Category Archives: Journalling

A Good Man Is Gone: Words About the Penmachine

There’s something really right about how people around the world are being moved to tears at the amazing end-of-life “The Last Post” published posthumously by my friend Derek K. Miller.
If you don’t know the story of Derek, you can read the Vancouver Sun’s tribute to him here.
I didn’t know him well. I had the good/bad luck of befriending him when he had less than a year left to live. We were in touch online for a few months before that, but we didn’t even meet until a year ago this week. After, I only saw him twice more. He invited me to his 41st birthday at his home, where I met his family, as well as his incredible Living Wake celebration of life in March of this year.
It’s with great sadness that I know now that Derek was friends with friends of my brother, more than 20 years ago, but we never met until 2010.
There are a lot of people I “know” today about as well as I knew Derek, but few could have me this devastated upon news of their death.
Did you see Harry Potter, the first movie? Remember the opening sequence when Dumbledore stands on Harry’s street, and plucks all the light from all the streetlamps, and the world falls dark?
I sorta felt like that when I woke yesterday and heard the news that Derek had passed. Few lights will ever shine as brightly as that man. Not for me.
On the page, erudite and expressive, profound yet simple when commenting upon the world around him, and in person, the warmest, kindest face you could ever see, with eyes that just drank you in because he was THAT interested in everything you had to say.
He was one of those rare people I consider a “hundred-percenter”. He absolutely gave 100% of himself to you, to his work, to his family, to his blog, to life. He did everything seemingly effortlessly, with grace and cool that people just don’t have anymore… even as cancer ravaged him, even to his final days.
In the end, I got to experience him the way the world did, electronically. Cancer’s not exactly awesome for one’s social calendar, so Derek wasn’t getting around much in recent months. His blog was all we got. But what a blog — an affirmation of life being worth living, death not being so scary, and how important little things are — from Diet Cherry Coke to walking the dog.
I knew he was dying, so I read his blog as he wrote it, but now I have years and years of archives to read, and I’m thankful his friends will be keeping that temple of Derek alive online for us all to experience.
Derek found me. He started following me on Twitter. I checked him out. There, in his bio, was “stage IV colorectal cancer.”
Me and cancer, we go back. My immediate reaction? I wasn’t gonna make the mistake of befriending this guy just so he could go and die on me.
And then I read his content.
I thought about it. Pretty fascinating guy. And, “it’s only Twitter.”
Followed him back. We engaged. He read my blog, commented regularly, and the exchange and mutual respect grew. Pretty standard digital story.
Then the Northern Voice conference came along in May, 2010, and I had to do a speech. The auditorium was packed with a lot more people than I’d imagined would come out, and my nerves were at Puke-Alert Level 3.
They tell you one of the public speaking tricks is to find the face of the kindest, most interested, most riveted, gracious-looking person in the auditorium, and look to them when you need someone to buoy you.
Instead of my friends, I made eye contact with Derek K. Miller and felt safe. I felt really, really safe, I let my guard down, and I had one hell of a successful talk. I don’t know if I could’ve had that same vulnerability without lucking into someone who was so incredibly responsive and supportive in the audience, like Derek was for me. He had this little smile throughout the speech, never broke eye contact for the whole half-hour, and now, whenever I think of Derek, I see him sitting left of centre in the front of that audience, his legs crossed, leaning on the armrest, his camera in his lap.
But, because the advanced stage of cancer left me unable to experience more tangibly the gift of his in-person friendship, the part of me that will mourn Derek the most is Me the Writer.
Even seasoned writers will tell you that ripping the Band-aid off and exposing your gaping wounds on the page is a tough, tough business. So many of us get wrapped up in the drama of it, dressing up the experience and making it so much more, or else totally missing the ballpark with this clinical detachment that “tells” and doesn’t show what’s going on. In those weak and affected retellings we lose the truth of the experience, and it’s nailing the truth that makes for great writing.
Derek, though, he had this incredible balance, an economy of language, and it just worked so well. His scientific predilections made him irrepressibly truthful, always, and frankly straight about it, but his heart infused his passion in his words, and his boyish wonder of the world would be inescapably obvious. Few writers can offer that combination of heart, passion, matter-of-factness, and childlike wonder, and Miller brought it all with a bang. His voice was rare.
And he wasn’t afraid. He had no pride getting in the way of telling us he was wearing diapers at the end, or in explaining physicality of the disease itself. He didn’t play the sympathy card. He simply wrote.
He wrote for the purest reason a man can write — to share his story because he knows he’s not alone in the human condition, and even if he would never meet that face on the other side of the world, he’d have told his story. A ripple in the pond. That’s all most writers really want to make — a ripple in the pond.
Derek K. Miller had one of the earliest online presences in this country. He had a legendary history on the web. He kept a weblog for almost as long as they’ve been around — 14 years now.
He wrote because he simply had to write.
He’s the kind of person I want to be when I grow up.
And he doesn’t exist anymore.
We, the Vancouver community, will forever remember you, Derek. You used the internet in the way we dream the whole world would — to teach, inspire, communicate, shed truth, entertain, build community, record posterity, and, most of all, just plain make friends.
Another good man’s done and gone, too fucking soon. Rest in peace.

