(Ow! I hurt all over! It’s the AbSwing’s fault. OMG. 70 stomach crunches on there yesterday and today and I feel like my torso’s on fire. And my ribs and my glutes and my thighs. Nice new addition to my fitness regime.)

I mentioned in a comment on the below posting that I’m sort of going after total change in my life. Everything I was doing, I want to change. Everything. In every single area of my life, I can improve. And I know it. I’m happier already, so I can’t imagine how fun my year will be if this progresses like I hope it to.

I’ve been looking at myself very critically for a while now, and it’s been really, really hard emotionally to let myself not just have glimpses of what it is I don’t like about myself, but to really peer in and see where I’m going wrong and what I need to do to correct it. Right now, I’m not comfortable enough to share particulars of that process with you, but it’s basically like this:

Wow. Fuck. Can’t believe I did that again. Man, I hate it when I do that. How’d I get so self-centred? Geez. Duly noted. I remember how X did the total opposite, and it was like people just wanted to drink her in. It created interest. Hmm. Next time, I’ll try to remember that. I know better, now I’ll remember. Good for me to spot that. Next time.

Yeah, fun night in, no doubt. Don’t forget the wine, and a hot bath helps.

But I had to get my head in the game. You can’t change to something if you don’t know what you’re changing from. Gotta know who you are before you can become who you want to be.

Then there’s different forums for change. There’s social, financial, professional, physical, and mental, and probably a few others. Like experiential, perhaps, environmental, too. And I’m going to change every single one of those areas. The good news for me is, I have been consciously trying to grow and change for a few months now. In both the financial and career areas, I’ve had progress. I’ve also had moments of success in the physical realm, too. So it’s not like I’m starting from nothing.

Hence the many-splendoured modern torture device, The AbSwing. If you do this thing right, and in large enough quantities, you’re in a world of hurt. Which is where I currently reside. Just another cog in my wheel of fitness. Tomorrow is both yoga AND the gym, so.

The AbSwing now sits where my beanbag once was. Sick of it consuming my living room, I’ve put the big, fat cow-patterned bastard (5′ round pill, 2 feet deep. Monster.) into storage. Where it was is now my new yoga space and permanent home to my AbSwing so that I will do 70 pain-inducing crunches a day, which I consider of huge importance since my weak core contributes to so many stupid things I can live without.

And as I continue to whittle away the clutter of my house, I will make it easier to keep clean, and more conducive to a clear head when writing. I will feel more like being social and inviting people in. Having a new haircut makes me want to go out more. New shoes, and the new jeans I plan to buy this weekend, along with other items I’ve acquired of late, will give me that confidence I have to have in order to feel like I belong to the social events I intend to find my way into.

It’s not like I’ve never been in the social mix. I used to sleep through college and get in after the sun rose. Every single day. I did it, loved it, and miss like hell having that kind of energy for life with people. I miss people really enjoying being around me. My friends are old and married and I think I need me new young things that will spark my life rather nicely.

I don’t, however, want to validate myself through others’ eyes, so I’m making sure I also keep quality time for myself. I want to remember who I was when I used to love doing month-long roadtrips down the American coast… solo. I’m a week into this thing and I can tell you she’s in sight already. I took her to the movies this past Saturday and had a beer afterwards, too.

But this feeling I have of knowing I’m on my way? I wouldn’t really have that, I don’t think, if I hadn’t taken some rather dark time of introspection over the holidays to clue myself in (including all the areas I had already had advances in). I took a mental snapshot of everything I was, everything I wanted to be, and everything that needed to change.

And my first step was: A haircut and losing the beanbag.

Well, a little bit before Christmas I bought myself a change journal and have since completely forgotten to write in it, but what I did write stands as one of the oldest, lamest cliches ever… yet so true. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Steff also, rumour has it, will not be built in a day.

Which makes for good blogging, we can only hope, right? So, there’s that. And I mentioned this weekend’s the jeans weekend? Yep. Fun. 🙂

And: Ow. Thus was born the love-hate relationship with the AbSwing. (Oh, and anyone who disses this thing isn’t doing it right. Seriously. But it can’t be your only exercise. Variety, baby. Still, doing this 5 times a week will do wonders for me.)

HEY, world! It’s been several days since I last posted, and though I’ve not really got the time to share with you this morning, I’ll race through a quickie, because god knows I can’t leave you without time wastage for work on Monday, eh?

