You know what part of the problem is? Huh?

My job. I have to be discreet. Can’t tell ya nothin’. Can’t gripe. People who write about their work are twits. That shit usually comes home to roost, so you gotta be prepared to sack up and own up to what you write. Or be like me. Say nada.

I said too much early in the game and now I’m hip to it. All hush-hush.

Today, though, was almost enough to break me. Crumble me to bits and spit me out like a bad cracker, man. That was how bad a Monday this Monday was. Ooh.

It started off: People leaving shit on my work desk — incomplete things that I had to finish and “solve”. But I was just pissy and it wouldn’t have normally been a big thing. Until, that is, I proceeded to spill my coffee over the entire desk. And not one of those shitty from-the-canteen crap-ass weak coffees sanctioned by the work kitchen. No. This was a four-shot Americano.

Yeah. Four shots. Fuck that single/double stuff. I go hard, I go long. Actually, four shots is because Starbucks Ain’t What It Used to Be (sorry, gb!) but I get three shots at the local Italian guy’s shop. The guy’s English is horrible, but the Americano’s so beautiful it has head. Leave it to me to appreciate the head, all right?

And I spilled it. Over paycheques. Over sales slips. Over Every Fucking Thing on my Six Foot Long Desk.

Picture this: Me, frantic. “I need some help! Can someone come hold up my very expensive phone?!” I shouted into the packed lobby. Suddenly 3 moms are helping me as I try to sop up the eightyfuckingmillionzillionbadass ounces of woulda been soooo good coffee.

Needless to say, the day could only get better from there.

How much better, well… that’s the debatable part. I’m not sure the judges would accept “neglibly” as an answer, but let’s give that a go.

My day SUCKED ASS, man. Ha. Fortunately, and I’ll bold it so you see it good, I still loves me job. If I knew all this shit, I’d still accept it.

After all… in the middle of all that crap and morass, there was a shining from-a-movie moment. A little boy came in and brought me a card: a photocopy of my picture in the paper, surrounded by little stars, and “steff… you are a star” was what it said.

I know the mom made it and he just put the stickers on and signed his name, but it made my fucking day.

Tomorrow morning it goes on my fridge. For now, I’m drinking a blu-tini. Blueberry juice martini. It’s the lime spritz that really makes it come together, but next time: lime cordial.

Boo-yah.

Sting is wailing in my living room. A hazy grey light filters in through the semi-raised black cloth-bamboo blinds. Sirens punctuate my morning as an indication that staying in might be the wisest choice of the day.

Kill Bill, Vol. 2, is providing me with intermittent graphic violence as an antidote to the boredom of my sedate Sunday. I’m having a fantastic morning.

I’ve already enjoyed a French press brimming with dark coffee. I’m padding around barefoot, tackling a bit of cleaning here and there in between chapters of Tarantino’s kill-fest. What more can a girl ask for?

Well, an epiphany would shure hit the spot. Thank goodness I’ve had me one of those, too.

Perhaps you’ve already read yesterday’s shameless financial de-veiling of a girl called me? I’ve had some new thoughts about that.

Thing is, money’s been playing a constant theme in my head of late. This being able to cope and even buy a thing or two mode is throwing me for a loop, and that’s why I’m trying to sort out how to improve upon the things I’ve learned and incorporated into my ways of late, so that I can have my cake and eat it, too. I’ve fucked this up before, and my older-wiser self is loathe to see that happen again. Don’t look now, but I’m all grown up.

So it’s with great intrigue that I’ve been trying to figure out what was the major catalyst in the last two weeks to send me into this Financial Figurings Funk I’ve been mired in. And a little while ago I coulda sworn I heard a blink! as the proverbial lightbulb flicked on overhead. AHA. I finally figured it the freak out.

There I was, standing perched over my old school 1991 Sony 5-disc CD changer, taking a boo at what aural delights lay ahead for me, when I should glance upon The Police’s masterpiece, Synchonicity. So I decided to program the back half – tracks 8, 11, 7, 10, 9, in that order – as a soundtrack to my cleaning/puttering.

You see, a week or so ago the Police flew into town and blew two packed houses away, back to back. It was the gig of the year, and I wasn’t there. It didn’t compute until I saw the disc there, shining up at me, but it’s the proverbial last straw.

It’s fucking WRONG that I should miss the biggest gig of the year! There was a time when I was the one who’d always get the tickets to the hardest shows to get ‘em for. Santana? Sure. The Hip in a small 250-seat club? Done. I’ve seen hundreds of concerts/gigs or more in my time. I’ve seen fights, fucking, and fireworks of all kinds. I’ve seen first-ever gigs and last-ever gigs. I’ve smoked more dope and tried more stuff at concerts than I care to remember. I’ve perfected how to smoke dope in a club, in the middle of the dance floor, and not get caught. I’m that chick who can make a beer last for an hour and a half if it means I’m able to afford another gig next week that I just saw the poster for when I was in the washroom.

