Sick, In Bed, Dreaming

I am sick - sore throat, congestion, tired 'n' achy, all the usual suspects - and so I am feeling sorry for myself. I've had a successful writing month, and have started planning a trip abroad, and have kept my room relatively clean and remembered all my appointments....and I just ran myself down. It happens. I feel like a bicycle with a flat tire, or a battery with no juice in it.

In any case.

My sick days are usually spent in bed, eating weird things (peas and gyoza, anyone?), drinking tea and listening to music. And in celebration of my upcoming trip abroad, here's a sampling of Icelandic band Of Monsters and Men, who are playing in Toronto next week and who will probably folksily bring the house down.

I'm sure there will be several more Icelandic bands coming at y'all in the next few months, so get ready for some Bjork! I'm going to go contruct a swan dress now. Please excuse me.

Spring Break! I Mean, Summer Jobs!

Summer jobs are the best. When I was in high school and university, as soon as the buds were on the trees, I would be pounding the pavement with my meagre little resume in hand, knocking on doors. I wanted retail jobs, I wanted hostessing jobs, I wanted waitressing jobs and file-clerk jobs and any number of other gigs that would let me put a few thousand dollars in the bank towards school. That money would also finance new summer dresses, Slurpee runs to the 7-11, drinks on the patio, and piles of magazines to read on the beach.

Now that I'm older, the seasons are supposed to contain one long, unbroken string of employment: my summer job should be the same as my Christmas job. It's tough not to feel nostalgic, though. Summer jobs offer a fair amount of flexibility and freedom, and there's a light at the end of the tunnel: heading back to school in the fall is a deeply ingrained part of my psyche. Work four months, go to school for eight. Wash, rinse, repeat.

But if you're looking for work this summer, start early. Once you're back from spring break, start looking at job boards and calling old bosses. If you can't start right away, be open about the fact that you're in school - most bosses don't mind waiting a few weeks for the right candidate to come on board, especially if they can do the interviewing and hiring ahead of time. Don't wait until school lets out in April or May. By then, the super-premium jobs will have been snapped up.

Take risks. Apply for jobs that are outside your wheelhouse, especially if you're still in school. I strongly encourage folks to try getting in touch with their creative sides: so much emphasis is placed on making boatloads of money after graduation in order to repay student loans that some folks will otherwise never get a chance to, you know, play. Conversely, if you're studying something arts-'n'-lit related, try your hand at some office skill-building. Everyone should know how to write a great letter, make a spreadsheet, and take a comprehensible message. If there are holes in your academic background, now's your chance to fill them.

If you can afford it, try an internship. The non-profit sector might not pay; the corporate sector will, but neither makes you rich. However, internships often offer a much more enriching experience than a typical entry-level position. You are encouraged to network, to take on short-term projects, and an internship is a great resume-builder.

If you can't afford to be an intern, try volunteering a couple hours a week to build your resume - your school or local community centre will have suggestions on where you can help out. Avoid overextending yourself, though: I had plenty of friends who worked two, three, or four jobs during the summer to make as much money as possible. They all, somewhat unsurprisingly, burned out (if not during the summer, then during the school year, when it hurt more). Downtime is important. Use your summer break to take an actual, you know, break. I repeat: Downtime. Is. Important.

For something completely different: travel! Pick a city, any city - Vancouver, Dublin, Toronto, San Fransisco - and expand your worldview. You might not save as much money, but you can rest easy knowing that's only for a few months. Like your creative side, your worldly side can get a boost that might not be as available to you once things like "permanent positions" are on the horizon.

Take the long view. Employment opportunities aren't amazing for freshly graduated students, so if you can build a relationship with a company in your teens or early twenties, you might be able to turn that into more long-term employment later on. Talk with your supervisor about guaranteeing a position for the following summer. If your school schedule allows you to work into the fall, take advantage of the chance to both make more money and impress your supervisors.

