Writing – Page 20 – Rant and Roll

Looking back, but moving forward

Holy smokes.

In three days’ time it will be 2014.

How did that happen?

All’s I got to say is: WHERE ARE THE FLYING CARS YO.

(Am I right, or what?)

If my life isn’t like an episode of The Jetsons in the next year or two, I am going to be very, very disappointed.

Also I cannot really believe that it’s been fourteen years since we rang in the millennium and everyone ripped their heads clean of hair, worrying about whether or not they had enough canned food and water to outlast the Y2K apocalypse.

(Remember the insane fear mongering that just ran rampant on every news channel leading up to the ball drop that year? PLANES WERE GOING TO JUST BE FALLING OUT OF THE SKY AND ALL THE COMPUTERS WERE GOING TO BLOW UP BECAUSE NO ONE KNEW WHERE TO PUT THE EXTRA ZERO!)

Good grief.

Actually, I remember that New Years as if it was just yesterday.

What I wore: a delicate, pink slip of a dress, that cinched at my waist and fell just below my knees.

Who I celebrated with: My then best-friend Mira who was – and still is – an amazing violinist, my little sister, and her best friend Emily.

Where we were: The Hard Rock Café Vancouver’s all ages party. (We were fourteen and twelve years old, respectively.)

What we did: Ate dinner, drank fake-champagne, and danced will all the other kiddos who were too grown-up (in their minds) to spend another December 31^st with their parents, but too young to actually party like those grown-ups with whom they refused to, well, party.

Mira and I bussed back to her parent’s house around 1am, and as we crammed in with many other revelers I remember thinking “THIS is what it feels like to be an adult!”

And heck, if taking public transit with a bunch of intoxicated weirdos a grown-up makes, that I definitely have achieved this title ten-fold over the years.

Achieved this in SPADES.

As we teeter on the cusp of 2014, let’s look back on the year that was blogger-style:

2013 – An Overview

In January Marc and I flew back from Halifax after spending nine days there over the Christmas and New Year holidays.

I wrote about a light hearted piece about my weird relationship with body hair and it became one of my most popular and stumbled upon blog posts.

In February I performed at the Vancouver Comedy Festival, turned twenty-eight, and that mad man to whom I have pledged my troth and I entered the Amazing Race.

Come March, we ran away for a weekend and I wrote about learning how to drive.

In April this happened, and I won $500 in a comedy competition. Writing about Ray Bradbury saw my second foray into the world of Freshly Pressed, which was super awesome and totally unexpected. I came seventh in the Sunshine Coast Half-Marathon and talked about all the ways in which I have grown-up on the outside, but not on the inside.

May meant talking about all of the things that scare me (irrational and not) and writing some fiction about my days as a love-struck eighteen year old. We also covered politics, and all of the things I like to do by myself.

In June I quit my old job, and procured a new one (alias Dream Job). I ran the Scotiabank half-marathon and raised $1,135 for Big Sisters, celebrated five years of marriage to my one true love, and flew away to New York for my big sister’s wedding.

In July I talked about the importance of taking risks and wearing less make-up. Marc and I hike A LOT.

August came and went in the blink of an eye. I hardly had time to write a blog post or three what with the two weddings I was in (bridesmaid x2 and MC x2), the other weddings I attended, the insanity of a new job, and doing all of the comedy (upwards of five shows per week!)

It was enough just trying to keep my head on straight.

In September I tried to get back in the grove of things, writing about great friends, and the importance of Terry Fox (as a Canadian, runner, and just, well, human being.)

October = BEST HALOWEEN OF LIFE.

We also visited the place we got married one last time before the gardens closed forever.

Oh, and I made this.

In November I fell in love with Helen Mirren and kick some butt in the Fall Classic 10k. I also aired my beefs with Love Actually.

December has brought so many things I haven’t even had the chance to write about, but I think this sums it up pretty darn well.

And to top it off, two photos that never stop making me smile and laugh:

A million thank yous for sticking with me friends.

I so very much look forward to another year of blogging – you inspire me, make me laugh, and leave the best comments a gal could ask for.

Happiest of New Year’s to you all!

A brief peek through the blinds

Friends!

Some things:

I have a confession to make.

And this time, it’s not about Orson Scott Card.

Oh no.

I must confess that I keep hearing Selena Gomez songs.

And I keep liking them.

ACK.

HOW DOES THIS ALWAYS HAPPEN TO ME!?

Good gravy…

This latest realization came tonight when I was working out. We have this insane little “amenities room” here in our complex (a supposed stand-in for a gym whenever anyone is selling their place!) and it’s where Marc and I go to work out when the days turn frigid, and the daylight has all but vanished by 4:17pm.

