Opinion – Page 25 – Rant and Roll

Like a monkey with a miniature symbol

Hey kidlets!

It’s once again time for another Friday Fry-up. So let’s not waste time mixing metaphors and just get this show on the road.

First on the docket?

Awesome reasons to eat cheese.

Glücklich (wenn auch spät) Schweizer Bundesfeie meine Freunde!

Yes, that’s right. Happy belated Swiss National Day.

Over here at chez-madhouse, we look forward to celebrating this holiday every year on August 1. It’s a chance to hang out with other Swiss nuts (aka M’s family), eat a ton of amazing cheese, drink sparkling wine, and make merry as the night is long.

So this past Wednesday we tuned up our alpen horns, practiced our Roger Federer one-handed backhands, and drove over for a feast of feasts with the rest of the gang.

Abso-frickin-marvelous.

Number two?

I think I’ve seen this all before.

So it’s not that I get déjà vu a lot, it’s more that the déjà vu that I do end up getting really knocks me for a loop – it is out-of-this-world BONKERS. I am literally struck silent (one might even say immobilized) by the feeling that everything that I am experiencing has already happened to me before.

And when I’m not living through this strange, quasi-out-of-body sensation, I’m just doing really silly things on repeat – over, and over, and over again.

(See: Hot Chip)

For instance, did you know that in Russian, the work for juice is cok? You see, c = s and k = c/k.

The confusion and embarrassment comes into play when even though you are THINKING in Russian, your brain is READING in English, and you end up saying “cok“ (and who are we kidding, if you say cok, nobody is thinking “oh, like Russian juice only mispronounced!“ and everybody is just thinking “THAT GIRL JUST SAID WANG!!! BAHAHAHAHA!!!“.)

Which is bloody awkward as all get out.

Seriously, all throughout Russian 100 I’m fairly certain that I told 90% of my classmates that on the weekends I liked to drink vodka and cock.

Which is silly because I don’t EVER drink vodka, and the prospect of a vodka penis just makes the whole venture one hundred fold more unappealing.

BLARGH.

Why are you telling this story lady? I bet many of you are thinking at this very moment.

I HAVE A POINT I PROMISE.

Yesterday I was with my colleague J, and I asked her to accompany me to the kitchen so I could get a drink.

Unfortunately, I wavered between pop and coke, and so it came out: “I just want to grab a cock.“

And so it continues.

Seriously, how this is still happening to me, I will never know.

I can only blame it on the Russians.

ONWARDS!

Amazing YA fiction.

Have any of you cats read this book?

I just started it yesterday morning and I am about halfway through. It is absolutely awesome!

It’s driving me batty trying to figure out what exactly is going on – the plot is slowly unfolding but I feel as though I cannot trust any of the narration.

I am hooked. I implore you – ch-ch-ch-check it out.

…

As for us Canucks, we have a three day weekend to look forward to. Hopefully the sun will be shining like a shining thing. M and I are looking forward to hiking Mt. Seymour, and just spending as much time outside as possible. I have a really, really wicked foot tan shaping up, the likes of which I haven’t seen for a couple of years.

Wishing you all a fab time off, whatever it is you do.

Working for the weekend

So I received a lovely comment the other day from an equally lovely reader (and one who seems to have fashioned his own form of English – reading his phonetic language is at time akin to deciphering some kind of code) asking me if instead of toiling away in employment obscurity, I am living off of the royalties of a amazing invention or product (seeing as though I don’t talk all that much about my place of work on ye olde Rant and Roll.)

Alas, as much as I wish this were true, it is in fact not the case.

At least, not yet.

I do work, and while my experience with my job doesn’t require me to write long-winded diatribes about the injustice and inhumanity of it all, it certainly isn’t all satsumas, rainbows, and peanut butter chocolate chip cookies (cut out in the shapes of owls and otters.)

Sometimes I stampede about my office, ready to rip out my hair and the vocal chords of whatever poor sap who just happens to be shuffling by with the printer paper refill order.

Sometime I am all rage, all the time.

But honestly, when it comes down to it, I like my job.

I get to research and write policy recommendations to the provincial government. I write news releases, speeches, and editorials, ghost-write and edit for professionals who need help with their pieces, conduct interviews, manage social media, and do some pretty large scale event planning.

And when I say that I bloody-well love some of my co-workers, there isn’t one kernel of untruth in that statement. There are four ladies with whom that I work whom I love dearly, and I can honestly say that if they weren’t there for me day in and day out, I would have packed up my bags (and Mr. 8”X 11”s vocal chords) one heck of a long time ago.

Phew.

But despite all of this, there are times when I feel myself getting restless.

On the surface, everything is a-okay. My head bobbing above the water, I am the spitting image of perfectly calm, perfectly collected.

IMG_1363 - Copy — Just keep swimming…just keep swimming.

However, peer a little closer – down, deeper into the depths of the lake (or whatever body of water it is in which I am swimming) and you’ll see me limbs thrashing about every which way, desperate to propel my body into a new direction. I crave to be constantly on the move – doing new things, making new plans, setting new goals.

