Author Archives: Steffani Cameron

Let's Talk Mental Health: Life after Depression, My Story

Today is #BellLetsTalk day in Canada. It’s an initiative by Bell Media to get Canadians talking about mental health. Use of the hashtag on Twitter results in 5 cents per tweet getting donated to mental health awareness by Bell, but the tweet needn’t be about mental health to count. Tweeting about a donut? Tag that.
This big-biz-sponsored day on mental health has prompted me to want to talk again about my own experiences with depression, because I know for a fact it has helped people in the past, something that fills me with great pride.
I consider myself major-depression-free for 5 years now. (Woohoo!)
Sure, I got pretty depressed at the end of my time in Vancouver, but that’s different. That’s what you call “situational depression,” in which you get depressed as a natural result of a situation in your life — whether it’s a death, a job loss, bankruptcy, or any other major stress that can result in anxiety and other disorders. You can medicate yourself to manage these situations, too, or you can just hang on tight, knowing that it’s related to something that’s going on and that it’ll pass. When I thought about the stress of moving, I was depressed.
When I thought of the life I expected after moving, I felt momentary glee and hope. That’s how I knew it was a situational depression and that it would subside.
So, I hung on for the ride, then I moved to Victoria. It passed.
And that’s life.
It’s a lie to try and convince anyone that once depression goes away it’s all sunshine and roses. It’s not. Some are prone to depression and moods. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m “prone” to it, but I know that I have been susceptible in difficult times. The safe thing is to assume that I might always have a hard time in some situations. I’m a passionate person. Maybe that’s part of the package.
I think occasional susceptability to deep moods is a pretty normal deal. The important thing is being able to recognize it.
When I suffered my major, major depression that was chemically induced by a bad birth control prescription that closed in on me fast and changed everything. It began early 2006 and lasted into the autumn. I had to ask for help. I had to place an emergency call to a shrink in August, and then I went and got meds, and things began to improve 3 weeks later, but it was a long struggle back to normalcy.
I took those meds until spring 2008, but had to rapidly get off them because I had changed my diet and exercise routine so dramatically (and would lose 80 pounds that year) that I was able to get my body chemistry back to normal. At that point, the “anti-depressants” began making me aggressive, and we knew what was going on: I was getting balanced through natural means and no longer needed the chemicals to regulate matters.
Since then, I need a combination of time alone, vitamins, quality exercise, and regular sleep to keep my moods regulated. And if I “go off balance,” it’s usually only a couple days before I’m back to where I need to be.
Depression, once you’ve had a REAL depression — not just sadness or stress or a down period, but clinical dark-as-fuck, will-I-survive-this depression — I think it’s always there. Like a mole on your leg or your social security number, that experience just becomes a part of you.
I don’t mean in a way that you’re always AWARE of it, or that you always feel it. I just mean that when a real wave of sadness or sorrow hits, you remember that time when you couldn’t escape that feeling.
It’s always a relevant thing. Any time those moods return, I think it’s when a formerly depressed individual has to ask themselves if the emotional response they’re having is suited to the situation they’re experiencing, or if their response is illogical and possibly a sign that something chemical is off in the body.
Last week, I had just that kind of a week. I was moody, depressed, not wanting to do anything, and after a few days I realized there wasn’t a causal reason that deserved the reaction I was having. Then I realized I’d not been taking my vitamins for over a week.
Boom. Took vitamins, slept better, and then next day I was back to a normal level of grumpy I-Hate-February self. And that’s okay, because I’ve always hated February, and then I’m like a little kid in March when sun comes and flowers bloom. That’s my “normal,” and it’s okay, as long as I know that’s what’s going on.
Eventually, being a survivor of depression is just like being a survivor of back-pain or the owner of a shifty knee. You’re aware it’s a weakness you’ve had, and when things go awry, it’s okay to ask if it’s a Big Picture situation, or just a fluctuating phase like everyone experiences.
And it’s still okay.
I survive grumpiness. I also experience a lot of joy. I smile a lot, even when I’m alone. I get angry, too, but then I tell people why, or I write about it.
Mental illness comes in many, many different levels of severity. Not all are debilitating. Not all are perceptible by others. But all of them have struck someone you know, someone who may not have had the courage to tell you or anyone else about it, and that’s the only thing shameful about mental illness I can think of. Please encourage people in your life to talk to you, to feel safe in admitting what they’re going through, because lives can depend on it.
When you’re in it, depression feels like forever.
When you survive it, it’s hard to believe you ever felt as bad you once did.
It can be survived. It’s the fight of a lifetime, and there are tools of all kinds you can wield against it. Talk to someone who knows.
If you’re depressed and you want to read an amazing account of what it felt like for Pulitzer-prize-winning author William Styron, read his Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness. If you love someone who’s depressed and can’t understand how/why they’ve changed so much or why nothing you say seems to help, please read Styron’s book, and you’ll understand it for the first time. Here’s an excerpt in Vanity Fair.
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Don’t forget… you can read about my new, improved life I’m leading in Victoria on my new blog, VanIsleStyle.com, my take on a lifestyle blog.

