Goodbye, Jack

We forever hear that there aren’t enough good people in politics, and today Canada mourns the loss of one of its greatest Good People.
A consummate battler for social good and civic justice for well over 30 years, Jack Layton struck a chord coast to coast as he stunned the nation with a massive come-from-behind effort that split Canada’s left and delivered the Official Opposition to the NDP for the first time ever.
Layton was the kind of man more should aspire to be. He was a leader who truly cared about the little guy. People would tell stories about how he’d approach out of the blue on the street, or how he was as earnest one-on-one in private as he was in front of thousands. They talk about how he’d get chatty with his servers in restaurants, to find out what their biggest concerns were, or how he still identified with families, the youth, and the elderly.
There wasn’t anyone, it seemed, that Jack Layton wasn’t passionate about helping.
No matter who you were or what your politics were, it was hard not to see Jack Layton as a real guy who was doing something because he was genuinely moved to live in a better world than the one we have now.
When a good chunk Canada turned around and voted for the NDP this spring, they were voting for Jack Layton, because he said we could do it. Because he said there was hope and that we had to care more about each other, not just our tax return.
It’s yet another victory for cancer.
But Jack Layton’s life was a victory for decency. His legacy will be a victory for civic service.
It’s been a long, long time since a politician moved me like this on a personal level. I’m hoping that, today, kids are seeing the outpouring of passion for this politician and are thinking “I’d like to be loved like that,” and maybe, just maybe a future of change is being created in that young mind today.
Because, like Jack says:

My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.

With that, we say farewell, Jack. You were the right man at the right time. It’s a national tragedy your time was cut short. We will remember, and love, you.
RIP Jack Layton. 1991 Star Trek Convention

Sorry I Couldn't Be Your Dancing Monkey

Now and then, someone says something really stupid to me, like how I’m not being as funny lately.
Um, okay, duly noted. Sorry I’m a disappointment. I’ll put that on my “Gaping Life Failings” list, right under forgetting to wash my sneakers recently and not flossing enough.
Actually, no, I’ll put it on the list under “go fuck yourself.”
Finding out yesterday that my back has likely had a herniated disc for quite some time has turned into one of those “THAT’S WHY” epiphanies that’s like the light turning on and heavenly angels singing.
I’ve been very antisocial since my back blew in March. I was having problems at least a month or two before that, but that’s when it went. I’ve been struggling with it since.
The LEAST of my concerns has been entertaining my online audience.
Unfortunately, people only remember whether you made them laugh last week or this week, and most of the time that’s that. God help you if you use the web to talk about your real life.
Somewhere along the way, people start feeling entitled to your content.
I’ve been pretty pleased to just survive on a daily basis. That’s been my only goal for months now. Anyone who hasn’t had persistently bad back problems — without a car, without living next to a store, and without the money to throw at it for rehab — doesn’t have a fucking clue what my life has been like.
I’m so proud of how I’ve coped and what I’ve overcome, considering the limitations I’ve had for doing either.
And if I forgot to stop and make you laugh along the way, big fucking deal. Your problem. Not mine.
In recent weeks/months, hether it’s family or friends or people I don’t even know, I’ve had a lot of people who seem to feel entitled to my time and efforts.
They’re not. No one is.
Sometimes, the best thing we can do for everyone is to do nothing for them, and focus only on ourselves. I feel I have a lot to offer this world, but I can’t do it when I’m operating at a fragment of my capacity, hobbled by pain and warning signs.
I’m getting my life back. Now I know it really was as serious as I felt it was. Now I know it’s a potentially lifelong affliction I’ll always have to watch, but it’s also something I can get past.
If you’ve ever been inclined to tell someone they haven’t been as funny lately, then shut up. Shut the fuck up.
There have been days in the last 6 months when I suddenly found myself laughing at something, when it’s been a really dark day, and then, next thing you know, my eyes are welling up with tears because I’m thrilled I found something funny again.
And that’s life. It’s not just a barrel of laughs.
And none of us are your dancing monkeys.
When content-creation is a day-in, day-out chore, such as with social media and the like, then you get what you get. Don’t like it? Go. Don’t fool yourself into thinking you saying you’re disappointed will matter at all. In fact, it’d likely make most people more depressed or fatigued. So, don’t say anything, and just go. We really don’t want to hear it.
Meanwhile, I feel like this is the turning point for me. Knowledge IS power. I’m determined. I’ll get past this shit.
I know a lot of people who just go to the chiropractor, as if that’ll magically heal their back. It takes discipline, constant work, and even diet changes. I’ve certainly been trying, but I’ve been treating the wrong injury, and even sustaining the injury with bad biking form.
Maybe I’ll be a dancing monkey again soon.
It’ll just never be on demand.
Welcome to social media and casual blogging, where you get what you get.

Why are Western Riots Happening?

