Momma, can you Hear me?

The relationship between mothers and daughters is tenuous at best. At the root of it is that both mothers and daughters assume different roles at different stages in life.  At times my mother has been my enemy, my protector, my enabler, my friend, my prison guard, my co-worker, my gossip buddy, my evil twin, my partner, a stranger and everything in between.  I'm sure she has seen me as everything under the sun from an innocent child to a brazen hussy to a complete failure at everything to a success at everything I touch. 

My mother is the queen of hindsight and the queen of blissful ignorance and the queen of I-hat-you-today-and-love-you-tomorrow-let's-never-talk-about-that-again. It can be a bit hard to keep up, especially when you are out of practise.  

A couple of weeks after I got home my mother and I got in a big row and I kicked her out of the house.  We both stewed it over for a few hours and in the end she called and apologized. Case closed. Hurtful words successfully swept under the carpet and forgotten. Well, for her at least. 

Her words have clouded every conversation I've had in the last two weeks. This time for some reason, her cruel words were not as easy to shake. 

Then today we had a conversation.  Innocent enough.  Nothing new or interesting was said really.  I said I was having a hard time finding a job and that I was sick again.  She said I shouldn't have gone to Vancouver because I always come home sick and that I shouldn't have quit my job in December. (See what I mean about Queen of hindsight?) So I innocently said, stop criticizing me when I am depressed. And she was all apologetic and sweet. She said she didn't realize she had been criticizing me and then asked me if I needed some money. 

All these years, I've tried all these underhanded, backwards ways of teeling her things or how I feel and now I realize that all she needed was a basic direct approach.  Be nice to me, I already feel bad enough! 

Boy that would have saved me gallons of tears if I had figured that out 15 years ago! 

The Art of Couple Walking

Okay maybe this is a mute point for you you old married types, but when you are dating someone or getting to know someone or whatever, finding the right couple walk is a a very slippery slope. There are many things to account for  the size of both practitioners, where you are walking ( a couple walk in the park could be very different from a couple walk on a busy downtown street), the speed with which you both walk.... 

 

It's complicated Business and sometimes if you pull yourself out of an awkward couple walk it can send the wrong message to your new and timid couple walking partner.  While you may just mean the break in union as a chance to see the new window display at She She Bags, he may take it as a silent reprimand against his claustrophobic clutch around your shoulders. 

So please men, take this a guide to what your subconscious declaration of your property or your innocuous display of affection can mean to women and how it can affect the all important factors of trying to keeping our bags on our shoulders or our jackets from falling down or our necks from developing serious kinks in an attempt to let you seem taller and shrinking into your arms. Women, please take this as a sign.  You are not alone.  You aren't the only one who finds these situations awkward and unreadable.  And if you have never gave this kind of thing a second thought: remember: I don't have a job right now! 

There is no walk more annoying than the backpocket jeans double walk.  Like why don't we just tie our ankles together and enter a potato sack race at the local Smith Family Reunion? Ugh! First of all, jeans fall down, easily. They fall down all the more easily when there is a hand in your pocket dragging them down. I'm all for a free feel in public, but please just give it a quick squeeze and then carry on to the destination.  Once at home, we can squeeze whatever until your hearts content, but walking like this makes me feel like a conjoined twin and the two arms always get smashed together and then on top of that you have to keep your steps in time.  It's weird.  I think after like grade 7, this type of walking needs to be outlawed except maybe if you're in a field of daisies or like maybe if you have had a big fight and are walking on the beach after making up.  Those are the only two circumstances, though!
I'm all for the arm over the shoulder walk.  It's cute.  It's comfortable.  There are a few issues though.  Like your bag. You can't really hold your bag on your shoulder in this couple walk. It'll fall down if it's any bigger than a notebook.  So then you have to hold your bag down at your side, which I find so annoying.  The bag loses its cuteness when its way down by your legs. Plus it's way easier for your bag to get snatched if it is down at your side instead of on your shoulder.  Also this walk is so cute and comfy but it does take up a lot of sidewalk space. Like if you are downtown, be prepared for  people to bump into you and give you angry looks because you are walking slow and taking up all the space. 
This is a variation of the arm over shoulder walk a.k.a the hug walk.  It's okay, I guess.   I feel like it's  such a drunk walk. Like the girl can't stand up so she's hanging off the guy to stumble into the car. It is definitely a very helpful walk when you are drunk, but when you're not.... not so much.  My arms are short, sometimes I can't reach that far around the guy and then it's like where should my hand go.... Backpocket? NO! This photo also illustrates the dangers of couplewalking when both practitioners are about the same height. She won't be able to lean into him for long or she'll get a huge hump on her back or a kink in her neck. 
I like the arm in arm walk.  It's comfy.  You don't have to be the same height or walk in time or anything.  Although I guess it looks a little formal but whatevs. I feel like this is a drunk walk also. More like a happy drunk walk before you have to be helped to the car at the end of the night. Although the more I think of it, it's not exactly a walking downtown walk.  It's more of a here I am making my entrance to the debutante ball walk.  Maybe that's why I like it so much. 
Oh hand-holding.  You are so cute.  You are so normal. Sure maybe a bit grade school but it's good nonetheless. It's cute for anyone from kids to grandparents. It lets people be different heights; walk at different speeds; not get in the way of people trying to get by downtown (unless you're one of those couples that makes people walk around you so you won't have to let go of your hands for even a few seconds and in that case.... you're lame). 

