Memories – Page 9 – Rant and Roll

I can be your hero baby

When I was in grade five, I was singled out as a “gifted” student.

Because of this, I was shipped off every Thursday to room 320, in order to spend the day away from my friends with the biggest losers I had ever met.

(Or at least the biggest losers in my highly-evolved eleven-year old opinion.)

And no doubt, all of those kids were looking at me in the exact same light.

The condescension hung heavy in that classroom, let me tell you. Like a really snotty cumulus cloud.

We were all there to participate in a program entitled “COW: Changing our World.”

This was horrible.

I was missing double gym to spend my day talking about environmental and political actions that, sure I cared about, but didn’t really care about.

Not more than kicking ass in frisbee death anyway.

One afternoon, after emptying our juice boxes and wiping the peanut butter from our mouths, Ms. Marvin asked us to sit in a circle and tell the group about our heroes.

I panicked.

What kind of question was that?

I can remember wracking my brain for strong female icons that I could proudly say were my heroes. I admired Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedman, but they weren’t mine. But I admired them to such an extent that they were pratically mythological, made-up figures and they existed for me because of everything my mother had told me about them, and the few books I had found in my library.

The same for Roberta Bondar and Nancy Green and Nelly McClung.

CIMG7348 — My beauty mom and beauty sis. Two women I admire greatly.

Each name stuck in my throat like a ball of hair; I could feel my tongue trying to push words to the front of my mouth, but nothing would come but nerves and peanut butter breath.

I cannot remember whom the first three students named.

Perhaps this is because of the enormity of Justin’s (number four’s) pick. He sat there in his green club-med sweatshirt, tapered jeans and classic bowl cut, so confident, so ready.

He was more than prepared to announce to the world his hero.

I remember he even inhaled before speaking.

“My hero is Jean Chretien.”

I want to embellish here and say that I came close to passing out upon hearing this, but it’s not true. I might have been a drama queen, but I knew where to draw the line.

But still – Jean Chretien?

How could anyone in their right mind possibly say that he was their hero? It certainly didn’t make things better when the girl next to him (I’ve since forgotten her name) declared that her hero was Kim Campbell.

The only thing running through my head was: WHO ARE THESE WEIRDOS?

KIM CAMPBELL AND JEAN CHRETIEN!?!?

From library and archives Canada — The usual suspects. HILARIOUS side note: when my mom was working in Ottawa in the early 90s, she was walking down the street one night and a woman yelled out "There's Kim Campbell!" This has kept me laughing for years.

ARE WE IN BIZARRO WORLD?

Now to be fair, in retrospect, I can (kind of) understand the reasoning behind an eleven-year-old girl’s decision to pick Kim Campbell.

Being the first female prime minister of Canada definitely propels you into a certain category of individuals (despite the fact that her party had already been decisively trounced in the elections).

But didn’t she listen to Double Exposure? They made fun of her all the damned time!

I do not recall the way the rest of the day panned out; I was too unsettled, too shaken up.

As I walked home, scuffing my tennis shoes and tripping over their laces, my mind raced with makeshift answers. Justin was not the athletic type – his legs were even skinnier than mine (and I was of such a stick-like nature that I could see my heart beating every time I emerged scrubbed-pink from the bathtub), so it was acceptable that he wouldn‘t pick a sports figure. He didn’t seem one to idolize film stars or literary giants.

And because of this, I began to question the defining qualities of this commonly used label.

“Hero.”

If someone could say that Canada’ twentieth prime minister was their hero, what did that mean for the term itself? Could just about anyone be a hero? What were the specific requirements and did they all have to be met? How could Jean Chretien be so special to one little boy? It was obviously not a choice born out of passion.

But then again maybe he was just a HUGE fan of the Constitution.

Looking back, the best that I can come up with was that this choice was one of utmost pragmatism.

On the first day of class Justin had said that he wanted to be a politician; somewhere along the line he must have realized that in order to accomplish this, it might be good to look up to someone who had already achieved this position.

And now of course, I know that there is nothing wrong with that.

In fact, if I could go back in time I would say party on Justin.

(Liberal) PARTY ON.

But that night I sat at the dining room table with my feet tucked neatly into the folds of my knees and slowly mashed my tofu around my plate. My mother, used to my pickiness, sat across from me and told me to stop molesting my bean curd.

“It’s not the tofu,” I said. Because in fact it wasn’t the tofu, as I really liked tofu (and still do to this day.)

“Well then what’s the matter?” My mother crossed her arms and looked at me, cocking her head to one side, making the dangly parts of her earrings knock together like wind chimes.