Russell Brand has been surprising me of late, specifically in his writings about Amy Winehouse and now his opinion piece in The Guardian about the London Riots. I feel I have to take him much more seriously than I have been.
His piece on the London Riots is bang-on. More so than most erudite intellectuals in the press will ever grasp. Here is just a portion of his spot-on commentary:

Politicians don’t represent the interests of people who don’t vote. They barely care about the people who do vote. They look after the corporations who get them elected. Cameron only spoke out against News International when it became evident to us, US, the people, not to him (like Rose West, “He must’ve known”) that the newspapers Murdoch controlled were happy to desecrate the dead in the pursuit of another exploitative, distracting story.
Why am I surprised that these young people behave destructively, “mindlessly”, motivated only by self-interest? How should we describe the actions of the city bankers who brought our economy to its knees in 2010? Altruistic? Mindful? Kind? But then again, they do wear suits, so they deserve to be bailed out, perhaps that’s why not one of them has been imprisoned. And they got away with a lot more than a few fucking pairs of trainers.
These young people have no sense of community because they haven’t been given one. They have no stake in society because Cameron’s mentor Margaret Thatcher told us there’s no such thing.
If we don’t want our young people to tear apart our communities then don’t let people in power tear apart the values that hold our communities together.

-Russell Brand, The Guardian

I’m braced for a future in which riots are more common, and more violent, than they’ve ever been.
We’re at a turning point in this world of ours. We’re on the verge of Alvin Toffler’s fanciful future, and we’re not receiving what we were sold.
Technology hasn’t made our lives easier. It hasn’t increased employment opportunities, it’s doing the opposite. We have economic upheaval the world over. Food shortages are everywhere. There’s no sense of community in the western world anymore.
There’s a haves/have-nots divide greater than ever, and with more media around us than any point in history, that reality is being driven home, hard, in every newscast and throughout the web.
The real news stories about real people leading troubled lives and feeling disenfranchised, where are those? There are none. If you’re not eating $25 plates in the restaurants, gallivanting through the social scene to be seen, then you might as well be invisible. The media sure as fuck doesn’t want to write or talk about you.
After much of a decade lived with reduced income — as often by choice as by necessity — I can tell you the anger and jealousy one feels at seeing all the pretty people with all the pretty toys isn’t reserved only for Angry Young Men. The feeling of being excluded is also not only their lot.
The divide is growing, and politicians today seem to encourage that divide.
The anger is not dissipating. The community is not healing. It will not.
This world is locked in a losing battle against spirituality, community, and togetherness. It isn’t THERE anymore. There’s a declining sense of ethical responsibility for our fellow humans.
Add to that the changing economies, the losses on the jobs fronts, the increase in retail jobs that underpay people, and escalating costs of living, ever-increasing taxes with less to show for them, and it’s a wonder we don’t see more rage in the populace.
The London Riots are a harrowing potential turning point.
Politicians of the world need to wake the fuck up.
Corporations have no soul, and to continue pandering to the millionaires and the upper classes will leave politicians gasping as the Forgotten Citizens start realizing we have more power than we’ve been led to believe.
And god help us if those realizing it are devoid of ethics and don’t give a shit about the law.
Remember the French Revolution? Everything changed in three years. The monarchy fell and it spread across Europe. It only took three years because they didn’t have Twitter, Facebook, et al. Those revolutions changed the known world for the following two centuries.
And times are ripe for change again.
I don’t agree with the riots. I’m radically opposed to them. I loathe the destruction, violence, and crass behaviour.
But maybe the day is coming when it’s the only way those in power will listen.
When every politician is barely a change on the last, what’s the point of putting faith in ballot boxes?
London is the canary in the societal coalmine. The change-train is a-comin’. You better get onboard.
I know I’m fed up. I’m angry. And I’m pushing 40, smart, have everything I theoretically need in life… but I’m angry, too. My “fuck that” schtick on Twitter isn’t actually a schtick. I’m really that bitter about much of life today.
It’s a simmering pot of discontent, this big ol’ world of ours, and I fear the day it boils over.
What’s the solution? It’s not on Wall Street. That much, I know.