(Aka November – February of every year.)

Anyways, whilst in this room, I like to pump up the crappy pop tunes and just go at it.

Tonight, while getting through my push-up/jumping lunge super-sets, I found myself dancing like a silly thing during my one minute rest period.

You can imagine my chagrin when the DJ announced at the end of the song, that my latest jam was in fact the newest release from one S. Gomez, former belle of DA BIEBZ, and overall auto-tune queen du jour.

I feel like I really must get my music palette looked out, and stat.

And yet, at the same time, I know that as long as I don’t listen to that stuff all the time (such as I don’t just eat candy all of the live long day, despite how much I enjoy it,) I’ll be fine.

We are family.

There are times in my life when I realize just how quickly time is speeding by.

This realization is sometimes correlated to specific milestones: graduations, marriages, mortgages, or child births. It may come after running into someone I haven’t seen in a long time, only to knocked over by how much they have aged, changed or matured.

Sometimes, I start thinking about it for no reason at all.

However, if you are a part of my family, there is a very good chance that this will happen to you, and at a regular basis at that.

With fourteen grandkids, there are always something new to celebrate: a job, a child, a wedding, a degree.

Often times I have a hard time remembering that we are no longer twelve years old, on the hunt for five cent candies and slurpees, to quench our summer-sunshine driven thirst.

So you have to understand how discombobulating it can be, when my now twenty-four year old cousin (who in my mind, I still eight) makes me look like a little girl:

What an absolute trip!

Tough it out

Well, it’s official.

Next summer I’ll be back in Whistler, running Tough Mudder for the second time in my life.

I am on a team “Armed and Dangerous” (aka – DA GUNS) with three fabulous friends of mine, and as the only girl I am going to be repping hard for all my BAMF ladies out there.

(Tell me – can you tell it’s a team of mostly dudes with a name like that?)

But mostly, I am just the most excited.

I had such an amazing time completing the course in 2012 with Marc, and I know that next year too will be a tremendous adventure. (I just need to find a way to 1. Cure my husband of his chronic ankle injuries so that he can 2. compete as a member of our team.)

We’ve all got to have goals, don’t we?

Because if we don’t, what’s propelling us through all this cosmic cat food in the first place?

I could hardly begin to guess.

The pen is mightier than the sword

Hey kids!

Now, before we get down to business, you’ll all be happy to learn that I’ve redone my nails, and that they now look only look fifteen per cent terrible. (As opposed to their usual ninety-five percent.)

I really must learn how to take my time and not do dishes when the polish is still drying…

But either way, progress!

It has been a terrific last few days here in Halifax, filled with great food, lots of family, some great runs, and tons of face time with my mum’s kitty cats.

Simon has really been practicing his best sun-god impression

What a cutie!

Yesterday afternoon my cousin Bridget came over and coloured, cut, and styled my hair.

Talk about superior service!

It was a brilliant way to spend a couple of hours and I absolutely love the end look.

The chestnut look is in folks.

SO IN.

If any of you live in the HRM, hit me up and I can give you her deets.

NO CREEPERS PLEASE.

Anyways, what got me thinking when she was blow-drying my hair, was how growing up, my mum would always tell my sisters and I to never go outside, nor go to sleep with wet hair lest we wish to catch a head cold and likely succumb to a tragic, early death.

(My mother in-law actually told me the exact same thing last weekend, horrified as she was to feel that the ends of my ponytail were still damp from my earlier shower.)

I’m pretty sure this was a thing that many mums have told their kids (as I’m sure their mums told them, and theirs, and theirs) and I started to think about all the other old wives tales I grew up with, and how they’ve shaped me to be the bonkers young woman that I am today.

For instance, every time I eat raw batter I am sure that I am going to contract worms.

I am also terrified that if I don’t eat a particular foodstuff that contains mayonnaise within one hour of preparation I will likely expire from botulism.

(This is probably also why I don’t ever eat potato salad. That stuff will KILL you!)

But probably the nuttiest thing of all, is my irrational fear of ever getting pen on my skin.

(Don’t even THINK of writing your phone number on my wrist buddy-boy! That offense will land you in the nearest lake.)

Let me explain.

In 1995, the province of Quebec held a referendum asking its residents whether or not they wanted to legally separate from Canada and form their own nation.

It was a crazy-close race, with the federalist supporters narrowly squeaking out a win (51.1% to 49.9%).

As a young gal desperate to see Quebec stay, I was more than relieved and exuberantly happy with these results.

Now, one of the leaders of the Parti Quebecois and chief separatist at the time was a man named Lucien Bouchard. I despised this man on principle, and was horrified to learn that he had lost a leg the year prior due to necrotizing fasciitis (or flesh-eating disease if you will.)

