Monthly Archives: September 2010

Getting Philosophical about Bad Writing

I’m reading a badly-written book. It’s also one of the books I think I most identify with as a life philosophy. This is where my ability to read between the lines and extract only what I like comes in handy, because the majority of the book is the kind of trash I hope I’m never reduced to writing.
I suspect most “readers” have books they love that they secretly have a hard time defending.
For me, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged fall into that category. They’re complete crap, from a writing point of view. She’s tedious, redundant, overly dramatic, black/white in her characters, arrogantly simplistic in her views of how the average person is. Even her philosophies are so ridiculously black/white that they’re just laughable, and it’s why the book has met with such disdain for seven decades.
Arguably, if I ever had a drink with Ayn Rand, I’d pitch my drink in her face. She seems wholly unlikable in her ridiculous in-book dialogue, if it’s any kind of reflection of who she is — and given the monotonous voice in which all her characters speak, it’s absolutely reflecting her.
And yet…
Probably no book has defined my values in life creatively or professionally more than The Fountainhead has. (Or, as some I’ve known would argue, the more literary approach to the ‘selfishness as a virtue’ concept, aka egoism, is found with more palatable shades of grey in Ken Kesey’s Sometimes a Great Notion.)

***

I’ve been going through a “thing” in the last couple of days. I’m tired of people, not from a “let’s hang out” point of view, but from an ideological point of view. I’m tired of flip-floppy sorts I see everywhere in the media, in social media, and in daily life. (Flip-floppy — ethically, I mean, not, say, being vegetarian then not. Consistency in ethical behaviour is everything, IMHO.)
There are those who cannot be painted with that brush — they’re people I admire, enjoy, and am more inclined to see than most others (if I suggest doing things with you EVER, you’re in this group) — but there are many who leave me exasperated at who and what they are.
I’m under no illusions of how many people like or dislike me. I’d like to say I don’t care who doesn’t like me, but that’d be a lie. Everyone wants to be liked.
But there are indeed people whose opinions mean shit to me. They’re the folks whose opinions are easily bought and sold, or who worry about being seen at all the right places all the time, seem scared to be alone with their thoughts, or who have elevated fake sincerity to brand-new heights.
It’s understandable such people might find me hard to take. That’s fine; it’s mutual.
The trouble with being in the modern world, living a 24/7 plugged-in life is: You see people more often, whether in digital form or in the flesh — and, when it comes to online, who they are lingers on-screen for so much longer. As does my ability to judge them.
And the more I see people, the more they’re out there trying to be seen/heard/loved, the more I find them being insincere or full of platitudes — and not worth my time.
I’m being reminded as I skim through The Fountainhead just how socially ill-equipped I can be at times. People like me, sure, but they dislike me just as often.
I don’t have that internal censor most people have. I blurt things out. It’s terrible. I seldom mean things as brashly as they sound, but lord knows it gets misconstrued. At least I’m honest and I say the things I really think, so anyone who doesn’t dig me generally does so for arguably valid reasons. And if they dislike me for being myself, being honest, then I figure they’ve saved me the time of getting to know them, since they’re obviously Not My Sort.
Also, the older I get, the more I think I won’t be bought, and it’s beginning to make me question my desire for self-employment, given the Schmooze Factor required.

***

Trivia? I made the mistake of selling Filter Queen vacuums for about 2 weeks when I was 18. It became a lesson in who I never, ever wanted to be. Filter Queen vacuums might come with a lifetime warranty, but it was 19 years ago & then were priced $1498. For a vacuum. Yeah. About $400 was commission.
I can sell. God knows I can sell. I can almost smell who has money to blow.
Example: I once worked at a toy store (’96-97) and had an $8 “train whistle” sale with this lady, and while ringing it up, got into small-talk with the customer, who owned a special private preschool in South Korea. 45 minutes later, I got to charge $1900 on her card as I sold her toys from all around the store.
Did I feel guilty? No, she had the money to spend.
But when it was a few years earlier, my Filter Queen bosses demanded I pressure a family of five living in a 2-bedroom rented condo and barely making ends meet, to buy this ridiculously overpriced vacuum — “always make the sale,” very Glengarry Glenn Ross-like — and it went against every value I ever had.
So, I sold one, not to Condo Family, then quit.

