A few months ago, I went in for my good-Canadian routine physical, the kind of thing that all women are supposed to get once a year to ensure they're not growing horrible little cells or they haven't contracted an STI. I usually go to a pretty blonde doctor, one who looks very J. Crew and healthily tanned, but this year she had mysteriously vanished and was replaced by a woman who weighed about ninety pounds and had a ponytail. If not for the wrinkles, I'd have thought she was sixteen. Call me crazy, but I like my doctors to look like they might be old enough to be high school graduates, let alone done with all that pesky medical training that comes after.
Anyway, she took my blood pressure and made some brusque small talk ("You're an English major? Huh."), and then I lay down on the paper-covered table and she got down to business. For those of you not blessed with a vagina, or who are too scared to go on the regular, a physical is a minor sort of thing. The doctor spends about five minutes with a speculum, another 90 seconds using her hands, and then "you might feel a pinch," which is the swab being done. It actually feels nothing like a pinch. It's weirdly indescribable, although the closest I might come would be "stabby, but in miniature."
Usually, the whole thing is done in, like, ten minutes, and you wipe the lube off your lady bits and put your pants back on and spend the rest of the day feeling just a little bit weird. This time, though, there was a deviation from the script.
"Are you pregnant?" she asked, hand firmly ensconced in my vaginal canal. Immediately, the mental klaxons started blaring.
"Um, no?" I said. Because my brain had immediately gone into panic mode (which renders it into a totally unhelpful jell-o-like state of affairs), I wasn't immediately able to say it like I meant it. So she asked me again, and I repeated "No!" only this time I sounded panicky. I sounded like I was lying. About being pregnant. To a doctor.
"Well," she said, as she took her hand out of my body (note to the vaginaless and the afraid-of-doctors: that is exactly as weird as it sounds), "your uterus is big. I'm going to order some tests." I shrugged. I was a student. Tests don't scare me. Bring 'em on, I said. I'll get all A's. Big uterus? Pfft. Maybe it's big because it can barely contain all my awesomeness. Why do I carry my awesomeness in my uterus? Dunno, but it's awesome!
There was an ultrasound, which was basically a ultrasonic dildo pinging around in my bits, and no less than three technicians who were concerned at their inability to find my left ovary. They kept coming into my little fabric-walled cubicle, peering at the monitor, looking at me, and then leaving to get someone who hadn't left their X-Ray Specs at home. I left feeling unsettled, mostly because I didn't fit the demographic in the waiting room: youngish and pregnant, or older and cancer-bald. Me and my big uterus and my AWOL ovary slunk outside and had a little cry on the steps of the building, because apparently things were not okay in there.
When I went back to the doctor a week later, she was mystified. "This isn't really what I deal with," she told me, which is fine. It's not really what I deal with either. I asked about cancer. She sort of shrugged and was like, "Er, probably not. But I'm not promising you anything," which my jell-o brain interpreted as yet more reasons to freak out. While she was saying things about follow-up appointments, my brain was yelling "YOU HAVE CANCER, IT'S EVERYWHERE, IT'S ON YOUR HAIR, HOLY SHIT," so it was sort of hard to hear. My brain apparently reacts to the possibilty of cancer the same way it reacts to getting pooped on by a bird.
I went to the gynecologist, a person who does deal with this shit. He was like, "Well, there's something in there, but I can't tell what it is." He then threw a bunch of words with -oma and -oid on the end of them into the conversation, but I was so addled I could barely sit up. My friend Liz, who just got accepted into nursing school and who was my number one pick for dealing with this kind of medical mystery tour, was nodding and asking questions and being a grownup, while I was clawing at the neckline of my shirt and turning gray. Turns out, he doesn't know what it is either. He was like, "Surgery will tell us!" which I said yes to, and then he mentioned that it's the size of a grapefruit.
Next time you're at the grocery store, pick up a grapefruit. It doesn't have to be one of those Floridian monsters; just a regular old grapefruit will do. Now imagine this thing embedded in your abdomen, two inches to the left and one inch down from your navel. Weird, yeah? After I left that appointment and some of the blood came back into my head (and cried a bunch more), I went out and bought a grapefruit. I was going to eat it, to show my abdominal lump who was boss, but that idea grossed me right out. I eventually threw it away.
I'm having a hard time conceptualizing this mass. While it probably looks fairly gross, what I'm picturing is, like, a Diet Coke can just wedged in there. Or maybe a lost and hibernating bat. Something foreign. Something sort of repulsive and sort of cute at the same time. Conceptualizing the mass in vaguely gross and hilarious ways is distracting me from thinking about the surgery. I'm oscillating between pretending to be blase about the whole thing and feeling fucking terrified. I've never had anesthetic before. I've never had morphine before. The nurses told me I couldn't ride my bike for a month after, which, like, hello: that's what I do. The only time I've ever had stitches is when I ran my face into a wall playing tag at a friend's house. I'm not afraid of blood or pain or stitches or throwing up in the recovery room; I'm afraid of feeling crappy, forever.
My Bill Cosby pudding brain keeps shrieking about all the bad shit that could happen, and that is getting super tedious. My more rational and tender and, frankly, better brainparts all keep trying to remind me that this is getting dealt with. The lump, whatever it is (I'm rooting for bat, just because it would freak my gyno right out), was found. The surgery, whatever that's going to be like, is happening soon (August 12!). The shitty feelings of post-surgical recovery are fast approaching, but that means they'll also be going away that much sooner. And the fear of the unknown will disappear, because these worries will become known entities.
I know this is long. Thanks for reading. Sometimes it - the lump, the fear, the story - just needs to come out.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
Thank Someone It's Someday
The whole concept of Thank God It's Friday kind of cracks me up. In Dubai, the standard work week and deity are different (Sunday through Thursday and Allah, respectively), leading its office drones to proclaim TAIT! As a waitress, my work week runs from Tuesday through Saturday; since Monday is traditionally a nothing-doin' kind of day in Stratford (come for the theater, stay for the mind-numbing dark days!), most of the bistros close. This tends to result in the bars in town having boozy Sunday nights, as all the waitstaff in town shamble out to get epically drunk, a by-product of having to deal with demanding elderly customers and psychotic kitchen staff all week.
