Put The Funny Between Your Legs

Last night, I went to a cycling event, again, because this time of year, cycling events are basically continuous. The warm weather hits and people freak out: they haul out their rusty, wobbly claptrap rust emporiums and go tooling around the streets of Toronto the Good. I love seeing those folks, who are the real winners in the ongoing feud between Toronto's street users. They get to stay warm and toasty in their Mazdas in the winter, and then take the kids down to the lake in May. Who doesn't love that?

While it's true that it's the hard-core, scary cyclists who are the true generals in the war for more bike accessibility, it's Ma and Pa fin-de-semaine, that swing vote, who make the biggest difference in actually getting bike infrastructure installed. The good of the many outweigh the needs of the few. If there were only, like, fifteen cyclists in the city, there would be less interest in creating a viable and usable bike network. But since there's all levels of user rates and interested parties, it becomes harder to ignore.

Although, going to events like the Dandyhorse release party, it sometimes seems like there are only a handful of riders, and many of us seem to be insufferably hip. Don't get me wrong: I love me some hipster effrontery. My bike crush, a mechanic at one of the local shops, was in attendance, all tattoo-bedecked and punch-dancing to Lady Gaga. Cute, hilarious dirtbags are basically the Toronto bike scene's standard-issue participant, and they show up en masse for events like the Dandyhorse launch.

But there's also that complicating factor when it comes to bike hipsters, which is that something that should be for everyone, regardless of taste in music or interest in carbon, has been co-opted. Anyone who's read that David Foster Wallace essay about the State Fair knows what I'm talking about: the urge to turn an idea/event/item into some talismanic thing that is “for us.” Not that people in “the scene” - and here, I'm not talking about the Toronto cycling scene in particular, but any unifying cause, be it American Apparel employees, internet message board users, or fans of the Sweet Valley High series – aren't open to people getting involved with their interests..but they're fiercely protective of their community. That protectiveness can sometimes read as aggression.

Not that this is necessarily a bad thing. I play mama bear to a lot of ideas – co-op housing, or my right to wear unflattering sweatpants in public – but being so immersed in something can strip folks of the ability to see the absurd side of their interest. Even though the bike community in Toronto is frothing with hipsters, their ability to poke fun at stuff they hold dear is not well documented. (And I have to interject here, because I'm not sure if I'm a hipster [if only there was some sort of quiz I could take!], so my use of of “they” and “their” might well include me, unflattering sweatpants notwithstanding.) Other stuff, sure: Lady Gaga is totally fair game, but mock their top tube cozies and you'll be rewarded with a withering snit and epic eye rolling.

I think that, in order to become a legitimate driving force in cities, especially Toronto, the bike scene would do well to hone its sense of humour. Anyone who's slogged through an August rainstorm on two wheels knows that bikes aren't exactly the most dignified way of getting around (although they're practically stately compared to Rollerblades, which are just awful). And we can be so snippy and self-righteous, which are two states of being that are so easy to mock. Recognizing that being funny makes you likeable, while being shouty (as is often our way) only endears you the Rachel Berrys of the world.

In short, we need to get over ourselves. The cycling community needs to open ourselves up to being laughed at, to taking ourselves less seriously. Because you know what? That ultimately gives us power. Folks want to help out people they like, and becoming likable is the first step in making the streets for people of all stripes and types.

She's A Heel

I guess if we were going to go by typical woman's magazine standards, I fall woefully short in a number of categories. For example, I've never been in a tanning salon. I've been to dance clubs only a handful of times, and each time, I spent more time complaining about the $7.50 drinks and trying to avoid the greased-up men with their shirts unbuttoned to their sternums than I did actually, like, dancing. I consistently forget to wear deodorant, which, combined with my already hairy pits, can lead to some, um, authentic smells. Hell, I can barely bring myself to brush my hair most days, leaving it a bed-headed mess that is decidedly not artfully composed like a fashion shoot. My bed head is 100% legitimate, complete with little baby dreadlocks and, like, pencils. I am basically a feral child.

