October, Two Ways

Let's get one thing straight here: I am a total pansy. I am freaked out by the dark, by ventilation systems (I blame The X-Files for that one, rightly so), by the idea that a pair of hands are going to lunge out from behind the shower curtain and strangle innocents who just want to brush their teeth, by dogs with a certain look in their eyes, and by reports of global warming.

There's also the existential fears that make for 4:30 AM heart palpitations: the perfect storm of horror movie images, convincing myself that there's something under the bed, and oh, by the way, everyone you love will someday die. 

So October, what with its drugstore tarantulas and cobwebby home decor, is not really my scene: I'm pretty much horrified 24/7. I don't need, like, a special day to make me feel freaked out.

In college, Halloween was one of the Drunk Girl's Trifecta (the others being New Years Eve and Saint Patrick's Day): any excuse to get absolutely gob-smacked on Malibu and get yer tits out. Halloween offered the added incentive to dress up as a "sexy [insert profession here]." Sexy nurse! Sexy fire-fighter! Sexy Jesus (I've seen two sexy Jesus costumes in the last few years)! Sexy coal miner. I've got the black lung....and it makes me want to drink Jagermeister! 

I'm not sure how to celebrate Halloween as an adult. Do I dress up? If so, as what? My friend Rachel had, for years, a long black wig that she would base her costume on. Frida Khalo, sexy witch, Cleopatra, etc. I always struggle to find the balance of not trying too hard and still looking like I cared a little. For years I just dressed all in black, an extremely lazy take on "goth" that was more "bad mood personified." But you can't wear mesh to the office (seriously: YOU CAN'T. DON'T).

This year, my boyfriend is doing 31 Nights of Horror, a daily infusion of cinematic gore lasting the entire month of October. I plan on spending a lot of time in the bedroom, maybe getting caught up on some reading or looking at ways to beef up my resume (real talk: I will be playing on Pinterest and drinking whiskey). We celebrate the month in different ways; he, by embracing the blood-and-guts side of it; me, by ignoring that in favour of looking at pictures of children dressed up adorably for Halloween. Oh, and I also bake zombie cupcakes.

There are October things I genuinely like: I like the seasonal change, obviously, as does everyone who is marooned on a heat island. I like the shift to tights, sweaters, and scarves. I like the treetop colours and the turkey dinner, eating fun-sized O Henry bars by the fistful, picking out the season's knitting projects, and great sleeps. I enjoy the shrieking...from the living room.

Baby Steps

I'ms tarting to realize that, in a few short months, my work position is going to be over. Contract work is both a blessing and a curse: it's great because it's a resume-builder, a chance to hone skills and make some money; but, of course, all good things must come to an end.

I still have a number of months left on my contract, but I'm already starting to feel lightheaded panic from the next-step anxiety. What do I want to do? I mean, aside from jump on a plane to Iceland and open a cafe in Akureyri? Or enrol in school to become a sexual-health teacher? Or get a masters in...something?

Should I go full-throttle into freelance? Should I wait tables while I write by first book? Should I get another office gig? Should I enrol in school, either as a academically cloudy grad student or in a more focused college diploma course? Should I sell all my things and live off the land for a while, foraging rhubarb from the city planters and adopting a freegan lifestyle?

Here are some things I know about me: I thrive when I have structure (i.e., a day job, a regular paycheck). I am not really a hustler (which makes freelance writing tough, as there is a lot of hustling). I need downtime (working six days a week, like at my last job, or ten-hour days at a bar, is not really my thing). I hate sitting still for long (desks!?!), but I don't have a lot of formal training at the kind of jobs that are more active (i.e. childcare, cooking, landscape gardening, etc.). Oh, and I have skills that are mostly creative, some administrative, and some facilitative. I am introverted. I work well on a team. I like outside-the-box thinking.

So...what now?

My gut tells me to move past office jobs, but they are stable and I like knowing what I'm getting myself into every day. I'm also not bad at them. I also feel like I want to get more training - something to do with writing, or sexual health, or housing, or co-ops, or facilitation - because I like those things, and I want to know more about them. I like writing, a lot. And none of this is really helpful in divining what my next step should be.

So, a question: how do you decide on your next step? When your contract is up, when your kids go to school, when you graduate? How do you decide how to make your money and fill your days?

I'm at a loss.

An Open Letter to Rob Ford

Dear Rob Ford:
I feel for you, man. I really do. I mean, it's got to be tough going out there for you right now: you've basically lost control of your own mayoralty, reduced to radio-show bluster and toothless trade missions to American cities, roundly mocked for your recent court appearance during which you demonstrate the depth of your ignorance to a tantalized Twitter audience, and revealed, over a serious of missteps in both the media and city hall's chambers, to be not so good at the governance part of your government job.

