Monthly Archives: November 2010

It's a Grind(erman), Baby

I’m listening to the Nick Cave “Grinderman” project for the first time right now.
In about 7 or 8 hours, the manic-man himself will take the stage here in Vancouver for the first time since he was beaned in the head by some inconsiderate (probably from Seattle, coff) fuck’s boot at the Vancouver edition of Lollapalooza back in ’94.
Nick Cave, for me, was one of the first musicians who kinda tapped into my dark-soul places. Sure, other bands sorta “got” angst to my way of thinkin’, but not a lot of people could articulate the kind of dark and angry, morbidly poetic thoughts that’d course through my mind late at night or as I drifted off into sadistic mental imagery.
I’m not violent. Nor am I an angry person. I don’t hate on anyone. I don’t think I even need an attitude adjustment, since I enjoy my rantishness.
But I wouldn’t open my mind’s curtain to you, regardless.
In another life, I want to disappear to some little cabinesque home off the water, and write my way to hell and back.
I like death. Just on the page. Not, like, in life.
I do page-death well.
In another century, I might have been an executioner, likely. An ax-man. The guillotine go-to dude.
Maybe, if it had an alcohol allowance.

***

In stories, I’ve caused deaths with things like electric sanders, anchors, bookshelves, freaky poisoning, tongue-swallowing fatal beatings, and more.
Gruesome film deaths often make me giggle.
I’m nice as can be, as ethical as the day is long, but I love to write horrific fiction sometimes.
And, Nick Cave, he was a musical equivalent when singing tracks like The Mercy Seat (about a guy waiting for his seat in the electric chair, death coming up, a favourite of mine).
I didn’t want songs that inspired me to rail against society or scream into the rain. I didn’t need to rile up my frustration at the state, my hatred for the man, why I loathe my parents’ fuck-ups like you loathe yours, and all that shit. I HAVE THAT DOWN, THANK YOU.
I wanted to forage in the dark side of my literary mind —  that side which that imagines thar be demons, and cartoonifies anger against others by crashing a giant rubber mallet from the imaginary sky over their pretty little brains.
Is that so wrong?
I don’t ever want to do these things, I just want to know it’s okay to play this shit up in my mind with a sardonic laugh track echoing in the hollows of my imagination.
Because that’s cool, right?
[mallet crashes down, brains ooze]

***

And the darkness doesn’t stop with Cave. When the dude picked his “Bad Seeds”, he chose wisely. A little-known off-shoot of his backing musician dudes, including Warren Ellis, who’s also in Grinderman, was a little trio called The Dirty Three.
The Dirty Three, them I’ve seen live. They tore into violins and drums, nothing else. No vocals, di nada. That “instrumental” shit’d fuck you up live. Great gothic anger.
And there’s the funny little kicker. You know what I will NEVER, EVER describe myself as? Goth.
Not that I have a thing about goths. I’m just not one. I like some of the imagery some of the time, but don’t need to cloud myself in it 24/7. It’s just a “thing” I like sometimes. You know, like caramel. Or porn.
So, tonight, after wanting to see this guy since he blew my mind the winter I lived in the Yukon, ’94, when these guys…

…I guess I should tell that story?
It’s ’94, I’m in the Yukon for a year, and these two guys from CBC Radio North opened this little record shop, “Grizzly Discs,” the same month I blow into town.
The only thing I got tying me into The Cool I’ve left from the city life down in Vancouver is my subscription to rock magazines like Spin and Rolling Stone. So, I start ordering into the shop tracks I’d read about — including stuff like Grant Lee Buffalo, Dead Can Dance, Dada, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, and, yeah, Nick Cave.
They’re looking at the titles, and suddenly they propose a deal: I get 25% off if they get to listen to everything for a week when it comes in. SOLD.
That was the winter of my immersion in a lot of different stuff, and it’s when I had the two guys say “Uh, so, we think you might like this, it came in used yesterday so we held it for you.”
It was Nick Cave & The Live Seeds.
That was it, I was hooked.

