Vanessa Woznow

‘Tis the season

Shit dudes.

The internet.

It’ll get ya.

See, I was reading Sarah Jane’s first fashion post, and one second I was marvelling at her adorable outfit, and the next I was deep in the bowels of Forever XXI’s “Festive Finds!” webpage, desperately emptying my shopping cart and manically clearing my browser history.

Honestly, it’s a good thing that I have some modicum of self-control, lest I find myself spending hundreds of dollars (on the regular!) on every single sparkly shift dress that I happened to encounter, whether in-person or over the world wide web.

Although what really grinds my gears is that I spent the majority of the time looking for this dress without any luck whatsoever:

Zilch.

Nada.

Bupkiss.

This dress may exist somewhere in the Forever XXI online ether, but for all I know, having it displayed on the site’s landing page is just a clever ploy to get shoppers to 1.) look at their wares for sale and 2.) just end up purchasing some other piece of clothing in its stead, because everything costs less than thirty dollars so who really give a crap anyway?

(This is just a theory of course, but one that I think may have legs.)

One question I do have for everyone is:

Is December really a time where people gallivant about, going to multiple holiday parties that require a continual rotation of fancy duds and perhaps also champagne flutes, and other cliche Christmas-inspired accoutrement?

Is this a thing that really does happen?

(I am inclined to think no, but then again that one Joe Fresh ad that keeps popping up on my Facebook feed is making me believe that the majority of others are very much disposed to think otherwise.)

I mean, I love December and the many social engagements that it brings. I normally receive invitations to two or three friend-thrown parties, and maybe Marc’s staff Christmas get-together, plus fun, after work low-key hangouts with good friends that I have not seen in a while (the operative word here being “low-key” – we’re talking fireplaces, hot drinks, comfortable clothes, and a lot of laughing.)

But it’s definitely not as if I am careening about from event to event on a nightly basis.

My schedule, busy as it can be, would never require the purchase and cultivation of multiple yuletide specific getups.

There are only so many party skirts one gal can handle over the course of thirty one days.

Plus I’m also apt to believe that after a week of solid fa-la-la-la-ing I would literally be forced to throw out the partridge and chop down the pear tree.

But maybe I am completely wrong – perhaps there really are individuals out there, who spend the entire month decked out in their finest metallic body-con minis (googled it for you), partying each and every night to the strains of Bandaid 30, drinking their Bailey’s on ice, and waiting until they get to the top of the grandest of staircases to bite into their Ferrero Rochers.

(Can you tell my love for Christmas springs not from its spirit, but from its ridiculously cheesy and year-to-year repetitive series of advertisements?)

No doubt that for this my name is firmly entrenched at the top of Santa’s naughty list.

Which if I had to put money on it, is definitely another section of Forever XXI that I haven’t had a chance to explore.

Haven’t had a chance to explore – yet.

How can you walk in those things?

Here’s a crazy thing.

I think high heels might be killing me.

Let me explain.

For the past month or so, I’ve been having some problems when running – stiff hips, niggling knee problems, and tight calves.

I couldn’t understand what the heck was going on with me, as I have never, ever had any issues with my body – no matter how hard I’ve been training.

You name it – I can withstand it. I have been competing at a high performance level (whether it be dance, track, badminton, or volleyball) since I was seven years old and I have never once suffered a major injury.

Tough Mudder may have cut and bruised the ever-loving crap out of my arms and legs, but other than a day or two of (very natural) muscle stiffness and soreness, I emerged both times completely unscathed.

So when these aches and pains began to creep up on me, it really gave me pause.

At first I just chalked it up to an over-zealous pre-race weekend (40+ kilometers over three days) coupled by an ill-advised high-heel dance party at the Jungle concert the next day.

But even after my win at Boundary Bay, these zings and pings have not given way.

So I spent some time today thinking about what, if anything, has changed in my life over the past month or two to cause such a substantial shift in the way my body reacts to something that I have been doing for years and years.

And that’s when it hit me: for the first time in my entire life, I have been wearing high heels almost every day.

To work and for play.

And this gave me pause.

Is it really possible that changing my footwear for such a short period of time could be wrecking so much havoc with my hips and legs?

