Dear Whole Foods Clerk (and others):
Yes, I did bring my own bag.
No, I don’t want to donate my 10-cent rebate for being a conscientious shopper to Bob’s Green Yard, Betty’s Pooper-Scooper, or whatever fucking charity it is you’re backing this week.
No, I’m not a bitch because I don’t want to be generous — I’m just really sick of you making money off my dime. Literally.
See, you donate my money, and you get a tax break. Does that tax break go to charity? No, probably into the Whole Foods Whole-Paycheck bank account.
And, hey, now, that sanctimonious look you just shot me because you’re “tired” of “cheap” customers? Go fuck yourself, lady.
It’s been a fucking recession for three years. You know what I’m tired of? Being broke. But, guess what? Nothing’s changing on THAT front because YOUR employer has to keep raising prices because that’s the world we live in.
And, while we’re talking, that bag I brought with me? It doesn’t mean you don’t have to do your job.
Bag my groceries. After all, I’m paying the “We’re Whole Foods, so you’re guilt-free” premium for SOMETHING, right?
Just ring up the groceries, bag ’em, and don’t make me feel like shit for keeping money that I really did actually work for.
Even if it’s just a motherfucking dime.
Thanks!
Love Steff.
Author Archives: Steffani Cameron
Big Brother & Vancouver: My Thoughts on Crowd Surveillance
As the dust settles from Vancouver’s riots, a controversy brews.
Public shaming is Vancouver’s new favourite past-time. Know a rioter? Expose that ass!
But should we be doing this?
Some folks have very different opinions, and the loudest voice one hears on the matter is by local professor & author Alexandra Samuel, who explains her opposition very well in this piece, where she says “We have seen Big Brother, and he is us.”
While Samuels has great points, she is not in the majority on her opinions.
My position on public shaming shifting slightly. I worry about the severity of public outing right now because of the passion with which the entire city has jumped on these guys.
I loathe the extent to which some are taking the public shaming, via printing phone numbers and addresses of parents of rioters, contacting employers, and things like that. (Not cool, people. Don’t be an ass and do that, or initiate contact that way.)
We live in an era where the saying “Pics or it didn’t happen” is ubiquitous. Everything gets caught on video. If you had a camera on me 24/7, you’d find some real good footage for upending people’s thoughts on the person I am. This is true of all of us.
You’d sure as hell never catch me damaging public property, harassing or assaulting others, or flying into physical rages, though. You’d never catch me vandalising, shouting down a cop, shoving a citizen, or even littering.
That’s my ethos, and a lot of citizens share it.
We citizens are tired of the permissiveness with which people litter, vandalise, and generally abuse public spaces. We’re tired of people who get away with acting like assholes.
Maybe it’s time public shaming come into vogue.
Maybe it’s time we stop worrying about politicians with prostitutes, and start worrying about punk-assed people who treat cops like trash, who burn our city up, and who generally don’t seem to contribute to where we want to go as a society.
Destroying their lives, though, may do us more harm as a society than good.
In this instance, I believe we need to offer first-offense rioters a chance to redeem themselves. We need to give them an opportunity to give back instead of destroying. We need to allow them the chance to not throw their lives away over a stupid night in which they maybe chose to embrace a mob mentality when they might have never done otherwise normally.
Then there’s the part of me who feels that there are people on those videos doing heinous, awful things — beating people, blowing shit up. That side of me feels those people don’t get the benefit of the doubt. They don’t deserve it, they deserve to be outed.
In the end, my ambivalence on meting out justice the old-school way, in a court of public opinion, is tempered by the thought of living in a world where everyone felt accountable for their actions.
If people realise that being a jackass for 15 minutes on Youtube can have real long-term life effects, maybe then we’ll see people acting like citizens, not hooligans.
Actions should have consequences. Good citizens should be angered when hooligans act this way. Thugs who attack our police and other citizens deserve to be exposed for who and what they are.
However, just being present at the riot doesn’t mean one is complicit in it. Jumping on a burned-out car isn’t the same as burning it. There are levels of asshattedness going on here, and painting them all with the same brush of ostracism isn’t ideal.
So, I’m still at a loss. To some degree, this public shaming of thugs is long overdue. Hooligan behaviour needs to be seen as unacceptable, not “fun”. We need youth and others to understand that we expect more of citizens.