…And tonight, 16 years later, I’m finally seeing him live. He’s pretty much the last on my MUST FUCKING SEE list. Oh, and the Butthole Surfers, that still needs to happen.
Okay, so there’s a few other people on the list, but allow me my delusion.
Nick Cave is the concert I still need to see in order to appease my Angry Violent InnerWriter Chick.
Which is probably a good thing to appease, right?
Mere hours now, minions. Mere hours. Tomorrow, I’ll probably be sore. But that’s what pharmaceuticals are for.
PS: It’s not the first time I was supposed to see Nick Cave, either. I’ve given tickets away before — got too ill to travel Stateside to see him in the Emerald City. At least no international borders are involved this time, and everyone gets to drink. Oh, and I’m not nearly dead from pneumonia like I was back then, either. Party on, Garth. Nothing’s preventing me tonight. Bring it on.

The Christmas Myth of Time Management

There was a moment sheer heart-plunging terror as I added the line “bring up Christmas decorations and get started” to my to-do list for the week.
What with the what, WHEN?
Oh, lord.
It’s That Time Again.
So now, on top of the list of 26 things I need to do, I gotta work out more because the season’s full of food, clean more to entertain more (and because there’s more crap filling the house), plus all the baking for the Christmas gifts I’ll make this year, oh, right, and go to a zillion social events.

“Christmas”,
The Holiday Brought to You in Part
by FACEPALM™,
that universal sentiment surpassed only
by HEAD-DESK™.

And, like, three months ago, I started this little project of organizing my music CDs and putting them into binders.
Except… there’s, like, 300 CDs in piles, in the corner of the living room, where the Christmas tree soon needs to go.
Not only do I need to organize those fuckers and put them in the binders, but it turns out the binder sleeves are only pre-cut, they haven’t pulled the little piece of plastic out where I have to slide the CD in. Do you KNOW how much such things annoy me?
No. You don’t. I glower at this pile. I loathe this pile. I suppose the time has come.
A friend posted a great list today, the seven steps to “grow the action habit”, and the second one is: Be a doer.
I was a Girl Guide. I can be a doer. I know I can!
I shall be a CD-organizer doer-girl sometime this week.
It’s on my list.

(Found on a variety of blogs, always uncredited.)


Ironically, also on my list is to “make a list every day. ”
On the rare occasions of my life where I’ve made a list (I’ve seen more blue moons than I’ve made lists), I’ve been killer productive. If I remember to write on the list that I have to cross things off the list, that is.
On the upside, all those rare list-making occasions have been within the last six months. Nowhere near habit-forming, but at least I’ve had some positive results in the “I’ll try that for a dollar, Alex” category.
Let’s face it, life’s all about time.
It’s about getting things done —  a race to save time so we don’t waste time, but without enjoying the time we have. Or something.
Even when we do save time and knock obligations out of the park, we’re still left with fractured time, since no one turns off cellphones or does Just One Thing at length anymore. The proverbial ADD society, sure, but who actually lives in the moment anymore?
I’m still trying to find that balance of Getting Shit Done and Doing Nothing. Of course, I keep vascillating to extremes. I’m the ping-pong ball that ricochets from one wall to the other, never landing in the middle.
Still, I keep bouncing, keep trying, and sooner or later gravity’ll pull me to a stop — and I’m okay with that.
December’s kind of like my “new-year’s-resolutions-practice month”. I’ll fail dismally, likely, with all the socializing and all that, but at least I’ll be working on life more or thinking about how I can improve it (and want to), often.
Besides, it’s not about being perfect tomorrow, it’s about being better tomorrow and better the week after that.
When I can get traction with the time management, it’ll help me on all levels — I’ll eat healthier at home, live in a cleaner environment, process stress better because I’ll have an accomplishments system in place, and I’ll generally be less of who I’ve been frustrated in being, and more of the task-oriented person I’d like to be.
It’s an uphill battle for the next five weeks, though. It’s that annual time when we’re so inundated by responsibilities and the directions we’re pulled in that we’re more likely to overindulge in all our flaws — fall behind on bills, eat too much junk, drink too often, exercise too little, rest too little, and so on.
There’s a reason they’re called the “January blues”.
It’s why we’re all so compelled to visit change upon ourselves when the new year rolls around — Christmas brings out the best in us but also exploits all our daily failings. It’s inevitable. We have great fun and we pay the price in every way, usually.
Being prepared for that by taking little steps to try and avoid the severity of my Descent into Calendar Madness could be one thing that separates me from my recent years’ “Chaos Called Christmas” experiences.
And it starts with one little list aimed at getting me from here to November 30th with a lot of organizational success and a big game plan.
Item 27: Make a new list on December 1st.