And the answer, I am truly apt to believe, is a resounding YES.

Which is actually crazy!

But listen to this:

On Friday I wore flats to work because I knew that I would be heading over to Marc’s high school to lead the improv club, and I tell you, spending just twenty-four hours with my feet firmly planted on the ground made a substantial difference in my run this morning.

My had absolutely no problems with my knees and only my right hip felt a little tight (and again, only at the tail end of a very fast eight kilometer run.)

I am curious to see what tomorrow will bring, as today I again shunned my heels, and opted instead to don a pair of flat boots instead.

Stay tuned!

But in the interim, I have to wax further on just how upset I am by this revelation.

Because I LOVE my heels!

I am enamoured by how pretty they all are, and how unbelievably tall I am in each pair, and how unstoppable and badass each pair makes me feel – like I could literally step over every obstacle that might have the audacity to get in my way.

I like how they make my legs look (about fifty miles long), and how weirdly proud I am of how well I can walk in each pair, no matter how high, or how skinny a heel.

I love my chunky black boots that I bought for forty dollars at Target, and wore so often the first week post-purchase that I had to re-glue the soles after only seven days.

I love my five dollar wedges, and my beautiful burgundy suede stilettos, and my cute plaid kitten heels.

I like how my husband doesn’t care that I am taller than him when I wear heels.

(I like how the only thing that concerns him about these shoes is how they may be impacting my health.)

I really do like (nay love!) everything about them.

But I am also so very wary about what exactly they may be doing long-term to my body, and when it comes down to it, I cherish my ability to run like the wind much, MUCH more than I do a sweet pair of shoes.

No matter how good my legs might look.

Because if I can’t run, they’re not going to look that good anyway.

Such precious cargo

Waiting in the departure lounge, I shift my weight from my right foot to my left.

My duffle bag is looped loosely over my shoulder.

I glance up from my book.

Everyone else sits.

Everyone else stares.

Outside, the sky is seaweed green, like the sunset is stuck, struggling at the bottom of an empty wine bottle.

Like we are viewing it from the bottom of the ocean.

I look back down to my page number.

“Remember 78,” I tell myself, and close the book.

I don’t like to dog-ear pages. But sometimes I forget.

I notice a few older men eye me wearily.

Perhaps they are sizing me up as an over-zealous pre-boarder.

Perhaps they are excited by the length of my dress.

By the height of my socks.

A part of me feels like I want to stake a claim on one of the few remaining seats, but overwhelmingly I want to remain standing.

I want to stay upright forever.

I have already been travelling for five hours, and another five and a half hours await.

Once I get on to a plane, I devolve into a tangled mess of too-long legs, poor posture, and deep sleep.

Resting on planes has never been a problem for me.

I do it quickly, and with ease.

It’s just my mouth.

It hangs wide open, and I am always afraid that someone might drop things there.

Like pennies.

Or cherry pits.

“You should eat a sandwich,” I tell myself. “And fill up your water bottle.”

Instead I look at magazines and daydream about making out with Ewen McGregor.

Instead I take a photo of myself pretending to dance with a giant, fake stuffed bear.

I think about opening up a chain of airport gyms.

I think about how showers would be integral to the success of this business venture.

And then I walk the length of the terminal.

Twice.

Departure levels are such strange beasts.

So many people in transit, lives in flux. No one speaking, everyone just focused.

On making it to their destination.

On just making it.

I think about the people who work at the restaurants and cafes; the gift shops, the newsagents and the duty frees. Dealing with thousands of bleary-eyed, bumbling travellers, acting as gatekeepers of People magazine and double mint gum, suppliers of double doubles, and venti extra hots, always ready to ask “like another?” or “fries or salad?” and dreading the possibility of “I think you’ve had enough?”

I always want to talk.

Talk to everyone I see.

Find out their stories.

Ask them.

From where are they coming.

Where are they going.

Who do they love. Who do they loathe.

Who do they want.

What do they want.

What do they want so much more than just to make it.

But instead I just open my book to page 76, and re-read those last two pages.

And shift my feet.

Take my hand. Let’s walk together.

Tonight Marc and I watched two episodes of the British television series Happy Valley.

Let me tell you, that is one grossly misleading title.