Welcome to week one of the Steff plan for total world domination… or at least taking back my life.

I spent my weekend getting myself on page for new happenings. I’m still not 100% ready to face the year before me, but I’m sure as hell getting there. I’ve gutted my place and I’m maybe two full days of work away from having this place look the way I’ve always wanted it. I’ve purge 20% of the belongings from my living area, and now, when my hallway has been emptied of the towers of crap I’m either selling or donating, then I have other closets and my bedroom to contend with.

I’m a firm believer that, if your home is in chaos, no matter what you do in your life, your life, too, will be chaotic. I’m reclaiming my life from the top down.

This week I now need to get back on page with diet and exercise, thanks to a) having bronchitis since Christmas, and b) having all the food baskets sent my way for holiday gifts, I can assure you there’s no diet left in my life, and I sure as hell haven’t been doing yoga. That changes tonight and tomorrow, though.

Saturday was all about me. Got treated like a goddess for my first real salon hairstyling in the last two years, thanks to perenially being broke off my ass before now. I bought two awesome, cute, trendy pairs of sneakers I love. And I went out all on my own to the movies and to write in a coffee shop. I flirted with a couple strangers, and had a pretty nice night without anyone’s company.

This getting-back-to-myself is happening a lot quicker than I would have thought. The haircut and shoes, you know, great start. As is returning to my old loves of writing in coffee shops, browsing bookshops, and wandering the streets at night.

Next weekend’s another leap of faith, as I institute the “getting social” part of my life back into full swing. Nice to see my master plan’s coming along nicely. I’ll try to write a more guided posting on what my actual plan of attack is in the next week or so, for anyone else wanting to change their lives from the top down.

Meanwhile… work beckons. Hope I’ve successfully wasted 3.4 minutes of your workday. Have fun with that. 🙂

(Someone asked me last month “Didn’t you used to write about sex?” And though this seems a million miles off from that question, it’s kind of a very abstract and intellectualized retort to why I’ve been pretty off that topic for a while now.***)

I remember being 10, maybe 12, and wandering through our resort’s hotel lobby when I saw a fellow looking an awful lot like Santa Claus, at a Baha’i Faith convention’s information table.

Always drawn to Santa-like people with the hope of receiving things for free, I naturally stopped to tell him that he bore an uncanny resemblance to my North Pole friend. I then decided to ask him what B’hai Faith meant, and he more or less told me how BF pretty much was this hodge-podge faith that leant credence to many beliefs. His notions, not necessarily the truth. Go play with Wikipedia to learn more.

I wandered off afterwards, deep in thought. I was a profound Catholic and had toyed often with the notion of being a nun as a kid. (Seriously, I thought I could feel stigmata every time they talked about the sacrifice Christ made. I was hardcore.)

When I was 12 and 13, though, I began to start noticing other religions in the world and I knew I had questions. And it all started with this chance encounter with the Hawaiian-shirted Santa at a conference info table. This notion of believing every religion was right in some kinda way, though, that really appealled to me. Until someone could prove one way was more right than another, why the hell shouldn’t I respect them all?

I believe that even today, that some people get all bent out of shape and want to believe strict interpretations of things, but anyone with half a brain and the remotest amount of research abilities can see that there are uncanny parallels among all the great faiths today, and you really do need to ask why those parallels are so predominant.

[Oh, so here’s where I remind you that this is my blog, I’m not paid to be a pundit, and I don’t need to take abuse, nor do I need to suffer attempts to convert or “save” me. I believe what I believe, and while I love a philosophical debate, religious ones are another matter. Don’t waste your time on me, is what I’m saying. Go save a soul who really wants saving. And if my ideas offend you, surf elsewhere, friend.]

I don’t really want to go there and have that big theological discussion, though. I believe more in energies and consciousnesses than I do deities, and probably always will. Call it whatever gets you to sleep at night, honey.

My point is, though, that I guess there comes a time in all of our lives when we reach a crisis of faith, a crisis of consciousness, and even a crisis of self. We lose who we are and big questions like “why are we here?” and “what’s the point of it all?” starting swimming in our stream of consciousness, and no matter how often we try to stop up the dam as the flood of wonderment happens, we keep coming back to the wonderings.