But I feel like, if we're going solely by woman's magazine standards, the most egregious crime I'm committing is that of Not Honouring The Shoe.

Magazines like Cosmopolitan and Elle and all those other glossy peans to feminine fashion are constantly displaying footwear that just makes me freak. Not in a good way; not in the way I'm supposed to. I dislike high heels, and I sort of hate shoes in general. I know, as the owner of a vagina, I'm supposed to be all breathless and impressed when it comes to high heels, but I am just so not.

Along with the glossies, I blame stupid Carrie Bradshaw and her posse of fashionable whores. If that stupid show hadn't built a shrine to stilettos, many of the young women who have fallen for the romance of the high heel would be wearing flats today. I understand the allure: heels lengthen the leg and tighten up muscles that would, apparently, would otherwise be sagging and repulsive. And they come in fancy, fancy styles. So I understand. They make things nice. But they don't speak my language, you know?

Look, here's the thing. I'm five foot one on a good day, and I'm probably breaking some law that says short girls need to buck up and wear heels. But I don't really find them all that appealing. When it comes to aesthetics, I'm not really interested in the high-gloss side of things. I like things a little dirtier, a little rusty, and actually, like, practical. The men I like are generally not cut from a slick, European cloth. They wear toques. They wear work boots. I find that sexy, because it's not a lot of maintenance. I give what I get, and like I said, I never brush my hair. I am draft beer. I am Sorel boots. And I like that.

It's not like I have zero interest in footwear. One of my ex-boyfriends was always droning on about his Vans high-tops, and I still sort of have a little crush on Vans because of it. I myself love Campers, because they're interesting without being insane. I'll also admit, in my dark, oily heart, to loving stripper shoes: they're like Barbie shoes for grownups, which is always sort of fun! And, like my mom, I'm sort of a sucker for boots. Winter boots, rain boots, motorcycle boots...yeah, I'm interested.

I just don't run with a high-heeled crowd. ("Not that they're running anywhere," she said snidely.) The men I like are probably interested in heels - many men are, and it's sort of a biological no-brainer - but they can also see past a pretty pair of pumps into a different kind of sexy. Sexy ain't about a five-inch heel; it's about a smile and a swagger.

Hair In Strange Places

I've written before about the importance of men having a respectable face suit - beards, goatees, mustaches, sideburns and their ilk - but it seems like the New York Times has just recently woken up to the fact that women often have their own hair issues to deal with. Rarely do we get to experiment with facial hair, but we do have a ton of other hairy issues to address.

For instance, in the year 2010, it's standard issue to have a smooth underarm. Go back 100 years, and to the birth of the sleeveless dress, and you'll find that women had hairy pits. But a savvy promotional campaign and the endorsement of hairless ancient Greek sculpture (and seriously, can you even imagine how time-consuming and asinine carving out wiry little hairs for photorealistic sculptures would be?), we've come to a time when female underarm hair is decried as gross, or worse, French.

There was that whole Brazilian public hair thing, where women would wax the hair off their vaginas and then talk about it on Sex and the City. The hairstyle, or lack thereof, was standard issue in pornography, making it acceptable for men to be all "pffft" towards women who cultivated a more natural look. In the same way that I love beards, I can't deny a man's right to prefer a hairless vagina. But making it some sort of across-the-board standard for all women seems a little...unimaginative. Some men like a big hairy bush. Some men don't. Some women like having hair down there, and some don't. (And, as a side note, just because something is standard in porn don't mean it carries over into real life. I'm sure you could convince more women to wax their areas if more men had ten-inch penises and more trips to the Pottery Barn ended in a gangbang).

In any case, the NYT was all "Women! Armpits! There's hair there! Whaaaaaat? Gross!" which is something I think they do every spring. Writing's a bitch, eh? They pointed to an ancient photo of Julia Robert flashing some pitbush and then interviewed erstwhile Dresden Doll Amanda Palmer about her decision not to shave. Palmer was a little all over the place, claiming it was both a personal, non-political decision and that she did it for her fans, but I get the confusion.

