indecision

so i changed my blog title. don't judge. i am allowed to be indecisive. at least in the blogosphere. (blogosphere - what does that even mean? don't think too much about it, says the new media studies student. just. don't). indecision does not come easy to me. and that's not something i'm proud of. cause for years i lived in a world (a sphere perhaps?) of black and white. and that's tough lemmie tell ya. tough.

gynormous life decisions have always come relatively easy to me, e.g., while i faltered for a week during christmas break during my first year of university, desperately wanting to drop out and become either a chef or a florist (much to my parent's chagrin and resounding "nos"), by the new year i knew i was going to be a phd student one day. and well. here we are. i would like to say it's the little things that get me and while that may be true, it is really the small to medium decisions that boggle me. such as: where should i eat for dinner instead of making dinner? should i like camping? how many drinks are too many? and, my personal favourite - should i continue to think about the health of my arteries or should i just give in and eat french fries all. the. time.? so far, arteries are winning. but i'm not happy about it.

i made a decision to write a short blog entry - something i can't seem to accomplish due to insufficient short-range wit and the fact that this blog may or may not be turning me into an even more rampant egomaniacal attention whore (could you talk more about yerself much?). i don't seem to be sticking to that decision. but maybe that is just it. as long as i have the big life decisions covered i can completely live a life devoid of simple decision-making. some decisions are easy: should i go on a reality t.v. show? no. would i like to? yes. do i like summer? yes. would i like it to be summer all the time. maybe also yes.

i have recently been thinking a lot about having one's own "take" on everything. which is essentially like having a position - perhaps deciding on an opinion - and then deciding to act upon that decision. my take. your take. everybody has a take. that is what makes people seem so annoying sometimes - your takes don't add up or they don't agree with your take. i also think decision-making is about confidence - the confidence to stand behind your take even though everyone else thinks it is spastically uninformed. in my youth - the heady days of "should i be a chef or a florist" - my take was the law. there were no other takes. my take ruled. that was what living in a world of black and white was like. i didn't see shades of gray. as i get older - and with a recent birthday under my belt - i realize that life is full of shades of gray. if we can cobble together a take, than that's something. enough perhaps. existing in academia teaches me this anew every. single. day. and this is not a bad thing. it is perhaps instead an altered mode of being.

so i made a decision to change the name of my blog. and i may or may not stick with it.

so there.

a life in pictures: flickr meme fun

k - i'm not good at taking pictures. actually, i'm really, really bad. so as desperately as i want a flickr site, i don't have one because a) i take horrible pictures that no one wants to look at, and b) our camera is broken and i don't know how to use it anyway. anyhoo - i was over at sugar sweet, one of my new favourite blogs, and she did this cool flickr meme thingy that i am going to steal because it looked super fun. also, this being the eve of my day of birth, it seems like a fun way to take weird stock of your life, and in pictures no less, which is fun (and elusive to me, a picture-taking spaz). so theses are the rules of the flickr meme:

1. go to www.flickr.com
2. type in your answer to the question in the "search" box
3. use only the first page
4. copy the html and paste for the answer

here goes! (please note: i did not answer questions that appear on sugar sweet's that i thought were dumb, e.g., my favourite disney princess). i may or may not have added others. i can do whatever i want cause i am the birthday girl).

1. what is your first name?


2. what is your favourite food?


3. what is your favourite colour?


4. who is your celebrity crush?


5. what is your favourite sunday activity


6. favourite drink? (for me, a tie)

and


7. dream vacation?


8. favourite dessert?


9. what do you want to be when you grow up?


10. what do you dream about?


okay - that was stupid fun. do it! i feel inspired to not only take better pictures but also to regularly take stock of the beauty that my life holds. and is.

(also, i thought i was cheating cause i thought you had to use the first picture and i was choosing from the whole of the first page. my post-catholic schoolgirl guilt was wasted cause that is part of the rules - you can choose any from the first page. jeesh.)

why i'm a bad blogger - installment # 5

i thought it might be time for another rousing rendition of my mediocrity at crafting and maintaining this beautiful blog. since this is my like, fortieth-ish post, i am now an expert on why my blog pales in comparison to those that people read religiously and comment on. some of this list may seem familiar while other aspects of suckage will be entirely new. as always, comments for improvement are welcomed but will resultantly make you unlikeable. just so you know. enjoy.

