People urge me to try stand-up comedy. A natural, they call me. A funny girl.
And, hey, they’re right.
What, it’s wrong I should know I’m funny? I shouldn’t acknowledge it? Right, like I’ve spent my life cracking jokes so I can play the fool now.
Jokes are hard. Funny is tough. Humour’s a fine line.
I pride myself on a having higher funny “ethic” than I think most people ever will. There are things I won’t touch: I don’t insult people for their size or weight, or for their colour or abilities.
Your job, clothes, where you live, how you act, what you do with your time — those are all choices, and I feel absolutely fine about ripping them apart and going to town on ’em for jokes. It’s commentary on who we’re opting to be as a society. Get on the bus in thigh-high rubber fuck-me boots and a LaToya Jackson studded-special leather jacket? Sure, yeah, I’ll use it for humour. Your choice.
But I don’t hurt people with nasty public jabs made about a weight problem, or vision issues, or a goiter, or anything like that.
You think people wouldn’t change those things about them if they could? You think they’re not aware of how outside the norm they might be?
Somehow “fat” is different from all the other discrimination out there, because people “choose” to be fat. That’s another argument for another time, considering the modern food industry, media, how government’s been bought and sold, and more — so I’m not going there.
This whole posting sprang up because I got all pissed off about some remarks a young guy was making about “fatties” on Twitter today, mocking overweight girls trying to glam it up for a profile shot — saying how they’re just getting fatter and fatter, and he wants to puke.
Who the fuck does he think he is? He’s perfect? Does he KNOW what it’s like to be 300 pounds and feel like losing weight is the hardest thing in the world? Um, no.
Know who does? I do. I know what it’s like. I’ve weighed that. Note the past-tense.
I’ve hauled my 275-pound body up a 30-floor highrise’s stairs and back down again, I’ve cycled 70km in a day, lived through the hellish pain that comes from waking up a body that’s long been hibernating. I know.
I know the looks a girl gets when she’s pushing 300 pounds and has the audacity to enter a gym — the skepticism, the obvious wondering about how long she’s gonna last.
Fat people are NOT encouraged to change. When they try, they’re largely scorned and mocked just for even attempting that. Trust me, I know.
It took watching my father almost die from diabetes to wake me up; I didn’t want to die like THAT. And it was the hardest road I’ve ever travelled.
Mocking fat people clearly hasn’t been working. Look at our world.
Insulting the disabled removes them from our world, while denying us the possibility of another Ray Charles or Stephen Hawking because of shame felt from having to endure the mockery that comes from a large portion of the public.
Making a non-specific insult about a body-type or disability or skin-colour doesn’t have to have an intended recipient — without one, you’ve broadly painted everyone. They’ve all been struck by the ignorance of that comment.
Have YOU ever been that person behind the computer screen when an insensitive generalized remark is made, and you react with “is he talking about me?” because it could totally be about you?
Passive-aggressive hate is everywhere on the internet. Its passivity should in no way suggest it is impotent. It rises up and harms many.
My tweet about it said it best: Being mean isn’t cool. It’s never been cool. And if you make it funny, it’s still not cool. Grow up. High school’s over.
We’re an unhappy society. What’s causing it? Is it the ever-present derision and commentary about each other that sets us constantly on edge? People are less secure than ever, and some are striking out at others as a result. Suddenly, it’s no longer a grown-up world, but a return to all I loathed about being in grade 10.
Seriously, what’s going on?
When I hear waif friends panicking about calories, “oh, god, I’m getting fat!” and they’re a size four, I wonder where the fuck we all went wrong.
Maybe some people still haven’t gotten over their elementary-school mocking and want to take it out on everyone else. I don’t know.
What I do know is, in an age where we have greater glimpses into other people’s lives than ever before — their pains, their sorrows, their struggles — I find that we’re getting crueler, more ignorant, and more insensitive when we’re supposedly civilized.
I often wonder if it’s the culture of the celebrity-gossip blog that’s killing kindness in society.
Instead of pettiness being confined to blogs about celebrities, we’re now visiting it on everyone.
The thing about this whole thing that’s most odd, this little fight with this ignorant kid, is I might consider myself somewhat overweight, but I know I’ve changed a LOT about myself — I’ve lost more weight in the last couple years than most people could even fathom. I KNOW what it takes to lose 3 pounds in a week, I know what kind of hardcore activity is required week-in, week-out. I could probably kick your ass.
There’s a reason most people fail in trying to not be “fat.”
It’s not a two-month course-correction — it’s trying to change for the rest of your life what it took you a lifetime to become. There are years of up-and-downs as you learn about yourself before you one day figure out what it takes for YOU to have success. There are medications and environments that can artificially influence weight. It’s not a black-and-white thing.
And there is no addiction in the world more difficult to overcome than food: We are faced with making choices about it three times a day, at least. Every holiday revolves around it. Every social outing is based upon it.
Overcoming weight issues and other addictions is a massive challenge.
It’s NOT society’s job to fix anyone’s life. It’s on EACH PERSON to improve themselves, and using excuses why you won’t change just doesn’t cut it — because some of us find the strength to change even in the face of our largest adversities.
I don’t accept that being unhealthily fat is a lifetime sentence. I believe every unhealthy overweight person* can change their life and improve their health — because I could, even after a decade of injuries.
And I think we can be better people.
We can be a kinder society.
We can accept that words and actions hurt others.
We can try to understand how it might feel on the other side.
I don’t WANT a world where everyone’s NICE all the time. Do I strike you as a sunshine-and-roses kind of girl?
I just want a world where people are treated with a little respect.
I didn’t need the world to give me a hug and tell me everything was gonna be all right when I was super-fat. But I sure as hell needed less skepticism when I finally had the courage to go to the gym and try to change my life. I needed people to understand and support me when I started on my path of change, rather than presupposing I was just going to be another failing fatty who would give up on everything.
I may have ate the food, but EVERYONE in life around me helped perpetuate my mammoth size that by saying all the things that made me insecure and hurting in the first place — which drove ME to my security blanket of food. Yes, I still take the blame, but at least I understand the reasons, too.