Every time a women opts not to follow the regimented beauty path, there's the possibility that she's doing it for political reasons. Back in reality, however, the majority of the women I know who choose to leave one or more of the possibly smooth body areas downy do it because they either don't care either way, or they prefer the way it looks.

Preferring your pits to be smooth and smell like baby powder (and who decides on these deodorant flavours? Cucumber? Give me a break) is seen as a healthy, attractive option. Preferring them hairy seems to mean that you're a vegan co-operative bean farmer who worships the equinox and has named her son Macaroon. That you're smelly, or dirty, or a throwback the Neolithic era. It's decidedly not in line with the silky bitches in the fashion magazines.

Then again, who is? Okay, raise your hand if you're five-eleven and weigh 117 pounds. Keep them up if you have stick-straight hair - or perfect glossy curls. No acne? No stretch marks? No scars or chipped teeth? Symmetrical features? Delicate eyebrows? A clavicle you could use to slice cheese?

That's what I thought. And you can't buy those things either, just like shaving your pits isn't going to net you the life you want. There are other, more interesting things you can do with your underarms (like the tattoo I saw once in a magazine: this totally blase woman who had tattooed a vagina in one of her armpits, with a line of ants coming out of it. It was equal parts WTF, amazing and repulsive. I've been trying to Google that for, like, half and hour and I'm getting some horrible stuff). Amanda Palmer, come drink beer with my friends and I. You seem like a woman who could wax (or not) poetic on a number of different issues, grooming included. We can sit around and talk about real things, instead of what happens when a woman decides to forgo the razor.

This World Is Old, I Want A New One

So, there seem to be terrible things afoot, generally speaking. Watching the Daily Show last night, I learned that the decision to sidestep the molestations that have been rampant in the Catholic church for the past, oh, three decades was endorsed by Cardinal Ratzinger, alias Pope Benedict. I'm no Pope - for one thing, his shoes come from Prada, while mine are decidedly Payless - but it's hard to believe in a church that says, "Hey, see that person over there, in the flowy robes? He's got a red phone to God." And that that same person would be all "meh" over systemic sexual abuse in his own church.

Also, it seems like many a flight out of Europe has been grounded because a volcano with the incredible handle of Eyjafjallajokull has decided to burp volcanic ash all over the Continent, pleasing science-folks and greatly irritating all those earth-bound Scotsmen who are now shaking their shaggy fists at the sky and vowing to "git yea, whoevair ye aire." This image provokes a great deal of giggling from your author, but I also understand the annoyance factor here is high. To be grounded in an airport, where there has been no fresh air pumped in since 1989, is the pits. Like, David Caruso-on-CSI bad.

Oh, also: earthquake in China. Many people dead. And the Polish president died in a plane crash. And apparently (and sort of unbelievably) Canadian politicos are partying with blow and whores, which, like....what?!

When I was thirteen, I read Gordon Korman's spectacular work of young adult fiction called Son Of Interflux. One of the characters, a genial high school junior named Phil, was constantly getting into art school scrapes - carving a wooden bust of Garibaldi, sliming bananas through a fan and shellacking them, and so on - the fallout from which was constantly destroying his faith. Phil was the same type of person who'd find a worm in a swamp, bring it home, and name it Keith. "Phil's faith was on a constant cycle of destruction and renewal." Testify, brother.

I myself have been having panic attacks: freak-outs that range in severity from turning gray at the dentist (I saw myself in the mirror. Nobody should have to wonder where her lips are) to a full-on weeping festivals. In the middle, there's a gamut of stupid shit: lightheadedness (that's my big one), shaking, sweating, feeling removed from your body, nausea, losing your ability to speak, dry mouth, and other delights. You can imagine that a person in the throes of one of these moments isn't inclined to make small talk over the canapes. Instead, they curl up under the buffet table, trying not to cry.