Which is why outside of work I take on as many ventures as I possibly can, pushing myself to do as much as possible, driving myself to the brink of sanity and exhaustion.

I have been a Big Sister with Big Sisters of the Lower Mainland for almost four years, and since January have been working as a media ambassador for both their mentorship initiatives and the organization as a whole. I volunteer with Vancouver Co-op radio as a co-host of the Storytelling Show, a program dedicated to the telling and sharing of women’s stories and I’m constantly in the process of training for a new competition – my next race is the Fall Classic Half Marathon taking place November 18, 2012.

My next big goal is to finally, FINALLY give stand-up comedy a go.

And of course I have my blog (my baby!)

Rant and Roll is one of my most favourite projects and because I am so darned in love with it (and even more so with all of you gorgeous jerks) I want to make sure that every time I push ‘publish’ the product I am putting forth is as brilliant as it possibly can be.

Writing so much every week has been such a phenomenal exercise in getting me back into “writer” mode, that I believe when the time is right I will be able to make the full switch from writer-in-training, to Writer (capital W – no training wheels, no manager looking over my shoulder making sure I’ve memorized all the correct produce codes.)

WRITER.

But back to work.

Currently I have been in my position for a little over one year. This is the longest I have ever been in a full-time position.

Going from undergrad, right away to grad school, I never had the time (or attention span?) to stay in one specific place for long.

I live day to day with a very serious affliction: I have an incurable case of nomad-itis – it’s the way it’s always been, and the way it will always be.

But for the time being, work things are good. And all my extra-curriculars are fabitty fab, brillo pads.

I don’t need to complain here because whenever I start to feel overwhelmed, I take comfort in the absolute brilliance of my love, my family, and my friends.

Because those are the things that I focus on. They are the things that make my heart sing.

The gold, silver, and bronze age

Holy frickmas.

DUDES.

IT’S THE OLYMPICS!!!

And hot damn do I ever love the Olympics.

Because hot damn do I ever love sport.

I don’t love corporations, or globalization, or nationalism, or any of the other buzzwords that Olympic detractors love to trot out at two and four-year intervals. I don’t love Coke, and I don’t love idiotic, phallic mascots (although my cat sure does love her Quatchi), and I don’t love doping scandals, or unsportsmanlike conduct – issues that are sure to plague these games as they do every other international amateur athletic event.

I don’t love any of these things.

I just love sport.

And I respect and admire these phenomenal athletes who have sacrificed so much – more than I’ll ever know or understand – to push their bodies to the physical limit in an attempt to (pretty much) attain the impossible.

And I cannot for the life of me understand how people can want to take away from this – take away from those who have trained their entire lives for a chance to perform in the world’s spotlight, for that all too brief moment when the collective mass of coagulated humanity turns away from whatever opiate that is currently keeping them apathetic, and docile, uninterested and disengaged – and watches.

If but for a moment, becomes re-engaged.

Ignore all the superfluous, gratuitous, pornographic background noise that is produced from the monolithic and terrifying Olympic machine; ignore the masturbatory circus that is the IOC.

Ignore everything but the events and the players.

At least I will.

I do.

Because when you do, it is magic.

Here are three memories (in no particular order) I have of watching this magic. They are events that helped shape me not only as an athlete, but as an individual.

1.) Donovan Bailey’s gold medal 100m final – Atlanta Olympics, June 24, 1996.

Location: The basement of my family’s house, Vancouver, wearing my older sister`s stretched and faded Los Angeles 1984 t-shirt, sun burnt, exhilarated, awe-struck, inspired. To this day whenever I see 9.84 I think of that moment.

2.) Myriam Bedard’s double gold, biathlon – Lillehamer Olympics, 1994

Location: The TV room of my family’s house (different from the previous post), Vancouver. I remember the how tight my chest was, as if my pride has someone squeezed all the air from my lungs. I was so happy for not only my fellow country woman, but for all Canadian women. I cried when my mother told me Myriam had been selected to carry the flag at the closing ceremonies. (It’s very unfortunate that her horrible actions post-games have come to define her memory for many.)

3.) Matthias Steiner’s gold in the 105+ kg weightlifting – Beijing Olympics, 2008

Location: My tiny 600sq foot home as a newlywed, Vancouver. Completely sleep deprived due to staying up all night to watch live feeds on cbc.ca I wept when Matthias won, having learned that his wife – a German woman from Saxony – had died in a car accident just months before his Olympic triumph. He receives his medal holding a picture of her as tears stream down his face.

What about you cats? What are you excited for?

Oh, and as a postscript (and counterargument to this entire post), take a look at The Hater’s Guide to the London Olympics. As someone who has lived in the UK, and who LOVES the Olympics, it is bloody funny as HECK.

I get by with a little help

From my friends.

Today I spent my lunch hour with my beautiful, brilliant friend and colleague J, walking the streets of downtown Vancouver and trying on pretty things from the various clothiers that lined our route.

