really that scary?

I guess I'm just taking offense to this stuff because I'm a female, and for the most part, we aren't treated very well in porn, and I am in the general age range of the chicks getting screwed by people I would classify as jack asses. I don't complain about grandmas getting fucked in the office or something, and why people would want to have sex with them. So I'm sexist and ageist, and possibly a xenophobe. So sue me! (Please don't. I'm a student, for fuck sake). I don't know. I just find it strange that there's like... this mainstream cult of people going "this is ok and normal!" and while I think masturbation is healthy, and wanting to watch other people do it while masturbating is as normal as anything sexual can get, I just the weird use of power and taboo or sin as being the defining element of what is erotic to be kind of .... a let down. Or something.

I'm really tired, and feel like a fucking creepy weirdo, stranger than some guy wanting to slap his penis on a barely legal teen's ass after stretching it apart and then coming on her face. Read this mess I wrote!

Hey Brandy I hear the blues a-calling tossed salads and scrambled eggs....

2008-09-03T22:58:00.000-07:00

Scrambled eggs all over our faces.

This is what she does when someone takes one of the other dogs out for a walk or something and doesn't take her.

Her sister is worse though.

I love that dog, so hard. I think that my relationship with her is the most functional adult relationship I will ever have.

The only thing that bugs me about that is that she won't live nearly as long as I will. Damnitt.

Hey baby I hear the blues a-calling, tossed salads and scrambled eggs.

2008-08-31T18:21:00.000-07:00

I guess working a lot finally caught up with me (on my one day off. Sweet. Thanks, body.) So I called in sick for tomorrow. Which I think is the smartest thing I've done in a long time.

Anyway, even though I should've been sleeping, I've been neglecting cleaning my car because I've either not been around or just been too goddamn tired to get back up off of my bed/couch. And I love my car. So, although I now feel a lot worse health-wise, I no longer have a guilty conscience.

So anyway, I went out there in my sickest Henley sweater hoodie thing, with my can of camping fuel (it's the only thing that dissolves the sap on the car without ruining the finish. Thanks for the tip, Daddy-o) and get to work, get the shit off, rinse it off, finally get the milk stains off of the fucking leather. The previous owner's brother and wife were in town and borrowed the car and had their dumb child in the backseat who thought it would be cool to throw his sippy cup around. He saw the damage for the first time along with us, and he looked a bit like he was watching Holocaust footage. That, and because he said he rarely let his kids in that car, are the reasons why I trusted him enough to buy his used car. That and he just didn't seem the type to lie. At all.

Anyway, I treated the leather, took the mats out, vacuumed them, vacuumed under all the seats (I had to stop periodically and sit with my head between my legs because I thought I was going to pass out, but us Braeuers, we persevere! I sort of half fell out of the car and then put my gross shoe back on the clean mat so as to not die at the very end and made a big mess and was like "WELL THAT WAS A WASTE OF TIME!" and proceeded to cough a lot.

Anyway, my car is now lactose free, I'm falling asleep, and I bought season one of Frasier, and ordered chicken noodle soup for delivery from Swiss Chalet, and I'm listening to Meatloaf.

I am as stoked as I can be!

While trying to find a cool picture to go along with this, I came across this:

I believe this is the appropriate response to that:

It's been a while, and I still love Pablo Neruda.

2008-08-27T22:02:00.001-07:00

I don't even remember the last time I posted on this (upon thinking a moment I realized it was about my dog). I haven't felt like writing anything, or maybe I've just been to exhausted and or busy to take what I'm feeling and turn it into a coherent string of sentences. I don't know. In any case, "two jobs" has been keeping me busy.

The weather here has been getting rainy already. It feels damp like autumn; like being at summer camp, less everything that makes it what it is. I don't really know why the changing of the seasons came as such a surprise to me. I think I'm just so used to going to school that, now that I finally took time off, I figured it was over. Everything sort of changed at once, and now I'm trying to fall back into some of my old routines, but not others and it's .... I guess it's just hard to pick up only some. Its more like learning an entire new way of functioning than falling back than anything.

In any case, the weather makes me think of Poet's Walk in Central Park, brings out the Neruda in my soul (yes, I just honestly 'said' that) and makes me want to hang out at Stanley Park with some of Pauline Johnson's work. And involves listening to country music and Tegan and Sara a lot. I both love it, and hate it. It's beautiful, and the rain feels cleansing, and sounds reassuring and calming, but leaves me with a damp chill so that it's impossible to get warm. I guess that's the West Coast condition.

She's my Brandy Alexander

2008-08-13T01:16:00.000-07:00

So I have a dog. Named Brandy.

I watched her being born. Somewhere between her protruding from her mother's behind, and her first real breath, I decided she was mine. I was told by my dad that I wasn't allowed to keep a puppy of my own, and that we were only keeping one, his pick of the litter. To which I would reply repeatedly "this is my dog."

It's been almost eight years now, and she is still mine. And for the record my dad picked the retard of the litter. I don't think she got air fast enough or something.

In any case, it's easy to see why a while ago, I was upset when she hurt her leg at the park while running after a larger dog in much better shape. But it seemed to be getting better, and she was weightbearing more, so we figured it would be ok. Seemed and figured are the operative words.

A day ago, she hurt the other leg doing much the same thing, and now can't walk normally. I mean she can get from point A to point B, but it takes about eight tries ust to get up, and then it takes about thirteen very painful for her minutes to move very far at all.

Anyway, I'm working full time at a bank right now, so my mom, who is luckily on vacation right now, took her to the vets today. She's torn both of her ACL tendons, and the surgery to fix that is going to cost about $4000. Which is depressing as hell, but the only real option in my mind.

I got home today after working seven hours at the bank, to find her in the backyard. Getting into the backyard involves going down a large, steep, handle-rail-less set of stairs. Thanks to whatever retard was at home and let her do that. See, going downstairs is ok. She can hop to her front legs and the others just sort of follow. It's the going up that involve weight bearing on the hind legs.

Part of the way up the stairs, I guess she got tired, so took a break and lied down. When I went outside to get her, she was there. I sat with her for a while, and then tried to get her up. And then the real fun started.

The stair didn't have enough surface area for her to really use her front legs to get up, and one of them kept falling off. Great. After some awkward maneuvering, though, she managed, and we slowly began the climb. All was well until about the third to top step. At that point my mom tried pulling on her shoulders while I was trying to support her ass as best I could. See, she doesn't like being helped. Nature vs nurture, I hate it too, so I try to fuck off as much as I can because I understand the feeling. I guess the pushing and pulling upset her (And probably hurt) so she tried to just throw herself up the last few stairs and lunged forward.

And lodged her head between the last stair and the deck.

Which was funny, because when they were all still puppies, her brother got his head stuck in the slats of the fence of the patio downstairs, and screamed bloody murder, and just tried to pull back straight instead of lowering his head like how he got it in. She got down beside him, and put her head in, up, down, and then back out, which I can only assume was her trying to show her retard brother how to get out. We've come full circle.

I had to go to Starbucks to work in twenty minutes, so at this point I was having awful visions of smearing my dog's neck with margarine to get her out, and calling work while holding my dog's dilapidated rear end up with one arm, cell in the other, trying to explain that I would be late because my dog was broken and her head was stuck in the back stairs.... Anyway, we got it out and I was early, so all's well, but I'm still fairly distraught about this. I mean, I'm not really an animal person, but... I just really like that dog. When I go on trips she's the first thing I miss. Which is weird because we don't have one of those nauseating dog couples that go everywhere together, she doesn't sleep on my bed, or even in my room (I generally don't let animals in my bedroom...), and she doesn't follow me around, but... I don't know. It's a strange bond that I can't explain.

I really want to ust take the next month off and hang around the house with her, but unfortunately, due to needing to be able to afford a car, and school, and fixing her legs, that's not possible.

BAH!

Anyway, in other news I went to Edmonton and I want to move there.

Now you're caught up.

Car is a Four-Letter Word

2008-06-27T01:55:00.000-07:00

So, the short of it is, I bought a 2001 Saab 9-3 coupe.

Except it was hardly that simple.

My dad and I go and test drive it, and it's fucking amazing. 2 litre engine, 4 cyl, 5 speed manual, leather, it's pretty much immaculate inside... Unf.

Agree to buy said car. So we say tomorrow in the afternoon/evening we'll come buy. His kid's band concert is at 6:30, but we'll work around it. The plan for the next day is my mom will take me whenever, we sign zee papers, and a friend of mine drives us back there from the insurance place so all cars get taken back, since I still can't technically drive. No big thing, very simple. Neato.

So I get up the next day, my dad and I go to the bank and I move money around and get a money order for the then owner, and then my dad takes his Jetta in to get the brakes done, and I go to the gym.

I get home at 4:15 and try to call my mom. No answer. That's fucked up, because when she has shit to do after work she usually makes sure she gets off on time (she usually works 7-3:30). Oh well. I have a yogurt and some water, and then get in the shower. At 4:35 when I get out, I still can't get a hold of her. What. The. Fuck?