At the same time, lives can be destroyed by this process, and while I trust my own judgment in reading facts and situations in an equitable manner, I do not trust that others can or will do the same. My ethos is liberal and open-minded, which isn’t always the case with others, so whose idea of “wrong” is right?
The only thing that isn’t questionable for me is, if one is celebrating that kind of destruction, if they’re contributing to it in any way, if they’re cheering it on, then it makes them a douchebag, and maybe it’s in everyone’s interest to know that about ’em.
Beyond saying “Hey, this guy is a rioting douche,” I don’t think we should be doing anything. It’s not up to us to contact their employers, their schools, their family. We don’t have that right, and anyone who does it should be reprimanded.
In the end, Alexandra Samuels has a very valid point — it’s a really slippery slope. It’s a worrisome possible trend when one thinks of ways it might be misused.
But I don’t like the society we’ve become. I don’t like the lack of social responsibility so many show. If this is what it takes to have a society where everyone cares about how the street looks, respects others’ belongings, and treats each other with dignity, then maybe it’s time to stand atop that slippery slope and see if it leads us to a better place.
The Day After
Photo by Steffani Cameron.
Wow. What a difference 24 hours makes.
There’s something about hundreds, maybe thousands, of drunk-assed fuck-faces rampaging through your city, breaking glass, burning cars, and hurting innocent civilians that makes one go, “Hey, you know what? I love this place. And you just PISSED ME OFF.”
One of Vancouver’s finest somewhat-under-the-radar bloggers (bookmark that shit, yo) is Kimli. She has deliciously turned her snark on to these three asshatted rioters. Based on the strength & zeal of this piece, I think she should embrace her angst and do an entire series on these jerks (and out-of-towners!) who thought they’d try messing up Vancouver, and tarnishing our reputation worldwide.
I love my town, man.
I love my town with its disparity of lives, rich-versus-poor, plastic-ass districts like Yaletown, through to hard-ass hard-luck big-art cultural-love-in ‘hoods like Commercial Drive on the East Side.
I love my town with its ludicrous concrete jungle in the middle of a temperate rainforest at the bottom of big-ass mountains on the coast of the wide watery world of the Pacific.
I love my wickedly multicultural once-upon-a-world white-folk sushi-capital crazy-ass side-of-Little-India jumble of a town.
And these guys picked the wrong fucking day to toy with us.
We were gonna take it all, win the Cup finally, and instead of just losing The Cup, we lost our reputation and our self-respect.
A sick billion dollars will be pumped down the drain because of these asshats. Some will be getting in trouble with the law for stealing a Big Gulp or Pringles, and I hope the insignificance of their theft does not diminish the extent of punishment they receive.
Principles, baby. Gotta have ’em.
Because the world is hurting, because the economy has been gutted like a fish, because there are better things to do than coddle these spoiled drunk punks with incarceration, I would hope the City of Vancouver will solicit “alternative punishment” ideas from the public.
Whether it’s making rioters clean up inner-city elementary schools, ridding beaches of trash, doing clean-up after civic summer events, working for the employers whose businesses they damaged, being forced to talk to high schools about why they regret doing the criminal acts they did — I think there are two things we can’t really do; We can’t run up taxpayers’ tab with jail time for all these assholes, and we can’t cripple them too far into their future with huge reparations fines, thus escalating their angst.
But they need to pay with their time and their physical labour. The city and Mayor Gregor Robertson should let the public speak as to how that should happen.
Photo by Steffani Cameron.
Last night, I was embarrassed. I was hurt. I was angry. And I would have beat the living shit out of someone who was guilty of crimes against this city if I could have.
This morning, I got up, I did my social-media-woot thingie of informing the locals and world at large about Douchebaggery Central as the morning unfolded more and more. Then I decided that, back instability or not, I just had to get my ass downtown to experience the “Day After.” I couldn’t let the asshats win.
And I’m so very, very, very glad.
Tonight, fueled by the clearly mad-deep-true love most Vancouverites have for their city — because, after all, more than 18,000 people signed up on Facebook to do clean-up today and, as a result of those who honoured that commitment, the biggest riot in almost 4 decades was cleaned up before lunchtime.
During the clean-up, hundreds and perhaps thousands of people wrote on the boarded-up windows with markers left by every pane, messages of everything from apologies to the hockey team, testimonies of love for the city, through to rightful damnation of the rioters.
