Life – Page 45 – Rant and Roll

Diet Coke thinks I’m extraordinary? Well isn’t that refreshing!

I saw this advertisement last Friday whilst out on my lunch break:

My immediate reaction?

I think I can in a can? Or I think I’m fat in a can?

I SEE WHAT YOU’RE DOING THERE COKE.

Now, full disclosure: I drink diet Coke. I drink diet Pepsi, or Pepsi Max or Coke Zero, or whatever other aspartame-infused sodas you care to name. And as any of you who have been reading this blog for a while now, I have no qualms at all about admitting this fact.

My drinking patterns are sporadic – I’ll go for a couple of months without a sip, and then start drinking two to three cans a day without so much as blinking an eyelash. These habits are something I’m cognizant of, but not something of which I lend much weight.

Apologies to any Colorado Avalanche fans out there, but in the words of Todd Bertuzzi*: it is what it is.

(*Now I’m no fan of Mr. T. Bert by any stretch of the imagination – or as I like to call him: Hobo with a Slapshot – he’s just the first thing that pops into my mind whenever I think of that turn of phrase.)

However, to get back to diet Coke and my relationship with this product- the fact remains the same: this penchant I have for these drinks is one of the last remaining holdovers from the years I spent as an anorexic and bulimic.

And because of this, I have a hard time disassociating these drinks from a very painful, very unhealthy part in my life.

Now I know there are tons of men and women who live all across the globe, who lead perfectly healthy lives (or within the parameters of “healthy” – as goodness knows the definition of this term seems to be malleable as heck) who may drink a diet Coke every now and then.

Who knows, maybe there are individuals out there who shot-gun the stuff all the live long day that have zero food/body hang-ups (not to mention faulty brain wiring – like those cats who eat chalk and pillow stuffing), but I would be hard pressed to believe it.

However, of this I’m sure: people ingest things for a whole myriad of reasons, and it would be naive, and rather asinine on my part to assume that because I a.) had an eating disorder and b.) drank these drinks during this time in my life that c.) all people who drink diet pop have eating disorders.

That would be a gross misinterpretation of the Pythagorean Theorum. And a logical fallacy. And just plain silly.

However, it would also be silly of me to ignore the fact that I live in a society that is majorly messed up when it comes to diet, body perception, and self-esteem – indeed, every time I seem to open an newspaper (HAH! Like that ever happens – excuse me, I meant to say: every time I surf on over to the NYT or Globe and Mail or Jezebel.com) I am told again and again about how obsese/anorexic/sendentary/over exercised/stressed out/insecure we are as North Americans, and how we need to fix it using ABC without having to give up XYZ.

It’s madness.

Just the other day I read about a new study released by Emery University in Atlanta Georgia that found that the number of U.S. children who drink sugar-free beverages has doubled in the past decade and that one-quarter of the adult Americans surveyed said they’d had a diet drink in the past day.

And reading this, I cannot help but question what role diet Coke (and by proxy its marketing stratagems and campaigns) plays within our omnipresent constant shame/constant gratification Franken-culture.

Sure, diet Coke isn’t exactly Airstrip One’s Victory Gin, but it’s not small potatoes either. And as such, when I see this ad, I don’t see personal empowerment in a can, I see this:

Have your Coke friend! But statistics tell me that you’re probably fat – or in some way aesthetically unappealing (or at the very least you THINK you’re not good enough!) so don’t have a real Coke (those are only for Olympic athletes and Mark Ronson) – have a diet Coke instead! But it’s totally your decision to drink it – and totally not ours, and certainly not a reaction to cultural norms! YOU’RE taking charge, YOU know what you want! Just one sip and you can take on the world, calorie-free!

(But first, go to the gym, because you totes need to work out first.)

Okay, so this may be a bit over-dramatic and a bit too sardonic – my m.o. might be to approach this dialogue with a heavy hand (heavy tongue?) but I can’t help it.

My experience colours my perception, and this is my honest interpretation.

And for that I will not apologize.

What about you folks? What kind of reaction does this sort of advertisement evoke on your end of things? Do you drink diet pop? Why or why not?

In the mean time I’m going back to my I KNOW I can in a bag:

NOM.

Tracing one warm line through a land so wild and savage

Eggs? Check.

Bacon? Check.

Toast? Check.

Let’s get this Friday Fry-Up on the stove!

And so it begins anew.