However, even though TGIF doesn't apply to me and my service-industry brothers and sisters, I appreciate the idea of a marker for the end of the work week. When I was in elementary and middle school, ABC used to run the TGIF Friday-night lineup, which was a great way for tweens to blow off some steam at the end of a hormonally fraught week of school. It was like, science, sex ed, horrible lunch period of existential despair and unpopularity, French, math, interminable Guantanamo Bay bus ride, Boy Meets World. Ahhh. The comforting world of Cory and sexy Topanga, narcotizing the week away. Bliss.
There's even a restaurant chain devoted to the idea of making Fridays into a celebratory casting-off of the work week. Granted, I hate T.G.I.Fridays and its plastic food, but they've absolutely been able to expand the concept of the Friday night treat over seven nights: oversweetened daiquiri slurries paired with jalapeno cheese poppers have, for a large segment of the population, come to represent the "dinner" in the "dinner-and-a-movie" algorithm that is a wholesome Friday night. Or, in the case of some lucky Sydney office workers, a productive Friday afternoon.
I look forward to Friday, even though it's not the end of my work week, because everyone else seems so relieved. My parents kick back with a couple beers, my sister visibly relaxes, my friends regale me with stories about their work week. Some of my favourite websites leave little Hansel-and-Gretel treats to peruse over the weekend. Fridays means dinner out, a chance to stay up late and be on our own time. Friday at 5:01, the whole weekend is ahead of you, shining and glorious. I love that feeling of possibility. Maybe it's a movie night, or a date. Maybe it's a trip to the cottage for the weekend, or the city. Maybe it's a barbecue on the back deck, taking the kids to grandma's for the weekend, a whirlwind trip to Vegas, or simply just a chance to grab some takeout and watch some DVDs. May I suggest some Boy Meets World? It pairs very nicely with the start of a weekend. I know from experience.
However, even though TGIF doesn't apply to me and my service-industry brothers and sisters, I appreciate the idea of a marker for the end of the work week. When I was in elementary and middle school, ABC used to run the TGIF Friday-night lineup, which was a great way for tweens to blow off some steam at the end of a hormonally fraught week of school. It was like, science, sex ed, horrible lunch period of existential despair and unpopularity, French, math, interminable Guantanamo Bay bus ride, Boy Meets World. Ahhh. The comforting world of Cory and sexy Topanga, narcotizing the week away. Bliss.
There's even a restaurant chain devoted to the idea of making Fridays into a celebratory casting-off of the work week. Granted, I hate T.G.I.Fridays and its plastic food, but they've absolutely been able to expand the concept of the Friday night treat over seven nights: oversweetened daiquiri slurries paired with jalapeno cheese poppers have, for a large segment of the population, come to represent the "dinner" in the "dinner-and-a-movie" algorithm that is a wholesome Friday night. Or, in the case of some lucky Sydney office workers, a productive Friday afternoon.
I look forward to Friday, even though it's not the end of my work week, because everyone else seems so relieved. My parents kick back with a couple beers, my sister visibly relaxes, my friends regale me with stories about their work week. Some of my favourite websites leave little Hansel-and-Gretel treats to peruse over the weekend. Fridays means dinner out, a chance to stay up late and be on our own time. Friday at 5:01, the whole weekend is ahead of you, shining and glorious. I love that feeling of possibility. Maybe it's a movie night, or a date. Maybe it's a trip to the cottage for the weekend, or the city. Maybe it's a barbecue on the back deck, taking the kids to grandma's for the weekend, a whirlwind trip to Vegas, or simply just a chance to grab some takeout and watch some DVDs. May I suggest some Boy Meets World? It pairs very nicely with the start of a weekend. I know from experience.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Enemonic
The title of this blog, "Hipsters Are Boring," was originally intended as a slam against Chuck Klosterman, whose books made me totally crazy. Not even crazy in a grab-strangers-by-their-lapels way - I am that nuts about David Foster Wallace, Brian Lee O'Malley and Coke Zero, for all of which/whom I would organize parades - but not about Klosterman. Him, I would cheerfully fight. I've long felt that women have "people we don't like," while men get to have enemies (I think it's a holdover from that whole nice-woman bullshit from before my time), but this woman has some enemies.
I love a good loathing. Not mano-a-mano type stuff: that gets too weird. I have friends...former friends...people who exist in a gray zone between awkwardness and anger....but they're not really enemies, they're just people who make me sad. No, enemies are people who have wronged you on an epic, inarguable scale. People like, say, Margaret Atwood.
Atwood is my enemy because she gets all these accolades and awards, and as far as I can tell, is terrible. I don't mind terrible. I'm often terrible myself. But Atwood offends me because her prose is so often stolid and her dialogue reads like it was run through Babelfish, and yet she still gets nominated for everything under the sun. Kudos! Why? She still gets to look all coy, and offer her opinion on stuff, and people gobble it up like she's some sort of Canadian feminist oracle. Look. I know she looks like a witch (a look I embrace), and yeah, The Handmaid's Tale was sort of entertaining in a post-apocalyptic vein, but Oryx and Crake? Seriously? No. That book was weak sauce. And it gets taught, in real universities, with professors and shit. Like, it got treated like a real piece of action. And it's not.
Atwood and Klosterman are enemies of mine in a particular genre, "the writer who seriously for real doesn't deserve it," which, as a semi-sort-of-aw-shucks sort of writer, totally burns my brisket. There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of writers who inspire me. They produce work that isn't perfect (nothing ever is, right?) but manages to transcend imperfection to become some other kind of perfect. Their books are smart and sassy, lovely and lonely, gorgeous and gross, and they form my connective tissue. Atwood? Klosterman? Please. Their words fail to connect with me, and because they've been lauded as "must-reads" and we've been told that anyone who hasn't read them should just throw themselves on their swords right now, so much shame should we feel, I'm pissed off. I feel like that jerkwad who pointed out the emperor has no clothes.