**** **** **** ****

My Dream For Derek:
I love that Derek’s The Last Post is causing people to stop and rethink life around the world — from Roger Ebert all the way down to a housewife sobbing as she reads it on her iPhone in the WalMart parking lot (like a friend back east told me she did). He was that good a writer. He deserves the audience, even if he’s gone.
It’s his ripple in the pond, and I hope it ripples forever.
I would love a publisher to take his work and make it into book form. I would buy that book. I would gift that book.
I would love his amazing daughters and wife to receive royalties on his life’s work.
If Derek’s work could have a life after him, and provide a life for his daughters, it would be a beautiful, wonderful thing to behold.
The world would be a far, far better place if it were men like Derek that we all aspired to be, not celebrities.
Derek K. Miller, a man for the ages.
PS: The photo’s caption isn’t displaying for some reason. It’s a self-portrait taken in the photo booth at Derek’s Living Wake, about 6 weeks before his death. He chose it as his last Facebook profile avatar, and I think it was Derek’s funny way of toasting his friends for being a part of his life. ‘Cos he’s that kinda guy.

Of Bloggers And Trolls: Oh, My!

Sometimes all it takes to get back into writing is to sit down and do it.
Got a comment this morning that I promptly deleted, since I’m just getting too old for that shit.
If you want to call me out objectively on anything I’ve written, step right up, my friend. Let’s have a beer and chew that chat, all right? I’m down with dissent, constructive criticism, and I don’t shy away from debating anyone I know. I call it like I see it ‘cos I’m too lazy to keep up with lies.
Love dissent and debate, in the real world. Online, who wants to type that much? Still, I try to engage.
But when the extent of your entire comment is “you’re rambling lately,” the delete bin is for you. I used to be one of these “Hey, I’ll publish every comment!” types who purport to be encouraging dialogue, but then I realised that, um, no, it’s just encouraging stupidity.
The older I get, the more I think they might’ve been onto something with eugenics. I’m very aware that, while the internet is giving much-needed voices the airplay they deserve, it’s also broadcasting some real fuckin’ tools.
Here’s the deal. If you go around commenting on posts all the time, and you don’t have a blog, and you’re always antagonistic and IN YO FACE BEYOTCH about it, then just shut the hell up. Really. Do some self-medicating, find a mountaintop guru for advice — I don’t care what you do, but just find a purpose in life, ‘cos it’s just sad, sad, sad to see what some folk get reduced to in life… commenter.
Thank god for the nice people who comment to share stories and are awesome and open and rah-rah-rah, because they’re the reason we keep pushing “publish.”
Them’s the new house rules. No more troll comments published. Dissent? Okay. Be smart and respectful and tell me I’m wronger than than wrong, I’m down with that.
Otherwise, hey, don’t like the writing? Don’t read it. Don’t like my opinions? There’s the door. There’s only 100 million blogs in the world, I’m sure you can find some carbon-copy of you out there somewhere. Good luck lookin’, Skippy.
Life’s short, man. I’m living it as me, writing what I want to say, and that’s the way the blogging cookie crumbles. If I gave a fuck about pleasing anyone in specific, I’d be checking my Google Analytics more than once a month. And probably swearing a LOT less.
Instead, I write or I don’t.
Sometimes the writing blows monkey chunks. Welcome to the “I’m a real person” thingie. Creativity isn’t a tap you turn on and it rushes out. We’re lucky to tame the whirlwind once in a storm season. Now and then: Brilliance. The rest of the time? It’s why sailboats come with motors. Sometimes you’re gonna coast a while.
And that’s blogging. A less-than-selective writing process.
You want consistency? Read a book.
You want real-time accuracy? Snapshots of a person’s life in weekly digestible bits, largely a little less censored than they ought to be, flaws hanging out for the world to see? Read a blog.
You want to be the loser that just writes negative comments without anything of value, lacking useful critiques? Don’t.
As much as many bloggers are self-involved twats, there are a lot of bloggers are ripping off Band-aids most publishers wouldn’t pay to publish. They’re being brutally real about their lives, thoughts, and worldviews.
Bloggers started this whole firestorm of openness and communication that we haven’t figured out how to use for the betterment of mankind yet — Twitter, Facebook updates, blogs, video blogging. It was all born because some dude began journaling on the web a couple decades ago.
Maybe blogging hasn’t definitively changed the world yet, maybe there are lots of twats making it look ugly to others, but I still believe in the power of blogging, the quest for individual truths, the dynamism of millions of voices saying what needs to be said if only for a dozen other people.
And when people who might be timid otherwise finally have the courage to click “publish” and start their blogs, they don’t need spineless hacks pissing on their parade.
There’s a growing call to remove “ANONYMOUS” comment ability. Having one’s name on their vitriol doesn’t make it any more valid, just not as despicable. Maybe one day I’ll remove anonymity here, too.
In the meantime, I blog on the things I think are interesting, important, or that I’m just obsessing about.
Because that’s what blogging’s for. We now return you to your scheduled silence.
I thank those of you who’ve read me (inexplicably) for years, who’ve shared your experiences and opinions. You’re awesome.

