- Never admitting when I fart.
- Pinterest.
- Talking to myself in the shower.
- Carelessness with keys, sunglasses, and wallets.
- Chronically avoiding the green bin chore.
- Never hanging my towels up to dry.
- Reading in bed.
- Red wine.
- Not brushing my hair.
- A soft spot for ugly nail polish colours.
- Takeout burritos.
- Lecturing people on things that I know only marginally more than they do - this would be mansplaining if I had a penis, but I don't.
- Hectoring foreigners into trying on a Canadian accent.
- Not doing dishes.
- Everything at the Bulk Barn.
- Wasabi peas.
- Coke Zero.
- Cheap books.
- Revenge fantasies, usually involving spit and a Bond-villain-like treatise on why I hate that person.
- Secretly hating yoga.
- Clothes that are too small but I keep trying anyway.
- Bad moods.
- Wearing my shoes until they literally fall off my feet in tatters.
- Being slightly rude to people I've slept with's girlfriends.
- Self-loathing hangovers.
- Caramel cheesecake.
Monday, August 20, 2012
List of Vices
I have a long list of vices. Here are some of them:
Monday, August 13, 2012
Cat Marnell Is All Over The Internet
Lately, I've been rubbernecking really hard at Cat Marnell, but I get the sense that she doesn't really mind. She's the recently-disgraced xoJane Beauty Editor, the one who got canned from Lucky and hired at Vice, all because of her prodigious, unapologetic drug use. She is skinny, blonde, dirty, coked-out, writes like Hunter S. Thompson on his laziest days, and has a rabid crowd of fans who proclaim that anyone who criticizes her writing style or drug use are haters of the highest degree. Marnell is well-placed (profiles in New York magazine and Page Six) and she enrages readers by being not very good at her actual writing jobs while being very good at talking about her drug use. Most of her articles, which skate between fiction and memoir, start with a description of what she's wearing; something is always stained. She is instantly recognizable as the one who is wasting her potential.
When I was younger, I would have admired Marnell's in-your-face fucked-up-ness. I was drawn to women who were brazenly, openly vocal about their horrible addictions: mine were so secret and poisonous that the girls who had the balls to even acknowledge theirs in public where automatic heroines. Bonus points if you could make me feel like I was missing out by not taking handfuls of illicit prescription drugs and burying myself in a duvet for days on end, emerging only to have exquisitely unsatisfying sex with graffiti writers and to cadge free drinks off unsuspecting tourists who had mistakenly read desire in my glassy come-down eyes.
Marnell's life, which at xoJane was presented in the guise of beauty product reviews that were mainly a forum for her to talk about how many drugs she was doing and how much she hated being "fat" (oh, to be fat at 102 pounds!), does have a dirty sheen of glam. At Vice, she's dropped the beauty-review pretence and focused mostly on her addiction. It's River Phoenix, it's Linsday Lohan, it's Courtney Love - one died, one slurrily denies her addiction, and one, maybe worst, became a bloated, rambling addict who swoops between the highest highs and the lowest lows. Since Marnell would probably rather take a runny dump in Times Square than see a Love-like future in her cards, her alternatives are to get really clean and find a life outside addiction—something she has promised she can never do—or die.
It's slightly disorienting to read a Marnell post, because I keep expecting them to show me something: something about her, or her place in the world, or a recognition that she, as a white-girl addict with a media job, has it pretty good. She rarely has to give blow jobs to people she doesn't want to, a "choice" many female addicts don't get to make. She orbits a world that is seedy and slightly cosmopolitan: trust fund kids partying with fashion editors who are sleeping with DJs who are selling drugs to younger sisters. If you've read Bret Easton Ellis, you've read Cat Marnell, and the "interesting" twist that she's a female writer loses its edge pretty fast.
In a bigger sense, addicts aren't pretty. I don't mean that in the way a former beauty editor might, although years of popping pills and snorting drugs will eventually ruin your face and body. Bad circulation will give you cankles, bulimia will provide you with a double chin, and those ropy addict tendons will stand out on your neck forever, even if you get clean.
But addiction also creates this funhouse mirror world where all you can see is yourself and your addiction. Sometimes, the drugs do what they're supposed to: make you feel good, normal, productive. Most of the time, especially when you're abusing or mixing or binging, the drugs and booze distort reality so that you believe that, if you could find the right cocktail, the right blend of powders and pills and smoke, you can be perfect, forever. The hall of mirrors has no room for things like a job, family, or friends - when the high is good, there's no reason to believe those things won't fall into place; when it's bad, there's no reason to believe you're worthy of even the most basic humanity. There is no space for anyone who isn't you.
Which, as well all know from tedious cocktail party conversation where the other person will just not stop talking about themselves, is boring. And being boring is a cardinal sin to someone who writes click-through driven blog posts. Marnell has placed herself between a rock and a hard place. She has flat-out refused to get clean, staking jobs, connections, and her own tenuous professional reputation on the ever-diminishing returns of her readership's interest in a blogger/scene girl's lifestyle. She could go the way of Nicole Richie (famous party girl and heroin user turned mom, wife, business mogul and fashion plate), but she will more likely follow a Whitney Houston-esque path: someone who has wasted time and talent in the fires of an death-drive addiction. Someone who knows the path that drugs will lead her down, and follows willingly, because hey, smoking crystal and swigging vodka make for great blog posts.
It will surprise no one to say that writers, especially bloggers, often mine their personal lives for material. Sometimes, like in Hunter S. Thompson's case, heavy drinking and drugging played a huge part in what he wrote about and how. Others, like Aaron Sorkin, basically ignore their addiction to focus on other material. In either case, it leaves a mark. Marnell's narrow focus (beauty, drugs) has only become narrower (drugs) as her star has risen.And if you haven't drank the Cat Marnell Kool-Aid (she's so pretty, troubled, and good at writing!), you end up feeling like you're missing something in all the hype - where is the stuff that's actually interesting?
