2011: Back To Front

Oh my god, dudes! I have totally fallen down on the blog lately. I know only a few folks read this, but it's less about my supposed readership and more about the practice of writing, often, and well. Anyway, I could blame it on being mega busy, or too full to type (my fingers are too fat and I keep making typos!), or I could just own up and say, sometimes there are times when I have less to say. But it's the time of year for the highlights reel to roll, so let's take a journey back to some moments I'm especially proud of.

First of all, I totally quit my job. Not the job I have now - I like that job, it's my jam - but the horrible, no-good job I was working at for the first six months of this year. I knew I was going to quit when I called my mom during a weekend shift from the Toronto Public Library's payphone, after one of my coworkers told me a vicious piece of gossip involving our supervisor and her allegations that the receptionist of the company couldn't, and I quote, "keep her legs shut" for the head of the business. I was agog, totally flabbergasted at the meanness and callousness of that tidbit, and the casualness with which it was tossed off. I called my mom to tell her the story and that I was quitting, and she cheered. That superisor still works there; the receptionist found out about that gossip a couple weeks later and walked out the door. The company, despite my not liking its staff very much, still does good work, but I could not be more grateful that it's out of my life.

Then there was the camping trip. Oh man. So, this was an 8-day venture into the wilds with my boyfriends and a group of people I knew only passingly well. There was shoe-sucking muck; spiders the size of five-dollar bills; rain; sunburns; crashing into rocks in a canoe; crashing into someones hand in a canoe; cold sores; fights; crying; running out of food; flat tires, and other adventures. Do not assume that I hated it, but it was definitely a challenge. I will probably do it again, for the same reasons mothers have more than one kid.

What else? There were concerts. Standouts include a sparsely attended by energetic performance by World Inferno/Friendship Society, and a raucous show by The Born Ruffians. I saw Weird Al at Massey Hall (I know!), Cancer Bats in a Parkdale basement, and Paul Simon in the worst concert crowd I've ever seen. I usually went with my boyfriend, but sometimes I ventured out with friends, and either way, music is such a good way to mark the time.

There were wedding-related things. Oh, keep your shirts on; not me. I went to my first non-secret wedding this year, which was pretty and gave me a taste of what's possible when you take radical matrimonial steps like inviting your parents (elopements 4 life!) - for example, an open bar. Closer to my heart, one of my girlfriends asked me to be a bridesmaid, so I get to go to gym and buy a blue dress, and I'm hella looking forward to it. We were talking last night at dinner about weddings - I asked my parents what their "rules" are: like, do we have to invite all the relatives? They were basically like, "We don't care, you don't even have to invite us," which made my sister pout and say that any relative of hers who got married without at least telling her would be on my sister's shit-list for a long time. It's slowly coming to light that weddings are a complicated thing.

We went to New York, this year, my boyfriend and I, and it was the first time I had really traveled without the company of a family member. He and I had an uproarious time, full of the big time touristy things and the smaller, less famous NYC stuff. It's whetted my appetite for more traveling, maybe something overseas.

And there was other stuff, too. Bad stuff, good stuff, meh stuff. My roommates were annoying and the bathroom was usually filthy. I ran out of money. I dropped my groceries all over Bloor Street, had panic attacks, fought with friends and lovers and family members, and sometimes cried. But there were also a thousand tiny victories - watering plants, getting a new job, laughing together with the man I love, making art, writing, reaching out, going dancing, having sleepovers, talking on the phone for hours, finally finishing The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and so many other moments. Sometimes, I fall down on writing about them, but I always appreciate 'em.

Why I Ring My Bell

I ring my bell because, now, in the darker, longer, colder, icier days of the year, drivers aren't used to cyclists on the roads. We catch them by surprise: I can see their eyes widen as their headlights sweep across my bike, and they jam on the brakes and stutter to a stop in a panic that speaks to the fact that they weren't expecting anyone to be where I am. Now is the time of year when I'm super-vigilant about lights, but the bell acts as a friendly - or not-so-friendly - reminder that yes, we're still out here, slogging through the bite of the wind, in the dark.

I ring my bell because I ride with quickness. Cars in the city spend long minutes idly in traffic, but I can, and do, squeak by on the edge of the road. Often, those cars aren't sitting mindlessly - passengers are getting in and out, drivers are pulling back into traffic - and when I ride by, I can be faster than they think. City biking is an efficient way to move through the world, but motorists seem to think they have a monopoly on speed. I ring my bell to remind them that I am a body in motion.