“Some stupid idiot in my class today told everyone that Jean Chretien is his hero.” I rolled by eyes. My fork clanged onto the plate as I let it slip from my fingers. “Isn’t that the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard?”

I knew that my mom didn’t want to laugh. But she was one with whom I would listen to Double Exposure on the CBC. She also read Frank Magazine (in fact she had been lampooned herself in the rag) and like her daughter, thought that this was just too much.

My mother let out a wallop of a laugh.

“AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Her whole body shook like an oversized maraca.

So I let loose too, laughing with an intensity that felt unnatural, but I felt like if I laughed hard enough the uncomfortable pit buried deep inside of me wouldn’t sprout leaves and grow into a tree.

As long as I laughed I could think Justin as a strange anomaly and continue to think of heroes as easily definable, realistic beings.

But eventually, I stopped.

And I, on this day, April 30, 2012, would like to extend an apology to both Justin, and the unnamed Kim Campbell fan.

In an age of Jersey Shore and Kim Kardashian and Twilight – I’ll take their choices.

But I”ll probably still need that juice box.

Because although I might take it, it’s still not going to go down any easier then it did the first time around.

And for that I blame Double Exposure.

(And my mom.)

Would you just take it easy man?

Between the ages of about twelve and twenty, whenever I spoke with my mother over the phone, she would inevitably tell me at some point in our conversation to slow down.

Seriously, all I need to do is just sit here and close my eyes, and I can actually hear her voice, pleading for respite from the verbal onslaught – my machine gun volley of words.

“HOLD IT!” She would exclaim. “Hold it! I can’t understand a single thing that you are saying!”

IMG-20120427-00064 — This is the kind of place I imagine my mother went to as I motor-mouthed through our conversation.

I would, of course, laugh to myself, or perhaps let out one of those larger than life exasperation-heavy sighs, so well-cultivated and practiced by the teenage set, before jabbering on a like a monkey in a tree.

Maybe I’d slow my speech a tad (though it is unlikely) because the news of my latest exploits, or how cute the boy I danced with was, or could she please come pick me up like right now because I am freeeeeezing – well, these were pieces of news of such importance, that if I didn’t push my words out of my mouth as fast as I possibly could, their significance might be forever lost, and my life would end, and I would have to cede the title of “most fascinating teenager EVER” to the next fastest-talking teen (aka my little sister.)

Or something in that regard.

Why, you might ask yourself, am I telling you all this?

The answer, my friends, is because there are a few areas in my life in which I am going to try to slow the heck down.

IMG-20120426-00057 — I'm going to smell the flowers.

I am going to breathe. And then breathe again.

Seriously, from this day out, my goal is to make a conscious effort to take five, (or smell the roses, or drive the scenic route, or whatever) in the following three areas of my life, because my need for speed is mucking things up and it’s starting to grind my gears.

Let’s dive right in:

1.) Proof reading my blog posts.

So. I love this blog. Like, SO MUCH.

And I love writing. But I’ve never loved reading my writing with a critical line-edit eye. In fact, I really can’t stand the slow once over, nor do I enjoy reading my work out loud (in a proof reading sense.)

This always came back to bite me in the butt during my uni days. I would always need to option out the final edit of my essays to lovely, selfless friends (or, you know, Mr. M, who – to his credit – was responsible for overviewing approximately 97.4% of my typo-free academic work).

If I didn’t put my stuff through this last minute check, then I was doomed to the “[insert positive feedback here – but would have benefited from one last final proofread]” professorial comment.

Urg. How I hated that comment.

A huge better-late-than-never apology to all of my professors!

It’s just that after immersing myself full-tilt in the subject matter, and then spending a crap-load of time crafting a sweet, sweet argument, and then writing a sweet, sweet paper, the thought of reading over my words one more time after all of that effort, actually made me feel as though my brain was bleeding out of my ears.

Who wants to sit in front of a compy for longer than they need to?

There is really only so much critical analysis a young gal can handle.

Anywho, what I’m trying to say is that this academic habit of mine has now translated into the horrible trend of not checking over these posts before hitting the fatal “publish” button. This leaves me scrambling for quite a while afterwards (depending of course of the post), cleaning up all my nit-picky errors – most of which are a result of typing too fast.

See folks! Again, what do I find myself doing? Pushing out ideas that I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT as quickly as I possibly can, without fully acknowledging that the people who will actually be reading these posts need to actually, you know, understand what it is I am trying to communicate.

Sheesh.

