Category Archives: Autobiographical

Not For You: Undoing the Undoings, And Writing

Just another cliche sunset shot. Taken at Vancouver's English Bay, looking south, in December 2010.


I’m writing again.
Let’s not talk about resolutions. They’re stupid. I’m just trying to undo some of my undoings. There have been a few. Simply achieving the undoing of undoings will lead me to a pretty wonderful place this year.
With writing, my goal is very simple: Try to write every single day.
I’ve been forgetting that I’m a writer. I’m not sitting down to build word cities anymore, and I wonder why my emotional landscape seems so barren.
Writing is a verb. It’s helpful to remember it requires doing.
There are those who claim inspired writing is like trying to catch fireflies or something else as fleeting and unlikely.
Like, you see a bright spark and chase it. Sometimes you catch it, sometimes it eludes you. The point is, you give chase. You try. You look in the darkness and hope some spark finds you, that you can catch that spark and embellish it, create something illuminating and amazing.
Oh, bullshit.
The truth is, inspiration comes easily when you have work ethic. By writing every day at a certain time, it’s almost like you can turn inspiration on within five minutes of pounding the keys. I know, I’ve been there.
Only twice in my life have I resolved to write daily on matters that move me. Both times I managed to segue into the best writing of my life. The first time, it shattered six years of writers’ block. It was simply a matter of working on it, daily.
Instead of thinking a thought, write it. Simple.
I know this. I know it takes work. Scheduling, regularity, routine. These are a writer’s best friends.
In the manic ways of our modern world, it’s easy to forget how simple work ethic — a little every single day — adds up over the long term. Writing compounds like any other effort.
I’ve had a terrible time with writing in 2010. None of it went as I wanted. Much of what I did has been worthy of trash heaps.
A false start here and a false start there, sooner or later it all feels false.
Hemingway said he wrote as an exercise of truth-finding. Any writer worth their salt, he suggested, was one who sought truth and wrote truth. The truth shall set you free… and make for some pretty entertaining reading.
The kind of writing I aspire to requires exactly that. It’s easy to lie to you, but insufferable to live with lies. Through my year of failed writing and wrong-perspective-having, I feel like I’ve danced through a darkness filled half-truths and white lies — leaving stories incomplete because incompletion is better, more true, than inaccuracy. Why end a story when you’re unhappy with the conclusion?
Anyone who complains about how hard it is to find a pair of jeans to buy has never tried to find a story to write.
I’m at that point, too, in my writing journey, where I question my creative instincts. All of them.
Is that story really one with legs? Can I make it walk? Does the journey have a point? Should I bother?
Creatively, I’ve been filled with false hopes for some time. That fog is starting to lift. My clarity is returning. I’m remembering that writing must be a daily pursuit. More importantly… I’m wanting it to be a daily pursuit.
Two truths:

1) I like myself better when I’m writing well.
2) I only write well when I write often.

Pretty simple to add 2+2 on days like this.
For the first time in years, though, that daily writing will be private. All in the name of The Book That Will Be Written (TBTWBW).
It’s the new year. Ahhh, that silly marketing ploy to sell us calendars filled with puppies and bikini-wearing babes.
In theory, the year is unwritten. Unmarred upon the page. Waiting for me to give it adventure, love, humour, drama, pathos, and more. Just a naked page, yielding to whatever I desire to impart it.
I like that feeling.
2010 was a hard year for me. It started poorly and pretty much stayed there. I had a lot of moments of light-in-darkness, but I ultimately let my year get the better of me — personally, writing-wise, professionally, physically, and more.
Life happens.
I’m not a big fan of New Year festivities and think they’re largely overhyped, but this year I’m ready to flip the script on the Year That Was. And for whatever 2010 wasn’t, I’m grateful to the things it suggested could be possible. I’m grateful to experiences like speaking at Northern Voice 2010, the people I’ve met, the bucket-list items I checked off.
But those 2010 moments were few and far between.
I’m not in some “thank god it’s over” naive mindset that the date somehow implies everything has changed.
I realize my life is pretty much exactly where I left it last week. Financially, spiritually, and more. But I don’t care.
I know any change that comes this year will be self-driven. I’m aware any writing that comes from me will have to come from me, be OF me.
I get it. I’m nowhere better than I was before “2010” flipped off my calendar.
And yet.

Christmas, Que Sera Sera-Style

It’s the day before the day before the day before Christmas, and all is not quiet in the house of Steff — except for the mice.
The stockings ARE hung with care. There are no children nestled in beds, but Quatchi’s snug in his hangout place.

A funny cartoon by Mary Nadler. HoHoHo.


