There's a state of emotional illness called Capgras delusions that leads its sufferers to believe that their world, and everyone in it, has been craftily replaced with exact replicas. It's not entirely known what triggers the delusion - brain injury, mental illness, migraine and dementia all seem linked - but I have a hunch that fans of the show Community feel like they're suffering a mild case of Capgras on this season's run.
I've written before about the well-wrought sitcom that Community is....was. Over its first three seasons, it went from a Friends-lite to something that isn't often seen on network TV. From its jumbled group of misfit students (the graduated prom king, the disbarred lawyer, the single mom who wants a better life for herself, among others), the show started delving into the weird and wonderful possibilities that exist for a 22-minute weekly sitcom.
First, it upended expectations of male friendship when it made Troy and Abed BFFs. This is one of my favourite relationships on the show, an opinion I share with the majority of the fanbase. Troy and Abed are buds the way you're friends with someone in kindergarten - their friendship is based on play, on imagination. That's not to say it's fanciful, but that they actively created a safe, alternate world to that of the grown-ups around them. Post-secondary school often functions like that for young people anyway (I can't be the only one afflicted with the crippling realization that I'll likely be working entry-level jobs well into my thirties - thanks, university), so Troy and Abed's worlds-within-a-world functioned like a blanket fort with high-level security. What made that fun was that viewers were encouraged to join them: the show made sure to highlight those in-jokes for everyone to see.
Once it was established that Troy and Abed had something special, Community as a show also started playing. Its gift has always been that it's not afraid of going big and getting crazy - genre-busting episodes started happening three times a month, and with those, the show's format got slippery. Instead of an A-story and a B-story, we were treated to seven strands of narrative, to mockumentaries, to action movie tropes on PCP, to video game quests. The show's visual style shifted accordingly: bright, glossy fantasy episodes were followed by gritty cinema verite.
At the end of last season, the behind-the-scenes drama of showrunner Dan Harmon's conflict with, you know, basically everyone, came to a head when he was fired. Several key writers also left, and fans were left wondering how the flavour of the show would be affected.
We're now six episode in, halfway through a shortened season that has felt, to many people, like the studio's attempt to get to that magic 100th episode needed for lucrative syndication deals. Harmon's replacements promised they were huge fans of the show, that they weren't interested in changing much, and that fans would barely be able to tell the difference.
This has proved to be untrue.
The show feels weaker, less subtle. Instead of allowing tropes to take over, the genre episodes feel superimposed onto a sitcom's regular structure. The characters seem like weak echoes of themselves, and relationships have become...weird.
Take, for example, Britta and Troy. The groundwork for this romance has been laid for at least a season, but now that it's here, the storyline is floundering. It's not entirely clear why these characters would have moved from crushes to sex buddies/boyfriend-girlfriend, and now that they have, I'm not sure what they're supposed to be doing. Writers need an endgame when they're setting up sitcom couples: are they going to Jim-and-Pam these guys (forever, "I do"s, a kid, and soul-crushing arguments)? Is this more of a Ross and Rachel situation (off and on, cliffhanger romances, drunken hookups, and soul-crushing tedium)? Given Britta's past relationships - a carny, a hippie, and secret sex with Jeff Winger - I feel like she should be freaking out about dating a prom king ten years her junior. But...she isn't. And Troy, who has been torn between palling around with Abed and growing up, might have feelings about landing his first real girlfriend. But...he doesn't. At least none that we can see.
Vulture's TV critic Jesse David Fox recently posted his theory that Community's current weakness was created way back when Harmon was still running the show. He thinks these characters aren't substantial enough to hang a sitcom on, and so when the new writers fail, they fail because Harmon set them up.
But sitcoms have never really been about character development - you'd be hard-pressed to find a sitcom personality that's undergone a really serious arc, and your Jerrys and Elaines and Rosses and Joeys have all been basically the same person since day one. (This is directly in contrast to "better" TV, ie, dramas, which contractually require character development.) Furthermore, they're never really complex characters to begin with. Pop quiz: does "type-A woman who doesn't always know she's pretty" refer to Annie Edison or Monica Gellar? Is "smooth-talking ladies man with daddy issues" Barney Stinson or Jeff Winger? Sure, people (and characters) change, but even if Harmon failed to imbue his characters with enough meat, there's nothing stopping this crop of writers from giving that a go.
Community works best when it's big - when the tertiary characters are fully fleshed out, when the parodic elements are given room to breath, when the jokes set up in season two pay off in season four. Community is never going to be one of the top-rated sitcoms, mostly because those are Two and Half Men and The Big Bang Theory (broad, stereotypical, and largely unfunny to people with actual functioning brains). So mashing Community into the mould of Generic Sitcom Number Three (School Edition) feels like a giant waste of time when we've already seen what can be done. It feels especially lame when the show won't shell out for the Greendale Seven's classmates, when sets are chintzily recycled, and when dialogue feels like it could be lifted from any other sitcom currently on.
My advice to writers: get your shit together. Stop trying to recreate what came before, and stop trying to make Community like any other sitcom out there. If you're as good as you think you are, to take on this fan- and critically-beloved show, then prove it. Harmon succeeded by breaking the rules, by stepping outside the box of what was "allowed" for situational comedy. You'll only succeed if you break his rules right back. Surprise us. Make it count. And for God's sakes, remember that doing a parody episode isn't just putting your characters in Shawshank Redemption drag.
Friday, March 15, 2013
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Food For Thought
Junk food is an inescapable fact of modern life. It's there when you drive down the highway: huge, tall symbols decorate the freeways of America, dotting the landscape with cheerful redheads or golden arches. It's in the aisles of our grocery stores: pre-packaged foods that promise to be quick to prepare and delicious to eat. It's probably there when we open our own fridge and pantries at home - who can say they've never side-eyed a bag a bag of Doritos or a box of ice-cream sandwiches at the local freshmart? It dances on our TVs, it's a part of almost every entertainment we indulge ourselves with (see: movie popcorn, hotdogs at the ball game, Popsicles by the poolside, and myriad other treats and "once in a while" foods that end up being a weekly, if not daily, staple), and increasingly takes the place of actual meals in our snacking society.