The Evolution of a DeClutterer's Life

So, hi! I left you hanging with that whole letter-to-HR-folk thing last week, huh? Quel drama!
I was told three weeks ago I probably had three weeks of full-time work. Now it’s looking like I have work until closer to June, perhaps beyond.

Decluttering, by Paul Foreman


Since I started having steady work, I’ve been of the “things are going to get busy” mindset for a while, and it’s been pedal to the metal around the homestead, trying to get my place to what I wanted, losing more clutter, finding more clarity, all of that–in between job-hunting.
It’s been a lot of work. Since I’m getting a lot of things bought I’ve not had funds for, I’m opting out of the social life thing and prioritising my spending — which is giving me more time to focus on what my life needs on all levels.
I’m now doing the little things I never had time to sort — junk drawers, things like that. Everything is getting resolved, everything is being purged through. But all that’s left is my work desk and utility drawers. That’s pretty much it. I’ll probably have to stay on top of the purging thing and spend a day every couple of months, but I really like the downscaled life I’m starting to live.
With less unnecessary stuff around me, I have a clearer vision of what I need to do.
Also, the return of work — daily work that involves getting downtown and organizing my life around — has made exercise easier to do. I’ve slowly been getting more regular about workouts, and today was a return to my old rehab routine I used to do six days a week. Five days is the goal now.
I miss a working routine. I used to work out and write daily, as well as work. I lost weight easier on the job, and gained it while unemployed.
All the things I’ve been doing — tearing my house apart, organizing, planning, getting a routine in place — are things I did in the spring of 2008, before I lost 50 pounds.
And I know it SOUNDS insane to others who go “Well, geez, exactly what all are ya doin’ that it’s taking so long to get it all done?”
In short? Everything. Every damned thing I’m doing, I do to the best of my ability these days, whether it’s sorting a drawer or organizing books, because the better I do it now, the longer I can go without doing it again. I’m hoping this keeps me in order until October.
My goals are more multifaceted than just weight-loss, these days. I have a lot on my plate — a whole lot of things I’m working toward, and most of them I’m keeping to myself for the time being. What it takes is daily focus, total routine. What it takes is a Plan, Stan. I’m getting there.
I think the act of having done all this purging of late is indicative of the mindset I’ve got. It takes a long time, sometimes, to realize that knowing what you want is sometimes more about knowing what it is that you don’t want.
I know now what I don’t want. Piece by piece, item by item, line by line, I know exactly what I don’t want. I know who I don’t want. Where I don’t want to go.
So, that narrows it down. I know what I don’t want. Better yet, I’m getting it the fuck away from me.
Slowly, what I do want is coming into focus. And I know what I need to get done, obligation-wise, and what my limits are outside of that.
And that’s where it starts.
Where it goes, well, that’s the fun part. With continued focus and continuing to set new accomplishments (and getting ’em done) on a weekly basis, I suspect good things will come.
With that, it’s on with my week. And folding what’s in the dryer. Have a good one, minions.