No matter if you're just starting out or have settled comfortably into your career, remember to have fun: summer is stuffed full of long weekends, beach days, trips to the air-conditioned mall, and drinks on the patio. You might have to work those long weekend and give up some of those beach days in the name of making money, but enjoy the little things: a walk in the sun, a cool drink outside, and your well-earned paychecks.

Hi! Still here! And Everywhere!

You know that saying, "When it rains, it pours"? I've been hella busy these last couple weeks - good times - but that means I've missed writing for Hipsters Are Boring - bad times!

I enrolled in Edward Keenan's course Writing Is A Business at The Academy of the Impossible, picked up another writing gig (shhh - no details yet), pitched a blog idea to my office boss, and spent March madly writing for xoxoamore.com. It's been a wordy month. Keenan's advice to newbie writers was basically, "Take all the jobs you can afford to take - free, cheap, whatever - to build your network and your portfolio." Good advice, Keenan...but how do I write and hold down my bill-payin' job? And sleep?

Lots of balance. Or, more likely, attempts at lots of balance with a hefty side helping of "OMG Need Moar Time."

Unlike a few months ago, I'm now struggling a little with the idea of writing for free. Will writing for free or cheap now set a dangerous precedent that I'm not, you know, worth paying? So I'm treating these next few months like a crash course in getting out there: pitching, writing, building a brand and a voice, getting used to rejection and toughening up my skin. Most j-school graduates have this all squared away by the time they convocate, but for those of us who take a more circuitous route to the game, there are a lot of false starts, moments of unsureness, not-totally-perfect jobs, and all the other starting-up stumbling blocks that everyone faces. Keenan talked about his first three months as a writer: he sent a pitch to Harper's, another to the New Yorker, and then basically sat around fretting. I laughed, mostly out of sympathy and recognition. Like, been there, friend.

That I have a day job is a double-edged sword; I like my job a lot (and it's definitely paying my bills) but 40 hours a week in the office leaves little time to build that momentum. I anticipate spending a lot of this summer very tired. But, like I have for the last three years, I love blogging for Hipsters. In any case - apologies to my loyal readers (hi mom!) when I stumble for a couple weeks. My path is just under construction right now.

Rob Ford: Good Gravy, Bad Governance

My beef with Rob Ford isn't with his politics; we certainly don't see eye to eye on many (maybe most) issues, but I understand how his platform of fiscal and social conservatism appeals to people. I find his personality repugnant, but I also shy away from that whole "politics of the personality" phenomenon, and wish that more time was spend talking about policy and less time about pants size.

My main issue with the Mayor of Toronto isn't political, or personal - it's governance-based. When he dismisses an historic city council meeting as "irrelevant," he's dismissing the body of people he needs to work with in order to get anything done in his office. That dismissiveness might be a product of his personality, and it bleeds over into the political sphere, but what it boils down to is a belief that the Mayor is in charge of the ship, and everyone else should just stay below deck.

When I heard that Ford had been accused with violating the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act, my stomach got a little flippy. The story, for those who are interested, is neatly recapped here, but the salient point is that Ford stood before council members and spoke on a financial issue from which, if the votes went in his favour, he would benefit financially. Then he sat down and cast a vote on that same issue. The penalty for this conflict of interest? Removal from office.

On every board, in every city hall, at every level of government, that kind of behaviour is strictly sanctioned. The amount or the purpose to which the money was applied is irrelevant (in Ford's case, just over three grand, and it went to his football charity). Whether the motion passes or fails is also irrelevant. The corruption is the problem, and what Ford did is corrupt. It's not a matter of being "right" or "left" or "David Miller" or "a good cause" or [insert inflammatory #TOpoli buzzword here]: this is a demonstration of how little Ford thinks the rules apply to him.

