Identity Crisis

If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.
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If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.
--Wayne Dwyer

I love talking about the shit that makes me crazy—overblown writers, skinny women on premium cable, motorists who can't seem to figure out what to do with cyclists—but I also love talking about feelings and emotions, and it's sometimes jarring to toggle back and forth. Over the past nearly five (!!) years that I've been writing this blog, it's gone from being a clearinghouse of snark to something a more personal. To be honest, I'm having a hard time reconciling the two.

When I'm most in touch with myself, I become aware that writing is part of my skeletal structure: in a lot of ways, it's what holds me together. And writing this blog, with its teeny audience and never-changing layout, has been instrumental in transforming myself. I've gone from feeling like a fraud to feeling like a perfectly valid member of the creative society. I've used it to set goals and to follow through, which was incredibly valuable when I took on a long project like writing a novel. It was a balm when I hated my job, because it helped remind me that I was more than my 9-to-5 self. Plus it's always been fun. I love coming up with my next topic, with goofy turns of phrase, and terrible punny titles. A large part of me relishes the work of it all.

But in my earlier blog posts, I wanted to write about things, like pop culture and clothing fads and stuffed-shirt writer-types. Now I want to write about feelings, like love and fear and jealousy and gratitude. Or I want to talk about life, like family, goals, and friendships. And you know what? It's hard to combine that pithy, know-it-all voice with a more vulnerable, more questioning topic. I know it can be done (see: Lamott, Anne), but I'm slightly uncomfortable with the shift. I feel like I spent four years building up one kind of blog, only to realize maybe I was stuck in it. I hadn't given myself enough room to shift. I can't talk about hipsters forever. Nobody wants that.

So, what to do? I need to keep talking about feelings, because they feel a lot more important and pressing than the work I was doing on, say, skinny jeans. And I don't want to lose my voice—my self-aware, sarcastic, critical, brook-no-bullshit voice. But can I apply it to the "what does it all mean?" questions. I mean, is that allowed?

Because it a lot of ways, that would be the most honest thing to do: to take this blog and its voice—my blog, my voice—and start talking about the stuff that actually matters. But after treating every last goofy thing like it's the end of the world (let's now talk very seriously about the importance of really good gifts, you guys), to turn my attention more important stuff is like saying nothing that came before matters very much.

And it does. It matters to me. Or, you know, it did. I have hundreds of blog posts to prove it.

But it's also not who I am anymore, or at least not as much. I struggle with change, and this has been weighing on me for the last few months. I want to talk about the different ways I've changed in the last few years—going from steely to more vulnerable, from anxious to incrementally more relaxed. I trust more. I have deeper friendships. I have so much more gratitude. And all the judgment I've passed on all the things matters less in the face of this undeniable tidal wave of feelings.

I'm letting myself off the hook and going for more honesty. I'm switching. I'm not swearing off the snarky posts, but I am explaining why they've been fewer and farther between. I'm telling you why my voice has softened, even only slightly. I want to keep writing, and I want to keep engaging with all the stuff that makes my brain churn...it's just that that stuff has changed. It's bigger. It's weirder. And I like it.

Thriving in the Question Mark

I was recently chatting with a friend, and he mentioned that he was hitting a wall in his relationship. It's long-distance (she's overseas in Tokyo), and, so far, most of it has been conducted online. They have Gchats and Skype dates, and have met a handful of times over the past few months when she's been home, but they haven't really landed into a comfortable rhythm yet. He knows something is wrong, but he's loath to put his finger on it directly: maybe time will heal these problems, or maybe better communication. Maybe they just need to be in the same place for a while.

Or maybe not.

Over the past few years, I've become a big proponent of radical honesty, radical acceptance, and of self-care. Radical honesty is the practice of actually telling people what you think—not couching in terms of what will make them feel better, or holding back because you know your opinion will hurt their feelings. When someone asks, "Hey, what's wrong?" instead of responding with, "Oh, nothing," a person practicing radical honesty might instead reply with, "I'm feeling really down because you came home later than you told me you were going to." Or, "I'm really angry because you've been vague with me." Cue discussion.

This can be incredibly tough to initiative, because we're usually not socialized to be so honest. We're taught that honesty is good up to a certain point—the point at which it hurts someone else's feelings—and then we need to stand down (I'll observe that women seem to do this more often, but it is by no means solely a female practice or problem.) Saying to someone, "Hey, the way you're behaving is shitty" is terrifying. What if I drive them away? What if it exposes some other, underlying problem? What if it's a problem that can't be fixed? What if...and then we're all mired in the emotional tar pits, braying, "Nooooothing" when someone on the shore asks us what's wrong. This is not generally recognized as a super-effective strategy for change.