What makes it worse is that maybe everyone else is looking at a bespoke suit, and I'm gazing at Klosterman's (probably) hairy ass. What I mean is, maybe I don't get it. And I'm the only one.
That's the thing about enemies. Each of my enemies has been carefully culled from a large pool of contenders, selected for their unique ability to totally enrage me. I might be alone in that rage. Mark G. Yudof, the president of the University of California school system, made my list because of a particularly douchey interview in the New York Times Magazine, but people clearly think he's worth talking to, or else the interview wouldn't have run in the first place. Michael Cera used to be on my enemies list, but he's been begrudgingly downgraded because of his involvement in the (fingers-crossed) awesome Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. His nebbishy one-note characters irritated me greatly; maybe in this flick he'll have grown some stones and figured out how to rock.
Enemies aren't easy to dismiss; there's a respect layered in with the irritation. While Atwood makes me roar with rage, I understand her appeal. Same with Chuck Klosterman. Both have a charismatic style and a look-at-me attitude that, as a writer, I wish I could tap into. Both writers, and Yudof, and Cera, have charm. They can work a room. They believe wholeheartedly that what they do is fucking amazeballs. Do I have that kinds of unshakable belief in my writing? No. I'm jealous of that, and professional jealousy makes me feel mentally ill and like I need to go eat my body weight in Dreamsicles. Hence the enemies list.
It's not like I'm going to show up on Atwood's doorstep with a homicidal glint in my eye. For one thing, after all those Dreamsicles, I'm not going anywhere fast. But also because, while I would love nothing more than to have all her books be revealed as the cause of obesity, and for scientists to discover that reading Klosterman while pregnant leads to stupid babies, I also need them. They make me push myself, just a little. They give me something to aspire to. If I ever get there, I'm sure some horrible quarter-life crisis blogger will be calling me terrible and uninspired, with bad writing and deep personal flaws. And then I'll just look over at my mantle full of "undeserved" awards and smile like the Cheshire cat. Much like Margaret Atwood does now.
I love a good loathing. Not mano-a-mano type stuff: that gets too weird. I have friends...former friends...people who exist in a gray zone between awkwardness and anger....but they're not really enemies, they're just people who make me sad. No, enemies are people who have wronged you on an epic, inarguable scale. People like, say, Margaret Atwood.
Atwood is my enemy because she gets all these accolades and awards, and as far as I can tell, is terrible. I don't mind terrible. I'm often terrible myself. But Atwood offends me because her prose is so often stolid and her dialogue reads like it was run through Babelfish, and yet she still gets nominated for everything under the sun. Kudos! Why? She still gets to look all coy, and offer her opinion on stuff, and people gobble it up like she's some sort of Canadian feminist oracle. Look. I know she looks like a witch (a look I embrace), and yeah, The Handmaid's Tale was sort of entertaining in a post-apocalyptic vein, but Oryx and Crake? Seriously? No. That book was weak sauce. And it gets taught, in real universities, with professors and shit. Like, it got treated like a real piece of action. And it's not.
Atwood and Klosterman are enemies of mine in a particular genre, "the writer who seriously for real doesn't deserve it," which, as a semi-sort-of-aw-shucks sort of writer, totally burns my brisket. There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of writers who inspire me. They produce work that isn't perfect (nothing ever is, right?) but manages to transcend imperfection to become some other kind of perfect. Their books are smart and sassy, lovely and lonely, gorgeous and gross, and they form my connective tissue. Atwood? Klosterman? Please. Their words fail to connect with me, and because they've been lauded as "must-reads" and we've been told that anyone who hasn't read them should just throw themselves on their swords right now, so much shame should we feel, I'm pissed off. I feel like that jerkwad who pointed out the emperor has no clothes.
What makes it worse is that maybe everyone else is looking at a bespoke suit, and I'm gazing at Klosterman's (probably) hairy ass. What I mean is, maybe I don't get it. And I'm the only one.
That's the thing about enemies. Each of my enemies has been carefully culled from a large pool of contenders, selected for their unique ability to totally enrage me. I might be alone in that rage. Mark G. Yudof, the president of the University of California school system, made my list because of a particularly douchey interview in the New York Times Magazine, but people clearly think he's worth talking to, or else the interview wouldn't have run in the first place. Michael Cera used to be on my enemies list, but he's been begrudgingly downgraded because of his involvement in the (fingers-crossed) awesome Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. His nebbishy one-note characters irritated me greatly; maybe in this flick he'll have grown some stones and figured out how to rock.
Enemies aren't easy to dismiss; there's a respect layered in with the irritation. While Atwood makes me roar with rage, I understand her appeal. Same with Chuck Klosterman. Both have a charismatic style and a look-at-me attitude that, as a writer, I wish I could tap into. Both writers, and Yudof, and Cera, have charm. They can work a room. They believe wholeheartedly that what they do is fucking amazeballs. Do I have that kinds of unshakable belief in my writing? No. I'm jealous of that, and professional jealousy makes me feel mentally ill and like I need to go eat my body weight in Dreamsicles. Hence the enemies list.
It's not like I'm going to show up on Atwood's doorstep with a homicidal glint in my eye. For one thing, after all those Dreamsicles, I'm not going anywhere fast. But also because, while I would love nothing more than to have all her books be revealed as the cause of obesity, and for scientists to discover that reading Klosterman while pregnant leads to stupid babies, I also need them. They make me push myself, just a little. They give me something to aspire to. If I ever get there, I'm sure some horrible quarter-life crisis blogger will be calling me terrible and uninspired, with bad writing and deep personal flaws. And then I'll just look over at my mantle full of "undeserved" awards and smile like the Cheshire cat. Much like Margaret Atwood does now.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Dirtbag Love
Dirtbags. I love 'em, even though they freak me out. There's something so intensely appealing about the I-don't-give-a-shit ethos of a true hipster dirtbag, something that can't be explained away. At the same time, there's something almost comically off-putting about dirtbags. The collision of the attraction and the repulsion? I can only conclude that hipster dirtbags are like magnets. Gross, dirty, awesome magnets.