1. this blog continues to be about nothing. i have recently refurbished my "about me" and "interests" sections. it made me feel better despite the fact that you didn't notice. don't pretend you did.

2. because this blog is about nothing, i will never be paid consultancy fees for anything. shitbags of hell.

3. t-bone has recently pointed out that i not only frequently have spelling errors, but that i always do. thanks for that tidbit.

4. i may or may not have mis-named my blog. i mean seriously, even i skip over blogs with titles like hate in them because i am trying to spare myself the entitled vitriol of others. what was i thinking? i hated my other blog. however, i am desperately in love with this one.

5. do people even blog in the summer? i mean, is this blog going to contribute to my pastiness? i really need a tan - like even a spray-on one. seriously.

6. i am even starting to think the minutiae of my life is interesting. is this a blog-induced state equivalent to navel-gazing in the social sciences (mainly anthropology - i mean, i'm not judging, i'm just saying...)?

7. i think all lists must contain 10 items.

8. all i want to blog about is big brother - till death do us part. hey - you know how i feel about being judged about my reality television choices. so stop it. now.

9. i have ceased and desisted sharing my blog. that can't be good. and if i do i always tell people that they won't want to read it. how is that for a sales pitch?

10. i can't seem to talk about anything related to my dissertation which is both a positive and a negative thing. i mean, this blog is about procrastination, right? suggested to me by the one and only dr. beth, who has in fact completed a dissertation, hence the dr. appellation. almost dr. jacks can't even talk about online dating much less have a blog about it. poor almost dr. jacks. is this what i should rename my blog? methinks i am on to something.

okay, so what has this installment of bad bloggerness taught all of us? not much. but it does suggest that i maybe should change the name of my blog and perhaps share it will others with the same kind of resounding endorsement i give to referrals to my hairdresser or for people to watch flight of the conchords. seriously. watch it. its friggin' awesome folks.

vote now if you think i should change my blog title to "almost dr. jacks changes the world" or some other fabulous suggestion you wonderful people have.

11. i change my blog so often, people can't even find it, let alone figure out what it is about (just a preview of bag blogger installment #6).

livin' on the eastside *makes an awkward "E" symbol with fingers of left hand*

so roughly more than a half a year ago i moved to east van. where the hip-est of hipsters live. you can live on main street (which is where hipsters now go to procreate) or you can live on cambie where it was once uber hipster-y to dwell. but the real deal on hipster-living is in east van baby, where commercial drive separates the hipster from the poser. for those who don't live in vancouver, this distinctions between the hipster-ness of neighbourhoods is lost on you. but for those who live in the "couve" (an appellation given by a visiting ontarian friend who would not cease and desist calling it that no matter how much i insisted that it sounded like a euphemism for vajayjays), neighbourhoods really mean something. because the thing is, in vancouver, you pick a neighbourhood and then you live and die by its friggin' greatness. wherever the individual vancouverite lives, it is the neighbourhood against which ALL other neighbourhoods pale in comparison. maybe this works similarly in other cities that insist on having way to many distinct and unique hoods. or maybe it is just because vancouverites have to be special no matter what form that specialness takes be it from their raw food diets, their insistence on climbing mountains for fun, or taking their equally unique and special dogs EVERYWHERE with them. i dunno. you decide.

so i moved from the westside to the eastside which is equivalent, to some, to moving from the beaches neighbourhood in toronto to scarborough (i would say the bad part of scarborough, but is there a good part? man, i'm a jerk). because the downtown eastside (dtes) is infamously known across canada as the WORST neighbourhood in canada, the eastside generally gets a bad rap, despite the vibrant community life that characterizes east van generally. i sympathize with the people that are fearful of the eastside because the dtes is perhaps the most unthinkable neighbourhood one could imagine - not because of crime or violence (despite widely held beliefs) but because of extreme grinding poverty and widespread addiction and mental illness - two things that invariably land people on the streets. when you live in pristine largely white and shockingly upwardly mobile neighbourhoods like kits and kerrisdale, the eastside begins about at granville street and characterizes everything thenceforth until you hit burnaby. so yeah, living on the eastside (no the dtes) means something very different, but perhaps more "real," than the tony neighbourhoods that make vancouver so desirable. but what is weird is that vancouver is a young city and so the neighbourhoods, like kitsilano for example, used to be a hippie enclave where you could live a beach bum kind of existence - not too different from the commercial drive neighbourhood of now where hippies gather to exchange patchouli tips and advice about how to keep dreds bug-free. so this brings me full circle back to hipsters - those pioneeering souls who are on the forefront of gentrification - the few, the brave, the musically-obsessed and fashionably-conscienced.