This weekend's New York Times Magazine cover story is a critical look at the junk- and snack-food industries in America today. It's supposed to be an indictment, a stirring rallying cry, and an explanation of why four kids out of class of twenty are clinically obese, and why type 2 diabetes threatens or is diagnosed in over 100 million Americans (that is three Canadas, right there). It goes behind the scenes at the biggest food purveyors in the country - and by extension, the world - to show that, these days, food is a whole new kettle of fish.
To which I respond: duh. The article goes to great lengths to expose the millions of dollars that food companies spend developing successful new product - from ingredient tweaking to colour preference, from making the crucial switch from marketing a product to overworked mothers to marketing it to their overstimulated children, from packaging to the PSI of a chip's perfect crunch (four, if you're interested), the article rips back the curtain and says, "Aha!"
This, of course, isn't exactly news. Two years ago, The New Yorker ran an article about how to design the perfect diet cola, and it touched on many of the same themes: the masquerade of the artificial as the real, the desire to please the consumer, the capture of a larger market share, and the sheer number of manhours and dollars that have been poured into ensuring a food is perfect for our shopping lists, not our bodies.
The frame around the portraits both The New Yorker and the NYT paint of the snack- and junk-food industries is that all this work is being done by big businesses. The writers seem slightly shocked that the food we buy (and eat) has been refined and optimized for the consumer's maximum pleasure, and not for things like, you know, nutrition. Or health.
And I would ask, when is the last time a multinational corporation operated with your best interests, and not its own bottom line, at the forefront of its concern?
It boggles my mind that people are surprised that food these days is commodified this way. Of course it is. Everything is. Everything we buy has been marketed to us, branded for us, and helps us define who we are: Mac vs. PC, Star Trek vs. Star Wars, Lululemon yoga or Reebok Crossfit.
Theoretically, food is supposed to be above that. At the very least, we're supposed to be able to recognize which items are good for us - healthful, nutritious, sustaining - and which might be better as an occasional treat, or something to avoid altogether. The author of "The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food" points out that Yoplait yogurt, which has been positioned in the market as a healthy food, has twice the sugar of Lucky Charms, the breakfast cereal good moms don't buy their kids because it'll rot their teeth. But we see yogurt as healthy, and so we don't bother to read the label. He writes that Lunchables, that covetable middle school meal, was designed to have a long shelf life and to take advantage of synergy (the makers of the "cheese product" having been acquired by the Lunchables folks); carrots were rejected as too likely to spoil. But damned if they aren't convenient, right?
There have been all kinds of discussions around food, consumption, bodies, and the modern American. More and more people are pointing out that large segments of the population live in "food deserts," areas where it's tough to find a vegetable: inner-city neighbourhoods served by bodegas instead of grocery stores, or suburbs ringed with fast food outlets. They point out that fat kids usually turn into fat adults. Our culture shames fat people while needling all of us to keep eating. It makes it hard to get healthy foods, or even recognize unhealthy foods, because savvy companies have invested millions in keeping us tethered to our shopping lists. As a result, we're fatter than ever, and gaining. It's because of our sedentary office job, the 500-calorie coffees, how expensive produce has become, and besides, picking up a cheeseburger is easier than roasting a fish, and it's my choice. Right?
But it's also us. We buy this stuff. We keep it in our homes, we feed it to our kids. And it's so easy. I bet you can walk 20 minutes in any direction and come back with a bag of potato chips. Incidentally, the article calls chips the most addictive of all the junk foods (which makes me feel less horrible about my shame-scarfing of Doritos; I recently told my boyfriend that we couldn't keep Doritos in the house, because I feel powerless in their presence); this is because chips don't activate the satiety triggers in your brain. You can keep eating them, without feeling full, until you accidentally shit the couch.
So, what's the solution? Well, when our society finally figured out that smoking was, indeed, pretty bad for you, we put warning signs on the cigarette packs, even though the tobacco industry strenuously objected: These will kill you, slowly, and with great expense to your family. Smoking rates have subsequently fallen.When Finland started labelling high-sodium foods, the nation's cardiovascular health improved. Pointing out dangerous stuff helps people avoid it.
I'm not suggesting the ostracization of obese or overweight individuals; that's not okay, and I doubt that many obese folks are choosing to be overweight in the same way smokers choose to light up. But collectively, we need to do more to fight the shitty food that beckons us from every shelf. We need to get thoroughly smart about our food, in a systemic, holistic sense. Teach home ec students what an avocado is, not how to bake a damned cupcake. Tell your teenagers that if they want tortilla chips, they're going to have to make them in the oven themselves. Tell your kids that the days of mac 'n' cheese and Go-Gurt are over. Get them to read the ingredients out loud; if they can't pronounce them, it doesn't go in the cart. Junk food should be something we look back on with slightly disgusted nostalgia, the same way we look back on Jell-O with meat in it, or headcheese, or that foam fad.
The NYT article was the right first step: identify the enemy. But we also need a rallying cry, and an army of food soldiers. We shall fight on the drive-thrus, we shall fight on the grocery stores, we shall fight in the 7-11s.
This weekend's New York Times Magazine cover story is a critical look at the junk- and snack-food industries in America today. It's supposed to be an indictment, a stirring rallying cry, and an explanation of why four kids out of class of twenty are clinically obese, and why type 2 diabetes threatens or is diagnosed in over 100 million Americans (that is three Canadas, right there). It goes behind the scenes at the biggest food purveyors in the country - and by extension, the world - to show that, these days, food is a whole new kettle of fish.
To which I respond: duh. The article goes to great lengths to expose the millions of dollars that food companies spend developing successful new product - from ingredient tweaking to colour preference, from making the crucial switch from marketing a product to overworked mothers to marketing it to their overstimulated children, from packaging to the PSI of a chip's perfect crunch (four, if you're interested), the article rips back the curtain and says, "Aha!"
This, of course, isn't exactly news. Two years ago, The New Yorker ran an article about how to design the perfect diet cola, and it touched on many of the same themes: the masquerade of the artificial as the real, the desire to please the consumer, the capture of a larger market share, and the sheer number of manhours and dollars that have been poured into ensuring a food is perfect for our shopping lists, not our bodies.