Menus are compiling and nerves are a-rilin’. Christmas eve will soon be nigh, and I’ll be the hostess with the mostess for some good folkses.
I’m tired. Antsy. Panicky. But this is me pre-big-entertaining week. I panic my way through and then I kill it. Next week I play Santa Steff in a breakfast I’m hosting for kids. I giggle every time I think of having four little toddlers running around here. I’ve never had more than 2 at once, and one was just this lame baby that did nothing (snicker).
Toddlers? I’ll be drinking ALL day. So, yup: Giggle!
Ahh, but that’s next week.
And if I wasn’t strung out enough this week, there’s been a full moon. Plus I’ve just been visited by my monthly friend.
I’m basically the pharmaceutical industry’s wet dream today — twitchy and anxious. Medicating works for me. Thanks, anatomy! Yer a pal!
And despite all that kerfuffleness, there’s a smile on my face. It’s Christmas! We’re less than 72 hours! Know what that means? Coffee, good effort, and whatever the fuck happens, happens!
If you don’t knock it out of the park, who cares? It’s almost out of our hands, so hang the hell on and have fun, kids!
And that’s the thing people always forget. No matter how panicky and nutty we get before it all comes down, usually it just doesn’t matter.
You get your mulled wine or whatever the hell you drink, have good folks around, get the heat turned up, lights twinklin’, laughter echoing, and NOTHING ELSE MATTERS. That’s what alcohol’s for!
Somewhere around 6:30 on Christmas Eve, that starts to sink in, so skip all this crap and get into that mode. Que sera sera, as the man sings.
I was right, you know: Making gifts? Hard work! But so rewarding! I’m still not done and that’s fine, it’s still awesome. It’s been entertaining.
Christmas feels fun this year. How many malls have I gone into? Um, none since November 18th, except for walking through one to catch a train yesterday. Take THAT, malls!
I’ve even gotten to pay my bills. Post-pneumonia catch-up: Done, 3 days before Christmas. Big sigh. Happy sigh. And working again some.
Oh, I know, this domestic-happy Steff is a bit JARRING, I’m sure.
I’m not some Martha Stewart-like YAY-CRAFTS! person, but I’m telling you: Finding a way to simplify Christmas next year, if you didn’t manage to do so this year, might be the smartest thing you ever do.
And THIS Christmas is the perfect time to set that stage. When you exchange your gifts this year, bring up the idea of simplifying. Pledge to Make Christmas Simple. Then you can look forward to next year, not dread the finances. It makes December so much more fun when you have a plan.
Personally, I’m profoundly happy I’ve gone this way. Even my Christmas dinner will be different. A new friend is joining my best friend and I. And I’m finally taking Best Friend’s advice after all these years and Simplifying. It’s a meat pie that’s about 1/4 the price of a turkey. Making all traditional fixin’s and Quebecois “poor man’s pudding” (pouding chomeur) for dessert. It’ll be soul food, Quebec-style. (I have French heritage.)
My hope is that I’m not alone in having fun THIS week, that others are running on a little more gas as the finish line nears, and that we all make merry and feel delight.
If you are alone this year, make sure you cook yourself some beautiful food, or pick some up, pour some wine, and celebrate the fact that you fucking rock.
In case I’m too busy to write again — very likely — I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. I am thankful for all the strange and often difficult experiences I’ve had this year, the growth I’ve enjoyed, the bucket-list items I’ve checked off (public speaking and ziplining!), the awesome new people in my life, the odd doors that appear to be opening for my future, and everything else that has come my way.
Gratitude. Learning. Growth. All good.
Nothing has been what I expected of my year, but it’s been a hell of an interesting ride.
Thank you for coming along. Ho, ho, ho.

A Christmas Candy Story, by Steff

This Christmas, people in my life are getting simple gifts. I’m making candy for most people. Fiscal Frugality is probably wise in my world — and in most worlds.
Look around, right? The economy’s fucked. I could overspend, but I’d rather use my time and efforts and put ME into my gifts than injecting concern into my life. Makes sense.
It’s probably why I’m having so much more fun this Christmas. I can afford what I’m doing. I’m having to do it from my heart, too, because I want the candy to be awesome, not just some phoned-in treat.

Candymaking is all about the temperatures, that controls texture.


Friday, I got to play Santa Steff as I took my first batch of candy around to people. Tonight, I’ll be making another 11-12 pounds of the convection, with a good chunk of it being used for charitable purposes–my small way of giving back to a valued member of Vancouver’s social media community. I figure elbow grease turns into a donation from someone else. The circle of good.
But this isn’t just any candy.
This is the kind of candy that comes with a story.
Isn’t that the BEST kind?
As a kid, my mom always made us this homemade brown sugar candy. She called it “fudge,” so we did, too. Supposedly it’s “brown sugar pralines,” but there ain’t never been a batch that had pecans in it at my house, man.
She died in 1999, and that’s when I learned that it’s not the big posthumous regrets that weigh down your soul — it’s the little shit. Like childhood recipes.
When I realised her death came and I’d never gotten the recipe for brown sugar candy from her, it broke my heart. No one in the family could find it, either. She’d kept it secret.
But then, 10 years later, a friend of mine, ZoeyJane, helped me “purge” my home. I was made to go through all the old papers, sort all my boxes.
Another friend came over and we were goofing off, and I showed him my big purge-find of the day: My 1983 Girl Guides & Brownies Cookbook.
My friend starting flipping through the pages–thwap-thwap-thwap– “CRANBERRY JELL-O MOLD? This is totally 1983! Oh, hey, here’s yours–Brown sugar pralines.”
WHATWHATWHAT? LEMMESEETHATLEMMESEETHAT.
I snatched the flimsy recipe book from him, and lo and behold, there it was. Mom’s candy.
My eyes watered and my heart pounded. There was a piece of my childhood, RIGHT THERE. It DIDN’T die with her.
I was elated. Over the damn moon. I planned to make it soon. I’d need a candy thermometer. Duly NOTED.
A couple days later, I’m walking to work. Looking down on the sidewalk in Yaletown, there’s a candy thermometer in its package–$2.49. A fissure crack made it useless trash, but I picked it up and fell deep into thought as I found a bin to toss it in.
Later that day, I bought one myself.
That Friday, I took a deep breath and set about rekindling a part of my childhood. It was time to make some candy.
Immediately after I pour my first batch into trays to cool, the phone rings. It’s my brother. He’s with my dad. They wanna pop by.
I’d lived here 10 years, then. It was the first time ever they just “popped” by.
So, they came over, happy to know the “fudge” awaited. The candy was made of fail. I didn’t hit the right temperatures. It’s not cooking, it’s alchemy–and I had much to learn. My candy that day turned into a taffy-like chewtoy one could spend hours nom-nom-nomming but never melting down.
But it took us all back to a place that spoke of Monopoly nights with candy and a fire in the hearth, pizza delivery, pajamas and goofing off.
When my folks’ marriage started truly failing, the candy stopped making appearances. It became increasingly rare. Mother always made a double batch and put half away, hording it for herself. She had false teeth. (Obviously.)
In the 16 months since I found that recipe, I’ve really made it my own. I never make it plain as Mom did. Now it’s a vehicle for great flavours. I’ve made it with bacon and whiskey–a small circuit of the American deep-South barbecue circuit speaks of it like a barbecue urban legend, thanks to a friend who bragged about my work in competitions down there. But it’s the peanut butter-vanilla one that’s really popular with friends and family.
This Christmas is a new version and is my favourite. I think Mom would have loved it: Browned butter, toasted walnuts, and Butter Ripple Schnapps. It’s toasted and carmelized goodness that’ll make you understand the value of a good dental plan.
There were a few things I could’ve made to gift this year, with much less work, but my brown sugar candy is closer to my heart than any of ’em.
Don’t ask for the recipe. The Next Generation Cameron will carry it on: Nephew knows now what’s involved in making it. One day, Nephew too will be a Candymaking Ninja. But, for now, the alchemy eludes my little grasshopper.
Mother would be pleased. She’d love knowing her candy made Christmas special in two provinces last year, since I sent it to other family too, but she’d be more thrilled to know she played a part in candy-for-kindness and other Christmas goodness this year. She liked it simple-but-generous, life.
My folks went the extra mile to make Christmas memorable when I was little. One day, I grew up and the season became shrouded in the cynicism that makes stories like A Christmas Carol resonate 170 years on.
This year, being frugal, using my time and energy to make old-fashioned candy, is the first time I’ve really felt seasonal “joy” in a good 15-plus years. There’s something about returning to the simplicity of the traditions.
Being single and childless, that’s more easily accomplished than it’d be for others, but what a fantastic choice I made. I’m so glad.
Well, then… girl’s got some candy to make. Today’s most-epic-batch-ever requires a 20″ whisk, 24-quart stockpot, and a 24×18″ bun roll sheet with 1.5″ high walls. And, you know, 90 minutes of whisking.
Pray for me.
Ho, ho, ho.
If you can’t attend the fundraiser here in Vancouver tomorrow and you’d like to do a random act of kindness to support a couple good folks financially-felled by health crises for months in the past year, here’s a great place to drop five bucks and do just that.