so when i was in cincinnati i roomed with an extremely articulate and intelligent woman who just happened to be ridiculously hilarious. during said stay, she made a joke about hipsters and then abruptly stopped laughing, fearing she had insulted me, whose questionable hipster-like status had not be fully articulated nor denied. i was like, "no dude, that was funny. i'm not a hipster. i mean i don't think i am. oh my god - am i?" i then evaluated the evidence: 1) we have recently purchased property in an up-and-coming neighbourhood. level of hipster-ness: HIGH. 2) i shop in little consignment stores and revel in the resultant questioning about where i got that shirt or those boots. level of hipster-ness: MEDIUM. 3) i recently cut my hair. i now have bangs. level of hipster-ness: OFF THE CHARTS. i had to face a scary truth. i might be a hipster. where did i go wrong?

after consulting the hipster handbook however, i was relieved to find out that while i might approximate certain hipster characteristics, i am not in fact a hipster. this is largely because i don't ride a bike, i have never even heard of the word "deck" (except as a wooden object that surrounds pools), and i do not have less than 2% body fat. also, i own and love my television, which in hipsterworld is equivalent to worshiping the devil. so there you have it. i'm not a hipster despite evidence to the contrary. so suck it.

one final note, while i may not be a hipster, i do believe that my wardrobe is misrecognized in my new neighbourhood as something i like to call "streetworker chic." however, i think the bangs are helping to remedy that. sweetass.

if you go out in the woods today you might see jacks up to her junk in what could have been a watery grave

okay, so here is my attempt at playing catch-up. i've been busy, okay. lay off. i have to go all the way back to easter cause it is my favourite holiday, after xmas and halloween (since i was born on a good friday and apparently that means, in folklore no one knows nor believes, i will be a millionaire by my 39th birthday. sweetass), so i have to prioritize and correctly and chronologically relay the minutiae of my everyday life. so here's a little ditty about me almost dying in the woods. it'll be good times. swears.

so i like to hike. so what? it doesn't make me "outdoorsy." or "one with nature." it keeps me active and able to stuff large quantities in my pie-hole without consecutive coronaries or other suchlike adverse effects. plus, it allows for one to still be somewhat lazy but give the appearance of activity (that is, as opposed to running which i disagree with as a practice akin to torture). so anyhoo - i'm hiking - at buntzen lake to be exact which is a pretty place. with a lake. and a trail. perhaps my favourite hiking place of. all. time. 'cept that i almost died there. at easter. like i said.

so the dying part comes in when me and my loved one decide to be troopers and pass our usual turnaround point which is somewhere around a dock and a little suspension bridge that no one EVER goes further than because it requires you to circumnavigate the entire lake. which ends up being about 10km. which is well past jacks' comfort-zone for exercise-that-approximates-exercise-without-being-too-exercise-y. first, beyond the cute little suspension bridge, there was a significant uphill section. i am adamantly and vehemently opposed to ANY kind of uphill. uphill = the devil. second, we think we are lost when we reach a gravel road which we decide to follow (we are lost at this point but in serious denial). third, we are running out of trail mix (which i despise but was nonetheless filling my previously-mentioned pie-hole with). t-bone (aka loved one), locates us on his phone which has gps and we are somewhere between death and the end of the trail. when i realize i am starving i begin to consider eating all of the trailmix cause i figure we might not survive until the morning. apparently i thought t-bone could eat me once the trailmix was gone and i inevitably perished (due to lack of trailmix and the couple of hours i had been without food. this no food for like two hours and death is an assumption i make pretty regularly).

fourth and finally, the floating bridge that promised to be our saving grace because it was to take us directly to the parking lot (directly equalling in 1.5km) was blocked off and barricaded due to the fact that it was decrepit and "unstable" (and in the end, incomplete) or some such silliness. i say silliness because the barricade was instead telling us to go another 3km along the "safer" road route. see, silliness. more hiking? methinks no. okay so of course we chose the bridge. i mean, it was an alive-like situation out there (the movie version where ethan hawke eats everybody. or does he? i can't remember if he finds it morally reprehensible or if he chows down. ah, cannibalism). the trailmix was almost gone, people. we had to take the bridge. so after jumping over the orange fencing and over the half-sunken portion of the floating bridge's beginnings, we were well on our way.