The Canadian government has recently announced that a new research project has been commissioned to search for the ships of the ill-fated Franklin exhibition.

As you may or may not know, The HMS Erebus and HMS Terror set out from England in 1845 with the express intent of finding the ever elusive Northwest Passage. Instead, only one year later, Franklin and his men found themselves trapped in the ice. Some died, and some – in an aim to escape a similar fate – set out on foot to try and find a way out of that frozen, desolate Arctic hell.

Only the never made it out – alive or dead.

It was pretty much – poof!

And they were never heard from again.

Okay. I know this was a terrible thing to happen and everything – but what the dickens were they thinking naming their two ships The Terror and The Erebus!?

Talk about starting out on the wrong foot.

If you’re going to take on what is, for all intents and purposes, a suicide mission, wouldn’t you want to bring some levity to the whole situation by naming your boat something like – oh I don’t know, The Unicorn? Or how about The Heat Wave?

It’s called the power of positive thinking here people.

I mean jeeze – Erebus literally represented the personification of DARKNESS. That is some bleak sauce, emo crap right there.

Anywho, one of the greatest things to come out of this (evidently enduring) tragedy is this amazing, song sung by Stan Rogers:

This man is a friggin’ Canadian legend, whose songs regularly move me to tears. There is something just so simple and yet resonating about his tunes – and I don’t know if I think this way because of my East Coast roots, but even M himself is quick to state that he thinks Stan is easily the voice of Canada.

If you don’t know this man CHECK HIM OUT. Also read The Terror by Dan Simmons. Neither of these works of art will disappoint, I promise.

You got to put one foot in front of the other.

I recently signed up to run the Surrey International Half-marathon, taking place at the end of September. This will be my first half of the year, but I’m feeling really great about it.

My goal is to complete the course in one hour, thirty minutes (or less). My currently personal best is 1:38, but I think I’m in much better shape now than when I ran that previous race.

CIMG8409 - Copy — After 1:38 – feeling pretty good!

At least I think I am in better shape. I could show up that Sunday and end up running a heck of a lot slower than I expect – but I really hope this doesn’t end up being the case. Eight minutes is quite a lot of time to shave off, but I’m certain it’s doable.

And if not, I’ll have a taxi cab at the ready.

I kid, I kid.

It’ll be a bus.

Also, this will be my first race without the use of headphones. This for some reason fills me with zero trepidation, and it is this lack of trepidation that is giving me trepidation.

I will update you on my progress the closer I get to the race.

And my trepidation.

I’m all booked up.

Of late I’ve been on a crazy reading tear – for the past couple of months I’ve been blowing through two (and sometimes more) books a week like some crazed literary fiend.

It’s like an insatiable hunger. I look forward to taking skytrain in the mornings and when I get off work; I can’t wait to get in from my runs, shower and curl up on the couch; I sneak moments in the morning when I’m getting ready for the day; every night I read until I can barely keep my eyelash tips up and book spines straight.

At the moment I’m finishing up Lev Grossman’s The Magician King (await a blog post on this series in probably the next week) and can’t wait to dive into the next story.

Do you beauty cats have any good recommendations? What are you up to for the weekend?

Let’s find the hand of Franklin

reaching for the Beaufort Sea;

Tracing one warm line through a land so wild and savage

And make a Northwest Passage to the sea.

When I lost my mind

Three crazy things I have done in my life:

1.) Taped down my breasts when getting ready for my first high profile job interview.

With packing tape.

This decision was made after spending a good portion of an hour scrutinizing my outfit in front of the bathroom mirror and working it into my mind that my blouse wasn’t fitting quite right. In my nervous-to-the-point-of-madness state, I came to the conclusion that my only option was to take out the tape and strap down my chest.

For the entire two hour meeting I couldn’t quite breathe properly and I kind of “crunched” each time I shifted in my seat. (For a couple of days afterwards I became paranoid about irregular hair growth after having literally waxed my chest during the ordeal of removing the tape – luckily this worry never came to fruition.)

And would you believe it, I got the job.

2.) Flooded my mother’s kitchen.

It was the summer of 2005. I was living in Halifax and working two jobs – on the weekend I was a barista at a coffee shop, and every night (save Sunday and Monday) I worked the front of house at a downtown bar.

I absolutely loved my places of employment and my schedule was great (other than then working a double shift every Saturday.)