Remembering Funny

I’m catching my breath after the two-part Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour episode with Tallulah Bankhead. I laughed and laughed and laughed.
It was the 100th anniversary of Lucille Ball’s birth this weekend, teaching me something I previously didn’t know — my mother died on Lucille Ball’s birthday. Kind of weird. Mom loved Lucy.
The top three shows for my mother — I Love Lucy, Columbo, and the Carol Burnett Show. All three were funny as hell, I thought. Peter Falk really had great comedic timing in a subtle way.
So, Saturday was the 12th anniversary of Mom’s death. People tell you that loss never really stops. Well, it doesn’t. The hurt kind of even hurts more now, sometimes, because I realize now how long forever really seems to be. It was a different kind of hurt this weekend, since I’ve been down with a cold and stuck watching re-runs half a century old on a hot August weekend.
I don’t remember if my mother was very funny. I don’t think she was. Just the average kind of funny. She sure knew what funny was, though. I grew up with I Love Lucy, Carol Burnett, the Apple Dumpling Gang, and classic slapstick kind of humour like that. Dad introduced us to Porky’s and Porky’s Revenge, so, you know, we got a little balance there. Both Dad and Mom were fans of MASH and Three’s Company, too.
All the other little kids at Catholic school were shocked we were watching that sin-filled Three’s Company. “They live together! There’s s-e-x!”
Still, I don’t think we were a particularly funny household. There weren’t miles and miles of laughs, ever. We weren’t unfunny, either. I think we laughed enough, that’s for sure.
I remember being distinctly unfunny, myself. I couldn’t tell a joke to save my life before the age of 10. I was funny just “being myself,” since I’ve always been an odd one.
My brother, he was a laugh riot sometimes. He’s still very funny but we have differing opinions on some of his methods, since I can find him really irritating… which is fitting, since he’s my big brother.
As a kid, though, I thought he was hysterical. If he wanted a laugh, he got it. He seldom blew the joke’s punchline.
Unfortunately, I didn’t make people laugh much until I got older, into my mid-to-late teens. As a kid, most of my jokes involved me flubbing the timing, blowing the punchline, and receiving a split-second blank stares then confused guffaws. Or, just a swat from my brother, since siblings are allowed to be jerks.
Being funny, that was important to me. It was a life goal. I couldn’t imagine living life without being FUNNY.
Then… I introduced my brother to Saturday Night Live. I was 11.
I remember it being fall of 1984, I’d just turned 11, and I was sleeping on the sofa, sick, while my parents entertained friends. I woke up after a few hours sleep, turned on the television, and am surprised now that I didn’t hear a choir of angels harmonizing as I discovered something that just blew my mind: Saturday Night Live.
As Billy Crystal would have said, it loohked mahvellous. Eddie Murphy was Buckwheat, wookin’ pa nub.
In the next couple years, I’d be getting into SNL and Second City TV and Johnny Carson. And, oh, The Blues Brothers. It was a crash course in Funny. by 14 I was getting my comedic cues from John Hughes movies, too.
Throughout it all Lucille Ball was a constant, so was Carol Burnett. I knew I’d never be slapstick kind of funny the redhead queens mastered, but I wanted to make people laugh.
These days, it’s still something I love to do. If I make a stranger laugh during the day, it’s great. If someone can’t breathe because my timing’s so good when telling a funny story and they’re laughin’ so hard, I’m on top of the world. I don’t look like I’m elated about it, I always have that sorta-surly Irish-girl look, but I’m secretly on top of the world when I get a good laugh.
Once upon a time, I had a nightmare. It was when I was 19, and I was becoming “in with the out crowd” and getting lots of friends, not a lot of whom I could call “close,” but who typically wanted to invite me to parties ‘cos I’d be interesting. So, the nightmare hit one day and I had it a couple times. It went like this:

I’m driving down a treacherous seaside highway in my hatchback, a bunch of friends in different cars behind me, as I lead the pack and our caravan weaves down the coast.
Suddenly, my car careens and I shoot through the embankment, off the road, over the cliff, plunging hundreds of feet to the rocky coast below — my car exploding into a fiery inferno, and me most certainly as dead as can be.
Smash-cut to the top of the cliff where a dozen or more “friends” all stand peering down in not-so-much-abject-horror as “dude, what a bummer” kind of faces.
One friend goes, “Wow. That really sucks.”
Another goes, “Yeah. She was funny.”

It was one of those moments of clarity when I realized I should be careful what I’m wishing for, because “being funny” is a pretty short list of what one should offer. I tried to be more, and began to collect friends who wanted me to be more than just funny, who didn’t see me as interesting filler for the guest list, who saw me as insightful or as having something more to say in life than just the next gag.
So, this weekend, I’d sort of spent time remembering my comedic roots and sometimes thinking of Mom too. No, she wasn’t “funny,” but she was well-rounded and certainly enjoyed laughing. I think she and my dad must have laughed a lot in the early days, to spawn such amusing kids.
I’m glad I was raised with a mix of genres around me — comedy, film, music, theatre, and big fun parties thrown at home. I’m glad I had parents who entertained a lot, because once in a blue moon I did manage to say something amusing, and having a whole room of adults laughing was a gift. Look at me, I’m a funny kid. Don’t you wish your kid was this funny?
In the middle of all these remembrances is a big gaping hole. My mother died at a time I was really seeing her as human — flawed and all — and when I was beginning to teach HER a lot about living life. I wish there could have been more of a full-circle event between us, but that’s cancer for you. It doesn’t tend to take rainchecks. I’m glad she found me funny and enjoyed that about me when she got sick. I’m glad we found the same things funny then, too.
I may be motherless now, but I’ve got some 30+ episodes of I Love Lucy on my PVR, and somehow it’s like I’m back in my childhood. Pretty awash in memories these days.
I’ll worry about Being Funny tomorrow.

