Yearly Archives: 2011

My Dance With Consumerism: The Christmas Schwag

About That Other Thing, A Steff Note:
My Christmas eve posting was cryptic because sometimes we need the light of day before fear goes away. I’d gotten a call 10 minutes before I served Christmas dinner saying my late-ass brother wasn’t late — he was hit by a car and being taken by ambulance to emergency, with a definite head injury albeit the severity unknown. He’s doing very well, and is lucky to be alive. It was a pretty wrenching evening at times, and I wrote that post with him groaning in light pain while sleeping on my sofa, 10 feet away. Daylight made things better, as it often does.

***

It’s the calm between the storm fronts as my coffee reaches its bitter end.
I’m wishing I had another day of Nothing Doing after yesterday’s utter embrace of sloth, but I’m sadly headed into the world for acupuncture, shopping, lunch, and the like.
It’s half-way through my Christmas vacation. I’ve been on a shopping tear — all online — in doing the once-almost-every-decade shopping for electronics and things to make my life nicer on the homefront, signalling what will surely be a year of much belt-tightening and budget-respecting to follow. My last two such splurges took place in 2003 and 1994. Clearly, I’m due.
It’s the best kind of consumerism — the kind that enriches one’s life with careful choice-making before the splurging.

Oh, Glowing Picture On The Wall, Who’s the TVest of Them All?

For instance, I’m cutting my cable enough to compensate within one year for my splurge for a new TV and home theatre system. Thanks to sales, I got components worth $1300+ for under $600 after taxes. The amount I’ll save in 12 months for going to basic cable and using the one year of Netflix my friend gifted me? $588. Cha-ching!
My huge tube TV’s on its deathbed, taking as much as 6 minutes to just warm up and give me a picture upon start-up, and even when it’s warmed up, the input jacks are loose and just walking across the floor can cause me to lose picture. That’s been happening for three years, and was a real drag back when I was dating and watching something romantic or fun, and sucked even more with a back problem.
My stereo was from 1994, almost dead, and couldn’t even play my iPod, let alone play nicely with my out-of-date TV. My new dealio was 45% off, can play with iPod, is Netflix & web-ready, and will offer surround sound for those moments I give in to The Big Shiny Movies.

A Writer Needs What A Writer Needs

I picked up a new laptop, intended to make me work on my own writing more, and get out into the world to see people whilst I do so. My computer’s from 2006 and I suspect also similarly not long for this world. I saved another 40% on the laptop. Soon, I’ll get my office equipment, so I can have a healthier work environment. It’ll include an ergonomic keyboard & mouse tray, a back-friendly chair, a new desk, and other fixings, making for a more comfortable home office environment, since I’ll now be spending up to 40 hours a week there on just the “day job,” let alone writing for myself.
So, I’ll have a completely-new, ergo-friendly, and sexy office for only $550, because I’m getting things for up to 76% off, thanks to my smart deal-finding ways.
I did blow my wad on one treat that’s like a bottomless-refill cup of goodness for my soul — a new camera. I didn’t have a working one, and photography has been a love of mine for 20 years. It’s profoundly inspiring for my writing to spend a day shooting pictures, and there once was a time I’d write stories based on what I’d snapped. I long for those days. Nothing will make me get out and explore my new home more than having a great camera to record it with, like my new Nikon D3100.

Simply Gift-tacular!

There’s one new belonging I didn’t have to splurge on, and I can’t wait to have it in my life (it needs to be driven in from the Valley still). The Santa-Folks gave me a new KitchenAid Stand Mixer that will be incredible for homemade bread-baking and other things. This has been something on my wish-list for a very long time. I’ve still been using the hand-mixer I bought for $15 more than 10 years ago.

Barbara Krueger's iconic image.


Another gift I was given for Christmas, and it’s funny, because it was likely only a $10-15 gift and isn’t earth-shattering, is a CUTE littlelunch bag that has gel-pack walls on four of six sides, which you just store in the freezer, then it keeps anything cold for up to 6 hours. It’s FUNNY to me because it’s such a small thing but it makes me so excited to think about taking lunch breaks from working at home and walking to the beach with a book or my laptop, and eating a bagged lunch with controlled calories and nutrition, and keeping both my budget in line and me in the sun. It’s a really thoughtful little gift I love. It’s cute, functional, quick to set up, and pretty to carry with me. Perfect! Now I can envision it happening — me and my little peach-polka-dotted bag, together on shorelines and in parks, soaking up the sun and enjoying the outdoor writer’s life.

I Love It When A Plan Comes Together

None of these purchases were spontaneous. They’ve all been on a wishlist for a year or more, and I budgeted carefully beforehand to make acquiring my whole list happen, and I try to buy what will last.
With only my office set-up left to purchase, I’m dead-on-track with my budget and it feels great to know I’ve bought better quality for every purchase than I expected I would find in my budget.
On Monday, I call and cancel all my cable add-ons. By then, I hope to have my new TV and stereo up and running. I see a future with less cable TV and more “deliberate choosing” of what to watch, either via the web or Netflix, rather than haphazard “what’s on?” channel-surfing that’s a bottomless pit for my time.

But Tomorrow’s Not Here Today

Then I’m looking forward to having a work desk at home that doesn’t leave my shoulders aching and my neck prone to starting headaches. It’s amazing how much that hampers one’s desire to sit and write for more than 40 minutes at a time. The desk won’t be a reality until I’m landed in my new home, come March, but my soul’s left wistfully wanting for that day.
While I’ll be thrilled to get out and meet new people on the Island when I move there, I’m making it very plain that my first motivation behind the move is to adopt the WRITER’S LIFE. This will mean a lot of time alone, and when I have a home that has a good entertainment system, lots of music to play, a camera to stoke my creativity, and a healthy writing environment with the right tools, I think the idea of being at home for all those long hours won’t feel like punishment anymore, especially when I’m so close to the city for quick escapes and refreshing The Little Grey Cells. I think those 15 hours I save on weekly “work” commutes via working from home will transform the way I work off-hours for me.
There’s still the mystery of where I’ll be. I’m prepared to compromise a little to get a two-bedroom (or one-plus-den) apartment in a neighbourhood I love. I want my work separate from my life, since it’ll be muddled together so much from working at home. I’m dying to know what I’ll be calling home for the next year or few, and I’m five weeks from knowing, eight weeks from going.

Buyer’s Remorse?