It's important to remember that the first group to which you are beholden is your constituents. They are, ultimately, the reason Rob Ford is in office: they're the ones who cast the vote, who read the newspaper when you triumph and fall down, they're the ones to whom you have made promises. And Rob Ford, before he took office, had a reputation for excellent customer service.

(However! Let's get one thing straight, in this age of touting Romney's qualifications to run America based on his running of a billion-dollar asset, and in which election scrutineers in Ontario are trained to give good customer service: voting and governance is not a consumer transaction. Government and politicians have different goals than businesses and the people that run them. City Hall 101, yo.)

But it's true that not everyone in Toronto was on board with Ford before he took the officious title of "His Worship." Folks who lived downtown—and here, downtown is defined as "not the suburbs" in the same way that Manhattan is defined as "not Queens:" recognizing that both places have their own sense of urbanity, priorities, needs, and identities, while also acknowledging that those ideas don't always overlap—were wary of Ford and his bombastic promises to stop the gravy train. The gravy train, it turns out, is what keeps the city going, because it's actually more of a meat-and-potatoes train: social services and administration aren't a luxury. So even as there's a large number of voters in Toronto who were, and remain, firmly on Ford's side, there were also the people who weren't enthralled with his policy suggestions and his public persona.

Remember, Rob: you represent them too. So even though you might think you're only talking to your supporters, you're beholden to all us downtown lefty cyclist pinko Star-reading scumbags too.

It's true that the media has been watching all this play out with a devotion that would border on freaky if it wasn't their job. You've given them so, so much to comment on: missteps, mixed messages, leaderless moments in city hall, all topped off with the cherry of antagonism. Of course they don't like you. You're not very good at your job, and your job is to be the face and the leader of the city in which we all live. They're very good at their job, which is reporting on you.

But Rob, you know who trips you up the most? It's not Daniel Dale or the plastic bags. It's not Twitter or Clayton Ruby or Ed Keenan. It's your own damn self. You, Mayor Rob Ford.

You consistently fail to meet the minimum that is required of you, and you tout meaningless events as major victories (see: your football coaching, which should be a line in your bio, not your raison d'etre). You don't play nice with others: not other councillors, not large swathes of your constituents, not the media. You don't seem like you have an understanding of your role: for example, after gun violence erupted early in the summer, you reacted by promising to export anyone with a gun conviction out of the city. You changed the conversation from one of mourning and anger to, well, "WTF?" Your disastrous court appearance further exposed your deficiencies.

You consistently confuse and muddle the script, making it almost impossible to work with you. You alienate when you should reconcile. You disturb when you need to soothe. You leave when you need to lead.

Rob Ford, you have two years left in office. Two years, which you've pledged to spend campaigning for your next term in office. And thus, the cycle would continue. May I suggest a different course of action?

It's obviously silly to suggest you change your style. You are Toronto's shouty mayor, a role that might make some of us cringe but that some will point to will pride. You are red-faced, through and through.

But harnessing that style—making it work for you, and for the city—is possible. You can become a bulldog, barking over and over about how much you love this place. Not some of it, not just the parts who voted for you and whom you coach in football, but all of it. The queers, the disenfranchised black kids, the hippies, the policy wonks. Surround yourself with people who know things, and make use of their knowledge. Not yes-men: people who challenge you in a way you can listen to. I'm not asking you to become a queer disenfranchised black hippie; I'm asking you to start respecting those that are.

You strike me as a man most comfortable making it up as he goes along; learn how to learn. Running a city is different from running a business or a football team. Learn why. This is info you should have picked up much earlier in your term, but hey, better late than never.

I know that municipal politics can be cutthroat and that you like power, but you can no longer treat Torontonians like they're intruding on your needs when they demand that you fuck up less. Be proud of the place you're from and the office you were elected to; honour both by being the best mayor you can be.

I know you think you're already doing that. Rob. Dude. No. You need to start asking for help, asking questions and listening to the answers. You have to start trusting that people you think of as political foes aren't trying to mess with you. Leave that kind of belief at Don Bosco, because it's so high school. Be the bigger man. Take a meeting. Take notes.

Most of all, think critically about the vision of the future you're trying to create. What kind of Toronto do you want to govern? What kind of city do you want to leave behind?

Sincerely,
Kaitlyn

Things to Consider

Over the last few months, I've been sending out these tweets about "things to consider," with a list of items, ideas, to-do lists, destinations and baubles that have captured my fancy. Red pants, potted plants, afternoons of board games, sunshine streaming through semi-slatted blinds: it's the usual array of creature-comfort imagery that would populate any Pinterest board worth its salt.

