Yearly Archives: 2007

Remembering Oneself After the Great Forgetting

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!

Merry Christmas, everyone. πŸ™‚

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. πŸ™‚

Snippets: Quickie Bitsies for the ADHD Crowd

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. πŸ™‚

________________

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.

Dilemmas, Dilemmas

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.

My Granola Recipe!

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. πŸ™‚

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!!! πŸ™‚

OMFG! One Week to Christmas! GAH! HAAAAAAAALP!

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! πŸ™‚

(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!)

Pickton's Found Guilty: Vancouver Sighs in Relief

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?

Searching for Focus, Searching for Self

I’m starting to realize how difficult it is to carve out a new future when you’re surrounded with your past. This blog, for me, is linked more to my past than it is my future, so I have a hard time sometimes viewing my “blogging duties” in a more positive light. I’m trying to change that, I suppose, but like I say, it’s a struggle.

I picked up a copy of Eat, Pray, Love yesterday, by Elizabeth Gilbert. The reckoning the author faced with her own life, I think, is similar to the one I’m beginning in my own and it would be nice to read about what comes out the other side when one drastically reinvents themself and their life. I may find myself exasperated with how slowly the change unfolds when I’m caught in the midst of it all, but that’s the way it goes when you’re changing your world while still living within it. (Unlike Gilbert, who had the means and time to run away and travel in the self-discovery phase.)

It’s difficult to reach that point where you understand what you don’t like about yourself, what you’re not happy about, and you become cognizant of how much that dissatisfaction poisons everything around you. I’m realizing how apparent my unhappiness has been to those around me, and for how long, and it’s disconcerting to come to terms with just how much I’ve been projecting, and how many questions that coming to terms really answers in my life… some things I’m just not comfortable exploring on the page just yet. I know my heart panged when I heard Gilbert say how stunned she was that apparently Julia Robert’s playing her in the movie of her book — the darling actress everyone loves is going to play the author when the author didn’t even like who she was back then. I’m realizing lately how much I don’t like who I’ve been, and how much I believe in my ability to change that, now that I’m aware.

I feel like I’m making the ripples that need to happen before the waves of change come crashing in. Ripples… ripples are good. In every little area of my life, I’m beginning to exact change. Small change. But I’m seeing the dividends already. This yoga thing, for instance, is something I’ve wanted to do a long time, but for incredibly silly reasons, mostly insecurities and fear, just never made happen. It’s not really the actions of yoga that I’m so after… I do a lot of stretching out of necessity, and it’s not that wildly different, but yoga offers that mentality of being entirely in the now — focusing on how everything affects the body and knowing precisely what it is you feel at all times. It’s very much about being indoctrinated into the “mind over matter” power. I need that discipline, and after only three days, I’m already gaining a greater consciousness… something I haven’t been dialed into for a little too long.

It’s funny, you know, because it calls to mind back when I was teaching a couple friends to drive stickshift/standard transmission when I was 19 or 20. I remember saying, “It’s just like sex. Whatever you do, it has a consequence, and if you’re lucky, it’ll like what you’ve done…” and explained how you needed to be at one with the engine and you’d start to tell just by the feel of the car’s vibrations and the sound of the engine when it was time to shift — you needed no gauges, you just needed to feel when it was right. Just like sex.

I have terrific intuition in life, and I have a great sense of flow and timing, and believe you me, I can drive stick. For some reason, though, I use those qualities everywhere but within my own day-to-day life. I don’t live by the same principles that I act with, if that makes any sense at all. It’s your typical female conundrum, I suppose… doing more and better for others than we do for ourselves, as if we’re somehow going to be pegged as selfish bitches for acting on our own behalf.

I’ve been having this whole “I’ve got to give back!” mentality in my life, lately, thinking I live so selfishly that I need to begin projecting outward more in ways that benefit others. Then I realized, I’m not living as selfishly as I should be. I’m on the cusp of it, but I really need to go there and really do things for me, for the right reasons, and not because I’m feeling compelled to by whatever societal constraints being imposed on me. And when it comes to really celebrating the self, I wanna finally start being the “rockstar” I know I am. Deep down inside, that rockstar exists, and now I’m compelled to make that the external me… and that’s gonna take some quality selfishness to pull off. I’m at one, now, with being a little more selfish… provided I’m doing it right.

Elizabeth Gilbert, that author of the book mentioned up there, she’s on Oprah talking about her “bathroom floor” moment, that moment when the skies part and you realize how unhappy your life is making you, and the lightbulb flashes and you realize also that, “I don’t need to take this shit. I can do better. I have control.” I dunno. Sometimes I feel like the last 14 months of my life has been that bathroom floor moment, but that’s definitely overstating things.