I’m an audio geekette. I’ve gone out with more music geeks than I care to own up to. The times of my life have all happened hi-fi, y’know? Every period of my life has a soundtrack. I even have a CD I burned for my mom’s funeral, that I gave to all her friends, of her favourite music – John Lennon, U2, Joan Baez, Janis Joplin, et al. And, yes, even the Police’s King of Pain made the cut.

So, it pisses me off that they should roll into town and I shouldn’t be able to get tickets. Why? Because, in an effort to change my financial ways, I renegotiated debt a couple years back and chose to cut my credit cards up as part of the terms. Then I fell on hard financial times and my credit just disappeared because I didn’t have a permanent job. Creditors don’t like it if your employers won’t commit to you, you know, as a casual labourer. That sucked.

But now I’m solidly employed. You know what this means, don’t you? This fall I’ll get a credit card and be able to order gig tickets. This won’t happen again. I’ll be at the best gigs.

See, it’s not enough to sit around and ponder how to change your life and what you’re gonna do to make that happen. Everything that happens to us happens because something we’ve just experienced has triggered something in our subconscious. You can bravely go forth into the new now without understanding what set you off, but knowing what tripped the thought process in the first place can be an important part of coming to terms with why it’s necessary to change the status quo.

For me, it’s realizing, jealously, that so many people I knew got to be at that gig. Funny thing is, I’m not the biggest Police fan. I like some of the songs, love singing along, and think Sting’s about the coolest thing since Breyer’s, but a lot of other musicians matter more for me. I just never got swept up in the Police craze. I just woulda liked to be at that gig ‘cos now I know—hindsight, 20/20, et al—how significant they’ve been on the landscape of music in the last half of the 20th century, and how hard it is for anyone to out-vocal Sting. I don’t have to be a fan to understand, is what I’m saying. It’d have been pretty fucking cool.

Add to that, that in a span of 20 minutes I had the above thoughts and also discovered how cheap Greyhound fare is to places like Seattle & Portland, and my summer’s just taken a huge detour, man. It’s nice to have my priorities on track with abilities/reality again. It sure changes the way the world looks. It’s nice. Music and travel were once the two most important things in my life. And my priorities felt peachy fucking keen back then. Somewhere along the way, that changed. Looks like my eyes are opening to that, and change is gonna come.

I have a couple blogs. One I use more for writing about writing and about my daily life. One of the things those readers know is that I suffered writer’s block for about six years. One of the little tricks I developed during that lengthy block as a tool for writing better was my “idea box”. It’s a recipe box filled with 3×5 recipe cards and a couple pens. If watching TV and a notion hits, I pull out a card and write on it. It makes its way in to my desk where it then becomes fodder for a post down the line.

This posting was inspired by the idea card on which I scrawled “An open letter to brides to be: BE SURE”. So, if you’re trying to be all bubbly about an upcoming wedding, grab some wood, have a seat, and take a breath. I’m about to burst that bubble.

Divorce stats are changing. More and more, people who’ve been married decades are divorcing. Staying together because it’s somehow “easier” than facing the great unknown is now becoming less attractive than tearing your life apart in the hopes that something better might possibly see you out your days.

There once was a time that an employee would adopt a trade, an employer, and there they would dutifully spend their lives. It was just that easy. You find a job that needs doing, one that might have a future, something stable and constant, and there you stay until you get the golden Rolex and the coupon for a trip to Tahiti.

There once was that time.

That’s all changed now. One can embark upon any number of careers in the length of their working life, and instead of hoping for a good pension and gift receipt with the Rolex, they have investment bankers and multiple properties they own. It’s a different game. You do what’s attractive, or necessary, for any given time, and when that gravy train runs dry or gets chunky, you jet to a new stream and see where the flow goes.

Who’s to say the time for being married only once isn’t on the verge of getting cashed like a big fat reality check? Soon we’re going to chuckle and mirthfully remark, “Marriage? Pfft. That’s so 20th-century.”

There are those with the incredible luck, foresight, timing, and passion that just happen to find that one true love that’s gonna last ’em till their dying day. They ought to hold on and never let that go. We should all be so lucky. We should all find that.

But most of us will not. Most of us will decide it’s easier to either go it alone, or find someone new, than it is to keep settling for what we know is less than is possible.

What is possible is something stunning. True love, when you have it, changes your life and changes you. It changes everything. It takes work and commitment and a desire to keep it real, but it’s a keeper.