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One Month Down, Eleven to Go: The State of the Steff

Why, hi there, you.
I’m just checking in. It’s a nice morning. My coffee cup is full. I thought, “Why don’t I go say hello to my minions?”
Yoo-hoo, minions! Hallo-o-o-o-o, minions.
Your friendly neighbourhood blogger is doing just fine, thankyouverymuch.
My year of Being Better is underway. I promised myself I wouldn’t make New Year’s Resolutions, and I didn’t. Instead, I would become a better version of myself by the year’s end. In, well, hopefully every way.
A better writer, a better exerciser, a better eater, a better sleeper, a better relaxer, a better coper, a better friend, a better daughter. You know. A better me.
We get so hell-bent on timers in this digitally-powered world we live in. We have reminders to set reminders. From iCal date-planning to the extreme, to actually CHOOSING to get Facebook and Twitter notifications, as if life wasn’t full enough of micro-management.
You know, if y’all like that shit so damned much, you can keep it. I set reminders for when missing something would cost me money. Otherwise, I roll with it. And I’ve never, ever had any smartphone notifications turned on besides texting. Because life is meant to be lived, not full of alarms.
On this quest of betterment, I’m not micro-managing myself. I’m not setting a timeline and measuring my progress constantly. Instead, I find myself now and then remembering where I was a year ago today (packing and panicking ahead of my move to Victoria), maybe 4 years ago today (just beginning to make progress after my first back injury), even 8 years ago today (recovering from a head injury).
What was life like at those times? What were my goals? How would I stack up now?
Uh… everything is better now. I’m better now. I have far to go, sure, but don’t we all?
I’m in a lucky place because I know exactly how far I’ve come on the inside. I need to be in a place now where that shows on the outside.
I need to eat better and exercise better because it’s not an option. Either I feel good and enjoy life again, or I continue hiding out in the Cave of Mordor (what I call my apartment).
I’m much further along both those paths than I expected to be just one month into the year. How very exciting, minions. Do you see my excitement? I see my excitement. Yes, I do.

Soon to be my shiny new bike.


2012 ended with an incredible gift: The complete, final realization that my bike is continuing to be the main reason my back issues exist.
There’s a point in chronic injury where pain or discomfort (whether a livable level or something debilitating) is so omnipresent that you just lose your ability to discern what improves it or hurts it. It’s when you’re so unable to tell what the spikes are from that you just don’t know what to change to move beyond that.
I rode an upright hybrid bike recently, and better yet, one fitted to my measurements taken by a great bike shop. This was like a Dutch-style bike with a step-thru frame, suspended front forks & seat, nice big tires with semi-slick tread, and elevated close-to-body almost-wrap-around handlebars, and it was almost a religious experience. All this pressure inside my back kind of fell away, the strain on my shoulder and neck reduced.*
To imagine cycling, that thing I love, being comfortable? Even painfree? Or… dare I even think it, beneficial?
This weekend, it looks like I can buy this bike. Let’s see.
Today, I’m showing my old bike, Mighty Murphy. (Named, of course, for Dervla Murphy, the old Irish travel writer who cycled Africa’s Ukimwi Road in her 60s.) Hoping it sells. It feels like I’m breaking up with my past. Like I’m stomping my foot and pulling a Gloria Gaynor moment. You’re not welcome ’round here no more!
And it’s kind of like that. The painful breakup of a relationship. That bike is two worlds for me. It’s the thing that makes me one of the rare people who can say I know what it’s like to lose 80 pounds through nothing but hard damned work and powered by ME, but it’s also the thing that makes me one of those rare people who can say they know what it’s like to live with chronic pain for more than four years.
“Love/hate” doesn’t even begin to describe it.
Had I not gotten sick at Christmas and laid low with a massive marathon of three seasons of The Wire plus an endless tirade of overrated TV on the PVR, my back wouldn’t have gotten the rest it needed so I could get on my bike in the new year and actually discern what was really going on inside me.
Then I had pain again, and I saw how I couldn’t stand straight when walking, and finally everything made sense.
Some might think the solution would be getting off the bike. But that’d be like telling me to live life without writing or photography or cooking. It’ll never, ever happen. I need that to be myself.
So. The new-ish me, the bettering me, the under-progress me is pretty pleased to be starting a new phase as “the urban cyclist” this weekend.
A shiny bike, a clean slate, and roads I’ve never seen before in a town that’s been my home for less than a year.
Being better, becoming better shouldn’t be an ordeal. You shouldn’t be punishing yourself for failing to meet expectations or demanding greater than what you’ve done. All progress is progress. Our lives are long. We can always keep becoming better. Growth has no end-point. Stop thinking you need to be the person you dream of being tomorrow, and be present in the moment while you’re getting yourself there. Maybe you’ll never be this person, this version of you again. Remember the moment.
Relax, grasshopper. Enjoy the ride. Like I am. Or soon will be.

