Fuck the pope, fuck the church, and fuck stupid-ass religious school boards for doing stupid-ass things.

Here in Canada, Ontario’s premier is expressing his “disappointment” at the Halton Catholic District School Board’s choice to NOT give its grade-eight girls the free, provided-by-government human papilloma virus vaccine, which is contracted through sexual activity, but is the leading cause of cervical cancer in women.

The problem is, the Catholic Church still lives in the la-la-land where everyone is perfect and sin never, ever happens, and things like AIDS and cervical cancer only happen to dirty people who deserve them.

The Halton School Board wants to remind grade eight girls that sex is not permitted by the church before marriage.

SIGH. When will the Catholic Church, the Vatican, and fuckwits like those running Halton start to realize what idiots they’re being? When will they start to accept the responsibility they bear for lives they threaten when they fail to accept the one thing their God has celebrated since He supposedly created everyone… the freedom to choose and act under free will?

But obvious that’s too big a mouthful for these dimwits, so how about I take a different approach this time?

As a 12-year-old, I was very certain that the stars and cosmos would align ever so perfectly so as to allow me to reach fame and fortune as a singer since I knew George Michael would spot my brilliance on the street one day or at a high school dance. Hey, I was 12 and dumb, it’s what you do at 12, right?

My mother said, “All right, but if life intervenes and George doesn’t find you and you can’t be rich and famous from singing, what are you going to do with your life?”

So I figured I’d get a journalism degree one day, since that’s such an easy job to get a career in. (Ha.)

Thing is, I picked a back-up plan. I’m not looking at life like it’s all going to go according to plan, because shit happens, as we all know. You make contingencies, you create safety nets to catch yourself when you fall, because shit happens. We have dreams and ideals, but a little thing called “real life” tends to get in the way every single time.

Why would the Catholic Church say, “Here’s the ideal: Strive for the perfect life without sin. But if you fuck up, you will pay the whole price, because we’re not letting you protect yourself with anything, ever. No condoms, no HPV vaccine… because our god is a spiteful, vengeful god who will strike you down when you fail to live the perfect, sin-free life” ?

Why? Why would a god who sends his only son to Earth, whose son befriends whores and sinners and thieves, who forgives all and understands the whole painful human experience from birth to death, wish that man not protect themselves from themselves? Doesn’t the Church realize how much they govern their faith under a mandate of fear and retribution? Don’t they even begin to understand the concepts of human error and forgiveness they try to teach so often?

These are THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD GIRLS. They could be raped. They could mistakenly think they’ve found the love of their life. They could have a moment of weakness. How DARE the school district not require them to take a tiny needle (three times) that can prevent them from one of the stupidest, most senseless cancer deaths out there?

There are lines I don’t believe religion should be allowed to cross. There are lines I think the government needs to draw more firmly. When you’re talking about the HPV virus, or AIDS, things that can be averted through very simple means — a simple vaccine or a condom — the government has a responsibility to put the 13-year-olds’ interests ahead of their parents’ or their churches’.

We’re in a socialist system here in Canada, and we the taxpayers will foot the bill for either the cost of their vaccine or the cost of their battle with cervical cancer, however it should unfold. I’d rather pay for the vaccine, not the cancer. No one should be afflicted with a mostly-avoidable cancer like cervical cancer.

I’ve had an old friend, who’s drifted away and won’t get in touch, get cervical cancer. 32 years old. Two young children. She’s Catholic. Will she survive it? Hard to know.

But if all it would have taken was a simple needle when she was 13… imagine the different life she would be leading. Instead, she’s 32 and remembering that her mother died of cancer in her 50s. She’s got two babies and she’s facing questions of mortality no 32-year-old mother should need to be facing. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the option of the HPV vaccine when we were teens.

So when I hear about fuckwits like Halton and their “struggle” with their conscience, I want to fucking bitch-slap the whole lot of them and shout “FUCK your conscience. LOOK at reality, THEN make peace with your conscience.”

Save a life, or hang kicking-and-screaming onto your principles? Hmm. Gee, tough choice.