The UnSpending Christmas = More Fun, Less Worry

Christmas is coming! Christmas is coming!
I giggled to death when a friend on Twitter, a member of Vancouver’s crazy Vespa club (“The Worst Scooter Club Ever”) and an awesome artist, Mark Pilon, decided to bring my Christmas tree to life.
I give you the Killer Christmas Tree — we’re currently securing film rights. Think death and jingling bells.
Obviously my place is decorated for the holidays. I’m getting into Christmas-cheer mode. I’ve even come to terms with the fact that, as much as I love the people in my life, no one’s getting “real” gifts. I’m making a lot of candy so as to spread the cheer this year, but that’s about it.
Fiscal realities, baby. Ho-ho-fuckin’-ho.
It’s tough to come to that place of accepting that your finances just don’t allow for the “traditional” Christmas, but it’s a damned good thing to accept, given the economy. I refuse to spend the next four months living with fear and regret for seasonal over-spending.
The best gift I can get this year? Knowing my utilities are finally paid off. It’s been that kind of autumn, and I know I’m not alone.
And, hey, I can do that, finally. It’s great!
What does it leave me for the holidays? Well, I can buy some wine, entertain a few people I care about, have coffee with some other friends, and that’ll be all it wrote.
Once upon a time, though, that was the point of Christmas.
It was about making paper-chains to decorate trees, and popcorn strings, doing snow angels, hoping Santa brought some $50 gift you’d been dying for, playing charades, drinking punch, and throwing snowballs. That was Christmas.
Then Hallmark and Best Buy and Sears and Apple and everyone else said, “Hey, here’s a great merchandising opportunity!” and we’ve been proper fucked since.
People used to be happier with less.
Now we have moreMOREmore and we’re more unhappy than ever. Cue the Prozac and Ambien and Halcyon and Lithium, eh? The medicated gift that keeps giving?
We spend, spend, spend under the delusions that the latest version of X-gadget is exactly what’s been missing in our lives. A purchase, then a week goes by, and, nope, that didn’t Spackle the little hole in our hearts either. Whatcha got for me NOW, Apple?
Commercialism isn’t the answer, and I think we’re finally figuring that out, thanks to economies around the world continuing to collapse like shaky houses of cards, but the problem is, we don’t have a fucking clue what the question is anymore.
Where’s happiness? What’s tradition? Where are we going, and why have we been trying to leave this Place anyhow? Why’d we ever start believing joy was found in a box on a shelf in a big store?
Christmas should be about finding that child inside of yourself, really meaning it when you tell people at cocktail parties that it’s nice to see them. It’s about walking down streets and smiling at decorations, admiring the shimmering lights dangling from trees at night, or stuffing a few extra boxes into a Food Bank hamper.
It’s about wishing for peace and love in the world, bundling up against the elements, singing stupid songs, loving a hot beverage, board games, and slowing down long enough to enjoy those slippers you’ve recently invested in.
That’s CHRISTMAS.
I’m really looking forward to dropping by a party with hundreds of people tonight, just because I’m hoping I see a lot of folks I’d love to wish well before the year draws a close.
It’s been a long time since I cared about seeing people, especially in large groups, or wishing them well, or congregating with mass numbers of any kind, but tonight I’d like to do just that. There are a lot of reasons I care this year, but most of them aren’t really for public consumption.
The main shareable reason I care about seeing people is that I know I can’t afford to spend my way to a “happy” Christmas. I can bask in the seasonal glow, though. I can just be there, participate, and be welcomed. That’s seasonal enough for me.
And this year, I think that’s exactly the kind of Christmas I want.
Somewhere along the way, industry, media, and commercial interests have stolen Christmas. They hijacked it and turned it into something that filled their tills and propped up their bottom line, and we lost the soul of the holidays.
The recession, this endless economy, it’s a gift, in a way — it’s our opportunity to say Christmas Is Not For You, Christmas is For Us. It’s for our tradition. It’s for remembering a way of life and a time of easy fun. It’s about movies like A Christmas Story, It’s a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street. It’s about Bing Crosby and ho-ho-ho. It’s for candy and mulled cider and giggling children. It’s for snowflakes and cookies and slippers and blankets.
And it’s not too late. With social media, we have more communication between us than ever before, and we can declare new priorities, focus on the right things, and take back traditions and our quieter times.
If, that is, you’ve reached the same not-gonna-take-this-anymore threshold as I have.
Me and The Killer Christmas Tree, we’re bringin’ Christmas back.
Next: Sunday might be time to make popcorn strings. It’s…. been a while, and the tree does look a little nekkid. Maybe that’s why he’s so angry-looking… shrinkage. Poor balls.

Of Fitness and Depression: My World at Present

I should edit this more. It’s over 2,000 words. But it’s about depression, and I’m too depressed to care about editing it down. Chuckle, chuckle. Besides, I’d rather go work out than stay stuck here, thinking about this shit for another hour. Please ignore errors and redundancies. Thanks.

___

Depression can be like a refrigerator’s hum, so quietly ever-present you forget it’s there.
I have been battling it off and on for years. It’ll probably be a lifelong thing. I’m not medicated, and I’m steadfastly wanting to avoid going to Pill-Taking-Land.
This week, I’m slowly accepting that I’ve been back in the throes of depression for quite some time now. Some of it situational, the existential equivalent of “duh, OBVIOUSLY,” but some just… there.
Part of my desperation in this return to fitness and health is that I’m hoping it solves the depression.
Ironically, depression makes you want to do less. It’s an interesting challenge. You know, in case I thought my life needed any more challenges.