Absolutely not. With the holidays almost over and my budget intact, I feel great.
Unlike other people who buy new electronics every couple of years, when I buy things I have a tendency to use them until the end of their workhorse lives. I’m not about new or trendy, I’m about getting the best I can on a reasonable budget, of technology that’s been tested and true, and I’m big on not wasting my technology via replacing them for the “shiny” releases.
I’ve bought cheap-and-often in my youth, but I don’t do that now. When I replaced my sofa 3 years ago, I paid nearly 4 times what my friend did, but his will need replacing next year, and mine has a lifetime warranty on the frame and still has spots needing to be “broken in.” I have family members using the same brand of sofa from 20 years ago, because they bought smart with quality like me.
With a new home, a new town, new goals, new tech, new priorities, the coming year will be a really fun and exciting experience for me from day one to day done.
Sometimes, consumerism isn’t just empty acquisitions. Sometimes it’s about picking the things that really do let you be the best you. When I take breaks from writing, I love movies and drama. Always have. I love photography walks. I love writing in cafes and watching people. I haven’t been able to do these things for a long, long time. When my scooter died in late 2009, while my back was horribly injured, my life became more about commuting long-form through the city and surviving it, rather than living in it.
It’s sad it’ll take my leaving my hometown to get back to the smaller lifestyle I love, but it’s enthralling to know it’s closer every day. I’m 100% sure it’s the right direction, and with all the quality-of-life purchases I’ve made, and the things I’ll emotionally gain from the move, a part of me feels like there’ll be nothing left to want.
For now, I’m in a weird limbo between what I know is coming and what’s here today, but I’m soaking in every moment. What a ride.

A Late Christmas Eve Post: Sober, but Not

There’s nothing like to holidays to remind you that, no matter how hard you try to control all the elements, you just can’t.
The fit hits the shan from all directions, and just being Christmas Eve is no way to narrow the scope of its impact. When things go sideways, it doesn’t matter that it’s the holidays.
The only thing that matters is the trajectory. Who’s it landing on? Why?
I’m not gonna tell you about tonight, why I’m where I’m at, but suffice to say I’ve gone through a minefield of human emotions in the last five hours, and I’m glad the shrapnel’s not more impaling than it has been.
I spent two whole days preparing for my night. One phone call later, everything comes apart.
And that’s Christmas, man. Accidents, chaos, the whole meal deal.
I don’t really want to tell you what went down. You don’t need to know.
All you need to know is, I thought I had EVERYTHING under control. EVERY DISH was prepared before my guests arrived. I even remembered to remove the hanging-to-dry panties from my shower, for crying out loud!
I thought THIS was that PERFECT night of entertaining.
How wrong I was. Ho, ho, ho. The phone rings– BAM. Done! Instead of staggering home at 1am, the guests are leaving at 10. So be it.
That said, could’ve been SO MUCH WORSE.
I’m just here doing a PSA to remind you: We control fuck all. We try, but we don’t.
Things go sideways. It happens. No matter how much we plan, people get in accidents, they die, mishaps happen, trains derail. The whole shebang.
All we can do? Stand by, watch, and when the chaos subsides, we can respond.
With that? Not too heartbroken that this might be the last Christmas dinner I host for a long time, thanks to my impending island move. But… maybe it’s better to be the guest, for a while.
Like I said: The things you don’t know about coulda been so much worse. I’m so grateful it ended where it did.
So, Merry Christmas to us all. May better days be ahead.

Breathe, Grasshopper.

I tend to see patterns in life, from time to time.
These days, there are a few things cropping up here and there, all through my rehab, and it’s starting to echo in other aspects of life, but I’ll spare you the excess drama there.
One is the idea of ending the crazy by focusing on the moment. Another is that of breathing deeply and purposefully.
They both sound pretty basic.
“Think about now? Okay. Got it. Breathe slowly? Uh-huh. Got that. Rocked it. Moving on.”
But, um, you’d be wrong.
Some say 75% of adults are breathing incorrectly. If your shoulders move when you breathe, you’re doing it wrong. Your diaphragm hits belly-level, so your gut should fill and expand rather balloon-like, I’m told. If not, yer doin’ it wrong.

Photo I took in Vancouver's Olympic Village. Unknown girl: breathing/being.


And being grounded in the moment? Well, for example, can you tell me exactly what your body is doing right this second? What do you really feel? If you’re not sure about it, that’s a no. That’s what being fully in the moment means. It’s about knowing what’s truly going on around you, what your body is doing, and more. It’s hard to attain, ‘cos we’re so interminably distracted by the go-go-go of life.
Part of why I’m changing things up by leaving for a smaller city is I’m just so lost from any given moment. I’m incomprehensibly distracted. It wasn’t bad enough that I had the constant drone of both traffic and airport traffic surrounding my neighbourhood and my work, but now my apartment pipes and my refrigerator both do nightly practice of imitating Wookie death-rattles.
Add to that the constant-whiny buses and the roaring-fast traffic encircling my work and home, and it’s amazing I can finish sentences, let alone blog or write longer works. Focus is hard when you’re constantly on Pedestrian DefCon 3 and you’re not built for it, like sissy-pants Me.
But I digress.
So, I have this new chiropractor who’s all Zen-Master-Geek-Lord about back health, which is to say he’s weirdly good in a “Dude, that’s too easy!” kinda way.
I have this new theory that, like doctors over-prescribe medications, docs like chiropractors can over-adjust patients just because we’re under the guise that we’re broken and need fixing. My new chiro will only make the adjustment if he thinks I’m restricted. If he’s not, he won’t do anything.
He has me breathing for homework. Everyone else has been all “Gimme 20 push-ups” or whatever, usually involving extreme effort, all of which has gotten me only 70% of the way I want to be, after 9+ months of back-rehab stupid, and a second such serious injury in three years.
Zen-Master-Geek-Lord, however, has me pursuing breathing exercises, followed by simple advice. Like after I asked him “But what abdominal muscles should I be contracting when I walk?” Zen-Master-Geek-Lord replied with “Never mind. That gets confusing. You tell people that, they start thinking too much, and counter-intuitive stuff happens.  Just walk one inch taller. That’s all.”
So, I have, and it seems to be helping. And it sounds STUPID that I should require such SIMPLE advice, but this is how we get injured.
We get injured because we UnLearn basic nature. Our human nature is, breathe deep by expanding your belly. One day, you get hurt, or sick, or something, and you start breathing differently.
It takes an average of 21 days to learn a new condition. Ergo, it takes 20 days to unlearn one. I don’t know when I stopped breathing right, but I’m betting it was long, long ago. What else don’t I do anymore? I’d like to find out.
I’ve unlearned a lot of good things in all areas, and I want to change that. I’m looking forward to attaining Change: 360. Life full of learning and unlearning for a while. Sounds fun to me.
Life’s stressful as I head to the new-world days, but it’s been stressful for ages, for all the wrong reasons, and now it’s because I’m embarking on newness. That’s awesome.
But when I’m stressed and tired: I forget to breathe. And when life went in the toilet with my injury earlier this year, my bad breathing probably got worse. Breathing deeply doesn’t feel stellar with serious back injury.
Lately, I’ve had three different health professionals remind me to breathe, and more asthma issues more often. It’s funny I should be told now that part of my injury is that I’ve stopped breathing correctly and it’s resulted in muscles around my diaphragm weakening, causing my chronic back issues in the lumbar region, and that the asthma’s likely more behavioural than biological.
And knowing that just breathing correctly is fixing my back, when exercising daily wasn’t, is kind of bizarre and Twilight-Zone-ish.

I breathe more in the summer. It's not hard, here.