Mom! You were right all along!

But I’m working on it.

2. Eating too fast when I am hungry

Especially if the food is mega-tasty.

Now, to be fair, I’m of the mind that when you’re hungry enough, anything will taste good.

(My earliest memory pertaining to this theory is from the age of six, when my mom picked me up from my piano lesson and was driving me to my next activity – highland dancing practice. I hadn’t eaten anything since lunch that day at school and she offered me a banana flavoured granola bar.)

At that time in my life I pretty much equated “banana” with horse manure, so you can imagine my reticence at scarfing that bad boy down.

But the rumble in my tummy persisted, and my resolve broke, and as I gobbled up that bar, I so clearly remember thinking “wow, this tastes AMAZING!”

Today at lunch I ate these scrumptious fish tacos:

However, because the majority of my morning was comprised of working with my hair on fire, followed by a lunch hour – which actually wasn’t made up of lunch, but a brisk walk across downtown Vancouver and back with J (which was beautiful and hilarious and fab.)

IMG-20120427-00061 — Beautiful downtown Vancity.

By the time I bought my food and sat down at my desk I was so ravenous I practically inhaled my meal.

And although the tacos were insanely tasty, it really reminded me that I need to make an effort to chew, chew, chew, when I am hungry.

Because when I hoover everything like the food vacuum I can so easily become, I not only give myself stomach aches, but I practically induce myself into a taco coma.

A “TACOMA” if you will.

3. Developing crushes on famous people (mainly a British problem)

I will watch some dude in one tv show for thirty seconds and immediately I’ll get all shirty over him. This doesn’t happen very often (which is probably why I feel so funny when it does).

It’s a bit ridiculous really.

But luckily, these infatuations are all incredibly short-lived, and often fizzle out before the week is out.

Hmmm.

Actually.

I am going to renege on this point.

Because I am okay with it.

I like my silly little crushes. (And I’m pretty sure they like me too.)

So there you have it! Two areas where I am making a conscious effort to cool my jets.

And in the mean time, I am going to wear my new skirt until it is runs thread-less and bare (and I am incarcerated for indecent exposure.)

And what about you folks? Is there anything in your lives where speed is killing you? Let me know, and we can swap tips on how to best employ the brakes.

P.S. If there are any typos in this (or any future) post, don’t tell me about them. I’ll find them eventually.

I just felt like dying

Hi friends!

Have you ever been in a position where something really embarrassing is happening to you, but there is nothing that you can really do about it, because, who are we kidding, no one can just shower for hours and hours in the hopes that hair dye no longer dots the length of their hairline?

No?

Huh. Just me then.

Oh well, it’s all one.

But to get back to what I was saying – although I had (on the whole) an absolutely fabulous weekend, because I did have hair dye smattered all across my hairline, and because I didn’t have one bloody thing on the dye removal list given to me by the lovely Kacy, I spent the majority of my time outside wearing this on my head:

IMG_0664 - Copy — Why, heeelllooooo there.

And while I really love my Forever XXI headband, on the one day that Vancouver finally cracked fifteen degrees centigrade, I was a little hot around the ears.

(Especially as M and I walked up the library to return our books, and to purchase our goodies for dinner.)

We thought the perfect dinner for such a sunny Saturday night would be spicy shrimp fajitas.

When I was first learning how to cook, as well as coming to understand that food was my friend, and not my sworn enemy, fajitas were one of the first things that I began to make on a regular basis.

What I’ve come to love so much about them is the myriad of colours and textures and flavours that all come to play, wrapped up tightly in those tasty, toasty tortillas.

You’ve got the crunch from the peppers, the spice from the seasoning, the sharpness of the cheese, the tang of the salsa, all dancing up a storm, to a perfectly timed beat.

And they are a fabulous meal to cap off a sun dripped, tuliped, early spring day.

Check it:

Like I always like to do, I laid out the goods before getting down to business.

And then I chopped it, chopped it.

Then I had sizzling sizzlers straight out of sizzledom. (Not to be confused of course with Jerry Sizzler, sister of Jerry Sizzler, the lounge singers and not two clearly insane people. See end video for more, and for proof that I am not the one clearly insane.)

Then we laid out a buffet of brilliance.

For an end result of:

What are your easy peasy meal choices that serve as the perfect topper to a smashing day?

And just remember, I’m not Roy Orbison. I work in colourization!

A sister act

Yesterday was rad for a number of reasons.

1.) I got to have cheesecake for lunch.