I sat on a board of directors for four years, and in that time, I recused myself from a number of votes. We were a student board, and a little hyperactive in invigilating that Robert's Rules were followed to the letter, but we all knew that when one of us (or one of our friends or family members) stood to benefit financially from the Board's decision, we didn't get to cast our usual vote. Doing so would have muddied the usually clear definition of good decision-making: it's good for everyone, not just for some well-placed folks with votes.

Mayor Ford has held his position for over a year now, and sat on city council for ten years before that. Even if he wasn't paying attention, he still learned how and when to state his conflicts of interest, and to stay away from the discussion and the decisions surrounding those agenda items. On the very same that day Ford cast his vote to reverse a fine he had been levied, he also excused himself from discussion about a golf course, because he was a member. His defense in this matter can only be, "I didn't know better," a weak excuse at best, and one that won't hold water given that he has a record of understanding exactly what a conflict of interest is.

Ford has earned a reputation as a maverick (if you like him) or a blowhard (if you don't), in part because he has operated somewhat outside the will of council for much of his tenure. He hasn't done much to build bridges in council, but that's okay - it's tough to be both the outsider underdog and the mayor (echoes of Dubya ring through the canyons), but Ford somehow pulls it off. What's harder to accept is Ford's petulance, fast becoming a pattern, when he doesn't get his way - his attempts to throw council and its rules under the bus borders on heresy, especially for someone who owes his very position to the existence of council in the first place. It's arrogant in the extreme. Arrogance is tough to accept in anyone, let alone a divisive "populist" leader, and it's hard not cheer when he gets called out.

Kony Island and Candy iPads: Activism in 2012

Let's review the timeline: on March 5, the American activist and advocacy group Invisible Children posted a 30-minute video called Kony 2012. They put it on YouTube, Vimeo, and their own site. On Tuesday March 6, my Facebook newsfeed was suddenly flooded with friends imploring me to watch this video. Watching it, some said, would be the single greatest piece of activism I would do that year. On Wednesday March 7, Twitter trends included buzzwords from the film, including #Kony2012, Stop Kony, Invisible Children, and Uganda. As of the time I write these words, the video, having gone undeniably viral, has been seen over 19 million times.

You should watch Kony 2012. It's about Joseph Kony, the leader of Central/North Africa's LRA, an army made up primarily of child soldiers who have been kidnapped from their families and forced to fight. It's about Jacob, a former Ugandan child soldier who was befriended by Invisible Children and rescued from his seemingly inevitable suicide. It's about Invisible Children, who is calling for a day of action on April 20, and to do "whatever it takes" for Kony to be out of power by the end of 2012.

It's a gorgeous piece of social media - a lot of whizzing camera effects and animated photos, a friendly voiceover and a cute little kid. Invisible Children has given us all a clear action plan: buy the Kony 2012 kit (it comes with stickers and posters!), and then take to the streets in April. By plastering Kony's name and face all over the world, leaders will be forced to realize that their people care about this issue, and be moved to rectify it. There are lots of shots of young people standing in solemn groups in front of American national landmarks, fists raised in solidarity. The music builds to a frenzy as those young people take to the streets, covering their faces with thuggish bandanas as they paper their cities with pre-made posters of Joseph Kony.

As I was watching it, I felt myself going through all the usual reactions to a beautifully made viral video - the story is moving, and the film's editing and effects are a golly-gee wonder - but when it was over, I had weirdly landed on anger. There were issues with the video.

For a movie ostensibly about Uganda and Ugandan people, there were surprisingly few speaking roles for actual Ugandans. I got the sense that Jacob, the friend of the filmmakers who featured prominently, was supposed to represent the experience of all the child soldiers - not exactly the best way to honour these people's stories. There was also a brief moment, a throwaway shot, of a quick pan up the hierarchy of the LRA to the top, where Kony's face had been plastered. Getting rid of Kony, Invisible Children promise, will erase the potential for the LRA to continue their horrific campaigns. But every army has its platoon leaders, its lieutenants, and who's to say that once Joseph Kony has been removed, some other despot won't move in? It's not like assassinating the President dissolves the country of America - there are structures in place to keep power and rules. The LRA has been in operation since the mid-1980s, and I'm sure at some point, a contingency plan has been prepared.