It also means being radically honest with ourselves: facing uncomfortable truths we've been shying away from because they're too painful to look at directly. It means admitting that our relationships aren't giving us what we need; it means knowing our friendships have ended; it means recognizing that I am acting badly and need to apologize. This stuff is sucky, because knowing that, at some point in the future, you're going to have to break up with someone/quit/apologize/whatever uncomfortable action needs to be taken is the pendulum in your own individual pit.

Radical acceptance is a little different; it's usually a self-directed practice that says, "I'm going to love myself or my situation regardless of the flaws." I was first introduced to the concept in recovery from an eating disorder, and it was mega-disorienting to say to myself, "I accept my body the way it is." I actually felt nauseous the first time I did it; it opposed all the beliefs I had troweled onto myself over the previous decade. Now I do it all the time: I take a deep breath and say, "I love my relationship," knowing full well it's not perfect; I say "I love my family," even though there are moments with everyone that make me furious; I say, "I love my friends," even sometimes I want nothing to do with them. It's a really useful tool for challenging black-and-white thinking. I accept my double chin, I accept my thick arms, and I accept frizzy hair; in doing so, I also accept my flat stomach, my striking eyes, and my shapely legs.

Self-care is the final piece of the puzzle. This is the stuff we do to restore ourselves to an even emotional keel: the creative projects, the bubble baths, the coffee with friends. Self-care isn't supposed to push our boundaries and make us work. It's more like taking an iron pill when you're anemic. It's essential to have a good, varied bunch of self-care techniques in your back pocket. I favour exercise, gratitude journals, playing on Pinterest (don't judge me, it's soothing in there), and visiting with my favourite west-end houseful of weirdos. Someone else's might be a round of Horse, a glass of red wine, a bunch of fresh flowers, a hike, or sketching. The end goal is to simply feel better. This is really important if you've been dealing with assholes, or handing out a lot of radical honesty and acceptance lately—you need to reset. It's taking responsibility for your own soul's well-being, and not passing that onto a partner. It's also living the belief that you are a person worth taking care of.

So why am I telling you all this? Because no relationship can survive without honesty, acceptance, and independence. The radical versions are a good place to start, but even regular old honesty can feel radical if you're not used to it.

Being a good partner sometimes means renegotiating communication strategies so that the question "What's wrong?" isn't perpetually sloughed off. It sometimes means breathing through a bad few months and saying, "I accept this, I can do this, I don't have to fight it," even as you keep fighting for the relationship itself. It might even mean taking time away from someone—a weekend, a day, even a few moments—to do some self-care.

Sometimes, it means walking away altogether. I've walked away from friendships because even radical honesty and love couldn't get them to see past the end of their own nose; there's nothing to be done in a case like that. When the challenges are too great—distance in space or emotion; disconnect; different goals or values; different needs or priorities; too much emphasis on one person's needs and none on the other's—sometimes the best thing to do is to end it. To recognize, with love and honesty, that fixing the relationship means changing the bedrock of who you are and who you want to be, and that price is too high.

It is hard, I know. But it's really hard to thrive in the question mark—is this good? Is this good for me?—and not have a few tools in the chest to help you.

Nows and Nexts

It's been a couple months since I've done a gratitude run-down, and while they don't drive nearly as much traffic as, y'know, "hipster porn" or "ropy arms" or whatever other search term usually drags people over to this site, I think it's important to remember gratitude. Especially when we've all spent the last few weeks cooped up inside, not doing much more than complaining about the weather and eating. God, how much eating? All the eating.

• Friends. I know: I'm always grateful for friends. But this week has been especially awesome. It's been a whirlwind of amazing female friendships, for one thing—the girls who would stand up at my weddings, whose weddings I've totally cried at, and who are going to be part of my life for a very long time. Women who have already been longstanding friends! And we keep finding new friendship nooks to explore. I keep thinking about Maria Bello's Modern Love column, where she laments the cultural norm of only having one partner—she has many partners, she says, not all of them the so-called "primary partner:"
  

  Does that imply we have secondary and tertiary partners, too? Can my primary partner be my sister or child or best friend, or does it have to be someone I am having sex with? I have two friends who are sisters who have lived together for 15 years and raised a daughter. Are they not partners because they don’t have sex? And many married couples I know haven’t had sex for years. Are they any less partners?