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* Buying a bike isn’t a “Ooh, shiny. Look, it’s green!” thing. You need to get FITTED for it. The right bike for ME could be entirely wrong for YOU. I not only have been fitted by a fantastic bike shop, but I was referred there by my Ironman-competing masseur and I got my bike style approved by my physiotherapist. The last time I bought I bike, I bought what I thought was pretty. It’s cost me thousands of dollars in lost income, pain, and more. Do your research. Don’t listen to anyone except professionals. Period.

Enlightenment! Get Yer Enlightenment Here!

My friend Monica Hamburg posted a hilarious daily-deal from Ethical Deals on her Facebook page today. Oh, how I laughed.
Dude’s selling basically spiritual enlightenment for $129, a savings of 84%, you lucky motherfuckers. Act now or forever live in the dark. Free shipping.
You know why he’s selling “awakening” for 84% off? Because you can’t BUY ENLIGHTENMENT, chumps.

Shot by me. You’ll find enlightenment faster here than in a classroom.


It’s not a “Oh, shit! Wrong aisle! I was looking in aisle 7B, next to the Mexican food” scenario. Enlightenment doesn’t come with a t-shirt and a money-back guarantee. It’s not something you take a course for then suddenly you got ALL YOUR SHIT FIGURED OUT.
Are you kidding me?
You think THE MYSTERY OF LIFE comes in a 2-DVD pack with a bonus Afterlife pamphlet? You think it’s just that easy to understand? You think that’s why people have been asking “What’s the meaning of life?” since the time of Socrates and Plato? Because asshole on a Daily Deal site IS HOLDING ALL THE SECRETS, and you gotta pay $129 for that shit?
I heard someone say the average IQ is 85, so it suddenly makes sense why I want to slap people so much, but let’s see if I can overcome that and write this anyhow.
You don’t need no fucking enlightenment course. Anything you need to know about life has been written already. Hell, you can stick to 50 years of creative content in the 20th century and answer anything you need to know about life. For the price of a library card, you can attain Nirvana.
Ken Kesey, one of America’s greatestest writers EVER, once said something to the effect of, if you can’t find God in your backyard in Kansas, you won’t find him at Egypt’s pyramids either.  (“God” there is whatever you want it to be — enlightenment, awakening, meaning of life, whatever, man.)
Okay. Don’t gotta go to Egypt. And don’t live in Kansas, but I’ve got Wizard of Oz on the PVR, so I’m set, bitches.
The secret to life isn’t out there, it’s in you. Just like Jack Palance‘s gravelly old cowboy mutters in Billy Crystal‘s City Slickers, that the secret to life is, “One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that, and everything else don’t mean shit.”
That “one thing” is different for everyone. For you, maybe it’s butter chicken.
I won’t pretend I’ve mastered my one thing, but I’m closer to it now than I’ve ever been. And, like everyone should know, it’s not about attaining it, it’s about the chase.
Like Will Smith says in The Pursuit of Happyness, the constitution doesn’t promise finding happiness, only the pursuit of it.
For me, I find that’s the secret of life. Never stopping the search for more, never becoming stagnant, always trying to be better. Like a snowball rolling down a hillside. As long as it doesn’t stop, it just keeps growing.
I get that some people feel unhinged and lost, and that feeling overwhelms them. I get that others feel there’s no point to life, that they’re a cog on some wheel of stupidity and nothing matters, and they’re desperately hoping to find anything that will change that perception.
I kinda think accepting and embracing those bitter truths are a part of enlightenment too. Feeling small is good. It makes problems less traumatic. Feeling like the world will go on without you should free you from your panic, not increase it. Knowing it all comes down to you finding meaning in your own life is an empowering thing. If you’re not living for a reason, then that’s your choice, and either you accept that choice or you change it ASAP.
Enlightenment can happen in a parking lot, on a beach, in the dark of night while you’re in bed, staring at the ceiling in bed. It probably ain’t happening in a classroom or in front of a computer monitor, though.
“Enlightenment” is also about relinquishing some control and understanding that the good and bad come in waves, and living in the moment makes it less encompassing.
And that sounds easy but it’s not. There are a lot of factors in life that we can control — being in a place we like living, having the time to do things that make our heart feel full, choosing to live in the moment rather than What-If Land — and there are many that we cannot. No matter who dies on us, what tragedies befall us, there is always, always, always a life beyond that experience, and we have to dial up the courage of ancient explorers in order to travel to those new, scary lands of change. That ain’t easy to do, either.
But that’s what it’s about. That’s life. Constant change. Not all of the happy-happy, fun-fun variety, but all of the relevant, educational variety.
If you ain’t on the move and having new experience, you’re not living. You’re avoiding death.
There’s your enlightenment. On sale for 100% off, with free shipping and handling, all thanks to a blog and a library card, man.
Namaste, motherfuckers.