So I call the OR and ask if she's still scrubbed in on a case or what, and they say yes, she's scrubbed in, she's not off until 5. No one told me this rather important detail. I tried calling my dad's cell earlier, and no answer. That was while I was walking home from the bus stop. I call it again. It rings beside me on the dining room table. Great. Just fucking great. I can't call the seller to let him know when we'll be coming by. I fucking hate leaving people waiting like this. So in the meantime I attempt to get dressed. You'd think putting on bra and underwear would be pretty simple.

No no, not today. Everytime I attempted to get anything done, piss, put a bra on, whatever, a phone would ring, either my cell, my dad's cell, or the home phone. If it wasn't work calling me three times it was my mom calling from the parking tower of the hospital saying she can't find her car, or my dad saying he told mom to go see her mom after work even though we're supposed to get to the seller's ASAP before this band concert at 6:30. Better yet is my cousin phoning trying to get my mom, and then asking if we have his number. So finally, I get a bra on, and can stop running around my house naked. I call the guy and let him know we'll be there at 7:30 when the concert is over and do the deal. I call my friend and he's fine to drive us there whenever. So, my mom gets home, we have some dinner, and then we call my friend to pick us up and take us out there/to the insurance place, because my mom just wanted to do the insurance in Tswwassen where the car is (a half hour drive from our house). Fine. Cool.

Wait. What if there's no where out there open? There's one here five minute from my house where we get ours done usually that's open till 9, but out there? While my friend is on his way to our house, I call every fucking autoplan dealer in Tswwassen. Nobody is open.

Great, so my friend drives here for no reason, and we're like "ok, fuck, we'll call you when we're done the insurance getting bit and go from there".

At this point it's like... oh, 7:25. So my mom and I head out, driving like mad, get the papers, don't really look at them, and run back to the insurance place. At one point on the drive I was screaming "DRIVE MA BARKER, DRIVE!"

Anyway, we get to the insurance place at seven minutes to nine (fuck yeah!), hand over the stuff, and we forgot to get the registration thing off of his insurance papers. Apparently you need that. It says it in big red letters on the sale form. We rule.

So we drive back anyway, to get the stupid form and whatever, so tomorrow (being today) we could just go to the insurance place, giv'r, and pick the car up.

I was so exhausted by all of this fucking bullshit and embarrassed for making the seller wait and roping my friend into the madness that I cried half of the way back. But whatever, it was paid for at that point, and for all intents and purposes, it was mine. Such is life.

So, today, we go to the insurance place when my mom is off of work. I spend the entire day in anticipation, so by 6 o'clock I'm barely functional. want. car. now.

We go, hand over the proper papers victoriously, and she asks "has the vehicle been aircared?"

Sigh. Being that it's a 2001, it didn't have to get aircared in this fair province until this eighth year of the second millennium of our lord. The guy didn't have to renew his insurance on the car until September, so he was unaware (they just moved here from Edmonton). We can't technically insure the car until we put it through aircare. FABULOUS! The lady knows us, so she gives us temporary registration/insurance so we can drive it around tonight/tomorrow to get our shit done. Thank God for her.

So, we go home, and a different friend comes and picks us up, drives us out there, and we pick up the car. All is well. On the drive home (friend and I take Saab, mom drives her Volvo), we see if anything is in the cd player, and The Beatles "Rubber Soul" is in it, which is my favourite Beatles album. We hit play, and the first song, is "Drive My Car".
My faith is renewed in this purchase being the right thing to do, and I'm feeling cocky and on top of the world again. Hooray!

And then we get home. I want to drive it just to the end or the road and back, so we go to the end of my street to turn around. I haven't driven standard in over a year, and at that I never learned fully, I just got it under my belt enough to be able to do it for the night. Anyway, I stall at the stop sign, which is sort of.. downhill and awkward, and then I go to start it again (which is awkward as hell, because Saabs only start in reverse. It's just they way they make their transmissions) and forget that you have to have it in reverse to turn it off, or on, so I'm panicking, thinking I killed my car after driving it a hundred or so feet. Fabulous. This is after I set the alarm off while getting out, which was really confusing because there was no reason for it to turn on, and when I hit the button to turn it off, it wouldn't. I had to get back in the car and shove the keys in the ignition and switch it to “on” to make it stop.

I guess because of the alarm, and then stalling twice and maybe yelling and moaning and laughing hysterically for the past, oh, twenty minutes, these guys that live in the house on the corner come out to see if everything is alright or if the world’s least subtle car thief is on the loose. They're East Indian, and walk up to my door, while I cower and close my eyes and yell "WHY? WHY?!? WHY, JUST GO AWAY, I'M OKAY!" They don't.

I had yet to turn the car back on, as it had stalled and died and I was trying to fiddle with the fucking key, so I couldn't put the power windows down. They just won't fuck off, and then knock on the window. So I open the door and say "yeah, I'm just trying to learn to drive a standard and I suck at it. We're fine. Thanks, we don't need your help."

This is my driving face.

And then they just stand there looking at me, like I've said "fuck your mother". And while I was definitely rude, seriously, if someone tells you to go away and looks unstable, DO IT. But no. They stand there grunting at me and then refuse to move. Like, just stand there. I pretty much just want to take the E-brake off and throw myself in front of the car at this point, so instead I get out and ask my mom to just fucking turn it around and get it parked again for me. All the while they still stand there, watching this, grunting and saying things I didn’t understand and making many hand gestures. I hate you, fuckers. How dare you try to help?

Anyway, that's fine. My mom can drive, no problemo. Get back. Turn off car, go to get out.

Alarm goes off, again. Can't turn it off. WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?! Shove key back into ignition and turn the car on. It stops. Everytime we remove the key from the ignition, it goes off. Doesn't matter if we unlock the car with both key fobs, or unlock them with the buttons inside or unlock them manually, or anything. Keys in ignition = no alarm, otherwise, alarm. Fucking wonderful.

By this point I am so exhausted that I just start laughing, because the only other option is to have a nervous breakdown. I'm pretty much incapacitated with howling with laughter and screaming through tears "I have a fucking car that I can't fucking drive, or even get the fuck out of. Help, I'm locked in my car and I can't get up" and the like. Anyway, while my mom is reading the manual a million times and setting off the alarm the same number of times, the cat jumps on the hood. My mother and I end up in hysterics (we were probably as loud as the fucking alarm), because the cat is freaking out on the hood because he this we're being hurt, and is crawling all the fuck over the car. He attacks the dogs if my mom is petting one and it looks at her the wrong way (she's had to throw shoes at him to make him leave the dogs alone because of petting incidents before) so he probably thinks I'm killing her and wants to get into the car to claw my eyes out. Anyway, then we laugh at him because he looks desperately worried and is meowing and sitting on the sun roof. Anyway, this all started at 10:30, and at 11:30, we're still locked in the fucking car. There are many jokes said now about naming the car "Christine" after the Stephen King novel.

We've called my dad/he's called us a few times (he's at work) but nothing helpful has come of that. He's just called us stupid, and told us to call the seller. I refuse, because I’m sick of calling this super nice, organized guy like a moron with awful news about my disorganized retarded and incompetent ass. Pluss it’s 11:30 at night and sane people aren’t outside, locked in their cars. So my dad calls him, and his response is unlock the doors with the button on the centre console. I scream back at my dad “THAT’S THE FIRST FUCKING THING I TRIED, HOW STUPID DO YOU THINK I AM?! JESUS CHRIST!” Anyway, he just says that he knows exactly what the problem is, and that we’ll just have to figure it out on our own. So, since the key has to be in the ignition anyway, we drive there and wait for him and his all knowing magical car guru ass to fix it.

We try a few more times while we're waiting for him to remove the key, but it just alarms. Fucking fuck. I get bored, so I start playing with the dials and the sun roof. I close is as my dad walks up. We turn down the windows, and he says "you know the roof is still open, right?"

Apparently, from the inside, the roof being closed does not look like it is, and vice versa. There's no light or sign to let you know that the roof is open, so rather than have that, the fucking alarm just goes off incessantly until you close it. Nice safety feature, but it would be nicer if they mentioned that in the goddamn manual.

Anyway, since I wrote that last night, everything has been fine. It passed aircare, is probably over-insured, and is still fucking beautiful and sexy as hell.

I fear what the mechanic will say when I take it in on Monday just to see what’s what.

Dear Sailor,

2008-06-22T23:50:00.000-07:00

Lately, I've been pretty much living inside my head. My social interactions are pretty limited, and I spend most of my time alone, either walking or en route to work or the gym, or doing laundry, or sitting with one of my parents, listening to them talk. People text me and I don't text back, not out of dislike or disinterest, but... I just think the response in my head and don't send it. I tell people I'll call back and completely forget. Sometimes I won't answer my phone just because I really don't feel like holding up my end of a conversation. Pretty rare though, I've only done that twice in the last month, I'm not a complete hermit.

I also feel really limited and constrained by the situations I've found myself in, and every door I can think to open shuts another one and jams a possible emergency exit only window shut, too. but that's another blog.