i could tell you we made a good decision. i could tell you that this story doesn't end with us in the water. but that would be lies. despite not falling in, we did make the brave decision to enter the freezing depths of the lake that is buntzen when the floating bridge prematurely ended roughly 20 feet from land. being brave lazy souls we rolled up our lululemon pants (an impulse buy/mistake made soon after moving to vancity), took off our shoes and socks, and waded into the thigh-high icy depths of oh-my-god-what-a-bad-decision-land. i think i almost had a panic attack and was shaking for about an hour afterward due to the shock and the adventure of it all.

and that, my blog friends, is how i survived the easter hike that almost killed me.

i have blogtile dysfunction but i might be a closet rockstar

okay. in an effort to get over my "dry spell" i have chosen to write a blog post come hells or highwater. excited? me too. in order to cure my "dysfunction," i have chosen to focus not on what i should be focused on, that is, marking and well, um, my dissertation i guess (*eye roll to indicate that i'm so over my dissertation. this bodes well in light of my not having actually written it*), but rather what pleases me. and right now folks, in this very odd instance, what pleases me is singing. so shut up and read.

tonight i am going to rock the house at a friend's b-day party with my very particular brand of karaoke-ing - that is, singing loud, out-of-tune, and generally f*cking fabulously. melikes the singing. despite the lack of talent, only knowing the chorus of every song, and busily posing with my sidekick B. (who goes by the fabulous handle "lipstick" when we perform. i am, as always, jacks. but fabulously spelled jax for some flava. as in flav. anyhoo. back to the story). now before you get any ideas, i am not a karaoke crackpot. this is only my second time. but now that i basically have a partner (co-performer, if you will) with whom i could tour the dingiest beer-curdled joints in this damn city, i figure i am basically a star. if only to my wincing, bloody-eared friends.

when i was seven-ish there were only two things that i wished for: to have ridiculously long hair and to be able to sing like aretha franklin. wait - there were three things - i also wanted to be a mermaid. shut up. as if you didn't watch splash and pine for the day tom hanks would join you in your watery underworld of love. you know you did. but back to the singing. despite NEVER displaying any talent in this arena, i sang my heart out. at school. at home. at church. i sang it dude. christmas was my favouritest time of year to sing and i even went caroling one year. much to the chagrin of my entire community and, most likely, the charity we were raising money for. i even occasionally (and in retrospect, horrifyingly) sang in my undergrad with, no less, my dear friend K. who has the world's. most. beautiful. singing. voice. what was i thinking you ask? i surely wasn't. just like i won't tonight.

this time, in the second incarnation of the smash hit duo "lipstick and jax," i will make a few minor changes. one, i will not have as good a time (this is a euphemism for not drinking as much cheap mystery draft from the sketchy bar). two, i will not let my nostalgia for the '80s be my only criteria for making song choices. i will attempt to branch out into the '90s. and possibly even today. maybe. three, i will sing more country songs because the twangy-ness required covers up my horrible, horrible voice. and four, i will not participate in "group" songs of more than three people as 1) that takes away from me, and 2) it takes away from me and my role in the beauty that is lipstick and jax.

i assure you that i will have fun. because, as in life, it is more about how you perform than any real skill. a pearl of wisdom from one half of lipstick and jax to you dear (and lucky that i don't podcast/podsing) blog reader.

cum-ing at you april 18th - young people f*cking

last week i saw a new canadian comedy called "young people fucking." it was low budget and fabulous. as an added bonus, the director, martin gero, was there to introduce the film and then chat with the audience afterward (an unexpected surprise and due to his residency in vancouver). gero was a funny guy. the film was a funny film. largely in an uncomfortable kind of way which happens to be my favourite kind of funny (that and poo humour gets me every time. poo. hehe). and callum blue is in it. need i say more?

i found myself thinking about the film after seeing it more than i expected. i usually think about films if they are particularly dramatic or sad. and then i can't seem to get them out of my mind even if i desperately. want. to. but the quirky-fantastic-ness of this film made me ponder it over and over. so perhaps this is an attempt to get it out of my mind. and onto yours.

