Thursday, August 31, 2006

Time?

"You know, it's time that we grow old and do some shit."
-Broken Social Scene

Yeah, probably.

ABC's revisited

Seriously, what IS with news readers arbitrarily changing the pronunciation of middle eastern country names? Did you know that Afghanistan is no longer pronounced as Af-gan-i-stan, but should now be enunciated as Af-gahn-i-staaaahn? Or so says CBC. For real, what's up? We've gone from Airrak, to Eerak, to Iraak, from Eeran to Airan, and now they're messing with Afghanistan. Do news services simply feel pressured to consistently come up with new and inventive ways to present information and come to the conclusion that by throwing in a fake accent here and there, or putting emphasis on syllables that have no business calling out for attention, that listeners are more likely to tune in? Cause uh, p.s. it's just annoying. And it sounds stupid.

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Where East meets Dead End

Sometimes I wonder what it might look like if a cartographer were to map out the love lives of Montrealers in a format something similar to Google Earth.

If we could identify ourselves, our little stick-people selves, running after someone who doesn’t love us, running from someone who does.

I can picture the man tasked with the job, a grey bearded gentleman with a potbelly and a tweed jacket with elbow patches, looking down on us, laughing with disdain. Because truly, it’s ridiculous, isn’t it?

And yet, how much more logical would it be if there were some overbearing, governing force, who could reach in with capable, steady hands, and turn a stick-person in another direction, face him forward, away from the pain and heartache he’s veering towards, dead on. Set him on a path paved with happiness, blissful, ignorant contentment, away from the desperation and heartache he convinced himself made sense at the time.

I’ll bet the map would inevitably take on a distinctly circular pattern. And we could look down on it and point sympathetic fingers as we watched Suzy chase after John, and accusing ones as we glared at John running after Jen.

And then tuck all ten digits safely into our pockets as we start off on our very own sprint towards the woman or man who will in turn duck and dodge us, only to set off on his or her own, destructive path.

Sunday, August 27, 2006

A little to the left

“These are not my people. I should never have come here.”
-Martha Wainwright

Do you ever catch a glimpse of yourself in the reflection of a surprisingly clean building window, or flip through a stack of photographs, happen upon one of yourself and think, ‘man, that’s me?’ And the question you’re asking yourself is not in reference to anything related to physical appearance, but rather to how far you’ve traveled from what you know yourself to be?

I remember an old boyfriend would sometimes look at me wistfully and drawl in breathy tones, ‘Oh Heather, what a woman you will one day be.’ In my naivety at the time I didn’t think to snap back and ask him what the hell happened to be particularly wrong with me at that very moment, but it’s beside the point. And to his credit, which I will now permit him, I don’t think he meant it that way. What I do think he implied was that he could see how my life would likely play out, and the heartache, struggling, pushing and reinventing I would go through in order to get there.

But I guess this is the question. When are we there? Am I there? Are you there? How do we know when we’ve arrived? Is there a cover fee? Is there a coat check? Will there be a big welcoming party where pink-power-shirt-wearing-and-Red-Bull-guzzling young executive men with solid stock portfolios, greasy-hair artists with untouchable creative ideals, social worker women with a line of troubled, doe-eyed children trailing behind them greet me with wide open grins, pat me on the back, and welcome me to the club? And will we all rejoice in our collective sense of belonging to the ‘we’ve made it’ sect?

Sometimes my lines feel a little blurry. A little undefined. Like they’re subject to the charcoal pencils and erasers that are the influences of other people. Maybe this is me buying into the stereotype of women being people pleasers and paying full price for the privilege. But there are moments where I feel invisible I’ve moved so far away from what I know myself to be. And it’s hard not to want to go crawling back to the past. To the times that felt comfortable, to the people who expected nothing more, nothing less than whom they had learned of me to be.

Because sometimes, all this pushing, all this trying to define, trying to grow, challenge, change, alter, shape, learn, acknowledge, it just makes me tired. And at times like these, I find myself half-heartedly looking for the entrance gates to that ‘we’ve made it club.’

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Cooking 101

Hey, does anyone remember that show "You can't do that on television" -or some derivative combination of those words, and the pale of green goo that would get dumped on a contestant's head if he mistakenly uttered the word 'no'?