Too bad I didn’t have an emotional dependency on cocaine — at least then I might’ve been a hottie and socially-accepted in my svelte size four. After all, nothing tastes as good as being skinny feels, says Little Miss Kate Moss, who might be confusing how skinny feels with the high she’s riding from her cocaine addiction that fuels her size-zero money-maker.
We’re ALL fucked up.
Don’t try to pretend you’re not. YOU know it. I know it. We ALL have things we’d rather not have come to light at a party.
People with obvious physical issues can’t hide theirs, though, so they don’t get off easily. Instead, they’re publicly hurt.
That’s my problem.
That it’s somehow been deemed acceptable behaviour in today’s world?
That’s our problem.
* “Skinny-fat” is the new phrase out there — people who look healthy ‘cos they’re skinny but their numbers are off the chart, all because they luckily have a quick metabolism so they can hide their true health. There ARE overweight people who are healthy, I’m definitely one — since I can climb/descend 30 floors in a high-rise after cycling 15 kilometres and get my 6 cups of veggies a day — but society still isn’t talking about how health is about internal numbers, not outward appearances. Stop judging on looks or abilities.
Monthly Archives: May 2010
Just Shut Up.
A few days ago, Gary Coleman died.
Before Gary even died, the jokes were flying — mocking him, his lifelong health problems, and spreading word of his death before the end even came.
Instead of wishing for his survival before the aneurysm took his life, all of Twitter was cracking jokes and mocking the on-his-deathbed Coleman.
People were being dicks.
Whatchoo talkin’ ’bout, Willis?
I get that people think “Oh, celebrity! Let’s mock them!” I understand there’s this mentality that if people step into the limelight, they get what they deserve.
Oh? Well, Gary Coleman’s probably the most shining example of everything that went wrong with child stars in the ’70s before laws were made to protect them — and the cast of Diff’rent Strokes is legendary for how awry its child actors went — suggesting to ME that pretty bad things were happening on that set, and the children were treated as poorly as they could have been.
Coleman was cute and short and “forever young” because of health problems, and his fucking asshole parents exploited him. He was so sick and working so much that he never graduated.
Without an education and with only a stint as a child star, what’s a guy gonna do with his life? Yeah, try to live off the steam.
I know how fucked up elements of my childhood were, and I only had to overcome health problems — kidney problems, like Coleman, who I always felt sorry for as a kid because I didn’t have to overcome my health on a drug-riddled set with asshole adults and teens who were circling the ethical drain.
My mother always told me what a tragedy it all was, even when the series was at its height. Sick kids shouldn’t be working, Steff, she said.
Coleman’s entire life was fucked over by his health — he probably never had a great love, he never had much past Diff’rent Strokes.
But he sure got mocked.
We’re a pretty cruel society.
We’re ignorant. We’re jerks.
Gary Coleman never got to choose to be Arnold. He never got to choose his life. He never got to rest and take care of himself like a sick child should get to do. He got to work his childhood away to pad his parents’ coffers, then spent the rest of his life as some joke of a character’s shadow.
I’m glad everyone had their laughs.
Maybe y’all can shut the fuck up and show the dead man a little of the respect he should’ve had in his lifetime.
No one deserves to live life as a joke.* Nor die as one.
RIP, Gary.
A beautiful tribute written for Gary is here.
A look at how badly awry all the kids from that horrid series Diff’rent Strokes fared is here.
I realize Coleman played into the joke. I’m of the opinion he had no choice. What’s he gonna do, work at a gas station? “Hey! You’re that KID.” He might as well have exploited it — it was the only foundation of life that his parents built for him.
Waiting, Waiting, And More Waiting
I’m supposed to be using this week to create a framework for my next six weeks and next six months.
But that hasn’t happened.
I’m sitting around chewing on what’s left of my fingernails, trapped by a shitty rainy day, and lost in worry about whether my father will even survive an operation that’s SUPPOSED to be happening today. As of this hour, he still hasn’t gone under the knife, and I’m still in a “what if” panic.
Whatever happens in that operating room decides what happens in the next six months of my life far more than any timeline I could write today.
There’s nothing in my head that’s worth extracting today.
There’s no hope or faith, no optimism or belief. There’s just empty pulsating limbo as I wait for life to fill in the blanks for me.
Waiting is criminal. It scars the soul. Hope is the only antidote, but it’s not one I’ve been afforded much of.
The longer this takes, the more I’m adrift in uncertainty, the louder those discordant heartbeats echo inside as wonder floods in and worry takes over.
I’ve been useless today.
When I was waiting for the answer on my book proposal, that was fine. Why? Because I knew the book might be better if I was in fact rejected by the literary agent. No, really.
There’s a much more organic process that comes in creation when you don’t have a deadline or third-party involved. This book of mine should be a journey to places I’ve never been before, and right now I don’t know what that’ll require of me, so I want to explore that and really go there without muddling from others.
But this?
Father-who’s-alive versus Father-who’s-not is a pretty big fucking stipulation in how your life unfolds, especially when it’s down to a 24-hour window.
The possibility being this tangible is nothing anyone should experience, but is something we all are faced with. Don’t kid yourself. Your turn is coming.
Grief is an unavoidable process, and, as a creative person, there’s nothing that fucks with the mix greater than the all-consuming end of someone you love’s life.
I can’t be there, I can’t talk to my father, I can’t do a goddamned thing to help.
Some dude a 5,000 kilometres away, who gets to stand there with a scalpel in his hand, HE’S the guy that holds my immediate fate in his hands.
I can’t write a timeline for that. I won’t even fucking consider that Alternative today.
I just know it’s there.
The Possibility. Statistical Likelihood.
Like calling it that is so innocuous. Oh, the “chance” of fatality. Like one might buy a ticket in the hopes it’d go a specific way other than the Usual.