And Then There Was Change

So, I love cycling.
In 2008, I blew out my back after losing about 60 pounds on my bike. I’ve always thought it was that I was stretching wrong and destabilizing my back. That’s what I thought caused the injury.
Despite all the things I’ve tried to do to improve my back, all the rehab and everything else, it’s never really been right again. I live with kind of a constant fear that something will compromise me, or I’ll fall and get hurt. Just a constant awareness something’s not right.
For some reason, I never thought about my bike seat being the problem. I mean, how could that be? It was an expensive supposedly-ergonomic bike saddle intended for intermediate cyclists — I splurged $60 on that motherfucker, you know. It was recommended to me! It had rave reviews online.
Last weekend, I took my bike into my chiropractor’s office*, and he examined the set-up, looked at me, and then said he thought I should switch to a wider seat.
So, that was a lightbulb moment. I already had been shown what just changing my seat’s angle by 3-5 degrees could do to take strain off my back. “I’ve changed everything else in my life,” I thought. “Why the hell not give it a try?”
I cycled again that afternoon on my old saddle, and it was a wonderful sunny ride, but the next day the pain set in, and it progressed for a few days while I stayed off my bike and really, really, really paid attention to how the pain developed and changed.
I realized how tender my tailbone was, how strained my sides were, and started thinking, “You know what? It DOES seem like it could be the seat.” It seemed like maybe my hips were sagging down and excess pressure was pushing my tailbone up, which made sense if the saddle was a little too narrow for my ample hips.
Then I considered the nature of repetitive strain injuries, how we see things slowly deteriorate but because it’s nothing clear-cut we often don’t specifically know the cause, and then it just compounds until we’re fucked. I think that’s what my back injury has been. A repetitive strain injury. A bit of suckage adding up every time I did the thing I love to do — cycling.
Thursday, I got the seat.
Yesterday, I installed it. I checked out all the “how should a bike seat be installed” docs I could find online, busted out my level, made sure I got my seat horizontal.
Sick, I rode to a nearby walk-in clinic to get seen by a doc, since it’d be less time and effort for getting groceries and prescriptions filled after the appointment than fucking around with bus routes.
During my ride, I realized I had broken my nice wide seat a few months before I began cycling to lose weight in 2008, and that the seat I “splurged” on as a replacement has been the only thing that’s remained constant in my life, in all that time. This had never occurred to me. It’s the missing piece in the puzzle. The possible implications were adding up pretty quickly.
This morning, after only a 7km, 30-minute leisurely ride, my lower back feels more stable, less pained, and stronger than it has in months.
It would be absolutely incredible if, after the thousands of dollars, endless hours, countless tears, and never-ending frustrations of a 3-year ongoing back problem is ultimately resolved by the purchase of a $20 bike seat and a free iPhone “level” app.
And it will be the biggest lesson I’ve ever learned in my life.
I’m just not yet sure what the lesson is. But today I have more hope about my back injury than I’ve had in three years. It’s overwhelmingly awesome to think I may have finally found the cause.
I’m excited. I’m looking forward to beating this cold this week and seeing what develops with cycling. I love riding my bike and it’s been absolutely heart-breaking to endure so much frustration for so long.
But if it’s resolved? Oh, lord, the gratitude I’ll have. Without a doubt, living with a chronic injury has been one of the greatest character-defining, life-teaching experiences I’ve had. I won’t be bitter for a minute that I could have resolved it cheaper, sooner. That’s the way life fucking goes, man. Sometimes the lessons that should’ve been the easiest but became the hardest are the ones that define us the most.
I have literally spent thousands and thousands of dollars on this injury. I’ve lost so much income — I can’t even count that high.
If it’s all going to end and be fixed by a $20 seat, I’ll have no choice but to laugh my goddamned (now well-supported) ass off. It’s so hysterically ironic that I can’t even express it.
I’m laughing as I type, actually. What can you do, man? Life’s really a funny joke on us sometimes.
If we learn from it, then it’s not for nothin’. So, we’ll see how this goes.
Thank god I have a great sense of humour. I needed a good laugh, even if an ironic one.

*My chiropractor is a guy who’s just getting his practice off the ground on Vancouver’s West Side. Dr. Bryson Chow practices Active Release Technique, a method that is preferred by many athletes. It posits the belief that healthy muscles lead to strong skeletons, so instead of forcing bones into place like most traditional chiros do, ART practitioners like Bryson instead work on breaking the muscle memory and helping retrain your muscles so they don’t keep pulling the bones out of alignment. I wasn’t healing at all until I made the switch to ART, but Bryson is the first doc to suggest my seat might be a problem. If you have any kind of repetitive strain or injuries that traditional folks aren’t helping you get past (like Frozen Shoulder Syndrome), consider an ART chiro. A few friends have found it similarly life-changing.