We hadn’t seen each other for almost six days, which is an exorbitant length of time what with how closely we work and how much of our work days are spent communicating with one another.

It was really grand to catch up and find out what has been swimming around in her neck of the pond.

I recently purged my closet of a number of pieces that no longer grace the length of my body, and were instead just clogging up my wardrobe and dresser drawers.

Lucky me that my two fabitty-fab sisters are in town visiting (or should I say lucky them?) and they got first pick all of the items that otherwise will be heading over to the nearest Sally Ann.

It is so great to have them here, as becomes increasingly more apparent, as the years press on, that the times when the three of us find ourselves in a room together grow ever more few and far between.

Very difficult to have those much needed late-night gab fests when one of us lives in Vancouver, one lives in Halifax, and one lives in New York.

Tonight I ate dinner with the younger of the two (I hold the much coveted position of middle sister) – at Guu, a Japanese izakaya restaurant I had yet to try out.

My sis is a professionally trained chef who owns a butcher shop and as such has a much more discerning palette than I (I assure you that, unlike yours truly, she doesn’t EVER drink diet coke or eat five cent candy on a regular basis) and as such, was the one making the gastronomic decisions for the both of us.

My other sis will be back on Friday and we – along with our two partners – will enjoy a weekend of Kids in the Hall, beaching, spies, Star Wars references, singing, dancing, and of course an over-arching theme of general bonkerdom.

Just the way we like it.

Summer just seems right with sisters.

I’d like to share with you some pictures from our adventures of late:

Lattes night snacks.

Booksbooksbooks.

Otter.

See food.

Umbrella.

Wedding reception.

Happy Wednesday to you all. I’ll help you get by anyway that I can.

Dear John

When I was sixteen years old I was sexually assaulted at a resort in Peurto Vallarta, Mexico. I was leaving the hotel’s disco around ten thirty at night, when one of the bartenders followed me out of the club. He came up to me from behind, took hold of my arms, and told me that he was going to walk me back to my hotel room.

I told him no, but he insisted, digging his hands, hard into the tops of my arms and the nook of my elbow.

Instead of taking me back to the room, he dragged me far down into the darkened open-air theatre.

Pushing me into a seat, he held on my arms, and told me that he loved me.

You don’t love me I whispered.

I love you, I love you, he whispered back.

I remember watching myself sitting in that seat – almost as if I was looking down from above, or from the side – my body, immobile, my voice, gone. I felt unable to scream and unable to fight back, too afraid to move; I shouted over and over again in my head, telling myself to run away, to punch and kick him, knee him in the balls, scratch his face, tell him to fuck off, do whatever it takes.

I watched myself sitting there in the chair; and as I sat there I felt my heart beating so hard I imagined it punching its way right out of my body, and I felt this man’s hands all over my skin, over me, his sticky, foul lips on my face, and I cried.

I cried, and I cried, and I said no, please, no, no, no, please.

No, no, no, I said it again, and again. Please.

No.

Yes, he said. Yes, yes, please, yes. Again and again.

Yes.

And then he put his hands under my skirt, into my underwear.

And through my sobs I managed to cry out. NO.

And he stopped.

I’ll never forget the look of absolute disgust he gave me, as he stood up, and brushed his hand on the shirt, his shorts.

As if it was his decision to stop. As if I was nothing.

You are nothing he said. Don’t tell anyone. They won’t believe you.

And I didn’t.

I was too ashamed, too horrified.

Because I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t done anything. Why I hadn’t screamed, why I hadn’t fought back.

Why I had been afraid of causing a scene. Why I had been afraid of hurting this man’s feelings.

And I remained afraid.

…

There have been other similar situations since that night where I have a similar powerlessness.

Times where men, sometimes faceless, sometimes not, have said things to me, yelled down a sidewalk, whispered them at parties, or mumbled the on the bus – words that debase me, strip me of my humanity, words that remind me that I am a sum of my parts – I am hair, breasts, legs, ass – a body.

Not brain, heart – not strength.

Not a person.

And I remain silent. Still.

Burning with shame at my silence, my stillness.

And this happened to me again, two nights ago.

And this is what I would like to say to that man, so drunk on a mix of himself and spirits, careening about the world defined by a complete disregard for not only my humanity, but the humanity of all other women:

Dear John,

You are not a gift.

You are a predator.

Your lechery makes me feel like garbage, because I want to yell obscenities in your face – but I don’t because we are in a social setting and I don’t want to make a scene.

But you know this, don’t you?

You know that because I am polite I won’t tell you to fuck off, or physically assault you, and because of this, you are happy to continue to harass and verbally assault me.

You make inappropriate comments about my physical appearance.

(Because that is what I am to you – a physical appearance, and nothing more.)

And because of this, you do not understand that you do not have a right to speak to me. You do not have the right to dance with me.

You may not just sit down.

I am twenty-seven years old. You are seventy-two.

I am married.

You are old enough to be my grandfather.

And I hear that you’re upset – you think others are treating you unfairly.

I would recommend opening your eyes, and realizing that the problem is not other people.

The problem is you.