Bernd Nies' 1999 eclipse is a fantastic image of what depression's like; there's light but it's controlled by the dark.


I want a “healthy life” to be my solution, but it’s probably a bit of a pipe dream. Still, I don’t want to medicate until I know I’ve done what I needed to do.
I took down yesterday’s posting because I realize it’s more depressed in tone than it is of “I’m achieving!”
Part of the problem comes from feeling forced (through my own actions, naturally) to make the journey public. You know what? Some struggles need to be private.
Some people’s struggles feel harder and take more to get past than the same struggles might for others.
When it comes to getting fit, that’s my reality.
I was under the mistaken impression that, because I’ve achieved so much athletically, and rehabbed so many injuries, that this “return” would be a lot easier.
I’ve been going through weeks of pain. The irony is, I’m trying to undo years of pain through creating more pain. It’s frustrating. And when you’re depressed, frustration isn’t really a great thing to throw into pot.
Some alchemy has results no one wants to be around for.
Fortunately, I’m not morbidly depressed. Just ever-presently so, in a mild and intrusive way, but not anywhere near debilitating.
I’m not that worried about the depression yet… just, well, depressed about being depressed. It makes me feel like a failure. I hate feeling this way, feeling like nothing’s ever really right or fun enough or good enough. I hate snapping at friends or being anti-social. I hate, hate, hate this feeling, and hating it just makes me more depressed.
But those things aren’t Horrible. It’s not like I’ve got a collection of wrist-cutting razors nearby or anything. I’m not even remotely on the likely-to-self-harm scale. No need to fear such things, kiddies.
The worst this depression is doing to me is the eating-too-much thing, and making me way too fond of wine and gives me a penchant for wanting to hear songs like Swag’s “I’ll Get By” and Gloria Gaynor’s “I’ll Survive”.
The trouble with depression, though, is that moods are so easily influenced by other factors around us, and a mild depression can plummet quickly. That’s ScaryTime, baby.
So, I worry about that, the ever impending “what-if” possible-doom scenario. And, naturally, that doesn’t help much.
“Don’t worry,” then, you say.
Well, that’s a pretty skookum idea. Why didn’t I think of that?
Oh, because I did. Depression isn’t a do/don’t scenario. You don’t decide to “do” something and then just have it work. If you could, depression probably wouldn’t be one of the more pervasive problems society faces or the largest medical expense faced by corporate America today.
I’ve been trying to do the standard things to fight depression. Sometimes I get ’em done. Sometimes I don’t. Resolve isn’t really the depressed person’s best friend. Neither are dark Canadian winters. You need a whole lot of faith and confidence to fight serious depressions, and some days those just can’t be mustered.
Fortunately, I’ve been to this dance. I know one just gets up and does their thing and one day it improves or it doesn’t. Then there are pills, if that improvement day doesn’t come.
But that’s why this return-to-fitness thing has been so hard for me.
And why it’s so important to me that I overcome it. I hate pills. Pills brought me close to suicide, so as much as they can solve problems, they can be destruction in capsule form, too.
This getting-fit desire been crushing me because I want so much from it. I’ve so much hope pinned to it. And when I’m willing to put in the work but the only payment I receive is more pain, well, how does one really just swallow that and put on a happy face?
They don’t.
I don’t. I can’t. I hurt. I’m not “sore.” I’m not “stiff.” I hurt.
I hurt on the outside, and I hurt inside, and sometimes it’s really hard when you just can’t find a happy place in between all that.
So, yesterday, when I posted a long “what it’s been like” thing about my start in this return-to-fitness quest, and it mostly focused on how hard it’s been, a lot of that turned out to be me writing for myself — explaining, “Well, yeah, it SHOULD hurt, look what you’ve been through.”
Then someone left a comment that essentially said “Shut up and stop whining,” and that was a pretty intense breaking point for me yesterday morning, and left me really emotionally fucked-up for the rest of the day, while I tried to process two very different truths:
1) The reason I blog AT ALL is so that I can talk about what I’m enduring and what my life experience is — not so I can write what other people want to hear, solve their life, shed universal truths, or do the whole rah-rah self-actualization type posts. Enough people do that kinda blogging. If I wanted to appease others and write for everyone’s happy-point, I’d be being more commercial and would mack this shit up with affiliate ads and everything else that has money attached.
2) They’re right: Shutting up and doing it works, and often. But when you’re depressed and the return to fitness is your attempt to right what’s wrong in your life, and you’re daily going through pains that really make it seem pointless, but you know you need to battle through it — writing about how hard it is, but why you keep fighting that hardship because you know you NEED the results, well… that’s pretty much my only tether to sanity during a time that I’m finding really fucking hard.
I don’t WANT to share my depression with anyone. I don’t want this blog to be an active record of this thing I feel or these times I’m enduring. I want it to be snapshots at best.
Why I write about how fucking HARD the experience is, is because I think others go through this, but they quit — just like I stopped halfway through my journey.
I don’t want others to go off their roads and have the same struggles I’m having while I’m trying to return to mine.
And I don’t think I should apologise for not being Miss Sunshine about it, either.
I need to get fit. I don’t need to be happy about it. I don’t need to appease anyone. I just need to survive this, then thrive, and then not look back. Getting fit will probably improve my body chemistry, it will likely help me better deal with these moods.
I’m doing exactly what I need to be doing. If I’m not textbook about it, and don’t have the “Go, Team” attitude about it, then I think it’s even more fuckin’ awesome that I’m still trying to make it happen.
The commenter, which I haven’t “approved” since I took the posting down, also chastised me for dwelling in the past of late.
But, I’m not.
My past is DEFINING my present to the extent that the daily pains I feel are kind of this confrontation between what I’m trying to make my present into but its parameters are still being controlled by aspects from the past. Like, back issues, etc.
The injury happened in the past. It took me a YEAR to get past. REMEBERING THAT YEAR makes these six weeks a lot easier to swallow.
That’s MY mental process. That HELPS me.
If YOU think it’s whining or “dwelling,” then that’s your worldview. Not my problem.
So, my anger about how I feel when workouts come with backlash is more easily mitigated when I remind myself of how long and hard the back injury was, that this residual stuff makes sense, that all these pains and injuries I’ve been through have LARGELY been rehabilitated, and this is the last of what I need to endure — the legacy of those times, if you will.
While I’m doing this fitness-battle thing, I often pretend like I’m in hand-to-hand combat with my past. Sure, it’s still making my life a struggle on a daily basis right now by way of “injury legacy,” but ignoring that never helped me any.
Yes, I need to do the work. Yes, “shutting up” is useful.
Right now, I just can’t be positive, sell the Kool-aid, or get anyone else on board. I just can’t.
I thought I could. But I can’t.
Again, that feeling of failure just exacerbates the accepting of such limitations. That’s depression for you.
I do need to just get through this. And I’m not so depressed that I don’t think I can get through it, either — thank god. I expect I will succeed. I don’t have a lot of faith it’ll be soon, and that’s probably where I’m going wrong. It’ll likely be sooner than I think.
Either way, it needs dedication.
All I can do right now, the only battle I feel equipped to fight, is that of ending these legacy pains and creating the fitness I desire.
But don’t kid yourself if you think I can stop writing about it, and don’t delude yourself into thinking I can be Miss Sunshine-and-Rainbows when I do.
I write about my experience, my worldview. I leave a lot out that I don’t want to give to you. I don’t want to put my innermost fears, angers, losses, etc, into your hands. I don’t want those words here.
That’s not for you.
So, I try to write about it in a skating-the-surface kind of way. Allusions and hints, a biographical writer’s best friends.
When I do that, sometimes it sounds erudite and poetic in its subtle references to things I’m experiencing or perceptions I have, and sometimes it sounds bleak as fuck because you don’t see the subtleties that I’ve convinced myself are there, tempering the content.
Ideas are always whole in my head yet filled with holes on the page.
Shit happens. What can I tell you?
My writing isn’t always good. It doesn’t always capture my thoughts.
And, fact? I usually write with the assumption that people who’re reading me might be here for the first time, andI’ll rehash details because I’m too lazy to find a blog link that explains that same crap, so it seems like I’m “dwelling” in my past, but, actually, I’m just lazy.
I don’t know what to really say to wrap this up. I’ve been slowly coming to terms with the reality that I’m depressed. At least now I know that I am.
And all I need to try to feel today?
Proud.
Because, despite how badly I’m left feeling most days, how hard I find this journey, I find moments of victory, snippets of accomplishments, and even when it gets bad enough that I take a day off, I get back to it the next day.
For the most part, I keep improving. Some things are holding me back, but, like an elastic band, if I keep pulling away, I think those bonds will eventually snap.
I’ll get past this.
But I won’t pretend I’m enjoying the experience. That’s the least of where my energies need to be.
I know today, now, here, this THING I’m experiencing — everything from trying to find a new career, solving my depression, dealing with financial struggles, watching my family’s strife, trying to lose 50 pounds, the added stress of Christmas — is probably going to be the period I look back on in 30 years, when I say “That Defined Who I Became For The REST of My Life.”
And that is why I get the fuck up and I do my thing.
If I whine a little?
My fuckin’ prerogative. Especially when, every week, I’m accomplishing more than I did the week before.
I’l write about whatever I want. And slowly I’ll get what I need to get done, done. Sometimes I’ll tell you about it, sometimes I won’t.
MFP, baby. My fuckin’ prerogative.
If that’s what the depressed lady can take to the bank, then so be it. Cash that fucker.