Powerlessness. That’s what I get today. I get to wait, wait, wait, wait. I don’t even get to know when particularly my fingers should be crossed. The ward nurses will get 10 minutes notice, then it’s off to Sliceville for Pops.
Risk.
I grew up thinking it was a board game.
Now it’s the line between what might be the result for an “average” person with my father’s surgery, and, well, my father. The triple-threat disease cocktail his unhappy body offers is more full of oddsmaking than a weekend in Vegas, man.
And I’m supposed to wait, productively doing what humans productively do. Conjuring little lists of objectives, crossing off achievements, planning for all my tomorrows.
Well, tomorrow might literally give me a completely different life to live. Today I’m spent praying for anything but that.
Sure, the odds of the unexpected climb for each of us daily, but it’s just not the same as when mortality’s literally on the table and giving the prospective outcome causes all professionals involved to lead with a pregnant pause.
Yes, I’ll wait.
I’ll sit here with toxins bubbling in my stomach as fears I know too well return — fears I’ve dealt with from my mother’s passing and my father’s three close calls.
Sure, I’ll wait.
My Culture of Disconnect
I don’t want to read the news today.
Or have conversations of consequence with friends.
Or watch TV or movies that require braincells.
I sure as hell don’t want to read.
I want to drift away and disconnect. Be anywhere but here.
Heavy shit’s coming down, again. Dad’s lined up for serious surgery three provinces away. For anyone else, it’d be a major-but-fine surgery. For him, much risk comes with.
I mean, hey, cancer, diabetes, heart disease — which one do you think offers the best chance of surgical complications?
Sometimes, there’s only so much space you’ve got for matters outside the personal realm. Sometimes, thinking about things in the world just gets overwhelming in the face of the struggles you’re wading through on a daily basis.
Sometimes.
I don’t think I’m at that point. Not about this. I’ve been to the sick-dad rodeo one time too many. Sad as I am, weary as I am, I’m pretty much prepared for whatever comes.
I fucking hate that I feel that way. But I do. There’s only so many times you can stand peering over the edge and be terrified.
Sooner or later, you just get to knowing what it’s like, and the fear’s there, but it’s a fear you’ve metabolized now.
Sort of where I am with Dad. I’ve metabolized my terror. Don’t tell my shaking leg or queasy stomach that, but it’s true. I’m a pretty passionate girl. This is Stress-For-a-Loved-One Lite™.
Part of that is just me being older, wiser, more worn, jaded, and exposed. I done been around, man. Heart’s been broken more times than I need to count from life and its woes. That’s just my experience on planet earth.
It takes a lot to break me down, now. I take body blows like a heavyweight champ. With that shock-absorbing tendency comes the ability to not react much anymore.
As an example, the other day, this dude keeps cracking his little one liners at a pub. Eventually he’s all flustered because I’m not laughing at his jokes.
Well, I don’t laugh easily. I’m funny as hell, man, but making me laugh takes something unexpected or just flat-out smart. I’m a student of comedy. I’ve heard it ALL. I smile, or grin. Now and then? A full-on laugh.
But just because I don’t “react” doesn’t mean I’m not dialed in. I’m removed, but I’m listening. I’m probably thinking why your joke failed, where you went wrong with timing, or where I’ve heard a variation of it before, but, you know, I’m listening.
And we’re all sort of doing that these days. Most of us, anyhow. Dialed in but not. Listening but disconnected.
We’re sponges. Taking from society but never giving back. Surfacing.
My life of the last decade has been much like that.
One day, I stopped reading my three or so newspapers daily. Eventually, I fell away from reading books.
What came first, the head injury or my apathy? I don’t know, I don’t even remember anymore.
Things have changed.
Apathy isn’t enough. It’s not a meal that’s filling. Its price is too high. All the things it’s cost me, man…
I feel like a spectator in the intellectual world, and I’m more than that. I’m a smart woman with a unique world-view. I can’t just watch and not contribute.
To be a part of it requires I be of it, that I be immersed in it, be surrounded by it.
So, somewhere inside, I feel like the joke has been on me.
Sure, I’ve survived everything I’ve been through. But for what?
I fell out of touch and love with music. I stopped being clued into the political, cultural, and societal happenings, something I’d been very much in tune with since I had my first newspaper addiction at the age of 9. I stopped seeing movies. I mean, I’m the kind of girl who plans the music in advance for roadtrips — what works with what stretches of highway, what tracks tie into what scenery.
Or, I used to be.
What’s the fucking point in surviving if you’re not gonna thrive as who you are, right?
It’s what happens to a lot of us, I guess. I’ve got pretty good excuses, but they’re still just excuses, and I still feel like a cop-out.
It’s like the themes explored in Fight Club and American Beauty, the disappearing of identity and the cover-up of disconnect by way of commercialism and cluelessness.
We think we’re growing up as we fall away from our youthful passions of music and movies, politics and society, growing jaded and distant.
We’re not. We’re not “growing up”. We’re losing our leisure, thus losing our souls, as Virginia Woolf once wrote.
I want the happy medium between my savvy survivalist self, and the jazzed-up involved youth I was.
Some people I know still balance these things well, and maybe if life hadn’t gotten in the way, I might be the poster-girl for being a plugged-in hipster, too.
But I’m not.
I’m a part of the problem. I’ve joined the throngs of the Great Ignoring.
It’s not cool. It’s selfish. It’s not helping.
The disconnect isn’t working anymore. Not for me. Not for you. Sure as shit not for society.
It’s not really about “movies” and “music” and “news”.
It’s our soul as a society. Who are we if we’re just a bubble-gum-chewing collective dying to swallow the next reality show?
Art, culture, it was my soul, it was who I am. At my core, I’m an invested, impassioned, intelligent person, and living any way but that is antithetical to who I need to be.
My father’s disconnect has him at 350 pounds, with cancer, diabetes, heart disease, while awaiting major surgery. I’m pretty sure “disconnect” is not working for him, either.
I imagine my father would approve of my learning this lesson this week. I’m hoping he survives the week so we can have a talk about that.
