Get to Know Yer Blogger

I feel like telling you random things about me, mostly because I’m too fucking tired to string coherent thoughts together, so “abstract” works spiff for me. And I’m not writing about sex today, so, y’know. Mental break. πŸ™‚
So, in no particular order, some of the things you probably don’t know about me and my life.
β€’ When I was six years old, my family and I were in Tijuana, Mexico, for a day of shopping away from Disneyland. Somehow, I wandered off. My folks thought I’d been kidnapped and sold into slavery or something horrid, because I was gone for a whole three hours.
Then they found me. Much to their surprise, I’d managed to barter with a street vendor for a cowhide cowgirl’s vest, then also a watch, with some of my candy money, and had bought candies and was hanging out with a bunch of Mexican kids on the street, sharing my goods. Me, I had a great time. My folks, though, got robbed of $500 in cash while waiting to talk to the cops in the police station, so they were pretty mad at me. Impressed with my loot, though, and my shrewd six-year-old negotiation skillz, and hugely relieved, they let it go pretty quickly.
I still remember the smile the vendor had, being so amused at me bartering for my cowhide vest, that I loved for the next two years.
β€’ I moved to the Yukon when I was 21 for a year. Because I was a Northern Exposure fan, and because “seeing the Northern lights” was high on my to-do list for life. The first time I ever saw ’em? Blew. My. Mind. Still do, when I luck out and catch ’em every few years.
β€’ I ran the election campaign for a guy in my college who was running for the position of Women’s Issues Liaison. He won. How’s that for being a feminist? (Favourite conversation with him ever: Reaching the conclusion that the old looped “holy shit handles” hanging from the ceiling of his ’71 VW Beetle were “fuck straps”. Good for feet or hands, depending what part of you should be suspended, he figured.)
β€’ I was the youngest person in my college class, 17 years old, journalism. 18 when I ran Mike’s campaign. We made the BC evening news.
β€’ I won a car once. It was a 1979 Chevy Monza. Covered in doghair. Broke down on a bridge. But that’s just the beginning of the long winding story that you’ll find here.
β€’ I have officially ridden so long, and so far on my scooter… (Yamaha Vino 49cc, pictured here, but now has camouflage-duct tape for a seat cover. Heh. I’m a pragmatist.) …that my 41,000+ kilometres is the equivalent of riding around the world at the Equator. Cool! Let’s do it again!
β€’ I’ve fallen down a flight of stairs, have been thrown off a horse mid-jump over a fence, have had a scooter accident… (that hurled me off my bike, destroying mine and my friend’s, and sent me sprawling into an intersection. My friends all thought I was dead. The story is here, on my “journal” blog, The Last Ditch.) …have had three cars totalled with me in them… and I have only one scar on my body, it’s on my right nostril but I got it in grade 2, not in any of those incidents. And I’ve never, ever broken a bone. My body alignment, though, heh, is a whole ‘nother story. But I’m tough!
β€’ I’m a decent public speaker, dare I say even good? And it doesn’t terrify me. Dentists, however, do.
β€’ When I plan my roadtrips, I take special care to figure out where I can be for a great sunrise. I don’t know what it is, but something about driving somewhere new, great music on the radio, and a sunrise looming in an exotic new spot, why, that’s one of the best things in life.
β€’ When I was nine and mad at a boy in my neighbourhood, I took my cowgirl boot off (loooved my cowgirl boots!) and hurled it across the yard at him, and hit him smack in the head. I was so proud. My mother heard me screaming that he was an “ASSHOLE!” and came running out as the boot met head. That went over well.
β€’ The sex fantasy I’ve had since 16 is that of shagging in an anti-gravity chamber (think NASA). I have that filed under “unlikely”. But it’s probably my biggest sex-geek factoid. “Ooh, sex at NASA! Lift off!”
β€’ My dream vacation I want to take when I get some more weight off and really adopt the physical lifestyle I want? Learning to surf in Morocco. Can’t help it, love the idea of a feminist sex-writing chick from Canada learning to surf in an Islamic country. And, Morocco? Ohhh. Oh!
β€’ In keeping with the cowgirl boots and cowhide vest, as I type, to the left above my bed is the caricature/cartoon drawing of me done in Disneyland that summer of my misadventure in Tijuana — me as a six-year-old cowgirl, rodeoing on an electric riding horse.
β€’ I sold Michael Hutchence of INXS a bunch of wooden toys for his kid when I worked on Granville Island. Three weeks later he was found dead of auto-erotic asphyxiation. (Other celebrities I’ve “served” in the retail industry are a pretty insane list, since this is MovieTown — David Duchovny, Tim Robbins, Malcolm McDowell, and way many more. But I’ve never been starstruck, so. Whatever. Malcolm McDowell though? COOL as can be.)
β€’ I had the uncanny luck of totalling one of my cars on a snow day, on a mountain — and was caught on camera by a news cameraman. The story’s probably one of the best things I’ve ever written, about 5,000 words, in two parts, on my journal blog. Part one here, part two here.
β€’ I’m fabulous at throwing dinner parties. But I never throw them anymore. Hmm. Oh, right, got tired of being broke off my ass after feeding everyone all the time. Broke sucks. But if I had the money? I’d be doing it weekly. Love that. Love, love, love. Bistro Chez Steff.
β€’ I kinda always wrote a bit now and then as a kid, but it was because I wanted to be friends with a particular chick in Grade 11 that I joined my first creative writing class. My teacher, upon reading my journals I’d write while working nights in a laundromat, describing the paradoxical characters on a quest for cleanliness, and she encouraged me to start writing, and suggested I look into journalism for school. I blame this blog on her. Ms. Phelan rocks my world, even now, almost 20 years later.