Writing these tweets gives me a disproportionate amount of pleasure. I am, like most people, a consumer, and I sometimes have a craving for Really Nice Things - this is where the little gold rings come in. More often, though, I want the simpler things. A glossy green plant. A hand holding mine. A darkened movie theatre with Twizzlers and a contraband can of Coke Zero. The immediate sense of wellbeing I get when I step into a hot shower to wake myself up.

Most of these things cost less than ten dollars, leading me to realize that I'm not a fancy-type lady. I like things that look good, yes, especially solid furniture and freshly painted walls, both of which could be used in The New Place. Some things I've wanted are ostensibly "free," like the view from the summit of an Appalachian mountain range, but getting there would cost time and money. Some thing are so expensive as to be almost imaginary, like airfare to Japan, or would take so much time that they might as well be done by a different person, like the first draft of a novella.

But these tweets serve a very specific purpose: acknowledging these mini-desires lets me track what I want the most over time. I've mentioned plants and rings - one symbolizing lush life and the other standing for glamourous frivolity - more times than I could count. I've wished for travel, a signal that my Toronto life felt overwhelming and that I was craving an escape hatch. It's not always so deep - sometimes, a pint of craft beer is just a pint - but repeated please for consideration can sometimes means there's something more heartfelt going on. Heartfelt on Twitter - imagine that.

Teenage girls often communicate in this cloud of allusive half-meaning, before we learn to grow up and just use our damned words, already. We considered ourselves poets, obviously, except that nobody else knew what the hell we were talking about. The purpose of poetry is to illuminate dark corners and say unsaid things, not be dreamy weirdos in blank verse. But these tweets, lame and straightfoward as they are, hone the basic skill of identifying and naming desires. This skill can come in handy when you're in a howling-for-comfort situation.

Anyway, I look forward to writing many more tweets about Dan Clowes comics, crosswords in bed and the pleasures of a new magazine. They're a mini-break, just for me. And when I see patterns come out of the wordwork - not reqests for kilim or plaid, but you know, the deeper stuff - I've given myself a way to track what it all means. Meaning on Twitter - imagine that.

Looking Forward

I'm hitting a bit of a wall right now. I just moved in with the boyfriend (yay!); his place is virtually devoid of storage (yikes!), so all my stuff has been lying around on the floor. I am flat broke and a week away from payday. I have to pay for laundry now so obviously I haven't done any in the last two weeks. The only food we have is two raw chicken breasts and a 3-pound block of cheese, and I'm off grains right now because my naturopath recommended it but guys, it is FUCKING HARD to make a meal without a goddamn grain in it (hello! Rice! I miss you!). And I have a headache, because quitting Coke Zero is tough and I don't even really want to but, again, no money, so even if I did want some, shoplifting requires stealth and I do not have any.

Last night I curled up on the floor in the fetal position, berating my (too, too patient boyfriend) about his  ambivalence towards wanting to go to Burning Man. I don't even know where Burning Man is, but I wanted to go. Later, after I unfetaled myself and took a cool sip of water, I admitted that, now that Iceland and moving in together are behind me, and I'm no longer living in co-operative housing, and my job is working me 40 hours a week, I'm a little bored with myself. The fun, looking-forward-to-it parts are over, for now, and the hard slog towards unpacking and getting settled (and replacing all the 40-watt bulbs in his apartment replaced with something a little brighter) just seems unending.

(Not that I'm not totally stoked to be living with The Main Guy. [To be fair, he's The Only Guy, but that seems weird to say.] He's awesome and funny, thoughtful and sweet. But it's a tough adjustment to be around someone all the time; I'm an introvert! We need our time alone. I think I've been by myself for, like, an hour in the last two weeks. An hour. One hour.)

And my writing totally fell off this summer. I love writing for those other blogs, but sometimes, I stare at the screen and I feel despair. What am I supposed to be doing, exactly? Being pithy? About stuff? Man. Okay. And despite the fact that I know, from experience, that creative ebbs and flows are a part of life, it still knocks the wind out of me every time. I spent a solid six months this year being prolific as hell, working like a champ at the day job and writing two or three other posts each week. Now, even this blank page is a struggle, and this blank page is my writing home.

I know I sound like an ungrateful asshole. I know that changes are tough, and that after a while, what's new will stop being so new, and some footing will be found, and I can relax and go back to being my awesome, confident self. I know that. So I just have to keep writing, unpack one box at a time, and figure out what to look forward to next.

Co-op Baby

I've lived in co-op housing for eight years, and for the first time since I left my parent's home, I'm going to be living somewhere else this fall.