 Yes hand-holding, you are my favorite.  An oldie but a goodie. But that's just me. And every couple walking partnership is different.  So who knows what will happen next? 

Sometimes I hear you, Sometimes I don't

Okay, I feel like a self-absorbed tart saying this, but is there some kind of weird joke going on at our local Starbucks's? Is there some random drunk photo of me nabbed off facebook or flickr that has been posted in various coffeehouses with instructions for barristas to handle me with extra care and build me up with extraneous compliments?

I've been to Starbucks maybe like 6 times since I've been back ( I know, I know, a bit excessive considering I don't have a job, but whatevs... simple pleasures) and every time the barrista has given me some strange unwarranted compliment.  One guy called me beautiful, one guy said he loved my hair, one guy said i had a great smile. 

I was like OMFG is it that I am now this old maid that the young barristas feel they have to go out of their way to give me some random compliment for fear that I will go and fling myself off the nearest highrise with the remnants of a Grande non-fat sugar-free hazelnut extra hot latte clouding the crime scene and creating a PR nightmare for the Starbucks brass. 

I finally swallowed my apprehension over sounding like a) a conceited twat who wants everyone to know she once got six compliments in two weeks b) a hopelessly insecure dweeb who cannot even take a compliment easily c) a drone who cannot let a haphazard nicety go by without making into a total incident and asked my coffee cohort what she thought of this undeserved and unexpected occurrence. 

She said I was dumb.  She said that lots of people get random compliments from people; it's not like a marriage proposal or someone asking for your phone number. She said don't be dumb. She said I always get lots of compliments from strangers both at Starbucks and other places. She said you're being so dumb. She said I smile a lot and play with my hair. These are obvious things to compliment or make small talk about. She said I'm such a dummy. She says maybe in my old age my hearing is actually getting better and I am actually paying some attention to what's happening around me.  

She makes a lot of sense. But she calls me dumb a bit too much for my taste. 

Vacation Coma...

I don't think I really understand how people have vacations properly.  Okay maybe I get it when you go off with your friends, family or loved ones and then you come back to reality and you share inside jokes about funny things that happened and random homeless people you met on random drunk nights.  

But I don't get it when you go off on your own and meet such cool people everywhere and have so much fun and then come back and no one knows what you are talking about and you have no job so you just kind of sit at home and surf the Internet and hang with your cat and think about what happened just two short weeks ago. 

It was fun. Yes.  That has been established.  But what now? Where now?  I mean I'm back from vacation but I'm not really back. I'm not at work. Not going out.  Barely talking on the phone.  I don't feel like myself. I feel like someone watching my old self.  It is really weird and I can't tell if it's the result of some big shift in my personality or just I am really bored and at wits end so I am making all this up in my head. 

I mean I've been sick.  And that has put a damper on things.  And I turned the big 3-0. But I'm not sure that is what it is.  As much as I try to surf for work and work on my writing I find myself browsing Expedia and TravelZoo.ca looking at cheap flights and daydreamingly planning trips. 

Obviously, this is not a good time to go anywhere.  My Dad is in India and I'm not sure if you've heard, but there's this thing called the economy and it's in the shiter and that means I should try and not live on credit and get a job. 

But I can't stop my daydreaming!

How a 42-year writer is like a 108-year old vampire that is a bit manic depressive and might kill you if he has sex with You.....