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Just Like a Cloudy Sunrise

Many a day this winter I have woken to find a cloudy morning outside the glass.
I’ll get up anyhow, resolved to walk the shore, and moments later I’m in pants, toque, and a jacket, out the door.
Living by the ocean is a gift most of us in this area cherish, but we have to live life too. Cloudy mornings seem like an invitation to linger under warm covers, dozing a little longer.
Those are the mornings my walk will be nearly deserted.

I’m learning a lot about life, in a metaphorical sense, from such walks. Those low, cloudy, oppressive mornings often have the most dramatic and violent sunrises, a surprising contrast to the darkness that abounds.
I jokingly call them “Mornings by Mordor,” like it’s some kind of exterior decor practiced by a theatrical god.
For others, being anywhere else in the city, they’re likely not seeing any sunrise. Maybe tinges of red and gold on the horizon, but the sunrise is happening so low on the horizon, it’s for those blessed few of us able to make our way to the water’s edge for the show.
This shot included here (by me) was yesterday’s sunrise from Victoria’s Dallas Road. There are cliffs behind me, and even on the clifftops you could easily miss noticing what a stunning sunrise was going on down below. The clouds are low marine cloud, and the diffused light is as a result of a very thin bank of fog sitting on the coastal areas.
With the fog and the low ceiling, there’s all of 15 minutes of exposed sunrise, then poof, the sun’s lost behind clouds for what turned out to be another 4 or 5 hours.
There’s something to learn from this.
Your belief that your horizon is nothing but darkness is probably more perception than it is reality. For those who know where to look, there’s always something to look forward to, and the choice to do this or not is something that’s up to you.
I may not be happy about adversity when it strikes my life, but at least I’ve learned how to look for lessons in those moments, and I’ve tried to take the positives where I can imagine them.
As far as Mornings by Mordor go, a small part of me dreads the perfect blue-sky sunrises of the summer. How dull.
When I go home after another dark-world-sunrise, a part of me feels smug and superior. I had faith. I got a show. Everyone else is at home, grumbling in their slippers about how it looks like another dreary day out there.
Regardless of what our personal futures contain, there’s always a sun, there’s always a horizon, and there’s always a rising and a setting. Life goes on. Our dramas are pretty inconsequential in the big picture of it all.
When’s the last time you watched the sun rise for the sake of watching a sunrise?
It’s the best time of year to catch one. You’re up, ready to go. Unlike June, when it’s at 4 or 5am. Just… stop. 20, 30 minutes. Be there. Enjoy it. Clear your mind. Smile. You’re a cog on the wheel of it all.
Go find yourself an unexpected cloudy sunrise. It does the heart a world of good.
(And sometimes it’ll just be cloudy. But that can be beautiful too. Perspective, grasshopper.)

Memories of the Peripheral Dead

A friend who keeps her Facebook locked down pretty tight shared about how a 31-year-old man was found dead of methadone overdose in his cell not too long ago, and how the man was once a boy whose file came across her desk when she worked in a law office. “He didn’t stand a chance,” she said.
I suddenly thought of a face I hadn’t pictured in a few years. For a few weeks, I taught ESL to an student staying with an Asian family in the mid-late ’90s on a cul-de-sac in Surrey. Some years later, I saw a photo of that family on the front page of the paper. The father killed himself and his four family members in a murder-suicide.
I’d never liked being in that home. There wasn’t anything evil going on, but sometimes unhappiness is so thick it’s like trying to walk into a windstorm. It slows you down and defeats your balance. The gloom in that home was omnipresent, but I never imagined it could have that kind of outcome.
I don’t know why I felt like writing, and the words aren’t coming now. I’m lost thinking about how some people seem to both live and die in vain, and their legacies ripple further in death than they might have in life, but those legacies are more of how wrong things can go, and how many of us on the outskirts sense the trainwreck to come, but are defeated before we can even get involved.
I know I pushed my student, who seemed as depressed as the family she lived with, to step outside the language bounds, get creative, and try to find some kind of passion to write about, but the futility of it was crushing, and I was, in the end, dismissed of my tutoring duties because I was focusing more on ideas and communication than I was on nitpicking grammar and teaching an endless list of rules.
In those fleeting moments when worlds collide, one person on an upward trajectory while the other’s on the down, there’s no telling how long which of those influence plays out. Maybe years later, like the dozen years I have lived past that family, a shadow of our connection will linger.
Somewhere inside, I guess, the idea of that family dying in vain, for a stupid moment of complete despair and rage in the father’s mind, has long struck a sad chord inside, and the fact that I’ve even thought of them, though I can’t remember their name or locate a news story about them, is something I feel obligated to record.
Even that sense of obligation makes me a little sad right now. How many people forget about this family altogether? Like they were just vapours floating through a limited life?
But there you have it. Some people live in vain, die in vain, and are a struggle to remember after the fact. I suppose there’s a part of me feeling like I’d like to be anything but a struggle to remember.
I like to think I’m succeeding.
I’m sorry I can’t remember more of her, the family, or that sense of omnipresent gloom in their home, the memory of which gives me chills as I type.
Do not doubt the range of pathos and trial that some people live with. Don’t delude yourself into thinking the awful stories are uncommon.
And don’t think that you’re likely to change their stories either. We can’t make people change. All we can do is jump out of the way when the existential shrapnel starts to spray.

