Observations.

Well, I am still in the market for a car. Well, I may be on the periphery looking in; stepping in and out. But, can you blame a girl? There is a fellow who would like to trade his 1996 Honda hatchback for an Audi. Right. And right smack dab in the middle of his list of features and benefits? Centre cup holder. Wow! Stop the clock and hold traffic. That Audi swap is your din and his win if you are willing to part with a centre cup holder. I hope you can come to some sort of agreement where you can saw it off. I bet one could hardly notice.

I did get to knick "the truck" today.  I was proudly flying the flag of snotty nerd by blasting The Abduction from the Seraglio. There is no playing that one down.  But what is it that makes us (relatively) young classical music fans crouch and often deny our tastes? Dare I say better tastes? Nah. But lets face it, it is a far more rich and delicious auditory experience. It plays upon emotions and thoughts and expresses much more than any pop piece of crap being churned out today. Listening is like taking apart a delicate layer cake, piece by piece, from frosting to sponge and letting the flavour spread across one's tongue.  Some bites the frosting coats the inside of the mouth with creamy butter and sugar, other bites are lighter with pastry.  I cannot encourage people to set shitty music aside and pick up classical.  I am not saying that anything past Gershwin and or some Philip Glass is all shit, but most of it is.  Most of it is auditory Mc Donalds; fast and flat filled with salt and sugar, guaranteed to leave you logy and (intellectually) constipated. Sure, we all like "fun", but how about some contemplation and depth.  How about a journey, not by Journey.  And please do not base what you have heard on Pops. Pops is shit, too.
Just as filmy and light as its  modern equivalent. Put down the Boston Pops and John Williams. Sarah Brightman is not classical. Measha is. Pick up some Mahler. Mozart, Prokovfiev.....all amazing composers that transport one in ways that one can hardly describe.  There are hundreds just itching to be listened to.  Often 2 disc CD's! Enjoy

The Crazies are out to get you... ( inspired by Shandra)

Yes, the crazies are out to get you, and keep you..

Safe...

a) There are some damned good cops, firemen and other enforcement officers working to keep you safe.
(http://www.depressionforums.org/forums/topic/6926-any-bipolar-cops-or-law-enforcement-officers/)

Voting...

Michael Costa
Margaret Trudeau
Alastair Campbell
Patrick J Kennedy

Watching...

Rosemarie Clooney
Vivien Leigh
Burgess Meredith
Jean Claude Van Damme
Kristy Mc Nichol
Margot Kidder
Kerry Katona
Linda Hamilton
Carrie Fischer
Patty Duke
Richard Dreyfuss

          
Reading...

Ernest Hemmingway
Sylvia Plath
Andy Behrman
John Clare
Patricia Cornwell
Stephen Fry
Graham Greene
Marya Hornebacher
Jack London
Robert Munsch
Edgar Allan Poe
Sidney Sheldon
Virginia Woolf


Thinking...

Jane Pauley
Patrick Kroupa
Kay Redfield Jameson
Abbie Hoffman
Georg Cantor
Dick Cavett
Ludwig Boltzmann

Viewing....

Pretty Much Any Artist You Can Think of...
Edvard Munch to Van Gogh to Pollock and everyone in between.


Listening....

Adam Ant
Ozzy Osborne
Daniel Johnston
Macy Gray
Emilie Autumn
Max Behmis
Adrian Borland
Eminem
Kurt Cobain
Mike Doughty
Connie Francis
Matthew Good
Ben Moody
Sinead O'Connor
Charley Pride
Axl Rose
Britney Spears
Nina Simone
Patrick Stump
Scott Weiland
Pete Wentz
Brian Wilson


Clothed...

Alexander (Lee) Mc Queen
Isabella Blow
My guess is most designers are in the spectrum somewhere.
(Hello, Lagerfeld!)


Laughing....

At least 2/3rds of comedians (according to John Cleese) are under the umbrella of mental illness.
This includes
Stephen Fry
Ruby Wax
Russell Brand
Cheri Oteri
Ben Stiller
Kevin Mac Donald

Healthy...

Florence Nightengale
Chances are your therapist, psychologist and psychiatrist are under the umbrella, too.

Loving....

Your Mother
Your Sister
Your Father
Your Brother
Your Grandma
Your Grandpa
Your Aunt
Your Uncle
Your Cousin
Your friend
You.

Not Just a Lemon but a Damned LIME

I heard of some doozies in my day, but damn, this one took and will continue to take the cake. 