Either way, it’s time I suck a little more cultural marrow out of life, because what I got ain’t sustaining much.
Fit To Be Tied: A Woman's Right to Choose?
In 2006, I asked my doctor about getting my tubes tied so I wouldn’t have to worry about exploding with toddlers.
I was 30. He said no, that if a woman hasn’t had a child already, they typically won’t tie tubes when a woman’s under 35.
I’ll be 37 this fall and nothing has changed: My tubes are untied, I’ve never had a child, I never want one.
Moments, however, pass.
For a fleeting second, I’ll see a mom and her daughter, and the exchange is so silly and cute, that I smile fondly and remember my own mother and the bond we shared. I’ll never have that?
Yeah, I know. I’ll never have that. Yes, it’s a choice I’ve long made, and, yes, my choice sometimes saddens me.
But I know why I’ve made my choices, and I’ll stick to them. I’ve NEVER wanted to have a kid. And after life got hijacked by bad times, well, I want to sacrifice whats left of my life to a kid even less.
Even as a kid, I didn’t pretend my dolly was “my baby.” I’ve always liked kids, never wanted one.
This, unfortunately, makes me pretty unique.
Last night, some Twitter friends were caught in a debate about this news story out of Ontario, in which a young family has decided they’re full up on tykes. They don’t want any other kids beyond their two. Part of that young family is pictured here.
But she’s 21 and her husband is 23, so doctors won’t let her do a tubal ligation. She’s too young, too much life can happen, they say.
Now, I’m a woman, so I guess I should agree with the mom and dad, right? A woman’s body, woman’s right?
But I don’t.
I see their point. It makes great sense. And in a perfect world where parents have kids and kids grow up healthy and strong, it DOES make great sense.
But it’s not a perfect world. Marriages end, families split. Kids get sick. They die.
This mother could conceivably have more kids until she’s double her age. DOUBLE. Are her choices are coming from the right place? Is she just agreeing to a tubal ligation so they don’t have to risk having more kids, so they don’t have to buy contraceptives and fuss around?
Because getting tubes tied is no guarantee. A woman can conceive after a tubal ligation and it can be fatal. My former sister-in-law almost died when she had a tubal pregnancy — it happened so quickly, too. Like a flash, she was hemorrhaging on a table and likely to die, leaving a 2-year-old boy to mourn her.
Luckily, she was saved. Miraculously, she reversed the procedure and, a decade later, has a new baby. With a new husband.
It’s not that no woman can make this decision and be sure, it’s that decisions like this are often made too lightly — even by “older, wiser” types.
Should it be allowed for young women to say, “No, I know what I want, and it’s not a KID” so they can have their tubes tied off? What do YOU think?
I’m torn. Yes, it should be allowed, but it should be a very hard decision to reach, and should be scrutinized by all involved, including a mental health practitioner.
Personally, I think a 21- and 23-year-old don’t know shit about life yet, so to think they’re “all done” is cute, at best.
But I get it. I understand.
Still, their ages aren’t in their favour.
I’ll be the first to admit I know what it’s like to be 21 and pissed that everyone thinks they know more about life than I do. I was a very wise 21-year-old and I took it personally when people questioned my age-appropriate wisdom.
But now I’m 36 and I’m telling you, I knew jack shit about life then. I had some ideas, but I’ve had a whole lot of years of confirmation and debunking since. When I’m 50, I’ll likely be able to say that about the age I am now, too. That’s life.
We grow, we change, we learn.
At 21, I’m pretty sure this woman has much to learn about life. And maybe she’s right and she’ll never have more kids.
Maybe.
But maybe she’ll be another marriage statistic with a broken home. Maybe a tragic accident will take the rest of her family from her.
Maybe.
Tragedies don’t just happen to OTHER people. Life doesn’t go according to plan. We’re stupidly naive little humans.
The doctors know this. It’s certainly worth their considering — especially when they spend 15-30 minutes tops with us for each appointment.
And if the only avenue doctors have is to say, “Well, you’re 21. SERIOUSLY,” then there you go, maybe we need to hang onto that — because the wise among us are rare, and most people make decisions with knee-jerk considerations, not the gravity matters deserve.
But what do YOU think, and why?
Quick Facts:
- SOME tubal ligations can be reversed. 6% of American women with tied tubes try to reverse the procedure.
- Depending on biology, it can often be done but chances of success depend drastically case-by-case.
- 75% of tubal ligation reversals are as a result of divorcing and wanting kids with the new spouse.
The Creativity Conundrum
“Either it’ll move me
or it’ll move right through me.”– Gordon Downie
Lately, life dictates that I consider my creative avenues and where my priorities lie, like anyone who choses a creative life to pursue.
By DAVE DONALD from THIS Magazine
The “money” route is easier. Always is. Paying rent’s so rewarding, never mind buying food.
But I was raised Catholic. Religious allusions are never far from mind, especially where the proverbial root of all evil is concerned.
The devil I know — that of paying rent, taking an easy way out with a “Yes, master, and how low should I bend?” kind of agreeability — is hardly shameful. Better writers than me have sold their soul and ink blotter just to make it through another dry period.
Then there are pompous but admirable asshats who never figured out how to sell out, like James Joyce and his times sleeping on a cot in the back of the Parisian bookshop Shakespeare and Co. Poverty’s a suit a lot of writers have worn with pride.
I don’t know.
I really struggle with this, even though I’m pretty sure I know where I want to go, where I need to go — where I will go.
In my long and storied past, I’ve made the mistake of trying to sell out and capitalize on my writing, the bad way. I fucked that up. It messed with me creatively, it robbed me of excellent chances, and left me with creative scarring and a bruised ego.
As this opportunity approaches, I’m left considering my options. I’ve also got risky big projects in mind for proposing, but I need to wrap my head around each. And develop serious guts, say no to other things, and believe in my outcome.
I don’t think my creative dilemma comes down to a matter of soul or integrity, though. It’s not such a high-minded ideal, though artists over the centuries have made it seem as such.