So, I've made myself a little fort under the buffet table. Some people I've let in: come hang out, give me online pep talks, watch me eat soup like I'm five years old. To some people I just say, "I'm feeling weird and anxious. If I need to leave, I'm just going to do that." Many people don't even get that much: I either sprint away like I'm being chased ("Come back! We just want to exchange social banalities!") or I slither away to the bathroom, and seem extraordinarily sketchy as I count to one hundred and try to calm the fuck down.

I might be making this up, but I read somewhere that, every so often, there is a cycle of rebirth. It happens on a micro scale and a macro scale. On a small scale, the rebirth pains might look like panic attacks; on the mid-level range, there might be some mystifying Canadian political shenanigans, and on the global, we get eruptions and earthquakes. This isn't some vengeful or apathetic God punishing us (although smiting the Catholics who touch little kids and then lie about it might be a good place to start with the avenging, yes?). I think it's a cycle. We need to push through the really hard times, because when we come out the other side, with all our new knowledge and muscles and patience, we're stronger. We're different.

Plus, we're all scrubbed and pink and we get to lie in a blanket for a minute, just breathing together.

Metaphor The Win

There's something about a delicately crafted metaphor that really spins my axles. I was talking to my friend Abe, who is up in the air about some very exciting upcoming academic adventures, and I offered the metaphor of graduate school as car: some are fancy, like a Porsche, some are workaday, like a Honda Civic: it all depends on where you want to go and in how much style. Obviously, "style" means "crippling student debt" when we're talking about universities, but the metaphor holds.

The use of language and imagery to make sense of our topsy-turvy modern world is so appealing. There's something about it that makes seemingly unmanageable problems seem smaller, friendlier, and more deal-with-able. Last year, I used a vehicular metaphor when I talked about relationship baggage. Some days, I'm dealing with shit I have to haul around in a tank; other days, I can get by hauling my crazy brain around on a skateboard.

One of my favourite metaphors comes from Anne Lamott, who said in one of her fabulous books that managing addictions is a lot like trying to put an octopus to bed: as soon as you think you've got all your problems under control, one of those sucker-covered tentacles comes snaking out from under the covers, ready to squish you to death. I love that image, because it's a great combination of homey - the covers! - and the fishy, disgusting deep waters of the conscious. It's also remarkably apt. Addictions do seem to involve a lot of flailing around and unprettiness.

People have used metaphors time and time again in order to make the big ticket items seem smaller. Pat Benatar used one to great effect when she compared love to a battlefield - which, incidentally, I'm on side with as timeless and awesome, not to mention hummable. But love is a lot like a battlefield: scary, unknowable, and with the potential for grievous harm to one's corporeal body and mental well-being. Anyone who's looked at a positive pregnancy test as one might look at a loaded gun knows what I'm talking about here.

Abe also introduced me to one of his favourite metaphors: troubled relationship as car. We've been talking a lot about love triangles, and he said that getting involved with someone who's in a relationship is a lot like riding shotgun in a car, your love interest driving, and their partner asleep in the back. Obviously, there can be a certain amount of hanky-panky up there in the front seat, but ultimately, to make this kind of relationship last, someone needs to get out of the car. Maybe you pull over and get out, walk by the side of the road for a while, and wait for your lover to come back when he's riding solo. Sometimes the partner wakes up, and sees your hands interlaced on the gear shifter. Either way, the ride isn't going to last that way forever.

As both a cyclist and as a woman with some commitment issues, I find this metaphor totally luscious. Cyclists are, by their nature, a solitary bunch; hence the commitment issues. I guess I could get an AutoShare membership - date around, try out different makes and models - but many of those cars seem to have braking trouble and the clutch is shot. Also, they have mommy issues. Sometimes, even though you end up slogging through the rain and getting flat tires, it seems like the most gratifying way to travel is solo. Plus, it seems like maybe my love for Top Gear has rendered me incapable of not appreciating a good automotive metaphor.