I guess, for a while there, I allowed myself to feel victimized by difficulties in life. It’s easy to feel like someone up there’s ganging up on you, like hardships are falling your way more often than they are others. I’ve tried hard to think about it in a few ways: One, it’s a test of my mettle. How strong am I? Well, I tell ya, now I really know. Two, I’m experiencing it so that when my friends and family have to endure similar challenges, I can be there to support them and offer a voice of experience. Three, if I’m in this life to live, then I’d better just do that… so bring it on. And then I falter and just feel sorry for myself again, because, hey, I’m human, and sometimes the present seems so overwhelming and it’s easy forget that today’s the tomorrow we were hoping for yesterday, right?

I’m 34 now. I feel like I’m just getting started on a pretty great path. It feels like it’s taking forever to get anywhere of consequence, but I know I have the rest of my life to reap the rewards of everything I sow now. I’m setting the stage for a play of experience that will last me the remainder of my days… so I’m not in the rush I thought I was. Still… getting there after being here is going to be a terrific party to be at.

Unfortunately, we live in a society of instant gratitude. We’re a microwave, flash-cooking society that just doesn’t grasp taking the scenic route to get anywhere, and I’m sometimes guilty of that, being a pretty impatient gal. Trouble is, most of the really great places can’t be gotten to on main paths. Taking the long way, waiting and struggling, is often the only way we really get anything of value.

I’m trying to remember that these days as I work a little more on each and every day in the quest to make myself into a Better, Faster, Stronger, Smarter, Sexier, More Grounded, More Aware Steff… in New, Improved Flavours… or your money back!

But it’s hard, man. It’s hard. I’m reminding myself that, in Chinese superstition, the number 8 signifies abundance. We’re days away from 2008… the year I have declared to be my personal year of abundance, the year when all my struggles begin to bear the fruit that are now just blossoms. So, I’m going to enjoy my struggle while it lasts, because it’s times like these I know have incredible outcomes. Trouble is, I was always that kid who opened all her Christmas presents in advance and carefully taped them back up… waiting for reward’s not my strong suit. πŸ™‚

Sobering Thoughts on AIDS on a Snowy Sunday

Technology and new scientific methods are causing big rewrites to the numbers long associated with AIDS. America’s CDC had stated they saw some 40,000 new cases of infection every year.

Turns out, a new method of testing blood and, in essence, a way of “aging” infections present, means the folks in white coats at the CDC now believe between 55,000 and 60,000 new cases are amassing each year, not 40,000.

The big thing to remember there is that more than half of the people infected with HIV/AIDS don’t actually know they are. They’re still out there spreading things, unknowingly.Getting tested is a nervewracking thing. I hate the experience, personally, but I usually play things pretty smart. A friend of a friend didn’t, and now has AIDS. At least he got his regular test and found out early that he’d paid the price for a night of ignorant passion.

The CDC also says the amount of new AIDS cases amongst gay men has shot up some 13%. Here in Canada they’re reporting a rise in infections with teenaged girls. It continues to rise in African Americans, too, both men and women. Europe has just announced that AIDS is on the rise all over that continent. China’s acknowledging a problem now, too.

Eastern Europe, for instance, says they’ve seen a 150% rise in AIDS cases. Since 2001. Six years. France has one of the highest levels of AIDS in Europe, and an AIDS advocacy proponent there says, “It was a mistake to think that the epidemic was [just] striking the high-risk groups. There are heterosexuals that have sex [with their own gender] and drug users that have sex. So it was a mistake to think it only concerned one part of the population.”

It fucking baffles me. All the fight against AIDS needs is condoms. Abstinence is a nice little pipe dream all the religious types might want to preach about, and abstinence is the only guarantee you can have that you’re not at risk. Condoms certainly help.

Condoms break, though, and people lie. You want to believe the person you’re about to fuck or currently are fucking is telling the truth, but you’re just being naive. People lie. All the time. About everything from how they’re feeling to whether they’re carrying a disease they know will send you scurrying from the bed they’re about to fuck you in. Who’s kidding who?

I just don’t understand why we’re still having discussions about whether or not to teach how to practice safer sex. I don’t believe in calling it “safe sex”, even though I fall into that habit too often for my liking. It’s never safer. There’s always an element of risk. I know that. I’m fine with that, because I know I’m pretty selective. But my judgment is far from perfect.

And, really, come on. You insist on a condom, the person you want to fuck says no? Aren’t they the LAST person you then should fuck without one? Isn’t that just common fucking sense, literally? If they refuse to wear one with you, they probably won’t wear one with anyone, and that’s how diseases spread. One guy tried the excuse of “Well, I’ve been in a relationship the last 13 years. Even the sight of a condom will kill my erection.”

Boo-fucking-hoo. Tough luck. As the stupid cliche goes, no glove, no love, right?

My acquaintance with AIDS got it from one random night when alcohol was involved and they didn’t grab a condom. It was that guy that infected him.

I mean, it goes as far as, if you even suspect your spouse/partner is sleeping around, and you’re not using a condom with them, you’re practicing at-risk behaviour.