I hope Marnell gives herself permission to get past the drug stuff, which sometimes seems to be the only stuff she's made of, and explore herself as a writer. I realize that I sound incredibly condescending, but it's true: I think she's intriguing, but her subject matter (Marnell, drugs, and Marnell's own drug use) are a total bore. Show me what you think of celebrity pop culture, or the 2013 S/S lines, or even, god forbid, the trials and tribulations of a person working hard to stay sober in the face of 15 years of drug use. I would be interested in that, but just another girl who has a good connection to both the internet and drug dealers? I'll pass.
When I was younger, I would have admired Marnell's in-your-face fucked-up-ness. I was drawn to women who were brazenly, openly vocal about their horrible addictions: mine were so secret and poisonous that the girls who had the balls to even acknowledge theirs in public where automatic heroines. Bonus points if you could make me feel like I was missing out by not taking handfuls of illicit prescription drugs and burying myself in a duvet for days on end, emerging only to have exquisitely unsatisfying sex with graffiti writers and to cadge free drinks off unsuspecting tourists who had mistakenly read desire in my glassy come-down eyes.
Marnell's life, which at xoJane was presented in the guise of beauty product reviews that were mainly a forum for her to talk about how many drugs she was doing and how much she hated being "fat" (oh, to be fat at 102 pounds!), does have a dirty sheen of glam. At Vice, she's dropped the beauty-review pretence and focused mostly on her addiction. It's River Phoenix, it's Linsday Lohan, it's Courtney Love - one died, one slurrily denies her addiction, and one, maybe worst, became a bloated, rambling addict who swoops between the highest highs and the lowest lows. Since Marnell would probably rather take a runny dump in Times Square than see a Love-like future in her cards, her alternatives are to get really clean and find a life outside addiction—something she has promised she can never do—or die.
It's slightly disorienting to read a Marnell post, because I keep expecting them to show me something: something about her, or her place in the world, or a recognition that she, as a white-girl addict with a media job, has it pretty good. She rarely has to give blow jobs to people she doesn't want to, a "choice" many female addicts don't get to make. She orbits a world that is seedy and slightly cosmopolitan: trust fund kids partying with fashion editors who are sleeping with DJs who are selling drugs to younger sisters. If you've read Bret Easton Ellis, you've read Cat Marnell, and the "interesting" twist that she's a female writer loses its edge pretty fast.
In a bigger sense, addicts aren't pretty. I don't mean that in the way a former beauty editor might, although years of popping pills and snorting drugs will eventually ruin your face and body. Bad circulation will give you cankles, bulimia will provide you with a double chin, and those ropy addict tendons will stand out on your neck forever, even if you get clean.
But addiction also creates this funhouse mirror world where all you can see is yourself and your addiction. Sometimes, the drugs do what they're supposed to: make you feel good, normal, productive. Most of the time, especially when you're abusing or mixing or binging, the drugs and booze distort reality so that you believe that, if you could find the right cocktail, the right blend of powders and pills and smoke, you can be perfect, forever. The hall of mirrors has no room for things like a job, family, or friends - when the high is good, there's no reason to believe those things won't fall into place; when it's bad, there's no reason to believe you're worthy of even the most basic humanity. There is no space for anyone who isn't you.
Which, as well all know from tedious cocktail party conversation where the other person will just not stop talking about themselves, is boring. And being boring is a cardinal sin to someone who writes click-through driven blog posts. Marnell has placed herself between a rock and a hard place. She has flat-out refused to get clean, staking jobs, connections, and her own tenuous professional reputation on the ever-diminishing returns of her readership's interest in a blogger/scene girl's lifestyle. She could go the way of Nicole Richie (famous party girl and heroin user turned mom, wife, business mogul and fashion plate), but she will more likely follow a Whitney Houston-esque path: someone who has wasted time and talent in the fires of an death-drive addiction. Someone who knows the path that drugs will lead her down, and follows willingly, because hey, smoking crystal and swigging vodka make for great blog posts.
It will surprise no one to say that writers, especially bloggers, often mine their personal lives for material. Sometimes, like in Hunter S. Thompson's case, heavy drinking and drugging played a huge part in what he wrote about and how. Others, like Aaron Sorkin, basically ignore their addiction to focus on other material. In either case, it leaves a mark. Marnell's narrow focus (beauty, drugs) has only become narrower (drugs) as her star has risen.And if you haven't drank the Cat Marnell Kool-Aid (she's so pretty, troubled, and good at writing!), you end up feeling like you're missing something in all the hype - where is the stuff that's actually interesting?
I hope Marnell gives herself permission to get past the drug stuff, which sometimes seems to be the only stuff she's made of, and explore herself as a writer. I realize that I sound incredibly condescending, but it's true: I think she's intriguing, but her subject matter (Marnell, drugs, and Marnell's own drug use) are a total bore. Show me what you think of celebrity pop culture, or the 2013 S/S lines, or even, god forbid, the trials and tribulations of a person working hard to stay sober in the face of 15 years of drug use. I would be interested in that, but just another girl who has a good connection to both the internet and drug dealers? I'll pass.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Always Something There To Remind Me
A grateful summer round-up, because sometimes, despite historical evidence pointing to the contrary, summers can be pretty amazing.
- That the weather, while hot, hasn't yet been hot or even HOT! yet. There have been heatwaves, yes, but so far we've held the 56-with-the-humidex days at bay. Knock on wood that they don't rear their ugly heads this year (last year, in order to cope with days that pushed 60, I rode the subway all.day.long, which was pretty boring).
- Zevia Cola, which has caffeine and no aspartame. It tastes nothing like Coke Zero (my one true love!), but it's a decent replacement for when I'm suffering too-much-aspartame-related gutrot.