To Sleep, Perchance to Remember a Dream

For more than a decade, I’ve woken daily without remembering my dreams. There’s been a handful of dreams in that time that I remember. Literally, probably under 10 for 10 years.

Photomanipulation by @Chiaralily on Flickr.com, Creative Commons.


And then, this week, I remember flashes of dreams from no less than four nights now. Poof! Like that, suddenly my “dream memory” is coming back to me.
And they’re not significant dreams. Just flashes of odd snips of people on my life’s peripheries. Not like the times in ’00 and ’01 when I dreamed my dead mother came back for one last goodbye conversation — after which I’ve never since remembered a dream. Funny how that works.
I’d tell you I’ve done nothing different in my life, but there’s one thing that has changed recently: My bedroom.
I removed the distracting clutter, got rid of the ugly fucking window treatments, brought in plain, simple, beautiful flowing white sheers and a white “blackout” blind. That’s it. But, suddenly, poof. Dream memory, back.
When it comes to dreams, I’ve had some incredibly trippy ones in my life, and it’d be wild if I had that back. My drugs-before-drugs, as it were, those early strange dreams from 20 years ago, when life was simpler. If I could have filmed some of those dreams, it’d have made compelling abstract art.
I never did remember dreams often, and I’ve never been prone to nightmares,  so I’m unlikely to have either as a constant presence, but what if I could? I wonder what it’d do for my creative life, to have that odd mighty-fucked subconscious tap-in within reach, daily. Clearly dream memory is working for Tim Burton.
Someone like me, I’m constantly creative, but in a very only-slightly-left-of-centre kind of way, day-to-day, anyhow. I look at other people for whom outside-the-box is thinking small, the kind of people whose imaginations live in the clouds, and I wish I could be a little more detached from the straight and narrow sometimes. It must be… fun. I know it exists inside me, I’ve certainly had my moments. It’s something I wish I could more easily access.
Maybe there’s hope for that, yet. Maybe life can constrain that creativity out of us more than we know, like wearing a constantly too tight belt might do for one. Maybe it can be loosened. Maybe I’m loosening it now.
I mean, how is dream memory suddenly coming back to me now?
Is it merely because I changed my room from a distracting and cluttered place to a womb-like relaxation room? Did that help my subconscious take a chill-ride?
I don’t know.
What I do know is, I sure as hell will take every bit of insight my little brain can muster these days.
Cue the subconscious. I’m ready.

Moods in the Morning, February Style

The rain’s coming down sideways.
My coffee cup being more full than empty is fact, not perspective.
My attitude today isn’t a bad one, just one of nothingness.
What can I tell you? February. It’s that old wall-hanging quote: This too shall pass.
Which is an accidentally appropriate segue to a joke I’ve made a million times: “I need an existential laxative, ‘cos I’m finding it really hard to give a shit.”
So true today. So much needs doing, so little will to do it.
It’d be easy to chew myself out for missing the mark in a few areas, but by the time the dust on this week settles, I’ll have gotten a number of areas and long-running projects sorted in my life. I think. Or something.
But, in the meantime, between the oppression of February at its finest, the confusion of PMS, and the indecision of my life, it’s a really weird headspace I’m in this morning. Unsettled, but calm. Worried, but hopeful. The continuing state of the Steff, brought to you in part by the letter Y and the word “sigh”.
It’s weeks like this I find it impossible to write, mostly because I just have one theme on the top of my head: I just don’t know.
I’m not COMPLAINING or sad or depressed or bitter or anything. I’m the human equivalent of a rowboat tied up at dock right now. Ain’t a bad thing, ain’t a good thing — it just is. Poor little boat wants to just get a direction and sail, man.
But direction’s a two-way journey, and I’m not the only one with a say in the matter.
So, today it’s humpday. A rainy, stormy humpday.
And I got nothin’, nothin’ but a muddled mind as muddled as the clouds above.
Now my cup is empty, and my day begins. Enjoy yours.