When love doesn’t work, when feelings are hurt or just not there, and communication is stilted, if it’s anything at all, then it’s safe to say that “love” is a destructive force that cuts away at who you are. When love isn’t working, it’s like living a failure all over again each day. No matter how good everything else in your life is, there’s that negative. And there’s only so long before that nagging constant just becomes unbearable, like a tap dripping water for five minutes too long, and you just snap.

I believe people take divorce too lightly and that they ought to work more at making things work, or why would I write as I do? But I also believe the taking lightly of marriage is inevitable and far too many people marry without understanding the gravity of the situation. It’s not just sex and cuddles and someone to split the bills with. It’s life ever after. It’s believing — truly believing — that seeing that face every single day of your life would be a step in the right direction. It’s about saying that no matter what comes, you’re in a partnership that’ll take all comers. It’s love hardcore.

And most of the time, it’s going to fail. Most of the time people won’t have it in them to survive the low points that every single relationship will have. Most of the time people won’t recall that our greatest joys come in contrast to our darkest times, and they’ll give up.

So let me say this now:

If you’re about to get married and you have doubt that this is a decision you can wake up at 63, roll over in bed, look at them lying next to you, and think, “I’ve spent these years well”, then maybe you wanna rethink your choice.

Have you ever really talked about sex with each other? Really been truly honest about your fetishes and desires? Are you really on that page together? If not, is there room for growth? And money — are you in sync there? Do you have a financial plan for your future together? Do their spending habits irk you now? Do you think they’re cheap?

If these sound like superficial questions, then wake the hell up. Sex and money are the two biggest reasons marriages fail, so you’d better know now what you’re getting into.

Love’s fantastic, but marriages aren’t easy to survive. Most die, and most die badly. The victims of divorce lay strewn across the globe. If anything in your relationship smacks of “well, we’ll work it out”, then maybe you should consider working that shit out and THEN getting married.

And don’t think that you’re due for your bliss and the good times will roll for ever after. Karma’s what we want to happen, but bad things happen to good people every single day, and sometimes it’s just your number the man pulls from the hat. Remember my heart-breaker letter* from the woman in her 30s whose husband became incredibly disabled, forcing her to become a caregiver even before her 40th? Life is gonna unfold differently from how you envision it. What if it can’t live up to your expectations? What if your lover can’t? What are you gonna do then?

It’s not silly, or nervous, or stupid, or unfaithful of you to reconsider that walk down that aisle — it’s the best gift you can give to you and your would-be spouse. Know you want it when you go there. Know it.

And if you can’t be confident, well, maybe there’s another path for you. And if after this you still know it’s right for you, then you have my best wishes.

(I took the liberty of copying and pasting the comments from the original blog to the comments on this site. Have a read.)

It only took me forever, but I’ve finally joined Facebook. I was avoiding it. MySpace sucks, imho, but I finally thought I’d give Facebook a go after I read a couple interesting news stories on it. Me likey.

But it’s kind of troubling. So troubling I’m having trouble popping a good metaphor. Ooh, troubling. You don’t know the half of it.

It’s the gelcap equivalent of a time capsule or something. See? Bad metaphors. Nonetheless, you get the gist. Or you likely don’t.

It’s like high school, man. You know what high school was for me? I’ll tell ya: It was a Jesus & The Mary Chain song. Ever heard “I’m in With the Out Crowd”? Okay, well, absolutely none of the lyrics apply to me ‘cept the title. [One of those, “Dude, you faked me out with the title!” tracks you totally thought was about something else, so what the fuck, songs.]

It’s as if you spend your life trying to change who you are, only to find out that who you were wasn’t such a bad person in the first place… but what the hell was that in the water anyhow?

So I’ve joined Facebook.

Many years have passed since The Time Back Then, back when I was one of those kids that everyone knew for one reason or the other. I had a lot of friends. I sometimes wonder how I managed it, too, given the mountain of insecurities and fears I lived under. Somehow I projected something better than that, but I just never recognized my own appeal. I don’t mean that in an arrogant way, ‘cos I know how much I lack appeal to some folks. But if you like people who are completely blunt yet possessing of social graces, who are honest to a fault, well, that’s the breed I am. This persona comes with reality Steff, too, and it’s definitely not everyone’s cup of tea. But those whose tea I ain’t, they tend to come around after a while. 😉 Or they stay the path. Whatever gets yer rocks off.

And I guess I was the live-out-loud type that some kids tend to gravitate towards.

Then I dropped out of life when things got tough for a while. I spent the majority of my 20s in a pretty deep depression. Being anti-social was a whole lot easier than trying to fake a mask for public consumption, y’know?