All this is affirming for me that it’s the simplest things often have the most profound pay-off, or consequence, in our day-to-day, and also that neglecting fundamentals can have rippling effects. Affirmation comes in another form, too, in that the idea of moving away just to knock a whole lot of speed and stress off my day might be the right plan… especially if I wanna focus on the moment and take the time to breathe on a constant basis.
I’m very, very excited about the year to come. I don’t mind taking the opportunity to ground myself, take some breaths, and save my energy for humans instead of for mundane things like endless work commutes.
It’s good that I’m seeing patterns. The above may or may not compute for you, but it resonates loudly for me. It’s the “seeing things” mode I need to achieve before I can find my will to write, and write often. Hallway vision, as they say, has been AWOL for a good long time. To unlock the “Be a Writer” Badge might be a little inconvenient time-management-wise before my move, but it’d do my soul a world of good.
I guess that’s why I’m learning to stop and breathe. Maybe writing needs me to pause a whole lot more to get through the crap of daily life and find the marrow.
Next week becomes both about being still and moving forward. Taking breaks, but starting to pack. Balance, grasshopper. Breathe.
2012, you’re looking good. Can’t wait. Om. [takes a deep breath]

My Choice to Move: Addressing Your Comments

Time to tackle some of the comments from the last week on my “bombshell” of my leaving this storied city of glass, Vancouver. [My original rant about getting out is here, and the “deeper reasons” posting is here.]
After this, I’ll move on to blogging about the process of moving, the reflections it creates as I go through a lifetime of belongings to ready myself for a new life, and other things one might be lost in thought over during such a process.

The Preamble

First: I’ve deleted TWO comments. Both were from people who didn’t know how to say they disagreed with me or thought I was whiney or whatever without calling me names and generally being dicks about it. I know you have freedom of speech and I encourage you to use it, but there’s no constitutional amendment that requires me to listen to your bullshit when you decide to use said freedoms to be a belligerent asshole about it. So, yeah, feel free to waste your time, but I’ll be deleting that crap.
Second: Let’s clear a few things up. I don’t think the day-to-day things will be much cheaper at all in Victoria. What I think is, I can get a much nicer home for only a few dollars more than I pay now, and live in a much more convenient neighbourhood that’s easier on me in every way than the place I’m in now.
Third: I don’t plan to return to the city every week or two, so travel costs don’t matter. I don’t plan to suddenly become a “concerts/theatre/ games” person because it’s been out of my budget the last couple years anyhow, so I’m quite content for a quiet life of parties at home, reading more, and exploring the world. Fact is, Vancouver’s priced most of the entertainment world out of my reach, so moving to a place where there’s less of that really isn’t a drawback. In fact, it’s a bit of an advantage, because I won’t want what I can’t have. Between my back problem and my lack of writing, being stuck on buses for up to 15 hours a week and not living close to any decent shops, the commuting is killing me. I want a walking lifestyle in a reasonably quiet, convenient area that will be better for me creatively, physically, and quality-of-life-like, and where people don’t drive 70km through the side streets like they do where I’m at now.
Okay? All rightie then.

From Culture to Pace

I get why people love big cities but a lot of the things about big cities aren’t things I’m really wild about. I don’t like the endless bustle and noise. I don’t like crowds and chaos. I don’t need “excitement.”
Deep down inside, a part of me would like to live in the Scottish Highlands and visit society once a month. If anything, I worry Victoria isn’t quiet and small enough for me.
One reader, @NiftyNotCool, commented on the backwater attitudes in the small Saskatchewan town she was raised in, and that’s why she needed to get out and move to a forward, progressive city like Vancouver. I totally get that, and it’s something I DO love about Vancouver — how open-minded it is, how many of my gay friends have found community here, how multicultural it is, and how well it seems all us races get along most of the time.

Clearing Up What “Foreign” Means

Now, let’s address the obnoxious comment I deleted that made it sound like I’m some racist who hates the fact that people of different ethnicities moved here and the real estate market escalated.
No, if you LIVE here, then I think it’s great. Hell, I’ve been an ESL teacher in the past, so the culture shock of moving here has even been my bread and butter.
My problem is with foreign millionaire landlords who don’t live here, don’t pay taxes here, and who buy properties solely as investments in an overpriced market, then charge high rents to reap rewards on those investments, thus escalating the market as a whole for renters and people who are looking to invest in a home to live in. I want the market protected from outside investors for a while, just so the local population can catch up — whether they’re “born” local or transplanted. Buying to live in it? Fine. As long as you’re interested in community and being part of the city, welcome to ya, whatever your background.
I may also have a problem with the number of SUSHI restaurants in Vancouver, but that’s the extent of my racial discontent.

I Think I Need A Drink

And, speaking of restaurants, I regret ever bringing up the motif of the “$10 beer” in my first posting. I know overpriced beer exists in Victoria. Hell, they charge $60 or something for High Tea at the Empress, so you know the stupid’s going on across the pond too. Let’s forget I ever bothered with that argument, since I also have to admit there’s $3.75 sleeves 10 blocks from my present home. I never grumbled about a $10 Guinness last fall, just this sleeve of Rickards. It’s too ordinary to be expensive. Still: You people are right, I was wrong, and there we go. Moving on. Ixnay the eerbay, eh?

When Money’s Too Tight To Mention

Another comment I had came from some 21-year-old shithead who thinks he knows something about life and the struggles that might come down one’s way. I’ve been around too many blocks to even begin caring about that perspective, and that got deleted on merit alone since he was such a mouthy little fuck in his arguments, and the mouthy little fuck knows jack about my life.
It’s not like I’ve been forced to hit up the Food Bank or anything. My argument primarily is: the ridiculous renter’s/buyer’s market is insane and it’s now draining a lot of people like me who’ve “gotten by” for years but need to get ahead finally, and it’s just not happening in this city for us. The cost of living is high, and one would expect that today, but the real estate is off the charts.
If I’m paying high rent to live in the city but still spending a minimum of 10-15 hours in commute for work each week, and getting none of the “convenience” of living in the city, and I can’t afford the “scene,” then, what is it am I paying for? It’s a problem for a lot of us. For some, the solution is moving out to the ‘Burbs. For others, it’s just moving somewhere new entirely.

Ain’t No One-Size-Fits-All Dealio, Bob

I don’t think that the solutions I’ve chosen are right for anyone but me. I’m not trying to suggest I have the answer to anyone’s problems, or even a clue how to solve Vancouver’s market problems, but I think I’ve found the right choice for me, for now. I didn’t grab a Magic 8 Ball looking for Band-aids to life here, I took most of the year to decide when and where I should be going, on criteria that matters to me, and I considered cities across this great country. Ultimately, moving far from home doesn’t work, because I truly love this area.
I’ve been slow and careful in choosing because I think I had a fork in the road many years ago and took the wrong path. I think I’ve spent years struggling because of choices I could’ve made but didn’t.
And that’s life. Making a wrong turn isn’t something that becomes clear in a week or a month. Sometimes it takes years. And, yeah, it’s clear to me now. I think.
The Vancouver “problem” isn’t the culture. It’s not the mix of races. It’s not the beautiful setting. It’s not the fun festivals. It’s not the amazing bike paths, seaside routes, or any of that. It’s not the “Greenest City in the World” plan. It’s either that you can afford to live where it’s amazing, or you can’t.
And, me, I’m over city life. I’m tired. I don’t need the noise or the crowds or the commutes anymore. I don’t need to be an hour from town so I can “live it up” now and then. I need something less on a constant basis, and for quite a while.
For me, for now, less is more.
Now, I’ll assume I’ve said enough on the whys and wherefores. Moving on, kids.