- The Iceland trip, which was amazing.
- That smoked fish is a thing, and I get to eat it.
- I've been getting adventurous in the kitchen, which has been pretty radical. Awesome sweet potato salads, delicious homemade ginger beer, lots of meat (I'm doing this half-assed paleo diet, which is leading to big meaty burps and some shed pound).
- My amazing boyfriend is so amazing. I generally dislike those blogs that are all like, "<3 u babee!" but seriously: I love this guy. We have little spats and we get past 'em. We have huge belly laughs, wonderful Sunday mornings in bed where we read the paper, movie dates, a clothes-shopping buddy system, and mad emotional support for each other. He is also damned handsome, super thoughtful, and I love being with him. Best.
- My continued employment.
- I was published! I wrote a piece on my buddy's new bar, and she loved it and I loved writing it, because I felt legit, as a writer.
- The music this summer has been great. I saw Murder By Death, Childish Gambino, Of Monsters and Men (for free!), and Sigur Ros, rediscovered my semi-shameful love for Nelly Furtado, and got into GusGus. Solid wins all around.
- I still notice when people are getting married/having babies, but I'm also really happy where I am right now (unmarried, childless), and feel less like I'm getting left behind by people who are younger than me. I can still dream of a fancy house, a wedding menu or a baby name, but I'm steadily becoming less panicked about not having those things. If it's meant to be, they will come.
- As it turns out, cacti and peace lilies thrive under my care. Who knew?
- I generally feel really good: my friends, family, jobs and love are all sources of amusement, joy and good feelings. Lucky girl, I am. Thank you to everyone who makes that happen.
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Iceland: Part Three
Continued from Part One and Part Two.
Sedisfjordur is an east-coast town that was home to about 600 people and an arts scene: when we drove past the town's border, we also passed a yarn-bombed tree. The woman who ran the hostel recommended Skaftfell Bistro for dinner, and that we have a drink at the local tavern. The bar, which had burned down a few weeks before our arrival, was temporarily relocated to the local library (!!), so after a meal of seafood and excellent chocolate-cardamom meringues, we checked out the library/bar. It was like drinking in your grandma's unrenovated-since-1972 basement, and very endearing. We did a shot of Brennivin, Iceland's alleged "black death" liquor, and staggered back to the hostel in the midnight dusk.
One of the best things about this trip was how much walking and hiking we did. Sure, we had trusty Ravmunder, our Icelandic RAV-4, and he was invaluable. But almost every day had a hike somewhere scenic and ever-so-slightly off the beaten trail. After lunch in Sedisfjirdur, we hiked for a half-hour and came across gorgeous streams and postcard-worthy waterfalls. It was pretty amazing. (If you hike for half an hour in Toronto, you'll be frolicking next to a Shopper's Drug Mart.) While I know that vacation-stuff and living there-stuff doesn't really overlap, it was a relief to not sit down for hours a day. That was a souvenir I was grateful to bring home: a renewed interest in physical activity. Jumping jacks and gym yoga sort of don't cut it when you've grown accustomed to scenic vistas and rivers.
We left Sedisfjordur and headed to Hofn, where the local social scene seemed to be centered around the gas station. We went directly to the guesthouse and played about 40 rounds of Munchkin, the card game that kept us occupied for the majority of our trip's downtime. Hofn was a bit of a bust, but hey: every country needs its Windsor, its Flint, its Birmingham.
You know what's not depressing? Walking on a glacier. Tragically, the Vatnajokull glacier is retreating at about 30 meters per year; it currently covers about 8% of the country and can be seen from space. Semi-frequent volcanic eruptions means Icelandic glaciers aren't the pristine white snowcaps you might picture: they're covered in frozen soot and German tourists. However, much like tsunamis or waterfalls, the sheer size of glaciers is breath-taking, and I found myself marvelling at the abstract art-esque colour palette and the thrill of standing on something so ancient.
After staying at a horse farm (where the dogs were mind-boggling cute and one of my travel companions accidentally zapped herself with an electric fence), we capped our trip with a visit to the Blue Lagoon. This was definitely the most touristy thing we did: there's a swim-up bar and all manner of accents were floating around the pool's perimeter. We dutifully glopped silica mud all over ourselves, and some of us might have taken advantage of the opaque blue water to engage in some PG-13 hanky-panky. The Blue Lagoon is sort of an upscale spa/hot spring/restorative swim experience, but it is damned relaxing.
The trip acted like a tonic: I left the country feeling relaxed and restored. There are huge chunks that we missed seeing—the Westfjords, for example—but nine full days was a good length to get sense of the country's size and scale and wild landscape. We lucked out with bright sunny weather, amazing hosts, and great travelling companions. Their propensity for smoked fish and flavoured sparkling water is enough to get me back on a plane ASAP; throw in some skyr cake and a cozy sweater, and I'm practically ready to swim there. I would go back there in a heartbeat. I would recommend it to everyone I know. It's amazing. It's Iceland!
Sedisfjordur is an east-coast town that was home to about 600 people and an arts scene: when we drove past the town's border, we also passed a yarn-bombed tree. The woman who ran the hostel recommended Skaftfell Bistro for dinner, and that we have a drink at the local tavern. The bar, which had burned down a few weeks before our arrival, was temporarily relocated to the local library (!!), so after a meal of seafood and excellent chocolate-cardamom meringues, we checked out the library/bar. It was like drinking in your grandma's unrenovated-since-1972 basement, and very endearing. We did a shot of Brennivin, Iceland's alleged "black death" liquor, and staggered back to the hostel in the midnight dusk.