As the city was literally swept up in a wave of awesomeness, people’s angst turned to pride and love for their fellow citizens. Friendships formed, people shared and laughed. It was a really, really awesome experience to be there even for just an hour.
Photo by Steffani Cameron.
Now, people have turned their attention, like Kimli, toward trying to expose all these assholes for who they are. They need to pay with their friends, their schools, their jobs, everything.
We cannot abide this behaviour.
If the government cannot punish them, then we must socially ostracize them.
There is a code. You do not fuck with another man’s home.
This is our home. This is our town.
Whether local or not, that behaviour will never be tolerated in Vancouver at our public events.
You’re on notice, asshats. We have smartphones. You’re on video. And it ain’t the 15 minutes’ fame you’d hoped for.
Everyone else, we got your back. Get here, have fun with us. We’re good people. We’re not gonna let these chumps wreck our party.
We’ll see y’all same time next year, man. Without the losers.
See below for TIJANA MARTIN PHOTOGRAPHY's link. Photo by Tijana Martin.
Visit http://tijanamartinphotography.wordpress.com/ for more heartwrenching riot (and pregame fan) photography.
I'm a Citizen, Not a Rioter
A fan-created image on the Facebook "Post-Riot Cleanup" page for the Vancouver Riot.
Last night, a couple thousand drunk assholes brought shame to the city I’ve loved my whole life.
Normally passionate about personal freedoms, I’m shouting the loudest for people to ID those they know who have brought this riot and destruction, and the shame and poor reputation that come with, to justice.
Some speculate it was all suburb folk, some speculate it was all locals. We don’t know. I speculate more suburbs and other-place types who didn’t come looking for a hockey game, but who came looking to shit-kick the world.
More on that later.
But I know who it wasn’t. It wasn’t George Roux, this passionate Canucks Fan.
I want to share this brilliant twist on the great “My Name is Joe, And I Am Canadian” Molson ad, written for Facebook by George Roux, who knocked me out with this:
Hey.
I’m not a pyromaniac, or a car flipper,
and I didn’t trash Sears, or Chapters, or the CBC screens
and I don’t know Johnny, Sunny or Raj from Granville Street
although I’m certain they’re really, really drunk.
I have a jersey and car flag, not a Molotov cocktail.
I cheer all the time, not just when we’re winning.
I can proudly wear my jersey daily, not just on game days.
I believe in puck-handling, not crosschecking; passing, not tripping;
and that the Canucks are still the best team in the league
A fan is proud, a fire is to keep warm, and it’s a beer, not a weapon; a beer.
Canucks were the best in the regular season this year.
All of Canada cheered us on! and we’ll be the best again next year!
My name is George!! And I am True Canucks Fan!
Get off my Bandwagon
Thank you.
Thank you, George.
Thank you, Vancouverites who are cleaning up.
Thank you, Canucks, for trying.
***
Dear Francesco Aquilini: Can we get the team a sports psychologist now? If they didn’t need one before the game, they need one now. Thanks!
Suck it Up, Buttercup: The Road to the Cup
As the saying goes, life’s tough — get a helmet.
The omigod-I’m-bagged feeling I had last Monday sure as hell hasn’t improved this week. Let me tell you, people, if you’re a hockey fan and the Stanley Cup playoffs hits your town, you will feel like shit by the time the playoffs are over.
Drinking, eating badly, and falling off one’s routine has never been so easy as it is right now. Praise be, we’re at least half-way through the final series. The two-plus month road is nearly at an end.
This morning, it’s evident I’m closer to 40 than I’d like to be. I call it “Stanleycupitis.” It hurts here, and here, and here, Doc.
Tonight, I’ll eat better. I won’t get the sleep I want, what with a 5am wakeup call for yet another early game day. But THIS IS WHAT WE LIVE FOR, like the Canucks’ team signage says this year. We want the Cup.
If the players can make it through, I can toughen up on rigours imposed by a gruelling playoff diet of booze and pizza.
Oh, Lord Stanley’s Cup: The double-edged sword you wield.
Given my back injury’s nowhere near where it needs to be for the longterm, I have not yet celebrated with the masses downtown. Tomorrow, I may. Depends on the back, of course. Something about crowding with thousands and thousands of easily-excitable people on city streets is a little unsettling for me, even now.
Between the playoffs, having to start work at 7am just to fit in treatment sessions on my back, struggling to keep my place in not-a-crackden status (but not doing too well at that), I’m reaching the end of my ever-aging fuse.