***

These days, I can’t do it. I can’t do product reviews out of expectations, just for free crap. I can’t do sponsored tweets. I don’t want to avail myself for free shit at restaurants just so I can tweet about it, etc. Do I begrudge those who do? No, not in the least. Everyone needs to eat.
But I can’t do that. Not right now. I’m done.
I want to go out of life knowing I met my standards, knowing I never compromised myself for your benefit, or anyone else’s.
Doing “swag” reviews, for example, are just not my bag. Lord knows I’ve tried. Life would be easier if my stupid ethics didn’t get in my way, but they do, and to deny them would be foolish, to live without them would be denying everything I am.
Will I make it to the other side of life without compromising? Ever? Probably not. Probably not even close. But I can avoid major concessions. I can avoid the things that make me wake up with the durrrty morning-after feeling.

***

And no matter how ridiculously extreme the character of Howard Roark is made in The Fountainhead, I “get” him. I get the idea of never compromising your art. I get the concept of “any means necessary” being too high a price to pay if it means losing what makes your work you. I get the concept of not using one’s name for others’ benefit, especially when others’ ethos aren’t meshing with my own.
The older I become, though, the more I find I’m inflexible about what my values are and why. Does it make me the perfectly moral person? Jesus, no.
Does it make me a better writer? Hmm. Good question. I would hope so. Less and less, I find myself writing because you should have something to read. More and more, I find myself writing only when life inspires me to do so. This is good. Too bad it’s so infrequent.
I should write more. I would like to do just that. This recent picking-up-of-books-and-even-reading-them thing is a big change for me, after years of barely reading. I hope it rekindles my love of words.

***

In a way, I’m going back to The Fountainhead because it was the start of something for me. Out of everything that was in my life when I was 18, the only things that remain are writing and photography. Only, I write far more now, and far better.
But, when I read The Fountainhead, something about Howard Roark’s idea of architecture, and the metaphor it could be for all things in life, resonated with me then and screams in agreement with me now.
I want to be a more streamlined writer. I want to be moved to do things in life because they take me closer to goals — likely not what you think; a bungalow on the ocean would do me fine & allow me the simple life I crave, the life that gets lost in this city.
Like Howard Roark sees architecture, I kind of see life and creativity right now:

Rules? Here are my rules: what can be done with one substance must never be done with another. No two materials are alike. No two sites on earth are alike. No two buildings have the same purpose. The purpose, the site, the material determine the shape. Nothing can be reasonable or beautiful unless it’s made by one central idea, and the idea sets every detail. A building is alive, like a man. Its integrity is to follow its own truth, its one single theme, and to serve its own single purpose. A man doesn’t borrow pieces of his body. A building doesn’t borrow hunks of its soul. Its maker gives it the soul and every wall, window, and stairway to express it.

I realise I’ve come to despise ornate architecture, people who incessantly overdress, haughty writing, and intellectuals who think their degree is some sort of validation of who they are just because they’ve got paper to prove it.
I want simple, real things. Simple, real people. I want ideas that are whole and expansive, that don’t come with qualifying, egos, and justification. I want people who are endlessly authentic and can’t be bought, quiet conversations and zero flash.
I want to feel like I write for the sake of writing — not to sell ads, not for your fulfillment, not to make the world a better place, but for the most pure reason of all: To explore ideas and give voice to thoughts. My voice.
I want these things.
Unfortunately, I live in the real world where such ethos don’t pay the rent. The balancing act between how idealistic I can be while still putting food on my table, well, it’s a struggle. It will probably remain a struggle.
And part of the life I want, part of the goals I’d love to achieve, might require I rethink what I’m willing to do for success or not.
I’ve been lost in thought on these struggles for a couple of weeks now, but it’s escalated this week. Tomorrow is my birthday. I’m hoping some great epiphany dawns tonight in which I finally realize how I can reconcile both professional and personal values into one amazing existence.
Something tells me that’s a birthday gift I won’t be receiving just yet. Fortunately, I’m not hung up on deadlines.