One of the best things about this trip was how much walking and hiking we did. Sure, we had trusty Ravmunder, our Icelandic RAV-4, and he was invaluable. But almost every day had a hike somewhere scenic and ever-so-slightly off the beaten trail. After lunch in Sedisfjirdur, we hiked for a half-hour and came across gorgeous streams and postcard-worthy waterfalls. It was pretty amazing. (If you hike for half an hour in Toronto, you'll be frolicking next to a Shopper's Drug Mart.) While I know that vacation-stuff and living there-stuff doesn't really overlap, it was a relief to not sit down for hours a day. That was a souvenir I was grateful to bring home: a renewed interest in physical activity. Jumping jacks and gym yoga sort of don't cut it when you've grown accustomed to scenic vistas and rivers.
 |
| Icelanders are like, "Ho hum, this is my backyard." |
We left Sedisfjordur and headed to Hofn, where the local social scene seemed to be centered around the gas station. We went directly to the guesthouse and played about 40 rounds of Munchkin, the card game that kept us occupied for the majority of our trip's downtime. Hofn was a bit of a bust, but hey: every country needs its Windsor, its Flint, its Birmingham.
You know what's not depressing? Walking on a glacier. Tragically, the Vatnajokull glacier is retreating at about 30 meters per year; it currently covers about 8% of the country and can be seen from space. Semi-frequent volcanic eruptions means Icelandic glaciers aren't the pristine white snowcaps you might picture: they're covered in frozen soot and German tourists. However, much like tsunamis or waterfalls, the sheer size of glaciers is breath-taking, and I found myself marvelling at the abstract art-esque colour palette and the thrill of standing on something so ancient.
 | |
| Abstract modern artists are like, "This is my jam," but they probably use different words to express that sentiment | . |
After staying at a horse farm (where the dogs were mind-boggling cute and one of my travel companions accidentally zapped herself with an electric fence), we capped our trip with a visit to the Blue Lagoon. This was definitely the most touristy thing we did: there's a swim-up bar and all manner of accents were floating around the pool's perimeter. We dutifully glopped silica mud all over ourselves, and some of us might have taken advantage of the opaque blue water to engage in some PG-13 hanky-panky. The Blue Lagoon is sort of an upscale spa/hot spring/restorative swim experience, but it is damned relaxing.
The trip acted like a tonic: I left the country feeling relaxed and restored. There are huge chunks that we missed seeing—the Westfjords, for example—but nine full days was a good length to get sense of the country's size and scale and wild landscape. We lucked out with bright sunny weather, amazing hosts, and great travelling companions. Their propensity for smoked fish and flavoured sparkling water is enough to get me back on a plane ASAP; throw in some skyr cake and a cozy sweater, and I'm practically ready to swim there. I would go back there in a heartbeat. I would recommend it to everyone I know. It's amazing. It's Iceland!
Monday, July 23, 2012
Iceland: Part Two
Continued from "Iceland: Part One."
After Reykjavik, we headed up to Akureyri, Iceland's second most populous city with a whopping 18,000 residents. Honestly, I don't think we were expecting much, but the town was so.fricking.beautiful. Akureyri is at the bottom of a fjord, with giant hills - okay, mountains - overlooking the town. Our cabin was half-way up the mountain facing the town, so we had a view of basically....everything. The cabin was a dollhouse-sized little number with a teensy stove and a big-ass hot tub.
Naturally, the much-anticipated hot tub refused to work. After pressing every button on the control panel roughly one thousand times, we ascertained that the tub wasn't full enough - a fact that, had we been using our common sense and sense of sight, we would have figured out right away. In a panic (if there's such a thing as a hot-tub emergency, we were having one), we called the brother-in-law of our AirBnB host. The brother-in-law, Flosi (yes, pronounced like a pony's name), arrived after a stilted phone conversation, took one look at the hot tub, and then started a bucket brigade. An hour later, the tub was full; the next morning, it was hot.
After poking around the town, we headed up to Grimsey, a teeny island that has the distinction of being bisected by the Arctic Circle. Dudes, we bundled up: hats, tights under jeans, big coats, mittens. And, while it was cold when we were on the ferry (cold and seasick), Grimsey itself was warm. Warm enough that we basically molted clothes as we walked, shedding layers of long-sleeved shirts and jackets. The island, which is home to about 90 people, is also where birds live: puffins, which are adorable and exotically pretty, and also arctic terns, which dive-bombed us as we walked.
The next day, we continued our streak of slightly unsettling natural adventures by heading to Dimmuborgir, a lava field formed by steam vents during an ancient volcanic eruption. The landscape there is beautiful, with tiny succulents and lichens growing on the rocks, and paths that required a well-developed ability to clamber. It felt like a velociraptor might come lunging out at us at any moment, but it was also beautiful.
Heading to Dettifoss was a different story. Outside the car, it was sterile rocks and grit as far as the eye could see. As we pulled off the main highway, I remarked, "Hey, it's sort of...smoggy out?" which was mysterious because we were not anywhere near a major city. The "smog" grew denser, and within minutes, we were in a full-fledged Icelandic sandstorm. The moon-like landscape and the roaring storm, coupled with the fact that we were heading towards Europe's most powerful waterfall, made me feel like we might have accidentally wandered into one of those sci-fi movies where Mars turns out to be haunted by angry ghosts. At Dettifoss's edge (because, again, all that was holding us back was a dinky little golf fence), I actually got kind of choked up. It's rare that we're confronted with such unmitigated natural power, and being so close was an intense experience. I left feeling like my soul had been scoured with Borax.
The rest of the time there was spent goofing around in bookstores, buying Icelandic sweaters, and eating fish. There's an excellent curry take-away joint, and we ate burgers and made stir-frys and drank Icelandic beers in the hot tub. Akureyri, to me, was the most "Icelandic" of the places we landed: cultural but not pretentious, friendly, and undeniably gorgeous. I want to go back there, and I want to take everyone I like with me so we can hang out on Grimsey and get hilariously unexpected sunburns.