the comedy is essentially set in five bedrooms. with five stories. in six acts that span foreplay to orgasm and beyond. if you haven't realized from the title already, it's a good date movie. if, in fact, you want to have sex with said date. it covers threesomes and sex with exs, friends with benefits, and bored marrieds. the only thing it fails to fully probe (hehe, i said probe) is any kind of gay sex, except in a laughable end scene. it was written by gero and his friend (aaron abrams who also appears in the film), apparently largely over msn, and its particular male perspective is obvious. but also funny.

i vacillate between pissing my pants laughing at male-centered comedy - you know what i mean - the superbads, knocked-ups, and every will ferrell movie ever made - and finding myself alienated by the way it attempts to, or fails to, engage women. where women are depicted as the straight-woman. the love interest. the conquest. the unfunny body that propels the story of the man forward. in short, the other. while young people fucking does appear to centre around men, i am going to suggest it could be read differently. but not entirely subversively. it does engage women in ways that we do not often see as it demonstrates how sex is a powerful motivating force for women as well.

there is a successful woman who successfully seduces her ex, a best friend that convinces her long-time pal to f*ck her in amidst the backdrop of some hardcore gangsta rap, and a bored married that suggests a "alternate" route to pleasure (i can't ruin that one - it is too unexpectedly funny). its quirky and women have a role beyond passivity. saying no. being no. to the man's constant yes. this is not to suggest that the movie isn't still male-centric, but rather to say that it has a certain truthful quality to it. in that way that independent small-scale films often do. they surprise you with their true-to-life reflections. and make you laugh your ass of at the sometimes awkward act of sex. this is why its been on my mind. and why you might wanna see it.

here is a review from the pacific cinematheque where i saw it. enjoy.

i should really get paid for this shit.

cotton brain made me do it

i have been blogging with astounding frequency due to 1) the fact that northern voice 2008 gave me a blogtastic kick in the pants, and 2) i potentially have a virus - the only symptom of which is giving me cotton-headed blurry brain (possibly acquired at the geek show). brace yourselves for some fuzzy-headed nonsensicalness, cause here she comes.

this is gonna be random and i make no apologies. because apparently fuzzy-headedness gives me license to do whatevs. so there. i've been thinking about nicknames, partly due to the idea of being "cotton" or "fuzzy" headed, because i was in fact once known as popcorn head.

yeah, yeah. i know it is ridiculous. but so is having a mother that perms your hair when your like 6. sorry ma. i know perms were in. and that i probably even requested them. just like i requested getting kinks (tem)permanently permed into my cheveux (do they still do that? i might like to get that done now since it was denied me as an 8 year old. poor me. seriously). so popcorn head was the result of having ridiculously blond hair that was permed into very. tight. curls. it didn't stay with me long. about as long as "jack-o-lantern" (a play on my name), and lynn, which i insisted being called whenever playing house. it was my alter-ego. lynn was a kickass preteen who could take care of doll children and drive a car. ah, to be lynn again.

the only name that stuck with me for any length of time was ducky. it was a nickname bestowed by a close friend in highschool who misheard my grandfather calling me, thinking he was actually saying ducky. i liked ducky. it was like, "oh isn't that just ducky." kinda like bad and good all in one. and now jacks. jacks i like. but it emerged from a bastardization of the nickname beefjacky. that's right. all meaty and hard to swallow at the same time. that's me.

so even though no one ever answers my questions (e.g., to douche or not to douche - and i don't care if you all have lives and don' have time to comment on my ramblings - keep in mind i am an attention whore who requires attention to live. it's like superman and whatever the opposite of kryptonite is for him. you know what i mean. don't pretend you don't), i am going to ask about your nicknames. the good. bad. and the ugly.

i'm gonna log off now. partly due to the fact that i have no idea what i just wrote and partly due to the fact that i have no idea what i just wrote.

thank you for your attention.

dumping the "d" word

(warning: this post may or may not be suitable for the following: actual douches, wannabe douches, and anyone who has a problem with vajayjays. you've been sufficiently warned).

okay. so i have been feeling some guilt about calling myself a starbucks douche. i mean, i have previously tried to validate my use of the term as a subversive strategy. and because, for reals, there are an exceptional amount of douches in the world. however. the question remains: is it appropriate for a feminist to use the "d" word? hmmm. let's ponder.