  I love this idea. I count myself incredibly lucky to know and love so many wonderful people, and our connections are deep and strong, regardless of whether or not we've had sex, or we are the same sex. Friendship is a form of partnership—it requires the same communication, negotiation, and faith in the future that your garden-variety romantic enmeshments do—and honouring that is pretty powerful.
  
  
• Writer's group. Last year, a few friends and I banded together to start a little writer's circle/feedback group/constructive criticism experience, and it's been a lot of fun. Well, no, actually, fun isn't quite the right word. It's been challenging, both creatively and (sometimes) interpersonally. Inspiring, too. Stressful, definitely. But it's been good: good to be in the company of other writers, good to feel some friendly pressure to actually produce (there's a big different between saying you're a writer and actually producing good, publishable writing), and good to get outside the me-me-me bubble of writing. So, thanks, guys.
  
  
• The Simpsons. Yesterday, after walking in the cold for all afternoon and dragging myself to lunch despite having slept for a mere two hours the night before (and drinking most of a bottle of hooch called Crazy Uncle [I should have really seen that hangover coming]), I drew a bath, put my laptop on a footstool, and sat in the tub watching The Simpsons for two hours. It was glorious. Perfect, mindless soul balm.
  
  
• This time. Mike and I have been so lovely lately; the last few months of unemployment have been so rich, both creatively and personally; I've had time to write and see friends; I've had time to work out and bake (and then work out some more); I've had time to myself. We're on a path towards making a family, and so I'm become acutely aware that my time to be truly alone is rapidly running out. This is fine—it's a change—but I'm determined to appreciate this time for what it is.
  
  
• The future. God, I have this image of myself, hugely pregnant, waddling down to the water's edge at the family cottage on Lake Huron. Maybe I'm wrapped in a towel, but I'm probably not—I feel like 38-weeks pregnant women are the textbook description of IDGAF, you know?—and I'm clutching a New Yorker and a folding chair, and I just take the whole works out to the first sandbar and sit. I also have this image of myself, sitting with a client in a sun-soaked meeting room, going through their needs and goals and working with them to figure how to get them there. I also have this image of Mike and I on a jetway somewhere, and we're about to embark on some great adventure in a place where we don't speak the language, can barely read the maps, and are so excited we can't even sleep...or is that the jetlag? In any case, I'm grateful for the sense that all these things are hurtling down the pike at about a zillion miles an hour, and it's all going to be wonderful. Even the stuff that's going to suck is going to be great, because it'll happen with the friends, the family, and the love. That's good stuff.

Stretching

I am not, by nature, a flexible person. Asked to touch my toes, I can dangle my knuckles towards the ground and groan hideously towards the floor; the sound I make, if you're curious, lands somewhere between a barfing noise and a car being jacked up by the side of the road. The backs of my thighs are so tight that they feel like wood to the touch. There are whole classes worth of yoga poses that make me cramp just thinking about them.

I covet limberness. I want to be able to arch my leg up and behind my head, like a dancer or a cheerleader. I want to be able to casually backbend into a wheel pose, the way the little-girl gymnast I remember from my childhood could. I want to be bendy, flexible, stretched.

I equate an active muscle with an exercised muscle, so when I'm working out, I usually work my muscles as hard as they can go. This is great when I'm flinging myself across the room in a demented pirouette, or when I'm hoisting weights above my head. It's then that the tautness keeps me safe, keeps me from careening off into a mirror or dropping the barbell on my foot. But when it comes  time to get down on the ground and smooth things out, it's impossible for me to let go of the active muscle and work into the passive one. And that's not great. I've overtaxed my muscles a number of times, like after a recent round of squats, which left me hobbling around the apartment for two days. I cursed every time I had to lurch down the stairs.

It's not a stretch (ha!) to apply this desire for flexibility to my mental life, as well. I can be pretty rigid in my thinking—very black/white, sometimes obsessive, frequently overactive. Even when I'm exhausted, I'll lie awake and think of all the Big Life Things I'm trying to get a handle on. I'll fret about accidentally kicking my boyfriend while he sleeps. I worry that sweating under the duvet means I have cancer (or, jeez maybe it's early menopause?). I'll stress about forgetting to take my early-morning temperature. Big interview the next day? Forget it. My mind will be in full-fledged meltdown mode, playing and replaying disaster scenarios running the gamut from "vomiting on my interviewer's shoes" to "choking on a multivitamin while eating breakfast and having to give myself the Heimlich on the back of a chair, making myself late for the interview and unhireable for the rest of time." Mostly it's garden-variety stuff: when will I get married/have babies/kick my professional life into high gear/fall asleep? Where is that light coming from? What if the girl from [REC] is under my bed right now?