7 thoughts on “Get to Know Yer Blogger

  1. Mary Jane

    Love your writing and could not agree with you more on the cooking for other people part! Being broke sucks because I haven’t been able to have people over for dinner since May πŸ™

    Doesn’t mean I can’t plan some awesome ones in my mind though πŸ™‚

  2. Kiel

    On the note of fearing dentists, I dated a girl who used to fear them too, but she found out that thinking about sex while getting her teeth done made it bearable. She also later mentioned being mildly attracted to her dentist after that. Sounds like a better situation, eh?

  3. a

    camo duct tape….hee hee. i have some as well as some in very hot pink. love, love, LOVE it! duct tape makes the world go ’round.

    dinner parties are fun, but again the lack of $$ is a bitch.

  4. Curvaceous Dee

    I loved reading these – and all the links to your longer posts about them, too. Made for a lovely evening πŸ™‚

    xx Dee

  5. Scribe Called Steff

    MJ — Aw, shucks! Thanks, doll, for the compliment.

    Yeah, I’ve not been entertaining for a long time. I’ve done insane shit over the years for parties — everything from double fondues to “hair of the dog” New Years’ Day brunches where EVERY SINGLE DISH was made with alcohol. THAT cost a few bucks. πŸ™‚

    There’s a really bizarre headtrip-mindfuck dinner party I know my uncle threw once, but it’s really tricky, requires help, a good printer, extreme organization, and a big crowd — and when I win the lottery, I’m throwing it. πŸ™‚ I should write about it sometime, how to do it, at least.

    Kiel — Sure, but I’ll leave the fantasizing about my 5’1 Asian female dentist to you, if that’s okay? She’s really not my type. πŸ™‚

    But back when I had the surfer dentist with the Harley? Yeah, that DID help, now that you mention it.

    Mariella — Hey, me too! πŸ™‚ Thanks! The thing’s been knocked over, has several cracks in its case, people have tried removing my political stickers (and failed, like the tank with the words “GO HOME” or the “Last time religion was mixed with politics, people got burned at the stake” one), uh, the front fork’s bent, my camouflage duct-tape covered seat requires, well, new duct tape…

    But I FUCKING LOVE MY BIKE!!!

    The engine’s rated for 25,000 km so it should be dead already, but my mechanic’s this wunderkind who strives to keep it alive till 50k, and I am gonna ride that bitch into the ground!

    πŸ™‚

    A — Yeah, hey, duct tape is one of those “What do you mean, you don’t have any?” things to have around the house, no?

    Curvy-Curvy Dee — That’s, like, one of the nicest things someone can ever say to me — that reading a few things of mine over an evening proved enjoyable.

    Fucking awesome, really. I’m so glad. Thanks. πŸ™‚

  6. C.J. Strata

    You know, you’re the third person I’ve heard has a zero-G sex fantasy. o_o Trippy.

    “…describing the paradoxical characters on a quest for cleanliness…”

    Ohhhoho, this I’d wanna hear. X)

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