However, for two weeks in August the whole thing kind of blew up in my face, when I ended up covering one of my fellow employee’s weekday shifts at the coffee shop, while still working at the bar. (Of course this just so happened to overlap with the jazz festival of which my bar was a venue – which meant that instead of working four hours a night at the bar, I was working seven or eight.)

This meant that for fourteen days I was operating on about four, maybe max five hours of sleep a night, and was tired all the live long day.

But all in all it didn’t really matter, because as I said – I bloody well loved my jobs.

Anywho, one day before heading to the bar I decided that if I wasn’t going to nap I was going to clean the hous – laundry, dishes, vacuum, windows – you named it, I was going to take care of it.

Unfortunately, my plan of filling up the kitchen sink while I ran upstairs to start the washing machine went awry as soon as I forgot all about the sink and started stripping the beds and cleaning the washroom.

By the time I remembered it was too late – rivers of water were pouring into the heating vents and making their way into the living room.

I panicked. I grabbed the (kitty hair saturated) blankets that we kept on the couches to keep the cats from scratching at the upholstery and threw them onto the floor, before racing to the basement to see if any of the water had leaked down that far. Luckily it hadn’t.

Then I called a cab because there was no way I was going to make it to work on time if I were to walk. When the taxi pulled up front, I was in such a tizzy that I jumped into the front seat without thinking.

I can’t really describe how awkward it was to ride up front with that cabby except to say that I felt as though my dad was driving me to school.

Only I had to pay him.

3.) Drank a bottle of seven dollar wine out of a booster juice cup.

My advice kids? DON’T DO THIS.

Even if it’s your last day of undergrad, and you’re totally stoked about starting grad school, and getting married later on that same summer; even if you’ve just aced your last classes, and you think you’re an invincible evil genius; and especially if you don’t drink, like, EVER, but you think it’ll be absolutely hilarious to get smashed out of your face with two of your best friends just this once.

Seriously. Just say no.

Because you’ll drink that wine, and then run about campus like the silly twenty-two year old that you are, and you’ll meet Nardwuar the Human Serviette and tell him about how watching him do the Hip Flip with Paul Martin is one of the highlights of your life, what with being the Canadian politico nerd that you are.

(This will impress no one, least of all Nardwuar who will just think you drunk and insane.)

And then at 4 o’clock in the afternoon you’ll phone your fiancée as ask him to come pick you up and take you to Dairy Queen where you’ll order two servings of popcorn shrimp, but only eat the shrimp and not the French fries because you’re trying to be healthy.

And if you still do this? Be sure to drink those two liters of water he gives you before you pass out at seven o’clock that evening.

It will save your life and allow you to blog about it years, and years later.

One fish, two fish

Dudes!

FISHING.

Holy mother of pearl.

M and I just returned from a three day salmon-catching extravaganza in the Barclay Sound with my father, and Mr. DM – alias Fish Whisperer extraordinaire.

Now, I don’t know if any of you cats have ever gone fishing before, but believe me when I saw that I was incredibly out of my element the entire time I found myself at sea.

This doesn’t mean I necessarily stunk up the boat or anything (both in my fishing skills or otherwise) – in fact, I’d like to think that I actually did quite well for a first timer – it’s just that sitting in a boat for long periods of time, at all hours of the day, in all kinds of weather isn’t exactly on par with my day job.

This is how I imagined the weekend would play itself out:

Arrive.

Hang out in a ridiculously beautiful area of Vancouver Island (please see photographic evidence of this very-true fact):

Fish for a couple of hours.

Arrive back at gorgeous hang-out spot.

Eat dinner.

Bed.

Oh brother was I ever off. First, I was ill-prepared, both mentally and clothing-wise for the length of time we would be on the water when we arrived on Friday afternoon.

We arrived at Port Alberni around 12:30, and after dropping our gear off at Green Cove (where we would be staying) we set out to begin hunting for the elusive salmon around 2 o’clock. If you had told me that we would be spending the next seven hours on a boat I would have thought you were kidding me.

SEVEN HOURS!

Good thing I was hanging out with folks that I happen to like. Like A LOT.

And when I say that Don (the Fish Whisperer) is one of the coolest, most skilled guys I have ever met IT IS NO LIE.

The guy is like a ninja on the water! First he sets everything up, then as soon as a rod gets a bite, he is on it like a fat kid on a smartie – turning off the outboard motor, reeling in the other reel, handing off the rod to whomever was next for a chance at the catch – and it all happens so fast if you blinked you might miss all the action.