I’ve had these times before, like when I was 13 and lost all faith in the Catholic church, and became a kind of disillusioned I think I’ve never stopped being, and the parents’ divorce, Mom’s death, and even when I cheated death myself.

And in all my life I’ve had one moment, one moment in time, where everything really made sense and all the answers to life just kind of came to me. It was one night in the summer of 1995, living in the famous Yukon, when I went by myself to sit at the top of a canyon and watch the midnight sun change on the landscape of mountains, trees, and the river. I smoked a joint and drank a beer and sat there in silence for four, five hours, just enjoying my place in the world.

And the answers hit me as clear as they could any philosophy 101 student. Why are we here? Because we are. What are we here for? For whatever. Who am I? Me. What am I? Just human, baby. Why’s it happening to me, why me? It’s my turn, man, it’s just my turn. Where am I going? Wherever I want to. Who made all this? It doesn’t matter; that it’s been made is self-evident.* Why does it matter? Well, who said it did? What’s at the end? Either the end or a new beginning, but either/or, certainly not this.

What’s the meaning of life? That it is a thing to be lived. Noun, meet verb.

Well, somehow in the midst of everything that was my life in the last year and a half, I kind of forgot my place in the world, what I thought it all mattered for, and, more importantly, I got confused on what mattered. I became unhappy, ungrateful, and even angry, but I’ve done a pretty good job of keeping it checked, which isn’t a good thing.

At the time that everything kind of came undone on me, I was in a relationship, and I found myself all of a sudden thrown back into being this person I was a long, long time ago, the person who needed to validate herself through relationships with others. And when the relationship came to a long-avoided end, I found myself just stunned at who I’d become and figured that was that, I’d stay single and the problem would be solved in the short term.

And I thought I was past that, that I wasn’t doing that anymore — the validating of self through others, clinging and needing their approval — but it’s only in the last couple of weeks that I’ve realized I’ve still been doing it… I just haven’t been fortunate enough to be getting laid at the same time. I’ve still been seeking approval, and petty things like that.

I’ve recognized it now and it’s a huge goal for me this year to really realize how repetitive that theme has been in my life, and I’ve been reconfiguring my values a little since my wee epiphany.

It’s really, really, really easy to get into the habit of believing the propaganda we see everywhere, that you’re “nobody until somebody loves you”, as the old song goes. It’s easy to believe that, if someone loves us, we’re somehow better than if we’re not with someone. It’s easy to believe, too, that it’s easier to be with someone no matter how hard they make it to love them, than it is to be alone.

Now, being alone, there’s a contentious issue. I both absolutely love being single and hate it with a passion. And it would be so much easier if I was in a relationship, no matter how mediocre it was, right now because then I could say “Yeah, well, at least you’re dateable” and “thank god I’m not on the singles scene”. Being involved sometimes allows us to overlook those things we’re not enjoying about ourselves.

But being single means there’s that silence punctuated only by the rise and fall of your breath or the springs creaking in the couch under you as you shift your legs. Being single means deciding if you’re in the mood to be a party of one at dinner, whether you need to dredge up a friend, or whether you should just stay home for the night. If you’re alone enough, the voices speaking in the back of your mind can steal a bit more of the spotlight. Being single means always hearing “Oh, you’d be so much happier if you found a good man.” Mm, well, a vibrator’s handy too, and there’s no messy wet spot to contend with afterwards.

I honestly think there’s nothing greater than someone being single, not chasing relationships or flings, and being completely happy with who they are. Wow. Good for them. “Completely happy” is not a phrase I use lightly, either. I know few people in life that really are “completely happy”. Content or self-satisfied’s a lot easier to come by, and not something
to dismiss either, but complete happiness is pretty much what everyone strives to be, isn’t it? That mirage in the desert of our lives? And to be that AND alone, and okay with it? Kinda like the Holy Grail of maturity, isn’t it? You hear about it, and you know people even go off lookin’ for it, but, wow…

I don’t plan to spend my life alone. I doubt I’ll ever find one person I can love till life’s end, I don’t believe love’s as simplistic and easy as that. I’ve been through enough change and turmoil in my life to know I’ve been a dozen different people and the dozen or so men I’ve been really head over heels for were all fine men… for that moment in my life, and that they’re in my past is probably a great thing. Vive le demise, gents.