This car sounded just right. A semi reluctant seller ( diesel sensitivity) that had powered through and kept up maintenance and repairs meticulously. Low kilos and the breaking in servicing behind us. 

He even had a dog NAMED ZOE, spelt the same way. It seemed too good. 

Oh, it was. 

It started, hooray. The owner thought it might not, seeing that it had been parked so long. "I thought maybe the battery was dead", he wondered out loud. An Eyebrow raises. 

He definitely had a strong dislike for the smell of diesel. "Pungent", Rory calls it. 

The driver's side mirror has the residue of a thick oily marker with  the numbers "604" in 72 size type set scrawl. Isn't that used with write offs, major accidents and roadside abandonments? He had no explanation and claims to have never noticed it before. He waved it off as if it was an optical illusion on my part. 

The upholstery had a Nissan box weave to it, not the VW pattern, not even close. 

There was so much water in the car, we thought it was condensation from the sun roof. Nope. Not the way it was raining while we took the test drive. When I say raining, I mean it was raining on the INSIDE. That explained why the fabric had been replaced. 

The gentlemen then let it slip that he had not had this car for long, and that he bought it from a friend cheap because it had been in an accident. "You should have seen it, the whole front end was smashed, now all you see is a scrape. Cost me 800.00 to fix.  I have the receipts. I know a guy who works for 30.00/hr at VW. Remy. Want to see the before picture?"   Remy would even be kind enough to perform the inspection. 

We declined the offer and popped the hood, trying to scrape together some semblance of due diligence.  Oh look, bolts. Mystery structural bolts put into the passenger side attempting to straighten and strengthen the metal that had folded and buckled like a fan. They look like a backyard Kluge if  have ever seen one. 

I began to see...He flips cars. He and Remy. Remy and Co. buy write offs or what have you, put in some money, time, kluges and sell them on Craigslist. 

He had plenty of cars, at least two other VW's an SUV and a civic or two. Same goes for his number. It comes up on craigslist  on several occasions, selling cars, similar story of long time ownership,  and an insurmountable hardship that is severing the car and driver relationship. 

I think I will keep looking. 

Consumer/Survivor

Back when I was first working on my undergrad at UBC, I was a good little A-Type personality and wanted to secure myself a plumb summer internship.  I applied to all sorts of art institutions, one being Gallery Gachet. The position was for a grant writer, and they asked that one knew a) about art b) about grant writing and c) about "the system".  In this case, it was the mental health system, and the host of terms and phrases that were new to me. One in particular still stands out; "Consumer/ Survivor".  Consumers of mental health services and programmes and those who, well, survived them.  I thought that survivors were primarily from days past; horror stories from Riverview, psychwards of the past, et cetera. However, now I am not so sure. I have been in the system for all of four months. In that time I have seen four psychiatrists, a litany of nurses, prodded by insurance companies, hospitals and specialists. My first psychiatrist turfed me after I refused extra pills and wanted answers and firm diagnoses. The second one didn't "believe in taking pictures of her cat, it will take her soul", and put me on enough valproic acid to make a regular menses a thing of the past. When confronted with this side effect she threw up her hands and exclaimed: "oh god, you are pregnant and your child has spina bifida". Relationship terminated.    I have been "snowed", and then put on withdrawal inducing medication regimes. All the while being told how important sleep and staying positive are.  They put me on meds that were so strong I forgot how to drive and lost bladder control.   They have put me on sleeping pills so strong that if I am 20 mins off in taking them, panic and anxiety quickly course through my veins. How the hell am I going to get off of that one? More white knuckled nights? Oh swell...why was it so readily given out in the first place? I was on a waiting list for you? They now have me seeing a GP with an "interest" in psych drugs who works at the centre 2 days a week. The other 3 days a week, who knows.  Maybe specializing in foot odour issues and pesky calluses.  Oh swell. Let's experiment...with  my life, brain chemistry and quality of experience.  Four months in, I am a survivor.

How much is too much?

Damnit, CBC. I was just lying in the sun and enjoying a rare moment of peace ( of mind ) and you tossed a  genuinely creepy story in the mix, yet again! This has not been an isolated incident, either. What is wrong with "the media"?

It was a genuinely cruel story about mass sled dog slaughter, too. I real doozy for some of us with gentle hearts and fragile minds.