Anyway, today, for whatever reason, I've had this urge or yearning or need or whatever to just tell someone that I love them, and really fucking mean it. Not like "I love you, mom" or "I love you, dog" (I did hug the shit out of Brandy and tell her that I loved her, though, because I never do that or tell her that [I know she's a dog and no one but me believes she can understand that, but fuck you, I don't care, I felt better for doing it] and I really adore her. Like as far as animals go, she is tops in my books) or something. But really just grab someone's face and kiss them with purpose and tell them that I loved them.

I don't want to be in a relationship with anyone, I don't really even want to go on a date, I kind of just want to be left to my own devices with my iPod and a decent pair of shoes and a water bottle, but... yeah. I get that Times cover picture, now. Just what that sailor was thinking. Why that was so important. Ok, I can't really claim to understand what war is like. I've witnessed a domestic dispute on the 312 bus, oooo, I'm worldly! But, I get the drift. I used to think it was kind of dumb, and the guy was an attention seeking jack ass, and that little girls everywhere were morons for thinking it was romantic at all. I still think they're morons, but the guy is less of an ass.

I think I'm going to have a difficult time getting to sleep tonight, just because I can't fulfill this urge (Well, I suppose I could, but the Wheelhouse and/or Donegals are fairly far away, and I have to be at work at 8:15 in the morning, sooo...). I hate the feeling of going to bed and feeling unaccomplished. Ugh!

Advetnures in Surrey City.

2008-06-20T03:11:00.000-07:00

On my mom's way home from work, she was stopped at a red light and noticed a wallet on the road out of her window, so she stopped and grabbed it, and noticed more shit strewn about the intersection.

SO, she gets home, we look at it, and it's some chick from Chilliwack's, has her SIN card, Visa, drivers license, but no cash, and nothing else save for a save on card, a costco card and a temporary gym membership, and some not-so-cute baby's photo (she's the kid's aunt), but unfortunately nothing with a phone number on it. We looked her up via the address on the license and the name, but no luck. One profile on Facebook matched, so I left a message, but who knows, really?

My mom wonders what else was in the intersection, so after peeing (it was important at the time, so I'm including it now) we go back, and get a Billabong bag that had nail polish, lipstick and a lighter in it, has been run over, so stinks to high acetone heaven, and a belt. A belt? Yes, a belt.

So we drive from there (104 ave and 120th street) which is the north end of surrey, to Municipal Hall, which is at the South End, at 56th ave and 142 street.

My mom was telling me about some fat cow that had a cesarian at work that almost decked her in the recovery room at work, who she yelled at, and I turned on the radio, because I like the radio, and "never gonna give you up" is on. So I text anyone that I figure won't hate me for texting at one AM, and who knows what rick rolling is, to be all "BAHAHAHAHA, TEW FUNNI!" hence why a few of you got retarded text messages. Sorry about that one.

En route, we passed the building that my highschool grad (and Viv's) was held at, and we reminisced about how the AC had malfunctioned. My mom's exact words were "All that comes to mind when I think of your graduation is the smell of sweat and curry". I didn't know whether to laugh, or say "THAT'S RACIST", so instead laughed and told her she was going to hell.

We get to city hall, and the RCMP building looks totally dead. We park in the loading zone, stopping to muse as to if we'll get a ticket or not for unloading.

We buzz the intercom, can't understand much, get a number to call, and then two officers come and open the door. The one that stays to get my mom's information is moderately attractive, so I stared at his ass essentially the entire time. This is also how I noticed the handcuffs in his back pocket as he opened the door to let us out, and came to the conclusion that I may need to get laid sometime soon so as to not become an RCMP rapist.

Anyhow, when we get out, the sprinklers have come on. Surrey City Hall has ridiculously well manicured gardens. Palm trees and shit. So we look down the divided drive behind us, and there are tropical and local plants, green grass between the two lanes, and then this haze of mist everywhere, with trees leaning over the drive itself. It was the stuff shitty indie movies are made out of. Garden State ain't got nothing on Surrey City Hall at 1 in the morning.

So then we drive home, and because my mom said that she was hungry, and then that she was thirsty and asked where to go, and then decided to make a sandwich when we got home, I got it into my head that it would be cool to go through a drive thru. Not to actually have the food, but just to go through. So I decide that we have to get a double cheese burger stack attack thing from Wendy's at the last possible second, so we do, after having a ridiculous conversation about how no burger could possibly cost more than four dollars, and then it coming to 4.71 and how the police would be coming back soon to arrest us for driving thru.

At that point, someone came in the drive thru line behind us with shitty hip hop blaring, so I turned up "Go Your Own Way" as loudly as I could and screamed "STEVIE NICKS HATES YOUR MUSIC; PULL UP YOUR PANTS" out the window.

And then we got our burger, and came home.

And that's my story.

I hope this girl is okay, and didn't get run over or something.

Blah.

2008-06-08T23:47:00.000-07:00

The song "Nineteen" came on randomly just now, and at first I jumped to turn it off, but decided that I should listen because I've always liked it, and really, what's the worst that could happen? I cry? Yeah, I've done that before, so...

Anyway, in the weeks leading up to my birthday, I got "depressed" by the idea of being old. Two decades, yada yada. So while listening to the song this time I realized (and I know this is painfully obvious and essentially something to say "yeah, no shit" to) that nineteen is over. I can never do anymore things in my nineteenth year of existence. No more will any of this shit I'm doing fall under the category, while shooting the shit in years to come, of "When I was nineteen" or "Remember that time when we were nineteen?".

I always looked at people in their twenties and thought "Oh, they're old. They know things. They've done things. Listen to them."

Well now I'm part of this club, and I don't know shit, I've accomplished dick all, I haven't even been out of North America, and most of what I have to say essentially adds up to hot air and wasted gigabytes of text and hard drive space, and trees filling landfills worth of Godawful papers I will never read again. I don't know if I'm more sad that this Cool Club of the Second Decade turned out to be a total sham meaning all those years of idolization were spent in vain, or by my existence as someone in their twenties to be so non-TV-drama.

Don't worry. One day I'll go back to posting about things that "matter", or at the very least stop being so fucking depressing and boring. Hopefully.

This morning

2008-06-06T09:44:00.000-07:00

I had awful dreams, and woke up sad and confused. I went downstairs and had some leftover chicken and tea and yogurt for breakfast, and started watching Mr. Rogers.

And at the end where he was talking about how you have to wake up and make a snappy new day, and what a good feeling it was, I started crying.

This week has been awful and frustrating, but the worst part is is that I can't even put my finger on why it has been upsetting or what is eating away at me, so I can't admit it, deal with it, and feel any better.

I hate writing shitty emo blogs that aren't topical or that are just personal bitch fests, but I'm getting desperate here.

Crash Into Me

2008-05-25T00:54:00.000-07:00

Tonight I tried to picture in my head whoever it is that I will date next, and nothing came to mind. Not that I don't have people in mind, just that when it came down to thinking of like a face, a shape, a colour, a size, that I really actually tried to fabricate, all I could get was, well, nothing. Total blank.

And it occured to me how weird it is to just be floating around in the universe on a little rock zooming around a ball of gas waiting for this other entity that will totally reshape my life to crash into me, without even having a clue what the person looks like.

No hints. No nothing. Just hope.

Is it all predetermined, or is it all totally random? Am I crashing in to people for a reason, or do we all just land at random like a seed in the wind?

I'm kind of excited for my next crash, but that probably won't happen for a while, yet. I hope I don't get bitter in the meantime.

Things Overheard While Peeing.

2008-05-25T00:43:00.000-07:00

Today I walked around the seawall with my mom, and periodicaly used rest stops. At the one behind the concession at Third Beach, a woman was talking to a girl who was embarrassed by the
changing room's lack of real doors, but rather just partition walls and a ledge to sit on/put your bag on.

So she said to the kid "why are you so upset, we're all girls."

And it was just one of those moments were you get reminded of everything that is unmarked versus marked. Heterosexuality is normal, women cannot be a threat to your personal safety, people are good, and women are modest and won't look at another naked person, but regardless that women should be ashamed of their bodies and hide them at all costs.

I am Alone.

2008-05-15T22:08:00.000-07:00

Today was the most beautiful day so far this year. I was sitting alone at home, and decided that feeling sorry for myself because everyone else had things to do while I did not was retarded, so I planed to get stoned and go for a walk. But then I didn't. So instead, I went to the park and read "A Million Little Pieces".

I walk in the park and the sun is setting. Swarms of small flies hover at eye level, but regardless the sun is just cresting the horizon orange between the trees.

I walk to the picnic bench and sit, cross legged, reading, until a group of Goth teenagers come and sit on the rocks nearby and smoke, and talk about doing Ecstasy and hit chains into pipes. I'm not afraid of them, but personal safety and the sound of metal hitting metal go hand in hand. I think it's ingrained into Westerners minds that this sound is something to be wary of. I leave the park as soon as I'm done the chapter.

I had been weighing in m mind whether or not to smoke while reading. As I left, I lit the first, and walked in the opposite direction that I had planned. Smoking and walking isn't my favourite thing to do.