Okay, I know, I know I have become way too obsessed with popular vampire fiction. But you know what? I don’t care! I like it. It’s dangerous and sexy and hot and tragic. And it helps me get through my humdrum days of boring, un-dramatic relationship problems when I can imagine I’m actually caught up in some sexy vampire werewolf love triangle or am spending my last moments with my vampire soul mate before we are both killed by the Volturi; or am innocently trying to seduce my vampire boyfriend while he tries to be “good” and not drain my blood.

I think it’s like that whenever you read a lot of first-person narrative. You start noticing things the protagonist would notice. You start comparing things in your life to things in the protagonist’s life. Now I know 42 is nothing close to 108 but since I seem to talk and act like I am 15 years old, at times it can feel like a monumental difference. He says some funny expressions that sometimes makes me think that he has lived through the black plague, the civil war and the women’s suffrage movement. Like the other day I was just like petty mad about something and he tugs on my arm and was like “Why are you acting so cold?” I totally had to bite my tongue, but inside I was like “what is this 1881?” And that tiny quick-witted quip starts me on another daydream. It is 1881. I am a suffragette and an carrying a parasol and wearing petticoats marching through the streets of London when a dark-haired stranger with a huge widow’s peak and an heavy gait saves me from being pelted with pebbles from the angry throngs of pig-headed men. It’s all confusion and chaos as a riot breaks out and I am disoriented amongst the masses. But he leads me through the crowds and down a dark alley where he grabs me by the shoulders and.... you know.... like drains all my blood. And then I look up and he’s like “What’s wrong with you? Now You’re giving me the silent treatment too?” I can’t very well be like oh I was daydreaming you were a vampire in the 1800s again. I already have reached my threshold of teen girl teasing from this one. There is no room for any more.

The Daydreaming happens more often than I’d like. I’d say for the last two months, if I’m not with him, I’d reading about Vampires, talking about vampires, talking about him, thinking about vampires, thinking about him, googling vampires (like the stars of the movie, the behind the scenes stuff about the authors and movie and TV shows... nothing like how do I actually become a vampire, I’m not that far-gone!), or like with my parents or at Bikrams. The two were bound to collide in my small pea-sized brain someday.

Sometimes when he is lecturing me about safety or rudely making me nervous about my trip by creating crazy What-if scenarios and sending me horror-stories of women raped and beaten in Buenos Aires, I try to not stomp my foot like a 10 year old or do the whole Nyah Nyah Nyah Nyah thing with my fingers stuck in my ears, but imagine that he is nervous about my safety because he is so old and he has seen so many terrible things and he sees himself as my world protector (although the whole he won’t carry my groceries anymore in an attempt to prepare me for lugging my backpack around Argentina for 15 days doesn’t really jibe with this particular daydream). Sometimes I imagine that he was a poet laureate in WW1. So as the battles at Flanders Fields were being fought and the battles on the Western Front were being waged, he strolls the sidelines watching young men getting shot at and blown to bits and he quietly writes down his reflections like a fly on the wall unable to help or engage with the soldiers in any way. He enters the barracks and sees the cruel hazing amongst comrades and feels the undercurrent of fear and loss through everyone. But he isn’t able to help them through their pain or even tell a few fresh jokes to clear their heads for a few minutes because he is not one of them. He sees all the pain in the world; he sees the worst of humanity but remains disengaged from it all.

The daydreaming is fun for the most part. I almost always “awake” back to reality with a smile on my face. But the Carl Jung part of me would say I am obviously subverting my personal fears for the relationship behind a superimposed heightened reality in order to save my psyche from acute self-awareness. (thank you damned 3rd-year Psychology elective). I don’t really want to deal with the problems we have. So I imagine we don’t have those problems. I imagine we have the problems that can be resolved in a 600 page novel (well a four-part series, is more accurate I guess).

I guess it all stems from wondering if he really likes me. Who is the chasee and who is the chaser? I thought I was the chasee at first and I would say like 60% of the time I still do. But in the most important times, I feel like the chaser. Like a very inadequate chaser that stumbles around in the dark and falls asleep with a kitty cat at her feet but wakes up with a birds nest on her head. So I dream. I dream about what it would be like if early to bed really meant early to bed because if we stay up I might have sex with you and kill you by accident. I dream that t is enormous self-restraint that keeps us apart not lack of attraction or the building piles of work waiting for him the next day. I dream that one day there will be broken bed frames and holes in the walls and bruises and fang marks all over my body. I dream about it all. And then I wake up.