I Was DENIED and It Felt GREAT

I asked someone for help this week, and the most delightful thing happened.
They said “No.”
*blink*
Yes, you read that right. They declined. Took the high road. Waved me off. Said hasta la not bloody likely.
Oh, yes, they did.
And it was w-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l.
A nice little note: “Life’s overwhelming. You’re great, I’d love to help, but life’s having its way with me.” Or something to that effect.
WONDERFUL. FUCKING FANTASTIC.
Thank you for acknowledging I asked! Thank you for being real! Thank you for saying you simply can’t!
I’m an adult. I get it. Hello, resident of Planet Earth here — you can reach me Care of: Overwhelmed Nation.
I’m just happy to get a letter back!
You know who you are, you passive-aggressive motherfuckers.
“Oh, sorry, never got the email.” Or, worse, they just never reply — then you email again, text, and then the message is loud and clear.
I’ve had people AGREE TO HELP ME, say “thrilled to help!” and when I send the follow-up email, they’re gone. When I text, no reply. When I Facebook, I might as well be invisible.
You PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE MOTHERFUCKER.
(Ed. note: The above passage is aggressive-aggressive. Feels fucking great.)
Okay, so you’d rather flush the friendship than have the balls to say it’s not a good time? Yeah, screw you too, you lily-assed pussy.
Look, I asked for help because THAT’S WHAT FRIENDS DO. If you can’t help, SAY SO. It’s FUCKIN’ COOLIO, BRO.
If ANYONE gets being overwhelmed by life, cold-cocked by fortune, slapped-silly by suckage, IT’S ME. I wrote the book on it, took a pass on the t-shirt.
I don’t understand this whole trend if “If I pretend the email (and text then follow up email and voicemail) never came, then I’m off the hook.”
You can LIVE like that? Seriously? Were you bred to be an under-the-table crawler, he-who-hides-in-corners? What the fuck is that about? Wow, must suck to live in your skin.
Saying NO is the coolest thing anyone’s done for me the whole month. It’s honest, real, and refreshing.
If you don’t have the balls to say no, grow some, because anyone WORTH YOUR TIME will RESPECT YOU for it.
And the people who DON’T RESPECT A NO aren’t worth your time.
It’s really that simple.
There you go. Life lesson #302: NO is a good thing. At least it’s real.
But ask anyhow. All people can do is say no, and the ones who do, keep them around for the future, because you know they’ll be straight with you. The ones who say yes and deliver, keep them too. Everyone else, put on probation.
The ones who dick you around, they’re instantly disposable.
Truth, yo.

Round Up: The Week That Was

I have worked every day for eight days, writing for a few hours on all my off days, so, the blogging force is not strong in me right now, Young Jedis. This may be the way of the Steff world for a while, but after so long running the financial tank on half-empty, I’m trying not to gripe about the opportunities coming my way. It’s a great change. Right? Sure.
But… there’s a lot going on in my/our world, and if I don’t stop to take a writing break, none of it will ever get my attention.

In such a blah news week, why not a quirky old picture? Celebrating what it is, a Beetle reportedly crossed the Irish Sea from the Isle of Mann in the '80s(?). Apparently sailed by Malcolm Buchanan.


So, the week that was, then, except for Norway because I’m still processing this because I’ve been working too much to follow it. It deserves more than a passing comment.

Amy Winehouse, Forever 27

I don’t know what it is about that age. Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Cobain, Janis Joplin, Basquiat, and now Winehouse, all dead.
I’ll confess I’ve never really listened to her. I have a hard time getting into people I fear won’t be alive long, since this reputation long preceded Winehouse’s death.
Russell Brand really said everything that needs to be said about Amy in this shockingly good blog post.
And I promise to spend a rainy night sometime learning about her music, thinking about the prices paid for having an artistic predisposition — since artists are more likely to overdose and/or commit suicide than most. Just another brilliant mind gone far too soon.
Jack Layton, Cancer
I’m much more upset by the news of Jack Layton’s second instance of cancer, a new kind too, than I thought I would be, and angry he’s so gaunt so soon. The Left needed a more energized and optimistic voice in Canada, and despite how badly the recent national election went, I was optimistic that Layton could bridge the divide between all the left-of-centre voices in this country for a stronger political opposition as time goes on.
And maybe he still will. But let’s be real, it’s cancer, and they’re not saying what kind. That’s probably not a good sign.
This itself is becoming a controversy. Are we, the public, entitled to know what the opposition leader’s specific cancer is?
You know what? No. Fuck it. Why? Why do we need to go there? We don’t. It doesn’t change anything. He’s stepping aside. Shut up and let the man fight his fight.
The media’s prying because they want the meaty story. What about all the stories on X-cancer and Y-treatment options? How in god’s name will the networks ramp up their viewership if they don’t have specifics?
Well, fuck you, media. I don’t want the specifics today. I want Jack to get well. I don’t want the public jumping to conclusions on treatments for X-cancer when others’ cases might be different. I don’t want cancer sensationalised or peppered over the news yet again.
Layton’s shooting for a return date of September 19th. With everything I have, I hope it works for him. I didn’t vote for him, but I greatly admire him, and he’s a great Canadian.

Yo, Vancouver, What’s the 311?