I end up walking behind two girls, walking arm in arm. I see the bottom of one's shoes, and it looks like they have tiny kitten heels. She's wearing a grad '08
hoodie and jeans, and the sign of forced gender makes me sad. But she's not wearing heels. Neither is wearing shoes, and they are walking arm in arm, barefoot, down the road. Long hair, clean faces, unplanned outfits, down the road. I am glad to see innocence. I don't know them, and they may well have life experience, but two best friends like that is something I haven't thought about in a while. In juxtaposition to my former guests, the pair is a breath of fresh air in the face of Benson and Hedges.

I walk into the grounds of my elementary school. I climb the new jungle gym they installed, which proves to be harder when you have a still sore ankle, and a cigarette in one hand. I look at the sunset, which is ending now, and think that this is one of the best days I have had in a long time. Someone has written on one of the red poles of the jungle gym that a boy is "cuite". My cigarette burns at my throat and pull at my lungs, and I see there is less than a quarter inch left, so I put it out. The word alone flutters, but two kids appear on the roof of the school with an orange street hockey ball in hand. One slides down the metallic blue pillar while the other ninja climes down between the pillar and the school wall. The word returns.

This is one of the best nights I have had in a long time, and I am "alone". I'm not separate from everyone, I can hear people in houses behind me, the kids throwing the ball against the other side of the school, animals, cars, people walking by, and the occasional BMX bike going back and forth. Not "alone" in that I am single. Just "alone", with myself. I spark another, and inhale. I am sitting with my legs dangling in front of the fireman's pole, staring into the sunset. The nicotine makes me feet dead weights. My head swims and churns. I like being alone. I don't think of it as solitude, because that word seems negative, or like it has something to prove like an undergraduate thesis, but I enjoy having a running conversation of thoughts with myself and not being interrupted by someone else or trying to articulate my thoughts in a way that would please whoever I was with. I am glad that I am alone on this beautiful day, seeing this with and through only my eyes.

I'm not sad that I am single. I'm not afraid of being single. I've been single before. I am sad because the person I wanted doesn't want me. I am sad because it ended like that. I am sad because I lost my best friend. I have been sad since day one because I knew then I had lost my best friend and it was only a matter of time before he was gone from my life completely. I was enjoying him, and the entity of us on borrowed time, and I am in the present and I am crying because I am not loved. Because I might still love him, but feelings are still unstable and mutable and as soon as one becomes constant a straw breaks my back and I am unsure. I am alone, and I am crying and it is a good day.

I butt out. I stare at the remnant of sunset, which now is just bruise-like with no driving centre. My feet are still dead weight and my head still churns. But I am not high. My vision is not crispy, my pupils are not dilated. I shift my vision over my glasses to prove that. I am harming myself tonight. I threw up, and I smoked. I am not crazy or in need of help. I think that I am having an off day which proved to be more difficult than I had premeditated. My working out, and my stretching my lobes might just be me grasping on to control. This was a reminder that I cannot control everything in my life. That I will never be able to control everything. That this is what happens when you leave things up to others, to fate, to god, to God, to nothing. This is the way it is. This is natural and this is good. But it is hard. I plan on continuing what I am doing in spite of this.

I spark another and hold on to the yellow railings of the jungle gym that flank the pole to ensure that those who jump do so of their own accord. I lie back. I am surrounded by my ashes. The sky is a dusty teal, and there are no stars. The moon is larger than half. I do not know if it is waxing or waning, and wonder if it matters at all. I see one star. The effort of lying down reminded me of the churning, and the dead weight, and it pleases me. I swing my legs and enjoy the feeling. There are three stars. They are faint and near the first, but they are there. I inhale, and watch my smoke circle upwards and right. Today is Thursday, and tomorrow morning kids will come on the playground and see the cigarette butts and the ashes. Some will be disgusted, and others will be intrigued. Foreign objects from a different world cross over into theirs and lie obtuse. Tomorrow is my twentieth birthday. I am sad and excited to be two decades old. I have stopped caring about the festivities of tomorrow. The people I want to be there can't, and the person I wanted doesn't want me. I think, in the end, that feeling that a particular day necessitates anymore effort or attention than another day is queer and makes me anxious.
There are three more stars. It can't have gotten that much more dark. Or have I lost sense of time? My cigarette has burnt more than I had thought since my last inhale. But there are more stars. I get cliché for a moment and think that I should wonder if, on a planet orbiting one of those stars, there isn't another entity lying, smoking, and looking at our sun somewhere, so I don't let myself. I think how it would be nice to have someone with me who could hear all of these thoughts as I thought them, to tell me that they loved them, or to just understand them and not ask me questions about them, but then I am glad that I am the only one in my head. I am alone tonight, and it is a good night.

I let my book go down one side of the tandem slide. It falls off the end in a heap, and I go down the other, stopping short of tumbling, and picking up the book. I try to swing on the monkey bars, but I am too tall for them. I am too tall for this playground, for this elementary school, to be here. I walk away, and see the other jungle gym, with the bridge. I am not too tall to walk under that, but as I near it I have to stoop. I am too tall for this. I can feel my muscles working as I walk, whether it is from exhaustion, or because I work out. I am walking differently, more quickly. I can feel the energy put into my movement and I feel the force of the output and it is different than before. I walk like I am alone. I walk with purpose. It is a good night.

Christians: Raising a Little Hell since 1063

2008-04-28T00:30:00.000-07:00

If they aren't busting through church floors, they're trying to feed the homeless.

Recently, the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority has busted churches for selling food that was prepared by people who don't have foodsafe at tea socials and at soup nights for the homeless, and other rowdy events.

While the representatives of the church remained positive, I do not, for a couple of reasons.

For one, as our welfare state declines (and you can throw your liberal bullshit at me all you want, but I still say it is), the community depends on NPO's like churches or organizations to fill in the gaps. And as flawed as this "solution" is (these organizations are funded and run by people within the community. In a recession, if there is no excess capital, how the hell are middle class peeps supposed to afford to look after those who can't? If we did/do like Keynes said we stockpile capital for times such as these, but small organizations can't be expected to stockpile like that when there is a constant need for aide), it sort of, half assed, in theory works. So, ok, now, rather than using state capital/intervention to look after the problem, it's left to small organizations to rectify. So now, rather than regulate and improve the welfare state organizations, we slap restraints on the people and groups who are supposed to be the solution? Uhhh... Kay.

Secondly, the people who have time for this kind of stuff are either clergymen, or unpaid domestic labourers (aka stay at home moms). So basically, the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority has stated that they completely devalue domestic labourers and what they can do. it doesn't matter that they've raised x amount of kids and fed them three meals they prepared by hand daily and none of them have ever gotten salmonella, or food poisoning, or found a metal file in their birthdaycakes. No, what matters is the homeless, and that the food that they get be prepared in a sanitary manner! The homeless are more important than domestic labourers!

..... Ok wait. So, state, you won't pay to feed them or house them properly yourself, and most are left to beg for food or search in the garbage for leftovers. The garbage. Like, where diapers and tampons and used kleenexes and bags of dog shit get thrown. HOWEVER when some people decide to get together and spend their own money on things for other people, you're the firsts to come in with your VCHA banners waving, shouting that the homeless and destitute deserve quality and sanitary eating conditions?

How cute.

30 Reasons Why I Will Never Take the Pill

2008-04-26T03:18:00.000-07:00

Having sore breasts that vary in shape weekly is stupid and annoying.
Worrying incessantly is for chumps.
Worrying causes digestive tract issues to flare up. Shitty all around.
Feeling hopeless isn’t something I’m willing to live with.
Constant migraines are debilitating.
Random pains in my legs turn into thrombosis, for further reasoning, see 2.
Having to take the stupid thing everyday at the same time is a pain in the ass for anyone who doesn’t live by some ridiculous schedule.
Crying for hours on end doesn’t mesh well with what meagre schedule I do have
If I have no sex drive, does that no defeat the purpose of taking it at all?
If I’m not having sex, really, who cares?
I don’t have to feel guilty for ruining an ecosystem by virtue of pissing out female sex hormones into water which is part of a vital habitat.
I don’t have to feel guilty for trying to sanitize my body by treating a natural biological function like it’s dirty or unhealthy
I don’t have to associate myself with the jackasses on the commercials for the pill. Have you heard about Yasmin? Unfortunately, yes.
It never results in shorter periods. This is all blasphemy and lies.
Feeling nauseous all night is not conducive to my happiness.
Having wicked bad acid-reflux is also not conducive to my happiness.
Being even more sensitive to simple sugars does not aid in my stability of mind.
Increased risk of yeast infection? No thanks.
Acanthosis negricans is unsightly. I don’t enjoy having dark, scaly looking, but velvety to the touch skin above my glands.
Having weird cravings, and then crying when I refuse to let myself indulge is crazy, and just makes me feel worse because I know I’m acting like an idiot.
Feeling apathetic is not something I enjoy. I am hateful towards apathy.
Being bloated at random can go suck a fuck.
Not knowing if you’re just crazy or if there is another factor really screws with your mind.
Being whiny and emo and complaining to my friends makes me feel like an even bigger loser than I already am.
Random break outs don’t aid the whole self esteem thing.
Living with the constant fear of having a stroke every time my head hurts (and that would be often) doesn’t help with the whole worrying/IBS tangent.
I refuse to go on antidepressants just to feel “normal”. I don’t even like taking penicillin, and it tastes like bananas!
I don’t have to go to some “hormonal help group” once a week to talk about my feelings. Rather, I can just blog it out, or work it out at the gym.
I get to feel like myself. I know that whatever is running through my head or whatever I’m experiencing is honest and something that I completely own and don’t feel afraid of or confused by.
Feeling suicidal is not my idea of a good time. Of all the things on my to-do list, checking out early is not one of them.