The frame around the portraits both The New Yorker and the NYT paint of the snack- and junk-food industries is that all this work is being done by big businesses. The writers seem slightly shocked that the food we buy (and eat) has been refined and optimized for the consumer's maximum pleasure, and not for things like, you know, nutrition. Or health.
And I would ask, when is the last time a multinational corporation operated with your best interests, and not its own bottom line, at the forefront of its concern?
It boggles my mind that people are surprised that food these days is commodified this way. Of course it is. Everything is. Everything we buy has been marketed to us, branded for us, and helps us define who we are: Mac vs. PC, Star Trek vs. Star Wars, Lululemon yoga or Reebok Crossfit.
Theoretically, food is supposed to be above that. At the very least, we're supposed to be able to recognize which items are good for us - healthful, nutritious, sustaining - and which might be better as an occasional treat, or something to avoid altogether. The author of "The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food" points out that Yoplait yogurt, which has been positioned in the market as a healthy food, has twice the sugar of Lucky Charms, the breakfast cereal good moms don't buy their kids because it'll rot their teeth. But we see yogurt as healthy, and so we don't bother to read the label. He writes that Lunchables, that covetable middle school meal, was designed to have a long shelf life and to take advantage of synergy (the makers of the "cheese product" having been acquired by the Lunchables folks); carrots were rejected as too likely to spoil. But damned if they aren't convenient, right?
There have been all kinds of discussions around food, consumption, bodies, and the modern American. More and more people are pointing out that large segments of the population live in "food deserts," areas where it's tough to find a vegetable: inner-city neighbourhoods served by bodegas instead of grocery stores, or suburbs ringed with fast food outlets. They point out that fat kids usually turn into fat adults. Our culture shames fat people while needling all of us to keep eating. It makes it hard to get healthy foods, or even recognize unhealthy foods, because savvy companies have invested millions in keeping us tethered to our shopping lists. As a result, we're fatter than ever, and gaining. It's because of our sedentary office job, the 500-calorie coffees, how expensive produce has become, and besides, picking up a cheeseburger is easier than roasting a fish, and it's my choice. Right?
But it's also us. We buy this stuff. We keep it in our homes, we feed it to our kids. And it's so easy. I bet you can walk 20 minutes in any direction and come back with a bag of potato chips. Incidentally, the article calls chips the most addictive of all the junk foods (which makes me feel less horrible about my shame-scarfing of Doritos; I recently told my boyfriend that we couldn't keep Doritos in the house, because I feel powerless in their presence); this is because chips don't activate the satiety triggers in your brain. You can keep eating them, without feeling full, until you accidentally shit the couch.
So, what's the solution? Well, when our society finally figured out that smoking was, indeed, pretty bad for you, we put warning signs on the cigarette packs, even though the tobacco industry strenuously objected: These will kill you, slowly, and with great expense to your family. Smoking rates have subsequently fallen.When Finland started labelling high-sodium foods, the nation's cardiovascular health improved. Pointing out dangerous stuff helps people avoid it.
I'm not suggesting the ostracization of obese or overweight individuals; that's not okay, and I doubt that many obese folks are choosing to be overweight in the same way smokers choose to light up. But collectively, we need to do more to fight the shitty food that beckons us from every shelf. We need to get thoroughly smart about our food, in a systemic, holistic sense. Teach home ec students what an avocado is, not how to bake a damned cupcake. Tell your teenagers that if they want tortilla chips, they're going to have to make them in the oven themselves. Tell your kids that the days of mac 'n' cheese and Go-Gurt are over. Get them to read the ingredients out loud; if they can't pronounce them, it doesn't go in the cart. Junk food should be something we look back on with slightly disgusted nostalgia, the same way we look back on Jell-O with meat in it, or headcheese, or that foam fad.
The NYT article was the right first step: identify the enemy. But we also need a rallying cry, and an army of food soldiers. We shall fight on the drive-thrus, we shall fight on the grocery stores, we shall fight in the 7-11s.
Thursday, February 14, 2013
The dance of the happy synapse
I've been going through waves of feeling as my full-time job nears the end of the line. I'm scared to death about money. I'm nervous about having to go into interview situations and babbling about how qualified I am. I'm also sort of excited to have a few weeks of free time - so far, none of the lines I've cast out into The Sea of Jobs have had any nibbles, so I feel like it's kind of inevitable that I'll have some downtime.
The thing I'm most excited about is getting to try new things. I made a point of finding a fitness class that I loved in 2013 (so far, Nia has been doing right by me, and I even made it through a Zumba class without getting suicidal), and some friends and I have committed to a monthly writer's group. Those little creative steps have left me longing for new stuff to put on my life-resume: I keep daydreaming about stained glass classes, about paper crafts, about knitting, about writing out workshops plans, about applying for grants, about painting our apartment, and about a thousand other things.
A few weeks ago, I vowed to myself to stop reading wedding blogs. It was a colossal waste of time, because it left me fixated on a thing that wasn't for me. And I'm not mad at married people, or engaged people, and I'm certain that I'll sneak a peek here and there, but the mental energy I was expending on reading about floral crowds or how to handle nasty bridesmaids has now been transferred to thinking about projects that are for me: knitwares and pottery, how to incorporate more sculpture into our house, and texting my mom every time I kill it at a workout. And, you know, never say never: when I do get engaged, I'm sure I'll head back to that blog, but for now, I want to focus on stuff I can make/do.
And there's so much out there! My brain is doing the dance of the happy synapse. I read Northlanders and realized that Becky Cloonan's gorgeous, heavy-lined art would make an amazing jumping-off point for stained glass. I'm creating Valentine's cards in my head. I'm thinking about training to teach Nia.
I'm considering my options in a way I haven't really done since high school. In university, being an English major meant that everyone assumed I wanted to teach; nope, I just wanted to read, preferably in bed, and off the syllabus. I want to try different things and I know that I won't be great at many of them. But I recently read (on a wedding blog...sigh) that "the best is the enemy of the good," and I definitely need to put that backwards on several tee-shirts and then stare at myself in the mirror until I get it.