I think it’s a really matter of pragmatism and/or individual work methods.
If you want to do something to the best of your ability, you must do it with the entirety of your focus. Spreading yourself thin and making yourself a jack of all trades is great if you’re content to be well-spread over life, but for those of us who have ONE goal, ONE dream, doesn’t it make more sense to pursue it 100%, rather than diverting efforts?
I don’t want to live out my days writing ad copy or jingles. I have a journalism degree. I have a vision.
You may scoff at the idea of “journalism” today, but I sought my degree out of worship for everyone from HL Mencken to Samuel Clemens, all the way through Barry Farrell, Lester Bangs, Hunter Thompson, on up to Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite, and anyone else who threw their voice into the social fabric that built our world.
I went to school out of belief that a single story or photo can change the world, like when the photo of a head on a stake in the Congo in 1880s became the catalyst for the first-ever worldwide human rights movement as the beginning of the Congo’s Rubber Genocide was establishing itself. (See Adam Hochschild’s brilliant King Leopold’s Ghosts to learn about this under-discussed attrocity.)
Fuck TMZ and every other site that denigrates that which I studied out of my own foolishly naive and youthful reasons.
I still believe in truth. My truth, your truth — whatever, so long as authenticity defines it.
The heart wants what the heart wants, and I know what I want to do now.
I just hope financial necessity doesn’t force my hand. At this point, it’s not.
In the end, I don’t have to prove or explain myself to anyone. I need to respect myself in the morning and feel like my life has a clear direction. That’s it. You want my shortlist for basic emotional needs? That’s where mine starts.
There is limit of compromise for anyone. You have yours, I have mine.
Creatively speaking, Gord Downie’s nailed it for me in The Tragically Hip’s song lyrics that opens this piece.
If it doesn’t move me, it will move right through me.
Creatively, I need to care. I can phone it in, I just find it hard to live with myself when I do.
Jumping. No Parachute.
So, that thing I wrote yesterday about quality? Pfft, fuhgeddaboutit.
Today, I had nothing to eat for 9 hours and thought it’d be wise to drink wine. Now, writing for you (because I love you so) seems brilliant.
This, or I piss off Twitter. Every now and then it’s fun to memorialize stupidity as a whole, so, uh, HI.
You know what I did today?
I sent a Not-a-Book-Proposal to a literary agent. Apparently it’s impossible to get a literary agent in Vancouver, so I’m totally comfortable with failing in Mission: Get A Literary Agent. Like, t-o-t-a-l-l-y.
But then again? I feel pretty good. I do! I do. It wasn’t a book proposal, but it was proposal about a book I proposed; just, you know, done my way.
Even if it’s rejected, just hitting “send” was a major accomplishment. Huge.
I packaged up my dream into a little box, tied it with a bow, and sent it into the great unknown, to a pretty not-insignificant agent I’d be lucky to land. THAT deserves celebrating.
I jumped, man. I jumped MY way. Cue Sinatra!
I don’t want success and fame if it comes at the price of bending over and taking it before I kiss every ass in sight, okay? I want to be myself. Be nice, but not pull punches. I wanna do whatever whimsy hits me. I don’t want to worry about consequences or overthink moves.
I can’t be a sell-out, I don’t roll that way. My friends would die laughing at the proposition of me trying to sell shit I don’t believe in. You have no idea.
For years, I’ve been told there was a “process” to success in writing. People you had to please, things you had to do.
Well, a few years ago all I did was write well for a few months, with no apologies, and it did me wonders. Somewhere deep inside I think craft matters more than promotion, and so do integrity and individuality, and seeking success the “tried and true” way ain’t individual and isn’t a ringing endorsement of one’s integrity.
But, you know, have at it, if that’s how you go.
Whatever happens, I know it’s ALL on me and I won’t have to wonder what woulda happened if I followed my instincts.
That’s its own reward. If you’re me, anyhow.
I was terrified today because I know nothing about book proposals.
Know what I had down in my calendar to do THIS week? “Read about Larsen’s book about book proposals.” I was gonna START that today. Know what I finished and hit send on today at 3:30? Right, a totally winged, improvised, “well, that looks right” version of a book proposal I sorta hashed out in an email with the agent then went rogue on.
If, by some intergalactic long-shot, I should happen to land the agent, you know what probably would be the reason? That it was completely against type. I dunno. Whatever. I did the best *I* know how to do, and I’m half-drunk tonight out of contentment and satisfaction with myself, not stress and worry.
Fuck it, man. You do what you can, and if you fail, you plan “B” it. That’s life lived the fun way.
I’m 36. I’ve wanted to write a book since I was 15. The closest I came was in ’96, when I did a novel-writing workshop and really got somewhere with a basic idea, but never figured out the endgame of my plot.
My then-writing teacher, Maureen Medved, who’s had a movie made of her novel Tracey Fragments, said I wrote stories like Denis Johnson, the awesome author behind Jesus’s Son — the book/movie. Which is to say my fiction is really dark and harrowing, with a cruel psychological bent and scarcity of language and edgy vernacular. Or something.
I haven’t written fiction since, aside from a few stories. But I’ll go back there. Someplace real, real dark. Someday. Likely sooner than later, too. I think the drama needs to end in my life first before I turn to creating more of it at will.
I digress.
The last 10 days have been monumental for me.
Huge. Monster. Unparalleled.
I’ve spent so long just trying to survive in life that I forgot how to get ahead.
I don’t want to try and explain that right now, but know that when I hit that last period, my eyes were overcome with tears. It has been many, many very long, very hard years. Any successes or moments of awesomeness I have had of late, I’ve earned the hard way.
But, no, I don’t want to explain that right now. I’ve spent five years writing about it.
The last 10 days, though? That’s new. Luck, fortune, validation, proving things to myself, conquering lifetime fears, being completely myself without apologies? Um, yeah. New.
Sending a book proposal today was the single most optimistic, hopeful act I have ever committed in my life. Ever.
It’s the biggest stamp of faith I’ve ever put on myself. Ever.