Well guess what? If you spend an hour and a half chopping onions and peeling carrots to go into your green lentil soup, and then with a toss of your hair and a wad of cherry lip balm spread across your lips, you saunter out the door to go and meet your friend for coffee, unwittingly LEAVING THE STOVE ON, only to return to an overwhelming smell of oregano that hits you in the face like a brick when you walk back in the door two hours later, voila! You will have a pot with contents that exactly resemble the slime that would ooze down the heads of the poor actors on that ridiculous show.

Now you know.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Keeping me in the dark

I’m wondering, what the statutes and limitations are on being a decent human being. If I’m essentially a decent person, am I allowed one major, earth-shattering screw up? What about two? What if they’re related, does that count?

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if the details of my life that no one is privy to were suddenly and shockingly exposed. Details like my licking the peanut butter knife and melting honey and cornflakes in my microwave and calling it dinner. Details like telling a friend I didn’t feel like seeing that I had a meeting when really I spent the night soaking in my bathtub reading. Details like me just shutting off my phone sometimes when someone calls that I just don’t have the energy to talk to. Details like me calling back three hours later saying, ‘I’m so sooorry I missed your call, I was at the gym when you phoned.’ Details like me eliciting sympathy when I know I don’t deserve it, giving it when I don’t feel it.

So I guess it begs the question. Are those who look like fairly decent, honest and trustworthy people on the outside, simply better schooled at hiding their flaws? And do we really care to find out anyway? Sometimes I think I’d rather live in the dark when it comes to these types of things. And I sure as hell won’t be handing out flashlights to my inner life anytime soon.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Tapping in

Can anyone shed some light on what the big idea is with the CBC's Wire Tap program? I feel like there has got to be some sort of larger, creative ideal going on there that some programmer is aspiring to, but I seem to be missing the point. Because to me, it sounds like a bunch of ridiculous blather.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

The Golden Rule of School

He has kind, pale blue, watery eyes and an affable smile. He’s gentle, soft-spoken, unassuming and thoughtful. He’s pensive, reflective, intellectually curious and mindful.

He’s the competition.

I had my last summer class last night. A few of us scrambled over to the photocopier in the Hall Building afterwards, trading notes from missed classes back and forth. John* and I got to talking about why we were taking this class, as it had come up before that we both already hold undergraduate degrees and as such, this course is not a necessity for graduation.

Our stories, as they unfolded, were conspicuously similar. We had both applied to the same Master’s program and were both initially denied entrance. We had both visited with the same graduate director, meetings from which we both, albeit unknowingly, walked away with the exact same advice. We’re both taking the same class in the fall; we’re both applying again in November.

‘They take ten people!’ I sputtered, nervous and anxious in the face of such stark competition. He could be number 10, taking up the last, coveted spot, I told myself. And yet, I found myself rambling on and on about how I had been told to ask this particular professor for a reference letter, how I had been advised to take this course as opposed to that one. As I passed on these words of wisdom that have disturbed my sleep and ruled my free time for the past few months, I realized that this, this is why I am not, and will never be, competitive.

When I was in high school, for some reason that remains unknown to me until this day, I made the basketball team. I was a horrible player. What?! You expect me to get in someone’s WAY? I have to BLOCK someone? What if I hurt their feelings? What if their parents are watching and I make them miss their shot? How are they going to feel then? I once got yanked off the court for being too ‘friendly’ with the other team.

“Heather, get your pink-ribboned head over here NOW,” Mr. Baxter shouted, seething, his vein-cluttered eyes popping. “Stop yapping with the other team. We’re trying to BEAT them, in case you haven’t realized!”

I was dumbfounded. I had just made friends with a girl who was going to be attending the same CEGEP as me next year. This was great! Who cared about the stupid game? What did it matter who actually won the thing?

I thought about this last night as I was talking to John*. Sure, his Liberal-Arts-College-Ottawa-lobbyist-totally-kick-ass-smart background might earn him a spot in this Master’s program. If it does, he’ll deserve it. And, if my advice helps a little, well then, so be it. I would want him to do the same thing for me.

And so, as he lightly touched my elbow, looked me straight in the eyes and said, ‘good luck Heather, I really hope we both get in,’ I knew he meant it, and I knew I had probably made a friend. And that makes me feel a lot better than being a death-eating, competitive monster.

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Eye of the tiger

Things that make me feel awkward #243

Being the only person in a large cardio room at the gym and then having an attractive man hop onto the stairmaster immediately next to me just in time for all 20 flat-screen televisions on the wall directly in front of us to flicker and default to a station featuring two large tigers having noisy, aggressive sex.

I mean, there's just no easy way out of that one, really.