So I have a curious brain, and I'm learning to trust my instincts, and I want to play. And learn. And so that means shopping at new stores, making new dishes, figuring out a way to spend a Wednesday night that doesn't involve turning on the TV. I'm experimenting with style. I'm thinking outside the nine-to-five box. And it feels invigorating, like maybe, I was waiting for this the whole time.
The thing I'm most excited about is getting to try new things. I made a point of finding a fitness class that I loved in 2013 (so far, Nia has been doing right by me, and I even made it through a Zumba class without getting suicidal), and some friends and I have committed to a monthly writer's group. Those little creative steps have left me longing for new stuff to put on my life-resume: I keep daydreaming about stained glass classes, about paper crafts, about knitting, about writing out workshops plans, about applying for grants, about painting our apartment, and about a thousand other things.
A few weeks ago, I vowed to myself to stop reading wedding blogs. It was a colossal waste of time, because it left me fixated on a thing that wasn't for me. And I'm not mad at married people, or engaged people, and I'm certain that I'll sneak a peek here and there, but the mental energy I was expending on reading about floral crowds or how to handle nasty bridesmaids has now been transferred to thinking about projects that are for me: knitwares and pottery, how to incorporate more sculpture into our house, and texting my mom every time I kill it at a workout. And, you know, never say never: when I do get engaged, I'm sure I'll head back to that blog, but for now, I want to focus on stuff I can make/do.
And there's so much out there! My brain is doing the dance of the happy synapse. I read Northlanders and realized that Becky Cloonan's gorgeous, heavy-lined art would make an amazing jumping-off point for stained glass. I'm creating Valentine's cards in my head. I'm thinking about training to teach Nia.
I'm considering my options in a way I haven't really done since high school. In university, being an English major meant that everyone assumed I wanted to teach; nope, I just wanted to read, preferably in bed, and off the syllabus. I want to try different things and I know that I won't be great at many of them. But I recently read (on a wedding blog...sigh) that "the best is the enemy of the good," and I definitely need to put that backwards on several tee-shirts and then stare at myself in the mirror until I get it.
So I have a curious brain, and I'm learning to trust my instincts, and I want to play. And learn. And so that means shopping at new stores, making new dishes, figuring out a way to spend a Wednesday night that doesn't involve turning on the TV. I'm experimenting with style. I'm thinking outside the nine-to-five box. And it feels invigorating, like maybe, I was waiting for this the whole time.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Nia Now
Nia classes have been blowing my mind lately. For those who don't know - 99% of everybody ever - Nia is a fitness class based on a few different styles: dance, martial arts, some yoga-style moves thrown in there. It's cardio with choreography, not unlike, say, a step aerobics class. But unlike at a step class, if you screw the pooch on the moves in Nia, the instructor is likely to laugh gently and say something like, "Yes, you just do you!" whereas in step aerobics, the instructor will scowl and say, "Even babies can do this! Harder! FASTER" and then you just want to crawl under the elliptical machine and die.
Nia originally stood for no-impact aerobics, and is generally practiced by well-heeled white ladies who don't have day jobs - many of the Nia classes currently on offer in Toronto are held at 10 AM on Tuesdays or 5:10 on Thursdays, when us drudgers are drudging home. There are a lot of Lululemon pants at Nia. There are a lot of natural greys, a lot of warm hugs. I sound like I'm making fun of that, but I'm really not.
I always feel a little silly at the beginning of a Nia class: there's a lot of free-dancing, which, for me, involves hopping around and feeling stiff. Then we start to flow into the choreography, much of which is intense enough to make me sweat. Vocalization is encouraged, so there are plenty of zips and growls as we move through a class. The music is soaring, bassy, earth-mother, primal. By the end of a class, I feel emotionally open and physically powerful.
Growing up, I was never much of a dancer - I took a couple jazz dance classes in middle school, and the outfits we had to wear for the final recital (black bodysuits and blazing yellow sateen raincoats; we were dancing to "It's Raining Men") were humiliating and made me feel pudgy. My sister has always been the dancer, since she's lithe and flexible and confident. The shame I felt over my body was enormous; although I love, and have always loved, moving to music, performing dance was just never something I enjoyed. I felt singled out and shamed. All eyes on me.
Besides, there isn't a lot of joy in working out sometimes. If you're in the best shape, fitness classes are a maintenance need. And if you're trying to lose weight or tone yourself up? Forget it. Each step reminds me of where I'm not, and how much work I need to do to get there. I've left aerobics classes on the verge of tears, unable to enjoy myself because I was busy hating that my roly-poly body needed cardio in the first place. It's self-defeating.
Nia changes the rules for me. It's making me feel empowered in my body (practically a cliche, but cliches are lined with truth). It makes me actually kind of love my body - because Nia is based on what you want to/can do in the moment, I feel less bad if (actually, inevitably when) I fail to meet the instructor's benchmark of "how it should be done." Instead, I'm grooving. Still sweating, still working out, but not left out. And my body loves it too. I can feel how my muscles have become more toned, how I feel flushed and pink after a good class. Moreover, I feel grateful for my body - imperfect as it may be - and, miraculously, at peace with it. It makes me feel at good.
Nia originally stood for no-impact aerobics, and is generally practiced by well-heeled white ladies who don't have day jobs - many of the Nia classes currently on offer in Toronto are held at 10 AM on Tuesdays or 5:10 on Thursdays, when us drudgers are drudging home. There are a lot of Lululemon pants at Nia. There are a lot of natural greys, a lot of warm hugs. I sound like I'm making fun of that, but I'm really not.
I always feel a little silly at the beginning of a Nia class: there's a lot of free-dancing, which, for me, involves hopping around and feeling stiff. Then we start to flow into the choreography, much of which is intense enough to make me sweat. Vocalization is encouraged, so there are plenty of zips and growls as we move through a class. The music is soaring, bassy, earth-mother, primal. By the end of a class, I feel emotionally open and physically powerful.
Growing up, I was never much of a dancer - I took a couple jazz dance classes in middle school, and the outfits we had to wear for the final recital (black bodysuits and blazing yellow sateen raincoats; we were dancing to "It's Raining Men") were humiliating and made me feel pudgy. My sister has always been the dancer, since she's lithe and flexible and confident. The shame I felt over my body was enormous; although I love, and have always loved, moving to music, performing dance was just never something I enjoyed. I felt singled out and shamed. All eyes on me.