I think relationships and sex and communication are just fantastic and I intend to indulge in much of them in my lifetime. But there are times when losing ourselves in the arms of another really does amount to a loss, and possibly a loss of far too much to make the entanglement worth the grief.

I’ve had a time of great clarity in these past few days, of realizing I’ve still been giving people far too much power over how I feel about life, and having now realized what I’ve been doing, I’m pretty passionate about reclaiming who I was that sunny midnight in the Yukon, having had that moment of clarity where all of life just exploded in simplicity.

That’s my 2008, reclaiming simplicity in all aspects of life. Even dating. I’m getting social, back into the world, bein’ a “joiner” again, and dusting off my flirtin’ shoes. But I’m doing it the simple way, the “it’ll happen when it’s ‘sposed to happen” way, instead of trying to hook up and get laid via the computer, which also was seeming a good plan over the holidays.

And maybe my hormones will mutiny and demand I get me some casual nooky to quell my quivering thighs, or maybe I’ll just connect with someone soon the old-fashioned way and be unable to fend off cupid’s piercing arrow, or maybe I’ll have fun slowly making my world completely change with effort after effort, week after week, with or without someone in my bed. I don’t know. I’ve given up trying to guess. I’m doing what life presents to me, but at least I’m letting it do the presenting.

The only thing I do know is, I spent much of last year being a spectator to life. Now I’m gonna be living one and not watching.**

Noun, meet verb.

*See, I never fucking understood the creationism argument. I always thought these fuckwits who are actually stupid enough (I lied when I said I respected all religion; creationism is fucking moronic and I don’t mind offending you if you believe in it) that some dude sitting somewhere created all this in a literal 7 days. A) You’re offending your omniscient being if you infer they needed to take seven days to do anything all. This should be a fuckin’ snap for the dude you think has the ill skillz to rain Armageddon upon us all. What’s the other 6.75 days for, then? and B) I think the idea that a god might’ve had the brilliance to cause a single simple “big bang” from which atomic life was born, and then that it had the incredibly complex interrelating of species and environs to spawn something as complicated, eternal, and beautiful as evolution… well, that’s kinda sorta omniscient, don’t you think? What’s the fucking disappointment and whining about, this constant asserting it had to be seven days and there really was a suburb called The Garden of Eden? Wow. I just don’t get it.

**Trrrust me. You have no idea. I can make things happen pretty quick when I’m in the mood to. I have a plan. I just don’t want to share. You’ll get yer news after-the-fact this year, kids.

***So, no, I wasn’t in the mood to write about sex for a very long time, but this blog has always been first and foremost about how to love yourself so that you can love others better. This is all part of that. If you want dripping cocks and fuckin’ till you’re raw, then there are other blogs. I’ll be writing about sex again, but I do what life hands me, man. You want to email me a question about sex, I might write about it. Ain’t getting questions. Ain’t getting laid. So. Do the math. But like I say, this was always about more than sex and always will be.