I’m really sick and tired of the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church and all its various boards and establishments. I’m tired of their penchant to prejudge people before the afterlife kicks in.

The thing about the Catholic Church that doesn’t make sense is, there’s so much talk about what’s a sin and how bad it is, and how horrible it is to be sinning (ie: premarital sex) and all that, but once you walk into the confessional and claim you’re sorry, you’re absolved. Sins are wiped away and you’re essentially a freshly-baptized baby again, more or less. Graham Greene once wrote said Catholics are more capable of evil than anyone else for they believe in salvation between the stirrup and the ground. Meaning, you can do anything you want, beg forgiveness, and receive absolution.

(It is this very principle, that of the proverbial sinning free-for-all followed by the clean-slate of absolution that ultimately made me want to leave the Church when I argued, at 13, with a priest who said a local serial killer of the time going to church Sundays was more likely to go to heaven than I was because he was attending church and receiving the sacraments, and even if I was leading a good life, I wasn’t attending, ergo likely had a date with hell.)

But what good is absolution of the sin if you’re being instructed not to safeguard yourself against AIDS or HPV by using pragmatic means like condoms and vaccines? How does it make sense that you’re not supposed to sin, but if you do, the priest can make it all go away with a rosary or two, yet you may contract an infection or virus that can kill you because preparing for the sin somehow makes it worse… even if it’s getting absolved in a week or two anyhow?

And there are those out there who are saying “So? Use the condom then, fuck what the church says.” But that’s not the point. The point is, there are a lot of devout people who don’t go asking questions outside the parameters of their faiths. They believe sex is a sin, they live by those principles. Yet they, too, are human, and shit happens. And when it does, because they’ve listened to their church and believed what the church has outlined about life in general, they may pay the ultimate price.

Those people aren’t reading this blog, they may never know better. And they don’t deserve to die just because they’re ignorant and devout. No one does.

And that’s why I’m disgusted with the church and all its administrative bod
ies, because they’re abusing the trust their congregations have placed in them.

It’s hypocrisy, it’s a crime, it’s a scandal. As a taxpayer, I want those kids vaccinated. As a good person, I want those kids vaccinated. As a recovered Catholic, I want justice here, I want those kids protected.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: Fuck the pope. And fuck Halton’s school board.

And if you’re a parent of, or you are, a young woman between the ages of 9 and 26, and you’ve not yet visited a doctor for information about the Gardasil HPV vaccine, then you really must look into it. The vaccine is not retroactive, and it is not licensed for use over 26.

(Part of me doesn’t want to publish this, and part of me says “Write what you know, and publish it” because this is where my mind is right now. But know that a part of me thinks it’s whining, ‘cos I know a lot of people are as broke as I am right now, or worse, and for longer. But it’s where my head is, and sometimes I think that’s the best part of blogging… momentary glimpses of others’ realities. Welcome to mine.)

I chuckled a lame-ass chuckle when I caught a t-shirt with an arts-snob pun: “Baroque: adj., when you are out of Monet”.

Broke? Out of money? Recessions and seasonal slow-downs are a bitch, n’est ce pas? Wow.

So, it’s a week into my “I got towed!” broke-ass pay period, and I’ve got about 10 days to go. And, man, am I just bummed. Like I say, I know this is a four- to six-week period, it’ll pass, and I’m grateful I can look forward to some relief down the line.

But the trouble with the four to six weeks that need to elapse is, we live in a society that judges you on money. How much do you got? What can you do with it? Got toys? Prove it!

And it’s days like this where I start to doubt my life choices. And I hate that. I hate doubting myself. I hate the fear of “Man, what if I’d gone that other way? What would I have now?”

I don’t have a lot in life, you know? My life is simple. Splurging means I’ve paid $12-15 for a bottle of wine, instead of $9 or so. Or maybe it means I’ve bought a nice steak to grill. And that’s all right with me. I don’t mind my “small pleasures” in life actually being small, because the life I lead is so much more simpler and mine than the life led by most, if not all, of my friends.

Know that life you dream of where you have enough control over your life, enough time, and enough flexibility to do what you want? The life you had at 20? Well, that’s the life I still lead at 35.