It is absolutely monstrous. Schwing.
The book?
100% about me. E-e-k.
It makes me laugh, really. My entire life has been governed by my insecurities. Others would probably think I’m cocky or arrogant, because I write so much about myself or tweet constantly. And that makes me laugh really hard.
It’s a strange paradox. Yeah, I think I’m amusing. But there’s only so far I think that gets me, and there’s only so good that I think am. It’s one thing to have an idea of what you might be capable of, but a whole ‘nother one to go there in reality.
I consider my wit to be kind of like a localized weather phenomenon. Think of it as that storm that blows over your neighbourhood. For a moment: Relevant. Then, poof, gone.
That’s not running myself down, that’s just acknowledging that it’s a big, big world filled with much to be fascinated by.
Still.
I took that big chance and tonight I get to enjoy the intrigue. Was it good? Did he like it? Do I get a lollipop? Stay tuned.
I jumped.
Tonight, that’s all that counts. I took the leap, the one I’ve been avoiding for 15 years.
About motherfucking time.
Photo from Skydive Virginia.
Crisis of Confidence & Craft
My day daunts me. I must find nuggets of awesomeness that define me as a person and writer, deep within these stacks of posts. I’ve no idea where to begin. Other than the beginning, that is.
In the next 27 hours, I have to somehow distill all that I have to say, the whole of my dream, into one email.
These past weeks have been an endless parade of “terrifying” firsts.
My heartbeat needs a muzzle.
I’ll tell you more about this another day. Let’s just say I’m learning about feeling the fear and doing it anyway. I’m sure a day will soon roll by where I finally feel like the scales of suspense are tipping in my favour, but this is not that day.
[deep breath]
[sigh]
I swear, though, the biggest lesson I’ll probably ever learn in this life, is that of reconciling how others see me with how I see myself, and striking a balance in there. I’m manic when it comes to my self-image. I’m either all self-love or all insecurity, and seldom in between. Logically, I know the insecurity is stupid, so I can talk it down, and I also know the self-love’s maybe a little over the top or biased.
I wish that was an easier lesson to learn. I wish it was easier to process in writing, too.
I can’t flick off the self-judgey side when I’m reading my old work. I can’t see past some of the stilting dishonesty I’m passing off as restraint. I wish I could undo my hesitations and get fully past the apprehension.
That’s where great writing lies. Ripping off the scabs.
I’ve come close on very rare occasions. Once in a blue moon I can extract all the marrow and get to the centre of anything I’m writing, but it’s so rare that it’s almost a religious experience. I remember those moments with the same intensity as I do a fantastic night of sex. I can’t explain that feeling, but, oh, is it rare.
I blame blogging for that, in some regards.
The nature of writing for such a short-yet-long shelflife is an odd thing. To truly edit well and nail a piece that’s, oh, 2,000 words, a few weeks should pass by. Ideas should be expounded upon or hacked as necessary, emotions redefined, words sharpened, ideas stretched or molded.
Writing’s like wine in that its aging process exposes its weaknesses and challenges its structure. When it’s young, everything gets a pass — it’s quick, in-the-moment, and it’s “great for what it is.”
But…
It’s writing.
It’s not just a second that flashes by. Well, it is… until it isn’t. One day you remember you have archives, you toggle through them. You stop on an insolently average posting and a sigh rises up as your belly turns and you’re forced to acknowledge you phoned it in.
You phoned it in because of some perceived deadline or stress, because some audience you might never know, never make money off of, and never impact.
A little restraint, a little time, a little longer pulling at those threads, and you mighta tamed lightning. But, no. So often have I seen something with promise spat out in mediocrity all because of rushing.
In the fast-moving world of overscheduled lives, pressing demands, and the promise of temporary, we bloggers cut corners and offer up lesser work than we’re capable of.
Or I know I do.
My average posting is written, edited, and up within the hour. Even when it’s pushing 2,000 words.
Excellence? Quality? Pfft, not even. I’m better than the work I churn out here, but there’s a limit to what I think you & this deserve. Deep down inside, a part of me thinks wonders why should I put my “A” game out just for some thieving hack to steal and publish elsewhere on the web.
But that doesn’t mean I need to bring my “C” game.
I’ve reached a turning point in the last two to three weeks, but it’s been a long time coming.
I want the blog to be more content-focused. I don’t want to post because I think you need another meal. I don’t want to care about your needs at all.
I was once told that Robertson Davies, the legendary dead Canadian author, said a writer ought not write until the thought of not writing became unbearable. I’ve never been able to source the quote, but I don’t really care that I can’t, because I love it.
Every piece-of-shit writing I’ve ever done was forced. Any crap I’ve produced has been because I’ve felt obligated and not honest.
Unfortunately, deadlines loom in the world of writers, so waiting for whimsy and her muse to traipse through that door is unfeasible.
But, in blogging? Really? Come on.
There’s no real reason any blogger should have to post more than 3 times a week. These people pushing for 5 to 7 postings a week, if not more, need to stand back and read the crap they’re writing. Seriously.
They need to look at it on a long-view and see just how poorly it’ll hold up in the passage of time.
Because I did. I do. I know now. I’m sad I phoned it in so much in 2007 and 2008.
I did what I had to do, but to whom did I feel so obligated? To you? What have you ever done for me? Really? Most of you sit there silently, paging down, reading.
And that’s okay. I’m happy you do. I’m glad you find worth in this. I want you to! You’d rather I write well than often, wouldn’t you?
But I’m not really obligated to you, am I?
Aren’t I obligated to the craft that has made my life what it is, that makes me who I am, and gives me these eyes I see my world through? Doesn’t it deserve better than the cheap and fanciful flings I have with it? Doesn’t it demand that I really rip into the truth and heart of anything I write on?
Norman Mailer tells how Jean Malaquais once explained the reasoning behind his life of writing: “The only time I know the truth is when it reveals itself at the end of my pen.”
Writing’s kind of this dream I have of life — it’s this place I go where things start to make sense, where the world has meaning.