These religious types may have missed out on the passion and euphoria genes, but the rest of us know how good sex and romance feels, we know how easy it is to just go ahead and have that orgasm. The trouble is, more and more youths are ignorant about all this… and the numbers are starting to prove it.

AIDS is decimating Africa. Who’s to say Africa’s not just the canary in the coalmine. I would think we’d need all the vigilance we can muster to ensure that not become the case. Sex education is real fuckin’ imperative these days. Explicit, unpretty education, and a good luck at what dying from AIDS actually entails wouldn’t hurt. The lesions, the wasting away, the endless pain and failing of organs.

Every now and then I have this little fear that some decade down the line they’re going to point to this moment on the timeline and decree that all the politicians who were too fucking squeamish to really deal with this problem were guilty of crimes against humanity. AIDS is one of the only diseases that can be fought with education… that we’re failing to do that is nothing less than a crime against humanity. On that, time’s gonna tell.

From Here to Infinity

I’m a big believer in starting with the little stuff and just going with it when it comes to writing because, like building a snowman, it can be surprising as hell when you see it take shape.

I was doing just that just now, writing about the weather and the fact that I’m all cushy, blogging from my big-ass 1830s camelback armchair on my laptop for the first time ever… had it for more than three years and only finally afforded wireless hardware this weekend. Money’s been that tight for that long.

‘Course, I never had the best of priorities, either, but let’s face it, I lost a lot of work over several years, what with several accidents, and insane amounts of illness and injury, and I’ve just never had throwaway money or cash for indulgences.

Until now. Now things are starting to change.

See, I had gotten to this point just now, writing, and it hit me that my (recent/past) lack of money is what’s been keeping me from trying to date. Sure, you scoff when I say “well, I have nothing to wear” but you fail to realize I’m telling the truth. No matter what I do of late, I feel like a loser, and I know there’s only one reason for that: I hate my clothes.

Everything either doesn’t fit right — too tight, too loose — or else it’s thread-bare or torn or about to come apart, and it shows. I’m not saying I need to be wearing Prada, but I need to not look like I just don’t care… and right now, it looks like I don’t care. The truth, however, is anything but.

If there is nothing else I am, I am proud. I’m a fierce, strong, fighting woman, and I’ve got attitude, edge, and personality. I am not a woman who should look frumpy, nor dishevelled, nor out-of-size.

I deserve to match externally to what I feel internally. It isn’t that I don’t have taste, I just haven’t had money, and I’ve not really bought anything new, now, for about 2 years. All I’ve gotten of late is used shit that I must’ve been smoking crack to buy because I can’t get how I thought it worked. One shirt’s like 3 times too big for me, but I fucking love the colour. I’ll never, ever wear it, of course, because a good breeze might pick me up and launch me into a America’s Cup-calibre sail across the Pacific, but I’m making a mental note that wine apparently doesn’t just taste good, but looks divine on me.

I have whittled my wardrobe down over the the last three or four years and there’s been more and more gradually turfed until I got down to what was the essential to keep. Now it’s imperative I replace it all because it’s been in heavy rotation longer than I thought it would be.

But I’m seriously at that point now where I feel I look so awful in everything I wear that I just don’t want to go out anymore. I don’t want to date or meet people. I don’t want to be social. The first day I bought my new coat and pants, I ‘dressed up’ and went for a walk and coffee for no other reason than to be seen. I do like to be admired. I want to feel sexy. I know I can work it. I wanna work it. Lemme work it!

I mean, I had this epiphany moment when I watched “What Not To Wear” on the weekend and Stacy London said something to the effect that it was a terrible thing that someone should allow their clothes to hinder them from experiencing life.

…clothes! Wow. Yes, what a terrible, stupid, dumb thing.

And sitting here, now, in this big-ass chair on a Wet Coast night as I listen to the splish-splash of cars cutting through cascading rivers of rain and snow on the street nearby, I’m filled with a weird contentment that hits me as this — this simple act of being able to type on a laptop, online, in my living room in the ambient silence — is the actualization of one of the goals I’ve had for three or more years now.

And it’s just a start. I can’t wait to see what happens when I can buy a few new pieces of clothing that make me feel like the cool fucking chick I know I am inside. It’s been a long time, and the woman I am now is a whole world away from the girl I was before this endless parade of adversity came beating down my door. I’ll be dressing a woman this time. No girl anymore. And someone who’s got her insecurities in check, and now wants to show off areas she’d always hidden. I’m ready, man.

It’s nice to be ending a year with such a feeling of optism about where the next year might be headed. I’ve no idea what the map heading says, but I think I’ll like the direction.

Now… time to head off in the rain-snow mix and help my friend decorate his Christmas tree as we smoke some ganja and eat a ridiculous amount of tacos before we watch Heroes. May you find a little optimism in your night, too, minions. Have a kick-ass Tuesday.