Tag Archives: money

So, Uh, About That Tree…

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

You'll shoot your eye out, kid!


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

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


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

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.

Happy? Stopping in the Small of it All

What do we really need for contentment? At what point do our goals cloud “life” itself?
How much work is too much work? How much of something is too much anything? How little is too little?
There’s no universal answer. The less one can live with, though, the more likely one’s chances of finding contentment.
I remember a friend once commenting that the wealthy are more scared of not having money than the poor are of never getting it.
I don’t know, I guess it’s true. I know some moneyed folks who don’t understand the class divide, and when they peer over that pay-precipice, whoo-ee — us little peoples with our cheap-ass wine, “good” and not-so-much-so underwear, “I Need a Paycheck” stack of recipes, and tendency to have to ask “how much” ‘cos we know there’s a price we can’t touch and it’s low… well, we’re a different breed.
Some of us are angry about it, and some of us know how good we really have it.
For all I don’t got, what I got’s pretty awesome — ‘cos it comes with a worldview that helps me enjoy it and not want for more (most of the time, for now). Sure, I stay out of stores and pretend we’re not a materialistic society in order to pull that worldview off when my finances dictate it, but whatever.
I got what I got, and I like a lot of it, and what I don’t got, I tend to get by without.
Soon I’ll be chasing the self-employment dragon with school, etc, and I imagine my desires will be increasing and my quiet, simple life will be shaken up as my needs grow and the corresponding scene develops.
There are some things I hope never change, though.

  • Like knowing a six-pack of beer and a burger-to-go eaten at the beach with a summer sunset, great friend(s), and million-dollar view rivals any experience had in a many-walled 4-star restaurant with entitled waiting staff and hoity-toity diners.
  • Or the delight of ugly boxer shorts, a torn concert t-shirt, and a DVD marathon with blinds drawn on an unapologetically rainy Sunday.
  • Or the here-and-now never-seen-THAT joy that is a road trip instead of flying somewhere, including the neuroses of choosing the music and a route before the trip ever happens.
  • Or knowing moments are built for milking and it doesn’t take long to do so, whether it means stopping to see the stars at night, taking the long way past a sunset, watching life unfold, or smelling a flower.
  • Or loving hanging out with friends who enjoy casual and chill as much as or more than being a part of any scene.

Sure, the media and the fancy folk sell the image of swank-and-busy lives, and how much we should validate our lives by the foods/drinks/things we can afford when with others, and maybe that’s great for you, but, for me, life’s about the simple-and-small moments that fill it all.
Someone once told me it wasn’t the big stars he loved in the sky, but all the little ones in between them.
And I think I look at life like that.
It’s the small things — the moments you pause for, gazes you steal, words you exchange, accidental encounters en route to Your Real Plans, unexpected little incidents that pepper your days.
That’s life, that’s the real deal. It’s the snippets, the moments, that stand out.
There’s a whole breed of world and people that live for the weekend, or the big party, or the next swank thang.
Sometimes I’m guilty of that too, but then I try to remember the moment, the smallness in the bigness. What’s something here, now, that I can notice or experience or remember? A taste, a smell, a sight, a sound — anything.
I want that, for forever — remembering the smallness in the bigness.
I hope my life is never always Big. I hope I always have Moments. I hope there’s forever equal parts of the Small and the Strange while it’s filling up with Big and Beautiful.
These are things I hope on this simple, nothing, every-day-is-like-today kind of Thursday… but a simple, nothing, every-day-is-like-today kind of Thursday on which there’s an amazing marine breeze as sun breaks behind cloudy heat reprieve and my bluesy-funk tunes swell and pound in my living room and my toes are painted pink, and the coffee’s brewing, and the floors are clean and…
Well, for what it is? It’s an amazing day. And I hope I always, always remember that.

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.