I don’t know when the actual forgetting of myself began. I think I consciously knew I was sort of neglecting myself for a long time, but a lot of that began with what had to become a “new” normal after major changes in my life. My life different, I found myself doing different things under the guise of “me” time.
Once upon a world, though, the best kind of “me” day I could have would have included a hike, bike ride, or gym visit, followed by a cafe for some writing, possibly haunting a couple bookshops, and ending the day with groceries before presumably cooking myself a pretty good meal.
These days, those days are few and far between. Today, though, I’ve put the brakes on and that’s precisely the day I’m having.
I honestly can’t tell you the last time I regularly went to coffee shops to write. I just don’t know. Years, probably. Years. That’s likely the biggest change for the negative my life’s taken these past few years. I’ve gotten away from the act of coffee shop writing. I’m the kind of person that once sat down with a coffee and a 400-page book. I started and finished the whole book in one day at a coffee shop. That was a pretty good day, too.
I don’t know if I mentioned it, but I’ve decided to write a book. About what, well, trust me when I say it’s going to be a huge journey for me. Today’s coffee shop visit is for writing the bones of the book, as Anne Lamott would say. Realistically, I see this book consuming the next year to 18 months of my life.
To tell the truth, it scares the living hell out of me.
To write this book means I have to finally come to terms with a lot of the areas I’ve been trying to pretend don’t afflict my life… like living out loud, embracing the inner vixen, saying what you think. Truth is, I’ve been trying to be all the things I’ve wanted to be, but it’s been obvious I’ve been trying. Meaning, it’s an effort, an act, a show. It’s not really me because I don’t believe it. I don’t buy it, and to the more astute observer in my life, right now, I don’t think I can sell it.
But that’s what 2008’s for. It’s one thing to sit around quietly suspecting something about yourself, but it’s another thing entirely to turn the lights on, point, and shout at it. Everything about myself has felt like a bad-fitting pair of jeans for a few years now. On the right person, it might do wonders, but on me it’s needing a lot of work and just doesn’t cut it.
And instead of sitting around thinking about it and letting it eat me up, I’m getting out there and doing something about it. I’m trying to change every area of my life in the next 12 months. From finance and fitness to sex and shopping, everything is getting an overhaul, and it starts today.
I’ve been sitting here taking deep breaths and feeling a little emotionally overwhelmed after just having a moment of realizing just how true the statement about my life feeling like bad jeans really happens to be, because I asked myself “Why does that bother you so much?” as I was writing, and then I actually heard myself answering “Because I know how good I can be.” Having that moment, just realizing that that’s the answer is a pretty beautiful and powerful moment.
I know how good I can be. And it’s not about being good for you or her or him or them, it’s about being that good for the person I plan to have a lifelong romance with. Myself.
It’s about letting go of all the bullshit that’s come my way in the last few years, the negative people, the misfortune, the bad timing, and realizing that life is infinitely bigger than this stupid soap operaesque corner of it I inhabit, and all I need to do is knock down a couple walls and I’ll be right back in the beautiful swirl of it all:
Life. That mystery of all mysteries, the original all-you-can-eat buffet. Life. Fill me up and watch me burst with life.
It’s like this nightmare I had once. You’ll love my version of the nightmare, it’s like Einstein and Dali getting together over beers, but I can’t convey the Fincher-esque editing in my head that gives my dreams some crazy visuals. There I am, a sunny, beautiful day, walking along tall oceanside cliffs in PEI or Dover. There’s a long fenceline over the top of the cliff, as far as the eye can see, and right behind me’s a large sign reading “Point A”. Off in the distance is a beautiful summit and spotting scope, and a sign that reads “Point B”. Somehow I understand that my only goal is to get to Point B from Point A. I set off on my merry way. A few moments later, some old guy stops and asks me directions. I cheerily tell him how to get wherever, and then mosey on only to look up and see that Point B now seems a little farther away. Almost right away, someone else stops me to ask me to break a five. Grudgingly, I do. I continue walking. Point B is now twice as far away. The cycle continues. I start, someone stops me, and then I’m further and further away from what I really want until it seems I’m completely out of sight of Point B with a lineup of people wanting me, literally.
That’s when, in real life, I woke up and wrote on a page next to bed. “Fuck off! It’s my life! Let me live it. Solve your own problems!” I went back to sleep, and the next person that stopped me, I simply said no. Then I almost immediately reached Point B around a previously unseen bend.
The point is, life distracts us and takes us away from what it is we know deep down inside makes us happy. For whatever reason, we tell ourselves our unhappiness is part of what comes from being a good citizen and doing what needs doing. Life’s not bad, it’s not great, but it’s not bad, right? Until one day “not bad” changes definitions and the realization hits that it’s just not good enough any more.
So that’s where I am. I’m there, realizing that all my fears about Point B being so far off in the distance just aren’t true. It’s right there for the taking, and deciding I want it? The biggest step I need to take. Now it’s about enjoying what journey is ahead of me as I start getting where I want to be.
Anyhow. I thought I might share a little on that since it’s the weekend afore New Year’s eve and I’m betting I’m not the only person who’ll be doing a little reflecting on where they’re at today versus where they might be a year from now. 365 days of opportunities. How lucky are we?

Merry Christmas, everyone. 🙂

The tree’s up, the lights and wooden garland and lace strung nicely around it. We’ll put the ornaments on tonight. The turkey’s misbehaving in the fridge, laundry’s getting finished, and I’m about to enjoy some breakfast.. which I of course have to make, first. I should hang back and have granola, but it’s Christmas eve and I’d kill for eggs. So I’m having eggs.