If you live in Vancouver and you haven’t discovered the 3-1-1 City Services number, it’s among the best “service-related things a civic government has done for this city in my lifetime, I would say. Put down the blue pages, don’t dare Google that number — if you have a problem with ANYTHING the City has a department for, call 3-1-1 and report it.
One number, every solution. It makes every corporation in Canada look like an asshat for making phone customer service so onerous (I’m looking at you, Telus and Fido).
Every time I’ve called, I’ve been helped in 5 minutes or less. In the last month, I’ve called about:

  • tubs of black mystery liquid abandoned in my alley (picked up by sanitation next day)
  • an eroding bike lane (fixed later that week)
  • a small “pocket” city park whose lights had blown out (called to say wiring had shorted, it got repaired that weekend)
  • finding a cockroach in my apartment (I called on Saturday, city inspector called me for details Monday, by noon)
  • an injured, possibly rabid urban coyote in a cemetery (they said a conservation officer would see if he could heal & carry on with life, or not)

So, when they say it’s a one-stop dial-in shop for civic services, the City of Vancouver doesn’t lie. Stop thinking it’s impossible to affect change at an on-your-street level because, clearly, them things they are a-changin’.

Pride Week

Here, in Vancouver, it’s Gay “Pride Week.” Click here for events scheduled.
While I’m not gay, I think it’s a great opportunity to remember that being yourself makes living your life a lot easier. Be honest about who you are, what you want, what you love, who you love, and how you want to live.
Life spend half-honest, or full of compromise, is a life left unlived.
For every person I turn off or push away by “being my blunt self,” it’s one less person I need to worry about pleasing in the future, and those who remain are further proven to be the ones I need be concerned with keeping.

  • Celebrate who you are.
  • Celebrate who others are.
  • Embrace diversity.
  • Encourage individualism.
  • Don’t apologize for being different.
  • Don’t tone it down.

And keep on keepin’ on, my fine, diverse brothers and sisters. You make life more fun, and you’re welcome in my world.

The Obligatory Posting (Which in No Way Should Suggest Suckage, Y'know; Wine Was Involved)

It’s late on a Friday night and far into a “high-value” wine.
I was told I can’t call it “cheap,” by some industry guy. Unbeknownst to him, there’s an onslaught of the public whose heart races and mouth salivates when they hear the three magical words:

Good Cheap Wine.

But, no, the dude with the multimillion-dollar winery certainly can’t have his wine called “cheap,” even if it is sold for under $10 a bottle in a dirty motherfucker of an economy that makes $10 wine seem sexier than fish-net stockings on a 6’3″ vixen of a model.
I do digress, and my high-value wine bids I move the hell on. So, without ado.
I got nothing.
I had a title: The Obligatory Posting.
Seemed enough to work with. Type that in, see what comes up.
Number one rule for blogging, for me, when it comes to “personal blogging,” is: RIGHT NOW. What’s happening right now? What do you feel? What’s foremost on your mind? Put that down, see where it goes. The eggs you just ate for breakfast? Right on! Hell, WRITE on.
That’s personal blogging. You’ve got 1,000 words, give or take, so start wherever the hell you are and go where it takes you. Writing Blogs, 101.
And what I had was, a title, and a far-too-empty bottle of wine. Shoulda bought a boxed bag bladder of the stuff. Invest in the future, that’s my motto.
I’ve worked too much this week, that’s why I need more vino. My lord, you’d think I liked working for a living. It gets in the way of slacking, y’know.
Yet, still, in vino veritas. A dangerous time to blog, my friends.

***

But, seriously, there’s a lot I want to do with my writing in the next while. The perennial artistic struggle confronts me, though — when it rains, it pours, and when it pours, the crops tend to wither.
I’m making the money I need in the present, but it won’t come for a bit. That’s critical to me here and now, so I’m working as much as opportunity allows. Easy when it’s a lousy summer.
But I have little projects I plan to tackle through the fall — mini e-books.
I figure, if you like me — if you really like me, you’ll agree that I should enjoy life and all its refinements, and you might be willing to invest in monthly special e-books. Say $2 or $2.50 a download. Stuff I actually work at creating — fiction, really no-holds-barred opinion work, and stuff that I assume people who’ve followed my content here, on Twitter, and on Google+ (check me out, I do a lot of PUBLIC Google+ posts) might think 10,000 words of mine are worth the meagre price of a cup of coffee.
What do you think about that? It’s the price of a coffee. Making a living without working for the man, could you imagine how much throwing off those shackles of suppression would free my tongue? Hoo!

***

There’s a lot of talk of publishing and shit lately. Borders has gone belly-up. If the big bookstores came along and ate all the small bookstores, then the online stores ate them, who’s left selling real books?
I like real books.
But I like artistic control better.
Publishing is changing.
So, y’know, I had this thought earlier, that we’re becoming the artistic “Age of the Individual.”
Sure, I can go with a publishing house. Or maybe I can self-publish via e-book on a regular basis. A genuine Steff magazine, of sorts. And then it’s all me. No censorship, no hassle, just write, publish, sell. If you’re willing to support such a thing.
Imagine — artists, writers, etc, who just do what they feel and create off-the-cuff, and YOU can support it?
So, we’ll see. When I’m not working 50-hour weeks to pay off the spring that sucked my soul through a straw, I’ll get on that like Oprah on a ham, baby.
I hope many artists realise like I do that this is probably the best time to be alive as an artist. We have more exposure than ever, if we can figure out how to harness it. Get exploring, and be yourself.