It's a Grind(erman), Baby

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

***

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

***

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

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

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

What I've Learned Slowly in Life & Writing

They don’t tell you that knowing who you are isn’t enough.
They don’t teach you that having a sense of identity doesn’t equal understanding how that identity fits into society.
They don’t say that loving what you’re gifted in doesn’t mean you’ll ever be able to make a living at it, or even that you’ll ever be guaranteed access to doing it.
No. They don’t.
That’s the way the reality dice roll.

Shamelessly borrowed from Ebaumsworld.com.


I remember a day in early May, 1994, sitting on a rocky shore in Oregon, as waves crested and broke below me, a notepad wobbling on my knees, wanting more than anything for the ability to break through the writing-blahs I’d been wallowing in, and wishing I knew how to do what I wanted for a living. I remember staring into the waves and thinking the only thing I ever really cared about was being able to just explore writing in my own way, and to do it for myself first, always.
I had no idea then, but that was the start of a very long,  strange ride for me — within 4 months I’d be living in the Yukon, within 5 years my mother would die, within 10 years I almost died, and then came the struggle through the Weird after, much of which I’ve written about at length.
I had no idea what would loom, where I’d go, and just how goddamned far from my dreams my road would lead.
Ironically, the further from my dreams I’ve been led, the better my writing has become… and somehow, I’ve come full circle, closer to the ‘writing life’ I’ve always wanted to live. It’s like an existential whirligig, one that takes some 20 years to come ’round to its start again.
Experience is the best teacher, and this is true also of writing.
You’ll always be a shit writer until life dunks you in the tank a few times. All the Sufi mystics would tell ya we’re only as broad as what we’ve lived through, right?
I guess the gift of Aging is that we start to realize we’re shaped by our pains as well as our joys, loves as well as hates, and we’ve learned through repeated exposure that we are built for survival, not perishing.
Look at what we can endure. Look at the Chilean miners rescued this week, and those who overcame the most ridiculous of engineering feats to manage that rescue.
And, yet… Life isn’t an engineering challenge.
It isn’t something one can solve with a drafting program, some applied physics, and a ruler.
Life’s a cosmic dodgeball game — played in a big-but-small room, where more balls than you can imagine are bouncing and ricocheting wildly, with no discernible pattern, and no reason for who or what they take out in their bouncy-travels.
Knowing who you are and what you can do doesn’t ever guarantee your efforts will be made of win, it doesn’t mean life won’t hit you in that game of dodgeball, sidelining you instead of sending you sailing successfully into the next game series.
I don’t think it’s a “Work hard enough and you can get it” scenario for everything in life. Methink that’s idealistic and what Random House et al want you to believe so you keep buying self-help-guru books when The World somehow shuts the big door on you.
In life, I think luck is as much a factor as work. Some folks are the pigeon, some folks are the statue — shit or be shat upon.
For what it’s worth, I don’t feel life’s posed enough of an obstacle to keep me out of the game. Some of us don’t come into who we’re supposed to be until later in life, and I’ve always suspected my 40s would be when I mastered the whole “world domination” thing.
The mentality of “you gotta be someone by 30” is the biggest piece-of-shit fallacy in the world.
It doesn’t happen that way. The school of life doesn’t run in semesters and grades, not everyone gets a pass at 18. Life lessons come and they go, but never fear — they’ll be back. The lessons will always be back.
The great dame of acting, the fabulous Ellen Burstyn, wrote an autobiography called Lessons in Becoming Myself, published in 2006, when she was 74. She was asked if she had “become” herself, and she answered no, that even as 80 loomed, she was still constantly learning about herself, forever becoming someone new, better, and more evolved than the woman she was, even a year, month, or week ago.
I remember watching her delivering this slow, well-thought answer, and smiling. I smiled too. I could do with getting old if it meant I’d always keep improving, and wasn’t relegated to becoming a lesser version of that which I once was.
And that’s another thing they don’t tell you.
They don’t let you know that you may think you know yourself, but ya don’t know jack, Jack.
You don’t know yourself until you’ve faced demons and betrayal, loss and hopelessness. You don’t know yourself until you’ve hit bottom and gotten back up.
The trouble is: “Bottom” is relative. Every time you hit what you think is bottom, don’t worry — you’re not bottomed-out. You can always go lower.
Believe that. Know it. Respect it.
Just don’t fear it. It’s a teacher, and you’re built for survival, remember?
When you’re young, they also fail to share that life ain’t about perceived successes — it’s not about who you become at the office, or the cachet you carry with you at meet-n-greet events, or the hot babe on your arm. They don’t teach you that life ain’t about money, glam, swag, beauty, or praise.
Life’s really about being able to like what’s in your head when the lights go out at night. Like Grandma Death in Donnie Darko says, “Every living creature dies alone.”
I think, ultimately, just getting to that side of life (death) and being able to die alone, but die truly knowing who you are, what you’ve had in life, must be the greatest departing gift one can have.
They don’t talk about that.  Or just how hard it is to get that place of knowing.
You can’t teach people in advance about the pain that comes from a life lived, or how much any one person can endure. No one can know endurance till they’ve had it, any of it. And some just can’t go there, be that; they’re not built Ford-tough.
But I am.
Somehow, I wish I knew that 20 years ago. I wish I knew long ago that protecting myself was just foolishness, and I’d get hurt often and deeply regardless of safety measures. I wish I was taught to just go, do it, fail, and do it again.
But I wasn’t.
Yet I’ve begun to learn it.
Like I say: Some of us don’t come into who we’re supposed to be until much later. Perhaps it means we’ll be better at who we’re supposed to be because we’ve had more practice with the bump-in-the-night of it all.
I have a feeling I’ll be finding out myself, soon.
Older, wiser… this shit ain’t so bad.

Making Plays in The Game of Life

I am in catch-up mode.
We get so ensconced in our lives that all need to remember the wise words of social genius/role model Ferris Bueller: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
So, when you’re like me and you’ve been out of the game for about six weeks with something stupid like pneumonia, you sort of realize some things:

1) Many happenings/obligations in life are unnecessary, yet we feel pressured to throw ’em on the calendar too.
2) When trying to get back to your old self, you need to pick your battles, and the one battle you can likely do without includes all the social and networking events that aren’t “real” time with friends you crave seeing, or lowkey happenings.
3) Those easy activities we fall into “autopilot” on really take a lot of discipline to develop routines around, and getting back to that is a real challenge after taking a necessary break from it.

I think part of my antisocial behaviour over the years stems from the fact that much of my years from 25-35 were filled with illness (was bronchitis-prone yearly) or severe injuries, and I just lost my ability to struggle through life and be Little Miss Lively.

From Guardian.co.uk: Gk Hart/Vikki Hart/Getty Images.


And I was always angry about it, too — my failure in my struggle to balance life during those times.
One day, I read Carl Honore’s In Praise of Slow (its Canadian title).
I learned about the Slow Food movement, and how it was spawning the “Slow” lifestyle. Talk about your lightbulb moments.
So, I learned what I could about these new-to-me ideas.
Slow Food was about getting back to the basics and using real ingredients, very little processed, and ensuring one had the time to enjoy it all. At least half the time, this is what I’m after in my kitchen: Slow.
“Slow Life”, in a nutshell, is about doing everything purposefully, mindfully, and without spreading yourself too thin. It’s about reading a paper and enjoying a quiet breakfast, not working on your laptop, watching Criminal Minds, and scarfing down a protein shake.
“Slow” is in not rushing to an event that’s only about shaking a few hands when you could stay home, re-centre yourself, eat healthily, do some fitness, and enjoy some mental-recharging in preparation for a great and full day tomorrow. Slow Life is even about Tantric sex and sleeping in.
Slow is essentially about making choices, and choosing to pare back on commitments, doing only what life and time dictate as good choices.
Carl Honore’s website defines “Slow” as:

It is a cultural revolution against the notion that faster is always better. The Slow philosophy is not about doing everything at a snail’s pace. It’s about seeking to do everything at the right speed. Savoring the hours and minutes rather than just counting them. Doing everything as well as possible, instead of as fast as possible. It’s about quality over quantity in everything from work to food to parenting.