But Kony 2012 isn't really about Kony - it's about the movement Invisible Children has created to stop him. The video is only the first step: newly mobilized viewers are then encouraged to log on to Invisible children's website and purchase an action kit. Shoppers get all the tools they need to "Cover the Night:" a teeshirt, a consciousness-raising bracelet, stickers, posters, a button, and an Action Guide. It costs thirty dollars, and you can buy a larger kit for $225. In the video, riot-cop worthy crowds of people - most of whom are under thirty - stand in their matching anti-Kony tees; quick cut to a shot of them taking to the streets and plastering their cities with posters and stickers.

It's a nice in for folks who have never participated in a social movement before, but problematically, it also creates the impression that there's one "real" way to create activism around this issue. There are plenty of other organizations working in that part of the world, on overlapping issues, and they've been shuffled aside because they lack the ability to harness social media in a meaningful way. Combined with the video's slick production values, the action kit feels like Invisible Children is marketing Kony the same way Apple markets iPads.

It reminds me of Kickstarter: donate money to a start-up, and you get something back - usually in the form of a teeshirt or free issue of whatever magazine you're helping to launch, but if you donate more, you can be rewarded with dinners at fancy restaurants, private tours, and all kinds of perks. Both Kony 2012 and Kickstarter have value and mean a lot to the people who participate, but it leaves me feeling like we've become a generation of people who demand a return on our activism investment. We can't just give money to a good cause - we need a button that flaunts our commitment. We need to be seen giving and participating, or it doesn't count.

There's since been a ton of backlash to Kony 2012 and Invisible Children. Other criticisms have erupted - IC has a dubious financial record, these kids were never invisible to their communities, is it noble to spend over a million dollar of an 8-million dollar operating budget on travel, partnering with the Ugandan army to stop Kony has its own human rights questions, so on, into infinity.

I was chatting with my boss the other day, and she said, "Well, isn't doing something better than nothing?" Kony is indisputably a Bad Guy. Ousting shitty people from their positions of power takes resources and money, and spreading the word about that need is part of the process. But do we contribute to organizations who want to make the issues about us and how we feel? Feeling good - proud, even - about the ways we contribute to the world around us is a natural desire, but activism isn't a single-file line-up to the checkout.

No-Big-Deal

Two years ago, I went to the doctor and she stuck her hand into my vagina and frowned. Doctors frowning is a big red flag. We all get up on the wrong side of the bed sometimes, but generally speaking, when a doctor does something like examine a mole, or look at test results, or stick a hand in someone's underpants area and then frown, there's no reason to pop the champagne cork.

My champagne cork? Unpopped.

Two years ago, I went to the doctor and got some shaky news: a lump. My family has a history of shaky news, shared at weird times. My younger sister called me on the phone to say she had The Big C, and my mom has mentioned offhand that she's had a few scares over the past few years, in the same tone of voice that one might say, "I once chugged a litre of carrot juice." I have no real memory of how I told anyone what was up. I turned the doctor's appointment story into an uncomfortable-funny anecdote to tell two drinks over the Good Taste Line at cocktail parties, but in the there-and-now, I don't really know what I said, and to whom, and when. My doctor referred me to a gynaecologist, who was very blase about the whole deal and schedule no-big-deal surgery to remove the lump for six months down the road.

Like with anyone's medical misfortune, there's a cycle to testing and results that has become part of the wilderness of my emotional landscape. Every February (which is, as we all know, the lousiest time of year [except for August heat waves]), I trundle off to the doctor's office and ask that they test me for disease and malformities. It's a nerve-wracking visit in the best of times: in my, uh, sluttier years, I would pray that no unpleasant virus of bacteria was making a waterpark of my lady bits, and now that I'm on the other side of a no-big-deal surgery, it's become a serious question of exactly how viable all my parts remain.