Murderball: Primal Is As Primal Does

Bear with me. If you know my writing style, you know that, just because I start one place, doesn’t mean I’m gonna stay there. This starts off about wheelchair sports, but becomes a considering of what we are as humans, so give it a chance. Thanks!
Any sport with “murder” in the name sounds like a fun night out to me.

Image from MURDERBALL, the documentary.


This weekend in Vancouver, the World Wheelchair Rugby Championships will be rollin’ on out at the Olympic Skating Oval, across the bridge in Richmond. (Games are $5 each or day passes are $12. Please support them.)
Wheelchair rugby is a Canadian-born sport better known as “Murderball,” and was the subject of an MTV award-winning documentary of the same name.
Also known as “Quad” Rugby, it’s played by paraplegics who have limited limb movement. With each injured player “rated” for their impairment, from 0 to 3 points, there’s a limit of how many “points” can be on the court at any one time.
Aside from that, the dudes are on battering-ram type wheelchairs and they bash the living shit out of each other. Sounds like a good time to me!
Of course, there are namby-pamby activists out there who dislike violence in sports and don’t understand why we’re not more “civil” in this day and age, but they’re the kind of people who probably need to start having questionable fun for the hell of it, instead of worrying about propriety.
With sports, there are areas I differ from that line of thought on, but with very specific situations: Like,  dumb-ass kids who want to do danger experiments on Youtube. There’s calculated risks, then there’s just being a moron.
And living in the rugged rainforests that are Vancouver and its surrounding landscape, we’re all too used to asshats going off known trails to explore then needing massive rescue efforts. Methinks they should be subject to Quad Rugby battering ram treatment, personally, if they’re that fucking stupid.
Like I say: There’s stupidity, and then there’s understandable thrill-seeking and adrenaline.
Me, I like boxing, and I like watching most kinds of fighting live (but not on television). Bloodsports are pretty awesome. I cheer the violence on, and I don’t for a moment feel it makes me less “civilized”. I think it makes me a more balanced human being and less likely to punch you out for being a high-maintenance fuckwad in front of me in a Starbucks line-up.
I mean, sure, we act all civil, but deep down inside, we’re biologically still animals.
All the proof I need is on my bathroom floor right now — every fall and spring, I shed hair even though there’s no reason for the human body to shed anymore. It’s a throwback to who and what we are: Mammals who got lucky and landed opposable thumbs and the ability to have language.
Sometimes, I think we — mankind — are collectively fooling ourselves.
You know the old parable about the Scorpion & the Frog?

From Wikipedia:
The story is about a scorpion asking a frog to carry him across a river. The frog is afraid of being stung, but the scorpion reassures him that if it stung, the frog would sink and the scorpion would drown as well. The frog then agrees; nevertheless, in mid-river, the scorpion stings him, dooming the two of them.
When asked why, the scorpion explains, “I’m a scorpion; it’s my nature.”

But, us? Our nature?
Is our nature REALLY that of sitting at a desk with a computer, or shuffling papers, or making Jell-o Pudding on a Friday night as we watch smarmy TV programs? REALLY?
Or are we really made to be physical creatures? People who toil in fields, bring down trees, climb mountains, haul goods over long distances? Are we made for lashing out and conquering others?
Arguably? Yes. Yes. And, yes.
These days, machines do so much for us. They do TOO MUCH for us.
The last place any of us can get in touch with our primal side is through sports. Whether it’s mountainbiking, yoga, MMA, or murderball, that’s where many of us connect with the physicality that today’s society otherwise would rather pretend didn’t exist.
There’s also, of course, sex. But heaven forbid you let the masses know doggy-style’s your favourite, or god help you if the neighbours can hear you moaning through those thin modern walls.
And that paddle sure does get loud, honey. Got a muzzle?
“Primal” is so verboten today. It’s all button-down collars and Brazilian wax jobs. Some people are even bleaching their assholes because they don’t think an ASSHOLE should be shit-coloured.
This is the ridiculous world we live in today, where we — animals — pretend we’re anything but.
Yet, there, out in Richmond, a bunch of guys who’ve lost most of the use of their limbs, they’re out there being as animalistic as they can be. They have THAT alive in them still, it’s their soul, it’s who they are.
They’re out there fighting to remember what it is that makes them alive. They’re crashing the hell out of each other, defying the odds, doing it for the most pure reason of all — just to be better than the next guy, to survive, to win — just like the only goals possessed by our Neanderthal ancestors.
These are guys who, for the most part, have lost their mobility through spinal accidents. They’ve lost so much already, but it hasn’t stopped them.
Then there are people like most of us — trying to get through our day with the least amount of risk, the least amount of danger, and with nothing but routine surrounding us, while we medicate the hell out of ourselves to dull our emotions, mask pain, or just drive us through our days.
And these barely-alive types are the people who are out there trying to protect the Quad Rugby players from themselves — Oh, it’s too dangerous! Oh, they don’t have helmets on! God forbid!
Fuck that. HIT ‘EM, BOYS! HIT ‘EM REAL FUCKIN’ HARD.
Today, this weekend, let’s all learn a little about passion, dedication, and the willingness to get the fuck up after life knocks you down — values each and every athlete on the world wheelchair rugby court plays with day-in, day-out.
Values we should all have — day-in, day-out.