Metaphors are most successful when they illuminate some dark part of our lives. We think a problem is overwhelming - just another octopus under the duvet, its eyes glinting dully in the night. But it turns out that, with the right turn of phrase, new light can be shed on the situation. We give ourselves a new angle, a new way of looking at the world, and things become easier. We can talk about the problem: "See, it's a lot like a garden," and our listeners, who hitherto had been catatonic with annoyance, grasp the situation a little better. Maybe even offer a fresh ear and some new advice. And we ourselves get a new lease on the issue...or at least more space to breathe with it. Sometimes, that's all we really need. Cars, gardens, battlefields: all they're doing is opening ourselves up, making things safe, and then manageable.

I'm Telling All of Y'all, It's Gratitude!

I am on a roll! While some days are the kind of days that makes you want to hide under the covers, weeping and eating Fudgee-os out of the package until your tonsils are sugar-burned, these days I'm having are more the type with the heart-burstingly good moods. The sushi lunch dates with friends. The patio-beers. The congratulations on the graduation from university.

That's right: after 8 years of slogging away, often through a pit of despair, my graduation from the University of Toronto is upon us.

Much like raising a child or doing the seal hunt, I've often felt like my travels through post-secondary education has taken the proverbial village. My family, who have never thrown their hands up in complete despair (even though I've often wanted to), deserve the most knee-shredding gratitude. My parents have always been so supportive of my meandering journey towards a degree: way back in 2002, when I was three months in and wanted to give up/transfer/die, they encouraged me to look at alternatives: time off - which I took, to the tune of two years off over the last eight - and considering a transfer. I ended up parking my butt at U of T for the entire time, but my mom and dad got me to think critically about school. What purpose does it serve? What's so special about U of T? Do you want spaghetti for dinner?

My circle of friends has also been amazing. My friends were encouraging no matter how many years I decided to run around campus. They would just shrug and say, "Well, you'll get there eventually." This would usually be in response to one of those I'm-a-loser meltdowns that will happen to those of us who Van Wilder'ed their way through school. It's a little tough to keep the courage of your convictions in the face of wildly accomplished folks - like many of my friends - but they were never judgemental or condescending. They would usually just pat my head and send me back to the books.

At the same time, while many of them blasted through school in the standard-issue four years, a lot of my friends took more time. Stretching out school-time isn't a bad thing: your late teens and early twenties are a time of enormous personal growth (God, could I sound any more California?), and sometimes, floundering is good for the soul. It was hugely helpful to have people in my social circle who decided to go slow, to try different courses, to take time off. It made me feel like less of an anomaly, and more like I was part of a slowed-down school of thought re: university.

On the other hand, the most off-putting and frustrating part of being a student was dealing with the school. My first registrar was so unhelpful. Saint Mike's, the first college, gave me the first-year residence experience that ruined everything in 2003: the food, my sleep, my social life, my interest in religion. Seriously? The dorm rooms had honest-to-God crucifixes over every door. I was expecting something a little less Rosemary's Baby from my college experience. I eventually switched colleges altogether, to the much more accommodating Innis College (and this was a great choice - they are so nice and so professional).

Many of professors were terrible teachers, terrible people, or both. I don't think profs are required to go through the same teaching courses that other educators need, and sometimes, this shows in the quality of the courses. For example, one of my profs this year was a PhD student who had never taught before; he used to spam our inboxes, give us confusing "assignments" that turned out to be bibliograpies, had no real idea of how to lecture, and, when approached one-on-one, seemed to be a weird blend of shy and arrogant. I've had other, much lovelier educational experiences here, but the lousy ones tend to stick with you.

Now that it's over and done - I was telling a friend last night that I am never writing anything for U of T again, even for money - I know that I wouldn't be the person I am now if I had gone anywhere else. I needed the shitty first year, the crappy beaurocracy, the wonderful friends, the family support, the stutter-stops and false starts, the ex-boyfriends, the weight fluctuations, the breakdowns and the triumphs, to become who I am today. The University of Toronto, maybe universities everywhere, produced a graduate much like itself: flawed, smart, good-looking (tee hee!), funny-haha, funny-weird, and interested in the world around it.