I remember asking my mum how someone could contract such a scary disease, and (in a likely effort to stop my sisters and I from drawing on ourselves) she told me that he was infected from getting pen on his skin.

CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT.

What a ballsy move.

Anywho, this put the absolute fear of god into me, terrified as I was to get anything close to resembling ink on my skin.

I liked my limbs, and I sure as heck was going to keep them.

Whenever anyone asks me to relay a time I felt true terror, one of the stories I share is the time in grade five when Marc Rutenschauser grabbed my right arm and drew a smiley face on my wrist.

The feeling of my blood running frigid is a sensation which I will likely never, ever forget.

I really did feel like that was game over for me, right then and there.

It’s probably also why I have a weird dislike of smiley faces, and have a really hard time whenever :) is changed to J when I write e-mails.

…

SERIOUSLY WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH ME?

Isn’t it crazy the things that shape us as human beings?

I tell ya.

So, what are some of the things that your parents told you as children that have stuck with you until this day?

Let me know, and I’ll read them when I get back from my walk.

And don’t worry – I took the pains to dry my hair. After all, I wouldn’t want to get sick, would I?

I’ll fly away, oh glory, I’ll fly away in the morning

Well folks, another day, another early morning hangout at Toronto Pearson Airport.

IMG_20131106_060226 — Early morning hot chocolate. Also, my nails really are the worst.

I am seriously starting to think that I know this place better than I do some of my friends.

I am seriously staring to think that I like this place better than I do some of my friends.

JUST KIDDING!

Although said friends don’t have a sweet twenty-four hours David’s Tea, nor do they have sexy fluorescent lighting that give myself, and all of my fellow travellers that all-too sought after “it may be consumption” pallor.

We should all be so lucky!

But back to what I was saying – AIRPORTS.

While I’m not the biggest fan of air flight (particularly takeoffs and landings – talk about hair-raising central!) I do have a perverse like for these giant atriums of travel.

They are the perfect mish-mash of random: Tim Horton’s restaurants (restaurants, hah!), nail salons, the obligatory Hudson Bay Store (we’re talking domestic Canadian airports here, otherwise, please substitute in Duty-Free and some fancy, chain, over-priced wine bar), sit-up massage chairs, totally random shoe shine stations, and store, after store chock-a-block of Tom Clancy and Mary Higgins Clark, magazines, expensive candy, and those head-rest pillows everyone (and yet no one?) seems to buy.

I am currently heading down to Halifax for a family visit, culminating in my cousin Andrew’s wedding taking place this Saturday.

I am the queen of carry-on, and managed to cram three dresses, two pairs of pants, two skirts, six shirts, three sweaters, two pairs of shoes, two winter running outfits, my pajamas, my computer, and all other manner of lady detritus in this here bag:

One day I’m going to get an award for this stuff!

Anyways, in completely different news, Canadian politics is totally nutters at the moment.

I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but Toronto mayor Rob Ford finally admitted to smoking crack cocaine, and yet somehow still refuses to resign from his position.

The man plans on running again next year for re-election!

WHAT THE WHAT.

His exact words:

“Exactly. Yes, I have smoked crack cocaine. I’ve made mistakes… all I can do is apologize and move on.”

“But, no, do I? Am I an addict? No.”

“Have I tried it? Probably in one of my drunken stupors, probably approximately about a year ago.

How is this man even a real human being!?

I feel like we are living in bizarre world.

If I was a journalist in Toronto right now I’d go around telling everyone that I was “one heck of a crack reporter!”

(Too much, I apologize. But it had to be said.)

Meanwhile, our national political stage is riddled with just as much madness.

Our Prime Minister doesn’t seem to have any knowledge of what has been going on with his Conservative senators, and is likely fuming over the fact that no one gives two cares about his free trade agreement with the European Union, when all anyone wants to do is talk about Mike Duffy’s cheque requisition program.

I am just waiting for Nigel Wright to show up at Question Time and pull a full-fledged Banquo.

IS THIS A DAGGER I SEE BEFORE ME?

I am mixing my Shakespeare all over the place, but I CANNOT HELP IT.

These situations mix me up!

And here in BC (or I suppose I should say “back in BC”, what with this being written in Toronto, or “The Big Smoke” if you will….there is another crack joke there, I’m sure) our premier Christy Clark has reneged on her promise not to go forward with plans to construct an oil pipeline from Alberta, and has instead met with Alison Redford (Alberta’s premier) and put together a set of points on how to go forward.

This decision just kills me.

We are going to be swimming in environmental damage, just you wait.