So… have a wonderful night tonight. And, if you’re alone, I hope you find some meaning and solace in your day. Here’s my Christmas card I made last year. (My picture, too, in my neighbourhood. 🙂

I framed a photo of mine tonight in a very, very nice frame for someone, and had a bit of a “wow” moment. The photo does not look out of place. I’ve always bought the cheapie frames for my work, but I think I’ve crossed that threshold where I think it really does deserve better than that.
It’s nice to feel that way about my work, and I’m feeling that way about myself these days, too. We’re getting there, me and my photos.

Someone, in their rather blunt manner, asked in a comment “Didn’t you used to write about sex?” Yeah, and I used to have it, too. Funny how these things run together, isn’t it?
I’ve been in all the wrong headspaces of late and I’ve not been ready to jump back into the dating world, and for whatever reason, I’ve not wanted to hazard too many pokes at why that is. And I’ve had very little libido of late, probably because I’ve not wanted it. (But it’s been rearing its head of late.)
I promised myself that I’d give myself to Christmas to kind of just get things in order, and then starting January the plan was to start actively pursuing things again. I don’t know if I want to date someone steadily, but I bet if the right fella came wandering past, I’d be able to take that gamble.
So, soon. I’m going to take some chances and meet new people come January. It’ll happen pretty quick. Always does. 🙂

Riding home on the bus yesterday I sat facing head-on to a guy seated with his side facing my front. Across the aisle was a girl he locked onto with a vengeance. With his eyes, that is. Just a hungry, hungry, hungry stare.
I guess she noticed, because all of a sudden it was like the air hissed right out of him. Soft, sad, lonely, and rejected yet again… in the blink of an eye.
His eyes became sunken and morose and his lips pursed into a frown. He was in his late 50s, maybe his 60s, plump and haggard, wearing way-worn hightops, cruddy old misshapen sweatpants, and a dull, crumpled old winter coat. His brows were overgrown like Mark Twain’s, and he was missing a canine tooth. His cheeks sagged and bounced with the bus’s bumps.
And without a beat I found myself imagining what a sad and lonely, repetitive life this guy probably has, and I felt overwhelmed with sympathy for him. He just oozed loneliness. It was palpable. He got off at the next stop and I found myself thinking and wondering about him.
I guess it’s just a reminder to be nice to people these days… we never know how much others might miss contact with the world, and if being nice to them for thirty seconds of your life makes their day somehow mean more, I think it’s a pretty small price to pay for literally, actually making the world a better place. One lonely soul at a time. Sometimes a “how are you” means more than you’ll ever know.

I read an interesting study in the Washington Post the other day about self-esteem. People with negative self-esteem apparently responded better to spouses or partners when confronted with negative criticism than they would if given positive feedback.
Of course, it’s infinitely more complex than that and is a little too much for me to bite off here, so I’m just going to share the link with you. But it goes to show you that if you think you’re fuct because you can’t accept a compliments, you’re actually in the majority. Here ya go. Feed your brain with this tasy article right here.

Wow, am I ever in a shitty mood.

I actually got up feeling pretty good today. I got this rather toxic email from someone this morning, and it took me a bit to shake that off, but the person means nothing to me so I was able to do it. Something happened with someone else later that I’ve been strongly considering eliminating from my life. There’s something else involved, though, and that always complicates matters. It, however, has definitely contributed to my being pretty flapped this evening.

The more I think about it, the more I’m thinking that the grief isn’t worth it.

Some people, whatever you think they might be contributing to your life, how you feel every time you see them, how you feel when you speak to them or even just hear of them… that’s what’s important, and if the answer is “shitty”, then perhaps they’re just not contributing what you think.

I guess. And I guess that’s my answer, and what I need to do.

I can’t give you anything remotely like a hint what I’m talking about in real terms. A lot of people I know read my blogs… employers, friends, family.

But the scenario in question just fills me with dread every time I think I need to see this person or deal with them. If it wasn’t for the complication I mentioned earlier, I’d have ripped the fucking bandage off long ago. I lose something by ending this, something with a lot of potential, and if I end it, then I need to really, really believe in myself, that this loss won’t have the negative impact my fear-mongering inner-voice seems to think it’ll bring.

Sigh. The only thing I know is, I’m dreading my dread. I’m dreading even the dread I’ll feel when I see this person — never mind the act of dreading them.