2.) I met up with one of my best buds, whom I haven’t seen in quite some time. PLUS she invited me to join her to:

3.) Go hear Clara Hughes speak.

For those of you who aren’t acquainted with Ms. Hughes, she is an incredibly bad-ass Canadian athlete – multiple Olympic medal winner, and one of the few people in the world who can say that they competed at both the Winter and Summer Olympics. She is both a road biker and speed skater, and medalled in both sports, at multiple games.

_Device Memory_home_user_pictures_IMG00206 — This woman has pretty much the biggest smile in the world!

Talk about inspiration. I’ll be running extra hard during my sprint training tomorrow night and then I will force myself to make it to five pull-ups in a row even if it bloody well kills me.

(If my Friday post hasn’t arrived by 11:59pm on the day, please call either M or my mom and let them know something very serious has happened. A missed blog post is not to be trifled with.)

I kid, I kid.

…

Seriously though folks, I cannot tell you how excited I was about activity number two on yesterday’s dial-up.

The brilliant, beautiful K has been on secondment in Ohio since September of last year, and working ridiculously long hours at that, so it was great to have a chance to see her and catch up.

K is a long-time (and often long-lost) friend of mine, who, for all intents and purposes, should be given the title of “honorary sister”, what with how much time the two of us spent together growing up.

The next time I see her, I may just have to print up a certificate labelled PhD – S. I’ll give it to her along with a tape of Kids in the Hall, during a late night car ride – two things that are synonymous with sisterhood for me.

She and I spent our formative years training every day together (sometimes twice a day), and if I had a nickel for how many sit-ups the two of us performed side-by-side, I would be Scrooge McDucking it up in my giant warehouse of nickels.

We played junior national badminton together, and she was my doubles partner. When we weren’t kicking butt as a team, we were squaring off against each other in the singles and mixed doubles finales (of whatever tournament we happened to be playing in that weekend.)

And believe you me. When I say “that weekend”, I mean every weekend. EVER.

We had a pretty good gold-silver monopoly going on (albeit competitive to the max – but I mean, who could possibly play sports at a competitive level and not be IN IT TO WIN IT? Definitely. Not. I – that is FO SHO).

But more importantly than our winning – scratch that, nothing is ever as important as winning – (KIDDING! But kind of not really) was the incredibly strong, nuanced, and hilariously fabulous friendship the two of us formed over the years.

I am very serious when I write that sometimes I think I couldn’t have survived my most cringe-worthy awkward (re: teenage) years had it not been for this girl.

K was a rock.

I was pretty much in awe of her at all times; she just exuded the most natural self-confidence, and self-awareness (which at the time, from my perspective, was completely mind-boggling). On court she was a bloody zen master. Calm, cool – the most collected cucumber in a patch filled with absolute zucchinis.

Full disclosure: as I teenager, I was the queen zucchini.

I promise you there probably isn’t a topic in the world that the two of us haven’t covered at some point during our years spent together.

Our friendship is such that I never get anxious when we don’t talk or see each other for prolonged periods of time. Because I know that when we finally do have an opportunity to spend a day with each other, it will be as though nothing has changed, and we are still sixteen, and laughing ourselves silly in some random Calgarian coffee shop, or, Saskatoonian Chinese restaurant, or Torontonian movie theatre, or Haligonian Dairy Queen.

Due to the number of crazy memories we share, we actually started writing a book, chronicalling our many adventures and insides jokes entitled “Apple and Banana’s Fruit Bowl of Jokes.”

(Don’t ask, inside joke.)

Emmet Otter’s Jug Band Christmas is one of our most enduring inside jokes. HI HO!

Anywho, the book is currently packed away with most of my high school memorabilia, but every so often it’s worth the hassle to dig it out, and re-read all of our insane hijinks and crazy escapades.

They slay me, truly.

For instance:

At nationals one year in Calgary, we were warming up before our match, down one of the club’s deserted basement hallways. K was stretching and I was skipping rope.

My rope get hitting the ceiling duct – with each rotation, a dull clang would ring out down the length of the corridor.

K looked up at me and said (in all earnest): You should probably stop that.

Because I was nervous as crap (and over-confident in my understanding of the solidity of ceiling make-ups and apparatuses) I didn’t take her advice to heart, and just kept skipping.

And the rope kept hitting the duct.

After probably another minute, K repeated her earlier warning.

Look, she said, just move over a little bit.

Pretty much as soon as these words left her mouth, my rope snagged completely on one of the duct’s inner ridges, and as I finished the rotation I ripped the ENTIRE duct, tube and all, out of the ceiling.

images — Ceiling duct. Pretty self-explanatory.