Trouble is, it doesn’t pay great, and this city’s an expensive bitch to live in, but it’s my home. But I get by, and I’m all right with getting by. In fact, the track “I’ll Get By” by Swag is my personal anthem. And I’m all right with that.

But when I’m sitting around and I know there are folks around me who are five years younger and making $10,000-40,000 more a year than I am, it’s natural for me to start wondering if selling out and following my political instincts for a corporate career might’ve been smarter than following my love of the written word, as much as I might love the life I usually lead.

I could’ve probably done well in the political realm. When I was 18, I got involved with the Young Liberals. After a few weeks I found myself thinking “These people are so fake…” and I jetted from the scene, despite knowing it’d give me awesome job contacts.

I’d have made the contacts that keep some young folks I know sitting pretty at $70,000 a year, while I’m here scheming about an exciting diet consisting primarily of, yes, beans, and rationing my juice out.

Trouble is, I know I probably would’ve become one of those people that a) never writes, b) starts to wonder what might’ve been if she had been writing, and c) starts to hate the job so much that it’s all about living for the expensive-ass vacation it can pay for and all the pretty toys it provides to play with.

I wish some part of me could cook up a brilliant way to combine both worlds. But I’ve tried to live that dichotomy and it tore me apart inside over the last couple of years. I’ve learned the hard way that I gotta go for the soul of life, and not the show of life. I returned to a job that affords me the flexibility and the time required to live the writing life I’d like to maintain the rest of my days.

And most of the time I’m cool with just getting by. I’m cool with being this chick of words and thoughts and not a whole lot else. My cheapness is a running joke these days, and I’m cool with that, but not cool with being THIS broke, and not for this length of time. (It’ll be two or three rough months by the time this passes, but this is the worst patch and things will start to ease up in a couple weeks. Whew.)

I feel like a failure today. A big, fat failure, and it’s all because I haven’t got money in my wallet. It doesn’t matter that I’m a great person with a fun job and a cute apartment who’s lost 35 pounds all on her own steam, who’s healthier than ever before, and who throws down a good blog, you know?

I’m the chick who’s not getting her bills paid, and that’s the identity that screams loudest at me right now.

We’ve ALL had this feeling, probably. Or at least most of us have. That dark period before the dawn when you’re so goddamned broke you feel like you’re being Punk’d by Kra-Z Glue? That period when you can’t pay your bills, the best thing you can do is figure out which utility needs a greater percentage of the bill paid? Yeah. I fucking hate not being able to pay bills. That just sucks. I feel like such a pariah.

It blows, and we all know it. I’m certainly not the only person going through tough times these days.

Like any other challenge in life, I’m reminding myself that this is more a test of my personal endurance than it is bad luck. It’s an opportunity for me to see how low I can go whilst still bouncing back. Knowing your mettle is always advantageous in the contact sport of life.

But I’d like to spend a little less time being tested. Wouldn’t we all? Geez.

It’s the end of an era.

It’s the end of the time in which you had to be white and male to run for the office of President of the United States of America.

Now you can be black. Whether it’ll happen or not, we’ll know in November. That the possibility, with a 50-50 probability, even exists is pretty remarkable when one considers the past from which modern America has emerged, and how recently.

When King was killed in ’63, it was like some big voice in white America answering “Not on my watch” to King’s bellowing of “I have a dream.” Don’t think that’s fallen too far away from the collective memory of black America.

Tonight, though, it’s on our watch.

And we are all the better for it. Today finally is the tomorrow we’ve all been waiting all this time for. Today is the tomorrow, and it’s on our watch.

We’re blessed be here, now, when an almost impalpable but unmistakable veneer of cynicism seems to have fallen slightly away from America.

It has been a long, long wait. Nice dream, Martin. It plays out well in reality. A very, very nice dream. (Do we have to wake?)

Sigh. I am shamed. A weak, weak, weak woman. Where was that voice in my head when I needed it?

Step away from the Chocolate Chip-Peanut Butter Muffin, ma’am. That oozy, tasty, scrumptious, moist bit of muffiny heaven.