Next week: glacier walks, seafood pizza, and the library that turns into a bar.
After Reykjavik, we headed up to Akureyri, Iceland's second most populous city with a whopping 18,000 residents. Honestly, I don't think we were expecting much, but the town was so.fricking.beautiful. Akureyri is at the bottom of a fjord, with giant hills - okay, mountains - overlooking the town. Our cabin was half-way up the mountain facing the town, so we had a view of basically....everything. The cabin was a dollhouse-sized little number with a teensy stove and a big-ass hot tub.
 |
| Pictured: everything. |
Naturally, the much-anticipated hot tub refused to work. After pressing every button on the control panel roughly one thousand times, we ascertained that the tub wasn't full enough - a fact that, had we been using our common sense and sense of sight, we would have figured out right away. In a panic (if there's such a thing as a hot-tub emergency, we were having one), we called the brother-in-law of our AirBnB host. The brother-in-law, Flosi (yes, pronounced like a pony's name), arrived after a stilted phone conversation, took one look at the hot tub, and then started a bucket brigade. An hour later, the tub was full; the next morning, it was hot.
 |
| Not pictured: the coconut ice cream we ate in the hot tub like total bosses. |
 |
| Not pictured: kamikaze death terns. |
Heading to Dettifoss was a different story. Outside the car, it was sterile rocks and grit as far as the eye could see. As we pulled off the main highway, I remarked, "Hey, it's sort of...smoggy out?" which was mysterious because we were not anywhere near a major city. The "smog" grew denser, and within minutes, we were in a full-fledged Icelandic sandstorm. The moon-like landscape and the roaring storm, coupled with the fact that we were heading towards Europe's most powerful waterfall, made me feel like we might have accidentally wandered into one of those sci-fi movies where Mars turns out to be haunted by angry ghosts. At Dettifoss's edge (because, again, all that was holding us back was a dinky little golf fence), I actually got kind of choked up. It's rare that we're confronted with such unmitigated natural power, and being so close was an intense experience. I left feeling like my soul had been scoured with Borax.
 |
| Not pictured: Darude |
Next week: glacier walks, seafood pizza, and the library that turns into a bar.
Friday, July 20, 2012
Iceland: Part One
Okay! Let's talk Iceland!
There was a free Of Monsters And Men show the day we landed, which was astoundingly good luck. That band, which has gotten pretty buzzy in the US and Canada, was giving a "we're so grateful to you all!" concert in Reykjavik's main park. It was advertised as a family event, and seeing many, many children at an event that went, daylit, until 11 PM, sort of drove home the message that this place is weird and special. They also had a jungle gym that was teeming with children 100% of the concert's duration, and people brought their dogs. It was pretty great. Later, we found out that 18,000 people had been there. I would estimate that about 16,000 of them were wearing sweaters like these:
Everyone there speaks English, but they all sound like elves. It's enchanting. (Okay, in fairness, if someone was like, "Canadians all speak English, but they all sound like rodeo clowns," I'd be pissed. Suffice it to say that the accent is charming, and their fluency is impressive. It is way better than, say, Alabama.)
The local Subway restaurant had a flavour called "Reggae Reggae," but it wasn't jerk chicken. I don't know what it was supposed to taste like.
Not having any real nighttime is simultaneous not super-weird and the weirdest thing ever. I kept anticipating that tonight would be the night when things got really dark, and that night never came. There is a period of about three or four hours between 11 PM and 3 AM when the sky gets pinky-orange and the sun dips below the horizon, but it isn't even what you could call "twilight." The sun takes about five hours to set and then pops right back up again.
In Reykjavik, there's a Big Lebowski-themed bar, where they serve 18 different versions of a white russian, and the minimum price is 1,700 krona, which converts into approximately 14 bucks. I found their currency to be totally confounding - it's as if everything is priced in pennies. After a few days I sort of relaxed and went with it, but it takes some getting used to. This is especially true in grocery stores, where prices seem totally absurd (1100 krona for a hunk of cheese?!) until you get to the candy aisle, where most things are between 60 and 150 krona and you feel like Willie Wonka has just handed you a wad of Golden Tickets. (Unfortunately, most of their candy seems to be anise-flavoured). Anyway, The Lebowski Bar was a shameless tourist rip-off, but I'm also super glad we went.
We visited Gullfoss, which this crazy waterfall, and Geysir, which is a hot spring that shoots 100-degree water in the air every ten minutes or so. Both of these places had minimal approaches to safety. The most they really offered were these dinky little fences that came up to your knees and were made of rope; a tripping hazard, in other words. In Geysir, we went slightly off the path and discovered another, unfenced hot spring that was literally boiling. Attempts to touch it were followed by everyone jerking their hands away and hissing, "That's hot!" It was refreshing that the big natural-formation tourist attractions didn't assume that you were an imbecile that was going to touch the hot spring/get too close to the waterfall's edge, even though we totally did both those things.
The mid-level and cafe food food in Reykjavik wasn't really much to write home about, although I do want to give a shout-out to Cafe Loki's skyr cake. Skyr is a dairy product that's technically a cheese, but it tastes like Greek yogurt mixed with sour cream. Making a cake with it, plus rhubarb jam, plus whipped cream? Icelanders are geniuses. They also like smoked fish, eggs, and dense breads, all of which are things I like very much. Also, there are so many Thai places in Reykjavik.
Next week: misadventures in the hot tub, sunburns in the Arctic circle, and Icelandic sandstorms.