I can't give you much.

2008-04-26T01:55:00.000-07:00

But I promise you this:

I realize I'm not exactly the poet-laureate of the year, nor am I deserving of any accolades, or really any notice what so ever.

But Goddamn, I promise never to write
another stupid, "deep" blog entry while sober. I think the only stupid one I ever did like that anyway was this one, and I was so trashed I threw up a few hours after writing it. So I figure it's excused.

Anyway, as an English student, I can appreciate symbolism, and metaphors. Having dabbled in communications and having a basic understanding of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, I understand how language is important and can reshape reality. But if I ever start talking in metaphorical tongues, I give you, whoever you are, full permission to beat me up.

I believe in saying how you feel, when you feel it. And if you can't do that eloquently without sounding like a jack ass, then shut the fuck up.

I don't really know why I'm writing this. It has less merit than any childish garbage "deep" free-verse blog entry of past, present, or future, and yet I still fully intend to "publish" this...

Maybe that's the problem with blogger. You "publish" everything you post. Blows a lot of hot air up a lot of loser's asses.

I will be reading some library books soon, so maybe I'll finally have something decent to write about, because my moping is hardly good reads, I know.

Sorry folks.

Mac Attack.

2008-04-23T01:54:00.000-07:00

Ok, So I've already posted this elsewhere, but I don't think any of you will have read it, so here you go. It's the story of the weirdo who like accosted me in Macs:

So, on Friday night after getting almost electrocuted, snowed on, and in general shit on by the Heavens, we get booze, get mix, get smokes, and then realize NO ONE HAS A LIGHTER.

I mean, I only have like a million I've bought, a half million that I've accidentally stolen, and like a quarter that people have straight up given me.

So Doodle stops and Macs on 120th and 92nd, and I go in, and go to the counter, and this fucking chump drinking a slurpee with a ballin' hat on (complete with the gold size sticker in the underside of the brim), and a printed, too-large hoody that zips all the way up the hood is all "HEY OMG IS THAT YOUR BOYFRIEND IN THE CAR HEY WHAT'S UP, REMEMBER ME FROM THAT PARTY?"

"No. No I don't." And then to the guy behind the counter "I need a lighter." He gestures to the stand of lighters on the counter. I feel stupid, but not as stupid as the moron who won't leave me the fuck alone.

"YEA, MY COUSINS PARTY, DOWN IN DELTA BY THE BOG? YEA YOU WERE TOTALLY THERE!"

"I don't think so." And to the cashier, "Could you help me out here?" because I couldn't get the damn lighter out of the stand.

"NO DUDE, MY COUSIN PUKED ALL OVER THE PORCH!! REMEMBER?!"

"No, I don't, because I wasn't at that party. Sorry." The cashier can't get the lighter out, but thinks this is absolutely hilarious. I'm more than annoyed.

"SO, YOU SMOKING SOME DOPE? 420?"

"No. Just cigarettes."

"WELL THAT'S BORING."

"That's me. Boring."

"YEA, OR SMOKE SOME CRACK!!"

"I don't think I would enjoy that very much. Thanks." Of course the fucking twoonie won't get the fuck out of my Goddamn wallet, and the cashier is still just smiling his stupid face off, with his dumb incisor teeth that turn inwards so he looks like a eunuch vampire.

"YEA, NO, I'M JUST KIDDING, I ONLY DO THE SOFT SHIT. SOOOOOFFFTT." What the hell the emphasis on soft meant, I don't no, nor am I willing to commit any amount of time to analyzing.

"Yea, that's nice."

And I leave, shaking my head.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is my future. Little boys in clothes too big for them that hang out at Macs on Friday nights.

Spinsterdom, here I come.

I have a rocking chair somewhere, all I need to do now is hate cats less....

Stormy Weather

2008-04-20T01:13:00.000-07:00

I have no idea what I want right now.

I can't tell if I just want a fucking routine, or if I want this kind of random existence. I went from having this normalized, routine, predictable life, to all of a sudden just, within a week, having this new life that is totally foreign.

I'm fucking single, I don't work at the same place, I'm no longer in school, my best friend lives four times as far away as she used to... for me, who hates change, it's a bit much. The amount of places I have where I just feel normal and like I belong have dwindled from everywhere to at home, and at Ekam's.

Even the Goddamn weather is mental. Yesterday it hailed, snowed, rained, thundered and lightninged.... the skytrain track got hit while we were all out, and then the train was delayed due to snow accumulation.

I just feel like I'm in the middle of this storm, and then just as soon as you think it has calmed down, you realize you were just in the eye of the storm and the other side is beating the shit out of you, too.

I keep wondering what the hell will happen next. Like, seriously, someone dies? House lights on fire? Because at this point I wouldn't really be surprised by anything.

People keep telling me how strong I am and how well I'm coping, but seriously, this is all adding up to be bigger than me. Something needs to get better. I need a variable removed, I can't solve for five things at once. There's no way to organize all of this shit I have to come to terms with.

Well, Drew,

2008-04-18T13:05:00.000-07:00

Your blog entry paid off.

The guy who makes Toothpaste for Dinner wrote a blog about the trials of being a webcomic creator, and mentionned that 0.05% of their viewers ever purchase anything (i.e. fund the comic we enjoy on a daily basis).

Since I've been reading his and his wife's comic for the last ... jeeze, five years or more, I figured it was time.

I have three shirts coming in the mail. Almost all of my shirts are from Threadless, or some other nerdy, online thing. I might as well start playing WoW and just get this over with....

I also just bought tickets to see MIA on the 25th of May, which is very exciting. Now I have plans for every weekend in May. Thank God. No time to feel sorry for myself = awesome time.

I've been feeling... well, definitely not fabulous, but not as miserable. Mornings are the worst. As hard as it is for me to sleep in the same bed as someone (I'm very particular about my sleep. Sharing a bed with NCL is ok, but that's about it. Soulmates? I think so), I liked not waking up alone.

To be fair, I think I may have been playing the victim card a little too much. As abrupt as the break up itself was, it wasn't like everything had been as fabulous as it was in the beginning. The relationship hadn't been the same for a month or so. I mean I wasn't ready to break up over it or anything, but it's not like I hadn't thought "you know, I don't know how much longer this is going to work for, honestly". Not to be a vindictive bitch, but I definitely would have also brought it up before I decided to just break up with him, because you know, I have respect for the person I'm dating and realize that the relationship isn't just about what I want, but rather what we (the theoretical two of us, I'm not crazy, calm down) both want.. ahem.

I wish this could have been brought up and we could have discussed so it wasn't such a shock. The implications from him were that everything were fine, so I had things I wanted to do. I hate not doing what I planned on doing. Solution: find someone else to do things with that actually wants to and isn't just pretending to "not hurt your feelings" or one of those ridiculous reasons people make for lying...

Nineteen.

2008-04-16T01:45:00.000-07:00

In exactly a month, I will be twenty. Probably alone, and twenty. Ok, that was a stupid thing to say. I will be somewhere, surrounded by people who I love and who love me back and probably won't ever stop. And that's really fucking reassuring.

I seem to be oscillating between not giving a shit at all and just feeling relaxed, and then feeling depressed and sad and lonely. I didn't think this would reduce my anxiety. Maybe it's just that school is over, who can say? I'm surprised I even feel half way normal so soon. I don't trust it, I kind of fear it, but it's nice in its own right.

In the moment, though, I am listening to Tegan and Sara's "Nineteen" on repeat, because it is too fucking perfect and describes everything perfectly.

While I am admitting to things that he did that drove me nuts, I am also plagued by all of the little things he did that I fucking adored (I think they outweigh the annoyances by far, unfortunately). I miss his snoring. It was unobtrusive and was just this awesome, reassuring, steady background noise to fall asleep to. It makes sense that I miss that, too, since I feel like I have lost one of my strongholds: something that was behind me always, unobtrusively.

For the record, this is definitely not one of my "feeling fine and relaxed" moments.

Edit: About three months ago I was sitting outside of my Starbucks, smoking, and this song came on my iPod. And I thought "this song is awesome and depressing. That's probably how I'll feel when Jordan and I inevitably break up. Except there's no way that will happen until I'm at least twenty. Well, I don't think so anyway."

I guess I was wrong.