I’m not alone, of course. A lot of my friends are trying to fit life in with epic hockey that’s become don’t-miss-a-minute kinda gameplay. (Well, when an overtime-producing goal happens at 13 seconds remaining in regulation, or a game-winning sudden-death goal hits the net 10 seconds into overtime two games later, would YOU want to miss a minute? Not me.)
They’ll tell you that the Stanley Cup is incredible for the local economy, but I propose that any advantage the local economy’s experienced through the cash-happy hockey fan’s overzealous spending of late has been directly countered by productivity losses in all offices as employees buzz with “We’ve waited our whole lives to win hockey’s Holy Grail!” energy every day, with more hangovers per capita over a longer period than even the Olympics could’ve induced.
We Vancouverites are hanging on by a thin-but-happy thread.
Usually, we’re celebrating victories but today we’re lamenting the worst game of all the series so far. An 8-1 drubbing at the hands of Beantown’s Carebears certainly took the swagger out of the Canucks’ game.
Secretly, people like me are happy. Good, Game 5 is when we’ll win the kit and the kaboodle. We’ll take it all, baby! And, on a Friday night, at home, with sunny weather, and the whole weekend to celebrate and recover.
Yep. Let’s do THAT.
I remember that game in Vancouver’s ’94 Cup-run, against Toronto or Dallas, I don’t remember — someone whose asses we thoroughly kicked as we made our way to the Finals with New York. Some 40 gloves were littered from end-to-end on that ice, with so much penalty time handed out you needed a calculator just to get a tally of it all.
I don’t remember the score then, I don’t remember the next game’s score either, but I remember the buzz around it, and I can’t wait to see how Vancouver responds on Wednesday.
The hangovers, the antacids, the ass-dragging, the time-crunch, the flagging energy, the death-defying schedule juggling — THIS IS WHAT WE LIVE FOR. This is what the Stanley Cup does to you.
This isn’t no dinky football final where they play one game, and whoop, there it is, you have a victor. This is an all-out, bone-crunching, bruising, gasping best-of-7 fight through the injured-reserve list victory, baby. The winner’s gotta make it happen four times JUST THIS SERIES alone! Never mind the other three series nor the oodles of overtime played.
Two months, man! I hurt, and I’m tired, and I’m fed up.
But I’m not gonna miss a goddamned minute.
Because, really, this is what we live for.
Today, this week. The Stanley Cup hasn’t been held by a Canadian team since 1993. Vancouver has never owned the Cup.
But this year we will.
And I won’t have missed a minute.
Make my coffee a double. Maybe a triple. And get me a bigger piece of thread to hang onto, buddy. 31 hours to Game 4. I’ll be glued to it. You?
_______________________
Photo: Canadian Press. Baby Sign: No idea–bouncing around Facebook for a few weeks now, anonymously.
Not-so-Confidential To Boston Fans:
After last night’s game, you don’t get to whine about “dirty” play. Enjoy losing the series, Beantown.
Mid-Morning Moody Skies
The rain is oppressive this morning. It’s hardly June-like, this.
I live in a rainforest, I have to remind myself. Man can slap a bunch of concrete together but he can’t fool the planet. City-schmity, buddy. Rainforest-central, that’s Vancouver. The trees are just hiding amidst the concrete.
I watched a little of a doc on Ansel Adams this morning. That man made nature photography like some people pray.
Photo by me, last June. Maybe this *is* "June" weather.
Between last fall’s pneumonia and this spring’s back problems, I haven’t been out in real nature in months. In the coming weeks, I’ll be working up to riding the trails of UBC and getting out to the North Shore for hikes.
Ken Kesey once wrote to the effect that if you can’t find god in your backyard in Kansas, you’re not gonna find him in Egypt’s pyramids, either, or anywhere else. He meant the world’s a beautiful place and full of mystery wherever we are, but if we choose not to see what’s there in front of us, going lookin’ for it elsewhere ain’t gonna make it anymore tangible for us, even if we’re lucky enough to find it.
It’s easy to have a mindblowing experience when you’re away from home. Finding it in close quarters takes a different kind of awareness. I suspect we all fall into the routine of seeing the street we need to turn down yet again, before we go to X building for Y duties, and not that there’s a strangely random rhubarb plant growing roadside in the middle of a high-end shopping district full of concrete, or an eagle soaring over the downtown core when on our work lunchbreak.