“In the end, writing is like a prison, an island from which you will never be released but which is a kind of paradise: the solitude, the thoughts, the incredible joy of putting into words the essence of what you, for the moment, understand and with your whole heart want to believe.”
James Salter
Do most blogs feel that way for you? Do they feel like a paradise prison the writer at once loathes and loves their confinement within? Is it a place where journeys are taken and experiences shared? Is where you go to feel like an illicit voyeur with an eye on their innermost thoughts?
I wish mine were. I want it to be.
So I will write less. I don’t sit on posts, so I doubt you’ll see me writing and giving it three weeks’ barrel-aging before I share, but I will be more judicious about when I hit “publish.” I’ll be more considered in choosing themes to address.
I would like to see blogging evolve and become more literary. I think publishing, words, media, everything is changing so quickly that the only safeguard we have left is the desire for excellence.
For now, simply being better and judicious is a fine start.
The Fear of Moving On
One of my guiltiest pleasures is my addiction to the CBS series The Mentalist. I’ve had a girlie crush on Simon Baker for 20 years, and there’s something about a smart, cynical, fun-loving, light-hearted genius crimesolver that taps into my childhood passion for Encyclopedia Brown and the Hardy Boys. (We’ll get you yet, Bugs Meany.)
And you thought you knew me.
Somewhere deep in the caverns of my dust-ridden closet sits a box of past-life mementos that may, in fact, hold the “Police Kid” ID cards and badges my brother and I made when we were 7 & 9, in an effort to keep the order in our very boring white little verge-of-’80s suburban ‘hood.
Ahh, me in my seven-year-old lisp: “Thtop, sthpeeding car!”
If I was a detective, I’d totally be a chill, happy, funny brainiac like Patrick Jane, not a coke-addled-and-moody one like Sherlock Holmes.
So, this morning I found myself wrapped in thought as my TiVoed episode closed out. Backstory? Baker’s character “Jane” turned to crime-solving after his wife and daughter were killed. This week is the first time they’ve opened the possibility of him moving on after his wife, when he finally feels the nebulous sparks of chemistry for a mysterious smart chick involved in the crime-solving.
Oh, how dramatic! That’d make an excellent TV show, huh? I know, it’s cliché. But I can’t be smart all the time, dude.
Naturally, the episode got me thinking about the idea of “moving on” in general.
Me, I’ve had me a little of that this month. In fact, my entire last 6 weeks has been nothing but movin’ on.
I’m never going to be able to make you or anyone understand how 2006 affected me, and on so many levels. God knows I’ll try.
To go from just being some chick trying to figure shit out to being a loudly lauded new sex-blogging voice and getting so much attention was the most surreal thing ever. And I was not my own woman. I was not strong enough to have the sense of self one needs when people start latching onto you for guru-like input into their lives.
It was fucking weird. I can’t possibly tell you. I’m totally fucked up, and you’re turning to me for insight? Yo, WTF?
Walking away when the shit got weird was the only thing I could do. The landscape of my life was more explosive than a wartime minefield. A girl makes her choices, a girl keeps on keepin’ on. That’s what to do when the going gets weird.
When the beginnings of success come so easily to you the first time, though, there SHOULD be this little seed of confidence that grows deep down inside. I did that. Me. I worked. I got results. Me.
I had the confidence but I also knew my life was a fucking mess.
When they tell you life doesn’t give second chances, they’re right. It doesn’t. We create them.
Sooner or later, I knew I’d have to take that second chance. But I had to have my shit together and feel comfortable with life before I got there… because, well, third chances? Good luck with that, chump. This ain’t baseball, there’s no three strikes.
Moral of that story? Don’t fuck up again, bub.
So, I spent the last year just treading water and enjoying a delightfully boring life after I finally got on a somewhat even keel again.
Then I lost my job.
And it made me happy. Worried, but happy.
And I figured, “Hey, well, if ever there was a time to get in the game…”
But getting in the game would require one major thing:
Finally owning that this meek little Mom-approved chick — raised uberCatholic, with Dad & family following on the wide web — had to come out and be public with sex-blogging identity, and use my real name. And, worse, my face. And, like, speak publicly. And stuff.
Moving on, for me, means swallowing whatever I once defined as “pride” and coming up with a whole new brand of it. For me, it means shutting up that meekness and stop my apologies for being blunt, honest, and irrepressible.
It’s all about putting my money where my mouth has long been.
It’s been a really tough and soul-searching move. Scary as all get-out, man.
Oh, I’ve been terrified. It’s the “real, whole life” version of jumping off that zip-line or standing in front of 150 people and saying, “Yeah, so, I’m a sex blogger and, like, I kinda nailed writing one of the best oral sex guides you’ll read online… and…”
But I did it. And I did the zip-line. And the speaking.
However hard it’s been… I’m real goddamned glad.
Open, honest, in-your-face living is easier once you get the hang of it. It means fewer apologies, more shared grins, and it instantly repels all the twats and asshats you used to secretly wish would fuck off.
Moving on from anything is hard.
The fear of the unknown and the infinite chance to fuck up is what daunts us all before taking on new phases, projects, or relationships in our life.
By moving on, we’re officially closing the door on that past, accepting it’s done, and embracing the future.
“The devil you know,” though, right?
Whatever the hurts and failings and stupidities of the past, at least you know it and know you’ve faced/survived it. The future? Whew. Do ya got that in ya, punk? Well, do ya?
I remember my great friend Jon writing to say he was getting married, the big question got popped, she said yes, and, dagnabbit, they was gonna wed. I wrote him back, “Geez, Jon… that’s awfully optimistic of you.”
Because it is.
Moving on, stepping forward, it’s all about optimism. Or at least the dream of it. The hope of possibility. It’s what we all want, right? The unscripted to get written with a side of awesomesauce?
But it needs that proverbial leap of faith, the big chance, the trip into the great unknown.
Maybe, just maybe, you’ll fail.
That’s okay.