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Thar Be Stalkers: Twitter

I got unfollowed by someone on Twitter yesterday and it was one of my [social media] week’s high-lights.
Every now and then, not too often thank God, someone comes along that crosses the boundaries of “social media chatty” and begins verging on “stalkerish.”
I’m lucky to have always had a pretty engaging audience. I usually have about 25 to 75 mentions or interactions a day, and have had way more periodically, which is quite flattering to me. A lot of folks will engage me regularly, several times a week, or even once/twice a day, and that’s awesome! I love to have those kinds of touching-base interactions.
Still, let’s face it. I’m definitely an acquired taste on The Twitter, and that’s fine by me and the folks who’ve acquired said taste. I get unfollowed daily by a lot of people, but the follows almost always outweigh the departed. Thank goodness! You LIKE me! Or someone does.
When, like me, you make a point of talking about your life’s minutiae and you put your foibles and foolishness out there for others to get a chuckle out of, it’s sort of natural to develop a friend-like bond with some of your followers.
People don’t turn to my feed for social media prowess, marketing tips, or news aggregating. They tune into my shit to see what I’m cooking, whose ass it is I’m tearing a strip off of, or where I’m cycling to, what I’m watching, and whatnot. They tune into the stupid, boring everyday things I do in my life. For some deluded reason, they think I’m interesting.
And it ain’t for everyone, thank god.
But for those whom it works for, it’s a fun two-way street when I get people reacting to things, sharing their take on my ridiculous happenings, and all that. It’s fun, and it’s probably the best part of Twitter.
Sometimes, though, it can be the worst part.
The fact is, unlike some real estate agent or marketing guru, I’m on Twitter for kicks. I’m there to record mini-me moments of my life, as much for my own sake as I do it for my followers.
And like I say, now and then a “stalkerish” type comes up. I’m sure they don’t perceive themselves as stalkers, but it can come off the wrong way when I’m getting 10 or 15 tweets from the same person on a daily basis. And I don’t mean in a conversational-type way. I mean, I tweet about eating spaghetti and the person will then tell me about their spaghetti, then in an hour I comment on a show, and the person then has a reaction to that too.
Whatever the marketing types are telling you about Twitter being an “ongoing conversation,” it’s ALL LIES, BITCH. It’s not a conversation! It’s zillions of one-liners flinging by in the night.
I’m not speaking to one person when I tweet, I’m throwing it out there into the cosmos for the world. I don’t want to have an ongoing everyday conversation with the same follower that I don’t even follow back.
It sounds cunty, but Twitter isn’t my JOB. Despite that, I’ve always prided myself on my level of engagement. I do try to reply to most people. I don’t answer stupid questions anymore, is one of the ways I’ve reduced the intrusion into “me time.” (Yes, Virginia, there are stupid questions. Google that shit!)
There are days, too, when I’m just too busy to be polite and responsive, and I never feel the need to apologize for it, because life happens and social media is just a thing we do in between moments of life. Or at least that’s how I do it, and if people have an issue with that, the unfollow button’s right there, man.
Imagine, though, if all 5,000 of my followers were to send me 15 tweets a day like Said Stalker was. That’d be 75,000 mentions a day. I like the 25-75 mentions better — from a variety of good souls. I like bantering with the odd folk who reply to my tweets with funny stories, interesting viewpoints, or even just to tell me I’m being a dork about something. Dialogue’s great.
What’s my point here?
Just remember that, for many of us, Twitter is a distraction, something fun we do for whatever demented reason we do it. When you expect things of us — or ask silly questions you could Google, or “demand” recipes, or do forced “Have a great week” tweets where you list 10 people you’re kissing ass of, including us — you’re taking the fun out of Twitter.
If you’re replying to the same people all the time and their interest or replies have waned, you may have crossed the line and become Twitter-clingy, something like the boyfriend or girlfriend who always texts you when you’re supposed to be playing with your other friends. This is a good time to look out in the world for OTHER people to follow AS WELL as that person you’ve found fascinating.
Fact is, there are zillions of amazing personalities with fantastic content on Twitter. Famous authors who actually have something to say, fascinating political minds, comics who put consistently funny material out there, and even just normal people with brilliant minds tweeting on all manner of topics.
Wanna have more fun with Twitter and be less of a stalker? Ditch your feeling of obligation when it comes to reading content. You don’t need to read EVERY tweet by someone in order to follow. Just add their stuff to your stream and skim it. Enjoy it when you have time.
But stop thinking that any one Twitter personality is there to be your friend. Stop believing that just because you like their content that you could be buddies in real life. Stop expecting more from the relationship.
Start realizing that it isn’t a “person” you’re getting attracted to or fascinated by — it’s their CONTENT. You have no right to their time. You simply have the privilege of enjoying their creations.
Enjoy the tweets, and comment now and then, and everyone will be happy.
NOTE: Pretty sure my “invasive stalker” count’s down around, oh, zero right now. That I know of. Which is preferred to actually knowing one is being stalked. Ignorance IS bliss!