Both those things have happened to me, lately. In Vancouver’s Yaletown, in front of Earl’s, there’s been a rhubarb plant sprouting, I think. Eagles are often around Vancouver.
We see what we want to see. And on another grey day like this, most of us just see the wet cuffs of our jeans, the moody skies, and the crowded bus shelters. Too bad. There’s a lot more out there. Try to see one interesting thing a day. Keeps me alive and plugged in.
Well, perhaps if I bring my umbrella, the rain will stop. So goes the Vancouver legend. Chuckle, chuckle. Right.
*** ***
As of today, Vancouver’s Canucks are ahead 1 game to none in the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals. You’re goin’ down, Boston. This is the year. Vancouver’s bringing it home. (Rainbow power, baby. Just like the start of game 7 against Chicago, a rainbow appeared in the last period of the game yesterday. Victory goal with 19 seconds to go. Beauty. Rainbow power!)
Catching You Up with Me
Looking for work sucks. I’m glad that part of my life is officially over.
I’m returning to my old job. I’ve worked there off and on since 2000. No, I don’t see myself there for the rest of my life. I don’t see myself at *any* job for the rest of my life.
But I sure see myself enjoying my coworkers, having a job that fits into my life, and having the freedom to write and live as I like for now.
Oh, I won’t be raking in the cash, I’ll be living a reasonably budgeted life, but I’m excited.
The last time I “returned” to this job, I promised myself I would change my life in every area but work. And I DID. I beat the depression that had been plaguing me, lost 50 pounds, and generally improved my life in a lot of ways. Then I blew my back out.
Now, I’m recovering from a REPEAT of that back injury and I’ll be getting the gift of medical coverage. Yay!
I’ve been very quiet about that recent back injury, but now I can share, because I’m no longer looking for work. The injury was a lot worse than I was letting on. Like, Steff-in-tears-on-hardwood-floor-for-hours kinda bad. I had a lot of really scary nights involving a lot of tears and fear for my future.
April was among the darkest months I’ve ever had in my life. I don’t even want to write about some of what I’d been through that month.
One week, though, was EASILY in the Top 3 darkest, saddest, tear-stained weeks of my life, when I re-injured my back the second time in five weeks.
And if you’ve never HAD a serious back injury, YOU DON’T GET IT. It cripples your entire life. Every move you make, task you do, rest you have — it’s ALL affected with a serious back injury. If you know someone with a back injury, please ask if you can get them some groceries, help tidy — anything. You have no idea. It’s a scary place to be. Without a job or medical, it’s terrifying.
Between working anything I could get, rehabbing, looking for work, trying to catch up domestically with all the things I was physically unable to do, I was facing 60+ hour weeks for the last six weeks — and, injured, that’s just no good way to live.
But, all you can do is tough it out, and I did. Now, no more toughing-out. I have the promise of work, the means to care for myself, and a lot less weight on my shoulders.
That time’s over now. My back’s come a long way. Ain’t FIXED, but at least I can work. My social life will return one day but I really don’t give a shit about seeing people, as hard as I’ve been working, and as stretched as my time has been. But that’ll change. Soon, too, I hope.
And now, with a guaranteed job and medical, and a social safety net back under my feet, I know I’ll get to where I need to be.
I’m really trying to hold onto that experience though — the black-as-hell, darkest-before-dawn, all-hope-is-gone fear — because it teaches us what’s important in life, and where our focus needs to be.
Today, I make the same pledge to myself as I did in September 2007: A year from now, I promise myself, I will be stunned when I look back at how I look today. I will be strong. I will be fit in a way that works for me and my life.
Starting today, my health is my first priority. Work, writing, and creativity are my second priority. Then, it’s the rest of life.
Wisely, I’ve set myself up with 30 hours a week. I can always work more, but right now that’s what I need.
In the last year, I’ve learned:
- I don’t like “self-employment” of the meet-and-greet give-a-business-card variety. I’m not that girl.
- I do indeed like doing some freelance, but I’m not really structured to be a natural at the business side of that. Maybe one day. Not today, not exclusively.
- Contract jobs that only offer 15 or 20 hours a week with an unfocused objective and a “but you’ll figure it out” because it’s a “new” position can screw yourself over while giving someone else your value.
- I need a routine in order to have success measured equally in my life.
I wouldn’t want to do the last year over again, but I’m sure happy I’ve learned this much about what I need for happiness, and what I want in my life. I think I’m on the road to making that all happen.