I blame Vice magazine for the rise of the hipster dirtbag in the first place. Vice, with its influential "Dos and Don'ts" street fashion section, fronted this minigeneration of hipsters an aesthetic that celebrated street fighting, tank tops on men, scraggly hair, cheap beer, girls who shoplift, dancing all night in dingy bars, smoking cigarettes instead of eating food (food! It's delicious!), sleeping on a dirty mattress with no sheets, and rustbucket bikes. The vibe is a mishmash of DIY punk, lines of cheap coke, 7" vinyl, and binge drinking. Vice was a huge promoter of this party-til-you-puke way of living, which, to someone in their early 20s with no money and no real handle on how concepts like "jobs" and "bosses" work, is totally sexy.
To be honest, it's still kind of sexy. The appeal lies in the Peter Pan-ish qualities of the dudes and broads who eschew the corporate grind and treat their flophouse apartments like a clubhouse. The downside is, those folks often develop a crushing drug habit, a police record for petty offenses, or, more likely, just never throw away the crusty clothes. What's charming and hilarious at 22 is dodgy at 32 and downright icky at 52.
Caught in an in-between phase, I'm both attracted to the filthy hedonism and and put off by it. The hipster dirtbag has always been good for a fling, either romantic or criminal, but as I get a little bit older, I find myself questioning my motives re: dirtbaggery. Am I seriously attracted to dudes with drinking problems and bad haircuts? Or is this just a romancing of the stoned: these guys always seem to have an encyclopedic knowledge of early punk music, Danish bicycles, druggy memoirs from the 1960s, and whose nerdiness is patinaed with glamour. Plus, they don't seem to give a shit either way if people like them or not: self-confidence bordering on lunatic hubris can be very appealing.
But as I get older, I'm realizing the dirtbag is not a sustainable crush. For one, they seem to change addresses every few months, as the rent money gets spent on pitchers of beer and cigarettes. They rarely hold down jobs that pay actual paychecks, instead preferring to focus on their imaginary careers as "photographers" and working as dishwashers in restaurants. They make terrible boyfriends, since they have drug-fueled rages or crying jags that are prompted by their father's fourth marriage. It's impossible to take them anywhere - they want to clean up, but it's tough when all you have are Felix the Cat tee-shirts from 1979. And parents hate them, because the dirtbags have the kind of black-eye sex that makes parents lie away in the dark at night, worrying.
I love them: I want to cradle them in my arms, smooth their wretched hair, and whisper sweet nothings into their ears. "You'll be the next Ryan McGuinley, darling. You'll be the next Dov Charney." But I'm also so over them. I want to shake their skinny shoulders, beg them to get a steady paycheck, stop sleeping with the psychopathic Berliner who set fire to the photo of them with Joe Strummer, and just get with the program. Stop giving each other neck tattoos. Stop living off burritos - I know they're delicious, but eat a vegetable! You're going to get scurvy, and I'm going to laugh at you! Take your knowledge of the dirtbag years - all the cut corners and smart-ass charm - and apply it to your lives as grownups. Dirtbags, you can parlay your special skills and delights into a huge variety of lifestyles that don't require you to fall down the stairs drunk on a Monday. And then I can love you even more.
I blame Vice magazine for the rise of the hipster dirtbag in the first place. Vice, with its influential "Dos and Don'ts" street fashion section, fronted this minigeneration of hipsters an aesthetic that celebrated street fighting, tank tops on men, scraggly hair, cheap beer, girls who shoplift, dancing all night in dingy bars, smoking cigarettes instead of eating food (food! It's delicious!), sleeping on a dirty mattress with no sheets, and rustbucket bikes. The vibe is a mishmash of DIY punk, lines of cheap coke, 7" vinyl, and binge drinking. Vice was a huge promoter of this party-til-you-puke way of living, which, to someone in their early 20s with no money and no real handle on how concepts like "jobs" and "bosses" work, is totally sexy.
To be honest, it's still kind of sexy. The appeal lies in the Peter Pan-ish qualities of the dudes and broads who eschew the corporate grind and treat their flophouse apartments like a clubhouse. The downside is, those folks often develop a crushing drug habit, a police record for petty offenses, or, more likely, just never throw away the crusty clothes. What's charming and hilarious at 22 is dodgy at 32 and downright icky at 52.
Caught in an in-between phase, I'm both attracted to the filthy hedonism and and put off by it. The hipster dirtbag has always been good for a fling, either romantic or criminal, but as I get a little bit older, I find myself questioning my motives re: dirtbaggery. Am I seriously attracted to dudes with drinking problems and bad haircuts? Or is this just a romancing of the stoned: these guys always seem to have an encyclopedic knowledge of early punk music, Danish bicycles, druggy memoirs from the 1960s, and whose nerdiness is patinaed with glamour. Plus, they don't seem to give a shit either way if people like them or not: self-confidence bordering on lunatic hubris can be very appealing.
But as I get older, I'm realizing the dirtbag is not a sustainable crush. For one, they seem to change addresses every few months, as the rent money gets spent on pitchers of beer and cigarettes. They rarely hold down jobs that pay actual paychecks, instead preferring to focus on their imaginary careers as "photographers" and working as dishwashers in restaurants. They make terrible boyfriends, since they have drug-fueled rages or crying jags that are prompted by their father's fourth marriage. It's impossible to take them anywhere - they want to clean up, but it's tough when all you have are Felix the Cat tee-shirts from 1979. And parents hate them, because the dirtbags have the kind of black-eye sex that makes parents lie away in the dark at night, worrying.