Vancouver's Waldorf Hotel Is Closing

UPDATE: Apparently the new owners (condo developers by trade) don’t take the building over until September. The current owners have hiked leases. The folks managing the place are the ones taking off on the 20th. The present owners claim business as usual will continue after the 20th. Any changes to the building would likely entail rezoning requirements being met and approved by City Council. A grassroots save-the-Waldorf campaign has begun, and a lot of loud rallying cries are getting out there. So, in short, nothing is resolved, and no end is in sight, but the Waldorf may not be going anywhere yet.
 

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 On January 20th, the Waldorf Hotel on Vancouver’s East Side will be closing.
Another one bites the dust.
When I left Vancouver, I fell in love with the fact that Victoria protects its heritage, maybe to a fault, because the 1960s saw the city changing too fast, and its Council moved to begin protecting heritage.
Because that’s what Councils do.
Not in Vancouver, though.
“A condo, you say? Oh, we LOVES the condos. Yes, please. Raze it all. Down it goes. Shiny. That’s what we want. Shiny new condos. EVERYWHERE!”
You know what’ll happen?
The Waldorf will get torn down. A condo development will go up. Something very art-deco-y. There’ll be a pineapples-and-palm trees motif throughout, I guaran-fucking-tee you. And then they will market the living shit out of the development as “Formerly The Waldorf.” You can live here, bust out your skinny jeans, and tell people you live in “Formerly the Waldorf.”
Vancouver’s now a city of places that were Formerly Something More Cool Than What You See Now.
It all blends away to some redundant post-modern city-of-glass design you’ve seen somewhere else down the same road, except they high-jacked this aspect of that era and try to sell it to you as something inspired by the past, when, in fact, the whole thing came tumbling the fuck down because, hey, who needs the past, anyhow? We’re just a vapid yoga-pants wearing town now, baby! Or, well, if we keep trying, we sure can be.
And now our good buddy Mr. Mayor’s out on The Twitter pretending he’s sad that the Waldorf is meeting its demise so some asshole designer can bust out his pineapple stencil on stamped concrete and sell it for $799,000  to yet another asshole hipster with too much dough and desperately needing post-modern-condo-owning street cred with his hipster-asshole friends.
The last time I was in The Waldorf, I saw one of the greatest people I’ve ever had the pleasure of saying was a friend play his goddamned heart out on a drum kit while dudes from The Odds jammed with him, because he (and they) knew he would be dead, literally dead, in a matter of weeks. And he was.
When I see the Waldorf, I see my friend Derek K. Miller banging the living hell out of his drums. I see everything he stood for. I see the reason I re-evaluated my life, said “I’m outta here,” and left town. I see one of the most impactful nights of my life.
The Waldorf isn’t a BAR. It’s not a HOTEL. It’s a cultural meeting point. A place where worlds collided, ideas were born, and generations got bridged.
The Waldorf MEANS something. It means A LOT.
That land, that didn’t have to become just another condo. It didn’t. It doesn’t. So many properties in that area mean nothing but have all the geographical cachet of The Waldorf, and are ripe for redevelopment. But are they slated?
No. Just a place that changed lives, created friendships, and rocked all fucking night long.
Vancouver City Council, you disgust me for allowing this cultural collapse of all the neat places just for the sake of condo sales. Don’t make it so easy. Hell, let’s go one further. Stop encouraging it.
Today is a sad, sad day for Vancouver’s cultural community.