***

The weather would-be-gods predict sunshine this weekend, which I’ll believe when I see. Vancouver is experiencing one of its blah-est (read: soul-sucking) summers of my lifetime. Only Mt. St. Helen’s Summer was weirder, and that’s 30 years ago.
I’m a seasonally-affected & disordered person, meaning I need full-on sun like a tropical plant does, or my soul withers and dies.
Given the shittastic season, though, I’m more like a yearly-affected & disordered person. God help us all, but I have a blog to run, I can’t be having this “rainy season that wouldn’t die” shit. We need me happy and creative, people. We really do.
Maybe THIS is the weekend. I guess if I started praying for it now, “someone” would get suspicious. SIGH.

***

And, with that, your requisite snapshot on my life, and a short-term wine hiatus is done.
If you’re really desperate for a G+ invite, you’ll figure out what to do, and in some charitable moment, I might see fit to help you.
Meanwhile, I’m out of here.

The Unfogging

People talk about “clarity.”
“Oh, I gained clarity.”
Sometimes I’ve said it. Sounds pompous, though. Change a word and it’s “Oh, I gained weight.”
Gained clarity? Did you eat a crystal ball for lunch? How’s THAT work, eh?
Tonight, I’m experiencing unfogging. Not clarity, just unfogging.
Don’t know quite what I’m seeing, but it’ll sort out, and quick.
There are shapes. Shapes are good. I can work with shapes. Guestimations and shapes. Done.
There’re an awful lot of times where I’ve felt stuck in murk and confusion. Then, the life premise has tended to be: Head up, eyes focused, and quick to react, ‘cos “quick” is all you got.
Forewarning? Whatcha think you got, a foghorn warning of impending demise, or something? Fat chance.
Life ever feel like that for you? Sorta my status quo for about 20 months.
But, hey, man. My last name’s Cameron. I’m an Irish-Scottish Cameron with a dash of Normandy-French. And oodles of wicked maple-blooded Canadian. Meaning, tough hardy northern coastal stock.
We know about fog. And foghorns.
Okay, okay, enough cryptic shit.
That back injury? This is the first time since about February I’ve had two reasonably decent nights back-to-back. Other things are coming together. I had a bunch of stuff that was conflicting between family/work obligations, and it’s magically sorted out tonight, giving me wide berth to do the life-stuff that we all need for longevity. Plus, tomorrow’s Friday.
The last time I can genuinely say life was all fun and awesome was August 13th, 2010. Shortly after, I got sick, then other shit, then the back, and it’s been 10 months of steely-eyed determination and one-foot-after-the-otherness. I haven’t had a lot of time to focus on other things.
Despite the back rehab and all that of late, I’ve begun to take on more, but with less struggle. Getting there. Change: This is good.
So, the fog’s clearing. I see a little more of the future. I like the part of the picture I see. I can’t see the rest. And I don’t care, because at least I have something to focus on.
Sometimes, that’s all you need.

Food: The Battle That Never Ends

One of my weekly addictions now, pun intended, is Extreme Makeover: Weight Edition.
It’s exactly what it sounds like: A person is ideally supposed to go from morbidly obese to, well, much less.
The most “extreme” episode I’ve seen spent the year with a man named James who began at 651 pounds and lost 313 pounds in 12 months. The first three months, the trainer, Chris Powell, lives with the show’s focus person. After that, the “contestant” is on their own but for the equipment they’ve been left, quarterly check-ins, and emails/phonecalls.
[Spoiler ahead.]
This week’s episode had 9 months invested in one morbidly obese man, who began at 490 pounds, lost 110 in three months, then 21, then gained 60 in the third quarter.
His food addiction came back stronger than ever.
The end of the episode had him checking into rehab 70 pounds below where he started, but 60 pounds over where he was after 4 months — and emotionally broken.
This is something I wish would shut all the cynics up who see weight-loss success on TV and go “Oh, but they had professional help, of course they lost weight.”
You know what? I don’t buy that. It works for a while, sure, but a show like this, it conveys that, left to our own devices, even with all the tools and means at our disposal, failure can find us because we’re our own worst enemies. Every person goes to bed alone in their heads.
Many people regain all their weight back, and even more, when life gets hard, because we’re usually heavy through unhealthy eating addictions that involve masking emotions or failed communications.