TV Placement killed the Video Star

There was a time when song and video went hand in hand. What is Teen Spirit by Nirvana without the iconic image of the anarchy cheerleaders and the chubby janitor headbanging away? What is The Scientist by Coldplay without the images of the backwards car crash? These were both iconic songs and iconic videos. But nowadays the only songs that really have videos that stick in your head are those few that get overplayed so much on radio you are ready to murder the tuner. I mean I love T.I.’s Live your Life song as much as anyone and even like Katie Perry’s Hot N Cold but I swear those are the only two music videos I ever see on TV anymore. Let’s face it. Music videos are not on music video channels much anymore. MTV will show a few seconds of new music videos if you’re lucky and Much Music will basically only show you Jonas Brothers or Simple Plan music videos or shows making fun of music videos (I love you Video on Trail but you are on like 20 times a day).
Today new music is brokered not through the dead radio format or the newly buried music videos; it’s found through television shows and commercials. At one time it was considered selling out but these days artist have few other choices with both radio and music television refusing to embrace new genres and take risks. For new artists it is a great opportunity to get their music out there and up their MySpace hits. For television shows it’s instant cool cache. The more indie the featured artist is, the more allure he/she hold for fans eager to find something new and already crowned cool by the tv execs who manufacture their favourite show.

When’s the last time you saw a Bright Eyes video? I would say maybe never? A quick Youtube search shows that he has plenty but I’ve rarely seen any. But I’ve downloaded over 20 of his songs and he routinely sells out 3,000 seat venues in minutes wherever he tours. I mean who can forget the first “Chrismakuah” episode of the O.C. with Blue Christmas by Bright Eyes? Or when “Lover I Don’t Have to Love” by Bright Eyes was featured in that hawt make-out scene between Marissa and Volchuk in Season 3? Or where would Snow Patrol be without “Chasing Cars” in Grey’s Anatomy at the end of Season 2 when Denny Ducette dies and Izzie is so upset in her pink prom gown?

I’m not sure what show started this trend, but I definitely know which shows do it best: Any Josh Schwartz-produced show, (The O.C., Gossip Girl, Chuck), Greys Anatomy, One Tree Hill, So You Think You Can Dance, Brothers and Sisters. Actually any melodrama works well.. Come to think of it, I think I even remember learning new music off the original 90210, like in the later years when they had the Peach Pit After Dark and like Toni Tony Tone played there, and Brian McKnight and Christina Augerila, and R.E.M..... Now none of these acts were really indie darlings or new discoveries by any means but they all hit a new cache of cool when they appeared on the hit show and I am definitely from the school of anything cool that happens on teen serials happened first on 90210.

All in all I think it’s for the best. Finding new music through television shows forces you to go out and find music as opposed to radio and music video channels that just spoon-feed you everything you are supposed to like. Undoubtedly by searching out an artist’s MySpace or downloading their featured single on itunes, you are exposed to more of their music and maybe even other artists similar to them if you are perceptive enough or so inclined to follow the consumer bread crumbs.

It’s a bit sad though. I mean there are a lot of artists still making very interesting videos like the Ting Tings, Radiohead, Rosin Murphy. But their videos get little play on music television. So your choice is either watch new videos on Youtube or just create your own music videos in your head. Just don’t be surprised if your mental music video contains steamy scenes from last week’s Gossip Girl.

Um... Like You Should Be a Writer or Something!

Wow! What a novel idea! OMG NOBODY has ever suggested that to me! Actually all my life I’ve wanted to be a secretary. I used to write next to my goals in grade school right next to wanting to be a princess and wanting to be the head coach of the Canucks.
Hey buddy, here’s an interesting idea how about you take your preconceived notions about what makes someone a writer and shove it! It’s not the 1980s anymore. People aren’t defined by what they do from 9-5 pm. I’m a sister 24 hours a day and nobody ever calls me that ( well except of course for my sister).

A job is a job. And I shouldn’t be judged on whether I seem too smart for the job or what my motivations are for the job. I should be judged on whether I can do the job. And you know what? I can. It’s not brain surgery. Don’t try to cram everything you learned in your three-week Human Resources workshop into a series of juggling acts for a basic admin job. Get over yourself. It’s not that hard.

Humpfh!!!!