A Year Older, A Year More Self-Involved

I have a stack of red-covered journals in my apartment that stretch back six or seven years. I keep them in my bathroom, a little pile of diaries that contain some of the thoughts I've had since I was in my late teens. They've got entries on all kinds of things: weight-loss goals, rants about friends, tear-stained entries about boyfriends (well, ex-boyfriends. Let's keep things honest here), to-do lists, and woe-is-me drama-queen entries about what a horrible person I am and how much I suck, et cetera, ad nauseum, boring. Typical angst from a typical mid-twenties citizen of the world.


I tend to turn to those journals when I'm super emotional. It's those apocalyptic moods where my binary brain can comprehend one of two options: 1) punching a locker like I was a high school hockey player or 2) scribbling down my thoughts in one long comma-free emotional purge. Since my apartment is tragically short on lockers, I tend to write.


And, for the past year, in addition to filling up those red-leather books, I've also been filling up this blog. I have to confess, with the inaugural entry about Chuck Klosterman, I had no idea what I was getting into. I was just ranting. I had just read Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs and I needed to blow some hot air about it. I was seething, I was ranting, I was critical and a little potty-mouthed. Ipso facto: a blog entry.


Since then, I've written about any number of topics. My post on Leah McLaren garnered some decent feedback; my post on skinny jeans regularly pops up when folks google the concept. I've written about proms, girl crushes, names and the CBC. I've blogged about hoisery, Lost and George Clooney. Recently, my blogging has been a little stale. I've been cooped up in my apartment, waiting for the winter depression to become less of a valley and more of a gentle grade. But I never stopped writing.


I've had other blogs before, but those were way more personal, and as a result, way less interesting to look back on. They became little time capsules: they're who I was in the early years of school, right as I was striking out on my own. Now, I'm more confident - I actually have opinions about things that aren't, um, just about me. And this is my one year blogaversary, so it's all in the spirit of internet gabbing.


Blogs should be personal. I'm not saying make every entry about you, glorious YOU! - although that can also work, provided you're not a creepy narcissist who needs a personality recalibration after every day spent on the internet. But bloggers should have a POV. If I wanted pure news reporting, I would read the newspaper; what I want from a blog is a little bit of personality. Even the most frivolous types of blogs - fashion, entertainment, GOOP - are entertaining because their authors bring themselves into the code.


I like to treat my blog like a column. Is that weird to say? Whatever. It's true. There are things I'm not really interested in researching enough to blog cognizantly about - like who Ceasar Chavez is and why folks in the States get so uppity when he's running his mouth - so I tend to stick to things I know about. I've written a lot about bikes, and digital culture, and Toronto. That old saw, write "what you know," is still pretty good advice, even if you're not pounding your masterpiece out on a Remington while standing nude. In the future, I'll probably spout about things like owning a dog or taking Nia classes on the beach.


While you're keeping things personal, keep some things sacred. There are topics that I play close to the the vest: tight-knit family things, co-op stuff, body- and drug-related ideas. I tend to think, if it would make my mom or my boss squirm, it's not for writing about. Some folks have made the whole point of their blogs to be as confessional and personal as humanly possible. Not a bad thing, but just remember that people will find it, even if you think you're writing in a vaccuum.

And on that last note, for the love of god, bloggers need to spell- and grammar-check their work. It may just be a little spot for rants about your parents or a place to post pictures of your best-ever scrambled eggs, but it should be legible. I'm not going to require that your entries in the red-leather covered journals be Pulitzer-calibre work, because those are for your eyes only. But you know how, at the bottom of the webpage, it says "Publish Post"? Please, treat the damned thing like it's actually going to be read by people - published for reals, if you will - and treat your readers with respect.

I've had a blast writing this blog for the past year. It started as a place to rant, slowly morphed into a repository of writing ("Hi! Please hire me for writing gigs! Here's 130 awesome examples of why!"), and has always been a place to practice writing. It may be self-obsessed and passe, but blogging, for me, has turned out to be pretty damned fun.