This comes on top of their lead story this weekend that a man convicted of murdering a child was bipolar.
They just slipped it in there, like a key card under a door. A door that opened the populace to the idea that bipolar people are all a bunch of murderers. Hell, it even scared me. (I am bipolar)  They neglected to find out what type of disorder he had, or his comorbidities, of course. Just plain old bipolar will do.  I suppose my idea of starting a nanny agency staffed with bipolarites will just have to wait.

I wonder just who it is that picks and chooses the stories over there.  Is it someone who is deterred to sustain their level of heady depression, then spreading it around? Someone getting kick backs from GSK, Abbott and or Pfizer to keep the steady stream of people on SSRI's flowing? Is it someone who is trying to get the populace to be less apathetic to the injustices of the world?

Well, I think mental illness is the new racism. In new stories of the past ( and sadly present) race was presented as if it was a motivator/cause/reason for violent crime. Mental illness is now skirted in as a more PC replacement. However, it causes just as much damage.  It causes fear all around and when is fear a jumping off point into anything positive?

What I would like is more balance, less sensationalism and more positivity. Not naive positivity, devoid of fact and precedence, but a thoughtful positivity.  Not news stories on baby ducks playing in the rain and ponies whinnying  in the sunshine positivity...but good things on the horizon and people making a difference positive. Maybe even a story where the mentally ill are not killing children.

So Cheap. Part One.

Like the majority of people milling about on the earth's crust, I live on a fixed income; within the bounds of   tight purse strings. Not outrageously tight, like so many others, but just snug enough that I have to keep an eye on things.  I don't have to collect cans in order to afford a cup of coffee, yet I do not blow my nose using a new Hermes scarf each time. I recycle. I reuse, I thrift, I am money conscious. But I do not think that I am too cheap.

This brings me to my point, how cheap is too cheap? How do you live within financial boundaries without fucking over your fellow worker half the world away? Or even in the same community? I think the answer lies with our grandparents. Not with the boomers. Fuck no. They got us into this mess. All of this 80's conspicuous consumption and bad credit is a direct result of them being a bunch of manic fuckups on a grand scale. Multiple cars, multiple homes, multiple lines of credit, mortgages; triple bypass.

Let's bring it back to our Nan's.
Let's use their sensibility to live. And SAVE!
Let's also use our empathy and consumer literacy.

For instance...
If you see a wrap dress at a big box store for 9.99$...score, right?
Wrong?
Let's see...
A ten dollar dress gives the retailers ( my absolute guess, based on nothing but hunches ) next to nothing,  maybe a couple of dollars. Same to the wholesaler. Let's give them 2.00.  That is 6.00 left.  It costs to ship, so let's skim that off.  Let's give 5.00 to the manufacturer. Fabric...shave another 2.00 off.  That is 3 dollars. You can bet the owners and the managers are making the majority of that 3 dollars. Not much left to the sewers, warehouse people, quality or designers.
Can you imagine the sort of pride and culture of  fine workmanship that making pennies an hour would cultivate. You would be getting a garment made of passing grade fabric, made by grindingly poor workers that squeaked by quality control.

Most likely the last hands that touched your garment were not of happy couturiers, pleased with their work and lovingly folding your dress for shipping.

Isn't that experience that our demand instigates,  worth having less to create/preserve?

Wouldn't it be worth it to save and buy something well made and fairly priced, rather than to have a pile of clothes made by near slave labour?

I think so.

Why not support merchants that stock quality, not quantity.

Why not save for a dress that one can wear for years rather than for a season?

Spicy

Homemade tzatziki made with enough garlic to knock the buzzards off a shit wagon. Yah!

Who, me?

Yes, you!

West on Art History.

Oh, I love references to the canon ( of western art). I just do.  It is a wink and a nod to a rich past of academia that many of us are still mourning the passing of.  Damn, I wish I was still an undergrad taking class after class of fascinating subjects, opening me more and more up to the level of intellectual promiscuity that I craved. And still do.  And now, here we are.
We have sum of our learnings, firing away between our ears, begging to be let out, taken for a walk, anything!

Well, I am giving a quick flash of art history largess. I just have to let it out.

It may seem a little frenetic. I have not been manicuring or brushing it like academia required; picking choice words from a rich and leathery lexicon, composing flowing prose and constructing arguments supported by well gathered facts and sources. So here it goes...it's going to sound really Kanye.

OMG WHAT THE FUCK JEFF WALL!
What you doin'?
All that shit in the studio, man, what the fuck!
People think they know...looks like a single off the cuff shot.


Mary Pratt, don't die on me, sister. I need you.