Paranoia

2008-04-14T00:44:00.000-07:00

I can't shake the feeling that I was left for someone else or with someone else in mind. I don't know if this is just because I'm desperately trying to grasp something concrete when all I can come up with are fragments, or if it would make hating him easier and thus make the caring about him go away faster, or if it would just be nice to know that I didn't do something wrong.

Not being "Some Other Slut" is something I have no control over, therefor, I don't have to feel badly.

Except for when I scrutinize myself and come up with a thirty page paper on all of my flaws and then compare myself to this fictitious other person, which, if this person is real (and fictitious people hardly ever are), I would inevitably do. Not to mention I feel badly for not trusting that he was being honest with me. Which I feel stupid for considering because at this point what the fuck difference does what I think make? What different did it ever make? Seemingly little. At this point, I'm fairly justified in not having a sense of trust left, I think.

I'm honestly not that interested in growing through the pain. I'm okay with my level of maturity. If I could, I would go into a coma right now and wake up two months down the road, by-passing my birthday, which I'm going to be alone for, and just be twenty, thin, and be so happy that I came out of said coma and didn't die that the fact that my ex left me (for some person that I have created out of thin air, probably just to torture myself because that's what I feel like I'm worth right now) wouldn't bother me anymore.

I think that's the gayest idea I've ever put down in text. And I've said and written some pretty dumb shit.

What I'm most paranoid about, is that, in order to cope while in public and etc., I am just pretending it didn't happen. Not like I'm telling people he and I are still together or something, but just... I don't know. Whenever I cognizantly process it, I break down and start to dry heave. I haven't forgotten the habitual thought patterns and haven't replaced his precedence in my life. It scares the fuck out of me. I don't want this to last forever. I don't want to be disabled by this. I don't want this to set me back and make me stop caring about what makes me happy. I know you can't rush this shit, but Jesus Christ, I am tired. I am burnt the fuck out, and it's been.. two days?

A few days after we started dating, I borrowed his copy of high fidelity (or a few days before and returned it after we started?) and made a comment upon return about the Barry White song used during the fictitious sex scene, where John Cusack's ex in the movie, Laura, starts seeing Ian Raymond, his ex-neighbour. Anyway, he's hiding in his sheets thinking about all the fucking they're doing that he doesn't know about. He found the clip of it on youtube at the time to hear the song, and now I can't find the clip. Anyway, I keep thinking about that. I would watch that movie, but they get back together, and I don't need any help creating pipe dreams.

So the unthinkable has happened.

2008-04-12T20:35:00.000-07:00

One second I was walking home, proud of an essay I just handed in and ready to finish a final project and write an exam on Monday, and the next I get in my boyfriend's car, which he was sitting in waiting outside of my house, and he breaks the fuck up with me.

No ands ifs or buts. No trying to work things out, just that he didn't feel the same way towards me.

I don't want to go through the bleary eyed, hiccougging, hyperventilating, moaning details again, but it's been a little more than 24 hours and it sucks, but I feel better than I did four hours after it happened, so there's something.

I proved to myself that I am a complete academia nerd though. Immediately after he left my house I thought to myself "If Sapir and Whorf were right, I wonder if in another cultural setting, if this were called 'letting go of' 'setting free of' 'giving a new start to' or some other non
-violent, non-harmful, pleasant term rather than "getting dumped" "breaking up with" "giving the heave ho", would it be less painful and feel like I'd been less stigmatized as unwanted or used trash (ok, I'm getting overly dramatic here, I'm not from Jersey, for Chrissake).

I feel so cheated. Not in the literal sense (the thought has crossed my mind), but in the sense that there was no possibility to work things out, no warnings, just a fucking bomb dropped in my lap. Like things hadn't been Loveboat steamy or anything, but there were no fights (not what I see as a fight), and no real differences. I'm either an oblivious fool, or he deserves an Academy Award. Feeling less emotionally attached for "a couple of weeks" is a deal breaker, after eight months of (what I assumed was) an intense relationship, and a year or more of friendship, a roadtrip..... just doesn't seem plausible to me.

I can't stop giving myself the third degree. How could I not see this coming? I feel like I failed at knowing the person I thought I loved. How could I have been so naïve? What did I do to deserve this three days before my last final exam? And most importantly what did I do wrong? There's always a catalyst in situations like this. Ugh.

I don't want to be that bat-shit insane weirdo that's like, "Dear E-Diary, Mood: Apathetic. Today I went out with my parents and they just don't understand my pain. My soul is tormented and I will never be the same" or some dumb bullshit like that because, yes, I know, in five months I will probably feel fine, and be really happy even if I'm still a little sad occasionally. Thus far this is different, but feels less hopeless and devastating than last time? I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm fucking devastated. This is the last thing that I saw in the future we used to have together — absolute last fucking thing. Honestly, I think in my mind a car crash, killing one or both of us was more probable. I just see a light at the end of the tunnel this time, and it's a lot brighter now than it was before.

So, if you hated this blog, don't read this for the next few months, because I'm sure at the very least, periodically, I will be using this to help me make sense of this .... fucking.... colossal shock. And I will not be apologizing for telling you how I feel.

Adventures in Birth Control.

2008-04-06T22:52:00.000-07:00

Or rather, misadventures. Disasters. Catastrophies.

Ok, no, misadventures is fine. I haven't spent an entire month crying daily yet, so I think disaster and catastrophe are still a ways off.

I have turned into a crying mess, though. The tears strike at will, and their cessation is always a mystery and occurs abruptly.

I also can't take a joke, get annoyed more easily than normal and just don't feel like my heart is in it anymore. And while crying is a refreshing change from just not giving a shit, I think I prefer just, you know, feeling normal emotions.

And then I have these moments of utter clarity, like right now, where everything seems simple and logical and totally normal.

I just want to not feel like a spazz. I want to be boring and dull and just feel one thing about the same thing or person, and not have to figure out which lens I'm perceiving the world through at a moment's notice.

I also miss my sex drive. I want it back. Like now.

Anyway, in closing, I would like to say that the radical feminists of the second wave were wrong. Birth control has not emancipated us. Or not me, at any rate. So, suck on that ass-mar.

p.s. If you've never seen Adventures in Babysitting, torrent it or rent it ASAP. It was one of my favourites when I was little along with Last Action Hero and All Dogs Go To Heaven.

Oh man, if I watched All Dogs in this state, I would cry for a week and have to miss final exams.... say......

Warmth

2008-04-05T23:41:00.000-07:00

There is something so addictive about drinking in warmth—so addictive about breathing in warmth, when all you've been surrounded by is cold.

When you've been flanked by the façade of warmth your entire life, in the cultural context you exist in, that you want to consume at all times. When you realize everything you were taught was not.

That you try to consume to be a part of, but are always separate from.

Moving Day

2008-03-31T22:36:00.003-07:00

I had planned to give you a detailed synopsis, but I don't know if you know this, but moving is hard.

Having never done it before, I did not, but I do now.

I can't breathe, my nose is bleeding, my voice is gone and yes. I was up at six, helping move by ten, and got home again at ten. Bleh.

So, here, instead:

The Life of a Model

2008-03-30T20:02:00.000-07:00

So, this weekend I did a hair show, which is why I now have bright red hair. Most of you know this after being inundated by dumb Facebook updates I'm sure, but if not, voici:
Anyway, essentially this involved sitting around for six hours, getting dyed again for maximum brightnesss, adding some maroon-ish lowlights around my face and in the "fringe" and wearing ridiculously high heels and walking on a catwalk thirty feet in the air. I'm not a fan of heights.

It also involved practicing standing on these risers which were far too high for my short ass to get on to, so my right leg is killing me, making me walk up and down Jordan's stairs like a total 'tard.

It was fun, there was a lot of waiting involved, but I was, for the most part, kept busy. Jordan, on the other hand, was left to wait around for six hours with nothing in sight. Poor him.

The semester is almost over. I really have nothing to report. I wrote one paper, it stunk. It still stinks it's so rotten. I did some things. Saw some stuff... yea. I'm as fun as a barrel of monkeys.

Oh, in pill land, I think it may have quashed my sex drive, which I was not expecting. Nor do I know what the fuck to do. Crazy I can deal with; it comes naturally. Not wanting to have sex? That... not so much.

Alright, blogfans

2008-03-24T00:38:00.000-07:00

I'm attempting to use the pill and not kill myself or someone else. I mean, in the process I'm killing an entire ecosystem by pissing out an excess of synthetic female sex hormones... but I meant more like actively wanting to. This may suck more due to the fact that I have papers and exams due shortly, work is all fucked up, and I am considerably more poor after my fucking zany weekend.
I may blog about said weekend but I want an okay from the people I'd be mentioning first.

Anyway, I will try to keep you up to date as to my homi/sui-cidal tendencies. This time it's an entirely different brand (last time it was the same brand, just a different format) so let's hope the German's really do it better, and the Bayer version of circle-slash-baby works out better.