There was a free Of Monsters And Men show the day we landed, which was astoundingly good luck. That band, which has gotten pretty buzzy in the US and Canada, was giving a "we're so grateful to you all!" concert in Reykjavik's main park. It was advertised as a family event, and seeing many, many children at an event that went, daylit, until 11 PM, sort of drove home the message that this place is weird and special. They also had a jungle gym that was teeming with children 100% of the concert's duration, and people brought their dogs. It was pretty great. Later, we found out that 18,000 people had been there. I would estimate that about 16,000 of them were wearing sweaters like these:
 |
| That sweater is mad popular in Iceland. |
The local Subway restaurant had a flavour called "Reggae Reggae," but it wasn't jerk chicken. I don't know what it was supposed to taste like.
 |
| "Kryddaðu tilveruna" translate to "spicy life!" HELPFUL. |
Not having any real nighttime is simultaneous not super-weird and the weirdest thing ever. I kept anticipating that tonight would be the night when things got really dark, and that night never came. There is a period of about three or four hours between 11 PM and 3 AM when the sky gets pinky-orange and the sun dips below the horizon, but it isn't even what you could call "twilight." The sun takes about five hours to set and then pops right back up again.
In Reykjavik, there's a Big Lebowski-themed bar, where they serve 18 different versions of a white russian, and the minimum price is 1,700 krona, which converts into approximately 14 bucks. I found their currency to be totally confounding - it's as if everything is priced in pennies. After a few days I sort of relaxed and went with it, but it takes some getting used to. This is especially true in grocery stores, where prices seem totally absurd (1100 krona for a hunk of cheese?!) until you get to the candy aisle, where most things are between 60 and 150 krona and you feel like Willie Wonka has just handed you a wad of Golden Tickets. (Unfortunately, most of their candy seems to be anise-flavoured). Anyway, The Lebowski Bar was a shameless tourist rip-off, but I'm also super glad we went.
 |
| This is me, giving myself a high five. |
We visited Gullfoss, which this crazy waterfall, and Geysir, which is a hot spring that shoots 100-degree water in the air every ten minutes or so. Both of these places had minimal approaches to safety. The most they really offered were these dinky little fences that came up to your knees and were made of rope; a tripping hazard, in other words. In Geysir, we went slightly off the path and discovered another, unfenced hot spring that was literally boiling. Attempts to touch it were followed by everyone jerking their hands away and hissing, "That's hot!" It was refreshing that the big natural-formation tourist attractions didn't assume that you were an imbecile that was going to touch the hot spring/get too close to the waterfall's edge, even though we totally did both those things.
The mid-level and cafe food food in Reykjavik wasn't really much to write home about, although I do want to give a shout-out to Cafe Loki's skyr cake. Skyr is a dairy product that's technically a cheese, but it tastes like Greek yogurt mixed with sour cream. Making a cake with it, plus rhubarb jam, plus whipped cream? Icelanders are geniuses. They also like smoked fish, eggs, and dense breads, all of which are things I like very much. Also, there are so many Thai places in Reykjavik.
Next week: misadventures in the hot tub, sunburns in the Arctic circle, and Icelandic sandstorms.
Monday, June 25, 2012
2007-2012: Five Years Later
I've been thinking a lot about that summer, five years ago, when everything fell apart. It was a four-week paradigm shift from a relatively happy girl to one who felt like her bones were made of glass. During those four weeks, my sister was diagnosed with cancer, my best friend eloped and moved away, and my boyfriend broke up with me. Choppy waters.
The dream starts with a variation on the waitress dream: I am alone, in a restaurant that is suddenly filled with people, and there are no clean glasses and the kitchen is a flight of stairs below me. I am feeling hectic and rushed, and the people, while nice, are becoming impatient.
That's when my boss decides to bring in some backup to help out. As they come behind the bar, I spy a once-familiar green hoodie.
It is my ex-boyfriend.
The cancer diagnosis isn't my story to tell - it's my sister's, and I hope one day she will tell it in a way that makes her feel okay. You're not supposed to get cancer when you've just turned 20 and you're in university. You're supposed to get hangovers and food poisoning and STIs: the health problems of the under-30 set are largely self-inflicted. At 20, the choice you make about eating that burrito you left on the counter overnight is supposed to be your hardest health lesson, not the one about needles and drugs and egg storage and chemical burns and wigs.
I imagine that the shame of your body letting you down is enormous. Her disease was wildly unfair. I remember my mom sobbing, "I wonder if this is because I sprayed Raid in our hotel room in Hawaii when she was a baby." I wondered if the smell of cigarettes that clung to my clothes in high school played a part. There is no word to convey the level of fear and worry that descended on our family that summer: the closest we might come would be howling, like a wolf. We cried, and swam through the new reality - the cancer reality - like we were underwater.
So, my wish for her, five years later, is that she can find or invent the language that makes her feel okay about what happened to her. And while I don't want her to dwell on it, it's a part of her story, and talking is good. Not speaking feels so lonely.
I tell my boss I'm going to leave. She laughs a little and say, "No, you're no," and I tell her that, if he's staying, I'm going. It's a classic line.
My best friend moving away is also her story to tell, but basically her visa didn't come through, she panicked, and got married. The wedding was lovely, but very small, and real grown-ups were definitely an underrepresented demographic. They declined to tell their parents. A few weeks later, they tried to move to America; she went, but he was stopped at the border and not allowed entry.
This was, obviously, devastating for them. As a friend, it was tough to watch them try to negotiate the bureaucratic nightmare that is the immigration process. And I was heartbroken, because it felt like a corner of my emotional foundation had up and moved to Maryland. Selfish? Oh yeah. But I was too depressed to give a shit.
She hauls us both outside, which seems to be on the roof of a parking garage. He is jovial, whereas I am furious. "I despise you, I despise you, I despise you," pours out of my mouth. I feel like I have no control, like I am vomiting words. they keep coming, louder, as if by sheer repetition I can get him to understand the scale of my loathing. "You suck, I hate you, I HATE YOU."
And then there is the break-up. I can still remember the gut-punched feeling, the moment of swimming grey vision. It took hours to talk it out, in my home and his and in the park, both of us crying. I gave him back jewellery and he refused; I left it in the grass for some kid to find during a summer playdate.