Enough About Them, Let’s Talk About Me

I’ve always been food-addicted, but I’m considerably less so in my old age. It’s still a problem. It probably always will be.
That I’m a pretty fucking confident cook sure as hell doesn’t help, but my ability to research and learn the science, well, that does help — a lot. I educate myself from time to time as well. Being a good cook means I take control, and I do so in an often-satisfying way with foods that are ultimately less addictive than fast food and commercial preparations.
Luckily, I somewhat like being active. If I weren’t so goddamned injured so often, I’d be unstoppable, and I’d probably get to keep eating the way I love but would continually lose weight doing it. Fortunately, I eventually battle past my distractions and usually maintain.
That’s me. And I know it’ll be a lifelong struggle. Fortunately, every year I get a little smarter about it, and have done that recently in the face of times that might’ve taken me down a more personally-destructive path in the past.

An Environment Created for Failure

The thing is, food’s an incredible struggle. It’s the hardest addiction in the world to overcome. It’s everywhere. Even skinny people drool over pictures like it’s porn. We even talk about the sexual ways we satisfy our hunger, we have “food orgasms,” we celebrate every holiday around a table, we communicate over tables, we have a national bacon dependency, and now we have sharing apps for cellphones that are all pictures of high-falutin’ drool-inducing food, and everywhere we turn is advertising showing the most sinful burgers and cookies and pastas and pizza (but read this about the dirty tricks photographers use to make that food look so yummy).
In this highly food-pornified world, losing 10 pounds is a massive achievement for some. Losing 313 in a year, no matter who’s helping you, even on a TV show, that’s absolutely mind-boggling — if done through weight and healthy eating, that is.

Add In Being Affected by Life’s Demands…

And putting a few pounds on in any given month or year, well, that’s human. Failing utterly? Also sadly human.
For me of late, I’ve not really been worrying about food, exercise, or whatever. I’m rehabilitating a back injury that scared me more than anything has in years. I had a week in April that was the darkest of my life. All I care about is NOT BEING THAT, and paying my rent. I’m rehabbing, getting my life under control, and that’s all the achievement I require right now.
In saying that, the last 10 months has included enough chaos that all I want to do is get into a routine where being active truly IS my lifestyle, and eating reasonably IS my way. That’s it. I want something I can follow for the rest of my life. I lost 70 pounds in a year doing it that way, I know I can get back to it, too, once my routine’s back.
Anyone who says weight-loss is easy during unemployment isn’t a stress-eater.
During my year of being often under-employed, I had pneumonia followed by a cancer scare that turned into a “dunno what that was, but it ain’t cancer” dealio, followed by blowing out my back. That I only gained eight pounds in two years since my drastic loss is fucking awesome, given my history of overeating for emotional reasons.
It is an addiction, and this has been the hardest year for fighting it. Have I won? No, but if this were a fairytale and the Big Bad Wolf was trying to get into grandma’s house, then I’ve been fighting that fucker back with a big-ass stick. He hasn’t gotten in, but I haven’t gotten around to doing much else with my time, either, time-consuming as fighting wolves tends to be, and all.

It Doesn’t Need to Stay That Way: Ebb & Flow

I’ve noticed in the last couple of weeks, as my stress has gone down, as my back injury has finally gotten to a livable place, that my tendency to eat excessively, and too often, has just naturally slowed down, as have my cravings. I’ve not been eating GREAT all the time, but I’ve really not had too much on the average day, either. I also find myself avoiding sweets or feeling compelled for pastries.
The effort now is to simply be more active in my food choices– making more effort in cooking it so I’m not just eating food but, if I overeat, I’m wasting my time and money. Instead of buying bread, the plan now is to make my own for a while instead of buying huge baguettes to indulge in. Every meal needs some kind of veggies with it, preferably more than half the meal being veggies. Using less fat again, I’ve cut back on cheeses, there’s no cheddar in my house (fact: “cheddar” is Canadian for “crack”). I had chocolate during my “girl time” but haven’t felt cravings outside of that.
I don’t care who might think I could’ve done more or I’ve somehow failed myself because I put a little weight back on instead of continually taking it off. I don’t think of it like that. I think of it as “success interrupted.”
What I know about myself today is, I can get through everything that’s happened in the last year (and that short “pneumonia-blah-blah” point there barely skims the surface, as we all know life’s more complicated than big talking points), and gain back only 12% of the weight I’d lost up till 2009, well, that’s not too shabby for an emotional-eating food addict when the odds are better that I should have gained it all back. I kept 88% off, yo!
I’ve been more aware, even in my failings. Now I need greater awareness. Thankfully, it seems to be rising in me, and the stressors seem to be falling.
That’s the ebb-and-flow of life. Like Rocky Balboa says, it’s about getting hit and knocked down, but keepin’ on moving forward.
When I see a man, in life or even a show like that, reduced to tears in his failures, knowing he’s let down his beautiful little girl and wife, checking into rehab and facing all those demons… well, for me, being knocked down but moving forward feels like it’s as good an accomplishment as I need.
We should all remember that. Setbacks are great, if we learn from them and treat them as practice against being defeated in the future. Welcome to life, where we don’t always get it right, but we almost always get a second shot.
Failure photo from Mindthis.ca.
Hand photo from Haley Bell Photography.