I hate children, IBS, the CFS, but most of all, I hate the smoking regulations at SFU

2008-03-18T15:45:00.000-07:00

It is spring break for the nose miners in primary and secondary education. Which means that when I try to run up the escalator to catch my SkyTrain, there's a pack of poopy snotty retarded brats in my way, not standing right so I can walk left, but rather standing wherever the fuck they want, with their liberated, Lululemon wearing, metal water bottle toting mom's encouraging them to be their own person and get in my way. I may have elbowed one in the head while trying to dodge past them on the platform. It was unintentional, but satisfying. There were also retarded highschool students on my way home, freaking out over the door not completely closing because I was leaning on it. Not a centimetre crack of not-door! We'll all be sucked out of the plane...

I had been taking Buscopan to help with my digestive tissue issues, and it had been going wonderfully, but I forgot it in my bag after going to Mission this weekend. Usually it sits beside my deodorant and I take it every morning after putting deodorant on, but since it wasn't visually there I forgot. Anyway, I had to leave class twenty minutes early. That sucked. For your sake that's all I have to say about that.

But yes, the CFS is an issue I will tackle later tonight after watching the debates and reading up on some stuff. But for the record, until then, I fucking hate the CFS and am considering doing bodily harm to the next asshole that tries to make me wear a pin. Please, jack ass, pretend SFU student, give me something sharp and pointy after harassing me. Good plan.

Anyway, as of March 31st, it will be illegal to smoke in/near doorways, and in bus stop shelters
. University campuses have kicked it up a notch and at SFU at any rate, have prohibited the sale of tobacco and tobacco products on campus. So, if you live in rez, you are fucked and will have to take the 145 to the Mac's, or the 135 to the Husky at the corner of hastings or something. And you'll then have to find an abandoned military bunker the film crew left behind to light up, because everywhere else is sacred, neo-hippy bullshit land where smoking and happiness are not allowed.

I guess the definite non-smoker's usual response (from what I've experienced) is a resounding "Good!" as if the future of the planet as been insured by making a group that has already had their right to do what makes them happy in certain areas of public taken away even more miserable.

Now, to be fair, I don't mind the ban of smoking indoors. I hate smoking inside. It gives me headaches and makes me feel nauseous unless I'm smoking out of an open window. Plus, for those that have a legitimate allergy to smoke, or cystic fibrosis or asthma, it's really not cool. Space indoors is limited.

But patios, doorways, and other outdoor areas have become liminal spaces that are important to smokers. They aren't indoors. They're not completely out of doors either, in the case of patios, but a bus shelter is decidedly outdoors in my mind. I realize that other societally determined "vile" acts such as spitting, urinating and defecating are also illegal to do outside of certain areas, which many would say are comparable to smoking. I find this logic flawed. Allow me to demonstrate with my own flawed bullshit logic:

Spitting, urinating and defecating are all excretatory products of the body which are naturally occuring. Now, before you scream "SMOKE IS EVEN MORE VILE THAN FECES!" allow me to explain something. The "stench" people associate with smoking comes from the exhalation of the cigarette smoke. Smokers pay a lot of money to be able to inhale the smoke, which most people don't give a shit about (except SFU who won't let us buy them anymore). Presumably, the smoker would also wish to exhale. This would be the issue for everyone else, seemingly. The claim is never that a person's lit cigarette's smoke gently wafted in the breeze under their nose in a most offensive manner, but that the smoker aggressively blew smoke in their face and then beat up a senior citizen and jerked off in public, so it's not that the cigarette is lit in public, but rather that it is being smoked or rather, that smoke is being exhaled. The "smoke" that people refer to is the filtered smoke that us kind smokers have chosen to pre-filter with our own lungs so that yours don't have to turn black. It is essentially the natural byproduct of exhaling. So, to disallow this in public because it annoys people's sensitive noses is discrimination. Are we going to outlaw halitosis, too? Give people tickets for farting in public? Make special bathrooms for shitting only, so the poor people who only came into the bathroom to pee don't have their Victorian sensibilities offended? No. That would be stupid. So fuck off and let smokers smoke.

If the smell bothers you, move. If you're in a bus shelter, ask if you can trade spots with the person so you're upwind. This entire issue is one of image, which I can only assume the cigarette companies had some effort in shaping. Smokers are portrayed as social deviants, who have no care for anyone around them, or the earth, or whatever other ridiculous assumption gets made. The current laws reinforcing the deviancy of smoking aid this. It turns the cigarette into an arbitrary symbol of unlawfulness. To smoke in public is to be outside of the law. Smoking signifies badness, marginalization, amorality, and a general stick-it-to-the-man attitude.

Does no one else think that is beneficial to cigarette companies?! Isn't that what they wanted us to believe in the first place? That smoking made us different and cool and individuals?

Let us think critically about society. We live in a capitalist country. Agreed? Our welfare state and legal system are basically in place to ensure the long-term stability of the market and slow, but steady growth, yes? The government would not implement something if it didn't make them money, correct?

So what the hell does the government get out of not selling tobacco or making the consumption of it more difficult and the consumers more marginalized and stigmatized than they were (or felt they were) already? Less profit? Okaaaaaay... So, the government ensures the long term health of consumers by making smoking less accessible and hopefully saves themselves a few bucks in lung cancer money in the health care system. If that was really the issue wouldn't they just make smoking totally illegal, though? I mean, if the would really save more money through not selling cigarettes, why bother at all?

How about a more defined, close-knit group of consumers? If everyone hates you except for "your own kind" being other smokers, would you not want to be with people like yourself?

How about more appeal for a younger generation looking to defy social norms in any possible way? It's already illegal for a minor to procure/a vendor to sell tobacco to minors. I realize all minors don't care, or want to break laws and rules or mores, but socially, it is expected that while you are a minor, you are allowed to rebel. If smoking becomes the shiny, black bad ass thing to do, and smokers become a marginalized minority group, does this not ensure a shiny black bad ass future for cigarette companies?

So, hippie liberated yoga moms on the SkyTrain, you and your offspring can enjoy your "smoke free" environment. The way I see it? You're still in Marlboro country.

Why I Want Out

2008-03-11T17:37:00.000-07:00

I'm really sick of this CFS vs. not CFS debate. I think the most annoying part is that it might actually influence me and therefore I feel badly for not paying attention.

Thus far here is what I know (and it's not much):
The CFS is closely affiliated with left-wing politicians. An "unbiased" student group shouldn't have political affiliations.
The CFS is not based on campus and therefore will not be sensitive to our specific needs.
The CFS backed that douchebag Hunsdale.
The CFS allows us to get cheaper flights and supposed discounts at stores, however every time I go to use the card, the place tells me it's no good.
Other schools manage to communicate and unite with other schools across the country without being part of the CFS
We pay the CFS over $430, 000 a year, and yet everyone thinks (knows?) that UBC offers way more to its students in terms of extra curriculars; UBC is not a CFS school.
The CFS offers free day planners that start the way people are used to planners starting, organization for protest-type things (but fees for non CFS schools to attend, or something), and "a seat at the table" in terms of politics back East.
I get obnoxious emails from the CFS now because I signed some petition to improve transit to SFU. I blocked them.

Ok, so all of these things seem sort of feeble to me. "Somebody else doesn't have to be involved in ______, why do we have to be?" reminds me of something fifteen year olds say to their parents to get out of piano lessons.
"We'll have better day planners with the CFS!" Um, they're day planners. If $430, 000 could go to a real student union building, I'd take that.

But my real reason for hating the CFS really has nothing to do with claims or promises or dues.

I want out because I want to be able to blog about the CFS without getting a "cease and desist" letter. Apparently The Peak, members of the SFSS, random bloggers, or anyone who has publically declared their stance in writing have received formal letters from CFS lawyers.

If I am personally paying a company with officials and offices to help organize my university community for me and improve things, I should be able to say what a fucking awful (or conversely good) job they're doing. I am paying them. They work for me. So, they're telling me what I can and can't say?

No. Sorry. I realize that individually I pay about $16 a year, but I figure that $16 can buy my freedom to blog about whatever the hell I want.

I could understand if people were saying "The CFS president rapes little girls and puppies!" and published photoshopped evidence or something, but stating that a group that you pay to be a member of isn't doing as promised is the equivalent of the teacher's pet telling on you for calling them a teacher's pet. Plus, they're using our money to sue.. US?!

I think this supposed "table" CFS'ers keep refering to must be the Round Table of King Arthur's court, because this view of the magical federation as Godly, and speaking out against their holinesses as treason doesn't make sense in a modern setting.

Feedback (negative or positive) is the only way to offer a marketable service. If you want my money, listen to what I have to say and change accordingly. Elsewise, you can shove off.

Thus, I want out, if only just to be able to blog freely.

Plus, I trust Patrick Stewart more than William Shatner. He's seen it all!

The Only Real Way to Use Your Period for Good...

2008-03-04T19:02:00.000-08:00

Recently, Always (and I believe Tampax who they also own/are) have come up with a new menstrual-themed slogan. We are no longer instructed to "Have a Happy Period". Oh no, my comrades-in-flexi-wings, the blissful youth of our monthly bleedings are in the past. Now our periods have a responsibility. You've all heard of the meek inheriting the earth? Well, our periods have inherited the third world.