One day the fog cleared and I really started to notice the difference in my social horizons from way back when and now. It’s like I forgot how to be natural for a crowd in all that absence. My new job puts me front and center, and I’m getting my gift of the gab back again after many a hiatus from schmoozing. I used to be the kid who always knew someone at the party, and now I need introducing (then I’m off and running, right, but geez… ). Ain’t like it was.

Until suddenly it is again, thanks to getting a public-oriented job where I have to be the strong, confident chick I always was, and also to the magic of these virtual connections like Facebook. You plug yourself in and suddenly the board lights up. I found out a little late, but it turns out that much of my old crowd from “the golden days” — aka the time before the fall — got together yesterday for the first time in more than a decade. Curiouser and curiouser, to be sure.

Now I’m listening to one of the soundtrack-type albums from that era of my life, that time when music was Never Gonna Get Better Than This (’92-94) and life was the road in front of me, The Black Crowes’ Shake Your Moneymaker. I remember hearing this album for the first time when an ex-lover was driving me and a friend of his home sometime well after midnight and I was pretending to be asleep in the backseat as I listened to them talking, and heard the quiet but good things he’d said about me. I fell in love with the album as the car rumbled on old side roads. It was a good night.

I’m trying to remember why I walked away from everyone and everything, but the opportunity to change things came up and I suddenly found myself living in the Yukon and chasing that dream instead. Came back a year later and everything changed. I felt like the cog left out of a fast-travelling wheel, but the truth now probably is it’s when my depression truly began.

This past winter, the depression’s finally lifted, and it’s funny to see just how far from my past I feel I am and now I see that I’ve never really gone that far away after all.

How weird it all is.

‘Cause, you know what? I’d like another chance to be that girl, the one who existed before all the “real life” came and bit her in the ass. The one with a little innocence and a little mischief and a little zest for anything that’d come her way. I’ve been working towards being that again and I’m just a little baffled to be happening on such timing as I am with the whole Facebook thing. That part I’m having trouble putting words to, so just know that I’m feeling a little discombobulated about it all, and kind of in a good way, too, ‘cos I know the progress I’d been making on coming back to myself long before this came about.

It’s cool, it’s all good. And now I have a house to clean and a lazy afternoon (a Sopranos marathon; you know my thing for mafioso) to atone for. Happy Memorial Day, yanks, and a good morrow to everyone else.

PS: I bought my first-ever pair of plaid panties today. Cute! I’m Scottish, too, y’know, so what better to cover the tush in?

I updated my oneline dating profile. As almost a wilfull act of defiance a couple months back, I stripped it to one of those basic “I Like Stuff, Do You Like Stuff?” just-the-facts type profiles. But writing profiles is something I do very well, so to pull the plug and take a bore myself down approach is bizarre, to say the least.

But this morning I revisited it. It’s all new, all good. My sense of humour shows, as does my big fat brain. I’m pretty amused with it. We’ll see what happens.

Updating the profile is kind of like the new tattoo, don’t you think? Either you’re drunk, stupid, and ready to go, so you update it as some kinda “lookit me, ma” tough-guy thing, or you’re lonely, bored, and need to do something to pretend you have a life, so you update it, or you’re really quite happy with the way things are going but it occurs to you that the only thing more kick-ass than the sweet way things are going right now would be to have that warm body lying all cat-like stretched out beside you in bed as an errant morning sunbeam peeks in from the blinds, showing the soft underbelly of trust and romance, just before a big-ass breakfast with an endless pot of coffee. Yeah, THAT would hit the spot.

(I’m the kind of person who’s keeping an eye out on the horizon for That Perfect Time In My Life to commemorate it with a tattoo. I have no tattoo. I want one and think this birthday might be a great time to begin it — commemorate this part of my life. I have a particular goal I need to achieve before I will allow myself to besmirch myself with a pictorial tribute to That Perfect Time In My Life. I was thinking the perfect tattoo would be one of Edvard Munsch’s Scream on my inner thigh but I doubt anyone else would get the joke, so we’ll see.)

Nonetheless, for now I’ll settle for updating my profile. It’s a sign of optimism. A sign that it’s time to take a chance and let someone in again. It’s like we have to heal to a certain point sometimes before we’re willing to take a risk of getting hurt again. I thought I was ready for a relationship last fall, but then life threw some doozies my way. Dad almost had a date with death, I lost my job, and other fun all came down the pipes.

I found myself looking to love in the hopes that a relationship could play the role of Spackle and fix me in all my cracked, broken glory. That struck me as a bad thing because I knew that if it all went south, I’d have to replace the whole damn compass again. I just wasn’t ready to be resilient in love because I had to be resilient in so many other places in my life.