There are people who thrive on social interaction, it completes them or feeds their ego or whatever it is it does for them, and maybe they need that component in life to really feel alive.
Many of these people, though, I see tweeting or Facebooking about how frantic they feel and their panic to get to the events on time, et cetera, leaving me to wonder just how much they’re “thriving” on these things after all.
Others, these excessive commitments get in the way of our goals, they cut back on our time to be creative, they erode our sense of self, and they turn us into 5-to-6-hour-a-night sleepers instead of getting the 7 to 8 hours doctors recommend. For some, the overcommitting eats at savings, inspires bad behaviour, or leads to missed opportunities.
Not everyone’s suited for the Slow lifestyle.
But I am.
The older I get, the more I realize I’m a rural dweller living in a citylife.
I want the country house, the seclusion, the quiet at night that’s broken only by sounds in nature. I want to wander country paths and marvel over how light changes on the landscape. I want trees surrounding my home and a body of water a short walk away.
Unfortunately, right now, I can’t have that life. By the age of 45, I will.
For now, though, I can balance my life with being smarter. These days, I’m a “maybe” for all events until the final 24 hours hits. I’m tired of having to bail for reasons others don’t want to hear about and certainly don’t care about.
At this immediate time, I’m not making any social plans at all. My two birthday-weeks with only 3 social happenings in each proved Way Too Much for me. The pneumonia rebound is a hard one for me.
But the pneumonia is a wake-up call. I’ve worked far too hard on my life to be rewarded by being this sick. No more.
The frustrations I feel now, after being taken out of the game of life and trying to catch up, they’re reminding me of why I gravitated to the Slow Life a few years ago, and they’re making me wonder why I ever drifted away from it.
In order to be successful at Slow, it means I need to make a few more changes. Routine becomes more important — cleaning up after cooking, waking up with focus, committing to an active life but also being sure to actively rest, both in mind & body.
Starting this week, it looks like I have a personal trainer willing to take me on in exchange for my writing about my journey to fitness for her blog (and mine). More on that on Wednesday.
It scares the living shit out of me, honestly. A high-intensity personal trainer with a mission to kick my ass?
I’ve been there before. I know what working out with high intensity for 6 to 8 hours a week feels like. I know the price my body pays. I know what “leaving it on the floor” feels like the next morning.
I know what it takes, but I HAVE what it takes.
What I really know, though, is that being social goes right out the window for a month. At least.
That 6 to 8 hours of fitness, for me, requires at least 4 hours of stretching. And hot baths. And icing. Next thing you know, it’s 16 hours or so of my week. Physical hours, hours in which I’m often thinking about exactly how my body feels and what it can do. It also means I need 8 hours of healing rest per night.
That physical demand on me and my time also means I really have to focus on healthy eating, and since I can’t afford to buy the healthy prepared food (which are expensive, of course), I need to do the cooking myself. More time invested.
And, you know what? No problem. I can do that.
I just can’t do “social” during it too. Not much, anyhow. Not at first.
Not if I want to achieve everything I know I can achieve.
Me first, you last — that’s what losing 50 pounds takes.
If you can’t put yourself first in weight loss, you won’t succeed. Period. I know.
“Slow” living means making choices and choosing your battles. It means doing one thing and doing it to the best of your ability. So does weight loss.
There aren’t a lot of books that have really changed my attitude on life, but Honore’s In Praise of Slow really did. It’s time it changes my life again, and this is the best time of year to make that change.
Whether we like it or not, there are 10 weeks till Christmas. Manic just got more manic. Socializing will be through the roof.
For me, Christmas means people — it means warm drinks, kindness, small homemade gifts, toasting with wine, laughing in warm lighting, and generally just Being with Real People. It’s not about events with 200 folks, or even 100. It’s about being in places where I can actually talk to each person present.
As the invitations start pouring in, I’ll pick events that are most intimate — preferably home gatherings — with the greatest number of people I’d like to connect with. And maybe only one every week or two.
But that’s how “Slow” goes.
In the end, I’m finding pneumonia has been a gift to me on a few levels. Most importantly, it’s helped me clarify my goals and remember what’s important to me in my world.
Or, at least that’s what I’m choosing to take from the pneumonia experience: Reminders of who I can be.
Now comes the part that’s the hardest of all: Turning those reminders into my new reality.
And, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’m grateful I get to try at all.

Money Ain't Everything

One of my favourite songs from my teen years was Cyndi Lauper’s “Money isn’t Everything.”
It feels like life comes in with built-in looped lessons, themes that repeat constantly throughout our lives. For me, money and patience are two lessons I’m forever learning about.
Money, though, is the one that causes me most grief.

Drowning piggybank, from TheDoublethink.com: http://thedoublethink.com/2009/06/how-much-to-spend-in-a-recession/


This year has probably been the most learned year on the money front for me. I’ve fixed a few things, changed my quality of life by way of making small choices, but I’ve still run into a great deal of hardship twice this year. Once during the Olympics, because you don’t realize until they arrive what a wild ride and party it is to live within, or how expensive life gets then, and, well, right now.