I ring my bell because I am often mistaken for an entire population when I ride. "You cyclists are all the same," people snarl. "You run red lights, you never signal, and you all ride without lights. You deserve to get hit." This mindset scares me. Drivers share the roads with all kinds of other vehicles - scooters, big trucks, other cars, motorcycles - but for some reason, cyclists ride with a target on our backs. Ringing my bell might do nothing to change the minds of people who resent our presence out there. On the other hand, a bit of eye contact and a friendly smile are the first step in reminding other road users that, behind the wheel/handlebars, there's always a person.

I ring my bell because it's my bike's horn. I do my best to follow traffic laws - like anyone out there on the road, sometimes I don't come to a complete stop, or signal - but when other people are counting on me to give them the information they need to keep me safe, I do it. Some people choose to ignore my safety in favour of inching ahead in traffic, or roaring past me, or even just scaring me for sport. I give an indignant ding of the bell when that happens, because I don't have the luxury of a deep, foghorn bellow.

I ring my bell because, when I ride in a group, sometimes the sheer joy of riding together overwhelms us. It's not the prettiest symphony (cycling bells are designed to be strident and attention-grabbing, so "melodious" falls pretty far down on their list of priorities), but the sound of a herd of bikers clanging together down the road, often with whooping and hollering, is fun and joyful. There's no explanation, no rhyme or reason. We're our own parade.

Office Party Politics

I'm relatively new to the office scene. Sure, my last gig was at an office, and there were perks there - for example, every two weeks, there was a mandatory two-hour lunch meeting, during which I, as the most junior staff person, was required to take notes. The upside? Those lunches generally featured some sort of free, delivered food (sushi! burgers! and so on), which helped offset the stomach-roiling anxiety of sitting in a room with all my coworkers. If I worked a weekend session, there would be pizza for lunch. Somehow, the little perks of that job, like free food, weren't enough to undo all the thousand little other despotic, horrible things about that place, though.

I'm at a new job now, and loving it. I also happened to join the company at a very opportune time - three weeks before Christmas. This means that I've been invited to join both the company party and the office party.

"What?" I can hear you saying (Not really, all I can hear is my roommate slamming her door for NO REASON, MICHELLE), "two Christmas parties?" Yep. Explanation: My office is in a fairly progressive workhub that features over 100 different organization, most of which focus on some sort of socially transformative mandate. There are web developers, farmers' market administrators, courier services, magazines, social media experts, and more. Most of them are fairly small companies, ranging from one to let's say seven people, and while interaction between folks is highly encouraged at this place, they also employ people to help lubricate the process of settling in and working there. Hence, the office party, which was organized by "community animators" and featured, among other treats, a cookie contest and a cocktail shakedown.

The night before, my boss had treated her staff to a lovely dinner out - a smaller, more upscale event that left me feeling grateful and full. My boyfriend and I walked around the neighbourhood, enjoying the unseasonably warm weather - raindrops! In December! - and after dinner, I felt grown-up and like I was a part of something. It was a feeling I realized I had missed in my last job, despite the generosity with food in meetings.

I've worked at places with an end-of-season shindig before. One of my favourite work memories was going to the Owen Sound drive-in with my summer coworkers in 2005, eating piles of baked goods and watching Grind. There are many, many terrible movies out there. Grind is totally one of them. It reinforced that, for me at least, the possibility that work and jobs are infinitely more tolerable if you surround yourself with amazing people. That job was tough - I worked counter service at a french fry stand on the beach, where people would walk up and order funnel cakes, hot dogs, and fries. I had to wear a collared shirt. It was not air-conditioned. After sundown, the place was frequented by drunk college students. One time, someone put poop in the vending machine. I went home every shift smelling like grease. It wasn't amazing. But my boss had the foresight to staff it with people who got along, who could see the humour in situations and who bonded together over the late-afternoon hot-dog rush. At the end of the summer, a blowing-off-steam party was a right. We needed to cut loose, even for just a night, even if it was at the drive-in.

The same principle applies to the Christmas party. It's a natural way to mark the end of the year, to celebrate all the work done in the past twelve months. At mine, since I'm such a new addition to the team, I sort of slunk around, stuffing brownies into my mouth and avoiding the women wearing novelty hats. For the people who have worked together for years, it can be a test - are we friends, or just co-workers? - but I mostly got to observe. The folks at this party seemed to like each other - there was a healthy amount of cookie-related smacktalk - but it was also unfussy and generous and nice just to be there.

Both the office party and the company party made me feel connected to my worklife. At my last job, my mom observed that I often seemed to be having an out-of-body experience when I was working: my brain was just watching my fingers type, screaming "Why are you doing this?" silently for hours. Here? Not so much. Usually we celebrate rebirth around Easter, but this year, at least, Christmas is my time to feel good.