So, here, today, my New Year of Me begins.
I rocked it in 2007-2008, and I’ll do it again. This time, I’m still down 60 of the 70 pounds I eventually lost. This time, I’ve already got the injury and I’m working to strengthen myself — not just a desperate pushing-300-pounds fat girl like I was in 2007, trying to lose weight without the know-how or help, and damaging myself in the process. This time, I’m finishing the job I started, but properly.
I’m excited. I’m mostly tired after what’s been a really long hard time of life, but… I’m excited.
Some people can be unemployed and it’s like a vacation. I didn’t get that experience. I don’t want it now, either. Employed, this is good.
Have a great week, minions.
My Recent Decor Blogging: Links
As you may already know, I’ve had a little blogging stint over at BuildDirect.com.
Here are the blog posts I’ve done in the last few weeks:
Rethinking Storage: A Personal Story
A material age presents a lot of space-making challenges. Where do we put all that stuff when urban dwellings are shrinking?
Just last week, a New York writer’s 90-square-foot apartment went viral. Opting to live in the perfect location just two blocks from Central Park and Lincoln Center, Felice Cohen compromised space to live in a convenient neighborhood, and learned to use use every square-inch of her postage-stamp-sized pad.
After watching that video, my 660-square-foot 1952 apartment sounds positively palatial, but living in it, this “palace” feels full. READ MORE HERE.
Urban Gardening for Beginners:
Growing & Using Herbs
A nice patio container garden can really take the cold edge off living in an often-impersonal concrete jungle.
While convenient, urban living is getting more expensive, and, as food prices around the world escalate, it’s easy to cut back on groceries to keep a budget reined in, but there’s a tasty compromise a lot of city-dwellers don’t consider: an urban garden, or kitchen garden. READ MORE HERE.
De-cluttering: Understanding Clutter,
And Why It Needs to Go
Clutter, like most things in life, sneaks up on you. A couple busy months peppered with a few dozens “I’ll get to that later,” and suddenly everything from your fridge to your filing is making you nuts.
Clearly people relate to this struggle, since Rob Jones’ piece on de-cluttering is one of our most popular posts, and for good reason! Getting over clutter will change your life. READ MORE HERE.
Urban Gardening for Beginners:
14 Herbs to Grow Yourself
Last week, I wrote about how to consider your small space for a kitchen garden. Today, I’d like to tell you about all the herbs I think are great for cooking with, so you can start planning how to proceed.
Professional chefs love fresh herbs for a reason: They’re awesome!
I’m no professional, but I can’t get enough of fresh herbs. At $2.50 a pack in my area, a packet of herbs is a luxury item in winter. There’s a recession, you know. READ MORE HERE.
Interior Design Vignettes, Pt I:
Small Spaces Within Large Rooms
Rooms are big! Decorating is a challenge when you’re thinking “big picture” from the start.
Have you ever thought smaller, via creating “vignettes?”
In writing and art, “vignettes” are smaller scenes meant to have more impact. In decorating, it’s an area that’s a self-contained setting within a larger space. A little reading alcove, eating nook, or the stuff you surround your hallway table with — these are all examples of vignettes. READ MORE HERE.
De-Cluttering: Where to Start, And How
Last time, I wrote about the emotional struggle one goes through with clutter, and why de-cluttering is such a triumph when you get it done.
I’m not an organizational expert, but I’ve made it happen anyway and so can you. These techniques worked for me, and continue to work. Here’s how to start. READ MORE HERE.
Interior Design Vignettes, Pt II:
Home Decor Themes
When we were talking about creating vignettes for larger rooms, “themes” came up.
“Theme,” used in art, writing, and other areas, is generally defined as a “unifying subject or idea.”
“Theme rooms” get a bad rap because too many people abuse them.
You know how the standard “seaside theme” looks, right? Walking in, it’s like being slapped upside the head. Oh, look… How nautical: Rope ceiling trim, a porthole, and lots of blue and white. It’s like being visually assaulted by the Love Boat’s set decorator.
That’s not a “theme,” that’s a cry for help. READ MORE HERE.
The Week That Was: A Round-Up
What a week. I’m just finishing up some coffee, then I’m dragging my tired ass into work.
My seat in the arena might've been the nosebleeds, but it was fun to be above everything. Loved it. Great view.