Having done the bad-back thing right before getting pneumonia, it’s actually been 7 weeks of consistent drain on my wallet, with little to nothing coming in, and it’s been hairy a couple times. Thank god for freezers with food in them and well-stocked pantries and beans and oatmeal, man.
But there’s a lot one can learn from hard times, even poverty.
There’s a gift in poverty, for those who are able to escape it.
I was raised by parents who’d come through a lot financially. My mother, I think, had it harder than my father — hers having been the kind of family that feared eviction on Christmas eve but returned home from mass with a giant gift box of food and clothing from the community, who slept three kids  to a single bed.
I still remember her telling me of those times, but I never “got” it. Not until the last five years.
Years ago, I was cursed to be stupid enough to fall into the “why me?” crowd when it came to being broke. I’d be jealous as shit of my friends who always got nice gifts. I felt like a victim, as stupid as that is.
I still resent people who can, and do, have all the things they want but have zero appreciation of just how fortunate they are to have it.
Some of them, if reading this, would probably have the whole “But you can earn your way out of poverty” attitude, and they’re right, to an extent. But what if you’re like me, or unluckier, where you have one year after another of illness or injury, misfortune or bad luck?
When it’s a six-month patch, you get through it and you move on. When it’s six years, or longer, it’s just an accomplishment to make it through month after month. Retirement? What? Savings? What? Survival, man.
I’m lucky, I’ve almost had it constantly be tough and hard for the last decade, but I always get by, I always make it through the hard patches. And every time I do, I’ve learned some new trick about money, some new way of saving a few pennies, but more importantly, I’ve always been able to remember that life is so much bigger and more meaningful than a balance sheet.
For those who think “time is money”, so just buy your food and work more — how? How does one magically make this more expensive, prepared, convenient food just appear? How does one afford to live spitting distance from the best job they can get?
They don’t. Not in this town, man.
There’s a reason money’s the fastest way to kill a relationship.
There’s nothing in this world we value more than money, there’s nothing that defines your life more — and nothing is more omnipresent than the reminders of just how much YOUR value is determined by the money you have or don’t have.
Try it. Wear tattered, out-of-style clothes with a bad haircut and zero accessories, carrying lousy plastic bags or beaten knapsacks, and be sure tote your insecurities and financial worry along with you, then enter into any decent shop in any reasonable area of town, and tell me you don’t FEEL your value lowering when you enter those establishments.
Or go experience the thrill of being constantly broke and listening to even your average friends talking about their new jeans or the restaurant they went out to, or the vacation they’re saving for, and try to ignore that little pang of “I wish…” that creeps up inside every time you think of small items you’d love to have.
Reminders exist everywhere of just how much you don’t have when you’re living hand-to-mouth. No matter how much peace you’ve made with your status, the constant reminders beat you down a little, just like how a single repeating drop of water can erode the hardest of stone over time.
Despite all this, the older I get, the more I appreciate that I truly value the important things in life, and through all my adversity, I’ve learned to really experience gratitude for the little things that come my way.
I love a good meal, I’m passionate about great wine, I know a gorgeous sunset can’t be bought, I savour all the little moments life gives me, when I find the time to really absorb them.
Truth be told, I’m happy there’s a recession on some levels.
When it comes to the middle class and the wealthy, I’m glad they’ve had to wake up some. I’m glad we suddenly realize there’s more in life than the mighty currency markets.
I’m saddened by those who’ve lost everything, who’ve had lives crushed by fucking assholes in the economic world who just have no concept of debt or value.
It’s so ironic. The people who “create” finance in the economic world actually have zero concept of what a real dollar is worth, of just how far — or not — a normal living wage goes.
And they’re the ones who’ve helped bring everything, and every one, down.
Still, poverty has its gifts.
Gratitude is a gift you’ll never grow tired of. There’s nothing like actually really appreciating a thing. Anything. So many people I know just shrug off little moments of generosity. How could they? Don’t they understand?
No. Not yet.
But they will.
Not having disposable income makes problems harder to solve, time harder to find, health harder to manage, and a social life harder to have.
But, with the right perspective, it can really open your eyes.
Has the recession taught you to better appreciate life? Have you really learned what you need to learn from the last two years? Have you gained insights that will define your future and always keep you cognizant of what real “worth” is?
Have you used it to remember what life is really about — the world and people around us, moments in time, laughter, and creation? Have you learned to be kinder to others and generous in thought, action, and words, when finances fail you? Have you learned to be understanding of the trials others face and the compromises they need to make just to make it through their weeks?
It’s not too late to learn those lessons now.