The Deeper Reasoning Behind My Going

I wrote 1,300 words earlier but they don’t feel right after coffee. So, let’s try this again. [deep breath] Om…

***

My Friday post about leaving Vancouver is inspiring a lot of discussion, and I’m thrilled for the comments. So much is being said. I plan to mine the comments for posts in the coming weeks, because I think what’s going on in Vancouver, how the Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” has become an anthem for a select class of Vancouverites, deserves a lot of discussion.
[If you’ve discovered my blog by way of others, hiya, and thanks for visiting.]
I’ve grumbled for a while that the cost of living is just ridiculous in Vancouver. Through an unfortunate series of events — bad vehicular accidents, stupid injuries, illnesses, victim of industry slowdown, over eight years — I’ve had one financial hit after another in recent years, like a boxer who keeps taking blows when he’s struggling to his feet. Well, when you’re down so long, it’s hard to see what way’s up.
I was an early financial canary in the recessionary coalmine and I’ve been hurtin’ in the bank for a long time comin’ now. The question of “how much is too much” when you’re throwing money at a way of life that leaves you an observer always on the flipside of the action starts to get a little old after two, three years of serious cutbacks and struggle.
There comes a day when there’s a line in the financial sand you can’t get over anymore, and if you don’t get gone, you just might get swallowed up. I have worried that if I stay in Vancouver much longer, that line in the sand will be crossed and I’ll no longer be able to get myself out of this situation. I’m not planning to stick around and find out.
I’ve said before about life that sometimes we just need to be uninvited from the party. Well, after so long of just getting by, and seeing my ability to afford even the meagre indulgences in life dwindle, I’ve taken the hint.
#OccupyWallStreet really amped up my thinking about what quality of life means, and what I’m willing to accept in life.
I don’t need a lot, you know. A good computer, a nice apartment, some comfortable belongings. I love the stuff  I own. I want to replace very little of it, actually. And I’m grateful for what I own, too. Then there’s cooking — like the ability to use good ingredients for cooking, that’s important, and is something I can’t always do these days. Wine two or three nights a week, also important. I’d like some more kitchen gadgets and a whole enameled cast-iron cooking set, but that’s a whole ‘nother matter. Aside from that? Pretty content on the possessions front.
So, there’s not a lot I really “want” in life. It’s not about that, and never was.
I don’t feel entitled. I don’t feel ripped off. I feel occasionally bitter that simple things I used to enjoy — dining out, concerts, games — are out of my means now, because life keeps getting more and more expensive but my salary stays the same, a common theme I hear from others. But, then, I don’t think often about restaurants, games, or concerts anymore, so they’re not really a factor any longer, either.
So, if I’ve made my peace with the idea that I don’t go out, and that’s sort of my level of expectation in life, and I’ve lowered my standard of living and simplified my expenses, and I’ve caught up with all my bills, and I’m on top of my finances that way, and I still can’t live “up” to my now-adjusted-and-simpler standard of living, well… something has to change.
Other people don’t have the same connection to place. I understand this. Some thrive to pick up and go. But I’m a sticker. I love my home. I’ve lived in 5 places in 38 years, with two of them alone compile more than 30 years of my life — my first home and my most recent apartment. I don’t like being in places for a short period of time. I want to know people, haunts, secrets, and more.
But it’s really hard to look around this place — a rainforest with world-class mountains, the Pacific Ocean, culture, great food, rivers, and more — and think “Yeah, I can do better than this.” Leaving doesn’t exactly sound like a step up when looking at everything around me here in Vancouver.
Then I remember it’s all dragging me down ‘cos that awesome comes at a price, a price too high for the payin’, and leaving’s the only thing I can do to break my  downward spiral.
So, it’s a really heavy heart that has made these choices.
But now that the choices have been made, I’m excited about the change. This is gonna rock, you know?
I love “learning by experiencing” in a new place, just like getting to know a lover. Every day it seems there’s some new thing to discover, and that’s just a fantastic way to live.
As a writer, I’ve long since lost my fire within. There’s something missing inside me, and I think being able to get up and see Difference around me every morning might be the thing to fire me up again.
Besides all that, it’s a monumental time in my life, and I’ve known that  as I’ve waded through the deciding of late. It’s the fork in the road — do I choose a city career or do I roll the dice on my writing dreams?
By choosing to get out of Vancouver, I’m telling myself I deserve more, I’m asserting that I won’t settle for less. I’m putting a value on my time, what I’m willing to waste on a commute, versus giving back to myself via writing and other passion-based endeavours.
I’m proving that I’m meant to live a slower life. I’m living up to my ethics and finally making the switch to a lifestyle where I can mostly walk and cycle, and stop leaving a big-ass carbon footprint.
I get to continue being surrounded by arts, culture, and open-minded people. I’m affirming that a life spent pursuing greater creativity, and living closer to people who inspire it within me, is something that’s critical to my nature.
I know, down deep, that acting on all those values in this way is something that will resonate and ripple for me, and for a long time to come.
I’m being forced to move by today’s economies, but that doesn’t make me a victim. It makes me someone with my eyes wide open, who’s choosing to turn it into a opportunity for positive change.
I might still be on a tight budget as I make my way to where I’m going, since most of the costs of living are somewhat similar to hear, save for rental and the ridiculous commutes, but it’s a really exciting time to be running down a new dream, whatever the price.
And so it begins.

***

Yes, I plan to continue blogging in Victoria. Yes, I will write about the experience of moving toward the big day. Yes, some will be panicky and insane. Yes, I will address some of your great comments in postings to come. Yes, my head may explode before Christmas at this rate. And, yes, it’s kinda fun. Stay tuned for more. Thanks for reading.

Vancouver: I Love You, But I'm Leaving

This is my first piece on my decision to leave my hometown of Vancouver and head for Victoria, off the coast, the southernmost point of Vancouver Island. (Vancouver is on the Mainland, not on the island that bears its name. No, that’s not confusing at all. God.)
Because it’s the first time I’m letting the cat out of the bag, there’s a lot of simmering anger in me. I feel I’ve been forced to this decision by a city that has become a place where much of the 99% can barely get by. Like so often is the case, my anger’s finally making me act, and I’m picking up my first moving boxes this weekend.
As time evolves, I’ll look at this shift in my life with a more tempered, mellow view, but today I’m embracing the anger and the Dark Side for this posting.