Dammit. Burp. Thank god I didn’t make a full dozen. I had to try a couple last night, just to make sure they were good. Had brekkie, of course, and the first one was so good… Then I needed dessert tonight. Tomorrow morning will be the final breakfast and a friend will be assisting me. Methinks I’ve blown my 2,000 calorie cap on this fine day. And my head hurts. My tummy feels happy, though, which isn’t helping the shame because, well, my tummy feels happy. Chocolatey-peanutty post-munchies bliss, really.

Weak, weak, weak. But I have a great defense! It’s PMS. Yay, for built-in excuse of PMS! Waitaminit! Fuck you, PMS, and the bad-assed pimped-up scale you rode in with ‘cos I’m gonna way 10 freakin’ pounds more because of your bullshit notion-spurring, “Duh, I have an idea. Three words: chocolate, peanut butter. If you make them, you will yum, Shoeless Joe might say.”

And I’m standing there between commercials, looking at the second muffin in the toaster oven. Sighing both hesitantly and happily, thinking, “Well, I already blew the day. What’s another muffin now? Besides, it’s PMS. Why fight it? Tomorrow will be a new day.”

Way to fight the dark side, Steff. But it’s a warm muffin of chocolatey-peanutty bliss getting oozy and deliciouser!

See? Pointless to fight it. Might as well have given in. While I have the chill shame of failure lacing me, the cavernous depths of my belly are still quite pleased with my actions, it would seem.

This, men, is PMS in all its hellish effectiveness. It plays on our soft underbellies and prods us with cheap-and-easy lil’ fixits to all our problems, from muffins to man troubles, that usually just make our lives more difficult. PMS makes us do crazy shit sometimes. Fortunately most of us, our “crazy shit” is tantamount to eating three muffins. Now and then it makes a woman cut off a penis.

Let’s hope yours is the muffin type. Fortunately your odds are good. Especially if they’re made with chocolate chips and peanut butter. Bran? Not so much.

It’s like they say, life is tough–get a helmet. I don’t beat myself up when I have a shitty food day like today. I just do better tomorrow.

Yves St. Laurent died on the weekend. For whatever else he’s to be remembered for, his biggest accomplishment was probably selling the public on the idea of women wearing pants, which was first pitched by Coco Chanel, but took YSL to make fly.

It could be argued that women in the workplace were never taken seriously until they started showing up in pants in the ’60s. Slowly and surely the gender roles have faded and shifted over the years, largely because hemlines became mostly non-existent for a while. (Then came Ally McBeal and the ’90s, eh?)

With YSL’s death, a revisiting of his life will occur, and new schools of thought will examine his place, his fashion revolution’s place, in the yet-still-changing new world order of men and women.

Without the pantsuit, where would Hillary Clinton be? At home, baking cookies? Who knows. The pantsuit changed everything for women. It spoke of power, it conveyed femininity while not conveying too much of it. Suddenly women could sit in a meeting and have the focus be on them without having to worry about the leech in the corner who’s staring at her skirted legs or focusing on the sweater-vest outline of her boobs.

It’s strange, that a piece of clothing should be so responsible for a change in the social tide, but it’s not the first time it’s happened. Three pieces of clothing, I think, pretty much revolutionized society: The first pair of blue jeans, patented in the 1870s; Marlon Brando getting noticed for wearing a t-shirt in The Wild One, unleashing the fad of wearing a t-shirt as an actual shirt, a fashion item on its own, and not just an under-garment; and that of YSL and Chanel foisting the idea of pants-suited women taking over the workforce.

In a world filled with images, it’s visionaries like Yves St. Laurent who help shift our worldviews. From the skirted June Cleaver in the ’50s to the panted Elizabeth Taylor in the ’60s, no roles have changed quicker or with greater repercussion than that of the post-war woman in America, and YSL will always be remembered for playing a strange yet pivotal role in the shaping of the modern femme.