I first moved in to Campus Co-op Residences Inc., downtown Toronto, 169 Lowther Avenue, room 201, in the fall of 2004. I was 21, back in school after a year-long hiatus that was the result of a disastrous freshman year. I had regrouped, saved some money, developed a wee fondness for booze, and was ready to strike out on my own. Liz, who I had met in first year, lived in 169, and she suggested that I apply.

I remember filling out the application. It's been a while, so I don't know if the questions are the same, but back in 2004, CCRI wanted to know a bit about you. Did I have any special skills? (I could snake a toilet, I offered.) How was I with conflict? (I tried to be easy-going, I said.) What was my budget? (500 a month? Was that enough? I could pay more!) I sent in my forms, along with a $25 application fee, and I waited.

What I didn't know was that, for almost as long as I lived there, the co-op struggled with chronic vacancy, so I was in like Flint no matter what. My rent was $536, due by the 4th of each month or in two lump sums at the beginning of each term. That included heat, hydro, the room, and food: four meals a week in a dining hall and house food for the rest of our meals. It was an unbelievably good deal. My room was teeny, but my mom and sisters and I painted it pink and yellow ("Cheery" and "Cheerful"). I stacked books on the radiator and assembled a loft bed. It was perfect: cozy, sweet, and all mine. 

I've always loved the co-op's houses: they're huge, often housing a dozen or so students and graduates in a mish-mash of vintage furniture, curb-scored cookery and absolutely hideous kitchens. The floors are usually hardwood, and even though the rooms are drafty, they have character. My current room, two houses after my little pink-and-yellow room, has huge east-facing windows and a massive built-in bookshelf. I have a row of plants on the windowsill and a walk-in closet. My last place was the entire third floor of a house, including a 400-square foot deck. There are also much smaller spaces, like the bedrooms stuffed under eaves or beside lonely boiler rooms. The co-op likes to put kitchens in odd places, like basement or second floors, and the bathrooms are always slightly damp. A real-estate agent might euphemistically say that the houses have character, while we can just call it like it is: these houses are crazy. 

That might explain why I've lived with so many crazy people over the years. Narcissistic acting students and economics majors have bunked with couples who had midnight fighting fits. I've lived with people who thought nothing of lifting a few DVDs off the living room table or a bottle of wine from the fridge. I've lived with alcoholics who drank cooking wine. I've risen from a movie in the living room to find the entire first floor, from the front porch to the kitchen, covered in the foulest-smelling vomit, the alcoholic housemate responsible passed out in his own urine at the end of it. I've lived with people who had loud sex, and people who referred to women as "you people." I've lived with girls who refused to eat, girls who walked around in nothing panties and a bra, girls who brought dozens of strange men home. I've lived with men who have used their size, their rage, or their maleness to cow their housemates. I've lived with folks who have literally brought vagrants home. I've had housemates who thought nothing of lashing out if I left dishes. I watched from the window one night as a housemate was loaded, screaming gibberish, into an ambulance in restraints.

Over past eight years, I've had probably about 100 different housemates. Some stayed for years and become close friends. Others, not so much. "The guy who wore those shirts with the huge neon $100 bills printed on them" will come up in conversation, and co-op friends will nod in recognition. We talk about the night we drank all the booze in the house (we replaced it the next day), and played Spin the Bottle on the fire escape. There are rules when you live with so many folks: don't sleep with your housemates (also known as "don't shit where you eat). Also, this aggression will not stand, man.

There have been transformative moments: the joys of free clothes (I seriously haven't done much retail shopping since moving in; my housemates are always moulting clothes and I pick them up), the challenges of four years on the co-op's board of directors. I bought my first vibrator with a gaggle of housemates. I drank much too much, and went into treatment. I lost weight, I gained weight. I had my first real boyfriend, and my first real heartbreak. I had sleepovers, ill-advised sex, make-out buddies, awkward movie dates, and I fell in love a second time.

It's impossible for me to sum up the whole co-op thing, because it's shaped me in so many ways: politically, sexually, personally, professionally. I've grown and regressed, made mistakes, made friends and enemies, and learned so much about my world that it staggers me that it's been eight years. Eight years. Man.

So next up, my boyfriend and I are going to live together. It's one of those amazing moments in a couple's story, one that could lead to an excellent future. It'll be a test of what we're made of: while we spend a lot of time together, we still have our own places to retreat to if we need to lick our wounds or breathe. On the other hand, I think this new intimacy will be good, since we function well as a team. We've got a shot at something really good, which makes leaving the co-op I've called home for almost a decade that much easier. 

List of Vices

I have a long list of vices. Here are some of them:

• 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.