Troy (And Abed) Around The Clock

I'm on a Donald Glover kick right now, and friends, it is wonderful. He's the mastermind behind Childish Gambino, he's a righteously funny stand-up comic, and he plays Troy Barnes on NBC's Community. He's also incredibly foxy, which, you know: bonus!

I cam late to the game on Community. It was half-way through the second season before I tuned in, and it took a couple episodes to really get the hang of the humour. Originally, Troy was supposed to be paired with Chevy Chase's character Pierce, and the two of them - grumpy old man and dumb/smart jock - were going to act as the salt in the sugar shaker. Fortunately, the chemistry between Troy and Abed, the autistic-y film buff played by Danny Pudi, outshone the odd-couple Troy/Pierce matchup. Troy and Abed have become this weird spin-off-inside-the-show: they have pretend breakfast television shows, they build elaborate blanket forts, and they have one of the most homosocial relationships ever depicted on TV. Chandler and Joey were friends; Troy and Abed are best friends. They elevate the normal friendships that we all have, which are equal parts gossip, in-jokes and rants - and which are totally necessary to live - and just, like, puts in on TV.

Childish Gambino and Glover's stand-up act are a different animal. His rap rhymes are thoughtful, personal and often hilarious, and he addresses race, loneliness, sex, relationships and all the other personal juggernauts the way "the only black kid at a Sufjan concert" really can. Listening to his new album, Camp, makes me laugh, because some of it is really funny. It also makes me a little sad - there's naked emotion in some of the rhymes: "I miss the sex when we kiss whenever we're done," gets to me, because it's not that he misses sex (dude is an exceptionally fine-looking man, I'm sure he gets laid on the daily), but he misses intimacy. What?! And then he talks about in public? Double what?!! This isn't an album about guns and drugs and fine-looking bitches; it's about growing up a little poor, having parents who worked hard, being black in an otherwise all-white school. In other words, feeling weird even if you're normal. Who can't relate to that?

In other times, Troy Barnes would have been the token black character, in the mix to give street cred to the other white-bread characters. One of Community's strengths is that it takes its diversity for granted. These people are sort of losers, having washed up at a fourth-tier community college, but nobody's a bigger loser because they're old, a woman, or a minority. Joel McHale is the sole straight white dude in the principal cast, and he's matched beat for comedic beat by everyone else. Troy and Abed have become scene-stealing imps, and the show's off-beat comedy is strange and addictive, like salted caramel chocolates. And if sitcoms aren't your thing, try the stand-up. If the comedy leaves you wanting, try the album. And if you can't into any of it, then take a seat - I'll be with you when NBC returns Community to the airwaves.

Breaking You Off

Now that I'm back at work - and can we all just take a moment to sigh along with me, in relief that I've found something that seems to suit me and that, once I get past the stage fright of meeting new folks and learning new things, will allow me to thrive? AHHHHH....that felt good - I remember the thrill of the weekend.

I've written before about the special joys of the long weekend, and about how having a short weekend can ruin one's life. I was chatting with a girlfriend tonight, and she said that having two days off in a row is a terrible thing for her. She just lazes all day the first day, and rushes joylessly around on the second day. She doesn't really enjoy either. Me, I need a proper weekend, but everyone's different. Some people need a two-day workweek. Some folks need ten minutes to gulp down a cup of coffee and check in with their nanny. We call those people ER doctors, and we don't pay them nearly enough money.

Work psychologists encourage people to take mini-breaks during the day. Stare out the window for a minute, walk around the office, take a brisk walk at lunch. It can be so easy to forget to take those moments in the business of work, and I often put them off when I'm deep into the expense reports. But those mini-vacations are help us function. They relieve eyestrain, stretch out tight muscles, and get a dose of vitamin D. They also keep the brain alert: mistake to stand up when things are viewed with a fresh pair of eyes, and they keep frustration at bay. I'm not saying that y'all should spend our work hours staring out the window, but stand up for yourself: breaks are important.

My old boss was stingy with break time. Lunch hours were carefully monitored, and employees were instructed to sign in and out very day. There were no coffee breaks. The expectation was 100% work, 100% of the time. Coupled with that six-day work week, my life became threaded with work, and it was impossible to de-escalate the stress I felt at the constant demands. That's never a good sign. Bosses might give breaks grudgingly or generously, but they should give them.