Besides, there isn't a lot of joy in working out sometimes. If you're in the best shape, fitness classes are a maintenance need. And if you're trying to lose weight or tone yourself up? Forget it. Each step reminds me of where I'm not, and how much work I need to do to get there. I've left aerobics classes on the verge of tears, unable to enjoy myself because I was busy hating that my roly-poly body needed cardio in the first place. It's self-defeating.
Nia changes the rules for me. It's making me feel empowered in my body (practically a cliche, but cliches are lined with truth). It makes me actually kind of love my body - because Nia is based on what you want to/can do in the moment, I feel less bad if (actually, inevitably when) I fail to meet the instructor's benchmark of "how it should be done." Instead, I'm grooving. Still sweating, still working out, but not left out. And my body loves it too. I can feel how my muscles have become more toned, how I feel flushed and pink after a good class. Moreover, I feel grateful for my body - imperfect as it may be - and, miraculously, at peace with it. It makes me feel at good.
Friday, January 25, 2013
"Um, miss? Your hair?"
The following is the text of a monologue/stand-up comedy routine/story that I told as part of Pressgang Theatre's ongoing storytelling nights. The theme of the most recent evening, where I performed this story, was "Love vs. Smut," a collection of funny, embarrassing, unusual and otherwise strange romantic stories. Please imagine yourself slightly drunk, in a warm room full of well-dressed strangers, laughing loudly.
About five years ago, I was dumped. Like, D-U-M-P dumped. Hard. And there’s this thing that happens, when you get dumped hard, where you go out and have what clinicians call, “a slutty phase.”
So there are two driving forces in a slutty phase. First is the need to prove to yourself that you’re still viable, you’re still attractive, you’re still sexy - people definitely want to put their tongue in your mouth! The other is proving those same things to your ex, which you do by sending them a psychic message every time you make out someone., Something along the lines of “Neener neener, I won.” So you go out, and try to pick up basically every piece of tail you see. Hot, ugly, old, young, male, female, doesn’t matter. Every cree, every colour, every race - it’s quantity over quality, for sure. Incidentally, this is how I ended up making out with a guy who only had one hand - literally, the other hand was a hook - which my friend would be happy to tell you all about if you buy them a drink after the show.
And what’s the engine that drives our slutty periods? It’s booze. Alcohol makes things so much better - you feel more attractive, your standards are lower, and, at least in my case, I actually believe that my crazy psychic messages to my ex are getting through.
So when my friends ask if I want to go to a house party, I’m like, Duh, because house parties combine alcohol with attractive strangers, which means, you know, the game’s afoot. So I go to this house party and I promptly spike my red wine with gin, because that’s the kind of night I’m going to be having, and then I have like seven more drinks, and then I get out on the dance floor, because this party has a dance floor, just like the parties on TV. And I’m dancing, which, when you’re drunk on gin-spiked wine, is basically just putting your head down and throwing your ass around, when I see this guy. And he’s looking at me.
So I dance over to him, and then we’re dancing, and then we’re touching, and then we’re grinding, and then we’re making out. And we do this for a while, and I’m pleased, because he’s hot, and I’m kissing someone. Score!
Before he takes off, we trade names - this is what you do, in the age of Facebook, you trade names with the promise to “friend” the other person. And before he leaves, he says, I want to take you out sometime. And I realize that, despite the fact that I’ve been making out with a metric shit-ton of strangers, I haven’t actually been on a real date since my boyfriend left me. This feels like a big deal. It’s a chance to prove to myself that I’m still charming and dateable, and also send out a doozy of a psychic message.
We go to the late and not lamented Las Iguanas, on Bloor Street. It’s dark, pool tables in the back, booths along the wall; the vibe was sort of cheerfully divey but also had the possibility for romance. Sort of. If you squinted. We hop into a booth, ask the waitress for burritos and beer, and start chatting.
The date is horrible. It’s totally clear from the first few moments that we have nothing in common and no chemistry, and so we’re reduced to the kind of inane banter that you perform at office parties where you get introduced to, like, your boss’s cousin and have literally nothing to say. “Oh, yeah, I also....have parents. They’re...people.” And it’s awful, but we’ve ordered food, like idiots, so we’re basically holding each other hostage because we’re trying to be polite.
And, to be fair, my dating instincts aren’t so rusty that I’m not trying to salvage something out of this. I’m like, gamely interrogating him about where he grew up, and how he likes studying engineering, and oh, you’re from Mississauga, and you live with your parents? How...unique! So there are a couple dynamics working at cross-purposes here: the desire to be found sexy, the need to not be rejected, the wish that somewhere, somehow, my ex knows about this date and is sighing in regret; all these things are working against my desire to flee the fucking scene before I slit my own wrists just so we have something to talk about.
Now obviously I have a lot of hair. And I tend to use it as kind of a sexy prop in dating situations: I’d like, pile it all on top of my head, and then let unfurl in this sexy cascade, you know, put it, up it down, play with it, that kind of thing. It is totally not original, but hey, I was working what God gave me.
And so, at one point, I piled and then released, and it fell down the back of the booth. Unbeknownst to me, there was a table behind me, and that table had a candle on it, and so I basically dipped the bottom third of my hair into the flame.
I did not realise that I had done this until good Samaritans who were choking on the stench of my burning hair leaned over and said, “Um, miss? Your hair? Is on...fire? And it was. It totally was. I pulled the hair around so I could look at it, and I sort of patted myself out - like I’m Miss America, I’m looking I’m fondling a little sash or something. “Oh, haha, I AM on fire! How droll!” So, I put myself out, and excused myself and went to the bathroom, and did what any normal human girl would do, which is have a cry. I had cry, in the crummy basement bathroom on this horrible date where I had just set my hair on fire. Then, like a champion, I squared my shoulders, wiped my eyes, and went back upstairs to finish the date.
The worst part was, it continued to be horrible. My self-immolation had not broken the ice one bit - he was still stilted and awkward as can be. It was, hands down, the worst date I’ve ever been on, even before the whole flammable hairdo episode.