We have to make choices sometimes about where we’re willing to be vulnerable, just like we have to know when vulnerability is a luxury we can’t afford when getting by’s a fight every day. For me, life in the past year has been a lot about The Daily Fight. Sharing that? I don’t think so.

The trouble I have, and so many others have had, is that it’s so hard to continue believing that being alone and liking solace isn’t some kind of character flaw. It can be, however, an excuse. It can be a way you excuse yourself from the challenge of living a social life. It’s easy to convince oneself that silence is a great companion. After all, who’s around to argue? Being with people can be hard, sometimes, and balance must be found.

I’m a Libra. Balance is my quest in life. The trouble is, every time I find it, I have to rock the boat. It’s like discovering that a) it’s great floating in a dinghy on a little lake in bliss-like sunshine, but b) it sure gets fun when a gust of wind blows up and everything’s up for grabs again.

There was a time when I was loaded with friends. I got into a bad relationship in which I became isolated from others (the early route towards an abusive relationship) and started drifting away from people. Then I moved a few thousand kilometres away, to the Yukon and Canada’s far north, for a little over a year. Came back for the same bad relationship. Got out of it, and then my mother died on me. Taking myself out of the social equation was a safety mechanism back then. From time to time, I get back out in the social world, but once you adopt an anti-social lifestyle, it’s hard to break the habit. Plus, there’s the writing thing. Writing doesn’t happen in crowds, man.

I found myself thinking of that other self of mine, though, the other day. I remembered back when I was The Organizer and The Buck Stopped Here, in my late teens and early 20s. I always had crowds of 15 or 20 people coming out to a flick, going to a club, having a bonfire on a beach. I was the one who said when to jump and just how high, and I loved it. Somewhere along the line, I started believing that selfishness was self-preservation, and I closed the door. One hurt too many. A Krazy-Glued heart tends to beat a little weaker.

I’m remembering the kind of personality I used to life with — a larger-than-life, live-before-you-now, uber-electric presence. I used to be somewhat magnetic, but I never really believed that I was what people perceived me to be. Even today I have a note on my bulletin board: “I must see myself as I am seen.”

After all, isn’t that the big challenge we all face? Coming to terms with the disparity between how others see us and how we really see ourselves?

I’m sort of pulling back right this weekend because I feel like today, for some weird reason, is the last of my anti-social tendencies for a long time. Things are starting to bubble up a bit, and I have faith that the girl I used to be is beginning to mix with the woman I have deserved to become, and I think the mix is going to be pretty kinetic.

Part of it is pretty simple: That’s what I want to have happen, and what I intend to make happen. We’re masters of our fate, aren’t we?

After all, the secret to online dating is the same as that of life… and of under-arm anti-perspirant, too: never let them see you sweat. Let’em only see what you choose to have them see. Any person who walks into your life knows only what you want them to. Show them your best qualities, be the best person you know, and treat them the way you’d like the be treated. How hard is that? Project confidence and charisma. Sell yourself. Be positive.

We forget how easy it is to be a likeable person. We forget how simple the mantra “be yourself” really is. It’s not “be your worries” and it’s not “be your complaints”. It’s be who you are when you’re comfortable, when you’re happy, when there’s nothing clouding your day. It’s listening as much as it is communicating. It’s remembering that “live” is a verb, and so’s “love”.

I talk a good game, and I know it, but right now the thought of going boldly out into the world to try and make the same amount of friends I once had is about as freaky a thought as any. But let’s give it the old college try anyhow. Whew.

Happy long weekend. I should get 12 hours sleep more often!

Okay, I’m not a TOTAL pussy, all right? So I’m a fairweather cyclist. So what? I like sunshine and bliss. Sue me.

I will have you know that had I not already ridden my bicycle to work this morning, there’s no fucking WAY I would’ve gone for a leisurely ride in this evening’s fare — and certainly not for 14 kilometres headlong into it!

MOTHERFUCKING WIND. That shit’s bad enough without throwing long certainly-not-designed-with-crosswinds-in-mind BRIDGES into the motherfucking equation, man! Out of all the bridges in this city, that one sucks the mostest in the wind, on scooter or bike.

What normally takes me about 40 minutes to ride home took me nearly 60 today, and I fought for every damned inch. I get home and my guestimation proved right: 70-kilometre-an-hour winds steadily gusting sayeth the Weather Network’s gurus.

It kept moving me six inches over. I was tacking like a sailboat. Zig-zagging like the amateur cycling pussy I am.