I love them: I want to cradle them in my arms, smooth their wretched hair, and whisper sweet nothings into their ears. "You'll be the next Ryan McGuinley, darling. You'll be the next Dov Charney." But I'm also so over them. I want to shake their skinny shoulders, beg them to get a steady paycheck, stop sleeping with the psychopathic Berliner who set fire to the photo of them with Joe Strummer, and just get with the program. Stop giving each other neck tattoos. Stop living off burritos - I know they're delicious, but eat a vegetable! You're going to get scurvy, and I'm going to laugh at you! Take your knowledge of the dirtbag years - all the cut corners and smart-ass charm - and apply it to your lives as grownups. Dirtbags, you can parlay your special skills and delights into a huge variety of lifestyles that don't require you to fall down the stairs drunk on a Monday. And then I can love you even more.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Bored Of Directors
Allegedly, boredom is good for you - some sort of mental palate cleanser to help folks keep on their track of splitting atoms and designing wearable birdcages - but long stretches of it makes me want to put my head in the oven. Granted, my oven is electric, so it would just be me, mushing my face against the cheese stalagmites from a decade's worth of pizza prep, but at least it would be something to do.
I usually love being bored. I mean, "love" is kind of a strong word - but I sometimes sort of relish boredom. Tonight, I was at work, doling out an epic lean on the bar. I had served three customers and had already scrubbed the whole damned place from top to bottom. That restaurant is clean, yo. And as I was leaning, watching uninterested people bypass the heavy Italian food we serve in favour of menus that include exotic ingredients like vegetables, my mind was wandering. Thinking about if I should invest in more comic books and if so, which ones; how I'm going to decorate my new room in the fall; and what I would say if I ran into my ex-boyfriend (the fantasy usually involves me being much taller and leggier, while he's gone completely bald, developed a hunchback and has basically morphed into Richard III. In reality, what I usually say is "Guh," with a blush that makes me look like I'm having a coronary); how I can incorporate plants into my new room without having to water them; whether or not my head is too small for my body; and various places I'd like to make out with someone.
There's no rhyme or reason to a good boredom session. It's usually forced upon you, stranding you with nothing to do while you wait for the good people of Service Ontario to take your health card picture. Or at work, waiting for the customers, the orders, the system to come back online, or the photocopier to stop barfing toner all over the floor. These are moments devoid of tasks, so your brain stops paying attention to what it should be doing. Instead, your mind tells itself breathless little stories about things you might conceivably do one day, and for a split second, you've convinced yourself that you're the next Mags Atwood. Then your neurons snap back into place and you resume the nit-picky but tedious job of arranging the clip-art on the biweekly company updates. Atwood remains safe as the queen of Canlit and one of my personal enemies.
But boredom, day in and day out, is a major mental drain. I like the occasional boredom jag because usually my job, and life, is interesting enough that a little bit of dazed staring is a mini-vacation, not a permanent mode of existence.
Waitressing is considered "unskilled labour" in a lot of job markets, but I would love to see the government official who described it like that handling a full section on a busy night when everyone wants separate checks, the kitchen staff has gone nuclear, and the dishwasher is sobbing. Unskilled, my ass. It's fast. But it's also tedious. Serving tables has the same basic to-do list each time a new customer is seated - which works - but it's also relatively easy to forget yourself in the sheer physicality of hauling hot food to people and wiping up condensation rings on the table. It's challenging, but serving tables doesn't exactly hot-wire the creative, problem-solving side of your brain. It is, in a nutshell, boring.
While I wouldn't return to the dreary reading lists of my university life, I'm craving a job that asks me to make thoughts. I'm not interested in mindless file-'n'-fax office jobs, or any job that requires a script, be it telemarketing or just starting every interaction with, "Can I start you folks off with a drink?" That kind of boredom is not good. That's when people start dressing their pets up like food products and experimenting with hallucinogenics on the clock.
Our minds are supposed to wander. It's good for us, it allows creativity to flow and outside-the-box thinking to happen. I applaud boredom, daydreaming, imaginary conversations, sexual fantasies, planning outfits, reminiscing, reconstructions, and reimaginings. If bored, I can easily amuse myself by thinking about the last person I kissed (or the first - hi Jordan!), the pros and cons of terrariums as a solution to the waterless plants I so desire, and how much my feet hurt in my stupid Payless shoes.
But too much boredom just pins you against the wall. Too much boredom and I start worrying about things, silly things, things that, in the context of my insanely bored mind, start looming and growing horns and teeth and generally freaking me right the fuck out. Thoughts about food and haircuts start taking over the easily annexed parts of my brain. My bored brain is like Poland in 1939. I like a little boredom, the same way I like a little dairy. Too much of either and I start sweating and feeling nauseous. So I need a balance. Folks are loathe to admit that boredom is necessary for us. Setting our brainpans on screensaver mode while we wait for the doctor to see us is a great thing. I like daydreaming, letting my mind wander and then come back to the task at hand. As, I suspect, do most people.
I usually love being bored. I mean, "love" is kind of a strong word - but I sometimes sort of relish boredom. Tonight, I was at work, doling out an epic lean on the bar. I had served three customers and had already scrubbed the whole damned place from top to bottom. That restaurant is clean, yo. And as I was leaning, watching uninterested people bypass the heavy Italian food we serve in favour of menus that include exotic ingredients like vegetables, my mind was wandering. Thinking about if I should invest in more comic books and if so, which ones; how I'm going to decorate my new room in the fall; and what I would say if I ran into my ex-boyfriend (the fantasy usually involves me being much taller and leggier, while he's gone completely bald, developed a hunchback and has basically morphed into Richard III. In reality, what I usually say is "Guh," with a blush that makes me look like I'm having a coronary); how I can incorporate plants into my new room without having to water them; whether or not my head is too small for my body; and various places I'd like to make out with someone.
There's no rhyme or reason to a good boredom session. It's usually forced upon you, stranding you with nothing to do while you wait for the good people of Service Ontario to take your health card picture. Or at work, waiting for the customers, the orders, the system to come back online, or the photocopier to stop barfing toner all over the floor. These are moments devoid of tasks, so your brain stops paying attention to what it should be doing. Instead, your mind tells itself breathless little stories about things you might conceivably do one day, and for a split second, you've convinced yourself that you're the next Mags Atwood. Then your neurons snap back into place and you resume the nit-picky but tedious job of arranging the clip-art on the biweekly company updates. Atwood remains safe as the queen of Canlit and one of my personal enemies.