A Sly Smile Kinda Morning

The sky is an iridescent grey, at once inspiring and eerie.
My day is stretched before me with a loose idea of all the things I have to do, mostly of the meetings-and-appointments sort. A murky mess sits at the bottom of a mug I wish was filled with fresh black coffee. I just shrug at its emptiness and type on.
Inside, calmness has settled in. A calmness I probably haven’t felt in a number of years.
It began yesterday morning with a kind of prescient feeling about how much I could or would get done during the day. I blew that out of the water and settled my to-do list with great authority, meeting and beating all aspirations for the day.
At the end, I decided I’d finally take a look at my finances. For the first month of my unemployment I’ve applied the Ostirich Approach to my situation — only after I’d taken a hard look at the bottom line of what I would need to live on each month, and had the vague notion I might be okay until June. Then, I buried my head, spent as little as possible, and just did my shit, with the assumption that Spending Almost Nothing was all I needed to do.
Much of what I did spend was covered by “found” money — gifts from a couple kind people. (You fucking rock.)
I knew when the month started it would be tight and was 95% sure I would either be deferring my loan payment or telling my landlord I needed an extra week to pay the rent. I mean, the reality is, the first month of unemployment is ALWAYS the hardest.
I was in the situation of having had a bad-spending winter, followed by the Olympics crushing my savings, and had NO idea that a complete lay-off loomed. I thought I’d lose a day of work a week — I was praying for it — as we’d applied for the Workshare program (spreading a lay-off throughout the company, with the government paying 55% of the one day a week each employee gives up).
I never thought I’d be laid off entirely this year. And after a year spent rehabbing a back injury and two years of having to replace entire wardrobes with every season due to weight-loss, and that I’ve been making lower-middle-class income in one of the world’s most expensive cities… well, yeah, no savings either.
But…
But I managed to get enough ducks in a row as soon as the “OMG, lay-offs might be coming” fear that hit around March 24th, before finding out on the 25th that I would be entirely laid off, likely the next day, that I sort of had a fighting chance.
I was also insistent with my employer that the additional 3 days of work at the end of March would make the difference between me surviving until June at least.
And it did.
I finally scrounged up everything I had last night — not including a little emergency money I’ve set aside or what’s on my Visa — and know I can pay rent AND groceries until the middle of the month, without even receiving my government employment insurance benefit. AND I keep what little safety net I have intact.
That changes everything.
I feel like it’s the stamp of approval. “Go forth, Steff,” it says. “All will be well.”
I know, I’m supposed to be all embarrassed that my money’s this tight.
I’m supposed to be ashamed.
Wealth is a sign of success and position and talent and brains, isn’t it?
Fuck you.
Fuck ANYONE who thinks I need to be ashamed that things have been so close.
I’ve NEVER been irresponsible with money. All I’ve been guilty of is being average with money. At my income, spending an additional 10% every month cripples you in a hurry.
I am NOT my adversity. FUCK that.
Try losing 70 pounds and having to buy new wardrobes every three months, or getting so severely injured you spend a month laying on a floor and for months have to take cabs and pay 20% more in groceries  just for the convenience, because you’re in too much pain to bus from a further, cheaper store.
That I’m even paying rent tomorrow without any interceding forces makes me more proud than you’ll ever fucking know.
Fuck anyone who thinks money and whether someone gets through a jam financially is a reflection at all of that person’s intelligence, ability, talent, or resilience. Money is as much about luck and selective adversity as it is savings abilities.
Some people just have more things to overcome. In my life, money was always the villain. That line between getting by and barely surviving is thinner than most people might realize.
For once, money doesn’t feel like my villain anymore.
I’ve got rent, baby. And food. And I’m gonna buy me some wine and a steak tonight to celebrate.
[shaking head]
Yeah. I don’t know… I feel like I have to say more:
So many of you need to feel what kissing poverty is like. You need to feel how much it hurts inside when you’re terrified about paying the rent or you’re sure you’ve got to resort to drastic measures to get by. You need to know what it’s like to think hope is too expensive a luxury for your position. You need to imagine what that fear’s like when it’s not just you it affects.
You need to know how hard it is when money’s not within your grasp. Everyone needs to feel that.
I hope I never feel it again. And I hope I always remember that pain. I hope I always have the empathy I wish more people had shown me earlier — but so many are showing me, even showering me with, now.
Today is a day of gratitude, goodness, and calm. For me, at least. You? You can choose that, too.
Take a minute to think about what you really have, and pray you never come close to losing it.
Some fears aren’t fit for anyone. But gratitude is one-size-fits-all.
Beyond the talk of money? My future’s looking great. What a ride this summer will be. Stay tuned.
PS: Methinks unemployment might’ve been the best thing that ever happened to me. Wait’ll you get a load of me, baby.