The Breaking Point

It’s quittin’ time, Henry.
Gettin’ while the gettin’s good.
Hasta la sayonara. Change of address. Forwarding my mail.
All this and more, soon. Outta Vancouver, man. Into the fray. I’m a goner, Ma.
Some might think I’m crazy. “HEY, leaving the most liveable city in the WORLD? Are you NUTS?”
No, man. I’m just real fuckin’ broke, and real fuckin’ tired. File me under “Can’t give a shit anymore.”
For two years, I’ve been growing weary of Vancouver life. I’ll always love this town. It’s my home, but it’s now become my burden.
I didn’t come on some vacation, fall in love, and move. I’m not some foreign investor who’s decided to throw his wad at the town. I’m not some keenie who thought the Vancouver future was so bright, they came packin’ shades for life in a rainforest.
No. I was BORN here. This is my HOME.
Urban Undone
Most “born” Vancouverites I know — they’re really, really chill, down-to-earth people. The transplants? Depends. Many, not so much. It’s messing up the mix, and what was once a really laidback city often feels pretentious, overpriced, and pretty shallow. Maybe I work downtown too much.
I’ve been employed in the heart of Yaletown off and on for 12 years. Love the office I work in, hate the neighbourhood.
Every day, I show up to a job where I barely scrape by because it’s not a lucrative industry but it’s a great office, and I work in a neighbourhood where I find Ferraris parked, toy dogs, and plenty of ridiculously plastic people. Seriously, I think a Yaletown shop should open offering the service of extracting people’s heads from their asses. If one more asshole with an umbrella walks under an awning hugging the building in a rainstorm, I’m gonna slap someone.
After work a couple weeks ago, I went out for a BEER in the hood and had to pay $9.50. Before tip. For a SLEEVE, not a PINT. Metric THIS, baby. I don’t know what fairy godparent pays your tab, but I can’t do $10 not-a-pints. I buy a bottle of wine for that, for crying out loud, and at least that can put me out of my misery if I drink it fast enough. Let’s get real here. I fuckin’ hate Yaletown.
The class divide? I WORK inside it. While I’m so over it, I’m totally not, because it’s in my face daily.
But not for long.
When I grew up, Vancouver had under a half-million people. It was some quaint pint-sized version of Seattle-meets-San Francisco, but we liked it.
Now? It’s some gleaming pearl in the world and everyone wants to live here. Thanks, Hollywood people.
The average Vancouver-city home now sells for 11x the average family’s income. Compared to that income, Vancouver’s property values are a ridiculous 56% higher than NYC, & even stacks up 31% higher than the great city of London, England. It’s a bitch-slap to renters, too, because we have to absorb both land and tax costs, but we’re also the people least likely to afford to do so, leading to people having roommates as they’re pushing 40 and beyond now. Then there’s the lack of new rental opportunities because developers only care to sell, not rent. No one has a long-game in the providing-homes-business anymore.
Add to that the fucking ongoing three-plus-year recession and that most small biz has frozen wages for most of that time, if not longer, and renting in Vancouver is a real conundrum.
LIVEABLE? SURELY YOU JEST.

Where the 30% Can Afford to Play

Like this brilliant Vancouver Magazine article reports, I know more and more people in their 30s and 40s looking for second jobs, but most of them are secretly thinking there’s got to be a better life where we don’t need to work 60-hour weeks to be stuck in traffic only to pay exorbitant prices as premiums for the location — be it in dining, rent, clothing, or whatever. (Or $10 draught sleeves of local beer.)
This will always be my home, but I wish to hell so many people hadn’t found out about it, because I’m REALLY not digging the company.
Every day, I’m tired, I’m annoyed, I’m broke, and I’m left wondering when I’m gonna bloody stop feeling like this.
And then I realized: I’m not. It won’t stop.
It’s not me, Vancouver. It’s you.
For all your positives, there’s all these downsides that no one wants to talk about.
You’ve got a lot of people who don’t smile on streets, who look like they’ve been slapped if you say “hello” (if they look at you at all). You’re expensive. Your traffic is often at a crawl. You’re filled with “scenes.” And, because you’re so expensive, everyone’s so primed to get by and get ahead that socializing seems more about business than making friends.
God, you’re SO expensive.
I just can’t pay the price anymore, not literally or figuratively. It’s eating at my soul.
I have a Virginia Woolf quote on a memento at home. It says: “If you are losing your leisure, look out, for you may be losing your soul.” One day recently, I dusted it, read it, and I realized I’m absolutely losing my soul.
While I love Vancouver’s setting and its diversity, the truth is, I’ve seen far too much of the same for 37 years. The newness here all looks the same — glass and concrete. I need a more soulful newness, and Victoria’s close yet far… and looking to me very much like what Vancouver was 30 years ago.
Making the Working-from-Home Switch
In this town, I’m an unlucky girl who landed a serious back injury and is struggling to get by. On top of my full-time week, I’m rehabbing an injury, and even though I live inside of city limits, the 10km I travel to downtown takes me about 40 minutes each way, and when you factor in all my appointments, getting around, and more, it’s adding up to a crazy 15-20 hours a week I’m spending on transit. It’s soul-sucking.
Right now, I can’t work from home because I hate my home, since my landlord has dreams of achieving “slumlord” status. To rent a new place in a better neighbourhood, I’m looking at a 50-60% rent increase, and nothing in this city remains for what I pay now. There’s co-op housing, which would be affordable, but it needs a 5-year commitment, and the idea of committing to this city another five years has churned my stomach of late.
I have no interest in being in this craptastic apartment all day every day. My at-home workstation sucks, and I’ve fallen out of love with my apartment since the cockroach episode of ’08-’10. My desk is too high. At the real office, I’m simply at my desk too long. I hate leaving work and returning because my days are long enough as-is, given my back-injury needs, so I generally work straight through my days. It’s not ideal, but it gets my day over faster, and me home sooner.
In the end, I spend lots of weekends keeping to myself to recharge and house-clean, because I’m too weary after work with my wonky body to be doing that crap on work nights. It’s an unsatisfying and even depressing balance that’s the only thing I can make work for city-life these days. It keeps me antisocial, and I hate that my life has become this. I don’t hate people, I’d like to see them, but I also need a certain amount of time to myself, and that’s how it’s achieved in long-term injury rehab when one’s stuck in the urban rat-race.
Moving to Victoria, my rent’ll be about the same price but my home and neighbourhood should be better, and possibly with utilities included, lowering my expenses. I’ll be close to the downtown core AND the ocean, less than 20 blocks from each, and could ditch a bus-pass in favour of walking 80% of the time — great for my body. I can work from home and keep my antisocialness to a practical level, then escape to see the world because I’ll be living in the mix, not stuck on the inconvenient busing-to-every-place outskirts like I am now. I could write in cafes with my soon-to-be Boxing-Day-Special laptop, work out more regularly, keep my work-seated hours to smaller chunks for better back health, and maybe, just maybe, have more fun.
The discipline required to work from home will be hard, but the soul-suckingness required to work in the heart of Vancouver is a far higher price to pay than the task of making myself become disciplined.

