Category Archives: Specifically Steff

When We Were Kids: Growing Up John Hughes

I’ve been foiled by the evil estrogenies on my long weekend Monday, and my monthly female visitor is making its presence known. Happily, I’m now medicated.
More happily, TiVo ate some Breakfast Club and is serving it up fresh for me this morning — one of those few movies I can recite more than half. It’s surprising how many of those movies I can recite are of the John Hughes Library.
I  _am_ the John Hughes Generation. I’m so sad he passed away before 60, and bitter he stopped his brilliantly insightful teen movies when he did, back in the ’80s. I always wanted to go through college with John Hughes as my guide. Thank god Cameron Crowe peaked when he did. I’ve not yet written about Hughes’ death, though, and have been meaning to say a few words.
Everyone in my crowd has their own John Hughes memory. This is the biggest of them all, for me: The Breakfast Club. Continue reading →

Oh, Those Sticky Mindfucks

There’s an oppressive pall out there today. Low, bland clouds, void of distinction, interest, or drama. Ominous for us Vancouverites who are seasonally affected, as daylight hours have already quickly ebbed away by four hours in just the last two months. There’s another 6 or so to lose, and countless certain dreary days that loom.
Winter and I aren’t on the best of terms. It’s safe to say I loathe it. When I’m older and in the money, I’ll certainly be a in-Mexico-from-January-to-March type. I dread the depressive grey. My hydro bill for December and January could be a teaser for any marathon horror movie session. HOW MUCH? EEK! Fuck Climate Change; if it lights up, I’m plugging it in.
As if it’s not a moody enough day, I might add that I’m not entirely thrilled that I started therapy yesterday, by the way. Oh, that. Continue reading →

On Summer's Last Real Weekend

Sigh. It’s the last Friday in August.
It’s bittersweet. It’s that time of year when I’m enjoying the rare rainfall, thinking about the quiet solace of the colder months. We Canadians, we hibernate. More reading, more nights with a glass of wine and slippers nearby.
Soup. I could write an ode to soup right now. Steamy, wet, by the cupful… But, um, I won’t. Suffice to say, I miss soup.* Continue reading →

Yet Another Reason You Should Buy a Vibrator

I don’t have much of a garden — three tomato plants and four basils — but I’m deeply attached to the bounty and willing to put in the work.
Basil, well, that’s easy enough. Wait until June, plant, water often, eat often, be happy.
Tomatoes? Good god. Apparently they need pollinators! One thing we apartment-dwellers on the slopes of major cities don’t get enough of is pollinators. Apparently bees think apartments are for the birds. Continue reading →

[contented sigh]

I have my home back.
It’s not done yet… there are a few more projects for the short-term, and three remaining large long-term jobs too.
But it’s good enough right now, this morning.
Sometimes “now” is all you can count on. And “now” is good.
Now my home is filled with more red paint, fewer belongings, very little junk, and has floorspace everywhere. It’s a pretty amazing state of things, after so long of just feeling like my skin was crawling and walls were closing in on me. Continue reading →

Random Friday Morning Wherewithals

I thought I was handling my stress pretty well lately, sort of keeping it together in the face of all the chaos around me — which is exactly the situation I know I nearly never cope with well.
We know our limitations, right? Why do you think I’ve avoided doing total-home-organizing for so long? Whew.
So, earlier this week, I go into the office to chat to the two bosses, Le Cheeses That Be, and one, K, had just returned from holidays and asked how I was doing. I said I was going insane, but thought I was doing a good job of keeping it together and putting on The Fake for the faces around me.
And then my other boss, C, HOWLS with laughter. That’s when I found out I’ve been fooling exactly no one. C had another opportunity to howl with laughter at me when a friend of hers popped ’round the office and inquired as to how I’ve been doing. “The short answer is “fine”,” I told her. [insert mad howling/mocking laughter here, which still makes me smirk] Continue reading →

A Place For Me and a Place to Write

For the first time in a long time, I haven’t even tried to write of late.
Every year I’ve done these pretty deep excavations around the time of my mom’s death anniversary, but this year, not so much. Not directly related to THAT, anyhow. My excavations of late have come from the unearthing of my life as I burrow through my past and take my home apart under the watchful eye of Terra & her organizational conquerings.
Order is slowly returning to my life, and with it I’m starting to feel the ebbing-away of my “comprehensive panic” I’ve been living under for months. Continue reading →

The Top Five Reasons to Lose Weight in a Recession

As you may or may not know, I’ve lost 75 pounds and replaced my wardrobe completely at least four times now over the last 20 months, as the economy has slid deeper and deeper and the sales grown far more vast and everpresent.
Being a lowly writer-type girl who works to live rather than lives to work, which is to say she works as little as possible, I thank ze gods for the recession because it’s saved this work-to-live ass from overtime.
And being a lifelong David Letterman fan, I like his lists. But I’m an underachiever. So here’s the Top Five Reasons to Lose Weight in a Recession.
5. Veggies & fruit are trendy ‘cos you can grow ’em & they’re cheap, so a Krispy Kreme sneak-attack is less likely. And a banana is 32 cents, score.
4. I smell a liquidation! When better to replace a wardrobe with all those pounds lost?
3. You can’t afford to have a life, but you can afford to jog.
2. When you can’t afford to eat out, it’s so much easier to avoid restaurants & their evil hide-the-fat ways.
1. Thinner, you get drunk faster. Here’s where being a cheap drunk pays, baby!

Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide

When “fat” is your body issue, and I’m talking F-A-T here, there are three places you cannot help but be confronted with your bigness.
The changing room in retail stores, in pay-for-space seating (like amusement parks, theatres, planes), and in your own bathtub.
For several years there, I wasn’t having baths. Continue reading →