I got to see the Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals in hockey. The Canucks smoked the San Jose Sharks. It was one of the most enthralling sports experiences I’ve ever been present for.
17 years to the day that Greg Adams scored a double-overtime sudden-death game-winning goal, sending Vancouver’s Canucks to the Stanley Cup finals against the New York Rangers, our Kevin Bieksa scored his double-overtime sudden-death game-winning goal. Now Vancouver’s waiting on word of our next meal, in the Stanley Cup Finals: Boston or Tampa.
17 years. Wow.
I just made a mental list of the world of experiences I’ve gone through in those years. It’s an interesting week to take stock of where I am and where I’ve been. Where I’d like to go.
It’s an exciting time, both for me and for my city.
The Queen Is Retired, Long Live the Queen
And Oprah’s over. A lifetime of learning from her show — mock me if you will. I think there’s a few Oprahs, given the variety of topics she’s handled over the years, but I think Oprah’s social efforts make her one of the greatest people of modern times.
Whether it’s the thousands of scholarships she’s given out, the work she’s done to protect kids from sexual abuse, her advancement of gay rights, celebration of the arts, her involvement with education on all levels… well, there’s not many people in this world who’ve truly put their money where their mouth is, but Oprah has.
Oprah has meant a lot to me over the years. There have been times when I’ve been home in the afternoon, lost or sad or pensive, and just happened to turn on Oprah and there she was, talking about something that I could use to have more insight into my own predicaments.
So many times have I watched her show and had something to write about, whether it was Oprah-centric or some six-degrees topic that’s inspired by some aspect of a conversation she’s had.
I’ll miss her wealth of fodder for writing. I really will.
And I will miss the constant of that show being in my life.
Judge me if you like, but I’m an Oprah fan and I don’t apologize for it. This week, I’m sad to see her leave.
Rant-Be-Gone: Social Media
I wrote a rant about Twitter last week, under the guise of it being social media tips. I stand by a lot of it, but some was over-the-top. I’ve taken it down. I’ll rework it sometime.
I’m getting a little burned out on social media. I began what I do so I could have a voice. I like the portal. There gets to be a time when one feels like others think they’re entitled to a piece of you. Replying feels like work. Engaging feels like just another strain on a day.
It reflects the extent to which I feel like life demands my attention right now. It’s been a long and tiresome road, not just for myself but for others this year. Social media’s sort of that outlet place where we get to “say” things… but the larger our audience, the more inclination there is for us to be held to task by someone who perceives X situation in Y light.
The balance gets difficult. Maybe I don’t want that debate with you. Maybe I get to choose what absorbs my time. People forget there’s two sides to social media. What we say, and what we don’t.
Unfortunately, you’re mostly judged via what you said in the last 5 minutes.
Man, there are days when giving everything up to take that remote home on the coast, that I’d love to live in within five years, seems like it can’t come soon enough.
There are days when having an outlet doesn’t seem to be enough of a reward to deal with what that social media produces in response.
Fortunately, there are better days, too, when it all makes sense.
Right now, I’m not getting a lot out of being on social media. Instead, I feel like a rat on the wheel of life. It’s work, working out, hockey, work, working out, hockey. Even social media feels like work.
These days, saying less online means having fewer replies, which means it’s less work, which means I’ll recharge sooner.
This is how the thinking goes.
When Being A Couch Potato is an Improvement
I’ve sat on my sofa two days in a row. Last Monday was the first time I’d sat on my sofa in two months, thanks to that horrible back injury I had back in March.
This means things are improving.
It’ll be a while yet before I get the pacing of life under control, but I think I’m on the verge of having a less scattered lifescape before me. May has been far better than April. April was better than March. I believe June will be far better than May.
When it comes to writing, et al, I have things to say, but I don’t have the time, or energy, for saying them.
I may be tired, bone-tired, but I like life’s trajectory. Working hard is better when it’s getting you somewhere.
___________________________
And that, friends, is the week that was.
Have a fantastic weekend.
End-of-Coffee Ponderings
The sun is shining. It’s disconcerting. A tease. More rain lands on Sunday, if not before.
Vancouver’s in the throes of one of its wettest, coldest, greyest springs in recent history. I’ve not worn shorts once this year. I haven’t even entertained the thought of planting basil yet.
Today, most of the tech community will convene at Northern Voice 2011, at UBC, and I’m now realising how disappointed I am to not be going, given the recent turn of events and the loss of Derek K. Miller. Perspective took a turn of late.