Always' new slogan "Use Your Period For Good (Protecting You, Protecting Futures)" has to do with their latest act of philanthropy in connection with "HERO", a UN campaign that is concerned with the "care of orphans and vulnerable children in Africa". The idea is that some minimal percentage of what you pay for glorified adult diapers will go towards buying pads and tampons for school-aged girls in South Africa who currently have to take a few days off of school while they are menstruating.

Now, since the actual areas aren't specified, I can only assume that part of why these girls aren't going to school has to do with a cultural belief that while one is menstruating they are unclean, as is everything they touch (which I also think is retarded, but calling an entire culture retarded is Eurocentric and retarded in and of itself).

Initially the entire thing makes me think of the Female Genital Mutilation issue. Us whiteys scream "IT'S WRONG!" and while I think any tampering with nether regions, be it circumcision, piercing or "mutilation", it comes from a belief system that you can't just come in and say "No, wrong, it's not like what my grandpappy did!" and expect people to happily conform to more "ethical" practices. Ok, so we give pads to school aged girls. They are liberated and can now get an education! Hey, while we're at it, let's keep Africa economically dependent on our donations so they have no economy or job market for these educated boys and girls! And if they do manage to somehow create a market of their own to employ their population, let's make sure that women are underpaid, JUST LIKE IN NORTH AMERICA!

And let's not, you know, discuss the normality of menses and try to prove the "cleanliness" of the act in terms of science and biology (even by means of intelligent design, really, who cares?). Just send these women out into the schoolyard where everyone there will be totally accepting of bleeding "unclean" people, defiling everything they touch..... Okay, upon further investigation, they are planning on using the money on educating the students and building more schools and more toilets and washing facilities. I can get up on that, maybe.

The other issue I have with this is the creation of cultural capital. Education is essentially training for the workforce, so presumably they want to offer these girls equality in terms of having the tools necessary to accomplish the same amount as their male counterparts. So, let us assume that there are jobs for these kids after they've graduated highschool or post secondary, or however far they fly down the academic poop shoot on their flexi-wings. They, due to having pads, were able to accquire their professional job because of an education because of being able to go to class and not defile their desks. And then they continue to buy pads with their own money and when they eventually get on to begetting children of their own they teach them to buy these diapers and cotton corks so that, God forbid, no one knows that they're bleeding, JUST LIKE WE DO IN NORTH AMERICA!

The fact of the matter is that currently, in a lot of places, and for hundreds upon thousands, even upon millions, I guess, of years previously, women manage(d) to have their periods without pieces of plastic (which don't breathe and creates a surplus of sweat and bacteria, making infections of all kinds much more likely) and cotton (which is inorganic and the pesticides currently used to raise cotton are really fucking the environment over) shoved in between their legs. The only feasible reason a multi-million dollar corporation would give away money to a developing nation is if they can get something out of it. Now they get a new market of bleeding vaginas just waiting to sop up their "mess" with some expensive and wasteful cultural capital.

So, how would I suggest to really put your period to good use? Well, I think of a period as sort of like breathing or sweating or peeing. It's just something a body does to get rid of cellular waste. There's nothing you can really "do" with it. If you want to make art out of it or something and donate the proceeds from your tampon sculpture show to children in Africa, by all means, go ahead.

But I will let you in on a secret. Don't knock it till you've tried it. You can either spend all week downloading "empowering" desktops from beinggirl.com here or you can stop crying over a little blood and have a "happy period".

Blood is an excellent lubricant. Go use your period for good.

Biased Bitching Branches Out: Say No To Shitty Titles!

2008-03-03T22:04:00.000-08:00

So I read this article in The Peak last week that got under my skin, and for some reason or another (high from having too many "mortifying" "bizarre" and "demeaning" orgasms? Who can say?) I decided to respond to it.

I was hoping that someone else would have already, and would have written it more poignantly than I did, and would therefore get their letter printed instead of mine, but alas, I did.

Well, not alas. I just wish I hadn't called it what I did. "Say No To Knee-Jerk Responses".

See, mine is knee-jerk too. Just hippie crazy sex-positive knee-jerk, which may or may not be more common a response than "sex is bad" depending on where you're coming from.

Anyway, here's the article: Say No To Shitty Titles!.

Initially upon realizing it was in print I changed my Facebook settings to essentially invisible, but after eating dinner and talking to people I came to the conclusion that that is retarded and obsessive. I just had flashbacks to my blog stalker of yore and balked at the thought.

Anyway, here I am blogging about how I wrote an article elsewhere. Aren't I meta?

Why I don't watch the news.

2008-03-03T18:09:00.000-08:00

The highlights that I noticed while watching the CBC's 6 o'clock news:

The person sending anonymous threats about the Biological Sciences building has been arrested. What did they chalk his motives up to? Stress. The RCMP's sage advice? "Threats are never an answering to stress" or some bullshit like that. What I'd like to know is why the fuck it matters that he was/is an international student. So scared yuppies can go "oh yes, well you know how it is in Asia, they're so hard on their students and kids! Not like us, we do it like the progressive Europeans do!"

Fuck Euro-trash and their fucking trainers. Bleh.

It's shitty outside. Huh. Go figure. It's shitty inside too. Slit slit slit.

The Conservatives accepted bribes. What? Rich people using their money to get what they want? Fuck off, no way! What's next, the disenfranchised get no real legal backing and are forgotten once Christmas and Easter are over? Whoa!

Black is in Prison. In the states. He has a six year sentence, so uh, he'll stay in for ten months, maybe? CBC states: "he will be living in cells with thieves and some other scary group of deviants or some other bullshit" (yea, that's a direct quote....). Hey, imprisoning people = rehabilitation. I wonder if there's a white collar crime rehab program, and what it would consist of? Tips on how to screw the third world while adding to North American capital?

Canadian guitar legend, Jeff Healey, dies. Who the fuck is that?

Someone has made a scent based alarm to wake the deaf up in case of an emergency. What is it scented like? Wasabi. "You'll wake up craving sushi! A-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha." Thanks, Gloria Macarena. That was a good one.

Some hicks in Langley tried to make fireworks and blew a few fingers off. Here's your sign.

The Canucks blow. I'm not even touching this one.

Strangely enough I don't feel any better.
More wine? I think so....

Thank You, Surrey

2008-02-27T00:04:00.001-08:00

Today ended up being kind of shitty, but the first half was fairly alright. I had a midterm that I think I did alright on. I did alright on one half and mediocre on the other, which adds up to 75% which is fine by me. I haven't had much to report. I've procrastinated, gone out, felt pretty unenthusiastic for the last few days. "Pensive", if I may be so fifteen about it.

I ended up flooding the basement and the kitchen tonight because I didn't check if the plug was in the sink which the washer drains in to (why the fuck the plug would be just sitting in the empty sink is beyond me, but hey, apparently at my house the plug in drain epidemic has been ongoing since moving in, and I should have known better). Go me.

Anyway, after writing thirteen pages and cramming all morning, I read SFU's paper (an article in which pissed me off to the point where I'm tempted to write in and tell the person what an asshole he/she is instead of just do so to no one on here) on my ride home. I'd pretty much picked through whatever I wanted to red by the time I was waiting for my bus, so I started paying attention to the crowd of people waiting with me.

A crossdresser (transvestite? transexual? I wasn't about to ask him or her which she prefered to be called based on his/her mental and genital state, sooooo) wearing a hat, really painful looking heels, a really long floral skirt and nicer make up than I can manage. She looked a lot like Bea Arthur, actually. He? Enh.

A female dry-waller eating a butter tart. I realize they exist, but have YOU seen one? Eating a butter tart? I didn't think so. So there.

A thirty year old (give or take) wearing a fur coat with a strawberry shortcake backpack. She wasn't addled looking at all. She was really fucking gorgeous and normal in every aspect but the white fur jacket and the kiddy backpack.

I love you, weird bus I take home now.

Women Beware: Chocolatiers Leading Cause in Gendered Poverty

2008-02-19T21:15:00.000-08:00

The firm "Juroviesky and Ricci" have filed a $50 million dollar suit against Canadian chocolate makers. They claim that

chocolate makers Nestle, Hershey, Cadbury and Mars have conspired to inflate prices by five per cent or more on at least three occasions.

Such collusion would be in violation of Canada's Competition Act and several provincial consumer protection laws.

Apparently this has been happening in Germany as well, but there they may have inflated the price by 12%.

Why the fuck the stupid title, you ask? Well!

the suit has one plaintiff but potentially includes any Canadian who has consumed chocolate products since February 2004

I'm pretty sure it would be easy to find some old, musty biologist or evolutionary psychologist who would help you claim that women, due to the "biological" occurrence of pre-menstrual syndrome and the cravings it produces, not to mention pregnancy, are the major consumers of chocolate, as are children, whose mothers would more than likely be buying the chocolate for them.

Pretty soon welfare checks are going to be signed by Hershey and Nestle.

Isn't law fun?!