It’s a gorgeous, sunny Friday night, and I’m at home, contemplating life with my broke ass, after paying $106 out of a very meagre, very-tight-already paycheque from which rent’s supposed to come, too. (Read this morning’s rant for more on that.)

I had generously invited a couple friends over for hamburgers tomorrow, before we see the Von Bondies’ gig, the burger-fixin’s for which I already had, but have now sent them emails informing them that, should they want actual “cheese”burgers, they must supply their own cheese. Now that’s just sad. But that’s my broke ass. Frozen patties for you, friends. Ixnay the reshfay, adlysay.

I’m scheming to consider an assortment of fine bean dishes to get me through the next month, since beans are the broke person’s breakfast of champions and I’m so athletic these days that I can’t forgo protein, but sure as shit can’t afford meats or fish. And I’m a little worried, wondering if anything unexpected lingers that will hurt me financially even more, which is not anything I can actually handle at this point since all I’ve got is enough for very, very cheap eats and enough to do a couple loads of laundry.

And that’s life sometimes. Or life, that is, for those of us who “just get by” on a day-to-day basis, for whatever that reason is. Me, I had the bad luck of being born in a city that has shockingly managed to become the second most expensive one in North America to live in, but it’s my home and it’s my heart, man. Lean times come ’round for most of us Vancouverites at times. (Note to spellcheck, Vancouverites is a real word.)

Despite all that… despite the uncertainty and the deep, niggling concern, I’m kind of wearing a silly little smile this evening, and I’m not entirely sure why.

Maybe because life’s pretty spectacular even if wallets are empty. Because nature’s beauty is free and all around me. Because I know I’m not long off from work getting busy and my hours puffing up and the dollars following, as the busy season is nigh. Because it’s sunny. Because I’m creative. Because my friends are empathetic. Because I’m funny. Because I’m getting cuter by the day. Because my health’s improving. Because I feel strong and powerful. Because all my clothes are getting too big for me. Because life’s too short to look only at fear.

Or maybe because I stepped off the bus this morning, turned left, and saw that a pedestrian had been mowed down on the sidewalk by a BMW. The emergency services hadn’t even arrived yet and the streets and sidewalks were littered with concerned onlookers watching the injured man, who I tried not to look at, get tended to by good Samaritans.

And I remembered what my life was like from ’03 to ’06 as I was rehabbing from two very serious vehicle accidents and constant, chronic pain and ongoing injuries. I remembered how bad every day was, regardless of how “good” it was, because pain enveloped everything, always. And I thought of how that man would be challenged in the months to come.

And maybe because I was afflicted with such terrifying hand pain last week, which plagued me in ’98 & ’99, I had a little too good a reminder of how difficult it is to enjoy life when you’re always in pain. It’s hard to be in harmony with the world when you’re not even in harmony with yourself, when you can’t be in harmony with yourself.

My hand’s pretty much back to normal now (which it never really is, but this is its normal, so…) Yeah, already. Something snapped into place on Wednesday and it’s been night and day. Unbelievable. How blessed am I?

Despite how challenging money is now, and has been since March, it’s that old saying, “This too shall pass.” And it’s always darkest before dawn, right? June is going to suck, because I’ll be broke the whole time… but the weather’s awesome, and I’m crazy fit, and I haven’t been sick at all this year, and I have an awesome apartment, a scooter that runs, friends who put up with all my bullshit, and a job that fits into my life better than any I’ve ever had before. Is my life ideal? No. But I think, somewhere along the line today, I realized that it’s better than it’s been in a really, really long time. I’m better than I’ve been in a really, really long time.

All things considered? I’m not that guy on the sidewalk. And beans are versatile. And 30 days from now might be an entirely different scenario. This I know. God knows every single month this year has been packed with a madcap swirl of the unexpected, good and bad. Anything else my year has been, “boring” is not apt.

So maybe that’s why I smile. Or maybe I’m just enjoying being myself tonight. Either way, it suits me. And I do so hope your weekend suits you.