He walked me home after dinner, gave me a peck on the cheek, and asked, incredibly, if I wanted to go out again sometime.
To my everlasting credit, I didn’t laugh in his face; to my everlasting shame, past the embarrassment of setting myself on fire, and the conviction that somewhere, my ex was laughing at me for hitching my wagon to this winner’s star for the night, what I said was... “You know, I just don’t think there’s a spark.”
About five years ago, I was dumped. Like, D-U-M-P dumped. Hard. And there’s this thing that happens, when you get dumped hard, where you go out and have what clinicians call, “a slutty phase.”
So there are two driving forces in a slutty phase. First is the need to prove to yourself that you’re still viable, you’re still attractive, you’re still sexy - people definitely want to put their tongue in your mouth! The other is proving those same things to your ex, which you do by sending them a psychic message every time you make out someone., Something along the lines of “Neener neener, I won.” So you go out, and try to pick up basically every piece of tail you see. Hot, ugly, old, young, male, female, doesn’t matter. Every cree, every colour, every race - it’s quantity over quality, for sure. Incidentally, this is how I ended up making out with a guy who only had one hand - literally, the other hand was a hook - which my friend would be happy to tell you all about if you buy them a drink after the show.
And what’s the engine that drives our slutty periods? It’s booze. Alcohol makes things so much better - you feel more attractive, your standards are lower, and, at least in my case, I actually believe that my crazy psychic messages to my ex are getting through.
So when my friends ask if I want to go to a house party, I’m like, Duh, because house parties combine alcohol with attractive strangers, which means, you know, the game’s afoot. So I go to this house party and I promptly spike my red wine with gin, because that’s the kind of night I’m going to be having, and then I have like seven more drinks, and then I get out on the dance floor, because this party has a dance floor, just like the parties on TV. And I’m dancing, which, when you’re drunk on gin-spiked wine, is basically just putting your head down and throwing your ass around, when I see this guy. And he’s looking at me.
So I dance over to him, and then we’re dancing, and then we’re touching, and then we’re grinding, and then we’re making out. And we do this for a while, and I’m pleased, because he’s hot, and I’m kissing someone. Score!
Before he takes off, we trade names - this is what you do, in the age of Facebook, you trade names with the promise to “friend” the other person. And before he leaves, he says, I want to take you out sometime. And I realize that, despite the fact that I’ve been making out with a metric shit-ton of strangers, I haven’t actually been on a real date since my boyfriend left me. This feels like a big deal. It’s a chance to prove to myself that I’m still charming and dateable, and also send out a doozy of a psychic message.
We go to the late and not lamented Las Iguanas, on Bloor Street. It’s dark, pool tables in the back, booths along the wall; the vibe was sort of cheerfully divey but also had the possibility for romance. Sort of. If you squinted. We hop into a booth, ask the waitress for burritos and beer, and start chatting.
The date is horrible. It’s totally clear from the first few moments that we have nothing in common and no chemistry, and so we’re reduced to the kind of inane banter that you perform at office parties where you get introduced to, like, your boss’s cousin and have literally nothing to say. “Oh, yeah, I also....have parents. They’re...people.” And it’s awful, but we’ve ordered food, like idiots, so we’re basically holding each other hostage because we’re trying to be polite.
And, to be fair, my dating instincts aren’t so rusty that I’m not trying to salvage something out of this. I’m like, gamely interrogating him about where he grew up, and how he likes studying engineering, and oh, you’re from Mississauga, and you live with your parents? How...unique! So there are a couple dynamics working at cross-purposes here: the desire to be found sexy, the need to not be rejected, the wish that somewhere, somehow, my ex knows about this date and is sighing in regret; all these things are working against my desire to flee the fucking scene before I slit my own wrists just so we have something to talk about.
Now obviously I have a lot of hair. And I tend to use it as kind of a sexy prop in dating situations: I’d like, pile it all on top of my head, and then let unfurl in this sexy cascade, you know, put it, up it down, play with it, that kind of thing. It is totally not original, but hey, I was working what God gave me.
And so, at one point, I piled and then released, and it fell down the back of the booth. Unbeknownst to me, there was a table behind me, and that table had a candle on it, and so I basically dipped the bottom third of my hair into the flame.
I did not realise that I had done this until good Samaritans who were choking on the stench of my burning hair leaned over and said, “Um, miss? Your hair? Is on...fire? And it was. It totally was. I pulled the hair around so I could look at it, and I sort of patted myself out - like I’m Miss America, I’m looking I’m fondling a little sash or something. “Oh, haha, I AM on fire! How droll!” So, I put myself out, and excused myself and went to the bathroom, and did what any normal human girl would do, which is have a cry. I had cry, in the crummy basement bathroom on this horrible date where I had just set my hair on fire. Then, like a champion, I squared my shoulders, wiped my eyes, and went back upstairs to finish the date.
The worst part was, it continued to be horrible. My self-immolation had not broken the ice one bit - he was still stilted and awkward as can be. It was, hands down, the worst date I’ve ever been on, even before the whole flammable hairdo episode.
He walked me home after dinner, gave me a peck on the cheek, and asked, incredibly, if I wanted to go out again sometime.
To my everlasting credit, I didn’t laugh in his face; to my everlasting shame, past the embarrassment of setting myself on fire, and the conviction that somewhere, my ex was laughing at me for hitching my wagon to this winner’s star for the night, what I said was... “You know, I just don’t think there’s a spark.”
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Dressing for the End of the World
Rachel and I recently made mood boards to try to jump-start our style - we both feel like we've gotten stuck in a jeans/t-shirt/hoodie/cleavage out/hide the belly rut, which means a lot of empire waists and jersey knit. And I've been slowly trying to clean out my closet, getting rid of ugly Christmas sweaters and hedging my bets on aspirational pants that I bought a size too small with the idea that I would lose enough weight to fit into them....one day.
ANYWAY, we got upscale fashion magazines and cut out pictures of outfits we liked, because we are teenagers. Eventually, I got bored with just the outfits and figuring out what a post-apocalyptic farm girl might wear, and started working on where she might actually wear it. Enter the cacti, and the vintage sci-fi book covers, and the skull masks and the hair cages. Enter the vinyl crop tops and the galaxy leggings, the cotton sundresses and the protective scarfs. Enter braids - so many braids! - and sky-blue hair and teenaged boys ganged together under powerlines as an unlit city rises behind them. Enter roving packs of cyclists. Enter juicy peaches plucked directly from the trees, campfires, and eyes squinted against the dust.