And Then it Was 2013

I’m one of those “13’s my lucky number” people. Friday the 13th? I find my lucky socks and rock that shit out.
So you know I’m keen on the year. Bring it. Good fortune, good times. I’m readying myself for it all.
Right now, I’ve got Tom Waits’ Rain Dogs CD blasting as I take a breather from remedying all that is chaotic about my world. One cupboard after another, one weekend after another, I’m resolving to go through everything I own and ditch all the shit I shouldn’t have around me. Clutter, bitter memories, broken shit, redundant stuff. All of it, gone.

Girl checks out the sunset on Victoria’s Dallas Road. By me. Some rights reserved.


It’s not a new year’s resolution–
(Happy new year to you all!)
…But it’s well timed to coincide with a nice fresh start.
This is my year of new priorities. Last year, it was kind of all about just getting to a new place and hanging the fuck on until I was settled. I was unprepared for my year to unfold as it did. I didn’t need to ride into a parking sign or have any of the other events unfold that fucked up my back. This year, I’m starting with my back in a better place than I have since 2009, and ready to buy a new bike shortly that I believe will end my back pain.
I mean, man, I’m more optimistic than I’ve been in a long, long time. I’m ready.
So the natural next step for me is that of tidying and organizing my world around me. Nothing says “I’m in control of life” like a freshly-purged home.
Getting rid of stuff will make my next home that much easier to bring to life. I’ll move again this year but not until I can swing hiring movers, since it’s not worth it with my back. I’m at that point in life when I believe Close isn’t Close Enough. I want what I want, and I’m fucking taking it, so that means a new home in this ‘hood I love.
Howdy-do, 2013.
***
Writing? I’m doing that, but for work and such. I haven’t been wanting to write for myself, not for a long time. And there are those who somehow shun this, like I’m making a colossal life mistake.
Really, it’s a break. Everyone needs one. I’ve written more since 2004 than probably most people write in 20 years. I just haven’t put it in proper formats, I guess, for making dough, but I’m real damned proud of my productivity.
I’ll probably have only a handful of years in my life, from now until my death, in which I choose to walk away from writing. And, frankly, my back injury was exacerbated by sitting, so it’s been a good year to take off, and instead go walking and do photography, which is also something that speaks to my soul, especially when I’m in places I love, like on the ocean or on bike trails.
Deep down inside, I’m confident I’ll hit one of those “writing everyday” patches in down the road in 2013, but it’s not something I care about achieving for your benefit, or anyone else’s. I’ll write when I’m ready. I’ve had a lot to deal with in the last year, and I’m really glad I’ve given it the focus it deserved.
I like my headspace, I like what I’ve overcome, I like the issues and troubles I’ve resolved in my life. Whatever you think about my “not writing,” the end result has been a pretty good thing in my world.
In my soul, I don’t have any regrets about my choices over the last year.
***

Gull checks out the sunset on Victoria’s Dallas Road. By me. Some rights reserved.


Resolutions? Fuck resolutions.
My new year’s goal is to end the year Better and Happier than I began it. That didn’t work out in 2010, but I did it in both 2011 and 2012. The 2012 year-end State of Steff was a far better thing than the one who began 2011. That’s all we can do, right? Just improve with age? I’m digging it.
This year, I’m all about keeping my place less cluttered, less dusty. I’m about finding a better home but not a new neighbourhood. I want to fall in love with writing again, and life, and love itself. I want to be health-focused but not sweat it. I want my walking-cycling lifestyle to become more cycling-walking, and to continue with avoiding buses. I want to eat more vegetables and buy better quality meat.
I’m pretty practical. My life’s been on a steady upward trajectory for 2 years, but I started in a really fucking dark place, so getting to the point where I see the light has only really began in the last few months. Every time I hit a new roadbump, too, I’ve solved it better than I have in the past, so I’m optimistic that even with inevitable ups and downs, I’ll be more “up” than I’ve been.
All in all, I don’t need resolutions. I’m on the right road. I’m gonna keep on keepin’ on. I love the life balance I’ve begun to have, know I can improve upon it, and I’m confident I’ll get to that place where I really start owning my island lifestyle this year.
But why put pressure on myself? That’s exactly what I moved here to get away from.
Eat a little better? Exercise smarter? Learn from my mistakes? Slow down even more? Fall in love with creativity, space, time, myself, and love itself? Have more fun? Find ways to smile more? Have more naps?
I can do those things.
I will do those things.
I will enjoy those things.
And that’s kinda where my 2013’s going.
But first I gotta get my stomp on and listen to more thumpin’ Tom Waits while I reorganize my workstation and my life. Think of it as laying foundation for building an awesome year. Stompa-stompa-stomp.
Have a fucking great 2013, people.

RANT: When is Enough Enough? Fuck the NRA.