The show is excellent, but grim as shite (in the parlance of all the characters.)

I wanted to watch a third episode, but Marc told me he couldn’t handle any more for the night, and opted instead to play some Dark Souls.

(This should deftly illustrate just how brutal and bleak the series can be, in so far as he would nominate this maddeningly difficult video game to be an appropriate palette cleanser. Good grief.)

Meanwhile, I am laughing because he keeps inadvertently poisoning his allies with a pair of enchanted, and very deadly pantaloons.

I feel like we’re all bonkers around these here parts.

The weather here in Vancouver has been so starkly beautiful of late.

My favourites are the afternoons when everything seems to be aglow in a soft, rose gold. As the sun hangs heavy in the blush toned sky, you could swear that you can feel your blood run a little warmer, even as your shadow grows a little longer.

I could easily hack a winter made purely of this magic.

Five years ago we were living in Birmingham England.

Our days were a brilliant pick-and-mix of graduate courses, teaching at a community school, running around the Edgbaston Reservoir, exploring the city, and heading out on cross-country adventures.

One of my most vivid memories of this time, is the amount of time we spent walking in the cold autumn air – both together and apart.

We didn’t have a car while we were there, for many reasons of course, but funds and fear of driving on the opposite side of the road were the two that topped the list.

(I cannot tell you the number of times I was almost smoked by a vehicle because I looked the wrong way before stepping into the street, nor the number of times I could have been destroyed in a round-a-bout whilst riding my bicycle. A quick study on the English rules of the road, I was not.)

However, being without a ride (my garbage ten pound bike notwithstanding) was never an issue.

We loved careening about the city – both on foot and riding public transit.

The first time we were waiting at the bus stop, we didn’t know that you needed to actually flag down the bus (you stick your arm out as it approaches to indicate that you want it to pull over), so each one just kept driving on by.

“Why won’t they pull over!?” I exclaimed as I watched the fifth red double decker zoom on past.

“You don’t have your hand out,” remarked a kindly older woman who happened to be walking by. “You have to put your hand out, love. Or else they won’t know that you want to board.”

I thanked her (and felt my heart grow three sizes – an event that I would come to expect every time someone addressed me as “love” during my time in Brum.)

Strangely, I think some of my most cherished memories of our time spent in the city, are the mornings in which Marc and I would commute together to our teaching jobs.

Classes began at eight thirty in the morning and it was about a forty-five minute commute from our flat in Edgbaston to the school in Alum Rock.

We would wake up around seven, and together we would greet the day.

Never saying much whilst we got ready, we were like two silent dancers, each lost in our own little routine, before locking up and walking to the bus stop.

The mornings were always so cold, and I relished the chance to walk arm in arm together, as well as bundle myself up in Marc’s embrace as we waited at the stop.

Sometimes we would read the free magazines that were handed out at the Broad Street interchange, but mostly we would talk quietly about our lesson plans or make each other laugh with stories from the previous day’s classes.

For breakfast I could buy a three pack of egg tarts from Greggs. For one pound you couldn’t get anything more delicious (and most likely, anything as remarkably unhealthy.)

From the stop in Alum Rock we would walk up to the road to the school, betting on which of our students would be waiting at the main entrance for us to arrive and unlock the doors.

Once inside, they would make tea and try convince us to let them play one game of billiards before settling down to their first lesson.

Our decision normally rested on how much sugar had been put in our tea.

In the afternoons, I would bus to the university for either my classes, or to do research for my thesis, while Marc worked on overhauling the school’s curriculum and marking systems.

In the evening, we would meet back at the flat and then go for a walk.

Marvelling at the multi-coloured trees rapidly losing their leaves, we’d spy each spindly bare branch waving self-consciously in the wind.

Whether to Bearwood, or to the city center, or to the Garden House (our neighbourhood pub) – we’d stride along together.

Our blood a little warmer.

Shadows a little longer.

I have made a huge mistake

Today I went to take a Pepsi from my mum’s fridge and was instead completely duped by a can of Compliment’s brand club soda.

I’ll tell you – nothing messes with your mind more than expecting a VERY distinct cola flavour, and you are instead gifted with vaguely salty-tasting carbonated water.