Quality of Life

Vancouver Island is almost self-contained. As a foodie, this is kind of awesome, because so much is grown and produced there, and the profit margin is much higher for vendors to use sustainable practices and sell close to home. I’ve been checking out grocery prices, and finding that locally-raised unmedicated chicken sells at prices lower than mass market meats here on the Mainland do.
All things considered, for me, moving for “quality of life” makes a lot of sense. I’ll be able to balance the demands of working for a living along with the living I’ve not seemed to get around to doing a lot of over the last couple of years. I’m imagining a Steff who likes to walk and explore, who feels relaxed enough to finally focus on reading and writing again, who’s out rediscovering her love for photography, eating less processed food and taking the time to cook healthily at home. I’m imagining a Steff I used to be, a Steff whose soul got lost a while ago.
And then there are the pubs. Real British pubs. Fan-fucking-tastic. Maybe they don’t charge $9.50 a sleeve. (Motherfuckers!)
Being the heart of a ferry system for both the province of BC and an outcropping of the Washington State ferries, Victoria offers far different weekend-traveller options that include crazy rainforests, other islands, and Canada’s only surfing spots, and other great haunts, all for far cheaper than Mainland travel spots.
Will I stay there forever? Unlikely. Stay for five years? I think so.

The Last Word (For Now)

Sure, it’s a drastic — and considering I have to pay to move my belongings by weight on the ferries, expensive — move. And it seems surreal to be so excited (yet still sad) to be leaving, knowing all these organizations claim Vancouver is the most liveable city in the world, something that makes my jaw drop every time I hear it.

Vancouver Island in the distance, from UBC's Fraser Outlook.

Maybe it used to be, but with bad civic policies leading to exorbitant and insane real estate prices, the day-to-day here remains out-of-reach for most of the 99%.
A lot of us single folk in our 30s and 40s, who are tired of barely getting by, let alone not getting ahead, can assure you these ranking folk are misreading their data. Very unscientifically, about one in three people I talk to who are in my age range have considered leaving Vancouver, and their options are still open. Most people I know dine out less, have less time for leisure activities, and are feeling more stress than ever. At this rate, soon, this town will only consist of white-collar workers and upper-management, unless expensive rental conundrums are solved, and fast.
I can either cough up the 50-60% more for rent now for the delusion of living the good life while killing myself to make my ends meet, or I can admit I’ve lost the battle, but that the battle’s no longer worth the fight, pick up, and leave. And leaving brings a quieter, simpler, closer, more convenient, healthier lifestyle, for the same price as I pay now, or maybe less.
Hmm. Yeah. Doesn’t sound like such a tough choice now, huh? So, 10 more weeks, then.
It’s a drastic change, but my gut says a great one. Buckle up. This’ll be a fun ride.

***

I’ll definitely be blogging about everything coming down my pipes — from moving ideas, planning, to the simmering excitement of not knowing where I’ll be or what’s gonna happen, for the next three months of my life. Yep. 2012’s gonna be a good’un. I just need to remember to stop and breathe a few times between now and March.

So, Uh, About That Tree…

Yeah, okay, guilty.
I’m that asshole who put her tree up on November 29th and made you feel like a totally unorganized idiot, or like I’m part of the conspiracy to make Christmas encroach further into our lives.
But I say NAY. NAY, it is not encroaching!
I don’t know when it started, but for a couple decades at least I’ve associated the week FOLLOWING American Thanksgiving as the official start of “When it’s acceptable to talk about… Christmas.”

You'll shoot your eye out, kid!


Still, I typically do my Christmas one week later, on December 6th. This year, I see myself getting crazy busy over the next while, and I don’t want to overdo my December, and I also don’t want to get into the position I was in when I got it up on the 19th one year. Starting a week earlier gives me breathing space. (And makes it likely I’ll stick to my tradition of taking it down on New Year’s Day night.)
But there’s a deeper reason for me to start Christmas early this year.
It’s been a lousy fucking year at times. It’s ENDING well, but the first 8-9 months you coulda kept, thanks.
From January to June was pretty sucktastic especially. Between the Japan thing, blowing my back, dead people, and other things I’d rather be flippant about than think seriously on, well, it was an often-bleak period for me.
I’ve had low-grade depression for a long time now, well over a year, and but I’m really optimistic about where 2012 might go because I like how this year is ending.
There’s a mental game that comes with adversity and we don’t always win. I know I haven’t been, and I’ve been trying to flip the script.
Christmas is pretty much the biggest script one can flip, if one’s tired about the way things are looking in life.
Christmas, at its heart, is a time made of myth and imagination. Fun stories and hopefully good memories abound. Yummy foods and warm drinks are everywhere.
These are a few of my favourite things.
I don’t like the commercialization of Christmas, and never have. I don’t buy gimmicky things and I don’t give a lot.
So, last night, when I tweeted a picture of my tree last night, and @Unambig said “It looks like 1984,” it was one of the nicest things ever. (He expounded here.)
For me, that’s the gold standard of Christmas. The early ’80s. Christmas was certainly commercialized, but in a more romantic and fun kind of way. Today’s commercialization dresses it up that way but I don’t believe them. It’s disingenuine. Time to replace that iPhone that works perfectly fine with yet a snazzier iPhone, kids! Spend, spend, spend!
Not me.
I won’t do a lot for Christmas. I’ll get out and see some people but I’ll also take a lot of time for myself. I won’t spend a lot, either, compared to others. I’ll make most of the gifts I give. The few I buy will be ones I hope to really be liked, but they won’t be expensive. I’ll give pies, candy, and other yummy things, and it will take a long time to make it all. And that’s okay! Generous in spirit, I can be that.
In the past, I’ve spent, but I’ve avoided malls and the standard “easy way out” online gifts.
Like, one year, I took a weekend in early December to hunt for unusual gifts, back when I had the cash to do so. I drove out to the Valley, to the Fort Langley Antique Mall, and dropped my wad on collectibles. For one friend, a 1956 red rotary-dial telephone, like they used to have in all the old movies about nuclear scares in the ’50s and ’60s. NO, NOT THE RED PHONE! Commie fuckers!