__________________________

Who or what inspires you to live a little more outside the “safe” zone? Have you ever watched wheelchair sports? What kind of impression did it leave on you? And “special Olympics” are NOT wheelchair sports — wheelchair athletes are able-minded but body-challenged, so to speak.

Anticipating Autumn

Fall has landed.
It’s the first night I’ve had to close my windows all but a crack. Soon I expect the radiator will be turned on and will spend the next several weeks climbing in temperatures as the climate closes in on winter.

Photo by me, on Vancouver's Burrard Inlet, under the Cambie bridge, I think?


It’s the first day I’ve been funny in the morning in a few weeks. I’ve got my mojo rising and my body’s starting to feel like I’m in control of it again. Pneumonia has been a shitty ride, but my prescription finishes today, and I’m turning some good corners.
Good thing, too. Gettin’ busy — after all, a week from today, I’ll hit the ripe old age of 37.
September has been a long, hard month. Every year I seem to face some kind of adversity as I head into the autumn. A couple times I’ve cheated death on Labour Day weekend. Once I blew out my back a couple days after my birthday. Yeah, it’s always been a rocky time for me, one that suggests much change is ahead for me.
This year’s no different when you get down to the basics: Change is necessary, positives abound, opportunity knocks, et cetera.
But I suppose that’s autumn for most of us.
I think we all go a little off-track in the summer. From the time of childhood on, summer suggests two months of free-for-alls — a time when hedonism makes sense to just about everyone, days when abdicating your responsibilities are too tantalizing to pass up. Nothing like wind in the hair and sand in the toes, as the saying goes.
Then fall rolls around, and like it did when we were kids, it means life is coming back to the working cycle.
Harvest time. For tens of thousands of years, autumn has been a time of preparation and planning, a time to get working in order to ensure survival over the coming cold months of hardship.
Biologically, I think we’re still hardwired there. Summer’s that time when survival’s easier. We don’t even need shelter — sleeping under the stars isn’t just nice, but essential to the human experience.
Winter? Heh, not so much — especially here in the so-called Great White North. (Ironic, of course, since Vancouver, Canada gets far less snow than NYC, or even Vancouver, Washington, but, hey, whatever stereotypes rock your boat, man.)
As the days get shorter, my mind turns to the months ahead, planning and scheming for all I feel I need to accomplish. Thrown into cold, rainy, dreary, windy Wet Coast days, I’ll find myself methodically productive and compulsively accomplished.
Unlike summertime Steff.
It was at this point, three years ago this very week, I reached my self-esteem rock-bottom, had just quit the job making me miserable, returned to a job that allowed me to put myself first, and started on my path toward losing 70 pounds and being able to say I Am Not That Girl Anymore.
The fall has always been a powerful catalyst in my life.
You might think that, coming off a month of back problems and pneumonia, I carry dread and fear about the months that loom… but you’d be woefully mistaken, friend.
I’m stoked. For every step backward I’ve taken this year, there’s been two steps forward. You can choose to focus on the backwards steps, but I’d rather believe it was just practice, and practice makes perfect.
“Big picture” is always more rewarding than a nano-focus. Don’t think about the steps backward this year; think of how much forward you were able to move.
I know the possibility that can come from this bubbling anticipation and dogged desire to capitalize on it. I’ve been there before, I’ve seen what it can do to me. Hell, I know what *I* can do with it.
All this “stuff” in my way right now… it’s just stuff. It’s a bug, a sickness, and it’ll go away. It happens. It’s not “bad luck” or misfortune. It’s just my turn. It’s a reminder of the things I said were important to me — my health, my future, my soul. It’s a reminder of how much I could have controlled more aspects of my life, and an inspiration to do better in the coming months.
Your adversity is what you decide it to be. Make your conclusions carefully.
It’s autumn. A time for things to die and begin their cycle of rebirth. A time to reap what you’ve sown and account for it. Mostly, it’s just a time.
Today, I lament the loss of warmth and long days, the frivolity and fun, the recklessness and hedonism. I mourn that my inner kid’s gonna have a harder time coming out to play for a while.
But I’m truly thrilled to lose the seasonal distractions, gain some focus, and launch future plans for taking over the world.
I’m looking forward to chillier nights, leaves falling, storms that remind me just how fragile our place in the world is, bundling up, excuses for sleeping in, and cradling mugs of hot beverages in frozen hands. I’m longing for the crisp, clean smell, the quieter streets, the oft-patter of rain and splashing of tires, and the fuzzy comfort of wearing warm slippers.
By the year’s end, I’ll have begun growing tired of it all and will dread the next four months, but that’s how the weather cookie crumbles here in the proverbial Great White North.
And, today, none of that matters. Today, summer’s gone, fall is here, and survivalism kicks in — just like it ought to after tens of thousands of years of biological programming.
Happy autumn, everyone. Enjoy everything about it.
And please, for the love of god, don’t put ornamental gourds on your table.