Even when I'm feeling good and strong, the inability to let go can be a hindrance. I'll never forget a yoga class I went to last year: at the end of the session, the teacher instructed us to relax—just lie on our backs and melt into the floor—and be still. There I was, eyes closed, breathing softly, and when she came around and pressed my still-hunched shoulders down from my ears and into my yoga mat. I burned with embarrassment. All these loosey-goosey yogis and then me, the clockwork doll who can't bend her elbows.

Here's something I noticed today in Nia: when I stopped working my muscles and just relaxed, I could move deeper into the stretch. And I noticed it because it doesn't come naturally to me; paradoxically, relaxing my body is hard work. I had to pay attention to sense the shift between active and passive. Once I let go, I felt a wave of endorphins wash over me, and I relaxed even more. It was amazing, this biofeedback loop of deciding to pay attention to what stretching really feels like, and then stretching some more.

I think I'll sleep like a baby tonight. And, like any other strength, the ability to stretch will come more easily. I'll put my palms on the floor one of these days.

Eff right off, FML

When he's banging around the kitchen, my boyfriend will sometimes have a minor setback— a knife will drop from his hands and clatter across the kitchen floor, or the tap water will switch from temperate to unexpectedly hot. When this happens, I will hear, from elsewhere in the apartment, an exclamation of "Oh, fuck off" issue from the kitchen. And I'll grimace.

 There's this internet thing that has the same effect on me: the initials FML, which stands for Fuck My Life. FML is usually attached to a tweet or a Facebook status update complaining about the most domesticated species of annoyance (forgetting your gym towel at home, maybe, or missing a subway whose next train is arriving in a few minutes). It's weird to really think about FML in any seriousness. It's like, you couldn't get a seat on the GO train, so fuck your whole entire life? It's ruined? The whole thing? Okay then. I guess I'll just show myself out.

I hate FML and "Oh, fuck off," because they're unrelenting, aggressively negative. There's no room for positivity to peek in and be like, "Hello! I'm still here! I'm just in the bathroom right now, but I haven't left the building!" I'm frequently kind of a bummer—glass half empty people, put your hands up!—but I like to think that the big picture is usually pretty okay. Great, even. It's taken me a long time get there, and FML is a throwback to the days when things were actually pretty bleak, and for reasons that were completely unrelated to daily aggravations and stupidity. These were problems beyond the magnitude of running into an old friend with a sesame seed stuck in our teeth. These were real, life-fucking problems: relationships, health, and family. The trifecta.

I understand that, in the age of the internet, people are going to talk about themselves. Good and bad, lives are being lived, and often quite publicly. A few moody Facebook posts aren't going to make the world a worse place, and it can be cathartic to vent out the things that are bugging you so they don't fester. But if every Facebook update or tweet or email or text or thought or action is a moan/complaint/negative thought, then we have a problem. Focusing on negative thoughts or events can really hurt us: it sets up a cycle (which can feel more like a sinkhole) of pissy thoughts and can remake our minds into some pretty dark places. Climbing out that hole is a lot of work, and I can't help but think that the FML mindset is a like a fireman's pole to the bottom.

On the other end of the FML spectrum, The Guardian recently published a column that took cancer patient Lisa Adams to task for "oversharing" her life with the disease on Twitter. The backlash was swift and complete, with commentators asking if we've somehow broken the internet or ourselves when we engage with emotionally difficult things online. As if we're "doing the internet wrong" when dying women use it to show us what dying means. The offending column was eventually taken down, but the question remains: how F'ed does a particular L have to be before even looking at it is too distressing? And where is the space for the positive in that? In Adams's case, it might be in a post called "Cancer is not a gift," where she gives thanks for her time and her emotions but reserves a hearty and much-deserved fuck you to the cancer itself.

There's always some learning experience happening, even it's supremely annoying, and recognizing that life is full of misplaced keys, acne scars, blistered heels and forgotten ID is part of the fare you pay for riding, you know? FML is a little poison bomb of negativity that spread out through the few minutes after its expression, wrinkling the noses and souring the mood of the folks who hear it. It's the opposite of "get back on the horse" or "life goes on": it's a tiny pause that draws out the negative moment into something more, blowing it out of proportion until the ramifications of a simple mistake or accident can affect someone's whole life.