Friday, August 11, 2006

The Voice

I was sitting out on my balcony one afternoon, nursing a sore throat with cappuccino swirl frozen yogourt when I first heard her voice. A throaty, deep and mystic voice, the words poured from her mouth into the cordless with seamless ease, blending and mixing into drawls and bubbling laughter.

Until she had an argument with Tom.

Screaming and yelling, the voice now brimming with fury and tears, she barked into the phone as though every ounce, every fibre of her being depended on it. The conversation jumped from vicious accusations of betrayal, financial difficulties, broken down cars and lying, cheating mechanics, step children and ailing, wheelchair-bound parents.

The woman screamed for Tom's lying, for the father that betrayed her. For the friend who turned her back, for the car that wouldn't turn over, for the mechanic who set his price too high. She yelled for the injustice done to her at work, for the empty fridge that mocked her, for the cupboards that would remain bare until the end of the month. She shrieked for her unreturned love, for leaky faucets and floor fans with a rattle. She cried for her life and her hatred of it.

Although the woman's screams were enough to rattle the cappuccino-covered spoon in my flowered mug, the desperation that was edging into her voice was enough for anyone who happened to overhear her to know who the winner of that fight was.

She knew it. She knew that as she launched into a spitting monologue laced with every profanity the English language would permit her that she was losing. That she had already lost.

'Don't fucking laugh at me.'

I went inside, rinsed off my spoon, and turned on the radio. And if I said I didn't shed a tear for that woman, you could call me a liar.

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Shed a little light

Last night, I spent two and a half hours discussing whether or not there should in fact be windows in apartment bathrooms and it was time extremely well spent.

Six women and I, crowded around a table spread with countless architectural drawings, shortbread cookie crumbs, sweet & low wrappers and coffee cups, to discuss the details of the apartment complex that will soon serve as a second stage house for female victims of domestic violence and their children.

I truly believe that it takes a group of women to be sensitive to details such as a windowless bathroom, and the sentiments that darkness will inevitably invoke in the woman who wakes up each morning to shower within it.

It was my second board of directors meeting with this group, and I am proud to be working with them. I am proud to know each of these six women, and to take part in their fight for the details, their fight to make hard lives a little bit softer, a little bit brighter.

Thursday, August 03, 2006

And so here’s the thing

I’ve always had a really hard time trying to come up with headlines for things. I seriously contemplated my deserving of a spot in Concordia’s Journalism school when it came to my feature writing class. I could bang out the actual story no problem. Ask me to name the thing? Forget it. I became a nail-biting wreck.

It logically follows then, that I had a ridiculously hard time trying to name this site. Everyone seems to have such clever, witty and though-provoking ideas, and I was drawing such a blank. Or, such a grey. A lot of things really are grey to me, and I find that as the older I get, the less sure I am of many things, situations and people –even the ones I thought I had all figured out.

Since I was a teenager, I kept a sort of mental tally, developed and refined first with friends over bowls of buttered popcorn and plastic cups of Diet Coke, later over glasses of wine in smoky bars. The list included things I truly believed I knew for sure, about myself, about others, and my inevitable collide with those ‘others.’ Top on the list: infidelity. Would never accept it. This was agreed upon with vigorous nods from friends, waving cigarette-clutching and slightly drunken hands, declaring, ‘oh my God NEVER.’ Second: violence from a partner. Non-negotiable. ‘I’d be out of there SO fast…I’d make his head spin…I’d knock him back one…I’d tell all his friends…I’D tell his mother.’ Right. Check. The list went on to include things such as never getting involved with a married man, never sacrificing career for a man, etc, etc.

Now, as I look back and remember those heady days of declaration, I feel somewhat humbled. Who was I, who were we, to pass judgement on what the future would hold for us, and ultimately what our responses would be to those instances? As I recall that list, I shamefully admit that I’ve had to cross some of those items off, because I didn’t initially live up to my own expectations. There was always a ‘but’ always a ‘it’s different this time,’ always an excuse, a justification, a rationalization to make it be ok –to paint the grey over with a gloss of pure white.

It is all grey to me. I feel grey to me. And yet, I think that maybe what this really means is that as I start to discard some of my fast-held convictions, I’m replacing them with acceptance, for myself, for the friend who went back and went back again, for the family member who crossed my weakened and faltering boundary, for the man who said he just wasn’t strong enough.

After all, to be human is to err, and then to do it again, harder, faster and stronger than the first time.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Blogging up the job market

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060807fa_fact1

And I went to Journalism school for three years because...?