when i think of the word douche, i think of my dutch aunt. stay with me - this isn't going off the rails. yet. she never fails to use the word douche when i stay with her, as in, "and here is the room for the douche for the morning." okay, douching is not some kind of bizarre, collective, room-specific dutch morning ritual. she means the shower, but she inevitably uses the french term, la douche. my aunt isn't pretentiously co-opting the word. it is just how she learned to say it in english, okay?

then there's the summer's eve douches of my youth. not of my youth exactly (thank baby jesus that it had gone out style as a cleansing trend by my so-called "coming of age"). but characterized that part of my '80s youth that was horrified by the very. thought. of. bringing. back. freshness. every(gulp)time. gawd. i still can't say it without shuddering in my formerly nine-year old skin. bah. (and perhaps this is the very problem. the idea that i had when i was nine, or whatever godforsaken age, that made me cringe at the thought of something specific to women's "parts").

and finally there is the discovery of someone's mother's douche which you crowd around as if you have found a piece of the lost ark. or porn. or the filthiest secret imaginable. that just happens to have a nozzle.

so, okay. before i lose my audience entirely, i would like to bring us back to the point at hand. does douche in fact call to mind any of these above examples? or does it represent a kind of male humour that pillages and appropriates the very intimacies of the human female body for the sake of laughter? or rather, does it stand as a testament to the douche pictured above? has it successfully morphed meaning? in our hypertextual, unfixed meaning, postmodern world can douche mean douche? seriously. i need to know.

what do you think?

(i just want to apologize personally to matthew mcconaughey for a joke that has gotten out of hand. sorry. i'm an a-hole).

why i'm a bad blogger - installment #4

i'm a bad blogger because i suck at sales. these may seem unrelated, but stay with me, i'll make it worth your while. swears. up to this point, i have not been able to lure my non-blogging friends into commenting in the comment section. i think that i know that they are out there. somewhere. in the interwebnets universe. but they elude the comments section. they are not even anonymously reporting on how irrelevant my posts are. nuttin'. silence. anyone who knows me, knows that melikes attention. so essentially i am bad blogger because i am not selling my blog to those who don't blog and thus not getting the attention i need. like one of my cats, i am an attention whore. and i am jonesin' for a fix.

i like that blogs have the potential for dialogue. the comments section creates a space of/for discussion. now, maybe, you say, you don't say anything relevant to the lives of others and therefore they are not compelled to comment. you might say, your blog sucks. and after i say, shut up, you suck, i will acknowledge that you might be on to something. so i have concocted a top ten list of reasons why people don't comment. here goes:

1. no one actually reads my blog - this is no. 1 because it is the most likely. in that case, i am a bag blogger because no one reads my blog - save for the four people that i am sure of - and even they are not always compelled to comment.

2. no one can figure out what my blog is about.

3. as in life, i talk too much and only pretend to listen. (kidding. i do listen. if its about me).

4. no one likes me. (impossible).

5. my blog has bad breath.

6. commenters need to get drunk with me first. (i am available most days for intoxication, save the days i teach. you'd know that if you invited me somewhere in my comments section. jerks).

7. the comments section is too complicated.

8. people are afraid of openly acknowledging that they know me.

9. people want me to pick a topic and stick to it. (don't fence me in. seriously).

10. lurking is more fun than writing. i get that.

the most common and probable reason, besides all of the above, is that people who don't blog don't feel it is their "place" somehow to comment. i felt this for a long time. i was internet-paranoid: not filling in my email address on any website, not giving any information unless it was to online bank, not commenting on compelling blogs, not participating in any social networking. at all. but now that we as a culture have ridden the wave of facebook's rise (and some say, fall) from grace, we can be the master of our so-called internet domains, no? this bad blogger post will therefore attempt to empower those of you who, like me, are afraid of certain types of internet participation. for fear of spam or public humiliation. i am a bad blogger. so, too, can you be. or you can at least be a friggin' blog commenter in the friggin' comments section.

jeesh.