I've slipped back into a high level of productivity at work, which is terrific. In my off-the-clock hours, I sometimes forget to breathe. I'm feeling the pressure of DOING THINGS on the weekend. I've got girls' brunch on Sunday, an ushering gig at night, a movie party on Friday, and a friend date during the day. Every last moment is scheduled! I love my friends, but it turns out that my downtime is precious. Like gold. Sometimes, I need to take breaks from my highly scheduled life - take a break from having plans all the time, take a break from heading from the gym to the movies to the doctor's to my bed. Downtime is so good for me - it lets me have my creative time, to take long showers, to sleep in those extra ten minutes. And then when I step into my work, or hang out with my friends, I feel recharged and enlivened, ready to take on gym, doctor's expense reports, brunch, drinks, movies, and more.

The Secret Life Of The 25-Year-Old Girl

I don't read Toronto Life, because it's rarely relevant to my life: despite living in Toronto, and loving it deeply, I don't move in the rarefied circles of charcuterie gastropubs and $500 purses. Their beat is to cover the lifestyle habits of the upwardly mobile and aspirational Torontonians, and they do it thoroughly and well. TL's major faux pas isn't that their topics are narrow in scope, but that there's a first-person smugness ingrained in their articles. The writers aren't encouraged to draw a larger picture for the reader, so I wonder about the relevance of a story about, say, controversy about a fight at a Toronto private school that might otherwise draw me in.

With their recent cover story, "The Secret Lives of 13-Year-Old Girls," TL lays bare Alexandra Molotkow's cybersexual coming-of-age story. Reading certain sections, I found myself nodding, because I could identify with the longings of young teenage girls. We desperately want to know about sex - more than just body parts, but feelings and experiences. At the same time, 13-year-olds are too young to have any meaningful mastery of their interiour sex lives, and the ones who are sexually experienced at that age often seem damaged later on. The internet provided a safe barrier to explore and express sexuality, without the danger of engaging in real, hands-on, consequence-y sex.

I remember exchanging emails with a boy from summer camp, trading stories about what we would do to each other next summer vacation. These were pornographic short stories, and my parents stumbled across them, which led to a major screaming match over what would have happened if my younger brother (who was six years old at the time) had found them. My parents weren't actually worried about my grade-school brother; they were worried that I was somehow going to end up a victim of a sexual predator, even though, in those X-rated emails, I was definitely the more crocodilian of the two of us.

I find, when I talk to my girlfriends now, a common, obsessive theme in our early high school years: we were fascinated by sex, and completely unable to express our fascination. Fearful of being branded a pervert, or worse, I kept my interest carefully hidden away, but I wondered what it would be like to kiss, to touch. Online, where I was a far better writer, I could express some of those desires without the burning shameface that broke out if I even thought about saying my feelings out loud. Molotkow graduated from online chatrooms to early social networking sites, inadvertently becoming a schoolmate's cyberstalker. She finds solace online: it's an escape from the unrelenting shittiness of high school. Going online makes her feel less alone, reassuring her that there are others like her out there, even if they don't go to her school, or are her age.

She shrugs off the alleged dangers of the anonymous internet by flashing her bullshit detector: "I suppose I should have been afraid of meeting strange, older men from the Internet....[b]ut these men passed online background checks: they were friends of online friends, and their 'netiquette' was okay." It was a common trope in the 1990s for news media to report that your children were at risk if they surfed the internet alone - that unsupervised kids were being lured into online chats with old perverts pretending to be frisky young teens. In reality, more than 95% of adults engaging teens in chats owned up to their age, and they were also forthright with their sexual intentions. Without exception, the victims were older than 13 - the same age that Molotkow was when she started cybersexing. To top it off, studies have shown "there is some evidence that adolescents who visit chatrooms are more likely to have problems with their parents, to suffer from sadness, loneliness, or depression, to have histories of sexual abuse, and to engage in risky behavior than those who do not go to chatrooms." In her article, Molotkow admits to three of those four risk indicators - it seems like, more than anything, her prodigious smarts saved her from some potential abuse, and she was luckier than she was smart. Trusting your gut on the internet seems less safe than your average blind date, but there are actually very few incidences of straight-up molestation. In the most recent stats I could find, internet-related events account for about 7% of statutory rape cases in America. It's a tiny minority that garnered huge media attention, because the internet, at that time, was new, and the rules were unwritten.