I get an annual ultrasound, because the "no-big-deal" surgery captured one of my ovaries, leaving me with one single worker on the baby-factory floor. If anything should happen to the other one, through trauma or disease, I'll be officially spayed. That leaves the door open for all kinds of things - anxiety every time the mittelschmerz kicks in, worries that I won't be able to have kids, and, if the other one does develop any weirdo tendencies and needs to be removed, the fear that I'll be celebrating my next birthday with a lack-of-estrogen moustache.

The annual test is fairly straightforward. Chug a litre of water an hour before the ultrasound. Sit in the waiting room with my best friend. Every five minutes, complain about needing to pee. Look around at all the old people, and all the pregnant women. Wonder if anyone thinks I'm pregnant. Think about losing five pounds. Realize that, when I pee, I probably will.

Put on the gown, lie on the table, and make insanely fake-sounding chitchat with the Russian technician, who smears ice-cold ultrasound jelly on my stomach and then sadistically presses down on my swollen bladder. Crane my neck and try to see the screen. When I come back from peeing, she's prepping the ultrasound wand, which looks like a sex toy designed by robots, and which will poke me in the cervix and make me bleed. The room is dark. It almost feel like a visit to the spa, except not at all.

Afterwards, my friend and I ate burgers topped with fried eggs and brie, and oatmeal-peach pancakes, and assiduously avoided talking about anything serious. My test results will come back in a week.

Living in the moments between test and result is sort of a dreamy blur. I oscillate between knowing, in my bones, that I have cancer of the everything, and understanding that, in all likelihood, things are probably mostly fine. Statistically, I'm at a higher risk for developing another cyst, which is why ultrasounds are now part of my healthy-living routine. The ultrasound makes me feel both safer and more unhinged about my health. My sister, who now lives cancer-free, has a similar emotional cycle of semi-annual tests and waiting for results. She's learning to ignore the fear in the pit of her stomach. She has more practice.

Last year's test results came back while I was at work. Calling my doctor during business hours had me pale and shaky for hours. I whispered furiously into the phone, desperate to avoid anyone who might overhear my frantic pleading for information. I finally nabbed some nurse practitioner who explained that, while I had developed a fibroid the size of a pea, there were no no-big-deal lumps.

But now? Now I wait.

I hate my body, and because I hate my body, I hate myself.

I've had a long and complicated and, quite frankly, boring relationship with the way I look. It's the same old white-girl middle-class bullshit that all the teen interest magazines warned us about back in 1999, before prescription drugs replaced the hysterical monthly long read on "issues." I first binged and purged when I was 13, I restricted my food intake my last two years of school, I dropped to 108 pounds three years ago and have since rocketed up to 153.

I hate it. I want it to stop. I obviously want to stop gaining weight, but I also just want so badly to stop hating this stupid body. I cried tonight, because my BMI is teetering at 29 - I'm just six pounds away from being obese, a prospect that terrifies me - and I feel like no matter what I do, I just can't win. I can't smoke this away, I can't purge this away, and going to the gym feels humiliating. I feel like a beached whale. My socks make those wrinkled marks around my ankles. I have a double chin all the time.

I hate it so much.

I'm fat. I'm not pudgy or cute or whatever. I'm just fat. I was leafing through a magazine and they had some photospread about pregnancy, and I fit nicely between the second and third trimester. I've got fat-girl arms, and love handles, and my tits are just outrageously big. My body has become this huge other thing, something that feels far away from the way I want to look. It's shocking every time I look in the mirror, because when I was thinner - 108, 122, 132 - I thought I was huge. Now I actually am.

I know, this is so crazy self-indulgent. But understand: all the things I used to do to control this horrible, ill-tempered body have been taken away from me. I mean, I quit them, because they were killing me - good for me! - but the thing that I was so scared of for so long has happened. I just want to hide. I'm so ashamed. I hate this. I'm crying right now.