It’s that rare kind of day where cyclists stop to talk and comiserate about what a cunt Mother Nature’s being. Today a guy stopped to tell me he’d been coming over Granville Bridge when a crosswind whipped his glasses off (scratching his face, too) and blew them into oncoming traffic, which then crunched ’em. I took the hint and put my fancy cats-eye spectacles away under zipper. “Sail on!” I commented, and took off.

But, whew! Our trusty blogger lives to tell the tale of jumpingjesusonapogostick wasthatahairyride! Thank god for karma and perseverence. That bridge was one fucking nasty experience. I’m not used to that shit!

Reminds me of the baptism-by-fire first big windstorm I had to ride home from work in on my scooter, Back In The Day. I brazenly came over the bridge because I didn’t know any better. Later I’d find a long, landlocked passage, but back then I just took the regular bridge… which just happened to be the tallest of the bridges across a windy inlet. Holy crosswinds, Batman. Naturally the only way to control a crosswind’s damage is to slow down. To 30 klicks. Cars = Pissed Right Off. Whatever.

Then I brilliantly took the cyclist route up the hill to home, about eight klicks yonder… under heavy tree canopy.

My thinking: Canopy = Shield from wind!

My reality: Canopy = Endless source of big painful branch-like things and other flying projeciles aiming to take me the fuck OUT.

So let this be a lesson to all ‘o you boyz’n’girlz out there: Do dumb shit, then LEARN from it. That minimizes the death-from-dumb-shit probability stat, y’know. Oh, if I had a nickel for every time I’ve stopped mid-thing and thought “What the fuck was I thinking?” But then I realize the important thing: Aha! Another tale to tell!

Today was a bitch. Next time I rethink the bridge. Buses might cost $3.25 but furthering my bid for immortality? Priceless.

Yeah, okay. If you want to hear the whole sordid tale, I told it on my other blog. Click here.

No, really, read it! It’s pretty good.

And I shit you not, even my little finger hurts. Owie.

I’ll write later this week. I mean, geez, my finger hurts! Never mind my boobs! Holy shit, who knew breasts could hurt this bad? If I was to jog right now, I’d die in agony, screaming “My jugs are murdering me!” Thank GOD I don’t jog! One bounce and I’d have to bitch-slap some sense into me. I’m loathing tomorrow and the sheer horror of pain I know I’ll be in after the 24-hour waiting period for AGONY has expired. The second day is always the worst, eh?*

And tomorrow my team needs to fight for its life as they’re down 3 games to 1 in the best-of-seven against Those Disney Bitches.

(Yes, I know the Ducks were sold by Disney years ago. But, still, once a bitch always a bitch, no? Don’t rain on my humour parade, man. Go Canucks, Go! I MUST BUY BEER! That’s what’s been wrong. I’ve jinxed the entire city by failing to drink during the last two games. What in the hell was I thinking? So, beer, then, or wine? Oh, the dilemma… Curse you, cosmos! And I must respect the 1994 Stanley Cup Playoff Towel and put it in a place of honour. No fucking with the juju!)

*But I secretly love knowing I pushed my body this hard and have lived to tell about it. My pinkie’s future is questionable, but I know I’ll survive. Gloria Gaynor tells me so.

It’s a lowkey Saturday night in, and I’m thinking about getting an early night. I flipped my mattress and changed my sheets earlier (to the jersey-knit t-shirt sheets, mm), so it should be a wonderful sleep once I crawl under my covers. It’s barely 9 and I’m already looking forwards to bed.

I’m torn between sleeping late and getting up before sunrise to do some photography. A late sleep would really hit the spot, but so would some photography. I suppose I’ll figure it out around 5am.

Tonight I’m watching a really good indie flick from 2000, GirlFight. It’s about an angry, disenfranchised teen girl who happens upon boxing and her love affair with the sport.

I’m watching it to psych myself up a little bit. I’m starting boxing myself this Tuesday. It’s part of my new fitness kick. I’ve been cycling and last week I added swimming to my repetoire, and this week I take it up a few notches to build in the boxing to my regimen. I’ll be training at a gym owned by a former pro-UFC fighter, who will be my trainer, and I’m getting warned that I’ll be in a whole world of pain when morning strikes on Wednesday. Oddly, I’m not feeling deterred.

Boxing’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a few years now. I once worked with a woman who took it up at my age (33) and found herself going to the national amateur championships one day down the road. I don’t know if I want to go full-on to the world of boxing, or if circuit training and sparring’s all I care to do, but I’m keeping an open mind, and I do love a challenge.

I always sort of figured I was too fat, too slow, whatever, to properly box, and now I figure I’m just angry enough, getting quick enough, and have just enough to prove to make it worth my while.

This fitness thing isn’t about becoming a size 6. It’s not about looking the right way in a micro-skirt. It’s not about being fuckworthy. It’s about owning my body and feeling like the strong, proud woman I think I am. It’s about having my disposition match inside and out.