At least you’ll keep yourself warm with the smug satisfaction of being the one with the guts to make the play in the first place, while the pussies who won’t make that leap sit on the sidelines and jealously watch.
Do it. Move on.
I'd Like To, But I'm Writing
I get a lot of pressure to go to events sometimes.
I usually don’t go, in the end.
Sometimes I’m just burnt-out. I get that a lot. Being a genius is hard work. All those thinky-thinky hours, whew!
Or maybe it’s just the ADHD, the five-years-straight of working like a fucking dog, or only having one real week of vacation in those years, or the fact that I’m okay hanging out on my own. I dunno.
Maybe it’s that I’m really apprehensive of getting into a new social mix where I’m the new person and lotsa people are intrigued or want to be my friend. It’s a bit overwhelming. Being funny, too, is hard work. It’s a great party favour, so are inappropriate comments, and I’ve got both covered.
Me, I’m the same person I was five years ago. Happy to take a bike ride, or hang out alone and drink some wine, write, that kinda thing. I enjoy the quiet life. I REALLY enjoy the quiet life. I’m the “yeah, I’d like to live in a cabin in the woods, write the rest of my life, and avoid the mailing list” kind of person… but blessed with a good personality and disarming grin.
Actually, I’m kinda despising that my picture’s gonna be in a column for the online version of a paper that has 700,000 readers. My tummy’s turning.
Why? I really fucking love my privacy.
Know why I write well? I remove myself from life a little. Hang back. Watch all you people. I judge you. I pick up on your mannerisms. You don’t know it, but I’m there, people-watching.
For a bit there, I was using a “full” picture of myself on Twitter.
Then I got approached on the street. I was in a completely different mindset, thinking of something I wanted to write about, planning talking points. It freaked me out. Someone I’d never met before, exchanged maybe a dozen tweets with, but they read me.
It became about why I wasn’t following them. Well, I don’t follow most people. I’m not on Twitter to ratchet up my “friend” count. I don’t care if we have “the same friends.” I don’t give a fuck about being invited to parties and making mailing lists. I don’t want my drinks comped or my credibility propped up.
I just don’t care. It’s not ABOUT that for me.
I’m proud I’m getting featured in a column tomorrow. GOOD ON ME. Fucking right! I’ve worked hard on writing over the last five years. I WANT to be read. I WANT to have have resonance.
Sure, I’ve only JUST thrown my hat back in the sex-blogging ring, but girl’s got game. Just you wait.
But do I want my picture on it?
Yikes. Jesus. That’s new. I liked anonymity. I liked intrigue. All that’s gone. Now I won’t know if someone on that train read that column and noticed me doing X.
I think I deserve a decent audience. I think my voice is needed on the subject of sex, just because there are people like me who think no one else is doing the talkin’ for them.
But being social?
Is that part of the job?
Seriously?
It’s SEX blogging. It takes ONE person other than me to do subject research, but there are workarounds for having that additional party, y’know? Why do I need a crowd, huh?
What ever happened to reclusive writers with addictions and surly dispositions?
Can’t I just be one of those but use my sense of humour powers for good on Twitter?
Do I have to gussy-up and come to your party?
I suppose there’s a balance.
I have friends. Good friends, time-and-dead-body-removal-tested friends.
And now lotsa people claim to want to be in that role. Eek. Take a number, there’s only a few spots, and everyone’s health is good!
So who do I befriend? Which of you is coolest — with “cool” being relative? Who among you has the most to offer ME as a friend — the right ideas and thoughts and plans for fun? Who among you can be goofy in my kinda way?
Friendship isn’t about who YOU want to know. It’s about what people best bounce off each other and bring out the most elements of who/what we are.
I’m seriously good with a handful of friends — people I can let down all the walls with, be myself, talk comfortably, and not apologize to for being absolutely inappropriate, which happens a lot.
Trust is a big thing for me. If you’ve read my stuff over the years, you’ll know that I think it’s probably the most important element in any relationship. It’s the be-all end-all of how I judge people.
Online, people have infinite ability to hide their true selves or be the biggest asshole in the world. Anonymity is an empowering thing.
Me? This penchant to blurt just about everything that comes to mind, and a total comfort with immortalizing all my idiocy on the web? Makes me pretty much the most honest person you’ll ever meet. I don’t dress my words up pretty for anyone, and I won’t say what you want me to say. I’m honest to a fault, and as trustworthy as the day is long. I think that speaks for the kind of person I am.
Maybe you can imagine how toughly I judge others.
I’ve had more than a few friendships start, and end, in the year that I’ve entered the Vancouver social media scene. People who collect social engagements like they’re status cards, or who have little moments where their overly-selfish self shines through, or inconsistencies in things said and behaviour — they’ve all come and gone on my watch already.
I enjoyed the attention at first, but then the variety of people befriending me increased and I didn’t know who to trust.
Pulling back? Smart. Judging folk? Brilliant.
If I’m happy with six friends, yeah, I can raise the bar pretty fucking high and see who clears the top. Especially when I know I’m that kind of friend. I’m not always “there” there, but I’m there in the right ways.
I’m good with people when I want to be.
But I’m good alone, too.
People still just don’t get it. Anti-social types aren’t all defective or socially challenged. I sure as hell am not.
You want me interested in attending? Make it a bonfire on a summer night — beers and hot dogs, flip-flops and fun people. No pretensions, no business cards.
I like people who see moments for what they are, who prefer to be on the outside of walls rather than inside ’em, who see the big picture and have big hearts, who laugh often, and who generally give/don’t give a fuck about all the things I care about, too.
Pretty simple. I’d rather dress down than up, laugh than schmooze, be under bright stars than bright lights, and hear the roar of waves rather than the crowd. I’m also better in living rooms than lobbies.
Keep your canapés and coat-checks. Those are special, rare events for me, not a life fit for regular consumption.
Sociable? Sure. I got moments.
But you’re not HERE to be my friend. You’re not reading me on Twitter to be my friend.
You’re here for content.
If we both remember that, it’s for the better.