February: Waking At The End of Winter

The song that inspired this posting is in the widget down below. Give it a listen and get a feel for where I’m coming from.
February.
My least-favourite month of the year. I’m not a winter person, least of all a February person.
This month reeks of death. From personal anniversaries through to roadside molding rotted leafy messes, some days, it’s all death for me.
That’s February, nature’s “darkest before dawn.”
But February also becomes birth. Snowdrops emerge from recent-frosted soils, crocuses poke up. Cherry blossoms begin their storming of Vancouver’s awakening streets.
It’s the dichotomy of life and death.
This morning I awoke with the “I don’t know how I’ll make it through the month” mentality that inevitably hits me right around now every year.
It’s like my soul grows and dies with the seasons. Come this time of year, all the fallen life leaves — and winter’s struggles — have decomposed enough that a mat covers all that’s inside of me. Finding joy and fun at this time of year, embracing humour and seeing the big picture, it just gets hard some days.
This year, not so bad. Still, below is the song by “The The” that epitomises how I experience February every year. I start off blue and pensive, thinking about my mother, whose cancer was found, whose life was given a “best-by” date, and whose birthday all fall in Valentine’s Week. It’s inevitable, I remember her every year.

Me and my friend were walking
In the cold light of mourning
Tears may blind the eyes but the soul is not deceived
In this world even winter ain’t what it seems

Then, the week ends, and I realise it wasn’t so bad. I realise I like to remember, that taking that time to remember is what will help me keep some small fragment of her alive, that the confusion of pain and acceptance I feel even now comes from how strong a relationship and connection we had, and how many questions I never got answers to.
And, like this song, “Love is Stronger than Death,” I get that it’s all part of the journey. We need these times of sadness to really know when to embrace joy, like a million philosophers and Sufi poets have said.

Here come the blue skies here comes springtime
When the rivers run high & the tears run dry
When everything that dies
Shall rise

Then, it’s the last week of February, and more of nature wakes, March is around the corner, the temperature’s rising… I feel like I’m breathing more, I’m stronger. Energy returns, curiosity piques, and smiles come easier.
It’s human nature, spring fever, waking from hibernation. I don’t know. The northern way, perhaps. But that last week of February, that’s about when my soul refills with everything I’ll need to get me through the frenetic, light-18-hours-a-day Canadian summer.
And this is the month. It’s everything — birth, remembrance, death, a tease of things to come. It’s a world of emotion every week. That’s February.
This song captures that. I’ve played it on a loop for a half hour. The slow, painful start, consciousness rising in the middle, then the exuberant determination in the end, when a groove begins to fall upon you, the listener. Like February moving into March. For me, anyhow.
Soon. Out there, I can smell its arrival. Air too fresh like that, always signals winter’s either comin’ or goin’. Yeah. I’m ready.

—-

I give you “The The,” the band name that stumped pirates before downloading was even a thing. Trivia about The The? Local alternative radio station, CKST, Coast 1040, had a very short on-air life in the early ’90s after fighting hard for air time, and the station came to life and died with their first and last songs ever played being “The The” tracks: the first being from the Mind Bomb album, the last from Dusk, Lonely Planet.

Two Decades Later: Montreal in Mind

I try to make sense of the Stupid in the world, as if having a reason or learning a lesson will somehow make it all so much more comprehensible.
In reality, some things should never be comprehended. Hopefully they never will be.

By Carlos Osorio of TheStar.com, of 20th anniversary memorials on Dec. 6, 2009.