WARNING: Biohazard Within

This is me checking in.
I have a thing about apologizing for not posting, so fuck that shit. You get what you’re given and you’ll like it or lump it, them’s the rules, that’s the blog.
But you know this, you know me. No surprises there, hey?
So’s you knows: I have pneumonia.
As a result, apparently the creative centre of my brain is enveloped in phlegm.
Some might call it “writer’s block”. I call it “writer’s phlegm chunks.”
It’s pretty sexy.
You’d do me. I know.
Even if I’ve spent days modelling a fine array of flannel. I do mean “days”.
So this is not an apology for not posting. It’s not a “come back for brilliance later” posting. It’s not even an excuse for why I’m not posting.
It’s just me. Sayin’ hey.
Hey, blog readers. [coff]
Pneumonia: Don’t do it. It so won’t get you laid.
Here’s a tip, if you’re ever sick and you hear gurgling when you breathe, that’s probably a bad thing. There’s drugs for that shit, dude. See your doctor and swallow that pride.
Anyhow, you know, I’m over here rockin’ the congestion and being generally as useless as I’ve ever been in my life. Which is to say I haven’t even begun to pay attention to Stupid Fucking American Politicians Winning Primaries on Anti-Masturbation Platforms, or the lawsuit against Vancouver’s Shark Club for making their female wait-staff always wear makeup, keep their hair down, and wear tight skirts.
But don’t think I won’t be commenting on them later.
‘Cos, you know, that shit’s not cool.
In the meantime, make sure you exercise your freedom to masturbate. Apparently it’s a great election platform these days.
Talk atcha later, readers. Thanks for hanging tight.

As a Canadian, How I Remember

I remember waking inexplicably with a jolt at 5:45am PST.
As a child of the ’70s, in hindsight I’d now describe the jolt as “a disturbance in the Force.”
Something seemed wrong, deeply and pervasively wrong, but I didn’t know what.
I shrugged and got out of bed. I brewed the coffee, amazed at the deceptively silent and beautiful dawn rising outside. At about 6, I sat on the balcony, enjoying my coffee, taking in the warm, gorgeous September morning.
At the time, I had no cable TV. In 2001, the web wasn’t as accessibly streaming news like it does today, and I wasn’t tethered to things like I am these days.
Then, I had no idea our lives had all been altered in the preceding moments.
I showered and headed to work.
There, coworkers told me what happened:

Two planes, two towers, untold thousands of civilians, utter chaos.