I realize that I sound overly sensitive, and it's not likely that someone saying FML has ever, you know, meant it. ("I burned this freezer pizza! FML!" [throws self out window, leaving behind a horrified pregnant wife, distraught parents, and bereft co-workers]) But I cringe every time I see it, because I want to take that person by the shoulders, give them a shake, and say, "Do you know how lucky you that you even have keys to lose? That you can afford to go to the university that gave you a B-? That you have a job to complain about?" I'm not asking for people to stop kvetching about their lives. But if you think your life is ruined by the crumbs in your bed or the lost umbrellas, you need to seriously recalibrate your negativity meter and start engaging in some serious, counterbalancing gratitude.

Scandinavi-yeah

When I was unhappily venturing into one of my very first Real Life jobs, I was so bored and lonely that I began keeping a binder full of printouts from the internet. I would search for things, places, and ideas that made me happy to think about: co-operative governance structures, for example, which is about the dowdiest fantasy a girl can have, yet made me daydream about the day when I could live in adult housing co-op. It felt far from my then-current co-op housing situation, which had placed me with a teacher's college student who would get blind drunk on weeknights, and a plain-faced girl who eschewed deodorant and worked out in her room (with the door flung wide open) in sweaty cotton briefs. Before Pinterest would come to serve much the same function, leafing through the binder made me feel happy, inspired, far-away from my horrifically dull office job. It was a stakeholder in my sanity.

The first section of the binder is a printout of the Wikipedia page on Scandinavia. (I was big into Robyn at the time.) Being "into" a geographical region is sort of iffy, politically speaking—we tend to look down on people who get obsessive about places like Japan or Africa, because there's a whiff of cultural appropriation and/or gawking tourism—but Scandinavia, which is stuffed full of white people, seems somehow okay. I was fascinated by their reputation for happiness, for their social programming, their physical fitness, and their musical output. Here was a region of the world that suffered much the same stumbling blocks as Canada—brutal winters, a minor culinary scene (Noma notwithstanding), vast tracts of land given over to wilderness, the aforementioned white people—but the Scandinavian countries of Sweden, Denmark and Norway seemed cheerful and cozy in comparison.

Take, for example, their concept of hygge. Right now, much of Canada is trapped in what's been dubbed a "polar vortex," which is causing wind chill temperatures in Toronto that bottom out near -35 C and has eaten entire cars. We've taken to Twitter to complain about the cold, staying huddled in our apartments and refusing, for the most part, to leave unless we're getting paid to do so. Two weeks after the winter solstice, it's dark out there. We feel ruthless in our misery, and no amount of morning sun can mellow us. The Danish hygge, on the other hand,  is about "creating a nice, warm atmosphere and enjoying the good things in life with good people around you." They take pleasure in the company of their friends, in the aesthetic loveliness of a fireplace or a glass of stout beer, the gift of a hand-knit sweater or a well-cooked meal. It's very hard to visit on Twitter. Hygge means leaving your house to seek out good feelings. It is actively choosing to find the people and activities that make us happy.

I also love the Dala horse, a handcarved wooden toy that's become kind of a symbol of Swedish handicraft. They're carved from scraps of wooden, and often brightly painted. They're ridiculously simple, embodying the Scandinavian commitment to clean lines, but also beautiful and hefty; holding a Dala horse in your hand, you get a sense of the wood, the craft, and the time it takes to apply the latter to the former. Scandinavian design is, of course, massively influential throughout the world—hello, IKEA!—and the Dala is a lovely and portable distillation of that design. I would love a whole herd to come galloping through my house someday.

And then there's my little homegrown slice of Nordic heaven, Karelia Kitchen. When I said before that Scandinavian cuisine was minor, I meant only in comparison to the heavy-hitters like Japanese, French, and Mexican fusion. Nordic cuisine, with its reliance on highly seasonal berries, chewy breads, and smoked fish, is a thing of such ephemeral beauty, and Karelia Kitchen embodies this wonderfully. They do a wide selection of inventive open-faced sandwhiches, a lovely lunch menu (the last time I was there, I had fishcakes with a cucumber/vinegar salad), and desserts that melt in your mouth. When we were in Iceland—not technically Scandinavia, but its cultural cousin—we ate dried fish and skyr and felt very much like Vikings; the chance to recreate this feeling in Karelia's warm, Marimekko-wrapped dining room is so welcome. Also, they have the best cheesecake in the city, hands-down.