When Winter Looms, Wet Coast-Style

Rain’s slamming Vancouver sideways, as heavy winds batter windows and fill me with dread about the day’s errands to be run.
Days like this, the so-called simple life of living without a car feels like punishment.

Photo by me, November in Vancouver, 2009.


It’s true Wet Coast glory on a stormy morn like this.
You cannot run, you cannot hide.
Living on the Pacific coast becomes a chore this time of year. It cuts into me. The endless oppressive grey is the bitterest tonic to swallow for the seasonally-affected, like myself.
Endless rain’s like inertial dampeners for the soul. Slows the pulse to a dull echoing thud.
Today’s sky is deep grey, lacking of any definition. Just a mass of smooth charcoal oppression stretching between horizons.
It’s part of who we are, here, though.
There’s something about the rain that, when you’ve been in Vancouver or on this coast long enough, becomes a part of what you exude emotionally and how you absorb the world around you.
All the Sufi mystics will tell you the height of joy we feel for life can only be measured by how much we have suffered.
If the same is true meteorologically, my Vancouver brethren know a sunny day’s glory better than any one, any where.
I’ve long thought the climate in Vancouver to be almost a psychological aspect of who this city is. We’re bipolar. Full of life and passionate in sun, bitchy and isolate in rain.
It’s not like we’re the most populated region in North America, but look at the prolific serial killers we’ve had between Seattle and Vancouver — the Pig Farmer Willie Pickton, Ted Bundy, the Green River Killer, and child-killer Clifford Olsen.
The darkness affects some people a lot. It can fuck with the sturdiest of minds when it’s going on three-plus months of 65% darkness, oft-filled with cloudy skies the other 35%.
The rain, the wet, the isolation, the wind, the chill.
It’s a gruelling place to be come the doldrums of winter.
Early explorers up the coast called it a special dreary kind of hell when the rains began.
I’ve lived in the Yukon, and even with less daylight and Arctic-like temperatures, it was a far cheerier winter — sunlight came nearly daily, and the snow blasted light everywhere.
Days like today in Vancouver, I feel like I’m living in an Edgar Allen Poe tale, with bleakness around every corner.
Fortunately, I’m literary, so that kind of works for me.
Until I step outside.
I sometimes wonder how much where we are is who we are. Much of this town makes me ponder who that makes us. Takes a strange breed to suffer through most of nine months of being a battered duck just to enjoy a brief summer.
Yet, I stay. Like so many others.
It’s hard not to love this part of the world, despite the bleak and endless grey that finds us so easily.
I might’ve found the Yukon a cheerier place in the winter, but my heart dropped through the floor when I saw a sunny day picture of Vancouver’s summer in passing on television that spring, and weeks later my soul felt a blanketed peace when I got caught in the first rain I’d felt in 11 months, since arriving in the Yukon.
I may bemoan the cold, wind, rain, and endless oppressive air, but this is who I am, too.
A Vancouver chime-rattling windstorm, the endless drizzle or pelting rain, and the mottled variations of grey will always, always evoke home and comfort to me. It’s visions of blankets and warm beverages, soft crackling lights, heaters groaning in the night.
It’s Canada, Vancouver-style.
And as much as I hate the idea of leaving and plodding through this for the better part of my day, I’m already enjoying the idea of getting back home again.
Because that’s winter, Vancouver-style.
And that’s why we have warm beverages, fluffy slippers, and breathable waterproof raingear.
Whatever it takes, Wet Coast-style.