The second tower had only collapsed about 30 minutes before I got in.
The significance hit me squarely. “This changes everything,” I muttered.
My coworker Leslie nodded, saying that, in less than an hour, the world her 5-year-old son would grow up in had changed forever.

***

I often forget that morning now, when the words “9/11” flash past in conversation or print.
I forget the fear, the uncertain future, the heartbreak. I often forget it all.
Now, “9/11” is not so much a tragedy that changed my perspective on the world as it seems to be a code for the politicization of ideals that polarize the Right & Left.
“You’re with us or you’re against us” were the words that soon would divide us all, months down the line, as 9/11 became a vehicle for political divide at home in America, and also became an ethnocentric push of the “American way” versus the world’s.

***

But, on September 12th, 2001, I considered myself not Canadian, but “small-N north AMERICAN.”
I wanted to get The Fuckers. I wanted bloodshed for my American friends.
I wanted to help, I wanted to pray, I wanted a million things — I wanted anything but to ever again see the image of people jumping from burning buildings to a certain but faster and simpler death, or that horrible mushrooming cloud covering city streets in dust and decay.

***

Somehow, in the months that followed 9/11, we lost the brief  closeness it brought us.
We lost the “we’re in this together” feeling that came immediately with the attack. We lost the reminder of how important community and camaraderie were.

***

I remember those early days, though.
There was a moment on the evening of September 11th when I was just stunned to hear laughter trickling down the street as young children jumped rope and rode donuts on their bikes. It seemed odd to me that happiness could be found anywhere in the world on a day like that.
I thought, in children’s laughter, innocence lives on. Maybe it could come back.
We still thought there were maybe 40,000 or more casualties that day. How could there not be? Well, the simple matter of the attack happening before 9, that’s how there could be less.
And thank the powers that be, too, that the terrorists didn’t time it “better” for the arrival of workers. After all, “maximum casualties” is their credo.
Still, as I fell into the endless loop of videos on the news, it seemed like happiness and hope died that day.
I remember going to bed on September 11th, at a loss for where my place in the world was.
Who was this evil, where would they strike, when would this end, why did they hate us, what did they pray for —  all these questions raced through me.
I felt like a zombie for days — listening to the radio, waiting to see how America would really respond, what the global fallout was going to be.
Like most Canadians, I knew already:
“We’re in it with you, wherever you go, if it’s to get the fuckers who did this, we’re in — lock and fuckin’ load, motherfucker.”

***

And Canada’s always been in it against Bad Fuckers with our buddies, the Yanks.
We’ve really stuck it out in Afghanistan. We’ve had a strong troop presence since Day One. We’re still there. It’s our way of life that was attacked that day, too. Canada had a lot of Canadians in those towers.
But, down south, with our good friends, the post-9/11 stance got murky and somehow the parties decided it was time to use 9/11’s attack for political means.
Somewhere, the message got lost — the people jumping from those buildings, the aghast onlookers on the street, the chaos and fear, that ALL got lost.
Wrong choices were made.
Wrong alliances formed.
Wrong goals set.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Did what happened in the coming years disrespect those who died that day? Did the politicizing of the horrors take America’s integrity out of those attacks? Did the day itself fall out of relevance in the stupidity that followed?
I used to think so.
I sort of forgot just how deeply 9/11 cut into my soul, how much it hurt me that anyone could have that kind of hatred for a lifestyle that they’d just blindly kill anyone they could.
I sort of forgot how much I learned about life in those days — how kind strangers could be to one another, how alike we all are when we cry and grieve, how strong we could be for those around us, how pivotal being a friend in a time of need could be.
The lessons I learned from 9/11 about the GOOD in each of us are what I want to remember for the rest of my life.
And, to do that, I need to remember how horrible it was for a little while.