All in all I had seven tries at the reel, and I caught six fish – three Coho and three Spring (although one of the Springs was just a baby so we had to throw it back.)

I also learned quite a bit. So in no particular order, here are some things I discovered about salmon fishing:

1.) Get prepared to spend a heck of a lot of time in that boat. As I referenced above, we were on the water for most of the day (something I had not expected) so dress warmly, because I can’t imagine anything worse than freezing your butt off on the high seas, while praying for a fish to chomp down on that anchovy. When you are warm and cozy wearing ten thousand layers of clothing nothing will be able to dampen your spirits! (See below photo for clues on what to wear to ensure your warmth.)

2.) If you are girl make sure you are okay with peeing in a bucket. I am very okay with peeing in a bucket so this was no problem. In fact, I felt as though it was pretty high falluting to have such amenities on board! I had full-on expected to be dangling off the edge of the boat, or running into the woods on either side of the inlet every time nature called.

3.) Get ready for some early mornings. On Saturday when the alarm went off at 4:45am the first two thoughts to enter my mind were: “No. I REFUSE.” Luckily after laying in bed for a few more minutes, listening to the strains of Jimmy Buffet’s XFM radio station (pretty much the best music out there for early morning wake-ups) I began to get pretty jazzed up about the start of the day. Oh yeah, drinking nineteen cups of coffee probably also helped.

4.) WATCH YOUR ROD TIP NOT THE SALMON. ALSO, KEEP THAT SUCKER AS HIGH AS YOU CAN GET IT.

5.) Coho salmon jump like Van bloody Halen.

6.) Fish are also strong! Those babies can get pretty big, and goodness knows they put up one hell of a fight as you try to reel them in. My dad actually did one of those classic falls when a fish pulled him off of his feet – otherwise known as “The Goofy.” It was insane! The best part of the whole thing? He still managed to get the fish into the boat. BOSS.

7.) The yummiest dinner ever? Garlic bread topped with fresh crab. ZOMG TASTE EXPLOSION.

8.) Learn how to keep a strong tack. Don’t know what that means? Neither did I! It means trying to keep the boat moving in the straightest line as possible so the bait isn’t zigzagging all over the place. This can been pretty difficult depending on the currents, wave size, and the number of other boats that happen to populate that same area. But do it right and you will feel very, very happy, as will your fellow shipmates.

9.) A really fun game to play while your biding your time between bites is the alphabet game – try to think of words that begin with the letters A – Z for different categories. A few groups M and I went through included European cities, American cities, and professional hockey players (double the points if you can think of someone that shares the same letter for both their first and last name.)

All it all it was really a tremendous weekend. I learned a lot, and like I said, experienced something new and totally outside of my every day routine.

I also had to laugh when a high school kid hit on me in the lineup for coffee when we were hanging out at the ferry terminal on the way home. I looked like an absolute hot mess so tack (har har) that on to my previous list of tips on how to get yourself asked out by the youngsters.

And there’s nothing fishy about that.

I can find out no rhyme to ‘lady’ but ‘baby’

I have a question for all of you beautiful people:

Do any of you nutters have kids?

Full disclosure: I am not with child.

I’m just curious that’s all. You see, there is a kid, currently located just outside of my kitchen window, who has been crying and screaming its absolute head off for say, the past fifteen, twenty minutes.

And this is not a baby, we’re talking about here. We are talking a legitimate, walking, talking human being – one who is weeping for all of Canada. He probably has a full set of teeth, takes trips to the loo solo, and can choose his outfits in the morning.

Having listened to him wail on and on for the last little bit, I just want to lean out of my window and holler, “WHAT’S THE PROBLEM KID? THERE’S NO CRYING IN BASEBALL! THERE. IS. NO. CRYING. IN. BASEBALL!!!11!!

AND GET OFF MY LAWN.

…

I mean, that’s pretty horrible of me, is it not?

I know.

I am definitely the worst.

And it is reactions of mine – like this one just described – that make me fear for the day (should I be blessed in the properly functioning uterine department) that I become a mother.

I just can’t imagine that scenario working out all too well.

For one, I have zero maternal instinct.

No, minus zero.

I have never, ever, had that “twinge” – when, after having glimpsed some beautiful scene where a glowing mother cuddles here gorgeous offspring – something inside of me says “I want that.”