Building Blocks: Mastering Less as More

It’s been a long week and you’re probably wondering how it went, given my dreaded Month of Suck admission last week.
I’ve spent this past week slowly recalibrating myself, lowering my expectations, ditching my guilt, and focusing on the individual steps to take rather than being overwhelmed by the bigness of my journey…
Found on SciFiTV.com.And it’s been much, much better.
My workout with Le Physique’s Nik Yamanaka last Monday was really an empowering start to my week. She was empathetic, didn’t dwell on my admitted failings, changed the game up a little, challenged me, and provided great positivity, support, and encouragement during the workout. She also brought The Funny, and we like The Funny.
It wasn’t that she was babying me, not by a long shot. She pushed me enough, and god knows I felt it the next night as the Screaming Thighs of Fury set in a day after the epic “Let’s try some lunges” experiment, but she didn’t push me past what I could take.
Who cares about the Screaming Thighs of Fury, though?
Face it, anyone who doesn’t have killer-sore legs after doing their first-ever triple-set of lunges is probably immortal. We don’t like those people.
We really, really don’t like those people. But I digress.
Aside from letting me ditch my guilt and shame by playing me her version of the “everyone has reversals” record, Nik also provided a lightbulb moment when it came to stretching.
I think I know better than most people the profound difference that can come from tweaking a stretch angle by a few degrees, so I was really surprised to find that, a) I’m still being uber-overzealous in my hamstring stretching, b) it’s probably a huge part of why my hamstrings never stretch out, and c) it’s likely instrumental in why I have recurring back issues on a small scale all the time.
Nik drove the point home that the hamstring is a very gentle stretch, and one of the most important ones we can do. She said to wait while the hamstring naturally extends itself. Stretch the leg to the point of feeling it, hold, as it releases and resistance lessens, extend slightly further, hold, repeat, etc.
Okay, whoa, hold them technique-horses a moment.
This needs saying: I’m not a licensed kinesiologist, I’m not edumacatin’ you on stretching, and you shouldn’t be doing anything by way of my limited explanations here. This was a trained professional explaining the best way of stretching for MY body. Your body is a whole ‘nother thang, and this is why certified personal trainers are a wise idea for anyone embarking on a new life of fitness: Because every body responds a little differently.
(But if you’re like most people, you probably should be stretching those hamstrings more, honey.)
Anyhow, that slight adjustment, less-kamikaze approach has been making a difference in my legs and back this week, but there’s another stretch that’s proven monumentally important to me, now that I’ve been hearing Nik’s voice in my head all the time: “Drop your shoulders. Drop your shoulders.”
I’ve always had my shoulders up too high during stretches — and now I realize my stretches are probably largely responsible for the “tension headaches” I get, or at least as responsible as other things, like carrying too many groceries or wearing heavy shoulder bags.
By keeping my shoulders down during the stretches, I’ve greatly reduced the headaches that were seriously cramping my style. Whew. Fantastic.
So, where didn’t my week go as ideally?
Well, everywhere, of course.
But “perfect” wasn’t my goal.
Sure, I didn’t exercise the “Full Nik Yamanaka Kicking-Ass-And-Taking-Names” routine, but I decided to cut myself slack and instead just focusing on Doing it Right and Feeling Good Later. Nik seems to approve.
I still haven’t stretched often enough, eaten as well as I would like, but I really don’t care.
I really don’t — because I’ve done everything better, I feel better, and I know I can still do better.
The difference is, this time I feel like doing better isn’t going to kill me. I don’t feel the dread and fear I was feeling for a while, when I kept paying for my efforts with negative fall-out (thanks to the trifecta of overdoing it, poor sleep, and bad stretching.)
Now I think “doing better” might even have me feeling better overall.
Working out through my pneumonia recovery has proven challenging, but I’m finally at the point where pushing cardio may still have me spent and asleep on the sofa by 8:30, but a good night’s sleep recharges that battery, and I find myself with more to give the next day.
That’s a new thing — having more to give — and a good thing.
Will I manage the Full Nik Yamanaka Kicking-Ass-And-Taking-Names program this week?
No, probably not, but I can get closer, do it better, feel stronger, and have the feeling that I’m adding to success rather than kicking myself when I’m down.
I’m listening to my body with exercise, and soon I know I’ll be listening to it for food, too. That’s always a 1-2 thing for me — I get the exercise sorted, then figure out the food.
All in all, it feels like the pieces are falling into place — or, rather, that I’m kicking ass and throwing them into place.
This week, less has been more.
By doing less and feeling like I’ve executed it better, or more well, or more promisingly, the emotional gains and the confidence I now have in going forward is both a pivotal and welcomed change in my life.
I knew I’d get here, but it was just such a rocky road with so many obstacles, and me with my lack of objectivity at the time.
Recalibrating, lowering expectations, and focusing on technique but working through obvious pains while trying to reduce unnecessary pain, have been a key in my week of regrouping.
Going into this week with a little less fear and a little more confidence will be a nice change, provided I remember that it’s doing less, but doing it better, that’s being my “more” right now.
Baby steps, baby.
Le Physique is in Leg-And-Boot Square, in Vancouver’s False Creek. Nik Yamanaka is co-owner, and was the BCRPA Personal Trainer of the Year for 2008. Le Physique tailors a program to meet your abilities, goals, and lifestyle. They can’t do the work for you, but they can tell you the tweaks that will help you meet your best performance and give you the mental tools and simple practices that might help you attain the success you need. You can listen to Nik talking about training in this radio interview here. You can follow her/them on Twitter, too, by clicking here.