But boredom, day in and day out, is a major mental drain. I like the occasional boredom jag because usually my job, and life, is interesting enough that a little bit of dazed staring is a mini-vacation, not a permanent mode of existence.
Waitressing is considered "unskilled labour" in a lot of job markets, but I would love to see the government official who described it like that handling a full section on a busy night when everyone wants separate checks, the kitchen staff has gone nuclear, and the dishwasher is sobbing. Unskilled, my ass. It's fast. But it's also tedious. Serving tables has the same basic to-do list each time a new customer is seated - which works - but it's also relatively easy to forget yourself in the sheer physicality of hauling hot food to people and wiping up condensation rings on the table. It's challenging, but serving tables doesn't exactly hot-wire the creative, problem-solving side of your brain. It is, in a nutshell, boring.
While I wouldn't return to the dreary reading lists of my university life, I'm craving a job that asks me to make thoughts. I'm not interested in mindless file-'n'-fax office jobs, or any job that requires a script, be it telemarketing or just starting every interaction with, "Can I start you folks off with a drink?" That kind of boredom is not good. That's when people start dressing their pets up like food products and experimenting with hallucinogenics on the clock.
Our minds are supposed to wander. It's good for us, it allows creativity to flow and outside-the-box thinking to happen. I applaud boredom, daydreaming, imaginary conversations, sexual fantasies, planning outfits, reminiscing, reconstructions, and reimaginings. If bored, I can easily amuse myself by thinking about the last person I kissed (or the first - hi Jordan!), the pros and cons of terrariums as a solution to the waterless plants I so desire, and how much my feet hurt in my stupid Payless shoes.
But too much boredom just pins you against the wall. Too much boredom and I start worrying about things, silly things, things that, in the context of my insanely bored mind, start looming and growing horns and teeth and generally freaking me right the fuck out. Thoughts about food and haircuts start taking over the easily annexed parts of my brain. My bored brain is like Poland in 1939. I like a little boredom, the same way I like a little dairy. Too much of either and I start sweating and feeling nauseous. So I need a balance. Folks are loathe to admit that boredom is necessary for us. Setting our brainpans on screensaver mode while we wait for the doctor to see us is a great thing. I like daydreaming, letting my mind wander and then come back to the task at hand. As, I suspect, do most people.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
With Friends Like These...
Sometimes, things are easier on Facebook. If I haven't talked to a Facebook pal in few years - hello, entire graduating class of 2002! - and I get tired of their bad grammar and insistence on wriiitttingggg likeee a moronnnn LOLZHAHA, I can quietly click "Remove from friends" and the person vanishes in a silent fiesta of zeroes and ones. Likewise, when my Facebook homepage becomes overrun with people ranting about weird political stuff I don't understand (or, frankly, care about), I can hide those folks so their dark assertions that Toronto is a gestapo state aren't visible. They're free to rant away in their own loony-bin corner, and I'm free to delight in my other friends' pictures of their gardens.
But in real life? Oh ho. Unfriending someone is fraught. Totally fraught. Way less easy. There's no button. There's sound, there's fury, and ultimately, there are feelings. Hurt ones.
I feel like ending friendships used to be a little easier. In high school, people tried on various personae all the time: you could shift from band nerd to theater geek to overly dramatic goth girl to scary raver chick with enormous ear plugs in the span of a few years. I was lucky: my high school's social scene was a little more permeable than most of the schools that I hear about, and was fairly free of the cliques that are so often portrayed on TV shows about teenagers. Aside from a crippling inability to interact with boys - I was so shy until I was about seventeen - I moved fairly easily between friend groups, and didn't feel resented or judged when I did.
Sure, there were some great big dramatic breakups between friends. There were a few "You could NEVER UNDERSTAND ME" letters written, and received, by yours truly. What can I say? I can be a sucker for the drama. (Every guy I've ever dated is out there, nodding to himself for reasons unknown.) But most of the time, friendships that ended did so because we all got interested in other things, other people. There often weren't hard feelings.
Fast-forward into my adult life, and ending friendships is A Big Deal. A small minority notwithstanding, most of the people I'm friends with now I met in university. Weirdly, a lot of us lived together, or close enough that I could throw a tennis ball from my windowsill and have it land in a drink perched on theirs. Despite the fact that most of us were high-strung and gossipy, friendships grew, and a large and integrated social circle developed. As people moved out of our hippie commune-type arrangement and became more like actual bill-paying adults, some of the friendships naturally became more distant, while some deepened and grew along with us.
Ending a romantic relationship can be a tough deed, but you can generally justify it by reminding yourself that you don't want to be faced with no sex/beard trimmings in your toothbrush bristles/lousy communication/the urge to hang yourself out of boredom whenever you go for dinner...for the rest of your life. Whether the ending is a huge drama-fest with weeping and pleading and drinking yourself into a three-day blackout a la "magic four", or it's an amiable and sedate affair, at least romances have a clearly defined ending. "We broke up" has a meaning.
Friendships? Not so much. It feels weird to call someone up and say, "You know, this friendship just isn't giving me what I want. I think it's time we quit hanging out." Usually, folks just quit hanging out. Or, if there is some mega trauma that erupts, there's a fight, with some yelling or some shoving, and there's a clear end. But most friendships don't die that death. While I've encountered some, they tend mostly to be about cash (word to the wise: be careful who among your friends you choose as a roommate).
But sometimes, shit gets weird. Friendships evolve into something else, and all of the sudden, I'm sitting at a swim-up bar in Thailand with a girl I went to high school with, wishing I was anywhere else in the world, including hell, rather than listen to one more word of her explicate her relationship with her boyfriend. That friendship is done. It's dead. It's finito. I no longer care about her. I actively dislike her. But we, as a society, will not turn to this woman and say "I can't handle any more whining about his retarded cats and his lack of employment, and I can't handle you," dump our cosmopolitan in the pool, and swim serenely back to sanity. It's just not done.