Inside, I’d actually rather never be thin. I wanna have my ghetto booty. I want those thick, broad shoulders of a swimmer, and the whole-body insulation that’ll keep me warm as I ride my scooter through 365 days worth of elements. But I’m tired of looking doughy and soft, ‘cos I’m one strong, tough chick, and I guess I’m simply trying to prove that to myself these days. Fuck anyone else’s perception, but it’d be nice if they shared mine, y’know?

The new kick I’m on is hard on me right now. I’m tired a lot in the evenings (but have more energy during the days) and thankfully I sleep very, very well as a result. This week I’ll be expending even more energy, and I bet it’ll be a hell of a trial for me, but I’m going to be very proud of myself. I already am.

I don’t know how just yet, but something tells me this boxing thing’s going to be great for my sexuality. I’m dying to find out how that plays, but methinks something about the raw physicality of it all is really going to compute for me. I’m that kind of girl, so it’ll be nice to finally be playing that role somewhere other than just the bedroom. Things are about to get fun, man. I promised myself before 2007 kicked in that this would be a year to remember. So far, I’m doing everything right. Gotta love prescience, baby.

My team was smoked the other night. Smoked hardcore, like Bob Marley on a fattie, man. The game’s going well thus far tonight, but I’m still all jittery, like a whipped fan in a seven-game series is liable to be.

So, I’m taking a minute to write.

I had a letter from a youngin’ nearly a month ago, and because I suck, I’ve not responded until now. Bad, bad blogger. Somebody oughta spank me, but I should only be so lucky. Sigh.

But let’s answer her now, shall we? The letter, short and sweet:

My boyfriend and I have been having sex for the past 6 months. We were both each others’ first. We’ve done tons of positions in tons of places, sometimes we have a lot of foreplay and sometimes we go straight to the sex. Sometimes it’s soft and gentle, sometimes it’s rough and fiesty. And it always feels great! The only problem, however, is that I have never had an orgasm. If he’s on top and I really like it and he continues, after a while it just stops as it’s getting pleasurable. And if I’m on top and I really like what I’m doing, I go for it too hard and suddenly I can’t handle it and I have to stop. We haven’t started using any toys because my boyfriend wants to give me my first orgasm purely by himself, with no “outside help”. Any advice?

There’s such a double-standard sexually. It’s bad form to pressure a guy who’s impotent and unable to deliver, but somehow it’s fine to pressure women to orgasm. “Well, if I can’t make you come, then I must be damaged goods! YOU WILL COME, dammit!”

And I know he’s probably never made such comments, but when you’re the female at the receiving end sexually, and you’re unable to orgasm in the 17.6 minutes that he’s able to perform in, somehow it means a) he’s a loser, and b) you’re frigid.

It doesn’t help matters. Not at all.

So, the question is, do you masturbate, girlie? If not, then you should. If you can’t make yourself orgasm, no one else will be able to do so — guaranteed. You absolutely must play with yourself if your sex life is ever going to be any good. No, you won’t ‘waste’ your orgasms on yourself. You’ll make yourself better able to relax and orgasm under others.

And when you “can’t handle it”, maybe you should make a mental note: that means you’re about to orgasm and you need to ride it out — literally. Back when I was 13 or so and enjoying my first masturbatory experiences — dry-humping pillows underneath my posters of George Michael — I kept thinking I needed to pee uncontrollably and was scared of making a mess. I kept running down the hall to go to the washroom. I swear, I flushed the toilet 10 times in the morning, confused why I was all wet and unable to pee.

An orgasm feels like a bolt of electricity coursing through your body. It’s electrifying. All your nerves come alive at once and then, whammo, it releases simultaneously. It’s different for everyone. But when you “can’t handle it”, don’t kid yourself — you CAN.

But him insisting on being the vehicle that delivers your orgasm is unfair. He doesn’t realize it, but he’s being domineering and controlling. I understand why he would want to be the deliveryman, but the reality is, it hasn’t been working thus far, and it may not any time soon.

The reality is, some 40% of chicks won’t orgasm until their 20s, if not later. It’s not something that has a shelf-life. It’s not something that comes easily for most women. It takes patience on both your end and theirs.

If your man wants to be the deliveryman, and will hear nothing else but, then he needs to start doing Yoga and Kegel exercises (particularly the latter) so that he can last longer and hold out long enough for you to lose your inhibitions every time and help you get to the promised land. You need to tell him to continue even when your body’s screaming no, because that’s the threshold for an orgasm. It’s a strange and difficult point to pass as a female — you think your body can’t handle it, but all it is is the Early Warning System for “good times ahead! brace thyself!”