Bouncing Back from The Month of Suck

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October was My Month of Suck.
Things went badly at the end — personally, financially, physically, spiritually.
Times like that, my struggle is with Emotional Eating. Growing up, if there was something we’d celebrate or mourn, we’d do it with food.
At 37, it’s still my battle.
Another struggle is the pressure I put on myself and the self-damning I do when I don’t meet those lofty standards.
What happens when I get angry or disappointed in myself? I eat.
When I eat, what happens? I get fat or feel like it — equally dangerous to morale.
My first mistake in October was not saying sooner that I’d bitten off too much, regarding my post-pneumonia recovery.
The problems with me getting something like pneumonia is, it’s easy to think the pneumonia’s just some “thing” I’ve created to get out of shit, regardless of how sick I actually was.
As a kid, yeah, I was in and out of hospitals, but I was also a lazy kid who loved the excuse of illness — I hated exercise. When it came to exercise, I was happy to play the “I’m too sick” card.
The last five years, the greatest “getting fit” struggle I’ve faced was overcoming “I Can’t” and those old excuses.
In so doing, when I thought I couldn’t do something, I often did better than I expected. When I thought I was too weak, I was strong. If I wanted to improve my time in how long it took to cycle someplace, I did. When I thought I was too tired or too sore, I proved I wasn’t. That’s how I lost 70 pounds on my own.
Sure, I beat “I can’t,” but I’m still not an “I Can” girl — and that’s what I want to be, via my work with Nik Yamanaka from Le Physique.
I want say “Sure, I can do that!” without blinking. Now? Not so much, more like “Maybe?”
A lot has to do with the “I Can’t” Girl legacy.
In October, when I first thought I was doing too much too soon, I didn’t take a break — I didn’t want to use the “I’m not well” excuse or to make allowances for being sick or recovering. I didn’t want to admit I’m weaker or less strong.
Now I’ve paid for it through too sore muscles, too tired body, and the emotional fatigue that comes from the too-much-too-soon lethargy one suffers after trying to bounce back post-illness or injury.

***

Today I see Nik for the first time in two weeks. She knows I’ve been ass-kicked by both life and myself of late. I think I really need a session to get my head from Where I Was last month to where I’d rather be now.
For me, returning to anything after injury or illness is a struggle. The longer I’m out of the game, the harder it is to get back — especially when my body doesn’t like the pace I set, since I normally like to take my angst out on a workout, but my body doesn’t like that approach.
That said, almost every time I “return,” I do too much too soon.
I warned Nik that a former chiro labelled my tactics as “KAMIKAZE”. I mean, I know I do this shit.  I told her, “I know this about myself, I’m gonna be careful”, but, boom, there it is: History repeating.
This time, my bounce-back wipeout coincided with Heavy personal stuff on a few levels, and a bout of food poisoning, all within 10 days. I got knocked on my ass — hard.
Coupled with emotional baggage and the caloric hell that is Halloween, it’s been a doozy of a three-week stint in which I’ve been visiting all manner of feeling like a Failure.
We’ve all been there.
Still, I know my abilities and what I’ve learned about my food relationships, and my physical accomplishments with cardio and strength-training over time.
Believe me, I know. That’s why it’s so hard to accept such a rocky return.
Up side? Nik’s got a crash course in Steff’s Fitness Foibles 101 — my determination, roadblocks, how connected food is to my emotions, how I pay for my stubbornness.
Down side? It’s a disheartening start to what I hoped would resonate with awesomeness from the get-go. I have to recalibrate my expectations, and I will.
The I’ll-take-it side? I’m reminded I’m not God, I’m not even immortal, and while deities might allegedly be able to create whole worlds in seven days, we take longer to create what we dream, and more realistic aspirations make the road less arduous.