And Then There Was Change

Photos 319I was informed of my layoff yesterday.
Wednesday will be my last day, until enough work returns, or the company is forced into harder decisions.
Kudos to the bosses, we’ve had an inkling this might happen. I’ve been grilling them weekly to see if changes were happening, but there has been no news, which was bad news. But what can you do?
Unlike any time in the past, I used this foreknowledge to spend a little money investing in my writing — ink cartridges and a new cabinet so my desk is now 3 inches lower — a long story, but long story short is, I was getting migraines from writing/working, and hope it’s no longer the case.
Normally, something big like a layoff  comes down, I panic and tell myself I can’t justify that spending, and I operate from a place of fear. This time, I just came up with a cheaper bare-minimum plan, and told myself it’s not optional — it’s about investing in myself.
Migraines don’t make good writing. And I’m too much a “writer” to not be good about it.
Now that I have some time to write in between the requisite job-searching, it’s obviously a priority.
I’m hoping I get called back to my job in a couple months or even by the fall. I know it’ll be tight and hard living, but I’ve been through this before and impressed the shit out of myself, so maybe it’s time to prove we only get better as we age.
There’s a difference now from back then — I now recognize I’ve suffered from mental illness, and live with difficult ADHD. I can, and do, learn new jobs, but I need to find the right fit for me, not just any job. I need the right kind of employers, work environment, and schedule.
Knowing this means I’m empowered, not a victim, by those challenges. I’m better off than most people; I know what I really need for success.
I’d rather return to my company, who’ve become like family over the years, who I trust and can approach about nearly anything, and who place the same value on life-over-work as all the employees do. Our schedules have been flexible, they accommodate the little things that pop up and would be better done with a shorter workday or a day off.
I’ve never made much. I’ve made $18 an hour while my friends have all being going on to bigger, better, amazing things, and I’ve been scraping by.
But in the time I’ve scraped by, with my work allowing me to flex my days and hours on a weekly basis, I’ve managed to:

  • overcome years of intensive rehab after almost dying a couple times
  • fought (and I think overcome) once-frequent forays into dark depressions and other mental illnesses
  • gotten through a number of tight layoffs with nearly no help from anyone despite my challenges and lack of savings
  • not only beat but beat into a bloody goddamned stump my writer’s block
  • rediscovered myself
  • gained 40, then lost 70 pounds
  • conquered many fears
  • discovered my inner athlete
  • and done a million other things, while never making the money to have others help me accomplish it easier

Scraping by the last three years let me improve myself more than most people accomplish in a decade or more, and almost all done by myself.
I have constantly been trying to heal or get over something — be it a physical or mental issue — and my work, my pseudo-family, has pretty much been there and made it possible, as possible as they could and still make an income, through it all.
Knowing myself now, in my post-head-injury, post-depression, post-unhappy life, I KNOW I can’t just work for anyone. I know I can’t just waltz into any company and “make the best” of it. It will tear me to shreds. Mental illness is a real issue; me working in a negative, high-stress job with evil people is like making someone with lung cancer work in a restaurant that has smoking. You can TRY, but what’s the fucking point? It’s got “FAILURE” and “CATASTROPHE” stamped all over it.
Like when I worked at a place for 6 months in during 2007, with The Dragon Lady and her art school, ruling by terror and venom, poisoning me with her negative depression on a daily basis from seven feet away with no wall. Oh, lord. Never, ever again.
I spiralled close to suicidal working under her. I gained 20 pounds in 6 months. Then I quit, went back to my old film job, and they gave me a non-judgmental, supportive, flexible environment in which I’ve made the most progress of my life, changing EVERYTHING with no trainers, no financial advisers, no real therapists — just a supportive workplace that let me make myself a priority.
I’ve changed me, inside and out. I’ve so much more empathy and enthusiasm for life and others now. I’m such a better person. I’m not gonna die young — not from my health, anyhow. And work played a big part in giving me the control to make that happen.
And now the future of the company that gave me such a fantastic environment that encouraged my change & growth is in danger. It breaks my heart.
All because of stupid government and bad tax policies. What a tragedy.
None of us employees wants to work for other people, the bosses don’t want to work with new people. None of us is in it for the money, not even my bosses. All of us live lives of sacrifice and budgeting because the job lets us put our art, creativity, and private lives first. We don’t make a lot but we’re under no illusions what kind of people we work for, and that’s why we’ve stayed.
But the government doesn’t want us to stay anymore. They won’t match film industry tax credits from other provinces, and now some asshole in Ontario or California is doing my job, since domestic film production is down by 40%, and 50% of the workforce has been laid off.
So here I am. Four days left.
And a book to write.
And a newly-adjusted desk to write it at.
Looks like I know what I’m doing.
Unlike most people, when I write this book, it won’t be gathering dust. I won’t be sitting around micro-panicking over every word. There’ll come a time when I’m Ready.
I have NOTHING to lose from publication. NOTHING. Anyone I stand the chance of pissing off in my book has probably already been pissed off at me and either knows that’s part of knowing me and my unflinching-but-always-trustworthy honesty, OR they’re already not talking to me and there’s no skin off my ass if I maintain the status quo.
I’m a WRITER. Through and through. My friends know this. Anything’s on the table for me, but they also trust me to toe a line. We’re good.
More importantly than the trust I have for my friends? I write about all my failings and weaknesses and dreams and thoughts all the time. It’s not like I have to dig that much deeper. If I’ve already told you some of the embarrassing bad things in my life, then why not just keep that ball rolling?
So, the writing? Not too stressed about that part. Organizing? Ooh, yes, trickier. Some of the get-an-agent-get-a-deal stuff scares the shit out of me, I admit it.
But you know what? I’m at that point where languishing in obscurity scares me more.
I deserve better than this. I owe it to myself. I’m tough enough to take it, too.
I have nothing to lose — except my home. But I’ll figure it out, I’ll get by. Times like these, having no savings, living in one of the world’s most expensive cities, yeah, things get daunting.
It’s uncertainty. My job might be back in 6 weeks, I don’t know. I could spend the whole year writing and looking for a job that fits me, I don’t know.
Where will I be in 6 weeks? 6 months? Where’s life taking me?
I don’t know.
And there’s not a lot I can do about it.
Except adjust my desk and get to work. That’s one area I know I can make a difference in, accomplish something in. That’s one area I know. That’s a start.