Donatello, oh your David is so sensuous  and it yet creeps the ever living hell out of me.
Could you have made your Mary Magdalene a little uglier if you tried?
However, I can see where you are coming from and can appreciate what you are trying to accomplish.

Caravaggio, you talented talented asshole.

Gaugin, keep it in your pants. Fuck man. 13?

Lawren Harris, I love you.

Mark Rothko...I am sorry no one saved you.

Robert Motherwell, thank you for Elegy to a Spanish Republic. I cannot place just why.

Eric Fischl, Your work is so hauntingly brilliant. I think you have captured it.

Damn, I love Italian Futurist Sculpture!

Fuck you British Museum. You know why. Yours in hatred, Greece.

I love you British Museum, you know why.  Yours in cassis, Me.

Nan and Cindy, damn!

Frida, beautiful soul in a lemon skin bag, am I right?

Oh, it's One A.M. oops!

Lavender

Before I peel myself away from the commuter for the night, I wanted to address something that has been on my mind for quite a few days....gay youth and suicide. I would like to widen everyone's scope just a tad...there are people at their worst and at the bottom of the well looking up and seeing nothing.  Good people who are bullied, mentally ill, chemically unbalanced, you name it. Gay, bi, trans, straight, eunuchs, pre op, post op, not op, butch, femme, lipstick and breeder. Let's all hold a vigil for them, too. All of those who are on suicide watch or those who have slipped beneath the radar need to know that it will get better, too. Light a candle for everyone at their lowest and remind them that it is darkest just before the light.

I just had to post...

"Oh, I really have to pee...but I am so horny I am writhing with desire....but oh I have to pee so bad..."

The Hound of Baskervilles (after Twistie)

Well, if you know any little thing about me it is that I am a dog person. I have no bones (see what I did there, BONES! Oh ho! And we are speaking of dogs...university education at it's best...right there!) about sitting in filth and playing games, consequently picking burrs out of their fur  or in some cases even watch them shed their mortal coil.  I love dogs. I love purse dogs ( I pity the fools) little dogs, muscle dogs, family dogs...hell I have even sprung a guard dog. I worked with and at the SPCA and in a hospital. I have seen cruelty, joy, boredom, pain and the most fragrant bouts of diarrhea fountain out of some of the smallest creatures. However,  before 2000, I was phobic of dogs. PHOBIC. Not just leery of, but class schedule changing, white knuckle bearing, bad dreams having...dog phobia. Especially in the dark. Oh, and the very thought of Rottweilers sent me spiralling into thoughts of panic and not just perceived danger but I felt that it was guaranteed.

The year 2000 was the year that I moved out on my own and met that who I had feared most....face to face.
A giant schnauzer crossed with a border collie. I was picked up at the ferry terminal by my then partners parents and was given a spot in the back bank of seats shared by the dog. She barked and panted and planted her big paws on my lap and gave me the once over with her schnozz.  I was so terrified; shaking, over stimulated and trapped!

On Quechua's end, I was a great if not odd new friend. Quiet, obedient  and wreaking of rodents. ( I had a guinea pig)

Finally, at our destination, I flung open the doors and hid in the den. She couldn't find me in there, I shut the french doors....oh damn! There were another pair leading from the den into the living room. She found me!

The question "Can someone walk the dog before dinner?" then echoed from out of the kitchen.
I was returning to pouring over whatever non canine distraction I could find.  It might have even been Utne reader (quite out of character), when I realized that assignment was directed at me! Or perhaps it was my polite upbringing laced with martyrdom. Either way, I felt as though the task fell before me.

And I picked up the leash.

The attaching the leash to the collar may have been the most teeth gritting part of the whole supposed ordeal. She was a live one; bucking and jostling with excitement over the very sight of the leash and plastic bag combination. And I was barely hanging on. I felt as though I was a bullrider, hanging on for dear life while this fractious animal rounded and arched her back.  *Click*

Thank god.

Now we were attached...now we were out the fuckingdooratapaceneverusedbeforebymyself. Omigodlookatthatlookaroundthecornerlookatthatpieceofgarbageandbushletssniffeverythingyah!
She walked me to the closest park and took me to all of her favourite places; using her urine for emphasis. "Now this slide is my FAVORITE! See how many precious drams I drained there?"

She had an excitement of life that I loved and that I felt in some place deep inside my soul connect with hers. We were both silly girls. On a sunny day. With some pocket money! Away we went.
We snuck a snack before dinner, we loitered, we even peed in front of strangers. Well, she did.
It was so fun; fun being an understatement of epic proportions, because what had just taken place had been of epic proportions.  I had found someone that shared my very pure joy with.