And, hey, orgasms rock. They really do. But sex is awesome by itself, with or without results. If you can’t orgasm by way of his entering you, then maybe you can at least learn to masturbate yourself to orgasm after he’s finished. Maybe it’ll hurt his ego, but when he gets over that, he’ll fuckin’ love watching you get yourself off, especially if you’re able to lock onto his eyes with a hungry gaze as you deliver yourself to ecstasy.

Good luck, kiddo. Remember, it’s like Mark Twain says. It’s not the destination that’s important, but rather, the journey. Enjoy the trip, savour the experience, and forget about the end result, and you might find yourself happening upon the Big O after all.

And read books about sex — books like The Guide to Getting it On, Sex Tips for Straight Ladies from a Gay Man, or The Sex Bible. Education is the key to power in all avenues of life, including sex.

But y’all have what to add to this? Any insights? Personal experiences? Support? Empathy? 1-800 numbers?

I’m a Godfather addict. I love all three volumes of that brilliant cinematic series.

I was a mafia-mad kid from a young, young age, and I loved the romance of storied criminals from the early 20th century. I was so obsessed I even dressed up as John Dillinger and later Al Capone for Halloween in my teen years. (I broke the years up by being Charlie Chaplin one year.)

I was “unique” then. Few of the kids at school knew who Dillinger or Chaplin were, so standing up to announce to the class who my costume represented turned into a five-minute affair each year with a Wiki-style truncated historical account of each character. I wasn’t just into the flash, I knew the substance of those baddies.

I obsessed then over the golden age of La Cosa Nostra in New York and Chicago. Still do! Hell, we even have the mob here in Vancouver. A friend told me a few years ago of entering “the wrong door” in a café on Commercial Drive’s Little Italy, and instead of going into a washroom, emerged into an illegal backroom gambling operation. Guns sat on the table next to chips and cards, and surly Italian men in suits glared angrily at her mistaken entrance. She flustered her way out of the room and never again walked through an unmarked door on the Drive. Oh, the writer in me would’ve been in her glory!

My mobbed-up love affair continues, and watching The Godfather I, II or III sends me reeling towards that girl of my youth, the one who didn’t grasp the immensity of murder and the magnitude of their corruption. There’s something oddly honourable in the love of tradition and hierarchy held by the old-school Mafioso that today’s Tony Soprano weeps for the loss of.

The Godfather series is highly romantic, bloody heads of horses under bedcovers aside and all. Don Michael Corleone is a tragic figure torn between his love of aesthete, art, and intellect, and his pained duty to his family and his heritage. He chooses wrongly, deciding to err on the side of familial/historical love and loyalty, and ironically loses all he values as the price for his choice.

I’m minutes from the conclusion of the under-appreciated Oscar-winning third installment of the series, in which Michael and Kay revi sit the demise of their relationship. I know the ending is overwrought and somewhat cheapened with a quickie fast-forward of 30 years, but in that moment of reckoning the past with the present, there’s a lot of earnest pain* over love lost and prices paid. Michael the Former is juxtaposed against Michael the Present, a man riddled with remorse for the life he chose and the cost thereof, but given the chance to do it all again, you know without question he’d make the same decisions… Yet his love for her continues through it all. Decades later he’s still felled by the same passions he felt long before, and the pain of permanence in love is told all too easily by that look in his eyes. A man undone by love and honour is who Michael Corleone is.

But it left me pondering just how long our loves can linger. Through all the turmoil of our lives, memories of loves can last the longest of any we might have. God knows how plentiful are the ones that haunt me still.

I’ve chosen poorly in love. I’ve often chosen the wrong man for the wrong reason. I’m smart, and seek men who are smarter than I, but in so doing I get caught in this web of men who are unable to detach from logic long enough to let the heart rule the mind, and in so doing, are far too easily equipped to hurt.

I can’t help it, though. It’s who I am. I’m readily felled by intellectual bad boys. Always have been, probably always will be. I’m too given to logic to be able to be acquiesced by artsy boys, as much as I love arts. I despise the wishy-washy fluttery ways of artists, and given the choice between them and the more stoic smart guys, I know I’ll always choose the latter, and I presume they’ll continue to be undone by my ability to straddle both worlds without much effort at all, ‘cause lord knows the hurts go both ways.

But love knows no reason, try as it might. All of us are forced to choose between the worlds we wished we were in and the worlds that hold us captive. Just ask Michael Corleone. In love, despite all urges to go to the otherwise, we far too often go to the mattresses.

*It certainly helped in the acting that Pacino and Keaton had a true life on-again off-again relationship that spanned decades and ended badly, if one’s to believe all they read.