K’s (and my!) jaws pretty much hit the floor with shock.

Oh my god, I exclaimed.

Oh my god, K exclaimed.

And then, my lovely readers, what followed is pretty much one of the worse case of “the laughs” I have ever experienced in my entire life.

I laughed like a loon for hours about that incident (after, you know, recovering from my disbelief-induced paralysis, and running away from the major destruction for which I was responsible.)

It’s amazing I managed to get myself on the court, let alone make a serve or two.

Even just now thinking about the incident is an ab workout and a half! When I start to feel a little bad about what I did that day (we snuck down the next day to see if the carnage was still fresh, but it had been fixed already) I can’t really be bothered, because the overwhelming hilarity of the memory is still so strong, and fresh, and awesome.

This is why I adore K.

This, for me, is how I define our friendship.

Because even when she is not physically in my life, I have the memories of our time past, spent together, laughing, training, shopping, traveling –

And if I ever want to remind myself of time past, I’ll just go stand under my ceiling fan.

And think about the damage I could do, if I tried.

Winter is coming

This weekend Lotus Land welcomed its first big snowfall of the year.

Mister M and I awoke on Saturday morning to this:

It’s very rare for our snow to stick, let alone to remain pristine and, well, white. Usually the whole thing goes sideways within the first minutes of the snowfall – dirty, grey-brown slush coagulates along the sides of roads, working its way into the gutters, and into the insides of your boots.

It’s like the tar they used to show in anti-cigarette advertisements.

Where once there was symbol of health, now rests nothing but a build up of toxic sludge and disappointment.

It oozes.

Erm. I seem to have gotten off track, and quickly at that.

So sorry to have veered off into such dark territory – it won’t happen again.

So, owards now, to much better and brighter thoughts!

Like this?

Oh yeah. Just like that.

One thing that is hilarious (albeit a little exhausting) about our annual snowfall, is that people here on the west coast of Canada often have a hard time figuring out what exactly to do with themselves once white stuff starts falling from the sky.

Does this coat make me look like a Sith lord?

Some forget how to operate motor vehicles. Some walk around in bare legs and umbrellas, as if stuck in some mind- bending quagmire of confusion. Some immediately revert to cherished childhood pursuits – building snowmen, throwing snowballs, or sledding down the nearest, and steepest hill they can find.

For me – it’s all about the walks.

I want to walk among trees, each looking as if the snow has set it alight. Glimmering in the sunlight, long icicles frozen on outstretched branches, that reflect a thousand crystal prisms – like dancers.

A thousand colours changing.

A thousand thoughts reflecting.

M and I do our best talking as we walk. We mull over our future, our plans, our goals, our fears. We talk about our jobs, the books we’re reading, the t.v. shows we’re watching.

We laugh about our cat.

We dissect the politics of our nation, our province, our city.

We debate the divergent discourses of neighbours to the south.

We reminisce about England.

We plan for the future.

Don't tell Plato, but we are people who watch shadows.

Sometimes it’s so crazy to think they we are not the eighteen year old girl, and twenty year old boy we were when we first met.

(We used to run from Marc’s apartment (that was very soon to become our apartment) down to the Blockbuster at 11:50 at night, in our pyjamas, racing to the doors before they closed for the evening, and rent Arnold Schwarzenegger movies and buy Oh Henry ice cream.)

But as soon as I start to think along those lines, it becomes so painfully obvious that we still are in fact those two people – we are those two weirdos, flying through the winter’s night in their flannel, and frost freckled faces.

Those two people had the same dreams, and hopes, and goals, and fears as we do today– sure, some may have changed, some may have gone, some may have grown, and some may be exactly the same.

It’s just that, at that time, we didn’t know how much we’d want to figure it all out together.

And so we continue to walk. Through the winter wonderland that is currently our home.

(Although I need to be much more careful, what with how slippery the road become as the temperature slides lower and lower before zero. The beautiful, blue bruise blooming on my right leg is a reminder of that.)

It’s supposed to drop to minus 13 tonight, much colder than I can remember it being for quite some time.

The fire is roaring, the cat is catting, and I sit, thinking about my future, yes, but mostly the last twenty pages of The Hunger Games.

You see, I finally got my greedy mitts on the last two books, and blew through book two and half of book three yesterday afternoon.

I read through my lunch break today and now, but for a few pages, I will finally find out how the war for Panem will end.

Sometimes the conclusion of a make believe world is just what the doctor ordered.

And if not – walk it off..