I wish it was. I have a few friendships that are limping along, terminally wounded, but both parties are too shy or miserable to put the relationship on the curb. Instead, we smile tightly at each other at social events and make halfhearted plans to "get together some time," even though we all know that time will be never o'clock. We've grown apart, gotten into relationships, picked up different habits, schedules, ethical systems, and hairdos. If we met now, we wouldn't be pals; why are we pals now?
Maybe that should be my new year's resolution. Not January - that's, like, two seasons away - but September. While I'm not heading back to school, I can still resolve to pick up new habits and try new things. Including ending the friendships that make me feel like a shitty person instead of a good one. I mean, with friends like those, who needs enemies? And instead of enemies, can't I just have people I recall fondly as my friends, without needing to drag that whole sordid relationship into the present tense? Emphasis on tense?
But in real life? Oh ho. Unfriending someone is fraught. Totally fraught. Way less easy. There's no button. There's sound, there's fury, and ultimately, there are feelings. Hurt ones.
I feel like ending friendships used to be a little easier. In high school, people tried on various personae all the time: you could shift from band nerd to theater geek to overly dramatic goth girl to scary raver chick with enormous ear plugs in the span of a few years. I was lucky: my high school's social scene was a little more permeable than most of the schools that I hear about, and was fairly free of the cliques that are so often portrayed on TV shows about teenagers. Aside from a crippling inability to interact with boys - I was so shy until I was about seventeen - I moved fairly easily between friend groups, and didn't feel resented or judged when I did.
Sure, there were some great big dramatic breakups between friends. There were a few "You could NEVER UNDERSTAND ME" letters written, and received, by yours truly. What can I say? I can be a sucker for the drama. (Every guy I've ever dated is out there, nodding to himself for reasons unknown.) But most of the time, friendships that ended did so because we all got interested in other things, other people. There often weren't hard feelings.
Fast-forward into my adult life, and ending friendships is A Big Deal. A small minority notwithstanding, most of the people I'm friends with now I met in university. Weirdly, a lot of us lived together, or close enough that I could throw a tennis ball from my windowsill and have it land in a drink perched on theirs. Despite the fact that most of us were high-strung and gossipy, friendships grew, and a large and integrated social circle developed. As people moved out of our hippie commune-type arrangement and became more like actual bill-paying adults, some of the friendships naturally became more distant, while some deepened and grew along with us.
Ending a romantic relationship can be a tough deed, but you can generally justify it by reminding yourself that you don't want to be faced with no sex/beard trimmings in your toothbrush bristles/lousy communication/the urge to hang yourself out of boredom whenever you go for dinner...for the rest of your life. Whether the ending is a huge drama-fest with weeping and pleading and drinking yourself into a three-day blackout a la "magic four", or it's an amiable and sedate affair, at least romances have a clearly defined ending. "We broke up" has a meaning.
Friendships? Not so much. It feels weird to call someone up and say, "You know, this friendship just isn't giving me what I want. I think it's time we quit hanging out." Usually, folks just quit hanging out. Or, if there is some mega trauma that erupts, there's a fight, with some yelling or some shoving, and there's a clear end. But most friendships don't die that death. While I've encountered some, they tend mostly to be about cash (word to the wise: be careful who among your friends you choose as a roommate).
But sometimes, shit gets weird. Friendships evolve into something else, and all of the sudden, I'm sitting at a swim-up bar in Thailand with a girl I went to high school with, wishing I was anywhere else in the world, including hell, rather than listen to one more word of her explicate her relationship with her boyfriend. That friendship is done. It's dead. It's finito. I no longer care about her. I actively dislike her. But we, as a society, will not turn to this woman and say "I can't handle any more whining about his retarded cats and his lack of employment, and I can't handle you," dump our cosmopolitan in the pool, and swim serenely back to sanity. It's just not done.
I wish it was. I have a few friendships that are limping along, terminally wounded, but both parties are too shy or miserable to put the relationship on the curb. Instead, we smile tightly at each other at social events and make halfhearted plans to "get together some time," even though we all know that time will be never o'clock. We've grown apart, gotten into relationships, picked up different habits, schedules, ethical systems, and hairdos. If we met now, we wouldn't be pals; why are we pals now?
Maybe that should be my new year's resolution. Not January - that's, like, two seasons away - but September. While I'm not heading back to school, I can still resolve to pick up new habits and try new things. Including ending the friendships that make me feel like a shitty person instead of a good one. I mean, with friends like those, who needs enemies? And instead of enemies, can't I just have people I recall fondly as my friends, without needing to drag that whole sordid relationship into the present tense? Emphasis on tense?
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
It's Too Hot To Think Of A Punny Title
Sometimes, like times like now, when the forecast is calling for more heat and horribleness than the average living human knows how to handle, it can be useful to compile a little list of things to be thankful for. That way, when you're walking down the street and your shoes are sticking to the melting asphalt, when small children are wailing in agony at the injustice of having to wear clothing, when you witness the pit of flame that can only be described as hell opening up in the walkway leading to your home, you can chill your brain cells out with the knowledge that these things are real and available in your world.
As a caveat, I swore to myself when I started this blog, that I would avoid the "list update," because it's generally lazy and annoying and it makes me miss Casey Kasem. But let's be honest: heat is a powerful brain ruiner, and I live in a world without air conditioning, so this will just have to do. I'm not going to kvetch, because feeding anything that could be described as "simmering rage" at this horrible heatwave means getting near something simmering, and I am just not going to do that. In short, I'm too damned hot to do anything but list things that are making me happy this week.
Things like...