I'm writing this in a sunny Toronto living room. The windchill today is a relatively balmy -19. I have food in my fridge, a selection of Ritter Sports in my pantry, and am wearing a cozy pair of sweats. Technically, I have everything I need. But it's not quite right: I need to open the blinds, let the light really pour in. I need to meet a friend, engage in some hygge. And I need to keep opening that magical binder up to pages that make me feel truly, wonderfully, good.

Blade Runnings

This year, we melded my Chinese-and-a-movie tradition with my boyfriend's Blade Runner-is-the-first-movie-of-the-year tradition and hosted a small gathering of dumpling/cybernoir aficionados. It was a total hoot: pancakes rolled with beef and green onions; meaty, savory mushrooms paired with chewy udon noodles; baskets of sticky steamed dumplings; platefuls of slippery, oily pan-friend morsels. We followed that with a brisk walk home in the minus-twenty-eight degree weather, and a screening of the Harrison Ford's classic. Some folks had never seen it ("Isn't Wesley Snipes in this movie?), while some people had seen it well over three dozen times. It was cozy: a chance to hunker down, a post-New Year's bash among friends.

It's amazing that Blade Runner is over 30 years old. Set in 2019, it's the story of a detective's attempt to track down four ultra-lifelike robots who are have escaped their slavery off-world are are trying fit in on earth. These aren't your regular-issue car-makin' robots: they're strong, smart, attractive, and fast. They also have a built-in expiry date of four years. Our foursome might only be a few months away from a hard crash, and their leader, Roy, is looking for his maker. Roy wants to figure out a way to extend his life. Harrison Ford wants to figure out a way to stop him.

I can understand why critics were initially "meh" about the movie: it takes odd side jaunts, it's moodily shot and woodenly performed (looking at you, Harrison!), and the story is slow. But over the last three decades, Blade Runner has become more than the sum of its part: it's a love letter to the seedy underbelly that writhes below the surface. Our society has become both seedier and more superficial, to the point where I'm half-expecting Miley Cyrus to show up in a outfit made exclusively of sequins and snake (except that Britney totally beat her to it).

We're so now technologically advanced that we usually don't understand how our machines work or what they're capable of; we just have to trust that it's good. As Wired touts wearable technology, as the NSA spies on its own citizens indiscriminately, even as we substitue TEDTalks for books and apps for maps, Blade Runner's questions about where humans end and machines begin—and what makes a human or a machine good—are still very relevant. The replicant Roy Batty is smarter than the man who made him, and also psychotically handsome, to boot. If he wasn't destined to live only four years, there's no telling what he might be capable of.

For me, Blade Runner is all about the look. It just looks cool. The world Ridley Scott builds in Blade Runner is exceptional: it's all enormous fur coats, 1940s-inspired hairdos, pouring rain, and huge golden buildings. Ford is fantastically blank as Detective Deckard, but Ford's woodenness against all the lushness is a place for the audience to hang our hats, especially against Rutget Hauer's operatic villainy and Daryl Hannah's sex-poppet gymnastics. Every piece of set dressing, every flying car and crashed-through window, every artificial snake and mechanical owl, is sumptuously, perfectly fake. It's glorious.

Since I first saw it over a decade ago, the aesthetics of Blade Runner have certainly influence my look. Cyberpunk, cybernoir, whatever it's called: I love the juxtaposition of the extremely sleek and extremely tactile. Perfectly shiny leather next to coarsely woven wool, huge fur coats next to spandex leotards, the absolute heaviest of eye makeup and the whitest of platinum hair. It's a limited colour palette—blacks and browns, rich reds and brocade golds—and a wild assortment of silhouettes: Renaissance meets colonial Africa meets 1940s noir meets insane Apple commercials. And I'm not the only one: Blade Runner-influenced looks have been around for almost as long as the movie itself. It's easy to dress like Zhora, Rachel, Roy and Deckard at pretty much every price point. The best thing about the future is that it looks an awful lot like the past, only done in crazier fabrics and with bigger hair. Who can't love that?

Maybe next year I'll snuggle into my boyfriend wearing an all-black bodysuit or a snap-on backless bra; maybe next year I'll cozy up in a huge fur coat and perfect ruby lips. Who knows? I can tell you for sure that, next year, we'll slurp noodles in a Chinatown restaurant and then retire to watch Harrison Ford for one more year: the future is always coming.