(don't make me turn this into a blog about cats. cause i'll do it. just watch me).

i like the smell of worms

vancouver is undoubtedly a kickass city. not in any cultural mecca or fabulous nightlife kinda way. but in its great outdoor-yness. and yes, i know. before you barf over the over-the-top nature bullsh*t that abounds from the mouths of transplanted "vancouverites" (read: ontarians like me), stay with me - i'm not your average nature-lover. i'm more of a reformed indoor-a-holic. so i know of what i speak.

today i went for a hike which really ended up being the sum total of getting lost in a park/industrial park/forested community/golf course. but it friggin' rocked. and it rocked solely because of the smells. you know how certain smells remind you of things. or make you happy. or bring you back to a place that you forgot you missed so much you can taste it. i knew a girl once that wore the same (or close enough to be the) perfume my kindergarten teacher wore. i LOVED that teacher (and the way she read stories wearing a puppet on her hand while switching back and forth between her own voice and the puppet's). so i loved the girl. luckily, i never mentioned the smell to the girl. well. okay. i didn't bring it up that often. today the smell of spring: rotten leaves, fresh grass, fresh air, dirt, and the best of all, worms - was intoxicating. i seriously sucked it in. like the way i imagine people who huff pam do it (i imagine, and do not know, because of the urban legend that circulated in my youth about a couple of kids from the area who sniffed pam and died. just. like. that. this lore was akin to the lore that said if you smoked pot you would inevitably end up a heroin addict. and most likely pregnant. did i mention i grew up in a small town?). anyhoo. apparently wormy earth is the best kind of spring smell. it gets you just in the mood. who knew?

i also got beyond excited about warm weather and the possibilities it brings. in the past, the idea of spring as rebirth made me kinda want to hokey choke (apparently my new expression for all things cliche and hokey that my cynical nature forbids me to accept uncritically - see last night's movie reprisal of tv's knight rider for a graphic example of something that may cause you to hokey choke). but this year spring as rebirth seems kinda fitting. not cause i need a reason to be reborn. but perhaps cause we all need to clear out the cobwebs of our lives.

and keep on squirming in the wormy earth of spring.

got a haircut, still don't have a real job

brace yourself for the randomest of random posts. i'm a little hopped up on coffee juice and i can't seem to stop myself from typing. i did, in fact, get a haircut and i kinda cheated on my hairdresser. but we have an "open relationship" which means she told me which of her hairdresser friends i could cheat with while she is in india. so i did. my hair is a little "cute" now (hence the pic of the cat) and i'm trying to deal. with being cute. which kinda makes me wanna barf.

also, i have been thinking a little about flexibility lately. and not the kind one dabbles with in open relationships with their hairdresser. but rather the kind that life demands. the flexibility that requires patience. and well. being flexible. i don't consider myself a person of rigidity but since discovering something called boundaries at a late stage in my life, i kinda dig them. life without them seems chaotic. but sometimes life within them feels stifling.

i still laugh at the time someone called me "easy-going." i am not easy-going. i have truly only met two people in life that i actually think are easy-going. i am fairly certain that both were the result of a near-nervous breakdown. apparently breakdowns can be freeing. i'll work on one to achieve the level of "easy-going-ness" i saw once glamourized in a jack nicholson movie. well. maybe not glamourized. but brain-damaged-ly peaceful anyhoo.

i think accepting your inflexibility is perhaps key to being flexible. pressing up against your own bounded boundaries and deciding they are too smooshy is perhaps therapeutic. not judging yourself for the limitations you place on yourself but being gently persuasive enough to realize that the walls you construct around you are mere facades. hollow of meaning. but securely holding you in place. straight-jackets of self preservation. useful. but too tight. like underwear.

cheating on my hairdresser made me realize that you can step out of your comfort zone.

but you might end up cute. which maybe isn't so bad.

burlesque is best

first, i must say that teaching - my convenient excuse for everything these days - has been taking over my life and this is why my productivity level for pumping out posts has, in fact, been pitiful. however, in order to come back with a bang, i am going to write about my fabulous friday night when i experienced a burlesque show for the very first time. needless to say, i now aspire to be a burlesque performer despite the fact that i know this will never happen. still, one can dream.

you might remember my foray into pole-dancing not too long ago. this experience was, at best, conflicted, and fraught with dissonances between what it meant to be "sexy" for the gaze of (an)"other" - that is, a man. burlesque on the other hand, kicks the shit out of this notion of the gaze. mostly, in a intensely sexy juxtaposition, you feel object to the bodies on stage. as if your only function is to enjoy the beautiful sexuality that forcefully, aggressively, and uber-sexually demands your attention. you will not look away. feel squeamish. or objectified. you will, in fact, enjoy yourself. because, it just so happens, that burlesque is best.