I’ve always caught on in the end, but I’m often a late addition to reason.
Then, eventually, whomp, it hits me: The lesson.
Even if I had tickets, my financial situation would require that I work through the conference. That’s the way the dollar-cookie crumbles. It’s “meant to be” and in a way is providing mental spark-power on ideas I’m churning through.
It’s the end of the world as we know it & I feel “meh”
It feels as though life as a whole has been a struggle his year. Maybe the Doomsdayists and their “May 21,2011” end-of-times prognostications have a little oomph behind them. All the “end-of-times” prep I’m doing is holding off on my Costco visit until May 22. Why die with full cupboards?
For now, a man is mowing the lawn, sunlight is streaming in, and distant tires patter up busy roadways.
That’s the world. Beyond that, something else awaits. That’s for me, a train, and a bike to discover.
I have a pretty short list of what I want in life right now. One is to have the joy of regular paycheque-after-paycheque comfort, and to feel good in body and mind whilst pursuing steady, fulfilling work. The other is, a little sunshine. Everything else in life, that’s bonus.
In a way, my friend’s death has been giving me clarity about what’s important. I knew, once.
Keep it simple, stupid
There’s nothing like somersaulting off a scooter at 45 km/hr or so, landing on your head, and surviving with only silly things like a head injury for waking you up to what’s important in life.
So, for a while there, I had it figured out.
Live for today. Enjoy the moment. Celebrate friends. Be a part of it. Whatever “it” is to you, be a part of it. Celebrate what you have, try to get more, but don’t pin your happiness on that which isn’t in your hands, because then you’ll never have happiness. See how that works?
I had it figured out.
But life is like a vacuum.
Far enough away, you’re fine, unaffected. Get too close, unsettled, you may get sucked up into that vacuum. Caught inside too long, you can suffocate.
I’ve never been good at vacuum-proximity. My life balance, well, it’s like a bad day on a boat sometimes.
Cause/Effect: The Long Game?
Today, I’d like to do Northern Voice. If I did, it’d hurt my bank account, stress me out on the time-management-money-making fronts, and would probably be hard on my back. I’d overdo things, wouldn’t prioritize myself, and the fallout would probably continue for another couple weeks.
Not doing Northern Voice, I earn money, get exercise I need daily, can do all the right things for my back, will get the sunshine my soul desperately requires, will be freed up for my friend’s memorial Sunday, get to earn me a soul-day Monday, and will have balance I need throughout my week so I can spend important time with my family next weekend, before my dad and stepmom do a gruelling six-week cross-country roadtrip — the last of which didn’t end particularly well when my father wound up in critical care 2,000 kilometres from home.
It reminds me of a favourite flick about writing, The Wonder Boys, based on Michael Chabon’s novel. It’s not a perfect movie but it’s far better than the box-office, and title, suggests. In it, Michael Douglas plays a writing/English professor, and he teaches that “writers make choices.”
Choices, they’re harder than we think. It means acknowledging we can’t have it both ways. The heart wants what it wants and sometimes it wants both.
Years ago, I stopped writing fiction for my inability to create tenable conflict that had a beginning/middle/end. A friend surmised I’d had enough conflict in my life, that generating more in my recreational time was probably not what my soul had in mind.
Do whatcha gotta so you can do whatcha wanna
Days like these, where I’m torn between what my heart wants (to spend time with awesome people talking about fascinating things) and what my soul needs (head down, steady progress in work and rehab, daily balance so I can have the summer I want), I try hard to make the right choice.
Then I remember that my friend was diagnosed with terminal colorectal cancer at the exact age I am now, and would be dead before his 42nd birthday, and I get confused: What’s the right choice again?
Fortunately, my body seems to think it knows, so I can ignore my brain and heart, and listen to my bones, which seem to long for a seaside bike ride and a quiet day of not carrying a backpack and bustling from uncomfortable seat to uncomfortable seat, followed by ungainly bus rides.
And that’s all we can do. Guess. Listen to something, anything, and interpret. Among Derek’s last words were a cautioning that we can make plans but they often will never come to pass, and all we can do is be in the moment.
I thought I’d be at Northern Voice this year. Instead, I have the gift of getting well enough that I can return to something I love, sunny day cycling.
That’s a moment I can be in, that I must be in, because it’s the only moment I have available to me, the best this day has to offer.
Sounds like the right choice after all.