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SO, HEY:
If you know of any agents for memoirs, let me know — this process entirely daunts me, but I think my work is worthy. If you have an “in” for publishing and think you can help, I’m all ears. Drop me a line, scribecalledsteff (at) gmail (dot) com.
I’m working until next Wednesday, with paperwork to deal with for employment insurance next Thursday, but after that, I’ll be all over emails, etcetera. The book is in full-on “go” mode, and I hope to have three chapters done by early June, with a workable outline for pitches. So, please, spread the word with serious publishing contacts that there’s a little ball of awesome right over here that’s looking to explode onto the scene. Thanks!

Soon The Olympics Leave

It’s Day 12 of the Winter Olympics here in Vancouver. Four will remain. The insanity is everywhere. Here, look at this shot from last Saturday night. Something like 20 blocks of the city looked like that. Needless to say, such a long, wild ride comes with Olympic highs… and Olympic lows. Here’s a look at the latter.

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My mind feels like an electrical storm.
So much is going on, I’ve so much power yet so little ability to focus it. Writing is a joke when the world is this insane around you for two-plus weeks. Some can do it, I’m sure. I’m just not one of them.
Working from home was my first mistake. My office job landing smack in my living room, that was a mistake. It’s just changed the vibe ever so slightly.
As a serious writer, the right “vibe” is everything. Mood is god, story is king. Chaos is the destructor. Continue reading →

Tired, Wired, At the End of It All

I’m frustrated as hell today.
I know I’m PMSing. I’m getting pissed off at obligations, frustrated at my lack of time, angry at the day ahead of me, and I have nothing I can do to really change or improve any of it, other than the plans on tap.
It’s chemicals, man. I’d apologize, but I don’t want to. I didn’t ask to feel like this. I don’t want to feel like this. I also know it won’t be around long. But it’s around now, and there’s not much I can do to shake that.
For now, my life’s pretty consumed with obligation. I’ve got a lot on tap in the next week, and it’s frustrating, because what I really want to do is just get back into a routine. Any, really. I’m stretched too goddamned thin. Still. I’m tired. It’s been a very, very long time of feeling this way. Normally it doesn’t bother me much, I’m used to it, but come PMS time, I get resentful as fuck. I’d like to live on Easy Street. That’d be a nice change of address, if even for a while. Continue reading →