***

I’ve had a hard time writing this piece. I’ve started it six times now.
Why? I despise admitting that I’ve failed myself, but it’s more disheartening that it came after I tried too hard and hit the wall, only to fall back into old habits just ‘cos I emotionally roll that way.
That’s what I had a hard time with: feeling like I was being punished for working too hard. It’s tough to swallow that you’ve achieved what you wanted to do, but then suffered consequences as a result — and then revisited bad habits of old out of weakness.
To whatever end, it all comes back to listening to the trainer when he/she says “Listen to your body.”
They don’t say “Listen to your neuroses.”
Woefully, my neuroses speak loud and clear. Listening to that’s hard not to do.
And sometimes we don’t understand our bodies. Don’t understand? Or maybe we just don’t listen. Success usually isn’t a switch we can flick on overnight.
Some learn these lessons harder than others.
My lesson is in finding a middle ground between what I want to be Tomorrow and what I’m able to be Today, and for me it can be the hardest part of fitness.
Part of a trainer-trainee relationship comes from learning where you’re at with each other, and the trainer knowing when you’re really trying or when you’re just phoning it in. This is a tough beginning, and I know Nik’s being challenged with having to interpret that about me. I can respect that.
Still, my journey’s not just the physical roadblocks I have to contend with. I know I’ll be in a difficult place emotionally for a while, so my food struggle will be tough. That’s when training will be good, and social media/blogging also helpful, so I can get advice, support, friendly prodding, and experience accountability to others.
Because I can’t work out at 100 per cent, I’m learning I never overcame my food demons, despite having lost 70 pounds.
I didn’t. Food’s the devil, always was. This is the reality check I needed.
Waiter, there’s a fly in my aspiration soup. Check, please.
Yet, Food Demons can be beaten into submission. People do it all the time.
And, pneumonia can only hamper my efforts for so long. I’ll get there a little more each week. I’m just impatient.

***

So, today? Training looms.
My Catholic upbringing makes me dread facing people after I feel like I’ve failed them or myself, so showing up to see Nik will be a bit heavy at the beginning, but another part of me can’t wait to just get in there, see her, and turn the page on my October.
Something I’ve learned in recovery/rehab, and forgot until now: It’s best that I do cardio at the end of the day so I can recover after, rather than early in the morning, when it might take a lot out of me, since, frankly, post-pneumonic life isn’t brimming with energy just yet.
Sometimes we need to find new normals.
I’m finding mine.

***

Failure happens. We don’t choose when. Life’s tough, we deal where we can, and sometimes fall down elsewhere.
At the end, know what matters?
Not that I ate badly or didn’t exercise sometimes, but that I’ve been more honest with myself about food than I have in months, and that I’ve been active more regularly than I have in a while.
I’ve improved. That’s the point.
I haven’t improved as much as I’d wanted, as quickly as I’d hoped, but I know why I haven’t, where I can improve still, and now I’ll do better than I did last time.
In the end, sometimes just continuing to improve is the best result we can hope for.
For now? I’ll take it.
Le Physique is in Leg-And-Boot Square, in Vancouver’s False Creek. Nik Yamanaka is co-owner, and was the BCRPA Personal Trainer of the Year for 2008. Le Physique tailors a program to meet your abilities, goals, and lifestyle. They can’t do the work for you, but they can tell you the tweaks that will help you meet your best performance and give you the mental tools and simple practices that might help you attain the success you need. You can listen to Nik talking about training in this radio interview here. You can follow her/them on Twitter, too, by clicking here.