That night, we played some more games, games that she crafted to test my quickly melting level of fear.
Her favourite being: "I'm going to stare you down, then charge at your face and then actually lick you Ah ha ha ha ha ha!"

She knew. She Soooooo knew.

I know have my own schnauzer, and I have the pleasure of walking her whenever I please.

Thank You, Quechua.

The Stories Behind The Craigslist Free Stuff Ads...

1) "Damnit Dan! We agreed that you would get your goddamned bottles out of here by October! Here it is nearly Hallowe'en and I am tripping all over these fucking things and scattering them all over the garage floor. That's it! I have had it. I want them gone tomorrow, Dan. TO-MORROW. Not soon, not this weekend, TO-MORROW!"
http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/rds/zip/2014122323.html

2) "Ugh, these bed bugs are everywhere! The exterminator told me that he would do his best to get 'em all, but I just don't feel safe sleeping on that bed knowing that they were all living in there! It's such a shame, a new mattress and all. So expensive. Throwing it out would be such a waste..."
http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/van/zip/2014777997.html

3) Is that what you are calling them...riiiight. Because of the artistry? The composition of the photographs? Look, mate....I have more years of Art History under my belt than you have extra holes punched into yours. That's right....six!  You know what Art History students do all day? Talk about ART! Not once did we mention, discuss or have any of subject matter broached in your "old photography magazines" come up as a genuine or relevant work(s) of art. That's right.."Puss in Boots" and " Beaver Hunt" were not in the syllabus.
http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/rds/zip/2011220806.html

Why I Quit Shape Wear

Last weekend I found myself in the emergency room, the monday night after a long weekend wracked with fear over a numb leg.

While I am no stranger to hospitals or even this particular emergency room, this cause was new. 

Over the long weekend, I had felt my leg transition from tired to tingly to numb to nearly dead. I was concerned, obviously. Was it to spread? What about loss of bowel function and sexual feeling? Was it a stroke? A blood clot? A medication reaction? A sebacious gland growth cutting off blood supply. No, no, no and no. It was shape wear. 

Coaxing my full thighs into the tight elasticated wall of shapewear and rolling the rigid casing over my middle had caused nerve damage. Just like that.  Ghost leg. 

Avoid belting, waist bands, anything tight fitting, just manage with suspenders, I was told. 

In a fit of anger, I tossed it all out.  Well, most of it. The diamond panelled full briefs labeled "firm control", the bathing suit style girdles, even the pseudo diving suits that extended well past my knee that assured a seamless yet firm appearance  Gone. They had done me no service...apart from driving me away from my right limb. 

I looked at the pile of these flesh toned spent garments on the ground, oddly shaped with the most variations of genital openings. 

And then I saw "shape wear" for what it really was. 

Not my shape. 

Not me. 

In fact, it was "their shape". The only shape they all want us plus women to have. Hourglass. Every other shape is given girdles as method of conformation. They all have the same areas that they save the least pliable fabric for and areas that they wish to emphasize. We are so familiar with them, they need not repeating. 

And I had fallen for it! Duped! Again!

I had grown so warm and complacent with what seemed to be a peace with our people. 

I had not thought to sit and really deconstruct just who put the shape in shape wear. 

It really is quite a grim map once one sits back and dissects an individual shaping garment.  It is like the sharpie path that guides the surgeons blade...all orchestrated by the same discerning eye and hand. 

Starting from the bottom up, 

"No, you cannot have fullness of the thighs there... we might give you some on the inside, but none on the outside.

Having a full rear is trendy. So, we will allow you that. But, we will insist that it is perky and hanging high. 

Your belly must be flat. Absolutely. And firm.  We put our most compressive fabrics here. 

We want you to have a nipped in waist. Even if you don't have one. We will corset you in. 

The natural shape and fall of your breasts is wrong wrong wrong. We like them high and rounded. Rounded breasts are the shape of today. Maybe in a decade a trendier shape of breast will come in, but for now, it is round and full. We would like them to hang between the top of the shoulder and the bend in the elbow."

From now on, I will let my belly hang as it may. I will let the fullest part of thigh bulge out. I will allow the natural slope of my breasts to gauge where they would like to fall.

i refuse to pour myself into the acceptable fat mould that shape wear forces the body to conform to. 

 I will wear my own shape. This time with feeling. (in my right leg)