Yeah, I gave one just like this set. I'm awesome. 🙂


Then, also bought that day, there’s the mint-condition set of 4 Empire Strikes Back special edition glasses issued by Burger King in 1980. That went over well. I don’t think they’ve ever been used, they’re in some shadow box somewhere, I suspect. A father-to-son legacy gift for the now-5-years-old son to have one decade down the line.
Last year, I was unemployed. There were no such generous gifts from me. Instead, I made people candy and other things.
Still… by just accepting that I didn’t have the cash for Christmas-as-usual, and embracing the older ideas — cooking from scratch, giving little well-planned made-by-me gifts, and things like that — I rediscovered the FUN of Christmas.
I enjoyed the bustle of picking up necessities because I wasn’t part of the shopping pandemonium last year. I found more time to slow down and see Christmassy things and take moments for myself. Somehow, it felt more like the Christmases I knew as a kid. It felt simpler, easier, and more enjoyable.
I ran into others who had found themselves in similarly-pinched positions after layoffs, fewer clients, and other ongoing-recession-related situations, and they all had to make the choice of bemoaning their situation and dismissing Christmas altogether, or giving in and trying to get creative about personalized gifts to give. Once they gave in and went with what they could afford, they too found that Christmas was more fun. They didn’t have the stress of how they’d pay it off in January or February because they couldn’t get themselves in that position, and, bam! The bonus to that was, they just didn’t have STRESS.
I’ve spoken with some of those folk since and all of them are looking forward to Christmas more this year. They’re planning ahead for what to do, how to cut pennies, how to enjoy the moment. Just like me. They’re not feeling pressure, they’re just planning well in advance for how to schedule their time for creativity, and balancing that with the fun life that comes in the holiday season.
I’m saving in other ways, too. Like last year, I’m ditching the expensive turkey and making a ground-pork tourtiere instead (this recipe, amazing). About a third the cost and every bit as traditional and wonderful to look forward to noshing. Best part is, I can make it up to two days ahead of time and really enjoy the entertainment of Christmas eve with friends again.
Does Christmas within a budget SORT OF suck? Sure. So does life on a budget, but that has to be the way we live now.
Hey, it’d be wonderful to be able to afford to give awesomeness-with-big-pricetags to friends and family I care about, but I can’t. I live in this recession. I’ve been affected by it for a long, long time, and that makes me pretty ordinary. The living-within-means thing is getting old, but that’s just life.
So, we do what we can and we have fun with what we’ve got.
If putting a tree up on November 29th makes it easier for me to make that all happen, then that’s how we’re playing it.
Christmas is about whatever you want it to be about. You’re a Christian? Great, celebrate Jesus. A heathen like me? Santa!
But, for all of us, it should always be about just remembering to find a little time for people, give a little more of yourself than you normally do, and being kind to others.
You would think having an extra week of that in our lives wouldn’t be such a pain in the ass for some of you.
Maybe it wouldn’t be, if you found a way to remember the simplicity of Christmas, and practiced its ideals rather than buying the “Give till it Hurts” mentality that spoils the modern commercial holiday for so many.

Nightvisions: Of Dreams and Wakings

Dreams. I don’t remember them often. I wake to a hazy shade of blank in the morning, most days.
Not this morning. Somehow aware I was sleeping and dreaming, I couldn’t shake my disturbing visions — splicings of abuse and trauma all swirling in my head.

The Characters

Coffee shop, old-style American ’70s joint with tattered vinyl booths, a stainless steel coatrack by a jukebox, long counter filled with blue collar workers, lotsa beards. Felt like a truck stop. Waitress straight out of Alice — dark roots, blonde, overtight calves from too many long days, older looking than her years. Blue diner uniform, white apron, frequent smoke breaks.
Scene two: Junkie, rat-trap apartment with cracked plaster, taped fractured windows, bugs skittering across worn floorboards. Old furniture once-loved in better places than this — ’80s brown floral couch, round sidetables covered with threadbare cloths, wobbly coffee table, old console TV with rabbit ears. Thin woman with scarred arms from years of lesions and self-harm. Natty mousy hair, dry and dull, messy and barely tied back. Sunken complexion, decaying teeth, sad hollow eyes. Needle and pipes at couch’s end table.
There was also an old rancher in the country. Broken swingset, overgrown lawn. Guy with a penchant for jean shirts, in his 40s. Isolated. Likes working on his truck.
Dreams being dreams, mine was a swirl of childhood moments with these three. Incestuous, abuse-filled snippets, albeit somewhat stereotypical.
They flooded at me, images of things some of us should never imagine but others have tragically lived.

Remembering

And that was horrifying but it was more who and what these people grew into that ate at me. How you can never undo that loss of innocence. How we get imprinted at such visceral levels as to what we feel about the world, thanks to our encounters in our youth. How cynicism and hopelessness find us through experience.

This is a "joke" picture people post to Facebook, etc, but imagine growing up with this guy as Dad. It's a little disturbing for me. Should we unsee this?


We joke about embarrassing photos of others, calling them “things you can’t unsee,” but what if an entire childhood is formed that way? With the things that can’t be unseen?
I had a nice comfortable upbringing, aside from an asshole child molesting teacher at my Catholic high school (with whom I had no contact). The rest is par for the course — adversities and challanges aplenty, just not the soul-destroying kinds.
Even still, moments with certain beggars on the street, brushes with homelessness, imprinted me deeply at a young age. And it was in passing, at best. Yet.
But this morning’s dream haunted me on waking. I realized I’m often guilty of judging people for who they are now, with little consideration of what the may have moved past in becoming who they are. What abuses, adversity, horrors may have helped shape them.
I have a neighbour, a burn-out former junkie who seems to be a pathological liar, and I’m suddenly wondering what it was that got her to where she is now. What kind of childhood did she have? Where did the wrong turns come? What could she have expected otherwise?
A cynic would say soul-crushing is a compounding experience. Every hurt adds to the last. Every layer of dejection lands atop another, slowing wrapping us up from the world, walling us off. Like the outcome is unavoidably dire, and one can’t unravel that damage.
For some, I’m sure that’s true. Adversity has the same way of affecting us. When everything keeps being hard, it’s sometimes easier to fall into survival mode than to remember that thriving can be a choice, a series of actions.
But when it comes to people like those I dreamed about, the damage is often long done. If they don’t overcome that hardship as a child, they often pay the price through lacking education, all but determining the lives they’ll live largely marginalized, paycheque-to-paycheque, unprepared for a complicated adult world.

From Whence We Came

I don’t know what it is that makes some able to fight past all that, but I’m so glad that resilience can be found in the world. I’m glad not all souls get crushed and stay that way.
I grew up in a white low/middle-class neighbourhood, a mix of kids. My days seemed fun like anyone else’s. We kept our doors unlocked, had some neighbour parties, all knew each other like you’re supposed to, way out there in white suburbia.
Now, though, I know two families had incest happening, another had violent abuse beyond the screaming fights we all heard.
Another had drug-addicted kids by the age of 15. One family had parents who were addicts. I found needle works in their sofa when I was 14 and had no idea it was for heroin then.
Sure didn’t feel like it when we were all out there on the street doing neighbourhood snowball fights. Knowing now what I didn’t know then, it sort of taints the memories on some days and makes them more awesome moments on others. For a brief time, we were all kids and having fun. For a little while, some snowballs whizzing through the air put us all on equal ground. Life could be good, even just for 30 minutes.
It’s safe to say I feel like I’m living the end of the movie Stand By Me this morning, as I remember the life we all had but tempered with the knowledge of an adult who one day learned the deep dark secrets each of us had back then.
I lived so close to darkness in some of those homes. It never touched me personally. I don’t think it ever dampened my light. I wish I could have helped them.
But deep down inside, I’m glad I was able to be ignorant of those worlds until much later. I’m sure it helped me have a wider worldview.
I’m sure the years of looking-but-not-seeing have affected greatly the way I see the world today. Knowing how “normal” people seemed, yet how they were anything but, seems to have shaped my very skeptical view of what others being what they project at us.
I guess, in a way, being raised so close to some of the things I dreamed about last night yet so insulated from all the happenings, has defined a lot of my empathy and perceptiveness in life and in writing.
It’s funny. We’re shaped as much by what we didn’t know, it seems, as what we did. What a weird world we live in.