***

This morning, I’ve been watching some of a History Channel documentary from 2008, 102 Minutes that Changed The World (aka “…Changed America“, its original USA title).
It’s 9/11 “as it happened” — unnarrated, unadulterated. Just amateur recordings from people on the street in Manhattan when the Towers began coming down, shown minute-for-minute as it happened, from hundreds of perspectives.
My heart’s been in my throat a lot.
Now I remember.
I remember how “tragedy” became redefined for me, and how now I think of heartbreak on a scale of Zero to 10, with 10 being “the big fireman in the street, staring in horror at the World Trade Centre, screaming and crying”.
Definitions of some words were forever altered that day for me, and when I think of some emotions, like “horror” and “fear” and “loss” and “terror”, I flash back to  faces from the news, of people on Manhattan streets, from the coverage that played for weeks following.

***

I don’t know where we are now… whether we’re a better people than we were before 9/11. I’ve disliked so much of what I’ve seen of people’s values in the years since — the forcing of prescribed morality by the Religious Right, the sanctimony of the “true patriot” ultra-conservatives, the horribly bungled military actions, the loss of rights for immigrants, the prejudism, the erosion of the economy.
9/11 transformed so much for us, even in Canada, but the almost-a-decade since has led to dark, dark times in America.
So… where are we now?
With the economy shape-shifting daily, people re-examining their values and material mindsets with an almost-Depression-era austerity, and everything else that’s come in the last decade, I’m hoping we’re in the process of finding who we are, much like Americans did in the late ’40s and ’50s.
I’d like to think what we’re undergoing societally is like spring-cleaning a house. First you got to get it really dirty, tear shit apart, find all yer crap, get rid of it, and then reinvent things from the ground up. Then, you have awesomeness.
If it takes me weeks to do that on the homefront, I can imagine it taking more than a decade for a superpower like the USA to get their shit done. It’s year nine, post-September 11th.
So where are we now? Where is America’s soul today?
I dunno. Somewhere between there and here… and There.
I think that if everyone looked back at the three weeks that followed 9/11, they might start remembering that, somehow, this worst-thing-to-ever-happen-on-American-soil horror managed to, for a very short time, bring out everything that the world sees as being the BEST of what America is.
As September 11th looms, I’d like to remind my American friends that, when the Towers came down, we were with you. When you went to Afghanistan, we were with you.
And when you really need us again, we’ll very likely be with you once again.
But the America we’re with is the America you are when it seems like there’s no hope, the America you are when you rail against evil.
The America we’re with is the one that celebrated the end of whites-only club the night Obama was elected.
The America we’re with is the one that rallied to help its fellow man in the days following Katrina, when the government didn’t even have its act together. It’s also the America that didn’t hesitate to show up first for East Asia’s Tsunami and Haiti’s earthquake, because its people expect nothing less of its government.
The America we’re with is the one that lets all people speak for what they believe in, that celebrates freedom of speech and equality for all, and who stands up for international human rights.
Luckily, most of the time, that’s the America we know & see, too.
Maybe, this week, with 9/11’s anniversary returning, Americans can remember who they were on September 12th, 13th, and the days that followed.
Because the world stood with America for a reason.
The terrorists never won that day, and if we remember who we are, they never will.

Office Life: Thar Be Meanies

In Virginia, there’s an esteemed literary magazine called The Virginia Quarterly Review.
There, an editor has committed suicide, and the Review has been shut down amid a new investigation that the suicide was as a result of workplace bullying and harassment.
I found the story fascinating on a couple levels.

Photographer unknown.