Are you into it? I know I am.
FACE: I love a good smoky eye as much as the next girl - maybe more! - but one perk of wearing red eyeliner is that you look like you've been crying, or are high, which can make you look mysterious and brave when it's really just repurposing your lipliner in unorthodox ways. Also, gold eyeliner is the very best if you have blue eyes. After the apocalypse, you'll definitely want to invest in a good sunscreen and moisturizer, especially if now you have to grow your own food in the hot, non-indoor sun.
CLOTHES: Durability is key. Skip Forever 21 and H&M because their clothes are landfills waiting to happen (the only exceptions are the tank tops: so flimsy that you'll feel like you're topless, which is great in the heat). Invest in some good indie designers, who often oversee most production steps and wear their own clothes. I've been obsessed with two designers lately: Pipsqueak Chapeau for their cotten/linen flowy stuff, and Plastik Wrap for their amazing goth-ish clubwear. I realize that these clothes don't go together, but in the apocalypse, you are the new Anna Wintour!
I adore hakama pants, tight tanks, cross-body bags, apron dresses, leggings, hoods (...just hoods), small jackets, boatneck shirts, miniskirts, legwarmers, handknits, flat boots and lots of black. You may find that you like a different style - maybe you're going to go with "eccentric water collector," "fierce shotgun-totin' mama" (usually accessorized with a dirty baby or two), or "dazed Bay-streeter" for your look. I like clothes you could hike in, or attend a hostile corporate takeover board meeting in, preferably in the same day. I like clothes that stand up to a bit of wearing, not needing to be replaced every season. And, in the post-apocalyptic mall raids, all the good stuff will go first. Stock up now.
ACCESSORIES: Start with the basics: sunhats, sunglasses, light scarves to block the sun in the summer months; wool socks, thick scarves, gloves, and legwarmers for the brisker seasons. And while you might have to get used to pooling resources, a good bag for you to keep your own personal stuff is always a smart idea. Stuff it with your favourite book, irreplaceable family photos, and your sanity-totem (mine is a baby blanket!) to help adjust to our horrible new world. Wear it constantly. Fill it with snacks. Sleep with it as your pillow.
TRANSPORT: I've done a lot of thinking about the post-apocalyptic world - probably more than is strictly necessary, but reading and re-reading The Stand and Y: The Last Man a dozen times will do that to a person. I totally believe that bicycles will become the cars of the apocalypse: they're quiet, easy to repair or replace, don't require fuel, and can be kitted out to haul all your stuff. Plus, biking keeps you fit! Start now, and you won't be complaining as your convoy has to hump itself over the Niagara Escarpment - you'll have the thighs of a champion!
SKILLS: It would seem like fashion-related skills would be the first to get chucked in the apocalypse, but I beg to differ. Makers and fixers will be in high demand in a time of upheaval. Folks who can knit, sew, repair leather, make soap, make sunscreen, and have other skin-care and clothing knowledge bases won't go unnoticed. Bike mechanics and farmers will also be in demand; if you're not careful, you'll end up tethered to those annoying anarcho-freegan bike punks who hang out your favourite dive bar. Don't let that happen. Learn to DIY.
While I don't quite believe that the apocalypse is coming in our lifetime, or any time soon, thought exercises like these can be useful in defining a sense of style. If you found yourself recoiling from the idea of calloused hands and sunburned shoulders, perhaps your fashion template is more in line with "1970s psychelia groupies/hazy drug-den" or maybe "1980s NYC lesbian punk rocker." Don't let piddly details like gender or era stand in your way - if you loved the look of the just-joshing frat boys that the Beastie Boys embodied in 1987, get on it! Take cues from images you love - cacti on a windowsill, a sweaty moshpit, the Australian outback - and incorporate their colour and mood into your outfits. Let yourself fail. And play - I mean, it's only clothes, right? See you at the end of the world!
ANYWAY, we got upscale fashion magazines and cut out pictures of outfits we liked, because we are teenagers. Eventually, I got bored with just the outfits and figuring out what a post-apocalyptic farm girl might wear, and started working on where she might actually wear it. Enter the cacti, and the vintage sci-fi book covers, and the skull masks and the hair cages. Enter the vinyl crop tops and the galaxy leggings, the cotton sundresses and the protective scarfs. Enter braids - so many braids! - and sky-blue hair and teenaged boys ganged together under powerlines as an unlit city rises behind them. Enter roving packs of cyclists. Enter juicy peaches plucked directly from the trees, campfires, and eyes squinted against the dust.
Are you into it? I know I am.
FACE: I love a good smoky eye as much as the next girl - maybe more! - but one perk of wearing red eyeliner is that you look like you've been crying, or are high, which can make you look mysterious and brave when it's really just repurposing your lipliner in unorthodox ways. Also, gold eyeliner is the very best if you have blue eyes. After the apocalypse, you'll definitely want to invest in a good sunscreen and moisturizer, especially if now you have to grow your own food in the hot, non-indoor sun.
CLOTHES: Durability is key. Skip Forever 21 and H&M because their clothes are landfills waiting to happen (the only exceptions are the tank tops: so flimsy that you'll feel like you're topless, which is great in the heat). Invest in some good indie designers, who often oversee most production steps and wear their own clothes. I've been obsessed with two designers lately: Pipsqueak Chapeau for their cotten/linen flowy stuff, and Plastik Wrap for their amazing goth-ish clubwear. I realize that these clothes don't go together, but in the apocalypse, you are the new Anna Wintour!
I adore hakama pants, tight tanks, cross-body bags, apron dresses, leggings, hoods (...just hoods), small jackets, boatneck shirts, miniskirts, legwarmers, handknits, flat boots and lots of black. You may find that you like a different style - maybe you're going to go with "eccentric water collector," "fierce shotgun-totin' mama" (usually accessorized with a dirty baby or two), or "dazed Bay-streeter" for your look. I like clothes you could hike in, or attend a hostile corporate takeover board meeting in, preferably in the same day. I like clothes that stand up to a bit of wearing, not needing to be replaced every season. And, in the post-apocalyptic mall raids, all the good stuff will go first. Stock up now.