***

And that’s where my headspace is this Monday morning. I wish I could better wrap it up and put a bow on it, but I can’t for the life of me figure out how this one ends. Much like my dream.

When Writing Isn't Working: My Experience

I feel like I’m phoning in the writing of late.
Doesn’t really matter what you think. I’m the doer. The deciderer. If I don’t buy what I’m sellin’, then I’m wasting my time.
Writing isn’t like washing dishes. Doing it on autopilot ain’t gonna float, Joe.
And I don’t know where that went. That “thing” that makes writing awesome.
For me, writing’s like a bad lover. Doesn’t always stick around when you need it. Communication’s either there or it’s not. It’s easy to feel alone when you’re with it, and not in a good way. There’s not a lot of dialogue, just feuding voices in your head.
People who claim they wish they could write have no idea what they’re asking for.

The Realities of Writing

It’s a demanding thing. It needs hours, days, weeks, years of your life to get done and get done well. Part of it’s sheer luck — getting born with a gift for words and swirlie-idea-thingies, well, you can’t send away for a degree at the University of Phoenix for that.
It’s a worldview. It’s believing you have a perspective that’s worth registering as a voice in the cosmic mix.
You have to really believe in yourself when you write. You need to commit to word choice, slap that vocabulary down. Then you have to turn around and doubt every fucking thing you wrote. You need to read it like you’re the Word Reaper, slashing ’em away with your sickle. It’s a Jekyll/Hyde thing, writing/editing. Love it, then hate it, on purpose.
There’s a lot of debate out there…

Does Writers’ Block Exist?

I can unequivocally say YEAH. Oh, yeah. Sometimes writers’ block (I use plural ’cause I know I ain’t alone in my “writer’s block” experience) is more like the Great Wall of China than it is the cinderblock fence down the road.
The thing is, it can be overcome. But sometimes the things causing the block just need attention, time, and perseverance. Sometimes it’s about making choices because priorities need to happen.
Face it. Writing happens by sitting on your ass with your implements of choice, doling out letters, words, phrases. No phone calls, no outside world, no need to wear pants.
Writing takes time away from everything and everyone in your life. It’s a selfish, solitary struggle. Hanging out with your friends? Gets in the way. Doing your dayjob? Another “block.” Dealing with real-life situations, everything from relationships to rehab? Another obstacle.
So, when you’re talking about life distractions, focus issues, and the equivalent of creative impotence, you can understand how TIMING is everything.

So, It Can Be Fixed, Right?

Writers’ block absolutely can be overcome. But it’s like the old joke — if there’s a wind at my back, the stars align, and the cosmos is on my side, maybe it’ll all work out.
You gotta have the right timing. That feeling of “Oh. I could… expound on that, you know. Well, THAT’s an interesting line…” is exactly when to jump on writing. Why I started this post was, I wrote this tweet and thought “I just like the way that sounds,” and thought “Maybe I should blog.”
So, if the mood hits, and you need a topic, well, what do you write about?
For me, if I’m at a loss, I’ll usually start writing about what I just ate and whether it was yummy. Then I’ll write about the weather. Then I somehow hit a “you know, earlier, X happened” or “I saw Y” vein, and the tangent will lead me into something that’s actually been playing in my head but all the STUFF got in the way. THEN I delete all the crap about breakfast, yummy-factor, and the weather. Poof. We has writing.
But there are times when I’m just not feeling the joy, and nothing has been interesting to me for a few days, and everything I write’s crap, even if I’m trying.
When they say “shit happens,” they’re talking about writing quality too. For all of us. Anyone who tells you that you can be consistently excellent at writing is someone who doesn’t have a fucking clue about writing.
You can sure try. But that’s what editing is for. Coming back with fresh eyes, judiciously cutting/splicing, and recreating it.

And Then We Edit

They say movies are born or killed in the editing suite. Sure, you can shoot a movie, but until the editor splices that thing together, it don’t mean jack. It’s as much in the edit as it is in the original draft that writing is made.
If you don’t have the passion when writing, or at least the craft of copy, then it’s a hard thing to salvage but it CAN be done, especially if you know you have more in you then you put on the page, and you’re open to rewriting and amending entire sections. Some of my best work was “add-on” work that I started just so I’d get my half-ass idea down, then completely reworked later.

Bottom Line: Fake It Till You Make It

Lately, writing’s been obligatory for me. Seldom is it something I’m inspired to write, and I know it feels that way to me when I read it back. Technically, it’s not bad. But it needs a little soul.
So, if I’m not writing well lately, why bother? ‘Cos that’s how you get past it. Keep trying. It’s why I wait for a notion to hit me. The chances of not sucking are higher when I’m not forcing it. Eventually, the things getting in my way will get the fuck out of my way, and I’ll have that day where I LOVE the feeling of writing.
Ultimately, as hard as writing is, as both a friend and foe, I’m quite sure writing and reading have saved my life at times, and they’ve certainly shaped who I am.
If writing is as much a state of being as it is of doing, I generally love the kind of perspective I have on the world. It’s fun being in my head when I’m on creative bents. It becomes like a drug I wonder how I could ever live without. But, like heroin junkies and other addicts, it’s a high we seldom get to live for very long because the price we pay is high. Eventually we come crashing back to that place where it’s a struggle to do things well.
But that’s why they call it a ride.
Love it or hate it, writing’s the thing that’s been a part of me more than and longer than anything else — and when I’m not doing it the way I want to, not hitting the target like I love to, it’s kind of hard not to feel like I’m not the person I thought I was.
And that, too, is part of writing. Self-doubt, disappointment. A “block” is something we take very personally, and with good reason.
But I’ve been blocked before, and breaking through it is an amazing feeling, and a great time to be a writer. It’s worth the struggle. For me, anyhow.

Vote or Shut the Fuck Up

Tomorrow is election day.
Civic elections affect your life on a day-to-day basis more than any other election can. What you pay for parking, for taxes, the education your kids receive, the hours night clubs are open for, who can sell booze, what parades happen, the number of parks in the city, where people can smoke, the homelessness you see, where your dog can play, and more — these are just some of issues you get to have a voice in tomorrow.
So, vote.
If you don’t vote, then shut the fuck up, because you get your chance to DO SOMETHING about it. If whining is all you want to do, then don’t bother.
Approximately 70% of Vancouver’s registered voters couldn’t be bothered to turn up in 2008.
This city has serious issues, and we need a majority of our voters to show up in polls and vote so we have some semblance of unity (and a mandate) as we move ahead to solve those problems.
If you don’t vote, then you can keep your mouth shut about your complaints, because I think I’m not alone when I say THAT voice of yours doesn’t matter. We need proactive people. We need a citizenry who gives a shit about where they live, who contributes to the mandate of where it’s going, and who feels entitled to have a say in the decisions made from the top down. We need solutions and we need discussions.
A ballot changes lives. Use it. Cast your vote on Saturday, November 19th.