One, there’s a strange perception, I think, that these sort of things don’t happen in intellectual/cultural offices, and I think this sheds light on the reality that people can be mean fuckers whatever their aesthetic tastes.
Two, it continues the realization I’ve had since reading William Styron’s Darkness Visible years ago — that is, to be literary is to be predisposed to depression and potentially suicidal tendencies. The “Overthinky Syndrome” comes on something fierce when one is closely aligned with literary pursuits.
Three, I don’t think we really give enough weight to mental health on the job when it comes to the people around us.
A few years ago, as I was descending into the darkest depression I’ve ever had, I was working at an office where I felt put down and distrusted daily. It was a very difficult environment to work in, but I had no choice, I’d run out of employment insurance and had to take something.
Given my declining emotional state, I didn’t really trust my feelings — maybe I just felt like shit. Maybe I was misreading the things said and done around the office.
One day I was sorting through papers and found legal documents relating to a case involving one of the company’s principals and the province’s labour board. Apparently there were allegations of psychological abuse by the company’s principal, made by former employees.
I suddenly felt a little vindicated. It wasn’t just me, this person actually was kind of mean and cruel.
A year later, I was working for another employer who would mentally beat me down now and then because I wasn’t sacrificing myself for the job like she was. (I don’t own the company, woman, and I was told it was 9-5, not 55 hours a week, and I was getting paid for 40. Liars.)
I know what it’s like to have the opposite kind of bosses, too.
I’ve had a lot of employers who’ve been people who stopped me from doing negative self-talk, who told me how valued I was. I’ve had a lot of luck working for good people.
There’s a world of difference between going to that kind of job, where a bad mood is just part of life’s occasional fluctuations, versus one of the jobs where I’d be lucky to make it through a day without some mocking, blaming, or guilting kind of assault happening, where a bad mood would spiral into dread about returning the next day, and more dread about enduring five full days in a row with no escape.
One of the reasons I want to be self-employed is, the good people I was working for are in a precarious part of the film industry and job security is a thing of the past. I’m pushing 40. I could’ve handled that uncertainty in my 20s, but I can’t anymore.  I can rely on myself, though.
Another is, my last experience looking for work landed me in both of the above jobs, and I do blame both experiences in part for the depression I then spiralled into.
I also credit them with making me ANGRY enough to change my life.
But some people don’t get to reach angry.
Some people get beaten down day after day, told they’re stupid, useless, and lucky to even be employed. Management puts hurdles before them they’ll never overcome, and the economy ensures more hurdles.
The hopelessness of being stuck in jobs like that, in the face of an economic climate like we have now, it makes sense it’d be driving people to suicide.
And our dearly departed editor? Well, there’s not really a growing market for literary review editors, is there? If he felt trapped, if the university was looking the other way on complaints just to avoid controversy, if daily badgering and emotional assaults were happening, if he was your typical overly-analytical literary genius, then… tragically, it does compute.
Workplace bullying is as bad as childhood bullying, if not worse.
At least when you’re a kid there are potential adult figures who might ride in and save you from bullies.
When you’re an adult, there’s a veneer of judgment that comes with admitting you’re being bullied at work. Most reactions are along the lines of “Suck it up” or “It’s just a job” or “Hey, just three days till Friday! Chin up!”
When a job becomes your jail, you try shrugging it off. One can logically think “Oh, it’s just a paycheque”, but there’s a toxicity that comes from being exposed to these people on a day-in, day-out basis.
Like a river can passively wear down even the strongest of rocky terrain, just running over the same ground day after day, so too can a person’s soul and spirit erode.
When I quit the job that had me working daily for six months just 10 feet away from the most toxic, negative, and belittling woman I’ve ever known, it took me more than a year to start finding the positivity and hope in myself again — the things I said were just nothing like the person I used to be. That negativity changed who I was.
And I’m a pretty strong chick.
That was six months, just six months of being broken down by intimidation and judgment and belittling.
What about others? How far does that daily treatment go, how much worse does it become over time? How deeply does it seep?
This kind of treatment isn’t business as usual.
It shouldn’t be overlooked.
Employees should have greater rights about how they can expect to be treated, especially if they’re performing good work and delivering results. (Some useless fuckheads who don’t care about their jobs or quality could use a little yelling at, but all within reason.)
If this was just another unhappy Wal-Mart or McDonald’s or city-sanitation type job, the story would’ve been dismissed. “I’d commit suicide if I had that job, too — har-har.”
But all this guy had to do was read and write for a living. These were literary people, they had soul and the ability to communicate well.
And yet, here we are.
Cruelty and harassment knows no boundaries. There is no class distinction. Intelligence isn’t immune to meanness.
We’re supposed to be a kinder, gentler society. Maybe now we can stop with the lip-service and get on with the reality of being better than our predecessors.