These are the days when I really miss being 11 and the biggest conundrum was whether or not I felt girly enough to play with dolls that day, and if I got my homework done. Ooh, the bliss of youth.

Whatever. I’m nearing the decision that I know is truly the right thing to do… just fucking walk away. There are times when braving the horrible means you’re brave. And there are times when it’s really fucking stupid. You know, the times you want to shout at the actor on the screen and go “What the fuck are you doing?”

Come on, readers. Do it. Shout “What the fuck are you doing!” at your screen, even if you’re tucked away in a cubicle. Maybe it’ll spur our heroine (ie moi) into the kind of fuck-it-all action that needs to be taken, hmm?

OH, AND: If you’ve emailed me in the last two weeks? Sorry, been busy. I’ll be getting back to you soonish. Bear with me.

Well, one request is hardly the tide of popular demand, but since I aim to please, and because Lara asked me so nicely in my earlier post today, I’m posting “my” homemade granola recipe.

Now, this is a recipe I’ve modified quite a bit off a very popular AllRecipes.com recipe, but because I’ve reduced the fat content so much and added more spice, plus monkeyed with the nuts listed, I think I can go out on a limb and call it “my” recipe. 🙂

OH! It’s an hour later and I just realized I didn’t say how many servings it makes. Allrecipes says it’s about 30 servings, but I’m thinking those are 1/2 cup or less. Also, I can’t tell ya how many calories or fat it has, since I’ve modified the recipe. It’s a good source of Omega 3s with all the flax and walnuts. I’d even increase the flax to 3/4 or 1 cup, myself, next time around.

Steff’s Homemade “Cran-crazy” Granola

8 cups of large-flake oatmeal (not the quick-cooking kind)
1.5 cups wheat germ
1.5 cups oat or wheat bran
1/2 cup flax seeds
1.5 cups chopped almonds
1.5 cups chopped walnuts
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 cup dark brown or demerara sugar
(richer-tasting than regular brown, and my preference)

Put all of the above in one huge, honking bowl. Mix it up real good. And preheat your oven to about 275 degrees F. (The original recipe calls for 325, but I found it dried too quickly and cooked unevenly, and I made three batches yesterday. 275 worked the best.)

Hang onto that bad boy for a few minutes while you get the liquids ready:

1/4 cup maple syrup
3/4 cup honey
3/4 cup unfiltered apple juice
1/4 cup safflower oil
1 tablespoon cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon cardamom
1 tablespoon vanilla

Mix everything but the vanilla in a saucepan and heat it over medium to medium-high heat until it boils. Take it off the heat, mix again, add your vanilla, mix again, and then pour over your oats-filled bowl.

Mix it up really good until there’s no wheat germ or oat brain lingering at the bottom of the bowl. Try to avoid large chunks because the middle won’t dry and get properly crunchy during the baking.

Foil-line two cookie sheets and then divide the bowl between both sheets. Layer it out evenly, making sure the entire sheet’s covered and level.

Make sure your oven racks are set in the two central slots, and slide your trays in. You want to bake it for about 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, remove your trays, mix the granola thoroughly on the tray to get all the cookied bitsies in from the outer edges, and then put ’em back in the oven — rotating each tray 180 degrees and putting it on the opposite shelf that it was on last time.

Rinse and repeat.

No, seriously, cook ’em another 20 minutes, check for moisture, and decide if you need to cook it longer. You don’t want it 100% dried and crunchy — maybe 85%, because the cooling process will evaporate some moisture. If it’s not fully cooked, use your judgment and cook it in short burts of 5-7 minutes, checking at least that often and mixing it each time.

2 cups cranberries

Once you’re satisfied it’s cooked– and be careful! it burns quickly– then pull ’em out and let ’em cool. When cooled, mix in your cranberries. When it’s 100% cool (if it’s at all warm, it’ll steam and invite the early onslaught of mold), put in an airtight container, and get happy. Should keep a minimum of three weeks.

Lemme know whatcha think!!! 🙂

There’s ONE week until Christmas! ONE WEEK. Motherfucker! I don’t even have my TREE up yet, for god’s sake! My home? A disaster! My gifts? Not taken care of. AND I’m supposed to take a business meeting this week, etcetcetc.

I feel so pressured. Christmas, the time for giving? No, the time for mental breakdowns, dude!