The reasons were many. We hadn't been getting along - not fighting, but allowing sadness and distance to grow between us until words alone couldn't bridge the gap. We had stopped having sex. He told me, as he dumped me, that I was uninspiring; words that, to this day, still feel like a stab wound. In the days after my sister's diagnosis, I had been a cyclone of terror and tears, and he was taken aback by the intensity of my sadness and anger. And, most importantly, he just didn't want to be my boyfriend any more.
He tries to be funny and conciliatory, but it comes off as invasive: sitting too close, standing in front of me while I'm sitting so that I am eye-level with his crotch. At some point, his jeans transform into ugly shorts - maybe they're swim trunks - but the hoodie remains. He is wearing fur-lined loafers in the dream.
We spend some time together, after the initial break-up. We saw some movies and went for a couple walks. He had told me that he wanted to stay friends, and I had no idea what that meant.
In a moment of desperation, I went to him and offered to just, you know, sleep with him. We didn't have to be friendly, or like each other. We could just have fun! But, in addition to not wanting to be my boyfriend anymore, he was also sleeping with someone else. During that horrible, humiliating conversation, which happened days after our breakup (and that breakup had happened days after cancer verdict), he told me they had had sex on the steps of a church, and that it was the best he ever had.
I went home and vomited in the sink. I cried on the front steps. I didn't eat. I slept by staring at the ceiling. All the love I had for him - still, even weeks after the initial conversation - turned sour in a heartbeat. I could not be around him. I couldn't stand knowing he lived around the corner from me, that he still had a job, that he had the audacity to feel shitty about breaking up with me. I couldn't stand knowing that someone was comforting him, that he had friends, that he had fooled anyone into liking him.
A group of his friends are there, watching. I refuse, still, to work with him. I ignore his entreaties of friendship and recoil when he slings his arm around my shoulder in a friendly, brothers-in-arms gesture. See? We're buddies, he says. I am physically revulsed.
My exboyfriend had a pattern: he meets girls, often while still in a relationship, and begins whirlwind romances with them. We are enchanted: we connect on many levels. We decide that we must be together, and he begins the task of breaking it off with his current partner. There are months, maybe years, of happiness. And then something happens, and he meets someone, and she is enchanted. Wash, rinse, repeat. It's possible he still has this pattern.
He was with someone when I met him. He was with me when he met his next girlfriend. I have no idea how many girls he's daisy-chained along. He is not dating for sport. He feels bad when he breaks their hearts. But he still breaks them. I'm not sure why: maybe he is afraid of deeper commitment, or easily bored. Maybe he enjoys courting women more than the daily grind of actually being their boyfriends. I'm not sure. I don' t really care.
What happened to me has happened to others. With my ex-boyfriend, yes, but also with other men. What we learn, when we are treated with such vigorous and thorough shittiness, is that men aren't to be trusted. That heartbreak is a given. That we have to always wait for the other shoe to drop. It's the kind of lesson you don't learn from mutual, amicable break-ups. It's the kind of lesson you learn from getting turned back at the border, when the doctor comes into the room and says, "I'm afraid we have some bad news."
Other things are said, lost in the haze of dreaming. At one point, I spit on his foot and grin maniacally as he tries to play it off like I meant it in jest. My boss is there still, pleading for us both to come back inside, to wait on tables, to pretend everything is normal. At one point, the exboyfriend, surrounded by his friends and his boss, moves in for a hug. I throw him off and he falls down the flight of concrete stairs. It looks to be about as humiliating as Bill Murray's fall down the stairs at the end of The Life Aquatic. One of his silly loafers comes off. His friends are standing there, ignoring me, discussing the end of his current relationship (Quote, from my dream: "When I went to bed last night they had six mutual friends on Facebook, and now they only have four." "Oh my god...").
My story has a happy ending. My sister is in good health, a robust 25-year-old with a huge laugh. My best friend found a way to move back. She and her husband are still married. And I stumbled into the arms of someone who has suffered his own losses, and who knows better than to drop something so fragile. We have a good love, something strong that stretches into the future. I love being with him, and I feel, finally, like I can start to relax. That the jewellery he gives me won't be left in the grass one summer, when my eyes are already red from crying. I love them all so much, and I'm so grateful that we all found our way to each other.
In the end, I sit on the concrete edge of the parking garage and stare at his back as he limps away. I feel euphoric, elated. Like a triumph. When I wake up, I am laughing.
The dream starts with a variation on the waitress dream: I am alone, in a restaurant that is suddenly filled with people, and there are no clean glasses and the kitchen is a flight of stairs below me. I am feeling hectic and rushed, and the people, while nice, are becoming impatient.
That's when my boss decides to bring in some backup to help out. As they come behind the bar, I spy a once-familiar green hoodie.
It is my ex-boyfriend.
The cancer diagnosis isn't my story to tell - it's my sister's, and I hope one day she will tell it in a way that makes her feel okay. You're not supposed to get cancer when you've just turned 20 and you're in university. You're supposed to get hangovers and food poisoning and STIs: the health problems of the under-30 set are largely self-inflicted. At 20, the choice you make about eating that burrito you left on the counter overnight is supposed to be your hardest health lesson, not the one about needles and drugs and egg storage and chemical burns and wigs.
I imagine that the shame of your body letting you down is enormous. Her disease was wildly unfair. I remember my mom sobbing, "I wonder if this is because I sprayed Raid in our hotel room in Hawaii when she was a baby." I wondered if the smell of cigarettes that clung to my clothes in high school played a part. There is no word to convey the level of fear and worry that descended on our family that summer: the closest we might come would be howling, like a wolf. We cried, and swam through the new reality - the cancer reality - like we were underwater.