It’s amazing that I didn’t keel over with shock.

But how was I to know?

Take a look at these cans from behind – they are practically mirror images.

It’s not until you turn them around (or in my unfortunate case, open one up) that you can clearly see that they are two different products.

As we were laughing about my mistake – and I was thanking my mum for taking one for the team and drinking the club soda – I got to thinking about some of the other times in my life where I have either witnessed someone drinking something they were not expecting, or experienced a jarring episode myself.

For instance, the first year of Marc’s and my courtship I was drinking vanilla steamed milks on the regular.

(I was about ninety years old.)

Because of this, Marc just began to assume that anytime I purchased a drink it would be some iteration of this hot beverage.

One morning, after a raucous night of cheap booze and Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, we dragged our bedraggled bums out of his apartment and shuffled our way to the (now long gone) Bread Garden down on Broadway and Ash.

Since it was early April and the weather had recently shifted from winter’s cold perma-drizzle to the soft, cherry-scented winds of spring, I decided to change things up.

Instead of my usual, I ordered a lemon smoothie.

As we were taking our seats outside on the patio, I asked Marc if he wanted a sip.

He said yes.

And even though I passed him a cold cup with a straw, the dude still expecting the warm, sweet, liquid of a vanilla steamer.

Honestly, I thought he was going to die of a massive coronary right then and there.

He coughed and hacked, trying to both keep in the smoothie and spit it out across the table.

His faced reddened; his eyeballs bulged.

After a good pounding on the back, he turned to me and said, “Holy crap, that’s the shittiest vanilla steamed milk I’ve ever tasted.”

We both laughed so hard I thought we were going to topple over in our chairs.

The other great memory I have of acquiring the wrong drink is a doozy from when I was fourteen years old.

I was participating in a theatre camp down at Granville Island with about five or six other high school students. We were all between fourteen and seventeen, and we are all actors.

(This makes me laugh just typing out these words.)

One day after class, one of the guys asked me if I wanted to get a coffee with him.

Nearly toppling over in shock that a boy would ask me to do something as grownup as purchase and drink caffeine with him, I excitedly accepted.

We walked over to the market’s JJBean, yammering on about the different plays that we had done, and what we liked most about the class, and what we wanted to be when we grew up (ie. very famous and very serious thespians.)

When we got to the café, Aiden ordered a large coffee, and I, deciding that it was time to either go big or go home, ordered a double espresso.

A double espresso!

Other than a sip of regular brewed light roast when I was eleven and opening my first bank account, I had never drank any kind of coffee, espresso or otherwise.

To this day I can only handle lattes, and only because they are mostly milk and I am ridiculously liberal with the sugar.

“Wow!” remarked Aiden. “I thought espresso was a dessert drink.”

“Nah,” I responded. “I drink them all of the time.”

His eyebrows jumped to the top of his forehead, a mixture of both disbelief and incredulity.

Unfortunately, I didn’t know what a double espresso was, so when the barista placed a cup of coffee on the counter, I reached out to grab it.

“Umm, you ordered a double espresso?” Asked Aiden.

“Oh yeah!” I laughed, nervous as hell. “I forget.”

His eyebrows now reflected the type of confusion that only teenage boys can convey so well.

“Double espresso!” shouted the barista.

“There it is,” I said, eager to try and get Aiden back.

My success – if there was any to be had – was completely short lived because the moment I took a sip of that java I thought I was going to die.

That double espresso was literally (LITERALLY) the most disgusting, overwhelming, and completely horrifying drink I had ever encountered in my fourteen years of life.

Trying so hard to keep up my mask of maturity, I just shot the entire drink.

One gulp.

Bam.

Aiden just stood and watched, bewildered.

“You don’t like to, you know, sip it?” he asked.

“Nnnn – ope!” I sputtered. “I like t-to drink it fff – ast.”

I could feel my heart pounding like crazy and my eyes watering.

“Riiiiiiight,” said Aiden. “Soooooo, see you next week?”

We never got coffee ever again.

But honestly, I can’t really say who was more relieved.

…

What about you guys? Have you ever done anything like this?

In the meantime, I’m going to go searching for another blue can.

And hope against hope that this time, it’s the right one.