What drives me crazy here is that Clark keeps talking about how when she was re-elected, the electorate backed her plans to expand BC’s natural resource sector, when 1.) No one wanted this expansion to include a pipeline, and 2.) This woman wasn’t even re-elected in our last election! She lost her riding! She had to re-run in a jurisdiction where she was guaranteed to win, after the MLA-elect gave up his seat!

(Meanwhile, it’s just been revealed that he has been giving a plush position as an economic ambassador to BC’s Asian trading markets. But of course he has!)

But seriously folks, how are we supposed to have any faith in the democratic process, when so many of those involved display the utmost contempt for the entire system?

It drives me batty.

Marc has a theory that politicians should be paid very little money, in an effort to keep out those who are not invested in making the country/province/city a better place, and attract those who don’t care about bilking their travel expense claims for all that their worth.

I’m not sure what the answer is, but I do know that whatever we have going on right now, it really isn’t working.

Much like Mike Duffy, Patrick Brazeau, and Pamela Wallin.

ZING!

(See what I did there?)

And now I’m off to find some overpriced food to eat with my four dollar water bottle.

I hope you all have an amazing morning.

Wherever in the world you happen to be.

Game over man! GAME OVER!

Hey kids!

I have a confession to make.

But first –

WHAT THE CRAP IS THIS:

Argh!

Foot-less tights!? WHY?

I mean, it’s totally my fault that I purchased them without realizing that they are, in fact, footless.

But at the same time, I just assumed that anytime I bought something marketing themselves as “tights” that they would, you know, cover my feet.

HENCE THEM BEING TIGHTS.

And why in the ever-loving heck would I buy fleece-lined tights, if not for the sweet, sweet heat they would bring to my frozen tootsies throughout the long, and frigid Canadian winters?

Certainly not for the slimming factor!

These things bring a bulk to my calves previously known only to competitive stair runners and long-distance cyclists.

But I digress.

I will suffer through this fashion injustice.

If only for potential blog hits.

NEXT!

Back to the original purpose of this entry – my confession.

This past Saturday, Marc and I woke up late and decided to go see Ender’s Game. It is one of his favourite books of all time, and for many moons I have been extolling the virtues of Mr. Scott Card’s literary genius to all those who asked if I too had read the book.

Only, I had, you know, never actually cracked it open.

I AM A GIANT FRAUD!

I’m not exactly sure why I pretended that I had in fact read the book. I think a lot of it has to do with protecting my nerd cred – I have read and loved so much science fiction, that I figured by admitting that I had omitted such an important novel, people might take me less seriously.

(Even though the more I think about it, people would probably be more likely to forgive this literary transgression, than you know, LYING TO THEIR FACES LIKE A BALD-FACED SCOUNDRAL.)

Even Marc had assumed that I had read it – and was shocked to hear on our exit from the theatre that I had no knowledge of the written words in which to compare the film.

(SPOILER: I thought that movie was pretty grim, and Marc just downright hated it.)

In preparation of watching the film, I read a really fabulous article on Grantland this past Friday by Rany Jazayerli.

It looks at the controversy that’s surrounded Card and his career for the past decade – his rabid homophobia, and xenophobia to be precise – and how these views stand in such sharp contrast to the messages of love and tolerance that permeate so much of his writing (and in particular Endger’s Game and its sequels.)

It made me think of how it is we are able to separate an artist from their art – and who we are willing to make exceptions for, and why?

For instance, I have never understood Hollywood’s enduring love affair with Roman Polanski. To me, the man is nothing more than a rapist who refused to face the consequences of his actions, and I couldn’t give two cares about his movies or his talent for storytelling.

I also don’t care if John Galliano ever designs another dress, and I certainly don’t care if [insert name of professional athlete convicted of doping/sexual assault/animal abuse] ever plays another game for the rest of their lives.

And yet, despite this hard-held views, I will always, always give the latest Woody Allen film a try.

I definitely don’t feel good about this choice, but it’s something that I do, and that I accept.

My love for Annie Hall is just so strong that it propels me to seek out what this man – this quirky, strange, totally perverse man – might next deliver to the big screen.

It’s an off-putting balancing act: while I definitely do not support his life-choices (in fact, I find them downright disturbing), I do really like many of his films.

And I like that I am at least conscious enough to identify this push-pull binary that lives inside of me, despite the fact that it’s an on-going struggle to figure out where this leaves me standing – especially if we’re talking moral, and not literal ground.

But alas, such is life. I’ll just have to keep working on it.

And in the meantime, I’m going to crack open Ender’s Game and finally see what all the fuss is about.

Because if I know one thing that’s going to help both my morality and nerd cred, it will be to finally stop lying about having read the book, and to just read it.

Finally.