Every year, when December 6th rolls around, and someone somewhere reminds me of the Montreal Massacre that took the lives of 14 women 21 years ago now, I’m inevitably pitched into a morass of contemplation and remembrance.
I was 16 that day.
I was strong, smart, and definitely marching to the beat of a different drummer. It was a bad time in my life, though, just after my parents’ divorce, and I was pretty messed up.
Then this GUY just comes out and GUNS DOWN 14 women because they got into a schmancy school when he couldn’t? What the HELL?
What kind of a world was I going into? Wasn’t feminism this thing my mother did in the ’60s? Wasn’t it, like, OVER? Why did this asshole have to come along and upset the dynamic like that? I mean, sisters were doing it for themselves, BUB!
Feminism wasn’t about this sad-and-twisted fuck until he decided to pick up a gun and make it about him.
It seems so long ago now, 1989.
Only, it doesn’t.
Shootings still happen. Feminism’s still needed, because women today are in a weird, weird place.
And feminism’s still a problem, because men today are in a weird, weird place, too, and that can’t be ignored.
I want a world where men can be men, women can be women, and neither needs to pick from the other’s plate. I wanted it then, I want it now.
When I think about The Massacre, I remember why I’m so angered by girls who flaunt their beauty and neglect their brains. The price we’ve paid for advancement has been too high for these bubblegum girls to mock it all, throwing it away, like intelligence and self-sustenance are choices, and not survival tools.
I also remind myself of how important it is to me that my success never come at the price of another person’s loss. I don’t know that “quotas” drove that man to kill those women, but perhaps they did.
Perhaps he was just a self-involved asshole. I don’t know. I’m not hedging my bets against option B, either.
But I staunchly oppose quotas. People should gain success based on merit, not on geography, colour, or other attributes. I get the anger about that, but I also know most of us have a few issues with perceived “entitlement”.
Ahh, well. I still can’t make any sense out of that day.
I like to think it helped a generation of women understand that our freedoms and choices came by way of many years of fighting for them. I know my generation seemed to Get It.
I think we understood better what our predecessors fought against, and why misogyny was such a worthwhile foe.
Some lessons really don’t need to be learned, though. Not like that.
Most of all, one of the saddest lessons I learned was in realising that there’d always be an “us” versus a “them”.
There’ve been few times in life where I’ve ever had the privilege of really feeling like we’re “all in it together.”
“Community” is a lovely word, but seldom attained, and usually only then through great tragedy. After 9/11 was one of those times we all felt a brotherhood, as if nothing was stronger than the bond that held us together.
Politics got in the way then, just like the distractions and demands of every day life get in the way now.
I wish I could take more good from that day, but I can’t. There’s too much blood on the bricks for “good” to be found easily. I wish that crime didn’t resonate as much as it does still, all these years later, but it does. It feels like I’m somehow giving the gunman his victory by letting it resonate so long after the fact, but I’m trying instead to honour those who lost everything.
What I hold onto these days how much that day still resonates for so many others.
I wonder, too, how much that anger persists for them.
I wish we weren’t defined by the worst of who we are — the petty men and women in divorces, who inspire so much hatred toward their opposite sex, “little things” like that define our society so much more than we appreciate. These are really the issues that divide men and women today — more family and money than profession.
In the end, the big picture always daunts and scares us because of unknown variables, like the gunman in question, or the economy, etc, always changing the scenes.
So, I try to look at the macro picture these days: people who thank me for holding a door open, a passing smile, small talk at the till, a stranger paying off an unknown parking meter, the bus driver who waits for me to run a block.
Where there is horror, there is humanity. Where there is no horror, there’s also humanity.
That comforts me still.
For every person capable of these horrific crimes, there are dozens, hundreds, thousands who have no comprehension of such behaviour.
On the micro scale, it’s why I remember to make small talk, say please and thanks, and take pleasure in the silly little exchanges that make life so darned “life” — because the big picture’s out of our control, and every time we keep the little picture feeling familiar, it’s another good day out for humanity.
Which, you know, I’ll take.
I’ve deliberately not used the Gunman’s name in this. I’ve realised using his name so often in connection with this killing somehow glorifies his legacy. If that “celebrity” aspect even provides .001% of the motivation that gets these psychopaths wanting to off innocents, then we in the media/blogs/etc are partly to blame for celebrit-ising massacres. It’d be nice if history books didn’t remember these sadistic fucks’ names.

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.