On Strange Times: Our Heroine Turns The Page

Y’all needs a status report, so here’s an update on the big, bad world of Steff. 🙂
I’ve had the biggest roller coaster week ever and I’m still reeling. My new mattress set came yesterday and judging by the strange cohesive feeling in my body this morning, my speculation over my bed being at least 60% of my back problem might have been understating things.
I’m still swirling in a very busy world of doing this spending spree I’ve arranged for. Monday will be my visit to the furniture factory to buy a new sofa. A wealthy furniture-store-owning uncle has arranged for me to get wholesale on a handmade leather sofa, so, I’m buying something that’s way, way beyond the means of most of my friends and I, for a couple hundred more than I’d budgetted, but in 3-4 years I’ll still be able to sell it for what I’ve paid, so why the hell not? I’ll show you what I get once I decide. Think retro-hip leather with sleek straight lines, firm and no overstuffing. Rat pack and martinis. Continue reading →

One of Those Dishwashing Epiphanies

So, there I am, washing up my kitchen, wishing I could have a barbecue later. My barbecue broke the other day. The valve thing just snapped right off. It confuses me. It looks like there should be a long pokey mount-thing but there’s nothing, so I wonder how it ever held together in the first place. This is the problem with letting men assemble shit: When it breaks, you need them to check it out ‘cos you never did it in the first place and you don’t know what to look for.
That’ll teach me for getting guys to do “guy” things that I know I’m capable of doing, eh? So now I’m all helpless femme (which is just disgusting, and I hate being) and I have to wait for GayBoy to come take a boo at it. If it really is broken, then I need to get in the headspace of chatting with Costco about getting a new one.
And, so, there I am, washing up, thinking “Ooh, I hope it’s fixable. I don’t want the hassle of having to sort it out with Costco. I hate conflict.”
That thought just stopped me in my tracks. I hate conflict? I hate conflict? And I thought about it for a moment. Yeah, you know, I do.
I do conflict very, very well. I argue my case very, very well. I tend to get what I want. I tend to do it without being cruel. I tend to be very shrewd at it, and very tactical.
Yet, I hate it. Like, I’ll avoid someone or something for a good long time, just because I hate to be in that position of needing a victory. I hate to have to do the arguing. I fear losing. Even though I seldom lose.
I was avoiding talking to the cute young guy who works for free on fixing my scooter, in exchange for my baked goods, ha, for instance. My poor wee scooter is still very unhappy. Funny, it goes like stink these days when you get it to the upper register speeds — like, 85 kilometres an hour with the slightest of declines and a tailwind. Crazy. But it’s a slug off the start line and takes blocks to get to a decent running speed. It’s embarrassing. I’m that chick who rides between lanes, has off-roaded with her scooter, and who knows what it’s like to do a 200-kilometre day touring a valley on it — I don’t do “slow” and “annoying. Fuck! When the people behind me are thinking “Move, bitch!” I am, too.
People are not patient. Nor am I. So, anyhow, mechanic boy’s this kid who’s trying to build the world’s fastest scooter and is test-riding his latest generation ride at the Bonneville Salt Flats down in Utah this September. He’s taken a special interest in my ass– err, my case– and is doing all he can to fix my bike for cheap, cheap, cheap. But all his tricks haven’t solved the like-a-slug starts (but sure as fuck increased the top end!) and it’s just killing me. Now we must start throwing money at it. For a few hundred dollars (sigh, ouch) it should be the meanest bitch on the south side, man. But… summer will be over.
And even though I knew what the kid’s answer would be, and I knew he’d be cool with helping me out, I was dreading having the chat. How stupid is that? It’s amazing what we do to ourselves just because there are conversations we’re not really keen to have. What stupid, stupid creatures we can be.
And I have another one of those conversations I dread coming up, even though I’m secretly 90% sure I’ll get what I want: The Money Chat at work. It’s time to show me the love, baby. And though I know I’ve a great argument, and I know I’m likely to get everything I ask for, I’m in a state of dread. (It’s one of those things of timing — the chat’s been in the offing for three months, but first work got slow and I thought it was bad timing, then work got busy, but the two owners have been on back-to-back holidays for going on two months now. The chat will be initiated in 10 days. The wait will kill me.)
Dreading these conversations is killing me, I tell ya. Having them, though, that’s what it’s all about. ‘Cos then results happen. Change occurs. One way or the other, you better know what you got to do, right?
Ahh, the healing power of conversation. Blessed be. Ten days to go. God help me. Of course, you can feel free to donate to my alcohol and foodie fund, to ease the paid of the wait, by clicking here. 🙂