Of course, if you think my life deserves something more enthralling than beans in all their many-splendoured, cheap-ass glory for the next few weeks, feel free to show me some PayPal donation love by clicking here. Or just send me psychic lovin’ vibes and wishes of good. We loves the good vibes. It’s all good. 🙂

In the last three or four years, I’ve purged at least a half-dozen large boxes of books that spanned every genre you could think of. Even today, with my gutted and scaled collection, it’d take you some time to scan my shelves.

You’d notice, though, a penchant for dark fiction, strange and obscure history, and a terrific assortment of essays and non-fiction anthologies of great journalists and other not-so-fiction writers, ranging from everyone from Norman Mailer and H.L. Mencken, to Hunter Thompson and Lester Bangs.

Right now, I’m reading a strange batch of work. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde, the occasional bit by HST, and what really has me intrigued from time to time, How I Got to Be This Hip by one of the best journalists of the ’60s and ’70s, Barry Farrell.

Farrell was writing from California at the end of the ’60s when the Manson Family did their handiwork in the Tate and LaBianca murders that changed Hollywood forever.

I didn’t realize there were articles in this collection of Farrell’s that dated back to the weird days that followed the murder, when speculation ran rampant about who, what, or why those baffling murder transpired, but their contemporary before-the-trial coverage offer an interesting glimpse in the knee-jerk judgment that became rife with the revelation of the sensational crimes.

The execution, for lack of a better word, of the Manson murders are the stuff of legend now. Words scrawled on the walls in victims’ blood, the pregnant Tate butchered, each victim stabbed more times than any coroner should ever have to count… just for starters.

Not buying the mythical degeneracy under which the A-list friends and wife of Roman Polanski lived,
Farrell starts off In Hollywood, The Dead Keep Right on Dying pretty succinctly.

“You wouldn’t believe how weird these people were,” the detective said, not for the first time.

(…)The detective, in fact, could almost find a parable for law and orfer in the killings: “If you live like that, what do you expect?” Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski–these were not people, these were weird people.

They were weird because they used drugs and “messed around with sex,” weird in all the fashionable ways, weird as in the new movies. Their circle may have been friendly enough to protect them in their lifetimes, but now, in their posthumous notoreity, rumour had revealed them to all as connoisseurs of depravity, figures torn from a life that was pure de Sade, with videotape machines in the bedrooms.

In respect for the dead, and for Roman Polanski, Sharon’s husband, it should be said that the truth is disappointing–that their wild dope parties usually ran to endless evenings spent boring each other into such a reach of mindlessness that it would finally seem a brilliant idea to watch the test pattern on colour TV.

(…)But the truth in such affairs is only so many entries in a detective’s notebook. What counts is the folklore, the expanded, popular version that everyone believes. The victims could have been any kind of moral vagabonds, but in fractured, menaced Hollywood, people can think of any number of good reasons for killing whatever they were.

Keep in mind, that was written in the fevered weeks right after the now-notorious murders. As time wound on, the victims were remembered more as innocents, but only because the true baffling reasons behind Manson’s fucked kill-’em-all Helter Skelter anarchy plan made it clear that the victims happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Between the Helter Skelter Manson murders and soon-to-transpire went-so-wrong Altamont concert, 1969 brought a swift and inarguable end to the proverbial “Summer of Love” that’d been lingering in the air since ’67. The ’60s were over with bang. Or, more like a stab.

In its place came a startling reminder that evil lived, but there was something less obvious, and possibly a little more insidious… That people would probably always think the worst of you before being given a reason to do otherwise.

Judgment and fear preceded sympathy and justice for the Tate Killing victims. Because a perception existed that they lived outside the norm (hey, Polanski directed Rosemary’s Baby so naturally he had to have occult connections, right?) the belief was they must have deserved a karmic backlash.

Kind of like some preachers said the Hurricane Katrina victims deserved for living in a city of sin. Or like Islamic terrorists think the United States of America deserves for living such gluttonous, sacrilegious, smutty lives. Or like Sharon Stone talking about Chinese earthquake victims getting a karmic check from Tibet. Or like right-wing Christians, like Sally Kern, think about gays afflicted with the plague of AIDS.