In a few days, I’ll be wringing my hands with glee before I give an awesome plush dinosaur to a 6-year-old boy I know, and a hippo to his little sister. The notion of being surrounded by giggles and silliness for a couple days before Christmas has struck me as a great thing for a while now.
But on Friday a mentally-ill kid took a .223 assault rifle, a commercial model of the military M-16, and blew away 20 adorable children my friend’s son’s age. I can’t wrap my head around this, even now.
I’ve been having a problem putting a point on my anger. I don’t even know where to start with my emotions. I’ve purposely watched none of the video associated with the day’s events unfolding live, because there are some things I don’t want to have living in my head, and humanity reeling from confronting its lowest moments is one of them. Especially when little kids are involved.
I remember where I was for Columbine. I was on vacation in the United States. I pulled into a roadside diner in some backwater town in Oregon for a bite as I made my way to holiday in Newport, and locals were bleary-eyed and fixated on a crackling old TV in the corner over the service counter.
They mumbled things like “Never thought I’d live to see…” and “How did this happen?”
Now, nearly 15 years later, the heartbreak grows wider with every shooting I hear about, but so too does the complacency of dismissing guns as being part of the problem. Every time, the reaction has been increased gun sales. You could say mass shootings are the best advertising the NRA has ever had.
In 1996, Australia had its worst mass shooting. 35 dead. Within a couple weeks, everything changed. A massive gun reform legislation was tabled and passed. The idea of 35 dead for a stupid, stupid reason of the wrong person having a gun was enough to affect a political body and the country it governed, and change happened. Since then? They’ve never had another mass shooting. In fact, murders and suicides by guns are down by as much as two-thirds since then.
And yet stupid fucking people who don’t deserve the oxygen they breathe have the audacity to claim that the answer to Newtown, to Virginia Tech, to Gabby Giffords, is more guns, more guns, and less laws.
Never mind that an entire world has seen the folly in allowing its populace to easily own weapons that can kill a dozen or more people in under 60 seconds flat.
The trouble in America is the foolishness in believing all guns are created equal. I’m all right with people owning hunting rifles. I’m not okay with pistols carrying more than 9 rounds, or semi-automatic anything. Assault weapons… come on! The NAME tells you what they’re for. How is this legal? It makes no sense!
If you need a weapon that fires any more than 10 rounds a minute, you’re a lousy fucking hunter. Get a new hobby.
This anger I feel, I can’t let this go.
This culture-of-the-gun thing is exactly what’s wrong with America. Selling fear? Everybody’s buying, baby!
An American tourist had a couple Canadians ask him in an “aggressive tone” if he had been to the Calgary Stampede just this summer, and the off-duty Kalamazoo, Mich., cop wrote a Calgary paper to say he regretted that he couldn’t carry a gun when he was here because he felt he had to protect himself in the exchange.
Funnily enough, all the two men were trying to do was promote the Stampede and give him free tickets.
America is a shoot-first-ask-later country.
Gun-toting Americans seem to believe the average person is up to no good, rather than the opposite. Where I come from, we assume most people are kind and decent. I’ve never seen a gun in person. The only three people I know (peripherally speaking) who’ve been murdered in my lifetime were killed with knives, and yet knowing three people on the outskirts of my life to have met with such violent ends is really enough for me. How many people murdered would I know if guns were aplenty here as they are in the States? I’m glad I’ll likely never experience that.

In the 9 years after 9/11, 270,000 Americans were killed by guns. And yet… get the terrorists! BASTARDS.


I just… [sigh]
Like, where do we draw the line and say “This isn’t working anymore?”
Seriously, is the fact that twenty 6-year-olds and several school staff dead in a town deemed only last year to be the FIFTH SAFEST PLACE TO LIVE in the United States ENOUGH?
Is this the tipping point? Is this when America wakes up and says “You know… this isn’t normal. We’re the only country in the world that suffers these crimes, and guns are easier to buy here than anywhere else in the world?”
How does ANYONE smarter than a doorknob NOT MAKE THAT CONNECTION?
Who the fuck NEEDS anything more than a hunting rifle?
I know implementing gun control won’t take all guns off the street, but all I want is a roadblock between the angry lover, the pissed-off employee, the drunk motherfucker, or the mentally-ill guy looking for a rampage. I don’t really care about gangs killing each other as much as I do about people with short fuses getting the opportunity to go on a spree, because that’s when innocents die.
I’m not asking for a fucking miracle here, America. I’m asking for you to look at the fucking logic. Keep your hunting rifles. Make everything else really goddamned hard to own. If you’re a law-abiding person, having issues with any of these very basic requirements makes you kind of an ass.
And if you want to debate this topic with me, don’t even fucking bother.
This is 2012. We do not need efficient methods of killing readily available in a world that does not have easy access to mental healthcare.
Scratch that. We do not need efficient methods of killing. Full stop.
Take your pro-gun debates elsewhere. You won’t get ink on my blog. And fuck free speech. I get free speech here. You want pro-gun free speech? Get your own fucking blog.