...Thomas Pynchon, who wrote the insane and insanely good book The Crying of Lot 49 in 1966, and who, last fall, published a new book called Inherent Vice, which is kind of a 1960s romp through LA, and who proves that sometimes people should quit while they're ahead. Lot 49 is one of my very favourite WTF books, and I'm looking forward to re-reading it and trying to figure out exactly what the hell is going on, again. Plus, Pynchon himself is sort of fascinating.
...Princess Leia hairdos, and Yulia Tymoshenko hairdos, and basically any hairstyle that gets my thick, wavy, hot, heavy hair off my neck. I usually just jam a pencil into a bun and leave it at that, but I have a tendency to forgot they're in there and leave huge blue and black streaks all over everything. Also, while making out, I've accidentally stabbed people with my hair pens. Whoops!
...cover letters, which I've come to enjoy writing. "Dear Human Resources, I kick a metric ton of ass and would like to someday govern the Northwest Territories. I work well independently and as part of a team, and will often show an borderline-appropriate amount of cleavage that the men in the office will come to depend on to work efficiently. Please contact me through email for an interview."
....Facechatting, which is basically keeping me sane through these desolately friendless months. I'm well aware that these online chats aren't really comparable to real-life face-to-face conversations, but in this social wasteland, they're a welcome addition to the already-established phone, visit and email regimen.
...late-night walks. When the days are too hot - we suffered walking between the car and the movie theatre tonight - walking at night is lovely. A little cooler, with some dew on the grass and without the oppressive glaring sun making you wish for death at each new sidewalk square. Plus, who can argue with a midnight stroll to get Slurpees? That's what July's all about, yo.
...dirty, sexy songs. Because there's something so gratifying about listening to the words "I want to fuck you like an animal" while you're on one of your solo and be-headphoned late-night walks. For the record, other sexy tunes include a remixed Bjork's "Possibly Maybe" and Kevin Drew's "TBTF." I know there are more; I want to hear about them.
...Shopper's Drug Mart. I would live there if I could. It's air-conditioned, it's got all the Coke Zero I can drink, it has one of those fun blood-pressure machines, it's open until midnight, and it's stacked with froofy books and magazines. I love it. It's seriously one of my top destinations of all time. Recently, I like pairing it with a late-night walk, a sexy song on the iPod, and the desire to spend some time in a place that would be well-suited for the apocalypse.
I feel better. Later this week, when I'm staggering around downtown Stratford with a crazed gleam in my eye ("The people are making it too hot! If I get away from the people, I'll get cooler!"), I'll just close my eyes and repeat "Thomas Pynchon, in the Shopper's Drug Mart, with the cover letter." I highly suggest that you formulate your own heat-avoiding list, and I would love to hear about them. During these heat-wave days, when we're all basically living inside the lit end of a cigarette, giving your brain some soothing thoughts is the best way to avoid death by whining.
As a caveat, I swore to myself when I started this blog, that I would avoid the "list update," because it's generally lazy and annoying and it makes me miss Casey Kasem. But let's be honest: heat is a powerful brain ruiner, and I live in a world without air conditioning, so this will just have to do. I'm not going to kvetch, because feeding anything that could be described as "simmering rage" at this horrible heatwave means getting near something simmering, and I am just not going to do that. In short, I'm too damned hot to do anything but list things that are making me happy this week.
Things like...
...Thomas Pynchon, who wrote the insane and insanely good book The Crying of Lot 49 in 1966, and who, last fall, published a new book called Inherent Vice, which is kind of a 1960s romp through LA, and who proves that sometimes people should quit while they're ahead. Lot 49 is one of my very favourite WTF books, and I'm looking forward to re-reading it and trying to figure out exactly what the hell is going on, again. Plus, Pynchon himself is sort of fascinating.
...Princess Leia hairdos, and Yulia Tymoshenko hairdos, and basically any hairstyle that gets my thick, wavy, hot, heavy hair off my neck. I usually just jam a pencil into a bun and leave it at that, but I have a tendency to forgot they're in there and leave huge blue and black streaks all over everything. Also, while making out, I've accidentally stabbed people with my hair pens. Whoops!
...cover letters, which I've come to enjoy writing. "Dear Human Resources, I kick a metric ton of ass and would like to someday govern the Northwest Territories. I work well independently and as part of a team, and will often show an borderline-appropriate amount of cleavage that the men in the office will come to depend on to work efficiently. Please contact me through email for an interview."
....Facechatting, which is basically keeping me sane through these desolately friendless months. I'm well aware that these online chats aren't really comparable to real-life face-to-face conversations, but in this social wasteland, they're a welcome addition to the already-established phone, visit and email regimen.
...late-night walks. When the days are too hot - we suffered walking between the car and the movie theatre tonight - walking at night is lovely. A little cooler, with some dew on the grass and without the oppressive glaring sun making you wish for death at each new sidewalk square. Plus, who can argue with a midnight stroll to get Slurpees? That's what July's all about, yo.
...dirty, sexy songs. Because there's something so gratifying about listening to the words "I want to fuck you like an animal" while you're on one of your solo and be-headphoned late-night walks. For the record, other sexy tunes include a remixed Bjork's "Possibly Maybe" and Kevin Drew's "TBTF." I know there are more; I want to hear about them.
...Shopper's Drug Mart. I would live there if I could. It's air-conditioned, it's got all the Coke Zero I can drink, it has one of those fun blood-pressure machines, it's open until midnight, and it's stacked with froofy books and magazines. I love it. It's seriously one of my top destinations of all time. Recently, I like pairing it with a late-night walk, a sexy song on the iPod, and the desire to spend some time in a place that would be well-suited for the apocalypse.
I feel better. Later this week, when I'm staggering around downtown Stratford with a crazed gleam in my eye ("The people are making it too hot! If I get away from the people, I'll get cooler!"), I'll just close my eyes and repeat "Thomas Pynchon, in the Shopper's Drug Mart, with the cover letter." I highly suggest that you formulate your own heat-avoiding list, and I would love to hear about them. During these heat-wave days, when we're all basically living inside the lit end of a cigarette, giving your brain some soothing thoughts is the best way to avoid death by whining.
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