before i went, i experienced some anxiety around the idea that this was - allegedly - a female-centric, feminist-inspired, expression of women's bodies. i was, in fact, afraid it would be mishandled. mistaken. misappropriated. and essentially be akin to stripping with a greater acceptance of the diversity of women's bodies. but still. a smidge-y ummm...dirty. and not dirty in the puritanical sense. but dirty in the male-defined and focused sexuality way. on the other hand, i was also fearful of it being an expression of our goddesses within. our inner femaleness. our connection to the moon. and excuse me while i puke, but i can't handle my inner goddess. it reduces me far too simply to my vagina.

shockingly, neither of these two worst-case-scenarios played out. instead burlesque ended up surpassing any expectation of predefined sexualities or (biological) determinants. essentially - and quintessentially - it was sexy. really friggin' sexy. and the power of the women on stage was palpable. visceral. and intense.

so what can we learn about the importance of pasties and pussies? well perhaps that the performance of different varieties of female sexuality needn't be predetermined or presumptuous. but that burlesque demonstrates that it is perfect in the power it affords women over their own representation. their (em)power(ment) within their bodies. their clearly defined and articulated agency. and that by wearing the once pariah-producing brand "slut," these harlots can kick the shit out of what it means to be a "properly" sexual woman.

this post was brought to you by the letter P. which apparently i am in love with.

this post is also tangentially related to something hilarious i stumbled upon in my blog travels - i give you the mostly hilarious sarah silverman in her music video producing debut (with special guest appearance by matt damon) entitled "f*cking matt damon."

sarah silverman's f*cking matt matt damon

enjoy.

getting back in the swing and/or living the vacation-life

here i sit after a week of ridiculous fun filled with boot-buying, overeating, girl-talking wonderfulness. back to my own life. jeesh. since moving to vancity, our ontarian friends, family, and people we barely knew want to visit us. all. year. round. mostly i love it. wait for it. (re)schedule my life around it. but the part i hate. the part i dread. is the end. after you get to have a pretend vacation, put on a few pounds, neglect your everyday friends, and generally have a merry ole time, you have to face what was always in the background. your life. all unshiny. and not new. not like holiday time at all. just dishwashing. and cat feeding. and general life chores. sad really. unless you spin it. maybe i can go on permanent vacation. and pretend like life is just part of the adventure.

now just bear with me here. i am not suggesting denial or other deceptions of the self. i am suggesting a new view. a new paradigm with which one can refocus one's life in the positive. we all have stresses. annoyances. everyday trials and tribulations. and most often we look at the lot of others and think, "i wish that was all i had to worry about." as though life's trials are a matter of kind and not degree. as if we only had to worry about ourselves. our upcoming paper. our upcoming presentation at work. but if we only had to worry about going into an office. doing manual labour. raising a child. then we could function properly in the world. we wouldn't worry. we wouldn't fret. but that is our real self-delusion. we would. plain and simple. we would worry. fret. stress. not matter what. because if you are going to tie yourself up in knots for a paper. a work presentation. a promotion. then you will always and forever tie yourself up in knots. it is who you are. what your worldview consists of. you are programmed to fret. but this is not the only answer.

so what would everyday vacation-life look like? well, for one thing, you must take into consideration your surroundings. if so many people want to visit us out here, it must be pretty kickass, no? so the first requirement is easy. live in a kickass place. check. the next requirement might be a little more existential. love what you do. as monotonous as everyday life can be, vacation-life requires us to see the "bigger picture." the reason you do it at all. and not for the money. for the beauty of doing a good job in a field of your choice. and maybe vacation-life requires us to give, as my wonderful colleague and dear friend S. explains, our entire, 75%. this might sound odd but i think it might be the key to vacation-life. trying to do everything 100% when our 75% is not only good, but great, might ease off some pressure. at least a smidge.

i think the final, and perhaps most important part of living your best vacation-life everyday is a heady combination of taking risks and diversifying the portfolio of your everyday activities. move outside your comfort zone. take up hobbies. volunteer. engage with a world outside your own four tiny (if you live in a vancity condo) walls. i think we act our confident best when we go on vacation. we wear clothes that make us happy. we do different things with our hair. we buy things that make us feel good. we eat without counting calories and grams of fat. we live. and we are happy. perhaps it is as easy as following a passion that we find when we are away. or as simple as being the you that takes chances, risks, and leaps of faith that compel you to travel in the first place. vacation-life, here i come.

this post was brought to you by the tony robbins in all of us.