So, my wish for her, five years later, is that she can find or invent the language that makes her feel okay about what happened to her. And while I don't want her to dwell on it, it's a part of her story, and talking is good. Not speaking feels so lonely.
I tell my boss I'm going to leave. She laughs a little and say, "No, you're no," and I tell her that, if he's staying, I'm going. It's a classic line.
My best friend moving away is also her story to tell, but basically her visa didn't come through, she panicked, and got married. The wedding was lovely, but very small, and real grown-ups were definitely an underrepresented demographic. They declined to tell their parents. A few weeks later, they tried to move to America; she went, but he was stopped at the border and not allowed entry.
This was, obviously, devastating for them. As a friend, it was tough to watch them try to negotiate the bureaucratic nightmare that is the immigration process. And I was heartbroken, because it felt like a corner of my emotional foundation had up and moved to Maryland. Selfish? Oh yeah. But I was too depressed to give a shit.
She hauls us both outside, which seems to be on the roof of a parking garage. He is jovial, whereas I am furious. "I despise you, I despise you, I despise you," pours out of my mouth. I feel like I have no control, like I am vomiting words. they keep coming, louder, as if by sheer repetition I can get him to understand the scale of my loathing. "You suck, I hate you, I HATE YOU."
And then there is the break-up. I can still remember the gut-punched feeling, the moment of swimming grey vision. It took hours to talk it out, in my home and his and in the park, both of us crying. I gave him back jewellery and he refused; I left it in the grass for some kid to find during a summer playdate.
The reasons were many. We hadn't been getting along - not fighting, but allowing sadness and distance to grow between us until words alone couldn't bridge the gap. We had stopped having sex. He told me, as he dumped me, that I was uninspiring; words that, to this day, still feel like a stab wound. In the days after my sister's diagnosis, I had been a cyclone of terror and tears, and he was taken aback by the intensity of my sadness and anger. And, most importantly, he just didn't want to be my boyfriend any more.
He tries to be funny and conciliatory, but it comes off as invasive: sitting too close, standing in front of me while I'm sitting so that I am eye-level with his crotch. At some point, his jeans transform into ugly shorts - maybe they're swim trunks - but the hoodie remains. He is wearing fur-lined loafers in the dream.
We spend some time together, after the initial break-up. We saw some movies and went for a couple walks. He had told me that he wanted to stay friends, and I had no idea what that meant.
In a moment of desperation, I went to him and offered to just, you know, sleep with him. We didn't have to be friendly, or like each other. We could just have fun! But, in addition to not wanting to be my boyfriend anymore, he was also sleeping with someone else. During that horrible, humiliating conversation, which happened days after our breakup (and that breakup had happened days after cancer verdict), he told me they had had sex on the steps of a church, and that it was the best he ever had.
I went home and vomited in the sink. I cried on the front steps. I didn't eat. I slept by staring at the ceiling. All the love I had for him - still, even weeks after the initial conversation - turned sour in a heartbeat. I could not be around him. I couldn't stand knowing he lived around the corner from me, that he still had a job, that he had the audacity to feel shitty about breaking up with me. I couldn't stand knowing that someone was comforting him, that he had friends, that he had fooled anyone into liking him.
A group of his friends are there, watching. I refuse, still, to work with him. I ignore his entreaties of friendship and recoil when he slings his arm around my shoulder in a friendly, brothers-in-arms gesture. See? We're buddies, he says. I am physically revulsed.
My exboyfriend had a pattern: he meets girls, often while still in a relationship, and begins whirlwind romances with them. We are enchanted: we connect on many levels. We decide that we must be together, and he begins the task of breaking it off with his current partner. There are months, maybe years, of happiness. And then something happens, and he meets someone, and she is enchanted. Wash, rinse, repeat. It's possible he still has this pattern.
He was with someone when I met him. He was with me when he met his next girlfriend. I have no idea how many girls he's daisy-chained along. He is not dating for sport. He feels bad when he breaks their hearts. But he still breaks them. I'm not sure why: maybe he is afraid of deeper commitment, or easily bored. Maybe he enjoys courting women more than the daily grind of actually being their boyfriends. I'm not sure. I don' t really care.
What happened to me has happened to others. With my ex-boyfriend, yes, but also with other men. What we learn, when we are treated with such vigorous and thorough shittiness, is that men aren't to be trusted. That heartbreak is a given. That we have to always wait for the other shoe to drop. It's the kind of lesson you don't learn from mutual, amicable break-ups. It's the kind of lesson you learn from getting turned back at the border, when the doctor comes into the room and says, "I'm afraid we have some bad news."
Other things are said, lost in the haze of dreaming. At one point, I spit on his foot and grin maniacally as he tries to play it off like I meant it in jest. My boss is there still, pleading for us both to come back inside, to wait on tables, to pretend everything is normal. At one point, the exboyfriend, surrounded by his friends and his boss, moves in for a hug. I throw him off and he falls down the flight of concrete stairs. It looks to be about as humiliating as Bill Murray's fall down the stairs at the end of The Life Aquatic. One of his silly loafers comes off. His friends are standing there, ignoring me, discussing the end of his current relationship (Quote, from my dream: "When I went to bed last night they had six mutual friends on Facebook, and now they only have four." "Oh my god...").
My story has a happy ending. My sister is in good health, a robust 25-year-old with a huge laugh. My best friend found a way to move back. She and her husband are still married. And I stumbled into the arms of someone who has suffered his own losses, and who knows better than to drop something so fragile. We have a good love, something strong that stretches into the future. I love being with him, and I feel, finally, like I can start to relax. That the jewellery he gives me won't be left in the grass one summer, when my eyes are already red from crying. I love them all so much, and I'm so grateful that we all found our way to each other.
In the end, I sit on the concrete edge of the parking garage and stare at his back as he limps away. I feel euphoric, elated. Like a triumph. When I wake up, I am laughing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