ACCESSORIES: Start with the basics: sunhats, sunglasses, light scarves to block the sun in the summer months; wool socks, thick scarves, gloves, and legwarmers for the brisker seasons. And while you might have to get used to pooling resources, a good bag for you to keep your own personal stuff is always a smart idea. Stuff it with your favourite book, irreplaceable family photos, and your sanity-totem (mine is a baby blanket!) to help adjust to our horrible new world. Wear it constantly. Fill it with snacks. Sleep with it as your pillow.
TRANSPORT: I've done a lot of thinking about the post-apocalyptic world - probably more than is strictly necessary, but reading and re-reading The Stand and Y: The Last Man a dozen times will do that to a person. I totally believe that bicycles will become the cars of the apocalypse: they're quiet, easy to repair or replace, don't require fuel, and can be kitted out to haul all your stuff. Plus, biking keeps you fit! Start now, and you won't be complaining as your convoy has to hump itself over the Niagara Escarpment - you'll have the thighs of a champion!
SKILLS: It would seem like fashion-related skills would be the first to get chucked in the apocalypse, but I beg to differ. Makers and fixers will be in high demand in a time of upheaval. Folks who can knit, sew, repair leather, make soap, make sunscreen, and have other skin-care and clothing knowledge bases won't go unnoticed. Bike mechanics and farmers will also be in demand; if you're not careful, you'll end up tethered to those annoying anarcho-freegan bike punks who hang out your favourite dive bar. Don't let that happen. Learn to DIY.
While I don't quite believe that the apocalypse is coming in our lifetime, or any time soon, thought exercises like these can be useful in defining a sense of style. If you found yourself recoiling from the idea of calloused hands and sunburned shoulders, perhaps your fashion template is more in line with "1970s psychelia groupies/hazy drug-den" or maybe "1980s NYC lesbian punk rocker." Don't let piddly details like gender or era stand in your way - if you loved the look of the just-joshing frat boys that the Beastie Boys embodied in 1987, get on it! Take cues from images you love - cacti on a windowsill, a sweaty moshpit, the Australian outback - and incorporate their colour and mood into your outfits. Let yourself fail. And play - I mean, it's only clothes, right? See you at the end of the world!
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Resos
You know, I never did get around to figuring out my new year's resolutions, and almost two weeks into January, I'm not even sure if we're still doing them or not. Are we? Can someone let me know? I would hate to lose out on a really good opportunity to feel bad about my choices.
To me, NYRs are a to-do list all dressed up: I'm going to quit smoking, lose 20 pounds, write more letters, actually email people back, and be nicer to strangers on the streetcar. and yet, by February 1, I'm on the couch eating Reese's Peanut Butter Cups in my muscle tee (not pictured: actual muscles), trying to google which season I am instead of job hunting. I know that people who publicize their resolutions are more likely to both succeed and continue to succeed six months down the line, and I'm certainly not so hubristic that I'm going to say "I'm perfect!" on the internet (not pictured: anyone perfect). But I also desperately wanted to get off the hate-my-body treadmill that NYRs often seems to inspire.
So BIRT, as the board-director kids say:
To me, NYRs are a to-do list all dressed up: I'm going to quit smoking, lose 20 pounds, write more letters, actually email people back, and be nicer to strangers on the streetcar. and yet, by February 1, I'm on the couch eating Reese's Peanut Butter Cups in my muscle tee (not pictured: actual muscles), trying to google which season I am instead of job hunting. I know that people who publicize their resolutions are more likely to both succeed and continue to succeed six months down the line, and I'm certainly not so hubristic that I'm going to say "I'm perfect!" on the internet (not pictured: anyone perfect). But I also desperately wanted to get off the hate-my-body treadmill that NYRs often seems to inspire.
So BIRT, as the board-director kids say:
- Find and attend a Nia class I love. Nia is a dance/exercise form that combines martial arts, free-dance, mind/body integration, and the chance to throw my elbows around to Enya's mid-tempo beat. I love it. I am too inflexible for yoga, I'm a slow and plodding runner (not that that stops me from getting out there - I actually have fallen in love with running with M, which is nice), but Nia's emphasis on good body feelings is right up my alley. My mom got me into it, and while there are great Nia instructors in Stratford, Toronto seems to have a dearth.
- Continue and re-commit to the paleo diet. I've cut wayyyy down on grains for the last six months, and dudes, it has changed me. I am lighter. My poops are better. I sleep better. My acne has basically cleared itself up. I feel awesome. But there are things that simply can't be replaced with zucchini noodles, like delicious, chewy ramen, and red-velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. And so I face a choice: either learn to live without, or figure out the replacements that make me just as happy. Sure, there's no ramen in the paleo diet...but there's a million pounds of kimchi. There are no cupcakes, but the occasional meringue or six isn't going to break the bank.
- My work contract is up in a few weeks, and I feel...stressed. Not quite panicked, but you know that rictus grin you put on in moments of hold-it-together-and-cry-later-in-the-bathroom? That's me! So I resolve to stay calm. Things will work out. They don't even have debtor's prisons anymore...right? (Don't answer that!)
- Make more things with my hands. I love crafting and knitting, but instead of doing them, I spend hours glued to little screens. Crafting means an actual step back, a physical shake-off of routine, until the act itself becomes routine. But I recently made a hat, and you know what? I felt damned proud of myself. It felt good. But knit hats - and time for knitting hats - don't just fall out of the sky.
- Be more open. I wrote recently about struggling with envy and jealousy, especially with my female friends and acquaintances. That post did wonders to help me see past the feelings and actually connect mentally with those women - to see them as humans with their own foibles and internal messes - and as much work as that is, it does seem worth it. I'd also like to figure out how to approach close friend who are weirding me out, because there are a couple backburner issues that seem close to boiling over, and it makes me nervous and sad.
- Write more! I'm starting a writer's group and attending another, and writing for a bunch of different places, which feels good. But I would love, as always, more. I'm greedy that way.
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