To be honest, most of the time everything inside my entire being begins screaming, “DO NOT WANT. COMMENCE THROWING UTERUS IN GARBAGE DISPOSAL.”

I mean, sure, there are moments where I concede that it wouldn’t be so bad. In fact, the people I know and love who have kids make it look downright phenomenal. There are tons of great children out there, and seeing how many of the cool cats in my life love their kids is darn cool.

Plus I keep telling myself that I probably wouldn’t feel the same way about my child as I do about many of the random children I come into contact with – that being mostly terror, confusion, and incredulity.

Deep down I know I would definitely love the crap out of them.

But I still worry.

I worry for a number of reasons (above and beyond the fact that I seem to have pawned off my biological clock sometime in the early 90s for two Kitkat bars, some sour keys, and a copy of Kirby’s Dreamland for my Gameboy.)

The first and mayhaps the biggest?

I just don’t get babies.

I made it through about 4 minutes of this movie before turning it off:

Like seriously, people go absolutely bat shit CRAZY over babies. Not only that, but they go bonkers over baby paraphernalia.

WHAT THE HECK PEOPLE?

It makes me think that babies have some magical power to get you stoned. (Just think about it -marijuana gets you high, and potheads LOVE them some weed leaf stickers, Bob Marley posters, and giant decorative bongs – so I’ve come to the conclusion that it must be the same for those crazed baby-lovers.)

And if it isn’t for their ability to get you high, how else could people possibly care about a tiny pair of socks or a facecloth with a frog on it?

WHAT DO YOU PEOPLE KNOW THAT I DON’T?

And in terms of the baby itself – I too need this explained. Babies are small, foreign, angry old men or women, hell bent on breaking your ear drums, defecating mustard gas, and peeing all over every square inch of your life.

This is terrifying!

Seriously, their catchphrase could be – “BABIES: POOP GRENADES ONLY NOW WITH MORE POOP.”

And yet people think they are the bees knees.

And don’t tell me it’s because of their new baby smell.

I’ve smelled me some babies in my life and I know for a FACT that it’s not all cake and roses.

I worry that I’ll have a baby, and the baby will all be “I’m a baby SCREAM POOP PEE EAT SLEEP HAHAHAH JUST JOKING I’M NEVER GOING TO SLEEP SCREEEEAAAAAMMMMMM” to which I’ll just be like, “You, sir, are an arsehole, BUH BYE.”

I worry that I’ll have the baby, and the baby will all be, “BABY” and I’ll be like, “That’s all you got? Where the frick is the rest!? I JUST SPENT NINE MONTHS MAKING YOU – ENTERTAIN ME SPAWN!!!”

I worry that I will be the worst mother ever.

IMGP4280_2 — The first baby I ever held. I was sweating like crazy I was so nervous.

So what I guess I’m saying is that I worry.

I worry that I’ll give my kid the eating disorder that I struggled with for years; that I’ll give them the anxiety that I deal with on a daily basis; that I’ll make them think they need make-up to be beautiful because I too like to wear make-up; that I’ll drop them on their head the second I get home.

I worry about the unknown – what about my job? What about my relationship?

What about my body?

I worry about worrying about my body.

But throughout it all, I have one ace in the hole that makes all of these questions seem not quite so daunting.

That one person who makes me worry just a little less.

And that, of course, is Mr. M.

My freaking knight in shining armour.

Because somehow (and I have no idea how) he doesn’t have any of these doubts. He just knows. He has confidence in not only himself, but in me, and it is through him that I have started to believe, little by little, that one day, if this happens, it will be just grand.

And while I’m not necessarily at the same level of belief that he cooly-as-a-cucumber maintains, I have the belief that I will get there, eventually.

Because when I see him with children? That’s when I feel something flicker.

I imagine him and I giving piggybacks, and leaping through sprinklers; teaching small, wild haired munchkins about tidal pools and earthworms, making mud pies, and reading storybooks by flashlight.

And it gives me pause.

But who knows – maybe one day all of what I currently feel about myself, and my relationship with my yet-to-be-born babies will change. I will wake up, flick on the internet and order the newest poo grenade and pay extra for the express shipping.

But until that day, my questions remain.

As does my love.

Unlike, thank goodness, the echoes of the crying child, outside of my window.

Which means that he too, is happy.