It's the same story with sexting now. Molotkow poo-poohs the idea that sexting is worth getting riled up over, dismissing it as a younger generation's chatroom, and hey - at least the kids are doing it to each other and not anonymous Russian human traffickers. Unfortunately, she undercuts her position by recounting the dramatic tale of "Jessi Slaughter:"

I’m disturbed by the antics of kids today: take Jessica Leonhardt, an 11-year-old Floridian known as “Jessi Slaughter.” Last year, on a teen message board called StickyDrama, she was accused of sleeping with a musician popular among 11-year-olds. She posted a video of herself to YouTube refuting the claim and threatening her haters: “I’ll pop a Glock in your mouth and make a brain slushy.” [...] In yet another online video, her father yelled at the attackers, saying he knew who they were and invoking the “cyber police.” Unfortunately, there is no such thing as cyber police. In Leonhardt’s last missive, she claimed to be in foster care; her dad passed away of a heart attack this summer.

There are issues with the article - the passages describing her early masturbatory successes were uncomfortable, to say the least - but what's most frustrating is that Molotkow's experience is normal without being representative. The inability to capture the salient issue is Toronto Life's biggest stumbling block, and again, they made me wonder about how this woman's emerging online sexuality had any bearing, other than squicky feelings of retrograde voyeurism, on my life.

Writing an article about what technology means to teenagers is one thing, but this was a more personal (and dated) narrative. She didn't bother talking to any current thirteen year old girls about their technologically enhanced dating/erotic/sexual adventures. She didn't even speak to other women, now in their 20s, who would have been the same age and having the same experiences. Molotkow is a funny, quick-witted writer with an instinct to overshare, and it eats up words that could be used to widen the scope of the article. Like all nostalgia pieces, it's most interesting to those who were there when it happened, and it's likely that a thirteen-year-old girl reading the piece would have no idea what she was talking about: the technology has changed, the rules have changed, even as teenaged girls and their animal need to know their own sexuality remains constant.

Happy 29th Birthday, Future Me.

Birthday! Cake! Ice cream! Fresca! Yoga! Cuddling! Walking in the November rain! Mexican food! Yay! In the spirit of the new year - it's my birthday tomorrow, and I'm going to be turning 28, which makes me feel simultaneously unformed and totally old - here are my New Year's Resolutions for The Age Of Twenty-Eight:

• to get smart about money. I have vague notions about where my money goes - rent, food, Coke Zero, second-hand CDs from Sonic Boom - but it tends to move through my bank account like it's acting of its own accord. Grown ups don't live like that. I mean, some grown ups do, but I want to be one of those responsible-style people who pays off student loans and shit. I have aspirations for myself that involve money, and it's likely that the banker (who, for some reason, is wearing a monocle and those old-timey armbands in my head) will take a careful look at my bank statements and say, "You spend roughly a third of your paltry income on Coke Zero. You can't buy a house. You can't even buy a tent. Get out!" and then I'll have to cry on the sidewalk looking very miserable indeed.
  
  
• to be nice to my body. I finally kicked that ED habit last year, but I've also gained some weight, and I want to look and feel my best. As previously discussed, trips to the gym will definitely help with that.
  
  
• to start thinking of myself as a real writer. I got a sweet gig as a producer's assistant, a ten-month contract that ends next September, and I'm inordinately pleased with myself for getting that job. But, at the same time, I want to take a page from my pal Kelli's book. During her last 9-to-5 contract, she started building her writing network, and landed a weekly page at the Globe and Mail and a full-time spot at Torontoist. That is what's known as "awesome" in my book. I don't do the same kind of writing as Kelli, but there's no reason I can follow the same kind of path. I imagine that it's lined with incredibly awkward white-wine-fueled small talk at magazine launch parties, but hey: that's why God invented Xanax.
  
  
• to be kind to myself. This is really the big one, and feels very ashram/flowing yoga pants on paper, but I spend so much time being hard on myself. When my boyfriend and I fight, it's tough not to immediately jump to "He hates me and we're breaking up!" When I gain a couple pounds, I can see myself ballooning up past Dress Barn sizing and ending up in one of those outfits that is less outfit and more wearable tent. When I don't land a writing gig (curse you, Hairpin! Your articles make me laugh and I want to join your club!), I start self-talking myself down in a pit of talentlessness and self-loathing. And so on. I want 28 to be the year I knock that shit off. It's okay to have a bad day, to have a fight, to take a swing at a job and miss. That's called "being a human being." After spending years of my life hating myself every time I made a mistake, this is the year of getting over myself and taking my lumps without a lump in my throat.

So, check back in with me in a year. Will I have gotten paid for my words? Will I be svelte? Will I be sort of muscular with enormous hooters, which is pretty much the most likely scenario? Will I still be spending boatloads of money on Coca-Cola products? I'll see you in 2012 with the answers. Safe money is definitely on Coke Zero, though.