It’d be nice if every now and then people could ask “What’s deserve got to do with it?” when tragedy befalls others. It’d be nice if we could say that, in the 40 years that have passed since Manson orchestrated his little spree, we could say things have changed. But not so much.

With folk like Sally Kern alive, well, and keeping their public jobs, it seems judgment doesn’t really come with a shelf-life.

Yesterday I caught up with a friend. We tackled my nemesis, The Stairs, but I went easy on her as it was her cherry-popping session. Only a mere 15 floors. When I saw my healthy, thin friend doubled over, huffing and puffing to beat all hell, at the top of 15 flights, I was so ecstatic. Made me feel like “Hey, this shit really is hard. I AM all that, baby!”

This morning I did 25 floors. Maybe knowing that translates to 650 steps means more to ya, since stair flights are always different. Plus walking 10 blocks, and in less than 30 minutes. I feel great. My right leg is still twitching, but I feel great. Ha.

Now it’s reward time. Muffins! Blooberry muffins made by yours truly.

Muffins are funny. Everyone thinks “healthy” when they think “muffins”, but most muffins, if they’re commercially bought, are about as evil as a slice of cheesecake.

I was dumbstruck when I saw that a blueberry muffin from The Breadgarden had something like 650 calories and god knows how many grams of fat. In fact, the average bakery muffin tends to have 550 calories or more… the ones I’ve been looking into, anyhow. Like, Starbucks.

That’s the equivalent (or more!) of a Big Mac! (I’d rather have a burger then!)

These muffins of mine are heavily modified (don’t try that at home, kids!) from a Cooking Light magazine recipe. I’ve always added flavoured yogurt to my muffins for flavour, less fat, and moisture. By adding a fat-free fieldberry yogurt, I get to cut down on the sugar in the muffins as well, so my muffins are 170 calories and 4 grams of fat for an average-sized muffin. (Which is only about 1/2-2/3 the size of a commercial bakery muffin, but… still!)

These muffins freeze great, and they don’t taste like they’re the high-fibre muffins that they are. I serve mine with slices of a nice tart Granny Smith apple and some mature English cheddar.

Steff’s Flavour-Packed Low-Fat Oatmeal-Blueberry Muffins

In a food processor, put:
1 2/3 cups quick-cooking oats

Quickly pulse oats until they look like coarse meal.

Put oats in a large bowl, and combine with:
2/3 cup all-purpose flour (about 3 ounces)
1/2 cup ground flax seeds
1/3 cup whole wheat flour (about 2 1/3 ounces)
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
1.5 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt

In a medium bowl, combine:
1 cup milk (or soy milk)
3/4 cup blueberry, fieldberry, strawberry yogurt
1/4 cup canola oil
2 large eggs

Mix liquid ingredients into dry ingredients, stirring as little as is required to get it mixed. (My home ec teacher taught us to stir 17 times — the more you mix, the heavier your muffins get, so never, ever overwork it. This step is crucial to light, fluffy muffins!)

When it’s almost completely mixed, stop.

Take 2 cups blueberries and toss with a couple tablespoons of flour to prevent from staining the batter purple. Mix into batter.

Fill pre-greased muffin cups with the batter, and bake in a preheated 400-degree oven for approximately 20 minutes, or until you can poke them with a finger and the muffin springs back to its shape. (If your finger leaves an indent, they’re not done.)

Makes 16. Enjoy!

(It’s just shy of 12 hours later, and my hand feels better tonight than this morning, and that’s after a day’s work and a yoga routine that was heavy on the downward-facing dog. This is good! I’m confused, but this is good! But I’ll leave the post up ‘cos I’m still taking some time off my cycling. Oh, and what a horrid typo I found there on this revisit… Ugh. For shame!)

A white explorer in Africa, anxious to press ahead with his journey, paid his porters for a series of forced marches. But they, almost within reach of their destination, set down their bundles and refused to budge. No amount of extra payment would convince them otherwise.

They said they had to wait for their souls to catch up.

Bruce Chatwin
1940-1989

My acupuncturist tells me my Qi is weak. My lifeforce is waning. No, this doesn’t mean I’m being sized for a pine box just yet, no worries.