Okay. I’m going to do yoga for the first time since last Tuesday or Wednesday, when the wheels came off my life there. It’s day two after the party and no trace of the hangover remains. Yay! Yesterday… oh, my god. I did finally toss my cookies last night, though. I was that ill. Someone gave me a gift bottle of wine yesterday and I looked at it for five minutes thinking, “Hmm… maybe a glass of wine will help.” Then I got violently ill and decided to stick to water.

Despite all that, I spent the whole day making homemade granola for Christmas gifts. Aww. The cutest little Christmas “bucket” tins, too! 🙂

(Granola with cranberries, walnuts, cinnamon, and lots of goodness (ie: flax seed… very good omega-3 source, my granola!). In fact, I replaced most of the oil with apple juice, and it’s still crunchy and delicious… but lowfat! If anyone wants the recipe, I can post it. I’m so excited. Should be a popular gift, I hope!)

THIS IS A GRAPHIC POSTING ABOUT A LOCAL SERIAL KILLER. You’ve been warned.

It was a big day in my town yesterday. Robert “Willie” Pickton was found guilty for all six counts of murder. Second degree, but each comes with mandatory life, parole in 15-25, I think it is.

Pickton’s the infamous Pig Farmer you might’ve heard about. Jokes have been made. It was funny in Snatch. It’s not funny in Vancouver.

Pickton’s being called Canada’s worst serial killer. New evidence is coming out even now, just a day after the verdict, of the never-disclosed motive (as if to suggest killing prostitutes for kicks is enough of a motive) that Pickton somehow saw himself as a moral arbiter when it came to purging Vancouver’s notorious Downtown Eastside…

If you don’t know about Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, in a nutshell: 30 square blocks. Begins just one block east of one of Vancouver’s most popular tourist areas, then ends one block west of the city’s largest police station, and just a few blocks southwest of the ports of Vancouver, where all the heroin arrives in freights and gets distributed from there across North America. 30 square blocks of the highest rate of HIV infection in the western world, and an incredibly prolific meth and heroin addiction scene– your city ain’t seen nothing like this. It is, in fact, the poorest, most crime-riddled, disease-infected, drug-addicted neighbourhood in North America. Streetworkers in the DES have been disappearing here for three decades, at least, with done. No inquiry ever got launched. Pickton, now guilty of six of the 26 murders with which he’s been charged, was only arrested 2 years ago. Demands for inquiries into the disappearance of these underprivileged, addicted, forgotten streetworkers have been made since 1991, and there have been several dozen women officially listed as missing, way more than Pickton’s charged with. Women are still disappearing off our streets. They go unnoticed because there’s no body. But they’re gone.

…Pickton apparently saw himself as the guy who got to rid our streets of filth. He’d pick ’em up, give them money, take them to his farm outside the city. There’d be parties. Cocaine. Every now and then someone got to die, for whatever twisted fucking reason that demented little man (and his friends, some believe) could conjure. One woman testified she saw him gutting a woman strung and kicking from chain in the slaughterhouse. Their corpses were fed to the pigs. The pigs were slaughtered for market. Hands and feet were found in buckets when the cops arrested Pickton and searched the grounds. The forensic search of his proprerty took

Some fucked up stuff has happened here. Horrible crimes. Pickton will probably never see the light of day again. The sentence comes down later this week, I think.

Three others were arrested but never charged. The creepiest thing about this saviour complex Pickton claims he has is that he refers to his “father before him” being faced with the same terrible task of the avenging angel.

Anyhow. I really don’t know what to say about Pickton. Hell’s too good a place for someone like that, I guess.

My worry, though, is, that many residents of this city will go to sleep thinking we got the bad guy, when Pickton may just be the tip of the iceberg. Women still go missing on the DES. We’re talking an area riddled with the kind of addiction that would have its addicts literally selling their child for the money to buy drugs. (Vancouver’s personal theft crime rate is higher than that of New York precisely because of our drug problems.) These streetworkers are so hooked, they’ll do anything for a drug fix.

I know $10 hookers are a punchline in movies. Here in Vancouver, they’re women who keep going missing and are beaten or killed because someone, somewhere seems to think society just doesn’t care about those women.

And most days, they’re right. Yesterday, though, for once society did care.

How about tomorrow?