Lost My Funny: Reward If Found

Moods often come and go.
Sometimes, though, they stay around for a while.
Overcoming your mental state generally means you have to change what’s going on around you, and some of us are excellent at doing that. I’ve proven my skills at overcoming adversity — to myself.

I think they're looking for the Funny. From picturephoto113.blogspot.com


But sometimes life can’t be changed, and it’s that immobility of circumstance that forces the mood to not just stick around but fester.
These days, I’m sort of keeping a lid on things, but I’m not myself.
I’ve been pretty much trapped at home for a month, due to sickness and the resulting finances that come with. I’m doing the watching-TV crap, I’m freaking out internally about certain things I don’t want to share with you, and there’s a lot going through my mind — but I’m too tired to get them done, and pushing could render me stuck in illness for a longer period.
It’s the original Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t scenario.
In the long-term, I think this illness will have brought great and lasting change by way of goals and lifestyle choices I’ve adopted after great isolation and reflection for several weeks. In the short term, however, it’s a really fucking hard place to be.
I’m tired. I’m tired ALL the time. And now I’m getting angry about being so tired. What, knocking me on my ass for a month hasn’t been enough? Aren’t we DONE yet?
See, unlike most people who get angry about getting sick, I’m that rare person who really DID succeed in making major life changes, lost 70 pounds, was on track for losing weight again, etc. I did all that so I could STOP being sick.
Instead, I’m not just sick, but I’ve got this stupid fucking pneumonia, something that knocks the stuffing out of people for weeks and months. I’m sicker than I’ve been in nearly a decade — a decade that was filled with chronic injury — and it’s PISSING ME OFF.
And I’m scared.
I hate being scared.
But I’m scared. I thank god I’m at least in Canada when things go sideways like this.
And while life goes sideways, there’s still the digital world around us. Facebook, Twitter, blah, blah, blah. There are friends and there are followers, but few of them will be there when shit lands and lands hard.
The rest? I’m a dancing puppet, at best, is how it feels sometimes.
There are those who get all depressed when they lose friends during adversity. Me, I woke up to that reality a long time ago. I’ve been left and I’ve left others. It’s what we do.
We CAN’T be there for everyone. We pick those we can give of ourselves to, those we feel compassion and kindness toward. We have to pick our battles — and who we’ll go to battle on behalf of. It can’t be everyone. That’s just simple truth.
When it comes to Twitter, etc, I’ll unfollow people because they’re too depressive or needy or I’m-a-victim. I can’t read that every day. They might take it personally, but, you know what? We gotta do what WE got to do to get through life. I understand that.
So, if you’re some follower from Twitter who’s all disappointed because my Funny decided to take leave of me weeks ago, then fine. Be disappointed.
But don’t fucking tell ME you’re disappointed. Don’t think YOU’RE entitled to Happy-Happy Joy-Joy from me when I can’t even dig it up for myself. Who the hell are you that you think it’s about you?
Hey, I miss my Funny. I’d like to offer a reward if it’s found and returned to me, okay? It doesn’t WORK like that. I can’t go, “Here, Funny-Funny-Funny, c’mon, Funny-Funny!” and expect it to pounce out of the shadows like a dog being beckoned by its owner with a bone in-hand.
But tomorrow I won’t be jumping off a cliff or sticking my head in an oven. I’m not that far gone. I’m barely far gone at all. Instead, I’m methodical and just holding on as I hope to come back to myself, and I figure out where I’m at and how to get past it. I’m not concerned about entertaining YOU or making anyone laugh. You’re the least of my concerns.
I never unfollow the folks on my list who are going through tough times like chemo or other things that really beat you down over the long, long, long term. I admire them for at least keeping an even keel. They may talk of their disease and how tough it gets, but I can relate, and it’s a constant reminder of just how hard life can be sometimes.
I’ve been there in the past — month after month after month of illness or injury, where life just kicks the shit out of you and merely being able to drag your ass through it is an accomplishment.
I know I’m not there now. I’m just in an arduous place and it’ll pass soon.
On the upside, I’ve improved my diet, lost 10 pounds, met a weight goal, made my minimum bill payments, and have enough food in the fridge for a week.
If that’s all I can manage right now, fucking awesome. GO, ME. SERIOUSLY: Go, me! YEAH. Soon, I’ll feel like myself again. For now, getting by is good enough.
And if you want your fuckin’ Funny, turn on a sitcom.
I’m more than just a joke, so don’t treat me like one.