Makes me wonder if I’ve been cycling so much, so far, lately that my soul has yet to catch up with me. Like my soul’s 20 blocks behind me, musing, “Why is she racing so hard up that hill? We’re going to spill our martini.”

Last week brought the resurgence of an old hand injury that has me terrified to my core. Perhaps it was just too much cycling, perhaps it’s more. My acupuncture docs are on the case, but tell me I’m not to cycle in the short-term. I’ve pulled back entirely without much argument at all.

Writing, these days, is everything to me. One needs hands to write. That this should arise and make it possible that the thing which gives me greater fulfillment than anything in my life should become a constantly painful excercise of endurance is something that should be unspeakable. Curse you, hand injury. Not on my fuckin’ watch.

I’ve spent the last few days in a mental funk, angrily playing over scenarios that might unfold in the coming years should my long-term hand injury of old return. It’s not been a fun mental journey, and I’ve been spending this morning shaking it off.

Yoga, it would seem, might be the perfect new exercise for me. Something to allow my soul to catch up. Something to help spurn me mentally into the here-and-now of consciousness while making my body strong but balanced.

Qi isn’t the easiest of notions to understand. I’m not sure if it makes sense to me yet, but I plan to look into it over the next while. Do me some self-edumacatin’. My somewhat lay understanding of Qi goes like this:

If life is a river of energy, constantly flowing and moving, lifeforce/Qi is the ability to harness that energy and flow with it. Those of us who fight and struggle, like salmon trying to spawn upstream, we lose too much in the battle, and our lifeforce wanes and flickers, and struggle begets struggle. A vicious cycle. You can stop and rest, but if you’re going to continue swimming against the current, what’s the point, why bother?

Surviving life isn’t that hard, is it? Just like surviving when you’re fighting a current: just keep breathing in and out, overcome the immediate obstacles, and get through it. That’s the secret.

It’s not a very good life, but that’s what you get when ‘survival’ is your only goal. This is something I’m slowly becoming aware of. I’m starting to realize that my intentions deep down inside of recent years have all erred toward surviving. For a while, that was good. Now, though, I’m tired of survival.

I’ve always fought against the current. Life required it for many years, but I think the time to fight is over for me. Now it’s time to yield to the flow, to see where it takes me. Stop surviving and, instead, start celebrating.

It’s difficult, getting thrown curve-balls by life and learning to handle them. This was one of the biggest curve-balls I’ve been tossed in some time, this hand issue, but to face it and overcome it would give me a new measure of what I can handle in the years to come, literally too. I’m mindful of how overcoming this hopefully-temporary hurdle would be for me. It’d be a monumental achievement. Not having to face it would be fantastic, too.

For now, though, this week is the week my soul catches up to me. A week of consciously remembering the self. I suppose we could all use a little catch-up from time to time.

Enjoy your Monday, minions.

Photo: Taken by yours truly on a cycle ride around Vancouver’s Stanley Park last month.

My evil Scrabulous Nemesis M. on Facebook told me a great joke the other night.

An egg and a chicken are lying in bed. The egg’s all balled up on her side while the chicken’s propped up with a grin on his beak, having a smoke. The egg fumes and mutters, “Well, I guess that answers that age-old question.”

So, on behalf of all women:

We understand that you may sometimes need to finish first. Why, we can be downright chores at times when it comes to the proverbial screaming O.

But, please, if you must finish first, and it’s apparent we want more, we would like to extend to you an open invitation to use manual (ie: fingers, hand) techniques, oral mastery, and possibly even toys to deliver us the same orgasmic bliss we’ve willingly been your vehicle toward. For god’s sake, don’t stop for a cigarette. We should be a priority. Get to work. And, hey, patience, grasshopper. We’ll get there when we get there… and you’ll take it, and like it.

(However, if we’re indifferent, please, just take your orgasm and run, will you? Consider it on the house and let us have that bath we’re thinking about. Have fun using your psychic powers. You can do it. Or… you could ask. We’ll only bite if we know you like it.)

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming. Sorry about that. Come back tomorrow.